MOTHS AND CANDLE

A BRISK WIND HAD CAUGHT THE GREAT SAIL OF THE ship; oars were laid to, the drum mallet that beat the cadence was stilled, and the great quiet on the waters was broken only by the splashing of the ship cutting through the chop the wind created on the ocean, and the sound of the spray coming up over the bow and misting gently onto the deck.

It was a good wind, but there were no signs of storm. It was near sunset, and the brilliance of magenta and crimson on the horizon, unblocked by any land or structures, painted the wispy clouds differently from moment to moment, creating an unreal, almost magical effect. Koldon stood there watching it with appreciation, although knowing he would pay a price for dalliance. Not that she would deign to come up on deck or make any move to see what his delay might be. No, that would be beneath her dignity. Better to yell and scream and fume and take her anger out on him than actually do something. Royalty didn't do things; people did things for royalty.

Even if she had decided to come up on deck, it wouldn't have mattered. She was not the type to ever find beauty in a sunset-hell, she was color blind anyway like the rest of them-or majesty in the quiet sounds of wind and wave. Beauty, for her, was found only in a mirror.

It had seemed such a simple, easy job. Her parents were the monarchs of Anrijou to the south; a vast feudal breadbasket land with good soil, ample rains, and the best drink on the planet. With preservation of natural foods next to impossible and an army of little critters that couldn't be kept out of any such stores, they made their ample surplus into various kinds of whiskey and other forms of liquor and traded that for the manufactured and artistic goods they desired or needed. They had little metal down there; even basic blacksmithing required the import of iron and bronze. Yet they were a rich, self-sufficient nation and would have been almost an idyllic place had they not also attracted, for that very reason, the worst bandits and marauding tribes known. That forced them to spend a tremendous amount of their gross national product on an army, and mercenaries, and sufficient weaponry, walls, and castles to protect what they could, and that was the reason for all this.

Three days to the north, across this vast sea, lay Tourkeman, a smaller, leaner kingdom whose major product was war and defense. Everybody was in the army and much of its vital fighting forces were rented out to kingdoms like Anrijou who needed them. Anrijou had been paying through the nose for a Tourkemanian standing army of almost three thousand which had the bandit problem under control but cost just about as much as the bandits had stolen over the years including the cost of repairs. King Lugai of Anrijou had been desperately looking for a way to compromise on this and restore good profits to his land. He was by nature a benevolent monarch who really wanted to give his people the highest standard of living this bronze-age culture could provide, but could not so long as he had to pay and indulge the whims of the mercenaries, one of whom might, without that protection, get the idea to be king himself.

Koldon's employers thought this was a good idea as well. They had great plans for Anrijou based very much on the careful introduction of certain specific genetic techniques that would allow the southern kingdoms produce to travel well and resist the creatures and spores that now made that next to impossible in quantity. The bandit gangs had nasty habits, like burning whole fields of grain and otherwise disrupting the kingdom such that agricultural innovation was extremely difficult to pursue openly. A merger of the kingdom of arms and the kingdom of plenty was clearly called for, at least as much of a merger as geography permitted. When King Mindor of Tourkeman had tripped on a carelessly stored chain and fallen over the battlement of his castle to the ground far below, it had brought his son Shorn prematurely to the throne, and Shorn had not yet wed.

Koldon wasn't sure whether the old boy had tripped so conveniently because of Providence, an overeager heir, or perhaps his own people, but it didnt really matter. What mattered was that the king of Anrijou had a beautiful daughter of marriageable age, and Shorn needed quickly to provide stability to his throne, being the last of his line, lest some other nobles get their own ambitions and arrange another unfortunate accident. It was probably a marriage made in Heaven-or at least in orbit, where the Exploiter Team command ship with its senior staff and computers lay trying to solve the puzzle this world presented and at the same time form a useful pattern. Koldon had been down here the better part of two years, living among the natives undetected and carrying out assignments while learning what he could, Valiakean biological wizardry having made him appear as one of them. The world and its people seemed so simple and basic, yet they remained mostly a mystery to him.

For one things, they had no history to speak of. Records went back at most five generations, and the oldest structures were no more than four hundred standard years, give or take a few. There were no references, not even legends, taking them one year beyond that, and the artifacts that did exist showed a culture, society, and level of knowledge not much different then than now. There weren't any artifacts dating back more than a few centuries, nor, in fact, any ancient remains that could be discovered showing how these people came to be. His own ancestors on his own world had clearly evolved from fierce, hairy, taloned carnivores with a clear history that went back tens of thousands of years. Common ancestors still existed on his home world. Not here, though. It was as if some powerful god had simply looked upon this world, snapped His giant fingers, and brought it all into being pretty much as it was.

They were humanoid; closer to the Earth-type humanoid than he was in his natural form, or so at least they seemed to him. Their bodies were covered with very short, coarse hair except on the palms and soles of their feet and a few other places, although it flared out into a heavy head of hair on top, and their eyes were big, brown, somewhat bulging; excellent for seeing detail, shapes, and movements but color blind. The males also had short, stubby horns coming out of their head, lemonlike, just at the top of their brows, while only the females had long, bushy tails looking like second sets of hair extending from the base of their spinal columns.

Well, maybe they didn't look all that Earth-human, but they looked closer to Earth-humans than to anything else on this planet.

Maybe it was the fact that, like most life bigger than a fist on this world, they were vegetarians, and he was from a proud if somewhat gory race of carnivores. At least there had been a lot of big carnivores on this world in the past, but they'd been mostly hunted to extinction by these people.

Their language was pretty, even a little elegant, but also very practical, with little range or subtlety. It was a unitary language with only mild dialect differences between the kingdoms, which was also significant. They had basic math but no written language as Koldon would regard it, or, it appeared, much desire for one. But if you had a talent for memorization you could go far around this place.

They were not a very imaginative lot, it was true. In fact, for a civilization this well organized, they really weren't all that bright. Even their religion was dull-a pantheon of five gods who were immortal and all-powerful but walked the world in the shape of men and were mostly seen as unwelcome meddlers. Their music was monotonous, their art was basically blocky and crude and, of course, colorless, their legends rather pedestrian, even their foods were pretty bland. Yet they were true craftsmen; this ship had been built at least twenty years ago, entirely by hand, yet it was tight as a drum, efficient, fast, and kept in almost new condition by its crew as were almost all things of consequence on this world.

The current theory was that these were all the descendants of some colony, or perhaps some wrecked ship never meant for this planet, whose members lost most everything and quickly descended into savagery before some bright ones with just a little ancient knowledge managed to get things stable. That theory was the most important reason why Koldon and his employers were wasting so much time and resources here. These people were unlike any known; if there was another spacefaring civilization out there not already co-opted into the Exchange, it was a potential threat and competitor until and unless it was discovered and enfolded into the system. Besides, if there were any clues to be had here that might lead to these peoples ancestors and relatives, the first Company to find them got exclusive rights on all those nice ideas every alien civilization develops that are useful but which nobody else ever thought of. That was the profit. Just one new thing could repay a Company a hundred times over and make every Exploiter proportionately wealthy. Koldon, for example, had a half a percent on any valid patent from this operation.

It sure wasn't going to come from this hole, though, he thought morosely. He often wondered if the alien ship that had spawned them was carrying their retarded to a nice, safe world of their own.

Grupher the Sailmaker slid over to him as he stared at the steadily darkening sea. "Couldn't take too much more of her wailin', eh? Don't blame you. My ears hurt just to think of her."

Koldon grinned. "Just part of the job. Bad ears, lots of patience, and a hard head. She's aimed one too many jars and plates at it already."

It's 'cause she's a virgin," the old man noted sagely. "Once she gets settled in she'll be okay. Uh-she is a virgin, isn't she?"

"Sure. It's her job, old man. Her role in life. Princesses are brought up as pampered, spoiled brats and taught only what they'll need to do the job, but the payoff is that they'll get to be queens someplace. If the captain needs a sailmaker, he looks for someone with long experience and high skills in sewing canvas, right?"

"Yeah, sure."

"So, a condition of the job for her is that she be a virgin. Nobody has her but the king. Then her job's to make babies, and the more the merrier, to keep the line going. She doesn't even have to raise them or teach them-they have people who do that, even wet nurses if needed. In exchange for making babies she gets fine jewels, the best perfumes, the best food all fixed for her by the best cooks, fancy beds and elegant stuff, a nice castle with all the servants she ever would need and where everybody has to bow to her and call her `your highness and cater to whatever her mood may be. If she's smarter than her husband the king, she'll wind up running things through him. If not, she stays a spoiled child forever. It's a fair deal."

"Umph. Maybe. Me, I like the sea and movin' around and seein' the world a bit and meetin' all them different folks. Maybe I ain't got no royal blood or nothin' special, but give me somebody with a good, solid skill ain't too many others can do."

"A fair idea," Koldon replied agreeably. "You got a wife or kids someplace, Grupher?"

"Yeah, sure. Several. Wives, that is. Dunno 'bout the kids, but I pretty well bet on it. Gettin' so I got to pick my ships and routes real careful or one of 'em's gonna catch up to me."

Koldon chuckled, then sighed, steeled himself, and went below and made his way aft along the narrow corridor to the captains area. He paused at a door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

"Yes?" came her voice from inside, sharp and imperious.

"It's Koldon, your Highness. Just checking in."

"Enter!

