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SCIENCE FICTION STORIES:

Moon Race

Written by Ben Bova

Illustrated by Garret W.Vance

John Henry, he said to his captain,

“A man ain’t nothing but a man.

“And before I’ll let your steam drill beat me

“I’ll die with a hammer in my hand,

“Lawd, Lawd,

“I’ll die with a hammer in my hand.”

Usually, gazing out across the crater floor to the weary old ring-wall mountains with the big, blue, beautiful Earth hanging in the black sky above—usually it fills my heart with peace and calm.

But not today.

My palms are sweaty while I wait for the GO signal. There are six of us lined up in our lunar buggies, ready to race out to the old Ranger 9 site and back again to Selene’s main air lock. Two hundred and some kilometers, round-trip. If I follow the path the race officials have laid out.

I’m sitting at the controls of a five-meter-tall, six-legged lunar vehicle that we’ve nicknamed Stomper. We designed it to haul freight and carry cargo over rough ground, not for racing. The five other racers are also converted from working lunar vehicles, but they’re either wheeled or tracked: they can zip along at speeds up to thirty klicks per hour, if you push them.

I’ve got to win this race or get sent back to dirty, dangerous, overcrowded Earth.

See, Harry Walker and I started this design company, Walker’s Walkers, while I was still his student at Selene University. Put every penny we had into it. Now we’ve built our prototype, Stomper, and we’ve got to prove to everybody that a legged vehicle can work out on the Moon’s surface as well or better than anything with wheels or tracks.

So we entered the race. Harry’s a paraplegic. If we win, he’ll be able to afford stem-cell therapy to rebuild his legs. If we don’t win, Walker’s Walkers goes bust, he stays in his wheelchair, and I get sent back Earthside. It’s Selene’s one hard rule: if you don’t have a job, you get shipped out. You either contribute to Selene’s economy or you’re gone, man, gone. There’s no room for freeloaders. No charity. No mercy.

The light on my control board flashes green, and I push Stomper’s throttle forward carefully. We’re off with a lurch and a bump.

Stomper’s six legs start thumping along as I edge the throttle higher. But Zeke Browkowski zips out ahead of the rest of the pack, just like I figured he would.

“So long, slowpokes,” he sings out as he pulls farther in front. “Hey, Taylor,” he calls to me, “why don’t you get out and push?” I can hear him laughing in my headphones.

Zeke’s in Dash-nine, the newest buggy in Selene, of course. His older brother runs the maintenance section and makes certain he does well by Zeke.

Even though Stomper’s cabin is pressurized, I’m suited up, helmet and all. It’s uncomfortable, but if I have to go outside for emergency maintenance during the race, I won’t have to take the time to pull on the cumbersome suit.

Selene City is built into the base of Mt. Yeager, the tallest mountain in the ring wall of the giant crater Alphonsus. Two-thirds of the way across the crater floor lie the remains of Ranger 9, one of the early unmanned probes from back in the days before Armstrong and Aldrin landed over in the Sea of Tranquility.

There’s been some talk about expanding Selene beyond Alphonsus’s ring wall, going out onto the Mare Nubium and even farther. But so far it’s only talk. Selene is restricted to Alphonsus, for now.

I figure the run out to the Ranger 9 site and back to Selene’s main air lock should take on the order of ten hours. Zeke Browkowski will try to make it faster, of course. Knowing him, I’ll bet he’s souped up Dash-nine with extra fuel cells even though that’s against the race rules.

Harry teaches mechanical design at the university, from his wheelchair. He had the ideas for Walker’s Walkers, and I did his legwork, so to speak. I’ve got to win this race and show everybody what Stomper can do. Harry can keep his professorship at the university even if we lose. But I’ll have to go back to Detroit, Michigan, USA, Earth. I’ve worked too long and too hard to go back to that cesspool.

I need to win this race!

Stomper’s lumbering along like some monster in a horror vid. Sitting five meters above the ground, I can see Zeke’s Dash-nine pulling farther ahead of us, kicking up a cloud of dust as it rolls across the crater floor on its big, springy wheels. In the Moon’s low gravity, the dust just hangs there like a lazy cloud.

“Come on, Stomper,” I mutter to myself, as we galumph past the solar-cell farms spread out on the crater floor. “It’s now or never.” I nudge the throttle a notch higher.

Stomper’s six legs speed up, but not by much. It’s like sitting on top of a big mechanical turtle with six heavy metal feet. I have to be careful: if I push too hard, I could burn out a bearing. Stomper’s slow enough on six legs; if we lose one, we’ll be out of it altogether.

Zeke’s pulling farther ahead while ol’ Stomper’s six feet pound along the dusty bare ground. Lots of little pockmark craterlets scattered across the floor of Alphonsus, and plenty of rocks, some big as houses. Stomper’s automated guidance sensors walk us around the more dangerous ones, but I get a kick out of smashing the smaller stones into powder.

It’s a real boot, sitting five meters tall with Stomper’s control panel spread out in front of me, feeling all that power, watching the rock-strewn ground go by. Harry would love to be up here, I bet, in control even though his own legs are useless.

Stomper has a lot of power, all right, but not enough speed to catch Dash-nine or even the slower vehicles. Like the turtle against a quintet of hares. But I have a plan. I’m going to take a shortcut.

The race’s official course from Selene’s main air lock to the Ranger 9 site is a dogleg shape, because the buggies have to detour around the hump of rugged hills in the center of Alphonsus. I figure that ol’ Stomper can climb those hills, thread through ‘em, and get to the Ranger 9 site ahead of everybody else. Then I’ll come back the same way and win the race!

That’s my plan.

For now I follow the trail of lighted poles that mark the race course. Dash-nine is so far ahead that all I can see of Browkowski is a cloud of dust near the short horizon. Three of the other vehicles are ahead of me, too, but I see that the fourth one of them is stopped dead, its two-man crew outside in their suits, bending over a busted track.

I flick to the suit-to-suit frequency and get a blast of choice language from the pair of ‘em.

“You guys all right?” I call to them.

Moans and groans and elaborate profanity. But neither one of them is hurt, and Selene’s already sending a repair tractor to pick them up.

I push on. I can see the tired old slumped hills of the crater’s central peak rising just over the horizon. I turn Stomper toward them.

Instantly, my earphones sing out, “Taylor Reed, you’re veering off course.” Janine’s voice. She sounds upset.

“I’m taking a shortcut,” I say.

“That’s not allowed, Taylor.”

The race controller is Janine Al-Jabbar, as sweet and lovely a lady as you could find. But now she sounds uptight, almost fearful.

“I’ve studied the rules,” I tell her, keeping my voice calm, “and there’s nothing in ‘em says you have to follow the course they’ve laid out.”

“It’s a safety regulation,” she answers, sounding even more worried. “You can’t go off on your own.”

“Janine, there’s no problem with safety. Ol’ Stomper can—”

A man’s voice breaks in. “Taylor Reed, get back on course, or you’re disqualified!”

That’s Mance Brunner, the director of the race. He’s also chancellor of Selene University. Very important person, and he knows it.

“Disqualified?” My own voice comes out as a mouse squeak. “You can’t disqualify me just because—”

“Get back on course, Reed,” says Brunner, less excited but harder, colder. “Otherwise, I’ll have no option except to disqualify you.”

I take a deep breath, then I reply as calmly as I can, “Sir, I am continuing on my own course. This is not a safety risk, nor is it grounds—”

He doesn’t even hear me out. “You’re disqualified, Reed!”

“But—”

“Attention all vehicles,” Brunner announces. “Taylor Reed in vehicle oh-four is hereby disqualified.”

None of the other racers says a word, except for Zeke Browkowski, who snickers, “Bye-bye, turtle guy.”

To say I am pissed off is putting it very mildly. Brunner never did like me, but what he’s just done is about as low and rotten as you can get. And there’s no way around it, he’s the race director. There’s no court of appeals. If he says I’m out, I’m out.

Stomper’s still clunking along, but I reach for the control yoke to turn us around and head back to Selene.

But I hesitate. Disqualify me, huh? Okay, so I’m disqualified. I’m not going to let that stop me. Brunner can yell all he wants to, I’m going to push through those hills and prove my point, even if it’s just to myself.

Janine’s voice comes back in my earphones, low and kind of sad. “I’m sorry, Tay. He was standing right over my shoulder. There was nothing I could do.”

“Not your fault, Janine,” I tell her. “You didn’t do anything to feel sorry about.”

But in the back of my mind I realize that if I have to go back Earthside, I’ll never see her again.

Well, disqualified or not, I head out for the Ranger 9 site by the most direct route: across the central hills.

They look like dimples in the satellite imagery, but as ol’ Stomper gets closer to them, those rounded, slumped hills rise up in front of me like a real barrier. They’re not steep, and not really all that high, but those slopes are worn almost as smooth as glass. There’s no air on the Moon, you know, and for eons, micrometeorites the size of dust motes have been falling in from space and sandpapering the hills.

I start to wonder if Stomper can really climb across them. There aren’t any trails or passes, just a jumbled knot of rocks rising from the plain of the crater floor. Sigurdsen tried going up them in a wheeled buggy back before Selene became an independent nation; he found the going too treacherous and turned back. Nobody’s bothered since then. There’s nothing in those bare, knobby hills that’s worth the effort.

I throttle down and shift to a lower gear.

“Easy does it, Stomper,” I mutter. “You can do it. I know you can.”

One step at a time, like a turtle on tiptoes, we pick our way through the jumbled rocks. I’m pouring sweat by the time we get near the top. Inside the space suit, you can boil in your own juices, you know.

“Are you singing?” Janine’s voice asks me.

“What?”

“Sounds like you were singing to yourself, Tay,” she says, sounding kind of concerned.

I realize I must have been humming to myself, sort of. An old folk song my grandfather used to sing, about a railroad worker named John Henry.

“I’m okay,” I tell her.

“Dr. Brunner’s really hacked at you,” Janine says. “He’s sore you haven’t turned back.”

“He’s gonna have to be sore a while longer,” I answer tightly.

Stomper clomps along up the worn old rocks, and we get to the top. Off in the distance I can see the crumpled wreckage of Ranger 9. I have to be even more careful going downhill, making sure each one of Stomper’s six feet is solidly planted with each step. No slipping, no sliding.

Easing my way down the hills is even scarier than going up. Ol’ Stomper lurches hard; for an instant, I’m scared that we’re going to tip over. But Stomper plants those big feet of his solidly, and we’re okay. Still, my hands are slippery with perspiration as I jiggle the throttle and the gearshifts.

We get down, back on the crater floor, and start thumping along as fast as we can to the Ranger 9 wreckage. Out on the horizon to my left I spot a hazy cloud of dust heading my way. It’s Zeke, in Dash-nine. The turtle has beaten the hare!

“Vehicle oh-four reporting,” I sing into my lip microphone. “I’m approaching the Ranger site.”

“Pay no attention to Taylor Reed,” Brunner’s icy voice answers immediately. “He’s been disqualified.”

Bastard! I walk Stomper right up to the crumpled remains of Ranger 9, under its protective dome of clear glassteel, and use the external arms to plant my marker by the old wreckage. Then I turn around and start for home.

I ought to slow down, I know. I can’t win the flicking race, I’ve been disqualified. So what’s the difference? But then I hear Zeke call, “Dash-nine at Ranger site. Starting my return leg.”

And again I remember that old, old folk song my grandfather used to sing when things got really bad. About John Henry, a black man who refused to give up. And I thought, I’ll be damned if I let Zeke Browkowski or Mance Brunner or anybody else beat me. I’ll die with a hammer in my hands, Lawd, Lawd.

“Come on, you ol’ turtle,” I mutter to Stomper. “Let’s get home before Zeke does.”

Stomper weaves through the hills again, and we’re back down on the flat. We clomp along at a pretty fair clip, but then I see Browkowski off to my right, a cloud of dust coming around the hills and heading straight for home.

It’s turning into a two-car race. I’m way ahead, but Zeke is catching up fast. I can see him in the rearview screen, a cloud of dust that’s getting closer every second.

I’m pushing too hard. Stomper’s middle left leg starts making a grinding noise. My control panel shows a blinking yellow light. The leg’s main bearing is starting to overheat.

I shut down the middle left leg altogether; just keep it locked up and off the ground. Stomper limps the rest of the way back to Selene’s main air lock. It’s a rough, jouncing ride, but we get there a whole two minutes, eighteen seconds ahead of Zeke.

Who is proclaimed the official winner of the race, of course.

I limp Stomper through the main air lock and into Selene’s big, cavernous garage, power down, and duck through the hatch. Five meters high, I can see the crowd gathering around Browkowski and Dash-nine: Brunner and Zeke’s older brother, the chief of maintenance, a bunch of other people. Even Janine.

Nobody’s waiting for me at the bottom of Stomper’s ladder except Harry, sitting in his powerchair and grinning up at me.

I’ll die with a hammer in my hand. The words to that old song kept ringing in my mind. I was dead all right. Just like ol’ John Henry.

Once I plant my boots on the garage’s concrete floor, I slide my helmet visor up and take a look at Stomper. His legs are covered with dust, even the middle left one, which is still hanging up there like some ponderous mechanical ballet dancer doing a pose.

“Better keep your distance,” I tell Harry. “My coveralls are soaked with perspiration. I’m gonna smell pretty ripe when I peel off this suit.”

He’s grinning at me, big white teeth sparkling against his dark skin. “I’ll go to the infirmary and get some nose plugs,” he says.

He rolls his chair alongside me as I clump to the lockers where the suits are stored. I take off the helmet, then sit wearily on the bench to remove my big, thick-soled boots. As I start to worm my arms out of the sleeves, Janine shows up.

I stand up, my arms half in the suit’s sleeves. Janine looks pretty as ever, but kind of embarrassed.

“I’m sorry you were disqualified, Tay,” she says.

“Not your fault,” I mumble.

She tries to smile. “There’s a sort of party over to the Pelican Bar.”

“For Zeke. He’s the winner.”

“You’re invited, too.”

Before I can refuse, Harry pipes up. “We’ll be there!”

Janine’s smile turns genuine. “Good. I’ll see you there, okay?” And she scampers off.

I scowl at Harry. “Why’d you say yes? I don’t feel like partying. ‘Specially for Zeke.”

“Chill out, Taylor,” Harry tells me. “All work and no play, you know.”

So we go off to the Pelican Bar—after I take a quick shower and pull on a fresh set of coveralls. The Pelican’s owned by some fugitive from Florida; he’s got the place decorated with statues of pelicans, photographs of pelicans, painting of pelicans. Behind the bar there’s a big screen display of Miami, the way it looked before the greenhouse floods covered it over. Lots of pelicans flying over the water, diving for fish.

The place is jammed. Bodies three, four deep around the long bar. Every booth filled. Noise like a solid wall. I take two steps inside the door and decide to turn around and leave.

But Harry grabs my wrist and tows me through the boisterous crowd, like a tractor dragging some piece of wreckage.

He takes me right up to Zeke Browkowski, of all people, who’s standing at the bar surrounded by admirers. Including Janine.

“Hey, here’s the turtle guy!” Zeke yells out, grinning at me. My hands clench into fists, but I don’t say anything.

To my total shock, Zeke sticks out his hand to shake. “Taylor, you beat me. You broke the rules, but you beat me, man. Congratulations.”

Surprised, I take his hand, and mutter, “Lotta good it’s done me.”

Still grinning, Zeke half turns to the guy standing next to him. He’s an oriental: older, grayer, wearing a regular suit instead of coveralls, like the rest of us.

“Taylor, this is Hideki Matsumata. He designed Dash-nine.”

Matsumata bows to me. On reflex, I bow back.

“You have made an important contribution, Mr. Reed.”

“Me?”

Smiling at me, Matsumata says, “I was certain that my Dash-nine couldn’t be beaten. You proved otherwise.”

I can’t figure out why he was smiling about it. I hear myself say, “Like Zeke says, I broke the rules.”

“You bent the rules, Mr. Reed. Bent them. Sometimes rules need to bent, stretched.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Glancing down at Harry, in the powerchair beside me, Matsumata says, “Today you showed that walking vehicles can negotiate mountainous territory that wheeled or tracked vehicles cannot.”

“That’s what walkers are all about,” says Harry. “That’s what I was trying to tell you all along.”

“You have proved your point, Professor Walker,” Matsumata says. But he’s looking at me as he says it.

Harry laughs, and says, “Soon’s we get that bad bearing replaced, Tay, you’re going to take Stomper up to the top of Mt. Yeager. And then maybe you’ll do a complete circumnavigation of the ring wall.”

“But I don’t have a job.”

“Sure you do! With Walker’s Walkers. I haven’t fired you.”

“The company’s not busted?”

Harry’s big grin is my answer. But Matsumata says, “Selene’s governing council has wanted for some time to build a cable-car tramway over the ring wall and out onto Mare Nubium. Walking vehicles such as your Stomper will make that project possible.”

“We can break out of the Alphonsus ring wall and start to spread out,” Harry says. “Get down to the south polar region, where the ice deposits are.”

My head’s spinning. They’re saying that I can stay here on the Moon, and even do important work, valuable work.

Zeke claps me on the shoulder. “You done good, turtle guy.”

“By breaking the rules and getting disqualified,” I mutter, kind of stunned by it all.

Janine comes up and slips her hand in mine. “What was it you were singing during the race? Something about dying with a hammer in your hand?”

“John Henry,” I mumble.

“Wrong paradigm,” says Harry, with a laugh.

“Whattaya mean?”

“The right paradigm for this situation is an old engineer’s line: Behold the lowly turtle, he only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.”

* * *

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Framed

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Jim Baen’s Universe Vol 3 Num 4

Table of Contents

SCIENCE FICTION STORIES:

Moon Race

Written by Ben Bova

Illustrated by Garret W.Vance

Pumpkin

Written by Bud Sparhawk

Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

Loki’s Net

Written by Marissa Lingen

Illustrated by Caroline O’Neal

Some Events At the Templar Radiant

Written by Fred Saberhagen

Illustrated by Dan Skinner

Shoresteading, Part Two

Written by David Brin

FANTASY STORIES:

The Gossamer Mage: Intended Words

Written by Julie Czerneda

Illustrated by Jared Blando

A Very Formal Affair: A Harry the Book Story

Written by Mike Resnick

Illustrated by Dan Skinner

CLASSIC:

The Moon Pool

Written by A. Merritt

Illustrated by Jennifer Miller

SERIALS:

SETI Library: Orbitfall

Written by Gregory Benford

Fish Story, Episode Fifteen: They Came from Beyond

Written by Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis, Dave Freer

INTRODUCING STORIES:

In the Light of the Hunger Moon

Written by Kevin J. Cheek

Illustrated by Kristina Gehrmann

Johnny Plays ‘Round Saturn’s Rings

Written by Jason K. Chapman

Illustrated by Maurine Starkey

COLUMNS:

Words Matter

Written by Mike Resnick

The Future of Reading

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Where Is Everybody?

Written by Ben Bova

Letting The Guns Bury Them

Written by Barry N. Malzberg

Salvo—Delayed

Written by Eric Flint

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Jim Baen’s Universe Vol 3 Num 4

Ebook

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First printing, December 2008

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-1932-0930-32

ISBN-10: 1932-0930-34

Copyright (c) 2008 by Jim Baen’s Universe

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Publishing Enterprises Publication

Jim Baen’s Universe

P. O. Box 7488

Moore, OK 73153-1488

Electronic version by WebWrights

http://www.webscription.net

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Contents

Pumpkin

Written by Bud Sparhawk

Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

Away from the station the wind was free. Out there, in the vastness that was Jupiter’s atmosphere, the wind hummed sweetly, bragging of its freedom to move. But when it encountered the sharp prow of the station it screamed as if angered by this barrier, this obstacle to its travels.

Jake Sands listened to the voice of the wind through the thick plating of the E-2 station. He could sense the power of the five hundred knot wind as it was split on either side by the station’s sharp prow. He could feel the raw force of the fierce wind that, were the station to become separated from the tether that held it to the synchronous station far overhead, would toss it—and all of its fragile contents—as if it were no more than a child’s beach ball. Jake listened as the wind spoke to him, listened to the voice of Jupiter.

“You’ve got that look again,” Marie said. She was nursing a precious cup of coffee in her hands, sipping the liquid gold slowly, as if it were the nectar of the gods.

Jake snapped the cap on his own cup of tea, the only drink he could afford. He carefully measured a spoonful of sweetener into the dark brown brew and added a dollop of ersatz cream to lighten it. That done he sat back and sipped it slowly so as not to burn his tongue.

“I heard weather reporting a storm heading this way,” Marie continued. “Figured that you’d be heading out, but wasn’t sure until I saw your face.”

“Am I that transparent?” Jake grinned as he took another sip. “And here I thought I was being old stone face.”

Marie grimaced. “Don’t kid around, Jake. Mining these storms is dangerous business. You should leave it to the kids.”

Jake snorted. “I’m a lot better than most of them. Hell, by the time I was their age I’d already worked the wind all the way around Jupiter three times. Isn’t a thing me and Pumpkin can’t do better than them; not a single damn thing!” He took another sip. “Besides, you know how much we need to mine the storms.”

Marie didn’t respond immediately. Everyone who worked in the stations knew how expensive it was to bring goods, especially raw materials, down the elevator from geo-synch. Every gram they could mine was one less they had to bring down. It was also one gram less dependence on JBI’s mining operations on Europa, Io, and Callisto.

Jake leaned forward. “Now, don’t get upset again, Marie. You know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to. Shoot, one day I’ll get lucky and find a big one. Then I’ll pay off my debts and get shy of Jupiter faster than the wind could carry me. Take you with me, I will. You can bet on it.”

“You keep saying that,” Marie replied sadly. “But every time you get a little ahead you find some change you want to make on that ship of yours. Tell me, have you made any progress on repaying the loan in the last few years? Or have you kept rolling over the loan to pay for the modifications?”

Jake hesitated. “I’ll admit that Pumpkin needs quite a bit of upkeep.” Then he grinned widely. “But then, she’s not a lot different from any other woman!”

Marie slammed her soft plastic cup down, which lacked the effect she wanted, and slopped the expensive coffee over the side besides. “Don’t make a joke about it, Jake! I nearly have a heart attack every time you say you’re going into one of these storms. I never know if you are going to come back.” She clenched her hands before her. “I don’t think I can take it much longer.”

Jake took her hands in his own. “Listen honey, Pumpkin‘s a good ship and I know what I’m doing. There’s no need for you to worry. Shoot, there isn’t a storm the old man can throw at us that Pumpkin and me can’t beat. Haven’t I always come back to you?” He squeezed her hands when she nodded. “And I always will come back, Marie. To you, darling. To you! You’ve got to believe that!”

Marie sniffed and pulled her hands free. “The problem is, Jake, that I don’t think I can really and truly believe that any more. I worry about you. I’m always afraid that something will happen, that I will lose you. I’m sorry, but I just can’t help the way I feel.”

“Man’s got to go where he can make some money,” Jake said. “Storm’s the only way Pumpkin and me can get the high payoffs. Hey, don’t I make enough to live on from what I find?”

“You could make a lot more if you’d run shipments or take passengers. You could even get a good station job with JBI.”

Jake paused, but only for a second. “JBI won’t give an independent like me any shipping contracts, not while they have their own huge fleet of transports. And you know as well as I that Pumpkin isn’t set up to handle passengers. Shoot, there’s hardly enough room for me and crew!”

“You could let the bank have Pumpkin and take a position on one of JBI’s stations,” she said quickly, not willing to concede.

“Huh, I’d sooner cut off my arm than let them turn me into one of their popinjays. Besides, they don’t like us old guys—want them young and pliant, they do. Shoot, can you picture me in one of them fancy uniforms, strutting around like I was somebody?”

“You’d look great in JBI blues.” Marie shot back. “And you aren’t that old; you’re only forty-five!”

“Yeah, forty-five and nearly broke. Which is why, with the payment on Pumpkin due next week, I’ve got to go after this storm. Now come on, give me a kiss for luck and let me go. I’ve got to check on that lazy crewman of mine.”

* * *

Rams, Jake’s sole crew member, was talking to the refit boss when Jake arrived at the shipyard bay. Both of them were wearing their pressure suits, which meant that they had either just come back in or were preparing to go out.

“Costing me time and money to let you two jawbone all day,” he grumbled as he approached them. “How’s the inspection going?”

Rams snapped to attention as if he were some damn JBI staffer. No matter how much Jake protested, Rams would not stop this silly routine. Jake half expected him to salute.

“Checks t’damn ‘all right!” Rams chimed in a singsong Jupe accent so thick that you could cut it with a laser torch.

The boss nodded agreement and shoved the clipboard into Jake’s hands. “Signed and certified by your crew, Cap’n. Double checked every item m’self, I did.”

Jake scanned the sheet. All the checklist items were neatly marked off. Apparently everything he’d requested had been done, or at least Rams had signed that they had. The evening before he’d personally inspected the internal systems work for himself, just to be absolutely certain it had been done correctly. “I’d like to put my own eyeballs on the deck fittings,” he remarked and pointed to three items in the middle of the list. “Wait here until I suit up.”

The boss blustered. “Look here, I have other things that—”

Jake turned and glared at him. “If I remember my rights, a ship’s not certified until its captain signs off, no matter how many crewmen think it might be.” He glared at Rams and the boss, defying them to contradict him. When neither replied, Jake stamped to the fitting room.

* * *

Pumpkin floated high in her berth. Her keel was fully retracted, leaving only the enormous bulb of her counterweight hanging beneath the smoothly rounded hull. Jake noted the deep scars on the surface of the bulb, each one a mark from the storms they’d weathered over the years. Similar scars on the nose of the ship itself had been erased as part of the refit. Jake nodded when the boss pointed out the fresh welds where the scars had been.

The boss wore one of the new suits, lightweight and flexible in stark contrast to Jake’s bulky, heavy, second-hand suit.

“You did a good job, there,” Jake admitted and pointed at the ladder ahead of them. “Now, let’s take a look at the topside fittings.”

Even at this altitude, still within Jupiter’s atmosphere, the effective gravity was just a bit more than two gees. Adding that to the weight of the heavy pressure suit made climbing the ladder a major undertaking, even for someone in good shape. Jake, long accustomed to working the under Jupiter’s heavy gravity, didn’t mind. Besides, the climb gave him an opportunity to inspect the hull’s sides.

The shiny new deck fittings stood out from the rest of the deck gear. Jake bent over one of the new blocks and checked to make certain that it had been fastened per spec. He carefully read the serial number off the block and checked it against his own manifest to be certain that the numbers matched. He’d ordered those blocks from the best fabricators in high orbit and was damn sure that these shipwrights weren’t going to foist some substitute off on him.

“Look here,” he said as he pointed at the mains’l shroud, the covering that protected the sails until they were deployed. “That looks like a cold weld—see how rough it is! I want that corrected before we leave. Smooth it out and show me the deep scans afterwards!” Nobody was going to abuse Pumpkin while he was around!

“You don’t need scans of that weld. It isn’t load bearing,” the boss protested. “That weld’s just decorative—to make the installation look smoother.”

“It might be,” Jake bit out. “But if a worker gets sloppy on something trivial then he’s probably sloppy where it matters. If I were you, I’d fire the slob who did this,” he advised.

* * *

Early the next morning, after another detailed inspection of the shroud, Jake made himself comfortable in the captain’s chair. The tell-tales on the status board all read green.

“Rams, is everything in order down below?” he shouted down the short corridor to the forecastle.

“Aye Cap’n,” Rams responded. “I even tied down the fine china and put away your best crystal.”

“Very funny,” Jake replied dryly. Four plastic cups and two bowls constituted their entire dinnerware.

He turned to the console and toggled the intercom. “Pumpkin is ready to go, Echo Two. Can you grant me clearance?”

“Pumpkin, this is Echo-2 control. Ready to accept the report, Jake?” It was Marie’s voice. He’d forgotten that this was her shift.

“Sure, Marie,” he responded laconically. He’d already gotten all of the weather information he needed before boarding, so this last bit of official folderol was pretty irrelevant.

“Weather reports the wind at one-twenty meters per second and falling,” Marie recited in a sing-song rhythm. “The storm’s about one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers away and moving south by southeast at about two hundred meters per second. Weather predicts that the center will pass about eighteen thousand kilometers to the north of the station.”

“Excellent. That will give me plenty of time to get into position to make at least a double pass as it goes by.”

Marie hesitated and then resumed her report. “Laminar wind flow of the Kilo Kilo and Lima Lima bands will be somewhat disrupted by the storm, but weather predicts no lasting effects beyond the double Kay bands. We do not advise …”

“You don’t have to say it,” Jake interrupted.

“We do not advise the northerly course you have filed,” Marie continued as if she hadn’t heard. “Please record your acknowledgement that you will not hold the station responsible for loss or damage as a consequence of your sail plan. Do you so acknowledge?” There was a barely concealed crack in her voice, as if she were hoping that he would not do so.

“I understand and acknowledge,” Jake said dryly, and then added; “Don’t worry, Marie. I’ll be all right. Done this plenty of times. Don’t worry.”

“I have recorded your acknowledgement,” Marie continued in her official voice. “You are cleared to depart.”

The huge clamshell hatches behind Pumpkin groaned ponderously open, exposing the ship to the whipping winds that howled around the station. Pumpkin bobbed and strained at the clamps that held her fast to the berth as the wind sucked at her stern.

“Pumpkin ready to depart,” Jake said as the little ship strained toward the opened hatch. “Goodbye, Marie.”

“Fair winds and good passage, Cap’n.” she replied with the standard sign off and then added in a rush. “Watch yourself, Jake. Come back to me.”

With those words she released the station’s clamps. Jake could hear them clang through the pressure hull as they released. Now, the only thing holding Pumpkin to the station were her own tie-downs.

“Ready for release,” he warned Rams as he tightened his own seat belt another notch. As soon as Rams acknowledged that he was secure Jake hit the release button. The retraction motor in the bow whined as it pulled the docking lines aboard.

Pumpkin drifted quickly backwards. The closer she came to the opening the faster she moved. In a matter of seconds the ship had accelerated so that the walls of the station whipped past in a blur.

Then Pumpkin was free. She slipped into the air stream and was tossed backwards, rocking and tumbling until her speed equalled that of the surrounding wind. The radar image of the station disappeared in the white hash from Jupiter’s constant electrical activity.

“I’m setting our course for sixty-five degrees,” Jake shouted over the rattle of the gear as Rams lowered the keel to stabilize them. “I figure that we’ve got three days to get ourselves into position.”

After Jake checked Rams’ work to make certain that the keel had been set properly, he activated the winch that pulled the mainsail out of the shroud and into the wind. The sail luffed for a moment until Jake forced Pumpkin‘s nose into the wind and tightened the main sheet. The ship heeled dramatically as the breeze caught and filled the sail, tilting them to a precipitous thirty-degree angle. As the ship leveled she drove forward, cutting across the prevailing wind at a steep angle.

A few minutes later, after he was satisfied with the set of the main, Jake deployed the small foresail and winched her as tight as she’d go, forcing the wind through the venturi formed by the tight angle between main and jib. With the additional sail area unfurled, Pumpkin increased her speed. On this course he needed to run as close to the wind as possible. Pumpkin ran smooth and true, as if she was grateful to be finally free.

“The barrier layer feels a mite rough today,” Jake said casually as he fought the wheel. The little craft was being tossed about in the turbulence at the boundary between the dense atmosphere beneath them and the relatively light air above them. There was continual turbulence between the layers, causing them to mix and tumble and make the boundary layer resemble the rolling, tempestuous seas of Earth.

* * *

Pumpkin raced toward the oncoming storm with hardly a hairsbreadth deviation from Jake’s carefully plotted course. When the inertial navigation system indicated that they were in position, Jake hauled the jib back, turned Pumpkin head to wind, and let the main fly free. Pumpkin rocked precipitously for a moment.

“This heave-to trick of yours always scares me,” Rams said nervously as Pumpkin began swinging wildly.

Jake laughed as the ship’s oscillations damped with each swing. “Don’t worry, Rams. Done this lots of times. She’ll run slow into the wind this way. All we have to do now is wait for the storm to come to us. Keep an eye on the manometer. Soon’s it starts to fall we’ll need to make ready.” That last instruction was just to give Rams something to concentrate on while they waited. He’d set the automatics to alert them long before the pressure gauge showed any sign of movement of the storm’s approach.

He was surprised at Rams’s reaction. In their few years together he’d taught Rams how to balance keel and ballast and how to adjust the buoyancy of the ship. He told him the secrets of playing the winds of Jupiter’s storms to capture its treasures. He had tried to teach Rams to love the wild winds of Jupiter’s wine-red seas. He wondered if his efforts had been wasted.

“I wish we could see what is happening out there,” Rams said wistfully.

“Sure, and I wish that I had a ship that was ten times the size of tiny Pumpkin, but wishes won’t make it so,” Jake said. “It’s black as pitch outside.” He didn’t need to add that the radar was useless; there was so much electrical energy around Jupiter that returns from more than a few tens of meters away was pure hash, impossible to decipher.

The echophones were more useful, although not in any way the designers of those systems intended. Jake had learned over the years that he could use the echophones to listen to the approaching storms. He’d learned that Jupiter’s winds had their own voice.

Sometimes the winds sang soft songs of the vast distances they travelled as they swept the vast planet, as if they were boasting of the millions of kilometers that had passed beneath their fleet feet. When Pumpkin was moving, he felt that the winds sang a slow song, one of gentle passages across the vast uncharted distances, of ports hundreds of thousands of miles apart, of long voyages where only the wind and the ship mattered.

When a storm approached the wind whispered hymns of power and majesty. There was a deepening to Jupiter’s eolian voice, a deep basso that seemed to say, “I am coming. I am coming to duel with you, pitiful little humans. I can crush your tiny craft, rip your very atoms apart and spread the pieces over a billion square kilometers. I could kill you in an instant!”

Jake knew that he and Pumpkin could best any storm. He’d acquired the skills needed to ride the updrafts and beat to weather in a hundred voyages. The ship might just be a tiny bulb of metal and plastic, but—unlike the storms—he could use his knowledge and skills to show Pumpkin how to ride the pressure waves and dance on the cyclonic winds.

“Come ahead,” Jake whispered to himself as he listened to the storm’s challenge. “Come and get me if you dare!”

* * *

Alarms shrilled within the cabin. Jake was off the bunk and onto his feet instantly. All traces of sleep vanished as he tightened his truss and worked his way back to the helm. Jake’s heart was pounding furiously. He could feel the rush of adrenaline, the nervous sinking in his stomach, the tingling of his entire body as the excitement of the storm’s arrival washed through him. This was what he lived for, the challenge of beating Jupiter’s furious storms, of the anticipation of great wealth that they would find, of the excitement of the moment. Nothing else equalled it. He was grinning broadly by the time he reached the helm.

Rams was already fighting the sails and the wheel. Jake noted that Rams had already lowered the keel to maximum length. Good. The blinking red light on the console told him that Rams had also started pumping ballast to give Pumpkin some more weight.

Their kilometer-long diamond fiber keel contained pipes and pumps to pull denser material into the keel to balance the force of the wind on the sail. Since it was always easier to lose ballast than bring more aboard it was wise to enter the storm with a full load. According to the indicators, it wouldn’t take long for the ballast pumps to finish.

“You’re showing her too much of our beam,” Jake shouted as Pumpkin heeled to port. “Let me take the helm!”

Jake slid into the seat and twisted the wheel. As Pumpkin turned he quickly adjusted the main, pulling it in as much as possible. He then tightened the jib. Pumpkin responded to the adjustments and slewed into her new heading, cutting into the storm and accelerating quickly.

Rams lowered the gain on the radar in preparation for their mining run. If the storm was carrying anything from down below it would show up on the short range radar display far brighter than the static.

Jake jibbed the ship from side to side, favoring always the side of greatest pressure and bearing into the teeth of the storm. Pumpkin‘s relative speed increased with each maneuver as Jake worked their way to the center of the raging arms that guarded the periphery of the storm.

“Down on Earth they’d call this a million year storm!” Jake shouted as Pumpkin rocked ahead. “Just a tiny little turbulence out here, eh?” He laughed as Pumpkin tilted from a sudden gust.

“I’d rather not be on Earth in a storm like this,” Rams admitted. “Too much open down there, I’m told. No protection against the wind at all.” He shivered visibly. Like most native Jovians he was most comfortable in the close confines of ship and station.

Jake laughed. “Grew up down on Earth. Didn’t come to work the old man until I was in my teens. You’d like Earth, Rams. Lots of pretty girls, plenty of fresh food, and air that doesn’t smell like damned ammonia all the time.”

“Nothing wrong with our food,” Rams protested. “Besides, what good are pretty girls to me? I am already married.”

Jake grunted. He’d hardly call Rams arrangement with a woman back on Earth a marriage. As far as he knew, Rams had only seen his bride in photos and never touched or spoken to her. Such were the ways of his people. He wondered wryly how they would ever have children; would Rams mail her a frozen specimen?

Pumpkin heeled suddenly as another gust hit. Instead of steady westerlies the fierce winds were now blowing the ship directly south. One look at the new heading told Jake that the storm was to their north, and passing them by. He had misjudged the track and sent them too far below the storm’s path.

Jake quickly released the wheel and spun Pumpkin about. He let the jib balloon wide and let the main swing to the opposite side. For a moment he could picture the titanium-strengthened sails whipping like soft silk in the intense breeze as they flew across the deck and then filled with the wind that was now to their back. Pumpkin tipped forward as the sails filled.

The wind drove the ship downwards for a few seconds until Pumpkin found her balance, steadied, then accelerated as she raced northward along the face of the storm. As they passed closer to the center of the turbulence the pressure decreased and they dropped lower and lower.

“Have to stay clear,” Jake said as a caution to Rams, but mostly as a reminder to himself. “If we fall into the low pressure at the center, we’ll lose too much altitude. Be a bitch to fight our way back.” He said it calmly, knowing full well that if they fell too far into the low-pressure center they could die. Without the supporting P12 layer they would fall forever until Jupiter crushed the ship as if it were made of foil.

But the risks of falling were worth taking. Close to the center were where the strongest updrafts could be found. Nearest the center were the vertical winds that brought the riches of the deep up to his level.

Metallic, ice, and stony meteorites dropped through Jupiter’s atmosphere until they reached a point where their density equalled their surroundings. At that point they floated, a sargasso of astronomical history. Any storm whose center reached down to that level wrenched them upwards and tossed them about. And, occasionally, the storm brought them up to where Jake could mine them.

There was a sound like raindrops on a metal roof. “That’s gravel hitting us!” Rams exclaimed excitedly. “Should I drag the scoop?”

“Wait a bit,” Jake replied with one eye on the radar. He didn’t want to waste his time on this early, tiny dross. Farther along, closer to the storm’s mouth, the gravel would be larger, the riches would be more plentiful. He made a slight adjustment to turn Pumpkin more toward the center and felt her drop noticeably.

The clatter of the gravels’ impact grew louder. A field of bright sparks glowed in the display; a decent radar return that meant that they were at least half a meter across. The rocks were prime size!

“Hit it!” Jake shouted and jinked the ship sideways as Rams kicked the release on the scoop. Pumpkin bucked as the wind hit the deployed netting. Jake fought to keep her on course, fought to keep her from falling into the center as he steered the sharp division between safety and certain death.

The stream of gravel didn’t seem to have an end. There was a continuous pounding on the hull. In a matter of moments their net was loaded to capacity and began to drag on the ship, slowing her speed.

Rams reeled the scoop’s harvest into the hold as Jake fought to work Pumpkin outward and upwards. He had to make use of the updrafts, skipping from one to the next while avoiding the even more fierce downdrafts.

The proximity alarm sounded a shrill warning. Jake glanced at the display and saw an enormous radar return. It was so large that it had to be nearly three meters across!

Jake spun Pumpkin‘s wheel, hoping to keep the fleeting phantasm in view. But the huge nugget disappeared from the display, leaving only the occasional sparks from gravel. “Did you see that?” he asked. “Did you see that big mother?”

“See what?” Rams said in puzzlement, looking up from the scoop controls. Apparently he had not been distracted from pulling the scoop aboard when the alarm sounded.

“We almost hit a big rock. From the way it reflected the radar it had to be pure metal, I’ll bet—a solid nickel iron meteorite! Damn, if we’d caught that one it would have paid off a big hunk of Pumpkin‘s debt.”

“Next time, for sure,” Rams said repeating the standard prayer of the storm miners. He really didn’t sound as if he believed Jake at all. “But for now let’s get out of here. I want to see what we’ve caught this time.”

Jake turned Pumpkin outward, away from the storm’s center, away from the tantalizing riches that he had just missed. The winds dropped and Pumpkin rocked along on a course to the nearest station.

* * *

Jake was upset. Not only had they barely made a profit from their catch from the storm, but, worst of all, none of the other miners believed him about the huge nugget he’d seen.

“Probably another miner’s craft,” one of them said. “Better get your recognition coder checked, Jake—else you might think a station’s one of them there Jovian whales!” The room had erupted in gales of laughter at that.

Their amusement was his own fault, he thought miserably, reflecting on the fact that he had exaggerated slightly on a few occasions in the past. He rose, took a bottle by the neck and stepped toward the joker. “You calling me a liar, Brian?” he muttered.

“I think it is time that we found ourselves something to eat,” Rams said loudly as he put himself between the two miners. “Captain, let us go.”

“You’ll see,” Jake shouted as Rams steered him away from his glowering adversary. “I’ll come back with the biggest damn hunk of rock anybody’s ever seen down here. Just you wait!”

“What shall we have to eat this evening?” Rams asked once they were away.

“Steak and gravy,” Jake replied grimly. “Best meal we can afford on what we made. Yes, station steak and gravy would be just the thing.”

* * *

“You the captain who brought that little ketch in last night?” a harried-looking man demanded as he approached their table.

Jake looked up from his plate of station steak and gravy—the cafeteria’s nightly special. A single glance took in the man’s expensive clothing, his neat haircut, and the pair of new, unblemished boots he wore.

“Pumpkin‘s a barque, not a ketch,” Jake said slowly, indicating by tone that he thought the man’s education sadly lacking. “And who the hell are you?”

“Pavel Grobbka,” the man introduced himself. He sounded as if he had other things on his mind. “Listen, I need someone to run me back to station E-2. I understand that’s your home port.”

Jake scooped another big spoonful of beans and chewed them slowly, as if they were pieces of the real steak he couldn’t afford. He swallowed his too-dry beans and then took a drink of cheap beer to wash them down. “I think you’ve got me confused with the JBI liner desk. They can sell you a ticket on the next packet ship out of here.”

“I can’t wait until next week,” Grobbka protested. “I have to get back to E-2 as quickly as possible. Listen, I’ll pay if you’ll take me right away.”

“Me and Rams here figured to spend a day or two resting up,” Jake drawled. “Might sail back the day after tomorrow.”

Pavel placed his hands on the table to bring his face level with Jake’s. “Tomorrow or the next day is too late, Captain! I really need to leave immediately! Tell me what you want to take me as a passenger and I’ll pay it.”

Jake pushed some beans and rice together with his spoon, moving them into a tiny puddle of thin pseudo-gravy. “Money’s not the point. Like I said; Pumpkin‘s not outfitted for passengers and, just in case you didn’t hear me the first time, I’m in no hurry to leave. Need my rest, you know.”

Pavel slumped into the extra chair and put his head in his hands. “But you’ve the only ship available. All the rest either have to be refitted before they can sail or are already cleared for someplace else. You’ve got to take me!”

Jake slowly savored a mouthful of the highly spiced rice that was mixed with his beans. “Life’s too short to be rushing about. What’s so all fired important that you can’t wait another week?”

“I have to get up the elevator to my wife,” Grobbka explained. “I was supposed to be back last week, but was delayed by … well, no reason to go into that.” He stopped for a moment and then said, almost too low to be heard; “I guess I’ll miss the delivery.”

Jake’s ears perked up. “Delivery? What; some big deal cargo coming in that you have to handle?”

The man smiled sadly, “In a manner of speaking. It’s my first child. My wife’s up in geosynch right now, waiting for her time. I … I was supposed to be with her.”

Jake wiped his mouth and finished the last of the beer. “C’mon Rams, we got to empty out the equipment hold.”

Rams choked on his beans. “Why? You told me to pack all the spare gear in there just this morning.”

Jake stood up. “Well, things change. Come on. We can’t expect our new crewman here to sleep on that pile of crap, can we?”

“Crewman?” Grobbka and Rams exclaimed.

“Well, sure,” Jake smiled. “I said that Pumpkin don’t carry passengers and she doesn’t. Crew’s another matter entirely.” He looked at their startled expressions. “Well, come on! We got a delivery schedule to meet!”

* * *

There was a celebration in progress at the Rat’s Nest when Jake and Rams wandered in. Surprise of surprises was that Marie seemed to be in the middle of the festivities.

“I passed my finals!” she shouted as she threw her arms around Jake and planted a huge kiss on his lips. “God, I missed you!” she added when they came up for air. “I was so afraid.”

“Didn’t I promise you that I’d be back,” Jake replied. “And I missed you, too,” he added.

Marie danced away and pulled him into the circle of fellow celebrants—all station people, Jake noted.

“Great news, isn’t it?” remarked a tall black man. “Master Marie Monarimi. Has a certain ring to it.”

“She’ll have a station of her own within a month or two, you can count on it,” said another—Jake thought his name was Toma, a guy who shared watches with her.

Marie sneered. “Not likely. I’m tenth on the list, which puts my station a year or more away.”

Toma shook his head. “I heard that fabrication is launching two new stations a year, Marie. You might move up that list faster than you think.”

“Yeah,” the black man said. “I think a few of the old hands are ready to rotate back to Earth. Cross your fingers for luck!”

Jake wondered if it were true. Was it possible that Marie would be leaving E-2 to manage one of the floating stations that circled Jupiter with the winds?

* * *

“You’ll come with me, won’t you?” Marie said when they reached the privacy of her quarters. “I can support the both of us on a master’s salary. You wouldn’t have to mine the storms any more. You wouldn’t have to put yourself at risk so much.”

“Still have to make the payments on Pumpkin,” he said slowly, as if pointing out the obvious. “No sense letting the ship go when I put so much into her.”

“You could get a station job—I could authorize that.”

Jake shook his head. “Don’t know much about station tending. Besides, what would happen to Pumpkin if I had some kind of job?”

“Well, for starters, you could stop thinking about that damned ship of yours and start thinking about us for a change. Jake, I want you with me when I get my station. I need you with me when I go.”

“Pumpkin has to be moored at one of the tethered stations, you know that,” Jake continued, oblivious to her protests. “Can’t mine the storms without adequate weather data and the tethered stations are the only place I can do that.”

“Forget mining the fucking storms!” Marie screamed. “You won’t have to do that once I start drawing a master’s pay. You won’t have to sail that stupid barque of yours. You won’t have to do anything but be there for me!”

Jake stood up abruptly. “So you want me to be a damn lap dog? I’ve always paid my own way and always will. Spend your master’s pay to buy a cat or something if you want a pet. I’ll have no part of it!” With that he stomped out and made his way to where Pumpkin was berthed.

The ship’s bunk was especially cold, hard, and lonely that night.

* * *

Rams woke him the next morning. “I saw Master Landston having breakfast with Marie in the dock cafeteria,” he reported. “Did you two have an argument again?”

“Keep your nose out of other people’s business,” Jake bit back as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Marie’s a grown woman. She can eat with whoever she wants.”

Rams looked thoughtful. “Ah, I see. You did have an argument, didn’t you?”

“I think you need to repack the sails, Rams. Wouldn’t be surprised if it took you all day to do that.”

Rams was taken aback. “You will not be helping me.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“No, I think I need a bit of breakfast myself. Guess I’ll wander over to the cafeteria and see what they have that might interest me.”

Rams smiled as he pulled on his work gloves.

Marie was sitting in a corner of the cafeteria when Jake arrived. She was freshly showered and wore a clean uniform that was in stark contrast to Jake’s rumpled bearing. There was a half-empty cup of tea before her. Landston was nowhere in sight.

Jake sat down. “Good morning.”

Marie stared at him. “Do you think that you can just walk in here and act as if nothing happened last night?”

“Missed you terrible,” Jake said and gently stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Maybe we both need to forget about the future for a little bit and let things settle themselves out.”

Marie pulled away. “No, that’s what we do every damn time! I can’t just let things drift any more, Jake. I want to know what sort of future we are going to have. I want to feel confident about what we can build together, and that means that I can depend on you next week, next month, next year.”

“Sorry you feel that way,” Jake said slowly. “After you been down here in the old man as long as I have you’ll realize how little control we really have over the future. Storm could blow that station of yours off of its track so’s you could never find your way back. Ships go out and get lost, broken, destroyed by a storm or maybe have some other mischance. You plan too far in advance and you’re bound to be disappointed. Future’s a chance happening here on Jupiter, not something you can depend on.”

Marie chewed her lip. “I can’t live that way, Jake. I need someone I can depend on. I want somebody stable—someone willing to invest time and energy in a relationship. Damn it, Jake; I want to know that my man is going to try to stay alive for me and not rush off into every damn storm that comes along!”

“Now, you don’t really mean that, do you, darling?” Jake smiled widely as he drawled out the words. “Nobody puts as much time and energy into a relationship as old Jake. Come on, let’s go home and make up.”

Marie stiffened. “Don’t try to wheedle me into bed, Jake. Stop that,” she pushed his exploring hand away, but gently. “I really shouldn’t let you touch me. Ouch! That pinched!” She aimed a slow swing at his chin, which he easily deflected and pulled her closer. “Damn you, Jake. Damn you to hell and back!” Marie said as she returned his kisses with increasing fervor. “But first, let’s get you a shower and a shave.”

Rams had the entire sail set repacked by the time a smiling Jake returned.

* * *

Marie was excited when she got off shift and burst into their quarters. She shook a flimsy in Jake’s face. “Why didn’t you download the mail today?” she demanded. “Look! Look what came! This is important!”

Jake snatched the flimsy from her waving hand and tried to read it in the dim cabin light.

“It’s an offer of a contract with JBI!” Marie exclaimed before he could finish reading the tiny text. “Someone over at corporate has actually offered to give you a long-term contract! They want you to make speed runs between stations for high priority shipments.”

Jake scanned the address block and recognized the name at the top. It was that Grobbka fellow, the one with the pregnant wife. Apparently this must be his way of repaying the favor.

“Looks like tight schedules, constant demand, but the pay could be good,” Marie said excitedly as she danced around the room.

“Pays not good, but adequate,” Jake said slowly. “You know that JBI won’t give a small shipper like me top rates. I’d probably get all the shit jobs they don’t want.”

Marie sat in his lap and threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t you see? You can do this. No more storms. No more putting yourself at risk. It’s a good, safe way to keep Pumpkin.”

“Maybe,” Jake admitted slowly. “But, before I reply I think I need to talk this over with Rams and see what we’d have to do to the ship. Might need some more modifications, you know. Could be costly. Cargo take different equipment.”

“Then get another loan,” Marie laughed. “Hell, I’ll even pay part of it. Oh, Jake. I do love you. Now we can be together. Now we can have a future!”

“Together don’t come with making freight runs,” Jake corrected her.

“But you will always come back, won’t you,” she said smugly. “I’ll know that you’ll always come back to me!”

* * *

A month later Pumpkin had been refitted. Jake had them widen the hatch to the scoop bay, which was now the cargo hold, and replace the heavy-weather sails with a set of standard issue. The new sails would allow Pumpkin to make speedier passages, provided they stayed out of the heavier winds.

The contract required a number of safety modifications that would make the barque less agile. Jake had protested, but let Marie and Rams overcome his objections. He might be able to carry higher value cargo, they argued, if he complied with JBI’s safety regulations.

“First shipment’s due in two days,” Rams announced breathlessly as soon as he returned from the Factor’s Office.

Jake looked up from the satellite shots and rubbed his chin. “Look here,” he pointed at a spot of turbulence at the edge of the KK band. “There’s a big storm due around that time. Supposed to pass real close, just northeast of us.”

“Not a problem,” Rams replied quickly with a flashing smile. “According to the manifest we are to be heading southwest, in the opposite direction, completely out of the path of the storm. We are so lucky!”

“Just the same I’m going over to weather to take a look at the raw data myself. Never did trust those pointy-headed weather people to make a decent prediction. Want to get a good look at this monster for myself.”

Jake knew how to read the signs of Jupiter’s weather, having figured long before the scientists had put an equation to it that the depth of a storm was a function of its radius and its angular speed. The higher the product of the two numbers the deeper it would pull up the stuff that floated below, where even the five hundred million tons of meteorites that rained onto Jupiter each year were light enough to float. Jake could look at the first satellite pictures of a forming turbulence and decide whether it was worth the trouble to mine its depths. This gave his a clear advantage over the others who waited until weather confirmed Jake’s instincts and therefore arrived too late or found themselves in the wrong position.

Rams came back from dinner to find Jake arguing with the yard boss. The heavy canisters of their new sail sets were lined side by side on the dock floor. Four of the stevedores were swinging Pumpkin‘s old heavy-duty sails into the sail locker.

“What is happening?” he asked as he ran to Jake’s side. “Why are you changing the sails?”

Jake finished giving the boss instructions and turned to face Rams. “It’s the storm!” he said with rising excitement in his voice. “Rams, I’ve never seen a storm this deep. It’s the biggest, widest damn thing that the old man has ever boiled up! From the satellite pictures I figure that it must go at least two thousand kilometers deep. This one is going to bring up stuff that we’ve never seen before—it’s going to be the richest haul we’ll ever make!”

“But what about the cargo?” Rams cried. “We must make the run tomorrow when the shipment arrives down the elevator! Whatever shall we tell the JBI?”

“Screw JBI and its stinking cargo!’ Jake shouted. “Didn’t you hear me? This storm is the big one! This storm is going to make us rich beyond belief! Now, come on, get a move on. We have a lot to do if we’re going to set sail this evening.” He turned to shout more instructions at the stevedores as Rams stood with his mouth agape.

* * *

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Marie screamed when she arrived at the dock, oblivious to the dock hands that she left scattered in her wake. “Are you out of your mind? What about the contract? What about the cargo you promised to carry? How can you think of going after some stupid storm at a time like this?”

“Rams shouldn’t have called you,” Jake said. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“What’s to understand, you fucking idiot! You have obviously lost whatever brains you had. Weather is screaming that we should think about evacuating the station because of the size of this storm. Everybody with an ounce of sense is sailing away from the path of the storm and here you are, rigging that miserable excuse for a ship of yours so you can go right into the monster’s mouth! Lord, Jake, you must be out of your freaking mind!”

“Like a fox,” Jake said with a smile. “Storm this deep’s got to pull tons of stuff up from below! I just wish I could convince more miners to go with me—this one is going to make us so much money.” His voice trailed off as he caught Marie’s expression.

“Come on! Think of it, Marie; you won’t have to be a station master. I won’t have to worry about paying off Pumpkin. We can live a life of ease on what I’ll mine from this one. When I get back we’ll be free and clear for life!”

“So you won’t stop this foolishness?” Marie asked in cold, measured tones. “You really are going to go through with it?”

Jake took her by the shoulders. “Why aren’t you listening to me, woman? This is my big chance. This is the storm that will let us get away from Jupiter once and for all! One final run, Marie, let me take this one last grab at the golden ring. Let me show everyone what Pumpkin and I can do!”

Marie looked at Jake, stared into his eyes for a long time and then turned away without saying another word. She walked slowly off of the dock.

“Aren’t you going to wish me luck?” Jake shouted after her.

* * *

Rams was easier to convince than Marie, but still it had taken a promise of one quarter of whatever they found to get him to stay as crew.

“Pumpkin out at 1545,” he radioed as they exited the dock.

“Fair winds, Cap’n,” was the master’s automatic reply as he released the clamps. The station was nearly deserted save for a caretaker staff working at triple overtime rates. Even with a reduced crew the master hadn’t deviated one iota from the standard departure checklist. Jake had fumed as he ran into block after block until, finally, he had filed a fictitious sail plan just to get out before the storm passed them by.

Whatever else the master had to say was lost in the hash of white noise as Jupiter blanked any hope of electronic contact with the station. The radar display lost the station a few moments later as the wind ripped Pumpkin from the station.

“Course set for 280 degrees,” Jake said aloud as he made further adjustments to Pumpkin‘s sails, trimming the small ship to race ahead of the prevailing winds on a broad reach. With luck he could get far enough ahead of the approaching storm to tack northward into direct line with the storm’s predicted track.

Then they just had to wait until the monster came to them.

For the past six hours Pumpkin had been drifting along, cutting back and forth from 350 north to 160 south. Rams noted the difference in headings and remarked, “Pumpkin‘s got a slight inclination to weather, Cap’n.”

Jake snorted. “Yeah, thanks to those damned JBI safety changes. Glad we have our old sails back, though. Couldn’t work out the storm with those flimsy ones they wanted us to use.”

The leading edge of the hurricane touched Pumpkin with a gentle kiss of a breeze—an abrupt wind change to the southeast. Jake turned Pumpkin eastward and ran for another hour and then tacked back. This time the heading was 320, which meant that something was seriously altering the prevailing wind.

“Get the weather sail ready to hoist,” Jake instructed. “And get a second set of lines ready to deploy. If we lose the sail we’ll have to get another one out there in a hurry!”

“Aye, Cap’n,” Rams replied.

Pumpkin was being buffeted by even heavier breezes, if 200 mps winds could be called breezes. Still, it was light wind compared to the ones they would feel farther in.

Jupiter’s swirling hurricanes were fed by thermal disturbances deep within the atmosphere, far below the relatively thin atmosphere surrounding Pumpkin. Within the storm were thick bands where the heated air ascended to the cool crown of the storm before sinking into the depths. Pushing the rising and falling air masses were the rotating winds. The rapid rotation of the planet gave these hurricanes a sideways thrust that drove them onward.

Jake knew the structure of the storms, could tell where he was in the stack by listening to the roar of her winds through the sonar, through the echophones, through the strumming tone of the rigging as it strained against the wind.

Pumpkin‘s tendency to weather grew more pronounced as they encountered heavier winds, forcing Jake to fight the jib and main against the natural pull of the wheel. She wanted to turn into the center, to head right for the most dangerous part of the storm where they would be carried down to depths. But Jake held her back. He steered a course that took them gradually down as they progressed inward. He wanted to get far enough in that he could ride the heavy upwellings closest to the center—that was where they were most likely to find the flotsam from the depths.

The first pass yielded little. They detected lots of small gravel, objects that ordinarily would represent a lucky find, but which Jake insisted were just a teaser. Jake maneuvered Pumpkin within the upwelling, steering in a tight circle that brought them to the outside edge of a thermal just as it crested.

Jake swung the main and pitched Pumpkin on a steep heel as they raced away from the center, cutting the oncoming wind at a twenty-degree angle. They ran on this course for an hour before Jake jibed and beat his way back inward, downwards, into the storm.

The third pass was the lucky one. Rams nearly screamed as the radar display flashed with a brilliant spark. “Damn, she’s nearly as big as a house!” he yelled as he fumbled for the net release. Jake swung the ship to track the find, spilling the wind to hold his speed down to that of the nugget.

The alarm rang again as a second time as a second spark appeared to their stern. Rams nearly had the scoop deployed, which made Pumpkin steer like she had a sea anchor out. Jake pulled in more sail to hold their speed.

“Hate to ignore that one,” he yelled. “Ping them with the sonar to see what we have.” If the rock they were trailing was metallic then it would ring when the sonar hit it. Rock and water meteors usually absorbed the ping.

“Listen to that!” Rams yelled and turned the loudspeaker up as far as it would go. The return sounded like a huge church bell.

“The nugget must be pure iron!” Jake screamed, dreaming of wealth beyond imagining. “Try the other one!” The response was the same.

Jake thought quickly. If he could back wind just enough to get behind the second rock, then they might be able to close and capture both of them. The hold would just have enough room for the one, but they could sail home with the rock hanging below them in the scoop. It would be hard sailing, but well worth it.

The maneuver worked perfectly. Rams was able to winch the first one aboard and deploy the net a second time in the time it took to catch up with the original target.

Pumpkin bucked as they drew nearer to the rock. Jake fought the wheel. The additional weight of their find made the ship wallow like a whale. He couldn’t get nearly the speed he wanted from the sails, it seemed. It was those damned safety features that restricted the set of the sail, he knew.

* * *

“Something is wrong,” Rams reported from his station at the radar display. “The rock appears to be dropping.”

Jake stole a glance at the display and grunted. “Maybe the wind is subsiding. Does that sometimes.” But at that moment Pumpkin pitched forward. He had been concentrating so much on capturing the rock that he hadn’t realized that they’d reached the top of the stack. The sudden drop meant they were now pitching down into the mouth of the storm. If they didn’t act quickly Pumpkin would be lost forever!

Jake pulled the sail in and turned the ship to weather, hoping to catch a breeze that would provide enough power to pull them out of hazard. But Pumpkin lumbered in the wind, scarcely increasing her speed.

“This does not look good, Cap’n,” Rams said quietly, which meant he was seriously worried.

Jake ignored his pessimistic crewman. “We’ll have to work our way outward, towards the downdraft’s wall. Then we can transition to the updraft, if we’re lucky, and start making our way out of here.”

“I fear we are already too deep, Rams replied, pointing at the inertial. “I doubt anyone has recovered from this depth.”

Jake smiled. “Well, even Jupiter can’t produce a storm that me and Pumpkin can’t beat. Hang on, Rams. This is going to be a hell of a ride!”

The next ten hours were a maddening fight of wind and sail. Pumpkin rocked from side to side as Jake tacked ferociously to take advantage of every shift in the winds. At one point they rode upwards so swiftly that they could actually feel the acceleration. But their hopes were dashed minutes later as Pumpkin dropped precipitously to her original depth.

Rams and Jake took two on and two off at the wheel trying to get a little rest in the rocking ship. It was during one of these rest periods that Jake felt the keel rock violently, which made the hull ring like a gong.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed as the ship slewed around in a complete circle. The radar alarm rang shrill in his ear as the display lit up in a shower of sparks.

Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. They were floating in a field of rocks as large as or larger than the one in their hold. He had been right; this storm was bringing material from the depths like none before. These were riches beyond measure.

Pumpkin continued to ring. “The keel’s hitting the damn rocks,” he yelled. “Take us to port. No, don’t do that! Luff the sails instead—we need to get out of this mess!”

Rams spilled wind as best he could and Jake watched the sparks disappear from the display. Pumpkin regained her balance and the vibrations from impacts on the keel damped.

They continued working their way outward.

They were on the port tack of a circular course when they encountered the outer edge of the downdraft. The first indication was the hammering and buffeting of Pumpkin‘s sails, which made the rigging clang against the hull.

Jake was prepared, had been prepared for this for hours. He hauled the sail close, tightened the jib, and threw the wheel hard over. Pumpkin pitched and heeled, nearly lying on her side as she was whipped around by the turbulent winds of the barrier layer. Every loose piece of gear rattled around the ship, smashing from side to side, bow to stern. Jake watched a cup roll toward the stern as Pumpkin tipped bow upwards and go in the opposite direction a few seconds later to smash against the navigation

The circular course they were sailing was of an opposite sense to the one on the other side of the barrier layer. This meant that they’d reached the periphery of the rising stack. Jake tried to steer Pumpkin to where he hoped the strongest updrafts would be.

The radar alarm was sounding so constantly that they had to shut it off to concentrate. Never had Jake seen such an accumulation of junk in a storm. He tried to imagine the devastation that the base of the storm was causing at the bottom of its funnel. Huge pieces of junk pulled up and tossed about as if they were nothing, rocks the size of a ship flying about. It was incredible to think of the forces involved.

Yet here he was, he and Pumpkin, fighting the wind, fighting the storm, drawing on its strength to survive. Instead of controlling them, it was they who controlled the forces of the storm. The feeling of power, of winning was overwhelming. It made him feel so alive!

With a laugh that drew a sharp look from Rams he cut the wheel and turned Pumpkin closer to the wind. Yes, they could even dare the center of the tornadic updraft.

Then Pumpkin rocked as if she had run aground and bucked like a rodeo horse. “We lost our main,” Jake screamed as his tell-tales blinked red. “Let the jib go!”

But it was too late. The jib tore loose and her leads rattled against the hull, beating a fierce tattoo. Pumpkin pitched and yawed as if she were nothing more than another bit of flotsam on the winds of chance.

“We are sinking again!” screamed Rams. “We have to dump that load.”

“No!” Jake shouted. “There has to be some other way out of this!” But he could not think of anything as Rams stared at him, expectation written on his face. Did the boy think he could create miracles? What the hell did he think he was, anyway?

“Drop the load,” Jake said with resignation. “And pray.”

With the ship lightened it bobbed higher and higher until it finally reached some relatively calm air. As soon as the violent pitching stopped Jake and Rams squeezed into the sail locker and shifted a new sail set into the shroud housing, attached the control lines, and made their way back to the helm.

Pumpkin tilted with the wind as the sails emerged, then rolled slightly and cut across the face of the wind. Jake sullenly maneuvered them across the storms tearing arms, fighting always against being sucked into the downdrafts, and avoiding the buffeting winds between the arms.

The storm had carried them so far that it was a fourteen-day voyage back to the station. A fourteen-day trip during which Jake could think only of the riches he had seen, and those he had lost.

* * *

Marie was standing at the hatch to the docking bay when Jake emerged. One look at the dark expression on her face was enough to tell Jake that he was not going to get a hero’s welcome.

“Your shipping contract has been canceled,” she said. There was an angry undercurrent clearly evident in her voice. “Pavel went way out of bounds to help me and you threw it right back in his face.”

“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Jake asked, amazed that she expected him to be thinking about some stupid shipping contract after what he had gone through. “We barely escaped with our lives!”

Marie continued as if she had not heard him. “The contract was canceled because you decided to make one more run at this stupid, risky storm mining. They found someone else to do it.”

“What did you mean about Grobbka doing this for you?” Jake said. “I thought he was repaying the favor, not …”

But Marie didn’t let him finish. “What the hell were you thinking about, Jake? How the hell could you throw our future away like that?”

“I was thinking about our future,” Jake shot back. “If we hadn’t had a string of bad luck I would have been far richer than a hundred stupid, dull JBI contracts. Anyhow, I can always make those runs between storms once I get Pumpkin fixed up right.”

Marie snapped. “You stupid fuck-up! You’ll never get another chance like the one you threw away. Nobody wants to deal with someone they can’t depend on!” She kicked at the deck in anger. “Damn it, Jake. You’ll never get that stupid ship of yours paid for, never be out of debt, never be anything except a flat-broke sailor until the day you die, which will probably be in one of those storms of yours.” There was a catch in her voice. Tears were streaming down her face. “Jake, this was your chance to be somebody.”

“Marie,” Jake said as he moved to give her a hug.

Marie stepped backwards. “No! You’re not going to sweet talk your way out of this, Jake Sands! I’ve let you slide by a hundred times and every time I think I can trust you, you slip away and risk your freaking scrawny neck. I can’t do it any more. I can’t go through my life wondering if the next storm will be the one that kills you. I can’t live with that kind of uncertainty. I just can’t,” she finished in a weak whisper. “Oh, Jake. I just can’t.”

“But this was the big one,” Jake tried to explain. “We snagged a huge metallic hunk that must have massed at least two tons! And there were other pieces just as big—bigger! If we hadn’t lost the sail we would have brought it back. Think of what that nugget would have brought us, Marie. Think of how much money that would have produced! Lord, it would be enough to pay off my debts, buy my way out of Jupiter, buy our way out of Jupiter for good and all!” He held his hands out as if impeaching her belief.

“They assigned me to a new station while you were gone,” Marie replied flatly. “I ship out to commission it next week. I’ve already packed my stuff to go. You can come or not, but not as a miner—never as a miner! I won’t have it any other way.”

Jake chewed his lip. “Pumpkin needs repairs and weather says there’s probably another storm behind this one. Maybe, if we can get refitted in time, Rams and me can snag those nuggets we lost. The next storm will probably bring them up again. Yeah, once we catch those we’ll have our ticket out of here.”

“Don’t you see what is going to happen, Jake?” Marie said, shaking her head and backing away from him. “You aren’t ever going to get rich.”

“But I know that I can do it this time,” Jake protested. “I know that Pumpkin and me can do it!”

Marie stood stock still for a moment more, tears streaming down her face. She took half a step toward Jake, stopped, hesitated a moment more, and then took a deep breath. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before speaking.

“You’ll never learn, Jake. I don’t know why I’ve believed you all those years. I guess I’ve been a fool for a long while, too long, perhaps. But no more. This is goodbye, Jake. Goodbye!” With that she turned on her heel and stomped away without looking back.

Jake stood where he was as she walked away. He knew that all he had to do was shout and she would come back. All he had to do was call her name and she would come back. He knew that all he had to say was “All right,” and they could stay together.

But he said nothing as she disappeared through a hatchway.

* * *

A few days later Jake stood in the vee formed by the prow of the E-2 station, listening to the voice of the wind through the thick plating. The power of the five hundred knot wind was a palpable presence here in the prow. He could sense the wind’s energy despite the thick armor that separated him from the outside. He could hear the wind calling to him. He could hear the voice of the storm as she called him to her bosom.

Marie will get over her mad, he thought as the sound of the howling wind washed over him. She will come to him once he got Pumpkin‘s loans paid off. All he had to do was get the big one that was out there, waiting for him. That’s all he had to do.

Meanwhile, Pumpkin was waiting. She was eager to dive into the storms once again. She was waiting for his hand on her helm. She was waiting for him to fulfill her destiny. The storm was calling.

Rams found him a few hours later. “Marie just left,” he said slowly. “We all wondered why you weren’t there.” He hesitated. “She cried,” he added simply.

“Just a short separation,” Jake replied. “Couple of months. After I grab the big one we’ll get together again.”

Rams shook his head. “I don’t know, Cap’n. She said some really bitter things when I brought your name up—words I do not like to use.”

“Don’t worry about it, boy. Now, forget Marie. Weather tells me there’s a nice storm coming. If we’re lucky maybe we can catch those rocks we dropped. That’ll show them that old Jake isn’t full of gas—that the big stones are really out there for the taking!”

Rams hesitated. “You are not going to go after those shipping contracts?”

Jake spit on the deck. “Hell no! We can make more with one rock than we could with a hundred years of JBI’s best shipping contracts. Pumpkin‘s made for the storms, boy, not hauling canapes and toilet tissue.”

“There are some ships on the block,” Ram said. “JBI is decommissioning some of the smaller craft—uneconomic to operate, they say. Grobbka says if I had one he might reconsider that contract.”

“Waste of time and effort,” Jake said, wondering why Rams had taken it upon himself to intrude in his affairs and why he’d thought he’d even consider partnership in some low-ball shipping contract. “I know those ships—not worth a damn in heavy weathers. Good for the blue-suit boys, not for people like us.”

“I looked at one of them—the Primrose,” Rams said. “Maybe I could …”

Jake exploded. “Listen you fool; what are you going to use for money? Doubt if JBI will let one go on credit, especially to some miner’s crewman. Look all you want, Rams, but don’t get your hopes up. Ship’s expensive, even at salvage prices.”

“I have saved some funds,” Rams countered. “Then there is the share you promised me. Perhaps that will be enough for a down payment.”

