"Do you remember these two gentlemen, Willard?" Ali'Maksam spoke quietly as he called the next frame in a long series onto the viewscreen. It was a split image of two human males. One was an official of the Auricle Alliance Hall of Congresses, whom Ruskin recognized, though he could not recall the man's name. The other appeared to be a Tandesko diplomat, wearing the distinctive three-pointed starburst of the Triune on his shoulder.
"They look very familiar," Ruskin said.
"They should. I'm glad at least some of these data files are intact." The Logothian pointed to the Auricle official. "That's Alexander McCarth, Explorations Chair for the Science and Technology Congress."
Of course. Now he remembered: he'd seen the man several times in person, and may even have worked with him. McCarth wielded great power in certain areas of Alliance policy. Ruskin thought that he did not like this man, but he couldn't remember why.
"And the other—" Max pointed to the slim, bony-faced Tandesko diplomat—" is Jodec Brandon, special Triune envoy. You might remember the occasion. They were addressing one another rather forcefully on the subject of interstellar exploration rights."
Ruskin nodded. There was that resonance of recognition—the awareness that he'd once been personally involved in these issues. He recalled the feeling, but not the events. The feeling that he recalled was frustration.
Ali'Maksam continued, "At issue was the question of how new territories could be staked out without the two big powers falling into war over it. Some of the smaller powers were present, too, of course; but their voices carried less weight, pragmatically speaking." He paused and reflected. "The unexplored worlds were not represented at this meeting."
Ruskin cocked his head. "Is that supposed to be funny?"
Max's lips curled into an oddly reptilian smile. "Let's just say that they had no chance to voice their own preferences." He inclined his head and brought up a new frame: a geopolitical star chart. The regions of Auricle and Tandesko influence were partially intertwined with one another. Both had neighboring frontiers, but a projection of desirable and accessible frontier regions showed a clear overlap of interest. "In any event, the range limitation of exploration ships has kept the dispute from boiling over—a condition that would change radically if something such as, say, your proposed gateway were ever to come to fruition."
Ruskin nodded. He felt a tic in his cheek muscle and stroked it absently.
Max continued, "To get back to the meeting, however, certain forward-thinking groups, like the Solomon Organization, and Tamika's Omega group, became more vocal in their dissent—which, by and large, was ineffectual."
"At least we were trying!" Tamika yelled, her voice echoing from the galley. A moment later she appeared on the bridge, bristling.
Ruskin watched the two through slitted eyes. His head was reeling slightly. Dissent. Why did that ring a bell?
"Quite true," Max was saying. "Don't misunderstand me. My own Society of tele'eLogoths adopted a similar position, though to be honest, our outlook was more idealistic than practical."
"And what about the Querayn?" Tamika said sharply. "Where do they stand?"
Max's eyes glittered behind his visor. He spoke softly: "The Querayn, too, believed that the dominant positions were wrong. But their position was even more theoretical than ours; it was scarcely voiced in public, and certainly little noticed."
"But you know their position well, don't you?"
Max stretched calmly. "Yes. I worked with them, as you know—though mostly on other matters. It was partly their theoretical work on the nature of consciousness that led me initially to wonder if Willard's affliction might be the result of nano-agents." He peered at Tamika as though he quite well understood her feelings. "Their work had suggested certain possibilities, some of them rather frightening. My knowledge of that work led me to contact E'rik Daxter when I perceived Willard's difficulty. I knew Daxter to have expertise in that area, also. Though I had no direct connection, I was able to reach him through the good offices of several friends. And no, Daxter is not Querayn, so far as I know, nor did I reach him through the Querayn."
"Is that all?" Tamika demanded, hands on hips.
"Tamika—" Ruskin began weakly.
"If you mean—"
"I mean that the person Willard saw who tried to kill him was a noliHuman," Tamika snapped. "Doesn't that suggest a connection to you?"
"Tamika," Max protested, "I do not believe that the Querayn would attempt murder. Even if the assassin was noliHuman, that does not mean that there was any connection."
"But you don't know that, do you?"
"No, I don't, but—"
"Stop it!" Ruskin shouted. "Just stop it! Both of you! I can't stand it!" He massaged his eyebrows. "For God's sake, don't the two of you start feuding."