He opened the door to the spacious cabin and walked in. She was lounging on a silken divan idly going through samples of exotic material. For a race that had fur and insulating layers beneath it, the nobility's focus on fashion was an odd quirk. The common folk, both male and female, tended to dress for protection against grime and wear-work pants and boots, sometimes a pullover apron if need be, not much more. He himself was wearing worn, black, lined boots, a pair of traveling shorts with drawstring, and a matching cape that marked him as an official or agent of a king. She, on the other hand, wore a rather elaborate outfit designed to cover much of her, with bloused, satiny pants, a top of the same material, fancy jeweled belt on her hips, and enough jewelry to ransom a king-all for staying in her cabin and being bored. Upper-class women's fashions fascinated him because all women had those enormous tails-hers was "up and as coiffeured as her almost-matching hair-that had to be accommodated, and all design was based on geometric patterns. However, to one who was not color blind, the combinations a color blind society blithely used were often hilarious-although they probably looked great in gray scale.

"You took your time up there," she said accusingly. "I called for you a number of times."

He sighed. "I regret that there was no way to bring along personal servants, your highness, but I am not a servant," he said for perhaps the ten thousandth time. "You know we must do this as secretly as possible. There are many in the royal house of Tourkeman who do not wish this union and might stop at nothing to see that it doesn't come off."

"I don't care if it doesn't come off," she pouted. "I am being hauled away from my own lands against my will to be married off to some lout I've never met in a desolate place where the national occupation is fighting. For this I'm forced to stay cooped up in this hole, half sick from all the rolling about, and when I can eat it's horrid food, terrible wine, and incredible boredom. There's no staff, not even to make the bed or clean the place, and I will not have this room violated by those-those creatures that sail this rotten hulk."

"They're just good, common seamen doing their jobs. They're pretty crude and they're not very sensitive to higher tastes, but they're people all the same, and without their kind this world would fall apart."

"They're vulgar dests," she retorted. She had never gotten used to being contradicted when she made a statement of opinion. The dest was this world's beast of the field-the source of milk and dairy products, the beast of burden, even the source of the leather for boots and belts and the like. They were big, lumbering, incredibly ugly animals but they made civilization possible. The entire economy and way of life of the world was dependent on them, but, of course, they were not exactly animals of respect and to call people dests was insulting-and just about the way royalty around here thought of the common folks. "I would not have one of them touch me," she added.

"Well, we'll be in port tomorrow. That's when it'll be most dangerous-we still will be three days' ride from Tourkeman."

"I don't see why they just couldn't send a military escort," she said, shaking her head. "They're the soldiers, and I'm to be their queen, aren't I?"

"Yes, Highness, but I'm afraid that it's the soldiers we have to be most cautious of. If something should happen to the king, then each of the barons would have about equal claim to the throne, and the barons each control a division of the army. Most are loyal, but we can't know which might not be. Some guesses, yes, but there would be no way of knowing whose troops were meeting us or who they were loyal to. Once in the capital and safely in the castle youll be secure. The King's Own Division is loyal to the death."

"Then why couldn't they send them for me instead of making me skulk around in the shadows and sneak into my new kingdom like some common thief?

"Because it's difficult to keep secrets in a royal court, as you should well know, and anybody can get some proper uniforms and swords and claim to be the King's Own. No, better to get you there this way than risk plots.

She snorted an imperial Hmph! "What's so hot about you that you can do it alone?"

He wasn't about to tell her that. Nor was he about to tell her that no one could really surprise him on this or many other worlds. Koldon's race needed no speech nor sound signals except as specific supplements to their thoughts. At will he could read the conscious, surface thoughts of anyone he wished. He would, of course, instantly know friend from foe, but mere knowledge wasn't useful if you were outnumbered twenty to one. This ability made him and his race perfect for this sort of job. No state secret was really safe from him, nor could foe ever be foisted off as friend to later betray him. He could not reach down to the deepest thoughts and plumb the very depths of others' psyches, but what he had was damned effective, if a little bit depressing. He'd read the minds of a hundred races, including some so incomprehensible in their thought patterns that he couldn't make them out anyway, but this was the first race where, it seemed, that what you saw was what you got. With others you always got disjointed fragments, some processes going on in the background while their foreground thoughts were on you, sort of like being at a party and having a friendly conversation with someone while your mind thought, What a bore. I wish this party was over.

Not here, with these people. What you saw and heard was what you got. It was one reason why the barons tried to stay away from the king and the king tried to have constant contact with the barons. Every damned one of these people was a lousy liar and hypocrisy was almost always easily revealed. The real danger lay in these transition times; clearly the barons as a group didn't like being under this young and inexperienced whelp whom they had no reason to fear or respect, and at this point, and until he earned that trust, it was nearly impossible to discern who simply disliked the king but believed in the continuity of the royal house and the royal line from those who figured their genes were better and to hell with tradition. Baron Rodir's loyalties, for example, were in question. He had little use for his nation's mercenary role; armies were to be used best in the service of their own king. Although loyal to young King Shorn, Rodir was not above arranging things to his own ends and leading the boy down his own paths. A failure to deliver the princess would be a very nice pretext for turning a mercenary army in Anrijous employ into an instant army of occupation.

Koldon was confident, however, of his ability to get her there. His people were keeping close watch on all the players and forces in Tourkeman that might intervene; other agents using technology undreamed of by these simple people would be waiting the moment they hit the dock to insure that the cordon of protection was not as obvious as an army escort but more dependable and far more resourceful. It was slow work building up a culture and creating a true civilization, but no matter what, it was worth it. A hundred political foundations would pay a fortune just for the right to shepherd these people into their own ideas of the millennium.

"Just get some sleep," he told her. "The ship's on time and should be getting in a little past midday tomorrow. Before we come in to the harbor we'll get off in the small boat and row to shore. It'll be only a short walk to a safe house that's been prepared for us. Just try and act a little less like a future queen if we meet anybody or you might as well announce it to the world. It's your neck as well as mine if they find out."

Not that theyd been able to keep such knowledge from the ship's crew. She was just too imperious and too spoiled not to blow their cover. He knew that the crew would keep quiet about it for a while, though-a fat bonus awaited everyone aboard ship if nothing leaked out until they were safely away, and he wouldn't give a fingernail for the health and long life of any man who blew that for the rest of them.

He bowed and left, going to his own small cabin next door. Tomorrow was going to be a very long day.

Koldon was awakened by the sounds of feet pounding the deck above him. He yawned and stretched, knowing it was by no means late enough to get up, but this much activity bore investigation. He pulled on boots, pants, and cape and splashed a little water from a pitcher on his face to wake himself up, then went out. He stopped briefly by the princess's door and heard her stirring. There were shouts now from up top, and he could feel the ship coming about, and he didn't like it at all.

It was just after dawn, but most of the crew was on deck, and Koldon saw as he went topside that the off-duty men had been issued bows and swords. That wasnt good at all.

"Can you make her sail mark now?" the captain called to the lookout.

"No, sir, came the reply. "The sail appears totally black, without any symbol on her."

Koldon peered out into the just lightening sky and finally spotted it. A ship, all right, smaller and faster than this one. More like somebody's private yacht than any merchant vessel. It was still hard to make out since it seemed to be painted completely black, including the large sail, which boded very ill indeed. All ships were registered by the symbol of their owners painted large on the sail as well as elsewhere on the ship so they could be instantly identified. An "X" on a black field might well have meant pirates, but this was all black, something that just wasn't done.

He stopped a crewman he knew. "You think it's pirates?"

The man shrugged. "Hard to say. Captain ain't takin' no chances, though. Ain't nobody paints all black unless they dont want'a be seen, though. She's a fast little craft, too. Be on us in half an hour tops. We ain't gonna outrun her, that's for sure."

Koldon turned and went below, rapping hard on the princess's door.

"What is it?" she snapped.

"Maybe trouble, Highness," he replied. He didn't wait for the invitation but opened the door. She was up and just starting to put on some royal-looking clothing. "Uh uh! No, Highness, now's the time for stealth. There's a ship coming in, no identification, closing fast. It might be pirates, in which case the last thing we want is for them to know that someone of importance is aboard. You wouldn't like being their captive. They have no respect at all for royalty except ransom, but by the time you were ransomed you would have been through hell."

That unnerved her a little. Pirates were nothing more than seafaring bandits, and she had seen bandits in chains before their execution and could imagine being entirely in the hands of animals like that. What should I do?" she asked him.

"Put on the plain skirt, wrap, and sandals," he told her. Stay below and keep out of sight. If they force you up, keep quiet, hold your temper, and stick to the cover story. If it is pirates, that might help somewhat. If your enemies have outguessed me and decided that this was the most vulnerable point-well, I'll fight hard and you'd better, too. They will have come to kill you anyway."

He went back to his own room and took out his small case, opening it with a security combination system beyond the ability of anyone here. He hadn't really figured on something like this-none of them had. They had joined the ship off the Anrijou coast after it sailed, using a small skiff, and he had been certain that it had been done in complete secrecy. None but the captain had known in advance about them coming aboard at all, and even he hadn't known who his passengers would be. Because there were so many Tourkemanian troops around Anrijou, no one, not even the Queen Mother, had known when they would go or when they had, nor how the trip was to be accomplished. Even then Koldon had paid six ships' masters going to six different destinations the same amount and given them the same instructions, so that there had been little chance of anyone knowing which ship or port he would use.