“Sure it will, and I’ll sell you a barrel of Jovian whale blubber for what is left over. Now, come along—we have to get Pumpkin ready. We have to push off by evening tomorrow.”

* * *

They were sixteen thousand kilometers out of the station when they detected the edge of the storm. Jake pulled them into position and let the storm’s arm pull them toward the center.

“Primrose is a fine ship,” Rams said as they fought the jib into position. “And for only three million down I can have her.”

“Where are you going to get that much? Even if you saved every centime I ever paid you, you’d still be short two million and a hell of a lot more!”

The alarm shrilled moments before the patter of incoming gravel rang through the hull. Jake cut across the scattering of stars on the radar display until they had fought clear.

“First Bank of Jupe will advance me one and a quarter against earnings on the contract,” Rams continued. “And the Hespera Group promised the same. Watch it!”

The bright spot on the display grew quickly as it raced by the ship. “Big sucker,” Jake observed. “Nearly as big as that one we lost. Let’s get in deeper and see if there are any more like that one.” Pumpkin heeled over as he tightened the main.

“This is not a good idea,” Ram said worriedly. “We are already farther down than we should be. We do not want to repeat the last time, do we?”

“Got to go where the big ones are,” Jake replied. “So, how did you manage to get two banks to cooperate on a loan? Most bankers are tighter than a storm jib.”

Rams blushed. “They do not know of each other,” he admitted. “I did not think it important that they should be bothered by all the petty details.”

Jake guffawed. “Kiting a loan! Well, there is promise for you yet. Hell, you might even make it, providing you stay out of jail. Here we go!” He pointed at the radar display where several sparks were emerging from the hash of white noise. “There they are. Ready the scoop.”

“Aye, sir!” Ram replied as Jake steered the ship to intercept. “They ping metallic,” Rams exclaimed with rising excitement. “We will be rich!”

Jake jounced Pumpkin to the side, bringing the scoop directly in line with the largest rock. As they made contact Pumpkin shuddered violently. “Must mass a couple of tons,” Jake remarked as he held the ship steady and Rams drew their treasure into the bay.

“I’ll call this one Marie,” Jake said quietly. “For luck. Now, where’s the next one?”

Rams looked around with an alarmed look on his face. “Another one? Isn’t this enough? Let’s take what we have and get out of here before we get into trouble.”

Jake laughed. “No problem. Got us out of worse than this, just in case you don’t remember. Come on, Rams, let’s run with the luck while she’s with us.” He steered toward a second spark.

Rams disengaged the scoop and deployed it again, casting their net in Jupiter’s seas. He watched the display with fascination as Jake closed on the second target.

Contact! This time Pumpkin shook and tipped downward. Something in the forward compartment broke loose and crashed against the deck. Rams felt the ship sinking.

“What the hell?” Jake said as he fought with the helm. He threw the switches that released the ballast in an attempt to stop their descent. Pumpkin‘s descent slowed, but did not stop.

“Dump the rock!” Rams screamed. “It’s too heavy. It’s pulling us down.”

“Can’t imagine what it could be to mass so much,” Jake swore. “Probably worth a fortune—enough for you to buy Primrose and have enough left over for a barque with your share!”

“I don’t give a damn about that,” Rams replied. “I want to live! Forget the money. Just get us out of here.”

“Wait a bit,” Jake said. “I know I can get us back. These two rocks will give me enough to fix Pumpkin up proper!”

“So you can spend more time out here in the storms? That’s not much to look forward to. But then, I guess that’s all you’ve got,” Rams said bitterly.

Jake started to reply and then stopped. What else did he have to live for? Pumpkin gave him a lot of pleasure, and fighting the storms for their treasures was a rush like nothing else.

But he was, as Marie had said, getting up there in years and, to be perfectly honest, the storms weren’t nearly so exciting as they were frightening. If it hadn’t been for the promise of these huge rocks he probably would have gone with her. Somehow, right now, dying in the depths with a fortune in tow didn’t seem quite so satisfying as he’d expected. Maybe Rams was right—he didn’t have much of a life now that Marie was gone.

He jiggled the ballast switches. “Damn, we’re empty!”

Rams reached over and put his hand on the release. “I’m going to drop the rock, Cap’n—it isn’t worth our lives.”

“Do that and you’ll never sail with me again,” Jake threatened. “You’ll never get another mining berth, so help me.”

“Sorry,” Rams said and threw the release. “But I no longer wish to pursue a mining career.”

Jake cried out as Rams fired the releases that dropped the net. “I’m taking the cost of that scoop out of your share,” he declared angrily. Rams had no right to throw away those riches.

Pumpkin rocked suddenly, heeling hard to port, turning completely around, and coming to a dead stop. The tell-tales indicated that the sails were filled with wind, but when Jake tried to turn the craft the sails stayed in the same position.

“Check to see what’s jammed the rigging,” Jake said. “I can’t move the sails.”

Rams turned on the deck camera, which was ordinarily used only for docking, and scanned the deck. Something was wrapped around the winches and tangled the boom. “I don’t know …” he began and then stopped. There was something familiar about those lines. “It’s the scoop! The damn scoop’s blown back into the rigging, Cap’n!”

Jake swore. Pumpkin was continuing to sink in the downdraft, but slower than before. He had to get the rigging clear if they expected to get out of this.

“Should I dump the other rock?” Rams asked. “Maybe lightening the ship will help us.”

“Are you crazy? That rock has to be the biggest nugget anyone has ever found! Solid metal, Rams, think about that—it’s worth a fortune. Maybe enough to help you get that ship.”

Rams hesitated. “Fortune is not good to us down where we are heading. Come on, Cap’n; let me dump the load.”

Jake locked the wheel in position and made certain that the sail winches were as well. Then he stood up, leaning against the slope of the steeply inclined deck. “Watch the ship. I’m going out.”

Rams blanched at the thought. “You can’t do that! The winds out there … “

Jake didn’t let him finish. “I have to cut the sail loose. Even if we dropped the rock we still couldn’t steer worth a damn. Now, come and help me suit up. We’re wasting time jawing like this.”

* * *

Jake checked the safety line twice before he climbed out of the hatch onto the deck. One slip on the steep cant of the deck and he’d plunge several thousand kilometers while simultaneously cooking from the heat. His suit would become a pressure cooker, basting him in his own juices as he was slowly being crushed.

But he didn’t dare think about that right now. He had to get that damned netting off the rigging. He struggled to the stern, where the net had snagged on the aft winch housing. With every second step he hooked one of the safety lines to a tie-down and released the trailing one until he finally reached the winch.

He fired up the cutting torch, which threw a harsh blue-white light into the darkness surrounding him. The hard, armored strands of the netting resisted the torch for a moment, glowing through red to orange, then white and finally parting in a shower of sparks as the portion of the net flew into the void.

Jake carefully worked his way forward, staggering as an occasionally strong gust hit the locked sails and tilted the ship. He fell once, but the safety lines held so he was able to recover his footing.

The next tangle was wrapped around the end of the boom and the main sheets. From the way they ran he wasn’t sure if cutting them at the closest point would clear the sail. Once he severed the net near the deck he would have no way of getting to the parts that hung on the end of the boom, which hung over the side of the ship, well beyond his reach.

At the limits of his light he could just barely make out some netting stretching forward. Perhaps it was tangled somewhere toward the bow. He began to make his slow way forward.

Sure enough the net was caught on the short docking boom just below deck level. The problem was that, with the ship canted over so far, the boom was pointing nearly straight down, under the ship.

Jake thought fast, calculating the configuration of the net and ship. If he could loosen the portion on the docking boom and then sever the part on the sheet, perhaps the wind would pull the net away from the boom. Sure, and all he had to do was dangle on his safety line, swing under the ship, cut the netting loose, and climb back up—doing all of this under two gravities and wearing a pressure suit that weighed more than he did!

It was impossible.

No! Wait a minute, Jake thought. What if he cut the rear line first? Then he could come forward and work on the docking boom. Once the net was free the ship would right itself and he could walk up the deck. Sure, it wouldn’t be that hard. Piece of cake, as Rams would say.

The struggle back was even more difficult than before. Must be getting tired, he thought as he clicked the safety line in place. The only good thing was that he didn’t slip.

The tangle of net was more complex than the one at the stern. It took him nearly an hour to sever the last strand.

“Try to haul the main in,” he told Rams through the intercom. A moment later he saw the main sheet tighten. It began to vibrate visibly.

“Hold it there,” he yelled. “I don’t want to be up here if that line parts.” With that much strain on the main sheet it would whip around like a scythe, clearing the deck of anything that got in its way. He’d once seen a breaking line cut right through a man once, back in his construction days. The man’s torso went flying off into the black while his legs stood there, held in place by the safety lines.

Jake worked his way forward. He was getting awfully tired, moving around in the heavy suit. His arms and legs felt as if they weighed a ton. All he wanted to do was rest. But rest was impossible: They had to save themselves from sinking further and Rams wouldn’t know what to do. He had to keep working on the problem. Damn, was his age finally starting to tell on him?

When he reached a point just above the docking boom he began rigging his safety lines. The jib was stretched tight so he had to go under the jib sheet, over the fairleads track, and then down the side. He estimated the length of line he needed to play out, gave himself a little slack and then started to crawled slowly backwards down the sloping deck. The torch clanged against his side with every move.

Jake placed his feet on the fairleads track and grabbed the jib sheet with both hands. Beneath his feet was the empty void, a black pit to forever. From this point on the only thing that would hold him to the ship were the two safety lines. It didn’t matter that they were tested for one hundred times the load they had to bear, they still looked awfully thin and insubstantial.

Jake took a deep breath, removed one foot from the track, and leaned backwards, over the deep dark. With a brief prayer he let go of the sheet and felt himself fall, swinging out and down, falling into the night.

SNAP! His fall was arrested with a suddenness that snapped his teeth together. Then the side of the ship was swinging toward him as he reached the top of his swing.

Jake reached desperately for a handhold, grabbing a double strand of the netting to prevent himself from swinging back. The weight of the suit pulled on him, trying to rip his grip loose. Jake pulled himself upwards with all of his remaining strength, thrusting an arm into the netting to hold himself in place.

He rested for just a moment, dangling from the netting with his legs swinging free. Then he grabbed another handful of net and swung his legs to propel himself toward the boom where the net was anchored.

His arms felt as if they were on fire by the time he reached his objective. His fingers were starting to cramp and his forearms shook with the effort. He clamped himself to the boom and let himself hang for a moment, letting the blood rush back into his hands, letting his muscles rest.

But only for a moment. He unhooked the torch, prayed that there was enough gas left, and fired it up. The flickering light played tricks on his eyes as he cut though the multiple strands of netting. He was careful that none of them would entangle him when they came free.

He was working on the final strand when something hard hit him on the side. He glanced down and saw a glittering scar on his suit where the impact had scraped the paint away. Damn, just his luck to run into a pile of gravel at this point! If that piece had hit his helmet it would all be over—for him, for Pumpkin, and for poor Rams. He applied the fierce flame of the torch with sudden urgency.

As the final strand glowed orange Jake braced himself. When it let go the ship was going to swing violently and, even though he was belayed to the boom, he was going to suffer the consequences. Well, nothing to be done but ride it out, he thought and continued cutting.

The net let go with explosive force, disappearing instantly. Pumpkin dipped further for a moment and then rocked back upright, twisting forward and to starboard.

Jake, at the end of the short boom was tossed over and up, swinging in a complete circle before he slammed against the boom and blacked out.

When he came to, Pumpkin was riding level and he was lying atop the boom. He grabbed his safety lines and managed to pull himself erect. He stood on the boom to bring his head level with the deck. He tried to pull himself up, but didn’t have the strength. He’d spent all of his energy getting Pumpkin free of the netting.

He looked up at the edge of the deck illuminated by his helmet lamp. So near and so impossibly far. Was this how it was going to end—with him lashed to Pumpkin, like some latter day Ahab, plunging into the depths with his obsession? Well, he couldn’t think of a better way to go.

Still, he had a few regrets. One, he’d be taking Rams with him, which was a shame, because the kid had a lot of good years ahead of him. Then, he’d not be seeing Marie again, and he really owed her an apology for being such an idiot. She was right and he’d known that. He was too old for this business. He’d pushed his luck too far, once too many times. Well, for what it was worth, she’d probably be happy knowing she was right.

He toyed with the idea of releasing his line and opening his suit. It would be a certain death, messy, but quick. Better that than slowly roasting as they descended. He reached for the clamp.

Then something happened. Perhaps Rams had somehow perceived his plight. Perhaps some vagrant wind had taken Pumpkin. Or maybe Pumpkin had decided to take matters into her own hands and heeled to starboard.

Suddenly the side of the ship became a gentle slope, one that he could easily climb. He took a double handful of safety line and worked his way up to the deck and crawl back to the hatch, carefully alternating his attachments as he went. He wasn’t so tired that he ignored common-sense precautions.

Rams was waiting inside the hatch and helped him remove the heavy suit. Jake lost no time in taking the wheel to bring the ship into the wind. He noted that Rams had already done so, which made him reevaluate his opinion. Maybe the boy had learned a thing or two.

Yeah, and that wasn’t the only thing he’d learned.

* * *

Marie was curious when she got the call from the docks that Jake had arrived. There had been no storms nearby in the past month, nor had weather predicted any new disturbances. What then, could have brought Jake this far away from his home station? And on board a packet ship at that.

As she headed down below she hoped that he hadn’t come seeking some sort of reconciliation. That he hadn’t come with hopes of sweet-talking her into bed, worming his way back into their old relationship. All that was behind her—she had mourned him for weeks and waking up in the morning without him was finally becoming bearable. She would not allow him to open that door again. No, she was stronger now. She would make her position clear, just as she had when she told him goodbye.

But all that certitude vanished when she saw him step out of the hatch and walk across the deck. She felt the cold icicles of her resolve melt in the heat of his smile, the snowbank of her supposed indifference disappear and reveal buried memories of the good times they’d had. So help me, she thought, if he so much as touches me I will start to cry. She bit her lip and tried to strengthen her resolve. There would be no contact, no excuse for letting him steal her heart again.

Jake stopped two paces away from her and smiled. He fumbled in his jacket and pulled out a pink sheet. He handed it to her without a word of explanation.

Marie took the pink sheet and stared at it without comprehension. There were some words on the paper—standard bill of sale—complicated words that didn’t make sense. There was Jake’s name and Pumpkin‘s in big letters. Down at the bottom was a big stamp that said “Paid in full.”

“Sold her,” Jake said keeping that idiotic smile on his face. “Figured you’d like a honeymoon trip to celebrate.”

“I don’t understand,” Marie said. “Trip?’ She did a double take. “Did you say ‘honeymoon’?”

“Yep, I finally got the big one. The rock we brought back assayed out as pure nickel—worth a bloody be damned fortune! Finally had enough to pay off the loan and a lot more. Now we can get back together and …”

“We don’t have a future, Jake,” Marie said slowly as she handed the sheet back. “I thought I made that perfectly clear—no storm mining, no Pumpkin.”

“Now wait a minute there. I’m offering to take you up the elevator for a nice zero gee honeymoon,” He said as he held up two tickets. “Then we can come back down, set up housekeeping and get back to normal. It’ll be like old times, only without the arguments over Pumpkin.” He stepped forward and held out his arms. “Come on, Marie,” he said softly. “Pumpkin‘s gone for good.”

Marie hesitated and felt her body moving forward, ready to surrender itself to those familiar, warm, embracing arms that she knew so well. It would be so easy to say nothing, to go along with Jake’s plans, to enjoy the vacation from the heavy pull of Jupiter and to have a man to share her bed once more.

But she stopped herself. “No,” she said. “I’m not going back to that old relationship. And it wasn’t just your ship. It was the stupid risk-taking, the storms, the uncertainty. I told you before—it’s the storms or me—take your choice!”

Jake dropped his arms. “That’s a hard choice, darling. But you mean more to me than any storm does.” He hesitated for a moment, held out the pink sheet once more, and smiled again. “All right. Pumpkin‘s gone and my storm mining days are over. I figured that’s the only way you’ll have me.” He reached for her.

Marie threw herself forward and embraced Jake. “Oh Jake, you have made me so happy. I know how much you loved that old ship. Oh, this is going to be so wonderful.”

“Yeah, wonderful,” Jake repeated as he kissed her again and again.

He just hoped that she would be as understanding about his new ship.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Loki’s Net

Written by Marissa Lingen

Illustrated by Caroline O’Neal

It was easy to forget that she was just one woman, when she was on the set alone. But the minute the story was over, when the cameras stopped rolling and the audience began to cheer, Beth could see the woman in the star, her boss, Nora Larson.

And Nora was not happy.

“You were fabulous,” Beth assured her. “You were stunning. I never knew the Hopi had such fascinating stories.”

Nora raised an eyebrow at her.

Beth said, “They’re still cheering. You’re going to have to take another bow.”

Nora sighed, squared her shoulders, and strode back on stage, smiling broadly and waving at the audience. Her long, pale hands were famous, and when she lifted one in greeting, the audience went wild.

When Nora could finally stop bowing and get backstage again, Beth was ready with her coat. “The characters felt so real,” said Beth. “I forgot you weren’t some old Hopi grandmother.”

Nora grimaced. “I didn’t.”

“But your audience always feels—”

Nora sighed. “You’re really sweet, Bethie, but my audience will take what I give them. I can’t rely on them for my standards. I have to keep things up, up, up.”

“I know,” said Beth.

They settled into the limo before Nora asked. “Any news from the Loki Project?”

“No,” said Beth. “Nothing yet.”

Nora sighed. “Nothing from the P.I.?”

“No.”

“Then we’re on for the Loki story tomorrow night?”

Beth looked away. “Yes.”

Nora slept in the next morning, and by the time she went onstage that night, she was positively glowing. It was easy to see why she had made story-telling a popular art again, why star-struck twelve-year-old girls wanted to grow up to be Nora Larson. She made herself part of the story, and nobody much cared what the story was. Her blue eyes were captivating enough.

“Loki fled Asgard, the hall of the gods, because he had killed Baldr, brightest and best-loved. He ran to the mountains, to Franang’s Falls, where he could look out in all four directions. He looked to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west. But the only god who saw where he had gone was his wife, loyal Sigyn, and she held her peace.

“Loki began to tire of keeping watch for the other gods. Even he could have too much of paranoia. So he used his shape-shifting talents to buy himself some hidden freedom. He turned into a stag and ran through the forests. He turned into a billy goat and climbed to the highest mountain peaks. But on the land, he had to avoid Geri and Freki, Odin’s wolves.”

As Nora spoke, the backdrop changed, from a vague gray through abstract versions of all of the settings, the forests, the mountain peaks, the sky above them.

“He turned into a hawk and soared on the highest thermals. But there he had to avoid Odin’s ravens, Hugin and Munin.

“So Loki turned himself into a salmon and took refuge in the cool rivers, where his foster-brother’s creatures could not follow.” Nora’s hands captivated with subtle salmon movements.

“But even in the form of a salmon, he was not a salmon, but a trickster, and as there was no one else around to trick, he turned to tricking the salmon. Gradually, he noticed what kind of snares tempted the salmon, what patches of grass felt best to their scales, what patterns of water suited them best.

“Then he turned back into his natural form and fashioned the most effective salmon net ever devised. It was ingenious, perfectly designed to delight a salmon’s senses until it was too late to escape. But when he looked up from his work, he saw the other gods storming up Franang’s Falls. He had been caught.

“Loki threw the net into his cooking fire and dove into the river, transforming himself into a salmon just before he hit the water. The other gods thrashed around in water up to their waists, churning the surface into a fine froth, but they could neither find nor catch the wily Trickster.”

Nora paused, still for a moment after the motion of the escape.

“While the rest of the gods went for their impromptu swim, Bragi, the god of the bards, examined Loki’s cottage for clues on how to catch him. He saw the net smoldering in the fire and ran to the god-churned river to get water to douse the flames. The net had fallen into ashes, but Bragi insisted that the other gods leave him quiet and still until he made a drawing of the shape of the ashes.

“He took the drawing to Brokk, the best craftsman among the dwarves. ‘Can you make this for me out of ropes?’ he asked.

“Brokk cleared his throat and hemmed and hawed and finally allowed as how he could. Then he started to haggle on the price. Bragi raised one harp-calloused hand. ‘It will ensnare Loki,’ he said.

“Brokk made the net for free.

“Thor took it to the river. He laid on the bank like a peasant fisherman, with the net dangling down into the water.” Nora leaned, demonstrating with a splayed cat’s cradle motion how the net would hang from Thor’s broad, calloused hands. “Loki came to see it there. He still had the mind of a god, but layered on top of it, teasing at its corners, were the instincts of a salmon. And the net looked just as cool, just as tickling, just as inviting as he’d hoped.

“And so it was that the gods caught Loki. But what they did when they had him—well, that is a story for another day.”

Nora’s shoulders slumped as soon as the cameras went off, worn out by her performance. Her special assistant, Beth, ran to meet her with a sweater and a cup of steaming apple cider. Nora had hired Beth for her seemingly psychic ability to find what Nora needed, and she was almost never disappointed.

“They won’t know you’re talking about Reese,” said her producer. “They’ll think it was just another of your crazy stories.” Ted had always been thin and nervous, but the last few months had made him thinner, and he made rooms hum with energy.

Nora sipped at her cider. “The ones who need to know, will know. Reese will know. And the rest like my crazy stories.”

“God only knows why,” Ted muttered. “When are you going to do another indram, Nora? Or at least straight drama—I read this script the other day, and I really think you could—”

“Reese is my project now,” said Nora serenely. “And I’d like a status report, please.”

Beth massaged Nora’s shoulders. “Nothing has changed since you went on. Except, perhaps, that the investigator is getting annoyed.”

Nora sniffed. “I don’t pay him to get annoyed. I pay him to find Reese.”

“He doesn’t seem to have added the annoyance to his itemized bill.”

“Good. See that he doesn’t. I’m going to want to talk to Dr. Lee in about half an hour, all right, dear?”

“I don’t see why this Reese is so important,” said Ted. “You can already take as many memory pills as you want to get into character.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “My dear Ted, you are nearly infallible as a producer, but your science knowledge is sadly limited. Reese was developing a nanodrug that would let me really have someone else’s memories as they experienced them.”

“Whereas the pills—”

“The pills help me to remember the same events, but as me. As a woman, in her late thirties, an actress, from a quiet family, all of that. I can’t get rid of any of it. I can’t say what it’s like to be you, Ted. I can’t say it in the most basic physical sense, what it’s like when you get an erection, when your balls itch, any of it.”

He stared at her. “You want to know what it’s like when my balls itch?”

“You’re so literal. No. I want to know what it’s like to be male. I want to know what it’s like not to be Nora. All the stories I tell are mine. I want to tell other people’s.”

“What if they don’t want their stories told?” asked Beth, too quietly.

Ted steamrolled right over her. “And you think this detective is going to help you get there?”

“I think he’ll help me find Reese again. The rest of it may be under Dr. Lee’s control already.”

“Do you know that this detective is reliable?” asked Ted.

Nora smiled as sweetly as she could. “Ted. Darling. He’s a private investigator. Of course he’s unreliable. But he’s well-paid, and that, for the moment, is the important thing.”

* * *

Beth made polite small talk with Andrew Frydeck, the private investigator, but she kept glancing at the door. Nora was late. Finally, she excused herself and wandered out to the lobby. She looked around.

“Miss Larson will be here momentarily, miss,” said the maitre d’. “She called from the car and said that they were only a few blocks away. She thought you’d be getting impatient with Mr. Frydeck and requested your indulgence.”

“Of course,” said Beth automatically.

She turned her attention away from the maitre d’ and watched the door to the hotel. Sure enough, Nora strode through the revolving glass door a few minutes later. Her well-fitted, short red dress made her look like a jewel in the ornate setting of the lobby.

“Bethie,” she said. “I thought you might be a little nervous. It’s all right, sweetie, he likes you.”

Beth blinked. Sometimes she understood why Nora felt she needed the Loki Project: she didn’t seem to be able to see things right under her nose. “No, he doesn’t. And I don’t much care about him, either. Nora, I know you do things your own way, but I think we need to move on to another—”

Nora waved her hand. “Never mind that, dear. I have news. Let’s sit.”

Andrew greeted them with grudging cordiality. Nora ordered for all of them, approving Beth’s wine choice with a quick nod.

“I have to be frank with you, Ms. Larson,” said Andrew, buttering his bread with quick motions.

“That’s what I pay you for.”

“I’ve run into dead ends everywhere. I have no idea where your man is. Nobody in this town knows, or else they’re not willing to say. And I can’t find anywhere else that he lived. I don’t like to give up on a case, but—”

“Oh, I don’t think we’re at the stage where we need to give up yet,” said Nora. She thanked the waiter absently for her salad. “I have new information soon to become available.”

Beth tensed up.

“Reese wrecked his lab pretty thoroughly, as you both know,” said Nora. “But Dr. Lee and his students have gone over it with a fine-toothed comb, and they found all sorts of interesting residues. It’s very hard to destroy nanodrugs thoroughly. The hard part was getting the substrate right for dosing the human subject—namely me.”

“Well, congratulations,” said Andrew. “I’m not going to ask how much the FDA knows about this; I’ll just wish you luck. And since you’ve achieved your goal, I’ll just be—”

“Oh, no,” said Nora quickly. “Dr. Lee and his students are years away from being able to make different nanobugs. They can reproduce this one, that’s all. We need to find Reese in order to know how to make more.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. Dead ends are dead ends.”

Nora frowned impatiently. “I don’t think you understand. Reese was his own subject of the transfer into the nanobugs. He didn’t want to test the transfer process on anyone else, and we had a group of volunteers lined up for the testing. Anyway. They’ll be his memories. If he remembers coming up with the essential science in the ‘bugs, then we can stop looking for him—although it would be a pity, he’s a great scientific mind.”

“Or we wouldn’t have hired him,” Beth added.

“Exactly. But even if that’s not in the memories, there may be a lead in them. I want you to be at the facilities so that I can dictate his memories to you as soon as I’ve experienced them. While they’re still fresh. And then you can use anything in there as a new lead.” She beamed beatifically at them and stabbed her salad with renewed interest.

Beth watched Andrew carefully.

“Well,” he said. “That’s, um, that’s quite something. Good to hear. Yes. Definitely good to hear.”

“Have you talked to Ted about how this will affect your schedule?” asked Beth.

Nora said, “No, you can do that.” Beth pulled out her PDA and made a note into it. Nora looked at Andrew. “So you’ll be there.”

Andrew sighed wearily. “Sure.”

* * *

Nora had chosen to have the new nanodrug administered in her house, and the sitting room outside her bedroom served as a waiting room for Beth and Andrew. She knew they were waiting out there. She could take her time.

She needed it.

She took the nanodrug early in the morning and settled in with a big book of Finnish folktales to wait for it to take effect. If Reese had been there, Nora would have asked him what she could expect, how long it would take, how it would feel, how she would know it had been effective. She wasn’t sure he knew, but she was certain nobody else did.

It had been an hour, sitting quietly in bed, before she started to feel something around the edge of her brain. It was a bit like a caffeine buzz, but without the energy. Nora laid back against her pillows, weary and restless.

There was something else there. Fragmentary images began to compose themselves, but there was a more important sense of disorientation. She wiggled her shoulders, and they didn’t go as far as they felt like they should. There was a phantom sensation between her legs, there, and then gone.

But in her head, the phantom edges remained. She had a sense that something was missing, a sense of loss. She tried to grab for it, but it eluded her more than once. Then the clear memory: sitting on a stool, broad shoulders, flat chest, hair everywhere. A penis. She twisted, frowning.

Nora knew this was something she wanted to do, but she felt constrained, transgressive, shameful. The details started to come back, all in a rush, with the shame. She wept, fighting the shame and the constraint. She pushed through it. She was Nora, not Reese, not anyone. Nora.

She whispered her own name a few times and felt her body, poking hard at all the crevices. “Nora, Nora, Nora,” she said. “Right here. Nora.”

She paused. “And I’m right.”

She signaled that the doctor could let Beth and Andrew in, and she prepared for it.

Nora was sitting up in bed when the door opened, stretching charmingly in her robe. Her hair was tousled as it would have been from sleep. She had carefully schooled her face into neutrality, and she grasped for the memory fragments. They came together firmly this time. She looked at the clock. It had been more than an hour.

“I had the most beautiful dream,” she said, laughing prettily. “You were there, and you were there, and—” She broke off and peered at Beth. “Now, that’s interesting. You were there.”

Beth sat down in the bedside chair rather abruptly.

“He was in the lab, taking a break, and he was sitting down on one of those uncomfortable stools he had.” She wiggled, frowning despite herself. “Everything was weird. I mean, my shoulders, everything. I really felt like … I don’t know, like someone else.” She stared off into space.

“That was the point, yes?” asked Andrew.

“Yes,” said Nora, gathering her thoughts again. “Yes, that was the point. And Reese thought about getting away, to this house with mountains in the background, and he thought about you, Beth. Now, why was that?”

Beth started to cry. “He didn’t want to!”

“Didn’t want to what?” said Nora. She was trying to make her voice gentle, but it didn’t entirely work.

“To expose his thoughts, his innermost psyche!”

“The things that make him himself,” said Nora thoughtfully. “Yes.”

“He thought it was terrible,” said Beth. “He just wanted it to stop. So he came to me.”

“And you helped him.”

Beth braced herself for the tantrum to come, but Nora simply said. “I see. Well, I’ll call the accountant about your severance pay. Andrew, please take notes. The mountains had bushes on them but no trees. The house itself was gray, with… .”

* * *

Nora talked for almost an hour and a half, trying to get all of the memories of being Reese recorded. Then she sent Andrew away to do his detective work. She drove herself to the studio and recorded three new stories before she went to bed that night. She tossed and turned for two hours before getting up again and dialing the phone.

“Beth? Why don’t you hold off talking to the accountant, all right?”

Beth blinked at her sleepily. “I’m not fired?”

“Reese isn’t fired. Why should you be fired?”

“Because he’s essential and I’m a glorified secretary.”

“Evidently I haven’t been glorifying you enough,” murmured Nora. “You’re good at what you do. I’d miss you if you stopped doing it.”

There was a silence on the other end of the phone. “What’s gotten into you?” Beth finally asked. “I’d have told you to fire me, if it was me. I helped him destroy his work!”

“I got it back,” said Nora.

“Yeah.”

“Bethie, do you know the rest of the story of Loki?”

“I haven’t really had much time for—”

Nora sighed. “It’s all right. Listen. His loyal wife Sigyn was allowed to hold a bowl over his face to keep venom from dripping on it, while the other gods tormented him with a giant snake. Every once in awhile, she’d have to move the bowl, and the venom would drip on him.”

“I see.”

“I don’t mean to do that to you and Reese.”

“But you will?”

The picture stayed so still and the line so quiet, Beth thought Nora had put her on hold. Then the other woman shrugged convulsively. “Ask yourself that in a few weeks. Me, I don’t know.”

Beth shared the silence with her for awhile. “You know, I don’t know where that house is, in the mountains.”

“I know. If I thought you knew, I would have asked.”

“What if I wouldn’t tell you?”

Nora shrugged wearily. “Andrew will find it.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will. Reese did his job well enough, there’s really no avoiding it. I got too much detail, too much memory. Too much of what it’s like to be Reese.”

“And you’re using that.”

Nora laughed mirthlessly. “Oh yes. Without even hesitating.”

* * *

Andrew spent two days investigating the new details Nora had given him and then flew to Nevada. “No guarantees,” he said.

But Nora was ready to go the minute he called her. She was on the plane to Las Vegas the next morning, to Ted’s dismay but not surprise. Andrew picked her up at the airport in the Volvo he’d rented on her dime. She didn’t even notice that it wasn’t a compact—typical, he thought.

“How far out is it?” she asked.

“Two or three hours. Clear out in the sticks. There’s no guarantee that this is it. We may not find him there.”

“I’ll know when we get there,” said Nora. “I’ll find something, even if it isn’t him.”

They drove across the desert in the midday sun. Her blonde hair shone almost painfully. She turned on oldies radio and sung along with No Doubt, absentmindedly. Andrew shook his head. “I would never have pegged you for a Gwen Stefani woman. Too punky.”

Nora shook her head. “Don’t go thinking you know everything. I know I don’t.”

He carefully did not ask why she still acted as if she did.

They didn’t speak again until they turned into a long driveway.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed.

“Yes?”

“This is the house,” said Nora. “I’m sure of it.”

“It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here,” said Andrew.

She raised a scornful eyebrow. “And if you were hiding, you’d make sure it looked like someone was at home? This is the place. Let’s go in.”

“What if nobody answers the—”

“Break in.”

“Oh, no.” Andrew looked at her, expecting a fit, but she was implacable.

“If you don’t do it, I will.”

“How would you know how to pick a lock?”

Nora smiled enigmatically. “Nobody starts out a wildly successful actress, Andrew lad. You don’t get this far without a touch of ruthlessness.”

“More than a touch.”

She shrugged, not wanting to argue. The part of her that had been Reese nodded emphatically inside her head. She got out of the car and half-ran up the steps, with Andrew at her heels. The door was open.

“You take the downstairs,” she said. “I’ll go up.”

“This is the last thing,” he told her again. “After this, I don’t work for you any more.”

“That’s fine. Just search the downstairs.”

The house was silent and, as she expected, devoid of furniture. It was not dusty. She climbed the stairs as if she was coming home. She knew she had never been there before.

Nora checked each of the bedrooms and bathrooms, ritually. No one. She stood in the window, looking out at the setting sun on the barren mountains. The hairs on her arms prickled. She turned around.

There was a man standing behind her, backlit by the setting sun. For a moment, Nora thought it was Andrew, but he was too slight, too worn. “Reese?”

He stepped forward and gave her a tired smile. “Well? You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She faltered. “It wasn’t what I expected.”

“No, I know that.” They stood in silence for a few moments. “What was it?”

She took a deep breath. “A whole different world.”

“I thought so. But—here you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“It didn’t change you.”

She laughed. “It changed me.”

“No, but, I mean, you didn’t lose track of who you are.”

“I’m Nora.”

He laughed then, too. “Well, but that’s what I worried about. That you would forget what being Nora was like, compared to being Reese. I suppose I shouldn’t have worried with you, but with others… .”

She crossed the room to his side and looked out the window. “It wasn’t what I expected at all. I thought it would be—I don’t know, I thought being a man would be distracting, I thought it would be the center of the whole experience.”

“And it wasn’t.”

“No. Because it wasn’t being a man. It was being you.” She kept staring out the window. “I found out about Bethie.”

Reese sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“I kept her on.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well, well. Dare I blame that on myself?”

“I blame it on you.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“This will get out, Reese. It has to. Even if you don’t help me, Lee and his students have enough to figure out what you did eventually. It could benefit the world so much, to be able to understand each other.”

“You still feel that way. After being me, after being caught up in who I am and what I feel. You still want to share it. You still tracked me down.”

She wrinkled her brow. “Of course.”

“In that case, perhaps it will change the world less than you think.”

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Some Events At the Templar Radiant

Written by Fred Saberhagen

Illustrated by Dan Skinner

All his years of past work, his entire future too, hung balanced on this moment.

A chair forgotten somewhere behind him, Sabel stood tall in the blue habit that often served him as laboratory coat. His hands gripped opposite corners of the high, pulpit-like control console. His head was thrown back, eyes closed, sweat-dampened dark hair hanging in something more than its usual disarray over his high, pale forehead.

He was alone, as far as any other human presence was concerned. The large, stone-walled chamber in which he stood was for the moment quiet.

All his years of work … and although during the past few days he had mentally rehearsed this moment to the point of exhaustion, he was still uncertain of how to start. Should he begin with a series of cautious, testing questions, or ought he leap toward his real goal at once?

Hesitancy could not be long endured, not now. But caution, as it usually had during his mental rehearsals, prevailed.

Eyes open, Sabel faced the workbenches filled with equipment that were arranged before him. Quietly he said: “You are what human beings call a berserker. Confirm or deny.”

“Confirm.” The voice was familiar, because his hookup gave it the same human-sounding tones in which his own laboratory computer ordinarily spoke to him. It was a familiarity that he must not allow to become in the least degree reassuring

So far, at least, success. “You understand,” Sabel pronounced, “that I have restored you from a state of nearly complete destruction. I—”

“Destruction,” echoed the cheerful workbench voice.

“Yes. You understand that you no longer have the power to destroy, to take life. That you are now constrained to answer all my—”

“To take life.”

“Yes. Stop interrupting me.” He raised a hand to wipe a trickle of fresh sweat from an eye. He saw how his hand was quivering with the strain of its unconscious grip upon the console. “Now,” he said, and had to pause, trying to remember where he was in his plan of questioning.

Into the pause, the voice from his laboratory speakers said: “In you there is life.”

“There is.” Sabel managed to reassert himself, to pull himself together. “Human life.” Dark eyes glaring steadily across the lab, he peered at the long, cabled benches whereon his captive enemy lay stretched, bound down, vitals exposed like those of some hapless human on a torture rack. Not that he could torture what had no nerves and did not live. Nor was there anything like a human shape in sight. All that he had here of the berserker was fragmented. One box here, another there, between them a chemical construct in a tank, that whole complex wired to an adjoining bench that bore rows of semi-material crystals.

Again his familiar laboratory speaker uttered alien words: “Life is to be destroyed.”

This did not surprise Sabel; it was only a restatement of the basic programmed command that all berserkers bore. That the statement was made so boldly now roused in Sabel nothing but hope; it seemed that at least the thing was not going to begin by trying to lie to him.

It seemed also that he had established a firm physical control. Scanning the indicators just before him on the console, he saw no sign of danger … he knew that, given the slightest chance, his prisoner was going to try to implement its basic programming. He had of course separated it from anything obviously useful as a weapon. But he was not absolutely certain of the functions of all the berserker components that he had brought into his laboratory and hooked up. And the lab of course was full of potential weapons. There were fields, electric and otherwise, quite powerful enough to extinguish human life. There were objects that could be turned into deadly projectiles by only a very moderate application of force. To ward off any such improvisations Sabel had set defensive rings of force to dancing round the benches upon which his foe lay bound. And, just for insurance, another curtain of fields hung round him and the console. The fields were almost invisible, but the ancient stonework of the lab’s far wall kept acquiring and losing new flavorings of light at the spots where the spinning field-components brushed it and eased free again.

Not that it seemed likely that the berserker-brain in its present disabled and almost disembodied state could establish control over weaponry enough to kill a mouse. Nor did Sabel ordinarily go overboard on the side of caution. But, as he told himself, he understood very well just what he was dealing with.

He had paused again, seeking reassurance from the indicators ranked before him. All appeared to be going well, and he went on: “I seek information from you. It is not military information, so whatever inhibitions have been programmed into you against answering human questions do not apply.” Not that he felt at all confident that a berserker would meekly take direction from him. But there was nothing to be lost by the attempt.

The reply from the machine was delayed longer than he had expected, so that he began to hope his attempt had been successful. But then the answer came.

“I may trade certain classes of information to you, in return for lives to be destroyed.”

The possibility of some such proposition had crossed Sabel’s mind some time ago. In the next room a cage of small laboratory animals was waiting.

“I am a cosmophysicist,” he said. “In particular I strive to understand the Radiant. In the records of past observations of the Radiant there is a long gap that I would like to fill. This gap corresponds to the period of several hundred standard years during which berserkers occupied this fortress. That period ended with the battle in which you were severely damaged. Therefore I believe that your memory probably contains some observations that will be very useful to me. It is not necessary that they be formal observations of the Radiant. Any scene recorded in light from the Radiant may be helpful. Do you understand?”

“In return for my giving you such records, what lives am I offered to destroy?”

“I can provide several.” Eagerly Sabel once more swept his gaze along his row of indicators. His recording instruments were probing hungrily, gathering at an enormous rate the data needed for at least a partial understanding of the workings of his foe’s unliving brain. At a score of points their probes were fastened in its vitals.

“Let me destroy one now,” its human-sounding voice requested.

“Presently. I order you to answer one question for me first.”

“I am not constrained to answer any of your questions. Let me destroy a life.”

Sabel turned a narrow doorway for himself through his defensive fields, and walked through it into the next room. In a few seconds he was back. “Can you see what I am carrying?”

“Then it is not a human life you offer me.”

“That would be utterly impossible.”

“Then it is utterly impossible for me to give you information.”

Without haste he turned and went to put the animal back into the cage. He had expected there might well be arguments, bargaining. But this argument was only the first level of Sabel’s attack. His data-gathering instruments were what he really counted on. The enemy doubtless knew that it was being probed and analyzed. But there was evidently nothing it could do about it. As long as Sabel supplied it power, its brain must remain functional. And while it functioned, it must try to devise ways to kill.

Back at his console, Sabel took more readings. DATA PROBABLY SUFFICIENT FOR ANALYSIS, his computer screen at last informed him. He let out breath with a sigh of satisfaction, and at once threw certain switches, letting power die. Later if necessary he could turn the damned thing on again and argue with it some more. Now his defensive fields vanished, leaving him free to walk between the workbenches, where he stretched his aching back and shoulders in silent exultation.

Just as an additional precaution, he paused to disconnect a cable. The demonic enemy was only hardware now. Precisely arranged atoms, measured molecules, patterned larger bits of this and that. Where now was the berserker that humanity so justly feared? That had given the Templars their whole reason for existence? It no longer existed, except in potential. Take the hardware apart, on even the finest level, and you would not discover any of its memories. But, reconnect this and that, reapply power here and there, and back it would bloom into reality, as malignant and clever and full of information as before. A non-material artifact of matter. A pattern.

No way existed, even in theory, to torture a machine into compliance, to extort information from it. Sabel’s own computers were using the Van Holt algorithms, the latest pertinent mathematical advance. Even so they could not entirely decode the concealing patterns, the trapdoor functions, by which the berserker’s memory was coded and concealed. The largest computer in the human universe would probably not have time for that before the universe itself came to an end. The unknown Builders had built well.

But there were other ways besides pure mathematics with which to circumvent a cipher. Perhaps, he thought, he would have tried to find a way to offer it a life, had that been the only method he could think of.

Certainly he was going to try another first. There had to be, he thought, some way of disabling the lethal purpose of a berserker while leaving its calculating abilities and memory intact. There would have been times when the living Builders wanted to approach their creations, at least in the lab, to test them and work on them. Not an easy or simple way, perhaps, but something. And that way Sabel now instructed his own computers to discover, using the mass of data just accumulated by measuring the berserker in operation.

Having done that, Sabel stood back and surveyed his laboratory carefully. There was no reason to think that anyone else was going to enter it in the near future, but it would be stupid to take chances. To the Guardians, an experiment with viable berserker parts would stand as prima facie evidence of goodlife activity; and in the Templar code, as in many another systems of human law, any such willing service of the berserker cause was punishable by death.

Only a few of the materials in sight might be incriminating in themselves. Coldly thoughtful, Sabel made more disconnections, and rearrangements. Some things he locked out of sight in cabinets, and from the cabinets he took out other things to be incorporated in a new disposition on the benches. Yes, this was certainly good enough. He suspected that most of the Guardians probably no longer knew what the insides of a real berserker looked like.

Sabel made sure that the doors leading out of the lab, to the mall-level corridor, and to his adjoining living quarters, were both locked. Then, whistling faintly, he went up the old stone stair between the skylights, that brought him out upon the glassed-in roof.

Here he stood bathed in the direct light of the Radiant itself. It was a brilliant point some four kilometers directly above his head—the pressure of the Radiant’s inverse gravity put it directly overhead for everyone in the englobing structure of the Fortress. It was a point brighter than a star but dimmer than a sun, not painful to look at. Around Sabel a small forest of sensors, connected to instruments in his laboratory below, raised panels and lenses in a blind communal stare, to that eternal noon. Among these he began to move about as habit led him, mechanically checking the sensors’ operation, though for once he was not really thinking about the Radiant at all. He thought of his success below. Then once more he raised his own two human eyes to look.

It made its own sky, out of the space enclosed by the whitish inner surface of the Fortress’s bulk. Sabel could give from memory vastly detailed expositions of the spectrum of the Radiant’s light. But as to exactly what color it was, in terms of perception by the eye and brain—well, there were different judgments on that, and for his part he was still uncertain.

Scattered out at intervals across the great curve of interior sky made by the Fortress’s whitish stonework, Sabel could see other glass portals like his own. Under some of them, other people would be looking up and out, perhaps at him. Across a blank space on the immense concavity, an echelon of maintenance machines were crawling, too far away for him to see what they were working at. And, relatively nearby, under the glass roof of a great ceremonial plaza, something definitely unusual was going on. A crowd of thousands of people, exceptional at any time in the Fortress with its relatively tiny population, were gathered in a circular mass, like live cells attracted to some gentle biological magnet at their formation’s center.

Sabel had stared at this peculiarity for several seconds, and was reaching for a small telescope to probe it with, when he recalled that today was the Feast of Ex. Helen, which went a long way toward providing an explanation. He had in fact deliberately chosen this holiday for his crucial experiment, knowing that the Fortress’s main computer would today be freed of much routine business, its full power available for him to tap if necessary.

And in the back of his mind he had realized also that he should probably put in an appearance at at least one of the day’s religious ceremonies. But this gathering in the plaza—he could not recall that any ceremony, in the years since he had come to the Fortress, had ever drawn a comparable crowd.

Looking with his telescope up through his own glass roof and down through the circular one that sealed the plaza in from airless space, he saw that the crowd was centered on the bronze statue of Ex. Helen there. And on a man standing in a little cleared space before the statue, a man with arms raised as if to address the gathering. The angle was wrong for Sabel to get a good look at his face, but the blue and purple robes made the distant figure unmistakable. It was the Potentate, come at last to the Fortress in his seemingly endless tour of his many subject worlds.

Sabel would not recall, even though he now made an effort to do so, that any such visitation had been impending—but then of late Sabel had been even more than usually isolated in his own work. The visit had practical implications for him, though, and he was going to have to find out more about it quickly. Because the agenda of any person of importance visiting the Fortress was very likely to include at some point a full-dress inspection of Sabel’s own laboratory.

He went out through the corridor leading from laboratory to pedestrian mall, locking up carefully behind him, and thinking to himself that there was no need to panic. The Guardians would surely call to notify him that a visit by the Potentate impended, long before it came. It was part of their job to see that such things went smoothly, as well as to protect the Potentate while he was here. Sabel would have some kind of official warning. But this was certainly an awkward time …

Along the pedestrian mall that offered Sabel his most convenient route to the ceremonial plaza, some of the shops were closed—a greater number than usual for a holiday, he thought. Others appeared to be tended only by machines. In the green parkways that intersected the zig-zag mall at irregular intervals, there appeared to be fewer strollers than on an ordinary day. And the primary school operated by the Templars had evidently been closed; a minor explosion of youngsters in blue-striped coveralls darted across the mall from parkway to playground just ahead of Sabel, their yells making him wince.

When you stood at one side of the great plaza and looked across, both the convexity of its glass roof and the corresponding concavity of the level-feeling floor beneath were quite apparent. Especially now that the crowd was gone again. By the time Sabel reached the center of the plaza, the last of the Potentate’s entourage were vanishing through exits on its far side.

Sabel was standing uncertainly on the lowest marble step of Ex. Helen’s central shrine. Her statbronze statue dominated the plaza’s center. Helen the Exemplar, Helen of the Radiant, Helen Dardan. The statue was impressive, showing a woman of extreme beauty in a toga-like Dardanian garment, a diadem on her short curly hair. Of course long-term dwellers at the Fortress ignored it for the most part, because of its sheer familiarity. Right now, though, someone was stopping to look, gazing up at the figure with intent appreciation.

Sabel’s attention, in turn, gradually became concentrated upon this viewer. She was a young, brown-haired girl of unusually good figure, and clad in a rather provocative civilian dress.

And presently he found himself approaching her. “Young woman? If you would excuse my curiosity?”

The girl turned to him. With a quick, cheerful curiosity of her own she took in his blue habit, his stature and his face. “No excuse is needed, sir.” Her voice was musical. “What question can I answer for you?”

Sabel paused a moment in appreciation. Everything about this girl struck him as quietly delightful. Her manner held just a hint of timidity, compounded with a seeming eagerness to please.

Then he gestured toward the far side of the plaza. “I see that our honored Potentate is here with us today. Do you by any chance know how long he plans to stay at the Fortress?”

The girl replied: “I heard someone say, ten standard days. It was one of the women wearing purple-bordered cloaks—?” She shook brown ringlets, and frowned with pretty regret at her own ignorance.

“Ah—one of the vestals. Perhaps you are a visitor here yourself?”

“A newcomer, rather. Isn’t it always the way, sir, when you ask someone for local information? ‘I’m a newcomer here myself.’”

Sabel chuckled. Forget the Potentate for now. “Well, I can hardly plead newcomer status. It must be something else that keeps me from knowing what goes on in my own city. Allow me to introduce myself: Georgicus Sabel, Doctor of Cosmography.”

“Greta Thamar.” Her face was so pretty, soft and young, a perfect match for her scantily costumed body. She continued to radiate an almost timid eagerness. “Sir. Dr. Sabel, would you mind if I asked you a question about yourself?”

“Ask anything.”

“Your blue robe. That means you are one of the monks here?”

“I belong to the Order of Ex. Helen. The word ‘monk’ is not quite accurate.”

“And the Order of Ex. Helen is a branch of the Templars, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Though our Order is devoted more to contemplation and study than to combat.”

“And the Templars in turn are a branch of Christianity.”

“Or they were.” Sabel favored the girl with an approving smile. “You are more knowledgeable than many newcomers. And, time was when many Templars really devoted themselves to fighting, as did their ancient namesakes.”

The girl’s interest continued. By some kind of body-language agreement the two of them had turned around and were now strolling slowly back in the direction that Sabel had come from.

Greta said: “I don’t know about that. The ancient ones, I mean. Though I tried to study up before I came here. Please, go on.”

“Might I ask your occupation, Greta?”

“I’m a dancer. Only on the popular entertainment level, I’m afraid. Over at the Contrat Rouge. But I … please, go on.”

On the Templar-governed Fortress, popular entertainers were far down on the social scale. Seen talking to a dancer in the plaza … but no, there was really nothing to be feared from that. A minimal loss of status, perhaps, but counterbalanced by an increase in his more liberal acquaintances’ perception of him as more fully human. All this slid more or less automatically through Sabel’s mind, while the attractive smile on his face did not, or so he trusted, vary in the slightest.

Strolling on, he shrugged. “Perhaps there’s not a great deal more to say, about the Order. We study and teach. Oh, we still officially garrison this Fortress. Those of us who are Guardians maintain and man the weapons, and make berserkers their field of study, besides acting as the local police. The main defenses out on the outer surface of the Fortress are still operational, though a good many decades have passed since we had a genuine alarm. There are no longer many berserkers in this part of the Galaxy.” He smiled wryly. “And I am afraid there are no longer very many Templars, either, even in the parts of the Galaxy where things are not so peaceful.”

They were still walking. Proceeding in the direction of Sabel’s laboratory and quarters.

“Please, tell me more.” The girl continued to look at him steadily with attention. “Please, I am really very interested.”

“Well. We of the Order of Ex. Helen no longer bind ourselves to poverty—or to permanent celibacy. We have come to honor Beauty on the same level as Virtue, considering them both to be aspects of the Right. Our great patroness of course stands as Exemplar of both qualities.”

“Ex. Helen … and she finally founded the Order, hundreds of years ago? Or—”

“Or, is she really only a legend, as some folk now consider her? No. I think that there is really substantial evidence of her historical reality. Though of, course the purposes of the Order are still valid in either case.”

“You must be very busy. I hope you will forgive my taking up your time like this.”

“It is hard to imagine anyone easier to forgive. Now, would you by chance like to see something of my laboratory?”

“Might I? Really?”

“You have already seen the Radiant, of course. But to get a look at it through some of my instruments will give you a new perspective …”

As Sabel had expected, Greta did not seem able understand much of his laboratory’s contents. But she was nevertheless impressed. “And I see you have a private space flyer here. Do you use it to go out to the Radiant?”

At that he really had to laugh. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t get there. Oh, within a kilometer of it, maybe, if I tried. The most powerful spacecraft built might be able to force its way to within half that distance. But to approach any closer than that—impossible. You see, the inner level of the Fortress, where we are now was built at the four-kilometer distance from the Radiant because that is the distance at which the effective gravity is standard normal. As one tries to get closer the gravitic resistance goes up exponentially. No, I use the flyer for field trips. To the outer reaches of the Fortress, places where no public transport is available.”

“Is that a hobby of some kind?”

“No, it’s really connected with my work. I search for old Dardanian records, trying to find their observations of the Radiant … and in here is where I live.”

With eyes suddenly become competent, Greta surveyed the tidy smallness of his quarters. “Alone, I see.”

“Most of the time … my work demands so much. Now, Greta, I have given you something of a private showing of my work. I would be very pleased indeed if you were willing to do the same for me.”

“To dance?” Her manner altered, in a complex way. “I suppose there might be room enough in here for dancing … if there were some suitable music.”

“Easily provided.” He found a control on the wall; and to his annoyance he noticed that his fingers were now quivering again.

In light tones Greta said: “I have no special costume with me, sir, just these clothes I wear.”

“They are delightful—but you have one other, surely.”

“Sir?” And she, with quick intelligence in certain fields of thought, was trying to repress a smile.

“Why, my dear, I mean the costume that nature gives to us all, before our clothes are made. Now, if it is really going to be up to me to choose …”

Hours later when the girl was gone, he went back to work, this time wearing a more conventional laboratory coat. He punched in a command for his computer to display its results, and, holding his breath, looked at the screen.

BASIC PROGRAMMING OF SUBJECT DEVICE MAY BE CIRCUMVENTED AS FOLLOWS: FABRICATE A DISABLING SLUG OF CESIUM TRIPHENYL METHYL, ISOTOPE 137 OF CESIUM, OF 99% PURITY, TO BE USED. SLUG TO BE CYLINDRICAL 2.346 CM DIAMETER, 5.844 CM LENGTH. COMPONENTS OF SUBJECT DEVICE NOW IN LABORATORY TO BE REASSEMBLED TO THOSE REMAINING IN FIELD. WITH SLUG CONNECTED ELECTRICALLY AND MECHANICALLY ACROSS PROBE POINTS OUR NUMBER 11 AND OUR NUMBER 12A IN ARMING MECHANISM OF DEVICE. PRIME PROGRAMMED COMMAND OF DEVICE WILL THEN BE DISABLED FOR TIME EQUAL TO ONE HALF-LIFE OF ISOTOPE Cs-137 …

There were more details-on how the “subject device” was to be disabled—he had forbidden his own computer to ever display or store in memory the word “berserker” in connection with any of his work. But Sabel did not read all the details at once. He was busy looking up the half-life of cesium-137. It turned out to be thirty years! Thirty standard years!

He had beaten it. He had won. Fists clenched, Sabel let out exultation in a great, private, and almost silent shout …

This instinctive caution was perhaps well-timed, for at once a chime announced a caller, at the door that led out to the mall. Sabel nervously wiped the displayed words from his computer screen. Might the girl have come back? Not because she had forgotten something—she had brought nothing with her but her clothes.

But instead of the girl’s face, his video intercom showed him the deceptively jovial countenance of Chief Deputy Guardian Gunavarman. Had Sabel not become aware of the Potentate’s presence on the Fortress, he might have had a bad moment at the sight. As matters stood, he felt prepared; and after a last precautionary glance around the lab, he let the man in confidently.

“Guardian. It is not often that I am honored by a visit from you.”

“Doctor Sabel.” The black-robed visitor respectfully returned the scientist’s bow. “It is always a pleasure, when I can find the time. I wish my own work were always as interesting as yours must be. Well. You know of course that our esteemed Potentate is now in the Fortress …”

The discussion, on the necessity of being prepared for a VIP inspection, went just about as Sabel had expected. Gunavarman walked about as he spoke, eyes taking in the lab, their intelligence operating on yet a different level than either Sabel’s or Greta Thamar’s. The smiling lips asked Sabel just what, exactly, was he currently working on? What could he demonstrate, as dramatically as possible but safely of course, for the distinguished visitor?

Fortunately for Sabel he had been given a little advance time in which to think about these matters. He suggested now one or two things that might provide an impressive demonstration. “When must I have them ready?”

“Probably not sooner than two days from now, or more than five. You will be given advance notice of the exact time.” But the Guardian, when Sabel pressed him, refused to commit himself on just how much advance notice would be given.

The real danger of this Potential visit, thought Sabel as he saw his caller out, was that it was going to limit his mobility. A hurried field trip to the outer surface was going to be essential, to get incriminating materials out of his lab. Because he was sure that a security force of Guardians was going to descend on the place just before the Potentate appeared. More or less politely, but thoroughly, they would turn it inside out. There were those on every world of his dominion who for one reason or another wished the Potentate no good.

After a little thought, Sabel went to his computer terminal and punched in an order directed to the metallic fabrication machines in the Fortress’s main workshops, an order for the disabling slug as specified by his computer. He knew well how the automated systems worked, and took care to place the order in such a way that no other human being would ever be presented with a record of it. The machines reported at once that delivery should take several hours.

The more he thought about it, the more essential it seemed for him to get the necessary field excursion out of the way as quickly as he could. Therefore while waiting for the slug to be delivered, he loaded up his flyer, with berserker parts hidden among tools in various containers. The vehicle was another thing that had been built to his special order. It was unusually small in all three dimensions, so he could drive it deeply into the caves and passages and cracks of ancient battle-damage that honeycombed the outer stonework of the Fortress.

A packet containing the slug he had ordered came with a clack into his laboratory through the old-fashioned pneumatic system still used for small deliveries, direct from the workshops. Sabel’s first look at the cesium alloy startled him. A hard solid at room temperature, the slug was red as blood inside a statglass film evidently meant to protect it against contamination and act as a radiation shield for human handlers as well. He slid it into a pocket of his light spacesuit, and was ready.

The lab locked up behind him, he sat in his flyer’s small open cab and exited the rooftop airlock in a modest puff of fog. The air and moisture were mostly driven back into recycling vents by the steady gravitic pressure of the Radiant above. His flyer’s small, silent engine worked against the curve of space that the Radiant imposed, lifting him and carrying him on a hand-controlled flight path that skimmed over glass-roofed plazas and apartment complexes and offices. In its concavity, the inner surface of the Fortress fell more distant from his straight path, then reapproached. Ahead lay the brightly lighted mouth of the traffic shaft that would lead him out to the Fortress’s outer layers.

Under Sabel’s briskly darting flyer there now passed a garish, glassed-in amusement mall. There entertainment, sex, and various kinds of drugs were all for sale. The Contrat Rouge he thought was somewhere in it. He wondered in passing if the girl Greta understood that here her occupation put her very near the bottom of the social scale, a small step above the level of the barely tolerable prostitutes? Perhaps she knew. Or when she found out, she would not greatly care. She would probably be moving on, before very long, to some world with more conventional mores.

Sabel had only vague ideas of how folk in the field of popular entertainment lived. He wondered if he might go sometime to watch her perform publicly. It was doubtful that he would. To be seen much in the Contrat Rouge could do harm to one in his position.

The wide mouth of the shaft engulfed his flyer. A few other craft, electronically guided, moved on ahead of his or flickered past. Strings of lights stretched vertiginously down and ahead. The shaft was straight; the Fortress had no appreciable rotation, and there was no need to take coriolis forces into account in traveling through it rapidly. With an expertise born of his many repetitions of this flight, Sabel waited for the precisely proper movement to take back full manual control. The gravitic pressure of the Radiant, behind him and above, accelerated his passage steadily. He fell straight through the two kilometers’ thickness of stone and reinforcing beams that composed most of the Fortress’s bulk. The sides of the vast shaft, now moving faster and faster past him, were ribbed by the zig-zag joints of titanic interlocking blocks.

This is still Dardania, here, he thought to himself, as usual at this point. The Earth-descended Dardanians, who had built the Fortress and flourished in it even before berserkers came to the human portion of the Galaxy, had wrought with awesome energy, and a purpose not wholly clear to modern eyes. The Fortress, after all, defended not much of anything except the Radiant itself, which hardly needed protection from humanity. Their engineers must have tugged all the stone to build the Fort through interstellar distances, at God alone knew what expense of energy and time. Maybe Queen Helen had let them know she would be pleased by it, and that had been enough.

The Fortress contained about six hundred cubic kilometers of stone and steel and enclosed space, even without including the vast, clear central cavity. Counting visitors and transients, there were now at any moment approximately a hundred thousand human beings in residence. Their stores and parks and dwellings and laboratories and shops occupied, for the most part. only small portions of the inner surface, where gravity was normal and the light from the Radiant was bright. From the outer surface, nearby space was keenly watched by the sensors of the largely automated defense system; there was a patchy film of human activity there. The remainder of the six hundred cubic kilometers were largely desert now, honeycombed with cracks and designed passages, spotted with still-undiscovered troves of Dardanian tombs and artifacts, for decades almost unexplored, virtually abandoned except by the few who, like Sabel, researched the past.

Now he saw a routine warning begin to blink on the small control panel of his flyer. Close ahead the outer end of the transport shaft was yawning, and through it he could see the stars. A continuation of his present course would soon bring him into the area surveyed by the defense system.

As his flyer emerged from the shaft, Sabel had the stars beneath his feet, the bulk of the Fortress seemingly balanced overhead. With practiced skill he turned now at right angles to the Radiant’s force. His flyer entered the market notch of another traffic lane, this one grooved into the Fortress’s outer armored surface. The bulk of it remained over his head and now seemed to rotate with his motion. Below him passed stars, while on the dark rims of the traffic lane to either side he caught glimpses of the antiquated but still operational defensive works. Blunt snouts of missile launchers, skeletal fingers of mass-drivers and beam-projectors, the lenses and screens and domes of sensors and field generators. All the hardware was still periodically tested, but in all his journeyings this way Sabel had never seen any of it looking anything but inactive. War had long ago gone elsewhere.

Other traffic, scanty all during his flight, had now vanished altogether. The lane he was following branched, and Sabel turned left, adhering to his usual route. If anyone should be watching him today, no deviation from his usual procedure would be observed. Not yet, anyway. Later … later he would make very sure that nobody was watching.

Here came a landmark on his right. Through another shaft piercing the Fortress a wand of the Radiant’s light fell straight to the outer surface, where part of it was caught by the ruined framework of an auxiliary spaceport, long since closed. In that permanent radiance the old beams glowed like twisted night-flowers, catching at the light before it fell away to vanish invisibly and forever among the stars.

Just before he reached this unintended beacon, Sabel turned sharply again, switching on his bright running lights as he did so. Now he had entered a vast battle-crack in the stone and metal of the Fortress’s surface, a dark uncharted wound that in Dardanian times had been partially repaired by a frail-looking spiderwork of metal beams. Familiar with the way, Sabel steered busily, choosing the proper passage amid obstacles. Now the stars were dropping out of view behind him. His route led him up again, into the lightless ruined passages where nothing seemed to have changed since Helen died.

Another minute of flight through twisting ways, some of them designed and others accidental. Then, obeying a sudden impulse, Sabel braked his flyer to a hovering halt. In the remote past this passage had been air-filled, the monumental length and breadth of it well suited for mass ceremony. Dardanian pictures and glyphs filled great portions of its long walls. Sabel had looked at them a hundred times before, but now he swung his suited figure out of the flyer’s airless cab and walked close to the wall, moving buoyantly in the light gravity, as if to inspect them once again. This was an ideal spot to see if anyone was really following him. Not that he had any logical reason to think that someone was. But the feeling was strong that he could not afford to take a chance.

As often before, another feeling grew when he stood here in the silence and darkness that were broken only by his own presence and that of his machines. Helen herself was near. In Sabel’s earlier years there had been something religious in this experience. Now … but it was still somehow comforting.

He waited, listening, thinking. Helen’s was not the only presence near, of course. On three or four occasions at least during the past ten years (there might have been more that Sabel had never heard about) explorers had discovered substantial concentrations of berserker wreckage out in these almost abandoned regions. Each time Sabel had heard of such a find being reported to the Guardians, he had promptly petitioned them to be allowed to examine the materials, or at least to be shown a summary of whatever information the Guardians might manage to extract. His pleas had vanished into the bureaucratic maw. Gradually he had come to understand that they would never tell him anything about berserkers. The Guardians were jealous of his relative success and fame. Besides, their supposed job of protecting humanity on the Fortress now actually gave them almost nothing to do. A few newly-discovered berserker parts could be parlayed into endless hours of technical and administrative work. Just keeping secrets could be made into a job, and they were not about to share any secrets with outsiders.

But, once Sabel had become interested in berserkers as a possible source of data on the Radiant, he found ways to begin a study of them. His study was at first bookish and indirect, but it advanced; there was always more information available on a given subject than a censor realized, and a true scholar knew how to find it out.

And Sabel came also to distrust the Guardians’ competence in the scholarly aspects of their own field. Even if they had finally agreed to share their findings with him. he thought their pick-axe methods unlikely to extract from a berserker’s memory anything of value. They had refused of course to tell him what their methods were, but he could not imagine them doing anything imaginatively.

Secure in his own space helmet, he whispered now to himself: “If I want useful data from my own computer, I don’t tear it apart. I communicate with it instead.”

Cold silence and darkness around him, and nothing more. He remounted his flyer and drove on. Shortly he came to where the great corridor was broken by a battle-damage crevice, barely wide enough for his small vehicle, and he turned slowly, maneuvering his way in. Now he must go slowly, despite the number of times that he had traveled this route before. After several hundred meters of jockeying his way along, his headlights picked up his semi-permanent base camp structure in a widening of the passageway ahead. It looked half bubble, half spiderweb, a tentlike thing whose walls hung slackly now but were inflatable with atmosphere. Next to it he had dug out of the stone wall a niche just big enough to park his flyer in. The walls of the niche were lightly marked now from his previous parkings. He eased in now, set down gently, and cut power.

On this trip he was not going to bother to inflate his shelter; he was not going to be out here long enough to occupy it. Instead he began at once to unload from the flyer what he needed, securing things to his backpack as he took them down. The idea that he was being followed now seemed so improbable that he gave it no more thought. As soon as he had all he wanted on his back, he set off on foot down one of the branching crevices that radiated from the nexus where he had placed his camp.

He paused once, after several meters, listening intently. Not now for nonexistent spies who might after all be following. For something active ahead. Suppose it had, somehow, after all, got itself free … but there was no possibility. He was carrying most of its brain with him right now. Around him, only the silence of ages, and the utter cold. The cold could not pierce his suit. The silence, though …

The berserker was exact, as he had left it, days ago. It was partially entombed, caught like some giant mechanical insect in opaque amber. Elephant-sized metal shoulders and a ruined head protruded from a bank of centuries-old slag. Fierce weaponry must have melted the rock, doubtless at the time of the Templars’ reconquest of the Fortress, more than a hundred years ago.

Sabel when he came upon it for the first time understood at once that the berserker’s brain might well still be functional. He knew too that there might be destructor devices still working, built into the berserker to prevent just such an analysis of captured units as he was suddenly determined to attempt. Yet he had nerved himself to go to work on the partially shattered braincase that protruded from the passage wall almost like a mounted trophy head. Looking back now, Sabel was somewhat aghast at the risks he had taken. But he had gone ahead. If there were any destructors, they had not fired. And it appeared to him now that he had won.

He took the cesium slug out of his pocket and put it into a tool that stripped it of statglass film and held it ready for the correct moment in the reconstruction process. And the reconstruction went smoothly and quickly, the whole process taking no more than minutes. Aside from the insertion of the slug it was mainly a matter of reconnecting subsystems and of attaching a portable power supply that Sabel now unhooked from his belt; it would give the berserker no more power than might be needed for memory and communication.

Yet as soon as power was supplied, one of the thin limb stumps that protruded from the rock surface began to vibrate, with a syncopated buzzing. It must be trying to move.

Sabel had involuntarily backed up a step; yet reason told him that his enemy was effectively powerless to harm him. He approached again, and plugged a communications cord into a jack he had installed. When he spoke to it, it was in continuation of the dialogue in the laboratory.

“Now you are constrained, as you put it, to answer whatever questions I may ask.” Whether it was going to answer truthfully or not was something he could not yet tell.

It now answered him in his own voice, cracked, queer, inhuman. “Now I am constrained.”

Relief and triumph compounded were so strong that Sabel had to chuckle. The thing sounded so immutably certain of what it said, even as it had sounded certain saying the exact opposite back in the lab.

Balancing buoyantly on his toes in the light gravity, he asked it: “How long ago were you damaged, and stuck here in the rock?”

“My timers have been out of operation.”

That sounded reasonable. “At some time before you were damaged, though, some visual observations of the Radiant probably became stored somehow in your memory banks. You know what I am talking about from our conversation in the laboratory. Remember that I will be able to extract useful information from even the most casual, incidental video records, provided they were made in Radiant light when you were active.”

“I remember.” And as the berserker spoke there came faintly to Sabel’s ears a grinding, straining sound, conducted through his boots from somewhere under the chaotic surface of once-molten rock.

“What are you doing?” he demanded sharply. God knew what weapons it had been equipped with, what potential powers it still had.

Blandly the berserker answered: “Trying to re-establish function in my internal power supply.”

“You will cease that effort at once! The supply I have connected is sufficient.”

“Order acknowledged.” And at once the grinding stopped.

Sabel fumbled around, having a hard time trying to make a simple connection with another small device that he removed from his suit’s belt. If only he did not tend to sweat so much. “Now. I have here a recorder. You will play into it all the video records you have that might be useful to me in my research on the Radiant’s spectrum. Do not erase any records from your own banks. I may want to get at them again later.”

“Order acknowledged.” In exactly the same cracked tones as before.

Sabel got the connection made at last. Then he crouched there, waiting for what seemed endless time, until his recorder signaled that the data flow had ceased.

And back in his lab, hours later, Sabel sat glaring-destruction at the inoffensive stonework of the wall. His gaze was angled downward, in the direction of his unseen opponent, as if his anger could pierce and blast through the kilometers of rock.

The recorder had been filled with garbage. With nonsense. Virtually no better than noise. His own computer was still trying to unscramble the hopeless mess, but it seemed the enemy had succeeded in … still, perhaps it had not been a ploy of the berserker’s at all. Only, perhaps, some kind of trouble with the coupling of the recorder input to …

He had, he remembered distinctly, told the berserker what the input requirements of the recorder were. But he had not explicitly ordered it to meet them. And he could not remember that it had ever said it would.

Bad, Sabel. A bad mistake to make in dealing with any kind of a machine. With a berserker …

A communicator made a melodious sound. A moment later, its screen brought Guardian Gunavarman’s face and voice into the lab.

“Dr. Sabel, will your laboratory be in shape for a personal inspection by the Potentate three hours from now?”

“I—I—yes, it will. In fact, I will be most honored,” he remembered to add, in afterthought.

“Good. Excellent. You may expect the security party a few minutes before that time.”

As soon as the connection had been broken, Sabel looked around. He was in fact almost ready to be inspected. Some innocuous experiments were in place to be looked at and discussed. Almost everything that might possibly be incriminating had been got out of the way. Everything, in fact, except … he pulled the small recorder cartridge from his computer and juggled it briefly in his hand. The chance was doubtless small that any of his impending visitors would examine or play the cartridge, and smaller still that they might recognize the source of information on it if they did. Yet in Sabel’s heart of hearts he was not so sure that the Guardians could be depended upon to be incompetent. And there was no reason for him to take even a small chance. There were, there had to be, a thousand public places where one might secrete an object as small as this. Where no one would notice it until it was retrieved … there were of course the public storage facilities, on the far side of the Fortress, near the spaceport.

