Gravity Dreams

47

You may know your body, but you are not your body.

Once away from Earth Orbit One on my way down to Runswi, I sat halfway back in the shuttle's windowless passenger cabin, beside a redheaded woman in a blue-trimmed, silver suit - the colors indicating some type of support to a senior administrator or controller. She kept her narrow face averted from me.

Most of the dozen on the shuttle wore blue or red, although a slender man near the front was dressed in green, a darker green, with a gold collar pin in the shape of a triangular web. Web pilot, supplied some source within me. No one sat on the couch adjacent to him.

The shuttle slid down the invisible magfield slope and along what I knew to be the permacrete strip at Runswi even if I could not see it.

After the shuttle came to a near-silent halt, the hatch swung open, and tendrils of the moist hot air of summer merged with the ozone-oiled air of the shuttle itself. I waited until the narrow-faced woman was clear of her couch and the others in red and green and blue were filing out into the diffuse sunlight beyond the cabin before I stood. Then I rose slowly and went back to the lockers to retrieve my single small duffel.

Despite four weeks of high-gee reindoctrination on the orbit station, I felt logy and tired, too massive for legs that wobbled like straws supporting a hog ready for slaughter. I stepped down the ramp with great deliberation, pausing at the base, and glanced around.

After a time, I turned toward the operations building and began to walk, stopping frequently to both catch my breath and to rest already aching muscles. Sweat coated me, and my heart pounded by the time I reached the operations desk. I didn't know where else to go. I stood there, breathing heavily.

'Candidate Tyndel?' asked the dark-haired man behind the console after a time. The sleeves of his silver gray singlesuit were striped with green.

'I'm Tyndel.'

'Good. Coordinator Andra asked me to convey her apologies for not being here.' He extended a folder. 'That has all the information you need - your room assignment, your gymnasium and exercise schedule, and your first week's re-indoc activities. Oh, there's a map there, too. Try to get plenty of sleep and exercise.' He offered a smile. 'The first month back on earth is hard. Good luck.'

I took the folder and opened it, noting that he'd summarized the contents exactly. 'Thank you.'

'There's an electrocart through the back way, ser. You'd better take it.' His tone was wryly amused.

'Thank you.'

In slow steps I made my way to the rear of the building and stepped back into the heat under a shadowed overhang.

A stocky brown-haired woman dressed in dull gray coveralls, much like those I still wore, stood as I neared the six-seater cart. 'You're candidate Tyndel?'

'That's what everyone's calling me.' I let the duffel rest on the permacrete as I blotted my forehead. I'd forgotten how hot true summers could be. I'd never known how heavy full gravity felt after three years in null gravity.

'Hop in, ser. I'll run you over to the transient quarters. They're expecting you.'

I set the duffel on the cart floor behind the first two seats and eased my too-heavy body into the seat beside the driver. The deep breath as I sat was in spite of my efforts not to sound like a stuffed boar.

'Even with nanite support, the first month's hard. How long have you been off-planet?'

'Three years personal objective, more than four elapsed time.'

'They must have sent you a long ways.' As she spoke, she eased the cart out of the shade and along the stone lane.

'Omega Eridani.' The sun smote me like a wall of fire, and my eyes slitted involuntarily. Even so, I could make out the half-remembered two-storied long structures with smoothly finished stone half walls topped with metal-and-glass window panels and glistening gray slate roofs. The antennas on several, especially those of the operations building we had left, glittered in the full sun.

'There's logistics,' offered the driver. 'Trans quarters are just ahead, on the left there.'

The transient quarters had no shaded overhang, and I continued to sweat as I carried my duffel into the front foyer. Finally, sighting an open door, I trudged toward it, having to make an effort to lift my feet.

The blocky blond woman who stood as I peered through the door was familiar, and I searched for her name. 'Ah ... Thaya. I'm Tyndel, and I've been sent here.'

Again,' she confirmed with a warm smile that was also slightly sardonic. 'Cerrelle said you'd do it all the hard way.'

'She was right' I lowered the duffel.

'I see you've got your schedule. Come on. Let's get you to your quarters before you fall over.' She stepped around and started down the corridor.

I followed, less expeditiously. Climbing the one flight of stairs wasn't agony, but scarcely pleasant, either. She held the door open as I staggered into the sitting room and study and set down the duffel that no longer felt particularly light.

'Same as before. There are candidate greens in the closet, to your measure, as well as exercise clothes and a few other necessities. Your quarters and food here at Runswi are paid by the Authority. Your stipend goes to your free balance. You pay for anything else out of that. You need anything else, see me or Yrila - she's my assistant.'

'Yrila ...' I mumbled. My mouth was dry. 'Thank you.' Free balance - I'd almost forgotten about that. I hadn't even cared when I'd been in Runswi before. Did I have a balance? I could worry about that later.

'You've got two hours to rest. Then you'll go to the pool.' She paused. 'Do you recall where that is?'

'No. I didn't use it before.' I forced a grin. 'I didn't get that far.'

'It's on the map, about two hundred meters south of here. Start early so that you can take your time. You'll spend a lot of time there for the first month. Believe me, it feels better than walking around. Then they'll really start the physical conditioning program.'

I sank into the straight-backed chair before the built-in data console.

Thaya shook her head. 'Two hours.'

'I know.' The words came out like a groan.

'It's too bad you had to do it the hard way, Tyndel'

There hadn't been any other choice for me. So I just nodded as Thaya closed the door and left me.

As before, the two rooms and a refresher that I got were comfortable and large, especially compared to the cube I'd had on OE Station. And I could barely wait for Thaya to leave so that I could stretch out on the bed.

One thing bothered me as I stood and walked slowly into the bedroom, where I sat on the edge of the bed. Cerrelle or Andra could have had the cart meet me at the shuttle, short as the walk had been. Why hadn't they? Because they wanted me to understand what terrible condition I was in? Had I been that difficult before?

I pulled off my boots and laid back.

Yes, came the answer before my eyes closed.

48

All life is structure.

The late summer rain fell like cool steam across Runswi, except where the fine droplets struck the permacrete of the magshuttle landing strip. There, hot fog from the strip rose to meet the sultry mist that seeped downward from the thick gray clouds, following the rain.

I walked slowly toward the logistics building and my first nanite indoc or briefing since I'd returned. Ten days of mainly physical therapy - interspersed with tests designed to measure something about my mind and personality - had left my legs much stronger. I'd actually come to enjoy the work in the pool.

For the first time since I'd returned to Runswi, I finally met Andra - in the logistics building. Her pale gray eyes were flat as she studied me. 'Greetings,' I offered.

'Greetings, Tyndel. Are you willing to work ... this time? You're not going to oppose what we're trying to do?'

Oppose? I remembered Fersonne's words - 'Why don't you do something because you want to, not because you're opposing something else?' Then I nodded. 'No ... I mean, I'll be working.'

'Good. The first briefing spray will be the same as the last one you had. We'll need to check the retention level.' A brief smile crossed her narrow lips. 'That will also make it easier for you to get back into the feel of training.' She stood and walked through another door, into a small room, as she had years before, and lifted one of the canisters.

My eyes went to the large metalicized plastic screen on the wall. I'd forgotten about the collection systems.

'We'll give you the basic technology again.' Andra lifted the canister. I'd forgotten the scoop shaped to fit a human face. 'You shouldn't have trouble with this. It's just the simplified theories behind the technology you'll need to be using.'

The scoop felt cool against my skin, cooler when the mist permeated my face. I still sensed thousands of tiny needles penetrating my skull. Then came the rush of phrases, terms, and definitions mixed with interrelated equations ...

... xenon discharge... elevates atoms... wave forms above the quark level... creating two phased photons and a cascade effect down a crystalline channel... parallel wave forms pass through openings the same size as their wavelengths ... diffraction occurs ... intensity drops inversely as the square of the distance ... color does not exist except as a perception of different wavelengths ... failure of initial fusactor technology lay in unstated assumption that no wavefield interference would occur from plasma and magfields, despite superconductivity ... deuterium and tritium resonance on the quanta! level ... maximum span potential directly proportional to the strength to mass/weight ratio of materials ...

Her eyes on the screen beside the plastic collector, Andra nodded. 'Not bad.' She motioned for me to follow, then walked into the adjoining room, the one with windows. 'You remember this. Sit down at the console. A question will scroll onto the screen. You search through the information you received and press the key that represents the most nearly correct answer. This will help you integrate what you've just received.'

I nodded back and wondered if the first question would be the one about light. She looked at me, then left.

The first question was: 'Light can most nearly be described as which of the following?'

As before, when I thought about light, information flooded through me, but less overwhelmingly than four years earlier. Half-familiar as the questions were, I was still staggering mentally when I completed the exercises on the console.

Andra appeared almost immediately after I selected the last answer, beckoning me back into the nanite spray room. With rubbery knees, I followed.

'From here on in, based on the test analyses, what you get will be different from the last time.' She lifted another canister and pressed the scoop to my face.

The second blast of information was more soul-shivering ... far more.

... invariance translations ... result in no changes in charge conjugation, rotation, or transformation ... modification of the real space inversion in dimension 'n of the multiverse ... equivalent to the curvature of overspace ... requiring spinless state ... conservation of parity ... not apply with weak interactions or under overspace inversion insertion .., apparent suspension of parity selection 'rules' and potential frame cascade ...

The definitions and equations and explanations went on and on - and kept going.

Andra took my arm to steady me but said nothing, guiding me back to the windowed room and the waiting console.

She left once more, and I held my head in my hands, trying to keep it from falling off, for a time before I glanced at the message on the console screen.

'Describe in simple terms the theory which allows needle ships to employ overspace translations to cross interstellar distances in apparent contradiction of light-speed constraints. When ready, press the speech stud and talk distinctly.'

I looked at the question again. I hadn't been required to formulate answers before. Did that mean I was farther ahead? Or that they expected more as a result of my time on OE Station? Did the information I had received allow me to answer the question?

After searching and sweating, and moistening my lips, I finally began to talk, wishing I could have written it out first.

'Ah... the overspace translation system allows the needle ship to transverse overspace as a soliton ...'

The screen blinked. 'Please explain the theoretical basis of the system.'

'Under normal space conditions all inertial space-time coordinate frames are in uniform motion with relation to all others. In overspace, while the total motion of the coordinates must... balance ...' I paused, knowing my paraphrasing of highly technical theories was probably so simple as to be totally wrong, then plunged on. 'Direction and time may vary inversely, allowing a greater distance to be covered in less elapsed time than in normspace.'

The screen remained blank for a moment, then scripted, 'At how many points must a partially curved frame overspace-time surface intersect real time?'

I punched the letter beside the answer indicating none.

'What is the optimal interrelation between real-space velocity and overspace insertion velocity?'

I wiped my forehead. This was the beginning? The next question wasn't any better. Nor the one after that.

After the last question of more inquiries than I wanted to count, I put my head down in my hands and closed my eyes.

'Tyndel?'

I looked up.

'That's all for today. Nine hundred tomorrow. Ileck is expecting you at the pool.' The pale gray eyes offered neither sympathy nor disgust... just a trace of amusement.

I stood. 'Can you tell me what I have to look forward to? And how long?'

'In general terms' - Andra frowned— 'no Web pilot or needle jockey is trained exactly like any other, not until you get to Web bugs and shiphandling. Then it gets pretty standard, I'm told. Our job here is to get you ready for that.' She paused. 'You're weak on the concepts, but your sense of logic and organization is strong. That's the Dzin. If you stay on path, we'll finish with your basic structuring and indoctrination in another month.' She nodded. 'Then you can start learning what you'll really need to know.'

'This is all material that any Rykashan should know? Right now?'

She shook her head. Any well-educated Rykashan.'

At least I'd end up a well-educated Rykashan, even if I didn't turn out as a needle ship pilot.

You can be a pilot. You have the skills. Whether you have the mental toughness is another question.'

'Is this all just for education? For what I don't know?'

'No.' A faint smile appeared, and I had hope that someday she might regard me as more than a spoiled Dzin master. 'Do you still have the feeling that you know something and yet you don't - all at the same time?'

I had to nod to that. 'Not so much anymore.'

She laughed. 'That will get worse as you learn and apply more knowledge. Some of what we do won't seem to have much to do with training. It's designed to integrate knowledge and experience from all data inputs.'

'It's going to be a long fall.'

'And a long winter,' Andra promised. 'Now... you're going to be late for physical training.' So I stood and headed for the pool.

49

The effective use of symbolism is a key with knife edges.

In chest-deep water I leaned against the side of the swimming pool, my forehead against the cool black tile, panting, trying to recover from swimming several hundred meters at full speed.

'Better.' At close to two meters tall, with golden bronze skin, jet-black hair and eyes, Ileck was the image of a prestabilization god. He was also the taskmaster set to recondition me. 'In another month, you'll be able to go twice as far - say, eight hundred meters - at a sprint'

I nodded, not looking up, waiting for the queasiness to subside.

'When you're ready, come on down to the deep end.'

I finally heaved myself out of the water and padded along the side of the pool, the dampness of my footprints lost on the gritty surface of the black composite that composed the deck of the enclosed pool. The water looked black as well.

Heck handed me a singlesuit that had seen better days and pointed to a pair of boots on the pool deck. 'If you would put them both on ...'

I began to pull on the suit, glancing at the apparatus that now spanned the deep end of the pool. A polished wooden beam ran between two pedestals - one on each side of the pool, a distance of more than ten meters. Each pedestal was three steps high. The beam - less than ten centimeters wide - was a good two meters above the water - and the water depth was at least five meters. After the suit came the boots.

Ileck looked at me. 'You're going to walk across that.'

Fair enough. I started toward the pedestal before me.

'No ... not like that.' He held up a blindfold. You get up on the second step, and then I'll fasten this in place.'

Walk the beam blindfolded?

'This is just the beginning,' Ileck added.

Keeping my thoughts about that buried, I stepped up and waited as he fastened it across my eyes. 'What might be the reason ... ?'

'Symbolic analogue. You're better off if you don't know much beyond that yet. I'd appreciate it if you didn't ask.'

From his tone I could tell I'd be seeing more symbolic analogues, even if I had no idea what their purpose might be. The old Dzin philosophy insisted that true ignorance was far superior to shallow knowledge. I smiled wryly. I was truly ignorant at the moment.

'Try to sense the beam, to visualize where it is. Take your time.'

Take my time? I certainly would.

I felt for the beam with my left boot, and it slid. The beam surface was as slick as wet glass or oiled tile. Slowly, I eased my left foot onto what I felt was a centered position before shifting my weight onto it. I could feel the sweat forming on my forehead, then slowly oozing down my back. I repeated the maneuver with my right booted foot. Foot by foot I struggled across the beam, a beam that neither flexed nor bent.

By the time I managed to get all the way across, if wobbling several times, I was soaked with sweat. On the other side I stopped and reached for the blindfold.

'Turn around and start back.'

'Now?'

'Now.'

Slowly, I turned.

Not three steps had I taken when a blast of trumpets shivered the air around me, almost palpably pushing me sideways. I shifted my weight, but I was too off-balance and - rather than plunge awkwardly - I stepped sideways and pointed my booted feet, dropping past the beam.

The blindfold ripped off as I plunged into the cool water, and I bobbed to the surface and swam toward the side where^- Ileck waited. The drag of the wet singlesuit and the waterlogged boots turned a decent overarm crawl into an elbow-dragging, pseudopaddle.

'Climb out. You need to try it again.' Ileck gestured.

My exit from the dark water was graceless and left puddles of water along the black composite. Ileck had another blindfold waiting. I wiped water from my face and stood on the step pedestal and let him fasten it again.

'You have to concentrate on where you are, Tyndel. This is not a meaningless exercise.'

None of what the demons did was meaningless. Frustrating, exhausting, difficult, but never without meaning. I stepped onto the beam once more.

In the middle of my very first step, instruments of all types - horns, strings, harps, and drums - as well as tones I'd never heard, assailed me. I staggered but managed to put my foot down on the glass-smooth surface of the beam despite the power of the music. It was music, not cacophony, though I had never heard its like before.

With my second step, the music swirled into a dance of some sort, and my third brought a ballad, faintly familiar. Although the beam remained firm, my legs trembled with each step and the variation in music volume.

Salty sweat built up under the blindfold, and my eyes burned with the last few steps before I felt the pedestal underfoot.

'Good,' declared Ileck. 'You can take off the blindfold.' I almost shook myself as I stood there, blotting the sweat from my eyes.

Ileck stood below me, his eyes level with mine, holding a stained grayish canvas pack filled with something. He lifted it easily and extended it to me. 'Here. Put it on.'

So heavy was the pack - a good fifty kilograms -1 nearly dropped it, and holding on to the straps left me teetering on the edge of the pedestal and struggling not to topple into the water below. After straightening, I struggled into the straps, pulling them in place over the wet green singlesuit. My feet were not unwelcomely cool inside the soaked leather boots.

'Turn around.' Ileck had another blindfold in his hand.

I blotted my eyes dry, then turned. He fastened the blindfold in place.

'Start across.'

I managed two steps before a wall of sound - an ancient organ as loud as a shuttle first breaching the atmosphere? - slammed me off balance, and the weight of the pack toppled me into the dark water below. Swimming to the edge was a true struggle with the weight on my back, but I knew that was part of whatever Ileck had in mind.

'You need to try again.' That was all he said.

I clambered out of the pool and trudged to the pedestal steps once more, where I handed him the soaking blindfold. Silently, he replaced it. For symbolic analogues, he was certainly putting a great deal of verisimilitude into my training.

It took two more attempts before I could get across with the heavy pack on my back against the walls and arrows of music and sound.

'Be careful this time,' Ileck said after the successful effort.

I turned and took a step.

Not only did an off-tempo march with volume enough to shiver my very skull strike me with the first step, but my second was greeted with a beam of heat that seemed to sear me, followed as quickly by a gust of ice-chilled air that felt as though it froze my soaked singlesuit to my skin. My fourth step took me into the water, colder by far, or so it felt, than earlier.

I had to hang on to the edge of the pool for a time before I could pull myself out.

'Once more,' insisted Ileck, his voice impassive.

I made one more slow trip across the slick beam carrying the heavy pack, assaulted by music and other sounds, and the heat and chill. My knees trembled, and moving each leg had gotten to be agony.

At the other side, Ileck waited, as usual. 'That is enough for today.'

I took a deep breath. 'Thank you.'

He smiled, almost ironically. 'This is the beginning.'

The way I felt, I didn't ask exactly what I was beginning.

Below, in the locker room, I took an old-fashioned hot shower, luxuriating in the steam, before I dried and dressed in my pale green singlesuit. Then I walked slowly to the nearest lounge, since the dining area in the transient quarters was somehow depressing.

The lounge held five tables widely spaced, all of dark oak, polished, bound at the edges in shimmering brass. The dark oak chairs also were brass bound, with a dark gold and blue brocade over the upholstered seats.

After scanning the menu on the reformulator, I picked both the Serian chicken and the Dorchan hot noodles and a mixed fruit salad, with Arleen tea. I'd eaten about half of the enormous meal when a woman in green and silver walked into the lounge, followed by a wide-eyed younger woman with braided hair coiled at the back of her head. The wide-eyed one was scarcely more than a youngster.

The Rykashan glanced at me, taking in my pale green singlesuit, and murmured to the girl. 'He's a Web pilot trainee. You can tell by the light green of the suit and by the eyes. You'll learn more about Web jockeys later. Very respected ... Now, this is a lounge. Anyone can eat here ...'

I sipped the last of the Arleen tea in the mug, then rose to get another.

The woman - dressed in the same deeper green that Cerrelle had worn - did not look up, but kept talking to her charge. 'Runswi is very different from Dezret... women are equal ... women administrators, pilots, and specialists ... have you meet Alicia deSchmidt sometime. You'll see.'

I took the tea and returned to my table. Alicia deSchmidt - for a moment I tried to recall the name, then nodded to myself - the dark-haired and erotically graceful special operative who had driven a metal knife through the table - perhaps the one at which I now sat. Glancing toward the door, I almost expected her to appear. Or Cerrelle.

After more than two months, I still hadn't seen Cerrelle. Part of that time, I'd been too tired even to think about much more than getting through the day. Belatedly, I recalled Fersonne's words. 'Rykashans are stubborn, too ...'

Cerrelle had come across a chunk of the Galaxy to check on me ... and I'd dismissed her. Now I expected she would seek me out? I found myself shaking my head. 'You hoped? Think a bit more, Tyndel - and sooner.'

I swallowed the last of the Arleen. In the end, I was going to have to eat sour eel. I hoped I could manage it.

On the way back to my quarters, I turned toward the logistics building, pausing for a moment to watch the near-silent approach of a magshuttle shining silver in the afternoon light. Clouds were gathering to the west, just above the trees that marked the horizon.

Once the shuttle dropped behind the building, I entered and stepped up to the information console, behind which sat a slender young woman in silver with blue-striped sleeves.

'Yes, ser?'

'Ah ... this is going to sound unintelligent, but I'd like to know how I might get in contact with someone in Lyncol.'

'Not at all.' She laughed generously, and despite her girlish appearance, the laugh was that of a woman, yet not at all malicious. 'They teach you candidates everything but the important matters. You're far from the first to ask something like that.' A smile followed. 'All you need is the person's name and personal code. If you don't have their personal code, you can link to information and describe what they do if you know, or where they live, and see if you can obtain their professional locator code. That's not a personal code, but you can leave a message with their outlink, and they can get back to you. You have to leave your name and code, of course.'

My code? I didn't even know I had one. I frowned, then nodded. I knew, somewhere in the depths of information that had flooded through me over the past years, but I'd never needed to call it up.

'Any console will give you access to the link. When you get farther along, you'll be able to access the system directly.' She gave another smile. 'Does that help?'

'Thank you.' I returned the smile and walked down the side corridor, hoping to find Andra. Her door was open, and her eyes widened as I peered in.

'Andra?'

'You don't have another session until tomorrow.'

'I know. I had another kind of question.' I found myself looking down at the polished natural wood floor of her work space.

'Which is?'

'I was hoping you might have one of the codes I could use to contact Cerrelle, or at least leave a message.'

After two months?' Andra raised her eyebrows.

I forced a laugh, tasting the bitterness of sour eel as I did. 'I never said I was perceptive. Nor did Cerrelle, I think. I need to apologize. It's late, but I need to.'

You're right about that.' Almost without pausing, she added, 'Her personal code is LY-green-forty-four.'

'Thank you.' LY-green-forty-four - I concentrated on holding that.

'Tyndel?' The words were softer than the flinty expression in Andra's eyes. Yes?'

'Cerrelle's my friend, and you have not been that helpful. Nor kind. Nor even close to understanding. She tried very hard for you, perhaps harder than you know.'

'I know.'

'Please try to remember that.'

'I will.' Forgetting it would have been hard. I nodded again. 'Thank you.'

'I'll see you tomorrow.' The door closed.

I walked through the afternoon heat, past an electrocart carrying a group of pale-faced and sweating individuals who had obviously just come off the shuttle that had landed earlier.

Not understanding, not kind, not helpful - and Andra was right. I hoped I could stand the taste of all the eel I was planning to swallow.

For a long time, I sat at the console in my quarters, ignoring the supplementary reading Andra had recommended, just looking blankly at the screen itself, on which images appeared and vanished, images of mountain peaks, then of lakes. I'd selected the images, but I suddenly wondered why I'd chosen lakes and mountains.

As the late-afternoon clouds rolled across the sun, and rain began to patter down outside my room, I turned to the screen and tapped in the codes.

An image flashed onto the screen - that of a thin-faced redhead with piercing eyes.

I opened my mouth, but the image was faster.

'This is Cerrelle. Please let me know you linked.'

After a moment, I finally spoke. 'Cerrelle ... this is Tyndel ... I'd like the chance to apologize. If you don't wish to speak to me, I understand.' I paused. 'You were right... and thank you.' I swallowed and broke the link.

Sour eel didn't taste that good, either literally or figuratively, especially since I'd had to taste it twice so far, with Andra and then Cerrelle's link answerer, without even talking to Cerrelle.

I rose and got a mug full of Arleen from the formulator downstairs.

Then I accessed the first of the supplemental readings.

Andra had insisted that the more I read, the faster the nanite-supplied information would meld into an integrated mental database - or whatever organic equivalent that meant for the brain of a man who had been born a mite and re-created as a Rykashan demon.

I looked at the words as they appeared. Sometimes, material in the manuals or from the nanospray briefings sounded perfectly logical but left me no wiser. This was another case in point.

The limits of nanite-based AI capabilities are determined largely by the specifications of the applicable conglomeration/agglutination blocks ... function as synaptic limits ... work of Foulst and Henrica to remove second-level blocs ... eventually led to development of functional overspace translation insertion systems ...

... first-level blocs encoded within actual leptonic spins ...

That made no sense at all, and I took another sip of Arleen. Andra had told me that some of the material would probably be beyond my current understanding but not to stop at everything I didn't comprehend, since the breadth of what I read was as important as the depth.

About that, I wasn't sure, but the console reference section didn't have anything on first-level agglutination blocs.

I took another sip of tea and went back to the supplemental readings, trying not to wonder if Cerrelle would return the call.

50

When the symbolic images developed by the society no longer work, and the images which do work are not those of the society, the individual has nowhere to turn.

After a particularly long afternoon with Ileck, I made my way to one of the lounges, the one overlooking the section of the marsh that resembled a lake, where the open water glinted blue-gray and seabirds wheeled in off the ocean. Some long-legged plovers or rails or something strutted along the small sandbar I could see through the wide window that flanked my table. A turtle lounged on a wide root in the warm sunlight of fall. Behind the turtle was a spit of land that held mostly bushes, except for a stand of a dozen trees, pseudomangroves whose roots arched down into the water.

One helping of the chilied crayfish wasn't enough. So I took my tray back to the formulator and punched in another order and took another cup of steaming Arleen tea. Then I turned, and she was there, so close to me that I couldn't move, not without bumping into her.

'You come here a lot, don't you?' asked the young woman. 'You always sit alone.' Her eyes were open wide, a deep guileless brown, under an unlined brow. Her sandy hair was short, and she had small ears with almost no lobes.

Her narrow face angled from high fine cheekbones to a gently pointed chin. Her lips were almost too full for the elfin face.

'I'm too tired to go far,' I said, accepting the flattery of her approach and glad for company for at least a time. 'Would you like to join me?'

'Are you sure? I wouldn't want ... I mean ... you must have a lot to do.'

'Not at the moment.' I paused. 'What would you like?'

'Oh ... I can get it myself.'

I stepped back, careful not to brush against her, especially since her red-cuffed silver singlesuit was somewhat more than formfitting.

After a minute or so, the reformulator blinked. She slipped what looked to be a beer and a plate of noodles and sauce onto a tray. I smiled and gestured toward the table, then followed her, standing until she sat. I eased the tray back onto the table and glanced outside.

The light across the water had become more golden, not quite sunset but getting close.

'It's pretty here. Sometimes, I just sit and watch as the sun goes down.' She turned in her chair and faced me. 'I'm Aleyaisha. I work in the medical section for doctor Bekunin.'

Bekunin - the name was familiar, but I couldn't recall why. 'I'm Tyndel. I'm a trainee of sorts.'

'You're going to be a needle pilot, aren't you?' The eyes widened more as she looked directly at me. 'I mean ... you wear the light green, and no one else besides ...' As her words trailed off, she moistened her lips.

'I'm trying.' I gave a soft laugh. 'That's up to other powers.' She wasn't that guileless, and yet she was somehow embarrassed. I wondered why.

Aleyaisha nodded, then twirled the pasta deftly around a fork and cut it with the side of a large spoon. She ate neatly, and not a dab of the cream sauce strayed from the pasta or her mouth.

Two women walked past on their way to the formulator. One was thin-faced and black-haired, with pinched lips, the other brunette and more ample. Both wore silver with full red sleeves. The brunette swayed as she walked. The thin-faced one glanced at Aleyaisha and gave the faintest of headshakes.

'Do you think you'll like being in space?' Aleyaisha asked as though she hadn't seen the disgusted look offered by the thin-faced woman, and she might not have.

'I've been there. I was a low-technician on an outspace orbit station for a while.' I took a mouthful of chilied crayfish.

'You were? What was that like?'

Again, I had the feeling that she knew more than she was saying, but a gust of warm air swept over us as two men entered the lounge, glancing around.

The taller man's eyes spotted the women who had come in earlier. 'They're over there, Haifez.'

'... could have waited for us ...' Haifez snorted.

The taller man, fresh-faced and in maroon, a color I hadn't seen before in a singlesuit, passed us on his way toward the pair at the table.

'... know her,' murmured Haifez. 'Works in medical ... wouldn't even look at me.'

'That's the way it goes ... candidate, not even a needle jock yet, and they're hanging on him.'

I tried not to flush at the taller man's comment.

'He wasn't very interesting.' Aleyaisha smiled at me. 'Do you have a lot of other women who hang on you?'

'I don't think anyone hangs on me,' I admitted. 'No one that I know.'

'Look!' Aleyaisha's whisper was intense, and I followed her finger.

A great blue heron had swooped down to stand, first on two feet, then one, in the shallows beyond the mangrove spit. So still he might have been a statue, the heron waited. The light flooding across the marsh lake from the west grew more orange-golden, and the heron remained motionless. The shadow cast by the lounge inched across the water toward the mangroves.

Flick! The heron's bill stabbed and came up. Impaled on it was a shimmering sliver of silver that twitched once before the heron gulped it down.

'You see why I like it at this time of day?' Aleyaisha smiled impishly.

Since I was chewing crayfish, I nodded.

'There's always something. Last winter, when there was ice on the edge of the water, I saw a pair of black swans. They had red bills.'

Last winter I had been... where? OE Station? Or had I lost the end of winter to the time dilation of overspace travel? 'Do you think they'll return?'

'They might. I'd like to see them again.' She took a small sip of the dark beer, then a second.

The two couples at the table farthest from us laughed, loudly, and I hoped the sound didn't carry beyond the permaglass and send the heron flying.

'... birds ... get him with birds.'

'Why not? He's another kind of bird ... flies the overspace ... think they're little engees ... most do.'

I winced.

'Don't listen to them,' Aleyaisha suggested. 'They're jealous.'

All of them?'

'The women wish they had the nerve to talk to you. The men are angry because you can do things they can't.'

'Everyone can do something unique.' I sipped the last of the second mug of Arleen.

'There aren't many needle pilots.'

'How many are there?' I wondered if she knew or would tell me.

'According to the medical records, right now there are ninety-three active needle pilots. There are four they could recall'

'Ninety-three?' I couldn't believe that. The Rykashans had almost two dozen outspace colonies or stations serving planets being planoformed into something habitable. Then I wondered how she knew.

'You'll be the ninety-fifth if no one goes off active status. There's one in flight training at Orbit Station.'

I frowned. I suppose I could have tracked the information - or maybe I couldn't have - but the thought that there were so few had never occurred to me. 'Is that because we don't need any more?'

Aleyaisha shook her head. 'The skills are rare.'

Rare? How rare? Rare enough to justify structuring a death to coerce me? I felt small at the thought, knowing that was something none of the Rykashans I had met would do. For a time, I sat there. The four in the corner rose and left, and shadows covered the water outside, all the way to the mangroves.

She finally broke the stillness. 'They say you were a Dzin master. Is that true?'

'I studied Dzin and might have been a master, in time.' I thought about the words and added. 'I thought so then. Now, I don't know.'

'You would have been.'

'I don't know.'

I knew I could have invited her back to my quarters.

Although holding and touching her would have warmed an empty evening, whenever she had left, both the evening - or morning - and I would have been far emptier. Emptier than the darkness around OE Station or than my soul on the day when I had fled Hybra.

She wanted something, not an image, but perhaps to console me, and I wanted to be consoled - but not out of pity. It had to be out of honesty, and the only ones who could have done that were Foerga and Fersonne ... and Cerrelle, except she wouldn't have wanted to, and I couldn't blame her.

Honesty demanded that I be more than an image, more than an image to myself. So I smiled. 'I'm glad you wanted to talk. Maybe ... another time.'

She smiled back, not quite sadly. 'Another time.'

We walked in different directions, and I stayed up later than I should have, poring over Andra's supplemental readings, readings that never quite answered as many questions as they raised, occasionally half wondering about why Aleyaisha had really sought me out, but not sure I wanted to look that deeply.

Vanity? My lips twisted into a smile of sardonic self-awareness. You're afraid it's all professional, and you want to hang on to the illusion that you're personally attractive to someone?

I knew the answer to that question.

51

Do not seek truth through brighter light or inspection of appearances.

With the scoop's cool surface barely against my face, Andra touched the canister stud, and the nanoneedles slipped under my skin, ferrying yet more raw information to various neurons and structures within my skull.

Engineering, this time, I thought, my eyes looking over the gray edge of the scoop at the scene beyond the window, the west side of the operations building lit by the crisp sunlight of late autumn and the high clouds beyond that promised a thundershower by evening.

... potential interaction of sublimation pressure with molecularly compressed inert pseudometals (composite) ... avoided by formation under high-temperature multiple-gee-force containment ... use of discharge nozzle to maintain ionic supercriticality to maximum duration ... plastic deformation of composite occurs ... difference between maximum and minimum principal stresses equals twice the yield stress in shear...

As the images and words, and equations and phrases, swept over and through me, I couldn't help but feel that engineering was different. Unlike the physics and the theories, where the words had been initially as unfamiliar as the meanings they conveyed, in engineering I thought I knew all the words - but the way in which they were used made them a different tongue entirely.

Andra stepped away, but the faint fragrance of flowers I did not recognize lingered for a few moments. Half bemused by the floral scent and thoughts of engineering terms, I stood and followed Andra into the adjoining room and the all-too-familiar console.

'You know what to do,' she said.

I nodded as I seated myself.

The console scripted: 'Which of the following most closely approximates the process for producing interstellar-grade composite?'

Each of the answers was more than a paragraph long, and I had to reread each twice and then pore through the newest mass of information spinning within my skull. I touched the console, and the next question appeared.

When I finally sat back from the screen, morning had vanished with the fall sun starting its descent into afternoon. My eyes were blurred, and my head ached.

Andra reappeared.

'Not bad. The engineering section is hard for most pilots.'

'It's the use of familiar words in an unrelated context.'

'You're eloquent, Tyndel.'

'I wish I were.' My fingers massaged my forehead, and I closed my eyes for a few moments. 'This all seems endless.'

'You'll be finished here - with the information and indoctrination - before Ileck finishes your physical conditioning and readiness. You're a natural, Tyndel.' Andra shook her head, and the reddish blond hair rippled. 'I've had astroengineers who didn't pick up understandings the way you do. Why did you fight it?'

'It wasn't the knowledge.' I felt like shrugging but didn't. 'I've always enjoyed learning about things.'

'You don't mind hard work, either. The reports from OE

Station confirm that.' She stepped back. 'I won't pry.' A half grin followed. 'Not more than I have already.'

'They sent reports to you?'

'Not until you'd returned.'

'Has anyone else - any other Dzin type - refused training and changed his mind?'

'It's happened. Not recently.'

'That's because you don't get many refugees anymore, not Dzin types,' I countered. Nor that many possible pilots.

'You could be dangerous, Tyndel, if you used your brain more.' Andra gave me a faint smile. A grin and a smile in the same session - far more than she usually expressed.

'I am working on it.'

'Good. Until tomorrow.' With that, she was gone.

I didn't have time to walk to the lounge and then back to the pool. That meant I had to hurry to get something to eat at the transient quarters. Besides, while I wasn't avoiding Aleyaisha, I didn't want to give the impression of courting her, either. So I settled on my usual standby when I really didn't know what I wanted - Dorchan orange strip beef with flat noodles and Arleen. I only ate enough to dull the edge of hunger, knowing my stomach wouldn't take more with what Ileck had in mind. The second mug of tea was rushed.

When I reached the pool in my swimming briefs, Ileck -impassive as always - was waiting, black-booted feet standing on the black composite deck. The exercise singlesuit and boots, and the heavy and weighted canvas pack, were waiting for when I finished swimming laps.

'First, your warm-up exercises. Then... the weights. After that, sixteen hundred meters, four hundred fast, four hundred slow, four hundred fast, two hundred slow, and the last two hundred a sprint.'

I took a deep breath, recalling how pointless I'd thought the lap swimming on my first indoctrination to Runswi. Now

I was one of those undertaking such exercise. I had to admit that it was better than wrestling SARMs in null gravity on OE Station. I hadn't forgotten the sweat and the grittiness seeping into every pore on my face - and all the bruises I'd garnered from bumping into interdeck beams.

The warm-up exercises and the weight training ended too soon, and I was swimming lap after endless lap through the clear but black-tinted water. Much later, after the long, too long, sixteen hundred meters, I slumped against the black tiles of the side of the pool.

'Come on, Tyndel. The real work starts now.'

I could hardly wait, but I dragged myself out of the water and pulled on the suit and boots, then shouldered the pack. 'No blindfold?'

'You'll wish you had one,' Ileck promised with a grin that faded. 'Up on the pedestal.'

I was the one who raised his eyebrows, but I doubt Ileck saw the gesture because he touched the portable console he held. The entire pool area turned black, so dark I couldn't have seen my hand if I'd touched my nose with it.

'Go on,' Heck's voice vibrated the darkness, creating an even deeper blackness than the sightless black that enfolded me. Blacker than black isn't possible, but that was the niellen depth that I experienced.

I glanced down. The beam displayed the faintest line of luminescence, but a shimmering length that illuminated nothing else. I felt suspended in nothingness. If I'd been in null gravity, I could have been in starless space, except I wore no outside suit and the air was far too warm.

I edged my left foot forward, a black blot on the shining line that cast no radiance. My whole body wobbled. I paused, concentrating on what I felt, knowing that I was more sightless than if I'd worn a blindfold.

'Don't close your eyes,' Ileck ordered.

I could feel myself flushing in the darkness, since I'd been contemplating just that.

The sound of ragged trumpets thrust at me, and, this time, actual notes half shaped like spears flashed toward me from the left. I winced, then tottered, trying to catch my balance. Abruptly, the deep bass of the ancient organlike sound rumbled from the other side, and a rectangle, luminous and knife-edged, swept toward me from the right.

A hot wall of air - or something - shoved at my back, and I did lose my balance. All I'd taken had been three steps before I plunged into the dark water.

I convulsed at the electriclike shock of hitting the water. That hadn't happened before, but neither had I been assaulted by shapes and actual musical notes before, either.

Abruptly, the darkness vanished, as did the electric knives within the water.

Ileck stood at the edge of the pool. 'Get out. Try from the other side.'

Soaking wet, I heaved myself out of the water and trudged around to the other pedestal, the pack spewing water down the back of the singlesuit's legs, my feet squushing in the wet boots.

Ileck waited until I reached the top of the pedestal, where the smooth and narrow surface of the beam stretched before me and across the black waters below. Water oozed down my back as blackness closed around me, and the beam glimmered before me.

The first step was easy enough, for there was silence before the roaring of thunder, and the rush of surf segued into some sort of massive chorus supported by hundreds of instruments with explosions in the background. I took a second step, then a third, against the pressure of the music, ignoring the cubes that flashed at my face.

The scent of lilacs, impossibly powerful, smothered me, nearly gagged me, and I found myself tottering on the beam once more. I did straighten, just in time to hold against another gentle but unseen cold pressure accompanying a spearlike blade that knifed upward from below, seeming out of the black depths beneath me. The wince that my body gave was enough to unbalance me into the water.

As I struggled to the black-tiled edge of the pool and slowly extricated myself, Ileck laughed. 'Never met a male needle jockey yet who didn't flinch at a thrust to the groin. The first time, anyway.'

Not for the first time, I wondered about my reconsideration of being a needle ship pilot. They called what I was undergoing basic orientation and indoctrination. I decided not to think about what came next. Back to the first pedestal I walked, the boots heavier than ever.

Ileck waited until I stood before the beam once more.

When the blackness again swept across the pool and me, trumpets blasted so loudly they shivered my eardrums and spine. With the trumpets came the odor of sweet roses, and jagged-edged peaks seemed to march down from above, as if to crush me.

Heat and cold pressed from one side, then the other, but I edged along the beam until I reached the other side. Despite the damp singlesuit and waterlogged boots, sweat was flowing down my face, salty in my eyes, by the time I stood on the pedestal.

Light flooded across the pool area, so bright that my eyes watered. I stood very still on the pedestal. My knees were quivering.

'You made it.' Ileck sounded as though my crossing were to be expected.

'For analogues, some of those felt and smelled rather more substantive than symbolic'

'They're supposed to, Tyndel. Being a needle pilot isn't sweet pastries, flowers, and music'

'I've gotten that idea.' I tried not to grin, since Heck's training seemed based on flowers, music, and geometric shapes with a definite kick.

'You need to start moving faster and more smoothly. You can't crawl with a ship on your back. Not in overspace.'

'How much more do you plan to put me through?'