After two days at sea, it was clear that those measures had worked. Any leak would have to come from the Anrijou side, and they would have been intercepted long before this. This ship was coming from the direction of their destination, yet it was bearing down on them with all deliberateness. There was no mass communications here and they'd made good time. This couldn't have anything to do with the princess. It was just rotten bad luck.

He reached into the lining of the case and removed a needler, then got a cartridge and snapped it into place, watching the little indicator as it rose and registered a full charge. He didn't want to use such weapons if he could avoid them, but, damn it, if they were pirates, then they might well be ready to kill the crew and take the ship as prize-and, to them, he'd be crew as well. Only the princess would survive, and he wasn't minimizing her fate if that was the case. They would have their sport with her before they ransomed her, and that would not only destroy her value, it would break her and brutalize her as well. Well, it was known that his company employed great magicians. It might be necessary to show a little deadly magic here.

He clipped the needler to the inside of his belt in the small of his back, so that the cape would conceal it. His eyes went to the communicator, but he decided not to use it. It was only for local service, really, and wouldn't likely be in range of anybody yet. The panic alarm was there, of course, but it wasn't time for that yet. Besides, he wasn't certain whether it would bring help or instant oblivion to protect the other secrets of the case.

He closed and sealed it again and went back topside. The atmosphere was tense as the black ship continued to close, its fearsome shape now quite visible in the bright light of morning, its distance no more than a kilometer now.

Grupher the old sailmaker stared at the stranger. "I seen a ship like that once," he muttered.

Koldon heard him. "Huh? What is it? None of the others seem to know it."

"Not too many seem em and live to tell. It ain't no natural ship. See-you can make it out right good now. See anybody on the lookout or in the riggin'? See any lights?"

It was still a bit far for that to be conclusive, but the captain had slowed his own ship, understanding that he couldn't outrun the smaller black one. Still, the old boy was right. The thing was sailing along very nicely, but it didnt seem to have a single human being on board.

"God ship. Ghost ship," the old sailmaker muttered. "Nothin' good ever came outa one o' those."

Koldon stared a moment at the old man, then turned back to the black newcomer. A god ship. A supernatural vessel for one of their five god figures who roamed the world as men but were not. He'd heard legends of such things, not only ships but coaches and the rest, but he'd dismissed them. Now, though-he turned and looked at their own sail and checked the wind. Yes, it was true-there was very little wind but what there was was coming from the east. The black ship was sailing against that wind, its sail blown inward, inverted, as if to emphasize the point, and there were no signs of oarsmen. If he hadn't known better he'd have sworn that the black ship had an engine in it.

It was quite close now, so close you could see the deck, and Grupher was proved correct. There seemed to be nobody aboard the damned thing. No-wait. One figure, extremely tall and covered entirely by a black hood and robe, stood on the wheel deck, not doing anything but just staring forward. It was impossible to see a face inside that hood, but it was clearly alive.

The captain was as unnerved as the crew by all this, but he was still all business. "Hello! You aboard the dark ship! What is your name and what do you wish with us?" he called out.

For a moment the dark one was unmoved, but then it raised its arms and they could hear a strong, clear voice state, "I command you to halt! I have some business aboard your ship. If I am not interfered with you shall not be harmed and will be able to continue on your way in a short time. If you interfere, you shall suffer. I am the Shaper."

That last sent a chill through all of them, and even Koldon felt it. This was something entirely new, entirely different, and outside the experience of any of his people on this world. Who and what was this guy, anyway? He wished he had a good analyzer aboard to scout out that ship and its occupant.

The wind died abruptly, and there descended on the freighter an unnatural calm. Even the sea became smooth as glass, and there wasn't a sound from ship or water. Koldon looked around and saw that they'd all dropped their weapons and were just staring, frightened and awestruck, at this-whatever it was. Looking out, he saw the choppy sea all around them except in a circular patch that encompassed both ships. Now how the hell is he doing that? Koldon wondered. Illusion? No, it sure didn't feel like an illusion. The ship was steady as a rock.

However he was doing it, the Shaper had an impressive act. In a dead calm, the two ships sat motionless, parallel to one another and perhaps twenty meters apart. The Shaper turned and walked to the rail on his vessel, removed a segment, then stepped out into open air a good dozen meters above the level of the ocean. He then walked over the twenty meters between the two ships as if the air supported some kind of invisible bridge or gangplank. It wasn't levitation-the guy was definitely walking on air.

Koldon began to think that he would have preferred pirates.

He reached out with his mind to scan the mysterious godlike creature and got nothing. Either he was extremely well shielded or his mental frequencies were outside the common range entirely. Both weren't all that uncommon in the galaxy, but not here, not on this backwater world. Then a rather simple idea hit him.

A holographic illusion, he decided. It's got to be. Such a thing would be easy for the Company to pull off, if they had preparation. But how could anybody have prepared this, out here, right now?

By the gods I wish they'd let me bring a recorder! Koldon thought in frustration. Nobody is going to believe this. Still, he was less impressed with the act and the gimmickry than with the fact that it was being done at all. This wasn't any Company trick; somebody was illegally muscling in on their territory.

They had scanned this whole world backward and forward, inside and out, without a trace of machinery, stored or transmitted energy, you name it. Hell, they'd even considered using the gimmick of the five gods themselves on occasion if they really needed authority to do something. The only explanation that made sense here was that somebody else had decided to do it first. But why? Why for this simple little world? Hell, if they didn't have the five-year grant from that sociological foundation they wouldn't have bothered with this place.

The Shaper was not a slow walker and quickly reached the rail only a few meters from where Koldon stood watching. The black figure paused, then jumped down to the deck with a noticeable thud and the expected vibration. Either this illusion was being carried to extremes or this guy was real! But nobody could actually walk across thin air! That was impossible!

The Shaper stood there a moment, scanning the faces of the crew who stood there silent as death, then turned toward Koldon. The dark figure was very tall-Koldon was over a hundred and ninety centimeters himself, and this stranger was at least a head taller. The hands were covered with thin leather gloves that extended well up the sleeves of the loose-fitting robe, and while there was an opening in the hood it was darkness inside, with no exposed skin, no mask, no features of any kind. It was next to impossible to tell if the Shaper was even in the form of a native. One hand held a long, thick rod of dull silver that seemed to have a dull reddish tip. Koldon couldn't help thinking, And now he waves his magic wand and we all disappear. He casually shifted back, one hand going back toward the small of his back in a natural-looking motion.

The Shaper reached out and grabbed his arm and brought it forward with such strength that it caught the agent completely off guard. More than that-that hand was as solid and real as his own!

A robot? An android?

"Keep whatever weapon you were going for where it resides, mercenary," the Shaper said calmly. "You are just doing your job but you are out of your class here. Now, where is the girl?"

My Lord, I am no mercenary. I carry diplomatic and trade credentials and am posted with my wife to Garmond City-State as trade consul for his Majesty King Lugai of Anrijou. What could you-?"

"I said you had done your job!" the Shaper snapped. I do not wish this to be any more of an inconvenience to others than it has to be, but I am not a patient man. Summon her! From the top deck, please."

Koldon sighed and shrugged, then walked over to the stairway door and opened it. "Come on up, my darling wife," he called, prompting as best he could. "It's not pirates so you have nothing to fear. He wasnt sure if she'd come up or not, but there was no percentage in not seeing this out first. He had to wonder, though, why the Shaper seemed in such a big hurry. Was he just being imperious like all the top people around here or was he somehow vulnerable while away from his ship? If so, the question became what was he vulnerable to? Or who?

She did come, after a suitable wait, and she was dressed the way he'd instructed her to dress, but there was no mistaking the royal manicure and trim of both hair and tail, or her aloof manner. Still, she was scared enough to give the cover story a try. "Koldon, what? ..." She stopped, seeing the Shaper there, and breathed, "Oh…”

"Come over here, girl, and let me get a look at you," the Shaper ordered.

His tone infuriated her. "Who are you to speak to me like that?" she snapped, and Koldon thought, Oh, boy!

"I am the Shaper," the dark one responded matter-of-factly. "I outrank you, my dear. You see, I am a god."

She hadn't seen his impressive show, just a very tall man in a lot of black, and she was not terribly impressed. "You are no god of mine," she responded. "You're just a big man hiding in a bigger robe."

Koldon was afraid that such a lack of respect would infuriate the man or whatever it was, and said, "My Lord, you have no right-"

The dark one laughed. "I have every right, my friend. It was I who created you all, after all. This would be terribly amusing if I could waste more time." His tone turned suddenly very menacing. "I said to come here! Now!"

The princess approached, slowly, hesitantly, stopping no more than an arm's length from him. Koldon was proud of her; she was scared to death, but she was holding her own pretty good. He felt helpless, though, and frustrated as well. If the thing was some sort of machine, as was likely, then the needler would have no effect other than to reveal that he was part of the Exploiter Team and not just a locally hired pro.

"You are quite beautiful," the Shaper noted, not lustfully but as if appreciating a work of art. You would have made that young king a perfect queen and had him around your little finger. Unfortunately, that is something I can not permit."

Koldon frowned. "Why not, my Lord?" he asked. "What can such petty matters of state be to you?"