To get to any point in the Fortress served by the public transportation network took only a few minutes. He had to switch from moving slidewalk to high-speed elevator in a plaza that fronted on the entertainment district, and as he crossed the plaza his eye was caught by a glowing red sign a hundred meters or so down the mall: Contrat Rouge.

His phantom followers were at his back again, and to try to make them vanish he passed the elevator entrance as if that had not been his goal at all He was not wearing his blue habit today, and as he entered the entertainment mall none of the few people who were about seemed to take notice of him.

A notice board outside the Contrat Rouge informed Sabel in glowing letters that the next scheduled dance performance was several hours away. It might be expected that he would know that, had he really started out with the goal of seeing her perform. Sabel turned and looked around, trying to decide what to do next. There were not many people in sight. But too many for him to decide if any of them might really have been following him.

Now the doorman was starting to take notice of him So Sabel approached the man, clearing his throat. “I was looking for Greta Thamar?”

Tall and with a bitter face, the attendant looked as Sabel imagined a policeman ought to look. “Girls aren’t in yet.”

“She lives somewhere nearby, though?”

“Try public info.”

And perhaps the man was somewhat surprised to see that that was what Sabel, going to a nearby booth, actually did next. The automated information service unhesitatingly printed out Greta’s address listing for him, and Sabel was momentarily surprised: he had pictured her as besieged by men who saw her on stage, having to struggle for even a minimum of privacy. But then he saw a stage name printed out in parentheses beside her own; those inquiring for her under the stage name would doubtless be given no information except perhaps the time of the next performance. And the doorman? He doubtless gave the same two answers to the same two questions a dozen times a day, and made no effort to keep track of names.

As Sabel had surmised, the apartment was not far away. It looked quite modest from the outside. A girl’s voice, not Greta’s, answered when he spoke into the intercom at the door. He felt irritated that they were probably not going to be able to be alone.

A moment later the door opened. Improbable blond hair framed a face of lovely ebony above a dancer’s body. “I’m Greta’s new roommate. She ought to be back in a few minutes.” The girl gave Sabel an almost-amused appraisal. “I was just going out myself. But you can come in and wait for her if you like.”

“I … yes, thank you.” Whatever happened, he wouldn’t be able to stay long. He had to leave himself plenty of time to get rid of the recorder cartridge somewhere and get back to the lab. But certainly there were at least a few minutes to spare.

He watched the blond dancer out of sight. Sometime, perhaps … Then, left alone, he turned to a half-shaded window through which he could see a large part of the nearby plaza. Still there was no one in sight who looked to Sabel as if they might be following him. He moved from the window to stand in front of a cheap table. If he left before seeing Greta, should he leave her a note? And what ought he to say?

His personal communicator beeped at his belt. When he raised it to his face he found Chief Deputy Gunavarman looking out at him from the tiny screen.

“Doctor Sabel, I had expected you would be in your laboratory now. Please get back to it as soon as possible; the Potentate’s visit has been moved up by about two hours. Where are you now?”

“I … ah …” What might be visible in Gunavarman’s screen? “The entertainment district.”

The chronic appearance of good humor in the Guardian’s face underwent a subtle shift; perhaps now there was something of genuine amusement in it . “It shouldn’t take you long to get back, then. Please hurry. Shall I send an escort?”

“No Not necessary. Yes. At once.” Then they were waiting for him at the lab. It was even possible that they could meet him right outside this apartment’s door. As Sabel reholstered his communicator, he looked around him with quick calculation. There. Low down on one wall was a small ventilation grill of plastic, not much broader than his open hand. It was a type in common use within the Fortress. Sabel crouched down. The plastic bent springily in his strong fingers, easing out of its socket. He slid the recorder into the dark space behind, remembering to wipe it free of fingerprints first.

The Potentate’s visit to the lab went well. It took longer than Sabel had expected, and he was complimented on his work, at least some of which the great leader seemed to understand. It wasn’t until next morning, when Sabel was wondering how soon he ought to call on Greta again, that he heard during a chance encounter with a colleague that some unnamed young woman in the entertainment district had been arrested.

Possession of a restricted device, that was the charge. The first such arrest in years, and though no official announcement had yet been made the Fortress was buzzing with the event, probably in several versions. The wording of the charge meant that the accused was at least suspected of actual contact with a berserker; it was the same one technically, that would have been placed against Sabel if his secret activities had been discovered. And it was the more serious form of goodlife activity, the less serious consisting in forming clubs or cells of conspiracy, of sympathy to the enemy, perhaps having no real contact with berserkers.

Always in the past when he had heard of the recovery of any sort of berserker hardware, Sabel had called Gunavarman, to ask to be allowed to take part in the investigation. He dared not make an exception this time.

“Yes, Doctor,” said the Guardian’s voice from a small screen. “A restricted device is in our hands today. Why do you ask?”

“I think I have explained my interest often enough in the past. If there is any chance that this—device—contains information pertinent to my studies, I should like to apply through whatever channels may be necessary—”

“Perhaps I can save you the trouble. This time the device is merely the storage cartridge of a video recorder of a common type. It was recovered last night during a routine search of some new-comers’ quarters in the entertainment district. The information on the recorder is intricately coded and we haven’t solved it yet. But I doubt it has any connection with cosmophysics. This is just for your private information of course.”

“Of course. But—excuse me—if you haven’t broken the code why do you think this device falls into the restricted category?”

“There is a certain signature, shall we say, in the coding process. Our experts have determined that the information was stored at some stage in a berserker’s memory banks. One of the two young women who lived in the apartment committed suicide before she could be questioned—a typical goodlife easy-out, it appears. The other suspect so far denies everything. We’re in the process of obtaining a court order for some M-E, and that’ll take care of that.”

“Memory extraction. I didn’t know that you could still—?”

“Oh. yes. Though nowadays there’s a formal legal procedure. The questioning must be done in the presence of official witnesses. And if innocence of the specific charge is established, questioning must be halted. But in this case I think we’ll have no trouble.”

Sabel privately ordered a printout of all court documents handled during the previous twenty-four hours. There it was: Greta Thamar, order for memory-extraction granted. At least she was not dead.

To try to do anything for her would of course have been completely pointless. If the memory-extraction worked to show her guilt, it should show also that he, Sabel, was only an innocent chance acquaintance. But in fact it must work to show her innocence, and then she would be released. She would regain her full mental faculties in time—enough of them, anyway, to be a dancer.

Why, though, had her roommate killed herself? Entertainers. Unstable people …

Even if the authorities should someday learn that he had known Greta Thamar, there was no reason for him to come forward today and say so. No; he wasn’t supposed to know as yet that she was the one arrested. Gunavarman had mentioned no names to him.

No, indeed, the best he could hope for by getting involved would be entanglement in a tedious, time-wasting investigation. Actually of course he would be risking much worse than that.

Actually it was his work, the extraction of scientific truth, that really mattered, not he. And, certainly, not one little dancer more or less. But if he went, his work went too. Who else was going to extract from the Templar Radiant the truths that would open shining new vistas of cosmophysics? Only seven other Radiants were known to exist in the entire Galaxy. None of the others were as accessible to study as this one was, and no one knew this one nearly as well as Georgicus Sabel I knew it.

Yes, it would be pointless indeed for him to try to do anything for the poor girl. But he was surprised to find himself going through moments in which he felt that he was going to have to try.

Meanwhile, if there were even the faintest suspicion of him, if the Guardians were watching his movements, then an abrupt cessation of his field trips would be more likely to cause trouble than their continuation. And, once out in the lonely reaches of Dardania, he felt confident of being able to tell whether the Guardians were following him or not.

This time he took with him a small hologram-stage, so he could look at the video records before he brought them back.

“This time,” he said to the armored braincase projecting from the slag-bank, “you are ordered to give me the information in intelligible form.”

Something in its tremendous shoulders buzzed, a syncopated vibration. “Order acknowledged.”

And what he had been asking for was shown to him at last. Scene after scene, made in natural Radiant light. Somewhere on the inner surface of the Fortress, surrounded by smashed Dardanian glass roofs, a row of berserkers stood as if for inspection by some commanding machine. Yes, he should definitely be able to get something out of that. And out of this one, a quite similar scene. And out of—

“Wait. Just a moment. Go back. let me see that one again. What was that?”

He was once more looking at the Fortress’s inner surface, bathed by the Radiant’s light. But this time no berserkers were visible. The scene was centered on a young woman, who wore space garb of a design unfamiliar to Sabel. It was a light-looking garment that did not much restrict her movements, and the two-second segment of recording showed her in the act of Performing some gesture. She raised her arms to the light above as if in the midst of some rite or dance centered on the-Radiant itself. Her dark hair, short and curly, bore a jeweled diadem. Her long-lashed eyes were closed, in a face of surpassing loveliness.

He watched it three more times. “Now wait again. Hold the rest of the records. Who was that?”

To a machine, a berserker, all human questions and answers were perhaps of equal unimportance. Its voice gave the same tones to them all. It said to Sabel: “The life-unit Helen Dardan.”

“But—” Sabel had a feeling of unreality. “Show it once more, and stop the motion right in the middle—yes, that’s it. Now, how old is this record?”

“It is of the epoch of the 451st century, in your time-coordinate system.”

“Before berserkers came to the Fortress? And why do you tell me it is she?”

“It is a record of Helen Dardan. No other existed. I was given it to use as a means of identification. I am a specialized assassin-machine and was sent on my last mission to destroy her.”

“You—you claim to be the machine that actually—actually killed Helen Dardan?”

“No.”

“Then explain.”

“With other machines, I was programmed to kill her. But I was damaged and trapped here before the mission could be completed.”

Sabel signed disagreement. By now he felt quite sure that the thing could see him somehow. “You were trapped during the Templars’ reconquest. That’s when this molten rock must have been formed. Well after the time when Helen lived.”

“That is when I was trapped. But only within an hour of the Templars’ attack did we learn where the life-unit Helen Dardan had been hidden, in suspended animation.”

“The Dardanians hid her from you somehow, and you couldn’t find her until then?”

“The Dardanians hid her. I do not know whether she was ever found or not.”

Sabel tried to digest this. “You’re saying that for all you know, she might be still entombed somewhere, in suspended animation—and still alive.”

“Confirm.”

He looked at his video recorder. For a moment he could not recall why he had brought it here. “Just where was this hiding place of hers supposed to be?”

As it turned out, after Sabel had struggled through a translation of the berserkers’ co-ordinate system into his own, the supposed hiding place was not far away at all. Once he had the location pinpointed it took him only minutes to get to the described intersection of Dardanian passageways. There, according to his informant, Helen’s life-support coffin had been mortared up behind a certain obscure marking on a wall.

This region was free of the small blaze-marks that Sabel himself habitually put on the walls to remind himself of what ground he had already covered in his systematic program of exploration. And it was a region of some danger, perhaps, for here in relatively recent times there had been an extensive crumbling of stonework. What had been an intersection of passages had become a rough cave, piled high with pieces great and small of what had been wall and floor and overhead. The fragments were broken and rounded to some extent, sharp comers knocked away. Probably at intervals they did a stately mill-dance in the low gravity, under some perturbation of the Fortress’s stately secular movement round the Radiant in space. Eventually the fallen fragments would probably grind themselves into gravel, and slide away to accumulate in low spots in the nearby passages.

But today they still formed a rough, high mound. Sabel with his suit lights could discern a dull egg-shape nine-tenths buried in this mound. It was rounder and smoother than the broken masonry, and the size of a piano or a little larger.

He clambered toward it, and without much trouble succeeded in getting it almost clear of rock. It was made of some tough, artificial substance; and in imagination he could fit into it any of the several types of suspended-animation equipment that he had seen.

What now? Suppose, just suppose, that any real chance existed … he dared not try to open up the thing here in the airless cold. Nor had he any tools with him at the moment that would let him try to probe the inside gently. He had to go back to base camp and get the flyer here somehow.

Maneuvering his vehicle to his find proved easier than he had feared. He found a roundabout way to reach the place, and in less than an hour had the ovoid secured to his flyer with adhesive straps. Hauling it slowly back to base camp, he reflected that whatever was inside was going to have to remain secret, for a while at least. The announcement of any important find would bring investigators swarming out here. And that Sabel could not afford, until every trace of the berserker’s existence had been erased.

Some expansion of the tent’s fabric was necessary before he could get the ovoid in, and leave himself with space to work. Once he had it in a securely air-filled space, he put a gentle heater to work on its outer surface, to make it easier to handle. Then he went to work with an audio pickup to see what he could learn of the interior.

There was activity of some kind inside, that much was obvious at once. The sounds of gentle machinery, which he supposed might have been started by his disturbance of the thing, or by the presence of warm air around it now.

Subtle machinery at work. And then another sound, quite regular. It took Sabel’s memory a little time to match it with the cadence of a living human heart.

He had forgotten about time, but in fact not much time had passed before he considered that he was ready for the next step. The outer casing opened for him easily. Inside, he confronted great complexity; yes, obviously sophisticated life-support. And within that an interior shell, eyed with glass windows. Sabel shone in a light.

As usual in suspended-animation treatment, the occupant’s skin had been covered with a webbed film of half-living stuff to help in preservation. But the film had torn away now from around the face.

And the surpassing beauty of that face left Sabel no room for doubt. Helen Dardan was breathing and alive.

Might not all, all, be forgiven one who brought the Queen of Love herself to life? All, even goodlife work, the possession of restricted devices?

There was also to be considered, though, the case of a man who at a berserker’s direction unearthed the Queen and thereby brought about her final death.

Of course an indecisive man, one afraid to take risks would not be out here now faced with his problem. Sabel had already unslung his emergency medirobot, a thing the size of a suitcase from its usual perch at the back of the flyer and had it waiting inside the tent. Now, like a man plunging into deep, cold water, he fumbled open the fasteners of the interior shell threw back its top, and quickly stretched probes from the medirobot to Helen’s head and chest and wrist. He tore away handfuls of the half-living foam.

Even before he had the third probe connected, her dark eyes had opened and were looking at him. He thought he could see awareness and understanding in them. Her last hopes on being put to sleep must have been for an awakening no worse than this, at hands that might be strange but were not metal.

“Helen.” Sabel could not help but feel that he was pretending, acting, when he spoke the name. “Can you hear me? Understand?” He spoke in Standard; the meagre store of Dardanian that he had acquired from ancient recordings having completely deserted him for the moment. But he thought a Dardanian aristocrat should know enough Standard to grasp his meaning and the language had not changed enormously in the centuries since her entombment.

“You’re safe now,” he assured her, on his space-suited knees beside her bed. When a flicker in her eyes seemed to indicate relief, he went on: “The berserkers have been driven away.”

Her lips parted slightly. They were full and perfect. But she did not speak. She raised herself a little, and moved to bare a shoulder and an arm from clinging foam.

Nervously Sabel turned to the robot. If he was interpreting its indicators correctly, the patient was basically in quite good condition. To his not-really-expert eye the machine signaled that there were high drug levels in her bloodstream; high, but falling. Hardly surprising, in one just being roused from suspended animation.

“There’s nothing to fear, Helen. Do you hear me? The berserkers have been beaten.” He didn’t want to tell her, not right away at least, that glorious Dardania was no more.

She had attained almost a sitting position by now, leaning on the rich cushions of her couch. There was some relief in her eyes, yes, but uneasiness as well. And still she had not uttered a word.

As Sabel understood it, people awakened from SA ought to have some light nourishment at once. He hastened to offer food and water both. Helen sampled what he gave her, first hesitantly, then with evident enjoyment.

“Never mind, you don’t have to speak to me right away. The-war-is-over.” This last was in his best Dardanian, a few words of which were now belatedly willing to be recalled.

“You-are-Helen.” At this he thought he saw agreement in her heavenly face. Back to Standard now. “I am Georgicus Sabel. Doctor of Cosmophysics, Master of … but what does all that matter of me, now? I have saved you. And that is all that counts.”

She was smiling at him. And maybe after all this was a dream, no more …

More foam was peeling, clotted, from her skin. Good God, what was she going to wear? He bumbled around, came up with a spare coverall. Behind his turned back he heard her climbing from the cushioned container, putting the garment on.

What was this, clipped to his belt? The newly-charged video recorder, yes. It took him a little while to remember what he was doing with it. He must take it back to the lab, and make sure that the information on it was readable this time. After that, the berserker could be destroyed.

He already had with him in camp tools that could break up metal, chemicals to dissolve it. But the berserker’s armor would be resistant, to put it mildly. And it must be very thoroughly destroyed, along with the rock that held it, so that no one should ever guess it had existed. It would take time to do that. And special equipment and supplies, which Sabel would have to return to the city to obtain.

Three hours after she had wakened, Helen dressed in a loose coverall, was sitting on cushions that Sabel had taken from her former couch and arranged on rock. She seemed content to simply sit and wait, watching her rescuer with flattering eyes, demanding nothing from him—except, as it soon turned out, his presence.

Painstakingly he kept trying to explain to her that he had important things to do, that he was going to have to go out, leave her here by herself for a time.

“I must go. I will come back. Soon.” There was no question of taking her along, no matter what. At the moment there was only one spacesuit

But for whatever reason, she wouldn’t let him go. With obvious alarm, and pleading gestures, she put herself in front of the airlock to bar his way.

“Helen. I really must. I— “

She signed disagreement, violently.

“But there is one berserker left, you see. We cannot be safe until it is—until—”

Helen was smiling at him, a smile of more than gratitude. And now Sabel could no longer persuade himself that this was not a dream. With a sinuous movement of unmistakable invitation, the Queen of Love was holding out her arms …

When he was thinking clearly and coolly once again. Sabel began again with patient explanations. “Helen. My darling. You see. I must go. To the city To get some—”

A great light of understanding, acquiescence, dawned in her lovely face.

“There are some things I need, vitally. Then I swear I’ll come right back. Right straight here. You want me to bring someone with me, is that it? I—”

He was about to explain that he couldn’t do that just yet, but her renewed alarm indicated that that was the last thing she would ask.

“All right, then. Fine. No one. I will bring a spare spacesuit … but that you are here will be my secret, our secret, for a while. Does that please you? Ah, my Queen!”

At the joy he saw in Helen’s face, Sabel threw himself down to kiss her foot. “Mine alone!”

He was putting on his helmet now. “I will return in less than a day. If possible. The chronometer is over here, you see? But if I should be longer than a day, don’t worry. There’s everything you’ll need, here in the shelter. I’ll do my best to hurry.”

Her eyes blessed him.

He had to turn back from the middle of the airlock, to pick up his video recording, almost forgotten.

How, when it came time at last to take the Queen into the city, was he going to explain his long concealment of her? She was bound to tell others how many days she had been in that far tent. Somehow there had to be a way around that problem. At the moment, though, he did not want to think about it. The Queen was his alone, and no one … but first, before anything else, the berserker had to be got rid of. No, before that even, he must see if its video data was good this time.

Maybe Helen knew, Helen could tell him, where cached Dardanian treasure was waiting to be found …

And she had taken him as lover, as casual bedpartner rather. Was that the truth of the private life and character of the great Queen, the symbol of chastity and honor and dedication to her people? Then no one, in the long run, would thank him for bringing her back to them.

Trying to think ahead, Sabel could feel his life knotting into a singularity at no great distance in the future. Impossible to try to predict what lay beyond. It was worse than uncertain; it was opaque.

This time his laboratory computer made no fuss about accepting the video records. It began to process them at once.

At his private information station Sabel called for a printout of any official news announcements made by the Guardians or the city fathers during the time he had been gone. He learned that the entertainer Greta Thamar had been released under the guardianship of her court-appointed lawyer, after memory extraction. She was now in satisfactory condition in the civilian wing of the hospital.

There was nothing else in the news about goodlife, or berserkers. And there had been no black-robed Guardians at Sabel’s door when he came in.

DATING ANOMALY PRESENT was on the screen of Sabel’s laboratory computer the next time he looked at it.

“Give details,” he commanded.

RECORD GIVEN AS EPOCH 451st CENTURY IDENTIFIES WITH SPECTRUM OF RADIANT EPOCH 456th CENTURY, YEAR 23, DAY 152.

“Let me see.”

It was, as some part of Sabel’s mind already seemed to know, the segment that showed Helen on the inner surface of the Fortress, raising her arms ecstatically as in some strange rite. Or dance.

The singularity in his future was hurtling toward him quickly now. “You say—you say that the spectrum in this record is identical with the one we recorded—what did you say? How long ago?”

38 DAYS 11 HOURS, APPROXIMATELY 44 MINUTES.

As soon as he had the destructive materials he needed loaded aboard the flyer, he headed at top speed back to base camp. He did not wait to obtain a spare spacesuit.

Inside the tent, things were disarranged, as if Helen perhaps had been searching restlessly for something. Under the loose coverall her breast rose and fell rapidly, as if she had recently been working hard, or were in the grip of some intense emotion.

She held out her arms to him, and put on a glittering smile.

Sabel stopped just inside the airlock. He pulled his helmet off and faced her grimly. “Who are you?” he demanded.

She winced, and tilted her head, but would not speak. She still held out her arms, and the glassy smile was still in place.

“Who are you, I said? That hologram was made just thirty-eight days ago.”

Helen’s face altered. The practiced expression was still fixed on it, but now a different light played on her features. The light came from outside the shelter, and it was moving toward them.

There were four people out there, some with hand weapons leveled in Sabel’s direction. Through the plastic he could not tell at once if their suited figures were those of men or women. Two of them immediately came in through the airlock, while the other two remained outside, looking at the cargo Sabel had brought out on the flyer.

“God damn, it took you long enough.” Helen’s lovely lips had formed some words at last.

The man who entered first, gun drawn, ignored Sabel for the moment and inspected her with a sour grin. “I see you came through five days in the cooler in good shape.”

“Easier than one day here with him—God damn.” Helen’s smile at Sabel had turned into an equally practiced snarl.

The second man to enter the shelter stopped just inside the airlock. He stood there with a hand on the gun bolstered at his belt, watching Sabel alertly.

The first man now confidently bolstered his weapon too, and concentrated his attention on Sabel. He was tall and bitter-faced, but he was no policeman. “I’m going to want to take a look inside your lab, and maybe get some things out. So hand over the key, or tell me the combination.”

Sabel moistened his lips. “Who are you?” The words were not frightened, they were imperious with rage. “And who is this woman here?”

“I advise you to control yourself. She’s been entertaining you, keeping you out of our way while we got a little surprise ready for the city. We each of us serve the Master in our own way … even you have already served. You provided the Master with enough power to call on us for help, some days ago … yes, what?” Inside his helmet he turned his head to look outside the shelter. “Out completely? Under its own power now? Excellent!”

He faced back toward Sabel. “And who am I? Someone who will get the key to your laboratory from you, one way or another, you may be sure. We’ve been working on you a long time already, many days. We saw to it that poor Greta got a new roommate, as soon as you took up with her Poor Greta never knew … you see, we thought we might need your flyer and this final cargo of tools and chemicals to get the Master out. As it turned out, we didn’t.”

Helen the woman Sabel had known as Helen, walked into his field of vision, turned her face to him as if to deliver a final taunt.

What it might have been, he never knew. Her dark eyes widened, in a parody of fainting fright. In the next moment she was slumping to the ground.

Sabel had a glimpse of the other, suited figures tumbling. Then a great soundless, invisible, cushioned club smote at his whole body. The impact had no direction, but there was no way to stand against it. His muscles quit on him, his nerves dissolved. The rocky ground beneath the shelter came up to catch his awkward fall with bruising force.

Once down, it was impossible to move a hand or foot. He had to concentrate on simply trying to breathe.

Presently he heard the airlock’s cycling sigh. To lift his head and look was more than he could do; in his field of vision there were only suited bodies and the ground.

Black boots. Guardian boots, trod to a halt close before his eyes. A hand gripped Sabel’s shoulder and turned him part way up. Gunavarman’s jovial eyes looked down at him for a triumphal moment before the Chief Deputy moved on.

Other black boots shuffled about. “Yes, this one’s Helen Nadrad, all right—that’s the name she used whoring at the Parisian Alley, anyway. I expect we can come up with another name or two for her if we look off world. Ready to talk to us, Helen? Not yet? You’ll be all right. Stunner wears off in an hour or so.”

“Chief, I wonder what they expected to do with suspended animation gear? Well, we’ll find out.”

Gunavarman now began a radio conference with some distant personage. Sabel, in his agony of trying to breathe, to move, to speak, could hear only snatches of the talk:

“Holding meetings out here for some time, evidently … mining for berserker parts, probably … equipment … yes, Sire, the berserker recording was found in his laboratory this time … a publicity hologram of Helen Nadrad included in it, for some reason … yes, very shocking. But no doubt … we followed him out here just now. Joro. that’s the goodlife organizer we’ve been watching, is here … yes. Sire. Thank you very much. I will pass on your remarks to my people here.”

In a moment more the radio conversation had been concluded. Gunavarman, in glowing triumph, was bending over Sabel once again. “Prize catch,” the Guardian murmured. “Something you’d like to say to me?”

Sabel was staring at the collapsed figure of Joro. Inside an imperfectly closed pocket of the man’s spacesuit he could see a small, blood-red cylinder, a stub of cut wire protruding from one end.

“Anything important, Doctor?”

He tried, as never before. Only a few words. “Dr-aw … your … wea-pons …”

Gunavarman glanced round at his people swarming outside the tent. He looked confidently amused. “Why?”

Now through the rock beneath the groundsheet of his shelter Sabel could hear a subtly syncopated, buzzing vibration, drawing near.

“Draw … your …”

Not that he thought the little handguns were likely to do them any good.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Shoresteading, Part Two

Written by David Brin

Part II

Departure

The journey began with a bribe and a little air.

And a penguin-like robot, standing on the low dining table that Wer had salvaged from a flooded mansion. A mechanical creature that stayed punctiliously polite, while issuing commands that would forever disrupt the lives of Wer and Ling and their infant son.

“There is very little time,” it said, gravely, in a Beijing-accented voice that emanated somewhere on its glossy chest, well below the sharply-pointed beak. “Others have sniffed the same suspicions that brought me here, drawn by your indiscreet queries about selling a gleaming, egglike stone, with moving shapes within.”

To illustrate what it meant by “others,” the bird-thing scraped one metallic talon along the scaly flank of a large, robotic snake—an interloper that had climbed the crumbling walls and slithered across the roof of this once-opulent beachfront house, slipping into the shorestead shelter and terrifying Ling, while Wer was away on his ill-fated expedition to Shanghai East. Fortunately, the penguin-machine arrived soon after that. A brief, terrible battle ensued, leaving the false serpent torn and ruined, just before Wer returned home.

The reason for that fracas lay on the same table, shimmering with light energy that it had absorbed earlier, from sunshine. An ovoid shape, almost half a meter from tip to tip, opalescent and mesmerizing.

Only a week or two ago, Wer had been thrilled to discover a hidden cache, filled with beautiful things, mostly geological specimens. Which was all Wer thought the stone to be, at first. Or else he would have been more cautious—far more cautious—making queries on the Mesh.

The penguin-shaped robot took a step toward Wer.

“Those who sent the snake creature are just as eager as my owners are, to acquire the worldstone. I assure you they’ll be less considerate than I have been, if we are here when they send reinforcements. And my consideration has limits.”

Though a poor man, with meager education, Wer had enough sense to recognize a veiled threat. Still, he felt reluctant to go charging off with his family, into a fading afternoon, with this entity … leaving behind, possibly forever, the little shorestead home that he and Ling had built by hand, on the ruins of a seaside mansion.

“You said that the … World Stone … picks only one person to speak to.” He gestured at the elongated egg. Now that his hands weren’t in contact, it no longer depicted the clear image of a demon … or space alien. (There was a difference?) Still, the lopsided orb remained transfixing. Swirling shapes, like storm-driven clouds, seemed to roil beneath its scarred and pitted surface, shining by their own light—as if the object were a lens into another world.

“Wouldn’t your rivals have to talk to it through me,” he finished. “Just as you must?”

One rule of commerce, that even a poor man understood—you can get a better deal when more than one customer is bidding.

“Perhaps, Peng Xiao Wer,” the bird-thing replied, shifting its weight in what seemed a gesture of impatience. “On the other hand, you should not overestimate your value, or underestimate the ferocity of my adversaries. This is not a market situation, but akin to ruthless war.

“Furthermore, while very little is known about these world-stones, it is unlikely that you are indispensable. Legends suggest that it will simply pick another human counterpart—if the current one dies.”

Ling gasped, seizing Wer’s left arm in a tight grip, fingernails and all. But still, his mind raced. It will say whatever it must, in order to get my cooperation. But appearances may be deceiving. The snake could have been sent by the same people, and the fight staged, in order to frighten us. That might explain why both machines showed up at about the same time.

Wer knew he had few advantages. Possibly, the robot had sensors to read his pulse, blood pressure, iris dilation, skin flush response … and lots of other things that a more educated person might know about. Every suspicion or lie probably played out across his face—and Wer had never been a good gambler, even bluffing against humans.

“I … will need—”

“Payment is in order. We’ll start with a bonus of ten times your current yearly income, just for coming along, followed by a salary of one thousand New Yuan per month. As you might guess, this amount is trivial to my owners, so more is possible with good results. Perhaps much more.”

It was a princely boon, but Wer frowned, and the machine seemed to read his thoughts.

“I can tell you are more concerned about other things, like whether you can trust us.”

Wer nodded—a tense jerk. The penguin gave a semblance of a shrug.

“That you must decide. Right now.” Again, with that faint tone of threat. Still, Wer hesitated.

“I will pack some things for the baby,” Ling announced, with resolution in her voice. “We can leave all the rest. Everything.”

But the penguinoid stopped her, lifting one stubby wing.

“I regret, wife and child cannot come. It is too dangerous. There are no accommodations and they will slow us down.” As Wer started to protest, it raised one stubby wing. “But you will not leave them to starve. I will provide part of your bonus now, in a form they can use.”

Wer blinked, staring as the machine settled down into a squat, closing its eyes and straining, almost as if it were …

With an audible grunt, it stepped back, revealing a small pellet on the table top. “You’ll find the funds readily accessible, at any city kiosk. As I said, the amount, though large for you, is too small for my owners to care about cheating from you.”

“That is not what worries me,” Ling said, though she stepped closer, leaned in, and snatched up the pellet. Wer saw that, while her voice was husky with fear, holding Xie Xie squirming against her chest, she wore a cold, pragmatic expression. “Your masters may find it inconvenient to leave witnesses. If you get the stone—how much better if nobody else knows? After … my husband departs with you … I may not live out the hour.”

I hadn’t thought of that, Wer realized, grimly. His jaw clenched. He took a step toward the table.

“Open your tutor tablet,” the bird-thing snapped, no longer courteous. “Quickly! And speak your names aloud.”

Wer hurried to activate the little Mesh device, made for pre-schoolers, but the only access unit they could afford. Their link was at the minimal, FreePublic level—still, when he spoke the words, a new posting erupted from the little screen. It showed his face … and Ling’s … and the Worldstone … plus a few dozen characters outlining an agreement.

“Now, your wife knows no more than is already published—which is little enough. Our rivals can extract nothing else, so we have no reason to silence her. Does that reassure?

“Good. Only, by providing this reassurance, I have made our time predicament worse. Many new forces will notice and start to converge. So choose, Peng Xiao Wer. This instant! If you will not bring the stone, I will explode in twenty seconds, to prevent others from getting it. Flee or agree! Sixteen … fifteen … fourteen …”

“I’ll go!” Wer grabbed up the heavy sack that formerly held the gleaming ovoid, and rolled it inside. The worldstone brightened, briefly, at his touch, then seemed to give up and go dark, as he stuffed in some padding and slung the bag over a shoulder. The penguinoid was already at the flap of the little tent-shelter. Wer turned, only for a moment …

… as Ling held up their son—the one thing they both cared about, more than each other. “Thrive,” he said, with his hand upon the boy’s head.

“Survive,” she commanded in turn. A moist glisten in her eye both surprised and warmed him, more than any words. Wer accepted the obligation with a hurried bow, then ducked under the flap, following the robot into the setting sun.

Halfway down the grand staircase, on the landing that Wer had turned into an indoor dock, the penguin split its belly open, revealing a small cavity and a slim, metallic object within.

“Take it.”

He recognized a miniature breathing device—a mouthpiece with a tiny, insulated capsule of highly compressed air. Quang Lu, the smuggler, had one—a bulkier model. Wer snatched it out of the fissure, which closed quickly, as the robot waddled to the edge, overlooking the greasy water of the Huangpo Estuary.

“Now, make speed!”

It dived in, then paused to swivel and regard Wer with beady, now-luminescent eyes, watching the human’s every move.

Wer took a brief, backward glance, wondering if he would ever return—then followed.

Seasteading

Ocean stretched in every direction.

Peng Xiao Wer had come to think of himself as a man of the sea. After all, for years he had spent most of his time in water—amid the scummy, sandy, tidal surges that swept up and down the Huangpo Estuary. He thought nothing of holding his breath while diving a dozen meters for crab, or prying salvage from the junk-strewn bottom, feeling more akin to the fish, or even drifting jellies, than to the landlubber he once had been. It a world of rising seas and drowning shorelines, it seemed a good way to adapt.

Only now, he realized, I always counted on the nearness of dry land.

The huge, ugly concrete seawall that China had erected, to defend its new coastline. And, beyond that new Great Wall, the shining towers of East Shanghai. Even the teetering, pre-flood mansions that poor men like me were tricked into shoresteading—a cheap way to clean up the mess left by other generations. Even those crumbling ruins were somehow reassuring.

Compared to the real thing. Compared to this.

Ahead of him lay nothing but gray sea, daunting and seemingly endless, flecked with wind-driven froth and merging imperceptibly with a faraway, turbid horizon. Except where he now stood, on a balcony, projecting outward from a man-made island—a high-tech village on stilts—clinging to a reef that used to be a nation.

And that was now a nation, once again.

Looking carefully, he could follow the curve of breakers, where mutant corals had been planted in faint hope of enhancing the shoals. Below the surface, he knew, there lay stumps of what had once been buildings—homes and schools, shops and wharves. Only, here there had been no effort to preserve doomed properties against the rising sea. Explosives took care of that, years ago, making swift work of Old Pulupau, soon after most of the natives moved away. Anyway, the new inhabitants didn’t want unpleasant reminders to spoil their view.

Of course there was a lot more hidden from the eye, just under the surface and beyond the reef. A vista of pulsating industry had been visible from the small submarine that brought him here, three days ago. Wave machines for generating electricity and siphons that sucked up bottom mud to spread into the currents, fertilizing plankton to enhance nearby fishing grounds and earn carbon credits at the same time. Through a tiny, circular window, Wer had also seen huge spheres, shaped like gigantic soccer balls, bobbing against anchor-tethers—pens where whole schools of tuna spent their lives, fed and fattened for market. A real industrial and economic infrastructure … all of it kept below the surface, out of sight of the residents.

A glint of white cloth and silvery metal … Wer winced as his right eye, fresh from surgery, overreacted to the sudden glare, reflecting off a twenty meter sailing vessel that passed into view, around the far corner of Newer Newport. Sails billowed and figures hurried about the deck, tugging at lines. A call—distant but clear—bellowed across the still surface of the lagoon.

“Two-Six, heave!”

Voices answered in unison as well-drilled teamwork rapidly set the main sail. Though the crew seemed to be working hard, nobody would call it “labor.” Not when the poorest citizen of this independent nation could buy or sell a man like Wer, ten thousand times or more. Wer found the sight intriguing, in more ways than he could count.

I always thought that rich people would lay about, letting servants and robots do everything for them. Sure, you heard of wealthy athletes and hobbyists. But I had no idea so many others would also choose to sweat and strain … for fun. Or that it could be so—

He shook his head, lacking the vocabulary. Then something happened that he still found disturbing. A dark splotch appeared, as if by magic, in a lower corner of his right eye. The shadow resolved into a single Chinese character, with a small row of lesser figures underneath, offering both a definition and pronunciation guide.

Obsessive.

Yes. That word seemed close to what he had in mind. Or, rather, what the ai in his eye estimated, after following his gaze and reading subconscious signals in his throat, the subvocalized words that he had muttered within, without ever speaking them aloud.

This was going to take some getting used to.

“Peng Xiao Wer,” a voice spoke behind him. “You have rested and the worldstone has recharged. It is time to return.”

It was the same voice that he had come to associate with the penguin-machine, his constant companion during the hurried journey that began less than a hundred hours ago—first swimming away from his wife and child and the little shorestead they all shared, then aboard a midget submarine, followed by a fast coastal packet-freighter, then a hurried midnight transfer to a seaplane that made a rendezvous, in mid-ocean, with yet another submarine … and all that way accompanied by a black bird-like robot. His guide, or keeper, or guard, it had spoken to him soothingly about his coming duties as keeper of the worldstone.

Only at journey’s end, after surfacing and stepping onto Newer Newport, here in Pulupau, did Wer meet the original owner of the voice.

“Yes, Nguyen Ky,” he answered, turning and nodding to a slight man, with Annamese features and long black hair braided in elegant rows.

“I come, sir.”

He turned to gather up the off-white ovoid—the worldstone—from a nearby patio table, where it had lain in sunshine for an hour, soaking energy. A welcome break for him, as well.

As carefully as he would handle a baby, Wer hefted the artifact and followed Nguyen Ky between sliding doors of frosted glass, moving slowly, out of habit, in order to let his eyes adapt to interior dimness. Only, he might as well not have bothered. His right eye … or ai … now adjusted brightness and contrast for him, more quickly than any spreading of his natural iris.

The room was broad and well-appointed, with plush furnishings that adapted to each user’s comfort preference. Programmable draperies were set to a soothing pattern that rippled gently, like a freshwater brook, though the farthest window was left open. Through it, Wer glimpsed the rest of Newer Newport—more than a hectare of sleek, multistoried luxury, perched on massive footings, firmly anchored over the spot where the ancestral kings of Pulupau once had their palace. Some distance beyond, a series of other mammoth stilt-villages, each wildly different in style, followed the curve of a drowned atoll. One of them—with architecture reminiscent of palm logs and thatch roofing—was set aside for the old royal family and a number of genuine Pulupauese. As legalistic insurance, no doubt. In case any nation or consortium ever questioned the sovereign independence of this archipelago of wealth.

Seasteading. Of course, Wer had heard of such places. Along the spectrum of human wealth, these projects lay at the very opposite end from the shorestead that he had settled with Ling, in the garbage-strewn Huangpo. Here, and in a few dozen other locales, some of the world’s richest families had pooled funds to buy up small nations to call their own, escaping responsibility to the continental states, with their teeming, populist masses. And taxes. Yet, there were essential traits shared in common by seastead and shorestead. Adaptation. Making the best of rising seas. Turning calamity into advantage.

Three technical experts—a graceful Filipina who never removed her wraparound immersion goggles; an islander, possibly an heir of the native Pulupauans, who kept fingering his interactive crucifix; and an elderly Chinese gentleman, who spoke in the soft tones of a scholar—watched Wer gingerly replace the worldstone in its handcrafted cradle, surrounded by instruments and sleek, ailectronic displays.

The ovoid had already started coming alive, in response to his touch. Nobody knew why, as keeper of the worldstone, Wer alone could rouse the object’s power to create vivid images that shone within—like a whole world or universe shining within an egglike capsule, half a meter long. Whatever the reason, Wer was grateful for the honor, for the employment, for a chance to participate in matters far above his normal station of life.

The now-familiar entity Courier of Warnings lurked—or seemed to lurk—just within the pitted, egglike curves, amid those everpresent swirling clouds. Courier’s ribbon eye stared outward, resembling Anna Arroyo’s unblinking goggles, while the creature’s diamond-shaped, four-lipped mouth pursed in a perpetual expression of worry or disapproval.

Wer carefully re-attached a makeshift device at one end, that compensated for some of the object’s surface damage, partly restoring a sonic connection. Of course, he had no idea how the mechanism—or anything else in the room—worked. But he kept trying to learn every procedure. If only so the others would consider him a colleague and not an experimental subject.

From their wary expressions, he could tell it would take time.

“Let us resume,” Dr. Nguyen said. “We were attempting to learn about the stone’s arrival on Earth. Here are the ideograms we want you to try next, please.” The small man laid a sheet of e-paper in front of Wer, bearing a series of characters. They looked complex and very old—even archaic.

Fortunately, Wer did not have to hold the ovoid in his hands, anymore. Just standing nearby seemed to suffice. Bringing his right index finger close—and sticking out his tongue a little in concentration—he copied the first symbol by tracing it across the surface of the worldstone. Inky brushstokes seemed to follow his touch-path. Actually, it came out rather pretty. Calligraphy … one of the great Chinese art forms. Who figured I would have a knack for it?

He managed the next figure more quickly. And a third one. Evidently, the ideograms were not in modern Chinese, but some older dialect and writing system that preceded the unification standards of great Chin, the first emperor. Fortunately, the implant in his eye went ahead and offered a translation, which he spoke aloud.

“Date of arrival on Earth?”

There were two projects going on, at once. First, using the ancient symbols to ask questions. But Dr. Nguyen also wanted to expose the entity to modern words. Ideally—if it truly was much smarter than an Earthly AI—it should learn the more recent version of Chinese, and other languages as well. Anyway, this would test the ovoid’s adaptability.

After a brief pause, Courier appeared to lift one arm, with a weirdly flexible double-elbow, and knocked Wer’s ideograms away, causing them to shatter and dissolve with a flick of one three-fingered hand. The simulated alien then proceeded to draw a series of new figures that jostled and arrayed themselves against the worldstone’s inner face. Wer also sensed the bulbous right end of the stone emit faint vibrations. Sophisticated detectors fed these to a computer, whose vaice then uttered enhanced sounds that Wer didn’t understand.

Fortunately, Yang Shenxiu, the white-haired Chinese scholar, could. He tapped a uniscroll in front of him.

“Yes, yes! So that is how those words used to be pronounced. Wonderful.”

“And what do they mean, please?” demanded the Vietnamese mogul standing nearby.

“Oh, he … the being who resides within … says that he cannot track the passage of time, since he slept for so long. But he will offer something that should be just as good.”

Dr. Nguyen stepped closer. “And pray, what is that?”

The alien brought its forearms together and then apart again. The everpresent clouds seemed to converge, bringing darkness upon a patch of the worldstone, till deep black reigned across the center. Wer caught a pointlike glitter … and another … and then two more … and another pair …

“Stars,” announced Anna Arroyo. “Six of them, arrayed in a rough hexagon … with a final one in the middle, off-center … I’m searching the online constellation catalogues… . Damn. All present day matches include some stars that are below seventh magnitude, so it’s unlikely …”

“Please do not curse,” said the islander, Paul Menelaua. “Let’s recall that the topic at hand is time. Dates. When. Stars shift.” Still fondling the animatronic cross that hung from a chain around his neck, he added. “Try going retrograde …”

The figure of Jesus seemed to squirm, a little, away from his touch. Anna frowned, but nodded. “I’m on it. Backsifting and doing a whole sky match-search in one hundred year intervals. This could take a while.”

Wer grunted. Held back a moment. Then hurriedly blurted.

“Seven!”

The scholar and the rich man turned to him. Wer had to swallow to gather courage, managing a low croak.

“Try the seven maidens. You know. The …” He groped for a name.

“Pleiades,” the scholar finished for hum. “Yes, that would be a good guess—”

The Filipina woman interrupted. “Got you. Scanning time-drift of just that one cluster, back … back … yes! It’s a good match. The Pleiades, just under five thousand years ago. Wow.”

Dr. Nguyen nodded. “I expected something like this. Peng Xiao Wer, the box that formerly held the worldstone—please tell us, what did the inscription say?’

Wer recited from memory.

“Unearthed in Harappa, 1936… .” He then spoke the second half with an involuntary shiver. “Demon-infested. Keep in the dark.”

“Harappa, yes,” Nguyen nodded, ignoring the other part. “A center of the Indus Valley culture … the poor third sister of the early days of urban civilization, after Mesopotamia and Egypt. Some think it was a stunted state—cramped, paranoid and never fully literate. We don’t really know what happened to the Indus civilization. Abandoned about 1700 BCE, they say. Possibly a great flood weakened both main cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.”

He shook his head, and the elegant braids swished. “But this makes no sense! Why would it be speaking to us in archaic Chinese, a dialect from a millennium later? Harappa was buried under sand, by then!”

Wer shrugged. “Shall I try to ask, sir?”

The small man waved a hand in front of his face. “No. I am following a script of questions, prioritized by colleagues and associates around the world. We’ll keep to these points, then fill in gaps later. Go to the next set of characters, Peng Xiao Wer, if you would please.”

Wer felt gratified, again, by Dr. Nguyen’s unfailing politeness. The gentleman had been well-brought up, for sure, skilled at how best to treat underlings. Perhaps I will get to work for him, forever. Not a harsh fate to contemplate, so long as Ling and the baby could join Wer, at some point soon.

He meant to prove his value to the man.

Bending over the stone, Wer carefully sketched four more of the complicated figures. Professor Yang Shenxiu had provided these versions of the questions, in a style from long ago, in order to communicate with the entity within. Dr. Nguyen’s consortium could not wait for their own worldstone to learn modern Chinese. There wasn’t time.

Not with the world in an uproar over dire things that were being said by the so-called Havana Artifact—another alien emissary-stone that an American astronaut recently retrieved from high orbit. This stone in front of Wer offered a way to check—in secret—on the stories being told by that other one in Washington. So far, they knew one thing.

Courier proclaimed that the Havana Artifact had been sent by “liars.”

Wer concentrated on drawing the ancient characters right. When the last figure was finished, seeming to float, just below the surface of the egg-shaped thing, Wer spoke the question aloud, as well.

“How did you arrive on Earth?”

The reply came in two parts. While Courier of Warnings painted ideograms and uttered antiquated words, an image took shape nearby, starting as night’s own darkness. Anna Arroyo quickly arranged for an expanded version of the picture to billow outward from their biggest 3D display, revealing a black space-vista, dusted with stars.

Meanwhile, in arch tones that seemed beautifully and appropriately old-fashioned, Professor Yang Shenxiu translated the ancient ideograms, aloud.

Pellets, hurled from point of origin,

Thrown by godlike arms of light,

Cast to drift for time immeasurable,

Through emptiness unimaginable …

One star, amid a powdery myriad, seemed to pulsate, as if aiming narrow, sharp twinkles outward… .

“Capture those constellation images!” Dr. Nguyen commanded, with no time for courtesy.

“I’m on it!” Menelaua snapped. His fingers left the crucifix and waggled in the air with desperate speed, while the islander grunted and hopped a little in the seat of his chair.

Wer stared as several of the narrow, winking rays seemed to propel tiny dots in front of them. One of these zoomed straight toward his point of view, growing into a wide, reflective surface that loomed toward those watching.

“Photon sail!” Anna diagnosed. “A variant on the Nakamura design. Propelled by a laser at point of origin.”

Wer grunted, amazed by her quickness—and that he actually grasped some of her meaning! The space windjammer hurtled past his viewpoint, which swiveled around to give chase—and he briefly glimpsed a tiny, smooth shape, dragged behind the giant sail, brilliantly radiant in the home star’s propelling beam …

… which then dimmed. The diaphanous sail contracted, folding and collapsing into a small container at one end of a little egg, whose former brightness now faded, until it could only be made out as a seed-shaped ripple, hurtling at speeds Wer couldn’t begin to contemplate.

“Neat trick with the sail,” Paul commented. “Tuck it away, when it’s not needed for propulsion or energy collection, so it won’t snag interstellar particles. With bi-memory materials, it could expand or contract with very little effort. I bet they use it later to slow down.”

Wer now grasped how the worldstone must have come across the incredible gulf between stars—a method sure to provoke feelings of kinship from this colony of wealthy yachting enthusiasts. At the same time, he wondered. What would ancient peoples, in China or India, have made of these images?

In fact, could anyone guarantee that modern humanity was much more advanced now? In ways that mattered most?

Meanwhile, Scholar Yang’s narration continued.

Slow time passed while the galaxy turned,

A new star loomed—its light, a cushion.

The pellet turned around and re-deployed its sail, which now took a gentler, braking push from a brightening light source ahead. The sun, Wer realized. It had to be.

“Knew it!” the islander exulted. “Of course there’s no laser at this end. Just sunlight alone won’t be enough.”

As the star ahead grew from a pinpoint into a tiny, visible disk, a new object abruptly loomed in front of the worldstone—a great, banded sphere, replete with tier after tier of whirling, multicolored storms.

Chosen beforehand—a giant ball waited,

Ready to catch … pull … assist …

Yang Shenxiu’s translation stumbled as, even with computer aissistance, he could only offer guesses. Well, after all, the Indus and archaic Chinese peoples knew very little about astronomy, planetary navigation and all that.

“A gravity swing past Jupiter,” Anna murmured in apparent admiration. “Like threading a microscopic needle across centuries and light years. They had to time it perfectly.”

The mighty gas planet swerved by unnervingly fast, and the pellet, with its sail still billowed open, now plunged slightly away from the sun, then plunged toward it again, from a different angle.

Paul interjected. “But it would still have loads of excess velocity. This needle would have been chosen to offer multiple swings past other planets, as well as Jupiter and the sun, again and again.”

His appraisal was borne out, as the broiling solar sphere darted by, making Wer’s eyes water. Just after nearest passage, the sail furled back into its container … and soon a smaller ball swung past, so close that Wer felt he was passing through the topmost of its churning, yellow clouds, while a brief, glowing aura surrounded the image.

“Atmospheric braking through the atmosphere of Venus. Dang! They’d need orbital figures down to ten decimals, in order to plan this from so far away, so long in advance.”

Then, another sudden veer and gyre past Jupiter… .

“Yes, though it could make small, real time adjustments, in between encounters, by tacking with the sail,” Anna replied. “Still they wouldn’t arrange it in such detail without a destination in mind.” She made her own rapid finger movements. “They had to know about Earth already. From instruments, like our LifeSeeker Telescope … only far more advanced. They’d know it had an oxygen atmosphere, life, non-equilibrium methane, possibly chlorophyll. Even so—”

Without shifting his transfixed gaze, Wer had to shake his head. There was no way that ancient peoples could have made anything of this, even if Courier showed them all the same images and told them all about these worlds, named after their gods—or the other way around. Wer’s head seemed to spin, nauseated, as the whirling, planetary dance went through several further encounters—more dizzying, gut-wrenching pirouettes—until the sense of pell mell speed finally diminished. The pace grew sedate—if no less urgent.

Then a different-colored dot appeared, just ahead.

Once again, the storytelling image zoomed in upon the box at the front of the pellet. A little hatch opening, the sail re-emerging.

At long last, the goal lay in sight,

Now to approach gently, and find a perch,

To focus, study, and appraise,

Then to sleep again and wait.

Wait until a time of claiming,

When allures are certain. Ready …

Only, this time, something went wrong, as the sail came out of its box—and one corner dimpled inward, crossing its own lines and causing a tangle.

“Uh-oh, that can’t be good.” Paul Menelaua commented. “How’d that happen?

Wer blinked in surprise and felt his guts clench as the sail rapidly collapsed, its slender cables knotted and spoiled. While this happened, Paul’s commentary continued.

“It must have intended to fine-tune its approach to Earth, by gradually tacking on sunlight till entering a high, safe orbit, perhaps at a Lagrange point. Then spend some time—centuries—evaluating the situation. Maybe use the sail as a telescope mirror, to make detailed observations from a secure distance. Then wait.”

“Wait … for what?” Anna was doubtful. “For the planet to produce space travelers? But, the temporal coincidence is incredible! To launch this thing timed so it arrived only a few thousand years before we made it into space? How could they have known?”

Wer marveled that these skilled people could grasp so much, so quickly. Even allowing for all of their fancy tools and AIds, it was a privilege to be in such company.

“Incredible, but implicit! Anyway, how do we know the solar system isn’t filled with these stone-things, arriving all across the last billion years? We never surveyed the asteroid belt for objects this small. And that astronaut snagged one that drifted in—”

“It’s still an appalling coincidence,” Anna snapped. “There has to be—”

“Comrades, please,” Professor Yang Shenxiu urged, raising his eyes briefly from his own work station. “Evidently, something went wrong at the last minute. Let us observe.”

Wer found that he could barely breathe from tension, watching a drama that had unfolded millennia ago. He felt sympathy for the worldstone. To have traveled so far, and come so close to success, only for it all to unravel …

Failure! Luck evades us,

While the ball-Earth reaches out,

To clutch me to her bosom.

Wer glanced at Yang Shenxiu, who was once again far away in time and space, his eyes glittering with soft laser reflections cast by his helper apparatus. Of course, the alien entity’s vocabulary must have come from its encounters with early humans, in long-ago, more colorful days.

Will Earth embrace me?

Will I end in a fiery pyre?

Or will she fling me outward,

To tumble, forever—

—in cold and empty space?

Unable to maneuver, even a little, the pellet let go of its uselessly clotted sail as the planet loomed close, swinging by, once … twice … three times … and several more … From Paul’s commentary, it seemed that some kind of safety margin was eroding with each orbital passage. Doom drew closer.

Then it came—the final plunge.

So, it will be fire.

Plummeting amid heat and pain,

Destined for extinction …

Starting with deceptive softness, the flames of atmospheric entry soon crackled around the image, accompanied by a roar that seemed almost wrathful. Wer realized, with a sharp intake of breath, that it would be just like the Cheng He expedition. He felt an agonized pang, as any Chinese person would …

… until new characters floated upward, to jitter and bump alongside the image-story, painted in brush strokes of tentative hope.

Then, once again,

Fate changed its mind.

The grand voyage might have ended then, in waters covering three-quarters of the globe, an epic journey climaxing in burial, under some muddy bottom. Or, impacting almost anywhere on land, to crush, shatter and explode.

Instead, as they watched the egg-artifact ride a shallow trail of flame—shedding speed and scattering clouds—there loomed ahead a snow-covered mountainside! It struck the pinnacle along one flank, sending white spumes jetting skyward. Then another angled blow, and another … till the ovoid finally tumbled to rest, smoldering, on the fringes of a highland glacier.

Heat, quenched by cold, melted a shallow impression, much like a nest. Whereupon, soon after arriving in a gaudy blaze, the pellet from space seemed to fade—barely visible—into the icy surface. Wer had to blink away tears.

Wow, he thought, releasing tension. That was much better than any of the telenet dramas that Ling used to make him watch.

Meanwhile, archaic-looking ideograms continued to flow across the Worldstone, next to the story-image. Yang Shenxiu was silent, as distracted and transfixed as any of them. So Wer glanced at some modern Chinese characters that formed in the corner of his right eye. A rougher, less poetical translation, offered by his own aissistant.

This was not the normal mission.

Nor any planned-for program.

For once, none of the smart people said a thing, joining Wer in silence as the picture narrative flowed on. Spot-sampled snapshots seemed to leap across countless seasons, innumerable years. The glacier underwent a time-sped series of transition flickers, at first growing and flowing down a starkly lifeless valley, carrying the stone along, sometimes burying it in white layers. Then (Wer guessed) more centuries passed as the ice-river gradually thinned and receded, until the retreating whiteness departed completely, leaving the alien envoy-probe stranded, passive and helpless, upon a stony moraine.

But the makers left allowance,

For eventualities unexpected.

Appearing to give chase, grasses climbed the mountain, just behind the retiring ice wall. Soon, tendrils of forest followed, amid rippling, seasonal waves of wildflowers. Then, time seemed to put on the brakes, slowing down even more. Single trees stayed in place, the sun’s transit decelerated, unnervingly, from a stop-action blur to the torpid movement of a shadow, on a single day.

Wer swayed in reaction, as if some vehicle he was riding had screeched to a halt. A bubble of bile rose in his throat. Still, he was unable to stop watching, or even blink… .

… as two of the shadows moved closer, converging upon a pair legs—clad in leather breeches and cross-laced moccasins—that entered the field of view in short, careful steps.

Then, a human hand, stained with soot. Soon joined by its partner—fingernails grimy with caked mud and ocher. Reaching down to touch.

Dour Storytellers

Wer tried hard to follow the conversation—partly out of fascination, but also because he felt desperate to please.

If I prove useful to them—more than a mere on-off switch for the worldstone—it could mean my life. It might even mean getting to see Ling and Xie Xie again.

That goal wasn’t going to come easy, though. The others kept talking way over his head. Nor could he blame them. After all, who was he? What was he, but another piece of driftwood-trash, washed up on a beach, who happened to pick up a pretty rock? Should he demand they explain everything? Dui niu tanqin … it would be like playing a lute to a cow.

Except. of course, they needed his ongoing service as communicator/ambassador to the entity within that rock—and he seemed to be performing that task well enough. At least according to Dr. Nguyen, who always seemed friendly to Wer.

Still, the tech-search experts—Anna Arroyo and Paul Menelaua—clearly felt dubious about this ill-educated Huangpo shoresteader with weathered skin and rough diction, who kept taking up valuable time with foolish questions. Those two would be happier, he knew, if the honor of direct contact with the Courier entity were taken over by somebody else.

Only, can the role be passed along at all? If I died, would it transfer to another? Surely, they had mulled that tempting thought.

Or do I have some special trait—something that goes beyond being the first man in a decade or two, to lay eyes on the worldstone? Without me, might there be a long search, before they found another? That possibility, he knew, was the one he must foster. At some point, it might keep him breathing.

“Clearly, this mechanism in our possession was dispatched across interstellar space by different people, with different motives, than those who sent the Havana Artifact,” commented Yang Shenxiu, the scholar from New Beijing, who rested one hand on the worldstone, without causing more than a ripple under its cloudy surface—giving Wer a touch of satisfaction. It reacts a lot more actively to my touch!

With his other hand, Yang motioned toward a large placard-image screen for comparison. In vivid three-vee, it showed the alien object under study in Virginia, America, surrounded by researchers from around the world—a bustle of activity watched by billions of people and supervised by Gerald Livingstone, the astronaut who had discovered and collected that “herald egg” from orbit.

To most of the world, that is the sole one in existence. Only a few suspect that such things have been encountered before, across the centuries. And even fewer have certain knowledge of another active stone, held in secret, here in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean.

Wer contemplated the three-dimensional image of his counterpart, a clever and educated man, a scientist and spaceman and probably the world’s most famous person, right now. In other words, different from poor little Peng Xiao Wer in every conceivable way. Except that he looks as tired and worried as I feel.

Watching the man portrayed in the placard-view, Wer felt a sense of connection, as if with another chosen one. Another keeper/guardian of a frightening oracle from space. Even if they found themselves on opposite sides of an ancient struggle.

Paul Menelaua answered Yang Shenxiu by describing a long list of physical differences in excruciating detail—the Havana Artifact was larger, longer, and more knobby at one end, for example. And, clearly, far less damaged. Well, it never had to suffer the indignities of fiery passage through Earth’s atmosphere, or pummeling impact with a mountain glacier, or centuries of being poked-at by curious or reverential or terrified tribal humans … not to mention a couple of thousand years buried in a debris pit, then a couple of decades soaking in polluted waters underneath a drowned mansion. Wer found himself reacting defensively on behalf of “his” worldstone.

I’d like to see Livingstone’s object come through all that, and still be capable of telling scary stories.

Of course, that was the chief trait that both ovoids had in common. Differing somewhat in the details, each one seemed intent on frightening Earthlings with dire warnings they could do nothing about.

“… so, yes, there are evident physical differences. Still, anyone can tell that at a glance that they use the same underlying technologies. Capacious and possibly unlimited holographic memory storage. Surface sonic transduction at the wider end … but with most communications handled visually, both in pictorial representation and through symbol manipulation. Some surface tactile sensitivity. And, of course, an utter absence of moving parts.”

“Yes, there are those commonalities,” Anna Arroyo put in. “Still, the Havana Artifact projects across a wider spectrum than this one—and it portrays a whole community of simulated alien species, while ours depicts only one.”

Dr. Nguyen nodded, his elegantly-decorated braids rattling. “It would be a good guess to imagine that one species or civilization sent out waves of these things, and the technology was copied by others—”

“Who proceeded to cast forth modified stones of their own,” concluded Anna. “Until one of those races decided to break the chain letter, somewhat. By offering a dissenting point of view.”

Wer took advantage of this turn in the conversation—away from technical matters and back to the general story their own worldstone had been telling.

“Isn’t … is it not … clear who came second? Courier warns us not to pay attention to liars. It seems … I mean is it not clear that he refers to the tales that are … that have been told by the Havana Artifact?”

Of course they were amused by his stumbling attempts to speak a higher grade of Beijing dialect, with classier grammar and tones. But he also knew there were many types of amusement. And, while Anna and Paul might feel the contemptuous variety, it was the indulgent smile of Dr. Nguyen that mattered far more. He seemed approving of Wer’s earnest efforts.

“Yes, Peng Xiao Wer. We can assume—for now—that our worldstone is speaking of the Havana Artifact—or things like it—when it warns against enemies and liars. The question is—what should we do about this?”

“Warn everybody!” suggested Yang Shenxiu. “You’ve seen how the other worldstone has thrown the entire planet into a funk, with that story told by the emissary creatures who reside within. A tale of profound and disarmingly blithe pessimism, confidently assuring us that nobody survives. Already, there are rising waves of nihilism and despair, across every continent.”

“Not everybody is reacting that way,” Paul answered. “Perhaps the warning will have net positive effects. It may be enough to rouse humanity, to gird us with determination and make us decide at last to grow up. To bear down and concentrate on solving—”

Anna snorted with disdain. “You’ve seen the telecasts. Those artifact creatures insist, over and over again, that there is no way to accomplish it. Surviving as a technological civilization appears to be like crossing a vast minefield. Too many mistakes lie in wait for any sapient race. Too many bad tradeoffs or ineludible paths of destruction. They say it’s rare for any advanced culture to last for more than a few thousand years. At best. Barely long enough to learn how to make more of these—” she gestured at the worldstone “—and cast out more copies of the chain letter!”

Well, Wer thought, even a few thousand years would be nice. We humans have only had high tech for a century or so, and we seem to have already blown it.

Anna held up a finger.

“Either they are telling the truth about that inevitability, in which case it’s all hopeless, and we should take up their offer … or …” she held up another. “Or they are telling this story in order to push us toward despair and self-destruction—the scenario that our Courier entity warns against.”

Yang Shenxiu agreed. “This is bigger than any of us. Let us bring these terrifying stones together! Let them debate each other, before the world!”

All eyes turned to Dr. Nguyen, who rested both elbows on the teak tabletop and bridged his fingers, blowing a silent whistle through pursed lips. Finally, he shook his head.

“I am answerable to a consortium,” he said at last, in impeccable Mandarin, with only a hint of his childhood Mekong accent. “My instructions were to start by getting this stone’s story and determining if there were any differences from the Havana Artifact. That we have accomplished.

“Alas, the second imperative priority was made crystal clear—to seek advantageous technologies, at almost any cost. Either through interrogation or through dissection. Also, using such methods to determine if there are troves of information the thing is holding back.”

With grim, tight lips, Paul Menelaua nodded. Meanwhile, Wer and the others stared, in various degrees of shock.

“The word advantageous …” Anna protested. “… it assumes we can discover something that the researchers in Virginia aren’t discovering—technologies that would give our consortium an edge. But we’ve already seen that these objects are similar. Moreover, the entire premise of the story being told by the creature-simulations inside the Havana Artifact … their whole narrative … revolves around a promise that they will give humanity every capability to make more of these stones!

“It’s the reason they crossed so many light years. Surely that means we’d gain nothing from tearing apart—”

“Not necessarily,” Paul dissented. “If Courier is right, they have a hidden agenda. They’ll hold back plenty. Sure, they’re teaching humanity how to make copies. But really, what are they offering? These stone emissaries don’t seem to be all that far in advance of our present capabilities, anyway. Now that we’ve seen them, we could probably duplicate everything—except maybe those super propulsion lasers—in thirty years. Or less.

“No, what has to worry us is the possibility that there may be a lot more to all of this, underneath what they are telling us. Only, because the Havana Artifact is openly shared and in public hands, it will never be subjected to harsh scrutiny.”

“But we can cut into our stone, because we’re not answerable to public opinion, is that it?” Anna’s voice cracked with disbelief. “Are you listening to yourself? If Courier is telling the truth, then only he can expose the other stone’s lie! Yet, because we believe him, and have an opportunity to proceed in secret, we’ll start sawing away at him, with drills and lasers?”

“Hey, look. I was only saying—”

“What about the others?”

Menelaua glared at Wer for interrupting, so fiercely that Wer shrank back and had to be coaxed into resuming.

“Please continue, son,” Dr. Nguyen urged. “What others are you talking about?”

Wer swallowed.

“Other … stones.”

Nguyen regarded him with a blank, cautious stare,

“Pray explain, Peng Xiao Wer. What other stones do you mean?”

“Well …” he gathered his courage, speaking slowly, carefully. “When I first arrived here, you … graciously let me view that report … the private report describing legends about sacred crystals or globes or rocks that … were said to give some humans a chance to … to see strange or distant or fantastic things. Some of the stories are well known—crystal balls and dragon stones. Other tales were passed down for generations within families or secret societies. There is one that’s supposed to go back nine thousand years, right? It’s … it is interesting to compare those sagas to the truth we see before us … and yet …”

He paused, uncertain he should continue.

“Go on, Wer,” urged the rich man—representing an association of many other rich men and women.

“Yet … what I don’t understand is why that report, all by itself, would have made people so eager … spending so much money and effort … to actually look for such a thing! I mean, why would any modern people—sophisticated men like you, Dr. Nguyen—believe such stories, any more than fables about spirits and demons?” Wer shook his head, repressing the fact that he had always believed in spirits, at least a little. So did lots of people.

“I figure the former owner of our worldstone—”

“Lee Fang Lu.” Yang Shenxiu interjected a name that Wer had never known, till now. The fellow who used to own that pre-deluge mansion, with the clandestine basement chamber where Wer had found a treasure trove of odd specimens. He nodded gratefully.

“Lee Fang Lu might have been arrested, tortured and killed over rumors—”

“That he possessed something like this.” Dr. Nguyen nodded and his beaded hair clattered softly. “Pray continue.”

“Then there’s the way you and your … competitors … pounced on me, after I put out just a hint about a glowing white egg. Clearly, when the Havana Artifact was announced, there were already powerful groups out there, who knew the … the …”

He groped for the right words. And abruptly a new, unfamiliar Chinese language character appeared in that ai-patch, overlain upon his lower right field of vision. Plus a row of tone-accented roman letters, for pronunciation. The ai-patch had been doing that more often as it grew more familiar with Wer—anticipating and assisting what he was trying to say.

“… the range-of-plausible-potentialities …” he carefully enunciated, while moving his finger over his palm, mimic-drawing the character in question—a common thing to do, when a word was obscure. He saw the others variously frown or smile a little. They were probably used to this sort of thing.

“I just find it hard to believe that powerful people would go to so much trouble … to search frantically for such a thing, even after learning about the Havana Artifact … unless they thought there was a real possibility of success. Unless they had strong reason to believe those legends were more than just legends.”

He looked at Dr. Nguyen, surprised by his own boldness.

“I bet there was a lot left out of that report, sir. Is it possible that some groups have had worldstones before this? And maybe still do?”

Menelaua shook his head and snarled. “That’s ridiculous.”

“And why is that, Paul?” Anna Arroyo answered. “It’d take care of that temporal coincidence, at least a bit. Maybe these things have been crisscrossing our region of space for a long time, like messages in bottles, sent by neighbors squabbling and slandering each other. While most settled into far orbits, waiting for Earth to produce space-faring folk, others might have landed—accidentally, like this one. Or on purpose in some way. Most would shatter or get buried at sea. But just like a plant that sends out thousands of seeds, you need only one to take root …”

Yang Shenxiu protested. “If there were so many, would not geologists or gem seekers or collectors or plowing farmers have seen, by now, some of the fallen ones? Even if they were split or burned, they would stand out!”

Anna shrugged. “We have no idea how these things decay, if broken. Maybe they decompose quickly into a form that resembles typical rock crystal—like some of those that were worked into sacred skulls. Or they might dissolve into sand or dust, or even vapor. One more reason to leave this one intact, I say!” She turned to Wer. “But your point is that some clandestine group or groups may already have one or more of these things. Either complete or a partially working fragment. They might already have heard some variant on the tale told by the Havana Artifact …”

“In which case, not telling the world may have been merciful and wise,” Yang Shenxiu muttered. “Better to let people continue in blissful ignorance, if all our efforts will be futile anyway. If humanity is simply doomed to ultimate failure.”

Paul Menelaua pounded his fist on the table. His action-crucifix wriggled in rhythm to the vibrations. “I can’t accept that. The Havana aliens must be lying! That stone should be dissected, instead of this one.”

Silence stetched, while Yang Shenxiu seemed uncertain whether to interpret Paul’s shouting as disrespect, or simply a matter of cultural or personality difference. Finally, the scholar shrugged.

“If we might get back on topic,” he said.

“Indeed,” Anna said. “I doubt any group would keep such an active stone secret out of pure altruism. Human beings tend to seek advantage! While rationalizing that they mean well, for the greater good.” She spoke in ironic tones, without looking directly at Dr. Nguyen. “But that’s the problem with this hypothesis of Wer’s. If any other group already had such a stone, would we not see new technologies similar to … similar to—”

Her voice stuttered to a stop, as if suddenly realizing what should come next.

Paul filled in for her. “Similar to the advances we’ve all seen, across the last century or so? As I just said, we’re already converging on these abilities. More rapidly than any other kind of technology! Methods for advanced visual simulation, realistic avatar aindroids that pass Turing tests—”

“All of which may simply be incremental progress, propelled by the market, by popular culture, and by public demand,” Dr. Nguyen pointed out. “Honestly, can you name a single breakthrough that did not seem to follow right on the heels of others, in a rapid but natural sequence of human ingenuity and desire? Isn’t it a tiresome cliche to credit our own inventions to intervention from above? Must we devolve back to those lurid scenarios about secret laboratories where hordes of faceless technicians analyze alien corpses and flying saucers, without ever telling the citizenry? I thought we had outgrown such nonsense.”

The others looked at their leader, and Wer could tell they were all thinking the same thing.

If anybody in this room does know about another, secret stone, it would be him.

“But of course,” Nguyen added, spreading his hands with a soft smile, “according to this new hypothesis of Wer’s, we should look carefully at those who have profited most from such technologies. Bollywood moguls. The owners of Believworld and Our-iverse. The AIs Haveit and Fabrique Zaire. In which case—”

Wer felt a wave of satisfaction—briefly—upon hearing one of his ideas called a “hypothesis. ” Even so, he had an uneasy feeling about where this was heading.

“But that only makes our purpose here more pressing,” Dr. Nguyen continued. “If there are human groups who already have this advantage—access to alien technologies—then they may turn desperate to prevent the International Commission from completing its study of the Havana Artifact. Even worse, there is no telling how long we can keep our own secret. Almost anything we do, any coding or shrouding that we use, could be penetrated by those who have had these methods for some time.

“Our only safe recourse would be to get as much out of this worldstone as possible, quickly, in order to catch up.”

Wer realized something, watching Nguyen weave this chain of logic, even as the others nodded in agreement. He is using this argument to support a decision that was already made, far above our heads.