There was a moment of silence. "Sorry," Tamika murmured. Max sighed almost inaudibly.
"Yeah." He switched the image-frame back to the Alliance and Tandesko representatives and studied their faces, thinking of all the disagreements that those two individuals represented. The quiet arrogance of the one, the unyielding rigidity of the other. Memories were stirring in the back of his mind; he sensed Dax at work, trying to bring them into clearer focus. "Max—Tamika—" he pleaded. "Help me with this. I remember . . . feelings, damn it." He pressed his fingertips to his forehead, searching. What he felt was a memory of . . . what? It hit him suddenly. "Disillusionment. I remember feeling disillusionment." He looked up. Tamika seemed as puzzled as he. "But about what? Max, you knew me then. Do you know what I was feeling?"
The Logothian settled back in his couch. His diamondlike eyes sparkled. "Yes, Willard—you felt disillusionment. Do you remember why?"
Ruskin struggled. "It . . . had to do with that—" he pointed at the screen—"and it had to do with Breakst—I mean, ah, what the hell?—Starmuse." If he could only piece it together. Disillusionment with Starmuse? But Starmuse was a scientific research program. What was there to be disillusioned about? The long-range goals of opening up the galaxy? He looked at Max, Tamika, Max. "Was it the Starmuse program?"
Tamika answered: "What about our discussions? You did express feelings—"
He shook his head vigorously. "It was before that. Something was wrong." He got up and paced; his pulse was quickening. "Why did I just almost say 'Breakstar'? Every time I think of this project, I think of 'Breakstar.' But it's 'Starmuse.' Not 'Breakstar.'" He looked back and forth between them. "Right?"
(Damn it to hell, anyway! What did I do to those data files? Why did I wreck them?)
"I've heard you use the term 'Breakstar,'" Max said. "Mostly in offhand moments, I'd say. But as far as you've told me, the Betelgeuse project is called 'Starmuse.' Poet of the star." He shrugged. "Or observer of the star. It seems reasonable for a group gathering to watch a star die."
Ruskin chewed his lower lip, thinking. His eyes went to Tamika. "Have I talked to you about it, Twig?"
She hesitated. "I've heard the name. Maybe when you were asleep. Or unconscious, at Daxter's laboratory. I don't know what it means."
Something in me does, though, Ruskin thought. Something in me knows.
He sighed and called the next frame onto the viewscreen.
* * *
He napped in the pilot's seat after supper, the viewscreen blank in front of him. But though the screen was blank, his mind was not: the images they had called up out of his data files kept swarming before him. In his dreams he walked through an amber-hazed forest, those same images floating above the treetops. He was not alone here; with him in the dream were two creatures, stalking along behind him, just out of sight among the trees.
The name reverberated, sang in the wind among the branches:
Breakstar . . .
Breakstar . . .
The two creatures scampered, darted from cover to cover. But farther away, someone else was moving through the woods, as well. Perhaps more than one someone. He remembered suddenly the fortress floating in glowing amber, and he knew that those strangers out there in the woods were the same ones he'd dreamed of before, hovering in the amber, watching the fortress.
The two creatures, though, were different. They didn't care about the fortress.
They were here to study him.
And they looked familiar.
He knew, somehow, that they remembered every move he made, every thought that went through his mind. Like hounds on a scent, they followed a trail through the backcountry woodlands of his mind. Or of his brain. It seemed to him that they, if anyone, ought to know what it was he was trying to remember.
Breakstar . . .
Breakstar . . .
He stood still as a statue for a time, then beckoned to them.
There was silence, and a quick rustling. One creature hopped into view, then the other. They crept close. For the first time, he could see their appearance. The first had large translucent ears and four enormous eyes set close together; it looked like a kind of fox.
((That is why I'm called a 'kindah.'))
Ruskin blinked, startled to hear the thing's voice in his mind. Kindah? His gaze shifted abruptly to the other. It looked more like a long, lanky lizard, with a wild cat's face—and a sort of Cheshire cat's grin.
((And that is why I am known as a 'sortah,' Sir Willard. We are the terrakells at your service.))
Looking back and forth between them, he felt as though he had stepped from one dream into another. And then he remembered where he had seen these creatures before, though they had looked different then. They were the creatures in E'rik Daxter's laboratory, the shapechangers that had so unnerved Ali'Maksam. Were they the "additional programming" that Daxter had given him?