The Shaper was not put off by the comment. "You are not meant to understand the motives of your gods," he responded. "You, or the ones who hired you, are to be complimented, actually. Had you not been so thorough and professional I would not have had to personally intervene, something I very much dislike doing. She would simply have been kidnapped by bandits or vanished into the slave markets of Garmond. Because you are so professional, because you think of everything in a depth beyond your peoples norm, I can not trust the old ways to work, and I do not kill my creations. Nor do I wish you harmed, mercenary. You show a level of intelligence, planning, and initiative far beyond anything I would have expected from your people. I should hate to have to prevent you from passing on such superiority to new generations.

This guy sounds really sincere about that, Koldon thought. It's a hell of an act-or he's nuts and really believes it. Still, he said he didn't kill, so he must be planning to take her off with him. When the big one made that move, Koldon would try the needler anyway.

The Shaper sighed. "Such a pity, but there must be no marriage. There must be an obvious default. Tourkeman must expand and Anrijou must fall, and I have been here too long already. He raised his wand and suddenly it began to pulse with a strong inner light. The light seemed to collect, then solidify, and rush into the crimson tip. The wand went all the way up over the Shaper's head, tip tilted a bit toward the princess.

An opaque energy field sprang from it; old and impenetrable. It struck and enveloped the form of the princess before anyone including she could react. It was so sudden and so spectacular that Koldon was as frozen as the crew, uncertain as to what was going on and what if anything he could do.

The energy field was not truly black. There were many colors in there; deep blues and purples swirled around in the nothingness like living things, colors and shapes only Koldon, of all aboard, could really see.

Now the field grew, taking on the ghostly outline of an object much larger and far different than the princess, but one that seemed very familiar ...

It seemed like an eternity but it was really over in no more than thirty or forty seconds. The field solidified, then seemed to fade away as the shape it had made became solid reality. The wand was suddenly cold, dull, and lifeless once again, but nobody noticed.

Where a minute before the princess had stood, there now stood a creature with a tough, metallic blue-black skin, with two bony plates extending from its shoulders back to its long, thick tail from the end of which grew a single sharp, long, bone spike. The legs were thick and muscular, set off to the side of the body, each ending in an enormous hoof; the head was on a short but very flexible neck, with two big brown eyes looking out over a broad but blunt snout behind which two large ears twitched this way and that, independent of one another. It was definitely a female; between those powerful rear legs was an enormous gray udder.

It was actually quite attractive-if you liked dests. "There!" the Shaper said, sounding satisfied. "Let's see you marry young Shorn off to her!"

Koldon was an old hand at high-tech parlor tricks; his mind went out, trying to locate the real princess in a pretty impressive now-you-see-it illusion, and found her.

Why is everyone staring at me so? I feel so-strange.

The agent's heart sank. Damn it, he'd swear the dest was thinking that!

The Shaper turned. "She is a purebred and she's yours, my boy," he told Koldon. "She's fully functional and will breed quite well. Smart, too, although I'm afraid the dest brain is not as fully developed as yours, so conscious thought and memory will soon fade, and she'll become just an animal over time. She is better off that way-not knowing. Besides, look at it this way. Now for the rest of her life she'll actually perform useful work."

He was already back up on the rail, and with a touch of his wand to his hood, he turned and walked back on the air to his own ship.

Everybody else still seemed frozen stiff, but Koldon rushed to the rail and wide scanned the ship even as the Shaper reached it. Nothing. No conscious band thoughts at all, not from that direction.

The dest opened her mouth but all that came out was the usual dest gruntlike roar. In his mind, however, came her thoughts.

Koldon? What has happened? Why do I feel so strange?

He whirled around and came into immediate eye contact with the dest. Damn it! It couldn't be! He'd been the right shape and size to begin with and the Valiakeans, the greatest masters of biology known, had taken weeks to change him completely into this form! Nobody but the Valiakeans knew how to do even that much. Oh, you could genetically build what you wanted, but change something pre-existing to this degree? In thirty seconds? With a magic wand?

"Princess? he asked softly, looking unbelievably at the dest. "Is that really you? Dont speak-just nod your head."

The dest looked at him and nodded.

"Oh, boy! he sighed aloud. "I-I don't know how to tell you this, but the Shaper, well . . . Twist around as best you can and look at yourself."

The massive head was able to twist around on that neck and see backward pretty well, at least with one eye.

The dest roared as if struck by a spear in its side, and its tail thrashed about, but Koldon, who could see into the mind that was still there, at least for now, could hear a young girl's screams.

He spent most of the day with her up on deck. The crew gave them a wide berth and seemed both nervous and frightened, as well they might be, but not frightened enough that at some point a couple of them didnt ask if the bonus for keeping quiet was still in effect. The question amused him.

"No bonuses now, he told them. "Talk all you want to about this. Whos going to believe you, anyway? Would you believe it if somebody off a ship told it to you?"

He still wasn't sure he believed it himself. As a telepath, there was no question that what had been the princess was now the young female dest before him. As one from a technological society so much more advanced than this that most of what he took for granted seemed the blackest of magic to even the most knowledgeable kings and advisors of this world, he knew full well that what he had seen was, while obviously not impossible, as beyond the science of his people as his technology was beyond the princess's. This was no competitor, no illegal Exploiter Team working an angle they'd overlooked. The sheer energy alone required for something like this was staggering, yet this Shaper had done it with a simple magic wand. Even if it somehow received energy from a remote source and reformed or redirected it, which seemed likely, why hadn't that power source shown up on their own monitors and instruments?

It was very much like real magic, and he didn't believe in real magic. At least the Shaper himself kept things firmly grounded in reality. He was no supernatural force, even if he had access to powers Koldon's people did not. The Shaper had been worried about something. He tried to conceal it but even with all his trickery, he couldnt hide from a trained observer like Koldon. It was less a specific fear than a general one, as if by leaving wherever he usually lived he had exposed himself to some potential danger, a danger that was not from the likes of the natives or elements or even Koldon. The obvious conclusion was that the man had enemies of at least equal power.

And that begged the question of just why somebody like the Shaper would care if Tourkeman turned rogue instead of expanding its influence by careful nonmilitary means. If he was exposing himself to real danger by directly intervening, the matter had to be of great import to him-but why?

The Shaper had also figured out Koldon's strategy and closed on the princess at the most vulnerable point, yet he was not omnipotent. He clearly had no idea of Koldons origins and true nature, nor even any suspicion of it, although the Exploiter Team had been around for several years and had been quite active and occasionally impressive in its own "magic." The only possible conclusion to be drawn from that was that, up until now, the two sides' interests had simply not conflicted, or possibly even intersected. They would conflict now, though. It was a whole new game from this moment on. Neither Koldon nor, he suspected, his bosses would even care any more about Anrijou and Tourkeman; all resources would shift to this new element. Just the little trick the Shaper pulled would break the Valiakean monopoly on biological changes and be worth untold sums, and it was just the tip of the iceberg.

But first he had to get into a position to tell somebody about it.

He sat down in front of the dest. "How are you feeling, princess? he asked casually.

She just looked at him with those mournful eyes but her mind said, "Hungry."

"Well, there's not much we can do beyond the little bit I've brought you, he responded as if she'd spoken aloud to him. "Once we dock we'll get to someplace where you can eat and relax."

The head went up like a shot. "Koldon-you can hear me? You understand me?"

He nodded. "I can hear you, princess. Only me. I can hear what you think. I can hear what anybody thinks-except that wizard or god or whatever he was.

If dests could cry in the human sense she would have. She was miserable, and the sense of degradation and isolation had been tremendous.

"Koldon-what happened to me? How could it happen?"

"What do you remember?

"I was standing there, angry at him for his arrogance. Nobody had ever spoken to me like that before! Then that rod went up, and there was a burst of light and a feeling-well, it was like a tingling, inside and out. I got very dizzy, I dropped on my hands and knees on the deck, and then it was over. I felt-confused. Strange. Everybody staring at me. I feel-degraded. Defiled. It's not fair!"

"No, it's not, princess, but for now well have to try to accept it. Unless we can find this Shaper and learn how to do this trick, there's no way to bring you back."

There was no purpose to going through any charades; the only way you could unload a dest was through the port facilities at Garmond. Not that it mattered any more; he seriously doubted if even the most powerful enemies of either king wanted or even cared about the princess now.

Princess, we're going to have to compromise on this from now on," he told her. "I want to get down to the marketplace before it closes for the night. Remember, no matter what you think of yourself, or me, to everybody else you're just a dest. Do you think you could stand me riding you? We'll make better time, and time is of the essence here."

He was already mindful of that ticking clock, even though he had little hope for her in any event. It was necessary to keep her hopes alive so she'd fight it. She had been a dest for only twelve hours and there were already changes in her. He hadn't noticed it right off, but the fact was she wasn't thinking on more than an elementary level when he wasn't directly talking to her. Everybody had thoughts all the time, but whenever she wasn't being forced to think she just sort of blanked out. While it made her easier to handle, he remembered what the Shaper had said about the dest brain simply not having the equipment to handle complex thought. They were pretty bright as cattle went, but that only meant they were easy to train and could carry out a simple series of commands.

The dest saddle sat just beyond the shoulder blades between the bony ridges. It was not a comfortable ride, but one got used to it, and at least the saddle was well padded. She resisted the bridle but was eventually talked into accepting it, much to the incredulous stares of long-time merchants who thought that this stranger was really crazy talking to a dest as if she were human. Koldon even had a couple of offers for her from dest merchants; apparently she had all the markings of a top line pure-bred. They were stared at and snorted at, and he politely declined.