'You're coming along well. Not spectacularly, but well.' Ileck lifted his well-muscled shoulders. 'Don't ask me to predict. You still have trouble screening out certain emotional keys in the music, and that could be a problem.'

'Why?'

'Because a Web pilot is the ship. Without emotion, you can't employ full-body intelligence, but you have to harness emotion, not be harnessed by it.' His lips closed firmly. 'Tomorrow.'

As I left the black deck and the dark water behind, I wondered how many tomorrows I had yet to face with the physical trainer, how much more he wanted from me.

With the rest of the late afternoon mine, after I cleaned up and changed back into my clothing, I walked eastward to the edge of the marsh that stretched beyond the petmacrete transporter strip toward the ocean, farther to the east. The marsh wasn't Deep Lake or the Greening River or the Summer Sound at Mettersfel. The grasses were showing faint traces of brown, and the warm sun on my back was balanced by the cooler breeze on my face.

Why was I here? Because too many people gave too much for you to give up? I nodded to myself. Even with the knowledge that the Rykashans needed me, I still had trouble accepting the idea that I owed society. I had far less trouble believing I owed Foerga, or Fersonne, Sanselle, even Gerbriik and Cerrelle.

Except I had yet to hear from the red-haired Cerrelle, and that nagged at me. If she didn't return the link in another week, I'd try once more. Why?

Did I want to pursue that?

Because she tried to be honest with you without being nasty, and you need honesty more than you want to admit? Because you feel guilty because she reminded you of Foerga?

I turned and strolled slowly into the setting sun, back toward my temporary quarters. Then, I'd learned all quarters were temporary.

Heck's comments about intelligence and emotion piqued my interest, and I wasn't sure I wanted to think too much about Cerrelle - not yet. So after I ate, I settled in front of the screen and began to access what I could.

... emotion ... strong feelings based upon/arising from sensio-cerebral reaction or stimulus ...

There was more, but the majority dealt with the cellular and glandular mechanics that created the transformation from the stimulus to physical reality.

Only one small paragraph grappled with what Ileck had suggested.

... measurements on the hormonal, electro-cellular, muscular, and brain wave functions have confirmed a clear, but nonlinear link between strength of emotional reactions to spacio-symbolic-abstract intelligence... development of either emotional reactivity or intelligence remains an intertwined function involving both genetic predilections and environment (see 'nurture versus nature') ...

The 'nurture versus nature' section confirmed what had been known from the time of the ancients, that separation of the influence of environment and genetically based development was impossible in a practical and meaningful sense, and varied greatly from individual to individual and from environment to environment.

What about emotional reactions and reflexes? I tried the search functions again but came up with nothing.

In the end, I went back to reading the supplemental materials on Andra's list, wondering if Cerrelle would ever return my link effort. Then, I supposed she had no real reason to do so, not with the way I had behaved.

I concentrated on the words and phrases on the screen, just those words and phrases.

52

The most absolute lie is the presentation of an irrefutable fact based on unassailable numbers.

Outside my window, left ajar for the cool air of the fall evening to seep in with the scents of leaves about to turn and the dampness of the not-too-distant marsh, insects chirped. Small creatures rustled through the brush to the rear of the quarters, all sounds I could not have heard five years earlier. Senses that were far better than those I had been born with were far easier to accept than the social structure that accompanied them, but I continued to struggle with both.

I sat at the console, eyes closed, yawning. I rubbed my forehead. The days continued to rush by, and my sessions with Andra had been spread out to every other day, while Heck's training was increasing until it filled most of the daylight hours. That effort left me exhausted. The more I could do, the more he demanded. I was swimming over three thousand meters a day, half of it at sprint speeds, and lifting multiples of weights that would have had me confined in a demon cage in Dorcha. I continued to get soaked in the black pool by the assaults of ever more sophisticated sensory illusions and pressures, partly because Ileck insisted on my working up to running and stopping and other gymnasticlike maneuvers with the heavy pack on my back. The boosted shocks of hitting the black water were also stronger - much stronger.

With another yawn, I opened my eyes to see the screen-borne images of mountain peaks and lakes that appeared and vanished, one replaced by another, all of them collected from the image library of the Rykashan data system, none of them familiar.

Aleyaisha's words of how many weeks before continued to trouble me, more than they had at first. Only ninety-three needle ship pilots, and one more ahead of me in training?

No one had said anything from the first day I'd returned to Runswi? Or had Aleyaisha been sent to let me know that and a few other things? To comfort me - or to see if I needed comforting? How would I find out? Did it really matter? Except that I was an extremely valuable commodity to the Rykashans. The problem was that they were treating me as more valuable than what I knew would make me, much more valuable.

I swallowed another yawn and tried several searches on the screen, tallying up the number of needle ships and the number of outspace stations and colonies. Sixty-one needle ships and five colonies, with another nine orbit stations serving worlds undergoing planoforming. One needle ship per objective quarter per station - perhaps only three a year for some stations.

I frowned. The numbers could be lower for stations other than OE Station - or higher.

The system had no information on ship departures or schedules, at least I couldn't find anything, but that clearly could have been my lack of knowing what keywords or fields to search. So I tried getting information on the ships I knew about - the Hook, the Costigan, the Hay Needle, the Tailor -setting the search based on their names. All that came up was a description of each - no schedules, not even when they had been built. I tried synonyms for 'needle' and related terms, but only managed two more ships' names, the Darning and the Tatter, The descriptions were similar to those of the ships I'd known.

I shook my head. The Rykashan data system was totally open - and still restricted, since one had to know where to look.

Closing my eyes, I tried to concentrate on why the numbers of ships and pilots bothered me. If the Rykashans trained two pilots a year, as they were, it would take nearly fifty years to have gotten ninety-three. Yet ... Cerrelle had said that my obligation would only be ten years personal objective. Even with the time dilation factors, that made no sense. The Rykashans couldn't possibly keep the pilots they needed. Unless they were lying. Or unless they expected I would want to be a needle pilot well beyond the obligated service.

Cerrelle had never lied to me. Not that I knew. Nor had any demon type. That fact, combined with the numbers, sent a shiver through me. But they haven't always told you everything...

I finally touched the studs on the console and attempted to place another link to Cerrelle. Cerrelle and LY-green-forty-four - I'd held that separate from the flood of information that continued to inundate me. Why? Because I'd realized that she'd been the most honest from the first. Brutal, at times, but honest, too honest to let me deceive myself. And I was coming to recognize that for all the pretension, I was a self-deceiver. Maybe all intelligent creatures were. That I didn't know.

The familiar image dominated by piercing green eyes flashed onto the screen, breaking through my musing reverie. 'This is Cerrelle. Please let me know you linked.'

'Cerrelle... this is Tyndel. I didn't know if you got my last message, or if you're traveling somewhere. I still would like to apologize - in person.' There wasn't much else appropriate to say on a link message, and after a moment of silence I broke the connection.

The succession of mountains and lakes reappeared on the screen. Although they looked familiar, when I studied them, they were not. That was life, looking familiar, but totally unknown when examined.

I turned off all the lights in my quarters, as well as the screen, then walked to the window and looked into the darkness outside - a grayish darkness, for the clouds had thickened, and not one star nor the moon was visible. Grayish darkness - was that what I was trying to pull my life from - and I hadn't even known it?

Ninety-three pilots, and I'd be the ninety-fifth?

53

All that is material decays, unlike virtue and sincerity.

The tips of the marsh grasses beyond the lounge window were browning and ruffled in the wind that was raw in the misty and cloudy late afternoon. Two of the other tables were taken, one by a couple - both wearing the solid blue of senior administrators - and the other by two men in brown. The man and woman who were administrators kept their voices low. The other two did not.

'... can't hold a flare to the Noctet ...'

'Flare? How about a pinlight? Hierxal's got more assists with his left toe than the entire high line of Jynx ...'

'High line ... hardly ...'

The conversation went on, but all I could tell from the context was that they were talking about some form of sporting contest - I thought. I'd chosen a lemongrass chicken from the formulator with brown rice and was halfway through it when Aleyaisha slid into the chair across the lounge table from me. She still wore silver and red, but the singlesuit was not nearly so tightly tailored. She still looked good, and her brown eyes were beautiful.

I waited for a moment before smiling. 'You're the gentler, kinder approach?'

She flushed. 'Tyndel, it's not exactly new. Cerrelle tried that, and you weren't exactly ... receptive to information that conflicted with your biases.'

'You're right, but most of you don't have to deal with having your entire life torn apart.'

She looked down, the short sandy hair brushing the tops of her small ears.

'Would you like something to drink or eat?' I asked.

'I don't know.'

'I still like you,' I said. 'I need friends.'

'I like you, and I'm glad you didn't ask for more.'

She would have given more, and that bothered me. 'Get something to eat. I'm still hungry and have to get more anyway.'

That got a faint smile. 'I am hungry.'

'Good.'

The low sound of the wind whistling through the tall grasses sifted into the lounge as we stood and walked to the wall counters with the reformulators.

'What were you eating?' Aleyaisha glanced at my tray.

'Lemongrass chicken with brown rice and chilied peppers.'

'I think I'll stick to lobster and sweet butter with greens.'

When we walked back to the table, I pulled out her chair and waited for her to seat herself.

'If you keep such courtesies, Tyndel, every unattached woman in Runswi will arrange to bump into you.'

'Flattery ...' I mumbled, aware that the two men at the table beyond the empty adjoining one were studying us.

'... needle trainee ... and look at her ...'

'... don't see why ... gone half the time ...'

'Maybe they're twice as good when they're home ...'

Both men laughed.

I could feel my face redden. You do bring me a certain ... attention. This doesn't happen when you're not around.'

'They were talking about you, Tyndel. Not me.' She sipped the dark beer from the tall and fluted beaker. 'I'm just another wanton woman throwing myself at a Web jockey.' She grinned.

'Did you set up those couples who were here, too?'

'I didn't have to.' She laughed warmly. 'There really is a mystique about Web pilots. You'll see. There will be other women. They'll be far less restrained.' She leaned across the table and looked soulfully into my eyes. 'You really are a needle pilot ... I've never known anyone like you ...'

I had to laugh.

Aleyaisha straightened. 'Andra was worried that you didn't have anyone to talk to. So was Cerrelle. That's what Andra told me.'

'I didn't. I still don't... unless you're still interested. Just in talking,' I added hurriedly.

'I know.' She nodded. 'You find women easier to talk to, don't you?'

'They listen,' I pointed out. 'Most of them, anyway.'

'You've been fortunate. We do have some ruthless women here, just as in any culture. Worse, probably.' Aleyaisha dipped a chunk of the white meat in butter. 'They'd ...' She shook her head. 'Trust me ... you want to be careful.'

'How? I don't even know who they are.'

'If you're not sure, ask me. Or Andra.'

'I just might.' I paused. 'What about Cerrelle?'

'She's a lot like Andra. Direct but not a dominatrix. You like her, don't you?'

'Yes, but I don't know why.' I forced a shrug. 'There's something there, but I was hurting too much when I met her, and she reminded me ... well ... things got worse. Probably will stay worse.'

Aleyaisha nodded that she had heard what I said, and I ate some of the second portion of chicken, and then got up and refilled my mug with more Arleen. I also refilled Aleyaisha's beaker.

After the two administrators rose and slipped into the twilight, I looked directly into those brown eyes. 'Is my data screen censored ... restricted?'

'No. You can search for anything that any director of the Authority could, and it would come up. We don't censor what people take off the net.'

'In a way you do,' I countered. 'You have to have a certain ... knowledge ... to know what to ask.'

'That's true in any system. If you have the time, or persistence, you can find it here.'

Was it that I just wasn't persistent enough? Or that I wanted the solutions immediately? I didn't like either possibility. 'Everything I do is monitored, isn't it?'

'Mostly. Everyone is.'

'Everyone?' I took a mouthful of chicken and chewed, thinking. Given the minuscule size of nanites and their capabilities, such monitoring had to be easy enough. 'Who plays Supreme Being?'

'No one. Anyone with the ability could tap into anyone else's monitors, but they're designed so they also record who undertakes such taps. Repeated unauthorized tapping can lead to attitude adjustment. It's a consensus sort of thing.'

'I can't believe some people don't abuse that sort of power.'

'They do. They just don't do it again.' Her lips quirked. 'The systems know everything about everyone, and everyone knows that. Think about it.'

I did, and shivered.

'The only antisocial acts that aren't known immediately are those committed in isolated areas, and even traces of those will show up in the perpetrator's nanite support system. It's very hard to escape justice.'

'Living in a glass house with telescopes trained on it,' I murmured.

'Every house has telescopes trained on it. Adjusted people don't look; maladjusted people don't look for long.'

'Do what's right, or we'll make sure you do,' I suggested.

'We allow people to choose what is right, if they will. If they don't, they lose that choice. Do you have a better idea? Isn't that what Dzin is all about when you strip away the beautiful language?'

'The idea of what's right bothers me.'

'Here... it's simple enough. We don't like people who hurt other people or manipulate them. Don't hurt or manipulate others and you can do whatever you have the resources to do.'

'Humor me,' I asked, finding my voice turning skeptical. 'What is manipulation?'

'The use of psychological force, the implication of physical or administrative force to persuade another to commit actions against the well-being of another, including himself or herself.'

I nodded. 'Who defines well-being?'

'Who needs a definition, except someone who's intent on abusing the system?' she countered.

That did stop me. If you needed to define someone's well-being ...

'See what I mean?'

I saw, or saw well enough. 'Glass houses ... so no one throws stones.'

'There are always a few. Fewer here than in most places.'

I savored the Arleen, the Arleen and a friendly face. We talked for a long time.

54

When the windows of perception are cleansed, the individual sees the universe appear as it is.

The lower edge of the late-afternoon sun touched the split-stone ridge cap of the transients' quarters roof, and silvered light spilled across the slates for an instant. I blinked, and the silver flow had vanished, and the cool and not quite raw air of late fall gusted around the stones of the building and ruffled my damp hair.

Internal nanites or not, months of conditioning to the contrary, my body ached after Heck's swimming, exercise, and weight conditioning - followed by the strain of the black sessions in the pool. Symbolic analogue sessions, no less, where the blackness represented space or overspace, except that the impassive Ileck refused to speculate or explain beyond what he had already said, and I was left in the dark, literally and figuratively.

I took a deep breath and stepped inside the front foyer, turning to the left and heading down the corridor to my quarters. My door was ajar. Had I left it that way, rushing out that morning? I pushed it open.

A redheaded figure stood by the couch.

The smile crossed my lips unbidden, without thought.

'I hope you don't mind my waiting here,' said Cerrelle.

'After all, I did travel across half known space to check on you once.'

'I don't mind at all. I am surprised. I wasn't sure I'd ever hear from you again.'

'You almost didn't.' There wasn't any humor in the statement.

My smile faded. 'Have you eaten?'

'Not enough to spoil my appetite.'

'Would one of the lounges be all right? I can't eat much before Heck's sessions, and I'm starving.'

'From what I've seen, you probably are. You've put on more muscle. You don't look like a scrawny Dzin teacher any longer.'

Scrawny? I'd thought of myself as slender, but I'd done my exercises and conditioning work even in Hybra.

'You were scrawny,' Cerrelle reaffirmed as she started past me and toward the foyer.

I followed, closing the door behind us. Cerrelle walked quickly enough that my muscles twinged as I hurried to draw abreast of her. I appraised her solid figure, seeing a feminine muscularity I hadn't noted before. 'Did you do a stint as a trainer - like Ileck?'

'Not like Ileck. I was a patrol trainer.'

I did a quick mental search. Patrol ... entrusted with monitoring the Rykashan borders with lands populated by unmodified humans. 'In Lyncol or somewhere else?'

'Elena.'

I had to search for that, too, managing to discover it was in the northwest of Amnord and as far north as Lyncol, but even rockier. It was the largest Rykashan enclave geographically and bordered Dezret.

'Did you patrol or train or both?'

'You don't train until you've spent five years on the border.' Her voice was cool... very cool, and I fell silent as we neared the lounge - the larger one opposite the operations building, not the one overlooking the marsh.

Only three others were there - two men and a woman -and they sat at a circular table almost next to the entry arch. None of them looked at us past a casual glance. Because we both wore green - if of different shades?

Cerrelle called up some game meat whose odor I didn't recognize, and, of course, her lemon drink. I settled on spring rolls, a crispy lemon duck, and jasmine rice, with Arleen tea. We took the corner table, the most secluded of the dozen in the lounge, nearly twice the size of the marsh lounge.

Cerrelle settled into the green velvet of the chair, then fixed her eyes on me. 'Before we go back to meaningless small talk ... what changed your mind?' Her voice carried an edge, but one softer than when I had been in Lyncol and Runswi before. 'I didn't.'

'It took three of you. Someone asked me some honest questions.' I paused. 'Then she died.'

'And you want me to be her? No, thank you.'

I swallowed what might have been a bitter comeback, since I probably deserved her skepticism. Besides, you want her honesty, Tyndel. 'That was almost two years ago. I don't want you to be her. I don't want you to be Foerga. I thought. I waited to link you. I don't know why ... not exactly ...'

'Tyndel. You may be on the way to being a great Web jockey, but you don't know what you want from women. You never did.'

She was mostly right about that. You're right. Mostly. Can you still understand what I think?'

'I might be able to if I really tried, but most of those nanites would have degenerated. They're not self-replicating, for very obvious reasons.'

I nodded.

'I'm too old to play games, Tyndel. What do you want?'

I swallowed. I'd known it would get down to something that simple. What do you want? 'I still don't know. You're part of it. You have an honesty - a directness. That sort of directness has scared me, always. But I've used things -Dzin, family - to avoid looking at life directly. I pretended I did, but I didn't.'

Tm not a mindtech, either.' Her voice was neutral.

'I don't want a mindtech. I don't want a nurse. I want someone who looks at life as it is, and who will talk about it that way.'

'And ... now ... you want someone to talk with? Just to talk with?'

'I have to start somewhere.' The grin wasn't forced, but I was nervous.

'I can live with that. For now.' This time, she was the one who took the deep breath. 'If you're not playing some elaborate Dzin game.'

'No games.' I never had played games. There was no point in saying that. I'd been angry, unjustly, at her, and I'd been hurt, but I hadn't been out to play games.

'You wanted directness. Do you still want it?'

'I asked you to be who you are.'

'I came here because Andra and Aleyaisha asked me to see you ... once. On the way back from Omega Eridani, I wished you'd dropped into a black hole. You were - you still might be - an arrogant Dzin prig.'

I thought about that. I sipped the Arleen. 'You're probably right. I think part of that is cultural and not personal ...'

'There you go ...'

'... but the result is the same,' I finished. 'How can you be so calm? I'm attacking you. Ignoring my anger isn't honest, either.'

'Do you want me to be honest?' I countered.

The silence fell on her side of the table. Then she laughed. 'I suppose I deserve that. Go ahead.'

'I know ... I hurt you. You went out of your way to try to get me to see what Rykasha was all about, and I refused to see it. I suspect it's also partly because you saw me squandering a talent that is incredibly rare and felt I was a spoiled brat ... I don't know all the reasons why. You tried to be gentle, but you had to be professional, and being you, you also had to be honest. You had to do what was best for Rykasha, no matter how you felt. It's taken me a while, and I do get a little upset when you attack me. I can't deny that. I still don't think you understand how hard it felt for me. But I can also see that you had to take a lot for a long time ... and maybe from a lot of others as well.'

'Not that long,' she said. 'But you made me angry ... and hurt.'

'Why did you come to see me? Rather than link?' My fingers fumbled with the mug, and Arleen slopped over them.

Andra ... Aleyaisha, especially. She has a feel for things. I thought she was wrong, but I promised to see you - in person.'

'And now?' I found myself holding my breath, not even knowing why.

You want to be my friend, Tyndel ... it's going to take some time.'

I didn't answer immediately. 'I got that idea. I wasn't sure if you'd let me try.'

Are you sure you want this? I'll ask you hard questions. I'll tell you if I think you're deceiving yourself, and I won't honeyglaze it. If you want warm and willing women, all you have to do is finish your training and you'll never have to sleep alone - and never have to say you're sorry. Or explain anything.'

Aleyaisha told me that,' I admitted.

'You didn't believe her?'

'I did, and I do. That's not what I want. You can ask her.'

'Tyndel ... you are a case. You know that?' This time, Cerrelle smiled, if briefly, as though I were an impossible puppy dog.

'If you say so, it has to be so.'

'Let's see how wonderful you think that is in a month ... or a year.'

'Fine by me.' I gobbled down some of the duck before I spoke again. 'There are some things that aren't in all the information that's been poured into me, and it's not in the data system.' I raised my eyebrows. 'You can tell me about being a patrol guard in Elena ...'

'It's not that exciting.'

'I get to be the judge of that.'

She took a sip of lemon drink. 'It was the best I could do at the time. I can't handle symbolic analogues. I can do everything else, but I'd be blind in overspace, and I was angry, angry that there was something that all my brains and all my determination couldn't get for me ...'

That explained more, and I nodded. 'So you went for the next most challenging job?'

'The next most challenging I could get in Elena. The Dezret border is the most dangerous. Those Saints are always pushing ... only culture in all Amnord that still doesn't understand what caused the collapses ...'

I took another sip of Arleen and listened, enjoying the energy of her words, the directness. She wasn't softly direct like Foerga, or gentle like Fersonne, or as sympathetic as Aleyaisha, but as sharp and as honest as a blade. She was right - getting to be friends would take time - and some inadvertent wounds.

Still ... I hoped we could survive them. I wanted us to survive them.

55

The universe offers no deception and no encouragement; intelligence creates both.

I looked down at the screen, at the next question: 'Why is shock isolation inappropriate technology for a needle ship?'

From theory and skills, Andra shifted my briefings into ship construction and mechanical engineering. More definitions ... and now schematics ... swirled through my brain. I blinked and began to sort through the latest mental infusion of information.

Outside the wind moaned, and ice pellets snapped against the permaglass. Already, nearly two centimeters of the sleet coated the ground, except for the walks between buildings, where some form of nanite protection kept the stones clear and mostly dry.

I selected an answer.

Sometime later, the wind still alternated between moans and whispers. The ice pellets had changed to crisp flakes falling faster, and I looked at the last question on the screen and finally chose an answer: 'One half the algebraic difference between the maximum and minimum stress across a single cycle (usually a test cycle).'

After rubbing my forehead, I straightened in the chair. The questions were in random order, unrelated to the order in which my brain had accepted the material. That random order was apparently another method to force my brain to do the organizing.

'You're done, Tyndel.' Andra stood in the door. 'You don't need me to tell you that.'

'That's not it. It takes a minute for me ... to stabilize.'

'You're stabilized.'

I snorted and stood. 'You just want to throw me out into the snow.'

'That's Cerrelle.'

'You're doing it for her.'

Andra gave about a half head shake. 'No one with any brains ever does anything that Cerrelle would want to do herself.'

I hid a smile and left, heading for the transient quarters and a quick snack before marching back through the snow to the pool.

There, after putting me through the 'lighter' conditioning workout, Ileck did have something special for me - differentially weighted boots. So I plunged into the shocking black water more than a few more times before adjusting.

The snow had stopped by the time I walked up the steps to the foyer of the transient quarters, but my hair was frozen from the stiff wind blowing out of the north. If it kept up, the marshes would freeze before long, and that meant the beginning of true winter. Runswi seemed colder than Dorcha, even than Henvor, but not so cold as Lyncol, even though Runswi wasn't that much farther north. The mountains -the wind patterns?

Rather than go out through the snow and chill again, I went downstairs to the limited reformulator in the transients' quarters and had more Dorchan strip beef and Arleen. As I ate, looking out at the glittering white, even without sun, I reflected that snow changed things. I'd been far colder in an outside suit off OE Station, but less than ten centimeters of crystallized water, barely below its freezing point, had dissuaded me from walking four hundred meters to get a better meal - rather, a greater variety in meal selection -when I scarcely would have noticed the chill.

Genetic patterns? Still unchanged by all the nanite rebuilding within me?

After a second mug of Arleen, I walked back to my quarters, where I paced around the sitting room before my eyes turned to the screen. I needed to read more, but I wasn't sure I wanted to start that immediately. I sat down and touched the link studs, doubting that Cerrelle would answer.

The answerer image flashed on.

I waited for the brief words to leave a message, then spoke. 'This is Tyndel. You're probably not there, but I wanted you to know I was thinking about you—'

The answerer was replaced by Cerrelle - hair longer than the answerer's image of her, with slightly darker circles under her eyes. 'What do you want, Tyndel?'

You're actually home,' I said. 'I wanted to talk to you.'

'I usually don't answer. I don't like links, but I checked to make sure it was you. I wouldn't have interrupted the answerer otherwise.'

That was some progress. 'Thank you.'

Cerrelle made a gesture to brush off my words. 'What does Andra have you doing now?'

'Ship construction and specifications. It's interesting.'

'It should be. It's your neck.'

'I know.'

'Would you like to come here when you get a break? You will at the end of next week. I've arranged guest quarters for you - where you stayed before. You remember?'

Yes. I'd like that. I'll be there.'

'Good.' She smiled. 'I'll see you then.' The connection broke, proving again that Cerrelle did not like to converse on the link.

I turned toward the window and looked into the grayish white of evening snow, lit in places by lights and reflections of light. Was directness that important to me? In a woman?

The sardonic smile that settled on my face answered that. I might not like that honesty, but the nanites had either changed me or made me understand myself better, and I realized that I could not afford to be close to anyone who would encourage me to deceive myself, even through concern and sympathy.

I still didn't understand why. Maybe it was enough that I understood.

56

Significant images render insights beyond speech.

As I pulled myself out of the pool after the last sprint, still panting, I looked at the deep end of the pool. Now above the clear black water, above the tiles as dark as nielle, Ileck had set two beams spanning the water, one two meters above the surface, the other half a meter to one side, roughly a meter above the water.

Without waiting for my taskmaster to gesture, I pulled on the exercise singlesuit, the weighted pack, and the differentially weighted boots. The weight in the pack and the boots varied every day. I walked slowly toward Ileck.

He motioned toward the pedestal steps that held the uppermost beam, and I crossed the black composite deck to the steps and mounted. When the blackness dropped across the pool, both beams glimmered, the lower one more faintly than the upper.

'Stay on the upper - if you can,' Ileck ordered. 'You should be running the beam.'

I got three balanced quick steps in that first moment of silence before being struck with the music that called forth something like a charge of horses or ancient cavalry. With the music came the projection of glittering, silver-edged dark spears, each radiating chill.

One foot slipped, and I tried to catch myself, then let the momentum take me to the lower bar, where I managed another half dozen steps at a jogging pace before a wave of heat and cold organ music wiped me sideways and off the beam.

'Ooo .. .'I couldn't help the involuntary exclamation when I hit the water. The electroessence of that jolt froze me for an instant, and I barely managed to get my mouth closed before sinking below the surface. The blackness didn't vanish, and fire jolts made each movement torture. Somewhere above and within the water, a dirge rumbled, mournful and bewailing a death, mine if I didn't manage to drag boots and pack and self to the edge. I could have dropped the pack, but then I'd have to dive down eight meters and recover it.

How long it took to reach the side of the pool, I wasn't certain, but only when my hand touched the tiles did the darkness and the jolts stop.

You're not trying hard enough to stay on the beams,' Ileck announced. 'This is not a contest. It is not a game.'

I pulled myself out of the dark water, still shuddering from the hot-cold shocks it had delivered before Ileck had lifted the darkness.

He looked at me, disappointed once more.

Dripping water that looked clear as it puddled on the black composite deck, I studied my taskmaster, then asked, 'Will you answer a question for me?' I had to work to keep my jaw from shivering as I spoke.

'If I can.' Ileck offered a faint quirk of his lips that didn't approach a smile.

'Is there more to having the water jolt me than just conditioning me to avoid pain and stay on the beam?'

'Yes.'

I raised my eyebrows, then wiped the water off my forehead. 'What, might I ask?'

'To try to condition your body to the severity of failure.'

'Are you sure doing that won't just make me more nervous?'

'If it does, then you'll die in overspace anyway.'

I stood and dripped water for a time. 'You're using various nanite projections to create an illusion of reality here - but wouldn't it be easier just to use something like a nanite briefing spray to give me the entire vision of what you want? Why this way?'

Ileck frowned before he spoke. 'In overspace, you will receive sensory inputs. They'll actually be energy signals relayed from the ship's sensors, but you'll feel them as sensory. You'll react based on your training and your senses. Your mind will react one way, and if it's not conditioned properly your body will react another. A Web pilot can't afford that kind of internal conflict. Right now, that's all you should know.'

'You're conditioning my body and mind?'

'That's what we're working on.'

'You don't sound absolutely sure.' I pointed out.

'Nothing is certain until you make your first overspace insertion.' He coughed slightly and pointed to the beams. 'You need more work.'

So I tried to run the beams again.

I failed twice before I made it. So severe were the shocks from the water, the second time, that when I pulled myself out of the pool, I lay in a heap for several minutes and shuddered. I didn't fall the third time.

Nor the fourth, but I staggered a lot, and had to slow down to get across the beam.

When the blackness lifted, Ileck was standing less than two meters from me, looking down on me, as he always did. 'Andra is right. You need a break. Take four days.' The tall bronzed man turned and walked away.

How many other people in Runswi were doing anything close to the physical exertions he was demanding of me? Or was it because I could do better?

Was he right - that I wasn't trying hard enough?

Probably ... if you're being honest with yourself.

I pulled off the heavy boots and set them on the drying rack, then the soaked singlesuit, thinking as I did. Honesty ... honesty is hard for you, Tyndel. I nodded. That was why I could talk to Aleyaisha but why I wanted Cerrelle. In a squeeze, Aleyaisha would be sympathetic, would comfort me ... and let me lie to myself. Cerrelle might be sympathetic again ... if I ate enough sour eel, but she wouldn't hesitate to let me know if I were headed down the path of self-deception.

But did I want a keeper?

No ... that wasn't it. It was knowing that she wanted the honesty, enough to be direct and honest, that made me want to be honest. Fersonne had shown me that...

Somehow, the hot shower wasn't as comforting as usual.

57

To forget the snows of yesterday is to deny the first flower of spring.

I thought I might sleep late before I left for Lyncol on the first day of the only multiday break I'd had in years. I didn't. I woke early while the sky was dark and cleaned up as it turned lead-gray under heavy clouds that promised more snow.

After a light breakfast downstairs, and after packing a small duffel in hand, I was ready to leave Runswi. Where was the glider station? I could only recall that it had been below ground, about four flights down. While I couldn't remember anything else, I did remember the map I'd gotten when I'd returned. I pulled it out from the drawer under the console and was pleased to see that the glider station was marked clearly - not more than a hundred meters from my quarters, underneath one of the research buildings.

As I looked at the map, I realized again that Runswi, unlike Lyncol, was really not a city or a town or a community. From what the map revealed and what I'd experienced, it was a laborium devoted to science and transport - and one that would have been a dream to the iconraisers of Henvor, had Runswi not been created by demons. Laborium or workplace of the demons, mental truffling wasn't getting me to Lyncol.

I lifted the duffel and left, walking through a gray morning raw as much as cold until I reached the stone archway that had to hold the steps down to the subterranean glider station. The steps were polished stone, polished so they glittered, yet not at all slippery to my boots. Beyond the last flight of steps was a squarish console, ten meters from the platform beyond. I frowned, trying to recall what to do. Cerrelle had done it all before. So I stepped up and tried what worked with the links - tapped in my name and code on the small screen.

This transit is 1 unit. Your free credit balance is 513 units. The words appeared on the screen. I managed not to shake my head. I knew that certain services were deducted from whatever balance I might have, but I really had no idea exactly how far that balance might go.

I stood looking at the empty space where the glider would appear for about ten minutes, until I could feel a slight breeze, and then a wave of air, just before the glider popped through the silvered arc at the western end of the platform. The arched silver cover slid back, revealing what looked to be twenty dual seats, in matched sets, two seats facing two.

Ten people left the glider, but I was the only one waiting. So I took a west-facing seat and waited. A man in a maroon suit scurried down the last of the steps, jabbed at the console, and hurried to seat himself in the four-set in front of me. Less than five minutes later, the covered glider slid into the silvery gray tunnel, and according to my internal timekeepers, something like fifteen standard minutes later I was standing on the stone-walled platform in Lyncol. A man in blue nodded as he stepped into the glider, and so did a woman in the dark green of a Web pilot. She added with a smile, 'Good luck.'

'Thank you.'

I stood for a moment, just surveying the glider station, something I hadn't done when I'd left Lyncol with Cerrelle. Then, I hadn't been listening or looking at much of anything. Unlike the glider station in Runswi, with its single platform, the one in Lyncol had a half dozen platforms, each linked by arched polished granite steps and walkways over the open induction tubes where the gliders were boarded and exited. Every stone glistened, so smooth-polished I could not help wonder if the Rykashan character harbored lithoidolatry. Then, the perfect woods that melded with the stones suggested silvalolatry.

My eyes flicked across the names of the nearest platforms -Elena, Runswi, Berta, Montral, Calgra. Except for confirming names from my basic Rykashan geographic indoctrination, none of them except Elena meant anything. Like all of the glider stations I'd been in, the one in Lyncol was four flights of stairs down, but I wasn't even breathing hard when I stepped outside into a late morning grayed over with heavy clouds from which drifted fat flakes of snow.

Lyncol had snow on the ground, piled nearly a meter deep, except for the cleared stone path that led, as I recalled, down a gentle hill to the transit quarters. I hoped I was headed where I was meant to be.

My breath puffed white in the cold air - drier and more invigorating than the damp chill of Runswi - and I was smiling as I hurried toward the wood-and-stone structure set within the huge and ancient pines. Once inside the foyer, I glanced around until I spotted an open door.

The broad-faced young man in grays looked up from his console. 'Greens - you must be Tyndel, the Web pilot candidate. Cerrelle said you'd be here today.' He stood, towering almost half a meter above me. 'Since you're a pilot candidate, you get the quarters for a half. That's seven units for the three days.'

'Do you need me to input anything?' Seven units meant the quarters went for five units a day, since the Rykashans never charged less than a unit for anything and rounded fractional transactions down, unlike the traders or usurers of Mettersfel.

'If you would ...' He bent forward and tapped something on the keyboard.

I entered my name and personal code, then straightened.

'That should take care of it. You've been here before, Cerrelle said. So you probably know where everything is. If you don't, let me know. I'm Aximander.' His smile was both shy and deferential, surprising to me given his size and obvious strength.

'I will. Thank you.'

Your rooms are on the top left. I'll show you.' He led the way out of his office and went up the steps gracefully, if two at a time. With his size, two at a time was easier.

'Are these all right?' asked Aximander after opening the door. 'I reserved the ones with the view of the pines and the mountains.'

The quarters were somewhat smaller than those in Runswi, and felt older, even if they were spotless. I walked to the window of the sitting/console room. The tops of the rocky peaks to the west were lost in the low clouds, but they'd been there before, and I was certain they hadn't disappeared. 'This is fine.' I smiled, enjoying the fact that I actually had a choice, limited as it was.

Once the towering concierge of transients' quarters departed, I used the link in the room, but Cerrelle didn't answer. I left a short message with the similacra: 'I'm here.'

With all the activities Andra and Ileck had crammed into my days, I didn't mind the lack of structure at all. I lay back on the bed and looked at the ceiling, wondering how the son of a mite trader trained to be a Dzin schoolmaster had ended up going to the stars and returning to learn how to pilot more ships there. The ancients had been wrong about that... where else had the ancient records been wrong - or altered?

My lips quirked. What about the Rykashan version of history? Where was it wrong or misleading? I yawned and closed my eyes, unwilling to follow that flight of thought, not when I had time off, not when I didn't need to do so.

Thump! I struggled awake, realizing it was nearly noon. Outside the window, the snow continued to sputter down. Swinging my feet over the side of the bed, I stood slowly, as though I were backtreading Heck's beams when I had first begun, tentative step after tentative step, blindfolded through the darkness. Was that life, removing the blindfold and still treading through the darkness? I shook my head and swung to my feet.

Another thump echoed from the door.

'Are you even here, Tyndel?'

'Coming!' I straggled toward the door and opened it.

Cerrelle stood there wearing her thin silver jacket open over the olive-green singlesuit. On her collar was a silver pin - a black T across a spoked wheel. I didn't recall the pin. 'Don't tell me. You fell asleep.'

I found myself grinning. 'I lay down, and I was thinking ... and then someone was pounding on the door.'

'Most men don't think that well on their backs.' The humorously sardonic grin faded. 'Are you that tired?'

'Physically ... no. More mentally worn out, I think.'

Cerrelle studied me. 'No self-pity. Honest attempt. Much better.' She motioned toward the foyer. 'Are you coming?'

I grabbed my jacket, light green, and closed the door as I followed her down the steps. At the bottom, I caught up with her.

'I thought you weren't going to be a mindtech.'

'I'm not.' She gestured impatiently, then stepped out into the snow flurries, walking quickly downhill.

'Can I talk to you about Heck's training?' I asked, hurrying to catch up.

'So long as you don't want sympathy.'

'There's a fine line between understanding and sympathy,' I suggested.

'I can draw that line, thank you.' The words carried a slight lilt, and I glanced at her. Was there a twinkle there, or did I want to see it?

'You want to see it,' she suggested.

You're still able to read what I think?'

'Only once in a while. Most of the nanite capability is gone, but I can read your face. You could do it too, if you worked at it.'

'Part of your Patrol training?'

'Yes. It helps.'

'You know ...' I said slowly, 'I don't even know what you do now, unless you're trying to shepherd some other refugee into Rykashan society.'

'I'm a technical assistant to the Transport Subauthority. Remember ... green is for transport.' She gestured vaguely at herself as if she'd forgotten she wore a shimmering silver jacket.

Not for the first time, I had to wonder how much I had missed or ignored from my first days in Lyncol. 'Where are we going?'

'To the Overlook. I'm hungry, and I don't feel like cooking, and it's got the best formulator menu in Lyncol. It's been a long morning, and I don't want to waste the time off.'

'Time off? You have to work that much? I owe for being rescued. Do you owe for training, or are you trying to build up a unit balance?'

'That's considered a rather ... personal question.' Her words were as cold as the air around us, or colder.

I threw up my hands. 'First, you ... never mind.'

'Tyndel... don't get angry with me.' She halted and looked at me, and flakes of snow touched her hair, then melted.

I stopped right on the path and turned and looked straight into those piercing green eyes. 'Cerrelle ... I am trying very hard to adjust to a society I was not born into. I am trying to use every bit of information you people have poured into me. I am trying not to ask any more stupid questions or questions I already have the answers to but don't realize that I do. I am grateful for your honesty and your directness. But ... when you know every bit of my past, when you know all of my losses and my stupidities, and then you tell me that an innocent question about your status in this society is rather personal ... then I think that's hypocritical and self-serving.'

She stood stock-still for a moment, flushing red, then white. Then she swallowed. After a moment, she swallowed again.

'I'm sorry,' I said softly. 'I didn't mean to upset you, but you were born into this society. I wasn't. I've spent five months out of four years with people, and that's not long enough to learn an entire set of new social graces.'

She laughed, ruefully, and then shook her head, then laughed some more. After a while, she shook her head again. 'Oh, Tyndel ... you compliment me and insult me, and then, after you tell me the most truthful and direct statement since I met you, you apologize.'

I didn't know what to say.

'First... you're wrong. I wasn't born here any more than you were. I was born in north Dezret, and I ran for the border before my father could marry me off as a herder's third wife. I didn't learn to read more than the basics until I was seventeen years old. I was diagnosed with a series of genetically predetermined problems that would have killed me before I reached forty. As I told you before, I don't have all the talents necessary to be a Web pilot, and I owe nearly a hundred years' standard service for the medical and educational services I've already received. My current post pays three for one.'

I could feel the color drain from my face. No wonder she was angry and impatient with me. I was fortunate she was still even speaking.

'Tyndel... I don't want pity. I never wanted to bring any of that up. I don't want you, or anyone, feeling sorry for me. Not anyone. Not ever.'

I moistened my lips. 'I've a lot of sour eel to consume.'

Her forehead screwed up in puzzlement. 'What?'

I tried to find a Rykashan equivalent, then shrugged helplessly. 'Ah ... it's an expression that means you were horribly wrong and have to eat all the words you shouldn't have said ... and it tastes terrible - like sour eels ... you know ... bitter and slimy?'

'Eating sour eels ... I like that. The expression, I mean.' After a moment, Cerrelle looked at me, and there was no trace of anger in her voice. 'You were wrong about me, you know?'

'I don't think so.' My words were tentative. I hated to disagree with her, even if the disagreement were to compliment her.

You kept talking about my honesty.' She shook her head. 'I can be honest about you. Or society ...'

'Not talking about yourself isn't dishonest,' I pointed out.

'It is when you use it to mislead people.' She gestured toward the path. 'I meant it about being hungry. I didn't have much this morning, and I'm getting queasy.'