“Wer, I want to start asking the Courier entity for useful things. No more stories. We need technologies and methodologies, as quickly and practically as possible. Make clear how much depends upon—”

He paused as—ten meters across the lavish chamber—the far door opened. At the same instant, a curtain of obscuration fell across the table—a dazzle-drapery consisting a myriad tiny, bright sparkles that prevented any newcomer from viewing the worldstone.

Too bad it also filled the air with a charged, ozone smell. Wer wrinkled his nose. He didn’t understand how a Discretion Screen was generated by “laser ionization of air molecules,” but he knew that a simple bolt of black velvet could have accomplished the same thing. Or else locking the door.

A moment later, a liveried servant hurried in—a young woman with strawberry hair. Wer had spoken to her a few times, a refugee from New Zealand, whose spoken Chinese was broken and coarse, but she lent the place a chaste, decorative charm.

“I asked that we not be disturbed for any—” Nguyen began.

“Sir, I am so sorry, sir.” She bowed low, as if this were Japan, where they still cared about such things. “Supervisor Chen sent me to come to you here with discreet message for you. He needs you at command center. Right away.”

Nguyen started to get up, unfailingly polite. “Can you please say what it’s about?”

“Sir, I think they have detected something approaching the security boundary at high speed, plus several other possible contacts—”

That was when the window behind Wer’s back exploded into a million shards.

Dismemberment

Wer felt shoved forward by the concussion—a fist of air striking his body from behind, as hard as any ocean wave. At almost the same instant, a spray of glass slivers impacted his back. Somebody screamed—it might have been him—as the cloud of brittle shards jetted past him to collide with the scintillating fog of the Discretion Screen. Dazzling sparkles flared as glass splinters met ionized nitrogen, appearing to frame his shadow in a vivid aura. It might have even been beautiful, if his mind had room for anything but shock … plus a single, stunned word.

What?

Stumbling to a halt right at the edge of the table, he glanced to the right and saw Dr. Nguyen—his left cheek bloody from a dozen cuts—turn toward him and shout. But Wer’s ears didn’t seem to be functioning. Only a low, growling hum penetrated.

Nguyen blinked. He pointed at Wer, then into the blinding haze above the tabletop—and finally jutted his finger southward, toward the exit farthest from the explosion. The ai-patch in Wer’s lower right cone of vision started offering helpful interpretations, but he already understood.

Take the stone and get out of here!

This all took the barest moment. Another passed while Wer hesitated. Loyalty to his employer called for him to stay and fight. What would the others … Paul and Anna and Yang Shenxiu … think if they saw him run away?

But Nguyen jutted his finger again—emphatically—before turning to face something new, entering the room behind Wer. And Wer knew something with uncanny certainty. That just turning around to see might be the worst mistake of his life—

—so, instead, he dived into the drapery of fizzing sparks.

Naturally, it hurt like blazes. It was designed to. Keeping his eyes closed, he scooped up the worldstone by recall alone, along with its nearby container-satchel. A shoresteader and reclamation diver needed good visual memory.

Tumbling out the other side of the dazzle curtain, he rolled across the carpeted floor and onto his left knee. By touch alone, Wer slid the ovoid into its carrier case, while he blinked rapidly, praying that clear vision would return—

—then instantly regretted the wish, when he saw what had become of the beautiful face of Anna Arroyo. She lay nearby, torn from forehead to ribs, the everpresent goggles now shattered into bits that only helped to ravage her face. Paul Menelaua, his own visage a mass of dribbling cuts, with tiny glass daggers sticking out of some held his dying comrade, offering Anna his crucifix. The animatronic Jesus moved its mouth, perhaps reciting some final prayer or death rite, while its hands, still pinned to the silver cross, opened in a gesture of welcome.

Hearing flooded back. Murky shouts erupted, beyond the shrouded table, where he had just fled seconds ago. Dr. Nguyen’s protesting voice argued with several others that were harsh, demanding. The floor vibrated with heavy footsteps. Grating rumbles carried through the shattered window—from war engines that had somehow crossed the broad Pacific undetected, all the way to this rich, isolated atoll. So much for the mercenary protection that wealth supposedly provided.

Wer gathered his strength to go … then spotted the New Beijing professor, Yang Shenxiu, cowering nearby, clutching a table leg. The scholar babbled and offered Wer something—a memory sheet, no thicker than a piece of paper and about the same size. Yang Shenxiu’s fingernails clawed, involuntarily, at the fragile-looking polymer, leaving no tracks as Wer yanked it from the scholar’s hand. Then, with a parting nod to Yang, he sprang away at a crouching run, dashing for a sliding door that gave way to a balcony, and then the sheltering sea.

Bless the frugal habits of a shoresteader. Waste nothing. Re-use everything. Upon arriving at Newer Newport, Wer had kept sly possession of the little disposable underwater breathing apparatus that the penguin-robot gave him, back in the murky waters of the Huangpo. Was it his fault they never asked for it back? In the well-equipped arcology kitchen, using a smuggler’s trick, he had managed to re-fill the tiny reserve tank, while rehearsing speeches of forgetful innocence, should anyone find it in his pocket.

Now, splashing into a storm of saltwater bubbles and engine noise, Wer fumbled at the compact breather with one hand, struggling to unfold the mouthpiece and eye-shields, while the weight of the worldstone dragged him downward by his other arm. There was a scary moment when the survival gadget almost slipped out of his grasp. Only after slipping it snugly into place did Wer finally kick off his sandals and suck in a hopeful, tentative burst of needed air.

Okay. It’s good, he noted with some relief. But ease up. Breathe slow and steady. Move slow and steady.

The normally clear waters roiled with turbid murk, a fog of churned gases, chopped seaweed and fragments of shattered coral, along with a cloudy phosphorescence of stirred diatoms. Something foreign—perhaps leakage from those engines—filled his mouth with an oily tang. Still, Wer felt grateful for the obscuration as he kicked hard to grab a ladder stanchion along one of the massive concrete pillars, anchoring the arcology to the bottom.

Noises reverberated all around—more explosions and the rattattat of weapons being discharged somewhere nearby, while bits and pieces of debris fell from Newer Newport, splashing and tumbling to disturb the muddy bottom. Or else landing atop the drowned Royal Palace of Pulupau, just below. Part of him noted, with a shoresteader’s eye for such things, that if the palace walls had not collapsed, the roofline would extend well above where he was, right now.

Wer clung to his perch, trying both to control his racing heartbeat and to seem very small. Especially when—after searching and peering about—he was able to make out several vessels, bobbing just beyond the reef, blocked from entering the lagoon by the shoreline ruins. Evidently they were submarines of some kind. Sneakers, designed for bringing commandos close to shore. Though Wer squinted, they were difficult to make out. The nearest submersible looked like a compact, tubular bulge of ghostly ripples, almost liquid amid the churning shoal currents …

… until the aiware in his right hand field of view intervened, applying some kind of image processing magic to overcome the effects of blur-camouflage. Then, all at once, an augmented version of the scene—truer than reality—traced the warship for him, distinct enough to make out a sleek, sharklike shape, whose mouth still gaped after spewing raider troops, minutes ago.

Dr. Nguyen said this implant was only a simple one, to help me with translations. But it seems to be a whole lot more. Perhaps smart, too?

That thought must have conveyed to some nerves controlling speech, because Wer’s unspoken question provoked an answer—one that floated briefly in the right-eye’s field of view. A single, simple character.

YES.

Wer shivered, realizing. He now had a companion—an ai—inside him. By one way of viewing things, it felt as much a violation as the painful cuts across his back. Which were oozing blood into the water, causing several sand sharks to start nosing upcurrent, heading this way, despite the turbulence. Not deadly in their own right. But more dangerous predators might soon converge, if the bleeding didn’t stop.

He tried to bear down and think. Shall I try to reach one of the other arcologies? Even if Newer Newport was taken, the rest of the resort colony might be holding out. And, from the booming shockwaves still reverberating through the shallows, it seemed that they must be. Of course, his loyalty had been personal, to Dr. Nguyen, not to any consortium of rich folks. Still, the stipend they were paying into an account, for Ling and the baby, that was reason enough to try.

If it seemed at all possible, that is. The worldstone was too heavy a burden to haul through a long underwater slog, with limited air, while dodging both sharks and raiders. Anyway—

The enemy … they’ll soon realize the stone isn’t up top, anymore. There’ll be searchers in the water, any second now.

He decided, then.

It must be down.

He had already spotted several parts of the collapsed palace where the roof looked relatively intact, likely to host cavities and hiding places. Spots that only a shoresteader might notice. If he hid well, resting to minimize oxygen consumption, the invaders might give up after a quick scan, assuming that the worldstone was elsewhere—taken to another arcology, perhaps—and go chasing after it there.

Letting go of the stanchion, he allowed the stone’s weight to drag him down till bottom mud met his feet … and he felt antediluvian pavement underneath a few centimeters of muck. The Pulupauan king’s ceremonial driveway, perhaps. He shuffled along, grateful that none of the spiky, genetically engineered New Coral had yet taken root here. Hurrying, while trying not to exert himself, he slogged past several rusting hulks of automobiles—perhaps beloved, once-upon-a-time, but not enough to take along, when the princely family fled rising seas.

There. That old window. The gable looks in good shape. Perfect.

Perhaps too perfect … it might occur to the enemy to search here. But he had no time to be choosy. Wer kicked through a series of hops that took him over the worst of the debris jumbles and clumps of rusty nails, arriving finally at the opening. He took a moment to grab the sill and frame, giving them a good shake to check for stability. But wealthy scuba divers would already have come exploring through here by now. It must be safe.

He slipped inside, and found the expected cavelike hollow. There was even a small air pocket at the ceiling vertex, probably stale, left here by those earlier diver-sightseers. Lacking a torch, Wer chose to settle in next to the opening, clutching the satchel and waiting. Either until the bad guys went away, or his breather ran empty, whichever came first. The goggle part included a crude timer display. With luck and a very slow use-rate, there might be a bit more than half an hour of air left.

Before it runs out, and I have to surface, I’ll hide the worldstone. And I’ll never tell.

Something occurred to him: was that the very same vow made by the last owner of the alien relic, Lee Fang Lu? The man who kept a collection of strange minerals underneath his seaside mansion? Did that man resist every pressure to hand over the ancient interstellar messenger-stone, even unto death?

Wer wished he could be so certain of his own courage. But, above all, he yearned to know more about what was going on! Who were the parties fighting over these things? Dr. Nguyen seemed reluctant to talk about history, but there were hints … had factions really been wrangling secretly, in search of “magical stones” for thousands of years? Perhaps going farther back in time than reading and writing?

Only now, centuries of cryptic struggle seemed headed for some desperate climax, all because that American astronaut chose to let the whole world in on it. Or was all this frenzy for another reason? Because Earthling technology was at last ready—or nearly ready—to take up the tempting deal offered by those entities living inside the Havana Artifact?

A proposition, from a message in a bottle …

… to teach humanity how to make more bottles.

Wer blinked. He wanted to rub his eyes, in part because of irritation from the dazzle curtain, along with all the debris and salt deposited on his lids and lashes. And waves of fatigue. His head hurt, in part from trying to think so hard, while the water shivered and boomed around, pummeling him with the din of fighting.

Of course he knew that explosions were far more dangerous underwater. If one occurred nearby, concussion alone could be lethal, even if the roof didn’t collapse. Then there was the nagging worry over how long his air would last.

At least no big sharks could follow him inside this place. Perhaps his cuts would stop oozing before he had to leave.

To Wer’s relief, the clamor of combat eased at last, diminishing toward relative silence. Only soon, he felt the drone of an engine drawing closer. His tension level spiked when a cone of sharp illumination speared through the murky water, just outside the dormer, panning and probing across the royal compound. His gut remained knotted until the rumble and the searchlight moved onward, following the line of ruins toward the old Parliament House and the soggy remnants of the town beyond.

Wer closed his eyes and concentrated on relaxing, slowing his pulse and metabolism. As the seconds passed, he felt gradually more able to remove himself from worry and fear. At least partly.

Serenity is good.

That pair of characters floated into the corner of his ai. Then three more, composed of elegant, brushlike strokes—

Contemplate the beauty of being.

For an instant, he felt irritated by the presumption of a machine program, telling hm to relax and meditate, under these conditions! But the ideograms were quite lovely, capturing wise advice in graceful calligraphy. And the ai had been a gift of Dr, Nguyen, after all. So … Wer decided to give in, allowing a sense of detachment to settle over him.

Of course sleep was out of the question. But to think of distant things … of little Xie Xie smiling … or of Ling in better days, when they had shared a dream … or the beauty he had glimpsed so briefly in the worldstone—those glowing planets and brittle-clear stars … the hypnotic veer and swing and swerve of that cosmic, gravity ballet, with eons compressed into moments and moments into ages …

Peng Xiao Wer, wake up!

Pay attention.

He startled out of a fetal curl and reflexively clutched reflexively at the heavy satchel—as the universe around him seemed to boom like the inside of a drum. The little attic-cave rocked and shuddered from explosions that now pounded closer than ever. Wer fought to hold onto the windowsill, preparing to dive outside, if the shelter-hole started to collapse. Desperately, he tried to focus on the telltale indicator of the breather unit—how long did I drift off? But the tiny analog clock was a dancing blur before his eye.

Just when he felt he could take no more, as he was about to throw himself through the dormer to risk survival outside, no matter what—a shape suddenly loomed in the opening. A hulking form with huge shoulders and a bullet-like head, silhouetted against the brighter water outside.

Wer let out a low moan and a stream of bubbles, backing into a corner as the figure bent and twisted to squeeze inside, fleeing the watery maelstrom. The interloper squirmed about awkwardly, giving Wer a few moments to take measure.

It’s a man … wearing some kind of military uniform … and one of those helmets that are equipped with emergency pop-out gills …

Oxygen-absorbing fronds had deployed out of recesses in the other fellow’s headgear. Wer saw that he had a small tube in his mouth and was sucking at it desperately. Evidently a refugee from the renewed combat raging overhead, he wore goggles that were flooded and clearly not meant for underwater use. Wer watched as the soldier floundered, trying to stay upright while struggling for enough air.

He had better calm down, or he’ll overwhelm those little gills. Also, Wer realized—I’m darkness adapted and my eye covers work. I can see him, but maybe he hasn’t seen me.

Evidently, the fellow wasn’t as big as he had thought. Those hulking shoulders … had been inflated by air pockets inside the uniform, collapsing now as bubbles gradually escaped. The soldier—quite slim, he now realized—must have jumped into the sea in a hurry, much as Wer did earlier. Such haste suggested that—maybe—the tide of battle might have turned, outside.

Wer started edging toward the opening, lugging the worldstone satchel in short, careful shuffling steps, careful to avoid both broken timbers and the newcomer’s feet.

Whoever he was, the soldier must have had good training. Wer could tell he was adapting, gathering himself, concentrating on solving problems. As the rollicking explosions diminished a little, the man stopped thrashing and his rapid gasps ebbed into more regular breathing. When he started to experiment with exhaling a vertical stream of bubbles, aimed at clearing and filling his goggles, Wer knew there was little time left to make a clean getaway. He picked up the pace, fumbling around behind himself to find the opening. Only it took a bit of effort while hauling the heavy …

He stopped, as sharp illumination erupted from an object in the soldier’s hand, engulfing Wer and the dormer window.

Aided by the implant, Wer’s right eye adapted, even as the left one was dazzled into uselessness. For several seconds, Wer stood and exchanged a long look with the soldier, who drifted almost within arm’s reach. Because the implant laid a disk of blackness over the bright torchlight, he was able to tell that it was part of a weapon—a small sidearm—that the fellow aimed at Wer’s chest.

Slowly, without jerky motions, Wer pointed at the torch … then at the dormer entrance … then jabbed his thumb upward several times.

Whoever is chasing you may see that light, streaming out of the ruins … and drop something unpleasant on us.

The soldier apparently grasped his meaning and slid a control or sent a subvocal command. The light source dimmed considerably and become all-directional, dimly illuminating the whole chamber so they could see each other …

… and Wer realized, he had been mistaken. The interloper was a woman.

Several more seconds passed, while the soldier looked Wer over. Then she laid the weapon down nearby—and used her right forefinger to draw several quick characters on the palm of her left hand.

You are Peng Wer.

Palm-writing was never a very good form of communication, all by itself. Normally, folks used it only to settle ambiguity between two spoken Chinese that sounded the same. But down here, it was the best they could manage. Anyway, the flurry of movements sufficed for Wer to recognize his own name. And for him to realize—the invaders had come, all this way across the ocean, both knowledgeable and well-prepared.

Only now, things seemed to be going rather badly for them.

But it would be rude to point out the obvious. So he finally responded with a brief nod. Anyway, she had expressed it as a statement, not a question.

The soldier finger-wrote three more ideograms.

Is that the thing?

She finished by pointing to the satchel holding the worldstone, that Wer clutched tightly. And he knew there was little use denying it. A simple shrug of the shoulders, then, to save air.

She spent the next few seconds concentrating on sucking air from the barely-adequate emergency gill, then exhaled another stream of bubbles to fill her goggles. Her eyes were red from salt water and rimmed with creases that must have come from a life engaged in scrutiny. Perhaps a technical expert, then, rather than a front-line warrior—but still a member of an elite team. The kind who would never give up.

As combat sounds drifted farther away, she wrote another series of ideograms on her left palm. This time, however, he could not follow the finger movements well enough to understand. Not her fault, of course—probably his own, deficient education—and this time the aimplant in his eye offered no help.

He indicated confusion with a shake of his head.

Frustrated, she looked around, then shuffled half a meter closer to the nearest slanted attic wall. There, she used the same finger to disturb a layer of algae-scum, leaving distinct trails wherever she wrote.

Are you a loyal citizen?

She then turned and patted a badge on her left shoulder. And Wer noticed, for the first time, the emblem of the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China.

Taken-aback, he had to blink.

Of course he was a loyal Chinese! But citizen? As a shoresteader, he had some rights … but no legal residency in either Shanghai or any of the great national cooperatives. Nor would he, till his reclamation contract was fulfilled. All citizenship is local, went the saying … and thus, two hundred million transients were cast adrift. Still, what did citizenship mean, anyway? Who ever got to vote above the province level? Nationwide, all “democracy” tended to blur into something else. Not tyranny—clearly the national government listened to the People—in much the same way that Heaven could be counted-on to hear the prayers of mortals. There were constituent assemblies, trade congresses, party conclaves, dominated by half a billion little emperors … and it all had a loose, deliberately traditionally and proudly nonwestern flavor.

Still, am I proud to be Chinese? Sure. Why wouldn’t I be? We lead the world.

Yet, that wasn’t really what loomed foremost in his mind.

What mattered was that he had been noticed by great ones, somewhere high up the pyramid of power, obligation and privilege. By people who were high enough to order government special forces on a dangerous and politically risky mission, far from home.

They know my name. They sent elite raiders across the sea, to fetch me. Or, at least the worldstone.

Not that it was certain they’d prevail Even great powers like China had been out-maneuvered, time and again, by the planetary New Elites. After all, the woman soldier was hiding down here with him.

No. One consideration mattered, more than citizenship or national loyalty.

Even as the rich escaped to hand-made sovereignties like New Pulupau, old-fashioned governments still controlled the territories where billions of ordinary people lived—the festering poor and middle classes. Which that meant one thing to Wer.

The high masters of China have Ling and Xie Xie in their hands.

I truly have no choice.

In fact, why did I ever believe I had one?

Wer shifted his weight in order to lean over and bring his own finger toward the slanted, algae-covered boards. Even as he drew a first character, the ai in his eye remonstrated.

Don’t do this, Wer.

There are other options.

But he shook his head. And grunted the code word they had taught him for clearing the irritation away. The artificial presence vanished from his right field of vision, allowing him to see clearly the figures that he drew through filmy scum. Fortunately, by now the explosions had faded away almost completely, allowing him to trace his strokes carefully.

I will cooperate.

What must I do?

A look of satisfaction spread across the soldier’s face. Clearly, this was better fortune than she had figured-on, only moments ago, when she jumped from the balcony of Newer Newport into the uncertain refuge of ocean-covered ruins. Perhaps, this little royal attic had unusually powerful chi.

She started to write again, across the scummy, steeply pitched ceiling.

Very good. We have little time …

Wer agreed. Less than five minutes of highly compressed gas remained in the tiny air tank. That is, if he could even trust the tiny clock in his goggle lens.

She continued to write.

Nearby, we have a submerged emergency shelter where we can …

The soldier stopped suddenly, as if her body had gone frozen, her eyes masked in shadow. Then, he saw them glint with fear as she turned, like a marionette tugged by swirling currents.

He swiveled quickly … to see something very large, looming in the dormer opening. A slithering, snakelike shape—wider than a man—that wriggled upward, almost filling the slanted entrance. Robotic eyes began to glow, illuminating every crevice of the cavity within. Evidently, a powerful fighting machine, it seemed to examine both of them—not only with light, but also pulses of sonar that frisked their bodies like ungentle fingers of sound.

A sharp spotlight swerved suddenly downward, at the soldier’s pistol sidearm, laying on a broken chunk of wood. Abruptly, a whiplike tendril emerged from its mouth and snatched up the weapon, swallowing it before either human could move. Then, a booming voice filled the little hiding place, made only slightly murky by the watery echo chamber.

“Come, Peng Xiao Wer,” the mechanical creature commanded, as it began to open its jaw wide. “Now. And bring the artifact.”

Wer realized, with some horror, that the serpent-android wanted him to crawl inside, through that gaping mouth. He cringed back.

Perhaps sensing his terrified reluctance, the robot spoke again.

“It is safe to do this … and unsafe to refuse.”

A threat, then. Wer had plenty of experience with those. Familiarity actually calmed his nerves a little, allowing him to examine the odds.

Cornered, in a rickety sunken attic, facing some sort of AI super-robot, with my air supply about to give out … um, do I have any choice?

Yet, he could not move. So the serpaint made things clear. From one eye, it fired a narrow, brilliant beam of light that made the water bubble and steam along its path. By the time Wer turned around, it had finished burning a single character in one of the old roof beams of the Pulupauan royal palace.

CHOOSE.

Still, he thought furiously. No doubt the machine could simply take the worldstone away from him, with one of those tendril things. So … it must realize … or its owners must … that the worldstone required him. Still, in order to make sure, he extended a finger and palm-wrote for the creature to see.

I am needed. It speaks to me. Only me.

The serpent-machine had no trouble parsing Wer’s hand-writing. It nodded.

“Agreed. Cooperation will be rewarded. But if I must take only the artifact, we will find a way.”

That way would be to offer the stone new candidates. As many as it took. With Wer no longer alive.

“Choose now. There is little time.”

Wer almost dug in his heels, right then. He was getting sick of people—and things—telling him that. Still, he managed to quash both irritation and fear, shuffling a step closer, and another.

Then he glanced back at the Chinese special forces soldier, who was still staring, wide-eyed. There was something in her expression, a pleading look.

Wer stood in front of the sea monster. He wrote on his palm again, in front of its eye.

What about her?

The robot considered for just a moment, then answered.

“She knows nothing of my mission, owners, or destination. She may live.

Quiet thanks filled the woman’s eyes, fortifying Wer and putting a sense of firmness in his step, as he drew close. Though he could not keep from trembling, as he lifted the satchel containing the worldstone and laid it inside that gaping maw. Then, without its weight holding him down, he rotated horizontal and turned his body to start worming inside.

It was the second strangest thing that he had ever done.

The very strangest—and it puzzled him for the next hour—was what he did while crawling inside … when he slipped one hand into his pocket, drawing out something filmy and almost translucent, tossing it backward to flutter out of the sea serpent’s jaw, drifting below where its eyes could see … but where the soldier could not help but notice.

Yang Shenxiu gave it to me to protect from the attackers, and now I’m giving it to one of them? Does that even make sense? And yet, somehow, it felt right.

The gullet of the serpaint wasn’t as gross as he expected. The walls were soft and he only had to crawl back a short distance to find a space that seemed shaped to fit a person, reclining on his back. While he twisted into the seat, Wer felt the jaw close with a solid thump and he felt backward movement. Soon, by some mechanical wizardry, the small space around him began emptying of water, replaced by—

—Wer spat out the mouthpiece and took a tentative breath that turned into a shuddering gasp of pure relief. What little air had been left in the breather was stale beyond belief. The noseplug and gogglets went next, and he rubbed his itchy eyes, gratefully.

Then he realized, a patch of the machine’s wall near his head … it was transparent! A window, then. How considerate. Really. It made him feel ever-so-slightly less like a prisoner—or a meal—and more like a passenger. He pressed against the little viewing patch, peering at the dimness outside. Now illuminated only by slanting moonlight, the palace ruins were a slanted jumble. It took him several moments, while the huge robot continued backing up, to spot the little attic opening where he had taken shelter.

Briefly, just before the machine began accelerating forward, Wer thought he glimpsed a shadow—a human silhouette—framed by a canted, twisted dormer window.

At least, he thought he did. Enough to hope.

It’s a buoy

The sea serpent took a circuitous route along the ocean floor, carrying Wer on a lengthy tour of murky canyons and muddy flats that seemed to stretch on endlessly.

Although the little cavity where he lay had clearly been intended for a passenger’s comfort, there was almost no room in the padded space, between curved walls that kept twisting and throbbing as the machine beast propelled itself along. Nor was the robot vehicle as garrulous or friendly as Dr. Nguyen’s penguin surrogate had been, giving only terse answers when he tried to start conversation and refusing his request for a webscreen or immersion specs or any other form of ailectronic diversion. For the most part, the apparatus kept silent.

As silent as a motorized python could be, while undulating secretively across a vast and mostly-empty sea. Clearly, it was avoiding contact with humanity—not easily done in this day and age, even far away from shipping lanes and shorelines. Several times, Wer felt thrown to one side as the snake-submarine veered abruptly and dived to take shelter behind some mound, within a crevice, or even burying itself under a meter or so of mucky sediment, then falling eerily quiet, as if hiding from predators. On two of those occasions, Wer thought he heard the faint drone of some engine gradually rise and fall, in both pitch and volume, before fading away at last. Then, as the serpent shook itself free of mud, their journey resumed.

Of course there were still signs of mankind, everywhere. The ocean floor was an immense junkyard, even in the desert zones where no fish or plants or any kind of organism could be seen. Shipwrecks offered occasional sightseeing milestones, but far more often Wer saw mundane types of trash, like torn commercial fishing nets, resembling vast, diffuse, deadly clouds that drifted with the current, clogged with fish skeletons and empty turtle shells. Or swarms of plastic bags that drifted alongside jellyfish hordes—a creepy mimicry. Once, he spotted a dozen huge cargo containers that must have toppled from a mighty freighter, long ago, spilling what appeared to be bulky, old-fashioned computers and television screens across at least forty hectares.

I’m used to living amid garbage. But I always figured that the open sea was better off … more pure … than the Huangpo.

Losing track of time, he dozed at last, while the slithering robot hurried across a vast and empty plain, seeming almost as lifeless as the surface of the moon …

… then jerked awake, to look out through the tiny window and find himself being carried along a jagged underwater mountain range, an apparently endless series of stark ridges that speared upward from unfathomable depths, reaching almost to the glistening border between liquid and sky. It was as alien a landscape as he had ever seen, and even more transfixing because the rippling promontories vanished into bottomless gloom, below.

If the mechanical creature that had swallowed him meant to shake off any pursuers, or avoid detection, weaving its way through this labyrinth would seem a pretty good approach.

Feeling somewhat recovered from exhaustion, Wer peeled open some ration bars that he found in a small compartment by his left arm. A little tap offered trickles of fresh water. There also was a washcloth, which he used to dab and clean his cuts, as well as possible in the cramped space. A simple suction tube—for waste—was self-explanatory, if a bit awkward to use. After which, the voyage became a battle against both tedium and claustrophobia—the frustration of limited movement and worry over what his future held.

No clues came from the sea serpent, which only spoke sparingly and answered no questions, not even when Wer asked about some roiling funnels of black water that he spotted, rising from fissures in a nearby ridgeline, like columns of smoke from a fierce fire.

It occurred to Wer that—perhaps—he shouldn’t be so glad that the owners of this sophisticated device had included a window, after all. In stories and teledramas, kidnappers always insist on a blindfold, if they plan to let you go.

The time to worry is when they don’t seem to care. If they let you watch the route to their lair, it often means they know you’ll never talk.

On the other hand, who could possibly tell, from memory, one hazy sea-ridge from another?

That reassured him for a while … till he remembered the visual helper unit that Dr. Nguyen installed in his right eye. Wer had come to take for granted the way the tiny aissistant augmented whatever he looked at, enhancing the dim scene beyond the window. Now he realized; without it, he wouldn’t be seeing much at all.

Are they assuming that a poor man, like me, is un-augmented?

He wondered about the implant. Might it even be recording whatever he saw? In which case, was he like the kidnap victim who kept daring fate, by peeking under his blindfold?

Or am I headed for someplace that is so perfectly escape-proof that they don’t care how much I know?

Or someplace that I’d never want to escape from?

Or am I to be altered, in ways that will make me placid?

Or do they figure that I’ll only be needed for a little while—till a replacement can be arranged, to speak with the worldstone? Must I try as hard to win over my next masters, as I did Anna and Paul and Dr. Nguyen?

Each scenario came accompanied by vivid fantasies. And Wer tried not to subvocalize any of them—there were modern devices that could track the impulses in a human throat and parse words that one never even spoke aloud. On the other hand, why would anyone bother doing that, with a mere shoresteader trashman, like him?

Ultimately, each fantasy ended in one thought. That he might never see his family again.

But the soldier … the woman in that drowned attic room … she will get the sheet recording that Yang Shenxiu made. She will know that I cooperated. The government will protect and reward Ling and Xie Xie. Surely?

It was all too worrisome and perplexing. In order to help divert his thoughts, Wer put the worldstone on his lap and tried talking to Courier of Warnings. True, without immersion in sunlight, the entity had to preserve energy, subduing its vivid animations—the images were dim and limited to a small surface area. Still, if he could learn some new things, that might prove his worth, a little, when they arrived.

It wasn’t easy, at first. Without any sound-induction devices, he was limited to tracing characters on the ovoid’s surface. Courier at first tried responding with ancient ideograms. But Wer knew few of those, so they resumed the process of updating its knowledge of written Chinese. The entity-within offered pictures or pantomimed actions. Wer sketched the associated modern words—often helped by the ai-patch. Never having to repeat, it went remarkably quickly. Within half a day, they were communicating.

At last, Wer felt ready to ask a question that had been foremost in his mind. Why did Courier hate the aliens inside the Havana Artifact?

Why did he call them “liars?”

It a stream of characters, accompanied by low-resolution images, the entity explained.

Our world is farther from its sun than yours. Larger but less dense. Our gravity slighter. Our atmosphere thicker and rich with snow. It is a planet much easier to land upon than your Earth. Hence, if a solar sail is built especially sturdy in the middle, it can be used as a parachute, to cushion the fall.

And so, when they came to our world, many of the stones did not shy away, lurking at a safe distance. No, instead they sometimes chose a direct approach, raining down upon—

There appeared a new symbol, not at all like anything in Chinese, but made up of elegant, curling and looping lines that suggested waves churning a beach. The emblem reminded Wer of Turbulence and so that became his word for the planet.

—from many sources.

My species rose up to sapience already knowing these things, finding them occasionally in mud or stone or ice. Foraging packs of our pre-sapient ancestors cherished them. Early tribes fought over them, worshipped them, looked to them as oracles, seeking advice about the next hunt, about agriculture, about diplomacy … and marriage.

The alien made a gesture that Wer could not interpret—a writhing of both hands. And yet, he felt somehow sure that it expressed irony.

Thus, our evolution was guided. Accelerated. Certainly our cultures.

Painting characters with a finger, Wer wrote enviously that humanity never had such help. That is, unless you counted a few, vague strictures from Heaven. And, perhaps, some nudges from the rare messenger fragments that made it to Earth.

Do not envy too readily, Courier chided.It might have gone smoothly, if there were only one kind of stone, with one inhabitant each! But there were scores, perhaps even hundreds of crystal seers, scattered across several continents! Only much later did we learn—they had come across space from several directions. At least six different alien points of origin. Turbulence-planet sits at a meeting of galactic currents.

Then add this irksome fact. That each stone held multitudes! Communities, accumulations, whole zoos of “gods,” in many shapes, who bickered, even when they agreed.

We had the blessing—and the curse—of highly varied counsel. Except, of course, when they all wanted the same thing.

But still, Wer wrote, they helped you rise up quickly.

Courier nodded. Though whether the gesture was native to it, or learned from other humans, Wer could not tell.

One tribe—following advice—practiced fierce eugenics upon itself, in mountain isolation for fifty generations. When they burst forth, all other tribes were awed into submission. The females of our species wanted only to mate with their males.

The worldstone depicted a mob of naked primitives, bowing before another group that stood taller, more erect, wearing furs, with wide noses and thick manes—much like Courier himself.

Just a century later, we had cities. Within five, we were in space.

And then … only then … we learned what the emissaries wanted from us.

Wer felt tension, even though he knew the answer already. Everyone on Earth knew, thanks to the Havana Artifact. He had watched some news-informat shows about it, back in his small quarters at Newer Newport. Wer painted a summary with his finger.

They Asked You To Build More Emissary Stones—Millions Of Duplicate Bottles … And Messengers To Put Inside Them—And Then To Cast Them Forth Toward New Planets Beyond.

An interstellar chain letter, people were calling it. Or a galactic pyramid scheme. The ultimate in “viral content”—getting neighbors to pass on more copies to more neighbors. In fact, that was exactly how one savant described it—a panelist on a show that Wer had seen, a renowned pandit from a top university in Sao Paulo.

“For a century and more,” the Brazilian had said, “we kept sifting the skies for radio signals from other civilizations, because optimistic astronomers calculated that other spawning grounds for intelligent life just had to be there! Moreover, those astronomers assumed—naturally—that alien races would use radio, which travels far easier across space than physical objects do.

“But what if nobody happens to be listening right then? What do you do? Keep broadcasting? On and on, forever? Over the millennia—or eons—that it might take until that other star system develops technological people? That kind of commitment can get really expensive.

“Ah, but what if you send a probe, a tiny thing. True, the up-front cost is greater. But, with any luck, it can enter orbit above a likely planet and then wait, at no further cost to the civilization that sent it. Wait for people worth talking to.

“Some people dismissed the probe idea because they assumed that you must dispatch something fully capable. Of investigating and reporting back to the home world. Or mining local resources to make copies of itself. Any of these duties would demand heavy mass and fragile moving parts, rapidly increasing cost, reducing travel speed and cutting the numbers you can send. How much simpler to hurl just little, solid-state packets of information?

“Packets that can reproduce, simply by asking for that favor, at the other end!”

It had made sense to Wer … in a weird kind of way.

Only then the professor explained about the viral part. He talked further about how the Havana Artifact was indeed like a virus, moving from host to host, in order to get copies of its compact genes sneezed onward! Only, in this case, since the host would be an entire civilization, each packet had to be persuasive. It must sway an intelligent life form—a whole culture—to devote precious resources of their planet and solar system, in order to make huge telescopes and seek new planetary targets … then to manufacture vast numbers of new envoy-eggs and light sails … and giant lasers to propel them.

And what inducement could the little envoys use, to persuade such effort? Oh, the little eggs could offer knowledge. That might work with a few races with a strong sense of honor and quid pro quo. But something more was needed. And inducement more compelling.

“They offer to include some members of the host species, as new members of the community within,” the scholar said. “Like adding a new signature to the bottom of a chain letter. It’s what the Havana creatures propose. To show us how to download some of ourselves into crystal probes. A way for many humans to get to travel to the stars—as downloaded surrogates—and possibly live forever.”

At the time, Wer felt that it was clear, the scholar thought this a pretty good deal. Of course, a man like him would certainly be among those who would get the honor, to file a fully aware duplicate in hundreds, thousands of little message bottles, cast heavenward on beams of light.

Recalling that explanation, Wer now wrote on the surface of the worldstone, summarizing it all, in part to check on his own understanding.

Again, Courier nodded.

It is the same deal they presented to us, back on Turbulence.

And we agreed! After all, these were the gods who had vexed and confused and guided and tormented and loved and taught us, as far back as our collective trace memory could penetrate the misty past. Even when we knew what they truly were—mere puppets sent by beings who once lived near faraway suns—we felt obligated to move forward.

Slowly, of course, while building a society of knowledge and serenity… .

But no! They hectored that it should now be our top priority! They badgered us … until, at last, they confided a reason for haste.

And so came the great lie… .

Black characters continued appearing under the surface of the stone, but the contrast was fading. Wer realized that it must be drawing low on its supply of stored energy. Moreover, his eyes hurt.

He painted a symbol on the ovoid—WAIT—and rubbed them. Time also for some water. The last protein bar …

A musical tone suddenly filled the little chamber. It might have been deafening, except for the padding on the walls. He looked about, voiced a question for the mechanical sea serpent, but got no answer.

Then a single word appeared in the lower right, offered by his ai-patch.

Ascent.

Sure enough, it felt as if the robot were now aiming upward, throbbing hard with swishing strokes of its long tail. Peering through the tiny window, Wer watched as an extinct volcano passed by—its eroded peak now crowned by a coral reef that shimmered with sunlit surf. Was this the secret base of whatever group had sent the serpaint after him?

After the worldstone, that is?

But no, instead of entering the lagoon via a clear channel that Wer spied passing through the shoals, the machine undulated away, following a shoulder of the mountain toward a ridge of shallows, some distance from the atoll. And it began slowing down.

During one of the snake’s looping movements, Wer caught sight of something … a metal chain leading from an anchoring point on the bottom, tethering something that bobbed at the surface. A wave-energy generator? Was the robot only stopping here to replenish its energy stores?

The thought that this might only be a brief stop, along a much longer journey, seemed to fill Wer’s body with aches and his mind with a new-formed terror of confinement. The tiny space was suddenly even smaller and more stagnant than before. He flexed, involuntarily pushing with hands and feet against the close, padded space, breathing hard.

Wer

Focus

It is a weather and communications buoy.

The words, floating boldly, briefly, in his lower right field of view, both chided and calmed him. Wer even had the presence of mind not to subvocalize his relief. No doubt this was a rendezvous point. The serpent would use the buoy to summon another vehicle. A seaplane, perhaps. Wer had been on a similar journey before. Well, somewhat similar.

And yet, after all that covering of tracks, the Chinese Special Forces found us. Found the worldstone. Did they have a spy on Newer Newport? Or did one of their satellites pick up some special color of light, reflected by the stone when I left it outside, soaking in the sun?

Perhaps he would never know. Just as he might never learn the fate of Dr. Nguyen. Or Ling and their child.

Outside, through the little window, he could see a growing brightness as they rose toward daylight. The front end of the snake-bot broached and he had to shade his eyes against a sunshine dazzle off the ocean’s rippling surface. Even with help from the ai-patch, it took a minute of blinking adjustment before he could make out something that bobbed nearby in the water—a floating cluster of gray and green cylinders, with arrays of instruments and antennae on top.

Wriggling gingerly, carefully, the serpaint moved closer to curl its body around the buoy and glasp it firmly. Then Wer saw its mouth open and a tendril emerge.

It will tap in

to communicate

with its faction

The floating characters took on an edgy quality, drawn with strokes of urgency.

You must please act urgently

This won’t be easy

Blink twice if willing

He was tempted to balk, to at least demand answers to a few basic questions … like willing to do what? For whom? To what end?

But when it came right down to the truth, Wer didn’t care about any of that. He had only one basis to pick and choose among the factions that were battling over the worldstone—and over his own miserable carcass.

Dr. Nguyen had been courteous and the snake thing had been rude. That mattered. He closed his eyes, two times.

Good

Now you must press close to the window

Look at the buoy

Do not blink your right eye at all

He only hesitated a moment before complying. It was where curiosity compelled him to go, anyway.

At first he saw only an assembly of cylinders with writing on them—much of it in English, beyond his poor grasp of that language. Wer could make out various apertures, lenses and devices. Some of them must sample air, or taste the water, part of a planetwide network of tools for measuring changes in a world under environmental stress. On the other side of the floating platform, he could make out the snake-robot’s tendril, probing to plug itself into some kind of data port.

All right … so what are we trying to …

He stopped, and almost jerked back in surprise as the scene loomed toward him, zooming in on one part of the nearest cylinder. Of course there was nothing new about vision-zooming. But it had never happened within his own eye, before!

Wer kept as still as possible. Evidently, the patch had means of manipulating his organic lens … and using the surrounding muscles in order to aim the eye, as well. He quashed a feeling of hijacked helplessness.

When has my life ever really been my own?

Zooming and tracking … he found himself quickly zeroing-in upon one of those gleaming, glassy spots, where the buoy must stare day and night upon the seascape, stormy and clear, patiently watching, accumulating data for the great and growing Grand Model of the World. Suddenly, that gleaming lens filled Wer’s right hand field of view … and he closed the left eye, in order to let it become everything. A single disc of coated optical crystal …

… that flared with a sudden burst of bluish-green! More shocking, still, Wer realized that the color had come from within his own eye—spearing outward, spanning the gap and connecting …

I didn’t know the implant could do that.

I wonder if even Dr. Nguyen knew.

It took every gram of grit and steadfastness to keep from drawing back, or at least blinking.

Almost in

But—

The floating characters stayed outside the cone of action, yet somehow remained readable. They throbbed with urgency.

—you must press your eye

against the window

Wer you must

or all is lost

A low moan fought to escape his throat and he barely managed to quell the sound, along with a sudden heaving in his gut. Gritting his teeth hard, all Wer could think about was the need to overcome raw, organic reflex—passed down all the way from when distant forebears climbed out of the sea. An overwhelming impulse to withdraw from pain, from damage, from fear—

—versus a command from far more recent parts of the brain. To go forward.

Using two fingers of his right hand to hold back the lids, Wer let out a soft grunt and pushed his head against the glass so hard that the eye had to come along.

It was bad.

Good

Not quite so hard

Hold it

Hold it

Hold it

He held, while greenish flares shot back and forth, between his lens and the glassy one on the buoy … and flashing internal reflections bounded around the inside of his right eye, like a maelstrom of cascading needle-ricochets. At one point, his confused retina seemed to be looking at an image of itself, a cluster of blood vessels and sensor cells, and Wer felt boggled by an endless—bottomless—reflection of himself that seemed far more naked and soul-revealing than any mere contemplation of a face in a mirror.

And meanwhile, another part of him wondered in detachment: how did I know what a “retina” is? Is even memory still mine, anymore?

Worse. It got much worse, as the sea serpent seemed to catch on that something was going on. The thrashing intensified and a low growl resonated up and down the snakelike glocoa. Wer responded by clenching hard and holding even tighter.

All sense of time vanished, dissolved in pain. The little window felt like it was on fire. Using his feet and legs and back, he had to fight a war with himself, and the instinctive part seemed much more sane! As if he were trying to feed his own eye to a monster.

And then—

Black, floating letters returned. But he could not read the blurs. They clustered around his fovea, jostling for attention, interfering with his ability to concentrate. Wer sobbed aloud, even as the green reflections faded.

“I know! I’m … trying to hold on!”

Finally, the characters coalesced into a single one that filled every space within his agonized eye.

STOP

Meaning took a few more seconds to sink in. Then, with a moan that filled the little compartment, Wer let own body weight drag him back. He collapsed upon the passenger seat, quivering.

A minute or so passed. He rubbed his left eye free of tears. The right seemed too livid, too raw and damaged, to touch or even try to open. Instead of blindness, though, it seemed filled with specks and sparkles and random half-shapes. The kind that never came into focus, but seemed to hint at wonders and terrors, beyond reality.

Slowly, a few of the dazzles traded formlessness for pattern.

“Leave me alone!” he begged. But there was no way to escape messages that took shape inside your very own eye. Not without tearing it away. Oh, what tempting thought.

While he cursed technology, clear characters formed. These featured a brightness around the edges that they never had before.

Wer, I represent a community

—a smart mob—with members

around the entire world …

and we want to help you

Some small presence of mind was returning. At least, enough to notice a change. More than just the characters’ shape and color were different. Indeed, they felt less like the simple responses of a partial AI. More like words sent by a living person.

He must have subvocalized it as a question, because when they next reconfigured, the figures offered an answer

Yes, Wer, my name is Tor Saggitarius

I’m pleased to meet you

Now I’m afraid we must insist

Please get up and take action

There is very little—

“I know! Very little time!” He felt on the verge of hysterical laughter. So many factions. So many petty human groups wanted him to hurry, always hurry.

A groaning mechanical sound. The sea serpaint started to vibrate around him.

We’ve suborned the machine’s software

Ordered the jaws to stay open

It may only be temporary

He didn’t need further urging. While keeping his right eye closed, Wer bent to slip the worldstone into its carrier, then started crawling forward as the giant robot rocked and convulsed. Keeping the worldstone in front of him, he had to push and squeeze through constrictions, like a throat that kept trying to swallow him back down … only to then spasm the other way, as if vomiting something noxious.

Finally, spilling into the snake’s mouth, he found that its head was rising and falling, slapping the water, splashing torrents of spume inside. The jaws kept juttering, as if trying desperately to close. And he knew, at any moment, they might succeed.

Scrambling desperately, Wer grabbed a garish tooth, hauling himself and the satchel toward the welcoming brightness outside—

—only to pause before making the final leap.

Don’t be afraid, Wer …

He shouted.

“Be quiet!”

And swung the valise with all his might, smashing it against the inner face of the serpent’s left eye casing, which caved-in with a satisfying, tinkling sound. He then cried out and did it again to the other one. Those things weren’t going to aim burning lasers at him, once he was outside. Nor was he worried about the worldstone, which had survived deep space and collision with a mountain glacier.

Good thinking!

Now …

He didn’t need urging. Not from any band of “smart mob” amateurs, sitting in comfortable homes and offices around the world, equipped with every kind of immersion hardware, software and wetware that money could buy. Their help was welcome, so long as they shut up.

While the serpent-machine thrashed and its jaws kept threatening to snap shut, Wer heaved with all his might, scrambling like a monkey till he stood, teetering on the lower row of metal teeth—

—then leaped toward the buoy, as if for life itself, hurtling across intervening space—

—only to splash into the sea, just short, with the heavy satchel dragging him down by one hand. His other one clawed at the buoy, fingers seeking any sort of handhold …

… and failed, as he sank beneath the floating cylinders, hauled by the weight of his treasure bag, plummeting toward the depths, below.

Yet, Wer never fretted. Nor was he even tempted to let go of the worldstone, to save his life.

In fact, he suddenly felt just fine. Back in his element, at last. Doing his job and practicing his craft. Retrieving and recycling the dross of other days. Hauling some worth out of the salty, trash-strewn mess that “intelligent life” had made of the innocent sea.

His free hand grabbed at—and finally caught—the chain anchoring the buoy to the shoulder of a drowned mountain. Then, as the mechanical serpent thrashed nearby, crippled in its mind and body, but still dangerous as hell, Wer also seized the metal-linked tether with his toes.

Maybe there was enough air in his lungs to make it, he thought, while starting to climb.

If so? Then, once aboard the buoy, he might evade and outlast an angry robot. Possibly.

After that? Perhaps the help sent by his new friends in the “smart mob” would arrive before the snake’s clandestine cabal did. Before the sun baked him. Or thirst or sharks claimed him.

And then?

Clambering awkwardly but steadily up the chain, Wer recalled something that Paul Menelaua said, back at Newer Newport, when the worldstone entity denounced the famous Havana Artifact, calling it a tool of interstellar liars.

“We have got to get these two together!”

Indeed. With the whole world watching. No more cabals and secret societies. Time to have it out, in front of everybody. And this time, Peng Xiao Wer would be in the conversation!

A bit amused by his temerity—the very nerve of such a vow, coming from the likes of him—Wer pondered as he kept climbing, dragging an ancient chain letter toward the light of day.

Yeah, right.

Just keep holding your breath.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

FANTASY STORIES:

The Gossamer Mage: Intended Words

Written by Julie Czerneda

Illustrated by Jared Blando

The body was beechwood, smooth and bronzed with age, of perfect balance. Silver girdled it, worn plain and tarnished, quickly warm to Maleonarial’s fingertips. The pen had been an extravagant gift, from a father with neither coin to spare nor generous nature until a son proved of marketable talent. He remembered how the silver had glittered in his hand, that long-ago day, like some cheap gaud on a whore. He’d done his utmost not to use the thing in front of classmates or masters. Such a garish object demeaned the lofty position of mage scribe-to-be.

Had he ever been so young?

The new nib was old. Bone, weathered wood-bronze, carved silver-smooth. Simple, like the now-plain band, but with remembered complexity and purpose. He’d found the piece on his wanderings, tucked among reeds by a busy, impervious stream. A deer once.

Or a man.

A good choice. Now for the next.

Three small inkpots remained. Each was stoppered with thick yellow wax, a tiny russet curl embedded as surety. Baby curls. Inkmaster Jowen Hammerson had courage to mock his aging guest. And a remarkable abundance of russet-haired great-grandchildren.

The contents of one inkpot, sold at Alden’s Hold, where mage scribes clung like leeches to their famous school, would feed those children for a year. Maleonarial had left Tankerton with five wrapped in linen and bound against his waist, bought with the only coin he possessed: words.

Not any words. Names. He’d written the names of the Hammerson family in his clearest script; no more official rendering could have been asked by any hold lord or the Deathless Lady Herself. It had taken the best of a night, but he begrudged not a moment. As each callused hand received its precious strip of parchment, as eyes wondered at the letters that bloomed in ebon permanence under the warmth of living breath, toil-bent backs had straightened. The raucous babble of dogs, children, and clanging spoons had fallen to a solemn hush. The parchments would be treasured and kept close; more importantly, the letters’ shape would be practiced with care. None of them would again use a rude thumbprint to sign a document of importance, or be forced to wait on the uncertain—and expensive—arrival of a scribe. To write their own names was to gain respect and fair treatment from merchants and lawgivers alike.

The inkmaster counted himself well paid. His kin whispered of marvels. But it hadn’t been magic, other than that of skill.

Magic must be intended.

The night’s breeze snapped and billowed the canvas overhead, a token against the pending rain. He slept in the open by preference. The fresh air and privacy of wilder places were a boon to his spirit; a shame they couldn’t feed or clothe him. Not that he needed more than a stew or porridge under his ribs. Maleonarial plucked at his threadbare, much-mended cloak. It would do another season.

His fellow mage scribes, having discovered his lifestyle—an unfortunate coincidence of storm and crowded inn, followed by a collision in a narrow hallway with a round bulk of rich velvet and gilt that had exploded in ire until he’d lifted his face to the torchlight, and the other had stammered something aghast and apologetic—his fellows had sent along a beautifully penned and rolled parchment, levying a fine for inappropriate attire, unbecoming his high station.

Kind of them to overlook the dirty hair and sweat as well, not to mention bad breath.

Folded, the parchment made a fine lining for his right boot. They’d be aghast if they knew. Not that he’d apologize. As if he’d scrape it clean to reuse even if those were only words, however mean-spirited.

Magic required purity.

Though soaked, then left in heated sand to harden, the bone nib remained brittle and unforgiving. His gentlest touch would coax a smattering of words at best from it. Words and how many months from his life?

Maleonarial shrugged, shaking the tiny bells knotted in his hair. Mage scribes marked their lives by them, the quiet tinkling a constant reminder of magic’s toll, collected by the Deathless Lady. A bell for each intention. The first twenty or so accumulated quickly; schooling spent half—or more, for those prone to mistakes. The next thirty or so were reasoned, deliberate, considered. They earned what a mage judged of greater worth than time. Wealth. Security. The touch of a woman.

The moment came for every mage when that balance shifted, when the bells whispered: “Life’s short enough, fool.” A hundred-bell mage could write anything and make it live—for a fee to make even a heartland hold lord reconsider.

Having tied his three hundredth bell this season, Maleonarial counted himself fortunate still to have teeth.

He ran his tongue along their tips.

Most of them.

Enough for chewing.

To write with intent was, for those with Her Gift, an expenditure of life. A mage scribe used ink and pen, needed a surface on which to write, would study years to master stroke and technique, would above all else learn as many words of the Goddess’s unspoken language as possible, since those words were the means by which magic could be summoned.

To bring life.

At life’s cost.

What matter the price? said those new to Her Gift. To the young, life was the deepest well, always full. When students gathered in hallways to gossip, it was of how their masters were timid, grown inept with age … that this was why mage scribes worked so little magic after the first wrinkle and ache … it couldn’t be because those masters had been young once too and squandered the time they’d had … that they’d strutted from holding to holding to work magic, sustained by their confidence that the bells sang praise, not warning. Until too late.

The young believed their elders were indeed old.

They learned better. Come twenty years, each would find himself like a man of thirty. At thirty, more like forty-five. They would finally understand that no mage scribe escaped magic’s toll. That they too aged not as nature but as each set of words intended, paying Her price for power. Until they too became masters, to hoard days, begrudge minutes, and scorn the young.

Until they refused to write magic again.

Rain on canvas echoed Maleonarial’s bells as he bent to his task. Young once. Master once.

Fool, he hoped, no longer.

* * *

Cil was his name.

“Silly-Cil.” Thick lips, bent teeth, twisted the whisper. They thought he didn’t understand, thought him slow and stupid, but he knew what they meant. “Silly-Cil. Think me dumb. Think me meat.”

With practiced ease, he stabbed the hollow tube into the calf’s pulse, sucking warm rich life into his mouth as the creature bawled its torment. He was supposed to knock it dead with the hammer before bleeding it. The knacker would cuff his malformed ears, make his head ring. But the knacker was glad enough to have an apprentice, let alone one eager for the work.

Work no one else wanted to see.

Replete, he took another mouthful. Held it. Turned, his knee on the calf’s neck, holding it down.

Spat at the plastered wall.

The blood flew through the air, a spume of death and anger.

Cil considered the result on the wall. The calf struggled, a distraction. He silenced it with a hammerblow. Wiped his lips on his sleeve. Admired the artwork of red on the wall’s lime-plaster and rough-hewn wood.

It was something. But what?

There … an eye.

Lower down, where blood rilled along a crack … a foot.

The closer Cil looked, the clearer the image became. The eye blinked. The foot’s clawed toes flexed. A sow bug popped free of the wood, bounced as it hit the floor, curled into a tight ball that rolled. Afraid.

He gave his laugh, the heavy snort and wheeze made others look as if they wanted him gone, and squashed the tiny thing flat with his bare foot.

Lanternlight caught on a razor edge. A tooth. There were more. Cil couldn’t count, but he knew more.

He laughed again and move aside to give it room. “Silly-Cil think them meat now.”

* * *

Domozuk fussed with an uncooperative belt tassel, muttering under his breath. Saeleonarial stood still on the pedestal and waited, though he curled his toes within their ornate slippers. No hurrying his servant of these many years. His mouth quirked. A tassel askew or absent made no difference to him. It made every difference to the company surrounding this hold lord. He might as well wade with an open wound and expect leeches to ignore his blood, as that lot miss sloppy dress.

“I should write them something with spines. Something to climb inside their smalls,” he murmured, fingers hovering over the generous beard Domozuk despaired of keeping silken smooth. Saeleonarial couldn’t help him with that—he’d been born Sael Fisherson and men of that name sprouted wiry growths of red from chin and cheek to rival sea moss for twist and toughness.

And went bald.

The wig was bulky, overscented, and essential. How else to carry a mage scribe’s weight of bells? Saeleonarial was in no hurry to don the hot, itchy thing. Domozuk humored him, letting it drape from its stand like a hide on display till the last possible moment.

“You won’t,” the servant said primly. He bent to snip an errant thread from a slipper.

“What—use magic on them?” Saeleonarial didn’t risk the delicate pleats at each shoulder with a shrug, not before his audience. Instead, he scowled fiercely. “Think I wouldn’t dare?”

“I think I’ve enough grey to dye in your beard,” Domozuk, ever practical, replied as he straightened. His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Unless you’ll let me commission something more modern.” “Modern” being the contraptions younger nobles had begun attaching to their beardless chins: ridiculous conflagrations of precious metal, exotic feathers, and whatever else was too costly for commons; some hung to the knees and required bracing at the table. Equally witless mage scribes spent months of their magic penning tiny birds and gem-eyed lizards to live within the curls of wire. Saeleonarial pitied the servants assigned to clean that mess.

He crooked his finger for the damnable wig, quaint and sedate by comparison. “Point taken.”

Scribemaster Saeleonarial knew his own worth. His rise through the ranks of his peers had more to do with honesty, a good head for names, and modest ambition than brilliance. Oh, he’d written one intention of memorable originality. The result still swam in the temple fountain of Xcel, all grave eyes and mischievous whiskers, trilling its song by moonlight to bewitch even dry old men with lust. Gossamer.

Not an accomplishment to share. He’d hastily destroyed that pen and done his utmost to forget those words and its shape. Though he dreamed it. When the world grew drab by day, predictability more deadly than age, he’d wake in the dark, blood pounding. At such a moment, Saeleonarial would swear he’d heard a faint splash, smelled musk on a warm summer’s night. Been young and unafraid of the future again.

The Deathless Lady wasn’t above irony.

Just as well such moments didn’t last. Someone had to keep his head. Magic wasn’t to be squandered on useless marvels. The world might be drab for their lack, but it was calmer, more reliable. Like him. Another reason he’d been voted scribemaster.

No more need to write magic. He had wealth. Prestige. Some hair left behind his ears and still-reasonable bowels. What more could he want?

Surely by now he was safe.

Saeleonarial fidgeted.

Surely safe from that maddening, bone-deep, skin-crawling itch to create only magic’s use could salve.

Surely now, he need no longer test his mastery of word and intention, waiting for the remembered and longed-for and never-ever-enough climax of having those words take form and breathe.

He’d no need for magic. Knowing hands and a winsome smile would do him. The dimpled barmaid at … “Have done. It’s fine,” the scribemaster muttered peevishly as Domozuk fluffed the damned wig yet again. He was weary of standing. Weary of his own thoughts.

“It’s not. It’s flat on the side. You’re the one who let the stable cat sleep—”

A head thrust between the draperies that ringed the dressing stage; by the abundance of tousled brown ringlets, it belonged to Harn Guardson. If the sincere young student could learn to hold at least two words in his mind, he’d write his first intention and be renamed Harneonarial, “Harn, Debtor to the Lady,” so all would know his life was now forfeit to Her, and his masters could take a breath between lessons. If. To give everyone a welcome respite, the boy had come on this visit to Tiler’s Hold to carry loads for Domozuk. Not to intrude in the dressing room. “My L-lord S-cribemaster—”

“Be off!” Bustling forward like an offended goose—an image his girth and abused nose made regrettably apt—Domozuk waved his free hand in fury. “Be off, boy! You know bet—”

Face red, Harn stood his ground, his hands clutching the curtains for anchor, doubtless leaving ink and sweat prints. He threw Saeleonarial a desperate look. “The hold l-lord’s entered the hall, Master. He’s called your n-name. He’s angry. He wants answers about the hermit mage. About Maleon—”

Domozuk’s fierce “Hush!” overlapped Saeleonarial’s no-less-forceful warning, “Have a care!”

Red cheeks paled before the tousled head dropped down. “M-my l-lord …”

Master and servant’s eyes met. Though blood fled his cheeks, Domozuk gave the slightest nod. He knew what to do. This wouldn’t be the first hold a mage scribe had had to vacate at speed, though Saeleonarial would regret becoming the first head of that venerable order to run for his life.

Hopefully he wouldn’t have to. “Well done,” he told the boy. “Stay with Domozuk. Help him. But in future, Harn, by the Goddess, keep your tongue.”

Stepping down, Saeleonarial grabbed the wig from his servant and stuffed it on his head. At Domozuk’s mute protest, he tugged it straight. Straighter. But didn’t pause. No time to waste. The others got out of his way. They’d be on their own.

“Hermit mage,” was it? Maleonarial had a new, unfortunate nickname. Old mage scribes tended to harmless eccentricity. They also stayed at Alden’s Hold, within the safety of the school, where no one else could notice and be alarmed.

Maleonarial might never be harmless, but he’d managed to fade from view well enough. What had he done to attract attention? Who had carried the tale? A spy in their midst? Or had one of aging masters discovered that secrets had a value loyalty did not?

Forget who.

Saeleonarial puffed as he hurried down the wide, too-empty hall. No one came late without consequence to an audience with a hold lord, not even the head of Tananen’s only magic casters. There was malice in the delayed summons. Well done, Harn.

In this part of the new wing, the floor was polished marble, so smooth he had to be wary of a slip. The walls were of the same material, midnight-dark and shot through with copper gleams, arched in ever-lit openings that awaited treasure. Tiler Holding bred wily, watchful lords, a consequence of owning Tananen’s only deepwater port. The Lady’s Mouth, they called it, through which poured what couldn’t be grown, made, or mined within the lands under Her influence. Ships plied the waters between the Mouth and the strange countries across the Snarlen Sea, ships owned by those without magic.

The merchants and seamen who came on the ships were polite but curious, their heads stuffed with rumor and wild tales. It made matters worse that such had to linger here, waiting as much on the feet of made-oxen as the mercy of tides. All freight had to move by wagon past the rapids and falls of Her Veil, to where the mighty Helthrom widened and calmed, welcoming the barges that serviced the heartland. For this reason, Tiler’s Hold boasted streets of brick warehouses, always full, and always expensive. Warehouses and inns.

For freight was welcome up the Helthrom, but not foreigners. The Deathless Lady admitted no strangers past Her Veil. Only the cobbles of Tiler’s Hold rang to their deep voices and booted feet. Only here did Tananen touch the wider world.

Tiler’s hold lords kept it that way.

The latest, Insom the Second, was more than watchful. Unable to abide empty space on his charts, he insisted newcomers provide him with detailed journals. His ever-bright halls had nothing to do with vanity; he distrusted shadows and abhorred the dark. Little wonder word of a mage scribe outside the normal scheme of things would disturb him.

He would indeed demand answers.

Saeleonarial’s hasty steps and puffing filled the space. His long sleeves lifted like wings, but his feet might have been stuck in mud for all the speed he could manage. Belt tassels and a wig doubtless askew were nothing compared to affronting a hold lord.

He was too old for this.

The bells around his ears laughed at him.

* * *

Words, once written, are free. They fly from their creator, bound only by limits set in syllable and phrase. A mage scribe can no more write magic for himself than magic write itself. The very act of writing sets him apart from his words’ intent.

As well try, Maleonarial thought, to be both sun and shade.

Too much time to think, this morning. But he couldn’t pass the abundance of galls in this meadow, full and ripe, their insects still inside. Crushed fresh, cooked in rainwater, filtered and let rest. Add a few of the beautiful green crystals from his dwindling supply to that infusion, plus a careful shave from his final small lump of desert-tree gum, and he’d have a fine black ink.

Though the morning was chill and the meadow dew-drenched, he’d stripped to his clout. Easier to dry skin than clothing. His body reminded him how little time he had left. A dozen years ago—a hundred and thirty bells less—there’d been taut, smooth skin over bands of strong muscle. Now, each shivering rib had its pale loose flap, and what muscle laced his limbs was more wire than flesh. His knees and elbows were the only parts left of generous proportion, and they were knobbed and indignant, inclined to complain of the damp.

Time. He shouldn’t need much more. What he’d glimpsed as the merest possibility so long ago could become real with his next stroke of pen on parchment. He was that close.

Or that far. No telling what weakness corrupted him from within.

He would make his ink and find out.

If his ink- and age-stained hands trembled as they harvested the small, nut-hard galls, only the Deathless Lady could judge it fear or cold.

* * *

Audience halls informed; a mage scribe learned to a nicety what a hold lord would want and what he could pay for that service with the first step inside. Those at the fringe of commerce were no-nonsense affairs, as often used to keep grain dry before shipment as to host grand suppers. Demands in such halls were usually practical as well. Livestock with special attributes: an ox that wouldn’t tire; a messenger’s horse able to see in the dark. Trees to replenish a damaged orchard. Grain sprouts to counter a too-late planting season. Hold lords knew well enough what a mage scribe could—and, more importantly, could not—conjure with his words. Healing the sick wasn’t possible. A living plant from which a worthwhile potion could be made was. Payment in such a hall would be gold or silver strips, hammered flat and thin to fit a money belt.

That plus supper and a tumble with the hold daughter’s selection, presumably willing, doubtless fertile. There was no proof Her Gift could be thrown like the color of a beard, and fertility was very much a presumption in a mage of accomplishment, however willing. But men freely gambled on worse odds.

Including those mage scribes who clung to a belief that their hastened deaths were a sign of affection by the Goddess, that Her true intention was to summon those most worthy to Her assuredly ample and luxurious Bosom, there to dwell in whatever version of paradise suited the mage in every particular.

Saeleonarial snorted to himself as he paused in the doorway to Tiler’s audience hall. The notion didn’t help him sleep nights. Believers were wont to spent their lives with reckless haste, an abundance of magic that inspired dangerous expectations in hold lords.

The Deathless Lady, being oblivious to belief or expectation, did nothing to make his life easier.

The holdings nestled in Her rich heartland offered more in payment—but expected more in exchange. Their halls were constructed of magic and architecture, with an emphasis on magic. How many years of life were paid to the Deathless Lady to reproduce the glowing snakes illuminating Aote’s hall of welcome—how many more to create the silent deadly guardians that protected its treasury? Glorious Xcel itself required the constant attention of a dozen mage scribes to fill its hold lord’s penchant for fresh flowers and frog-filled fountains regardless of season. Mage scribes there grew wealthy almost as fast as they grew old.

The audience hall of Tiler’s Hold spoke of wealth accumulated rather than spent. Little magic, other than what populated the beards of its court. Insom the Second preferred to display trade goods, the more precious and rare the better; his hall often hosted galas for foreigners. Birth wasted him on a throne. The man would have made an excellent merchant. There were, of course, a few graceful made-servants, waiting with their mute patience. Waiting with full trays.

Suspended service wasn’t a good sign, not good at all, Saeleonarial fussed to himself.

His delay in the wide doorway drew the scrutiny of the made-guards to either side. Mauls, they were called. Each student was required to write a set before graduating as a scribe. Dogs, really, written taller than a man, of greater bulk. Written to stand like a man, too, but most remained bent, as if unsure written arms and hands shouldn’t be legs and paws. Written to learn and obey one command: protect their hold lord.

Those hold lords who could afford to buy and replace their mauls, that is. The things did wear out. Another of their magical intentions, if unadvertised. A straightforward project that promoted peace in audience halls and reliable funding for the school, if not reliable results. Hard to convince students that novelty of itself rarely meant improvement. Saeleonarial cast a critical eye over Insom’s current pair. Dappled and drooling, with as much ability to intimidate as a leaky window.

Though there’d be teeth behind those loose jowls. Large, sharp teeth. Students always liked writing those.

Before his inspection seemed other than ordinary to those waiting, Saeleonarial entered the hall. The deep, heavy carpet—a new acquisition from over the sea, woven as a desertscape of yellow and bronze—resisted his slippers and made it necessary to step with the exaggerated care of being in his cups or risk lurching from side to side.

The nobles and their attendants parted at once, a bowing wave of sequins, feathers, and smirks that granted the scribemaster an aisle straight to the hold lord’s impatient boots and themselves a good view. Another lesson to be read in an audience hall, he thought as he walked that gauntlet at a considered pace, trading dignified if meaningless nods. These placed more worth in bloodline than accomplishment.

No holding could support a crop of fools for long. Tiler’s might be due for the attention of the Deathless Lady.

Saeleonarial devoutly hoped to be anywhere else if so. The Goddess wasn’t known for discrimination when She chose to clean house.

Almost there. The bows were stiffer, waists constrained by thicker tabards and girdles, though, small mercies, fewer of the dratted face confections Domozuk tormented him about. These were the cream of any hold lord’s court: sycophants of use, rivals too powerful to ignore, heirs in waiting.

No smiles here, only frowns and pursed lips, as if he’d interrupted an argument. His stomach, contrary organ, clamored for sweets. Saeleonarial ignored it and came to stand before Tiler’s hold lord.

In the fashion of more southerly holdings, Insom the Second sat on a plain chair, raised a single step above the floor. Behind him rose the latticework of the Daughter’s Portion, in Tiler carved from honey-colored wood. Mirrors filled a third of its square openings, their surfaces reflecting the bright-garbed nobles, like so many caged exotic birds.

Hands folded over his heart, the scribemaster bowed low, not to the hold lord, but the latticework. “Hold Daughter.”

No matter how poor the holdings, the latticework granting privacy to the Daughter’s Portion was a thing of beauty—be it a treasure of lacework created over generations or weavings of the freshest flowering vines. For any act of a hold lord to be legal and binding, she must be present to bear witness and record it. As the living voice of the Deathless Lady and, not coincidentally, the sole person allowed title to a holding’s land and life, she could also put an end to any hold lord’s act or existence with a word.

Silks moved behind the latticework; shadow court or the true one? For mage scribes, the distinction was insignificant. In addition to the script of the land, every hold daughter could read and write the sacred words of the Goddess, a teaching passed from generation to generation. No mortal woman could write with magical intent or result, but these kept the key to that power. History was replete with proof that the school of mage scribes was above all a target. It didn’t matter if this or that assembly of disgruntled hold lords attacked it in some vain effort to control what was never theirs to own, or a student rediscovered how to write living fire. It didn’t matter if destruction came at the whim of the Deathless Lady—who, truth be told, liked living fire but not disgruntled lords. The school burned to its foundation stones with deplorable frequency.

Five times, by common count, though some scholars claimed twice that. Saeleonarial doubted even the Goddess bothered to remember.

The magic remained, safe in the minds and hands of hold daughters, charged by their Goddess to return it to those with Her Gift. A decimated school would be rebuilt on its scorched foundation by the obliging residents of Alden’s Holding, bright-eyed students would arrive, and any master wary enough to be out of the way at the right time but not enough to run beyond reach would be summoned back and put in charge of the new crop of mage scribes.

Not in his lifetime, Saeleonarial hoped uneasily. The holdings were at peace. Students well supervised. The Deathless Lady?

Mages gave their futures for Her Gift, hoping She’d leave what remained of their lives alone.

Unfortunately, disgruntled was a mild word to use for the turmoil knotting the rank tattoos across the brow of Tiler’s hold lord. Insom the Second was young for the post, Insom the First having had the poor judgment to dismiss his horse master’s concerns about a certain stallion and the cobbled streets of Tiler’s Hold. The new lord was young, but not too young. The thick brown hair might be free of grey, but years at the helm of a barge had drawn reasonably distinguished lines on his broad face. Real muscle, not padding, stretched the velvet at shoulder, chest, and thigh. No hint of weakness or dissipation appeared in the keen, pale eyes that now pinned the scribemaster. Temper, yes. And a worrisome glint of fear.

“Scribemaster!” Though toned to a civil note, a voice used to bellowing across a loaded deck easily filled a hall. “What do you know of this?” A gloved hand beckoned.

“This” stepped from behind the nobles. A tanned young man, sturdily built, with an upstanding shock of thick black hair. Country-bred, Saeleonarial judged with sympathy, clearly uncomfortable in his new, rich clothing. Those balloon sleeves suited a servant to one of the useless courtiers, not someone used to plowing a field or butchering pigs. Exhausted, from what Saeleonarial could see of his face past the homespun bandages encasing the left side. Exhausted and in pain.