It was too late to go anywhere tonight, and she needed massive quantities of food to do any real traveling, so he found an inn with stables. She was so starved that she didn't even object to being put in for the night and began eating voraciously of the bales of grain there.

Koldon needed to get in touch with somebody and fast, and headed to a small out-of-the-way shop in the dock area. It was closed, of course, but not to those who knew its secrets, including the small room below that could be opened only by electronic combination. The communications center was also shut down right now, but it was easily activated.

The signal went up to a specially placed satellite and then to the mother ship.

"Cornig here," came a voice. "Who's calling."

"Koldon. Ive got a real situation here. Turn on the data report recorders and hold on to whatever you can because you're not going to believe this. Quickly but thoroughly he sketched in the events of the day. Cornig said nothing until he was through.

"If I didn't know you better, I'd ask you what native drug you were on," the project manager responded when the report was done. "As it is, I think we have to move on this fast. I'm going to send this as is back to the Company. You're in far too civilized an area now to do any good, and it'll take a couple of days to get everybody we need assembled anyway. The important thing is to keep her reasonably active. Talk to her often and make her respond. We want her as whole as possible." He gave coordinates for a rendezvous well out in the middle of nowhere perhaps two days ride from the city-and away from Tourkeman.

The princess had eaten and drank enough for two dests and then had fallen into a very deep sleep. She seemed happy to see him but was far more docile. The anger, rage, even the fear seemed to have gone out of her. She seemed almost eager to accept the bridle and saddle. They headed out and away from the city-state as quickly as possible.

"You seem to have slept well," he noted.

"Very well. I-something is funny in my head, Koldon. Everything is all mixed up. A lot of words don't make sense."

"Just don't worry about it. Just keep thinking, keep talking to me as we go." That, of course, was the trouble with Cornig's orders. She never did have much depth or experience, and what interests she had were princess type stuff-fashions, jewelry, decor, that sort of thing, all of which was irrelevant to her now and not very relevant for him.

She was certainly having no problems adapting to the body, that was for sure. Riding dests developed a long, loping stride that didn't seem to be quick but really covered ground, and she got the hang of it very easily under his urging. Still, a trend was developing that he could do nothing about. Her entire ego was undergoing a rapid shift from self to him. She was rapidly losing her own sense of identity and acting in every way simply to please him. It was true that he was all she had, her only contact with anything other than the animal kingdom, but it was more than dependence, more like how a pet regarded its master.

They made very good time, and were well away from civilization by nightfall. Most of the countryside was open range, and there were quite a number of dests roaming about. The dest was essentially a herd animal but often roamed far afield in its grazing. In the old days of the large carnivores it had been a much stronger group, but they seemed to have developed a sense that the world wasn't all that dangerous any more.

He realized uneasily that he wasn't going to be able to keep her tied up when he made camp. She needed to graze for a long period in order to keep her strength up, and he didn't have the means to carry along commercial feed. "Stay close to me," he warned her. "If you get lost out here I might never find you, and then it's all over. If you run into any problem, call as strongly as you can with your mind and keep calling until I come."

She promised him emphatically that she would not get out of sight of him. He had at least kept to his own task. She was a dest, it was true, but she had once been a human princess and she believed still she might be again. Koldon would do it. Koldon would not fail. Koldon could do anything.

Still, the grass near the road wasn't very good or very plentiful and she did stray well away from him. She couldnt see very well at night, but her sense of smell was acute as to where the tasty clumps of grass and bushes were. It did not occur to her that others of her kind could smell them, too. She was no longer thinking very much, and certainly not very straight.

She caught the scent long before she could make out any shapes in the dark. It was a strange, compelling scent that she took in more and more. It was heady, intoxicating, making parts of her tingle in strangely pleasurable ways. She didn't understand it, but she felt drawn, even compelled, to follow it. Her tail went up and then forward, until it was resting on her back, countless tiny tendrils or hairs on its underside which she hadn't even been aware of before now tingled with tense anticipation.

The wild bull dest also caught her scent and, within a few meters, it roared its challenge to all others to stay clear. Hearing no answer, it proceeded to her, first nuzzling her, then going on through the instinctive rite that could end in only one way.

Koldon had slept pretty well through the night considering the events and the worries he'd undergone. He usually slept light, a corner of his brain always receptive to indications of danger or menace, and it had been pretty reliable over the years, catching many a thief or would-be assassin.

It was just past dawn; there were many dests about, mostly still sleeping standing up, a few grazing here and there, but, frankly, it was almost impossible to tell one of them from the other. He normally avoided broadcast telepathy while in the field, since one never knew who or what could pick it up, but there was no getting around it.

Princess?

There was no response, and he began to worry, fearing not so much that she wouldn't respond as that she had wandered too far, perhaps out of range. His telepathy was essentially line of sight and it was pretty bumpy in these parts. He had been nervous letting her run free but what could he do? He couldn't feed her and she needed bulk to travel.

Princess! This is Koldon! Answer me! Aloud he yelled, "Princess! Come here! Now! Come to me!"

And there was a response this time. "Koldon-I do not wish to come. I should stay here." The response was shaky, nervous, scared.

He tried to localize the thoughts, and got a fix not too far away. He began walking toward it, knowing he had to keep her talking in order to find her.

What's the matter? What's wrong with you? "I-Koldon ...Last night ... There was a ... bull ... It took me ... Violated me ..."

Damn! That was something that just hadn't entered his mind. Changing her into an animal was one thing, but it just hadn't occurred to him that it was that complete a change.

"I-I didn't resist. I sought it. I couldn't help myself. I wanted it! Even now I still want it. I am a dest now, truly. It's getting harder to think. It's like I was always a dest, one who dreamed of being a princess. It has not been very long, Koldon, but I cannot remember what it was like. Walking on hind legs, I mean, or having hands. I remember it all, just as it was, but always in my mind I am as I am now. I am an animal. I am truly a dest now."

He had her now, and even while he felt sorry for her he felt relieved as well. He walked up and patted her gently. "Well, if you're a dest, then you are my dest," he told her. "Come. We have a long way to go."

It was quite an assembly, a small tent city in the midst of a desolate plain. Most of the ship's scientists and company had come down, and they'd brought all the best analytical equipment with links to the great computers aboard ship. They poked her and probed her and took many samples over several days. They gave her brain scans and body analysis and all the rest, although there was some problems in adapting the equipment to dest scale. When they had done all that they could do, and run the results and tests a hundred times and come up with all they could, they held a meeting.

Chief Biologist Surowak shook her head in wonder. "Koldon, if you weren't telepathic, and if you hadn't been checked out and analyzed yourself, and if she didn't still have that mental persona, I would say you were stark raving mad."

"I had considered the possibility," the agent responded sourly, "but unfortunately reality would not let me get off that easily."

"As you know," Surowak said, "the process by which many of us appear to be natives is biologically complex but still only a disguise. The Valiakeans can adapt our exteriors to look and behave convincingly if they have genetic samples from the target race, and even change our insides to tolerate the food, drink, and atmosphere where needed. It's effective, but still superficial. We can be easily reversed to our normal forms since deep down we are still genetically ourselves. Subject us to the kind of analysis we just did to her and our true colors would be easily revealed. That-animal-out there is different. It's a dest, inside and out, as genetically perfect and normal and natural as if it had been born that way. Her genetic code says she is and should be as we see her. She is a super-intelligent dest. Nothing more, nothing less. So perfect, in fact, that she is now a couple of weeks pregnant-with a dest."

Koldon was startled. "That one time with the bull was enough?"

The biologist nodded. "It happens, and dests are abnormally fertile anyway. Even if we took her to Valiakea and had them have a go at her, which would be expensive and cause panic on their part, it wouldn't matter. We couldn't regrow the parts of her brain that would restore her without destroying her mind anyway-and what's the purpose in that? The dest is a highly intelligent beast, but it has a rudimentary forebrain. This must have been a fairly rough world once, and the dest evolved in a far less peaceful atmosphere than now. Nature generally chooses the easiest route for survival-prolific breeding first, then strength, then size. Only if all those fail does a creature develop real intelligence or die out. These creatures breed prolifically, which is why they are the backbone and mainstay of this economy. They are strong and tough enough that ancient predators had to prey on the young, the weak, the diseased, and the infirm for their food. They are large so they win the competition for food and water when they need it. And, for animals, they are relatively smart, but not truly intelligent. There is less instinct, with survival skills basically taught by the mother. But this was enough. They don't have any real reasoning abilities. She is as intelligent as she is because she is drawing on Koldon for support, but she doesn't really have the equipment to sustain it. Her reasoning ability and vocabulary are already fading fast. She no longer has the ego to even fight for what's left.

Koldon nodded sadly. Little of the once proud and beautiful princess remained now, as the Shaper had predicted.

Cornig, the project manager, changed the subject. "We are less concerned with her at this point than with the one who managed to do this. Just wave a magic wand and poof! Damn it, I never believed in gods or magic and I'm not about to start now. Magic's just something somebody can do that we haven't figured out how to do yet. The fact remains that weve got someone on this planet who is possibly as advanced from us as we are from the natives.