'If you still want to eat with me ...'

'Don't be self-pitying. I was stupid, and you told me so. I deserved it, but that doesn't give you the right to ask for a pat on the back.'

'I was right. You are honest. Which way?'

'This way.' Cerrelle led me past snow piled nearly shoulder-high and turned down a narrower lane toward a low hill. 'It overlooks a pond. It's frozen now, but...'

'It's still an overlook.'

'Right.'

The Overlook was crowded, with only two small tables for two free out of nearly two dozen. We claimed one by the window as a tall man unbent and left, carrying a mug away.

'You sit while I get something,' Cerrelle suggested.

'Fine,' I agreed. 'You need the food more than I do.' She did; she was pale. Low blood sugar? Were the nanite maintenance requirements higher for her because of whatever medical treatments she'd had?

Without a look over her shoulder. Cerrelle headed for the low counters that held the food reformulators.

The circular sweep of permaglass overlooked a frozen oval expanse fringed by mounds of snow that were doubtless grasses or bushes in the spring and summer. On the far side of the pond, the snow-covered ground sloped upward for several hundred meters to where the forest began. There was a path entering the forest, but not a cleared one, and it had tracks of some sort, made as if by old-fashioned sleds or skis.

Cerrelle returned and set down a tray with two platters, one heaped with slices of some meat slathered in a greenish glaze with potatoes covered with cheese beside it, and the second with greenery. 'Lamb with apple mint glaze, cheese potatoes, and a mixed green salad.'

'You are hungry.' I stood and made my way to the counters, where I selected a Toze chicken dish out of curiosity, something with peanuts and peppers, along with various steamed vegetables.

After I returned and sat down, I looked at her, taking in the green eyes and the red hair, when she looked up from several hurried bites. 'So many things make sense now, and I never saw.'

'I didn't want you to see them. You weren't supposed to look for a fellow lost soul. I'm not lost, anyway. Dezret was never home.' She started in on the greenery.

I had several bites of the bite-sized chicken, spicier than I normally preferred but good, before I asked, 'You never miss anything?'

She took a long swallow of water, followed by a sip of the red wine. 'What would I miss? Sharing a husband with two other women? Having three or four children and trying to scrape a living out of land that was worn out twenty centuries ago? Dying young without ever having seen or learned anything?'

'Dorcha sounds like paradise compared to Dezret,' I said slowly, after a sip of Arleen and then a bite of chicken. Most of my platter was empty, more than I would have expected, since I hadn't felt that hungry.

'Women still have to obey men there, don't they?' she asked.

'I don't know that my mother ever obeyed my father if she disagreed.' I laughed softly. 'Some women feel that way, though.'

'Women and girls don't have that choice in Dezret. We -they're handmaidens. Did you know that a woman can't enter the upper levels of paradise unless her husband does?'

'I didn't even know that the Saints had a paradise,' I had to admit.

'I doubt they do, but that's what people believe.'

Even the Rykashans had believers, I'd discovered, but I merely nodded, not wanting to get into a theological discussion. I'd made enough mistakes for a year in less than an hour.

As we finished eating, Cerrelle looked at me, her head cocked slightly sideways. 'Have you ever been on snow-shoes?'

'No.' I'd seen pictures of them, but no one I knew ever used them, since it snowed so seldom in most of Dorcha - amazing, given that Hybra was less than a hundred kilometers from Lyncol. Then, the warmth of the Summer Sea stopped short of the mountains, well short. 'We'll take the short trail.'

After the mess I'd made before lunch, I wasn't about to protest, not one word.

I should have. Being on snowshoes was worse than crossing Heck's beams. The short trail was an expanse of snow less than ten meters wide that might have been packed once but was covered with a half meter of fine new snow. On each side of the trail were ancient pines that rose a good thirty meters or more into the gray sky from which snow continued to drift.

Every so often, as I strapped the basketlike snowshoes to my boots, snow sifted off the overhanging pines and fell like a blanket. One of those blankets covered me as I finally stood up after fastening the snowshoes, but I brushed it away with gloved hands and started after Cerrelle, already twenty meters down the trail from me.

The snow shifted under the baskets that held my boots, and I lumbered from side to side as much as forward. I hadn't gone a dozen meters before the front edge of one of the contraptions caught, and I ended up lying sideways and covered with snow.

Cerrelle turned and just stood there, holding on to a pine trunk and laughing.

I struggled to my feet and plodded onward, almost going to my knees once more.

She laughed again, shaking her head.

So I threw a snowball and caught her in the face.

'You!' She threw back, and I lurched sideways, catching an edge once more and sprawling into the too-soft snow.

I sat halfway up and packed a snowball, firing it at her, but tangled as I was in the snowshoes and snow, far more of her missiles struck than mine. Besides, I ended up laughing.

Eventually, so did she. 'A would-be Web pilot, and you can't get fifty meters on snowshoes!' She kept laughing, and that made it even harder for me.

I finally took off the snowshoes and staggered upright. 'I'll walk anywhere you want, but not on these.'

Cerrelle just grinned, but she took hers off, and we trudged through the semipacked snow for fifty meters or so until we were back on the cleared path toward the center of Lyncol ... and someplace to dry off and warm up.

And talk.

58

Those who praise honesty have not felt its knives.

Cerrelle and I talked most of the time I was in Lyncol -walking down cold but cleared paths under a quarter moon. Sitting in a hot pool while snow poured out of the night sky and turned to a silver brume when it struck the water's surface. Struggling through hip-deep snow to climb for a view of yet another hill. Watching black-capped chickadees flit through the pines in search of seeds carefully cached seasons earlier, marveling at how they remembered thousands of hoards. Sharing dishes at different eating establishments throughout Lyncol.

I learned more about Dezret - from the wind-deaths whipping off the Salt Desert to herd rotations to ancient temples predating the Devastation to seasonal grasses to the politics of families with junior and senior wives - than about Rykasha. Cerrelle learned some about Dorcha, but I didn't know what Cerrelle learned about me that she hadn't already known. Talk was all we shared, and more than enough for the time we had. I slept alone in the transient quarters, my sleep blessedly phantasm- and dream-free.

She never let me know where she lived, and I didn't push that. Knowing what I had learned, I suspected I could have discovered her dwelling, but what would have been the point - except to make a point?

On the third morning, she met me for breakfast and we walked back toward the Overlook. I had my small duffel in hand as we went down the pine-lined lane in the postdawn sunlight. The snow of the night before sparkled so brightly I wasn't sure we even cast shadows.

The Overlook was far less crowded in the morning, and we sat in the middle of the sweep of glass, looking down on the shimmering snow covering the ice of the pond.

'You look more rested,' Cerrelle observed as she sipped the black cafe she preferred in the morning.

I could sense her nervousness, the edge to her body posture, the slightest acridness of apprehension that had been stronger when I'd first arrived - and that I hadn't recognized then. Now it was fainter but still present. 'I feel better.' I held the cup of Arleen just under my chin and let the steamy aroma wreathe my face for a moment before taking a sip. 'It's been a long time since I haven't had to do something immediately. A day's been the greatest break I've had in years.' I laughed. 'Unless you count the time lost in travel dilation.'

'That doesn't count.' Cerrelle took a bite of something that looked like a muffin stuffed with meat and eggs, and far too heavy even for a system of mine that now required nearly twice the food it had when I'd been but a Dzin schoolmaster.

My truffled omelet was adequate, but I could have fixed one better than what the formulator had created. The Arleen was good, and I took another sip.

'Why do you value honesty so much, Tyndel, as if nothing else mattered?' Her piercing green eyes focused on me. 'You keep coming back to that. Yet people here don't lie. The system discourages it pretty effectively.'

'I haven't seen a Rykashan yet who lied - that I know of,' I pointed out. Yet you seem so much more honest and direct.' And I need that directness.

'The native demons grow up with it, and they learn to shield it in subtle ways. Subtlety comes harder if you aren't raised with it. When you're not attacking, Tyndel, you're much like them. Dorcha is like Rykasha.'

'Maybe the first Rykashans came from the same cultures.'

'Not according to the histories. It's more a question of power, I think. Dorcha is one of the more powerful mite nations, and has been for centuries. Rykasha is the only real nanite culture, and it's definitely powerful.'

'With interstellar ships and nanite weapons ... there's nothing else that comes close.' I thought about the segments of history I'd read on OE Station. 'Do we - I guess it's we - have all those weapons mentioned in the histories?'

'I don't know.' Cerrelle shrugged. 'The Patrol uses some - tractors and immobilizers. There must be others. The mites have laser cannon and all sorts of explosives, but they stay well away from Rykashan borders.' An almost impish smile crossed her lips. You avoided answering the honesty question. Why do you pursue it?'

I took another sip of Arleen, then found myself holding an empty mug, with nothing to retreat behind. 'I ... don't want to guess. When ... you say something, that's what you believe. I can agree or disagree, but I'm not guessing as to what you feel'

'You didn't have to come to Lyncol, you know?'

I thought about that for a moment. 'You didn't have to travel all the way to OE Station.'

'The Authority paid for it - and for my time.'

'But you chose to, didn't you?'

She nodded.

'Then ... I had to come to Lyncol - but I wanted to, as well.'

'I'm glad of that.'

I paused as I reconsidered her earlier words. 'The Authority - they paid? Pilots are that scarce?'

'They're not that scarce ... now, but most are nearly a century old, and there aren't that many new ones - one or two a year, at best.'

'Does anyone know why?'

Cerrelle shrugged. 'There are rumors - something connected to the Anomaly ...'

'Engee - the so-called god?'

'Whatever it is ... it may not be a god, but we've lost a few ships along routes that end near the Anomaly. The scientists keep working on it, but whatever they've found isn't common knowledge.'

I had to frown at that. 'Overspace isn't that congruent with real space-time.'

'The ships are missing. Three so far, and there's a deep-space colony of Believers set out there - they went the hard way... by photon drive. They run what amounts to a shuttle every few years.'

'There was one on the shuttle when I went to OE Station.

She said something about the fact that true Believers can't be adjusted.'

'They can be adjusted.' Cerrelle pushed her plate back just a touch. 'Anyone can be adjusted. But adjustment of Believers leads to various forms of insanity that aren't easily cured.'

'Oh ... so a Believer's faith is so deep that it resists Rykashan structures?'

'That's the simple answer, and mostly true.'

'But Dzin isn't that deep.'

'No.'

'Because Dzin is a way of life, rather than a faith per se?'

'Probably. I don't know, but I know it works that way.'

Cerrelle told the truth, but her words bothered me all the same. What was it about a Believer that might be different? All people believed something. Again, there was information missing or withheld, and I hadn't the faintest idea of what it might be, except in a general sense.

'Believers or not' - Cerrelle stretched and looked down at her empty plate - 'I have to work, and you have to go get back to learning to be a Web pilot.'

When we left the Overlook, we walked out the lane and up past the transient quarters where I'd stayed after fleeing Dorcha, back uphill toward the glider station.

Cerrelle stopped at the top of the steps. 'You can find your own way home. You're a big boy now.' She grinned.

'Thanks to you.' I grinned back.

She shook her head. You'd have figured it out. It might not even have taken as long.'

'I don't think so.' You would.'

I knew differently, but I wouldn't argue that point. You made it easier.'

'I doubt that. I'll always make your life harder, Tyndel. Don't you ever doubt that.'

Harder ... but better ... 'I've learned not to doubt your word.'

'Good.' The smile was better than a hug or a kiss, and I watched as she turned and hurried back downhill.

59

That which cannot be constructed cannot be annihilated.

Within a few weeks of my return to Runswi, the year turned. Why did the ancients turn the year in the dead of winter, and why had all cultures continued the pattern? None of the databases and libraries accessible through my console had any answers to those questions. Somehow, that confirmed for me that no culture is ever comfortable looking at some of the basic assumptions by which it operates.

I still linked with Cerrelle, but for us, links were short and less than satisfactory, perhaps because neither of us had grown up with the system or because we felt all too strongly the difference between visual representations and full-body reality.

My sessions with Andra had stretched out to every third day, and even Ileck seemed half satisfied with my efforts. I'd never imagined that I'd be sprinting across narrow beams, dodging fast-moving obstructions and objects with fifty kilograms on my back in pitch-darkness and not losing my balance ... but most of the time I avoided getting dumped into the shocking black water.

On that day after the year turn, Andra motioned for me to follow her to her work space or office, not the nanite briefing room or the console room. She sat behind a console, and I sat in a green cushioned chair, more comfortable than the briefing chair.

Her words were blunt. 'Ileck and I agree, Tyndel. You're ready for the next phase. It's also a big decision point for you.'

'Which is?'

'Some nanite-directed and -accomplished modifications to your nervous and sensory systems. Comparatively minor.'

Was anything that modified the nervous system minor? 'Minor?'

'Minor isn't quite the right word,' Andra clarified. 'The physical changes are modest, and not visible at all, but the impact isn't necessarily minor. Being a Web pilot takes incredible talents and training. You have to know that by now.'

'I've gotten some idea. Ileck keeps telling me that. He's always insisting that all the progress I've made is minimal compared to what I'll have to do.'

A smile broke Andra's stern visage. 'He's exaggerating in one way. Nothing else in the training will be as hard physically. It will be a great deal worse perceptually.' She cleared her throat as if preparing to deliver sobering news. 'The pilot is the ship. That means you need to be able to assimilate and react to outside stimuli instantly, including all the inputs from the ship's sensors and from other sources. Your nervous system's capacity has to be enlarged ...'

'My brain?'

'No.' Andra laughed. 'The human brain is overengineered, most of it, and that part that wasn't, well, we took care of that when you came to Rykasha. The nervous system isn't.'

I'd wondered about that more than once, and why it had seemed as though it had taken days for me to regain my strength, but, never having been turned into a demon or Rykashan before, how could I have known? 'Just what does this entail?'

Her eyebrows went up and she began to speak. 'Without modification, you'd be in a state of perpetual perceptual overload because your sensory inputs and nerve channels aren't designed to handle that much information ...'

In the end, it was clear enough. Even when not piloting, I'd be able to hear a far greater range of sound and be able to see much farther into both the red and violet, as well as sense to some degree through my skin energy levels ... My reactions would be faster, and to protect me from those reactions, my skin would be modified somewhat, effectively creating a low-level nanite armor. I'd be able to link into most Rykashan comm systems without physical contact, were I in fairly close proximity.

'Some of these modifications would be desirable to any human being,' I said slowly when she finished.

'It was tried.' Andra's voice was flat. 'The suicide levels were unacceptable. Only people with the capability of being Web jockeys seem to be able to handle the sensory levels and sensitivity. Think about it ... more sensitivity means more information. More information means more decision making, decision making where others might not see the need for one ...'

I nodded, thinking more about Tomas Gomez and Alicia deSchmidt. 'So ... just specialists ... special operatives and Web jockeys?'

'Some Web jockeys become specialists that way ... it's their choice. Most don't. There are a few specialists left from the old, old days.'

'How can you trust someone with such capabilities?'

'You won't be indestructible, Tyndel - just harder to destroy. Besides, what would be the point? Web jockeys have position and privilege. The way Rykashan society is set up, it's impossible to get more. We don't accept people who are corruptible that way.'

That I found almost impossible to believe.

You were stubborn and stupid, but you were never corruptible. You don't even think that way. No Web jockey does. Some are petty. Some are tyrants aboard their ships, and about half of you are too arrogant for my taste, but you're all very human, and there's never been a case of one being corrupted.'

Or of one being caught?

'Tyndel... we all live in glass houses with nanite-enhanced scanners trained on us. If the Authority wanted to know what you discussed with Cerrelle, they'd know in hours, if not sooner. They'd even know your lovemaking styles, if they thought it necessary.'

'We never—'

'See?' She laughed. You're even honest about that.'

'When do we do this?'

'Now ... if you're ready.'

Would I ever be more ready? I offered a nervous smile. All right. Now.'

'Follow me.' She turned and walked down the corridor and then took a set of steps downward. At the bottom, we went through an unmarked blond wood doorway and along another corridor, underneath what looked to be open ground outside. Just how much of Runswi was hidden?

Somehow I imagined a white-tiled room and shimmering instruments and doctors in white singlesuits. My imagination was wrong. The room I entered was five meters square, lit with bright but indirect light, and empty except for a single pallet upon a square pedestal that rose about a meter off the seamless green floor. There were two medical types in red -a man and a woman.

'This is Tyndel.' Andra gestured toward the pair. 'Doctor Fionya and Doctor Colbarr.'

Fionya had short mahogany hair that clashed with her red singlesuit. The black-haired Colbarr looked younger, in a way I couldn't describe but felt strongly.

'If you would take off your singlesuit and lie down on the table there,' said Fionya.

'Everything?' I asked.

'Everything.' Fionya paused, then continued as I pulled off my boots and started to unfasten my suit, 'You'll fall asleep here, and we'll ensure that you're comfortable and don't regain consciousness until the optimum recovery point. You may be slightly sore, but there won't be any lasting adverse gross physical aftereffects.'

So I undressed, trying to be as impersonal as everyone else. Then I stretched out on the unyielding pallet in a room five meters square, lit with bright but indirect light. I felt like shivering.

Wondering just what I had agreed to, I went to sleep, doubtless nanite-assisted. I didn't dream or have visions or see scalpels ... nothing of the sort.

It seemed as though I had barely napped when I woke up. Then ... then I saw golden-red arcs of fire against nielle, and the sputtering starry pinwheel. All that appeared and vanished when I blinked.

Both doctors, and Andra, were standing there.

'What do you see?' asked Fionya.

I blinked once more. What did I see? Three people, the same room ... except that my eyes recorded much more color and depth ... I blinked a third time. Nothing had changed, and yet everything was subtly different.

'Sit up ... slowly,' ordered the woman in red.

I did, but nothing happened. The room didn't spin, nor did I feel dizzy or disoriented.

'There was something ... earlier.'

'Very good.' She studied something she held in her hand, nodding. 'All right. If you would stand ... hold on to the table.'

I stood, one hand on the pallet table. 'How do you feel?'

I thought. 'There's some soreness, all over, just a little.'

'That's to be expected. You were out for three days.' Fionya checked the hand-held screen once more. Three days?

'For the next week, you'll be on a modified schedule,' Andra said. 'Every morning, you report to medical for a scan. Then you'll get a small briefing, and then a light training session with Alicia. If you're fine at the end of the week, and it looks like you should be, you'll resume a full schedule.'

Alicia? What about Ileck?'

'He has done everything he could. He doesn't possess Alicia's capabilities.'

I wanted to laugh. Ileck stood near-on two meters, and looked and moved like an ancient god - big, bronzed, strong, and graceful - and slender, near-erotic Alicia had greater capabilities?

'You have greater abilities, in potential, than Ileck does,' Andra continued.

If that were so, it explained a great deal of Heck's attitude, the impassive and almost withdrawn care. It had to be hard to train people who would do what you never could. Might do ... I still hadn't proved I could do much of anything yet.

'You need to go eat, and then just walk around, read, try to get adjusted to the way you feel. I'll see you in the morning.'

I walked out into a cold and bright day, but despite the greater depth in my vision, and the glare of the sun off the snow, while I knew I was seeing more, my eyes seemed more able to handle the glare without blinking or watering.

Cerrelle wasn't there ... or in my quarters. I knew she wouldn't be, but sometimes hope overrides common sense and judgment. I didn't link. What was the point? I'd survived a modification whose effects I hadn't really even felt yet.

60

Life is born from darkness, not from light.

When I stepped outside my room into the corridor on my way to breakfast the next morning, I stopped, assailed by murmurings and whispers from everywhere.

... click ... hummmm ... click ...

'... trying to reach administrator Challed... returning his link ...'

... scrittchhhh ...

'... doesn't matter who's coming... don't put anyone next to a candidate ...'

I stumbled down to the dining area, trying to ignore the distractions. The formulator clicked and rattled more than

I recalled when it came up with a cheese omelet and sweet biscuits. I didn't even want to think about truffled cheese and eggs. The salt on the eggs had a metallic edge, and the Arleen had a smoky taste I hadn't recalled.

There was but a single other person in the dining area of the transient quarters, a man in blue and green - a transport administrator or controller?

CLUNK! I twitched at the sound, managing to hold myself steady. He had only hit the edge of his spoon and knocked it against his platter, but the sound had felt amplified to me. I finished the eggs and the biscuits, not quite all the Arleen, and hurried out of the transient quarters and along the path to the medical building under high thin clouds.

EEEEeeeeeeeeee ... The sound of a departing magshuttle - once so muted - screeched like a drill in my ears.

Doctor Colbarr saw me coming and wordlessly ushered me into a nanite screening room, one of the ones with a collector screen. 'WE'LL DO A DIAGNOSTIC FIRST.'

I tried not to wince as he touched a stud and a mist appeared that flowed toward me. I squinted momentarily, not recalling seeing such a ghostly brume when screened before.

'YOU CAN SEE THEM NOW - ANOTHER TALENT. DID YOU NOTICE HEARING MORE?'

'Everything,' I mumbled, trying to keep my own voice low. 'Why didn't I hear all that yesterday?'

'ONSET EFFECT,' he announced, as if that clarified everything.

I tried to call up the term. Delayed impact of increased sensitivity to perceptual stimuli... created by axonic physiochemical adjustment...

'PHYSICALLY, EVERYTHING LOOKS FINE.' He smiled. 'ONE OF THE BETTER DAY-AFTER PROFILES. YOU SHOULD ADJUST WELL.'

If I could adjust to such things as the raspiness of everyone's voices ... and the humming of electroessence everywhere ... and ...

'YOU'LL HAVE TO WORK ON MAKING THE PERCEPTUAL SENSITIVITIES VOLUNTARY. YOU CAN, YOU KNOW. JUST A MATTER OF CONCENTRATION.'

A matter of concentration? I raised my eyebrows.

THINK ABOUT IT AS A VOLUME CONTROL. VISUALIZE IT THAT WAY.'

His voice still rang in my ears, rumbling like thunder, although I could sense he was trying to speak softly.

'I'll try.' My own voice rang and echoed in my ears, even though I'd barely whispered.

Colbarr added, 'ALICIA IS WAITING AT THE FRONT OPERATIONS CONSOLE.'

Concentrating on the idea of lowering my sensitivity, I nodded.

Ears still ringing, I tried mental commands to myself and my nervous system or internal demons or nanites. What exactly worked, I wasn't sure, but slowly the hypersensitivity receded somewhat by the time I entered the operations building.

There I met Alicia deSchmidt for the second time, precisely at the same place in the operations building where I'd checked in when I'd returned from OE Station. That was when Andra and Cerrelle had let me walk through gravity I'd been unaccustomed to so they could make a point - one I hadn't forgotten.

'You're Tyndel?' She wasn't even as tall as I was, and her smile was captivating even as I recognized its sheer professionalism.

'Yes, ser.' I wasn't about to alienate a special operative, especially one who looked like an adolescent's dream who could drive a knife blade through solid oak barehanded.

She raised her eyebrows. 'Do I know you?'

'I watched you drive a steel blade through a table barehanded several years ago.'

'Oh ... the Dzin master.' She nodded. 'Follow me.' She walked briskly down one corridor and around a corner, then through a door and down a circular ramp. At the bottom she followed the next corridor past several closed doors to a door at the end. She opened it and motioned for me to enter the enormous circular room, easily thirty meters across. The walls were black, as were the floor and ceiling, and the arched ceiling looked to be at least thirty meters above me. The only object in the entire space was a pedestal stool or chair attached to a metal pole that meshed seamlessly with the black floor.

'Sit there.' Alicia gestured to the chair. It had armrests and a small console of some sort on a curved support rising from the left armrest. 'Fasten the harness.'

I sat and slipped on the harness that reminded me of those used on the magshuttle that had carried me up and back from the earth orbit station.

She pointed to the console. 'You should be able to operate the console mentally now. Think about powering it up.'

I visualized power flowing to the console. Nothing happened.

A simple command is easier.' The dark-haired specialist's words were dry. 'Like "Power."'

The console energized, and I flushed.

Always try the simplest solution first, unless you know it's wrong. There.' She pointed to the front of the stool. 'There is an imaginary line running forward from the direct center of the stool as your reference point. Consider it as either zero or three hundred and sixty degrees. Various stimuli or objects will appear in the room. You are to note their position in degrees and key the location into the console.'

Her eyes blinked, and a red box appeared by her feet. 'What is its location?'

Three hundred forty-eight degrees. 'Three hundred forty-eight degrees.'

'The input was on the console one point five seconds before you finished speaking. Trust your mind and perceptions. You can't afford that kind of lag. Don't bother to speak.'

I shut my mouth.

'Again.'

This time it was a black oval.

Forty-seven ... forty-eight degrees.

'One reference. Just one,' she cautioned. 'You have to be right the first time. Don't think the word degrees, either. The numbers are enough.'

A sunflower appeared to my right, barely in my field of vision, and I turned my head as I thought, Ninety-five degrees.

'The numbers alone. And don't turn. Learn to trust your senses about what's to the side and behind you. You have to do it without moving. You can't turn an entire needle ship to look at a singularity.' She snorted. 'And you wouldn't want to. You wouldn't survive it.'

Singularities again.

'Now you have the idea. You'll work in darkness from here on.' She stepped back and closed the door.

The room darkened, and the pedestal rose, carrying me upward. A slight rush of air confirmed that the floor had fallen away, so that I was suspended in the middle of a sphere.

An arrow flashed straight up.

Two ninety-two.

It vanished.

I licked my lips.

A luminous yellow cube tumbled from overhead. Seventy-one.

The cube was followed by a bush - lushly green - sprouting out of the side of the sphere as I watched.

'Faster, Tyndel!' Alicia's voice was both spoken and somehow within my skull.

Chartreuse glowed from somewhere behind me. I guessed.

One-seventy-eight...

Crack!... Sssss! Something between an electric jolt and a kick jarred my entire body.

'Don't guess!' snapped Alicia. 'Use your perceptions.'

The objects appeared everywhere - up, down, behind, below - until I lost track of how many and reported their locations automatically.

Then, far later, it seemed, the chair lowered me to the floor - again flat like a normal floor. The lights returned. I wiped my forehead. I was soaked, and I hadn't even been aware of it.

Alicia opened the door and stepped forward, stopping three meters short of me. Two point nine three.

'That's enough for today. Tomorrow, we'll start with the first of multiple locations and other stimuli.'

Other stimuli? I had the feeling I was going to like Alicia's training even less than I had Heck's.

'Remember, after this week, you're still required to go back to your physical workouts. Ileck won't be there to push you, but I'll know if you haven't been doing them, and it will show up here.'

Of that, I had no doubts. I unstrapped the harness, also damp, and stood up.

'I'd suggest a slow walk up the ramp until you dry out and then a long gentle walk away from people. It helps.'

I was sweating and stunk of apprehension, strain, and probably fear, even if I didn't quite know why - except that somehow I did know that all this had to do with my own future survival, symbolic analogue training that it was.

The analogues represented danger. That, there was no doubt about at all. Not to me.

Alicia's parting words were, 'Drink plenty of liquids, too.'

Walking slowly up the circular ramp, I couldn't help reflecting on Cerrelle's hidden help again. I doubted that I would have taken Alicia so seriously had Cerrelle not staged the demonstration by Tomas and Alicia years earlier. I would have liked to have thought otherwise, but I knew better.

Again ... I owed Cerrelle.

61

Movement is illusion; so is stasis.

For each of the next four days, after my medical scan, Alicia had demanded greater and greater accuracy in pinpointing the locations of projected objects in the pitch-black spherical operations exercise room. Then she had added the requirement for vertical coordinates, after I had finished my last checkup, when doctor Fionya had pronounced me fit for whatever awaited me.

I knew something else was coming when I walked into the operations training room.

The almost-petite Alicia smiled. 'Go ahead and sit down, Tyndel.' With her words, the room dimmed into the gloom that befitted an ancient windowless casern rather than a technologically sophisticated culture. I could sense the energy flows from her to the controls, the same sort of linkage that

I was gaining with the console and even with the console in my room.

After fastening the harness, I waited in the chair that simulated a pilot's seat, although I knew that it didn't, not from my own pair of needle ship trips.

Alicia was a luminous icon in the dusky blackness. 'Today, we'll add moving coordinates. You have to judge where and how fast whatever is projected will intersect your zero reference line. You have to give the location and judge how long before the intersection with you or the zero line.'

'Either?'

'There are some things in overspace that you wouldn't wish to put a ship through, but what you can do to avoid them depends on how much time you have.'

She winked out, and the chair rose. I swallowed, trying to relax, to accept all the sensory inputs my rebuilt and neurally-upgraded body could gather.

A black spearlike object arched slowly toward me.

Eighty-one, plus thirty-nine, one point three.

A wall appeared dead ahead, not moving at all but apparently growing in size.

Zero . . .

Then it accelerated. Point two, I added quickly.

'Dead-on objects are deceptive! Alicia's comment didn't stop her or the system from creating a pyramid right in front of me.

'Oooo ...' The jolt that went through me was worse than what Ileck had used in the black waters of the pool.

'You just lost your ship and your life, Tyndel.'

Ignoring the irritation in her voice and my jangled synapses, I tried to use every sense I could muster to pinpoint the veridian cube speeding up behind me.

One seventy-nine, zero, point five.

'Better.'

Another disk swelled - red, turning, white-hot enough to feel as though it blistered my face.

Three forty-four, minus twenty, one point three.

A cluster of orange-shaped globules angled up, accelerating as they neared me, accompanied by the frigid cold of space, and the cacophonous rush of a pipe organ march, one too fast for any organ to have ever played.

Forty-three, minus twenty, point two.

The objects kept coming, but, in time, the lights returned, and so did Alicia. 'That's all for today.'

Again, I found myself soaking wet as I unstrapped the harness. Alicia hadn't created the tension. I had, unable to ignore the importance of what I was attempting to master, knowing that Alicia's training was far more than a series of rote exercises.

'How long for these?'

'Once you've established accuracy in predicting the future locations of moving objects, we'll start your reaction training. Actual velocity varies so much in overspace that even trying to measure it is useless. All you care about is the relative motions and the maneuvering time you have to avoid collisions. You'll understand better when you get into a Web bug.' She stepped back, then turned again to face me. 'I forgot to tell you. Tomas will be waiting for you in the gymnasium at fifteen hundred, after your workout. You'll need his training as well.'

An odd phrasing, but I let it pass. By the time I stood, she was gone, as always, as silently as though she had never been there.

When I left the operations building, a cold drizzle was falling from the thick gray clouds that had moved in from the Northern Ocean. Air and rain were enough above freezing to start melting the ten centimeters of snow that had fallen earlier in the week, and rivulets flowed at the edges of the raised and nanite-heated path. A faint smell of leaves moldering tinged the odor of the cold rain.

Two men in the maroon of land maintenance passed, and I extended my hearing as they retreated behind me.

'... see that candidate's still here ...'

'... seen him swim? Or in the weight room?'

'What do they do ... need so much training?'

'Don't know, but don't think I want to.'

'Not for me ...'

'... you'd want the women, Jorj.'

'Not at that price.'

A half smile appeared on my lips, then vanished. Some people weren't that jealous, unlike those I'd experienced in the lounges with Aleyaisha. The damp cold felt almost welcome by the time I reached the changing rooms of the gymnasium.

The swimming was welcome after running and weight work, especially after working in the pseudo-pilot's chair. All the exercise, strenuous as it was, gave me a sense of well-being and worked out the tensions from all the motion recognition and perceptual training - or perceptual symbolic analogue training.

Once done with the swimming, I made my way back to the gymnasium. There Tomas of the mahogany-red hair was amusing himself with tumbling passes on the pads in the gymnasium - except he seemed to be juggling a pair of razor-sharp blades as he flipped and twisted and finally ended up on his feet - where he threw both fulgent missiles in succession into a small target on the wall. Both were near dead-center.

'Very impressive,' I said.

'It's meant to be.' He smiled, white teeth contrasting with his olive complexion. His eyes were a light brown, washed

out in a way that said he had seen far more than his youthful appearance suggested. 'It's also amusing and a challenge to add more elements.'

'Alicia sent me. She said you have more training for me. She wasn't very specific.'

'You don't need what I'm going to teach you to pilot a needle boat. You'll need it to remain one. You need total conditioning. You can't maintain it on a weightless orbit station. That means you go planetside whenever you reach a destination and have a layover. Some locals are less than accepting of effete earthers, even Rykashans - after all, they're nanite modified as well, and there can't ever be a successful challenge of a Web pilot. Ever.' Tomas smiled placidly. 'With the modifications to your system, you should be able to avoid most difficulties. My training is designed to ensure other situations shouldn't be a problem.'

He handed me a white blindfold.

'More darkness?'

'No. That's to protect your eyes from the glare. Anyone who's nanite-enhanced can step up hearing and sight in normal darkness. It's harder under intense heat and light.' He offered a lazy smile I distrusted. 'You'll see.'

From somewhere he produced a wooden wand, then a second, which he extended to me. 'You'll never need to use a weapon, but this is easier on you to begin with. Put on the blindfold.'

After having seen him in action twice, I had no doubts about that. Once the blindfold was on and I held the wand loosely in my right hand, I could feel heat - and a blinding light that stabbed my eyes, even through the blindfold.

'I'm going to tap you gently and at odd intervals. I want you to concentrate on trying to use your senses besides your eyes to feel out where I am. Just try to sense where I am.'

'Yes, ser.'

He laughed. 'Tomas is fine.' He tapped my left shoulder, and I tried to gather a sensory picture of where he was.

Another tap went to my right thigh. I couldn't hear anything but the faint susurration of his breathing. Where did it come from? Another tap to my left shin.

'Can you sense me?'

With the voice, I located him immediately. One point four meters, forty-three relative.

Another tap, this time to the back of my upper right arm.

I concentrated. Point nine meters, one forty-three. An impact harder than a mere tap - to my left shoulder blade.

One point one meters, two zero-one.

'Now ... try to face me as I move. If you don't follow me, I'm going to tap you harder.'

The first tap was to the wand I held, and with the vibrations I could turn to face Tomas, but his 'image' faded, lost in the glare and the heat that poured down on me. I caught a whiff of sweat, acrid, not mine, but could not locate it.

Tap! The back of my left wrist stung.

Too many taps landed, despite my intermittent success in trying to keep Tomas before me, for all too many times I did not anticipate or sense his reversals of direction.

'That's enough,' Tomas said. The glare faded. 'You can take off the blindfold.'

I pulled off the damp white band, my eyes on Tomas. His face was damp, somewhat sweaty. My singlesuit was soaked - again, and I stunk of frustration and apprehension.

'You're getting the feel for it. Learning to read your body's signals is hard. Most demons never go beyond sharper eyesight and listening in darkness. I'll see you tomorrow.'

He picked up the fulgent blades from somewhere and began to juggle them, his eyes closed.

I hoped Tomas was right. I had small welts everywhere on my body when I left the gymnasium, welts that once would have been solid bruises - and would be again if I didn't learn faster.

62

Visions are born and die in those who behold them.

On sevenday, Cerrelle was actually waiting when I stepped out onto the glider platform in the depths beneath Lyncol. Instead of a singlesuit, she wore blue trousers and a shimmering white shirt under a sky-gray coat that looked to be wool.

'It's good to see you.' I couldn't help smiling as I saw her, as the handful of other passengers eased around us and toward the steps.

She answered my words with a smile.

'This is the first time I've seen you in something that wasn't an official singlesuit.' I switched the duffel to my left hand, and we walked up the polished stone steps together.

'There has to be a first time for everything.' She paused. 'Are you hungry?'

'I've never not been hungry since I came to Rykasha. Where do you want to go?'

'Me, either. The Overlook is close, and it wasn't full when I walked by.'

'That would be good.'

At the top of the steps, I opened the door, and we stepped into a cold and clear day, a sky bright blue without a trace of clouds. The rain that had fallen in Runswi had been snow in Lyncol, and the piles that flanked the path were more than head high as we walked downhill and toward the Overlook. In the light breeze, snow sifted across the top of the piled snow and onto the path, where it promptly melted - or was melted by some nanite magic. The tops of the pines swayed ever so slightly, and powdery snow sifted through the needles and sprayed in minute clouds across the lane to the Overlook.

Cerrelle held the door for me. 'More people than when I came by earlier.'

The tables in the center of the wide glass windows were taken, and we sat at the last one at the south end of the glass. Cerrelle's face was pale.

'You need something to eat,' I said. 'Go get it. I'll hold the table.'

'Just leave your jacket. No one will take it.'

Given the honesty, enforced or otherwise, of the Rykashans, she was right. I had to frown as I followed her. I could have done the same in Dorcha. Was there a certain skepticism programmed into us genetically that came out when we didn't think? What else showed up when we reacted? I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Cerrelle was loading her tray while I was still looking over the limited menu, finally settling on Chicken Mettersfel, flattened and breaded chicken sauteed in wine and smothered with truffles. It came with grass rice and mixed greens.

Cerrelle was waiting as I returned to the table.

'Eat,' I told her, 'before you collapse.'

That brought a smile, and she did lift her fork. I sipped some of the Arleen and glanced out the window. The mounds of snow that flanked the frozen and snow-drifted pool looked lower, until I realized that windblown snow had filled in the hollows. Little swirls chased each other in the intermittent brisk wind beyond the glass. The heat of the hearth warmed my right shoulder.

After several mouthfuls of her roast lamb, Cerrelle looked up. 'How are you doing?'

'As they expect, I think. If I weren't, I'd have gotten some indication.' I cut some of the herbed chicken and chewed it and some hard cracker bread with sesame seeds fried into it.

'You're learning. I told you you'd be good at it'

'You don't mind my coming for just a few hours?' Outside, the wind picked up and whipped fine snow powder against the window.

'It's better than not coming at all' Her face remained sober, but there was a smile in her eyes, one I wouldn't have seen a year earlier.

'I'm glad you feel that way.'

'You were the one who didn't feel that way on OE Station,' she reminded me. I winced.

'Tyndel... I may forgive, but I don't forget' She softened the words with a half grin, half smile. 'Best I not forget that.'

'You have some bruises. There's one on your neck.'

'Your friend Tomas. He's taken over my physical training.'

Cerrelle winced. 'I'm sorry.'

She was sorry. Her voice and the tension behind it indicated that as well. I thought for a moment. 'It would take me years, dozens of years, to match his skills. Where do they send pilots that's so dangerous, and why did they pick me? Because I was so difficult and I owe more?'

She shook her head. 'It's not that - not the owed balance. The Rykasha are honest. You worked off three years' worth out of fifteen. A bit less than fifteen for OE Station. That leaves you with six or seven years to make up at a Web jockey's rate. Your training doesn't work off time, but it doesn't count for more time, either. Some training does.' The redhead across the table from me sipped the last of the amber liquid in the tall beaker.

'Why not pilot training?' I wondered.

'It's not transferable. A doctor or medical technician could emigrate to one of the outplanets or one of the Rykashan free states and use her training for greater personal gain.' Cerrelle gave an ironic smile. 'No one but the Authority can afford to operate needle ships.'

'So, to obtain the privileged lifestyle of a pilot, I have to keep working for the Authority.' I shook my head. 'That's assuming I get that far.'

'You will... now.'

I stood. 'I'm getting some more Arleen. Would you like something? What were you drinking?'

'Kienralle.'

I'd never heard of it, but I nodded, hoping it was on the formulator menu. It was, and I returned with more Arleen, and another frosted beaker that I tendered to her.

'Thank you.'

The Arleen tasted the same as the last mugful, and that bothered me. Why? Because brewed tea varied slightly from cup to cup? Why hadn't I thought about it before? Because I had had more to think about than the strength and consistency of tea?

'That's a thoughtful look,' she offered.

'I was thinking about how everything from a formulator tastes the same. It may be excellent, but it tastes the same.'

'True cooking never goes out of style.'

'Do you cook?'

'Do you?' she countered.

'Some. Not for years, now.'

'Men don't cook in Dorcha?'

'Some do. Most don't.'

'The same as Dezret. You know, that old pattern was changing, beginning to change when the Devastation happened, but in all the mite cultures the stabilization reasserted the same old gender roles.'

'What about here?'

'More men cook, but not many, not with formulators around.' Cerrelle laughed. 'What would you like to do next?'

Looking at her in the white and gray and blue, for the first time, really, I knew I wanted to hold her.

Cerrelle flushed, the red climbing from the open collar of her shirt and suffusing her lightly freckled face. 'Besides that.'

I found myself blushing, in a way I hadn't since I'd been a student of Manwarr in Henvor. 'Show me something I haven't seen in Lyncol. Something scenic,' I added quickly, then found myself blushing more furiously. 'Outside, buildings or trees ...' Or anything!

'I can do that! She was blushing as much as I was.

We both began to laugh.

Finally, she said, 'You can take the man out of Dorcha ...'

'Or the woman out of Dezret?' I asked.