“Saeleonarial,” he offered with a slight bow. The unbandaged eye widened, and the lad did his best to bow in turn.

“Nim Millerson—” The hesitation and worried glance at the impatient hold lord were clear. Young Millerson had no idea which honorific applied—to either of them.

“I’m a teacher and scribe, Nim,” Saeleonarial said kindly. “‘Sir’ will do me—as you’d give any grizzled old man of your village.”

“Yes … sir.” Doubt remained in the tone. Not surprising. The niceties of court in the eastern holdings. Lost, poor lad, in a detestable maze of manners and mockery.

The glove made a hurry-up gesture.

“Tell me what the hold lord wishes me to know.”

“I’m from Riverhill, sir. O’er by Tankerton. My uncles sent me past the Veil, here, to the Hold. For help.” From the look on his face, Nim didn’t think much of that help so far. “The rest—they stayed, sir. To guard what stock’s left us. In case o’ attack again.”

“Attack?” Saeleonarial frowned. “By what?”

“A great beast, sir. Yesterday morn. Came a’ nowhere. Tore—tore five of us t’ shreds before run’n’ off.” Nim’s eye pleaded. “We can’t lose more o’ own. Not ‘n’ ‘arvest.”

“A bear?” The guess drew impatient murmurs from the nobles behind him, and Saeleonarial frowned. They must already know what he was learning from these painful gasps. He’d ask for a private audience, but delay now would only add to the distress of the honest young farmer.

“No, sir. I saw it. I swear it war’n no natural beast, sir. The hermit must a’ made it. The wild mage o’ the hills. ‘E set it o’ us—t’ push us from ‘r’ lands.” Words tumbled like rocks downhill, faster and faster. “‘E’ll write anothern and anothern. You must help us, sir.”

“Magic used for harm!” the hold lord thundered. “What do you know of this, Master of all Mages? Which of your kind has gone mad?”

In the profound hush, the whisper and soft click of mirrors being turned caught everyone’s attention. Insom stiffened, but didn’t look around. When the mirrors stopped, Saeleonarial could see himself and the injured country boy reflected over and over.

Unanimity of purpose. A terror shared. He could see it writ on his own face, and schooled his expression. Mouth dry, he bowed low, very low, toward the latticework and those behind it. There were no rules or customs forbidding magic as a weapon. There didn’t need to be. Informed by a daughter of such transgression, the Deathless Lady simply claimed all life left to that mage. At once.

“I accuse no one without proof,” Saeleonarial told the hold lord as he straightened.

The bandage-free portion of Nim’s face flushed. “Sir! I’m na liar!” Out of turn, impassioned … such was the fear in the hall, no one appeared to notice.

“I believe what you say,” the scribemaster assured him gravely. “But did you see the mage write this ill creation? Were there witnesses to its first breath?”

“The dead.” Flat and sure, shoulders squared. “Sir.”

No wonder a distraught village trusted this wounded boy to plead their case. Saeleonarial was blunt in return. “Since they cannot testify—no, lad”—this to forestall what was surely a protest—”despite the tales, magic has no power after death. I must go myself. At once.”

The hold lord pursed his lips, then nodded as if the scribemaster had asked his permission. “You’ll take suitable company—”

“Here he is.” Saeleonarial nodded at the farm lad. “If magic’s been ill-used, best if only those already touched by it or those with Her Gift approach. My thanks, Hold Lord”—this with a half bow—”but we go alone.”

Insom scowled but didn’t press. “I expect a full reporting, Scribemaster, on your return.”

Return? He hadn’t left yet. At the mere thought of the journey, Saeleonarial felt every ache in his once-young bones. Riverhill was not in the lovely lowlands, where civilized canals linked city to village, and inns could be relied upon to have soft clean sheets. Once past Her Veil, it would be rutted mountain roads, and lucky to find a bed even if there was time for one.

But the hold lord was partly right.

Saeleonarial met a multiplicity of his own troubled gaze in the hold daughter’s mirrors.

There would be a report, but not to Insom the Second. Not to anyone so predictable and powerless. The Deathless Lady had daintier ears at her disposal.

Maleonarial, he fussed to himself. Old Fool. What have you done?

* * *

Magic begins with intention. Intention is expressed as words in Her sacred language. Unspoken words. Words of only this purpose. The symbols of Her lettering are written in precise order, not from top to bottom, but over one another so ink blends all into the rest. What is written thus can never be read, as everyday writing could be, nor checked for error. Only in the mind and hand of the mage scribe will the intention of his words remain. There, and in the living result.

Ink and pen and parchment are the physical means. Students who struggle to master lettering soon learn they’ll set fewer regrettable mistakes loose on the world if they use whole parchment, lump-free ink, and sharpen their quills. Masters, busy struggling to preserve what remains of their own lives, can afford no mistakes at all. They hoard fine parchment and carry their favorite pens on their persons. They buy only the best and rarest inks.

For materials have their own impact on intention and magic. Some dampen it, stealing more life than needful from the mage. Some enhance it, allowing a certain extravagance. Those inks and pens and parchments most worth using are those made by the scribe himself, an effort ultimately beyond aging bones.

The Deathless Lady has a sense of humor.

Drizzle slanted beneath the canvas, found mends and gaps in his clothes, fingered the bones of his neck. Maleonarial shrugged his cloak tighter. His huddled body protected the tiny flame and the battered pot of ink bubbling merrily atop. Almost ready. His fingers twitched, practicing the words they would write this time.

Fewer than yesterday. Almost random. Almost. The words rattled around in his head while he did other tasks. They’d find their order when he wrote and not before. Though soundless, Her words were as if spoken. Once said, once heard, forever gone.

Once he would have been flustered, unwilling to part with an instant of future without certainty. In the first years, at the beginning of all this, he prepared meticulous, thoughtful accounts of every potentiality, worked months on exact lists, planned for a flawless result. And failed, spending life for nothing.

He’d refused to let it be for nothing. The time since had taught him an important lesson. The language of the Deathless Lady was itself perfect; he had only to trust and let Her words flow as they would from his intent. Remarkably liberating, though he sometimes dreamed of being left with one word and no strength to write it.

Tucking his hands beneath his arms, Maleonarial stared into the pot. Fresh-made ink. Effort. The nib of bone. Chance. The tiny, almost clear parchment he’d scraped and stretched from the delicate hide of a thrush. Skill. Would these be enough, this time?

Canvas snapped overhead, strained at the lashings. “Temper, temper,” he murmured.

He dared not have expectation. Expectation was for those with a future.

Hope. That he permitted himself.

* * *

“Drive through the night?” If Harn’s eyes went wider, Saeleonarial decided, they’d pop from his head.

Domozuk growled something rude from behind the wagon, busy repacking what he and Harn had hastily removed from their master’s quarters. Most would stay behind—including court dress and the damnable wig, the scribemaster thought with some relief—to make room for the gear needed for the trip cross-country. Extra wheels and grain, tents … with luck, they’d use none of it. Nim, despite his injuries, was quick to help. The anxious student, however, stood beside the wagon, wringing his hands.

No question he had to go, however unused to rough living. Left alone, the curious hold lord would have him for questions Saeleonarial did not want answered. “The horses,” he commented dryly, “do the work, Harn. You can nod in the back.”

“Yes, Scribemaster.” As if he’d sentenced the lad to lashes.

“Quick now. Make yourself useful.” Trusting Domozuk to keep the glum student occupied, Saeleonarial walked alongside his team of six matched whites. He patted a pretty curved neck, admired the gilt-crusted harness and the red plumes crowning each head, and wished there was time to trade the lot of them for sturdy draft mules. As well wish for his youth back. A dozen bells ago, and he’d have eschewed the big comfortable wagon to ride like a border raider. Now he’d count himself fortunate to hold his bladder more than an hour, let alone endure bouncing the long hours. The young didn’t appreciate what they had.

Rid Smithyson, driver, groom, and pamperer of the expensive beauties, stood at their head, letting the lead right, a favorite, lip his fingers. He greeted the scribemaster with a scowl that joined his bushy grey eyebrows. “Ey’ll na manage a rough road, boy. Na with yorn bloody ‘ouse on wheels.”

The “boy” from a man twice his years, if not age made Saeleonarial snort. “This wagon’s what we have. The team will get us to the foothills at Meadton, and we’ll buy whatever tougher stock we can there. The Hold Lord sent a courier ahead on our behalf.”

A long, thoughtful chew, then spit to the side. “Nowrn ey’ll be wait’n’ for a dandy ‘n’ ‘is purse. Stick us wit’ ‘ard-mout glueys a’ best. Like to spook at yorn dingdangles ‘n’ run us inna ditch, if’n ‘ey sound ‘t all.”

Saeleonarial worked through that. Rid’s hinterland tongue thickened when he wasn’t happy with those in authority. It was almost incomprehensible now. “Dingdangles” were the tiny, almost mute bells stitched in rows around his travel cap. Better than the heavy and intolerably hot wig, however more impressive the latter. The tally was what mattered; Domozuk attached a new bell to both cap and wig with each intention Saeleonarial wrote. The Deathless Lady hadn’t protested. At least, he hadn’t aged twice as fast. Not that he’d mentioned that particular nightmare to his faithful servant.

The rest? Not hard to guess. “Pick the best you can and keep us on the road.”

“Aie.” A gnarled hand rubbed the hollow behind an ear. Saeleonarial could have sworn the horse leaned into the caress. “Be rare trouble, ‘is’un.”

“It may not be a scribe matter,” he countered, pitching his voice not to carry back to the wagon.

“An’ I kin pull yorn bloody ‘ouse misself.” Another spit, accompanied by a too-wise look. “No one else fi’ ta go?”

Trust the stables to have as much news as the full court, though the emptiness of the cobbled yard and curtain-drawn windows above were telling of themselves, it being a fair afternoon when the area should have bustled with those on their own business, let alone those curious about his. “No one else I’d trust,” the scribemaster admitted. “The sooner we get to Riverhill, the better.”

“Ey’ll be fast’r ‘n wind o’ flats—” Rid promised, only to toss his head abruptly like one of his charges. “Whossat, now?”

Saeleonarial turned and felt his blood congeal in his veins. “Stay with the horses,” he thought he said. Hoped he’d said.

Slippers coated in pearls seemed not to care if they were stepped on cobble or into fresh droppings. Silks weighing less than air ignored the autumn crisp, though rouged cheeks took a brighter hue. An attacking army would appear—would be—less formidable than the five women who walked from the shadowed wall toward them. Saeleonarial bowed low and stayed that way, despite his back’s protest.

“Rise, Scribemaster.”

He knew the voice, very well, if not the face. “Hold Daughter.” She was stout, round of face, hair peppered grey. Her lips were pale and thin beneath a regrettable nose; paler eyes gazed from the faint blue tattoos of her office. Without the voice, he’d have guessed someone’s mother or aunt in the wrong clothes. The silks and jewel-laden ropes lay easier over the long, lithe bodies of her attendants. Their eyes, within curled black tattoos, stared at him with an unnerving intensity. The hold daughter was not at risk, in any sense, while these were with her, even though three were burdened with dark, polished boxes.

Saeleonarial gave a second, deeper obeisance. As he straightened, “What is asked of me?”

“Her Gift, Mage.” The hold daughter reached within one sleeve to produce a pen.

His blood began to flow again. A request from the shadow court wasn’t unheard of, merely rare and more discreet. Perhaps the speed with which he’d prepared to leave the hold had caught her by surprise. The boxes? If payment, all he wanted at the moment was a more travelworthy wagon. “It is always at your service, Hold Daughter.”

“Good. Leorealyon?”

The leftmost of the women flanking the hold daughter, the one without a case, stepped forward and bowed her head to the scribemaster. “I’m ready.”

“Scribemaster. You will write eyes for this, Her Designate. She will accompany you to Riverhill and see this mad mage.”

The Deathless Lady was sending Her witness with him? Saeleonarial was horrified. No, appalled. That was closer to the mark. The Goddess’s personal attention was nothing a sane mage sought. Damn Maleonarial.

Which might be true by the end of this.

The pen tilted toward him, slightly. “Scribemaster?”

What could he do but take the thing? Too fine for his big, fisher-bred hands. Perfect balance. Gold, the body; for the nib, a gem had been cut and set into the end. A topaz. “Here?” his voice cracked on the word. “Now?”

“There’s no time to waste. We’re alone, save for those who should be with us.”

No wonder the yard had a hollow feel. It hadn’t been emptied by rumor.

He traded glances with Domozuk, who’d slipped out at the unfamiliar voices to stand by the wagon. The servant tipped his head at the rear gate. He’d keep Harn and their farm lad safely out of sight. One worry of thousands dealt with.

Another bell.

So soon.

Dread faded as his bones felt that itch. His heart pounded with excitement.

Not so safe. Not safe at all.

Saeleonarial braced himself. As if it were possible to prepare for the body’s abrupt decay … as if he had a choice. “This isn’t a magic I’ve done before,” he cautioned.

Leorealyon’s eyes lifted to his. They were the honey-flecked green of warm summer afternoons. A man could find his youth in those eyes, remember the sweetness of berry wine on his tongue. The suffix to her name meant “Promised to the Lady.”

The pen dragged at his hand.

“Need you be reminded of the words?”

Not an insult—fear. It laced the air, threw a chill the now-restive horses seemed to sense. Magic as a weapon. Was he not being asked to use it thus, in Her name? “I know what to write, Hold Daughter,” he told her, his voice flat.

She gave a regal nod. At that signal, two of her attendants stepped forward, opening their cases. Within the first, lined with purple velvet, nestled ranks of tiny crystal vials, the dark liquid of any one worth his weight in gold. Within the second lay parchments of varied lengths, each immaculate roll secured with a jeweled clasp. The true wealth of Tiler’s Hold, on display in its empty, breeze-swept horse yard.

Any of such quality would do. “You choose,” Saeleonarial told Leorealyon. Maybe having a hand in her own fate would ease what was to come.

Wordlessly, she plucked the closest vial and handed it to him. When it came to the parchments, her long fingers hovered over the selection, and she gave him a questioning look.

Saeleonarial held up the pen. “That length.”

She gave him one of the smallest rolls.

The lids closed, and the bearers took a step back. The third came forward, offering the flat of her case as a table.

Saeleonarial tested it with one hand. Leaned. Steady as stone. He slipped the parchment from the clasp. It lay flat, uninterested in the breeze. A twist broke the seal on the vial of ink. A moment to clear his mind, to concentrate on the intention. Nothing but that. No words but what made it clear. The itch built inside him; his blood took fire.

Everything faded but the pen. He lowered it till the topaz nib penetrated the black surface. Ink climbed and held, dulling the gem. He lifted the pen and wrote what he must.

With the lift of the pen after the final stroke, a faint gasp broke from his lips. Even expected, remembered, and longed for, nothing muted the shocking exaltation that raced through his body as his words blurred into a thick line, then two, then four, then eight—lines that grew out from the parchment, that enlarged and swayed like rooted, hungry worms. Each had a head, of sorts. A closed eye. A closed mouth.

He’d done it.

Saeleonarial put aside the pen and curled the parchment in a loose roll. As he gathered it in his hands, felt the new life within squirm, his heart stuttered in his chest. He didn’t dare move—couldn’t move. Cold sweat dripped into his eyes. His legs threatened to fold under him. Not yet, he begged inwardly. Surely that wasn’t the last of my life …

“Scribemaster?”

He didn’t spare the breath to explain, merely … waited. His heart hammered once. Again. Then resumed an almost normal beat.

So. The Deathless Lady wasn’t done with him.

“Kneel, Leorealyon,” Saeleonarial gasped. The girl obeyed, every motion of grace. When none of her companions came forward to brace her head, the scribemaster took hold of her jaw with his free hand and readied the thin, squirming curl of parchment in the other. “You must not move.”

“I will not,” she promised. Brave words. This would be the hold daughter’s favorite, the best of those who attended her and so the Deathless Lady, the one who couldn’t be spared but must be spent.

He bent close. Silk from her sleeves whispered across his wrist, caught his doubtless greyer beard.

Saeleonarial wasn’t sure if he pitied her or himself more as he tipped the roll into the first lovely eye, and the worms opened their mouths.

* * *

Cil rubbed the rain from his face, blending it with tears. Cold and hot. Fresh and salt. Waste and frustration. “Dumb meat,” he said through his bent teeth.

He wriggled farther into his hidey-hole, his place, but squatted where he could watch the goings-on. Shapeless forms in the dusk gathered, guttering lanterns in hand. They carried weapons for a war against dirt, against weeds: staves and pitchforks, axes and picks.

They prepared for battle, but not against him. Silly-Cil was unimportant. Silly-Cil was useless. Silly-Cil was to squat in his hole, out of the way of his betters. “Mine. Mine!” he wailed. But none of them believed him capable of anything, not the creation of something magnificent, not even of being able to fight for himself.

They would wage war against a stranger, before noticing him.

It had been for nothing.

Cil hunched over the ache in his heart. “Not. Not. Not.” His hand flashed down—they didn’t think him quick, but he was, very quick, quickest—and scooped a bug fleeing the damp. He crunched it in his bent teeth, then spat his frustration and fury into the storm.

He didn’t need to see the wings or razor teeth. Methodically, his hands worked the cold mud, finding anything alive to bring to his mouth.

Anything he could chew and spit and turn to spite.

* * *

Six holdings divided Tananen’s lush heartland with its bustling canals and fertile soil. Their ancient holds were surrounded by sprawling cities of brick and cobblestone, though no other building could be taller and all roads, and newcomers, must go straight to the hold. Nine holdings carved an existence from the startling valleys and iron-rich hills of the north. Though together their sparse populations would be lost within a single heartland city, the nine sent a disproportionate number of students to the mage school in Alden. Regardless of wealth, numbers, or gifts, rule of each holding passed smoothly from hold daughter to her successor-designate; less smoothly, and at times with bloody argument, from hold lord to his heir.

Elsewhere? To Tananen’s south spread the inhospitable fen called the Lady’s Tears; to the west, the jagged dry rock of Her Fist.

To the east, beyond Her Veil, the Snarlen Sea.

Yet Tananen was bounded by nothing so common as sea, fen, or rock. Magic edged it, held it, defined it. Tananen was where the Deathless Lady’s gift answered a mage scribe’s intended words, and only there could life born of that magic survive. Traders from across the Snarlen Sea, astonished by living wonders, would scoff at warnings and steal or barter for such treasure, only to watch it turn to white ash and blow from their decks the instant their ships crossed that unseen line.

Those of Tananen stayed there. For who would leave a land of magic?

And who could be sure they themselves were not creations of the Goddess, to turn to ash beyond Her reach?

Maleonarial had stood at the sea’s edge once, his worn boots lapped by bitter water, his heart worn and bitter too, wondering if it were true, wondering if he’d turn to ash if he swam too far toward the rising sun. Would She notice?

Or was every mage the same in Her eyes, and death Her intention?

He stirred the pot. Wisps of acrid steam danced over the surface of the cooling ink, teased at patterns, pretended secrets. Would it could be that easy … that his answer could be found by looking instead of dying a little more.

Maleonarial snorted to himself. The Deathless Lady made the rules. As mage scribe, he made the choice. He closed his eyes to half slits and shivered inside his cloak. This old man would see another dawn. By that light, he’d write again.

If one more dawn was all She’d give him, maybe that was all he’d need.

* * *

Hooves splashed through puddles; wheels flung dollops of mud. Any section of wagon or clothing not soaked or muddied was soaked by wind-driven rain. With luck, he’d die soon.

The Deathless Lady was being difficult. Saeleonarial’s beard was now fully grey and the last of his hair had been left in the stableyard; but his heart, that contrary organ, cheerfully pumped icy blood from his hands and feet through the rest of his body. Merchants and traders claimed those over the sea prayed to their gods, sought their attention and favor. In Tananen, no one in their right minds tried for Hers.

Cushions made no appreciable difference to the hard seat; sitting shoulder to shoulder only made the bouncing worse. The Designate of the Deathless Lady, it turned out, would see where they were going. Accommodating that requirement brought Saeleonarial out on the wagon box since he wouldn’t abandon poor Rid to such company alone.

For at the sight of Leorealyon’s ruined face, Nim had shuddered and closed his good eye. Domozuk had cursed in his own tongue. Harn, after flinging himself to the back of the wagon to spew into the rush of dark road, had clung to the gate and refused to turn around.

Rid had given that visage a thoughtful look, then spat to one side. His hands on the reins eventually stopped shaking, but he never glanced around, even when their shoulders touched.

Saeleonarial shivered inside his heaviest cloak, this time not from the chill. It wasn’t the empty, dark sockets or living horrors that could peer from them that filled him with dread. He knew who’d be looking back. Her. As well take pilgrimage to Her Soul and abase himself before the great, watchful tower.

Should have worn the wig, he fussed to himself.

The broad road that drank goods from the Mouth took the shortest path inland. Straight and paved with massive stone, it occasionally lured foreigners and local fools. They, and their unfortunate horses, were soon gasping as the road heaved itself up the steep slope without regard for such frail beings. If they persisted, they’d be drenched and blinded by spray as the road passed through Her Veil, deafened by the hammering of the great waterfall itself as it drained most of Tananen to the sea. If they passed that challenge?

The Deathless Lady knew who belonged. Those who didn’t never left Her Veil.

Rid Smithyson had guided his matched whites through the gate of Tiler Hold onto the second road that left it. This, though paved and wide, twisted its way up the sloping pass like a demented snake, sometimes almost touching itself again. A longer route, but safer. There were places to pull to the side and wait, for downward traffic had right of passage even over couriers. The team knew the road well and had made good speed between the tight turns. They’d passed Her Veil at some distance, hardly noticing the lick of spray.

Sunset had caught them on a civilized road, with civilized traffic, lit by lantern, moving by rules. Heading to yet more civilization and comfort. Even the horses had hesitated when Rid asked them to turn off onto the narrow dirt excuse that led to Meadton. But the land was level here and the rains, however uncomfortable for passengers, hardly slowed them.

They’d be there by dawn …

The lead horse cried out and stumbled. The wagon jolted, and Saeleonarial grasped in vain for a handhold, fingers slipping on the wet wood. Aged bones and the hard road beneath would be a disaster. But the Designate had him, hands like metal hooks. The driver hauled on the reins and worked the brake, alternately cursing and pleading until his team staggered to a safe halt.

The rain and wind chose that moment to ease as well. Rid snugged the reins and hopped down, splashing forward to find the trouble. Pointless to join him, the scribemaster knew, fretting. If the lead was lame, they couldn’t slow to its pace. Favorite or not, the animal would have to be abandoned.

“A canal dancer blocks the road.” Though flat and lacking intonation, the soft voice was Leorealyon’s.

Saeleonarial blinked. He hadn’t expected conversation from the Designate. Though this made no sense. “Impossible.”

Canal dancers cleared the waterways that connected the three mightiest rivers of Tananen: the Helthrom, Pactrom, and red-tinged Nathrom. More traffic moved through the heartlands by barge than by any road. The immense dancers—a ridiculous name, since the beasts were long, flat, and shelled—crept along a canal’s bottom and ate whatever silt and mud or worse had accumulated, deepening and widening the channels as they went. Their wastes appeared on shore each morning: tidy, serpentine mounds, odorless when dry. Superb fertilizer. Though, like most nonfarmers, Saeleonarial did his utmost not to make any connection between his supper and the filthy beasts.

“Dancers stay in water,” he pointed out.

“She takes the road tonight.”

Of course. In nights of heavy rain, he remembered with dismay, the dancers availed themselves of darkness and mud-slick roads to slither overland from one canal to the next.

No one knew how long ago they’d been written. Magical creatures could not reproduce, and most, mages being both practical and leery of expending more of their own lives than necessary, were written with a finite life span. Canal dancers were a different matter. Although the mage scribes claimed credit for the useful beasts, there was no proof they were the work of men. Like air, water, and magic itself, they could well be creations of the Goddess.

And tonight a damned nuisance.

By the paired lanterns on the wagon’s roof, he just could make out the round rumps of the last of the team, some lines of harness. The lead horses could, of course, see in the dark. They were written that way.

Not a comfort to discover that the Designate could too.

“Can’t we go around it?”

“Na.” The unhappy denial was from Rid as he came to stand by Saeleonarial’s boot. The driver swept off his wide-brimmed hat and clutched it to his chest. In the lanternlight, his stubbled face was grim. “M’beauty slip doin’ ‘is best ta stop ‘n time. Leg’s ‘ole, but ‘e’ll be sore come morn. ‘At beastie, it’s filled the road. And na inna hurry te move.”

“What could—” Nothing could budge a dancer. Ships rammed them all the time. Careless barges went aground on them. Nothing harmed or perturbed the creatures.

Nothing natural.

He turned to the Designate. “Can you move it?” His mouth was dry despite the rain.

Topaz glittered. “Can you sing?”

“Sing.” The worms must have ruined the mind as well as the eyes.

“She is a dancer.”

A dancer. The name had real meaning?

Stay stuck on the road, or try the improbable. Saeleonarial sighed heavily, then rapped his knuckles on the peephole behind him. It slid open, Domozuk’s face filling the gap. “Trouble?”

Anxious, the three in the back. No time for reassurance, had he any to offer. “We need Harn up here.” The student was a decent tenor, if prone to singing too early in the morning, a habit his other masters lamented.

A lurch of the wagon, a thud, and feet hurrying forward. Not only Harn; all of them. With confidence he most assuredly didn’t feel, Saeleonarial explained the situation, ending: “Sing to it. Hurry.”

“Sing to it? M-my lord?”

“You heard him.” Domozuk gave the frightened young man a push. “Go on.”

Harn balked. “Sing what?”

“She is a dancer.”

The student stared at the Designate, then hastily averted his eyes. “A dancer.” Shaking his head, he walked into the darkness, a hand on the loose rein for guidance.

An interminable wait. What was he doing? Had he run off? The scribemaster controlled the urge to call out to the boy.

Then song filled the night, unsteady at first, growing more sure. A ditty from Tiler’s wharves, rude and lively. Saeleonarial’s lips twitched. What better for a creature of the canals?

Well done, boy.

At the second line of the song came a rhythmic grind and whoof, grind and whoof. Like no dance he could imagine, but the creature was moving! The horses startled but stayed still. Harn raised his voice and kept singing.

“She dances. There is room to pass.”

“Rid.”

“Aie.” The driver shoved his hat back on and returned to the head of the team. His voice could be heard, coaxing them forward, comforting them as they pulled the wagon past the canal dancer. Grind and whoof! Saeleonarial covered his nose, grateful he could only smell it, not see. After a pause to let everyone climb aboard, Harn still singing at the top of his lungs, Rid clucked the horses up to a slow trot.

Harn stopped singing. The scribemaster sighed. They were clear.

“Faster.” The Designate’s eyes retreated into their socket caves. “There is no time to waste.”

Saeleonarial nodded and huddled in his cloak. Rid clucked again, and the horses resumed their fluid pace. The wagon lurched from side to side, bounced through ruts and potholes.

No time to waste and too much time to think.

The canal dancer was a creation of use, if not beauty. What had attacked the farmers, if not a bear … was a creation of harm.

Maleonarial … he wouldn’t have done such a thing. Couldn’t have.

Be truthful, old man. If only in your heart.

Of them all, only Maleonarial could.

Against his will, Saeleonarial considered the other side of his old friend, the mage scribe of astonishing, even terrifying, skill and imagination. The greatest hold lords for clients. Lore master. Scribemaster. There’d been nothing he couldn’t bring to life, it seemed. Yet twelve years ago, at the peak of power and wealth, Maleonarial had walked away from Alden’s Hold with only the clothes on his back.

The other masters were convinced he’d walked away from magic too. Wasn’t Maleonarial past his two hundredth bell?

The scribemaster shook his head gently, so the bells of his hat merely whispered. We were all too small for him, he thought. Too bound by self-preservation. Too selfish. Maleonarial had never feared the price. He’d write magic until the Lady stripped the last life from his fingers.

But what magic?

And why?

Fingering his grey beard, Saeleonarial earnestly hoped it was nothing capable of disemboweling farmers.

* * *

Cil crept along the road that was his village. Buildings of wood and stone lined either side, connected by raised walkways to keep pants and pretty hems from the mud. He wasn’t welcome inside. He wasn’t welcome on top. There was room beneath either building or walkway to hide and crawl. They didn’t like him there, but they liked him less in sight.

Not tonight.

Tonight he went down the center of the road, in plain view. Bold-Cil. Brave-Cil. His village, not theirs.

They—those not gone hunting—those not lying dead in the road—cowered inside. Trembled. Hid in the dark. No lanterns. Oh no. They’d learned. The spites liked lights.

Almost as much as flesh.

Cil twisted to his full height. Threw out his misshapen arms. Gave his snort and wheeze of a laugh. “My village!” he shouted.

“My village … my village … my … village …” The echoes mocked him.

They had to see him, had to know.

He’d make them.

The dead couldn’t help. He’d tried the meat, to spit nothing but bile.

The village held more life. Life dozing in boxes and stalls. Life fenced and caged and waiting. Life he wasn’t supposed to touch. Not his. Stay away.

“My village,” he crooned to himself. “Mine.”

They’d see him soon. They’d know he was important. They’d know what he could do.

Before they were meat too.

* * *

If the horse traders of Meadton had thought to cheat them, one look at the Designate by torchlight turned them into honest men. Or wiser ones, Saeleonarial mused. The weary, muddy whites had been led off to a livery Rid reluctantly pronounced acceptable, and the wagon harnessed to a pair of made-oxen. Unlike their humble namesakes, these were monsters of their kind, one stride the equal of three for any horse. They would not need rest, or food, or water on the journey. The weight of the wagon, driver, five passengers, and supplies would be as nothing.

Of course, the made-oxen would turn to ash in a few hours, being that close to the end of their intended lifetimes. The mage scribe who’d written this set hadn’t returned to write replacements for the traders. From the pinched look of Meadton itself, and the alacrity with which Insom’s haughty courier left for home once the made-oxen were hitched, the scribe wouldn’t be back at all.

“Aie. Tol’ ye, din’ I,” Rid commented, having made a thorough, silent inspection. “Hard-mout’. Like’n pull off m’ arms.”

“They’ll go in the right direction.” Obedience was always written into something powerful. Mage scribes were nothing if not careful of their own skins.

The driver chuckled. “S’ long as I na ‘ave t’ argue w’em.” He sobered and glanced around. Domozuk had taken the lads to find food. The Designate sat on the wagon box; still for the moment, eyes empty of all but shadow. “I’d argue w’ ye, boy. Stay ‘ere. You’re too frail for ‘t. Send ‘unters. ‘Ere’s som inna town.”

So was he a boy or a frail old man? Saeleonarial kept his smile within his beard. “No need for hunters. If there was a monster made, it’s ash by now. As for the mage … after that much magic, we’ll be lucky to find him hale enough to explain himself.”

Rid tipped his head toward the wagon. “She’d argue w’ ye on t’at.”

Warned, the scribemaster knew what to expect when he looked up at the Designate.

Burst from their socket lairs, the worm eyes of the Deathless Lady shattered the torchlight, for beneath each lid was a topaz, faceted and clear. All of them stared down at Saeleonarial, as if to see every hair on his face, every sin in his past, every imagined trespass in his doubtless short future.

Under that inspection, the scribemaster stiffened. “There could be an explanation,” he insisted. “Mistakes happen. Even to experienced masters. It’s my duty to determine if this terrible business at Riverhill is a matter for fines and compensation, for discipline—”

“For death,” countered the Designate in her toneless voice. “Her Gift must not be used for harm.”

Harm. The word from this ruin of a vital, young woman, doomed to die herself when the worms finished their task, shuddered through his heart. His writing. His creation. Tears filled his eyes, and the shards of light that were hers became all he could see, became all there was. Hands clawing at his chest, Saeleonarial began to fall.

Arms caught him. “‘E’ll na last the trip!”

The scribemaster could hardly believe his ears. Rid? Dared confront the Designate of the Goddess?

“He must.” Utterly cold. Utterly confident. “Therefore, he will.”

* * *

Guided by a mage scribe’s intention, magic could change what lived. Or it could produce something that had never lived, modeled on what did. And, every so often, guided by imagination and will, an exceptional intention could create something never before seen. Most such were dead before their misshapen hearts could beat. The school counted that a very good thing, given the inordinate amount of imagination and will that exceptional students possessed.

Most such were dead.

But not all.

Gossamers, the survivors were called. They sprang from intentions that were more than the words of their making, that drew from something deep and unvoiced within the mage scribe. A need, perhaps. An unguarded whim.

For unlike all other creations, a gossamer was willful. Unpredictable.

With a magic all its own.

Phantasms. Wonders. Large or small. Grotesque or glorious. Flesh or … not. Some lasted the moment it took to snare a heart, vanishing in a swirl of glittering bronze ash. Others could be immortal, for all the masters knew, since few lingered near men, preferring freer places. Those that stayed were harmless mischief-makers, perhaps amused by their effect on unmagical beings. Goddess Blessed, such gossamers were called, and no one would harm them.

Avoid them, yes. Every holding had its discreet signposts or hastily built walls to keep the unwary from a disconcerting encounter.

Maleonarial whistled tunelessly through his teeth as he worked. His own preference for wilder places had a practical side. Though a gossamer was not what he intended, he’d made more than his share over the years. So far, only the bells knotted in his hair haunted him. That, and an opinionated breeze.

Though in weaker moments, he feared the wind nipping at his ears had more to do with the opinion of the Goddess.

The parchment, stiff and almost clear, barely covered his palm. He held it in place with his thumb and smallest finger. The other hand held the pen, its bone nib ready with fresh-made ink.

His heart beat like a drum. Sweat chilled on his forehead; his hands were dry and steady. Welcome signs. Potent. He was here, in this moment, sure and set. His intention filled his mind, words arising and flowing together …

Not gossamer, with mind and desire of its own. Something controlled. Needful.

The nib touched parchment.

Magic itself … at man’s bidding.

He always saw their faces at this moment. Saw every one of the latest crop of students waiting for his welcome as scribemaster, Saeleonarial’s young brother among them. Look to his friend with a smile, a master himself and proud, and suddenly, like a bolt of summer lightning, see the toll of stolen time on that face. They weren’t old men, but they were. And so, too soon, would be all those he welcomed, doomed the moment they became mage scribes.

Twelve years ago. He’d left the school that same day. There had to be an answer, a way to avoid Her toll. It couldn’t continue like this. Not like this.

His intention was clear. The words were ready.

With every fiber of his being focused on his task, Maleonarial couldn’t hear the pound of boots on rock, so like the pounding of his heart. The first inkling he wasn’t alone came as rough hands grabbed his shoulders and flung him backward to the ground. A bag—from the taste and dust, a flour sack—was pulled over his head. Harsh cries rang out from all sides, more like seabirds than men. “Quick!” “Stop him!” “Fools! Grab the pen!” Hands wrested that and his parchment away. Something smashed. Something cracked. Something ripped.

He lay still as they destroyed his scant belongings, trying not to cough. Pots could be replaced; a canvas mended. Old fool, not to have heard them coming; careless, not to have kept proper watch. Brigands were a known hazard. They’d discover he had nothing of worth and leave. Hopefully with him still breathing.

Maleonarial freed his mind of the intended words, cast them away without trying to remember. Regret was pointless. There was no way to know if they would have been the ones, if this would have been his moment.

The pen … that he’d regret, if this time it was broken beyond repair. But he could make another.

Would.

He didn’t resist as they searched his person none too gently, though he felt another regret as they discovered the remaining vials of Tankerton ink. But instead of the triumph he expected, there was another round of smashing, this time of porcelain against rock.

Thieves would know the value of those little pots.

“Who are you?” he croaked, for the first time afraid. “Why are you doing this?”

In answer, they seized him by ankles and wrists, carrying him away.

* * *

“Come out.” Cil ripped the head from another fowl. “Come out.” He tossed its body to join the spasming pile. “Come out.” Each final flight left a runnel of blood in the mud that curved and twisted and rose. Great butter-yellow eyes sought targets. Fangs curled open from gaping mouths, dripping hate.

The doors stayed closed. Ignored him. Scorned him. Discarded him like trash.

“Not for long,” he told himself.

The road rippled as sinuous bodies, swollen and heavy, made their way to the buildings, wrapped themselves around pillars and beams, crept up walls and over roofs and always, always, pressed and squeezed and sought their way in.

Cil licked bloody lips and smiled.

* * *

The wagon left Meadton with the wounded young farmer sitting with Rid. The made-oxen would follow the road to Riverhill without guidance, but Domozuk was adamant they should show a face familiar to the villagers when they arrived. Nerves would be frayed. He wanted no arrows or pitchforks aimed their way.

Saeleonarial hadn’t argued, grateful for the warmth and relative comfort of padded benches. Relative, for this final section of road was as poor as he’d feared. As the wagon jostled through deep ruts, the only way any of them stayed in their seats was by braced legs and a tight grip on a handhold. Despite the bounce and sway, he did his best to close his eyes and rest.

Seated across from him, Domozuk and Harn had already closed their eyes. A snore louder than the rattle of wagon and wheel drew the scribemaster’s lips into a smile. His servant could—and did—sleep anywhere. Even knee to knee with the Designate of the Goddess.

“M-my lord Scribemaster.”

One who couldn’t sleep. Saeleonarial opened his eyes again. He couldn’t discern more than the pale blob of the student’s face. The lantern glow outside barely reached the windows. “What is it, Harn?”

“Wh-at happens? When we find the mage?”

Ah. Conscious of the silent figure sitting beside him, he waited to answer until the latest series of jerks and bounces stopped rattling his teeth. “First we must be sure that magic was involved. This is a wild land. There are”—he waved his free hand vaguely upwards—”beasts in the mountains.”

“But if it is someone from the school—what then, Scribemaster?”

Fear the loss of trust among common and noble alike. Learn firsthand how vulnerable we are to our neighbors and Her wrath.

Since none of that would comfort a frightened boy, he sighed. “Hope he’s reached his last bell already, saving us the trouble.”

And weep for an old friend.

The wagon lurched through another bone-wrenching series of holes. Harn bounced into Domozuk, who grunted something unpleasant and curled deeper into his seat. Saeleonarial clung to the handhold, imagining how much worse it must be up front. But he didn’t ask Rid to try and slow the made-oxen.

Get it over with. Better for everyone.

Almost.

* * *

Magic must be intended, directed, written by those with Her Gift and words. Above all, it is limited by the willingness of a mage scribe to spend his life. Ordinary men, men who accomplish marvels with their hands and tools, who father children and build homes, fail to grasp their own superiority. There is nothing to envy. The best a mage can hope for is to acquire wealth for a comfortable deathbed.

Those who’d captured him, who carried him, who whispered in fear and desperate anger—if they only knew, Maleonarial thought wryly, how much more life they had than he. From their deep voices, most were in their thirties or forties, prime years for an ordinary man. Full of future. Careless of it.

Could they believe the aged body they carried with grudging care was no older than theirs? That he’d been born a mere forty-one years ago, in a mountain village likely twin to theirs, that he had older brothers who looked like great-grandsons, that not even his mother had known him within the decay of a man almost too old to still breathe …

A shift of grip. They had him by the shoulders and legs. Downhill now, boots skidding over wet leaves more often than stone. Not murderers. That could have been easily accomplished with a rock to his head.

They knew what he was, or they wouldn’t have feared his pen.

They knew what he was, but didn’t want him for that. The rude handling, the sack stifling his face proved as much, even without the fearful whispers. Maleonarial couldn’t believe they expected his willing cooperation and torturers soon learned the Goddess would not permit Her Gift to be forced. With the first tainted word to parchment, She took what life remained to any mage scribe who succumbed to pain or threat.

The Deathless Lady protected Her Gift, if not her mages.

Why? Who? Where were they taking him?

The closest village was Riverhill. Peaceful. Having more bottomland than most along the Terrhom, Riverhill’s surplus grain found its way upstream and down. Welcoming folk, if reserved with strangers. He’d been there only a week ago. Traded wildberries for a day-old loaf and some honey. Followed the savory aroma of lamb stew to the inn’s kitchen and coaxed a bowl from the kindly matron. Camped where he could see lamplight in windows and hear laughter from the wharves. Written his words and failed again. Left by dawn.

If these angry men were Riverhill farmers, they must think him someone else. “You’ve made a mistake. I’m Maleonarial,” he croaked through the sack. “Maleon—”

“We know your name, Hermit.”

“You’ll pay!” From the other side, edged like a knife. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done!” A hoarse chorus of agreement. The hands gripping his sore body tightened, as if ready to pull him apart.

Those carrying him moved faster, jostling any breath he had left to argue, to plead.

This was not good. Not good at all.

* * *

Made-oxen didn’t falter or slow, even for an aching bladder. Designate be damned, Saeleonarial thought, staggering with Domozuk to stand at the tailgate and send companionable streams of piss onto the road.

The scribemaster clung to a handhold, swaying with the wagon. The world receding from them was gilded by early-morning sun, drops sparkling along leaf edges, puddled wheel ruts become flashes of light. Warm amber tinged the distant hills and the crisp air had a fresh-washed taste. Birdsong—what could be heard over the huffing breath of the beasts, the slam of plate-sized hooves into mud, and the creak of wheel and wagon—rose from the meadowlands to either side.

The Deathless Lady was in a better mood.

That couldn’t be good. He scowled. “We’re almost there.”

Harn lurched between them, waving an apologetic hand. Domozuk caught him as a rougher jolt almost sent him flying after his piss. “Careful, lad!”

“Thanks.” If the boy blushed a darker hue of red, he’d match his jerkin.

Saeleonarial leaned his shoulder into the side of the wagon, loath to return to his seat beside the Designate even though his legs shuddered in complaint and both knees ached.

Harn almost fell out again as he pointed urgently. “What’s that?”

“That” was lying across the remnants of what had been a man. A lazy head, capped in horn, lifted as they passed, twisted to follow them. The motion pulled a pink loop of gut free, hooked on a tooth. The creature casually flipped the morsel down its throat, staring at the wagon until they turned a corner and were out of sight.

Not a bear. Saeleonarial’s mind struggled as hard as his heart. What, then?

Nothing he knew. Nothing anyone knew. Which left only … “A gossamer.”

“Gossamers are harmless,” Harn protested, voice rising to shrill. “Harmless!”

Musk in the night. A dream of a dream. “So we believed.”

“If that’s—if they—what about the rest?”

“I don’t know.” Saeleonarial dug his fist into his aching chest and closed his eyes. How many? They’d no tally of the things at the school. Gossamers were mistakes; their creation cost a mage scribe without payment for the privilege. This—this mistake cost Riverhill its blood. Old fool. “I don’t know.” He sighed and clung with both hands to the holdfast.

“Enough.” Domozuk pulled them both inside the wagon. The Designate turned from the small side window at their return, face raised, empty sockets bound by black tattoos. Beams of sunlight stabbed the gloom of the dark interior and picked lavender and gold from her silks, fingered the delicate ropes of jewels on her chest. No stains marred her clothing; the worms had been neat and swift. If it hadn’t been for the screams …

No doubt the Designate had seen the gossamer. Saeleonarial let his servant ease him to the bench beside her and wondered if the Goddess could be surprised.

“You should have brought the hunters,” Domozuk scolded, half under his breath.

Sitting was its own joy. The scribemaster let his head fall back against the cushions and listened to his sputtering heart as it settled. “We can’t harm the Goddess Blessed.”

His servant gave him a familiar, dour look as he took his place beside Harn. “Tell that to our farmer up front.”

Still, Saeleonarial cheered ever so slightly. A gossamer was never intended. This one, however grim, couldn’t be blamed on its creator. “A mistake—”

“The intention was perfect. Despair. Vengeance. Perfect.”

They all stared at the Designate, but she said no more.

Harn whimpered deep in his throat.

Saeleonarial was tempted to do the same. How could anyone imagine something so foul, let alone find words in Her language to form it.

Musk and laughter. Droplet-laced whiskers, glittering by moonlight. He hadn’t imagined that either, nor intended to create it. He’d only wanted …

The scribemaster closed his eyes in defeat.

He’d wanted wonder.

Old fool.

And now a mage had wanted … what? Despair? Vengeance?

They were none of them safe, if those could be given life.

* * *

“It was me!” Cil grabbed a broken timber and threw it with all his might. It landed atop others. There were many others. Wood mixed with shards of bone and flesh and shredded cloth.

And everywhere blood. He stomped a puddle of it, squished it to warm mud between his toes, kicked it into the air.

His creations lay quiet, scaled sides heaving from their exertion, mouths agape. Spites formed tiny lines along what had been gutters, wings still, mouths closed. The first, the best, the biggest would be back soon. Someone had run.

Cil sank to his knees in the mud. “Silly-Cil,” he sobbed. “Stupid-Cil. Couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be special.”

Nothing answered.

There was no one left to know.

Then he heard the cries.

Cil looked up and smiled.

* * *

The body can only take so much. Maleonarial was half-unconscious when his captors stopped, only dimly aware of being dropped to the ground. His hands and feet were numb; every joint on fire. He breathed in gasping whoops that burned the inside of his throat and raced his heart but did nothing to fill his lungs.

The sack was ripped from his head.

Light and sound overwhelmed him. He curled into a fetal crouch, but they’d have none of it. With incoherent cries of rage, he was seized again, forced to his feet. When he couldn’t stand on his own, they held him.

Rows of nodding heads, tawny brown against gold. They were standing in barley. Hairs from the ripe heads covered pant legs. Stalks lay trampled into mud.

Why would farmers trample their own fields? Maleonarial doubted he’d like the answer.

“Look, damn you!” Hoarse and distorted by passion. “See yorn bloody work!”

His work? What had he done? Maleonarial honestly tried to see what they meant, but something was wrong with his eyes—or with the world. Where was this place? What was it?

He must have whispered the questions aloud, for one of those who held him answered. “Riverhill.” And spat.

The wet glob slid down Maleonarial’s cheek, hot, then cold.

Riverhill?

The barley field swooped down to the river, dew-laden heads sullen and still. The river flowed past, dirty and swollen from the storm. All was as it should be.

Nothing was.

He swallowed bile, staring at the heaps of splintered wood lying between field and river. What could have done this to walkways and wharves, homes and shops, the friendly inn? Between the heaps, the sunlight struck red. Not blood, he told himself. It couldn’t all be blood.

Thankfully, one of Riverhill men blocked the dreadful view. Big, dressed as a smithy, fists the size of melons. His contorted features glistened with tears. “What did we do to you?” he pleaded. “Why did we deserve this?”

The Deathless Lady did, on occasion, clean house. Summoned by a hold daughter, or for reasons of Her own, Her Designates would appear to claim what life remained from any and all in a place.

Not this. Even if a simple village could somehow offend Her, this was not Her work. She dealt in life’s start or its end, not wanton destruction.

Maleonarial looked from one face to another. All held the same question. Ten surrounded him. One more held him upright. Farmers, bearing pitchforks and spades, an ax. Tools, not weapons. All that remained of Riverhill. They’d kill him. How could they not? The disbelief that held them waiting for his answer would break with his first denial.

Maleonarial counted heartbeats, waiting for his last. Odd it would come like this and not be taken by the Goddess. Would She count that a trick on his part, to do Her out of Her just fee?

A dark cloud appeared behind the smithy, dissipating into hundreds of tiny black flies. From the decimated village, he guessed, confused between corpse and living flesh.

No, not flies. As the tiny things surrounded them all, one hovered before his eyes long enough to see it was nothing more than a tiny ball, a ball with wings and a gaping, toothed mouth.

“Look out!” he shouted. The made-flies—they could be nothing else, though he didn’t recognize them—began to land on the farmers, attacking any bared skin. Tiny bites, but each tore away a bloody chunk of flesh. The men dropped their tools, frantically batting the creatures away.

A swarm headed toward him, and Maleonarial tensed, but the made-flies turned at the last instant, going instead at the hands and face of the man who held him. With a hoarse shout, the man shoved him away and flailed wildly, trying to protect his eyes. Others covered their faces with their arms. One was too late, and cupped a hand where an eye had been, blood streaming between his fingers.

Maleonarial flinched each time one of the made-flies flew close, but they had no interest in him. Their intention was sickeningly clear—they’d been created to harm the villagers. But who would do such a thing?

Only a mage scribe could. No wonder the farmers had hunted him down.

“They’re na bit’n’ him!” the big smithy shouted. “They’re his work!” With a roar, he picked up a shovel and ran at the mage, made-flies a halo around his gore-covered face.

Something struck the smithy from the side, ripped off an arm, tore away his head with a casual snap and toss. Pounced on the next screaming farmer like a weasel among chicks. Playful. Dreadful.

Somehow Maleonarial stayed on his feet. The made-beast was—it wasn’t anything he knew. Horny plates, claws, teeth come to life in some improbable body. Eyes that were slits of malice.

Eyes that never once looked his way.

Before the echoes of the smithy’s scream died away across the river valley, every farmer lay dead. Worse than dead. They were hunks of meat, lacking any vestige of what they’d been. Fathers. Brothers. Husbands. Friends. Now only flesh, and the thing that prowled over it, tasted it with a purple tongue, but didn’t eat.

As though already sated.

Maleonarial sank to his abused knees, supporting himself with his hands. The stench of new death choked his nostrils. “Gossamer,” he named it, sure of only that. The monster didn’t turn, deaf to his voice.

His?

He squeezed his eyes shut but could still hear the dreadful beast as it walked and licked and purred to itself.

His?

No. He shuddered with relief. No. Strange, those gossamers that had come to life with his pen, but not fearsome. Some might have been beautiful, in their way, though he hadn’t cared, too full of disappointment as he watched another scrap of his life fly or run or float away with a laugh.

Maleonarial opened his eyes to study the monster. This—this terrifying shape would have burned into his mind forever. Could it have come from one of his, then? Not by all he knew. Gossamers emerged as they would be—so he’d been taught, so he’d believed. Either the accumulated wisdom of the mage school could not be trusted or … something inside him eased … this wasn’t from one of his intentions.

Then whose?

The dead deserved better than his fuddled reasoning. He’d find no answers here. Maleonarial assessed himself. Sore. Bone-tired. They’d been rough, but had done no more harm in their handling of him than the Goddess. She hadn’t killed him yet.

An ownerless pitchfork became a staff to help him stand. He swayed for a moment, cursing the weakness of his arms, the treacherous wobble of his legs. The monster, now curled among corpses, paid no notice. The made-flies had settled like soot on the barley nearby, wings still.

The innocent.

Leaving the bloody harvest, he shuffled between rows of barley. The skin of his neck crawled to think what was behind him. His pant legs were quickly soaked by the wet grain but, small mercy, the sun warmed his cloakless shoulders, easing their ache. The village was an impossible number of steps, so he didn’t look up after a while. Downhill, at least. If he fell, it would be in the right direction.

Though his fury ran so cold and so deep, Maleonarial knew he’d find a way to climb the tallest mountain of Her Fist if necessary. A mage scribe who could intend such evil was the true monster, whether gossamer or made.

He had the will. There remained one problem.

“I hope you’ve taken care of him already,” he panted to the errant breeze that nudged rain-wet barley across his narrow path. “Because I have no idea how.”

* * *

They were too late.

No one spoke the words. They climbed from the wagon to stand ankle deep in blood-caked mud, surrounded by destruction. The accusing sun penetrated every shadow, revealed stripped bones and hanks of hair, rags and gauds and ruin.

In their stunned silence, the Designate stepped forward. Her dainty pearled slippers turned red. Topaz glittered in the daylight as she lifted her face from side to side. The Deathless Lady would see it all.

She might care.

She might not.

What he’d give for a trustworthy god …

The wooden beams. They hadn’t been broken or burned. They’d been squeezed into splinters. Saeleonarial reached out blindly, found a shoulder for support.

Domozuk was quick to step close and wrap an arm around his waist. “You should sit—”

He shook his head. “No time. Nim. Nim. Are you all right?” Stupid thing to say. Of course he wasn’t. But what else could he say? Be grateful you were away in Tiler’s Hold, being dressed to suit Insom’s foppish court, while everyone you knew and loved died by violence? Too late by hours, from the look of it. By meaningless, pointless hours.

The young farmer stood with Harn. At his name, he turned his bandaged face, exposed flesh the color of ash, his one eye dilated and wild. “Sir.”

No mage scribe, yet with that one word, Nim Millerson said everything. Saeleonarial’s heart steadied in his chest. Was he not the scribemaster? Was he not the hope this boy had brought with him? Had he not vowed to be responsible for all who intended magic? That he’d made that vow expecting his thorniest problem to be recalcitrant masters and arbitrating fees made no difference, standing in the blood of Riverhill.

Magic, used for good or ill, was his responsibility.

Saeleonarial found the strength to pull free of his servant, to straighten. “I’ll find out what happened here. I promise.”

“Look!” Harn shouted. “Someone’s alive!” He started to hurry forward, feet slipping in the mud.

Rid grabbed him. “‘Ware, lad!” this an urgent whisper, with a guarded look at the figure emerging from the shadows the scribemaster understood, too well. “Na trust him.”

The student was bewildered. “He’s hurt—”

A bent body. Slow cautious steps. The movements of someone injured? Or of an old man, wary of the mud, a very dangerous old man?

“Think.” Saeleonarial braced himself. “Who would have survived here?”

Nim’s face was ash. Harn’s suffused with blood. “Maleonarial.” His mouth worked as if the word left a foul taste.

The worm eyes of the Designate locked on the figure shuffling toward them.

Justice for the dead. Safety for the living.

Why did it have to be his dearest friend?

“I’ll talk to him.” As if there could conceivably be an explanation for what had happened here.

Nim shaded his eye, then dropped his hand. “It’s na mage, sir. That be one o’ mine. Cil. The knacker’s boy.” He drew himself up, jaw firm. “We tol’ him t’ hide, y’ see. He’s na right inna head. Simple. I’ll tak’m wi’ me.” With a helpless shrug. “Tho’ I dinna know where.”

Young, this farmer, but already looking past his grief to care for someone else. Saeleonarial nodded to himself. “You’ll both be welcome at the school, Nim Millerson. We’ll find work for your hands. A home.”

“Sir. Thank you.” Nim ducked his head respectfully, but his jaw clenched. “No, sir. I’ll na take poor Cil near magic or them as use it. ‘E’s seen ‘nuf.”

The figure lurched over a fallen beam, recovered his balance with practiced ease. Not a boy, Saeleonarial judged, his smile of welcome freezing on his face. Nor a man. He’d seen his share of twisted bodies, living by the bay. Fishermen lost hands, broke limbs, mended in crooked fashion if at all. Cil’s body defied reason. His left side was larger than the right by half again. Hands, feet, limbs. One nostril gaped wide and red, the side of his mouth ballooned outward, revealing decayed and hideous teeth. His left eye was normal-sized, but set adrift in a huge socket, lids drooping down. The left ear had suffered indignity after birth, the upper part cut away.

How could such a babe have grown to adulthood, let alone survived whatever had happened here?

Cil lurched to a halt. His good eye peered up at them, for he stood bent to his right. “Mine,” he said, the word distorted by his mouth but clear. “My village. Strangers go ‘way!”

Strangers? Did he not know Nim?

Of course not. Insom’s fancy velvets, the bandaged face. The farm lad looked like some noble’s brat, sporting a cut from a duel or tumble from a horse. The kind who probably laughed when they rode by the poor cripple. “Peace, my good man,” the scribemaster said gently. “We mean you no harm. Do you know who did this?”

“I know.” Cil made a hideous sound, a choking wheeze Saeleonarial belatedly realized was the only laugh possible from that body. “‘Good man’ knows.”

Nim stepped forward, hands out and trembling. “Cil. Did anyone else survive? My—anyone?”

“All meat. All dead. Only Cil.” He tilted his lopsided head, opened the lids of his right eye to stare. “Know you!”

The piles of broken wood shuddered to life. Huge shapes emerged from the rubble, sinuous and long. Fangs hung from wide open mouths, dripping venom. Their eyes—

“To the wagon!” Domozuk shouted, pulled at him. “Hurry!”

Their eyes—

Topaz.

Resisting, Saeleonarial whirled to stare at the Designate. Silk flowed along her shapely limbs, caught by a breeze. Jewels took fire from the sun, including the gems that were Her eyes. Eyes that lived.

What did it mean?

Harn and Nim took Cil by the arms when he didn’t move with them, dragging him toward the wagon despite his wild struggles to be free. “Mine!” he shouted. “Mine!”

“Riverhill’s gone,” Nim panted, as they fought with him. “Come w’ us, Cil. Easy now.”

Saeleonarial half expected the made-oxen to be nothing more than ash by now, but they stood ready, oblivious to the massive horrors squirming closer and closer.

Cil, stronger than he looked or manic, broke free, pushing Harn into the mud before lurching away.

Nim chased after him.

The horrors, as one, turned to follow.

* * *

“Nonononono!!” Cil choked on bile and spat, but nothing lived, nothing appeared. Nothing was right.

“Cil, wait!”

Hands on him again. Strong hands. Hands always hurt. These hurt. “Mine!” he cried, twisting to bite.

The false farmer was too quick. They were always too quick. “Easy, Cil.” One hand patted him. As if he was stupid. As if he was slow. Meat to walk stupid and slow to the hammer.

“Mine,” he boasted as he stared past velvet at the death rearing to strike. “You be the meat.”

* * *

Three hundred bells. A mage scribe who’d survived such accomplishment could command any price. All Maleonarial wanted was air in his lungs and the ability to move his aged bones faster.

He ignored the gem-eyed gossamers, except to avoid being crushed by their swollen bodies. They ignored him, intent on the pair of villagers clinging to one another in what had been the market square. Survivors! Thump went his pitchfork staff against a broken bit of plank. He’d reach them first. He must.

He might. His breaths were shallower now, despite the aching need, and whistled deep inside as though something had cracked. Shouting was out of the question. Three hundred bells. One decent brass gong, he railed to himself, shuffling toward the doomed men. One gong and a hammer to let them know someone cared, someone was coming.

For whatever good he could do.

Where was the mage? Sweat stung his eyes as he peered over the writhing gossamers.

There! A wagon. Figures beside it.

Wait.

He knew that brute of a wagon, those ornate lanterns and flags. It belonged to the mage school—to the scribemaster.

There were figures—five—they saw him. One gestured. He knew that beard.

Saeleonarial.

Consumed by hope, Maleonarial stopped and leaned on his staff. He gasped a deeper breath. “Sael! Get the villagers!” Almost no sound came out. He coughed bloody phlegm and dragged in another breath. “The gossamers won’t hurt you! Help them!”

* * *

The words were gibberish, impossible to hear over the grunts and slaps of the monsters as they poured onto what had been the road, as they closed on Nim and Cil.

But no mistaking the glint of bells knotted in that grey mane, more than any other mage. More than any sane man could bear.

“Maleonarial.” The name hurt to say, but Saeleonarial was sure now.

There was only one thing left to do.

“Quickly! The monsters will only attack those from Riverhill,” the scribemaster told the others. “Take the wagon. Save them!” This as Nim pulled Cil—who resisted, poor demented soul—out of reach of the nearest set of fangs.

He bowed to the Designate. “I will take you to the mage who has gone mad.”

* * *

Who was shouting? Who was saying things? Cil shoved Nim to one side, trying to see the newcomer.

An old dirty man. Dressed in dirty rags. Bells in his dirty hair. A no one. A nothing, leaning on a funny stick.

Cil tilted his head to see better, squinted, strained. No stick. A fork. A farmer’s fork.

Bells.

The stranger in the mountains. The one they said made what was his. His! The one they went to kill with their shovels and axes and forks.

They hadn’t, had they.

His creations could kill him. Should kill him. Why didn’t they kill him!? They passed the dirty old man. Went around him. Scared of him.

While he stood and stared at Cil.

As if Cil was nothing, unimportant.

“No!!! Kill him too!” Cil yanked free of Nim at last and ran among the monsters, pounded on their sides with his fists. “Kill him! Make him meat!”

They ignored him.

Ignored him.

As if he was nothing.

“MineMineMine!” he wailed, betrayed.

* * *

Those with Her Gift know one another. It sings through the blood when the change from child to adult is complete, a song heard by any and all who wear the bells. The knowledge calls one to the other. There is no denying it, as there is no denying when a boy becomes a man. The Deathless Lady thus anoints those who will sup on magic, and those who will, if able, return Her Gift with their lives. And only those.

Until now.

Leaning on the staff—without it he’d be flat on his face in the mud—Maleonarial watched the not-mage try to control his creations. Misshapen—by birth or disease. Older than a boy—not by much. Violent and dangerous—that, beyond doubt.

How. That was a question to ask. Among many.

Whether inspired by his pitiful shouts or not, the made-oxen and wagon had reached the villager, who was the true intent of the creatures. As a rescue it was more a delaying tactic than of use, since the gossamers merely reared up and began to use their bodies to crush both the made-oxen and wagon and presumably all those inside. So many of them tried to do this at once, they interfered with one another, but it was, Maleonarial thought sadly, a matter of moments.

Then he’d be alone with the not-mage—who, if he stopped screaming in impotent rage at his creations long enough, would simply form a new intention and create it, aimed at him. Then go on to make whatever else came to his twisted mind, never, by the look of him, having to pay life for it.

And here he’d thought the Deathless Lady played fair.

Not that magic would be required to end his life. Really, a rock or piece of wood in those powerful hands would do it.

Light-headed, he warned himself, gripping the pitchfork more tightly. Not good.

Though being light-headed explained what he now saw.

For tubby, sedate Saeleonarial was coming toward him, shooing monsters out of his way as though they were so many sheep, followed by a beautiful girl in lavender silk.

* * *

He couldn’t help but wave his hands at the things, though it did no good at all. What did, he quickly realized, was the presence of the Designate. The monsters in her path moved to one side and lay still.

Once Saeleonarial realized this, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to the besieged wagon. Monsters peeled away.

The made-oxen were gone. Ash, he noticed with an odd relief, not flesh.

The wagon was a ruin, but those inside were not. So much for those who’d laughed at the massive thing. Domozuk held a cloth to a wound on his cheek. Rid simply shook his head at the bright-eyed monsters walling them on all sides. Nim helped Harn from the wreckage, the student cradling a wrist most likely broken.

No time to waste. “Stay with us,” the scribemaster told them.

Then he pointed. “There, Designate.” His heart shuddered. “That’s the one. Maleonarial. Your mad mage.”

“Wait!” Nim handed Harn to Rid, coming to Saeleonarial. “You’re wrong,” he said earnestly, tears streaming from his eye. “It’s not a mage responsible at all.”

“No,” agreed the Designate, her eyes writhing. “It’s not.”

* * *

Worse and worse and worse.

The spites came back and ignored them. Ignored him!

His most and best and biggest lay stupid in the road like the rest. Cil kicked it and wept his rage, but it ignored him.

The old dirty mage had done it. He rose, wiped snot and tears from his face, and knew what to do about that.

“Make you meat. Make you nothing!”

He would, too. He was strong. He could kill a calf with one blow of his fist. He didn’t need a hammer.

A fork. A fork would do better. Cil went close, closer. Raised his big hand and his small hand to take it, to use it, to stick it in the gut.

What was this?

The dirty old man didn’t move, didn’t run.

He smiled.

* * *

The monster from the meadow was as much under the Designate’s whim as the rest. How long would that protection last?

How could there be magic without words? Without cost?

As scribemaster, he was appallingly uninformed. More time in the library, Saeleonarial promised himself, fist against his chest. And in bed. No more time like this.

If there was time left at all.

Nim and Rid held Cil’s larger arm, Domozuk the smaller. They’d stopped his attempt to attack Maleonarial.

While Maleonarial—

“Old fool.” Saeleonarial feared to touch him, so frail he seemed, so worn.

“Nice hat.” Little more than a hoarse whisper. The gentle mocking smile, though embedded in wrinkles and without bottom teeth, hadn’t changed.

They were a year apart—a year! Friends since that first day at the school. How could he be so aged?

As for the obscenity of bells he wore … what had he been doing?

The shift in Maleonarial’s eyes meant it was time.

“Designate.” The bow was more a dignified stagger, knuckles white on the pitchfork Maleonarial used for support. Harn, after a glance at the scribemaster, offered his good arm.

Saeleonarial turned. He must witness this, though he’d take no joy from that duty. Nim, with every right to anger, was as gentle as he could be. There was no justice or vengeance possible here. Only the prevention of anything more.

Or anything, if he could imagine it, looking around at what had been Riverhill, worse.

Cil, who’d struggled frantically, mouthing incoherent threats and spit, closed his mouth and stilled at the approach of the Designate. When she stopped before him, he bent slightly, as if bowing to a great lady, then stared up at her. The uncanny eyes, topaz and moving as if to memorize his face, didn’t appear to disturb him. Instead, he looked enraptured.

The Designate stooped to press her perfect lips to his.

Cil aged no better than he’d lived, his body shrinking in on itself, growing shriveled and more deformed, cheeks caving in, hands become wizened claws. The men holding him let go in horror, but only when the Designate ended their kiss did he fall.

What was this? Saeleonarial blinked. Had he seen a faint plume of ash as the sad corpse met the ground? Before he could be sure, a breeze danced through silks, tugged his beard, and whisked away any trace of glittering bronze.

The waiting monsters lifted their heads. The long ones closed their eyes and burrowed headfirst into the ground, debris and rubble toppling into the massive holes left by their bodies until nothing was left on the surface but the mud road, golden barley fields, and the river. The made-flies rose in a swarm, circled once, then rose to the sky to fly off in all directions, the sun sparkling on their tiny wings so it seemed for an instant that the air itself shimmered. The beast from the meadow rubbed its horn-capped head against one leg, then stretched like a cat. After a long and careful look at each of them, as if memorizing their shapes, it curled on itself and bounded away, leaving no trail at all through the grain.

They were wonders again.

That’s what they were. Wonders made the world deeper, wilder. As it was meant to be. Saeleonarial’s heart burst with the joy of it. He smiled and took one last breath.

Musk.

Musk and laughter and droplets like gems …

* * *

All this. All this and the Ancient Hag stole the best of them. With a cry, Maleonarial dropped to his knees. He gently removed the belled hat, then flung it aside as he cradled his friend’s head against his chest. The rest stood by; Domozuk silently wept.

“I am not done,” the Designate said in her lifeless voice.

“I am,” Maleonarial snarled. “Leave us be.” Almost to himself. “Let me be.” Hard to breathe. Nothing didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt as much as this. All this.

“I cannot.”

The voice … it wasn’t the same … he looked up.

And saw … only the words of Her language could capture the face before him, and those words had no sounds to be uttered, no descriptions to recall. Only intention. Only magic. Only life. His mind could not encompass it … hold it … the face shimmered and faded, and he didn’t know if that meant he was dead or now wished to be.

“This was your doing.” The voice became the clash of rock against ice. “Your intention. All this.”

Saeleonarial chilled in his arms and the Ageless Bitch mocked him. She was destruction and death. “You lie,” he croaked, and coughed blood.

“I cannot.” The roar of wildfire across grass.

“Leave me be.”

“I cannot.” Rain and thunder. “You wrote that which could steal from Me. It was your intention that found haven in this shattered child. Your will that brought his fear and hate to life.”

His gossamer, after all.

Magic without cost.

His triumph.

Empty of all but grief, Maleonarial closed his eyes and rocked slowly. “Let me die, then.”

“I cannot.” The crack of lightning through wood. “To reclaim what was taken, it must pass through My Gift to the world.”

Lips pressed against his, at first dry and cold, then searing hot. He couldn’t move couldn’t breathe, couldn’t …

He tasted ash.

* * *

A dream. More vivid than most. Not so strange as some, especially after eating that rubbery shelled fish Sael’s brother brought …

Maleonarial kept his mind at sleep’s safe edge, unwilling to challenge, unwilling to know, not yet. He let himself feel nothing but comfort. Which was strange in itself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d awakened free of pain, rested and peaceful, without his bladder threatening to burst or his lungs itching to cough.

“I think he’s awake.”

“Shh.”

“We kin na let him sleep the day.”

The rarity of voices in his camp, let alone unfamiliar ones, pushed him from safety to the cold truth. No dream.

No Saeleonarial.

Riverhill. All of it. His doing. His intention.

Maleonarial lay still, feeling the cold trace of tears.

“Awake at last!” A known voice.

So much for peace. He opened his eyes to find Domozuk’s bearded face too close to his own. It disappeared before he could object, revealing a blue sky inhabited by one distant, soaring hawk.

He saw a hawk.

No, he couldn’t see a hawk. Maleonarial distinctly remembered losing the better part of his sight two hundred bells ago.

But he saw a hawk. No, two hawks. A pair, lazily circling.

He sat up.

Another surprise. He hadn’t been able to sit without propping himself with his arms for at least a hundred bells. At the thought, he raised his hands.

He hadn’t had hands like these since his first bell.

A breeze slipped past his face, drying the tears. Maleonarial surged to his feet.

Rid looked up from the small fire he tended and grinned. “I na seen the match o’ it.”

Domozuk and two others—the villager and a mage student cradling a bandaged wrist—stood waiting. Maleonarial looked around. They’d moved away from the village. The only reminder of Cil’s work, his work, were the shapes lying on a makeshift brier. One was wrapped in the robes of a scribemaster, the other, smaller and twisted, in strips of fine velvet. A tidy bundle of lavender silk lay at their feet, tied with jeweled ropes.

Ash on his lips. He’d never known her name.

The dead and the living. Himself, made new again. He’d need a mirror, but his hands, his stomach, most of all, the vibrant pent-up energy that had been the bane of lessons when he was—when he’d first come to the mage school—told the tale.

The Deathless Lady had taken what remained from one life and given it all to him.

“I wouldn’t have believed it, sir, if I hadn’t seen it.” The bright-eyed student quivered like a coursing hound about to run. “They’ll want to know everything. The other masters.” A less bright glance at the brier. “My-my lord Scribemaster always believed you were innocent, Master Maleonarial. He always spoke up for you. You’ll prove him right.”

“Will I?” How peculiar, to hear a rich timbre to his voice again. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Harn, Sir. M-my lord.” This with a crimson blush. “Harn Guardson. For now.”

He remembered. To so badly want to be renamed. To no longer be Mal Merchantson, but Maleonarial. To intend dreams and write magic.

To begin paying life to the Deathless Lady.

Maleonarial nodded a greeting to the villager, now clad in an assortment of clothing, including a weather-beaten coat that must belong to Rid. “And you, sir?”

“I’m na ‘sir.’” No blush here. The unbandaged eye held a glimmer of curiosity, though the face was drawn with grief. “Nim Millerson. I’m from—was from Riverhill. The scribemaster came w’ me to—to end things, ‘s my guess. He wer’ a good man. Brave.”

A hint of accusation. Why hadn’t the Goddess restored Saeleonarial, the deserving? Maleonarial nodded. “He was. This”—he thumped his now-solid chest—”is nothing I earned, Nim Millerson. The Deathless Lady would have back what”—he didn’t know the poor cripple’s name—”what magic was taken and used here. She chose to give me his life so She can take it again, each time I use Her Gift. It’s Her way.”

So he could live, knowing what his intention had done. All this.

Why? he wondered for the first time. Why must it be through a mage scribe’s intention? Why did She need to reclaim Her Gift at all?