"No," responded Wakut, the political officer. "Not that advanced. There are certainly no more than a few. Probably the five of the legends-all legends start with a kernel of truth somewhere inside them. Now, when you have access to that kind of power you need a really huge team, but it's clear they've been here a while. I was interested in Koldons perception, which we share from reading the recordings from his mind, that this Shaper was nervous the whole time he was aboard the ship. Why? What was he scared of-or who? His fellow aliens? Certainly not anything else, with that kind of power at his fingertips. Consider-five people from a highly advanced species, dropped on this world with access to that power and knowledge. Why? Research? It doesnt hold up. Experimentation? Perhaps-but this would imply that somewhere along the line the experiment went wrong. Who knows? And until we catch one, if we can catch one, and ask him, we won't know. What we do know is that somebody else is working the same kind of game here as we are, and that's a violation of our free market rights. We bought the rights to this hole fair and square. Before these characters are anything else, we must consider them illicit competition.

Cornig shifted in his seat. "Well, were flying blind and thats no help. If we're wrong and this is an active experiment or active advance party, then any attempt to dig them out without a naval fleet might result in some pretty ugly experiences for us. A wave of a wand and you turn a battle crusader into an aquarium. If they're on their own, then we have the numbers and strength, at least, with the equipment we've got. I, for one, have no desire to be turned into a dest, but flushing them out will be risky. We don't know what we're dealing with. We don't know the limits."

"And that," Wakut said, "is the question. Do we flush them out now or do we wait and get reinforcements?"

"A chance at the exclusive rights to this scale of technology-if we call in the Exchange with all its authority and military force it won't be our show any more," Cornig noted. "The Valiakeans alone would halt all adaptations, shutting us down, unless they had exclusivity to this new process. This kind of technology would draw in the powerful, and the rules would be out the window. I'd say we have to make a stab at doing it on our own.

"I agree," replied Wakut. "Surowak is just salivating with the idea of getting her hands on the computers and energy sources that could do this kind of job, as are the others. We stand to be in a commanding position with incredible power so long as we maintain exclusivity, and such gains are never taken without great risk. So-we flush them out. But how? Yes, Koldon?"

"They've been nothing but superstition to us the past two years," the agent noted. "Hidden, out of sight. And clearly, from the comments of the Shaper, they don't know that we exist, only that we're developing extra smarts and rocking their boat. I think it's pretty clear that this was precipitated by our attempt to forge an alliance between Tourkeman and Anrijou. For some reason, we stepped on this fellow's own plans by doing so. He wants a military takeover. He wants Tourkeman to break its neutrality and become a conquering power. I would say that the odds were quite good that the old king's trip and fall over the battlements wasn't a fortuitous accident after all. Put the young king up under Rodir's influence, and you have the makings of a military and militant power. The marriage would have had the effect of nullifying that. Clearly they prefer working behind the scenes, but this Shaper wants a strong and militant Tourkeman. If just a marriage could drive him to the surface, then something infinitely worse might just flush him out in desperation."

They all looked interested.

"The story of the princess has to be getting around by now-that ships crew couldn't keep it in," Koldon noted. "So, we use it. Tourkeman and the black arts. Tourkeman the conqueror, with power and magic on its side. It'd be enough to give a king nightmares, wouldn't it?"

"All right, Cornig said, nodding. "So we whip up enough paranoid kings to form a considerable army. Half of Tourkeman's army is off serving in remote places like Anrijou, but the half they have remaining is pretty good. I'm sure we could convince enough leaders to muster an army, but will they be willing to go against a military state with an active god for a protector?"

"They would," replied Koldon, "if they had powerful magic, too."

* * *

The Grand Palace of Tourkeman was bathed in darkness except for the lines of torches lit around the guard posts and wall towers. Sentries patrolled the outer wall, although not with any real apprehension or anticipation of battle. Tourkeman was a military state; even its women and children could outfight ten of any foe, should anyone ever be insane enough to attack.

Young King Shorn had been up late, listening to arguments from all sides on Baron Rodir's proposal to create something new, something which demanded a new word not now in their vocabulary, a word that represented empire. That Tourkeman had enemies the king did not doubt, and the proof was in the failure to deliver his bride from Anrijou. He did not credit tales of her being somehow cursed or bewitched and made some creature, but that she was dead or dishonored in some slave mart was easy to accept. He did not blame Anrijou for it, though; instead, he suspected the hand of the old baron himself. What was it Rodir had said? That her disappearance was the ideal pretext for breaking the covenant and centuries of tradition while seeming only to avenge the kings honor.

Shorn, however, had a different concept of honor. As personal honor, he might well have sought retribution if he could determine the guilty parties, but he was no longer in a position to allow such personal things. He was the king, the state, and, as such, he represented the honor of the nation-a nation that had always prided itself on its strict neutrality and professionalism. Rodirs faction would have him place personal honor above the state's, and it was certainly tempting, but he could not see his way to do it. He was not, however, as foolish as his father. He did not believe he was immortal, nor did he trust the guard in an exposed position. A king was very vulnerable to treason, particularly when it could so easily be made to look accidental. Shorn was an only son with no heirs; if he met with an accident, Rodir would have as much royal blood claim to the throne as countless other relatives.

How childish, how foolish, he'd been to imagine being the all-powerful and absolute ruler! Some choices they were offering him, couched as they were in speculative and respectful forms. Choose-the honor of the state or your life, and if you choose honor we will simply have your replacement violate it. These were not the sorts of choices one was prepared for in training. He had gone to bed but had found it difficult to sleep, and was even now only fitfully dozing.

Outside, overhead, bathed in darkness and hidden from the eyes of guards, men did the impossible. They floated there, silently, establishing their positions, wearing special glasses that gave them the power to see in the darkness as well as headsets with little microphones that came down and dangled just before their lips.

Spotter One positioned and ready," said one softly. "Spotter Two positioned and ready," came another whispered voice in the night.

A third man rose and peered in the windows of the towers. Finally he settled on one and judged distance and difficulty and reported, "This is Sneak. The baron's in there sleeping like a baby."

"All troops are positioned," the voice of Control responded. "Take a time reading. Operations commence in two minutes from my mark. Stand by ... Mark!"

On the parapet, two guards met and one looked up and around nervously.

"Trouble?" the other asked.

"I don't know. I just got the funny feelin' I'm bein' watched is all. I dunno. Maybe I been doin' this night shift too long." He shrugged. "Even feels like the temperature's droppin'. Ain't never seen it so still, like some big storm was comin'."

The other man nodded. "I feel it, too. Storm comin' up, maybe. I . . . you hear anything out there?"

The clouds thickened and swirled above them, and there was the sound of thunder and the almost crackling power of a storm about to break, but within the cloud were only occasional glows of lightning giving the whole atmosphere an eerie, almost supernatural cast.

They both turned and looked out into the night and listened. Through the gloom and above the noises of the gathering storm they could hear things-it sounded like the movement of a tremendous number of men in full battle gear trying to keep quiet.

"I don't like this," said the first guard. "Get the Sergeant of the Guard on the double!"

The other hesitated. "I don't know. It might be the storm, or the wind. If it's a false alarm, we'll pull this duty until our death day."

"And if I'm right, then this may be our death day. Get him!"

Hovering in the shadows above, Spotter Two decided that it was a little early for an alarm and aimed a small weapon that shone a beam invisible except through its spotter scope. The beam sat first on the head of the nervous guard and then a trigger was pulled. The guard jerked, but by the time he fell to the floor of the parapet, the beam was on the other man. He, too, fell before he could sound an alarm.

"I have the baron. Repeat, I have the baron," Sneak reported. "Candy from a baby. I'm rigging him now. Tech crew to the window. Go in three minutes, repeat, three minutes. Mark!"

Young King Shorn slept uneasily in his bed. He was a very light sleeper out of necessity-when you led a kingdom that was basically a military autocracy, your power was always subject to a violent veto. The noise that broke out, awakening him suddenly and tensely, was not a subtle one but rather the sound of men shouting and running in such numbers as to wake his dead father.

"Guard! What is going on?" he shouted at his barred door, but there was no reply. Wary, he reached by his bedside and picked up his broadsword, then went to the window. It was well up along a sheer wall and he did not fear any attack from that quarter, but it provided a very good view of the west wall below.

It is no palace coup! he realized almost at once. We are under attack! The very thought of it was difficult to grasp. Tourkeman invaded others, but was never invaded itself. It had the most powerful army in all the world behind the most invulnerable castle and works!

He grabbed a speaking tube and yelled, "Baron! This is the king! We are under attack! I wish briefing at once!"

To his horror, the voice that responded from the tube was not only not the baron's, it sounded barely human at all.

"It is a briefing you wish, eh? Then look again at the west wall, Majesty." The tone was mocking, insolent, and the last word was spit out, but ended with a terrible cackling.

He went again to the window, and below, on the very wall itself, he could see the large, chunky form of Baron Rodir walking there, even as the torches and sounds of a mighty army were obvious just beyond. Yet there was nobody else on the wall! No soldiers there to repel what would surely be a mass scaling of the battlements! What treachery was this?

Rodir stopped, turned, then looked up at the king even though it was clearly impossible to see a figure in the window from that distance. Shorn frowned, then watched, stunned, as the Baron's figure rose magically into the air until it was almost level with his window!

"We are undone, my King, by magic most dark," said the baron, floating impossibly there. "Yield to them or you, too, will suffer as I have suffered!" And, with that, Baron Rodir reached up and calmly removed his head from his shoulders, then threw it right at the window!

Shorn screamed and stepped back, but the aim was a bit off, and the head struck the sill, bouncing off and back down into the courtyard below.

"Son of a bitch! I'm getting too old for this!" Sneak swore into his headset. "Five years ago I'd'a made it right in the window!"