'I know what you might like to see.' She rose, keeping her eyes from me. 'Something very old.'

'Old? In Rykasha?' I grabbed my jacket and hurried to follow her.

Once on the narrow path from the Overlook, brushed once by a cloud of snow released by one of the pines overhanging the way, Cerrelle walked quickly. 'We don't have much time, not for this.'

'For what?'

'What I'm going to show you.'

I could hear the smile in her voice. We passed the transient quarters where I had stayed, and then another of the buildings with no name, and then another. She walked up the polished reddish stone steps of the fourth structure, one half sunk into a hillside that might have been grass-covered in the summer. Now, the hillside was swirled and drifted snow.

'What building is this?' I asked as I followed her down the wide corridor, lit indirectly from high skylights above.

Cerrelle stopped before a door with a miniature console. 'The transport center.' She opened the door and stepped into a narrow room, one that held long suits approximating the space coveralls I'd worn to do outside repairs at OE Station, except these were green rather than silver. She handed me one. 'These are in case of emergencies.'

Then she ushered me out of the room and along the corridor. Before long we were in a maintenance bay where a half dozen silver-green gliderlike shapes rested inertly on a gray composite floor. I studied the craft as we walked toward the nearest. On the base of each were tracks, tracks that circled sprocketed wheels, a design that looked positively antique.

'They're glider-cats. We use them in the mountains. Some of us have our own.'

'We're going to the mountains?' I wondered why she had her own glider-cat, but decided against asking.

'We're already in the mountains. We're just going higher.' She touched a plate on the side of the glider. 'Take the far seat. Put your suit in the second seat.'

Rather than go through a door or archway directly outside, Cerrelle guided the glider toward a tunnel on the north side of the building and slipped the glider inside. 'We could have gone the long way if you'd had more time, but the last part is what you should see.'

'What am I seeing? Besides a transport tunnel?'

'A transport tunnel, and then something I'd like you to see. Let me surprise you.'

Since I wasn't going to get a direct answer, I studied the tunnel walls beyond the canopy of the glider-cat, but they blurred by in the greenish gray haze created by the low lights thrown forward from the glider-cat itself. Cerrelle concentrated on the controls, not looking once in my direction. So I finally settled back in the high-backed and cushioned chair and looked at the blank green console before me, then toward Cerrelle's console. That was simple, from what I could tell -the console's flat panel with a small keyboard, the tiller, a pedal for acceleration, and four gauges, one for power, two measuring various temperatures, and one labeled 'Trac.'

A series of red strobe lights appeared ahead, flashing out of the darkness, blocking the end of the tunnel. Cerrelle keyed something into the console keyboard, and the lights faded. As they did, the end of the tunnel irised open onto a stretch of clear snow. From the depression before us, I could see that the latest snowfall covered a packed expanse of snow - a snow road.

'We're to the east and north of Lyncol now,' Cerrelle announced, touching several studs below the 'Trac' indicator. A high and barely audible whining began as the glider-cat followed the cut into the trees, first between the bare-branched oaks and maples and occasional pines and firs, a space not that much wider than the two-meter breadth of the glider-cat.

Outside of those tracks we left, there were no other traces in the snow. We traveled less than a kilo before the deciduous trees gave way totally to evergreens clothed in white. Smooth as the glider-cat was, we left behind us a swath of snow clouds. The near silence and the snow created a sense of unreality, almost as though I were seeing the snow and the trees and the snowy peak beyond the trees through a screen rather than through the permaglass of the glider's canopy.

'Beautiful...' I murmured.

'It is. You can enjoy it, but there's more.' The sound of a smile came behind those words as well, but her face remained concentrated on the controls and the road.

I doubt I'd ever been in a winter vehicle moving so swiftly and not on guideways or tracks, yet Cerrelle kept the glider-cat steady.

'You learn this in the Patrol?'

'One of the things I learned there. They're even more necessary in the west. There's more territory to cover. Much more.'

After a half hour, when the way became even steeper and the trees began to thin, I asked again, 'Where are we going?'

'Onto another trail.'

Trail? As I thought about that, she eased the glider-cat around a corner and onto a ridgeline that was barely ten - more like five - meters wide. Eight point seven. The glider-cat moved silently along the twisting but eerily smooth trail.

A burst of snow flew from somewhere, and the entire glider-cat shivered.

'There was once an ancient road, not along this ridge, though. They drove their petrolwagons up here during the summer. It was colder then.' Cerrelle did something to the controls, and the glider-cat slowed, dropping almost into the snow.

Colder? I glanced into the afternoon, onto the rocks and the powdered snow that was drifted everywhere. Colder? The wind moaned. The glider-cat shivered, and more snow sprayed across the canopy.

Ahead, along the ridgeline, was something that shimmered. Snow flew around it, enshrouding it, but even when the gusts died down, the shimmering persisted.

'We're almost there,' Cerrelle announced.

'Where?'

'The highest point east of Dezret. Sometimes, the winds here reach over two hundred kilometers per hour.'

'And we're up here in a glider-cat?'

'They're only running about forty.' Cerrelle slowed us more as we neared the top of the peak. 'The stabilizers can handle gusts of a hundred, easily.'

Were we on the top of the feared Demons' Peak, where the winds ripped men apart? Where people froze in instants?

'There.' My red-haired driver eased the glider-cat to a halt beside a shining golden haze, turning the vehicle slightly sideways on a flat expanse of snow thirty meters square -precisely thirty meters square.

Above us and behind the shimmering shield was a structure - an ancient structure. Huge chains, each link a half meter long - or more - rose out of the stone beneath the drifted snow. Each link was reddish, tinged with the rust of centuries, perhaps millennia, yet somehow still massive. There were four chains, one for each corner of the building, and all four passed through the shield - a nanite force-shield of some sort - and crossed the top of the building. The stone-and-timber building, its shape blurred by the shield, was chained to Demons' Peak. Those iron chains - adiaphorus, carious, colossal - were they like the ancients themselves, trying to defy the universe itself through brute force?

I kept looking, though there was little enough to see but an indistinct structure, a nanite shield, chains, rock, and snow.

'There's something about it, isn't there? Not something you can really describe.'

'Yes.' But, like Cerrelle, I couldn't exactly say what. My eyes went to the west, where clouds scudded toward us with cold celerity, where the tips of lower peaks barely pierced the gray of the oncoming storms.

'We'd better go.'

I nodded, and Cerrelle turned the glider-cat, leaving me alone with my thoughts for a time.

More gouts of snow plastered the canopy, and the craft shook more than a few times before we dropped back below the tree line. Once back among the trees and the gloom that would have been shadows had the clouds not blocked the late-afternoon sun, Cerrelle took a deep breath.

'A little close?'

A little,' she admitted. 'But I didn't know when you might have another chance.'

'I appreciated the scenic drive, all of it.'

'I thought you would. Sevenday is about the only time we could have gotten up there without a flock of people around.' She smiled without taking her eyes from the console. Another good part of this is that, since I never finished your indoctrination fams, I can charge the fuel for the glider to that account.'

That brought me up short. 'You would have paid for that?'

'If I'd had to. But I don't' That brought a grin. 'The Authority thinks you're worth it.' She flicked something on the arm of her seat, and lights flared out, illuminating the tracks we followed back down toward the tunnel to Lyncol, tracks that had already drifted over in places.

On the way down the road, even in the dimmer light, I could see how old the trees were, squat pines twisted and gnarled, and tall firs with trunks more than two meters across. Beyond the glider-cat, the wind began to howl, and white flakes skittered across the permaglass of the canopy.

At the end of the road trail, the red strobe lights flashed, but the tunnel doors opened, and Cerrelle eased the glider-cat inside. Her entire body relaxed once we were in the tunnel.

'Thank you,' I said again.

'I'm glad you liked it.'

'I'm not sure I liked it,' I had to confess, 'but I'm glad you showed it to me. What was it?'

'A meteorological outpost, from what we can tell.'

'But people drove petrolwagons up there?'

'There's a lot the ancients did we still don't understand. It could have been religious. Or some of them might have been ancestors of the rock-climbing self-suiciders.'

I chose not to mention Sanselle, but Sanselle was anything but suicidal. The ancients? Who could tell about them?

When we came out of the transport building, the snow had begun to fall in Lyncol as well, lazy fat flakes dropping out of dark gray clouds. In the time it took us to cross the four hundred meters between the transport door and the transient quarters, the wind picked up. Snow turned into a gusting sideways curtain of white, coating my hair, turning Cerrelle's red hair white.

We ducked inside the double doors leading down to the glider platforms and wiped off snow.

'Definitely cutting it close,' I said.

'You always have, Tyndel.'

'Me? You were driving.'

She raised her eyebrows again, and I had to grin. We walked slowly down the steps to the glider platforms. Then we stopped.

'I had a good day.' I found myself smiling at her. The departure bells rang twice.

Cerrelle squeezed my hands. 'I won't see you much before long.'

I frowned.

'You're going to be busy when you get to ship-handling. Very busy.'

'So Andra told me.'

She squeezed my hands again, and I had to scurry into the second seat in the glider. The doors slid shut, and I was swept eastward into the tunnel toward Runswi.

In the glow of the glider, with the darkness of the tunnel beyond, I sat back in the glider seat, closing my eyes and trying to make sense out of the day. Why had I blushed so much, felt so much like a schoolboy again? Because I didn't have to be so on guard, because I knew Cerrelle had seen me at my worst and would still see me and talk to me?

Abruptly, behind or before my closed eyes, arcs of fire exploded, so bright that it felt as though they seared my ears, yet those golden-red arcs of fire were brighter, closer, and the depth of space far deeper, yet nielle with a fulgence that beckoned, than I had ever sensed before.

I sat up in the dimness of the enclosed glider, eyes wide open, breathing hard. What was it about that niellen fulgurence? And why now?

63

The body senses reality; the mind interprets it; trust your body.

After all the days in the dark simulator with Alicia, suddenly, it seemed, I was standing, waiting for a shuttle to Orbit Two.

Alicia had been as brief as always the day before, telling me, 'Report for the zero seven hundred shuttle tomorrow. Be at the operations desk by zero six-thirty. All you'll need is two complete sets of candidate greens, toiletries, and underwear. Your instructor will have everything else waiting for you. The first fam runs three days, usually, but that depends on the instructor and you. Yours might be less, because you have null grav experience, but I wouldn't count on it.'

I wasn't. As I stood at the operations building waiting, all I could count on was that I'd learn something new and more difficult than I'd envisioned, or that some other piece of knowledge would rearrange once more my perceptions of the universe and my place in it.

The seven hundred shuttle was a busy one. A good dozen people stood in the area of the operations desk by zero six forty-five. A thin wispy fog hovered across the marsh beyond the permacrete strip, and through the open door that led to the gray shuttle came the sharp cry of a bird. It might have been a heron, but I'd never heard one make a sound, though I'd watched several from the lounge that overlooked the marsh lake.

A black-haired woman in the dark green singlesuit with the golden web collar pin stepped toward me. 'You're Tyndel? The latest pilot candidate?'

'Yes, ser.'

Her eyes took me in, and she nodded. 'It's harder than anyone can tell you it will be, and easier than what you fear. No one else can do what we do. It sounds arrogant, but it's not, and you have to remember that, outside the Web, you're only a demon.' A brisk nod followed. Til see you somewhere.'

'Captain Siobahna?' called the man behind the desk.

'Here.' The pilot gave a last nod and turned, walking out toward the shuttle by herself.

After Siobahna neared the ramp, the desk man called again, 'All controllers may board.'

A woman in medical red, a man in blue, and a woman in black were followed by a thin blonde in blue.

'Candidate Tyndel?'

I followed the controllers out. Behind me came seven or eight technicians in silver and gray and one in maroon. The passenger section of the magshuttle was as windowless as the two I had taken before and could have been the same, for all the difference I could determine. I did get one of the wider seats in the third row behind the needle pilot and the senior controllers.

Also, as before, the 'dull' scent of composite was overridden by the faintest hint of oil, heated metal, and ozone. A last whiff of marsh or salt air slipped into the shuttle before the door silently slid shut. I checked my harness again, trying to catch the low words passing between the controller in black and the one in blue sitting in front of me.

'... out to Thesalle, this time?'

'... no ... headed to Omega Eridani. More problems with the Conan project...'

'... said that one wasn't true Vee-type.'

'Nothing's true Vee-type, even Venus, and we've got another five hundred years to go there.'

'So why do we do it?'

'Better than bemoaning a universe in which Tee-type worlds are almost nonexistent... might as well do something to have our flowers in more than one garden.'

Flowers in more than one garden ... I nodded at that.

'Please make sure your harnesses are fastened. We will be lifting shortly.'

After the single warning, the magcraft shivered slightly and then slid forward, gradually lifting into its hover before accelerating down the permacrete toward the east and then taking a high-angle climb to minimize sightings by Dorchan and Dhurr ships traveling the Summer Sea and the ocean beyond. I doubted many lookouts strained their eyes peering into the heavens, or would have dared report what they saw.

Except they would have seen little, I realized, because composite was nonreflective to just about any form of energy.

The almost imperceptible whining became far more perceptible as the magshuttle continued to accelerate, rising in volume and frequency until both my teeth and ears felt nearly shattered. I'd tried closing my eyes before, but I tried again -before reopening them quickly. That hot darkness was filled with fragmented images of various objects being hurled at me and recollections of trying to find Tomas in hot blindness while being continually struck.

I left my eyes open and waited until the whining died away, until I found myself being pushed forward in my harness by the force of a brief deceleration, then weightless, drifting upward against the restraints. Finally, I could hear the clunk of docking at Orbit Two.

'Smooth trip ...' came from the seat in front of me.

Null gravity didn't bother me at all now, and I glided out of the seat and toward the opening hatch - behind the black-haired Web pilot, the senior operations controller in blue, the Authority controller in black - at least I thought the Authority controllers wore black - and the medical type in red.

In the tube from the lock outside the shuttle, the black-haired Siobahna had pulled herself to the side to talk to another pilot, and I hung back, tuning up my hearing to catch what I could and letting the technicians slip past me.

'What are you here for, Erelya?'

'Lucky me ... drew training ... candidate on board ...'

'... he's in back, I think ... doesn't seem too bad ...'

'Where to for you?'

'Mithras ... the new planoforming station there.'

'Hard haul, they say ... and it's a low road ... long subjective ...'

'Someone has to... better let you get to your charge... he's holding back, either because he's polite or eavesdropping.'

'Both, I'd guess.'

I tried not to flush as the two pilots said goodbye, then I eased forward with my small duffel, using the overhead lines.

'You must be Tyndel.' The training pilot had short brown hair scarcely longer than mine, pale gray eyes that looked right through me, and a pleasant smile.

'Yes, ser.'

'You don't seem terribly upset by weightlessness. You been in null gravity before, right?'

'Yes, ser. Three years personal objective on OE Station.'

'That lets us skip the null grav fam, then, and start with the station orientation.' She gave a crisp nod and turned effortlessly and without the gross motor reactions that tended to send people sideways in null gravity.

Dragging my duffel, I followed through the tube and into a long corridor much like the lower level corridor on OE Station.

'Lower level is all cargo and maintenance,' Erelya continued without looking back at me. 'Second level is passenger entry locks. Third level is operations. Top level are residences. Ops and residence levels run at about point three grav, and that's pushing it. We stay there when we have to be on station. You hope that's not often.'

Why? Because the pseudograv is too low and because centrifugal force substitutes for gravity? It doesn't precisely replicate the physiological impacts.

'You've used a broomstick?'

'Yes, ser'

'Good. We'll start with the bug. After we suit up.' Erelya led the way around the lower and outer edge of the station - all in null gravity.

We passed a transition lock, then two cargo locks, and another transition lock. A technician in silver approached, a new technician, indicated by the not-quite-fluid movements. 'Good day, sers.'

'Good day,' Erelya answered cheerfully. I echoed her greeting.

Erelya drew herself to a halt opposite a green hatch - a dark green hatch. 'This is the lower level ready room.' She eased open the hatch and slipped inside, where, after waiting for me, she pointed to a locker - with the silver name 'Tyndel' on it. 'That's your gear. Check it out. Put on the suit and the boots. You can leave your duffel there for now.'

Except for being green, and fitted rather precisely to me, the outside suit was the same as those I'd worn on OE Station.

'You won't wear a helmet in a needle ship or a bug, but it will be racked where you can reach it easily.'

From the ready room, soft helmet in hand, I followed her - she had suited more quickly than had I - back along the cargo corridor to the closest cargo lock. In the lock was an ugly contraption - a composite-hulled, ten-meter-long oblong capsule with large canisters seemingly placed everywhere and dual exhaust jet openings front and back and on the top and bottom.

'This is your starbug,' said Erelya. 'It's a modified bug with gasjets, but the feel is similar to the ion-electrojets that needle ships use to maneuver. You'll begin to learn how to handle a ship with it.'

I'd never been in a bug before, although I'd seen them in the locks on OE Station. Up close, this one was uglier, and more battered than I would have thought.

'Get in.' The bug had a hatch rather than a true lock, and Erelya had opened it while I was still studying the craft's exterior.

'That's where you sit.' Erelya pointed to the single seat in the middle compartment of the bug, a seat surrounded by blank screens. 'This isn't quite a standard bug. The controls are set like a needle ship's cockpit, the part a pilot uses. It isn't big enough for the entire control section.'

The bug's control seat looked more like one of the needle ship passenger couches than a vacuum bug-control station, except that there was no overhead matching clamshell. A bug wasn't built for the degree of acceleration/deceleration that required a nanite-cushioned restraint seat.

'You get the part that looks real. I sit up front—' She gestured through the open forward interior hatch toward a much smaller and more cramped console and seat behind a real permaglass canopy. 'Someday, if you're good enough, you'll be the one up there.' She slipped toward the seat that looked so oversized. 'First, the harness and headset there. The harness plugs into the inserts on your suit. I'll show you. Oh, and put your helmet in the open locker to the right.'

I eased my way into the seat, stowing the soft helmet, and strapped myself in place. The restraints were designed differently from those I'd had as a passenger, more confining.

Erelya hooked a foot under the rear of the seat and demonstrated how the harness mated with the restraints and how the data leads mated with the receptors on the tops of the forearms of the outside suit. 'Your arms won't leave the seat channels once you begin an insertion, not until you're back out at your destination.'

I slipped on the headset - more like a formfitting partial helmet - and staggered mentally at the mass of sensory data. Chill from receptors in the bow and stern... minimal warmth from the cabin ... twenty percent heat differential between the top and stub gas tanks ... diffuse heat sources in the cabin ...

We were the diffuse heat sources, and I wanted to shake my head. The data kept pouring through me.

I'd almost forgotten Erelya until she touched a stud and the bug hatch closed. 'I need to get strapped in and run through the checklist. All you do is watch. Watch everything.'

How could I? Not only were my eyes registering what I saw inside the bug, but I was getting all sorts of images from the sensors - all four sides of the cargo lock, plus smaller images of the gas-thrust nozzles. That was in addition to all the other data - gas pressures and temperatures, interior atmospheric pressure and temperature, power flows from the fuel cells ...

But the deep, deep vision ... that was the strangest and the most familiar - the bulkheads of the cargo lock, dull gray composite, yet a blue that was not a blue, chilled but not so cold as the nielle beyond the lock door, and the crackling yellow lines that sparkled beneath the inert composite, and webs of white and yellow and orange that wove the starbug together. I swallowed once, and then again.

I licked my lips, difficult because my mouth was dry. 'You ready, Tyndel?'

'Yes, ser.'

'You're not. No candidate ever is. No point in waiting.'

The starbug shivered as the cargo lock cracked and ice crystals puffed around the hull, doubled images picked up in the screens before me and in the direct inputs that fed into the augmented new sensory system the Authority had given me. As I struggled to reconcile the images, the crystals swirled away. Chill bit at me, and I could feel the exterior hull temperature of the starbug drop.

'I'll take us clear of the station.'

Well clear. I suspected.

'Watch the power, and try to feel what I'm doing.' Her voice shifted - or the frequency channel shifted. 'Earth Orbit Two, Starbug One, leaving lock three.'

'Starbug One, cleared. No inbounds this time. Request duration, Captain.'

'Estimate one point five. Local vicinity. Maneuvering practice.'

'Thank you, Starbug One.'

The starbug's ten-meter length of composite and gas canisters slipped through the open lock and into the darkness, dwarfed by the side of Earth Orbit Station Two, a battered composite gray structure blurred against the black of space above the ecliptic. Space itself, experienced through the sensors, was insubstantial yet endless, its depth emphasized by closer and misty colored webs of power that girdled and infused the station and the distant deep white point-disc that was the sun itself. Colors and power washed over and around me.

Solar radiation, photons, energy - whatever the term -pattered like rain striking the left side of the bug, each bundle of quanta somehow registering as heat, or something like it. My eyes twitched, and so did my fingers.

I forced myself back into the mechanical Now where Erelya was just the latest Rykashan to demonstrate how the demons didn't have much use for lengthy introductions to anything, even maneuvering ships in space.

Or for sensing all the unsensed that I'd never experienced before.

I watched, knowing it was the first of many long sessions, wondering - far from the first time - what I had committed my life to.

And why.

64

Each action creates multiple reactions; act seldom and well.

With deft and quick puff-blasts from the gasjets, Erelya brought the starbug to a halt relative to Orbit Two, nearly five kilos behind us, and less than a kilo and a half from the object before us.

The cold nielle of space burned through the sensors, with the distant disk warmth of the sun off my shoulder and the woven cascade of powerlights enshrouding me. Through both sensors and screens, I studied the dull facade of composite film and the black outlines of the lower cargo locks and the upper passenger locks. The simulacrum was stretched on invisible nanite-projected supports - a facsimile of an orbit station apparently dwarfing the starbug. The entire facade massed less than twenty kilograms, and most of that was the central nanite control box from which the facade microthin film was generated.

'You have it, Tyndel.' Erelya's voice was calm, matter-of-fact.

'I have it,' I repeated as I felt the lock on my controls lift, the same way in which Erelya had lifted the control lock for the past five sessions.

'You'll see more than most,' the training pilot said, her voice coming to me on direct feed through the system, 'that it doesn't look like a real station, but this way you can practice without scaring me or damaging yourself and the bug.'

All of those were worthy objectives. I also knew that the facade would let me make more grievous errors and thus subject me to greater wrath from my instructor.

'Remember, effectively, the simulacrum has no mass - you touch it with the jets and you'll just push it away, or rip a hole in it and turn it into gray ribbons. Center your approach on the upper passenger lock.'

'Yes, ser.' My fingers rested in the arm channels, ready to use the manual controls if Erelya decided to call some sort of emergency and require me to navigate solely by the screens before me. The direct links were faster, but I knew I'd be drilled in both types.

How was I supposed to complete the approach? Any direct approach meant side jets, and within twenty meters, any real use of braking jets would shred the simulacrum station.

'To begin with, you'll just sidle up to twenty meters. If your jets affect the simulacrum, then you're using too much braking.'

Easy enough for Erelya to say.

'Eventually you should be able to bring in the starbug against the film so gently that the lock will kiss the outline without rebounding. Then we'll try approaches to a closed station lock ... and eventually we'll start borrowing needle ships after they've finished their runs so that you can get the feel of a real ship. I've talked enough. Bring her in to thirty meters from the lock shell'

I gauged the distance. Point eight-seven-five kibmeters. Too far to begin with a side approach - I'd end up having to shift gas to the side tanks in order to get enough braking at the end - or come in like a snail, which wasn't the best approach, either.

The 'main' stern gasjets got a tweak. On a standard bug all jets had equal power, but the starbug's jets had been adjusted so that the power proportions were equal to those of a needle ship. And needle ships did not have side jets anywhere near as strong as the fore and aft ionjets. That was a matter of safety for stations and those around them.

The distance between the bug and the 'station' dwindled. Point seven-one... point six-eight... point five-four... point four-nine ...

I kept running the brake-power calculations.

At point three, I offered a quick blast on the forward jets. The rate of closure dropped. Point three ... point two-eight...

But I was drifting down, below a direct line to the target passenger 'lock' outlined in black, rather than a real lock with the massive dampers that protruded and formed a cradle of sorts. I offered a slight burst to the bottom jets, and the starbug rose back toward dead even with the lock before I gave the exact same burst of power to the top jets.

Closure was slower, but continuing. Point one-nine ... point one-five ... Suddenly the simulacrum seemed to loom over the bug, and I could sense again that the starbug was below the lock. I had to turn the bug sideways to match locks, and that took a right forward jet and a left rear one. Then before the bug dropped too low, I sent another minute pulse to the bottom jets and then an even smaller one to stabilize my relative vertical position.

My closure accelerated - point zero nine ... point zero six ... - and the bug was still swinging.

I reversed the turn thrusts, and the inputs indicated that the bug was parallel to the 'station.'

But I was still closing far too quickly. Point zero four.

The power burst needed to stop closure was too much - point zero three - and too close by the time it stopped.

Two angular rents slashed across the dull gray sheet of the simulacrum, effectively bracketing the 'lock.'

Still I had stopped short of the 'station' - if close enough almost to have touched it from the hatch, were it open.

'Tyndel... your passengers and your third officer would be happy. A quick approach, relatively gentle, and you would have barely bumped the dampers. The station's maintenance officer would be screaming to the station commander about how you roasted the dampers and shortened their life by half.'

'Yes, ser. I understand.'

'Do you?'

'I had to replace dampers, ser. It took days for one lock.'

'They're complex enough that they're lifted from earth. If the dampers on the lock were already worn, you just rendered that lock useless for a year unless the station had a spare on hand. That doesn't make station commanders happy. It doesn't make the Authority happy. It might have you running cargoes through the Trough. That won't make you happy - or anyone you might know, because the dilation's worse there.'

Even with all my background information, I didn't understand all the references, such as the Trough, but the message was clear enough. Yes, ser.'

'Tyndel... you're making too many corrections. Each jet correction adds another vector to the bug - or to your needle ship. You do it too often, and even your nervous system won't be able to judge the correction you need because it'll have more components than you can execute.'

Unless I broke off the approach and started all over. I had the feeling that was wasteful of power and definitely frowned upon.

'Take us up a good kilo and out two. Try to stabilize us there before you start the approach.'

'Yes, ser.' I blotted my too-damp forehead with the side of the suit's forearm, keeping my sweat from the shiny control lines, even if they were supposed to be impervious to anything as mundane as sweat.

Up one and out two - an angled approach, and I hadn't even managed a direct approach right. After moistening my lips and swallowing, I pulsed the jets.

Erelya's presence overhung the pseudonet, almost as enigmatic as the dreams of golden-red fire and pinwheel spirals of stars that loomed over my sleep and dreams.

I added another pulse to the jets, then forced myself to wait, to follow her advice about not piling on vector after vector, to work through another long session in the starbug ... and no end in sight.

65

Never mistake a pilot for a guide. The former travels to a goal, taking passengers whether they truly wish to accompany him or not; the latter helps others see both the journey and the destination.

Nearly six months of struggling - half the time in orbit with Erelya, or occasionally other pilots, and the other half of the time struggling back in Runswi with Tomas - followed my introduction to the starbug. Cerrelle and I linked, and even less frequently met and talked, gingerly, like two people balancing on a narrow beam in darkness, uncertain of which direction might lead into deeper night and which toward dawn. That was mostly me, combatting the internal demons of exhaustion and doubt, and fearing success or failure, and still seeking greater apperception.

The starbug struggles came to an end when I found myself in the Orbit Two ready room with Erelya and another pilot, short, almost squat, and stocky, with muddy brown hair and gray-blue eyes with the piercing and washed-out irises that seemed common to all pilots I'd met.

'Captain Aragor is one of the captains of the Tailor' Erelya announced. 'He'll work with you. I'm just here to observe and to set up the simulacrum.'

'Pleased to meet you, ser.' I inclined my head to him and bowed slightly.

'It's always good to see another candidate, Tyndel. We never have enough pilots.' Aragor smiled warmly. His body posture and eyes confirmed the smile. 'Shall we go? You'll need almost two hours for the first fam.'

Two hours? Was I going to inspect every cranny of the needle ship?

'Just about,' he answered the unspoken question, or perhaps the question I'd felt so strongly that he'd picked it up through his own enhanced nervous system. Or every candidate felt the same way. 'Put on your outside suit.'

Intellectually and mentally, I knew the Taibr. The reality was different, different even from my recollections of what I had felt on my first trip out to Omega Eridani. Somehow, the needle ship was both larger and smaller as I followed Aragor on my broomstick along the Taibr's hull.

Although the jets incorporated variable geometry nozzles, from outside they appeared just as squat black spouts, the four set both fore and aft nearly three times the size of the side maneuvering jets. Outside of the jets' nozzles, the ship's exterior was without projections, a cylinder a hundred meters long, gently rounded at each end. The hull was dull, black, inert composite two thirds of a meter thick, capable of withstanding any man-made impact - even impacts where the shock would destroy the interior - capable of withstanding the enormous pressures and temperature fluctuations of overspace insertion and exit.

'Most needles have their hulls rebonded every five years.' Aragor's voice was soft in my ears, undistorted by the soft helmet. He turned his broomstick back toward cargo lock three. 'The abrasion from insertions.' He did not speak again until we had left the lock, helmets in hand, and were headed up to the passenger level to enter the Tailor.

'Most people couldn't tell one needle from another, not from outside, and some not from inside. You'll always sense the differences. Pilots do.'

I hoped I could.

The Tailor followed the standard design of all needle ships, cockpit and passenger section forward and on the upper level, power sections fore and aft, and cargo in the larger lower holds. There were no permaglass canopies or windows for external viewing, not in the ship's normal configuration, although there was an emergency navigation porthole in the control center, behind a movable section of hull, a port that had never been used on the Tailor, according to Aragor.

The control center, or cockpit, held three of the massive acceleration couches, forward bulkhead screens, manual controls before the center couch - that was all that was visible, though I could feel the sensors and the power lines and all the connections of the Tailor's systems.

Erelya gestured to the couch on the left. 'You sit in the second's chair until we're well clear of the station.' She took the third couch.

Aragor said nothing as he took the command seat, nor could I hear anything as he went through the checklist. I did sense changes in the status of the ship. I could feel the fusactors come on line, and the locks closing, the fullness of the Rinstaal cells.

Shortly, the Taibr slipped away from Orbit Two so smoothly that I could not feel the change, only sense the parting of two sets of energy concentrations. Equally deftly, Aragor eased the ship to a halt, so deftly that I wasn't sure he had until, abruptly, the pilot eased out of his couch, his boots a half meter above the deck in the null gravity. Using the toe of his left boot, he levered himself down deftly and extracted a pouch from the small locker in the base of the couch. He clipped what appeared to be a coupler and then a length of sensor tape to the input line to the controls. 'This allows me to freeze you off the system and the boards, if I think it necessary. Even with this, I can't sense what you're doing. I can monitor what data you call up from the system and the physical reactions of the system, but not your inputs. Erelya has doubtless told you why it is engineered that way. I'll be following the ship's monitors and the screens. If they show a problem, I'll take over, and' - he smiled ruefully - 'it won't be gentle. You'll have enough of a headache that we'll be done for the day. So try to be careful and not waste the time you have with the Taibr. You can take the command couch now.'

'Yes, ser.'

'Taking time to familiarize yourself with the ship is not wasting time. Take twice as much time with that as you think you need.'

For all his outward courtesy, for all the softness in his voice, I could sense the metal core of the man, one that brooked no argument. Yes, ser.'

'After you feel comfortable you will make your first approaches to a simulacrum. That's just like you have been with the starbug. The simulacrum will be modified in scale to match a true needle ship, but the proportions are the same so that you shouldn't have that much trouble adjusting.'

I hoped I didn't, and I tried not to fumble as I linked into the Tailor's net system - and was blinded and deafened ...

... white lights strobing from deep within Orbit Two ...

... the faint warmth of the distant sun oozing through the composite of the hull, the patter of photons clicking across my skin - or was it the hull?

... the cage of powerlights fractionally shrinking and contracting around me ...

... the whispering chill of niellen space sucking, grasping at the heat within me ...

... cold points of light set so infinitely distant that each was a tiny cold bell frozen on a single note not quite struck ...

After the initial onrush, I swallowed and began sorting through the sensors. While the inputs were all the same as with the starbug, the strength of the outside sensors was nearly overwhelming, and more than half of the inside system feeds felt deeper - the ones that had been simulated and were now real.

I went through the checklist, not because the ship needed it but because that was the surest way to ensure I had the feel of everything. Then I scanned all the exterior sensors. Somewhere, along the way out from Orbit Two, Erelya or Aragor had launched the simulacrum. Through the sensors of the needle ship, the simulacrum felt even more flimsy and false, the thinnest construct approximating reality. Beyond the ghostly presence of the simulacrum station was the solid presence of Orbit Two - somehow warm and stolid in the niellen dark.

In time, I looked at the older pilot, then back the other way, in Erelya's direction. 'I'm ready, sers.'

'Make a standard approach to thirty meters,' Aragor ordered. 'Figure about ten percent greater response lag than you've been using with the bug. It varies from individual to individual, and you'll need to work that out before we try anything closer. Don't try to stretch it out at the end.'

'Yes, ser.'

The controls were physically the same, and the ionjets responded almost as had the modified gasjets of the starbug, but the needle ship felt more massive. Once I'd eased the Tailor toward the target station's lock, I monitored everything, watching even more closely over the last few hundred meters of the two-kilo approach.

Point zero-six-zero ... point zero-five-five ... point zero-four-eight ... The ionjets eased off, as did the load on the fusactors, and the Tailor rested motionless at forty-five meters from the simulacrum. I could have eased it closer, but Aragor had ordered me not to try that.

'Good.' Aragor's head turned - that I could sense from the system without looking. And good starbug instruction as well. Take her out to two kilos, where you began this approach, and try it with a five percent lag, instead of ten.'

'Yes, ser.'

I eased the Tailor away from the simulacrum, gently at first, since a full blast of the ionjets might have shredded the film surface, and back to where I had begun the first approach. Then I recalculated, and then, with a slow deep breath, tried again.

The separation between ship and simulacrum dwindled. Point zero-four-eight ... point zero-three-nine ... point zero-three-four ... point zero-three-one ...

After the last puffs from the ionjets, I had the Tailor twenty-five meters from the simulacrum lock, without a mark on the film-thin composite.

'One more,' said Aragor. 'Let's try for twenty meters.'

I managed twenty meters - twenty-one, rather. My forehead was slightly damp but not pouring sweat.

'Fold and recover the simulacrum.' Aragor gave the impression of a shrug, and he turned in the second's couch. 'You seem to have a good touch, Tyndel. We'll see how that works later on. Now, you'll try a stand-off approach to Orbit Two, lock four, the one on the end. Bring the Tailor in to a position fifty meters from the station, still side-on to the lock.'

'Yes, ser.'

'And tell Orbit Two what you're doing.'

I nodded. 'Orbit Two, this is Tailor. Commencing near approach to lock four this time.'

'Orbit Two here. Understand series of close approaches to lock four. No inbounds this time. Request you inform Orbit Control when you intend to engage dampers.'

'Will report intent to dock, Orbit Two.'

'Stet, Tailor!

I checked the controls and everything once more before starting the real approach.

Fifty meters turned out to be fifty-two, but I had caught the sense of apprehension and felt I'd best err on the side of distance.

The next approach was to thirty meters, and the third to twenty meters.

After the twenty-meter approach, Aragor said, 'All right. Back the ship off to five hundred meters. Once she's stable, disengage the harness. Gently, please.'

When I had the Tailor away from the station and stable at five hundred and twenty meters, I disengaged the harness, and we changed places.

Aragor brought the Tailor into lock three as smoothly as he had taken her out, and without a hint of dampness on his forehead. Once the needle ship was docked and cradled and shut down, he sat up, disengaged himself from the system, and looked at me. 'I don't know as I'll see you again, but best of luck, Tyndel.'

'Thank you, ser.'

Back in the ready room, Erelya added more. 'You're doing fine. From here on in, your training schedule is going to depend partly on what needle ships are available for you to use. We'll try more complex approaches to the simulacrum with a real ship - all the types you've done with the starbug. Once you seem to have mastered those in clear space, you'll do them to a stand-off to the station. Then, when it's clear you can put a needle ship exactly where you want it... then we'll begin actually docking to the dampers. This can't be rushed, you know?'

I nodded. That was something I had already determined.

'Good.' Erelya left me with a faint smile.

66

A river is water undertaking a journey, yet life is not a river, nor man a pilot upon it.

My sessions in Runswi with Tomas slacked off, but Erelya plied me with more research projects on needle ship systems and overspace and real-space navigation, and those filled every free minute - or so it seemed. Except I knew, for whatever reason, that I was filling every one of those minutes because, once I had agreed to be a candidate pilot, I could no longer pretend whether I succeeded or not didn't matter. I had failed once. I had never really been a Dzin master, no matter what I had said, no matter that Manwarr had granted me the title. I knew better, and I refused to fail again.

When I returned to Orbit Two once more, as on so many other occasions over the past four months, Erelya awaited me in the ready room with another Web pilot. 'Tyndel, this is captain Sesehna.'

At first glance, the woman with Erelya looked the most uncaptainlike of any of those I had seen or worked with. Small, almost petite, with an elfin face but a slightly squared jaw, the bare hint of curves beneath the dark green singlesuit, and a hidden wiriness without overt muscles. Then ... she looked at me, and I almost froze. The eyes held the kind of determination and power I would have equated with ... I couldn't have even put a name or a title to someone who radiated that much sheer force of will. I felt dwarfed, and seldom had I so felt. Yet her smile was polite and not at all condescending.

'Sesehna is a senior captain,' Erelya continued. 'She'll work with you for the next few days, as necessary.'

'I am pleased to meet you, ser.' I bowed to cover the shock I had taken.

'We're fortunate to have the Hook for the next several days,' Erelya added. 'And Sesehna.'

Sesehna inclined her head toward me. 'The Hook is cradled at the number two locks, passenger and cargo.'

I deferred and let my seniors lead the way up to the number two passenger lock, where we entered the needle ship, past the two maintenance crew members standing by to monitor the locks when we departed.

'... don't see three jockeys together much ...'

'Last one's a candidate ... pretty far along if he's being allowed to handle a needle ...'

Pretty far along? Far enough along to get myself into real trouble? I smothered a silent laugh. Whenever you learned enough about something, you could get yourself in real trouble. Experts always caused more damage when they failed.

Sesehna came to a halt by the command couch and turned to me. 'You may make all departure arrangements.' She clipped her own harness into the double bracket. 'Once you're ready for actual departure, check with me.' With the fluidity of a diving bird - or something more graceful - she slipped into the second's couch, leaving me floating akimbo above the command couch.

Erelya silently, once more, took the third's couch.

The Hook's acceleration couches were fractionally closer to the forward bulkhead screens, as were the manual controls before the command couch - really the first deviation I'd noticed from the standard pattern I'd seen in all the needle ships. I used my boot toe to ease myself back into position, and strapped in as quickly as I safely could. Once I was hooked into the system, I flicked through the ship's database, confirming that the Hook was one of the most recently completed needle ships - less than ten universe objective years old. I did not hurry as I checked out all the systems of the Hook, even skipping from sensor to sensor to gain those full-spectrum images that were so much deeper than mere vision, images that sometimes occurred even when I was not connected to a needle ship.

As I went through the checklist, I monitored the changes in the status of the ship, noting the fusactors as they powered up, the locks closing, and the glittering fullness of the Rinstaal cells. Finally, I turned to Sesehna. 'Ser, ready for departure.'

'Take us out three kilometers at plus five, zero degrees relative to lock three.'

'Yes, ser.' I informed Orbit Control and tried to emulate the smoothness of departure I'd first felt with Aragor and later with some of the other pilots, and the Hook slipped away from Orbit Two smoothly, if not as silkily as I might have wished.

I used single power jets to bring the needle ship to a halt, leaving her at three point zero five kilometers, rather than fuss with the ionjets for fifty meters.

After scanning the screens and the manual readouts, Sesehna spoke, not looking in my direction. 'Make a standard approach to the station, lock number two. A complete halt five meters from the dampers.'

Just like that. A standard approach so close it might as well have been a full approach to dampers and cradling -and the unspoken promise that if I even looked as if I'd botch the approach, I'd have a splitting headache and an angry senior pilot.

I calculated, twice, and then again. I ran a signal check to the ionjets, trying to get a sense of any divergence from norm in power/mechanical lags. Then I modified the calculations, notified Orbit Control, and sent power to the ionjets.

The Hook slid through the photon-splashed niellen dark toward Orbit Two, first briefly accelerating, then coasting, before I cut in the forward jets for braking.

Point zero-six-zero ... point zero-five-five ... point zero-four-eight ... The ionjets eased off, as did the load on the fusactors, and the Hook rested motionless at six meters from the station. Sweat had pooled at the back of my neck and seeped out from there.

'Not bad.' Sesehna's head did not move. 'Adequate for a start. Take her back out to one point six kilometers at thirty-one plus.'