Maleonarial felt his now-strong heart begin to race. She’d given him a second lifetime in which to stop it. To let young Harn learn magic without penalty. To keep men like Saeleonarial fit and well through their best years, instead of bleeding them dry before their time. All he had to do to release magic into the world was bring death to She Who Couldn’t Die.

As quests went, it had all the hopeless glamour a newly young man could ask.

“So,” Maleonarial said cheerfully. “We need horses. Who has a pen?”

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

A Very Formal Affair: A Harry the Book Story

Written by Mike Resnick

Illustrated by Dan Skinner

I am sitting in my office, which happens to be the third booth of Joey Chicago’s 3-Star Tavern, studying the fight card and wondering if this could be the night Kid Testosterone makes it all the way to the second record before being knocked senseless. Benny Fifth Street is behind the bar, pouring himself an Old Peculiar, and Dead End Dugan, who is still having trouble adjusting to being a zombie, is standing in the corner, staring into space and trying to think a bunch of dead thoughts. Big-Hearted Milton, my personal mage, is in his office in the men’s room, surrounded by black candles, and chanting a curse which was supposed to get Betty Petunia into bed with him but so far has gotten him nothing but a slapped face, a knee in a place that I cannot mention in a G-rated story such as I am relating, and an evening explaining to the police exactly why he was playing itsy-bitsy-spider on her thigh just before she threw the wine at him. (“And it was not the house wine,” he complained in outraged tones when he arrived back at Joey Chicago’s. “It was Chateau Morganschlucker. Do you know what that stuff costs per glass?”)

I have just about concluded that Kid Testosterone cannot last 45 seconds with the Midtown Masher, give or take half a minute, and I am about to turn my mind to serious contemplation of the third race at Aqueduct when Gently Gently Dawkins, all 375 pounds of him, enters the tavern. He walks right up to the bar, grabs a handful of nuts and pretzels, tosses them into his mouth, repeats the procedure two more times, and then addresses the room in general. “Why is Benny Fifth Street behind the bar?” he says. “What hideous fate has befallen our beloved Joey Chicago, and before it happens does he leave the sawbuck he owes me with anyone?”

“Joey Chicago is fine,” says Benny. “He is catering a formal affair across town.”

“Catering?” asks Gently Gently. “You mean like with food and such?”

“These people have already eaten dinner,” answers Benny. “He brings along a dozen cases of his best whiskey.”

“What is the occasion?” asks Gently Gently without much interest, now that the food is off the table, so to speak.

“It is the annual Christmas Eve Dance Contest to benefit the Upper West Side Retirement Home for Warlocks and Witches of Advancing Age,” says Benny. “Though with Joey Chicago catering it, I doubt that any participants will be able to pronounce it by ten o’clock tonight.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” say Gently Gently, walking over and pulling a wad of bills out of his pocket. “Here is ten thousand dollars, Harry.”

I pick it up and start counting it.

“If I remind you of Joey Chicago, will you drop ten large on me too?” asks Benny.

“I do not wish to seem ungracious,” I say, “in case this is a Christmas present, but if it is not, and I certainly do not pay you enough for it to be, then what, pray, is it for?”

“It is a bet on the dance contest from Short Odds McDougal,” answers Gently Gently.

“And who does Short Odds McDougal pick, as if I do not know?” I say, because Short Odds plays so many odds-on favorites that he could put the chalk company out of business, and there is no way that the favored couple can lose tonight.

“This is really strange,” says Gently Gently. “I ask him if he is betting on Twinkle Toes Tony and Fatima Fatale, who are the defending champions and figure to be about 2-to-5 to win again, and he says no, that I should tell Harry the Book—I guess that means you since you are he (or is it him?)—that he wants all ten large on Clubfoot Clarence’s schnoz.”

“Say that again!” I demand.

“He says the whole boodle goes on Clubfoot Clarence. I tell him he could split it five and five, half on Clarence, and half on an exacta for Clarence and Tony to come in one-two, and he says he doesn’t care who comes in second, that he wants it all on Clarence.”

“This is serious,” I say. “I have Clarence at 50-to-1 on the morning line.”

“Maybe his new partner will move him up in class,” says Gently Gently.

“Who is it?” asks Benny.

“Lezli Luscious,” says Gently Gently. “I am told that she is the Prima Ballerina at Salacious Sally’s Palace of Exotic Delights.”

“She is more like the Prima Bumpagrinda,” replies Benny.

“You two are missing the point!” I say.

“Lezli Luscious does not have any points, only curves,” says Gently Gently.

“The point is that Short Odds McDougal only bets on favorites, and suddenly he has laid ten large on a 50-to-1 shot,” I say. “If he wins I am out half a million dollars, and between you and me and the gatepost I do not have half a million dollars.”

“Not only that,” says Gently Gently, looking around the tavern, “but I do not even see a gatepost.”

“Clearly the hex is in,” I say. “We are going to have to go over there and find out what is going on.”

“I can tell you what is going on,” says Dead End Dugan, who has momentarily stopped thinking dead thoughts. “The hex is in, Harry.”

“Thank you for that insight, Dead End,” I say, because sarcasm is lost on zombies, as is logic, food, and pain. “I had better get Milton, and then we are on our way.”

I walk into the men’s room, and there is Big-Hearted Milton sitting on the floor, sporting a black eye and surrounded by eight big candles, and he is muttering and chanting in a language that is almost as alien as French.

“Milton,” I say, “get up. We have things to do.”

He puts a finger to his lips, then utters one last chant.

“Now she’ll be sorry,” he says, getting to his feet.

“You are referring to Betty Petunia?” I say.

“That’s right.” He cackles and rubs his hands together. “Throw wine in my face, will she?”

“What terrible thing have you done to her?” I ask, not that I really care, but I do not wish to hurt Milton’s delicate feelings, especially since I may need him before the night is over.

“She has left me for Bail Bond Bailey,” says Milton. “I have put a curse on her undergarments. No matter how hard she or Bailey try, her bra will not come off, and neither will her girdle.” He cackles again. “I guess that writes Fini to that romance.”

I do not have the heart to tell him that as far as anyone knows, and given the texture of her blouses that is very far indeed, Betty Petunia has not worn a bra since she reached puberty, and they do not even manufacture girdles any more. “That is some curse, Milton,” I say, while wondering if Morris the Mage is still on vacation or is maybe available to work this evening.

“All right, Harry,” says Milton, “tell me what is so important.”

“Short Odds McDougal just bet ten large on a 50-to-1 shot,” I say.

“Aqueduct or Santa Anita?”

“West 73rd Street,” I say.

He frowns. “What is happening on West 73rd Street?”

I tell him.

“Clearly someone has hexed Twinkle Toes Tony and Fatima Fatale,” says Milton. “We must go there before the judging is done and set things right. In fact, we haven’t a second to lose!”

“I am glad to see you so motivated,” I say.

“I have five yards riding on Tony and Fatima,” he says.

“No you don’t,” I say.

“Yes I do,” he insists. “I make the wager with Bet-a-Million McNabb.”

“You do not bet with your own employer?” I demand.

“I love you like a brother, Harry,” he says, “but McNabb gives better odds.”

I seriously consider telling him what Betty Petunia does not wear under her dress, but then I decide to wait until the evening is over, because I will need him on my side when I confront whatever foul fiend has tried to rig the dance contest.

We walk out into the tavern, and my crew gathers around me.

“Harry,” says Dead End Dugan, “I have been thinking long and hard on it, and my conclusion is that we should do something. I would tell you about what, but my short-term memory has been on the blink since the last time they dug me up.”

“I second the motion,” says Gently Gently, and then adds hopefully: “Maybe there will be some free eats at the contest.”

“Do we have to dress formally?” asks Benny.

Milton walks to the coat rack and dons his red velvet cloak, the one with the signs of the zodiac emblazoned on it.

“I am ready,” he announces. “How about you, Harry?”

“I am wearing my formal straw boater and chewing on my formal toothpick,” I say. “Let us away.”

And away we let.

* * *

We show up, and it seems that all the men are wearing black tuxedos, except for the few that are wearing blue, mauve, puce or pink ones. The women are all trying their best to look like they are not wearing anything, and one or two just about succeed.

I leave Dugan at the door and tell him not to let anyone out until he hears from me, because I cannot believe that whoever has fixed the contest for Short Odds McDougal will not be on the premises to make sure nothing goes wrong. I look around the audience and I see Joey Chicago tending bar, and it is clear that everyone has been drinking hard all night because he is serving up his cheap stuff and no one seems to notice the difference. I spot Morris the Mage is in his formal black cape (which does not match his tan Hush Puppies), and Spellsinger Solly is actually wearing a tux, though with an advertisement for Matilda’s Meat Market tastefully sewn on a breast pocket. Herman the Plunger—who is not to be confused with Hyman the Plunger, the local plumber—is there, betting on every single dance, of which I gather there are an awful lot. Short Odds McDougal is there too, smiling like the cat that is about to eat five hundred thousand canaries.

“There is magic in the air, Harry,” says Big-Hearted Milton, though Gently Gently argues that it is merely the smell of pastries.

Suddenly I realize that I am getting a headache, and then I see that Velvet Voice Vinnie is standing at the microphone, singing his latest, so at least I know why my head hurts.

I look at the couples on the dance floor, and there, whirling and swirling like they are on ice skates, are Twinkle Toes Tony and Fatima Fatale, and it is like they are a whole different species they are so graceful. Which is not to say they are not a whole different species from some of the competition, because there are elves, goblins, gremlins, leprechauns, and even a ghoul or two out on the floor.

I peer into a darkened corner, and there are Clubfoot Clarence and Lezli Luscious, and I decide that Clarence has picked the ideal partner, not that Lezli can dance any better than he can but that once you look at her you forget all about the fact that this is a dance competition. She curses as he steps on her foot, but they go right on waltzing, which is kind of strange since everyone else is doing the rhumba.

Across the way is Swivelhips McGee, whose conversion from quarterback to halfback for the Manhattan Misfits never quite worked, and who wound up playing three-eighthsback. He is dancing with Dressy Jessie Sweeney, who keeps throwing dirty looks at Lezli Luscious, but the looks keep bouncing off her superstructure and shooting off into space.

“Who is that dancing with Pretty Perky Penelope?” asks Gently Gently.

“That is Lefty Louie,” says Milton.

“Are you sure?” says Benny.

“Of course I am sure,” says Milton. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I am watching him, and he seems to be right-handed,” says Benny.

“He is,” says Milton.

“Then why is he Lefty Louie?” asks Gently Gently.

“Because he has two left feet,” answers Milton.

“He does not look that awkward to me,” observes Benny.

“You do not understand,” says Milton.

“Enlighten me,” says Benny.

“He has two left feet,” repeats Milton.

“You said that.”

“And no right feet,” continues Milton.

“Are you sure?” asks Benny dubiously.

“He comes to see me about it,” says Milton. “But there is nothing about the condition in my grimoires, so I tell him that it could be worse, he could have two left hands growing out of his ankles.” He frowns. “The ingrate does not even pay me for those words of comfort.”

“Who is Bellisima Brown dancing with?” asks Benny, indicating her partner who makes even Gently Gently look thin.

“That is Biscuit Boris,” I answer. “He regularly bets on the Boston jai alai games with me.”

“They do not play jai alai in Boston,” notes Benny.

“Probably that is why he never wins,” I say. “I will not tell him if you won’t.”

“Why is he called Biscuit?” continues Benny. “He does not look like a biscuit, so much as a blimp.”

“Because his doctor says he is about one biscuit short of five hundred pounds,” I say.

The dance ends, and if Benny has any more questions they are thankfully drowned out by applause.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” says Velvet Voice Vinnie, as if they are cheering for him, whereas half the audience is applauding the dancers and the other half is applauding the fact that Vinnie has come to the end of his song. “And now I want to introduce our all-star panel of judges,” adds Vinnie. “Will you each stand up and take a bow when I call your name? First on the list is Mildred the Saint.”

A sexy redhead stands up and everyone claps.

“She is a saint?” asks Gently Gently.

“By marriage,” says Milton. “She is married to Nick the Saint, who is out of town on business, this being Christmas Eve.”

“She is a knockout,” says Benny. “No wonder he keeps her hidden up at the North Pole.”

“Next is Lamont Lupo,” says Vinnie, and a tall guy in serious need of a shave and haircut gets up and takes a bow.

“And our final judge is Ming Toy Epstein, who you all know as the proprietor of Ming Toy Epstein’s Kosher Chop Suey House.”

A lovely lady gets up, waves to the crowd, and sits down again.

“The next dance,” announces Vinnie, “will be the samba, so grab your partners—no, not like that, Clarence—and let’s go.”

The music starts, and the dancing follows.

“This is a very unusual dance, this samba,” notes Gently Gently. “Everyone moves a lot, and no one gets anywhere.”

“Idiot!” screams Lezli Luscious, and I can see that Clarence has stomped on her foot yet again, and it is getting so swollen that it is almost as big as his.

The dance ends, and Vinnie announces that the jitterbug is next, followed by the two-step and then the tango, and I am looking all around the room, though I do not know what I am looking for, just something to tell me how the hex is going to work, and suddenly someone opens one of the drapes, and I hear a dismal howl coming from the judges’ table, and I look, and it turns out that where there were three judges now there are only two, and between them is sitting a wolf which is still wearing Lamont Lupo’s bow-tie.

“Foul!” cries Twinkle Toes Tony. “It is not fair that we be judged by a wolf.”

“Nonsense,” says Lezli Luscious. “I am judged by wolves all the time.”

A lot of the better-looking women chime in that they would rather be judged by the wolf than by the two women, but then the committee that is running the shindig holds an impromptu meeting at the bar, and decides that Lamont Lupo can continue to judge only if he can still deliberate with the other judges.

Lamont Lupo utters an ugly growl, and both Mildred the Saint and Ming Toy Epstein immediately hide under the table.

“In English!” says the chairman.

Lamont Lupo looks like he is considering eating the rest of the committee for dinner and the chairman for dessert, but finally Morris the Mage pulls out his wand and says something only Big-Hearted Milton and Spellsinger Solly can understand, and Lamont Lupo meekly walks out of the room, pausing only long enough to lift his leg on the chairman.

“Milton,” I say softly, “why do you let Morris take all the glory? You could have vanished that werewolf just as easily.”

“That is true,” agrees Milton, “but we know that the hex is in, and I want to see if one of the other mages rids us of the wolf, because if he does that means Lamont Lupo was never going to vote for Clubfoot Clarence.”

“Come to think of it,” I say, “Morris is standing very near the drapes, is he not?”

Milton nods his head. “Let me ask you one question, Harry,” he says. “Do you pay off if there is a dead heat?”

“At half the odds,” I confirm.

“So if one judge votes for Clarence, you are out a quarter of a million dollars, and if they both do, you are down half a million,” he says. “Either way you lose, right?”

“Right,” I say. “And I find this line of conversation extremely depressing.”

“Well, cheer up, Harry,” says Milton, “because you have told me what I wanted to know.”

“You wanted to know how much I am going to lose?” I ask.

Milton shakes his head. “I wanted to make sure that no matter how the judging goes, you can’t win.”

“You are all heart, Milton,” I say.

“You do not understand,” replies Milton. “If you did not pay off on ties, then I would have to assume Morris is working for both the remaining judges, but since you do pay off, then he only has to be working for one, and I know which one.”

“You do?” I say with a feeling of relief.

“Yes, I do,” says Milton. “Morris the Mage is nowhere as good a magician as I am, public opinion to the contrary, but he is every bit as expensive, and Ming Toy Epstein still owes me twenty bucks from the World Series.”

“You bet with her and not me?” I say, trying to control my temper. “Again you bet with someone else?”

“It’s immoral to bet with the bookie I work for,” answers Milton. “Besides, she gives me 4-to-1 and takes the St. Louis Browns.”

“There have not been any St. Louis Browns in more than half a century,” I say.

Milton smiles. “That is another reason I bet with her. Anyway, if she cannot pay me twenty dollars, which I ask for a minimum of seventeen times a week, she cannot afford Morris, so the culprit is Mrs. Saint.”

“You’re sure?” I say.

“As sure as my name is Large-Hearted Milton,” he replies.

“Your name is Big-Hearted Milton,” I say.

“In my exuberance at unearthing this dastardly scheme I momentarily forget,” he says. “Anyway, the culprit is Mildred the Saint.” He smiles confidently. “Trust me on this.”

“I was all set to believe you until those last four words,” I say.

“We are ready for the final dance number,” announces Vinnie. “This will be an old-fashioned down-home square dance, and I myself will do the call.”

“Accuse her now, before she has a chance to vote,” advises Milton.

“Yes, please accuse her now,” adds Benny plaintively, “or we’ll have to listen to Vinnie’s version of do-si-do.”

“All right, all right,” I say, walking over to the bandstand. “Stop the music.”

They start playing hoe-down music.

“Dugan!” I call. “Come over here!”

Dead End Dugan lumbers over and stands beside me.

“Dugan,” I say, “I want you to eat the first guy who plays so much as a single note.”

“I haven’t eaten in more than two years,” says Dugan.

Before he can tell me he doesn’t like food anymore, I say “You must be good and hungry then. Eat the first guy to play a note, and then eat the guys on each side of him.”

A violinist gives me a defiant glare, tucks his instrument under his chin, and prepares to run his bow across it. The trumpet player on his left and the saxophonist on his right immediately start beating him senseless.

I have everyone’s attention now, and I walk over to the judge’s table, point a finger at Mildred the Saint, and say in stentorian tones: “J’accuse!”

“No, it’s Mildred,” she replies.

“Come on, Mrs. Saint,” I say. “We know Morris the Mage is working for you, and that he is the one who pulls the drapes so the moon will shine on Lamont Lupo. What were you going to do to Ming Toy Epstein?”

“That’s none of your business!” she snaps.

“You gave Short Odds McDougal ten large to bet on Clubfoot Clarence,” I say. “That makes it my business.”

“I told him to keep his mouth shut!” cries Mildred, and suddenly realizes what she has said. “Oops,” she adds. “I didn’t mean that. I was just kidding.”

“Dugan,” I said. “Give Short Odds McDougal ten seconds to admit his culpability, and if he doesn’t, then eat him.”

“All right, I admit it!” shouts Short Odds, just before Dugan can say “What’s culpability?”

“Why did you do it?” I ask Mildred.

“It’s that damned husband of mine!” she says bitterly. “He keeps me cooped up at the North Pole all year. You know what it’s like up there? 363 days of winter and two days of bad skiing! If you hadn’t ruined everything, I was going to take my winnings and buy a timeshare on the beach in Barbados.” She glares at Short Odds. “You just had to make the bet with a bookie who’s got his own mage. You couldn’t lay it off with Morgan the Gorgon.”

“Morgan was only offering 35-to-1 against,” explains Short Odds reasonably.

“Well, it has been a fascinating evening,” says Morris, heading for a door, “but I have urgent business elsewhere.”

“No you don’t,” I say. “It is Christmas Eve.”

“Then I’ll find some,” he says and leaves.

“So what’s to become of our charity pageant now?” asks the chairman.

“All bets are canceled,” I say. “And since all bets are canceled, I am not going to press charges.” I walk over to Mildred the Saint, pull out the ten large, peel off nine big ones for her, and hold the tenth up. “For expenses,” I say, and put it in my pocket. For a moment she looks like she is going to object, but then she sighs and nods her head.

“And since we know the hex was in, you are disqualified from judging,” says the chairman.

She gets up and walks out.

“That means Ming Toy Epstein is the only remaining judge,” said the chairman. “Vinnie, let’s have that square dance.”

But the evening is not over yet, because Milton and Spellsinger Solly have been deep in conference in a corner of the room, and I see them light their pocket lighters in lieu of candles, and while I can’t hear them I know they are chanting a little spell, and suddenly Vinnie has lost his voice, and the square dance is a bit of a shambles since with no one to call it the dancers do not know what to do next, but they run their way through it, and Swivelhips McGee in particular looks delighted as he dodges dancers right and left and acts like he is back on the football field again. Finally the dance is over, and the judges confer, and it is a very short conference since there is only one judge left, and then we all settle back and prepare to hear her announce that Twinkle Toes Tony and Fatima Fatale are the winners.

But then Ming Toy Epstein pulls one out of left field, and says that in the considered opinion of the judging panel all the women were equally good so there will be no female winner, but there is one male dancer who stands out from the competition, and just as Twinkle Toes Tony is getting ready to take his bows and pick up his trophy, she announces that the winner is Lefty Louie.

There is a stunned silence, and then Tony stalks out furiously, followed by all the other dancers, and next the audience starts filing out, and pretty soon there is no one left but Joey Chicago, who is packing up what is left of his goods, and Big-Hearted Milton and Gently Gently Dawkins and Benny Fifth Street and Dead End Dugan, and the judge and the winner and me.

“That was a most interesting decision,” I say to Ming Toy Epstein. “I am almost sorry I canceled all the bets, because not a single person placed a wager on Lefty Louie.”

“No one at all?” she asks, surprised.

“He has two left feet, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“And that does not bother you?” I ask.

She slips off her shoes, and I see that she has two right feet. “Not at all,” she says, and she and Lefty walk out hand-in-hand.

“Isn’t that romantic?” says Benny with a sentimental smile on his face.

“Their firstborn will inherit two feet from each of them,” says Gently Gently. “In fact, he will probably qualify to run in the Kentucky Derby a few years from now.” He pulls out a ten-spot and hands it to me. “Harry,” he says, “will you book my bet before I forget?”

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

CLASSIC:

The Moon Pool

Written by A. Merritt

Illustrated by Jennifer Miller

1. The Throckmartin Mystery

I am breaking a long silence to clear the name of Dr. David Throckmartin and to lift the shadow of scandal from that of his wife and of Dr. Charles Stanton, his assistant. That I have not found the courage to do so before, all men who are jealous of their scientific reputations will understand when they have read the facts entrusted to me alone.

I shall first recapitulate what has actually been known of the Throckmartin expedition to the island of Ponape in the Carolines—the Throckmartin Mystery, as it is called.

Dr. Throckmartin set forth, you will recall, to make some observations of Nan-Matal, that extraordinary group of island ruins, remains of a high and prehistoric civilization, that are clustered along the vast shore of Ponape. With him went his wife to whom he had been wedded less than half a year. The daughter of Professor Frazier-Smith, she was as deeply interested and almost as well informed as he upon these relics of a vanished race that titanically strew certain islands of the Pacific and form the basis for the theory of a submerged Pacific continent.

Mrs. Throckmartin, it will be recalled, was much younger, fifteen years at least, than her husband. Dr. Charles Stanton, who accompanied them as Dr. Throckmartin’s assistant, was about her age. These three and a Swedish woman, Thora Helversen, who had been Edith Throckmartin’s nurse in babyhood and who was entirely devoted to her, made up the expedition.

Dr. Throckmartin planned to spend a year among the ruins, not only of Ponape, but of Lele—the twin centers of that colossal riddle of humanity whose answer has its roots in immeasurable antiquity; a weird flower of man-made civilization that blossomed ages before the seeds of Egypt were sown; of whose arts we know little and of whose science and secret knowledge of nature nothing.

He carried with him complete equipment for his work and gathered at Ponape a dozen or so natives for laborers. They went straight to Metalanim harbor and set up their camp on the island called Uschen-Tau in the group known as the Nan-Matal. You will remember that these islands are entirely uninhabited and are shunned by the people on the main island.

Three months later Dr. Throckmartin appeared at Port Moresby, Papua. He came on a schooner manned by Solomon Islanders and commanded by a Chinese half-breed captain. He reported that he was on his way to Melbourne for additional scientific equipment and whites to help him in his excavations, saying that the superstition of the natives made their aid negligible. He went immediately on board the steamer Southern Queen which was sailing that same morning. Three nights later he disappeared from the Southern Queen and it was officially reported that he had met death either by being swept overboard or by casting himself into the sea.

A relief-boat sent with the news to Ponape found the Throckmartin camp on the island of Uschen-Tau and a smaller camp on the island called Nan-Tanach. All the equipment, clothing, supplies were intact. But of Mrs. Throckmartin, of Dr. Stanton, or of Thora Helversen they could find not a single trace!

The natives who had been employed by the archeologist were questioned. They said that the ruins were the abode of great spirits—ani—who were particularly powerful when the moon was at the full. On these nights all the islanders were doubly careful to give the ruins wide berth. Upon being employed, they had demanded leave from the day before full moon until it was on the wane and this had been granted them by Dr. Throckmartin. Thrice they had left the expedition alone on these nights. On their third return they had found the four white people gone and they “knew that the ani had eaten them.” They were afraid and had fled.

That was all.

The Chinese half caste was found and reluctantly testified at last that he had picked Dr. Throckmartin up from a small boat about fifty miles off Ponape. The scientist had seemed half mad, but he had given the seaman a large sum of money to bring him to Port Moresby and to say, if questioned, that he had boarded the boat at Ponape harbor.

That is all that has been known to anyone of the fate of the Throckmartin expedition.

Why, you will ask, do I break silence now; and how came I in possession of the facts I am about to set forth?

To the first I answer: I was at the Geographical Club recently and I overheard two members talking. They mentioned the name of Throckmartin and I became an eavesdropper. One said:

“Of course what probably happened was that Throckmartin killed them all. It’s a dangerous thing for a man to marry a woman so much younger than himself and then throw her into the necessarily close company of exploration with a man as young and as agreeable as Stanton was. The inevitable happened, no doubt. Throckmartin discovered; avenged himself. Then followed remorse and suicide.”

“Throckmartin didn’t seem to be that kind,” said the other thoughtfully.

“No, he didn’t,” agreed the first.

“Isn’t there another story?” went on the second speaker. “Something about Mrs. Throckmartin running away with Stanton and taking the woman, Thora, with her? Somebody told me they had been recognized in Singapore recently.”

“You can take your pick of the two stories,” replied the other man. “It’s one or the other I suppose.”

It was neither one nor the other of them. I know—and I will answer now the second question—because I was with Throckmartin when he—vanished. I know what he told me and I know what my own eyes saw. Incredible, abnormal, against all the known facts of our science as it was, I testify to it. And it is my intention, after this is published, to sail to Ponape, to go to the Nan-Matal and to the islet beneath whose frowning walls dwells the mystery that Throckmartin sought and found—and that at the last sought and found Throckmartin!

I will leave behind me a copy of the map of the islands that he gave me. Also his sketch of the great courtyard of Nan-Tanach, the location of the moon door, his indication of the probably location of the moon pool and the passage to it and his approximation of the position of the shining globes. If I do not return and there are any with enough belief, scientific curiosity and courage to follow, these will furnish a plain trail.

I will now proceed straightforwardly with my narrative.

For six months I had been on the d’Entrecasteaux Islands gathering data for the concluding chapters of my book upon “Flora of the Volcanic Islands of the South Pacific.” The day before, I had reached Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck that morning I thought, with homesick mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne and the longer ones between Melbourne and New York.

It was one of Papua’s yellow mornings, when she shows herself in her most somber, most baleful mood. The sky was a smoldering ocher. Over the island brooded a spirit sullen, implacable and alien; filled with the threat of latent, malefic forces waiting to be unleashed. It seemed an emanation from the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself—sinister even when she smiles. And now and then, on the wind, came a breath from unexplored jungles, filled with unfamiliar odors, mysterious, and menacing.

It is on such mornings that Papua speaks to you of her immemorial ancientness and of her power. I am not unduly imaginative but it is a mood that makes me shrink—I mention it because it bears directly upon Dr. Throckmartin’s fate. Nor is the mood Papua’s alone. I have felt it in New Guinea, in Australia, in the Solomons and in the Carolines. But it is in Papua that it seems most articulate. It is as though she said: “I am the ancient of days; I have seen the earth in the throes of its shaping; I am the primeval; I have seen races born and die and, lo, in my breast are secrets that would blast you by the telling, you pale babes of a puling age. You and I ought not be in the same world; yet I am and I shall be! Never will you fathom me and you I hate though I tolerate! I tolerate—but how long?”

And then I seem to see a giant paw that reaches from Papua toward the outer world, stretching and sheathing monstrous claws.

All feel this mood of hers. Her own people have it woven in them, part of their web and woof; flashing into light unexpectedly like a soul from another universe; masking itself as swiftly.

I fought against Papua as every white man must on one of her yellow mornings. And as I fought I saw a tall figure come striding down the pier. Behind him came a Kapa-Kapa boy swinging a new valise. There was something familiar about the tall man. As he reached the gangplank he looked up straight into my eyes, stared at me for a moment and waved his hand. It was Dr. Throckmartin!

Coincident with my recognition of him there came a shock of surprise that was definitely—unpleasant. It was Throckmartin—but there was something disturbingly different about him and the man I had known so well and had bidden farewell less than a year before. He was then, as you know, just turned forty, lithe, erect, muscular; the face of a student and of a seeker. His controlling expression was one of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of—what shall I say—expectant search. His ever eagerly questioning brain had stamped itself upon his face.

I sought in my mind for an explanation of that which I had felt on the flash of his greeting. Hurrying down to the lower deck I found him with the purser. As I spoke he turned and held out to me an eager hand—and then I saw what the change was that had come over him!

He knew, of course, by my face the uncontrollable shock that my closer look had given me. His eyes filled and he turned briskly to the purser; then hurried off to his stateroom, leaving me standing, half dazed.

At the stair he half turned.

“Oh, Goodwin,” he said. “I’d like to see you later. Just now—there’s something I must write before we start—”

He went up swiftly.

” ‘E looks rather queer—eh?” said the purser. “Know ‘im well, sir? Seems to ‘ave given you quite a start, sir.”

I made some reply and went slowly to my chair. I tried to analyze what it was that had disturbed me so; what profound change in Throckmartin that had so shaken me. Now it came to me. It was as though the man had suffered some terrific soul searing shock of rapture and horror combined; some soul cataclysm that in its climax had remolded his face deep from within, setting on it the seal of wedded joy and fear. As though indeed ecstasy supernal and terror infernal had once come to him hand in hand, taken possession of him, looked out of his eyes and, departing, left behind upon him ineradicably their shadow.

Alternately I looked out over the port and paced about the deck, striving to read the riddle; to banish it from my mind. And all the time still over Papua brooded its baleful spirit of ancient evil, unfathomable, not to be understood; nor had it lifted when the Southern Queen lifted anchor and steamed out into the gulf.

2. Down the Moon Path

I watched with relief the shores sink down behind us; welcomed the touch of the free sea wind. We seemed to be drawing away from something malefic; something that lurked within the island spell I have described, and the thought crept into my mind, spoke—whispered rather—from Throckmartin’s face.

I had hoped—and within the hope was an inexplicable shrinking, an unexpressed dread—that I would meet Throckmartin at lunch. He did not come down and I was sensible of a distinct relief within my disappointment. All that afternoon I lounged about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin. Nor did he appear at dinner.

Dusk and night fell swiftly. I was warm and went back to my deckchair. The Southern Queen was rolling to a disquieting swell and I had the place to myself.

Over the heavens was a canopy of cloud, glowing faintly and testifying to the moon riding behind it. There was much phosphorescence. Now and then, before the ship and at the sides, arose those strange little swirls of mist that steam up from the Southern Ocean like the breath of sea monsters, whirl for a moment and disappear. I lighted a cigarette and tried once more to banish Throckmartin’s face from my mind.

Suddenly the deck door opened and through it came Throckmartin himself. He paused uncertainly, looked up at the sky with a curiously eager, intent gaze, hesitated, then closed the door behind him.

“Throckmartin,” I called. “Come sit with me. It’s Goodwin.”

Immediately he made his way to me, sitting beside me with a gasp of relief that I noted curiously. His hand touched mine and gripped it with tenseness that hurt. His hand was icelike. I puffed up my cigarette and by its glow scanned him closely. He was watching a large swirl of the mist that was passing before the ship. The phosphorescence beneath it illumined it with a fitful opalescence. I saw fear in his eyes. The swirl passed; he sighed; his grip relaxed and he sank back.

“Throckmartin,” I said, wasting no time in preliminaries. “What’s wrong? Can I help you?”

He was silent.

“Is your wife all right and what are you doing here when I heard you had gone to the Carolines for a year?” I went on.

I felt his body grow tense again. He did not speak for a moment and then:

“I’m going to Melbourne, Goodwin,” he said. “I need a few things—need them urgently. And more men—white men.”

His voice was low; preoccupied. It was as though the brain that dictated the words did so perfunctorily, half impatiently; aloof, watching, strained to catch the first hint of approach of something dreaded.

“You are making progress then?” I asked. It was a banal question, put forth in a blind effort to claim his attention.

“Progress?” he repeated. “Progress—”

He stopped abruptly; rose from his chair, gazed intently toward the north. I followed his gaze. Far, far away the moon had broken through the clouds. Almost on the horizon, you could see the faint luminescence of it upon the quiet sea. The distant patch of light quivered and shook. The clouds thickened again and it was gone. The ship raced southward, swiftly.

Throckmartin dropped into his chair. He lighted a cigarette with a hand that trembled. The flash of the match fell on his face and I noted with a queer thrill of apprehension that its unfamiliar expression had deepened; become curiously intensified as though a faint acid had passed over it, etching its lines faintly deeper.

“It’s the full moon tonight, isn’t it?” he asked, palpably with studied inconsequence.

“The first night of full moon,” I answered. He was silent again. I sat silent too, waiting for him to make up his mind to speak. He turned to me as though he had made a sudden resolution.

“Goodwin,” he said. “I do need help. If ever man needed it, I do. Goodwin—can you imagine yourself in another world, alien, unfamiliar, a world of terror, whose unknown joy is its greatest terror of all; you all alone there; a stranger! As such a man would need help, so I need—”

He paused abruptly and arose to his feet stiffly; the cigarette dropped from his fingers. I saw that the moon had again broken through the clouds, and this time much nearer. Not a mile away was the patch of light that it threw upon the waves. Back of it, to the rim of the sea was a lane of moonlight; it was a gleaming gigantic serpent racing over the rim of the world straight and surely toward the ship.

Throckmartin gazed at it as though turned to stone. He stiffened to it as a pointer does to a hidden covey. To me from him pulsed a thrill of terror—but terror tinged with an unfamiliar, an infernal joy. It came to me and passed away—leaving me trembling with its shock of bitter sweet.

He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes. The moon path swept closer, closer still. It was now less than half a mile away. From it the ship fled; almost it came to me, as though pursued. Down upon it, swift and straight, a radiant torrent cleaving the waves, raced the moon stream. And then—

“Good God!” breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer and an invocation they were.

And then, for the first time—I saw—it!

The moon path, as I have said, stretched to the horizon and was bordered by darkness. It was as though the clouds above had been parted to form a lane—drawn aside like curtains or as the waters of the Red Sea were held back to let the hosts of Israel through. On each side of the stream was the black shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies. And straight as a road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered and danced the shining, racing, rapids of moonlight.

Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of silver fire I sensed, rather than saw, something coming. It drew into sight as a deeper glow within the light. On and on it sped toward us—an opalescent mistiness that swept on with the suggestion of some winged creature in darting flight. Dimly there crept into my mind memory of the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha—the Akla bird whose feathers are woven of the moon rays, whose heart is a living opal, whose wings in flight echo the crystal clear music of the white stars—but whose beak is of frozen flame and shreds the souls of the unbelievers. Still it sped on, and now there came to me sweet, insistent tinklings—like a pizzicati on violins of glass, crystalline, as purest, clearest glass transformed to sound. Again the myth of the Akla bird came to me.

But now it was close to the end of the white path; close up to the barrier of darkness still between the ship and the sparkling head of the moon stream. And now it beat up against that barrier as a bird against the bars of its cage. And I knew that this was no mist born of sea and air. It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls of lacy light, with spirals of living vapor. It held within it odd, unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and glittering atoms drifted through it as though it drew them from the rays that bathed it.

Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves, and less and less grew the protecting wall of shadow between it and us. The crystalline sounds were louder—rhythmic as music from another planet.

Now I saw that within the mistiness was a core, a nucleus of intenser light—veined, opaline, effulgent, intensely alive. And above it, tangled in the plumes and spirals that throbbed and whirled were seven glowing lights.

Through all the incessant but strangely ordered movement of the—thing—these lights held firm and steady. They were seven—like seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of delicate nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish leap beneath the moon. There they shone—these seven little varicolored orbs within the opaline mistiness of whatever it was that, poised and expectant, waited to be drawn to us on the light filled waves.

The tinkling music was louder still. It pierced the ears with a shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubilantly—and checked it dolorously. It closed your throat with a throb of rapture and gripped it tight like the hand of infinite sorrow!

Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal clear notes, it was articulate—but as though from something utterly foreign to this world. The ear took the cry and translated with conscious labor into the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from it irresistibly and simultaneously it seemed, reached toward it with irresistible eagerness.

“Av-o-lo-ha! Av-o-lo-ha!” So the cry seemed to throb.

The grip of Throckmartin’s hand relaxed. He walked stiffly toward the front of the deck, straight toward the vision, now but a few yards away from the bow. I ran toward him and gripped him—and fell back. For now his face had lost all human semblance. Utter agony and utter ecstasy—there they were side by side, not resisting each other; unholy inhuman companions blending into a look that none of God’s creatures should wear—and deep, deep as his soul! A devil and a god dwelling harmoniously side by side! So must Satan, newly fallen, still divine, seeing heaven and contemplating hell, have looked.

And then—swiftly the moon path faded! The clouds swept over the sky as though a hand had drawn them together. Up from the south came a roaring squall. As the moon vanished what I had seen vanished with it—blotted out as an image on a magic lantern; the tinkling ceased abruptly—leaving a silence like that which follows an abrupt and stupendous thunder clap. There was nothing about us but silence and blackness!

Through me there passed a great trembling as one who had stood on the very verge of the gulf wherein the men of the Louisades say lurks the fisher of the souls of men, and has been plucked back by sheerest chance.

Throckmartin passed an arm around me.

“It is as I thought,” he said. In his voice was a new note; of the calm certainty that has swept aside a waiting terror of the unknown. “Now I know! Come with me to my cabin, old friend. For now that you too have seen I can tell you”—he hesitated—”what it was you saw,” he ended.

As we passed through the door we came face to face with the ship’s first officer. Throckmartin turned quickly, but not soon enough for the mate not to see and stare with amazement. His eyes turned questioningly to me.

With a strong effort of will Throckmartin composed his face into at least a semblance of normality.

“Are we going to have much of a storm?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the mate. Then the seaman, getting the better of his curiosity, added, profanely: “We’ll probably have it all the way to Melbourne.”

Throckmartin straightened as though with a new thought. He gripped the officer’s sleeve eagerly.

“You mean at least cloudy weather—for”—he hesitated—”for the next three nights, say?”

“And for three more,” replied the mate.

“Thank God!” cried Throckmartin, and I think I never heard such relief and hope as was in his voice.

The sailor stood amazed. “Thank God?” he repeated. “Thank—what d’ye mean?”

But Throckmartin was moving onward to his cabin. I started to follow. The first officer stopped me.

“You friend,” he said, “is he ill?”

“The sea!” I answered hurriedly. “He’s not used to it. I am going to look after him.”

I saw doubt and disbelief in the seaman’s eyes but I hurried on. For I knew now that Throckmartin was ill indeed—but that it was a sickness neither the ship’s doctor nor any other could heal.

3. “Dead! All Dead!”

Throckmartin was sitting on the side of his berth as I entered. He had taken off his coat. He was leaning over, face in hands.

“Lock the door,” he said quietly, not raising his head. “Close the portholes and draw the curtains—and—have you an electric flash in your pocket—a good, strong one?”

He glanced at the small pocket flash I handed him and clicked it on. “Not big enough I’m afraid,” he said. “And after all”—he hesitated—”it’s only a theory.”

“What’s only a theory?” I asked in astonishment.

“Thinking of it as a weapon against—what you saw,” he said, with a wry smile.

“Throckmartin,” I cried. “What was it? Did I really see—that thing—there in the moon path? Did I really hear—”

“This for instance,” he interrupted.

Softly he whispered: “Av-o-lo-ha!” With the murmur I seemed to hear again the crystalline unearthly music; an echo of it, faint, sinister, mocking, jubilant.

“Throckmartin,” I said. “What was it? What are you flying from, man? Where is your wife—and Stanton?”

“Dead!” he said monotonously. “Dead! All dead!” Then as I recoiled in horror—”All dead. Edith, Stanton, Thora—dead—or worse. And Edith in the moon pool—with them—drawn by what you saw on the moon path—and that wants me—and that has put its brand upon me—and pursues me.”

With a vicious movement he ripped open his shirt.

“Look at this,” he said. I gazed. Around his chest, an inch above his heart, the skin was white as pearl. The whiteness was sharply defined against the healthy tint of the body. He turned and I saw it ran around his back. It circled him. The band made a perfect cincture about two inches wide.

“Burn it!” he said, and offered me his cigarette. I drew back. He gestured—peremptorily. I pressed the glowing end of the cigarette into the ribbon of white flesh. He did not flinch nor was there odor of burning nor, as I drew the little cylinder away, any mark upon the whiteness.

“Feel it!” he commanded again. I placed my fingers upon the band. It was cold—like frozen marble.

He handed me a small penknife.

“Cut!” he ordered. This time, my scientific interest fully aroused, I did so without reluctance. The blade cut into flesh. I waited for the blood to come. None appeared. I drew out the knife and thrust it in again, fully a quarter of an inch deep. I might have been cutting paper so far as any evidence followed that what I was piercing was human skin and muscle.

Another thought came to me and I drew back, revolted.

“Throckmartin,” I whispered. “Not leprosy!”

“Nothing so easy,” he said. “Look again and find the places you cut.”

I looked, as he bade me, and in the white ring there was not a single mark. Where I had pressed the blade there was no trace. It was as though the skin had parted to make way for the blade and closed.

Throckmartin arose and drew his shirt about him.

“Two things you have seen,” he said. “It—and its mark—the seal it placed on me that gives it, I think, the power to follow me. Seeing, you must believe my story. Goodwin, I tell you again that my wife is dead—or worse—I do not know; the prey of—what you saw; so, too, is Stanton; so Thora. How—” He stopped for a moment. Then continued:

“And I am going to Melbourne for the things to empty its den and its shrine; for dynamite to destroy it and its lair—if anything made on earth will destroy it; and for white men with courage to use them. Perhaps—perhaps after you have heard, you will be one of these men?” He looked at me a bit wistfully. “And now—do not interrupt me, I beg of you, till I am through—for”—he smiled wanly—”the mate may be wrong. And if he is”—he arose and paced twice about the room—”if he is I may not have time to tell you.”

“Throckmartin,” I answered, “I have no closed mind. Tell me—and if I can I will help.”

He took my hand and pressed it.

“Goodwin,” he began, “if I have seemed to take the death of my wife lightly—or rather”—his face contorted—”or rather—if I have seemed to pass it by as something not of first importance to me—believe me it is not so. If the rope is long enough—if what the mate says is so—if there is cloudy weather until the moon begins to wane—I can conquer—that I know. But if it does not—if the dweller in the moon pool gets me—then must you or some one avenge my wife—and me—and Stanton. Yet I cannot believe that God would let a thing like that conquer! But why did He then let it take my Edith? And why does He allow it to exist? Are there things stronger than God, do you think, Goodwin?”

He turned to me feverishly. I hesitated.

“I do not know just how you define God,” I said. “If you mean the will to know, working through science—”

He waved me aside impatiently.

“Science,” he said. “What is our science against—that? Or against the science of whatever cursed, vanished race that made it—or made the way for it to enter this world of ours?”

With an effort he regained control of himself.

“Goodwin,” he said, “do you know at all the ruins on the Carolines; the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbors of Ponape and Lele, of Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a score of other islets there? Particularly, do you know of the Nan-Matal and Metalanim?”

“Of the Metalanim I have heard and seen photographs,” I said. “They call it don’t they, the Lost Venice of the Pacific?”

“Look at this map,” said Throckmartin. He handed me the map. “That,” he went on, “is Christian’s map of Metalanim harbor and the Nan-Matal. Do you see the rectangles marked Nan-Tanach?”

“Yes,” I said.

“There,” he said, “under those walls is the moon pool and the seven gleaming lights that raise the dweller in the pool and the altar and shrine of the dweller. And there in the moon pool with it lie Edith and Stanton and Thora.”

“The dweller in the moon pool?” I repeated half-incredulously.

“The thing you saw,” said Throckmartin solemnly.

A solid sheet of rain swept the ports, and the Southern Queen began to roll on the rising swells. Throckmartin drew another deep breath of relief, and drawing aside a curtain peered out into the night. Its blackness seemed to reassure him. At any rate, when he sat again he was calm.

“There are no more wonderful ruins in the world than those of the island Venice of Metalanim on the east shore of Ponape,” he said almost casually. “They take in some fifty islets and cover with their intersecting canals and lagoons about twelve square miles. Who built them? None knows! When were they built? Ages before the memory of present man, that is sure. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, a hundred thousand years ago—the last most likely.

“All these islets, Goodwin, are squared, and their shores are frowning sea-walls of gigantic basalt blocks hewn and put in place by the hands of ancient man. Each inner water-front is faced with a terrace of those basalt blocks which stand out six feet above the shallow canals that meander between them. On the islets behind these walls are cyclopean and time-shattered fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense courtyards, strewn with ruins—and all so old that they seem to wither the eyes of those who look on them.

“There has been a great subsidence. You can stand out of Metalanim harbor for three miles and look down upon the tops of similar monolithic structures and walls twenty feet below you in the water.

“And all about, strung on their canals, are the bulwarked islets with their enigmatic giant walls peering through the dense growth of mangroves—dead, deserted for incalculable ages; shunned by those who live near.

“You as a botanist are familiar with the evidence that a vast shadowy continent existed in the Pacific—a continent that was not rent asunder by volcanic forces as was that legendary one of Atlantis in the Eastern Ocean. My work in Java, in Papua, and in the Ladrones had set my mind upon this Pacific lost land. Just as the Azores are believed to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so evidence came to me steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked islets were the last points of the slowly sunken western land clinging still to the sunlight, and had been the last refuge and sacred places of the rulers of that race which had lost their immemorial home under the rising waters of the Pacific.

“I believed that under these ruins I might find the evidence of what I sought. Time and again I had encountered legends of subterranean networks beneath the Nan-Matal, of passages running back into the main island itself; basalt corridors that followed the lines of the shallow canals and ran under them to islet after islet, linking them in mysterious chains.

“My—my wife and I had talked before we were married of making this our great work. After the honeymoon we prepared for the expedition. It was to be my monument. Stanton was as enthusiastic as ourselves. We sailed, as you know, last May in fulfillment of our dreams.

“At Ponape we selected, not without difficulty, workmen to help us—diggers. I had to make extraordinary inducements before I could get together my force. Their beliefs are gloomy, these Ponapeans. They people their swamps, their forests, their mountains and shores with malignant spirits—ani they call them. And they are afraid—bitterly afraid of the isles of ruins and what they think the ruins hide. I do not wonder—now! For their fear has come down to them, through the ages, from the people ‘before their fathers,’ as they call them, who, they say, made these mighty spirits their slaves and messengers.

“When they were told where they were to go, and how long we expected to stay, they murmured. Those who, at last, were tempted made what I thought then merely a superstitious proviso that they were to be allowed to go away on the three nights of the full moon. If only I had heeded them and gone, too!”

He stopped and again over his face the lines etched deep.

“We passed,” he went on, “into Metalanim harbor. Off to our left—a mile away arose a massive quadrangle. Its walls were all of forty feet high and hundreds of feet on each side. As we passed it our natives grew very silent; watched it furtively, fearfully. I knew it for the ruins that are called Nan-Tanach, the ‘place of frowning walls.’ And at the silence of my men I recalled what Christian had written of this place; of how he had come upon its ‘ancient platforms and tetragonal enclosures of stonework; its wonder of tortuous alleyways and labyrinth of shallow canals; grim masses of stonework peering out from behind verdant screens; cyclopean barricades. And now, when we had turned into its ghostly shadows, straightaway the merriment of our guides was hushed and conversation died down to whispers. For we were close to Nan-Tanach—the place of lofty walls, the most remarkable of all the Metalanim ruins.” He arose and stood over me.

“Nan-Tanach, Goodwin,” he said solemnly—”a place where merriment is hushed indeed and words are stifled; Nan-Tanach—where the moon pool lies hidden—lies hidden behind the moon rock, but sends it diabolic soul out—even through the prisoning stone.” He raised clenched hands. “Oh, Heaven,” he breathed, “grant me that I may blast it from earth!”

He was silent for a little time.

“Of course I wanted to pitch our camp there,” he began again quietly, “but I soon gave up that idea. The natives were panic-stricken—threatened to turn back. ‘No,’ they said, ‘too great ani there. We go to any other place—but not there.’ Although, even then, I felt that the secret of the place was in Nan-Tanach, I found it necessary to give in. The laborers were essential to the success of the expedition, and I told myself that after a little time had passed and I had persuaded them that there was nothing anywhere that could molest them, we would move our tents to it. We finally picked for our base the islet called Uschen-Tau—you see it here—” He pointed to the map. “It was close to the isle of desire, but far enough away from it to satisfy our men. There was an excellent camping-place there and a spring of fresh water. It offered, besides, an excellent field for preliminary work before attacking the larger ruins. We pitched our tents, and in a couple of days the work was in full swing.”

4. The Moon Rock

“I do not intend to tell you now,” Throckmartin continued, “the results of the next two weeks, Goodwin, nor of what we found. Later—if I am allowed I will lay all that before you. It is sufficient to say that at the end of those two weeks I had found confirmation of many of my theories, and we were well under way to solve a mystery of humanity’s youth—so we thought. But enough. I must hurry on to the first stirrings of the inexplicable thing that was in store for us.

“The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not infected us with any touch of morbidity—that is not Edith, Stanton or myself. My wife was happy—never had she been happier. Stanton and she, while engrossed in the work as much as I, were of the same age, and they frankly enjoyed the companionship that only youth can give youth. I was glad—never jealous.

“But Thora was very unhappy. She was a Swede, as you know, and in her blood ran the beliefs and superstitions of the Northland—some of them so strangely akin to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spirits of mountain and forest and water—werewolves and beings malign. From the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may be called the ‘influences’ of the place. She said it ‘smelled’ of ghosts and warlocks.

“I laughed at her then—but now I believe that this sensitivity of what we call primitive people is perhaps only a clearer perception of the unknown which we, who deny the unknown, have lost.

“A prey to these fears, Thora always followed my wife about like a shadow; carried with her always a little sharp hand-ax, and although we twitted her about the futility of chopping fantoms with such a weapon she would not relinquish it.

“Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for our natives came to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. He reminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village next morning; they would return after the third night, as at that time the power of the ani would begin to wane with the moon. They left us sundry charms for our ‘protection,’ and solemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tanach during their absence—although their leader politely informed us that, no doubt, we were stronger than the spirits. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched them go.

“No work could be done without them, of course, so we decided to spend the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the group. Under the moon the ruins were inexpressibly weird and beautiful. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in readiness for the return of our men the next day.

“We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots. It was only a little after ten o’clock when Edith awakened me.

” ‘Listen!’ she said. ‘Lean over with your ear close to the ground!’ I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though coming up from great distances, a faint chanting. It gathered strength, died down, ended; began, gathered volume, faded away into silence.

” ‘It’s the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,’ I said. ‘We’re probably over some ledge of rock that carries the sound.’

” ‘It’s the first time I’ve heard it,’ replied my wife doubtfully. We listened again. Then through the dim rhythms, deep beneath us, another sound came. It drifted across the lagoon that lay between us and Nan-Tanach in little tinkling waves. It was music—of a sort; I won’t describe the strange effect it had upon me. You’ve felt it—”

“You mean on the deck?” I asked. Throckmartin nodded.

“I went to the flap of the tent,” he continued, “and peered out. As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the moonlight, looking over to the other islet and listening. I called to him.

” ‘That’s the queerest sound!’ he said. He listened again. ‘Crystalline! Like little notes of translucent glass. Like the bells of crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,’ he added half-dreamily. We gazed intently at the island. Suddenly, on the gigantic sea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we saw a little group of lights. Stanton laughed.

” ‘The beggars!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s why they wanted to get away, is it? Don’t you see, Dave, it’s some sort of a festival—rites of some kind that they hold during the full moon! That’s why they were so eager to have us keep away, too.’

“I felt a curious sense of relief, although I had not been sensible of any oppression. The explanation seemed good. It explained the tinkling music and also the chanting—worshipers, no doubt, in the ruins—their voices carried along passages I now knew honeycombed the whole Nan-Matal.

” ‘Let’s slip over,’ suggested Stanton—but I would not.

” ‘They’re a difficult lot as it is,’ I said. ‘If we break into one of their religious ceremonies they’ll probably never forgive us. Let’s keep out of any family party where we haven’t been invited.’

” ‘That’s so,’ agreed Stanton.

“The strange tinkling music, if music it can be called, rose and fell, rose and fell, now laden with sorrow, now filled with joy.

” ‘There’s something—something very unsettling about it,’ said Edith at last soberly. ‘I wonder what they make those sounds with. They frighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel as though some enormous rapture was just around the corner.’

“I had noted this effect, too, although I had said nothing of it. And at the same time there came to me a clear perception that the chanting which had preceded it had seemed to come from a vast multitude—thousands more than the place we were contemplating could possibly have held. Of course, I thought, this might be due to some acoustic property of the basalt; an amplification of sound by some gigantic sounding-board of rocks; still—

” ‘It’s devilish uncanny!’ broke in Stanton, answering my thought.

“And as he spoke the flap of Thora’s tent was raised and out into the moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type—tall, deep-breasted, molded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.” He hesitated. “She knew,” he said slowly, “something more far-seeing than my science had given her sight. She warned me—she warned me! Fools and mad that we are to pass such things by without heed!” He brushed a hand over his eyes.

“She stood there,” he went on. “Her eyes were wide, brilliant, staring. She thrust her head forward toward Nan-Tanach, regarding the moving lights; she listened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture to the moon. It was—an archaic—movement; she seemed to drag it from remote antiquity—yet in it was a strange suggestion of power. Twice she repeated this gesture and—the tinkling died away! She turned to us.

” ‘Go!’ she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances. ‘Go from here—and quickly! Go while you may. They have called—’ She pointed to the islet. ‘They know you are here. They wait.’ Her eyes widened further. ‘It is there,’ she wailed. ‘It beckons—the—the—’

“She fell at Edith’s feet, and as she fell over the lagoon came again the tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance—almost of triumph.

“We ran to Thora, Stanton and I, and picked her up. Her head rolled and her face, eyes closed, turned as though drawn full into the moonlight. I felt in my heart a throb of unfamiliar fear—for her face had changed again. Stamped upon it was a look of mingled transport and horror—alien, terrifying, strangely revolting. It was”—he thrust his face close to my eyes—”what you see in mine!”

For a dozen heart-beats I stared at him, fascinated; then he sank back again into the half-shadow of the berth.

“I managed to hide her face from Edith,” he went on. “I thought she had suffered some sort of a nervous seizure. We carried her into her tent. Once within the unholy mask dropped from her, and she was again only the kindly, rugged old woman. I watched her throughout the night. The sounds from Nan-Tanach continued until about an hour before moonset. In the morning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had bad dreams, she said. She could not remember what they were—except that they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and I noted that throughout the morning her gaze returned again half-fascinatedly, half-wonderingly to the neighboring isles.

“That afternoon the natives returned. They were so exuberant in their apparent relief to find us well and intact that Stanton’s suspicions of them were confirmed. He slyly told their leader that ‘from the noise they had made on Nan-Tanach the night before they must have thoroughly enjoyed themselves.’

“I think I never saw such stark terror as the Ponapean manifested at the remark! Stanton himself was so plainly startled that he tried to pass it over as a jest. He met poor success! The men seemed panic-stricken, and for a time I thought they were about to abandon us—but they did not. They pitched their camp at the western side of the island—out of sight of Nan-Tanach. I noticed that they built large fires, and whenever I awoke that night I heard their voices in slow, minor chant—one of the song ‘charms,’ I thought drowsily, against evil ani. I heard nothing else; the place of frowning walls was wrapped in silence—no lights showed. The next morning the men were quiet, a little depressed, but as the hours wore on they regained their spirits, and soon life at the camp was going on just as it had before.

“You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of course, any explanations admitting the supernatural. Why not? Except the curiously disquieting effects of the tinkling music and Thora’s behavior there was nothing to warrant any such fantastic theories—even if our minds had been the kind to harbor them.

“We came to the conclusion that there must be a passageway between Ponape and Nan-Tanach, known to the natives—and used by them during their rites. Ceremonies were probably held in great vaults or caverns beneath the ruins.

“We decided at last that on the next departure of our laborers we would set forth immediately to Nan-Tanach. We would investigate during the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp, leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing from some safe hiding-place what might occur.

“The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward the full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany them. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was that, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least that was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She was thoughtful, abstracted—reluctant. Thora, on the other hand, showed an unusual restlessness, almost an eagerness to go. Goodwin”—he paused—”Goodwin, I know now that the poison was working in Thora—and that women have perceptions that we men lack—forebodings, sensings. I wish to Heaven I had known it then—Edith!” he cried suddenly. “Edith—come back to me! Forgive me!”

I stretched the decanter out to him. He drank deeply. Soon he had regained control of himself.

“When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbor,” he went on, “we took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tanach. Soon its mighty sea-wall towered above us. We passed through the water-gate with its gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged pier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the center of the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.

“And now, Goodwin, for the better understanding of what follows and to guide you, should I—not be able—to accompany you when you go there, listen carefully to my description of this place: Nan-Tanach is literally three rectangles. The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths. Gigantic steps lead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to the courtyard.

“This courtyard is surrounded by another, inner basalt wall.

“Within the courtyard is the second enclosure. Its terrace, of the same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high. Entrance is gained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework. This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tanach! There lies the great central vault with which is associated the one name of living being that has come to us out of the mists of the past. The natives say it was the treasure-house of the Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long ‘before their father.’ As Chau is the ancient Ponapean word both for sun and king, the name means ‘place of the sun king.’

“And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hides the moon pool.

“It was Stanton who first found what I call the moon rock. We had been inspecting the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch. I forgot to say that we had previously gone all over the islet and had found not a trace of living thing. I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a part of the terrace studying it wonderingly.

” ‘What do you make of this?’ he asked me as I came up. He pointed to the wall. I followed his finger and saw a slab of stone about fifteen feet high and ten wide. At first all I noticed was the exquisite nicety with which its edges joined the blocks about it. Then I realized that its color was subtly different—tinged with gray and of a smooth, peculiar—deadness.

” ‘Looks more like calcite than basalt,” I said. I touched it and withdrew my hand quickly, for at the contact every nerve in my arm tingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had passed through it. It was not cold as we know cold that I felt. It was a chill force—the phrase I have used—frozen electricity—describes it better than anything else. Stanton looked at me oddly.

” ‘So you felt it, too,’ he said. ‘I was wondering whether I was developing hallucinations like Thora. Notice, by the way, that the blocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.’

“I felt them and touched the grayish stone again. The same faint shock ran through my hand—a tingling chill that had in it a suggestion of substance, of force. We examined the slab more closely. Its edges were cut as though by an engraver of jewels. They fitted against the neighboring blocks in almost a hair-line. Its base, we saw, was slightly curved, and fitted as closely as top and sides upon the huge stones on which it rested. And then we noted that these stones had been hollowed to follow the line of the gray stone’s foot. There was a semicircular depression running from one side of the slab to the other. It was as though the gray rock stood in the center of a shallow cup—revealing half, covering half. Something about this hollow attracted me. I reached down and felt it. Goodwin, although the balance of the stone that formed it, like all the stones of the courtyard, were rough and age-worn—this was as smooth, as even surfaced as though it just left the hands of the polisher.

” ‘It’s a door!’ exclaimed Stanton. ‘It swings around in that little cup. That’s what makes the hollow so smooth.’

” ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I replied. ‘But how the devil can we open it?’

“We went over the slab again—pressing upon its edges, thrusting against its sides. During one of those efforts I happened to look up—and cried out. For a foot above and on each side of the corner of the gray rock’s lintel I had seen a slight convexity, visible only from the angle at which my gaze struck it. These bosses on the basalt were circular, eighteen inches in diameter, as we learned later, and at the center extended two inches only beyond the face of the terrace. Unless one looked directly up at them while leaning against the moon rock—for this slab, Goodwin, is the moon rock—they were invisible. And none would dare stand there!

“We carried with us a small scaling-ladder, and up this I went. The bosses were apparently nothing more than chiseled curvatures in the stone. I laid my hand on the one I was examining, and drew it back so sharply I almost threw myself from the ladder. In my palm, at the base of my thumb, I had felt the same shock that I had in touching the slab below. I put my hand back. The impression came from a spot not more than an inch wide. I went carefully over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ran through my arm. There were, Goodwin, seven circles an inch wide in the curved place, each of which communicated the precise sensation I have described. The convexity on the opposite side of the slab gave precisely the same results. But no amount of touching or of pressing these spots singly or in any combination gave the slightest promise of motion to the slab itself.

” ‘And yet—they’re what open it,’ said Stanton positively.

” ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked.

” ‘I—don’t know,’ he answered hesitatingly. ‘But something tells me so. Throck,’ he went on half earnestly, half laughingly, ‘the purely scientific part of me is fighting the purely human part of me. The scientific part is urging me to find some way to get that slab either down or open. The human part is just as strongly urging me to do nothing of the sort and get away while I can!’

“He laughed again—shamefacedly.

” ‘Which will it be?’ he asked—and I thought that in his tone the human side of him was ascendant.

” ‘It will probably stay as it is—unless we blow it to bits,’ I said.

” ‘I thought of that,’ he answered, ‘and—I wouldn’t dare,’ he added somberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the same feeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed out of the gray rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impious lip. We turned away—uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breach in the terrace.

” ‘Miss Edith wants you quick,’ she began—and stopped. I saw her eyes go past me and widen. She was looking at the gray rock. Her body grew suddenly rigid; she took a few stiff steps forward and ran straight to it. We saw her cast herself upon its breast, hands and face pressed against it; heard her scream as though her very soul was being drawn from her—and watched her fall at its foot. As we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look I had observed when I first heard the crystal music of Nan-Tanach—that unhuman mingling of opposites!”

5. Av-o-lo-ha

“We carried Thora back, down to where Edith was waiting. We told her what had happened and what we had found. She listened gravely, and as we finished Thora sighed and opened her eyes.

” ‘I would like to see the stone,’ she said. ‘Charles, you stay here with Thora.’ We passed through the outer court silently—and stood before the rock. She touched it, drew back her hand as I had, thrust it forward again resolutely and held it there. She seemed to be listening. Then she turned to me.

” ‘David,’ said my wife, and the wistfulness in her voice hurt me—’David, would you be very, very disappointed if we went from here—without trying to find out any more about it—would you?’

“Goodwin, I never wanted anything so much in my life as I wanted to learn what that rock concealed. You will understand—the cumulative curiosity that all the happenings had caused; the certainty that before me was an entrance to a place that, while known to the natives—for I still clung to that theory—was utterly unknown to any man of my race; that within, ready for my finding, was the answer to the stupendous riddle of these islands and a lost chapter in the history of humanity. There before me—and was I asked to turn away, leaving it unread!

“Nevertheless, I tried to master my desire, and I answered—’Edith, not a bit if you want us to do it.’

“She read my struggle in my eyes. She looked at me searchingly for a moment and then turned back toward the gray rock. I saw a shiver pass through her. I felt a tinge of remorse and pity!

” ‘Edith,’ I exclaimed, ‘we’ll go!’

She looked at me hard. ‘Science is a jealous mistress,’ she quoted. ‘No, after all it may be just fancy. At any rate, you can’t run away. No! But, Dave, I’m going to stay too!’

” ‘You are not!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re going back to the camp with Thora. Stanton and I will be all right.’

” ‘I’m going to stay,’ she repeated. And there was no changing her decision. As we neared the others she laid a hand on my arm.

” ‘Dave,’ she said, ‘If there should be something—well—inexplicable tonight—something that seems—too dangerous—will you promise to go back to our own islet tomorrow, or, while we can, and wait until the natives return?’

“I promised eagerly—for the desire to stay and see what came with the night was like a fire within me.

“And would to Heaven I had not waited another moment, Goodwin; would to Heaven I had gathered them all together then and sailed back on the instant through the mangroves to Uschen-Tau!

“We found Thora on her feet again and singularly composed. She claimed to have no more recollection of what had happened after she had spoken to Stanton and to me in front of the gray rock than she had after the seizure on Uschen-Tau. She grew sullen under our questioning, precisely as she had before. But to my astonishment, when she heard of our arrangements for the night, she betrayed a febrile excitement that had in it something of exultance.

“We had picked a place about five hundred feet away from the steps leading into the outer court.

“We settled down just before dusk to wait for whatever might come. I was nearest the giant steps; next to me Edith; then Thora, and last Stanton. Each of us had with us automatic pistols, and all, except Thora, had rifles.

“Night fell. After a time the eastern sky began to lighten, and we knew that the moon was rising; grew lighter still, and the orb peeped over the sea; swam suddenly into full sight. Edith gripped my hand, for, as though the full emergence into the heavens had been a signal, we heard begin beneath us the deep chanting. It came from illimitable depths.

“The moon poured her rays down upon us, and I saw Stanton start. On the instant I caught the sound that had roused him. It came from the inner enclosure. It was like a long, soft sighing. It was not human; seemed in some way—mechanical. I glanced at Edith and then at Thora. My wife was intently listening. Thora sat, as she had since we had placed ourselves, elbows on knees, her hands covering her face.

“And then suddenly from the moonlight flooding us there came to me a great drowsiness. Sleep seemed to drip from the rays and fall upon my eyes, closing them—closing them inexorably. I felt Edith’s hand relax in mine, and under my own heavy lids saw her nodding. I saw Stanton’s head fall upon his breast and his body sway drunkenly. I tried to rise—to fight against the profound desire for slumber that pressed in on me.

“And as I fought I saw Thora raise her head as though listening; saw her rise and turn her face toward the gateway. For a moment she gazed, and my drugged eyes seemed to perceive within it a deeper, stronger radiance. Thora looked at us. There was infinite despair in her face—and expectancy. I tried again to rise—and a surge of sleep rushed over me. Dimly, as I sank within it, I heard a crystalline chiming; raised my lids once more with a supreme effort, saw Thora, bathed in light, standing at the top of the stairs, and then—sleep took me for its very own—swept me into the very heart of oblivion!

“Dawn was breaking when I wakened. Recollection rushed back on me and I thrust a panic-stricken hand out toward Edith; touched her and felt my heart give a great leap of thankfulness. She stirred, sat up, rubbing dazed eyes. I glanced toward Stanton. He lay on his side, back toward us, head in arms.

“Edith looked at me laughingly. ‘Heavens! What sleep!’ she said. Memory came to her. Her face paled. ‘What happened?’ she whispered. ‘What made us sleep like that?’ She looked over to Stanton, sprang to her feet, ran to him, shook him. He turned over with a mighty yawn, and I saw relief lighten her face as it had lightened my heart.

“Stanton raised himself stiffly. He looked at us. ‘What’s the matter?’ he exclaimed. ‘You look as though you’ve seen ghosts!’

“Edith caught my hands. ‘Where’s Thora?’ she cried. Before I could answer she ran out into the open calling: ‘Thora! Thora!’

Stanton stared at me. ‘Taken!’ was all I could say. Together we went to my wife, now standing beside the great stone steps, looking up fearfully at the gateway into the terraces. There I told them what I had seen before sleep had drowned me. And together then we ran up the stairs, through the court and up to the gray rock.

“The gray rock was closed as it had been the day before, nor was there trace of its having opened. No trace! Even as I thought this Edith dropped to her knees before it and reached toward something lying at its foot. It was a little piece of gray silk. I knew it for part of the kerchief Thora wore about her hair. Edith took the fragment; hesitated. I saw then that it had been cut from the kerchief as though by a razor-edge; I saw, too, that a few threads ran from it—down toward the base of the slab; ran to the base of the gray rock and—under it! The gray rock was a door! And it had opened and Thora had passed through it!

“I think Goodwin, that for the next few minutes we all were a little insane. We beat upon that diabolic entrance with our hands, with stones and clubs. At last reason came back to us. Stanton set forth for the camp to bring back blasting powder and tools. While he was gone Edith and I searched the whole islet for any other clue. We found not a trace of Thora nor any indication of any living being save ourselves. We went back to the gateway to find Stanton returned.

“Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way in our power to force entrance through the slab. The rock within effective blasting radius of the cursed door resisted our drills. We tried explosions at the base of the slab with charges covered by rock. They made not the lightest impression on the surface beneath, expending their force, of course, upon the slighter resistance of their coverings.

“Afternoon found us hopeless, so far as breaking through the rock was concerned. Night was coming on and before it came we would have to decide our course of action. I wanted to go to Ponape for help. But Edith objected that this would take hours and after we had reached there it would be impossible to persuade our men to return with us that night, if at all. What then was left? Clearly only one of two other choices: to go back to our camp and wait for our men to return and on their return try to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tanach. But this would mean the abandonment of Thora for at least two days. We could not do it; it would have been too cowardly.

“The other choice was to wait where we were for night to come; to wait for the rock to open as it had the night before, and to make a sortie through it for Thora before it could close again. With the sun had come confidence; at least a shattering of the mephitic mists of superstition with which the strangeness of the things that had befallen us had clouded for a time our minds. In that brilliant light there seemed no place for fantoms.

“The evidence that the slab had opened was unmistakable, but might not Thora simply have found it open through some mechanism, still working after ages, and dependent for its action upon laws of physics unknown to us upon the full light of the moon? The assertion of the natives that the ani had greatest power at this time might be a far-flung reflection of knowledge which had found ways to use forces contained in moonlight, as we have found ways to utilize the forces in the sun’s rays. If so, Thora was probably behind the slab, sending out prayers to us for help.

“But how explain the sleep that had descended upon us? Might it not have been some emanation from plants or gaseous emanations from the island itself? Such things were far from uncommon, we agreed. In some way, the period of their greatest activity might coincide with the period of the moon, but if this were so why had not Thora slept?

“As dusk fell we looked over our weapons. Edith was an excellent shot with both rifle and pistol. With the idea that the impulse toward sleep was the result either of emanations such as I have described or man made, we constructed rough-and-ready but effective neutralizers, which we placed over our mouths and nostrils. We had decided that my wife was to remain in the hollow spot. Stanton would take up a station on the far side of the stairway and I would place myself opposite him on the side near Edith. The place I picked out was less than five hundred feet from her, and I could reassure myself now as to her safety, as I looked down upon the hollow wherein she crouched. As the phenomena had previously synchronized with the rising of the moon, we had no reason to think they would occur any earlier this night.

“A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon. I kissed Edith, and Stanton and I took our places. The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk swam up, and in a moment it seemed was shining in full radiance upon ruins and sea.

“As it rose there came as on the night before the curious little sighing sound from the inner terrace. I saw Stanton straighten up and stare intently through the gateway, rifle ready. Even at the distance he was from me, I discerned amazement in his eyes. The moonlight within the gateway thickened, grew stronger. I watched his amazement grow into sheer wonder.

“I arose.

” ‘Stanton, what do you see?’ I called cautiously. He waved a silencing hand. I turned my head to look at Edith. A shock ran through me. She lay upon her side. Her face was turned full toward the moon. She was in deepest sleep!