It made no difference. The sight of it terrified the defending troops who watched it as had the king, but before they could recover from their stunned gazes the first wave of invading troops was up and over the wall, and a squad was already freeing the bolts from the west gate.

Still, the sight of the invader shocked the Tourkemanese back into some semblance of normality. This they could understand. These were invaders, made of flesh and blood, inside the very royal compound!

The battle was joined in the outer courtyard and along the battlements, and, once into the real fight, the soldiers of Tourkeman were not to be taken lightly. They fought with a frenzy beyond even their normal high levels; it shut out the magic and the horror, and the reality of battle, the very acts of killing and dying, feeling momentary triumph and bitter pain, made their world and themselves real again.

Swords, maces, battle axes, and all manner of weaponry clanged and flew in a scene of prolonged carnage. Within minutes, the courtyard resembled less a battlefield than a butcher shop, and there seemed no end in sight as the dawn lit the sky.

Suddenly a terrible shout, like nothing any had ever heard, inhuman and cold and overpowering, commanding attention through the roar, sounded. "Stop! I command you to stop! All of you! This is against the rules!"

They heard it, but neither side was about to stop now.

Koldon, in one of the small gravity cars, knew that voice and quickly searched the castle's upper battlements. He had just spotted a dark shape on the portico above the main hall and was about to go in to investigate when that figure raised its cloaked arms and extended a wand.

Koldon suddenly stopped. "Watch it! All our men clear until he's done! All Teams out of there, then key on me!"

I will stop you, then!" sounded that terrible, commanding voice again, and from his wand came that terrible purple and gold light, spreading out like a living thing over the entire battle scene, freezing the armies below in a tableau of violence-but not for long.

Everything still living within the battle scene was suddenly reduced, incorporeal, and those energy sparks were everywhere ...

"I could pick him off from here easily," said Spotter Two.

"No!" Koldon shot back. "We want him alive! Just get this all recorded!"

And then the terrible light receded, and Koldon heard Surowaks voice whisper, more to himself than anyone else, "I don't believe it!"

The entire courtyard was now filled with milling, very confused dests-hundreds and hundreds of them, along with the broken and bloody remains of a dest slaughter-house. Nothing remotely human or humanoid remained.

"Well, at least he's got a one-track mind," Cornig said laconically.

Koldon had his needier drawn, set to high stun, and circled around and in back of the Shaper. They really hadn't had a plan for this; they had expected to draw the mysterious sorcerer, not confront him.

Something-a sound, a reflection, who knew what?-caused the Shaper to suddenly turn and see Koldon coining at him. Koldon got off a quick shot that missed, and the black-clad creature turned and quickly vanished inside the castle.

With no guards, armies, or anything else to worry about, the other team members entered where they could as Koldon jumped out and ran after the mysterious godlike man.

He spotted the Shaper apparently attempting to trigger some kind of hidden stairway entrance and fired again. The sorcerer whirled, then made for the wide grand staircase down to the ballroom, Koldon in hot pursuit.

The Shaper made it two-thirds of the way down when he suddenly stopped, faced with Cornig and Surowak below, having entered from different sides, now waiting for him to walk into their hands.

The sorcerer seemed less panicked than confused, as if this sort of thing simply could not happen. Then he reached inside his long sleeve and began to pull out the wand.

Koldon nailed him with a full beam in the back and the black figure stiffened, cried out, then crumpled and rolled down the stairs.

"All right, now let's see what we're dealing with here," Cornig said with a sense of satisfaction. He went to the crumpled figure and pulled down the hood, then removed the black mask from the face.

The thing revealed there was like nothing on this world. It was hairless, with a drawn, eerie face that looked more like a tree trunk with bulging, knotlike unblinking eyes, two long slits for a nose, and a narrow, lipless mouth. The skin was tough; wrinkled and bark-like, and a mottled yellow. Strapped around that strange head was a device that looked very different than their headsets but that obviously served the same function.

"Ever see anything like that before?" Cornig asked the other two.

Koldon shook his head negatively, and Surowak grunted. "There are certain aspects in common with a number of races," Koldon said, "but I don't remember ever seeing any like this before. No, it's new, and certainly not of this world. I expected it, though, when I couldn't read his surface thoughts on the ship. Either theyre racially specific telepaths or they use different wavelengths than the norm we're accustomed to."

"Watch it! He's coming to! Koldon cautioned, and they stepped back, guns at the ready. "That kind of jolt would'a knocked any of us out for hours."

The Shaper groaned, rolled, and then sat up and looked at them. The orifice in its face vibrated rapidly, and a fraction of a second later that deep, rich baritone came out of the device. "Who are you?" it asked. "What manner of things are you? Who made you and how, and whom do you represent?

"Still the arrogant one," Koldon noted sourly. "I don't think you're in a position to ask questions before you answer some yourself. Still, I will, just to get things started.

The Shaper's strange eyes fixed on him. "You. You were the agent with the princess!

"Yes. I am Koldon, a Field Agent for the Exchange. This is Cornig, the project manager, and that is Surowak, the chief biologist. In spite of our looks we are no more native to this world than you are. We used a-less efficient-process to conform our appearance to the norm here and operate unsuspected."

The Shaper stood up, an enormous effort for one who'd received such a shock as he had. "You-you are not from the others? You are not part of the Game?"

"You mean the other four like yourself?" Koldon responded. "No, we've never even met them. We're a small party here, preparing for bigger things. Our support ship is in orbit right now with the bulk of our team. In fact, until I met you and saw you in action, we thought you all were just legends."

"Ship? Orbit? But there are no habitable planets in this solar system save this one."

"We come from far away, much farther than that," Cornig put in. "In fact, as our normal forms, the three of us are alien beings to one another. None of us is of the same race or planet.

"But-that would take thousands of years! The distances!...

Koldon shrugged. "We found a short cut."

"Oh my! The kind of power that represents the energy. Limitless. We must have a Gathering. A truce. The Game is over! And, like all the best games, there is no loser."

"If you didnt get here in a spaceship, then how the hell . . ." Koldon muttered, but there was plenty of time now for answers.

Our world is isolated, the Shaper told them. "It is over three hundred light-years to the nearest star, much farther for anything useful. It was frustrating. We knew so much, yet the speed of light held us captive. Then, by accident, when experimenting with a new and radical power source for our dwindling resources, we discovered that you could move in a direction not at all like the ones that imprisoned us as far as we could see. Another universe. Another world. Gravitational forces kept such planets paired up, and we sent robots, automatic probes, and they returned with pictures and data on an entirely new and uninhabited world. It was exciting. There was much competition for the first exploratory expedition. Eight of us originally, representing the best of our various disciplines. We were so caught up in it, that we took short cuts, made miscalculations. Small probes with animals had gone through. We felt certain we could, too-and we did.

"For a while, all was wonderful. The world was virginal in a sense, unspoiled by sentience but teeming with life. The dest was everywhere, preyed upon by some vicious carnivores the likes of which none of us had ever seen or imagined. We lost two of our own number to the carnivores before we learned how to stop them, instead. But, before we could return with all that we had learned and build upon it, something happened. The energy field supporting us collapsed and try as they might they could not reestablish it. Too much mass for so long a time. We had sufficient energy to use our own devices, but not enough to even send messages back."

He sighed. "They tried. They really tried over there, again and again, for many years, as we did what we had to do here and continued our work, secure in the certainty that our technology would find a way. After better than fifty of our years, though, it became clear that they were not going to solve the problem, and, indeed, had stopped trying long before. We were dead to them, and this project with us. He sighed. "It was terrible. We had spent some of the time working on the project from this end and we knew where the mistake was-and had we sufficient energy, we could have punched back through from this side. But we could not tell them that, and they, too, must have seen that only from this side was a return possible. We were marooned in the flower of our youth-six males with not a female among us. Doomed not even to colonize, just to exist. Six in the whole world-and no one else. Nothing else. Eventually we got on each other's nerves to the point where murder was a possibility, madness a certainty. We would be here forever. Alone. That was how the Project came about, and, after, the Game.

They set about becoming the gods of their world. They had much knowledge and ample power to do what they wanted-with the exception of what they wanted most. The Shaper, the geneticist, was the key to the plan. A manufactured disease, harmless to them and most others, that wiped out the carnivores in two generations. They divided up the world then, and each took his equipment, his specialty, with him. They had created a sort of paradise-but it was even lonelier than before.

They were not immortal, but they aged very slowly here, as if their bodies were still tied to some different, far slower time frame, while their minds adjusted quickly to the pace of the new universe and world. And, over the next century, using their field labs and what remaining power they had, they had developed a new project.

"We designed them based upon the carnivores we had destroyed," the Shaper told them, "because we knew that the design worked. At first it was simply a matter of restoring balance-we had destroyed the predators and so the rest were overbreeding, tearing apart this world, starving. It was exciting to create a new race, even a primitive one. It made us feel like-well, the gods of this place. Once the design was completed, we used basic matter-to-energy-to-matter matrices to modify the brightest of the species in the most trouble into those who would rule over that species. They are maintained in this strange form by a planetary field that their own cells are attuned to."

I don't understand how you do it, but I comprehend the mechanism in a basic way," Cornig responded. "That's why we didn't detect your power source. Since it is a stable planetary field it registered on our instruments as a normal characteristic of this planet, and we ignored it."