That I could manage and did.

Once the ship was stable, the senior captain made another clipped statement. 'A low-power approach. Seven percent power from the Rinstaal cells. Another five-meter clearance.'

Seven percent power with a heavy needle ... that was asking a lot, but I ran through the calculations and then began the setup.

As the Hook began to accelerate, the ionjets cut off. They'd been cut manually by Sesehna.

'You've just lost half your Rinstaal cells and the fusactor is dead,' she announced. 'Finish the approach to five meters with two and a half percent power.'

I scrambled through the reordering of everything, and attempted to respond with a dual decel burst. I wasn't going to risk it all on one burst.

After the second burst began, my attention was on the closure and distances. Point zero-two-eight ... point zero-one-nine ... point zero-one-four ... point zero-zero-nine ...

I held my breath following the last ions from the jets, but the Hook held at five point five meters from the passenger lock. Six point one meters from the lower cargo lock. For a full standard minute that seemed far longer, I waited in silence.

'Take her back to one point eight kilometers at minus fifty.'

So I did, stabilizing the ship where Sesehna had directed.

'This time you have eleven percent, and you will bring her in for a full docking.' Sesehna paused. All the way through to full cradling and locks open.'

Yes, ser.' I pulsed Orbit Two. 'Hook commencing low-power approach to docking and cradle.'

'Understand docking and cradle, candidate.'

Affirmative, docking and cradle.'

Erelya seemed slightly more tense, and I wondered what emergency Sesehna would pull, but nothing happened while

I eased the Hook inbound, or even after the ionjets cut in to start the deceleration.

Abruptly, the entire net went dead.

Sesehna glanced at me. 'Bring her in manually, Tyndel. Full locking. You have no communications, no system.'

My fingers found the manual controls under my fingertips, and each finger felt twice its size, and slippery on the rough studs.

... point eight-seven-four ... point seven-eight-five ...

I still had my own abilities to calculate, but now I needed to factor in greater lags and sluggish responses. The first deceleration burst was late and too short, and I scrambled mentally to readjust.

... point four-one ... point three-seven-two ...

I eased in the ionjets once more, conscious of being hot and cold and sweating all at once, my eyes skipping from one manual indicator to another, far slower than assimilating the figures directly.

In the end, the thump of docking and cradling was only slightly heavier than normal, and with that impact, I had the net back. I was drenched, beaded with sweat that had welled up all over me and run nowhere, just merged into ever-larger puddles to soak through my underclothes and into my suit.

'Uncradle and take her back out - two kilometers at plus ten.'

I followed the orders and waited to see what other difficult approach the senior pilot would request. 'Execute a normal approach.'

'Yes, ser.'

I watched like an ancient hawk, waiting for another trick, another emergency, but nothing happened, and I eased the Hook into the dampers and cradled the needle without even a bump.

Then I sat in the pilot's seat and tried not to take too deep a breath.

Sesehna glided back, hooked herself down beside me, and unfastened the cutout harness. 'Open the locks. We're done.' After a minute pause, she added, 'You'll do.'

I somehow felt those two words were almost a compliment from the senior captain, and as much recognition as I'd be likely to receive.

As she slipped toward the locks that I'd begun to open, Sesehna turned to Erelya. 'Another good job.'

The senior pilot was at the lock as soon as it cracked, and gone before I even finished the shutdown checklist.

You'll do all the approaches and departures from now on,' Erelya said from beside the command console.

'What comes next?' I slowly released the harness and reclaimed my soft helmet from the locker beneath the command couch.

'The procedures for overspace insertion and exit. That will take a month or so until you know them even if half your brain is gone. Then you get a real assignment.'

67

The difference between truth and honesty is the difference between the riverbed and the river.

When I walked away from the downshuttle at Runswi, the late-afternoon sky was deep blue. Despite the sun, a breeze made the fall day seem cool, almost chilly. My mind was worrying over Erelya's parting remarks - 'Next time you come up, you'll be ready to find out if you're a needle pilot. 'Next time? Why not then? Why offer that possibility but not even schedule it firmly? Just because it depended on the availability of a needle ship? Or was there more?

The wind ruffled my hair, and I brushed it back, finally pushing away my concerns about what else it might take to become a needle jockey and thinking about the red-haired, sharp-featured, and very honest woman who'd helped me find myself. I hoped to get to Lyncol and spend some time with Cerrelle. I glanced up, hoping to see her, knowing I wouldn't because she couldn't even have known when I'd return, not when I seldom knew more than a few hours in advance.

Instead of Cerrelle, the sandy-haired Aleyaisha was waiting outside the operations building. 'Tyndel!' She beckoned.

I turned and crossed the dozen meters separating us. 'Good news or bad news?'

'No bad news.' The full lips pursed into a smile, and the brown eyes were friendly. 'You've been busy. I thought you might like some friendly company. So did Cerrelle. She's on her way to Thesalle.'

'For long?' I blurted. Thesalle ...? The green planet, the one that wasn't what it seemed, the one whose strangeness eluded measurement and quantification? Why Cerrelle?

'You're not always the controlled Dzin master, I see.' Aleyaisha's smile broadened.

'I never was. Not too much.' It had been hard to hold on to Dzin when I recalled the two children kissing in the cataclypt of Dyanar, or when I remembered having tea in the Dzin master's house in Hybra, or recalled my cruelty to Cerrelle in lashing out at her when the faults had been mine. Yet ... for all that, had I ever been a Dzin master?

Not really ... or not fully. 'Do you know what she's doing on Thesalle?'

'Cerrelle? Only generally. They want someone who wasn't born a Rykashan to help calibrate the atmospheric baseline effect ...'

'I'm not sure I like that.'

Aleyaisha gave a shake of her head, the sandy hair bobbing away from her head, showing more clearly the elfin jawline. 'Every time I see you, you've become more honest with yourself,' she said after a moment.

'It must have something to do with being a demon.'

All demons aren't as honest as you are. So I doubt that.' She inclined her head. 'Are you hungry?'

'Yes. The marsh lounge,' I suggested.

That received a nod. Her singlesuit was red this time, with silvered cuffs, and I nodded to myself as we walked along the pathway north and east of the operations building.

'Unless you want to cook,' I added, managing not to smile.

'What I cook neither of us wants to eat.'

'I'm not sure of that.'

'You would be if I cooked, Tyndel. You don't want to be that sure.' I took her word for that.

'How is the training going?' she asked after a silence as we walked up the wide stone steps to the marsh lounge.

'I'm getting close to the end, but Erelya won't - or can't - give me a definite answer as to how much longer I have before I learn whether I'll make it as a needle jockey.'

'You will.' Her voice held quiet assurance. 'I'm glad you think so. There are times I'm not so certain about that.' I held the door for her.

'Few are as hard on you as you are - now.'

I understood the 'now.' I'd coddled myself too much, but who was to say I still wasn't?

When I sat down with my plate of Dhurr pepper chicken and looked through the permaglass into the early afternoon, I found my eyes fixed on a blue heron that stood one-legged on the far shore, across the open water from the lounge. 'Do you attract herons?'

Aleyaisha glanced up from her plate of plummed dumplings and through the glass. 'Only when I'm talking to you.'

I laughed. 'You haven't seen one since then?'

'I haven't looked.'

'What have you been looking for?'

'You've been a Rykashan for nearly eight years objective ...' Aleyaisha offered, ignoring my question.

'Two thirds of that personal objective.' I took a sip of the steaming Arleen, enjoying it immensely, since tea isn't the same on an orbit station, even an earth orbit station with partial gravity.

'That's still quite a time, Tyndel. Nearly six years and you're questioning whether you belong and whether you should.' She sipped the beaker of pale green liquid. 'Why didn't you question so much when you thought of yourself as Dorchan?'

Because you didn't want to ... because you never sought the wider world? Because Dzin taught you to seek meaning in what is, rather than in what isn't? 'I wasn't raised to question. That came later.' I laughed. 'After Cerrelle unscrambled my brains and kicked my ego down to size.'

Aleyaisha peered intently into my eyes, exaggerating the gesture and expression. 'I don't notice any ego dwarfism.'

'You help, too.'

She raised her eyebrows, both of them, so comically that I nearly choked on my pepper chicken. 'Let's change the subject

... a little. What is the heart of Rykasha? What defines it? Have you thought about it?'

At times, you've thought about little else ... 'I suppose it depends on what you mean by the heart. Functionally, nanotechnology is the key to Rykasha, since it enables the whole structure.'

'You might call that the skeleton or the nervous system ...' mused the blonde.

The pieces fell together - so obvious. So obvious as to be simpleminded. Power beyond great power allows honesty and compels those in such a society to demand it.

'What are you thinking?' A tone of concern edged into her voice as she studied my face.

'About honesty. Why Rykashans have to demand honesty - and greater honesty for those with greater responsibility.' I sipped the Arleen, lukewarm rather than hot, but I wasn't ready for another mug of hot tea. 'That's your heart, if you want to call it such.'

An amused smile replaced the concerned frown.

'Because there's no workable alternative. High technology, and nanotechnology is effectively high technology, requires greater honesty if the society is to survive. Deception, even hypocrisy or excessive manners, is deadly for a society of people of power.'

'Oh?' Aleyaisha took another sip from her beaker, then the last dumpling from her plate. 'Why would that be?'

You know, but I presume I'm supposed to explain.'

'I don't know if I know. Your answer, that is.'

'It's hard to put in words. I'll try. There are but two checks on the abuse of power - greater power and the individual will of those who have power. As power is magnified by ability, the adverse effect of checking power through the use of greater power rises exponentially.' I paused. 'Maybe not exponentially, but the side effects grow larger more quickly than individual power grows because it takes a greater and greater concentration of power to check power that is abused. That means the only viable means of restraining power is by ensuring power is used responsibly. The only effective means that I can see is to ensure honesty - and Rykasha goes to great lengths to do just that.'

'You're assuming honesty reflects integrity,' Aleyaisha pointed out.

'I'm defining honesty in the sense of being honest with one's self.'

'Can't someone be honest with herself ... or himself ... and still deceive others?'

'The Authority does it all the time,' I riposted, 'by letting people believe partial truths, but the whole truth is there for whoever wants to look. Look at the needle ships. Space is enormous, and overspace has to be dangerous. I can tell that just from the training. Yet nowhere is that stated. There have to be ships that have never arrived, but there's no record, not that I can find. The problem is that most people can't or won't see it because of what they want to believe. But that's not quite the same as setting it up so that self-honesty is required to use power. That's really why you have Alicia and Tomas. Unfailing self-honesty is all that they have left - and honest pride in that honesty.'

'You think they're enforcers of some sort?'

'I know they are.'

Aleyaisha finished the last of the single beaker she had brought to the table. In the twilight, the great blue heron flapped off toward the depths of the marsh. 'You're quite a philosopher, Tyndel.'

I shook my head. 'It took me six years to puzzle it out. That's not great philosophy, not for someone who spent half a life in the halls in Henvor.'

'Most who spent that long there would never figure it out,

Tyndel.' Aleyaisha stood. 'You don't mind... I've a long day tomorrow.'

'I don't mind.' As I stood, I looked at Aleyaisha. 'Did I pass, honored examiner?'

She began to laugh so hard that her eyes teared. I couldn't help but join her. The couple in the corner stared, but we could have been alone for all that they were there.

Finally, she gasped. 'Tyndel... you'll do just fine ...' She shook her head.

'Why? It was obvious, once I thought about it.' Then, that was usually the problem - discovering what the real problem was - the step beyond Dzin.

'It was - but no one else has ever confronted it quite ... your way.' She shook her head. You are more of a Rykashan than most Rykashans. You denied that to begin with, and you still try to deny it'

'What does that have to do with being a needle pilot?'

'Everything,' Aleyaisha answered simply. 'Everything. You'll see.' She reached up and touched my cheek. Then she began to walk past the empty tables toward the door, and I followed. 'Even if I had been the one to meet you and bring you into Rykashan society, Tyndel - it wouldn't have worked. You were too honest for Dorchan society, and you're too honest for me.'

Except I hadn't been that honest. I'd been self-deceptive and focused on attaining the title of Dzin master rather than the understanding implied by the title. It had taken Cerrelle to change that, with an honesty that had been almost brutal in its directness. 'No one is too honest for you.'

She held the door for me on the way out. You're kind, Tyndel, but it's not so. I almost would have climbed into your couch that first time, because you were still hurting, and I wanted to comfort you. That kind of comfort isn't honest, and you knew it.'

'I tried to be honest.'

'I know.' Aleyaisha touched my cheek briefly, once more, before her hand dropped away as she stepped into the darkness beyond the lights, darkness that my eyes could penetrate as easily as if the full moon had shone. 'Good night, Tyndel. Don't forget to stop by medical before the shuttle liftoff.'

'I won't. Good night, honored examiner.'

'Your turn will come ...' A soft laugh followed her words.

'Perhaps.'

Rather than go back to an empty room, I took a long walk along the marsh path, well past the lounge and along the raised hump of ground that might have once been an ancient river levee. More Rykashan than most? What is a demon, a Rykashan?

Someone with nanites swarming through his system and powers beyond the ancients' imagining? Someone whose nanites triggered a Dorchan demon scanner or killed a passlet? Was being a demon as much a state of mind as anything? Being able to accept near-absolute honesty?

The call of something - an owl - echoed across the marsh, a call that haunted but offered no answers.

Even by the time I reached my quarters and my bed, I had no answers for my questions, nor any for the two other questions: Why did such questions matter; why did they bother me?

I laid back on my bed, thinking about Cerrelle, somewhere on Thesalle Orbit Station or Thesalle itself, about Aleyaisha, about honesty ... about becoming a needle jockey for real.

When my eyes closed, the golden-red arcs of fire were brighter, closer, and the nielle of deep space far deeper, yet with a fulgence that beckoned.

I sat up, eyes wide open, breathing hard.

After a moment, I walked to the window and looked out at the damp brown that was more like gray in the light of the half-moon.

More Rykashan than most Rykashans ... But what was a Rykashan, or a demon? I still couldn't answer that, not the way I wanted to.

68

Technically developed self-consciousness isolates the self to an individual who reduces others to the status of things.

Bekunin ran me through diagnostics at zero six hundred, nodded, and said, 'You're fine.'

I caught the seven hundred shuttle, as I had for what seemed years, and before that long found myself standing before my locker in the ready room. I opened it. My pale green shipsuits had all been replaced by the darker greens worn by needle jockeys, each folded neatly on the restraining shelves. On the collar of the first new shipsuit was a shimmering golden Web pin.

I turned as someone entered. Erelya floated just inside the hatch.

'Go on. Put it on.' Erelya was tense, and I'd never seen her this tense.

I pulled off my boots and then slipped off the pale green suit and folded it.

'Just put it in the cleaning bin.'

I eased into the darker green suit, the fabric nearly silklike. It was silk, nanite-generated and modified silk, but silk. After I'd replaced my boots, my eyes went to the senior pilot. 'This isn't as simple as you're making it out to be, is it?'

She shook her head. 'It is, and it isn't. Only a mind can direct a needle ship - one mind and one mind alone. You know there's no such thing as a copilot. We train you as well as we can. We scan the routes as best we can, and start pilots out on the easier runs ... but the energy involved ...' She shrugged. 'When we think you're ready, you get a ship and a run.'

And everyone hopes you've been trained well enough that we all get where we're going and back. 'Exactly,' she responded.

Sometimes, it was clear, pilots could read thoughts - or close enough. Sometimes I could, even, with Cerrelle and Aleyaisha, but more so with Cerrelle.

'Let's go up to operations,' Erelya continued. 'You need to meet Astlyn. Then you'll meet your officers.'

Your officers? That sounded strange, strange enough that I felt almost numb inside, but I took my soft helmet and gear and followed her along the corridor and up the transverse shaft.

'Your ship will be the Mambrino,' she continued over her shoulder.

The Mambrino? I repressed a laugh. Certainly appropriate for you, master of Dzin and seeker after illusions. 'It's one of the older needles. Less of a loss if things don't work out?'

'More of a loss. The older needles are more stable in overspace, but that's not the point, pardon the pun. It's suited to you. We try to match ships to pilots. You'll see.'

Her matter-of-fact tone chastened me. 'I'm sorry.'

'You wouldn't know.'

But you should have guessed. 'I'm on my own, and you have no idea whether I'll make it or not, or whether I'll destroy a ship ...'

'That's right. The Authority bets a ship and a cargo -ten million life-credits on each new needle jockey.' From the shaft hatch, Erelya glided left along the upper-level corridor.

The Authority really bet that amount on each insertion - the odds were merely much worse on a needle jockey's first run. And now I was the one swallowing and wondering.

'The cargo is valuable ... not irreplaceable, but still close to it ... planoforming nanotemplates, that sort of thing. You know already, Tyndel, that any interstellar cargo is nearly irreplaceable. So are needle jockeys.' She touched the edge of a blue-and-black-rimmed hatch and motioned for me to enter.

A single figure waited in the operations room, standing in the light gravity beside the central console. He was black-skinned, with brown eyes that were guileless and simultaneously looked right through me.

'This is Astlyn. He's the senior operations controller here. Astlyn, this is Tyndel.'

I could" see a collar pin - the Web pin, except with two four-pointed stars on each side. My internal information store let me note that he was both a needle pilot and a junior member of the Authority.

'Tyndel, I'm pleased to meet you. I hope we'll be seeing a great deal more of you. Erelya has confidence in you.'

'I hope to be worthy of that confidence.' What else can you say?

'So do I. Erelya is seldom wrong.' Astlyn's thin eyebrows lifted slightly. 'I would not like to see her wrong.'

That was almost a command - bring back the needle ship.

'Nor I, ser.'

'Good.' With a nod, he turned to Erelya. 'I leave you to introduce the officers.'

Why did he need to see you? Just to let you know there is a senior controller? So that he could tell the Authority?

'He's the one who authorizes first flights,' Erelya said dryly. 'So ... if you fail, it's both our heads.' After a pause, she continued. 'On your next flight, you'll meet your crew in the ready room and introduce yourself on your own.'

As if on some sort of cue, two officers entered the small operations room.

Erelya gestured toward the round-faced blonde in the singlesuit that was darker than my candidate greens had been but lighter than the silklike Web jockey singlesuit. 'Berya will be your second.'

'Pleased to meet you,' I offered, studying Berya, taking in her air of competence. Supposedly either the second or third officer could maneuver a needle in real space with the manual controls, in case something happened to the pilot in overspace, and doubtless the officers on the Mambrino would be more experienced than most, given my inexperience.

She nodded, returning my smile with one somewhat forced. 'Erelya says that you're good.'

We'll see, won't we? 'I hope to live up to her confidence.'

The squat black-haired man glided forward, inclining his head.

Erelya explained. 'Souphan will be your third. He's actually going to Santerene for a more permanent assignment, and you'll pick up another third for the return.'

'The cargo's already loaded,' Souphan noted. 'Full, but not pushing mass limits.'

'Good.' Both Erelya and I spoke simultaneously.

She smiled. 'I'll leave you three to the business of getting the Mambrino ready for departure.'

'Thank you,' I said, and nodded to the other two officers.

Berya returned the gesture and led the way from the operations center. The three of us made our way back down the shaft and to the passenger level.

As we reached lock three, where the Mambrino was cradled, I finally said, 'I appreciate your expertise and your confidence.'

'That's what we're here for, captain.' Berya's smile was professional, if guarded.

Souphan tapped out the entry code on the touchpad, and the ship's lock opened. 'I'll be below, ser, doing a last check on the cargo and the stays.'

That definitely made sense from Souphan's point of view - with a new Web pilot at the controls.

Belatedly realizing that I should have unlocked the ship with a direct control, I began my inspection with the passenger compartment, and continued through every space, just as I had with Erelya. And as with her, I didn't find anything unusual.

Back in the control center, after strapping myself into the command couch, I checked the harness, then the headset, before running through the systems checks.

'Passengers are boarding,' Berya announced. 'Five of them - all working on the Santerene Three planoforming project.'

'Thank you. Anything else I should know?'

'They don't know this is your first insertion.'

'Let's make sure it stays that way.' My words did bring a smile to the lips of the round-faced second, if but for an instant. I was ready to uncradle the Mambrino before Souphan returned, but I rechecked all the systems and tried to get a better feel for sensors and responses in that interim.

'We're ready for departure.' The dark-haired third strapped himself in.

Til notify ops,' I told them.

Berya was already making the announcement to the passengers. 'Make sure your harness is securely fastened. We will be departing shortly.' Berya's voice came through both center speakers and through the system.

I beamed operations. 'Orbit Two, Mambrino, ready for departure.'

'Mambrino, area clear, no inbounds this time, understand destination Santerene.'

'Orbit Two, destination Santerene, uncradling this time.' When the cradles released, I gave the lower ionjets the slightest puff, enough to undock us, followed by a side puff, phasing in more ionjet power as we separated.

'Orbit Two, Mambrino clear of lock three. Departing this time.'

'Stet, Mambrino. Controller Astlyn sends his best.'

'Orbit Two, thank him for us.'

I moistened my lips and stepped up the power flow from the fusactors. Even at full power, the acceleration from the ionjets was limited, unlike the photonic system, but we had to be well clear of anything - a minimum of two hundred kilos - before I could bring up the main drive system even on minimal power.

When I did extend the photon nets, brought the configurators on-line, and then switched from ionjets to photonic drive, more than ever the mass of the cargo loomed under and behind the control center, and me, with a feel that made the term 'jockey' seem more appropriate than I had realized, far more appropriate.

I eased the needle's nose upward, trying to establish the orientation necessary for Santerene, as the acceleration built for insertion speed. Then came the excitation power-up, lattice after lattice raising the needle toward overspace.

'Minus ten for insertion,' I announced quietly as the growing acceleration pressed us back into our couches and the clamshells above clicked out of their restraints.

You must be in your harness at this time,' Berya announced.

'Minus five.' Scanning the passenger cabin, I could see and sense that all passengers were secured, and recalculated again, trying to ensure an orientation as perfect as possible.

'Minus three.'

The clamshells and nanite foam filling were in place, sealing us against the pressures, cushioning us against the growing acceleration - more than ten gees and building. I could feel the barriers between now and overspace thinning ... thinning.

I twisted the untwistable - as Aragor had put it - and slipped the Mambrino beyond the Now into a momentary silence.

Overspace itself wasn't the sightless black I'd been prepared for by Alicia's and Tomas's training, but the backdrop was dark purple with a tinge of green - like a storm twilight without the definition of clouds. Where I stood/flew/floated seemed at the top of a hill, one that sloped down from me toward a distant beacon. Behind me, I could sense the pulsations from the enormous moon beacon and identify the pattern.

Slowly ... it seemed so slowly, I locked on the distant beacon pattern before me, catching the pattern pulses and verifying the ID of Santerene. I could sense other beacons - perhaps a dozen, scattered at various distances, distances I knew to be deceptive.

From where Vwe/Mambrino soared, I could sense that the overspace gradient to Santerene was all downhill - almost like a grassy slope to a flat... I stepped/guided forward.

A lazy black sun slowly climbed from below me - two-eighty-eight, minus seventy-seven - out of the purple mist below.

I eased myself - the Mambrino, one and the same - ever so slightly sideways and forward, through the cloud of lilacs, past the sounds of a German polka and through the veil of a vanishing march.

A run ... a gallop, and the slope slid by beneath me.

Somewhere beyond the distance, I could sense a pinwheel of stars and a golden-red arc of flame, but they were there ... not beckoning, not threatening - just somewhere out beyond overspace.

Another sun - yellow-black - turned and flared toward me, but all it took was a slight lifting jump to slip past that bumblebeelike humming and drop onto the gradient downslope once more.

The beacon that I somehow knew was Santerene grew warmer, and, then ... simply, I retwisted the untwistable, and we exited overspace.

The control center flashed black, then blinding white, then settled into the standard gray of composite and plastics and electronics.

That's it? I blinked, discovered that I was soaked and that my body was slightly sore. The gee meters ranged from plus fourteen to plus twenty-three, gees I hadn't been aware of experiencing.

'Smooth,' said Berya. 'Easiest quad I ever made.' She half turned on her couch toward Souphan. 'This is the way they all ought to feel.'

Erelya hadn't told me, but I wasn't surprised that the officers accompanying a needle jockey on his first insertion received more than normal compensation. Berya's comment indicated that she'd accompanied more than a few beginning jockeys.

I grinned and almost asked what she was piling up credits for before I decided against the flippancy. Instead, I cranked up the fusactors and eased out the photon nets as the Mambrino began to accelerate downward toward orbit control off Santerene.

Once we were on a steady inbound course, I flicked off my inbound report. 'Santerene Orbit, this is Mambrino inbound, captain Tyndel, second Berya, and third Souphan. Five passengers. Condition green. Estimate arrival in ...' I had to pause and calculate the dilation impact, minimal as I suspected it would be, and the transmission lag time. Even the standing wave tightbeam was subject to lightspeed constraints. Then I gave myself some margin.'... twenty standard minutes.'

The Mambrino was still accelerating inbound when Santerene's return transmission arrived.

'Captain Tyndel, we have the Mambrino at the locks in approximately fifteen your time. Commander Krigisa will be waiting to welcome you.'

'Stet. Fifteen minutes.'

Station commanders didn't normally welcome every needle. That I knew from OE Station. So Krigisa had to know I was new. I wondered how, since nothing traveled between systems faster than a needle ship. Of course, standard procedures demanded I announce the crew and the number of passengers, and any high officials of the Rykashan Authority. And the commander probably knew all the needle pilots by name, and her run was the easiest around. So an easy run and a new name ... meant a new pilot. I hoped that was all.

I folded the photon nets at ten thousand kilos, but with enough mass so that I could complete all but the smallest fraction of decel by five hundred. It worked, and I cut in the ionjets for the last maneuvering as the clamshells retracted from the couches.

'Santerene Orbit, Mambrino ten out. Commencing final approach.'

'You're cleared to lock two, Mambrino. Local beacons are burning.'

'Understand cleared to lock two.'

From there the approach was routine, and the needle ship kissed into the cradles with hardly a thump. I managed to avoid releasing the sigh I felt as I unstrapped and then sat up.

'Smooth, captain,' offered Berya.

'Thank you. I'd hoped it would be, but you never know.'

'No, ser, you don't,' added Souphan with a grin, one of relief.

'You get to greet the station commander or the maintenance officer, captain,' Berya reminded me gently as I eased myself erect in the null grav. 'We just take care of cargo and passengers and shipkeeping.' After a pause, she asked, 'Any maintenance problems?'

I had to think, but I'd detected nothing. Was that because I still wasn't sensitive enough to the nuances or because there were none? 'None that I know of

'Wouldn't have thought so. Usually show up after exit, and you brought us out clean.'

How much had been me and how much the Mambrino - that I wasn't certain, but for the moment, it hadn't mattered.

The passengers had all already debarked by the time I'd finished the shutdown and reclaimed my gear. I still had to wait to do the postflight after Souphan ensured the cargo was off-loaded. A golden-skinned muscular woman, easily a head taller than I, waited by the upper passenger locks.

She wore the golden Web collar pin, unlike the commander of OE Station. 'Captain Tyndel, I'm Krigisa.'

I inclined my head. 'Commander, I'm pleased to meet you.' And most happy to be here to see you.

'This one of your first runs?'

'My very first, actually.'

'How was it?'

'Smooth. My second let me know, politely, that not all future runs will be that smooth.'

'Some of that is the jockey ... but some is not.' She gestured. 'After you finish your postflight, I'd appreciate it if you would join me for a meal - whatever you like, since I've no idea where your internal clock is set.'

'I'd be happy ... and dinner would taste good.'

The invitation was a pleasantry to cover a debriefing, a command pleasantry, but far more courteous than a standard debrief.

Unloading took the maintenance crew nearly two hours, and I reflected that Fersonne and I could have cut a third or more off that time without straining. Finally, it was complete, and I finished the postflight, finding nothing the matter despite a concerted effort to ferret out anything.

Souphan and Berya were waiting by the lock.

'We'll be returning in twenty hours, station objective,' announced the second.

'Cargo?' I had to wonder what there was of value to return to earth.

'Eight passengers, and a bunch of biological samples, plus some nanotemplate equipment too complicated to repair or rebuild out here.'

All that made a sort of sense, and I nodded. 'See you in ... what... seventeen hours.'

Berya nodded. I let them precede me, and we parted ways on the second deck.

The table in the commander's dining quarters was already set, its elegance muted by the null gravity adaptations, including squeeze bottles.

Krigisa - obviously linked to the station's sensors - opened the hatch herself and beckoned me to enter. 'I took the liberty of having Arleen tea for you ... and Dorchan lemon chicken ...'

My smile was rueful. 'Does all of Rykasha know my tastes?'

'No. I'm the only station commander who does.' She gestured to the table.

I used the sticktites to ensure I didn't drift away, but waited until she lifted her own squeeze bottle before drinking.

'You know needle pilots are rare ...' began Krigisa.

Just how rare struck me then. The Authority was more willing to risk a crew and a ship and a cargo than to place a second senior needle pilot on the Mambrino. Yet Krigisa was or had been a needle jockey. 'You were one of the first?'

'Not the very first ...' She smiled ironically.

'And you're here to bring back ships that somehow make exits with injured or incapacitated pilots.' I frowned. 'Berya is probably better than most seconds in handling a needle in real space.'

'You're right in both cases.'

'How often?'

'Not too often.' Commander Krigisa smiled. 'What do you need to know?' I took another sip of the Arleen.

'I'd like you to describe overspace to me - the way you saw it.'

I started with the green-based purple backdrop, the downhill gradient, the distant beacons, and went on from there, including the lazy black sun and lilac veils. '... and then I retwisted the untwistable, and we popped out.' I shrugged.

'I think I could have waited a shade longer, but...'

'It's better not to wait too long,' she observed. 'What were your gee meter readings?'

'Fourteen to twenty-three.'

'That is low.' She nodded. 'Who was your principal ship instructor?'

'Captain Erelya.'

'She's one of the best. How did you find the Mambrino?'

'We're a good fit' That was the way I felt. The gentle questions continued.

'Did you have any trouble distinguishing the beacon IDs ...'

'... evasive tactics you used ...'

'... how far when you folded the nets ...'

Abruptly, she looked straight at me. 'I think I've asked enough. You'll be a Web jockey for a long time. We should eat, because you'll need some rest before you turn around. That's the downside of Santerene. Nowhere planetside to go. I must spend half my time in the high-gee capsule. Part of it even has a console for me.' Krigisa laughed.

I hadn't thought about that, and had to wonder how many other things I'd discover over the years and insertions ahead. But I did begin to enjoy the chicken.

69

Science cannot be 'true' in the absolute sense, and that is why a society based on science alone cannot survive, for the people require absolute truths. Symbolic uncertainty is the downfall of civilization.

Cerrelle was waiting when I got off the downshuttle at Runswi. She was sitting on a bench inside the operations building, out of the late-winter sleet that rattled against the windows. For me four days had gone by, personal objective, and slightly more than a season had passed on earth.

'Tyndel' The way she said my name and the smile warmed me. She'd cut her hair short, not that it had been long before, and, even in the forgiving late-day gloom, she was pale.

'Are you all right?'

'Now. Thesalle isn't for everyone.' Her voice was uneven.

I winced inside. If strong-minded Cerrelle had been shaken by Thesalle, the planet clearly wasn't for everyone.

'Are you still interested in seeing me?'

'What?' Cerrelle ... as direct as ever ... as you're barely off the magshuttle.

'You're a needle jockey - one of the elite. I'm a mid-ranking troubleshooter and baby-sitter for the Authority. I'll never be more.'

'You're also the most honest person I've ever met, and I need you and that.' I held out my hands.

She didn't move, but my words raised a ragged grin. 'At least you put me before the honesty.'

'You need an electrocart. Can you eat?' I paused and studied her, wondering what had happened to her. You need to eat.'

'I do, but my appetite isn't what it should be. I wasn't sure I'd have time to eat, but the shuttle was late.'

Instead of being charming or persuasive, I reached down and out and lifted her off the bench and into my arms. For a moment, she stiffened, but I didn't press beyond a gentle hug, and she finally hugged me for a moment before stepping back and looking straight into my eyes. You could have anyone, but I won't share you.'

I nodded. I'd understood that long before she'd said a word. 'Let's find a cart.'

There were two waiting, but the driver in the first nodded to us, his eyes on my pilot's greens.

'The marsh lounge ...' I offered.

'It will have to be the main lounge,' Cerrelle corrected me. 'They're repairing the marsh lounge - or expanding it... or something.'

The cart driver looked back at me.

'Main lounge.'

Yes, ser.'

After I helped seat Cerrelle and eased in beside her, she leaned next to me and whispered, except it was more of a subvocalization that only I - or another pilot - could have caught. Yes, ser ... yes, ser ... that's the way it will be from now on, Tyndel. Don't let it go to your head.'

You won't let it.'

'Oh ... I will. I won't say a word. I'll just leave.' You just got here - or I did.'

'You know exactly what I mean.'

'That's what I mean about being honest' I grinned at her, still worried about the pallor that dominated her face. 'Later,' she said, looking at the driver in the front seat. 'Promise?'

'I promise.'

Cerrelle didn't lean on me as we walked into the lounge, but she did take my arm, and I could sense that she was unsteady. What had it been about Thesalle that had created such a problem? And where else had I heard about the place? On OE Station ... Thesalle was the place that had an effect that no one could quantify. More than half the tables were taken, but there was one in the near corner, and we eased toward it.

'... must be one of the newer Web jockeys ...'

'... has to be older ... she's attractive ... but not a raving beauty ...'

'... new jockeys have 'em hanging on them ...' I tried not to flush.

'You see, Tyndel. By choosing me, you've aged yourself.' Cerrelle smiled, but the expression was forced.

'I was already aged, and I've always looked beyond the obvious to what counts. You count.' I held my arm so she could use it to sit. 'What would you like?'

'I can get it. I'm not helpless.'

'Humor me,' I suggested.

Her smile was halfway between irony and relief. 'Any kind of pasta that's not Dhurr-spiced ... with meat of some sort. Cerise ... no ... a pale ale of some sort.'

I bowed my head. 'Your wish ...'

'... is not a command, Tyndel. Get the pasta.'

I got her pasta and ale, and then returned for my own orange beef with saffron rice, and Arleen tea.

'How long before you go out again?' she asked after several mouthfuls.

'Three weeks ... I'm supposed to spend half of every day of the last two before I leave training with Tomas.' I paused. 'What about you?'

'Four weeks' convalescent leave - that's what's left.'

I studied her with every sense I had. 'You've been in medical. When did you get out?'

'This morning.'

You're not supposed to be out.'

'Aleyaisha bent the rules for me ...'

'If you took it easy?'

The nod came hard to my redhead.

Are you sure she wants to be yours? 'What's wrong?'

'Something about the nanite balance ... Thesalle upsets it for some. They don't know why. If you want more details, I'll tell you later. Tell me about your trip.' She took another mouthful of the pasta.

'Are you sure?'

'Humor me, this time.'

We both smiled.

By the time I finished recounting my trip and eating my own orange beef, she had pushed her plate away, leaving about half of the pasta and trying to stifle a yawn. She looked more pale even than earlier.

You need some rest.'

'I do need to go home,' she confessed.

'Not by yourself.'

'I can manage.'

Aleyaisha told you that if I wouldn't help you, you had to go back to medical' I smiled.

You're getting too perceptive,' she grumbled. 'I'm only asking for help getting home. That's all'

'For now,' I agreed.

'For a while,' she countered.

I didn't want to argue, and she was in no shape for much besides rest. I had to wonder just what had happened to her, but I'd asked twice, and she was clearly not going to tell me until she was ready - as usual. Still ... most demons were resistant to just about anything, and she didn't seem to have any overt physical trauma.

'Home' was a great deal farther away than I realized. First came the tunnel glider to Lyncol, and then the free glider-cat I had to steer along a winding path for kilos out of Lyncol until we reached a lake, its ice-and-snow-covered surface shimmering under the full winter moon. The snow was depressed by the pressure of a single set of glider prints, partly drifted in.

'There.' Cerrelle pointed to a chaletlike structure jutting out of a rock outcropping and overlooking the iced-in lake. Below the chalet was a long slope down to the lake itself, a stretch clear of pines that might have been a lawn - at least in summer.

I eased the glider-cat along the edge of the lake through the unbroken snow that covered what had possibly been an old road, and then up to the chalet. A glider door in the side of the chalet slid open as we neared.

'You never told me ... It's impressive.'

'This is my one luxury. I didn't want to ... not until after you made your first insertion. I've seen it happen. Pilots change. Not all of them, but some do.'

'And me?'

'You seem about as hardheaded and obstinate as ever.'

We laughed as I eased the glider into the low-ceilinged hangar. The lights came on, and the door closed behind us even before I could open the canopy.

Cerrelle staggered.

'You shouldn't...' I caught her and half carried her up two flights of stairs to the bedroom, still trying to determine how much help she needed and where help turned into imposition and intrusion. On the way, I took in the smooth polished woods and the openness of the main floor, and the sparseness - a deliberate austerity, I knew.

The lights followed us, and I could sense the link to Cerrelle.

As I stepped into the bedroom, Cerrelle stiffened. 'I can get into bed. Go get me something to drink. There's a formulator down in the kitchen ... a drink menu ... the green tea ... tastes bitter, but it should help.'

After easing her into a sitting position, I slipped back down the steps to puzzle out the kitchen. By the time I returned with the tea, she was stretched out under a deep blue comforter, propped up with two pillows, looking through the glass wall at the silent white expanse of the lake.

She took the tea, and the lights flicked off, leaving us in the darkness. A single light twinkled in the darkness beyond the wide window overlooking the snow-covered slope that led down to the lake. 'Feels better lying down.'

I pulled a chair next to the bed and took a sip of the green tea - not so good as Arleen, but soothing. 'What's Thesalle like?' Perhaps she would tell me without my prying too overtly.

'It's beautiful, shifting shades of green, even at night, and the air is perfumed.' She paused for some tea.

'It doesn't sound dangerous.' I paused. 'When I was on OE Station, there were some scientists - or controllers -talking about it ... how they couldn't quantify something, an unknown hallucinogen ...'

'I don't know about that. I felt off balance the whole time, and it just got worse when I got back.'

'Do they know why?'

'My nanite balance got disrupted.' She shrugged, almost resigned. Aleyaisha says it happens to some Rykashans, but they don't know why.'

'Hmmm ...' I sipped the green tea, which wasn't bitter at all, not to me, waiting.

'They had to replace my entire nanite system, the way they did when you first got here, and I'm still readjusting. I don't have to pay for it, though, not this time.' Cerrelle took another sip of the green tea, her eyes still fixed on the silent and moonlit lake.

'Can you tell me why they sent you to Thesalle?'

She shrugged. 'I was sent with some newer and more sensitive atmospheric measuring equipment. It was designed to look for the organic equivalent of nanites.'

'Molecular-level biotechnology?'

That got a nod. 'And they thought they might get a different result from someone not born and raised a Rykashan.'

'Did they?'

'I don't know. I wasn't in much shape to care when I got back, and today ...'

'Was your first day out of medical?' Another nod affirmed that.

'Thesalle ...' I mused. 'Here Rykasha has enough technology to do what the ancients never managed, but something on the planet is beyond that technology, so much so that demons can't even discover what it might be.'

'No one has spent that much time on it. Whatever it is, it affects only a few people. We just don't have that many resources. The Galaxy alone is huge, Tyndel, and we spend an incredible percentage of our resources on interstellar travel.'

'I know.' That was why the ancients never had gotten that far. One reason, anyway.

She held up the mug. 'Would you mind?'

'Not at all.' I set my cup on the carved table by the bed and stood, walking through the darkness to the kitchen area and the small food formulator, thoughts circling through my mind.

'That brings up another question,' I said as I brought her the second cup of green tea. 'Oh?'

'Rykasha has the technology to subdue or destroy all the mites. Hasn't anyone ever thought about it?'

'Who hasn't? But what would be the purpose? The mite cultures are stable.' A faint smile crossed her lips. 'Besides, the gene pool is wider and faster evolving. We wouldn't have people like you.'

'Or you,' I pointed out.

'You're more valuable.'

'I don't think so.' And I meant it. 'I still can deceive myself; you never do.'

'I do. We all do. That's not all bad.' She paused for a sip of the tea. 'Think about it. Self-deception is the strength of all humans and all human cultures. We delude ourselves into believing that the universe has meaning, that we have a role and an importance in it. We dream grand dreams.'

'Is that self-delusion or self-preservation?' I asked. 'How could most people survive without believing that there's an inherent meaning to their lives?'

That's true of the mite cultures. We both know that. So many things people take as truths are built upon deception. Is there a god? How would we know? No one has any proof of a god, not in the scientific sense. All the major religions of the ancients were built upon revelations or interpretations of purely human or natural occurrences as the hand of god and not upon verified facts.'