((Yes, indeed, sir!))
((At your service, sir!))
He gazed at the two in astonishment. (I see. And what have you done for me—what have you found, O Terrakells, scampering in my brain?)
There was a pause of what seemed like minutes or hours before they answered in refrain, their bright eyes boring into his:
((We find—))
((—lies within lies upon lies—))
((You hate the Tandeskoes—))
((You love the Tandeskoes—))
((—upon lies within lies.))
((The Querayn—))
((—make you nervous—))
((—and fascinate you besides.))
((But that is a lie.))
((One is—))
((—or the other.))
((Beware of what you know—))
((—or of what you think you know—))
He wrenched his gaze away from theirs and turned around in a helpless daze, wishing he could awaken from this dream. But the terrakells had him trapped here, and they were going to torment him with the one fact he already knew—
—that he could trust nothing that he knew.
But what about the other things? What about, for instance . . .
Breakstar . . .
To which the terrakells answered:
((It's in there. In your memory.))
((We can get it for you. If we can just tweak it free . . .))
(Then, for God's sake, do it!)
* * *
He awoke with a start, sweating. "Max!" he barked. "Tamika!" Jesus, his head was spinning. Where was everyone? What had he just been dreaming?
He blinked, and it floated before him, like an image in the viewscreen:
Breakstar.
So simple, really. In concept, if not in execution. They were going to blow up a star. The people at Starmuse: they weren't sitting there waiting for a supernova to happen. They were making their own. They were pushing the star to burnout, they were tripping the switch, they were—
Playing God.
Jesus.
Was this what he was working on? Was this . . . Starmuse? "It's all a fucking lie!" he bellowed, suddenly shaking his fist at the viewscreen, slamming it down on the console. "It's all a bloody fucking lie!"
"Willard! What's wrong?" Tamika stumbled in from their cabin.
"The whole God-damned thing!" he shouted, turning but scarcely seeing her. He felt as though he were still dreaming. "The whole—damned—project—is a lie! Where's Max?" He caught Tamika's arm; surprise and fear crossed her face. Startled, he forced his hand to release its grip on her.
"I am here, Willard," Ali'Maksam said, stepping onto the bridge. His suit was slightly askew. He looked as though he had been sleeping. "What is it?"
"The Starmuse project. It's phony from start to finish, isn't it? 'Breakstar' is the real project—the one that's being carried out under cover of Starmuse. They're not there to observe. They're there to trigger the supernova." He stared at his friends. "And that means . . ."
Max stood in the far corner of the bridge, watching him. What is he thinking? What is Tamika thinking? What am I thinking?
He drew a breath. "That means not just studying how to make an interstellar gateway—it means making one. Not in a hundred or a thousand years, but now! I don't know how they're going to do it. But that's what they're doing! Oh, Christ!" His thoughts were scarcely ahead of his words; his own astonishment was still bubbling up inside him. And yet he knew he had not uncovered it all. It was as though he had drawn a cloudburst from an angry thunderhead; but the cloud remained looming, sullen and mysterious.
Max's voice rumbled. "If you believe that true, Willard, then—"
"Then all that stuff we were talking about, who gets what and which faction of worlds will control—it's all going to happen now. Not next century. Now. Christ, no wonder." His voice failed him.
"No wonder what, Willard?" Tamika whispered.
"The disruption of relations . . . the possibility of war." His throat tightened. "If this is true, it's going to cause a major eruption between the Alliance and the Triune, with everyone else caught in the middle. No wonder people are willing to commit murder. If the gateway really worked, it could open up thousands of new worlds to explore, to colonize." He made a gesture to Tamika. "To exploit. To contact new species. Whoever controlled the gateway could control . . . well, there's no telling, really." He raised his eyes to look at her. "But why me?" Tamika's gaze was full of bewilderment and anguish. "Why do they want to kill me? What do I have to do with it?"
There was silence until Max spoke, his expression inscrutable: "The answer to that is surely in your files. Or in your mind. It must be found. Which is more intact, Willard?"
Ruskin stared at him for a long time without answering. Three days left in starflight. Three days to put the pieces of the puzzle together.