“As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the steps and stopped, fascinated. For the moonlight had thickened more. It seemed to be—curdled—there; and through it ran little gleams and veins of shimmering white fire. A languor passed through me. It was not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night. It was a sapping of all will to move. I tore my eyes away and forced them upon Stanton. I tried to call out to him. I had not the will to make my lips move! I had struggled against this paralysis and as I did so I felt through me a sharp shock. It was like a blow. And with it came utter inability to make a single motion. Goodwin, I could not even move my eyes!

“I saw Stanton leap upon the steps and move toward the gateway. As he did so the light in the courtyard grew dazzlingly brilliant. Through it rained tiny tinklings that set the heart to racing with pure joy and stilled it with terror.

“And now for the first time I heard that cry ‘Av-o-lo-ha! Av-o-lo-ha!’ the cry you heard on deck. It murmured with the strange effect of a sound only partly in our own space—as though it were part of a fuller phrase passing through from another dimension and losing much as it came; infinitely caressing, infinitely cruel!

“On Stanton’s face I saw come the look I dreaded—and yet knew would appear; that mingled expression of delight and fear. The two lay side by side as they had on Thora, but were intensified. He walked on up the stairs; disappeared beyond the range of my fixed gaze. Again I heard the murmur—‘Av-o-lo-ha!’ There was triumph in the storm of tinklings that swept over it.

“For another heart-beat there was silence. Then a louder burst of sound and ringing through it Stanton’s voice from the courtyard—a great cry—a scream—filled with ecstasy insupportable and horror unimaginable! And again there was silence. I strove to burst the invisible bonds that held me. I could not. Even my eyelids were fixed. Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned.

“Then, Goodwin—I first saw the inexplicable! The crystalline music swelled. Where I sat I could take in the gateway and its basalt portals, rough and broken, rising to the top of the wall forty feet above, shattered, ruined portals—unclimbable. From this gateway an intenser light began to flow. It grew, it gushed, and into it, into my sight, walked Stanton.

“Stanton! But—Goodwin! What a vision!” He ceased. I waited—waited.

6. Into the Moon Pool

“Goodwin,” Throckmartin said at last, “I can describe him only as a thing of living light. He radiated light; was filled with light; overflowed with it. Around him was a shining cloud that whirled through and around him in radiant swirls, shimmering tentacles, luminescent, coruscating spirals.

“I saw his face. It shone with a rapture too great to be borne by living men, and was shadowed with insuperable misery. It was as though his face had been remolded by the hand of God and the hand of Satan, working together and in harmony. You have seen it on my face. But you have never seen it in the degree that Stanton bore it. The eyes were wide open and fixed, as though upon some inward vision of hell and heaven! He walked like the corpse of a man damned who carried within him an angel of light.

“The music swelled again. I heard again the murmuring—‘Av-o-lo-ha!’ Stanton turned, facing the ragged side of the portal. And then I saw that the light that filled and surrounded him had a nucleus, a core—something shiftingly human shaped—that dissolved and changed, gathered itself, whirled through and beyond him and back again. And as this shining nucleus passed through him Stanton’s whole body pulsed with light. As the luminescence moved, there moved with it, still and serene always, seven tiny globes of light like seven little moons.

“So much I saw and then swiftly Stanton seemed to be lifted—levitated—up the unscalable wall and to its top. The glow faded from the moonlight, the tinkling music grew fainter. I tried again to move. The spell still held me fast. The tears were running down now from my rigid lids and brought relief to my tortured eyes.

“I have said my gaze was fixed. It was. But from the side, peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer enclosure. Ages seemed to pass and I saw a radiance stealing along it. Soon there came into sight the figure that was Stanton. Far away he was—on the gigantic wall. But still I could see the shining spirals whirling jubilantly around and through him; felt rather than saw his tranced face beneath the seven lights. A swirl of crystal notes, and he had passed. And all the time, as though from some opened well of light, the courtyard gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the moon-rays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them.

“Ten times he passed before me so. The luminescence came with the music; swam for a while along the man-made cliff of basalt and passed away. Between times eternities rolled and still I crouched there, a helpless thing of stone with eyes that would not close!

“At last the moon neared the horizon. There came a louder burst of sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an echo of the first! Again the soft sigh from the inner terrace. Then—utter silence. The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush life and power to move returned to me, I made a leap for the steps, rushed up them, through the gateway and straight to the gray rock. It was closed—as I knew it would be. But did I dream it or did I hear, echoing through it as though from vast distances a triumphant shouting—‘Av-o-lo-ha! Av-o-lo-ha!’?

“I remembered Edith. I ran back to her. At my touch she wakened; looked at me wonderingly; raised herself on a hand.

” ‘Dave!’ she said, ‘I slept—after all.’ She saw the despair on my face and leaped to her feet. ‘Dave!’ she cried. ‘What is it? Where’s Charles?’

“I lighted a fire before I spoke. Then I told her. And for the balance of that night we sat before the flames—arms around each other—like two frightened children.”

Suddenly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appealingly.

“Goodwin, old friend!” he cried. “Don’t look at me as though I were mad. It’s truth, absolute truth. Wait—” I comforted him as well as I could. After a little time he took up his story.

“Never,” he said, “did man welcome the sun as we did that morning. As soon as it was light we went back to the courtyard. The basalt walls whereon I had seen Stanton were black and silent. The terraces were as they had been. The gray slab was in its place. In the shallow hollow at its base was—nothing. Nothing—nothing was there anywhere on the islet of Stanton—not a trace, not a sign on Nan-Tanach to show that he had ever lived.

“What were we to do? Precisely the same arguments that had kept us there the night before held good now—and doubly good. We could not abandon these two; could not go as long as there was the faintest hope of finding them—and yet for love of each other how could we remain? I loved my wife, Goodwin—how much I never knew until that day; and she loved me as deeply.

” ‘It takes only one each night,’ she said. ‘Beloved, let it take me.’

“I wept, Goodwin. We both wept.

” ‘We will meet it together,’ she said. And it was thus at last that we arranged it.”

“That took great courage indeed, Throckmartin,” I interrupted. He looked at me eagerly.

“You do believe then?” he exclaimed.

“I believe,” I said. He pressed my hand with a grip that nearly crushed it.

“Now,” he told me, “I do not fear. If I—fail, you will prepare and carry on the work.”

I promised. And—Heaven forgive me—that was three years ago.

“It did take courage,” he went on, again quietly. “More than courage. For we knew it was renunciation. Each of us in our hearts felt that one of us would not be there to see the sun rise. And each of us prayed that the death, if death it was, would not come first to the other.

“We talked it all over carefully, bringing to bear all our power of analysis and habit of calm, scientific thought. We considered minutely the time element in the phenomena. Although the deep chanting began at the very moment of moonrise, fully five minutes had passed between its full lifting and the strange sighing sound from the inner terrace. I went back in memory over the happenings of the night before. At least fifteen minutes had intervened between the first heralding sigh and the intensification of the moonlight in the courtyard. And this glow grew for at least ten minutes more before the first burst of the crystal notes.

“The sighing sound—of what had it reminded me? Of course—of a door revolving and swishing softly along its base.

” ‘Edith!’ I cried. ‘I think I have it! The gray rock opens five minutes after upon the moonrise. But whoever or whatever it is that comes through it must wait until the moon has risen higher, or else it must come from a distance. The thing to do is not to wait for it, but to surprise it before it passes out the door. We will go into the inner court early. You will take your rifle and pistol and hide yourself where you can command the opening—if the slab does open. The instant it moves I will enter. It’s our best chance, Edith. I think it’s our only one.’

“My wife demurred strongly. She wanted to go with me. But I convinced her that it was better for her to stand guard without, prepared to help me if I were forced from what lay behind the rock again into the open.

“The day passed too swiftly. In the face of what we feared our love seemed stronger than ever. Was it the flare of the spark before extinguishment? I wondered. We prepared and ate a good dinner. We tried to keep our minds from anything but scientific aspect of the phenomena. We agreed that whatever it was its cause must be human, and that we must keep that fact in mind every second. But what kind of men could create such prodigies? We thrilled at the thought of finding perhaps the remnants of a vanished race, living perhaps in cities over whose rocky skies the Pacific rolled; exercising there the lost wisdom of the half-gods of earth’s youth.

“At the half-hour before moonrise we two went into the inner courtyard. I took my place at the side of the gray rock. Edith crouched behind a broken pillar twenty feet away, slipped her rifle-barrel over it so that it would cover the opening.

“The minutes crept by. The courtyard was very quiet. The darkness lessened and through the breaches of the terrace I watched the far sky softly lighten. With the first pale flush the stillness became intensified. It deepened—became unbearably—expectant. The moon rose, showed the quarter, the half, then swam up into full sight like a great bubble.

“Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon the convexities I have described seven little circles of light sprang out. They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter—shone. The gigantic slab before me turned as though on a pivot, sighing softly as it moved.

“For a moment I gasped in amazement. It was like a conjurer’s trick. And the moving slab I noticed was also glowing, becoming opalescent like the little shining circles above.

“Only for a second I gazed and then with a word to Edith flung myself through the opening which the slab had uncovered. Before me was a platform and from the platform steps led downward into a smooth corridor. This passage was not dark, it glowed with the same faint silvery radiance as the door. Down it I raced. As I ran, plainer than ever before, I heard the chanting. The passage turned abruptly, passed parallel to the walls of the outer courtyard and then once more led abruptly downward. Still I ran, and as I ran I looked at the watch on my wrist. Less than three minutes had elapsed.

“The passage ended. Before me was a high vaulted arch. For a moment I paused. It seemed to open into space; a space filled with lambent, coruscating, many-colored mist whose brightness grew even as I watched. I passed through the arch and stopped in sheer awe!

“In front of me was a pool. It was circular, perhaps twenty feet wide. Around it ran a low, softly curved lip of glimmering silvery stone. Its water was palest blue. The pool with its silvery rim was like a great blue eye staring upward.

“Upon it streamed seven shafts of radiance. They poured down upon the blue eye like cylindrical torrents; they were like shining pillars of light rising from a sapphire floor.

“One was the tender pink of the pearl; one of the aurora’s green; a third a deathly white; the fourth the blue in mother-of-pearl; a shimmering column of pale amber; a beam of amethyst; a shaft of molten silver. Such are the colors of the seven lights that stream upon the moon pool. I drew closer, awestricken. The shafts did not illumine the depths. They played upon the surface and seemed there to diffuse, to melt into it. The pool drank them!

“Through the water tiny gleams of phosphorescence began to dart, sparkles and coruscations of pale incandescence. And far, far below I sensed a movement, a shifting glow as of something slowly rising.

“I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their source. Far above were seven shining globes, and it was from these that the rays poured. Even as I watched their brightness grew. They were like seven moons set high in some caverned heaven. Slowly their splendor increased, and with it the splendor of the seven beams streaming from them. It came to me that they were crystals of some unknown kind set in the roof of the moon pool’s vault and that their light was drawn from the moon shining high above them. They were wonderful, those lights—and what must have been the knowledge of those who set them there!

“Brighter and brighter they grew as the moon climbed higher, sending its full radiance down through them. I tore my gaze away and stared at the pool. It had grown milky, opalescent. The rays gushing into it seemed to be filling it; it was alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmerings. And the luminescence I had seen rising from its depths was larger, nearer!

“A swirl of mist floated up from its surface. It drifted within the embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a moment. The beam seemed to embrace it, sending through it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy spiralings. The mist absorbed the rays, was strengthened by it, gained substance. Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with it. And now other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to be counted, hung poised in the embrace of the light streams; flashed and pulsed into each other.

“Thicker and thicker still they arose until the surface of the pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist; steadily growing stronger; drawing within it life from the seven beams falling upon it; drawing to it from below the darting, red atoms of the pool. Into its center was passing the luminescence I had sensed rising from the far depths. And the center glowed, throbbed—began to send out questing swirls and tendrils.

“There forming before me was that which had walked with Stanton, which had taken Thora—the thing I had come to find!

“With the shock or realization my brain sprang into action. My hand fell to my pistol and I fired shot after shot into its radiance. The place rang with the explosions and there came to me a sense of unforgivable profanation. Devilish as I knew it to be, that chamber of the moon pool seemed also—in some way—holy. As though a god and a demon dwelt there, inextricably commingled.

“As I shot the pillar wavered; the water grew more disturbed. The mist swayed and shook; gathered itself again. I slipped a second clip into the automatic and, another idea coming to me, took careful aim at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force that shaped the dweller in the pool. From the pouring rays came its strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was all.

“Up from the pool like little bells, like bubbles of crystal notes rose the tinklings. Their notes were higher, had lost their sweetness, were angry, as it were, with themselves.

“And then out from the inexplicable, hovering over the pool, swept a shining swirl. It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me. I felt an icy coldness and then there rushed over me a mingled ecstasy and horror. Every atom of me quivered with delight and at the same time shrank with despair. There was nothing loathsome in it. But it was as though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of good had stepped together within me. The pistol dropped from my hand.

“So I stood while the pool gleamed and sparkled; the streams of light grew more intense and the mist glowed and strengthened. I saw that its shining core had shape—but a shape that my eyes and brain could not define. It was as though a being of another sphere should assume what it might of human semblance, but was not able to conceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it. It was neither man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous. Even as I found its human semblance it changed. And still the mingled rapture and terror held me. Only in a little corner of my brain dwelt something untouched; something that held itself apart and watched. Was it the soul? I have never believed—and yet—

“Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven little lights. Each was the color of the beam beneath which it rested. I knew now that the dweller was—complete!

“And then—behind me I heard a scream. It was Edith’s voice. It came to me that she had heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped—fell. As I dropped I saw the radiant shape above the pool leap swiftly for me!

“There was the rush past me and as the dweller paused, straight into it raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it!”

He trembled.

“She threw herself squarely within its diabolic splendor,” he whispered. “She stopped and reeled as though she had encountered solidity. And as she faltered it wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had with Stanton, and I saw drop upon her face—the look. From the pillar came the murmur—‘Av-o-lo-ha!’ The vault echoed it.

” ‘Edith!’ I cried. ‘Edith!’ I was in agony. She must have heard me, even through the—thing. I saw her try to free herself. Her rush had taken her to the very verge of the moon pool. She tottered; and in an instant—she fell—with the radiance still holding her, still swirling and winding around and through her—into the moon pool! She sank, Goodwin, and with her went—the dweller!

“I dragged myself to the brink. Far down I saw a shining, many-colored nebulous cloud descending; caught a glimpse of Edith’s face, disappearing; her eyes stared up to me filled with supernal ecstasy and horror. And—vanished!

“I looked about me stupidly. The seven globes still poured their radiance upon the pool. It was pale-blue again. Its sparklings and coruscations were gone. From far below there came a muffled outburst of triumphant chanting!

” ‘Edith!’ I cried again. ‘Edith, come back to me!’ And then a darkness fell upon me. I remember running back through the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in which I came to port Moresby.

“I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin—” He fell upon his berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.

7. The Dweller Comes

All that night I watched over him. When dawn broke I went to my room to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.

The next day the storm was unabated. Throckmartin came to me at lunch. He looked better. His strange expression had waned. He had regained much of his old alertness.

“Come to my cabin,” he said. There, he stripped his shirt from him. “Something is happening,” he said. “The mark is smaller.” It was as he said.

“I’m escaping,” he whispered jubilantly. “Just let me get to Melbourne safely, and then we’ll see who’ll win! For, Goodwin, I’m not at all sure that Edith is dead—as we know death—nor that the others are. There was something outside experience there—some great mystery.”

And all that day he talked to me of his plans.

“There’s a natural explanation, of course,” he said. “My theory is that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. There is a powerful quality in moonlight, as both science and legends can attest. We know of its effect upon the mentality, the nervous system, even upon certain diseases.

“The moon slab is of some material that reacts to moonlight. The circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab, just as you can open doors with sunlight by an ingenious arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the full moon to do this. We will first try a concentration of the rays of the nearly full moon upon these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we will be able to investigate the pool without interruption from—from—what emanates.

“Look, here on the chart are their locations. I have made this in duplicate for you in the event of something happening to me.”

He worked upon the chart a little more.

“Here,” he said, “is where I believe the seven great globes to be. They are probably hidden somewhere in the ruins of the islet called Tau, where they can catch the first moon rays. I have calculated that when I entered I went so far this way—here is the turn; so far this way, took this other turn and ran down this long, curving corridor to the hall of the moon pool. That ought to make lights, at least approximately, here.” He pointed.

“They are certainly cleverly concealed, but they must be open to the air to get the light. They should not be too hard to find. They must be found.” He hesitated again. “I suppose it would be safer to destroy them, for it is clearly through them that the phenomenon of the pool is manifested; and yet, to destroy so wonderful a thing! Perhaps the better way would be to have some men up by them, and if it were necessary, to protect those below, to destroy them on signal. Or they might simply be covered. That would neutralize them. To destroy them—” He hesitated again. “No, the phenomenon is too important to be destroyed without fullest investigation.” His face clouded again. “But it is not human; it can’t be,” he muttered. He turned to me and laughed. “The old conflict between science and too frail human credulity!” he said.

Again—”We need half a dozen diving-suits. The pool must be entered and searched to its depths. That will indeed take courage, yet in the time of the new moon it should be safe, or perhaps better after the dweller is destroyed or made safe.”

We went over plans, accepted them, rejected them, and still the storm raged—and all that day and all that night.

I hurry to the end. That afternoon there came a steady lightening of the clouds which Throckmartin watched with deep uneasiness. Toward dusk they broke away suddenly and soon the sky was clear. The stars came twinkling out.

“It will be tonight,” Throckmartin said to me. “Goodwin, friend, stand by me. Tonight it will come, and I must fight.”

I could say nothing. About an hour before moonrise we went to his cabin. We fastened the port-holes tightly and turned on the lights. Throckmartin had some queer theory that the electric rays would be a bar to his pursuer. I don’t know why. A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.

“But it’s just weariness,” he said. “Not at all like that other drowsiness. It’s an hour till moonrise still,” he yawned at last. “Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before.”

He lay upon the berth. I sat thinking. I came to myself with a start. What time was it? I looked at my watch and jumped to the port-hole. It was full moonlight; the orb had been up for fully half an hour. I strode over to Throckmartin and shook him by the shoulder.

“Up, quick, man!” I cried. He rose sleepily. His shirt fell open at the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white band around his chest. Even under the electric light it shone softly, as though little flecks of light were in it.

Throckmartin seemed only half-awake. He looked down at his breast, saw the glowing cincture, and smiled.

“Oh, yes,” he said drowsily, “it’s coming—to take me back to Edith! Well, I’m glad.”

“Throckmartin!” I cried. “Wake up! Fight.”

“Fight!” he said. “No use; keep the maps; come after us.”

He went to the port and drowsily drew aside the curtain. The moon traced a broad path of light straight to the ship. Under its rays the band around his chest gleamed brighter and brighter; shot forth little rays; seemed to move.

He peered out intently and, suddenly, before I could stop him, threw open the port. I saw a glimmering presence moving swiftly along the moon path toward us, skimming over the waters.

And with it raced little crystal tinklings and far off I heard a long-drawn murmuring cry.

On the instant the lights went out in the cabin, evidently throughout the ship, for I heard shouting above. I sprang back into a corner and crouched there. At the port-hole was a radiance; swirls and spirals of living white cold fire. It poured into the cabin and it was filled with dancing motes of light, and over the radiant core of it shone seven little lights like tiny moons. It gathered Throckmartin to it. Light pulsed through and from him. I saw his skin turn to a translucent, shimmering whiteness like illumined porcelain. His face became unrecognizable, inhuman with the monstrous twin expressions. So he stood for a moment. The pillar of light seemed to hesitate and the seven lights to contemplate me. I shrank further down into the corner. I saw Throckmartin drawn to the port. The room filled with murmuring. I fainted.

When I awakened the lights were burning again.

But of Throckmartin there was no trace!

There are some things that we are bound to regret all our lives. I suppose I was unbalanced by what I had seen. I could not think clearly. But there came to me the sheer impossibility of telling the ship’s officers what I had seen; what Throckmartin had told me. They would accuse me, I felt, of his murder. At neither appearance of the phenomenon had any save our two selves witnessed it. I was certain of this because they would surely have discussed it. Why none had seen it I do not know.

The next morning when Throckmartin’s absence was noted, I merely said that I had left him early in the evening. It occurred to no one to doubt me, or to question me further. His strangeness had caused much comment; all had thought him half-mad. And so it was officially reported that he had fallen or jumped from the ship during the failure of the lights, the cause of which was another mystery of that night.

Afterward, the same inhibition held me back from making his and my story known to my fellow scientists.

But this inhibition is suddenly dead, and I am not sure that its death is not a summons from Throckmartin.

And now I am going to Nan-Tanach to make amends for my cowardice by seeking out the dweller. So sure am I that all I have written here is absolutely true.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

SERIALS:

SETI Library: Orbitfall

Written by Gregory Benford

Ruth liked the view, at least.

In the frame chair atop an open deck she had a commanding perspective on the grand curve of Earth, from 110 kilometers up. High enough to boil your blood in seconds, if the visor before her eyes should pop.

And suit pressure loss was just one of the possibilities ahead.

The thought made her press back from the drop. Her hardened suit made movement slow, but she found that rugged heft reassuring. There were manifolds and buffers, shock absorbers and thermal dispersers galore—and she sensed the mass of them as a slowing-down of every movement. Weightless, yes, but swimming in molasses.

What is a librarian doing here? Why did I agree to this stunt?

It might be good for her career, but that wasn’t the reason. Call it a sense of adventure.

The vanes down her back sank into the spongy chair. In the chair next to her the alien stared down at the serene blue-white curve. The upper atmosphere glowed in its afternoon shimmer. Clouds lurked far below like icing on a spherical cake. Behind them the Star Tower was a thin line pointing from its ocean base south of Sri Lanka and on out to the counter-weight beyond view.

To her right sat the alien, blocking her view to the north. It was large, humanoid and sat in an odd way. Slowly it turned to take it all in and then stared at her again. Its name was Akralan and until this moment she had not thought about what the word might mean. A librarian should think of such things. What else had she ignored?

She let the view enchant her a bit more. No way out of this, so be calm.

With Akralan and a support team of everything from engineers to diplomats, they had lifted from the SETI Library on Luna. She had enjoyed the electromagnetic sling, its soaring views of crisp craters flashing by. They had then coasted into rendezvous with the top of the orbital tower. There had been enough time in the downward elevator ride to practice and prepare, including exercises and tech briefings, fitting her suit, mastering its controls.

They rode down to the first Tower station, 100 kilometers above its floating ocean base. Now she and Akralan were jetting up and away, to more amazing views. In moments they would reach their drop position above Tamil Nadu in India, the green splotch spreading below. Cloudy knots of purpling anger fought along the coast.

Too late to back out …

She wondered if their fall would avoid the developing weather.

A long way down, indeed. What had her mother used to say? Adventure means opportunity. Sure, Mom.

They were hovering now. Not orbiting, moving at speeds of tens of kilometers a second. This would have been impossible as a true reentry. All they had to worry about was gravity.

Suit check. White ribs over elbows, shoulders and knees, secured. Red accents of reinforced joints, vanes along her forearms. Heat shield for rigidity and thermal screen. The signature Orbital Outfitters logo on her chest, which carried the smart parachute controls. All up and running.

Her comm rang in her left ear. It was the Prefect, the tone said. Probably calling with some phony last-minute encouragement. She ignored it. I’m out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.

Akralan turned to look at her, its diamond eyes glittering. The cone nose on the forehead flared wide and red. Excitement? Reading hominid-like alien expressions was a typical error, she knew. But hard to resist.

Breathe easily, they had said. She tried.

It reached over and clasped her arm. Did it want to go now? No way to tell, but the countdown meter available in her left eye said no, there were—with a shock she saw it ticking down, 13 seconds to go.

Somehow the Earth’s luminous beauty had stolen away her time. Automatically she raced through the drill. Just jump out. Legs together. Arms out straight for torque control. No need to pitch down. Just let gravity happen.

She ritually gave her parachute straps a tug. Drogue, yes. Main, snug. No reason to abort there, none at all …

Ding. Time.

She thought about the Library and how safe it was, just her own comfortable office … and unbuckled her harness.

Akralan did the same, eyes glittering as it followed her every move. Has it done this before? Is it feeling fear?

The eyes told her nothing.

She stood up. For the human species. Damned if she would let it go first.

She took a deep breath and leaped.

No sensation of movement. Weightless. She had already trained to suppress her falling reflexes so she could simply watch as the world hung there, ignoring her. Only after ten breaths—she refused to look at the timer—did she see any slight movement. The world was edging toward her.

And Akralan—? She turned her head slightly to find it and the drag of rushing air tugged at her. A soft whoosh told her she was moving even if her eyes did not.

There was Akralan. Behind her and to her right. She relaxed. This was not a race but it didn’t hurt that she was ahead. Slightly.

She banked her arms a bit and felt a slight spin. Corrected it by moving her arms oppositely. In control, just as her training said. No spins, if she reacted fast enough.

She kept her head looking down and peered to both sides. She felt prickly heat building in the suit and saw rippling air to the sides. Shock refraction. Rattling built along her legs and arms, humming into her body. The atmosphere was playing her like an instrument.

A wave of fear swept through her. But then it tickled. She barked out a laugh. Laughter is just a slowed down scream of terror. Where had she read that … ?

The sky brightened and she stole a glance at her other meters in her right eye. Speed nearly a thousand kilometers an hour and climbing fast. A burr of sound coursed through her body. Wind resistance plucking at her. Whispers sang past her head.

The horizon flattened, losing its silky curve. Stars glimmered, bright and true, then faded. Blue fog gathered around her and the puffy clouds fled sideways. She hung in a vast space that whipped by her. Below was … purple.

Something shot by her. Akralan.

It described a helix wrapping around her, zooming past, and then It made a complicated move with its arms outstretched. It slowed, hovered so she could overtake. It waved its arms in darting moves and arced away, spinning the body. She dared not imitate that. Abruptly it banked back toward her and zipped across ahead of her. She could swear she saw the eyes glitter, the mouth pucker.

If we hit, what—

Akralan abruptly shot across her again and hovered, eyes glaring. Some kind of challenge?

It’s snout-nose flared red. It fanned its legs. Hanging only a meter away, it reached over and touched her shoulder. Fear flooded through her.

* * *

It had all started so simply. A simple call to the Prefect’s office.

The Prefect scowled, itself an unusual event. Normally he kept a blank face turned to his underlings, apparently feeling that it was up to them to yield information, while giving away none himself. But plainly today he was worried.

Ruth decided to tease, widening her eyes. “An alien? Here? The one who came through the Maze last month?”

“The first in four years, yes. It arrived without announcement, other than the braking flare of its ship—quite a small vessel, too.”

While the Prefect went on to describe the ship smaller than a house, Ruth made herself relax. She was a Librarian now, just promoted. Behind her lay the Trainee competition that sometimes made her quick to mock and to take offense with the other Trainees. Now she had to put away the need to prove oneself better than any Prefect twit who had not struggled with the ancient SETI texts for decades. Gone, she hoped, were the restlessness, angst and the nagging ache of the striver.

She cut into the Prefect’s engineering description. “What does that suggest about the nearest wormhole mouth?”

The Prefect eyed her as if she was asking for a state secret. Perhaps she was, at that. “The wormhole must lie within a light-month, the scientists say. The astronomers picked up his deceleration flare and worked backward from that. The engineers think that, given its apparent available reaction mass, it must have come from deep in the Oort cloud.”

“Um,” Ruth said. To get to Earth from the Oort cloud of icesteroids that hung far beyond Pluto, in that little time, implied enormous speeds. She calculated it meant tens of astronomical units in a day. “Impressive.”

“We would like to know more, and perhaps we shall. Thus far it acknowledges that it comes from a society that went through a SETI transmitting era, though not which one.”

“Odd,” Ruth said. “So we may have their signals, but we won’t know how to link them to …”

“Exactly. Mysterious. Further, it will not confirm that it transmits now.” The Prefect sighed. “Frustrating.”

“Maybe this mystery is … part of its ritual?”

“I suspect so. The speech translator who works with it says that after proper introductions—whatever that means—it will help us identify which of our SETI messages are theirs.”

Ruth bit her lip in thought. “Afraid to disclose their location?”

“Probably. It would not be the first hint that a SETI broadcast came from a site quite distant from the host society.”

The galactic Byzantium, Ruth thought. Intrigues within mysteries buried in shadowy plots. “So you and I can work with this alien now?”

“Nothing so hasty,” the Prefect said sourly. “It will only work with those who can translate directly from the SETI files, however.” He eyed her significantly. “Therefore, I cannot serve.”

Decades had passed, she knew, since this Prefect had worked with the cryofiles. Ruth had taken years to fathom the labyrinth of those data-forests—the sum of all transmissions received from the Galactic Complex, that host of innumerable societies that had, largely, flourished long before humanity was born. Within those multidimensional databases, Ruth spent her days. Multi-coded, the files were a vast, largely impenetrable resource. The grandest possible intellectual scrap heap. But it could yield priceless ore.

She said carefully, “Why not?” The pyramid of power in the Library of Intelligences was rigid:

Prefects

Noughts

Librarians

Below those ranks were the Trainees, from which Ruth had just graduated after years of hard work. Below her were Seekers of Script, who assisted librarians. Below then, and the real strength of the Library, were Hounds. The venerable term came from the “data dogs” or “miners” of ancient times, before the Library had moved to Luna. At least she did not have to deal with the sexless Noughts on this issue.

“I do not handle texts directly, and this alien thinks that matters.” A perplexed twist of the Prefect’s mouth lasted only a second. “I chose … you.”

“I’m honored.”

“You may not feel that way in a moment,” he said dryly.

“In a moment?”

“It’s here now. To meet you.”

Her eyes widened, this time in alarm. Librarians seldom saw aliens. Usually it was in a minor role, to ask for help in deciphering or explaining interactions between SETI sites. Beacon History was not one of Ruth’s areas.

“But I haven’t prepared—”

“The people at State Relations went through a month of ritual greetings just to get it to talk. We’ve been through a day of ceremonials to even sit down. It believes in a ‘cusp interval’ when it can properly meet others. We learned this only an hour ago. It’s got to happen now.”

“How … do I dress?”

“Your uniform—” He cast a gaze down it, nodded. Luckily she had just run it through the cleaner this morning. “—will mean little to it. I take it that these aliens’ manners resemble the ancient Japanese. It demands an hour minimum introduction, for any cultural interaction.”

“How do I—”

“State did the hard work. That’s what took a month. Plus training the computer aural translator. Its name, as rendered into something we can pronounce, and is acceptable to it, is Akralan.”

“Its star?”

“It will not reveal that, as yet. The astrobio types tell us it must come from a star similar to ours, a bit smaller mass. Its world has less surface water and more noble gases in the air.”

“What about its culture?”

“Akralan says it has come because we are humanoid, like itself. Their society saw pictures of us in one of our transmissions. Akralan says humanoids must stick together, in a way. As the newest humanoid species, we must come to know and respect certain set, ordered ways.”

Ruth had seen many formalized patterns of grammars, symbols and words in the SETI Library. Often they carried coded tricks to prevent unwelcome use. “Do these ceremonials have a purpose?”

The Prefect pursed his lips and momentary bewilderment flickered across his face. “It feels that non-humanoids cannot understand these social mannerisms. So the other shapes and sizes of aliens are somehow lesser. Why, it doesn’t say. That point alone took several days to extract, I gather.”

“Do you have any idea—”

A soft tone sounded on the Prefect’s desk. “The translator is ready.”

* * *

Ruth made herself stretch her own arm out toward the alien. It rotated its head in a slow circle.

What was that phrase the translator used? “Work Wife.” Was this the ritual to become a co-worker? The Prefect had thought so. But … wife?

Impossibly, Akralan did a somersault, windmilling its arms. Then it plunged away from her, somehow picking up speed toward the distant clouds below.

So was it … showing off?

It’s playing with me.

She had no time to think. Her head snapped back. Pulses sounded through her—buffeting. She was moving faster than sound and shock waves raced along her, a thousand small hammers finding nooks to hurt.

Not relaxed any more. A warning clang jolted her ears.

Her thermal shedders were laboring, but she felt prickly heat seep into her skin. Breath was a labor. Another clang.

The drogue signal. About to deploy.

She turned to see if her backpack was clear and suddenly wrenched sideways.

Sky. Boots. Sky. Boots. She was tumbling. She forced her arms out the way Akralan had. Wind tore at her arms. They strained in their sockets.

If her drogue parachute popped out while she tumbled, the shrouds could tangle. The chute would not open right.

She forced her arms in the odd gestures Akralan had made. Wind howled around her. She opened her legs to get drag and that brought her around, facing down again. But she was at an angle, getting forced back into a rotation.

She windmilled her arms. That brought her right again, facing down. But she overshot. She reversed the windmill. Eased back into position, facing down.

Bang—the drogue chute peeled away and slammed her hard.

Air rushed from her lungs. She fought the huge hand trying to crush her chest and sucked in a little air. She was losing speed fast.

But the drogue was deployed right, pulling hard at her.

Below, all was blue-black.

* * *

An enormous cloud towered over the puffy white cumulus near it, stretching up from an anvil-shaped base to a massive head. And she was falling into it.

They were. She looked for Akralan. It was ahead of her now, drogue bright orange.

She closeupped the cloud base and saw lightning fork in quick raging stabs. Her inboards told her it was twice as high as Everest. Wispy ice clouds slipped by her. She looked toward her feet. She was white. Ice caked her now.

And here came the billowy head of the big cloud. Fronds of vapor enveloped her as she shot through layers of cloud decks, shocks slamming through her. Her teeth chattered. So much for thermal overload.

Her helmet had rims of ice crystals. But why she did not feel cold? Then she realized that the buffeting was resonating through her, playing her like a drum. Her teeth chattered in resonance with it.

The ice-white streamers around her thickened and darkness gathered in. Fat, dark boils below loomed and she plunged through them, into … night. It must be cold here, she thought, but she felt warm. The heat from the first, fast friction had protected her.

But … she felt queasy. In the dark she could feel herself begin to spin, arms trying to fly out. The parachute would get fouled if she went into a gyre.

But how to stop? She spread her arms, giving way to the centrifugal. Now she could navigate by the pressure against her, since that was down. She flexed her legs to steer and got slammed around by twisting winds. All in the dark.

Violent gusts rattled her. Gravity returned—which meant she was rising, punched upward by winds that fed the cloud core. Pang went her faceplate. Lesser hammer blows rang along her body. What?

In the dim glow she saw hailstones bouncing off her suit. Rocks of ice, some as big as her fist. They came at her from below, slamming up into her. But she still felt gravity, so she was rising toward the cloud summit. Some huge hurricane was hammering the hail upward.

A crisp, white burst of light seared her vision. She looked down a vast dark tunnel burrowing through the center of the cloud. The lightning bolt that let her see twisted across this tunnel showed her feet apart, arms flapping. Head over heels. Dark above. Tunnel below. Dark above again. Tunnel—then it snapped off, leaving her in complete black oblivion.

She looked at her helmet timer. 16.27 minutes elapsed.

It seemed like hours.

* * *

The Prefect stepped through into the translation room, but Ruth hesitated. Beyond that door was the first alien she would ever meet. She gulped, took a deep breath and followed.

Her first impression was of shadowy skin and eyes like rounded rectangles. Its nose was a single large protruding cone high on the forehead. It wore clothes of an amber hue and sat like a human, though considerably larger. The hands were four-fingered and multi-jointed in an odd way as the creature made rapid gestures, turned its head in elaborate arcs, and then sat absolutely still. It then could have passed as a large storefront dummy.

The Prefect gestured and she sat in a chair opposite the smooth-skinned being. She did not know what to do and looked at the translator, an aged woman. The translator held a flat device that converted acoustic signals, doing the hard work of bridging between languages utterly different. The woman explained that she had developed audio pickups that transduced human speech into its own sounds, but Akralan could not shape human words. She would aid in the halting exchange.

The next ten minutes passed slowly as it spoke, sounding like a bearing about to go. It made hand passes and some strange leg-thrusts from its molded chair. The translator responded in kind. Ruth gazed into the unreadable glittering black depths of its eyes—which swiveled to follow her. She realized that she was fidgeting and stilled herself. The alien’s eyes seemed to glaze.

With the translator Akralan used gestures, words sounding like a song sung by insects, then hand-clasps. The translator said at last, “We have performed the ceremony of greeting. Now it will follow its invocation of need.”

“Its … what?” Ruth found it hard to look away from the eyes.

“Since you will be working with it, there must be a firm introduction,” the translator explained carefully. “It seems to want to … take you as a collaborator.”

“To decipher SETI texts?”

“To … convey ‘necessary knowledge’—that is the best way to phrase it.”

“To translate some of the holdings?”

“More, it implies. It refers to ‘ancient knowings beyond written’—which may link through semiotics to the Maze.”

The Maze was a working name for the transport system that threaded the galaxy. Many SETI messages were scraps referring to it. Physicists inferred that the Maze might be an interlocking system of wormholes, and thus a way to move nearer to the civilizations that had sent the messages. But where was the nearest wormhole to Earth? Until they knew that, other knowledge was useless.

The alien made a long series of sounds like gravel sliding downhill. The translator worked the flat device and at last said, “We will observe the ‘reflections.’”

This meant minutes of silence. The alien stared straight at Ruth and made small gestures with its four-fingered hands. She had no idea what to do so sat still.

Silence was one of the ways to deal with aliens, she had been taught. This one said little, a useful weapon. It probably knew that this made talky humans edgy, as if to say, I have come a long way. Now it is up to you.

It occurred to her that staying silent herself might work as well. Use the same tricks. Akralan could never be quite sure that it is not being mocked. And mockery must surely be a universal. The SETI psychologists suspected that intelligence had to have humor as a release valve. Strange elements in the dense SETI messages seemed to be humor, in the sense that they posed odd congruences, or even outright ridicule—the essential elements in what humans thought was funny. But humor had a social use as well—mockery among them.

So she sat and stared straight back at it. Long moments ticked by. Behind her the Prefect did nothing. They were a frozen tableaux.

Then the alien seemed to bristle, the nostrils atop its head flaring crimson, as if taking affront.

“You have passed its inspection,” the translator said.

Ruth raised one eyebrow. The alien wrinkled its intricately lined face in a mimicking way. Then she ventured a smile. Akralan gave her a curve of its slit mouth, but turned down, not up. A deliberate mirroring? Time to take the initiative.

“What’s a ‘firm introduction’?”

“Not a ritual exchange, such as we do now, but a positive act.”

“What act?”

“It requires that to function with you—or any Librarian, though you seem closest in abilities to what it wants—there is a bonding ritual.”

“Ummm. What sort?”

“It wishes to make you its ‘Work Wife’—a term in its association grammar.”

She blinked. “Wife?”

“This is social gender, not biology.”

“I … become this ‘work wife’ by doing … what?”

“Taking what it calls the Plunge. We know you have athletic ability and—”

“This is some ritual?”

“Akralan says to know the Earth he must be ‘properly introduced’—which implies he must enter it from space.”

She pondered the alien’s flat, unreadable gaze. Was it male or female? She had no clear way of judging. The eyes glinted as if in challenge. “And I—what? How do I introduce the Earth?

“By escorting Akralan.”

* * *

The cloud world flashed all around her, lit by tangles of lightning—thick, blue blades like liquid swords. Then they snapped off—and the thunder came.

She did not hear it. Instead she felt it, sounding like a deep note that her body hummed.

Winds poked and pried at her, whipping her arms around. She curled up; head toward what she thought was down—and found in the next blue-white lightning flash that she was looking up. Or thought she was.

A giant hand snatched her around. Her lungs wheezed out all they had. The hand had her by her back—and she then realized that her chute had opened. That settled the argument about which way was down.

She turned to check and lightning lit the parachute canvas. A beautiful domed cathedral over her. Almost enough to make her religious. Then the thunder hit her and she vibrated again. If there was a time to pray, this would be it.

Rain smeared her view. Clouds came rushing up at her. Sunlight broke through in slanting shafts that moisture diffused into halos. Cottony clouds glittered like mountains of spun sugar. The buffeting jerked her around and she felt dizzy with the speed. Will this never end?

She plunged through laces of incandescence. The moisture gave rays of light a shimmering beauty and she felt it sweep away her mounting fear.

Then she shot through the brilliance. She turned to look down. The huge tunnel that was the cloud interior now ended in a rippled wall of dirty gray. Those must be rain-saturated clouds, she realized just as she plunged through it—

—into ordinary pattering rain.

Sheets of droplets wrapped around her. Thump—and a giant hand jerked her upward. The main chute popped out, twirling beyond her drogue.

Now she was the bob on a pendulum, swinging widely as gusts caressed her. Ordinary hot-white lightning flashed around her. Thunder boomed and she could hear it, a big door slamming somewhere.

A muddy brown smear told her there was land below. She came down toward a pine forest, looking for a clear spot. There—a bare stretch of rock. She recalled her drop training. Feet together, body bent at the waist, hands and elbows tight.

The rocky slope came at her fast. She hit, rolled. Her helmet cracked down.

Lie still she thought. Do nothing. It felt very good.

Her body ached at a thousand spots. Joints wailed. Rain pattered against her, a goodbye tapping.

She sat up. Nothing seemed to be broken but a lot of her wanted to complain. The parachute tugged at her and she groped for the release. It popped free. Ah! So good to be alive. Even though she could feel a hundred aches and bruises.

Something above— She turned to see Akralan swinging down. It landed effortlessly, remained erect.

Akralan abruptly broke into an odd dance, spinning and barking out sharp sounds like clashing gears. Its snout-nose was not red now.

She staggered over to it. It held out a hand, as if inviting her to dance with it. She did. It spun her around, tapped its large feet on the rock like a drumbeat. More ritual?

She felt like punching it in the chest. No, be the diplomat. Never mind that there are clear signs down below that you wet yourself.

Instead, she stabbed a finger at the audio recording the translator had made for her. Her prepared salute. To her ears it was like gravel churning in a blender. It meant Thus do I introduce you to my world. Now let us begin.

Akralan spread its arms and did a complicated two-step. By now she knew this meant Agreed. Begin.

* * *

A month later, her soreness was gone but not her smoldering emotions. The Plunge had changed her, Ruth knew, but not exactly how.

“What?” the Prefect demanded. “Akralan will only teach us rituals?”

Ruth shrugged. “That is all it’s delegated to do, apparently.”

“What good is that?”

“Akralan points out that without the protocols needed to pass through a wormhole mouth, the artificial systems that keep those gates open will not let us pass.”

“What does that mean—not let us pass?”

Ruth grimaced. “I don’t think we want to find out.”

“What are these rituals like?”

“Maneuvers in space, signals to send. Some tangled mathematical stuff I couldn’t follow. Think of it as an elaborate key.”

The Prefect returned his face to the familiar stony blank. “Akralan won’t give any hint of where the nearest wormhole mouth is?”

She eyed the Prefect, wondering if the man had any personal life. Or was it all about the Library? Better be the diplomat, then. “That may come, in time. It says it wants to ‘ken’ Earth. That’s an old word meaning to know in a profound way.”

The Prefect’s mouth twisted. “Some high-ranked people will be very irked.”

“Some low-ranked, too. But …” She paused, trying to express an intuition gained from many hours with Akralan. “I am gathering in some ways of thinking about this alien culture. They’re humanoid, but apparently didn’t develop along our lines.”

The Prefect leaned forward, his posture eager, but he kept the blank mask. “It told you some of their history?”

“They’re communal. Live in close quarters, apparently because their world is pretty hostile. So they’re very formal with each other, the way crowded cultures are on Earth—only much more so.”

“It told you this expressly?”

“I inferred from nuances in its speech. This is going to take time. Akralan doesn’t think the way we do, and it has a species history that began when we were small mammals staying out from underfoot.”

The Prefect’s tone turned sour. “So it gives us more ceremony, not substance.”

Come on, freezeface. But she said mildly, “It’s a first step.”

She was beginning to get the feel of this profession. At the very beginnings of the Alien Library, humanity found that it was coming in on an extended discourse, an ancient interstellar conversation. There were no handy notes or crib-sheet histories to guide them. Only slowly did the cyber-cryptographers fathom that most alien cultures were truly ancient, stable for longer than hominids had even been around.

Apparently many intelligent species had a brief technological phase, then relapsed. Most listened in or sent SETI messages for a century or two, then fell silent. Humanity was just beginning its trial period, then. They should not expect the Elders to take much notice of them, or lend much help.

Thanks to millennia of SETI exchanges, the Elders had grown far more complex than the sum of all human societies. This Byzantium among the stars was much stranger than anything humans had ever known.

She said carefully, “Akralan had made it very clear they are helping us out because we’re rubes. Less prosperous, wet behind the ears, younger, ignorant. And it’s right.”

The Prefect seldom reacted immediately to new information. Some computer behind his forehead had to grind away first.

A glaze came over his face as he thought and Ruth had a sudden image flash to mind. Ruth as Superwoman, bounding over vast obstacles Shrugging off pesky hindrances. Her trusty companion, Akralan, leading her into ever more dazzling feats. This connection to Akralan could be a career maker, played right.

But then a chill came into her, a foreboding. There’s something afoot here I don’t like. Librarian Ruth isn’t Superwoman. And shouldn’t be.

The Prefect picked up a datasheet and punched up a message.

“Akralan sent me a request, posed in formal language. It seems to want a companion while it ‘kens’ Earth.”

Ruth had not heard of this. She stayed silent.

The Prefect made a thin attempt at sounding upbeat. “This time Akralan points out that there is a way to ‘ascend’ as well. Apparently that would involve some rocket-assisted way to soar to the top of Everest.” He stopped and peered at her. “I assume you can exercise your same skills as before and—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.” She got up and stalked out. Which took a kind of courage Superwoman Ruth didn’t know.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Fish Story, Episode Fifteen: They Came from Beyond

Written by Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis, Dave Freer

One of the human legends is that when you realize your death is near, your whole life flashes before your eyes.

Blithering nonsense, of course, like almost all human legends. But for sheer unadulterated blithering raving lunacy, no human legend matches that of … of …

“Ninjas?” I choked. “Tell me you’re joking. Please.”

Agent 544’s eyestalks swiveled here and there and everywhere—except to look at me. Unusual, that was, which only underscored the seriousness of the situation. Normally, the agent supervisor was as blunt and direct as you could ask for.

“Orders from above,” she said, almost mumbling the words. “The Powers-That-Be—”

“Why don’t you just call them the Piscene Oversight Taskforce and be done with it? Or use the term ‘Potheads’ like every field agent does.”

Agent 544 studiously ignored me. Now she was fiddling with the papers on her desk, which you’ll almost never see her do. “—are convinced that the situation with the drunks is a lot more serious than it looks. They want to make sure the termination with extreme prejudice isn’t fumbled.”

Were it possible for a sperm whale to sneer … Oh, the sneer that would have come upon my face!

Not possible, alas. No mobile upper lip.

Still, I thought my tone of voice was superbly sarcastic. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. The Potheads are worried me and my team might screw up the job, so they insist that we have to do it dressed and disguised as ninjas? As if that would enhance our skills or determination to succeed—or lack thereof—and as if those wretched ridiculous costumes won’t just get in the way and be a bloody nuisance at best.”

To my vast alarm, I saw that Agent 544 was now actually reading one of the reports on her desk.

She never, ever does that. She’s been on record for forty-three years, ever since she got promoted to the post, as saying that no field agent’s report is worth wasting time on since the buggers are functionally illiterate.

And … with the exception of my team, that’s true enough. And since my team’s designated report writer is Herman Melville, it might as well be true of us.

“Don’t tell me,” I choked. “Please. I beg you. Had I knees, I’d be down upon them.”

“This report’s really quite well written,” she mumbled. “It’s even got commas and periods. Apparently placed at random, but still …”

“Noooooooooooooooo … … . .” I wailed.

“Sorry,” the agent supervisor mumbled. “Orders from on high. The Potheads—ah, Powers-That-Be—are convinced that adding the Millers to your team will aid greatly in the success of the project.”

The door to the agent supervisor’s office banged open. In came the Mother From Beyond.

“Please,” she said cheerily. “Call me Amanda.”

I would no more have called her “Amanda” than I would have traveled back in time, planted myself in the imperial yurt at the capital at Karakorum, and called Genghis Khan “Gengy Boy.” I’m sure the Mongol emperor was a cheery fellow also. You can afford to be cheery when you leave pyramids of skulls in your wake.

Had it been within my power, I would have been piling up a pyramid myself, made of the skulls of the Potheads.

Well. The skulls and substitutes. A disproportionate percentage of the members of the Piscene Oversight Taskforce are filter feeders, of course. Not a brain—nay, not so much as a nerve ganglion—to be found among them.

“Come in, children!” she said cheerily. “Don’t be shy.”

A choking sound seemed to come from Agent 544. I’m sure one came from me.

In bounded the Trio. I say “bounded,” not as a literary affectation. I say “bounded” because that’s what they did.

In ninja uniforms, naturally, all the way down to the stupid black masks that disguised them so you had no idea which Kid From Beyond was which.

Amanda’s finger-pointing did for that. “This one is Aliana, and this one is Brice, so of course that one is Caewithe.”

The Trio promptly bounded about again—uttering martial cries and assuming fiercely martial postures—to the point where, as before, you had no idea which kid was which.

“Show us these drunks!” shrilled one of the Trio. She or he bounded forward and smote the nearest leg of Agent 544’s desk a mighty kick. One of those awkward-looking twisty sideways Ninja-style kicks.

The Kid From Beyond might be no larger than a toddler, but the desk sagged. Papers began spilling off onto the floor. The Kids From Beyond now whipped out hidden katanas and began slicing the falling reports into confetti.

The first useful thing I’d ever seen them do, now that I think about it.

Apparently, Agent 544 felt much the same. Moving surreptitiously, as if it were an accident, she brushed a whole pile of reports off the desk. They were shredded before a single sheet hit the floor.

She did it again, with the same result. Then, making that weird eyestalk-wriggling motion that serves her species for what humans do with a shrug and we sperm whales do with sheer force of intellect projection, she shoved everything off her desk altogether, all the way down to the pencils, pens and the “In” and “Out” basket.

The paper was shredded, the pencils pulped, the pens splintered; “In” and “Out” became indistinguishable from “Flotsam” and “Jetsam.” The floor now looked like the floor of a rustic saloon, covered with sawdust to absorb alcohol spills and the usual human incontinence when faced with any task more complex than ordering beer.

That done, the Kids From Beyond sprang about again until they finally resumed very fierce-looking martial poses. Legs spread wide, katanas upraised, the whole stupid ninja bit.

“Death to drunks!” they shrilled.

“They don’t actually know what drunks are,” Amanda said brightly. “Seeing as how I don’t tolerate drunkenness in my presence and of course I didn’t touch a drop of liquor while I was pregnant. So you’ll have to show them, you cute little fish fellow.”

“I’m a miniature sperm whale,” I said. I’d have liked to say “I growled,” but nobody in their right mind growls at Amanda Miller.

She leaned over, peering at me more closely. “Why, so you are, indeed. Look, children!”

The trio bounded over to me. The next thing I knew, the Mother From Beyond had me in a death grip and was flapping my tail at her three little monsters.

“See?” she said. “The way these tailfins are horizontal instead of vertical, the way a real fish’s tailfins would be? That’s because he’s a whale and these are actually called ‘flukes.’”

The trio peered at my tail intently. “Like in ‘a fluke of fortune’?” asked one of them. That one seemed the largest of the three—always hard to tell, with the Kids From Beyond—so I tentatively labeled her as Aliana, the oldest.

“That’s right, dear,” said Amanda.

The smallest of the trio—presumably the other girl, Caewithe—piped up with: “Can I cut it off?”

“Death to flukes!” shrilled the other two.

I would’ve squawked but the Mother From Beyond had me by the head and the distinctions between the Hand of Fate and Amanda’s clutch couldn’t be parsed by anyone this side of the monastery at Cluny.

(Yes, I know the monastery is defunct and the monks long since scattered to the winds. I rest my case.)

“Hm … Probably best not, children.” Amanda set me down on the floor. “I’m not positive—whales are also a very low life-form, of course, like salamanders—but I don’t think his tail would regrow.”

I let the salamander wisecrack slide. It’s generally best to do that, with Amanda’s observations about the world. Granted, they’re often idiot observations. But so what? Probably a lot of Genghis Khan’s notions were idiotic also. See reference to “pyramids of skulls” above.

“Well, okay,” said the middle-sized one, sounding very disgruntled. Brice, presumably—but I stress again that it’s always a chancy proposition to assume that the size of one of the little monsters correlates properly to age. Usually it does, but …

That’s the great problem in dealing with the Kids From Beyond. There’s always a “but” involved, sooner or later.

Much worse, of course, having to deal with the Mother From Beyond. Luckily for me in this instance if not for Agent 544, Amanda is on the sedentary side, as a general rule.

Here, also, and I tried not to show visible relief. She moved over to one of the chairs against a wall in Agent 544’s office and sat down. Then, out of a handbag the shape and design of which did not bear scrutiny or contemplation, drew forth a mass of yarn which likewise did not bear scrutiny or contemplation. Then, knitting needles.

I managed not to gasp. The species to which Agent 544 belonged do not blanch the way humans do. Instead, when deeply distressed or agitated, their eyestalks get badly knotted.

Truly a tangle, this time.

“I thought I’d knit some socks while the children are about their little adventure,” Amanda said cheerily.

“Here?” choked out Agent 544. Not even a hardened bureaucrat likes to see entire universes brought into existence in their offices. Given that there’s no telling what the laws of nature in such a universe will be; what, if any, might be the spillover into our own; and what might be the effects of such spillovers.

The dire and dreadful effects, almost invariably.

Amanda looked surprised. “Whyever not?”

While Agent 544 mulled over the answer to that question and tried to get his eyestalks unknotted, I made for the door.

“Follow me,” I told the three monsters in their ninja get-ups. There being no point in trying to evade them, especially under the very eyes of their Mother.

“Death to drunks!” they shrilled as one, brandishing their katanas fiercely, and bounded in my wake.

Yes, “bounded.” The little bastards bound everywhere.

* * *

Ahab and Jonah were every bit as aggravated by the situation as I was. So were the hermits, from what I could tell, even though I couldn’t understand a word they were jabbering. Not only is Aramaic not one of my languages, I can guarantee you it never will be. The first thing that happens to anybody who learns that misbegotten tongue is that they get dragooned into Biblical interpretation.

Who needs it? Leave it to simian devolvees to make anything simple, complicated.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Lord said “Let there be whales.” That’s pretty much all you need to know. The stuff that comes afterward is just confusing and pointless, not to mention wordy beyond belief.

Melville, though, took it all in stride.

“What’s the problem? Maybe the cute little tykes will be handy, somewhere along the way. And at least I won’t have to haul them around the way I will the three of you.”

The Kids From Beyond gathered about him, peering up at the sluggard in his bed.

“Is he a drunk?” demanded one, making vaguely menacing gestures with a katana.

Melville shook his head. “Shut up in these oaken walls, chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloys me, like some hypochondriac abbot I move slowly about, at times suddenly pausing, starting, or staring, biting my lip, biting my finger-nail, flushing, paling, twitching my beard, with other symptoms of an absent or moody mind. But drunk? No.”

He levered himself upright. “Not today, at least.”

“Oh, wow,” said one of the trio.

“Was that a complete sentence?” asked the littlest of the three.

“Sure was,” replied the largest.

“We better not mess with him, then.”

“Probably wise,” agreed Melville, “lest a certain grim internal merriment sets all my ancient wrinkles into antic play, where such innocence as man is capable of does yet in a moral emergency not always sharpen the faculties or enlighten the will.”

Now he wagged a solemn finger. “And I would recommend as well that you tread softly around our doughty cetacean here. Though the diminutive whale’s even temper and discreet bearing would seem to indicate a mind peculiarly subject to the law of reason, not the less in heart he would seem to riot in complete exemption from that law, having apparently little to do with reason further than to employ it as an ambidexter implement for effecting the irrational.”

The three little monsters stared at me. Melville plowed on.

“Oh, yes, be sure of it. Toward the accomplishment of an aim which in wantonness of atrocity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool judgment sagacious and sound. These whales are mad creatures, and of the most dangerous sort, for their lunacy is not continuous, but occasional, evoked by some special object; it is protectively secretive, which is as much to say it is self-contained, so that when, moreover, most active it is to the average mind not distinguishable from sanity, and for the reason above suggested: that whatever its aim may be—and the aim is never declared—the method and the outward proceeding are always perfectly rational.”

The three little monsters seemed to recoil from me a bit. That was enough for me to bestow a silent pardon upon Melville, absolving him—just for the moment—of the sin of his prose.

The eighth, I might mention, of the deadly sins.

“Enough!” I said, slapping the floor with my flukes to emphasize the point. “Let’s be off!”

“Off to where?” demanded Jonah.

“To the World-Tree, where else? There to slaughter those who richly deserve their fate.”

The Kids From Beyond started bounding about again. “Death to drunks!” they cried as one.

“Care and caution, here!” admonished Melville, again with a wagging and solemn finger. “We are enjoined to slay only the barristers and lawyers among them.”

“Death to shysters!” shrilled the trio as one. Little katanas swung madly back and forth, threatening mayhem to all and sundry.

“And the ichthyologists, of course,” Melville added.

That brought sudden silence to the little monsters. They stopped bounding about too, praise be.

“What’s an ickyologist?” demanded the smallest.

“Abusers of fish,” I explained.

“Death to fishwhackers!” they cried as one.

I figured that was close enough. I had flukes to watch out for, after all.

* * *

We left about thirty-two hours later. Why? When by any sane measure we should have been ready to go in five minutes?

The stupid ninja business, what else? Stupid ninja costumes had to be made up—designed from scratch, in my case, there being no miniature sperm whale ninja on record—and stupid ninja weapons had to be found. Designed and made, in my case, since no stupid ninja throwing stars—”shuriken,” if you’re one of those ninnies besotted with stupid ninja gadgetry; “hira-shuriken” if you’re one of those terminal ninnies insane enough to demand precise terminology—could possibly be thrown by a handless sperm whale.

So, eventually, I got handed a set of fluke-shuriken. Just what I always wanted.

Ahab had to be fitted in ninja costume also, which was fairly ridiculous given that he’d be riding into battled lashed to me by harpoon line, as tradition demanded. Even Jonah had to be outfitted, which was positively absurd given that he’d be riding into battle in my belly, as tradition demanded.

But, there it was. “Ninjas,” the Potheads demanded; ninjas, they got. And we didn’t dare cut corners because of the Kids From Beyond. Among their many other charming traits, the three little monsters are tattletales beyond compare.

Through it all, though, Melville maintained his composure—even while being fitted for his own stupid ninja costume and being outfitted with his own stupid ninja katana and wakizashi and shuriken. (If you’re a sane creature and therefore not up-to-date on silly ninja terminology, a “katana” is a long, curved one-edged sword and a “wakizashi” is the shorter version of same.)

When I commented on his equanimity with half-grudging respect, though, I found his response disquieting.

“Never forget, Richard,” he said with a sly smile, “that an uncommon prudence is habitual with the subtler depravity, for it has everything to hide.”

But, then, Melville is usually disquieting.

And so it was we went off to war. Ahab lashed to my side; Jonah in my belly; myself riding upon Melville’s shoulder; the Kids From Beyond bounding ahead, brandishing fierce katanas.

Naturally, the stupid ninja hood slipped after four of Melville’s strides, he being a clumsy fellow with everything except words, and I was thereafter blind.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

INTRODUCING STORIES:

In the Light of the Hunger Moon

Written by Kevin J. Cheek

Illustrated by Kristina Gehrmann

Lorgash discovered the homestead when he made his way to the mountains to die. The buildings had not been there a couple of years before, and he wasn’t sure what to make of them. A round hut, constructed in troll-manner, squatted near a barn that had the look of humans about it. A house built in a mixture of both styles sat across the clearing from them. The wind shifted and he heard the bleat of goats. Sets of tracks marred the snow between the house and the barn. One set vanished into the woods.

He rubbed his bulbous nose, feeling the freshly healed pockmarks. If this place belonged to trolls, he wouldn’t risk bringing smallpox to them. If they were humans, he didn’t care if they died from smallpox or not. But though they were small and weak, he’d seen several humans bring down a troll like wolves killing an elk. For a moment Lorgash considered knocking on the door and letting them do just that. But no: A troll might answer. Though such things were forgiven during the month of the Hunger Moon, he couldn’t bear the thought of bringing smallpox to another family. And if humans lived here and caught smallpox, they could easily bring it to a troll village. It was better to end it where no one would find his body.

He kept to the woods, circling the homestead to pick up the trail again on the other side. Clumping snow fell about him, and he wondered if he’d have time to make a shelter before dark.

He was so lost in thought that he nearly stumbled over the boy. The child knelt, weeping silently beside a stump. His bared head revealed the small, close-set ears of a human. The boy looked up and gasped.

“No!” the boy said in Trollish. He scrambled away and leaped to his feet. “Smallpox! Get back!” He ran to the house, screaming in Norse.

Lorgash cursed. He drew his knife and ran after him.

The door of the house opened and the boy darted inside. Lorgash threw his weight against the door as it closed.

A woman, tall for a human, fell over backward onto the wooden floor. Wide-eyed, she scuttled away as Lorgash forced his way into the room.

“Smallpox,” the woman said in Trollish. “We have smallpox.”

“I’ve already had smallpox,” Lorgash said.

The boy yelled in Norse and flung a pot. Lorgash batted it aside and lunged for him.

The child dove beneath a table beside the hearth.

The woman found her feet, picked up a broom and struck the troll across his back. “Leave him alone!”

Lorgash yanked the broom away. He grabbed the woman’s arm, twisting it behind her. She dropped to her knees.

“How many are here?” He said.

“Just my son and I.”

Lorgash looked around the sparsely furnished home. Joist timbers, set too low for a troll to walk without stooping, stretched from wall to wall. A cross hung over the mantel and a pot simmered over the fire. To one side was a curtained doorway. He gestured toward it. “What’s in there?”

“My husband.”

“You said only you and your son were here.”

“He’s dead. Smallpox.”

“Show me.” Lorgash yanked the woman to her feet and pushed her through the curtain.

There, on a low bed, lay what had been a man. Smallpox covered his face, so much so that Lorgash could barely tell it was a human corpse.

“Why is he unburied?”

“He died this same hour,” the woman said. “We don’t know if we can bury him—the ground is frozen and we are still weak.” She turned her head toward Lorgash, and he noticed the fresh pockmark on her cheek.

Tears welled in the woman’s eyes. Her long black hair fell back, revealing flared ears.

Lorgash released her and stared. “You’re a troll.”

“My mother was. Please: Don’t hurt my son.”

He put away his knife. “I’ll bury your husband.”

“But the ground’s frozen,” the woman said.

“I’ve had plenty of practice.”

* * *

Lorgash waited while the woman and her son wept at the grave. It had taken a fire and a pick, but he’d managed it, digging the grave so that the foot was to the east, as the woman had asked. The boy set a cross made of lashed wood at the head of the mounded earth.

A blast of wind brought a fresh wave of snow. Trees only a few paces away were barely visible.

Lorgash shouldered his pack and walked to the grave. “I’ll be going.”

The woman looked up, snow clinging to her hair. “There’s a blizzard coming.”

“I’ll manage,” Lorgash said.

“You are welcome to stay with us until it passes,” the woman said.

“Why?”

“It’s the Christian thing.”

Lorgash scowled.

A gust of wind shook the clearing. The firs swayed from the might of the storm. Lorgash looked at the sky. He could freeze to death where a troll might find him and bring the smallpox to yet another village. Besides, there was no reason to suffer from the cold before he ended it. Even a Christian’s barn was better than no shelter at all. He nodded. “Only until it passes.”

They returned to the cottage. The woman stirred the gruel while the boy set a platter of bread and three bowls on the table. He stared at Lorgash.

“My name is Domah,” the woman said. “This is my son, Silas.”

Domah: That was a respectable troll name, Lorgash thought. And Silas sounded much like the troll name Silak. “I’m called Lorgash.”

The woman carried the pot to the table and ladled the gruel into the bowls as Silas poured mead and water into three mugs.

They sat at the table and Domah turned to Lorgash. “Would you do us the honor of praying thanks for our food?”

Anger blazed through Lorgash. He felt his face redden. “I am no Christian,” he snapped.

“I’m sorry,” Domah said. “But I when I saw you wore no plaited strip, I—”

“I burned my village so smallpox would not make it a lair. I threw my strip onto the flames to let the gods know what I think of them.”

Domah’s eyes widened. “Smallpox wiped out your village?”

“A Christian led it to us.” Lorgash stopped short of adding: when he carried him, trussed to a pole like a hart, into the village for the solstice sacrifice.

Domah crossed herself. “Smallpox took my mother’s village.” She and Silas bowed their heads and she prayed in Norse.

Lorgash waited until they raised their heads before he started eating.

“What was your village?” Domah asked.

“Haalswood.”

“I’ve heard of it. When did this happen?”

“It started a couple of months ago.”

Domah’s eyes flashed. “About the time of the solstice?”

“I was the first stricken and the only one spared.”

“They say Targlor of Ravensdale has found a way to ward off smallpox.”

“Targlor says a great many things.” Lorgash tore off a chunk of bread and dipped it into the gruel. “I was surprised to find anyone near the mountains. Chief Wenmarg of Craigskeep doesn’t care for trespassers, particularly humans.”

“We trade for furs and gold,” Domah said. “We provide goods from the human towns.”

Lorgash nodded. He’d heard that humans who still worshipped the old gods sometimes did business with trolls, the two finding a thin sliver of common ground. Still … “I thought you were Christians.”

“We are,” Domah said.

“Isn’t it unusual for Christians to come so deep into troll lands?”

“It seemed best,” Domah said. “After all, Ravensdale still attends the assemblies, and they are Christians now.”

Which, Lorgash thought, didn’t answer his question.

“Where are you headed?” Domah asked.

“Into the mountains. I know of secluded places there. I will not lead smallpox to another town.”

“And after that?”

Lorgash shrugged.

She continued to stare, as though peering into his mind. “You carry a small pack for a long stay in the mountains.”

Lorgash shifted on the bench. “This is a good location for a trading post,” he said, hoping to change the subject. “There are advantages in trading without going to a village. A pity you’ll be leaving.”

“We’re staying,” Domah said.

“Oh? These are difficult times. What if I had not stayed my hand?”

Silas said something in Norse. The woman shook her head.

“We are where we are,” she said.

Lorgash raised an eyebrow. It was an old troll saying. He finished his gruel.

* * *

The blizzard arrived in strength just as Lorgash and Silas finished tending to the animals. They brought in more firewood then bolted the door. The wind howled around the eaves.

“I’ll stay in the barn,” Lorgash said.

Domah paused as she stirred the fire. “In this weather? I would not be showing proper hospitality if you did. Here: Rest beside the hearth.”

“These are bad times. You shouldn’t be so trusting as to have a stranger in your home as you sleep.”

“There’ll be no sleep for me this night.” Grief peered through Domah’s eyes. She patted Silas on the shoulder and the three talked of what news they’d heard.

It was late when they turned in. The woman brought Lorgash a blanket, and he made his bed on the bench. Domah and Silas went through the curtain and in a few moments Lorgash heard them talking low in Norse, much as she had when she prayed thanks for their meal. Then there was only the sound of weeping and the moan of the wind.

Lorgash watched the logs burn on the hearth and thought of his family, their fever cooled forever by the chill of the barrow. His own grief returned, yet tears refused to come. That bothered him. He had mourned, as best he could, as he tended to his dying neighbors, but even now his grief was more numbness than pain. He listened to Domah’s sobs and wondered why he could give no tears for the dead.

Within the flames he saw his village burn anew. He raised his eyes from the fire to the cross on the chimney before turning his back to the fireplace. It was some time before he went to sleep.

* * *

The wind died after sunrise. Lorgash packed before helping the family with their chores. Silas went to the barn, but came running back inside, babbling in Norse.

Domah stiffened.

“What is it?” Lorgash asked.

“There’s men at the edge of the woods,” she said.

“Humans or trolls?”

“Humans.”

“Here?” He went to the door.

Domah put her hand on his arm. “I’ll talk with them.”

She opened the door as Lorgash stepped back, keeping in the shadows.

A man in a hooded coat hailed her. They spoke in Norse.

One of the men went to the grave and cleared away the snow. He called to the others.

A man a head shorter than Domah stepped closer to the house, his hand on the haft of his sword. Blonde hair jutted beneath the edge of his hood and his nose looked more sharp-edged than the other humans. He said something to the woman.

Domah turned pale. She glanced at Silas and gestured as she spoke.

Silas stepped in front of the doorway.

A glint caught Lorgash’s eye, and he saw a human at the edge of the clearing raise a crossbow. He yanked Domah inside and slammed the door just before the broadhead struck.

“What’s going on?” Lorgash said.

The woman bit her lip. “They want Silas.”

“Why?”

She glanced at the door.

Lorgash cursed. “Tell me, woman,”

“I picked my spouse unwisely,” Domah said. “Kobbi was a good provider but quick-tempered. He never raised a hand to me or Silas, but—”

“Who did he kill?”

“Galinn, the brother of Sigmund, the chieftain.”

“Why?”

Domah trembled. “It is hard having troll blood when you live among humans. To be a woman with troll blood is … some of the men assume things. Sigmund and Galinn were the worst.”

She glanced at the door. “Sigmund wanted cause to seize our property and he and Galinn attempted to provoke Kobbi. Kobbi tried to ignore them. But then Galinn came to me one afternoon when he thought my husband was in the pastures, and …” She twisted her dress in her hands. “My husband slew him without thought.” She looked up at Lorgash. “Sigmund is the one who just spoke with me.”

“This is why you came here? To flee Sigmund?”

“We thought they wouldn’t venture into troll lands.”

“Your husband is dead. Why do they want the boy?”

“Because he’s blood kin. As long as he lives there is claim to my husband’s lands.”

“Christians.” Lorgash spat onto the floor.

“Not everyone that says ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven,” she said.

Shouts from outside interrupted them. Silas peeked through a shutter before Lorgash pulled him back.

“Don’t make yourself a target again.”

The boy had a look of panic on his face. “There’s trolls coming.”

Domah cringed. “I was going to clear the snow from the plague markers yesterday, but …”

“You had other things on your mind,” Lorgash said.

The sound of a troll battle hymn floated through the door, accompanied by the clang of iron against iron.

Lorgash waved Domah back and cracked the door. The trolls had driven the humans to the edge of the clearing. More humans poured through the woods and both sides paused. One vaguely familiar troll wearing a thick coat and the tall fur hat of a chieftain stepped forward and spoke in Norse. After much talk the humans pulled back and the troll walked to the house.

“Ho,” the troll called. The others advanced behind him.

Lorgash opened the door. “Hold: There is smallpox here.”

All color drained from the troll’s face. He motioned to one of his men, who raised a bow.

“Step out,” the troll said, “And we will give you a merciful death.”

“We’ve had it and recovered,” Lorgash said, “but it may yet linger.”

The troll stared. “Are you from Ravensdale? Who are you?”

“Lorgash of Haalswood. Who do I have the honor of addressing?”

“Chief Yusslig of Craigskeep.”

Lorgash raised his eyebrows and wondered what had happened to Wenmarg.