'You don't think it's not true in Rykasha?'

'There are certainly some people who believe in the old superstitions, but look at how we handle something like Thesalle. At least some of the mites would call it the will of God because it's beyond our understanding. The same's true of engee. We just try to understand and try to accept that we can't understand everything without immediately running and hiding behind superstition.'

'That's another form of honesty,' I mused. 'But it's hard. We're not that honest by nature. Even demons.'

Cerrelle laughed softly. 'You don't think the Authority hasn't considered it.'

'Considered what?'

'Tyndel ... you're a Web pilot. What if you have a ship out there and you run into another form of intelligent life? Can you imagine a culture whose members could not deceive themselves? How would they deal with us? Knowing that they could trust no word ... no action, knowing that we could trust anything they said, what would they do? What could they do?'

I paused. Such an occurrence was unlikely. Surely, it would have happened earlier. Still... 'I suppose there would be only two workable alternatives - ignore us or destroy us.'

'Always the extremist, my dear. Why do you think that?'

Her use of the gentle and possessive appellation brought a smile to my heart, and my lips. 'In contact with humans, a truth-telling culture would either be perceptive enough to see through our continual deceptions and face continued frustration and exasperation, or, if less able, fall prey to our deceptions and machinations, or possibly become contaminated with such deception.'

'They could...' Cerrelle yawned and eased the cup toward the table.

I took it and set it on the far side. I had another thought. Could there be an advanced alien civilization that was not based, as ours was, upon deception? Our whole technological advancement was in a sense based upon creativity and at least a portion of creativity was a form of deception ... of denying the 'truth' of reality and seeking more.

'Tyndel... the guest room is across the hall'

I rose, taking the hint, then bent and kissed her cheek. 'You sure you'll be all right?'

'I'm sure. I'm tired, but I feel better already.' So did I.

With a smile, I closed the door behind me, far more awake than my sleepy redhead, with questions of Web insertions, honesty, grand dreams, alien intelligences, and the mystery of Thesalle all swirling through my mind.

70

Each journey is the same journey, yet those who travel together go separate ways.

After we had spent several quiet weeks mostly at the lake -where I continued to sleep in the guest room - the Authority had notified a recovered Cerrelle that she would be going back to Elena to 'baby-sit' another convert, one from Dezret. Because I had another trip scheduled first, though, she had been the one to see me off at the operations strip in Runswi... after I'd stopped for my medical screening, this time handled by doctor Fionya.

'How do you feel about going to Elena?' I'd asked Cerrelle as we waited for my shuttle. 'After all, I was a baby-sitting job.'

You were a pain.' She hugged me. You still are.' She smiled. 'But you're better.'

Smiling back, but silently wondering about that, I had hugged her in return, and then walked toward the shuttle for Orbit Two, at the head of the line, still conscious of how shiny the golden Web collar pin was.

Erelya met me as I glided out of the shuttle at Orbit Two. 'Astlyn's waiting for you in operations.'

'I thought you wouldn't be guiding me around anymore?' I grinned.

She smiled back. 'This is the last time - unless something special comes up. That doesn't happen often.'

The operations room was the same featureless composite gray, as chill and empty as the one time I'd been there before. Astlyn was alone, waiting for us. He inclined his head. 'Tyndel.'

I bowed my head briefly in return. 'Ser.'

The black-skinned senior operations controller smiled. 'You're headed for Nabata - off Beta Candace.'

Nabata? I racked what I'd learned. Tee-type world, recently colonized, two main continents, hot, dry, despite being a water world.

'Your cargo is the latest round of biotechnical efforts to develop grasses that match the native biology, plus the supporting equipment so that the bioteam there can carry things forward without the time lags. You'll also be carrying a full load of passengers.'

'They're the ones who will operate the equipment,' Erelya added.

All of that made sense. What didn't make sense was Astlyn telling me that.

'That's along the Web gradient for the Anomaly.' Astlyn paused. 'You've heard of it?'

'Just in general terms,' I admitted.

'Most people have.' He nodded, the brown eyes serious. 'You need to know more. We don't bother with this briefing until someone is a pilot and until he or she is beyond the first run.' A hologram sprang into being - almost at his shoulder. Alpha Felini - that's the official term for the Anomaly. It's about ten light-years away from Sol - in roughly the opposite direction from Santerene, in case you're interested.'

I studied the image. In the center of the unfamiliar star field was a glowing haziness - somewhat like the fuzzy golden ball of light that I'd sensed right after I'd been 'infected' with the first, old-style nanites. The image expanded and focused in on the golden center. Abruptly, the ball turned into a central core of golden-red fire - a miniature sun -or was it miniature? Around the sun were long arms of red fire. I'd seen that image in my thoughts and elsewhere all too often.

'This is accelerated several hundred fold from real time,' Astlyn explained.

The arms of fire sparkled as they swept through seemingly empty space, although I knew no space was totally empty.

Actually, for practical purposes, the space behind each arm is effectively empty. Each of the arms is a field of some sort, and what you're seeing is low-level antimatter annihilating low-level matter. The result is energy and virtually empty space.'

And a great deal of disruption in space and overspace,' added Erelya.

And the sun?' I asked. 'It doesn't look normal.'

'New matter. We think it's more "energetic," if you will, but that could be a bias from the energies involved.'

I digested all of that. 'There's something creating and using antimatter to generate energy and sweep space, and creating new matter. Engee?'

Astlyn nodded.

'Exactly,' Erelya confirmed.

I took a deep breath. 'Just what is engee? There's nothing in any data system about the Anomaly or engee.' I almost added 'not any system I've found,' but decided against that.

Erelya and Astlyn exchanged glances.

Astlyn cleared his throat. 'We believe that engee is an assemblage of self-assembling and replicating nanites of a variety developed by the ancients. While there has been no way to verify this, there are enough indirect indicators to make that conclusion. There is not enough information to put what we suspect on the full Rykashan datanet...'

As he talked I pondered his words. Why not on the full net? Because people would be concerned or upset? I could understand that intellectually, but the universe was so vast it seemed unlikely that it was empty, and if something was there ... it was there. That's Dzin, and most people - even Rykashans - don't see it that way.

'... while not conclusive, one would have to act as though there is some form of intelligence there ...'

'Which the Followers believe is God, their god at least,' I suggested.

Astlyn nodded.

'And it has enough power to create a solar system?'

'Yes.'

'Why?' I pursued, wondering if I were pushing too hard. Probably.

'We don't know why; nor do we know the mechanics of how, although the theory is relatively old.' Astlyn waited. 'Why are you telling me this?'

'Because you're a needle pilot, and because you're headed along that general gradient, and there seems to be an even greater fascination on the overspace level. And because none of this is a surprise to you, or any pilot,' added Erelya. 'You've seen visions of this, haven't you?'

'At scattered intervals ever since I came to Lyncol,' I confirmed, then asked, knowing that they wouldn't have briefed me if there weren't a danger, 'How many pilots have you lost?'

'Just three, but that represents three ships and a substantial resource commitment.' Astlyn cleared his throat. 'You must know that.'

'There's another problem,' added Erelya.

Astlyn frowned.

'New City.'

I didn't hide my surprise. I'd never heard of whatever New City might be.

The hologram vanished before Astlyn spoke again. A number of people have built ships, photonjet-powered. Somehow, without Web pilots and excitation systems, the ships arrive there. There, and nowhere else. They're building a deep-space city near this Anomaly. They say it will be a new solar system in time, created by the only True God.'

'Demons ... people ... believe that?'

'It could be.' Astlyn laughed harshly. 'They'll have to wait a long time. At the present rate of accretion it still is likely to be millions of years before engee has enough matter there for a new system. Even if you assume an exponential rate, it's around ten thousand years - and the disruptions to the Web, overspace, and normspace will render the area rather uninhabitable, even for individuals with full nanite protection.'

Astlyn's explanation left much unexplained.

'Is there a possible way to use the Web without an excitation and insertion system - or a pilot?'

'It's possible an untrained pilot could bring a ship from Sol to the Anomaly about half the time,' Erelya theorized. 'We don't know of any way that it could be done in the time frames that we've observed without a Web insertion system.'

'But it happens?' I pursued. 'What about the missing pilots?'

'There's been no sign of them or their ships,' Astlyn replied. 'No exit disruptions, either.'

That all brought up the last question. 'Why me? This is my second trip as a needle pilot'

'Medical thinks you have a higher resistance than most of the others.' Astlyn did not sound totally convinced.

'You've opposed anything you didn't like all along,' Erelya added dryly.

I managed to resist smiling.

'This is the second attempt with this cargo,' Astlyn said. 'You'll be carrying almost a full load of passengers also.' Those two items gave me a reason to swallow. 'Is there any trace ... ?'

'The ship could be almost anywhere in normspace,' Astlyn pointed out.

Or it could be drifting in overspace until it collides with enough mass to create a real normspace mess. 'It would be years if we saw anything optically.'

'More like centuries,' suggested Erelya. I nodded slowly.

'Do you have any other questions?'

Dozens, if I'd thought of them, but none would have changed anything.

As I made my way down to the ready room, I had to ask what Astlyn and Erelya knew that neither was saying, and what I didn't know enough to ask.

One familiar figure was waiting - a round-faced blonde. 'Glad to see you, Tyndel.' Berya smiled and gestured. 'This is Durmak.' The wiry man with the golden skin and mahogany hair had to have come from Dhurr extraction.

Durmak nodded. 'Ser.'

'Glad to meet you, Durmak. Have you done the Nabata run before?'

'No, ser. I've done the Trough, though.'

Trough? The Epsilon Cygni - BaUentir run ... climb over an overspace gradient... considered the most difficult insertion and exit.

'This should be easier.' Not quite sure about that, I glanced at Berya, wondering if she happened to be getting another bonus. 'Might as well get moving.'

I gathered the rest of my gear, and we slipped out of the ready room and down the shaft and to the passenger level. This time, the Mambrino was cradled at the other end, lock one, and I used the directlink to send the entry code to open the locks.

'With your permission, ser?' asked Durmak.

I nodded, and the third headed to the lower decks to re-check the cargo, while Berya rechecked the passenger area for our full load. I went through the passenger compartment, and continued through every space, just as I always had, and, as usual, I found nothing out of the ordinary. That brought me back to the control center, where I strapped myself in and began to run through the systems checks.

'Passengers are all aboard, locks closed,' declared Berya as she returned to the control center.

Durmak followed her. 'Cargo is set and the lower locks sealed.'

After a last recheck of the systems, I was ready to uncradle the Mambrino. 'Ready for departure.'

'Make sure your harness is securely fastened. We will be departing shortly.' Berya's calm voice was clear through both center speakers and through the system.

'Orbit Two, Mambrino, ready for departure.'

'Mambrino, no inbounds this time, area clear. Understand destination Nabata.'

'Orbit Two, destination Nabata.' With the release of the cradles, I slipped the ship away from the station with the ionjets, adding power gradually as the separation increased.

'Orbit Two, Mambrino clear of lock three. Departing this time.'

'Stet, Mambrino. Clear trip.'

'Orbit Two, thanks.' I stepped up the power flow from the fusactors, bringing the ionjets to full power until we were clear enough to spread the nets for the photondrive. Then, once the configurators came on-line, I switched from ionjets to photonic drive and began to establish the orientation necessary for Nabata as the acceleration built for insertion.

'Minus ten for insertion.' The clamshells above us - and above the passengers - clicked out of their restraints, waiting for the signal from Berya to drop into place.

'You must be in your harness at this time,' announced the second officer.

'Minus five.' With all passengers secured, the clamshells dropped into place. 'Minus three.'

After setting the orientation, I pushed the acceleration closer to fifteen gees, more on a feel than a requirement. Even before the lattices were all locked, the barriers between the Now and overspace had thinned. Slipping the Mambrino beyond the Now, into a momentary silence, was smooth, so smooth that it was an instant before the dark purpled green of overspace swam up around me, with the great white pulses of the moon beacon receding behind me.

As I'd been briefed by the system, the gradient toward Beta Candace - and Nabata - was supposed to be a slight incline for the first portion, and then a steep drop, and that was what I sensed, except the incline was long, longer than that coming back from Santerene.

First, while I/we climbed, came the lock on to the distant beacon pattern, verifying the ID of Nabata. I could sense other beacons - perhaps a dozen, scattered at various distances, distances I knew to be deceptive.

In that timeless depth, we reached the 'crest' beyond which lay a void of uncertain depth, a depth that I/we/'Mambrino must cross. Sparkling lines of fire, like fireflies or an incandescent brume that shimmered in the winter sunlight over a silent lake, cascaded around me, around the Mambrino, and a whispering rumble, holding words that I could not quite decipher, folded around us.

Ignoring the urge to twist the ship around the fire veil, I could sense that it was without the substance of singularities, and without the depth of cold mass of stars, nebulae, or heavy planets that intruded upon overspace, and pushed off the cliff top and into a glide over the purpled drumming depths that separated us from the white-yellow beacon that was Beta Candace and Nabata.

Time condensed, folded, then stretched, simultaneously.

Silent voices beneath and beyond the vanishing brume made a last plea and then vanished.

And, nearly on top of the beacon, I untwisted the unNow, and Mambrino dropped into normspace, with a slight sense of falling.

I swallowed.

So did Berya, loud enough that I could hear it over her inline.

'We're here,' I pulsed the second and third. 'Good.'

Not even a hint of raggedness came through the nets as I reoriented the ship into a 'climb' upward toward the system ecliptic and Nabata Orbit Control.

'Nabata Orbit Control, this is Mambrino, inbound this time. Captain Tyndel, second Berya, and third Durmak. Sixteen passengers. One-six, I say again. Condition green. Estimate arrival in...' I still had to pause to calculate.'... twenty-five standard minutes.'

The Mambrino had just begun deceleration when the return transmission arrived.

'Captain Tyndel, we have the Mambrino at the locks in approximately twelve-plus your time. Subcommander and maintenance chief Jukor will supervise unloading.'

'Stet. Understand subcommander Jukor.'

'A subcommander. Must want the cargo,' Durmak said.

I nodded, realizing that Nabata Orbit Control wouldn't know that the previous needle hadn't made it - not for certain - but the number of passengers was a good indication of some difficulties.

We were there - almost there. I frowned to myself. What about coming back? Or did it really matter to the Authority? The whole cargo and passenger list had been set up as if there wouldn't be too many trips to Nabata.

I shrugged. There was little enough that I could do except make sure we returned to Orbit Two intact.

71

To tell another what one has sensed is to paint a scene without color or perspective.

The return trip to earth and Orbit Two was without incident, and the Mambrino fairly soared through the purpled green of overspace with almost no cargo and but two passengers. Orbit Two Control did request my presence in operations after postflight and shutdown. Again, Astlyn and Erelya were waiting in the gray-walled and almost dank operations room.

'It's good to see you,' Astlyn said. 'How was the trip?'

His words conveyed true happiness that I had returned in one piece, and I had the feeling that his warmth wasn't just for the fact that I'd gotten a necessary cargo to Nabata and brought back an expensive needle ship. All the same, I understood the concern beside and behind the warmth. Needle ships were what held the Rykashan stars and colonies together, and the Authority could not afford too many missing ships - either in resource or psychological terms.

'It's good to be back.' I shrugged. A bit strange on the way out, routine on the return.'

The black eyebrows lifted over the deep brown eyes.

'I can't say there was anything exactly new.' That was certainly true. 'There might have been a voice whispering beneath overspace - but I couldn't make out anything. I wasn't about to try.'

'Any color to the voice?' asked Erelya.

'No. It seemed to throw up a gauzy veil of sparkling things. I went straight through it.'

'Was there any impact on the hull or the ship? Afterwards, that is?' Astlyn pursued.

'No. Not a sign.'

The black-skinned controller nodded. 'Engee?' suggested Erelya.

'What do you think, Tyndel?' Astlyn's voice was neutral.

'There was something there - something not like anything else I've sensed in overspace.' I had to shrug. 'I don't have enough experience to know more.'

'Was ... is there any record in the ship's systems?' Erelya pressed.

'I couldn't find any indications. The second didn't sense anything at all.' The two nodded at each other.

'Is there anything else we should ask you? Or you'd like to ask us?'

'Have other pilots sensed this sort of thing?'

'Five that we know of.'

I nodded. Another thought occurred to me. 'Do most pilots sense overspace as a deep black?'

Erelya nodded. 'Most do. You're one of a handful that see more than blackness and highlighted objects.'

'I can't think of anything else,' I said.

'Let me know if you do.' Astlyn nodded and withdrew, leaving me with Erelya.

'Now what?' I asked.

'You check the schedule on the pilot's screen - you can reach it from any console in Rykasha - and keep checking once you're back in Lyncol or wherever. You'll have at least

two weeks' notice, unless it's an emergency. You seem to fit with the Mambrino, and Berya likes you. So she'll probably stay as your second.' Erelya glanced at me. 'Unless you'd rather try someone else?'

'No. Berya and I seem to work well together. That's fine.'

Your third this trip - Durmak ... I have to debrief him to see how that will go.'

'He seemed edgy. I couldn't say why.'

'He just might be the edgy type. Or he might not be suited to continuing on as a needle officer.'

'Or I might make him edgy,' I pointed out.

'That's possible, too.' Erelya smiled. 'Now ... there's one other thing I want to make perfectly clear. If you sense anything unusual in overspace, you need to report it to me or Astlyn as soon as you return to Orbit Two.'

'Yes, ser.'

She smiled. 'Go catch the next shuttle planetside and get some rest - and keep in shape with Tomas or someone else.'

'Yes, ser.' I grinned at the senior pilot, wondering if Cerrelle were back from Dezret.

72

Life offers no theology. There is but music and dance.

Three insertions later, I found myself on Actean - the place where Fersonne had wanted to use her life-credits to settle. That thought struck me as I was leaving the orbit station with Berya.

We had a new third officer - Alek. He was more settled than Durmak had been, but he stayed on the station, for a time, to supervise unloading and loading, and would come down on one of the cargo runs to join us on the three-day layover.

Actean had enough of a planetary magnetic field that the orbit station used magshuttles, and I pulled myself into the shuttle behind Berya, but we both managed to straighten up and halt in time to avoid gliding into the dark-haired man who waited for us.

'Captain Tyndel,' offered the bearded shuttle pilot. 'Miletos Arachos. Miles for short. You been on Actean before?'

'No. I've spent most of my deep-space time out toward Omega Eridani.' That was true, if misleading; so I had to go on. 'I was a station tech before I was a pilot.'

'Good to see you here. You and Berya are the only passengers this run. Make yourselves comfortable. Be just a bit.' With a nod, he turned and closed the hatch.

'I didn't know about OE,' Berya murmured as we settled into the couches.

I had to grin. 'That was in the lowly position of mainte-lance tech.'

'Dzin masters are stubborn, I've heard.'

'Former Dzin masters.'

'Once a Dzin master, Astlyn said, always a Dzin master. [ think I believe him. When you take the Mambrino, Tyndel, fou are the ship. That only happens with Dzin or Toze masters.' A quick smile flashed across her face. 'They're [he only ones I'm comfortable with.'

'Who did you officer for before me?'

'Used to be Mru-Chin, but he retired after four centuries.'

'You've been at this a while? Miles already knew you.'

'Say ... half a century personal objective. I've been here a few times. He's one of their three shuttle pilots. Nice man. Has an interesting family.'

I'd sensed she favored me, but I was definitely flattered. You don't have to do this now, then - being a needle officer.'

'What else would I do? Besides, I enjoy it - under a solid captain, and new as you are, you're solid.'

'Please make sure your harnesses are secure.' After the announcement, and with a slight hum and a click, the shuttle eased away from the orbit station and down toward Actean. Through the ship's scanners, all I had been able to sense had been a Tee-type water world, nothing more, and I wondered what the planet itself might offer.

The upper atmosphere was rough, and several times we were thrown up against the harnesses before we reached the lower and smoother section of the descent. Usually, it was the other way around. Before long, the shuttle glided to a stop. The gravity felt good.

'We're here, folks. Actean tropical.' Miles stood in the hatchway between cockpit and cabin, a crooked smile across his dark-tanned face.

'Thank you, Miles.' I nodded.

'A little rougher than usual,' Berya noted.

'Surprised me, but there have been some flares.' The shuttle pilot shrugged. 'It does happen, but it's still smoother than with those fireboosters they use some places.'

Outside, forty meters from the magshuttle, in the bright and yet somehow hazy sunlight, stood a single building, a long and one-storied rectangular structure constructed of oversized reddish brown bricks and topped with a slatelike roof - except the slates were rusty-red. There was a slight heaviness, just a trace, that reminded me that the gravity on Actean was a shade higher than on earth, perhaps five percent, nothing that my system and beefed-up nanites couldn't handle, I hoped.

To the west of the strip was a long and low line of hills covered with trees that seemed to shade toward blue rather than green. I glanced northward, toward a taller range of mountains, glistening with white. The landing strip was practically equatorial. Actean, on average, was colder than earth, and although the tropical belt was quite temperate, the northern continents were anything but.

The sun held a shade of orange, and I called up what I knew. Actean ... fourth planet around Dyana ... G-3 with a mass of approximately 1.2 Sol... first planet terraformed through Brynk-Hezoff transformations .. .borderline for habitable zone ... required greenhouse screening ... four major continents ... one equatorial, one temperate, two polar ...

'Captain... new on this run?' The speaker who interrupted my reverie was a stocky and black-haired woman wearing a kind of uniform consisting of tan shorts and shirt, and hiking boots.

'Yes.' I grinned. 'I go where they send me.'

'I'm Malya. The needle officers' places are to the west, maybe four kilos, on the hill. I'll be the one to take you two there.' Malya glanced at Berya. 'You know the layout' My second officer nodded.

The cart was a fuel-cell-powered four-seater with a canopy-type roof and no sidewalls. Berya and I sat in the second seat, duffels in the open cargo bin behind us.

'Captain,' Malya said, not looking from the narrow, composite-paved path along which she guided the cart, 'you're welcome to walk wherever you want. The only things really dangerous are the local replizards, but they'll shy away from most people. They don't like the way we smell or taste. If you startle one, just back away slowly, but they're hard to miss. Bright red, and there's not much undergrowth. Both the local sheep and the lizards like to eat it. I'd wear long sleeves in the forest, though. Some folks have a reaction to some of the saps. They're Tee-derived, mostly, but they can give you a fierce itch and an infection that's hard even for nanites to deal with.' She shrugged. 'Other than that, Actean's a pleasant place.'

'Don't you get a lot of immigrants?'

'Not many. Life-credit cost to get here means you're either born here or you've been deep-space officers or crew. Good folks. The locals that aren't we send to the north continent.'

'It's not too pleasant there?'

'It keeps them out of trouble,' Malya answered.

The cart whined as it began to climb the inclined section of the path that angled upward along the tree-covered slope of a ridge. The trees closest to the path were no more than three or four meters tall and had low-spreading branches from which fanned wide spade-shaped leaves that were nearly as blue as green. The grass beneath was wiry, and I could see no undergrowth or bushes, even after we reached the ridge top.

'We have three bungalows here,' Malya explained as she slowed the cart and gestured toward the small buildings that almost grew out of the rock and grass and low trees of the ridge. 'Captains usually take the one on the knoll. It's a shade quieter, not that anything's noisy here. The path over there goes to the overlook. You can see Ribbon Falls from there. It's only about two hundred meters along the path.'

We stood and stretched, then took our small duffels from the cart bin.

'The quarters are stocked with anything you'd need, but if you need something, use the console and link.'

'Thank you.' Berya and I spoke almost simultaneously.

'I'll be the one picking you up day after tomorrow,' Malya called as she turned the cart and headed back down the ridge path.

'Guess we get settled,' I offered.

'Right. I'm tired.' Berya nodded and carried her duffel to the dark-stained wood structure at the far end.

I stifled a yawn and made my way to the bungalow on the knoll. Light flooded the quarters, illuminating an open area that held a hearth, a kitchen/formulator area, and a sitting area. A sliding permaglass door separated the sitting area from a deck overlooking the trees on the slope below. To my right, a half dozen steps climbed to a sleeping area and a fresher.

In a way, I wondered about the almost luxurious nature of the quarters. Then I shook my head. Needle pilots held the human Galaxy together. Each ship was close to prohibitively expensive. Understated luxury was cheap by comparison and an easy way to ensure well-rested and fewer unnecessarily stressed pilots.

Not wanting, somehow, to settle into the quarters at that moment, after setting the duffel inside the door, I followed the packed clay path past a cultivated circular area filled with flowers, all of them blue and short-stemmed, and through the low trees to the overlook. The overlook itself was but a rectangle of local red stones. To the west, the trees had been removed to allow a clear view of the falls.

A ribbon of white spray cascaded out of the vine-covered cliff and arched down toward the churning water of a pool a good three hundred meters below. More spray wreathed the pool, enough so that I couldn't make out where the river wound through the valley forest below, except that it must have gone westward, since the valley sloped in that direction.

Sounds percolated through the foliage, but whether they were from insects, birds, or local fauna like the replizards there was no way to know.

The light breeze out of the north held a trace of chill. I turned and watched the clouds forming around the distant snowcapped peaks. How long I watched, I wasn't sure, but eventually I blinked and looked back at the cascade.

Fersonne would have liked Actean.

My eyes burned, and I blinked again, several times, before turning and walking back toward the empty bungalow.

73

Beware of those who truly garden ... for they see people as plants.

Cerrelle had wanted a garden, though I suspected she had asked as much to please me as for herself, but gardens were something I did know from my years in Dorcha, and it was the least I could contribute since she wouldn't allow me to transfer more than a small fraction of my rapidly growing free account balance to her credit, even though I'd effectively moved in with her.

So I was determined to make the garden special. The hardest part of a garden is to visualize what kind of garden will suit a location, and how it will fit so that it appears it would have grown there naturally, even though no garden is natural.

The early-spring sun was hot, almost like summer, as I moved stones to create the back wall. Without realizing the leverage, I twisted my elbow moving one of the larger stones. After a moment, the pain subsided, and I shook my .head. I had felt the agony, knew that I'd overstrained both my own capabilities and even those of my reformulated miniature rebuilders. I still had trouble dealing with the idea of an entire mechanical universe inside me, and one of those problems was that my musculature was comparatively stronger than my skeletal system, although the rebuilding I'd undergone to become a pilot made the discrepancy less than that enjoyed by most Rykashans.

I hoped the garden would become one of my pastimes when I wasn't Web-bound, but even training, transport, and gardening couldn't keep my mind from occasionally going back to Henvor or Mettersfel ... or Hybra ... or -less and less - Foerga. At times, I didn't think of Foerga for weeks, or months, and those memories had faded into pleasant reminiscences, mostly, reminiscences of a kind of childhood that I hadn't realized was childhood. After a deep breath, I concentrated on the small yew, and where it would bring together the harmony of the stones. Dzin helped.

'Tyndel? Are you all right?' Cerrelle's voice was quiet, pitched barely above the whisper of the late-afternoon breeze through the pines behind the chalet.

'Fine.' I squatted, studying the stones I'd already moved and set in place.

'I saw you wince. You're trying to do too much. I didn't want a garden overnight, you know?' She glanced at the line of stones, each massing at least a good seventy kilos, then at me. You're pressing it.'

I didn't look her in the eye, instead glanced downhill toward the lake, glinting in the early-spring sun. 'A garden takes years, but I wanted to get it set up.'

You could take a few days ...' She favored me with a smile.

'I haven't acted when I should have before ...'

'That was different. You're different now.'

'I'm glad you think so.' Are you? How do you tell, when you consider everything from the subjectivity of personal observation? I shrugged. At times, I still wondered why she'd insisted on saving me despite myself, why she'd enlisted Andra, Aleyaisha, and Alicia in the effort. Because no one born in Rykasha understands the need for and agony of honesty? 'Do you want to take a swim? It's still cold.'

'Cold water I don't mind. As long as you walk to the beach.'

I stood and stretched, then walked toward the chalet to change.

Afterward, after the chill of water and air that had helped the elbow and muscles, the breeze across the small terrace was just cool enough, with the scent of pines, for us to sit and sip the tea I'd brewed from a kettle and not heated with a reformulator.

You people all do make good tea.'

'I'm glad I can do something well.' I grinned, and she laughed, and I poured more tea. Friend, monitor, lover, and whatever else, she was honest, and for that I was glad, a gladness I was finally coming to embrace.

Before long, I'd have to get ready for the Mambrino and the next trip across the Web, the next separation that took days for me and months for Cerrelle. Maybe that was why I needed to create a garden, a manifestation of one aspect of me, to leave behind, something more permanent against the impermanence of dreams.

74

Human beings presume questions have answers; the universe does not address such presumption.

A young woman in a tight-fitting silver singlesuit kept trying to catch my eye, both at the operations building in Runswi and after we boarded the shuttle for Orbit Two. I politely kept my eyes elsewhere, which wasn't hard, worried as I was about the abrupt schedule shift that had the Mambrino set for a 'DTBA.' Any 'destination to be announced' wasn't reassuring.

Cerrelle hadn't liked it either, but she'd only sighed and given me a kiss, and then a hug... for starters. Lovemaking hadn't been desperate ... but there had been an undercurrent of concern.

Then Bekunin had added a few more diagnostics to the medical check. So when I saw Erelya in the corridor outside the magshuttle lock, I knew there was trouble. 'Operations?' I asked.

Til explain then.' She nodded and surveyed me. 'What did you do besides keep in shape?'

'I'm still working on a garden. It started out for Cerrelle, but it's as much for me as her.'

'Sometimes things work out that way. Usually for the better.' She didn't say more, and I didn't ask.

Commander Krigisa was waiting for us in the operations center - alone, as Astlyn always had. 'Good day, Tyndel. You've been busy since I last saw you.'

'I try.' Five earth objective years and something like four and a half round-trips to various systems ... and little more than a year personal objective time. 'Where's Astlyn?'

'We don't know.' Krigisa shrugged sadly.

'He took a needle ship? Past the Anomaly? You're the new operations coordinator or whatever?'

Krigisa nodded. 'He didn't want to send anyone else past Alpha Felini.'

'How many more needles are missing?'

'Two,' Erelya admitted. 'One besides his.'

I could understand the grave expression on her face. Interstellar travel was still not quite routine, but losing two needles in a year when previously the losses were more like two in a decade indicated problems that could threaten the whole Rykashan stellar transport system.

'This is the last direct run to Nabata, and after this you'll go from somewhere else?' My question was almost a statement.

'Epsilon Cygni,' confirmed the commander. 'We can't afford losses like that, not at ten-million-plus life-credits a ship.'

'But you really need a last cargo to hold for them -planoforming technology and templates to cover the delays caused by double dilation?'

'The effect is almost quadruple dilation by going over the Trough and then triangulating upslope in overspace,' said Krigisa. 'The cost of an indirect flight now, since they're unprepared on Nabata, would be equivalent to about three ships. So we need one last direct transit.'

'Why me?' I suspected, but wanted her to say it.

'Only those pilots who've actually heard something on previous runs - except for Astlyn - have disappeared. Since you haven't... we're fairly sure you can make at least one run to Nabata.'

'How sure?'

'As sure as anything is,' replied commander Krigisa.

I wasn't certain if there were any surety.

'You won't be taking any passengers,' Erelya added. 'We've reconfigured the Mambrino to carry more cargo. The techs at Nabata Station will have to reconstruct the passenger area for your return.'

'You're not to make a direct return, either,' added Krigisa. 'You'll be carrying this datacube to the station commander that explains the situation in terms of overspace hazards. I'd prefer that you not expand upon that.' She handed me an oblong case not much bigger than my palm.

As I took the case, I understood the logic of both. If I didn't 'hear' anything on the way outbound, then I could make another direct run from earth in an emergency situation, and there wasn't much sense in speculating on the nature of the 'hazard' - not since anyone really knew what happened except that needle ships were inserting and not emerging. At least not anywhere near Nabata or anywhere else we had discovered.

'You'll come back via Epsilon Cygni and Ballentir,' Erelya added. 'Do you have any more questions?'

I had a lot, but they weren't the kind that they could answer. 'No. I may think of them later, but not now.' My smile was crooked as I left.

I levered/glided my way through the transition locks and down the shaft into the null grav of the lowest level of the station.

Both Berya and Alek were waiting in the ready room.

'It was too good to last.' Alek grinned. 'Uneventful runs, you mean?'

'Those are the best kind,' he affirmed. 'Not always,' said Berya.

'We're going to be stuffed with cargo,' I pointed out. 'We are already. They're using the passenger cabin,' Alek replied.

'Heavy,' murmured Berya.

Without any more empty words, we gathered our gear and headed from the ready room to the Mambrino, cradled at lock three.

Alek and Berya both split off once we were in the ship to recheck the cargo stowage, while I went into the control center to begin power-up before making my own preflight. Once the ship was operating under its own fusactor power, I began my inspection in the passenger area. The couches had been removed and stored in more compact form in the back of the cabin, while the front held boxes and crates locked in place with cargo ties and restraints.

In continuing through the ship, I found everything as it should be, with the exception of the passenger area. When I got back to the control center, I strapped in and began to run through the systems checks.

'Upper locks are closed,' Berya said as she began to strap in.

Alek was close behind. 'Cargo set. Lower locks sealed.'

'You two ready for this?' I asked.

'That's not the question, captain,' said Berya cheerfully. 'If you're ready, then everything's fine.'

'I'm ready.' You hope you are. I made a last check of the systems, then pulsed Orbit Control. 'Orbit Two, Mambrino, ready for departure.'

'Mambrino, no inbounds this time, area clear. Understand destination Nabata.'

'Orbit Two, destination Nabata. Cargo only, no passengers.' When the cradles released, I eased power to the ionjets. 'No passengers.'

'Orbit Two, Mambrino is clear. Departing this time.'

'Stet, Mambrino. Good trip.'

'Orbit Two, thank you.' I pushed the power flow from the fusactors, bringing the ionjets to full power until we were out far enough to spread the photon nets and bring the configurators online. With the switch to photonic drive, I began establishing the insertion orientation as acceleration built. Without passengers, I decided on the maximum insertion velocity possible, but even with full power, the acceleration was slow, and the ship felt heavy, near the maximum load even for a needle.

'Minus ten for insertion.' The clamshells slid from their restraints, then dropped over us.

'Minus five.' I adjusted the orientation minutely.

'Minus three.' The acceleration continued at nearly twenty gees, and the lattices locked, early, but I didn't slack off. We'd need that converted momentum, every bit of it. The barriers between the Now and overspace were nearly nonexistent, but I left the Mambrino in the Now until it was no longer possible to hold the needle there, until the lattices crackled and the fabric of real space seemed to groan.

The needle bucked for a nanoinstant as we slid into the momentary silence of overspace, an overspace more green and less purple than usual, as if lit more brightly by the pulses of the moon beacon behind and below us.

Perhaps it was the insertion velocity, but the initial overspace gradient toward Beta Candace was nearly flat, and I could sense that the drop-off at the end of the incline was far steeper than on my last trip. I pushed that aside and centered on the distant beacon pattern, matching and confirming that it was indeed that of Nabata.

The seemingly near-flat incline began to steepen as Vwe/Mambrino neared the break point beyond which was the bottomless void separating us from Beta Candace and Nabata.

Points of glitter flashed around me, instant pinpoints of blinding light, but I held my course, held and soared the void toward the still-distant pulse of the destination beacon. The pinlights intensified, until the green-purple of overspace was submerged in an endless expanse of light that revealed nothing.

A wordless question rumbled around me, a question without the music of overspace or the menace of singularities or star masses intruding into the Web.

Then, as suddenly, the glare dropped into sparkling lines of fire, like fireflies, or a dawn brume lit by winter sunrise over a frozen lake, and the voiceless, soundless question faded into the background, and the familiar purpled green of overspace rose up around me, around the Mambrino.

The drumming purple-churned depths that had separated us from the white-yellow beacon of Beta Candace and Nabata were past, and, once more, at insertion's end, time shrank in upon itself, then stretched, simultaneously.

Just short of the strobe of energy that was the beacon, I untwisted the unNow, and Mambrino dropped into normspace.

I slowly released my breath. 'Beta Candace,' I pulsed the second and third. 'Good,' murmured Alek.

I reoriented the ship into a 'descent' to reach the system ecliptic, and Nabata Orbit Control, then rebuilt the photon nets and began to accelerate in normspace. I didn't bother to transmit our arrival for a time.

'Nabata Orbit Control, this is Mambrino, inbound this time. Captain Tyndel, second Berya, and third Alek. No

passengers. Full cargo. Full cargo, I say again. Condition green. Estimate arrival in one-five standard minutes.'

We were half through with deceleration when I received the reply.

'Captain Tyndel, we have the Mambrino at the locks in approximately eight-plus your time. Subcommander and maintenance chief Jukor will supervise unloading.'

'Stet. Understand subcommander Jukor.'

'The subcommander again,' Berya said.

I nodded, already concentrating on the switch to ionjets and the approach, slower than usual. With all the mass stuffed into the Mambrino, I needed to watch the deceleration profile. Ionjets didn't give the response, and we didn't need to crash into the station.

I did sigh once we were safely cradled. Then, after the short shutdown checklist, I went to the lock to meet the subcommander.

The short stocky subcommander with the blond, fuzz-cut hair half bowed. 'Glad you could make it, captain. We were wondering. It's been nearly two .years, and we haven't had any word.'

'I'm glad to be here.' That's true enough. 'I have a datacube for the commander - from the Authority.'

Jukor's square face blanked. 'I'll have Messer take you up.'

'Thank you.' I wanted to tell him not to worry, but what I could have told him would still have concerned him, and it was the station commander's decision how to handle it.

'Messer?' Jukor motioned to a young-looking man in gray coveralls, the kind I'd worn when I'd been a maintenance tech on OE Station. 'Would you show the captain to the commander's office?'

'Yes, ser.'

I followed the tech without a word, up shafts whose patterns were all too familiar, up to the station's upper level.

Commander Gerala was a wiry and dark-skinned woman who looked down on me, or would have in normal gravity, by a good head or so. Jukor had used the station link to warn her, clearly, since she didn't betray any surprise when I extended the datacube. She took it with a rueful smile. 'When needle jockeys are personal messengers, the news isn't good. Do you know what's in the cube?'

'In general terms. There's a hazard problem on the direct line from Sol to Beta Candace. Needles don't have the power to make radical course shifts in overspace. The Authority will be supplying you from E. Cygni.'

'You made the direct run,' the commander observed.

I waited.

Gerala frowned. 'Weren't you the next-to-last one to get through - four years ago?'

'I made a trip four universe objective years ago. I don't know who came after that' I gave a wry smile. 'With the dilation, I have a hard time keeping track of my own trips.'

'I can imagine.' She shook her head.

'If there's nothing else, commander ...'

'I'll let you know if I have any questions.'

I made my own way back down to the ship and had barely finished rechecking the Mambrino when Berya stuck her head into the control center.

'Messenger for you, captain.'

The messenger was a man in blue, a controller, who floated just inside the lock. 'Ser, the commander would very much appreciate your presence in her office.'

Berya's smile was an exercise in both control and carefully concealed worry. Controllers weren't used for messengers, even on orbit stations.

So I made my way back through the same shafts I'd so recently traveled and hauled my body back into the commander's presence. She wasted no time.

'If what commander Krigisa states in this happens to be true, then I cannot fault the logistics ... and I do appreciate the cargo you brought. Subcommander Jukor was rather ... astounded at the mass. A hot young pilot on a risky run ...' A wintry smile creased her lips. 'But... two to three years more before the next supply run? That's a five-year lag or more in the project ... and we don't possess the equipment or expertise if something goes wrong in the final stages of the project.'

'I thought Nabata was habitable ...'

'It's hot and borderline. We're still having to supplement the water cycle with ice comets from the outer belt. Atmospheric pressure is too high, and... that's not something you have to deal with.' She shrugged. 'Can you tell me how bad this "hazard" is and how long it's likely to last?'

'It's somehow cost two needle ships out of the last four or five scheduled here.' That was true and would eventually come out.

That brought a long pause. 'That bad?'

'Yes, commander.' That bad.

'Does anyone know how long this will last?'

'No.' That was also true. 'They don't know the cause at this point, either.'

'Has anything like this happened on any other runs?'

'Not that I've heard. There aren't any other needles missing recently. Or there weren't when I left Orbit Two.'

The questions continued for a time, but I kept to the facts.

Finally, she looked straight at me. 'You've been very patient, captain Tyndel. It's clear that you've told me all you know, and it's also clear that you risked your life and your ship to bring that cargo and this information.' Gerala took a long breath. 'I don't like it, but we do what we must. I may send back several people who wouldn't be scheduled to leave until next year - if they wish. Would that be a problem?'

'Not so long as your techs can help put the passenger cabin back into working order. The couches were removed and stowed to provide space for more cargo.'

'We can do that.' The wintry smile returned.