Then it was careful breeding of the results until we created whole tribes," the Shaper continued. "The only thing we did not foresee was how incredibly intelligent the gentle herbivores we used actually were. We taught them how to walk upright, how to hunt, how to organize, and when they began to develop on their own various sounds we realized that they were capable of language and taught them a simple one."

"The dests, Koldon said through clenched teeth. "You're talking about the dests."

"Yes, the dests. Our term, really. You look at them and you see big, lumbering herbivores drifting about and you make certain assumptions. Even after, most of us believed that they were simply short-changed by evolution. Without hands or anything else with which to build, and without vocal equipment to create the necessary variety of complex sounds, we felt they had dead-ended. It is entirely possible that they did not. Primitive, yes, but I have often wondered if such extreme intelligence would be warranted for this sort of equilibrium. It is possible that they might be far more complex than we believe, thinking and acting in a way alien to those like any of us.

"Or maybe it just developed as a defense against those carnivores, Surowak noted. "But-you made classical humanoids out of the dests, and they became something of a civilization.

"Our civilization. They have ... limits. They are herd creatures-they go mad in isolation. They are very bright, but not all that bright. You can teach them things, such as how to build, how to herd, how to cultivate fields, even how to fight, and they understand and do it, but in six centuries we have never seen anything, not one idea, basic concept, or discovery, that they initiated. No great philosophers, thinkers, scientists-nothing. All that you see we created. We created it from our own history, from romantic legends, and from our own imaginations based on the requirements of the people.

"That explains why there are no artifacts or direct ancestral remains, Koldon said, nodding. "And why building designs, ship designs, everything, is so uniform even among the most distant kingdoms."

"And why the racial I.Q. is between seventy and eighty and why they are often victims of their own emotions," Surowak added. "Like children. Like a race of not very bright children."

"Exactly!" the Shaper responded. "And that is how the Game evolved. Out of this project, and out of boredom. We could take them so far and no farther, but the impulse to experiment with what we had proved irresistible. We all had our own ideas for the sort of societies to build and maintain, the best ways of management. We divided the world into zones roughly equal in land and sea and we became the gods of our lands. And, of course, we occasionally meddled in each other's affairs as well. Pretty soon it became a contest to see which of us could do the best job and, therefore, take lands and people away from the other. Elaborate rules were developed, and scores kept. Wagers were made, favors traded and bet. None of us were military men-those two had been killed by the carnivores in the early days-so we played the Game. It fed our egos, and kept us from going completely mad."

Cornig perched on the corner of a table and looked thoughtful. "You have a lot that you could teach us. About your energy fields, your transformation method, the means by which only seven of you transformed the world. Uh-that brings up a point. I thought there were only five of you."

"Now there are. One of us became overly brave a few centuries ago, and gambled directing his own conquests. There was only one way to stop him, and we did. He was the best of the lot at the Game, but he underestimated the resolve of his opponents. That is why I was taking such a risk intercepting the ship off Anrijou. My domain ends just out of sight of shore on this side, and I was directly intervening-and exposed."

"Can we talk to the others? Can we get you together?" Cornig prompted, seeing the profits from such an alien technology.

Koldon, for his part, kept silent, knowing it would do no good to speak at this point. The evolution of these "gods" was different, and their technology had taken far different turns, but for all that they were about the most petty and familiar alien beings he'd encountered. The memory of the slaughter outside, the frenzy of these people's battles, made him slightly sick. Playing gods, destroying an ecosystem because a couple of the more arrogant were careless, creating a new race so they could be marched to slaughter like wind-up toy soldiers ...

These guys, he thought sourly, will feel right at home with us.

The Shaper was proving it, too. We are always in communication, if we wish to be. They will think me mad at first, but I will open my mind to them. Yes, you are correct, I suppose. We do know things that you do not, and you know and have things that we do not, but you could not take that knowledge from us. Remove us and you remove the machines power. We are in mental attunement with the devices, and they will shut down when the last of us dies. And, I assure you, we will all be of a mind to destroy this world rather than be invaded or coerced."

Cornig, now the businessman and trader, smiled pleasantly. "Now, I dont think we have to do anything so . . . ugly. We want an exchange, not a new set of enemies. Your civilization is closed to us. We cant get there, because we don't know how and never knew it existed. Perhaps we can never have an eternal opening for people to pass freely through, or perhaps we can find a way, but whatever it is we can certainly trade information of a high order. At the start, when you first came to and learned what we were and how we got here, you said something about power. Several times you've talked about insufficient power sources. That's one thing we have in great abundance-power. If you have a way to go up and get it, or bring it down here. In exchange for valuable new discoveries, new technology, I think we can provide that power you need. Just-whats it worth to you to be able to go home?

Koldon knew it was coming and could no longer remain silent. "No! Damn it, this world is full of people! I dont care how they were made or how bright or artistic or scientific they are, they are sentient beings. Millions of them now. You heard what he said-they leave and the machines stop. This field collapses. That's all he did to turn our princess into a dest! How he turned two whole fighting armies into dests. He created a local field that canceled out the larger field; that removed whatever they added to make these people look like they do! Genetically they're dests, artificially maintained in a form where they can do greater things. I know these people! I've lived among them! they are basically a good, gentle folk, and they are people! I saw what it did to the princess. Damn it, to do that is genocide. It is against all our law and custom!"

The Shaper stared at him. "We created them. All that they have we gave them. We did not give them what sentience, what intelligence, they have-we merely gave them a form and the benefits of a higher civilization to use and develop them. We have been marooned here for more than seven centuries. We grow older, and lonelier, and perhaps a bit insane. Your employer, here, understands. You would condemn us to the rest of our lives, our very long lives, here to preserve this culture for ... what? Another five or six centuries at best? Until the last of us dies? Until your scientists can somehow duplicate our machines and attain equilibrium? For what? No, you ask too much of us. It is very easy to stand the moral ground when it is not you who have been here so long nor is it you who would have to remain."

"Progress always has its price, as does profit," Cornig noted, sounding businesslike. "The laws involve the destruction of indigenous sentient beings. Those are the dests, not the others. Perhaps our friends here can help the Valiakeans create a new carnivore to restore the ecological balance.

"You can't do this!" Koldon thundered. "I will take it to the Courts of the Exchange myself!"

Cornig looked at Koldon as he would look at a naive child. "Of course we can do it, son. It's our job.

Koldon almost cried, knowing that it was true, that it was all going to happen. "Somewhere there must be such a thing as justice, he muttered sourly.

"Not if you have good enough lawyers," Cornig replied.

"History will never forgive us.

"History, Cornig said quietly, "is always written by the victors, not the victims."

The walls of the castle were deserted now, the towns as well. Only the countryside was alive with millions upon millions of great, lumbering beasts. It was a lonely, desolate place now for all its beauty, and, looking away from the artifacts that remained for a time and off into the green hills, Koldon could almost imagine what it must have been like here, when they had come, when they had found themselves alone and trapped.

He rode the dest out a ways, trying to think, trying to sort it out in his own mind. A young calf, the progeny of the dest he rode, trailed loyally behind its mother.

On all the planets, in all the cultures he'd seen and walked among, there were always certain basics. The gods created the race. The gods had power, both good and evil, over the race both collectively and individually, and those people prayed for the good and against the evil. They worshiped the gods and they cursed the gods, but they remained in their own minds the playthings, the property, of those same gods. Not all, but most, had an eventual reckoning as well, when the gods would tire of their sport and would fight the final battle for supremacy and the world would end. Most, too, had gods fashioned roughly in their own petty, conniving image.

Just like here.

Did a god who made the rules have to abide by them? Was that the definition of a god? That the rules did not apply? How would the gods see their creation compared to themselves? And if it came to a final choice between a god and its creations, what god of any race or world would not unhesitatingly choose itself?

And if the gods were five lonely and isolated men who never considered their creations more than an adult's plaything...

He wondered, idly, what the priests and shamans and holy ones of those other, "respected" religions, would say if it were suggested that their gods regarded them much the same almost by definition?

Koldon no longer believed in gods. He believed in greed, in avarice, in self-justification and moral ambiguity, and the basest instincts of sentience. The gods became gods because they were smarter, tougher, meaner, and colder than the rest. How many sentient races had developed their world to the point where most of the animals were extinct, the waters and air fouled, and where the people still went down to worship and pray for forgiveness of their sins even as they went back out and committed more?

He stopped, dismounted, then undid the bridle and cinch and removed all the paraphernalia of civilization from the dest.

"I'm sorry, Princess," he said to her, "but your gods have deserted you. You have to make it on your own now.”

She looked at him, not really comprehending anymore, but not understanding the finality of his dismissal, either.

He looked at her, and her calf, and hoped, just hoped, that the old Shaper was right, that these were a different form of intelligence and not the animals they seemed. He hoped, but he didn't really believe it.

"Go ahead, Princess! You're free now! Join the herd!" And he gave her a big slap on the rump.

She started, then began to move forward, picking up speed, the calf having a little trouble keeping up with her, but when she reached the edge of the nearest dest herd she suddenly stopped, turned, and looked back at him, questioningly.

Koldon felt a wrench in his stomach, turned, and began to walk slowly back toward the city where he would soon be picked up by the team. About twenty steps back he stopped, turned, and looked at where she'd been, but there was only a vast, rolling landscape of dests, each apparently no different from the other, just idly grazing. He sighed, then turned and started slowly walking back toward the deserted city.