“What brings a Haalswood man to our lands?” Yusslig asked.

“I seek the quiet places, for Haalswood is no more.”

Yusslig stared. “The smallpox?”

Lorgash nodded.

The trolls all touched the plaited strip at their side.

Yusslig fidgeted. “We were told her husband was dead.”

“He is,” Lorgash said, nodding toward the grave. “They gave me shelter from the blizzard.” He remembered Yusslig now, from the assemblies. He’d always struck him as a greedy, ambitious sort.

“Ah,” Yusslig said. “Was he human?”

“Yes.”

“Then for once a human spoke the truth. I asked them what business they had with troll kin, and they said her husband was a human.”

Lorgash glanced at the humans and wondered what they had told the trolls. “May I ask about your interest? You do not seem to have brought trade goods.”

“The woman is a half-troll. Isn’t that enough?”

A troll behind Yusslig hefted his sword.

“In normal times,” Lorgash said. But it was the Hunger Moon, and that made him wary.

Yusslig smiled. “Indeed. This is a Craigskeep matter. It may be best if you leave.”

“Domah has shown me hospitality. I am obligated.”

“In normal times,” Yusslig said.

“And these?”

Yusslig’s smile faded. “We are here to correct Wenmarg’s error.”

Lorgash stared at the troll chieftain for a moment. “In allowing humans to come to the mountains?”

“In allowing the turned-out to return.”

Lorgash jerked his head around toward Domah.

Domah blushed.

Sigmund said something.

Yusslig turned and looked at the humans. “If we cannot enter, then perhaps—”

Silas darted to the door. He leaned out and shouted in Norse before Domah pulled him back.

The humans murmured. The ones closest to the grave leapt back as though they had discovered a wolf. Sigmund barked something at them, but they still looked uneasy.

Yusslig grunted. “Smallpox makes us all cowards.” He turned back to Lorgash. “I remember you now, from the assemblies. You were always fair and you respected both law and honor.” He paused. “There is no obligation to hospitality during the Hunger Moon.”

In other words, you want me to do your dirty work, Lorgash thought. “Perhaps. For some.”

Yusslig’s face darkened. “So be it.” He gestured to his men and they fell back to the other side of the clearing.

Lorgash watched both sides for a moment before bolting the door. He turned to Domah. “What exactly is going on here?”

“Kobbi slew the—”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Why did Wenmarg allow a turn-out to return to Craigskeep lands?”

“He is my uncle,” Domah said.

“The turned-out have no kin.”

“He disagreed with the verdict,” she said. “He wasn’t the chief of Craigskeep then, and we lived in a village on the outskirts of the lands.”

“I thought you said you were a half-troll.”

Domah swallowed. “My father was a human who worshiped the false gods.” Her eyes widened and she sucked in her breath. “I did not mean to offend you.”

“I don’t think much of the gods, either,” Lorgash said.

“He was captured as a trespasser and taken in when the village discovered he wasn’t a Christian. He was accepted into the village and wore the plaited strip.”

Lorgash nodded. Such things happened from time to time.

“He was an excellent trader,” Domah said. “And he hated Christians. He … he would lead one to us every year to sacrifice at the winter solstice.”

“Is that how smallpox found your village?”

The woman’s face turned dark. “That was the claim. My father had gained some honor among the trolls and married well. Some were jealous. When smallpox came, some said my father brought it upon us to help the Christians.”

Lorgash snorted.

“They charged my father with treason,” Domah said. “They took him and …” Her eyes became haunted. “They turned us out.”

“And Wenmarg?”

“He gave us supplies and hid us in the valley. After a couple of days he led us down the river to a monastery. He’d heard that the human holy men took in the turned-out. He stayed nearby until he saw that we were well cared for.”

Lorgash’s gaze turned to the cross above the mantel.

“Mother became a seamstress for the monks and the nuns. They did not mind we were trolls. The other humans were not as kind.” Domah sighed. “Kobbi was different. We were wed at the monastery—Sigmund would not allow us to marry in the village. Later, when we had to flee, Wenmarg allowed us to settle here. Some suspected I was a turned-out, but none raised their hand against us.”

“Because of Wenmarg.” Lorgash turned to the door. “And now it’s the Hunger Moon.”

“So?”

Lorgash turned to the woman. How could she not know? “The Hunger Moon is the bad time. There is much sickness and little food. Fathers have killed their families rather than see them starve. Much is excused, so long as there’s some cause.”

Domah shuddered. “So Wenmarg …” She crossed herself.

“Yusslig has probably had Wenmarg killed,” Lorgash said. “Yusslig always wanted authority and he is greedy. The chiefs trusted Targlor far more than Yusslig. At least Targlor puts the good of others above his own.”

“So that’s why you said ‘These are bad times.’”

“Yes, and … ” His eyes narrowed. “You knew. You knew Yusslig had deposed Wenmarg. That’s why you showed me hospitality, so I would become obligated to defend you. You didn’t count on the Hunger Moon.”

Domah’s eyes flashed. “I did no such thing. I returned the compassion you showed us and tried to be a good Christian. Nothing more. If that has placed you under some sort of obligation, then I release you from it.”

Lorgash gaped at her. She really didn’t know troll law. How young had she been when her family was turned out?

“Mama,” Silas whispered. “Listen!”

The crunch of advancing footsteps sounded beneath the eaves. Lorgash drew his knife. He heard a thud, then the sound of a man running away from the house. A hissing sound came from overhead.

Domah ran to the door.

“Wait!” Lorgash said.

The hiss sputtered and died.

“What was that?” Silas asked.

“Firebrand,” Lorgash said. “The idiots. There’s too much snow on the roof for it to catch.”

“Will they try to rush us?” Domah asked.

“Not with smallpox lingering here. If they’re smart, all they have to do is to starve us out.”

Domah chewed on her lip for a moment. “Would Yusslig let Silas live?”

Lorgash rubbed his chin. “Any other time he would have to, because Silas was not turned out. At least, he’d do nothing obvious. But I think he’s using this to strengthen his position as chief. And since it’s the Hunger Moon …” Lorgash shrugged.

“What can we do?”

“Pray to your god for hard cold,” Lorgash said. “Maybe he listens better than mine.”

* * *

Lorgash stared through the peephole he’d bored through the wall. The frigid wind blasted through the clearing, sending loose snow spiraling into the trees. The house shuddered and he cast a worried glance at the roof before looking back outside.

The trolls had taken residence in the small hut—Domah said it was the trading post—while the humans claimed the barn. The trading post held a small fireplace, but the humans had none. Smoke boiled through the cracks of the barn like it was a smokehouse. Lorgash could hear the terrified bleat of a goat.

“They’re killing another goat.” He put a wooden plug into the peephole and picked up his cup. Slush floated inside.

Domah mixed a pot of gruel, watering it down even more than she’d done over the last few days. She set it over the fire and slowly shook her head. “A fine feast to prepare for Quadragesima.”

“Quadragesima?”

“A Christian observance,” Domah replied. “A time for sober introspection in the days before Easter.” She looked over at Lorgash. “That’s when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“I know of Easter. Targlor talks much of it at the assemblies.” Lorgash sat down at the table. “I thought hard cold would drive them away. They can’t be warmer than we are, and the watches must be short and difficult.” He focused on Domah. “Yusslig I can understand—he has much invested in this. But the humans? Your husband must have owned substantial lands.”

Domah nodded. “We were blessed.”

Lorgash looked at the bolted door, but said nothing.

“Silas,” Domah said, “check the back peephole again.”

“But I just did,” Silas said.

“Yes, but it’s getting dark and I’d feel better if you checked again.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Silas disappeared through the curtained door.

Domah sat down across from Lorgash and leaned toward him. “Would Yusslig let you take Silas into the mountains?”

Lorgash thought about this. “He could. By law only the turned-out are condemned if they return. If he thought the boy would leave and not come back to Craigskeep, then yes, he could work that to his advantage.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re not thinking—”

“Our food runs short,” she said, “and the days will soon warm. Even if we don’t starve, a day will come when there is no snow to put out a firebrand.”

Lorgash nodded. She made sense. Still … “But the nights are growing brighter. The humans will see us.”

“We’re a week from the full moon,” she said. “With the snow on the ground, the night will be nearly as bright as day.” She glanced toward the curtain. “If you were to leave by the trading post, Yusslig may let you pass.”

Yusslig probably would, Lorgash thought. “And you will go away with the humans?”

Domah looked down. “Yusslig will not let me live. Knowing Sigmund, it will probably be a blessing.”

“There is too much death in this world,” he said. “One shouldn’t throw their life away needlessly.”

Domah raised an eyebrow. “You say that like you mean it.”

Lorgash was surprised to find that he did.

“Do you know of another way?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Silas returned to the room. “I didn’t see anyone, Mama.”

“That’s good, dear.” Domah looked at Lorgash. “Do you agree?”

The troll sighed and nodded.

“We need to pack your things,” Domah said to Silas.

The boy’s eyes went wide. “We’re going to make a run for it?”

“Yes, dear.”

“But they’ve both placed a watch,” Silas said, “and—”

“Lorgash and I have a plan.” Domah smiled at her son. “Don’t worry.”

Lorgash turned away.

She tied the last of their food in a bundle and fashioned two makeshift robes from blankets.

Silas’ lips trembled as he stared at the two robes. He looked at Lorgash and silently wept.

Domah paused for a moment before she removed a stone from the hearth. She reached deep inside and dragged out a leather bag. It looked heavy.

“What’s that?” Lorgash said.

Domah took a deep breath. “Gold we took in trade.”

“Gold? Let me see.”

Domah hesitated before handing him the bag.

Lorgash hefted it. “It’s much too heavy for Silas to carry.” He opened the bag and removed a nugget. It shimmered in the firelight.

A plan began to form in his mind. “May I take a few?”

“You may keep it all, if you like,” Domah said. “Just do what we planned.”

Lorgash turned the nugget over between his fingers for a few moments, studying it thoughtfully. He looked back up at Domah. “There may be a better way.” He took out two more nuggets, then handed the bag back to the woman. “Do the humans know you run a trading post?”

Domah nodded. “I’m sure they do, or they wouldn’t have known where to find us.”

“Good.” Lorgash pocketed the nuggets. “Pack you a bag as well, and make a third robe.” He placed his hand on Silas’ shoulder. “You make sure your mother does this.”

The boy nodded.

“Remember this,” Lorgash said. “Hunger Moon or not, I am under the obligation of your hospitality. No matter how things might appear, I am bound by that.” Then he explained his plan.

* * *

Lorgash slipped from the house just as the first stars twinkled overhead. He made sure the sharpened bit of metal he’d slipped into his cuff was well hidden before heading toward the nearest troll. He was amused to find the picket’s back turned. Lorgash cleared his throat.

The troll spun, drawing his sword.

Lorgash chuckled. “Put that away. I need to speak to Yusslig.”

The troll looked at him warily. “You are helping the turned-out.”

“I was placed under obligation before I knew who she was.”

The troll’s eyes narrowed for a moment before he led the way to the trading post. They went in through the front door, which was visible from the barn. Good.

The moment Lorgash entered, the trolls drew back as far as they could in the crowded hut.

Yusslig smiled. “I see you’ve come to your senses.”

Lorgash nodded. “I didn’t know she had been turned out before I accepted her hospitality,”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Yusslig said. “You were always a stickler for the law. There was talk of having you preside over the court.”

Lorgash raised his eyebrows, not knowing whether to believe him. “The boy should not be condemned.”

“True,” Yusslig said. “Yet though he may only be a quarter troll, that quarter is strong indeed. I wouldn’t think he’d stand aside when we come to take his mother. If he gets in the way …” The chieftain shrugged.

“What if he were to go to Ravensdale?”

“Ravensdale? You would bring them smallpox?”

“Targlor says he has learned how to protect trolls from smallpox. He says Ravensdale is beyond its grasp. And they say the Christians have a sanctuary for the turned-out in the valley. They would take him to it.

“Perhaps. And when the boy is grown?”

“Have the humans told you why they are here?”

“Her husband killed the brother of one of their chieftains. Now they want to destroy his bloodline. Barbaric.”

“I thought as much. Even when they don’t lie, humans never tell the whole truth. The boy is heir to lands in the valley. If he’s dead, their chieftain can claim them.”

Yusslig locked eyes with Lorgash. “A quarter troll holds lands in the valley? Are they substantial?”

“In truth I do not know,” Lorgash said. “But they must be vast enough that humans would travel deep into troll lands and brave the coldest winter in ages, just to murder the rightful claimant.”

Yusslig drummed his fingers against his knee. “A troll with lands in the valley. It’s been half a century since our people held land there. Humans think land belongs to the individual and not the whole. But the boy is a quarter-troll, and we lost the valley in the wars.”

“If they did not think the claim was valid, they would not be here.”

Yusslig had a strange glint in his eye, like a naughty boy about to steal a lingonberry pie. “Craigskeep once had the valley.”

“It would be wise to take the boy to Ravensdale,” Lorgash said. “And his mother was turned out from Craigskeep.”

“Yes, yes. We can’t change that. But if Ravensdale moves to the valley …” Yusslig looked up. “Yes. You are quite right. The boy is free to go.”

“Thank you,” Lorgash said. He turned to leave, then paused as though he had a sudden thought. “The humans …”

Yusslig waved his hand. “Wait until the moon sets. We will let you pass and deal with the humans.” He placed his hand on the plaited strip at his side. “I give my word.”

Lorgash bowed his head to the chieftain and let himself out.

A gust of wind nearly knocked him over. Lorgash slipped his hand into his pocket and clasped the three nuggets in his fist. He pretended to stumble, as though too weak to fight the wind, moving ever closer to the human pickets.

This was the only part he was unsure of. Most of what he knew about humans was secondhand information. And Yusslig’s greed was a thin thing to trust, a promise on the plaited strip or not.

As soon as the house blocked the view of the trading post, he pretended to blunder toward the nearest humans. Two sets of gloved hands seized him. Lorgash reached for his knife and allowed the humans to take it. One struck him, hard. He fell, opening his hand as he hit the snow.

The humans stopped. Lorgash watched them stare at the nuggets. One jabbered as he scooped them up.

The other human drew his sword and pointed it at Lorgash. He motioned him toward the edge of the forest.

The humans took him to the side of the barn and moved planks aside to gain entrance. Lorgash pretended to be reluctant, refusing to enter until the human jabbed him with the sword.

To his surprise, the humans had made the barn halfway livable. They had built a divider across the stalls in the back and had placed stones in a circle to contain the fire. They looked almost civilized.

The humans talked excitedly, then two with pockmarked faces came forward with ropes. They pulled Lorgash’s hands in front of him and bound them around a rough-hewn post before searching him.

He watched the pickets give a nugget to Sigmund—the two other lumps of gold had strangely vanished. They spoke for a moment, the chieftain holding the nugget aloft as the others gathered around. They stared at the gleaming yellow metal.

Sigmund drew his dagger, walked to within a couple of paces of Lorgash, then held out the nugget in the palm of his hand. He gestured in the direction of the trading post, then to the nugget, then to the house, and finally motioned with the dagger as though cutting his throat. He repeated the gesture and waited.

Lorgash kept from smiling. In other words, had Yusslig paid him to kill Domah and Silas? He nodded. He looked at other humans and pretended to be frightened. Slowly he turned his eyes toward the nugget, twisted his bound hands forward and gestured like there was a pile of gold. Finally, he waved his hands as through covering it up.

Sigmund looked at him and repeated Lorgash’s gesture.

Lorgash nodded, pointed at himself with his thumb, then nodded toward the trading post. Yes, there was more and he’d show them where it was hidden.

Sigmund laughed, tossed the nugget into the air and caught it. He said something to his men, turned away from Lorgash and begin drawing a map in the dirt.

Lorgash watched, then eased the sliver of metal from his cuff and calmly sawed at the rope.

* * *

The first quarter moon had nearly set when the humans left the barn, leaving only one man with a loaded crossbow. He looked relaxed.

Lorgash had worn away the fibers until only a thin strand was left. All he needed was for the human to look away.

But the man kept his eyes on Lorgash, even as there came a shout of alarm from the trolls. He did not look away for a moment.

Lorgash silently cursed the guard’s attentiveness. He took a deep breath and saw the human tense. He broke the remaining fibers of the rope with a sudden jerk and dove for the ground. He rolled, the broadhead nicking his tunic.

The guard flung the crossbow at Lorgash. The troll caught it just as the human drew his sword. Lorgash used it to parry the guard’s thrust, and stepped inside the human’s reach.

The man backed away, trying to get room to swing.

Lorgash dropped the crossbow and grabbed the human in a bear hug. He gave him a quick squeeze to knock the breath out of him, then whirled him upside down and drove him against the ground. The man sprawled across the earthen floor, his neck twisted at an odd angle and his limbs jerking. Lorgash picked up the human’s sword—it felt small and awkward—and ran outside.

The wind hit him like a solid thing. He stumbled but kept his footing.

The humans had breached the trading post. The clamor of hand-to-hand combat resounded within. The humans had set torches outside the trading post, the wind stretching the flames into dragon’s tongues.

Lorgash raced for the house. He found the door splintered and two humans just outside. One darted back as though to avoid a blow. From within, he heard Domah yelling in Norse and Silas singing a troll battle hymn. Lorgash stepped forward, grabbed the nearest human by his hood, and drew his sword across the man’s throat.

The remaining human battled someone in the doorway. Lorgash approached closer and saw Silas, a human sword in his hand, trying to defend the entranceway. The boy was obviously tiring.

Lorgash raised his sword.

At that moment, Silas must have seen the troll come up behind his opponent; a look of relief suddenly swept over the child’s face.

The man glanced behind him and whirled in time to block Lorgash’s blow. He swung again before the troll could recover.

Lorgash managed to block him, the blow nearly wrenching the tiny sword from his hand. With effort Lorgash brought his sword up, throwing the man’s sword back—and leaving him open.

Silas lunged forward, throwing his weight behind his sword.

The man collapsed into a heap.

Lorgash stepped inside.

The two pockmarked humans were in the room. One lay on the floor, dying in a pool of blood. Domah, wielding a makeshift spear—she had lashed the kitchen knife to the broom handle—had backed the other one into the corner. With his movement restricted, he could only deflect the crude weapon. She made a feint at the pockmarked man’s neck, then jabbed his knee.

He fell with a groan. Lorgash stepped forward and, with a well-aimed thrust, caught the human in his liver. He threw his weight behind the sword, pinning him to the floor. Domah stepped forward and slashed the pockmarked man’s neck.

Lorgash guarded the door until the noise of battle ceased. He motioned for Domah and Silas to stay back, then silently crept outside. He kept to the shadows before darting across the clearing to the trading post. There he found Yusslig, wounded, lying in the snow near the body of Sigmund. All the other Craigskeep men were dead. Lorgash spat onto the snow. Like weasels, humans were efficient little killers.

Yusslig, gasping for breath, looked up at Lorgash. “You are helping a turned-out.”

Lorgash stooped and picked up Yusslig’s sword. He clasped the haft in both hands, the point hovering above the troll’s neck. He shrugged. “It’s the Hunger Moon.” He brought the sword down with a sudden thrust, then moved to Sigmund’s body.

The surviving humans were ripping up the floorboards when Lorgash stepped in front of the doorway. They stopped only when he pretended to call orders to more men. With a roar, he charged into the trading post, his sword in one hand and Sigmund’s head held aloft in the other. Lorgash flung their chieftain’s head into their midst.

The remaining humans fled out the back door of the trading post and into the woods beyond.

Lorgash stared numbly at his handiwork. In the darkness it was hard to tell human from troll. So many to bury, he thought. Like Haalswood, toward the end.

Something broke loose inside him. Lorgash fell to his knees in the doorway and wept in great sobs. The wind curled its arms around him and joined him with a howl.

* * *

Domah, Silas, and Lorgash climbed down the ridge. Ravensdale lay before them. Lorgash saw the church where the firepit should be, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust. Targlor, a wooden cross about his neck, made his way toward them through the thinning snow.

“Are you sure you won’t come to the sanctuary?” Domah said.

“Yes.”

“You would be welcomed.”

Lorgash gazed at the mountains. “I need solitude.”

“I think I understand. I hope you find peace there.”

“Can any of us find peace?”

Domah closed her eyes. “I don’t know. They say time heals all wounds, but …”

“I guess we’ll have to find out,” Lorgash said. “Take care.” He turned up the trail toward the ridge.

“Mr. Lorgash?” Silas said.

The troll turned back to the boy.

“Please try.”

Lorgash smiled. “I promise I will.” He patted Silas on the shoulder, then made his way back up the trail to the top of the ridge. There, Lorgash paused.

Domah and Silas met Targlor halfway down the slope to the village. Lorgash could see her speaking. The Christian troll crossed himself and spoke, then led them down the path toward the valley, where the sanctuary for the turned-out lay.

Lorgash turned back to the trail. He spied a tiny point of white in the blue sky and blinked. Venus in the daylight: A good omen. He shifted his pack, larger and with more provisions than the one he’d brought to the homestead, and headed for the beckoning mountains.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Johnny Plays ‘Round Saturn’s Rings

Written by Jason K. Chapman

Illustrated by Maurine Starkey

The hospital always smelled icky to Johnny, like someone was trying to scrub out the inside of his nose. He wondered if all hospitals were like that or just the one on the half-gee ring of Ares Station. If Dad would just get better, Mom would stop crying at night and Johnny wouldn’t have to come to this awful place anymore.

He stared at the floor on the way to Dad’s room so he wouldn’t see any sick people. It’s not that he was afraid of them. He was almost nine, after all. It’s just that they made him feel weird, like he was supposed to feel stuff and say stuff and he didn’t know what, so he stayed close to Mom and counted the floor tiles. That’s why the first thing he saw of the mandroid was its feet.

Mom squeezed his hand. “Johnny, this is Miss Dimarco.”

He’d heard of them, but Johnny had never seen one in real life. It was all white and kind of glittery. It was shaped like a person, except for the huge chest, but it didn’t look like a “Miss” anything. Even though it wasn’t wearing clothes, it didn’t have any of the stuff he’d seen in those pictures Chaz Tyler had stashed on his datapad. It looked more like one of the evil robot soldiers on that episode of Warbirds of Mars. Captain Hawk really gave them what for, didn’t he? The mandroid’s face was a little scary. Flashy lenses instead of eyes and a mouth that was just a slit made it look mean.

“Johnny,” Mom said. “It’s not polite to stare.”

“That’s okay.” The mandroid’s voice was pretty. Not at all like one of Lord Maxtron’s robot soldiers, but somehow that just made it scarier. “It’s a lot to take in all at once.”

Johnny pressed a little closer to Mom’s side when the mandroid squatted down. It moved just like a person. It wasn’t clanky or mechanical at all. The mouth curved up on both sides like it was smiling. That was creepy.

“Call me Mi,” the mandroid said.

Still stunned, Johnny mumbled, “You you?”

“Johnny!” Mom used that voice he hated.

“Emm Eye,” the mandroid said. “My name is Mi.”

Johnny tried to remember all the junk he’d read about mandroids on the ‘net. There wasn’t much. “You used to be a person?”

Mi’s laugh made him shiver, but in a good way, like when he got his hair cut, or when Mom just barely touched the back of his neck. “I’m still a person,” Mi said. It—she?—it touched its enormous chest. “In here is the brain I was born with. The rest is prosthetics, like artificial limbs or picofilter kidneys.”

He jumped when she held her hand out to him. Crap! Now everyone would think he was a baby.

“It’s okay,” Mi said. “Touch my hand.”

He had to, now, just so no one would think he was scared. His hand shook as he touched her. The skin was warm and not as rubbery as it looked. It felt kind of good, actually. Then he looked up at its face again and jerked his hand back. He didn’t know what to do.

Mom was no help. She just looked down at him. She was smiling, but she had that look like she was about to cry.

“Come on.” Mi stood up and waved him along. “Your dad’s waiting to see you.”

Dad was in a different room. This one he had all to himself. The big wall screen was set to window mode. It wasn’t really a window. Everyone knew that. It just slaved the screen to cameras at the hub of the space station. The mottled surface of Mars filled half the screen. Johnny tried to spot the dust storm his teacher said was one of the biggest in years.

“Hey, Jaybird.”

He hated when Dad called him that—at least when he did it in front of other people. Johnny glanced at where Mi stood by the door. Maybe mandroids didn’t count.

Johnny went to the side of the bed. “Hey, Dad.” Dad looked worse than ever. His face was all gray and shriveled, like an apple that sat in the fruit bowl too long. The bed was tilted up. It looked like he couldn’t even raise his head.

Johnny wanted to cry, but Mom said he shouldn’t cry when they visited Dad. It just made him sadder, and that made him weaker. Johnny had to help his Dad be strong. He took Dad’s hand, ignoring how dry and brittle it felt. Johnny was afraid the fingers might break off if he held it too tight. He tried—tried so hard—to be brave and strong. He didn’t want to hurt Dad, to make him weak, but he couldn’t stop himself. He began to cry.

“It’s okay, Jaybird.” Dad’s voice was soft and whispery. “Everything will be okay.”

Johnny leaned over and put his head on Dad’s shoulder, wishing he could hug him, that Dad could pick him up and swing him around like he used to.

Dad reached over with his other hand and touched the back of Johnny’s head. He began to sing the special song.

“Johnny plays ‘round Saturn’s rings/Teaching moons to dance and sing./When the moons have had their fun/Off to Neptune Johnny runs.”

The song exploded into a fit of coughing and Mom rushed over to give Dad some water. It was better, then, with Mom sitting on the edge of the bed and all three of them huddled together.

With a finger under Johnny’s chin, Dad lifted his head. “I see you’ve met my friend Mi.”

Johnny had forgotten all about the mandroid. “Your friend?”

“She’s a very nice person, Johnny.” Dad’s milky eyes stared, looking almost like they used to. “It’s important that you get to know her.”

“But they’re bad!” Johnny pulled away, looking from Dad to Mom. “Everybody says so.”

Dad closed his eyes and turned his head away, sighing. “I told you. It won’t work. I can’t do this to him.”

Mom reached out and brushed Johnny’s hair back from his forehead then swept her hand around to cup her palm against his cheek. “Johnny, sometimes when people get sick, the doctors can’t make them well again.”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said. I was wrong.” She slid her hand down to his shoulder. “This way, your dad doesn’t have to leave us.”

Johnny stepped back, looking away. He caught himself before he turned to look behind him, staring instead at Mom’s hand hanging where his shoulder had been. He thought he knew the answer, but he had to ask. “What way?”

Mom looked like she was trying to smile. It was the same look she’d had when she first told him Dad was sick. “As a mandroid.”

* * *

Everything was ruined. Johnny stared up at the wall of sleeper tubes. He hated living in the ‘combs. Stacked fifty high and wide enough that they disappeared in both directions where the floor curved up, the tubes weren’t even big enough to sit up inside. In their apartment on quarter-gee, Johnny’d had a whole room to himself. That was before Dad got so sick. Now he and Mom had side-by-side tubes on row thirty-seven.

“Can I jump?” They were so close to the hub of the station that there was very little downforce.

“Use the ladder, honey.” Mom frowned, watching a man jump up to level twenty. He grabbed the hand bar and swung, feet first, into an open tube. His hand snaked out and pulled the hatch closed. “Jumping is rude.”

“Chaz Tyler says the ‘combs are for losers.” Chaz was in Johnny’s class. He was a jerk, but he knew everything about everything. All the kids said so.

“Chaz Tyler is a—” Mom looked angry. She crossed her arms like she did when Johnny forgot to clean up after breakfast.

“Is a what, Mom?”

“He’s just wrong, that’s all.”

“But he says—”

“Enough!” She looked really angry for a second, but only for a second. Then her eyes got all shiny. She knelt down and crushed Johnny against her. “I’m sorry, Johnny. Chaz is just being mean. Some kids are like that. Okay?”

Johnny nodded against her shoulder, wondering if he still had to be strong, because he felt like crying again. Seeing Mom sad made him hurt. “Mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I miss Dad.”

“Me too, baby.” She shook all over. “But he’ll be back soon.”

“No, he won’t.” He felt Mom stiffen when he said it. She wasn’t holding him quite so close any more. “He’s never coming back.”

“Yes, he will!” She pulled away and looked at him. “He’ll still be your dad.”

Johnny just shrugged and looked up at the wall of sleeping tubes. “Mandroids don’t sleep, do they?”

“Not really. They do have to rest, though.” Mom scrunched her face up, like Johnny did during history tests. “They have to hook up to a device that filters the cerebral solution and adds nutrients, but they don’t sleep the way other people do.”

“Then they don’t need a sleeper tube. They don’t have to come here, right?”

Mom sighed. “No, Johnny.”

The crowd swept past them, coming and going. No one paid any attention to Johnny and Mom. “Good,” he said.

* * *

Except for his weekly exercise periods, Johnny spent very little time down on the full-gee ring. He hated feeling like he weighed as much as a whole planet. But Mom was at work and school was out and he was too old to need a babysitter but Mom said to go with Miss Dimarco and it was all just dumb dumb dumb!

They went to the bank, and then to a computer store, and then to a communications center. Everywhere they went, people stared or whispered behind their hands. Some pulled away, as if the mandroid really was one of Lord Maxtron’s evil robots. Johnny tried to stay far enough back that people might think he just happened to be going the same direction. There was this one guy, with narrow eyes and dark, greasy hair, that just stared and stared. It seemed like everywhere they went, the greasy guy was there, watching.

Maybe it would be better if Dad just died. Johnny stopped short right in middle of the corridor, shocked at his own thoughts. Someone bumped into him from behind and muttered a quick “Watch it, kid.”

Oh, please. Please. I didn’t mean it.

His face felt hot. He wanted to hide, sure that everyone knew the terrible thing that was in his mind. Ahead, the mandroid paused and looked back. He hurried on before it could say something and let everyone know they were together.

He followed Mi into the offices of a place called StarMines. Inside StarMines, everything was different. The woman at the front desk jumped up and ran to the mandroid, squealing. “Mi! It’s so good to see you. When did you get back? How’s Max? Why didn’t you call?”

Johnny stared, trying to understand. The woman kissed the mandroid’s cheeks! Was she crazy? Other employees came by and they all acted like the mandroid was just another person, like they didn’t even know they were talking to a thing. Maybe it had some kind of mind control ray.

With a quick “Wait here, Johnny,” everyone vanished behind a plain plasteel door. Johnny sat down in the waiting area and poked blindly at one of the magpads. It wasn’t like the waiting room at the doctor’s office. The pad didn’t have anything fun to read. A mind control ray would be great, wouldn’t it? They could make Johnny think the mandroid was his real dad, make it so he couldn’t see the people staring or hear the whispers. They could make him forget that everybody hated him.

It seemed like hours before Mi came back, even though Johnny’s watch said it had only been thirty minutes. The mandroid stood next to him for a while before saying anything. “Are you ready to go? Or should I leave first and you can follow at a safe distance?”

Johnny put the magpad down. “Can we stay here?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

Johnny looked past the mandroid to the receptionist’s desk. “Everyone likes you here.”

The mandroid shook its head back and forth. “You can’t worry so much about what other people think. You’ll end up doing the wrong thing every time.”

“Then how do you know what the right thing is?”

The mandroid looked at the ceiling then back down at him. “I don’t know, Johnny. You just figure it out.”

“Then I shouldn’t care what you think, either?”

“I guess not.” Mi turned and headed for the door. “Coming?”

Johnny followed, but not too closely. As they walked down the corridor, he stared at the floor or checked his watch, anything to avoid the stares. He tried not to care what the people in the corridor thought, hoping “the right thing” would come to him, but it didn’t. He barely noticed when the hallway widened into an atrium. They were in the broad mall that surrounded the big elevator. The ceiling curved up and away, becoming a spoke of the huge wheel that was Ares Alpha Station. The whole place was smeared with green leaves and bright, colorful flowers. It made Johnny’s nose itch.

Mi looked up at the departure screen. “Twenty minutes until the next elevator.”

Johnny just shrugged, trying not to look right at the mandroid. It shrugged back at him, like it was trying to prove it was just like him. When Mi sat at the end of one of the benches, the guy at the other end jumped up and hurried off. Johnny took his seat.

“Everybody hates you,” Johnny said.

Mi shrugged again. “Do you hate me?”

Johnny thought about it. He didn’t, really. He just hated having to be seen with it. “No.”

“Good.” It did that creepy smile thing again. “Because I don’t think they hate me. I think they’re just afraid. I’m different. I can do things they can’t. I can go outside without a suit. I can work longer hours without getting tired. I don’t have to eat. That kind of thing scares them.”

“Why?”

The mandroid leaned forward, arms on its knees. It looked more human that way. “You know that song your dad sang?”

“It’s just baby stuff! He used to sing it to me when I was little.”

The mandroid turned its face toward him and smiled. It shook a little, like it was trying not to laugh. “I guess so. The thing is, Johnny, these people are afraid that people like me are the future, that if anyone is ever going to play around Saturn’s rings, it will be us, not them. It frightens them, because if we’re the future, then they’re the past.”

“That’s silly.” Johnny swung his feet back and forth, feeling the heavy tug toward the floor. “Who wants to go to Saturn?”

The mandroid sighed and looked up at the high ceiling. “I wish Max were here. He could explain it so much better.”

“Who’s Max?”

“My husband.”

Johnny stared at her, shocked. He let his mouth hang open.

“Yes,” Mi went on. “He’s like me. In fact, he was the first one. We’re asteroid miners. Out in the belt. It’s dangerous work. Anyway, I got hurt—badly. StarMines paid to save me. They made me like this. Now Max and I work for them while we pay them back.”

“Husband?”

“Yes, Johnny. That’s why I have friends at StarMines. I stayed there for a long, long time, just like your dad is now. That’s the way it works. Months and months of isolation, deaf and blind, while you learn to use your body all over again. You can’t move. You can’t talk. You …” The mandroid buried its face in its hands. Its voice came out in a whisper. “It was awful.”

Johnny wasn’t sure what to do. He inched along the bench until he could just reach. It was a weird idea, but Mi seemed to be hurting inside. He stretched his arm out and patted her on the shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” Johnny said. “It’ll be okay.”

Mi uncovered her face. She looked at his hand for a moment and then nodded to him. “Yeah, I think it will.”

Johnny went back to swinging his legs. He looked at the crowd walking through the mall. Then he spotted the greasy man again. He was standing way on the other side of the elevator, watching them. “He’s not afraid,” Johnny said.

He looked over at Mi. She was watching the greasy man, too. “I’ve noticed him.”

“Do you know him?”

“No.” She kept staring across the mall. That was another trick mandroids had. They didn’t have to blink. “I think you’re right, though. He’s not afraid.”

* * *

It took Johnny forever to talk her into it, but finally Mi gave in. She took him to the Bounce Park. It was the greatest place on the whole station. It sat on the station’s axle, so there wasn’t any spin. It was a big freefall playground, full of ropes and beams and bars and stuff you could push off of or swing around on. You could see Mars through the big glass dome that covered it. Johnny hadn’t been there in months, because Mom said it was too expensive. That didn’t make sense, though. Everyone else still went.

Mi waved her credit chit at the attendant’s wand. He stared and stared. It was kinda funny, the look on his face. He didn’t look afraid at all. He looked at her like she was the sub-zeroest thing he’d ever seen. Johnny smirked and took Mi’s hand. Maybe being with her wasn’t so bad.

They cycled through the airlock and there it was. Mars stared back at them through the thousands of transparent Lunamum panes in the blister’s framework. It felt like he was there, out in space. Some day, when he was grown, he’d go out there for real.

“Just go easy at first.” Johnny wanted to make sure Mi didn’t look too much like a beginner, because some of the kids laughed at guppies. “Make sure you don’t—”

Mi dove into open air. She did some kind of rolling, twisting flip and landed with her feet against the big padded beam that everyone called Big Red. Johnny had never seen anything like it before, and he’d been coming to the Bounce Park all his life. He tried to copy it, but lost track of which way he was pointing. He untucked and found himself off target. Mi grabbed his wrist as he slid by. She pushed off and the two of them pinwheeled, hands together, like it was all on purpose. She hooked a passing cross bar with her foot, flipped them around, and brought them to rest on the long arched ladder that followed the dome’s curve.

“Wow.” Johnny smiled. He could see some of the other kids faces. They were impressed.

Mi giggled like the girls in Johnny’s class. “Just go easy, at first.”

Johnny laughed, too. “This is called the Rainbow, you know.”

“What is?”

“This ladder. See how it’s curved?”

Chaz Tyler zoomed in like a comet. He thumped onto the ladder next to Johnny, but he was staring at Mi.

“What’s wrong, Johnny?” Chaz sneered at her. “Couldn’t get any real people to play with you?”

Johnny felt trapped. He didn’t want to hurt Mi, she was really kinda nice, but this was Chaz Tyler. Even if he was a jerk, he was still the kid everyone wanted to know and no one wanted to cross.

Mi shook her head. “Go away, brat.”

“My father says mandroids are cowards.” Chaz stuck his tongue out at her. “He says they should just have the guts to die like everybody else!”

“You shut up!” Johnny felt like he was going to throw up. All he could think of was Dad’s gray, shriveled face against a bright, white hospital pillow. Hadn’t he thought that very same thought? Hadn’t he wished his father dead?

“Come on, Johnny.” Mi crouched on the ladder, ready to jump. “Stupidity is contagious.”

“Take it back.” Johnny balled his fists up, still seeing Dad’s milky eyes. “You take that back!”

Tyler laughed at him. “Who stuck a rocket up your—”

“Oh, my God!” Mi’s voice snapped Johnny’s attention back to the Bounce Park. He followed her gaze. That same man, the greasy one that had been following them, was braced against Big Red. He raised some kind of huge-looking gun, pointing it at them.

“Death to the blasphemers!” The man screamed like he was in pain. “Death to the life stealers!”

Mi slammed into Johnny’s side. Her arm wrapped around him as they rolled. Then they banged into Chaz. Three huge booms shook the air. Johnny felt something go thump, but he couldn’t see what was going on. Mi was in the way. A loud whistle hurt Johnny’s ears, drowning out Chaz’s screams.

Mi rolled again. Across the park, an attendant wrestled with the greasy man as the gun drifted loose, out of reach.

“Move!” Mi grabbed Johnny’s arm and jumped toward the crossbar where the swing ropes floated. They almost missed, but Mi caught one of the ropes near where it clipped onto the bar. That’s when Johnny saw the hole in Mi’s lower back. Yellowish goo oozed out.

“You’re hurt!”

“I know.”

Two more attendants grappled with the greasy man, but Johnny looked away when something went crack behind him. The air screamed toward a ragged hole in one of the Lunamum panels.

“Go, Johnny.” Mi pulled him around to face the exit. “Get out of the park.”

“But what about—”

“Move!” She picked him up and shoved him toward the curly bars near the airlock. When Johnny looked back, he saw Mi flying through the air, gobbets of yellow stuff trailing behind her. When he reached the curly bars, he stopped to watch her. The blow-out alarm started wailing. His head spun from the noise. Mi flew like a rocket. She shot back and forth through the park, grabbing kids, adults, everyone, and launching them toward the lock. More attendants showed up, darting around to help clear the park.

“Chaz!” Johnny saw the bully drifting free. Still near the dome, he was crying, reaching frantically for something to grab on to, but he was too far away. His only momentum was the steady drag of air toward the hole in the dome.

Johnny shouted Mi’s name, trying to tell her about Chaz, but she couldn’t hear him over all the noise. Chaz looked really scared.

Twenty minutes. That’s how long the brochure said it would take to lose air if just one of the panes blew out. That was forever.

One of the attendants landed near Johnny and reached for him. “Let’s go, kid.”

Johnny did a quick flip, one hand on the bar, and came up on the other side, out of reach. He crouched, aimed, and jumped as hard as he could. He zoomed toward the dome, narrowly missing an attendant who was crossing the open middle of the park. Almost a minute later, he collided with Chaz. Johnny held on, letting his momentum carry them both out to the surface of the dome. He landed on his feet, using his legs as a cushion, not far from the ragged, screaming hole.

Without a word, terror on his face, Chaz pushed off toward the rainbow. Another cracking sound split the air. Johnny felt it through his feet. He was dizzy and his head felt funny. Which way was the airlock? He pushed off, hoping he was pointing the right way.

A flash of white. A thump on his chest. Steel vices clamped down on his arms. He spun around and then thump! The whistling rush of air went silent.

“Are you okay?” Mi held him by the arms, staring at him. Her back was plastered against the dome. The sound of groaning metal came from all around them.

Johnny nodded, blinking back the speckles that flashed across his eyes.

The dome creaked again. “You have to go, Johnny. My skin will block the leak for now, but you have to go. I don’t know if the dome will hold.”

“What about you?”

“Go, Johnny.” Mi smiled at him. “I don’t breathe, remember?”

The dome shuddered. Johnny nodded to her. He turned and jumped for the rainbow. The park looked clear, but a crowd of people still waited in turns to cycle through the airlock. He knew Mi would stay where she was until everyone was through. He also knew that if the dome gave way, she’d be gone. She’d spiral down into Mars’s atmosphere, with no chance of rescue.

Still dizzy, he paused at the rainbow just long enough to set his feet. He dove for the swinging ropes. He shook his head, trying to think clearly. He almost missed the rope. It slapped his face and he clutched at it, swinging around the crossbar. He went around twice before pulling himself in. His fingers felt numb, but he managed to fumble with the clip and get it loose. Hanging on to the rope as tight as he could, he tried again to shake his vision clear. He jumped back to the rainbow.

“Johnny, no!”

Mom? No, Mi. Someone shouted, “Get him.” Everything got dark and drowsy until something whacked his shoulder. He spun from the impact, but managed to get a hand on one rung of the rainbow.

“Johnny, get to the lock right now!”

The rope. He still had the rope. He looped it around the ladder’s rail and through the clip. Mi was shaking her head and yelling at him, but nothing made sense except the rope. With the free end held tight in his fist, he jumped to her.

Mi’s grip kept him from bouncing back when the rope stretched tight. It was just long enough for her to grab the end of it.

“Sorry.” Johnny tugged on the rope. “Can’t tie it. Won’t reach.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. Just go.”

Johnny put his hand on hers. “Don’t leave me. Hold on.” He could barely keep his eyes open. “Please don’t die.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Johnny.”

Something grabbed him from behind. “Gotcha, kid. You’re all right, now.” The voice was muffled by an emergency air mask.

Johnny never remembered leaving the park. He just remembered the muffled voice that kept saying, “You’re a brave kid. A really brave kid.”

* * *

The next time Johnny saw Mi, she was in a wheel chair. Mom took him down to the StarMines offices for a visit. Mi’s room looked a lot like a hospital room, but it didn’t smell icky at all. She wheeled up to him as he and Mom entered the room.

Johnny couldn’t help staring at the chair. “Are you okay?”

She smiled at him. “My legs don’t work, but other than that… .” She shrugged.

“Will you heal?”

She smiled again. “No.” Then she laughed that girly giggle Johnny loved. “But I can be repaired. Dr. Gianelli says I’ll be as good as new in a few weeks.”

Mom kneeled next to him. “You’ll meet him later, Johnny, but I knew you wanted to see Mi right away.”

“You did a brave thing,” Mi said. “Thank you.”

Johnny stared at his feet. “It was dumb. They said the dome didn’t even blow out.”

Mom hugged him. “It might have. What you did was still brave and I’m very proud of you. And from what I hear, you helped Chaz Tyler, too.”

Johnny snorted. “Big baby.”

“Come on.” Mi rolled her chair past them and toward the door. “There’s someone who wants to see you.”

Holding Mom’s hand, he followed Mi out of the room and down the corridor. They took the first right and stopped. Standing in the middle of the hallway was another mandroid.

Johnny stepped up next to Mi, but he couldn’t stop staring at this new mandroid. It was a little taller than Mi and its face was better. The skin crinkled at the corners of its eyes and it had a real-looking mouth. Its lips trembled.

Johnny gave Mi a quick glance. “What do I do?”

“Just go slow at first.” Mi smiled and Johnny wondered why he’d ever thought it looked creepy. “Just be you.”

The new mandroid’s voice sounded funny. It was deep and wobbly. It said something that sounded like “wayburg.”

Uncertain, Johnny looked at Mi. Mom came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Johnny. Look.”

Unsteady, the mandroid kneeled slowly. Its hands shook as it held them out toward him. The voice was clearer this time. “Bonnie pay sound pattern swing—”

The words made no sense, but the melody did. Johnny ran and threw himself into Dad’s waiting arms.

* * *

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Framed

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COLUMNS:

Words Matter

Written by Mike Resnick

Ever hear of Joe Esterhaus?

No reason why you should. He doesn’t know that Jim Baen’s Universe exists. As far as I know, he’s never read a word of science fiction.

I know about him, though. The reason I know is because he makes over a million dollars a screenplay, and is one of the very few writers, even in an industry that seems to play with Monopoly money, to pull down that kind of fee.

Ever hear of Tom Cruise? Brad Pitt? George Clooney? Harrison Ford? Julia Roberts? Sandra Bullock?

Sure you have. They make ten million or more per film, plus a piece of the gross—and that, of course, has nothing to do with the quality of the film. Film bombs, film makes no sense, film has an IQ that would freeze water (and they’ve all made their share of them), they get their money anyway.

So what does this have to do with science fiction?

Bear with me while I explain.

Recently Carol and I rented some Tales of Tomorrow DVDs from Netflix. That’s a show that was run from 1949 to 1951, starting when we were 7 years old. It was in black-and-white, of course, always performed live (and you wouldn’t believe how many professional actors from Lee J. Cobb on down muffed their lines), and boasted a series of young actors like Paul Newman who became household names.

About one in every seven episodes was pretty good, always allowing for the minimal budget and live performances by unprepared actors. About one in seven was acceptable. And about five in seven were unwatchable.

Moral: if the story is dumb, an actor, no matter how good he is, can’t make it any smarter.

Then we tried Suspense, also from 1949. Another nice batch of actors: kids like Newman and Charlton Heston, established stars like Lili Palmer and Boris Karloff.

Not just bad, but embarrassingly, snicker-out-loud bad. Even those brilliant actors couldn’t save it.

Finally, for her birthday, I got Carol a complete set of bootleg DVDs of the fondly-remembered but never-released 2-year 78-episode run of Science Fiction Theater from 1955 and 1956, a time when most purported science fiction movies were actually anti-science and usually ended with lines such as “There are some things man was not meant to know.” Science Fiction Theater was like a breath of fresh air, because it was clearly of the opinion that there is nothing man wasn’t meant to know or learn. Each of these shows was introduced by Truman Bradley, in a state-of-the-art lab (circa 1955) that I would kill to play in. He’d show a couple of related cutting-edge experiments (also circa 1955), and then explain that the episode you were about to see extrapolated from the experiments he’d just demonstrated. No stars at all. Probably the biggest names were Warren Stevens and John Howard, a couple of journeyman B-movie actors.

And the shows were pretty damned good. Hell, for the time, they were remarkably good.

And they were good for a simple reason: the producer understood that without a good script, all the stars in the world can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

The principle still holds true today. Take a look at the latest Indiana Jones film. Got a huge superstar—Harrison Ford. Got the most powerful director in history—Stephen Spielberg. Got the most successful producer in history—George Lucas. Got a laughably bad script. End result: a laughably bad film.

It was true in 1949, and in 1955, and it’s true today: every play and every movie starts with The Word. You ignore the words and you’d better be making a silent film or a ballet, or else you’re in deep trouble from the get-go. Writers know that; television and movie executives still haven’t figured it out.

Let me close with a wonderful (and true) story:

The great director Frank Capra was giving an interview to a few members of the press back in the 1940s, talking about how he put the famed “Capra Touch” on this scene and that … and finally his screenwriter could stand it no more. He walked over with a ream of blank paper, tossed it on the startled director’s desk, and snapped: “Here! Put this Capra touch on this!”

A lesson worth remembering.

* * *

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The Future of Reading

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

God bless Dave Eggers.

Dave Eggers, who wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Dave Eggers, who founded McSweeney’s http://www.mcsweeneys.net/, the influential literary magazine. Dave Eggers, who founded 826 Valencia http://www.826national.org, a nonprofit center originally founded to teach literacy and the love of books to young people in San Francisco and which has since expanded to six other cities. Dave Eggers, who has done all those things and more, has written an essay for the October Esquire on the future of reading.

And finally, finally, I feel vindicated.

Because Dave Eggers, unlike so many other great literary figures of their generation (as Esquire calls Eggers) does not engage in fear mongering.

Dave Eggers engages in statistics.

Dave Eggers points out the fallacies of the studies by pointing to facts.

Like this one: Since 2002, juvenile book sales have shown compound annual growth of 4.6 percent for hardcover books and 2.1 percent for paperbacks.

He also debunks fake facts.

Like this one, which has been a thorn in my side for a year now: The National Endowment for the Arts released a study that claimed young people are reading fewer books than they did a generation before. As I wrote to half a dozen terrified professional writers’ listserves at the time, the NEA study’s methodology is flawed. If you look in the bowels of the report, you’ll find that the sample was limited: it came from a follow-up Census Bureau report that queried only a few thousand people in one section of the country. The conclusions in the NEA report were clearly done by a non-statistician. Yet news organizations ran with it, and scared entire groups of writers. (Oh, no! No one will buy my books five years from now!)

Of that study, Eggers writes, “Now, thankfully, the study is taken with a grain of salt.”

Eggers deals with the growth of the internet (which has provided more things to read (like, um, this magazine) and the gaming industry (many of whose fans get introduced to reading by reading game tie-ins) and on, and on, and on.

Go look up the article. You can find it here http://www.esquire.com/features/75-most-influential/dave_-eggers-1008?click=main_sr/.

What makes me so happy about it?

Sometimes I feel like a person whistling in a wind storm. For some reason, everyone who reads wants to believe that the younger generation isn’t reading enough or isn’t reading at all when the statistics prove otherwise.

I have been arguing for decades, literally for decades, using facts and figures to back up my words, that the number of readers of all ages has grown. But the largest growth, especially in the last ten years, has been among young readers.

J.K. Rowling herself has disproved all of the negative talk just by writing the Harry Potter books. Kids not only read Harry Potter, they live Harry Potter. Remember all those midnight parties? They were for a book launch. And they were filled with children. Excited, interested children.

Study after study, done with proper methodology, has found that once a child finds a book to love that child will read for the rest of her life.

And here’s the fun stuff for the sf/f genre. The biggest selling YA titles are fantasy. Harry Potter, of course. Lemony Snicket. The Phillip Pullman books.

Cory Doctorow, another big fan of statistics, pointed out in a recent Locus column http://www.locusmag.com that science fiction (not fantasy) has a greater audience in the YA category than it does in the adult category. Single titles of YA sf books sell more copies than single titles of adult science fiction books.

What does that mean for the sf genre? Well, Cory believes it means that sf has found its niche again. That sf’s ideal reader was always twelve and we’ve only returned to that now.

Well, yes, I suppose that’s right.

But what it really means is that we sf readers are going to experience a boom in the number of sf titles published in the young adult and the adult category in about ten to fifteen years. We will hit a new golden age of science fiction. We’re going to have so much to read that we won’t be able to look at it all, let alone read it all.

Why am I so certain of that?

Because I’ve seen it before.

Back when I was editing The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, I wrote a series of editorials on reading. One of those was on R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. My tenure at F&SF overlapped the R.L. Stine phenomenon.

Here’s an excerpt from my August, 1995 editorial (which you can find in full on my website http://kriswrites.com/2008/10/12/august-1995):

“According to Publisher’s Weekly, the Goosebumps series (which is aimed at the 9-12 year old age group) accounted for 13 of the 15 paperback front list spots on the children’s bestseller lists in 1994. (It also accounted for 13 of the 15 paperback backlist spots.) Since the series debuted in 1993, it has sold 13,880,000 copies (or over 500,000 copies per novel). Children are reading. Goosebumps appeals to both boys and girls in the target age group, and for older children, Stine has another series called Fear Street. It’s not quite the same phenomenon—only 4 million copies sold to date—but the numbers are impressive enough to make R.L.Stine the hottest writer in America today. He’s hotter than John Grisham, Stephen King, and Danielle Steele.”

Because my real job as a science fiction writer is to study trends and how these trends will have an impact on the future, I predicted what would happen to R.L. Stine’s readers. Most of them were 10-12 years old. I figured that when they became college students, they wouldn’t have time to read for pleasure. But they would continue going to the movies. So around the year 2000 or so, horror movies would become big business among the coveted 18-25 year old viewing set.

And if you’ll notice, more horror movies have appeared in the last eight years than nearly the entire decade before that. Just this year alone, over two dozen horror movies have appeared according to the Internet Movie Data Base, and those were the ones I could track down.

I understood the pattern. It has proven me right. Once those 10-to-12-year-olds from 1994 became responsible adults (out of college, with a job and at least one child) they’ll start reading again. Why? Because going to the movies is too expensive. Compared to two ten dollar tickets plus snacks and gas and babysitting fees (what one friend of mine calls the $100 married couple date), a book with a $7.99 cover price for days of entertainment seems like an incredible bargain.

The person who was 10 in 1993 is 25 now, working a job, no longer doing, homework for school, so she has some time to read for pleasure again.

And sure enough, the horror novel has returned. It’s still growing, but last year was the first year that Borders separated books into a horror section again. New horror writers, like Joe Hill, have appeared on the bestseller list.

That trend will only continue. Because a large group of leisure readers will spend their book-buying dollars on one of their favorite genres—the one that got them reading in the first place. Horror.

Thank you, R.L. Stine.

J.K. Rowling will have the same effect on generations of readers. Right now, young readers are discovering long-time fantasy favorites from C.S. Lewis to Tolkien, while exploring the newer books in both the adult and young adult parts of the genre. Adults who read the Harry Potter books aloud to their child remembered how much they once loved fantasy novels and are returning to the fantasy aisle of the bookstore.

This trend will only continue, replicating the R.L. Stine phenomenon in movies and adult book titles.

Science fiction is the next boom. It won’t be as great as fantasy or even as the horror boom of the mid-1990s because as of right now, no sf writer has hit the heights blazed by R.L. Stine and J.K. Rowling.

But we’re only at the beginning of our phenomenon. And we have some candidates for upcoming superstardom, from Cory himself to Scott Westerfield, to name just two.

So—are kids reading? Of course they are, in greater numbers than ever before. And they’re reading books. Actual, physical books, as well as downloading e-books and listening to audio books on their MP3 players. Kids aren’t averse to reading online, so online markets will continue to grow.

But the books will remain. Because right now, no one has improved on the actual physical book. It’s easily transportable. It’s easy on the eyes. And it’s pretty when it sits next to its buddies on your bookshelf. A nice little visual of accomplishment, a great reminder of the worlds you’ve visited and plan to visit again.

We as readers should stop complaining that kids aren’t reading. They are.

We should notice.

We should applaud.

And we should support organizations like 826 Valencia which helps disadvantaged kids get their hands on books, learn how to write creatively, and get scholarships to college so that their enjoyment (and their reading) can continue.

So I mean it. God bless Dave Eggers. He has a bigger platform than I do. At the moment, Esquire has a bigger circulation than Baen’s Universe. (And why is that? Have you failed to encourage your friends to subscribe?)

People listen to him because places like Esquire call him one of the towering literary figures of his generation. And, in all fairness, he is.

But he also works in tandem with people like Michael Chabon. You know, Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize winner author who said in August that one of the most meaningful awards he’s ever won is the Hugo? You know. That Michael Chabon. The man who is doing more than anyone else to unite the mainstream of literature with our ghettoized genre.

Chabon co-founded the 826 Valencia scholarship program, which is going to get more and more young people to read. And getting some of them to read sf, even if it’s published by a Pulitzer Prize winner and shelved outside of the sf section.

What’s the future of reading?

To say it’s bright is an understatement.

It’s spectacular.

And it will only get better from here.

* * *

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Framed

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Where Is Everybody?

Written by Ben Bova

Is there intelligent life in the universe?

The standard comeback to that question is: Is there intelligent life on Earth?

Well, what do we mean by “intelligent”? How do we define intelligence?

For the purposes of this article, we can define intelligence this way: An intelligent species is one in which any member of the species has the potential to acquire the experiences that all the other members of the species have had.

Communication, in this view, is the essence of intelligence. Many animal species of Earth can communicate some of their experience to other members of the species. Birds, dogs, bears, apes, dolphins all do a certain amount of communication, especially in training their young to survive.

But all their communications are face-to-face. Chimps cannot communicate to their young the experiences that their grandsires had. It’s all here-and-now, watch-me-and-learn.

Humans can read Homer and learn the theorems of Pythagoras. Humans can study the stars and pass on their knowledge from one generation to the next.

Human speech, and its offspring writing, are central to this view of intelligence. Thus, when we search for other intelligent species among the stars, we look for someone we can communicate with.

And we’ve found nothing. Nobody. Zip. Nil. Nada.

For nearly half a century astronomers have been searching the skies with radio telescopes, seeking signals from an intelligent civilization. In vain.

Of course, nobody expected the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) to be easy. Look at what the searchers are faced with.

The Milky Way galaxy consists of at least a hundred billion stars. Even if you limit SETI to stars that are like the Sun—yellow G-type stars—there are billions of them.

If you’re trying to pick up radio signals from another civilization, which frequency do you tune to? There are millions upon millions of possible radio frequencies that alien broadcasters might be using. How do you find a frequency on which they might be signaling? SETI investigators must pick a target star, sift through as many frequencies as possible, and then go on to the next candidate star and go through the same procedure, time and again. Much of the work in radio SETI has been devoted to developing electronic equipment that can sift through millions of frequencies quickly, so that the radio telescope may be moved from one star to another in a reasonable time.

Is radio the right medium to use for searching? We’ve been using radio because it was the first technology we had available for interstellar communication when we began to think about looking for other intelligent species. It’s a sort of historical accident, really. Maybe other intelligent species have found other means of communication, and they don’t use radio at all.

Some SETI researchers are shifting to optical searches, assuming that alien civilizations might use lasers for chit-chat over interstellar distances.

In 1959 SETI pioneer Frank Drake tried to summarize the problem of locating alien civilizations in a single mathematical formula:

N = R*fpneflfifcL

This is now known as the Drake equation, and has served as a focus for SETI for nearly five decades. The equation is an attempt to estimate how many extraterrestrial civilizations we might be able to detect with radio telescopes.

N is the number of communicating civilizations we may expect to exist in the Milky Way galaxy. The symbols on the right side of the equation represent the factors that determine what that number might be.

R*—How many stars are there in the Milky Way galaxy? Estimates range from 100 billion to several hundred billion.

fp—How many of these stars have planets? At the time Drake wrote his equation, no stars except the sun were known to have planets, although most astronomers assumed that at least some do. Since 1995 more than 300 planets have been detected orbiting stars other than the sun, but no one can yet say with any confidence what fraction of the Milky Way’s stars harbor planetary systems. Note that this factor assumes that intelligent extraterrestrials must exist on planets; probably a good assumption, but possibly too conservative.

ne—How many of these planets have environments suitable for life? Our ideas on suitable environments have expanded greatly in the past couple of decades thanks to the discovery of organisms dubbed extremophiles, microscopic critters that live happily in extremes of heat, cold, pressure, lack of oxygen, lack of sunlight, and other outre conditions that would kill you and me.

We do not really know how many bizarre (to us) environmental niches alien organisms might exist in. Moreover, this factor overlooks the possibility that life may exist on the moons of planets, such as Jupiter’s Galilean satellites or Saturn’s aptly-named Titan.

fl—On how many of these planets did life actually arise? A suitable environment for life does not necessarily mean that life did emerge on that world. (Or does it?)

fi—On how many of the planets that bear life has intelligent life developed? It took almost the entire history of Earth before intelligence arose here; if Earth’s 4.6 billion years were condensed down to 24 hours, the advent of intelligent human beings happened a fraction of a second before midnight. If our own history is any guide, it takes billions of years for a planet to develop an intelligent species.

fc—How many intelligent species will communicate? Up until a century ago, Earth bore abundant life and at least one intelligent species, yet could not communicate because radio had not yet been invented. On the other hand, it is possible that some intelligent species will have no interest in communicating, even if they have the capability to do so. They won’t all be descended from curious, chattering apes.

L—How long might an intelligent, communicative society last? When Drake first wrote his equation, the Cold War threatened nuclear holocaust. Archeologists have found abundant evidence of civilizations that have collapsed and perished. Today the human race faces the perils of terrorism, global warming and widespread pollution in addition to the continuing threat of nuclear devastation. Or Earth might be struck by an asteroid such as the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. There is no guarantee that our civilization, or our species, will last indefinitely.

Put all these factors together and you have an estimate of the number of civilizations that may be “out there,” able and willing to communicate over interstellar distances. The trouble is, all the factors on the right side of the equation are unknowns, except the number of stars in the Milky Way (and that is arguable). So the Drake equation is more of a guide to thinking than a means of producing a hard and fast number.

Estimates of the number of communicating civilizations have ranged from one to millions, depending on whether the person making the estimate was a pessimist or an optimist. Carl Sagan, for example, came up in 1966 with a value for N of about one million, one of the more optimistic guesstimates. Others have concluded that the number is one: there are no other intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. Such widely diverging results are a sign that no one knows enough as yet to answer the basic question.

Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (and no stranger to unorthodox ideas himself) wrote: “I reject as worthless all attempts to calculate … the frequency of occurrence of intelligent life forms in the universe. Our ignorance of the chemical processes by which life arose on earth makes such calculations meaningless.”

Perhaps so, but the Drake equation has served as a focal point for planning the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

In 1950, at lunch with fellow scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi asked a simple question: Where is everybody?

If there are intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations out there, why haven’t we seen evidence of them? UFO enthusiasts, of course, insist that we have, but most serious investigators want more hard evidence than stories of UFOs and alien abductions.

The obvious answer to Fermi’s question was that, if intelligent ETs exist, the distances between their worlds and ours are so vast that the only hope we have of finding evidence for them lies in searches for signals from them. Hence SETI.

But by 1975, after some 15 years of radio searches, two scientists published papers that proposed something close to heresy, as far as the SETI researchers were concerned. American Michael Hart and David Viewing of Britain independently came to the conclusion that the reason no intelligent signals have been found is that there are no intelligent creatures out there. Planets like Earth are so rare, they argued, that we should not expect to find a similar world, or intelligent life.

In 1980 Tulane University mathematician Frank Tipler claimed that the universe is only capable of hosting one intelligent species, and we are it. Tipler is not a hidebound conservative, nor a chalkdust-dry academic. His work has included ideas on how to build time machines. Yet, he concluded that there are no other intelligent species in the entire universe.

Tipler made a practical argument for the nonexistence of extraterrestrials. The Milky Way galaxy is at least twice as old as our solar system. There are billions of stars that have existed for billions of years longer than we have. If intelligence has arisen on even a few of these ancient stars, those alien civilizations would be far older and far more knowledgeable than we. Their technological capabilities would immensely exceed our own.

Such a civilization would be able to colonize the entire galaxy, Tipler suggested. It need not send its own people into space, it could send self-replicating machines that move from one star to another, colonizing any planets they find, then using those planets’ natural resources to build more copies of themselves and move on to the next stars. In effect, such machines would be like a virus spreading from star to star, planet to planet. If their spacecraft could achieve velocities of only 10 percent of the speed of light (something that we should be able to do before this century is out), they could spread exponentially across the entire Milky Way in less than a million years, a small fraction of the Milky Way’s multi-billion-year existence.

The fact that Earth has not been visited by these mechanical representatives of a superior civilization, Tipler concluded, is proof that no such civilizations exist.

Howls of protest greeted Tipler’s pessimistic argument. The SETI optimists pointed out that his conclusions rest on enormous assumptions. For example: Could such ancient civilizations exist? The oldest stars are metal-poor, they might not have contained the proper elements for life, or for a technologically sophisticated civilization, to arise around them. Or, if such very old and wise civilizations do exist, perhaps they would have no interest in colonizing the galaxy.

While there may be many, many civilizations among the stars, some of them may be so much older (or younger) than we are that communicating with them would be impossible.

What are the chances of finding an intelligent civilization at our level of development?

Consider the history of the Earth. Let our planet’s 4.5 billion years be represented by the height of the Empire State Building. At that scale, the human race’s few million years of existence can be represented by a one-foot ruler standing upright at the top of the building. The thickness of a dime placed atop the ruler represents the entire span of our civilization—some ten thousand years. On top of that dime, glue a postage stamp. Its thickness is equivalent to the length of time since humankind has developed modern science: nearly 400 years.

The Milky Way may be brimming with intelligent species, but how many of them are in the same phase of development—and technology—as we are? How many are within the thickness of that postage stamp? They are the ones we will be most likely to communicate with.

Older, more developed species might not deign to talk to us. They might regard us as no better than apes, or insects. Perhaps they will want to study us, as human anthropologists study the primate apes. But to make such studies valid, they would have to avoid letting us know they are watching us.

On the other hand, younger species will not yet have invented technologies capable of interstellar communication.

To make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, we will have to locate one that is close to our own level of development, somewhere between Tarzan and the angels.

As they say in The X Files, “The truth is out there.”

We’ll look more deeply into this next time.

* * *

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Letting The Guns Bury Them

Written by Barry N. Malzberg

John F. Carr’s new biography of H.Beam Piper (McFarland 2008) is pretty good, and has some fascinating leads as they like to say (and too much on Piper’s pre-publishing life; the book has reached page 71 before reaching in chronology his first sale) but ultimately it is more of science fiction publishing’s decades in Piper’s working lifetime than of the author himself. An autodidact of mysterious reserved defensiveness and the autodidact’s resentment, Piper struggled to find a living wage in science fiction and never did.

Piper’s first sale, the short story “Time And Again” appeared in Astounding in the issue of April, 1947; his last, also to Astounding, “Down Styphon” (a novel excerpt) was published posthumously in 1965. Over that span, Piper sold half a dozen novels and about thirty short stories; his income from this work (which in the 1960’s was his sole source of income), meticulously documented, averaged far less than $2,000 a year. His best year was 1963 in which his novel Space Viking was serialized in Astounding, brought him about $3,500.

Piper, divorced and living in a $50-a-month apartment in industrial Pennsylvania, was unable to survive on this income and, unwilling to continue the struggle and unwilling to approach friends in the sf community for help, he opted in early November of 1964 for suicide. He was a disciplined and highly knowledgeable collector of long guns (one of his last stories was titled “Gunpowder God”) and he used one item from that collection to do the deed. The details of this gruesome decision and its aftermath are well documented by Carr and need no elaboration here. It was a shocking act within the community at that time; comparable in the pall it left to the closely-spaced sudden deaths by heart attack in early 1958 of Henry Kuttner and Cyril M. Kornbluth. In a way science fiction never recovered from those three deaths (in the same way that it could be argued that the country, thirty-seven years after the War’s formal end, has never recovered from Vietnam) but that too is for another column. Rather, it is the way in which Piper’s career refracts the science fiction market of the time which makes it (beyond his work) signatory half a century later.

Looking now at the situation one must ask: How could Piper have possibly expected to live as a full-time science fiction writer in the late fifties? Robert A. Heinlein was the only member of the clan who did. (Isaac Asimov made a very good living for the time, but by the mid-fifties he had gravitated toward scientific popularizing books and articles, and science fiction represented a steadily diminishing percentage of his income. Between The Naked Sun in 1957 and The Gods Themselves fifteen years later he produced no novels and perhaps twenty short stories.) The most celebrated writers of that time did not. Most of them were of course hobbyists or part-timers: Alfred Bester, James Blish. Robert Silverberg’s writing was exclusively science fiction for only a few years in the mid-fifties; he rapidly moved on to juvenile nonfiction and other categories of fiction which soon comprised three-quarters of his income. A.J. Budrys got into magazine editing and then public relations work in the late fifties. Robert Sheckley wrote espionage and suspense novels. From 1957 Fred Pohl ghost-edited Galaxy; his name went on the masthead a couple of years later. Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson might have managed a subsistence living but Anderson was also writing mysteries and juveniles; Dickson was writing the latter. Perceived at that time as being at the top of the field, they might have been making eight thousand dollars a year. (Heinlein probably tripled that. Grumbles From The Grave contains some clues.) Phil Dick’s excruciating chronicles of the pauper’s existence which full-time science fiction writing yielded through the first twenty-five years of his career are, of course, part of his canon. Ray Bradbury? The early collections, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, A Medicine For Melancholy, might have sold well enough to represent a living, but as early as 1953 he was writing the screenplay for John Huston’s Moby Dick and his career moved early and inexorably away from science fiction.

I have no idea what Theodore Sturgeon—perceived by most of his confreres as the Leader of the Pack—was earning, but evidence from correspondence and memories of surviving friends indicate decades of severe struggle. “Ted and money never got along too well together,” Harlan Ellison wrote some years later. Walter M. Miller, Jr. simply quit all of it after the 1959 publication of A Canticle For Leibowitz and returned to newspaper work. (A semi-sequel to Leibowitz was never completed; Terry Bisson finished it out in the late 1990’s and it was posthumously published.) Five years after Piper’s death (and three years after the advent of Star Trek) it began to change radically; top book advances leapt from $10,000 to $100,000 within a six-year period.

It was, economically, an almost impossible time. “We were all desperately poor,” Budrys said to an interviewer about fifty years later. “So what?” So what, indeed? Science fiction for its major writers (and a good many of its minor writers) was the True Quill, the True Task, it was never to be measured in terms of the income it produced. Asimov, in fact, felt guilty about his essential “desertion” of the form, and Heinlein, the only American citizen who had made the middle class solely on the basis of science fiction, was self-deprecating in the way that shtetl dwellers are to deflect the Angel of Death. Just an easy and lucrative way to spend six months a year loafing and traveling, Heinlein wrote. The least effortful way a lazy man could find to turn a living.

Still, it all existed in a kind of perilous balance and the level of the best work was very high. There are those who argue—I am one of them—that the great novels of the 1950’s have never been surpassed, that the most innovative and accomplished science fiction comes from that period. The standards of the short story were similarly heightened. Perhaps the work flourished on privation; this was certainly the argument of the Paris generation of Hemingway in the 1920’s. Piper himself, almost always sinking financially, produced a significant body of work; the three Fuzzy novels and Space Viking were still selling three decades after their composition.

Then, of course, the American News Company, the major (indeed the only) magazine and paperback distributor, was torn apart by Government edict in 1958 and almost all of the magazines collapsed immediately. Paperback sales were severely afflicted. It was at this time that Earl Kemp’s compilation of interviews, Who Killed Science Fiction? won a Hugo at the Detroit World Convention for best fanzine. The title was timely. It was exactly at this point of time that H. Beam Piper, whose timing was always exquisite, having lost his job as a railroad night watchman (fifty dollars a week!), elected to make himself wholly dependent upon his writing income.

A bad period. I have written of this before. Balance the poverty of the writers’ natural existence with the expansion and grandiosity of the texts they produced and you have one of our finest historic examples of cognitive dissonance, of the gap between inner and outer lives. (Much work has been published describing this phenomenon; as an example of the best I suggest Michael Herr’s Dispatches.) Informed in Paris of her ex-husband’s suicide, the former Mrs. Piper telegraphed: “Let The Guns Bury Him.”

One of the great lines of the century of fire.

—New Jersey: November 2008

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Salvo—Delayed

Written by Eric Flint

THE END

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