In time, I made my second trip back down to the ship, where the maintenance techs were already working under Alek's supervision to reconvert the passenger cabin. By then, I was really ready for some rest - a nap, anything.

75

Words are not a conversation; conversation is not dialogue; dialogue does not always lead to honesty.

Almost no cargo and ten passengers - that was what the Mambrino held when I eased the ship away from Nabata Station. Commander Gerala did not see us off, leaving the task to subcommander Jukor.

I'd never made what might be called a 'sideways' transit, but the data was in the system, correctly, I hoped, and I set up the acceleration and orientation for E. Cygni and Ballentir Station, and the clamshells descended and locked, and we slipped through the needle hole of the Web and into the purpled green I perceived as overspace, finding almost a ridgeline toward a beacon. I verified the beacon twice, and then again, since I'd never approached E. Cygni from anywhere.

Even before the beacon check was done, massed organ marches blasted at me from below the darkness of the ridge across which we sped.

The spears of twin singularities shivered below the Mambrino, cold and menacing.

Then came another unvoiced, soundless question, one I answered mentally, 'What do you want?' But my thoughts and reactions were on the singularities.

A dialogue, as you might put it. The words pounded through my skull. The dark spears marched anglewise toward Mambrino.

'About what?' I eased the Mambrino into an upward arc, as if that might help.

Honesty, which you value highly, and the involvement of higher powers, or cultures ...

The massed steel-strung twang of singularities rattled through me, and beneath the harmony/disharmony came words, words unbidden, words unsummoned.

My lack of involvement is assumed to represent a lack of ability for such involvement.

'Lack of ability?' My words were half uttered, barely considered as I and Mambrino danced along the lines of light and darkness.

The nanite-demon people have the ability to affect nondemon cultures. What makes you think that ability has not been exercised?

I was sure it had been but did not answer, instead evading, sidestepping, a block of black crystal that tumbled end-over-end in the white darkness.

For what purpose... mere vanity? Do you trust the honesty of your Authority? If so, if that power is to be trusted, why not greater power?

'Not all power is the same.' I would have swallowed if I could have.

Not all power? Or not all users? Or does power shape its user? Those drifting words carried amusement I could not address or consider.

Is an Authority more than a demon? More than a grouping of demons? Is it to be respected because you have conquered the Web? If but in the darkness where there is no dust?... Gods use the Web ... old gods and new gods ... whether there is dust or not. Think of the power any god must employ to dip into the dust-strewn regions of life.

From there the words rolled on, and through me, as though I had heard them before. Or perhaps they were my own arguments. About that, I wasn't certain, only upon Engee's parting words, if they were from Engee and not from somewhere deep within my own snarled mind.

Think on what I have said, needle jockey.

With those words, the connection was broken and I was back among the sonic blocks and the music of lilacs and windroses and apple blossoms ... and the singularities that marched upward swiftly and toward the Mambrino.

I untwisted the twist of the Web, and we dropped out to the beacon of Ballentir, too high above E. Cygni, but safe.

'Captain ... what was that energy spike?' asked Berya. 'I could sense it even in overspace.'

'Later,' I temporized. 'Later.' Energy spikes ... Engee ... and not even on the Beta Candace run. I'd need to report, a solid report - after I brought the ship into E. Cygni, after I explained the 'hazard' of the earth-Nabata run to the station commander, after I got back to Orbit Two.

Then, if I could, I needed to think ... and talk to Cerrelle.

76

The void is coeval with all things and is not subject to being obstructed by things, nor does it hinder the coming and going of all things.

From Ballentir Station, we picked up two more passengers, happy to leave six months earlier than the next scheduled run, and my first trip over the Trough was backward, down an incline, an overspace gradient steep enough that I certainly wasn't looking forward to going the other way.

There were no other attempts at 'conversation' by Engee, if what I had 'heard' had indeed been such. Breakout in normspace was above the ecliptic and normal.

'Orbit Two, this is Mambrino. Estimate arrival in twenty your time. Captain Tyndel, second Berya, third Alek, twelve passengers. I say again, one-two passengers. Cargo less than one tonne.' After a moment, I added, 'Inbound from Ballentir.'

We continued inbound for more than ten minutes, well into the end of deceleration, before there was a reply.

'Mambrino, this is Orbit Two. Say again, previous departure point.'

'Previous departure point was Ballentir. Before Ballentir, Nabata. Estimate arrival at Orbit Two in eight standard.'

'Stet. Eight standard. Area is clear. No inbounds, cleared to lock one.'

'Stet. Docking at lock one.'

'They didn't want to believe our previous destination,' suggested Alek.

All they had to do was check the dilation intervals,' snapped Berya. 'Junior controllers shouldn't be questioning needle captains.'

That might have been, but I knew that someone would be.

The usually ubiquitous Erelya was not waiting for me. Rather, commander Krigisa was, except she didn't wait but glided into the Mambrino's control center even before I'd fully finished the post-flight.

'You're looking well, Tyndel, especially for a three-insertion run.' She nodded. 'I'd like to see you in operations after your post-flight.' As quickly as she had arrived, she was gone.

'What did we do?' Berya looked at the empty hatchway.

'Nothing. The commander's worried about dangers to needle ships and what I might have sensed in overspace.'

'That energy spike?'

It was my turn to nod. 'There have been some odd ... sightings ... along the Beta Candace run. I need to report. I was asked to watch things closely.' Not precisely true ... Actually, I was asked that when I first became a pilot. Maybe all pilots are.'

Berya didn't press me, for which I was grateful, as I gathered my gear.

Both Erelya and Krigisa were waiting when I hurried into operations. Both faces were drawn, and their eyes almost hollow. For not the first time, the gray of the room reminded me of the caserns of the ancients, of the deep cellars beneath Henvor and under the Hall of Unremitting Alertness.

'How did it go?' Krigisa's face was concerned, faintly.

'I had no difficulties. There was the same sparkling veil. It's a trace disconcerting but not enough to distract me.'

'What about the voices?'

'This time ... I did hear them - but not on the Beta Candace run.'

The commander's face turned impassive, her expression like those of the demons on the cataclypt of Dyanar, and I wondered why I had thought of such after all the years that had passed since I had left Henvor.

'Go ahead. Don't leave out anything, Tyndel.' Krigisa's words went beyond a command.

'All I got on the Nabata leg was the impression of a question. Not even a verbal request. Just this question. I ignored it. I didn't know if I should, but I did.'

'Did this ... voice ... or whatever threaten or did it move singularities against the ship ... ?'

'Did the transit get harder?' Erelya's question tripped over the last words of the commander.

'No, sers. Nothing happened then. We came out of overspace without any problems.' I paused, then dropped the words I knew would make a difference. 'But... on the sideways leg to Ballentir, there were words. On the homebound leg, there was nothing.'

'What words? Do you think it was Engee?' asked Krigisa bluntly.

'I don't know. It was certainly some entity with great power, and one that understood both mite and Rykashan cultures.'

'Engee spoke to you?' asked Erelya. 'What did it ... he say?'

'He said that he wanted a dialogue about honesty ... after that, I listened, but I didn't. I concentrated on bringing the ship through.'

'Can you remember anything specific?'

I concentrated. 'He said several things... that we assumed his lack of involvement represented a lack of ability ... that

Rykasha has been meddling in non-Rykashan cultures. He asked me to ... assess the honesty of the Authority, and if I found it trustworthy to ask whether I also shouldn't trust a greater power ...'

A greater power? He's asserting he's a greater power, then?'

'There was that implication,' I admitted, 'but it was never stated.'

'What else?' Krigisa's voice was clipped.

'He suggested that not all power and not all users of power were the same, and then he went on to suggest that if I could respect the Authority, which had only been able to conquer overspace in the relatively dust-free sections of the Galaxy, surely one should respect a power that could reach anywhere through overspace.'

'It's mad ... or deceptive,' suggested Krigisa.

'What do you think, Tyndel?' asked Erelya.

I swallowed, then opted for honesty, as if I had any other choice that would leave me whole. 'I think whatever it is is powerful. I couldn't prove it, but I don't think it's deceptive. And it wants something beyond dialogue. I don't know what that something is.'

'Could you be imagining this?'

'I could be, but I don't think so.'

'Did you have any trouble with breakout at Epsilon Cygni?' asked Erelya.

'No, ser. That was smooth. So was the inbound to Sol.'

'A dialogue about honesty?' mused Krigisa.

And about power. He was very direct in suggesting that Rykasha had meddled with the mite cultures, and yet worried about his meddling with Rykasha. That part was clear. After that, I was more concerned with the ship, and I didn't follow the exact words, or thoughts. There was something about honesty in the dust-strewn regions of the Web.'

'Distraction? An intellectual Siren ... an intellectual discussion ... could it be that simple?' asked the operations controller, looking at Erelya.

I didn't think so, but I waited for the question to be directed to me. After a moment, they both looked in my direction and waited.

'I could have been distracted,' I said, 'and there were singularities on the route. But I'd think that an experienced pilot wouldn't have been distracted.'

'Anyone can be distracted. Then, you seem to "see" better in overspace,' reflected Erelya. 'Were you tempted to move the ship - or asked to?'

'No.'

'Were there any manifestations of this ... dialogue?'

'There was some sort of power spike that the second picked up, or sensed, but the instruments and the system records don't show it.'

'Berya's pretty level.' Erelya glanced at the commander.

The questions went on for a long, long time, but all those that followed were merely attempts to verify what I'd said before.

After a time, Krigisa glanced at Erelya. 'Can he take another ship out?'

'Can you, Tyndel?' asked Erelya.

'Why not? Haven't others heard voices? Besides, the run back from Epsilon Cygni was clear.'

'I don't know,' mused Krigisa. 'We don't know enough.'

'We can't shut down everything,' pointed out Erelya. 'If we ground every pilot who senses anything, then we won't have enough to supply the technology and expertise to either the colonies or the projects. Do you want to explain that to the Authority? Do they want to explain that to everyone?'

Both women winced, as though explaining difficulties in interstellar travel were a far greater problem than I thought.

After all, the needles were doing the near impossible. Sooner or later, there had to be problems. That had to have been obvious for a long time, hadn't it?

'Besides,' Erelya continued, 'Tyndel's the only one who's actually reported a contact and made insertions afterwards.'

'This one, I'll have to think about.' Krigisa turned to me, a dark figure all too symbolic of the Authority. 'First, you're going down to medical at Runswi to get a full examination, and you'll repeat everything in a way that can be verified. Senior captain Erelya will observe all of this. Then the medical types will examine every possible physical cause that could create a false set of overspace images. We'll also examine all the sensors and ship systems. If you get a clean report, while we evaluate everything, at the very least, you'll have a double layover. You should anyway, after a trip like that. Then,' her voice softened, 'we'll let you know what we decide about your future as a pilot.'

Erelya nodded to me, and I left, marveling at how the operations room again seemed like a casern from the past and wondering if I would ever pilot another needle ship. I couldn't believe I would, and yet, I didn't doubt that I would.

And I kept recalling how the operations room had seemed like an ancient casern, and I wondered what awaited me at the medical facilities in Runswi. I worried about that a lot, far more than about Engee ... but then we often consider our own place first.

Still ... I couldn't believe that any power that great and that curious was malevolent ... or even that interested in doing harm.

77

Grasp emptiness, and emptiness is form. Grasp form, and it is emptiness.

My medical 'debrief took more than three days, and more than half of it I didn't remember.

The only thing that mattered was that, at the end, Erelya and Aleyaisha both looked at me with clear eyes, and Erelya said, 'You're sane. You're better adjusted than most pilots, and that means we have a problem bigger than anything since the Devastation.'

They did. I didn't. I'd already had to face a culture and individuals beyond my comprehension. Somehow, another experience like that didn't bother me, not too much, but that was Dzin. If it is real, then its existence must be accepted. Engee was real. A good many of the Rykashans were going to have trouble with that, especially if Engee were as powerful as I suspected.

Once they released me, I sent a link message to Cerrelle, then went to find the tunnel glider. The one I took from Runswi was crowded - half-full was crowded for Rykashan transport.

Cerrelle met me at the tunnel station platform - that odd architectural combination of polished gray stone and warm golden woods - the gray of the ancients and the living gold of ... what? Demons? Even more antique druids?

Her heavier winter coat was unfastened, and those piercing green eyes did not quite meet mine. I smiled, for I was truly glad to see her, but, once again, she hesitated. I didn't. I hugged her warmly.

'You're back. I wasn't certain ... and then your link came ... I was afraid to take the message.'

'You shouldn't be.' I kept holding her.

From across the platform I caught a murmur. '... wish a needle jockey would look at me like that...'

'... all the young types after them ... don't notice the experienced ones around much ... keep to themselves, their family ... bet those two have children somewhere ...'

'No ... but I'd like to,' I murmured in Cerrelle's ear.

'Like what? To get to the lake?'

'That will do for now.' She hadn't heard the words my more acute hearing had picked up, and I didn't feel right about explaining it all. I hugged her again. She felt real and solid in an uncertain universe.

'Not here.'

I flushed. I hadn't meant that, not directly, but amplifying on that would have just gotten us both embarrassed.

'You're blushing .. .' She grinned. 'I like it when you do that. You're not the composed Dzin master, needle jockey.'

'I never was. I keep telling you that.'

'Maybe I need to hear it more often,' she answered as we walked up the polished stone steps.

While the path leading from the tunnel exit was clear, fine snow drizzled around my face out of the heavy gray clouds. The snow on either side of the way was higher than my head and showed little sign of melting.

'It's been a cold and snowy winter,' Cerrelle said. 'They're talking about another little ice age.'

Three years plus, three and a half, and I was back in winter. I'd barely felt summer before I'd left. Sometimes, life felt like that.

'The glider-cat's in the transport hangar.'

Cerrelle took us into the low stone-and-wood transport building, past open doors, and murmuring voices, and the scent of electronics and people, and then down another set of steps into the lower hangars, where the glider lay in a bay between two others - both larger. After Cerrelle opened the canopy, I stowed the small duffel in the rear of the free-range glider. She closed the canopy, and I settled into the seat beside her.

After she had the glider-cat on the tree-cleared but snow-covered way to the lake, she glanced momentarily at me. 'Now ... tell me what happened.'

'They asked me to take the Beta Candace run. That's the one past Alpha Felini - the Anomaly. Engee, if you will...' I went on to explain the lost needles and everything that had happened, including the medical debrief. By the time I had finished, Cerrelle was guiding the glider on the last stretch toward the lake. Her face was drawn. 'You... they... Erelya was right about this being the greatest challenge since the Devastation.'

'I can see why people would get upset ... I suppose.'

'You suppose?' Her eyebrows rose, although she kept her eyes on the snowy track. 'Is that Dzin ... or don't you understand?'

I sighed. 'I understand, but I don't. Anything that powerful could have done a lot before this. What real changes will it make? The worst it could do would be to disrupt interstellar travel. That won't affect anyone much on earth. It will hurt a few thousand people on the orbit stations and the borderline outplanets. Most of the colonies are self-sustaining. They have to be ...'

Cerrelle laughed as she eased the glider-cat up the snow-covered slope to the chalet. 'I doubt that most people will be anywhere near that calm.'

'I know. I know. But it's all true.'

'Truth often doesn't impact people's emotions. Do I have to remind you of that, Dzin master?'

I flushed. She was, again, definitely right about that.

'Think of all those excited people the way you felt when you discovered Rykasha,' she suggested.

That thought wasn't exactly reassuring.

A thin line of white circled from the hearth's chimney, barely visible against the clouds whose gray had begun to lighten, even though the fine flakes of snow continued to fall.

'The fire will feel good.' In more ways than one. 'I thought so. I put on four of the heavy oak logs before I left.'

Once we were inside, I left the duffel by the steps and hugged Cerrelle again. This time, she didn't protest. After a time, she murmured, 'This has upset you. You're affectionate, but not usually this affectionate, and it's not...'

'Lust?' I suggested, letting a wry grin cross my face.

'I don't mind lust, at the right time. Or place.' She smiled back. 'You want to talk about it?'

After I get some real Arleen.'

'It's laid out, by the kettle.'

Even though the kettle was heated through nanite action, somehow boiling water and steeped tea tasted better than formulated tea, and all the scientific rationales for why there should be no difference didn't explain the greater satisfaction of brewed Arleen. I carried two mugs to the couch before the hearth and the fire, to which Cerrelle had added another set of logs.

Beside the woman whose directness and honesty had inspired mine, I enjoyed a sip of the brewed Arleen.

This ... nanogod spoke to you?' she finally asked. The debrief showed that, too?'

'Yes. The first few times, I thought or wondered if... well ... like you lost your nanite balance on Thesalle. I wondered if all those little nanites were scrambling my nerves and I was making up thoughts to cover the static'

'What changed your mind?'

'Static isn't that rational ... and then there were the power spikes on the system, and I wasn't the only one who noted them.'

'Static could have affected the others.'

'Not with other pilots hearing things. They finally found a record in the lower level systems, something about derivative power flow memories, Erelya said.'

'A real god?' Cerrelle laughed, half humorously, half bitterly. 'After all the generations of rationality that has almost eliminated unreasoning faith in the supernatural?'

'He's not a god. A powerful intelligence isn't a god,' I pointed out.

'Too many people won't see it that way ... and if it gets to the mite cultures ...'

'It won't change anything,' I pointed out. 'Most believe in a supernatural being anyway. The danger is greater in Rykasha. Erelya said it... was the greatest problem since the Devastation.' I shook my head. 'You said it, too.'

'You don't think so?'

'Engee exists, whatever Engee is or has become. This being ... this intelligence has power. We have powers that people before the ancients would have called godlike or angellike or demonlike. Somewhat greater power doesn't make a deity.'

'Spoken like a true Rykashan. From a man who wasn't sure he was one.' Cerrelle raised her fine eyebrows into an arch. 'How many true Rykashans are there?'

'Not as many as the Authority thinks.'

'They will. They'll calculate it down to the last head.'

I had to smile, momentarily, but the smile faded. 'That still doesn't bother me. After the initial flurry, most people will get over it. Something else does. He ... it... wants something. Why does a creature with that kind of power want something from me? Or any needle pilot?'

'Do you have any idea what?'

I shook my head. 'Besides, how will I ever know? He's only contacted me in overspace - so his powers are limited that way. You don't think they'll let me near a ship anytime soon, do you?'

'What do you think?' Cerrelle asked, gently, after another long silence.

'I don't know. They've lost every pilot who's heard the voices, except me.' I stood, needing more Arleen, and walked to the kitchen, where I poured a second mug, before returning and settling beside Cerrelle, ruffling her short red hair for a moment. 'I suppose that's up to the Authority.'

'They'd be wise to let you go.' She frowned. 'I'm not sure you'd be wise to oblige them.'

'I haven't come close to paying my obligation,' I pointed out.

Cerrelle nodded. She knew about obligations - hers made mine look minuscule.

'I have a double layover,' I said. At the very least. That's because they want to think it over. Also, that's because I did the sideways transit, and that rates double.'

'Good.' She edged close to me, close enough that I could brush her cheek with my lips.

I did.

'I missed you.'

'I missed you!

The discussion about Engee was postponed ... but only postponed.

78

Studying the physics of light is not illumination.

Standing on the main level of the chalet, amid blazing sunlight reflected from the expanse of white outside the long glass windows, I looked at the console, letting my mind do the searching for the needle pilot's assignments. I could have linked directly, but I liked the old-fashioned image, though I would have once called it an iconraiser's screen, many years back, back when anything beyond the basics of the ancients' technology raised the old fears of the Devastation, back when intercity gliders were the fastest transport I'd known and the stone-sided demon traps of Henvor had provided a sense of security against the unknown.

Erelya had notified me a week earlier that no other contacts with Engee had been reported and that I could pilot again - along with dropping a strong caution about mentioning Engee and also letting me know that I had to pass another physical screening in Runswi before taking the shuttle to Orbit Two.

The image flashed into place, and the information was stark enough: Tyndel - Alexandri Gamma/Thesalle (4/12/30).

Cerrelle looked over my shoulder and winced. 'Don't stay planetside longer than you have to.'

'Bad memories?'

'No memories, really, except hazy ones, and that's worse.'

No memories? What were we but memories governed by a form of intelligence, seeking to make our lives in some way memorable? Trying to attain dreams that would secure such remembrance?

Pushing that aside for the moment, I scanned the lists of assignments. Nothing was out of the ordinary - except that there were no direct runs to Beta Candace. Somehow, that wouldn't make much difference. Not to Engee.

I flicked off the link, mind-directly, rather than with my fingers.

'That still fascinates me,' Cerrelle said. 'Even if I know the theory, it's something else to see someone you know and love do it.'

My thoughts lingered on the word love for a long moment before I replied. 'Mind over matter, but it's a mind aided by a great deal of nanite-sized matter.' I laughed.

Then I frowned. What is Engee but a creation aided by a huge amount of nanite-sized matter? What is the difference between Engee and a needle jockey?

There wasn't an answer to that, not at hand, but I wondered, then set aside that as well, and enfolded Cerrelle in a hug born out of my own uncertainties, as if she were a rock in the storming sea, shade in blinding light.

79

Myths dissected by logic and science die, and so does the culture that lived by them.

The transit to Thesalle had been uneventful, as uneventful as any insertion and exit, but once I had gone planetside... then ... then I had understood the disorienting effect of the planet. I'd stood in the middle of the square of Machedd and looked up and seen green everywhere. The air was green - a mistlike green, unlike the heavy veils of green that cascaded down the terraced slopes - and the five-sided mountain was green -five green flush sides that rose eight thousand meters over the valley, so regular one would have thought it had been sculpted rather than weathered into shape. Except when I counted again there were four sides, and a recount gave me seven. Post-Web sensory scrambling? Or that unnamed and undiscovered hallucinogen mentioned by an Authority scientist years before, that hallucinogen presumably still undetermined.

I'd never figured that out, and Dzin hadn't helped that awareness, nor had the red-golden fires that had flared through my system as I had stood in the four-pointed green square and looked up at the mountain overlooking the town. In the end, I accepted that I wouldn't know how many sides the mountain had, and had gone and gotten some sleep.

Berya was hollow-eyed when she met me outside the Mambrino's lock the following day. 'How did you rest?' I asked.

'Didn't... not well. Should have stayed on the station.'

The control spaces were quiet as we prepared for departure and the return to Earth Orbit Two.

Departure and insertion were smooth, easy, and overspace was an even lighter green-purple than usual, a green-purple of unusual clarity as the Mambrino and I eased our way down the incline toward Sol, past the Baroque-like deep melodies of a barely formed singularity and across the first of the triplet gulfs. As we hung over the first gulf, there was a rumbling ... that sense of an unvoiced question, a sense that I ignored until we were clear of a yellow velvet ice trumpet that had narrowed into a spear and tried to impale the ship.

Even the mighty are limited ...

'That's a tautological paradox,' my mind replied. I concentrated on avoiding the deadly rectangles that followed the spear. 'True mightiness would have no limits.'

Any being within a universe is limited by that universe. Any ordered action in any universe results in a total increase in disorder. Even gathering and creating information is an ordered action, and as such, there is no way even a god can create more information than is destroyed through the creation process. Golden-red starfire punctuated the words.

'Then how can any being increase knowledge?' I eased the ship into a climb over the dissonant wake of a singularity.

By linking two universes, by using the energy from a collapsing high-entropy antimatter universe to power the creation of order within this universe.

'That would take more than a god.' I dismissed the thought and concentrated on the white/black warmth of the lunar beacon, and on untwisting the unNow and breaking out into normspace.

'Energy spikes, again.' Berya's words were bleak as I eased the Mambrino toward earth and the orbit station on its photonjets. 'You felt them, didn't you, captain?'

'Very much. I'm sure operations will want to know.' I tried to keep my own thoughts focused as I considered Engee's message.

Ordering information within any universe destroys more information than it creates ...

That was probably true, but how much of the destroyed information was usable? Usable by whom? And when? Add to that the power implied by Engee's last words ... By linking two universes, by using the energy from a collapsing high-entropy antimatter universe to power the creation of order within this universe.

I shook my head. That kind of power was impressive, and I had no doubt Engee had already been using it. That explained Astlyn's comments about the 'more energetic' matter of the Anomaly. Then, too, there was the fact that Engee had used those no-time moments of red and gold fires of the deep to sear through me at the pinnacle of overspace, from the distance of Alpha Felini to a point in overspace that all the science of Rykasha could not have precisely located. Yet Engee had.

I took a deep breath as I shut down the photon nets and brought the ionjets on line, then triggered a transmission to Earth Orbit Two. 'Orbit Two, this is Mambrino. Estimate arrival in fifteen your time. Captain Tyndel, second Berya, third Alek, six passengers. I say again, six passengers. Cargo less than three tonnes. Request conference with operations upon arrival.'

We continued inbound and had less than twenty percent of deceleration to go when Orbit Two replied. 'Mambrino, this is Orbit Two. Understand you wish conference with operations. Is that affirmative?'

'That is affirmative.'

'Request status, Mambrino! 'Status is green. Green, I say again.'

'Stet. Cleared to lock four upon arrival. No inbounds this time.'

'You meeting about the energy spikes, captain?'

'Unfortunately ... yes.'

Berya nodded. 'Some ships don't make it past them, do they?'

'That's what operations suspects, but we don't know for certain. That's why they want to know about anything like that' I didn't want to say more; I'd not wanted to say that, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to dealing with commander Krigisa or even senior captain Erelya. I might feel that Engee was more curious than dangerous, but that kind of power wasn't going to set well on Orbit Two.

Shutdown and postflight were mostly silent, because I was silent except as necessary, thinking about the meeting ahead. And I'd asked for it, not that I'd had much choice, not if I wanted to remain honest

In the gray-walled casern of operations, there were three people waiting - Erelya, commander Krigisa, and Aleyaisha. There was also a complete diagnostic console, also gray, a shinier newer gray. The air was cool, dry, like that in a casern or a desert crypt. That Aleyaisha was there meant more trouble, not for me but for needle ships in general, because they couldn't have gotten her up from Runswi in the time since I'd requested a conference.

I didn't even bother to ask the procedure, just nodded at the red-clad Aleyaisha and eased myself over beside the console. Any time you're ready.'

She lifted the diagnostic spray, and the silver mist wafted over me and into and through me, then began to reform on the receiving screen. I watched as the sandy-haired medical type studied the screen.

'He's in perfect physical health,' Aleyaisha finally noted. 'He has been before every run. Even his muscle tone is at the top.'

'Nothing out of the ordinary?' asked Krigisa, worrying the forefinger and thumb of her right hand together. 'Not that the diagnostics show.'

The three of them looked at me as though I might be human once more. Then Krigisa nodded at Aleyaisha, who eased back to the other side of the console, effectively leaving me with the two senior officers.

'I presume you had some sort of contact,' Krigisa began.

'I did.' I glanced in the direction of Aleyaisha. 'I presume I'm not the first, lately, either.'

'Three others, but we've only lost one more ship.'

One ... on top of the others? I nodded politely, but the reason for Aleyaisha's presence was clear.

'Any more ... dialogues?' inquired the commander.

'Nothing on the outbound, but a fairly elaborate set of ... observations coming back.'

'What?'

I smiled, if nervously. 'A general observation on entropy ... so to speak ... and then a solution that might explain the puzzle Astlyn outlined to me years ago.'

'Go on.'

'If it's Engee, he ... it ... is tapping a reverse universe somewhere, one that runs backwards from ours, using its high-energy entropy as a power source to build his system. That's if I understood what he was trying to convey. He calls it the only way to create more information than is being destroyed by the information creation process, a way to avoid losing the memory of the universe ... or something.'

'Avoid losing the memory of the universe? Odd,' murmured

Erelya. 'That's his concern with all that power?' She frowned.

'He says he's pumping energy from another universe into that Anomalous system? The theory says that wouldn't work,' said Krigisa.

'Something's pumping energy there,' pointed out Erelya. And if he has that kind of power ...'

'I don't know. I'm certainly not an expert on universal physics. It might not work. He might just be throwing words, or I might be imagining them, but that was what I heard. I listened, but I kept my mind on the ship.'

'If Tyndel heard them, he heard them,' Aleyaisha confirmed from the other side of the console.

'It doesn't mean this ... creature is telling the truth.'

'Why would it lie?' asked Erelya. 'Something is creating matter and energy in the Anomaly, seemingly from nowhere. This provides an explanation.'

'Why would it tell the truth? Why would it tell us - or Tyndel - why?'

'Because it wants something and because greater power demands greater honesty for survival, and it has greater power, and it's survived,' I suggested.

For a moment, the casern that operations had become, at least in comparison to overspace, was silent.

'Did it say what it wanted?'

'No. That's just an impression,' I had to admit.

'Are you sure this wasn't because of Thesalle ... its impact?' asked Krigisa, still worrying forefinger and thumb together.

'Outside of visual disorientation ... no.' I offered a grin. 'I never did figure out how many sides the mountain over Machedd had.'

'No dizziness? Nausea? Physical weakness?'

I shook my head.

'He's telling the truth on that, too,' Aleyaisha confirmed.

'You say we've lost another needle - just one?' I asked, watching Krigisa. 'Just one.'

'You're doing this with all pilots?'

'Have you a better idea?'

Find out what Engee wants and give it to him, except you don't know what he wants. 'Not right now.' Aleyaisha nodded once more.

'How can you take this so calmly, Tyndel?' asked Krigisa, her voice carrying both interest and a tinge of exasperation and anger, as if she felt I didn't understand the gravity of the situation.

'You forget, commander, that I've already had to learn this once before.' She frowned for a moment.

'Rykashans have abilities far superior to those of Dorchans. Finding another being of superior abilities isn't so frightening to me. You all forced me to learn.' I smiled rather than continue. And it's amusing to see how you all face it.

'And you think that makes you different?' asked Krigisa.

'He has made three separate returns after hearing discrete messages. No one else has managed one,' added Erelya.

'It could be that I'm not tied to either God or no god. I'm a former Dzin master, one who's never been quite at home in any belief system.'

'That's not a physical explanation,' pointed out the commander.

'State of mind determines the physical ability to master overspace,' countered Erelya.

I wanted to smile at her almost feisty response. Aleyaisha did, but erased the expression quickly.

'The universe exists independent of the anthropic principle ... so does overspace,' continued Krigisa.

There was a significant difference between existence and understanding, between reaction and proaction - or were intelligence and planning merely illusions? Were we genetically programmed to respond, merely rationalizing our actions after the facts? I didn't think so, but even my assessment could have been an illusion of sorts.

That's not the question,' Erelya responded. 'It's why Tyndel can keep making runs after contact by Engee. It's possibly also why no other former Dzin masters have had a problem.'

'We don't know that Dzin is the reason.'

'It will do for now.'

Krigisa turned to me. 'What about the color of overspace? Has it changed?'

'It's slightly brighter now, more of a lighter deep purple-green ...'

'Have you noticed any changes in the perceptual gradients ...'

The technical questions went on for what seemed more than a standard hour, until the room drifted into another silence. 'Can I answer any more questions?' I asked politely.

'Not unless you have some other factual or data-based input,' answered Krigisa.

'I've told you what I know.'

'You'd better go, Tyndel. You're suspended from active flight status pending the results of a complete medical evaluation in Runswi as soon as you arrive.' Krigisa's voice was tight when she finally dismissed me. 'And I'd appreciate it if you would restrict your speculations.'

'Yes, ser.'

The debate was still going on when I left, for yet another indepth medical evaluation in Runswi, but I had no doubts. In time, I'd fly at least one more insertion, and probably many more.

Once out of operations, I used my mental links to access the shuttle schedule board directly. Then I began to hurry, not wanting to spend another eight hours on Orbit Two.

As I slipped toward the handful of people lined by the lock, the shuttle's second - they had but two officers - caught sight of my greens.

'Captain ... if you'd board now?'

'Thank you. I'm sorry. I was held up.'

'It's not a problem, ser.'

Behind me, I could hear voices.

'... who's that?'

'... name is Tyndel... say something special about him ... no one says what... young, but there's a waiting list to officer under him ...'

I frowned - a waiting list for me? Because I'd managed to survive at a time when a few needles had disappeared? That could have been mere chance. Was it because people were looking for some reason to think I was special? As I eased into the front couch in the magshuttle's passenger section, my thoughts skittered over the debriefing and the words I'd just heard. Something special? Honesty out of fear? Fear that you won't be honest? Fear that your honesty is a fraud?

I could sense the fear of others as well, especially of Commander Krigisa - the fear that the absolute power represented by Engee was a threat to Rykasha. Fear that the whole overspace system was about to crumble - or that faith in it was. That was almost the same thing, given that faith and the ability of the needle jockeys were what made the technology work.

If the Authority lost faith in the needle jockeys ... if the other jockeys lost faith in themselves ...

I'd asked, once, what a Rykashan was and found no answer. I had part of the answer - a Rykashan was someone who dreamed beyond the confines of earth, dreamed and worked to realize the dream, not just contemplate it.

Every society, I understood, had to have faith in something beyond itself, beyond the day-to-day. For the ancients, it had been religion, irrational and constricting as it had been. For Dorcha, it was the way of Dzin. For Klama, the way of Toze. For Dezret, the way of Ryks.

And Rykasha? The stellar dream.. .the dream that nothing is beyond the souls and aspirations of demons? Such fragile arrogance ...

80

Belief in destiny becomes an excuse for inaction or a rationale for self-centered action.

Late fall was in the air, the mold of leaves fallen and about to freeze, the ice curtain of winter about to drop across the calm shimmering surface of the lake. Cerrelle and I sat inside, protected by the glass, warmed by the sun, a mug in my hand, a tall beaker in hers. In a way, it was totally incongruous.

There was the possibility of an enormously powerful intelligence that might well change all of Rykasha merely by its presence. The interstellar travel system of Rykasha was certainly threatened, and we sat and drank. Yet... what could either of us do? I was a needle ship pilot who, because I'd been honest about what I'd sensed, was effectively grounded until the Authority made up its mind what to do with me.

Cerrelle was a mid-level transport troubleshooter considered far below the problem facing Rykasha.

'Things are getting worse,' I mused.

'How bad?'

'They had Aleyaisha up on Orbit Two to monitor every part of every needle jockey after each inbound.' I took a sip of Arleen and thought, my eyes looking out at the surface of the lake, where, on the far side, the winds had begun to whip the silver surface into low whitecaps. Soon, the wind would reach our shore. 'You never told me how fragile the system is.' I turned sideways and studied the clean and strong profile, my lips curling into a smile as she brushed back a vagrant wisp of short red hair.

'I wouldn't have used that word.'

'Fragile? I suppose not. In some ways, Rykasha is almost indestructible ... except it's not. Societies run on myths, and one of the great myths is that we hold the stars the ancients couldn't. What happens if, one by one, we lose ships and pilots? The myth dies.'

'That's what happened in Dezret,' Cerrelle said, taking a delicate swallow of the icy veridian liqueur. 'The Saints believed that they were the sons of God and that the world would be theirs, and that all would come to accept their vision of salvation, and that the land could be used and abused without consequences. It didn't happen that way, and the lake turned to salt and the rivers dwindled, and the winds blew harder, and the outsiders laughed ... and slowly the men turned bitter, and the women were beaten into acceptance, those who didn't flee, and the winter gales brought down the temples, and no one has the time or the tools or the strength to repair them. Yet the records here show that the climate has not changed that much in millennia.'

'Their perception did?'

'The lake was shrinking when they settled the area, in geologic terms, but they wouldn't see it. So much of their belief ... their myth ... wasn't in accord with reality, and they couldn't or wouldn't change it, and then it was too late.' Cerrelle nodded. 'Isn't that what you mean?'

'It's what I worry about. Overspace is dangerous. They don't really say that in training, but the training makes it clear. A few needle ships were vanishing over each twenty-year period or so, and those losses were downplayed, accepted. But two a year is far more than one a decade. There were only ninety-five pilots and sixty-one needle ships, and we've lost five ships, and pilots, I think, in the last three years. Or maybe six or seven.' I frowned, trying to add up what I'd heard over the past years, because the numbers weren't in the data system. 'That's what I've been able to discover. That's more than a tenth in less than five years. One's been built in that time. We can't keep taking those losses and still support the planoforming projects or supply the few high-tech items that will keep the smaller colonies from slipping back into low-tech states ... or barbarism.'

'That's why Krigisa and Erelya are worried,' Cerrelle pointed out. 'That's why you're worried.'

'In some ways, I worry more about the mythic side.' I took another sip of Arleen. 'If the star dream goes, what's there to replace it? Engee? Then how are we any different from those of Dorcha ... or Dhurra ... or Klama?' I set down the mug. 'Yet there's nothing I can do. Part of me worries that my own honesty keeps me from piloting. What if I'd just said I'd sensed some vague energy?'

'Then you'd have been grounded for lying, and in bigger trouble,' Cerrelle pointed out. Aleyaisha may be sympathetic, but she would have to have reported that, and the equipment is sensitive enough to reveal deception on that scale. Remember, they have your entire medical and psychological profile at hand.'

'It still bothers me.' I picked up the mug and looked across the lake, so placid, as if nothing in the universe had changed since it had been formed by glaciers fifteen thousand years earlier.

'The man who didn't want anything to do with needle ships is now worried about their demise.' A faint smile crossed her lips, and the piercing green eyes sparkled.

'That man has seen what dreams mean and do. His problem was that he didn't understand them because he'd been schooled that dreams of aspiration were dreams of vanity.'

'All dreams are dreams of vanity,' she pointed out. 'All dreams are a search for meaning beyond impermanence. Even a long-lived demon is a mayfly on a universal scale.'

'I don't know that I like being a mayfly.'

'That's why you're building a garden you want to be so beautiful that no one will wish to remove it.'

'That's part of the reason. I don't want to be impermanent in your mind and life, either.'

She reached out and touched my hand, then curled her fingers around mine. 'You won't be impermanent.'

Even as I worried about a universe far bigger than the demons conceived, possibly far more hostile to dreams, especially stellar dreams, I squeezed her hand in return, taking comfort in the small island of warmth in which we basked, impermanent as it might be, waiting to see what my fate might be ... what all our fates might be.

81

Each person believes in self-uniqueness: snowflakes are equally unique.

The year turned, and the snow fell, and the lake froze, and my name did not appear on the schedule board. I managed links to Erelya twice, and the senior captain was most polite and mostly not very informative.

'We've verified the information, Tyndel, and your status is under review.'

That was the gist of what she'd said - twice. So I kept working out, in the gym, in the pool, and running through the deep snow that continued to fall.

Cerrelle's name showed up on another board, one that sent her off to Vanirel, looking in on another demon convert, this time from Thule. Vanirel - home of Fersonne, who'd only wanted her own place on Actean. Vanirel ... another cold land, colder even than Rykasha - or really the region of Rykasha where I was, since the cold lands of Amnord and Thule were components of Rykasha.

I missed Cerrelle, but I kept telling myself that she had more than me to worry about ... especially since it had been established that I was a Web pilot who knew what he was doing. With my schedule and the winter and the snow, I hadn't done much on the garden besides finish the back stone wall and place a couple of yews. So we conversed on the link when we could - not exactly satisfactorily.

Vanirel - I no sooner decided that I'd take a trip to see her when the screen chimed and I found myself facing Erelya through the screen at Cerrelle's chalet.

'Yes, ser?'

'Are you ready to take another run, Tyndel?'

'Yes, ser. What changed everyone's minds?'

A wintry smile cracked her face. 'The fact that nothing's happened. The fact that needle ships continue to depart and return.'

'Any more messages from ... our entity?' I asked. 'A few hints, but only hints.'

'So... now that Rykashan interstellar travel isn't instantly threatened—' I broke off, realizing that she'd been on my side. It had largely been commander Krigisa who'd put me on the shelf. 'I'm sorry.'

'Quite understandable, Tyndel. You were honest, and shelved, and the word apparently got out.' The smile got colder, although I didn't feel it was directed at me. 'So I thought it might be time for you to take another run. We need your talents anyway.'

'What run?'

'Epsilon Cygni, over the Trough with some very heavy cargo. In four days. You up to that?'

'Yes, sen' For many reasons, I couldn't say no, especially with what Erelya had conveyed indirectly, but I wanted a little confirmation. 'You say there's been some discrepancy between the medical reviews and the flight reports?'

'I didn't say that, Tyndel. That's strictly your conclusion.' An ironic smile followed. 'It is difficult to hide something from a Dzin master. That's why I want you piloting the Mambrino on this run.' The emphasis on the pronoun T was there, but so slight as to be almost unnoticed.

I nodded. Til do my best.'

'And, Tyndel...'

'Yes, ser?'

You have to pass a long medical this time. You'll need to be in Runswi by noon of the day before. I doubt it will be a problem, but the commander insisted.'

I understood that... and more. So ... rather than take a suborbital magshuttle to Vanirel, I ended up two days later in Runswi, where doctors Fionya and Bekunin applied every examination technique they could find. Apparently, they couldn't find anything wrong, because the next morning I was on an orbital to Earth Orbit Two.

Once on the station, my first stop was the ready room, too gray for my taste, but in recent years, gray had become less and less intriguing.

Berya was tight-faced and turned when I appeared, pursing her lips before speaking. 'Tyndel.'

Now, former ignorant Dorchan or not, former would-be Dzin master, I could tell she was less than happy. 'Good morning, Berya. Anything interesting?'

A special Epsilon Cygni run... and Alek muttering about mass. He never mutters.'

'Captain Erelya said it was heavy cargo. She didn't say what. You want to tell me what sort of heavy cargo?' I forced a grin. 'Or is the captain the last to know?' E. Cygni was a tough run because it was a stiff climb, almost the opposite of the Santerene insertion, well above the insertion gradients. I'd seen it well enough from the other side, and hadn't been in any hurry to go the hard way.

'Fusactor spines.' Berya offered a wry smile that faded quickly. 'I'm glad it's you, Tyndel.'

I gave a short nod. 'I need to talk to Alek ... if he's muttering.'

'He's not on the ship ... he's in station ops.'

I lurried and headed back up the transverse shafts, back to the gray casern of operations. Alek was standing in the hatchway to operations, talking to a thin figure with an oily smile.

'Captain... this is Ensor, assistant ops officer. He's standing in for commander Krigisa.'

I nodded. That figured. Krigisa didn't want to see me, because if something went wrong, then the blame would go to Erelya and Ensor.

'I've heard about you, captain Tyndel' Ensor's voice was as oily as his lank brown hair and his unvarying smile.

'Fusactor spines?' I managed to keep my voice level, angered as I was at the oily assistant ops officer, and surprised as I was to find the anger there. Why was I upset? Because of the politics? Because it went against my feeling that honesty was important to Rykasha?

'They need an entire power net on Ballentir.' Ensor shrugged. 'Just discovered an incipient flare pattern, and they want to salvage what they can. And ... as you know ... needle transport has become slightly less certain ... recently.'

'Why us?' I knew the answer, but I wanted to see how Ensor reacted.

'Captain Tyndel, they're worried about time. Besides, the Mambrino's the only ship this side of the Trough that's free. The Costigan's never been the same since that problem it had going to Omega Eridani. And we never did get enough fusactor equipment to Nabata. You may recall that.'

'Thank you.' I managed a polite nod. From body posture and voice tone, it was clear that Ensor had been kept in the dark. I'd been there when the Costigan had barely survived a singularity, but wondered if Ensor knew I knew.

The station's junior operations officer smiled tightly. 'If you're not up to handling Epsilon Cygni, I could call in someone else, a senior pilot like captain Sesehna. Or talk to commander Krigisa.'

'I'll handle it.' The last thing in the universe I wanted was to ask for help from Sesehna or Erelya.

The tightness around Alek's green eyes and narrow mouth eased. Ensor kept grinning.

Fusactor spines? Was I wrong to take the insertion? Berya and Alek deserved my best, but was it good enough to take spines across the Trough? Good enough to act as bait for Erelya before Engee lured or otherwise distracted another needle jockey?

'You're sure? You're new at this,' Ensor pointed out.

'I've been at it long enough.' I looked at Alek. 'You ready to go?'

'Yes, ser.'

'Good to meet you, Ensor,' I lied, knowing he knew I lied.

'And you, too, captain.' He cared even less for me than I did for him.

'What were you talking to ... Ensor about?' I asked Alek as we headed back down the shaft. 'How much mass they're loading onto us?'

Alek's mouth quirked. 'I told him you wouldn't be happy if he loaded spine cases in the passenger compartment.'

'You were right.'

'He backed off. I think it was his idea, not the commander's.'

We were nearly back to the Mambrino, locked on the lower ring, beside the Costigan, before the third spoke again. 'The spines weren't my idea, Tyndel. I didn't volunteer us.'

'I know. I was asked almost a week ago if we'd take heavy cargo. I didn't ask how heavy.' I offered a laugh. 'I should have. Ensor was right about one thing. I am new to the politics of being a needle jockey.'

Alek smiled faintly. 'Politics doesn't deliver the ship.'

'No.' I paused. 'Make sure everything's locked in place. This is going to be one rough run.' My third officer nodded.

At the lock, Berya looked from Alek's face to mine, then pursed her lips. 'We're going?'

'We're going.' She nodded. 'Thought so.'

After my preflight, I went into the control center while Alek finished checking the holds again and Berya covered the passenger area.

First came the harness. I plugged it into the silvery stripes that ran along the outside of the uniform suit sleeves and down the front of the thighs. Last, I eased on the helmet. They call it a helmet, although it's more like a skintight plastic cap and weighs maybe half a kilo, if that. Once on-line with the system, I rechecked the foam release nozzles, then the lines and plugs to the sensiharness and helmet. Plastic, that's the needle, composite and plastics pretty much end to end, with the bare minimum of metal - except for the power plant. Metals increase your specific attractions to the vortices. That's what happened to the Costigan and what everyone thought had hit the Obelisk decades earlier. At least, that's what they think happened. It makes sense, since any needle jockey can feel the pull from the fusactor.

'Everything all right, captain Tyndel?' Berya's voice came through the system as somehow scratchy.

'Fine, so far. How many passengers?'

'Eight. High-level techs, I think, except for a controller. He doesn't look happy.'

'He knows what's in the holds.' I glanced toward the other two couches. Berya was secure, and Alek was strapping in.

Even before I had started to uncradle the Mambrino from Orbit Two, I could almost sense the lurking mass of the spines, looming up behind me like a dark hulk ready to swallow the Mambrino whole. That much metal? It made a stupid kind of sense, especially if some had to go to Nabata. Do it once, and get them out there. Then any kind of in-system ship could carry them down to Ballentir - or anyplace else beyond the Trough. E. Cygni was not only high but more than halfway to anywhere and beyond the worst of the vortices along the Trough. The pull of that much metal also made sense ... perhaps ... if I were bait for Engee.

'Orbit Two, Mambrino disengaging this time. Outbound for Epsilon Cygni.'

'Stet, captain Tyndel. Understand outbound for Epsilon Cygni. No inbound traffic this time.'

'Stet.'

Once we were well clear of the station, I began to boost the ionjets to full power, calculating and rechecking the orientation and acceleration I'd need for the climb over the Trough.

'On full ionjets,' I passed along to Berya and Alek. 'We'll start photonjet acceleration early so I can build it up more gradually.' I didn't want any jerkiness with that kind of mass behind and below us.

As I spread the nets and transitioned to photondrive, I could feel the Web, waiting beyond, just beyond that flash of power that would shift the Mambrino up an energy level to where there's no matter, just energy fields. That was stupid, of course, because the ancients had proved millennia earlier that there was no matter, only energy. But in overspace, in harness, you can feel it all.

It doesn't last. Even with full power from the fusactor and the Rinstaal cells, there's not enough energy to keep a needle that excited for very long, just long enough for the insertion, the jump above the Now, and the quick dance through that web of sound and scent. Just enough to make it worthwhile.

'All passengers must be secured at this time.' The clamshells dropped, sealing us against the acceleration.

'Ready for insertion?'

'Stet'

There was just the faintest hiss before all the force lines centered on me, on the lines of power that made me the nerve center of the ship, of a ship that climbed upward and around eddies of solid energy.

The Mambrino screamed through the veil into the sense-scrambled realm of light and darkness, where black was so often white, and where silence was music, and music silence. I danced the unsupported climb over the Trough, over a dark vibrating triplet of singularities, singularities that twanged the symphonies of the ancients on steel strings, rumbling menace from deep in the Trough as the Mambrino and I soared, and gasped, and pirouetted through ice and fire and lilacs and heavy rose perfume to the white comfort of the beacon beyond.

And not a word from Engee. I wasn't sure whether to be worried or relieved.

Then as the fired strands of the Web faded, to the chorus of tiny bells that echoed a march I knew not, I slipped us out and into the white-flashed and twisted Now of real time, with Ballentir Station far above us. Low as we were, we were close enough to E. Cygni, and all in one piece, fusactor spines and all.

'Web exit complete,' I reported, my voice scarcely hoarse at all. 'Photonjets on-line.'

'Are you all right, captain?' Alek's voice scratched through the speaker.

'Fine,' I lied. Lilacs still sprinted through my nostrils, burning a pathway to my brain, and dull echoes of matter-based kettledrums resonated in my ears. Already my back muscles had spasmed, and my eyes burned. The straps felt like chains. 'Those spines are a hell of a load.'

'What happened?'

'Singularities.' I hated singularities, hated them and loved them, because they were clear black crystalline spears aimed at your guts, but spears that permeated the Web with the scent of spring lilac even as they stressed the channels and blocks a ship ran, even as their steel guitars threatened to disassemble you.

Now, in the back of my mind, on the real-time level, the inputs told me about the alarms and the safety web alerts and the gee-foam that had flooded the ship. Not that it mattered, really. I'd either cleared the singularities or I hadn't.

'How many?'

'Three.' I swallowed. My guts were protesting more than usual. But then it hadn't been a normal trip. I'd had to climb all the way, the hard way, thanks to the damned spines.

'Thanks, captain ...'

In the background before Alek closed the link, or maybe it was a residual from the Web, I caught the next words. '... frigging lucky ... Tyndel ... may be new ... but be blood soup, otherwise ...'

Maybe. I'd managed another insertion above the Now and under the Web, over the Trough, and the return would be downhill and smooth without all the heavy metal.

Maybe... unless Engee discovers you 're back in overspace...

82

Those who believe in 'truth' are invariably disappointed.

We got a week planetside on Ballentir - one of the first colonized worlds and the most earthlike, although there were no tall trees, but the downshuttle port was on a plateau overlooking a gray-green sea. I took a lot of walks and runs, and thought about Cerrelle, and wished I'd gone to Vanirel earlier, before it had gotten too late to go at all. I tried not to think about Engee and the disappearance of needle ships.

Berya went sailing, and I never saw Alek.

Then, suddenly, it seemed, we were back at Ballentir Orbit Station, readying the Mambrino for the return. Even before the locks were closed, the cradles released, my thoughts kept drifting back to Engee, wondering when I'd next hear from the being/god/Anomaly, wondering if Erelya's instincts and my feelings were correct, hoping in a way they weren't.

'Ballentir Control, this is Mambrino, uncradled this time. Departing for Sol. Six passengers, minimum cargo.'

'Mambrino, clear to depart. No local traffic or inbounds this time. Good trip.'

'Ballentir Control, thank you.'

Once the needle was clear of the cradles and the dull composite bulk of the station, I stepped up the fusactors' draw until the ionjets were at full power, easing the Mambrino in a trajectory that would allow spreading the photon nets and bringing the configurators online as quickly as possible.

'Please make sure that you are in your couches,' Berya cautioned the passengers.

In time, we switched to photonic drive, and the clamshells began to descend.

'Minus ten for insertion.' I stepped up the acceleration and established the insertion orientation. Even with passengers, without cargo the ship felt light, and absolute velocity increased rapidly toward the maximum insertion speed possible.

'Minus five.' I made a last adjustment to the orientation.

'Minus three.' The lattices locked. The barriers between the Now and overspace continued to thin, until the lattices themselves whispered and crackled, and the fabric of real space seemed to groan.

The needle slid smoothly into the momentary silence of overspace, an overspace almost a glowing but deep green, without purple at all, except for the gap of the Trough below us and the distant but shivering thrumming sound of the singularities that were always present somewhere in overspace.

Have you thought on what we discussed, needle jockey?

The words shivered me, but I concentrated on keeping the ship on its arc over the Trough. What had we discussed? Did it matter? What mattered was that Engee stopped disrupting Web traffic. 'When will you stop plucking pilots out of the Web?' Again, my words were spoken, yet not spoken, but more than merely thought.

When I find one who will do what I cannot - one like you.

'I'm not special.' As ship-self, I continued that dash along the unseen narrow path toward the warm and comforting, pulsing lunar beacon.

You see more than the others. You can guide your tittle needle without grasping for light in the darkness. 'What do you want - of me?' Your cooperation. 'And if I don't provide it?' / will continue to seek others ... I wanted to sigh. 'You don't offer many choices.' The universe offers fewer.

That wasn't arguable, one way or another. 'Then let me exit somewhere safe for my officers and the needle.' If the Anomaly/Engee wanted to get a needle pilot, it needed to do so without jeopardizing others and the whole Rykashan interstellar transport system.

As you wish ... I could sense that swirling cloud of protostar dust and fire that was created by Engee - perhaps it was Engee.

And from outside overspace, from normspace, a smaller arm of fire reached out from the edge of that cloud and wrapped itself around the Mambrino.

The needle ship shivered, and the control center strobed black and white, and, had they registered, the gee meters would have pegged, and then I/we tumbled out of overspace and into the Now. We were in normspace, though the excitation lattices were locked - or power was being shunted from them. I depowered the insertion system, wondering what I'd let everyone in for.

'Captain ...' Berya's voice sounded hoarse. 'We were plucked right out of the Web ...'

I was silent, scanning the skies with all the Mambrino's systems.

'There's no beacon,' I whispered, 'but there's a star ...' The Anomaly ... Engee's system ... but where to? For lack of anything better to do, I spread the nets and eased the needle inward toward the protostar.

The moments ticked by in the silence, and the star drew nearer.

'Rykashan ship, this is Follower Control. Rykashan ship, this is Follower Control.'

'The Followers?' muttered Alek. 'Where are we? They've got a station?'

'Follower Control, this is Mambrino. Go ahead.'

'What do they want?' hissed Alek.

'We are at your zero-seven-one, minus forty. We have full cradling and locking facilities.'

With that, I could locate the small beacon and the energy signatures, and adjusted course.

'What do I tell the passengers?' asked Berya.

'Tell them that we've made an unanticipated stop at Felini Station.'

'Felini Station?'

'That's as good a name as any.' And much better than New City. 'We've been tendered an invitation that I decided not to refuse.' I eased the ship downward and began to accelerate, gently, mentally shaking my head. In overspace, agreeing to Engee's invitation had seemed a good idea. Now ... ? But anything that could lock and depower the excitation systems wasn't going to let us leave until I did whatever it had in mind.

The station was anything but conventional. Rather than a massive cylinder, it was more like a reinforced spiderweb. Where were the docking locks? Did it have any?

'Follower Control, this is Mambrino. Interrogative docking locks?'

A flash of green light flared from one side of the spiderweb, almost painful through the optics of the needle's system. 'Mambrino, green light indicates lock two.'

'I have it. Thank you.'

'Cradles and locks are Rykashan standard.'

'Thank you,' I repeated.

My approach was gentle, as I feared any impact might shiver the fragile-appearing station. We barely kissed into the cradles, and the cradling was so uneventful as to be frightening, down to the familiar faint clunks and the hissing as the ship and station pressures equalized. Shutdown was routine, and there were no further communications from the station.

'Now what?' asked Berya as she unstrapped.

'I go see what they want.'

'You?'

'They want me. I'm not sure why, but that energy spike was a request that I make myself available.'

'A request ... ?'

'And a threat,' I added. 'If I don't, then Engee or whoever's pretending to be Engee will keep picking off needles.'

'Are you sure that's not what hasn't happened before?' asked Berya.

'No ... but before this, none of the missing needles ever turned up in known space.' I shrugged. 'I have to go on feel here.'

Berya nodded slowly. 'I hope you're right.'

So did I, but it wasn't the time to doubt my sanity, not at all. Still, I did enter a course profile into the system. It might take subjective weeks for the needle to return to Sol, and that would be more than a decade elapsed time, but they wouldn't have to spend the rest of their lives on Follower Station - or New City, as Erelya called it.

Then, I made sure I was at the ship's lock when it opened, although what I could have done was another question.

Besides two crewmen in gray singlesuits trimmed in gold, a heavyset man in a totally gold singlesuit waited on the other side of the lock, a broad smile on his face. Something about his posture bothered me, subconsciously, but I could not explain what it was.

'Welcome, captain. We're glad to see you. I'm Bream.'

I nodded.

'We have a canteen, and an actual waiting area here.' He chuckled. 'It has been waiting a long time. We don't get many transients.'

'I imagine.'

Berya's face was grim, her eyes going from me to the Follower and back to me. 'Why are we here?'

'You will understand. It is God,' Bream said in a matter-of-fact tone.

If such a belief happened to be the impact that Engee had on rational, nano-educated demons who'd had a lifetime to adapt to high and low nanotechnology, I wasn't sure I had any interest in meeting Engee. On the other hand, I didn't seem to have much choice, not if I wanted there to be any needle jockeys left. Aren't you rating yourself highly?I shook off the self-critique.

Berya opened her mouth and then shut it, practical second officer that she was.

'Are you ready, captain?' asked the gold-suited Follower - Bream.

'In a moment.' I turned to Berya. 'I should be back. But ... there's a manual course return to earth in the system. It will strain the Mambrino's capabilities, but it will work.'

'We'll be here.'

I nodded, again hoping she was right.

Once I eased across the lock threshold and staggered into full gravity, I understood what had bothered me about the Followers' postures. Gravity - they had artificial gravity of some sort, not provided by acceleration or spin. Control of gravity ... what else did they have? What other dreams had they attained through Engee?

The waiting area beyond the lock tunnel was spacious, immaculate, the floors a deep blue, the walls cream and gold, the indirect lighting from glow strips bright. Comfortable-looking chairs flanked low tables, and there was even an antique bookcase on one wall. Yet I had the feeling I was in an ancient temple or the Hall of Unremitting Alertness in Henvor. In the middle of an impossible stellar system?

'You are to go to the communications center,' added Bream.

If Engee wanted me to do something, I suspected he could have done it from anywhere. So why was I to go to the communications center?

Because they like rituals, and it pleases me to acquiesce.

Who could argue with that? To any effect, that was? I followed Bream, walking down the angled, gold-trimmed, blue corridors - hexagonal - in total silence, except for whispering feet. A vague tickling flashed in my head ... as though neurons were clicking. Not silence at all, but nanotelepathy?

Yes. You are proving yourself worthy.

Worthy? I wasn't sure I wanted that at all. The gravity bothered me. Theoretically, gravity control wasn't possible, not in any useful way. So why were we here, on a station circling an impossible solar system? Supposedly, the Followers were almost riffraff, yet they had clean air, clean corridors, clothing, and artificial gravity - and they, or their 'God,' had been able to snatch me out of overspace.

Not they, but I...

I wanted to wince, even as I saw the Followers turning toward me, their eyes wide. They could sense Engee, all of them. Could they 'hear' him/her/it?

'Him' will do. No, they can but sense that I have reached out for you, and they are awed. A sense of a chuckle followed.

'What do you wish of me, of a flawed demon?' I thought-spoke the words, rather than state them aloud.

A task ... a task that only a pilot and a Dzin master and you could achieve.

That did not reassure me.

There will be no need of further such, should you succeed.

Translated loosely, unless I succeeded in whatever Engee wanted, Rykasha was going to lose more needle ships. I'd known that already, but the confirmation wasn't welcome.

'Here.' Bream halted at a hexagonal door, which opened at his gesture.

Beyond the door was an open space - a hexagon with each face a good fifty meters on an edge. I blinked - it was really an octagon of open space - or ... I wasn't certain.

'Just walk through and to the gold platform in the center,' Bream explained.

I wanted to ask how, since the platform seemed suspended in midair, but instead I shrugged and put one foot forward -onto an invisible surface. Not without trepidation, I crossed the emptiness to the platform, toward a sparkling mist so faint as to be barely visible.

'I'm here,' I said, and gave the equivalent of a shrug ...

... and found myself in a swirling maelstrom of color.

'What do you want?' I asked for the fourth or fifth time, trying to ignore the swirls of color that flashed around me.

Your cooperation in ensuring that my methodology for establishing order will result in a total increase in informational quanta rather than the normal entropic decrease.

'What can a needle pilot do that you can't?'

Be somewhere else and understand enough for observation and analysis. You might say that I am requesting that your consciousness act as an exploration platform.

That gave rise to far too many questions.

The lack of boundary in the universe - any universe, because each universe is without boundary - results in increasing disorder both as the universe expands and, should it do so later, contracts. Early scientists erroneously believed that there was a symmetry between expansion and contraction and that order would again increase with contraction. In a sense, it does, because at the final contraction to a point all the low-entropy energies of the universe are reunited in one massive and ordered singularity - which explodes and begins the cycle again. But not all universes contract, nor must they. An expanding universe eventually loses all information to entropy, and intelligence is a form of information. You could call the second law of thermodynamics the thermodynamic arrow of time, in that what intelligence perceives as time always proceeds along the direction of entropic decay.

But? I wondered if Engee were nothing more than an insanely rational nanite-intelligence agglutination.

The key is perception. If time and energy flows do not proceed in the same direction, then, under normal conditions, intelligence cannot exist, and there is no perception.

I didn't exactly like the phrase 'normal conditions.'

So I will modify an avatar of you, which you will effectively become, and you will report all that is necessary.

I didn't finish the swallow as the swirling brilliance descended upon me.

The area around me turned black, then white, the color alternation repeating at an ever-increasing rate into strobing slashes. Between the slashes, I could sense a ripping, as though I were being torn to shreds and rebuilt, or perhaps being scanned and separated into two images, one white, one black.

That duality was what my mind insisted was happening. But which image was me? Or was I either, or a disembodied intelligence watching my own destruction?

Not exactly. You are not you, because the arrow of time is reversed so that you can see what you see ... or will see.

The alternating slashing strobes increased, to the point that the air or vacuum or whatever surrounded me seemed almost to scream as I felt myself lasered - like a beam of light - down a red-rimmed black tunnel toward a white spiraling whirlpool.

Abruptly, I found myself in darkness, a darkness that extended in every direction, and the incredible cold began to seep through me. I tried to move my right arm, but I couldn't tell if it moved or not.

Tossed into deep space to freeze? For what? My eyes seemed to coagulate in the cold of deep space, and I marveled that I hadn't frozen solid nearly immediately. Yet I could sense faint flickers, just at the edge of my vision. Cosmic radiation, exciting the dying retinas of my eyes ... gamma rays ... ?

The blackness closed over me, even faster than the chill that had turned me into a quick-frozen soul, or worse, feeling every energy pulse in this dying universe ... faint as they might have been.

White light, more intense than plunging into the sun, washed over me, and every subatomic particle of my body flared in agony. Electronic acid etched my nervous system, and awls of ice stabbed through the backs of my eyes.

Then I found myself back in the swirls of color, neither hot nor cold.

I shuddered. Which Tyndel was I - black or white?

You are as you were. That other you no longer exists, since only the informational quanta crossed back through the wormhole.

Why?

Because the independence of that other entity, that avatar of you, was necessary to obtain the information I sought... and because it pleases me to demonstrate that T meet the traditional criteria of 'God'

'You're not claiming to be God?' From what I'd seen, the nanogod was acting like an ancient deity.

Acting like the conception of an ancient philosopher who could not comprehend the universe does not a deity make, any more than having your cells repaired constantly by miniature organic technology makes you a demon. The faint sense of a chuckle followed.

The chuckle bothered me.

Nanogods shouldn't have a sense of humor?

Engee could have a sense of humor or not. I just hoped I could get back to the Mambrino and return the needle to Earth Orbit Two.

Why not? You acted in good faith, if with fear.

I blinked and found myself standing on the shimmering gold platform in the middle of nowhere in Follower Station. What was I supposed to do now?

Whatever you want. You could return to Dorcha, not as your previous self, of course, or to Rykasha.

Dorcha?

If you study yourself, you will sense the difference. Since 'you'had to be transmitted in quantum form, I took the liberty - call it payment for services rendered - of reconstituting you in a slightly more durable form. The functions provided by the nanites have been integrated on a cellular level I would caution you. You remain a destructible individual, although that destruction would be far more difficult for outside agencies, but you will register as a totally old human on a Dorchan demon scanner and as a converted human on a Rykashan scanner. That will also increase your cellular life expectancy.

Cellular life expectancy - a polite way of saying that I was far more likely to die in an accident or be killed than for my body to wear out or run down.

Exactly. You could live for several tens of thousands of years more, internal objective clocking, that is. Your ship is reengergized You may leave as you wish. Unlike the rumors, I do not turn humans into subprocessing units. They're rather inefficient at that.

I shuddered, then walked across the empty space, a nanite-based force-field I could sense, and the hexagonal door opened.

Bream bowed. His face was pale. 'As you wish, angel of light.'

'I'm ready to leave.' I paused. 'How long has it been?'

'Three standard hours, ser.'

Three hours, to ensure that Engee could change the fate of the universe? Or was that conceit? I laughed softly, and kept walking. I knew my way back.

As I neared the cream-and-white walls of the waiting area, Berya hurried toward me, not quite running. Then she stopped short.

'I'm back.'

She studied me silently, for a long time. 'You look the same, Tyndel. But you're different. I can't say why, though. It's something.'

Being tossed into another universe to report quantum data and freeze might change even a demon, I reflected. Tm still me.'

Berya fingered her chin. 'Can we go?'

'Any time.'

Berya turned to the six passengers who had watched me return. 'Captain says we're ready to board.' She glanced at me again, speculatively. Alek's in the control center. Figured that one of us ought to be there at all times.'

'That was a good idea.'

'I'll button up the locks,' she said, glancing back at where the gold-clad Bream stood silently, his faint smile somber.

I'd finished the systems check when she returned to the control center. 'Passengers are secure; locks secure, captain.'

'Good. We're about ready.' I pulsed the release commands

to the cradles, hoping they responded. They did, as they did on any Rykashan station.

'Follower Station, this is Mambrino. Clear of locks, departing this time for Sol.'

'A happy journey, captain and angel of light. God will always be with you.'

'What was that all about?' asked Alek across the shipnet. 'Angel of light?'

'I managed to make their god happy. So I'm an angel.' I snorted.

'Is Engee a god?'

'He's a being of immense power. I don't know that I'd want to go beyond that. After all, compared to the humans of ten thousand years ago, we're beings of immense power.' I eased up the power on the ionjets, wanting to get clear of Alpha Felini as soon as possible, for reasons scarcely clear to me. 'I doubt that our technology could destroy Engee, but the swords and arrows of our ancestors couldn't destroy us.'

'They couldn't destroy you, Tyndel,' Berya pointed out. 'Alek and I are still vulnerable to that sort of thing. Maybe you are an angel.' Then she laughed.

I swallowed a sigh of relief at her laugh and torqued the ionjets to full power.

As the Mambrino eased clear of the Follower station with the artificial gravity that should not have been, clear of the energy fluxes and the sparkles of matter being reenergized, of local entropy being reversed, I spread the photon nets and began an acceleration to raise us above the incidental dust density.

'All passengers must be securely restrained.' The clamshells began to descend with Berya's announcement.

I scanned the cabin, but the passengers were all locked in place. They had probably strapped in as soon as we pulled away from Follower Station, if not before.

As we slipped into overspace under close to maximum acceleration, needling through the barriers with lattices that flamed, I had a lingering thought. What about the changes Engee had made to me? Did they affect the gene structure?

Of course. Your descendants, should you choose to have any, will retain the improvements. I suggest you have descendants, if only to save some later needle pilots from the difficulties inherent in my finding one such as you.

'That's almost blackmail.'

It is honest. It is not truth, but honest.

'You shy away from truth ...'

The basic concept of 'truth' as exhibited in human culture indicates the deceptive nature of your species. If an object exists or an action indeed took place, then why do you need to protest the 'truth' of its existence unless you need to distinguish that truth from events which did not take place? And why would you need to make such a distinction unless you are in the habit of frequently representing that which was not as having been?

Even in my pilot's couch, I winced at the accuracy of Engee's assessment. He and Cerrelle had certain characteristics in common.

'Why did you do all this?'

To keep the universe from fulfilling its purpose ...

I eased the Mambrino sideways, avoiding the vortex-blocks spinning away from a yellow-cold spear singularity, waiting for the explanation that might come but not ignoring the ship or overspace - an overspace that seemed almost light green, with everything in even greater relief and better perspective.

The universe's purpose, although that implies a sentient volition which I have not been able to ascertain, appears to be formless entropy. Intelligence opposes formless entropy.

More focused and mobilized intelligence can effect more opposition ...

Tern were doing quite well at that without our assistance.'

For now.. .but nanites and nanotech deities lack one factor in their makeup that organic intelligences possess. I waited again.

Some higher 'ethics' of the majority of human philosophies seek 'beauty.' What is beauty? The sense of another chuckle followed.

I didn't know where Engee's inquiries led. Or I was too bemused to follow the logic and dared not remove my attentions from the overspace and the Web around the ship? Not now.

What do beauty and truth share?

I wasn't sure they shared anything except that some humans pursued them and others rejected them.

Come now, former Dzin master. You cannot have failed to notice that both are subjective. Both in the extreme are unattainable ideals. Both move people, not always in the most socially desirable paths.

I was having trouble with the dialogue, if that were what it happened to be. 'Unattainable ideals will oppose formless entropy,' I finally suggested.

Unattainable ideals propelled by the one factor I lack.

Emotion?

Passion is a more accurate term. I wish to survive. I can act upon what is known, but passion acts in search of what cannot be attained.

That was nonsense. Men sought women; women sought men. Men and women sought greatness, empires, art - all things attainable.

No. They attain things which substitute for the vision of the unattainable. That is why the truly great are so often miserable, because they realize at last that their best achievements will always fall below their visions. Yet without those visions ... After the briefest of pauses, the monologue continued. You as a human can pursue good, or perfection, but you cannot expect others to follow you. They will encourage you and offer meaningless expressions of praise, but few will emulate your example. To pursue excellence is an admission that one is not perfect and that perfection needs far greater effort. Most self-aware entities wish praise for their present state of being or achievement, not the acknowledgment that they will always fall short of excellence or perfection. Therefore, the pursuit of excellence is always lonely. Those who achieve some small measure of perfection are ignored, or praised and quickly forgotten, or deified so that other entities can rationalize their lack of perfection by their lack of deity.

I was abruptly chilled and tired. All true - or accurate -but why did Engee even care?

If you evolve, so must I.

With that, the link... connection... whatever... snapped.

As much threat as promise, as much danger as hope ... and that was life.

I eased the Mambrino out of overspace and down toward the lunar beacon, toward earth ... passion ... and Cerrelle.

83

Form is emptiness; leave that emptiness without falling into it.

'Orbit Two, this is Mambrino, inbound from Epsilon Cygni via Alpha Felini. Captain Tyndel, second Berya, third Alek, with six passengers.' As we accelerated upward and toward the lunar beacon, I intensified my scanning, attempting to pick out Orbit Two optically - to find that cylinder of composite that had so come to remind me of gray and ancient caserns.

'Are you going to tell us what happened?' asked Berya into the quiet.

'I was persuaded into doing a task for Engee. I did it. He's promised he won't interfere with any more needles.' And you hope he keeps that promise ... at least for a few centuries.

'Can you trust it?'

'It was worth the risk. It cost us probably six months lost dilation time, and there doesn't seem to be any damage to the Mambrino!

'Do you know how they got gravity on that station?' asked Alek. 'There wasn't any spin.'

'No. No one told me.' You didn't ask, either. 'I was rather occupied.'

'Real gravity ... in the middle of the Anomaly ... that's frightening,' said Berya quietly.

I could understand that... but I trusted my senses enough to know that it had been real, and what was ... was. And that meant only that Engee had mastered a technology we hadn't.

'What was this task?' Alek injected.

'Observing another universe.'

Berya laughed. 'You had to ask, Alek.'

I was saved by the incoming transmission.

'Mambrino, say again intermediate station.'

'Intermediate station was Alpha Felini, also known as New City. You may confirm that with senior captain Erelya and commander Krigisa.' I grinped as I replied, knowing that the confirmation would certainly get her attention, and I wanted her to get the word before any of the passengers talked. I also wanted the word out beyond the commander, distrustful demon that I was.

'Mambrino, we copy Alpha Felini, or New City.'

'Stet.'

The reference to New City definitely got the commander's attention. Krigisa and two figures in black were waiting at the lock.

Your officers will go with controllers Bilek and Nyra, captain, and I would appreciate it if you would accompany me.' The commander's voice was polite but not terribly warm. 'The passengers will be accommodated in another fashion.'

'Of course, commander.' I doubted that either controller could have restrained me physically, but where would I have gone? And why?

Neither Berya nor Alek looked particularly cheerful, but they didn't have half the problems I would.

'Medical first,' insisted Krigisa as we turned toward the shafts.

A black-haired and petite woman in red waited inside the lowspin gravity of the second deck space.

'Doctor Josara, this is captain Tyndel. As I requested ...' Krigisa nodded toward the doctor.

'You want an immediate and complete diagnostic panel.' The doctor turned to me. 'If you would step this way?'

I stepped to the square mat by the blank screen and waited as Josara released the spray of diagnostic nanites, and as they returned to the shimmering screen.

'Well?'

'He scans normally,' Josara announced. 'He's tense, but...' Who wouldn't be?

'Is there anything there that shouldn't be?'

'The scans don't show anything. His cellular balance is better than normal after a triple insertion trip.' Josara smiled, a polite smile, but one that seemed pleased to report my good health. 'Everything is off the top.'

Krigisa nodded. 'Let us go.'

'Operations?' I asked.

That got another nod.

After we went through another transition lock and along a back corridor I'd not known about, she ushered me into what had to be her private space, barely larger than an oversized closet, with a full wall screen view showing Luna's disc not quite touching the blue and white of a full sunlit earth.

'Why did you broadcast Alpha Felini?' Krigisa's dark face was shiny, her eyes hard. 'And then emphasize New City?'

'I couldn't see any way to keep it quiet.' And didn't want to.

'You could have requested restraints for the passengers.'

'I don't operate that way, and, frankly, I didn't think about it.' And if you had, it wouldn't have changed anything.

'Do you think it's good that people know about Engee -everyone?'

'People already know.' I missed Astlyn and his quieter approach. 'They won't know any more or any less from this.'

The commander eased into the chair, barely held there by the low gravity on the upper station level. 'Why don't you start at the beginning.'

'There was no sign of Engee on the outward insertion to Epsilon Cygni.. .'I went on to explain everything... including the way Engee lifted the Mambrino out of overspace and the apparent task Engee had set me. All I left out were the aspects of changes to me personally.

Then I had to answer dozens of questions, most of them details about Follower Station and its systems. I finally managed to ease in one of my last points. '... and he said that he wouldn't bother any more needles.'

'You trusted ... this intelligence?'

'I didn't have that much of a choice. I thought that if I did, and it worked, then ...' I shrugged, '... we had a solved problem. The Authority can't afford to keep losing needle ships.'

'There are certain implications,' suggested the commander.

'Several,' I agreed. 'We can't keep Engee or Follower Station a secret, or the fact that it has a gravity field.'

There was a long moment of silence. You said that the Followers had artificial gravity? Are you sure?' asked Krigisa.

'You can ask Berya or any of the passengers. They felt it.'

'You let them debark?'

'Only to the waiting area,' I said. 'I told you that. What was the point of not letting them stretch their legs? If Engee could pull a ship out of overspace—'

'Do you have any idea how these ... Followers came up with a gravity field for a station?'

'No. I was rather occupied dealing with Engee. I suspect that Engee has come up with at least some technology we could use.' I smiled. 'I do have a suggestion.'

The black-skinned commander raised her eyebrows. Yes?'

'Consider making regular needle trips to Felini's station -or Follower Station. That's what they call it.'

'I doubt the Authority is prepared to consider that.'

I offered my best argument. 'It would be dishonest not to, and that dishonesty would eventually undermine our whole system.'

'Are you telling the Authority what to do?'

I thought for a moment. 'Yes.' I grinned. 'For twenty years, they've told me. At least, twenty universe objective years of my life. Besides, I don't think the Authority has any choice.'

'That assumes Engee will allow visitors.'

'If he doesn't ... then nothing's changed.'

'You're not to make this public,' Krigisa said. "Not until I meet with the Authority. I suspect they'll want to see you as well. After you have another complete medical and psychological battery at Runswi.'

I could understand the Authority's concern. After spending millennia attempting to refute the existence of gods, the Authority was faced with admitting that either a god existed or that a form of intelligence with superior abilities existed. There was concrete proof for one of those conclusions, and neither one was likely to be palatable.

'You're suspended from active flight status until this is resolved.'

Again, but I'd hardly expected anything else. 'Is that all?'

'Everything we know is being changed, and you act as if nothing had changed. Don't you understand?'

'I understand that there will be a great uproar among some people.' I shrugged. 'And, in the end, very little will change. If we can get the secret of generating gravity fields, more of the universe may be open and another avenue of technology will improve. But you can't get to the stars that much faster than we do, and there really won't be that much effect on the average Rykashan or mite.' I paused. 'Or even on the Authority.'

'You forget about beliefs,' she pointed out.

'The rationalists will accept Engee as a being with some superior abilities, still governed by the rules of the universe. The various kinds of believers will adopt him as a new god, and nothing will change because the only Followers he listens to, and the only ones he probably can listen to, are those in New City, and people on earth or in the colonies will find that, as usual, there's no difference in the answer to their fervent prayers.'

'I truly hope you're right' The commander shook her head.

I waited. Nothing else I could say would make a difference.

You'd better go and get those tests, Tyndel.' Krigisa's voice was tight. And keep your speculations and information to yourself.'

Yes, ser.' For now ... and excepting Cerrelle. I nodded. Perhaps Cerrelle would be at the chalet. She would understand. She might even laugh.

84

Humankind is myth.

When the doctors and psychologists finished with me, they sent a report to commander Krigisa that I was in wonderful physical and mental condition. When she didn't respond, I suggested - strongly - that it would be better for everyone if I just disappeared to the lake. All in all, I didn't get to the lake until almost a week after my return to Orbit Two.

There, the leaves had begun to turn, and the frost hadn't burned off when I stepped out of the glider. I'd missed two straight summers - four, actually, when I thought about it -and I still hadn't done more than the basics on the garden.

Cerrelle stepped from the driver's side and closed the canopy. I walked around the glider, and she took my hands for an instant. Then she wrapped both arms around me. I let her, and we clung together in the small hangar in the chalet that felt like home even before we went upstairs.

Inside, we stopped before the hearth, where she had the wood burning. I added another log.

'You've made light of it, but it was a hard trip, and dealing with Krigisa had to have been harder.'

I took a deep breath. 'It started with the fusactor spines -all that metal - and then ... well ... I told you everything that happened.'

She pointed to one of the pair of armchairs that faced the window and the afternoon view of the lake. 'You told me what happened. You haven't told me how you feel. I'll get you some Arleen.'

'That would be nice.' I sat down in the padded armchair next to hers, let the warmth of the fire flow through me, removing the last hints of the grayness.

'Now ...' She handed me a big gold mug I'd not seen before. 'Here's your tea. It's not so good as yours.'

'Who's self-pitying?'

'Tyndel... I deserve a small measure of self-pity occasionally, especially when you're doing grand things among the stars and I'm baby-sitting confused refugees.^,

'You did a good job with me.'

'I did the best I could, but you weren't easy.'

'It still worked.'

We both laughed.

Cerrelle, always honest.

The tea smelled and tasted good, and, for a long time, I just sipped and looked from Cerrelle to the golden and red leaves framed in the glass beyond the hearth and the burning logs. I took another sip of tea as, outside, the gray clouds closed off the autumn blue of the sky and the leaves began to drift away from the oaks.

Finally, I began to talk, about the trip, the medical exam, the debriefing. As I reached the point where I recounted leaving Krigisa and Earth Orbit Two for the shuttle down to Runswi, Cerrelle asked quietly, 'That's the second time you've told me everything that happened. You're avoiding how you feel. How do you feel about it, about Engee, and Rykasha? And how will your being a genetic superman affect us?'

I frowned. 'I don't think I even considered myself a genetic superman. All Engee did, really, was to ensure that I would pass on genetically the nanotech improvements that our children could get anyway.' I smiled. 'Without the muss and the costs.'

That did get a smile in return. 'I'm glad you said our children.'

But who else's would they have been? Who else could I possibly have come to love so much? Who else understood?

'And ... about Engee and Rykasha?'

'Tired ... relieved it's over.'

The faintest of frowns crossed her face.

'I know, honest woman, it's not over. Nothing's ever over.' I shook my head slowly. 'I suppose ... there's always something mightier and grander out in the universe - or the universes. Calling it God is a way of personifying it and making ourselves feel more important. Engee's appealing as a god because he ... it ... needs us to have meaning in his existence, despite his greater physical powers in the universe. The Authority doesn't want to deal with it at all ... but they don't have a choice. Not if they want Rykasha to survive.' I smiled. 'The Authority will have to come to terms with Engee's existence, and, after the initial shock ...' My words drifted to a halt, and I took a sip of the Arleen.

'Shock?'

'First, there's the business of his being able to link with other universes and bleed energy through. That was always theoretically possible, but now ... now people know it can be done, and no one knows how.' I took another sip of the tea. 'I think it will be a long time before they figure out how that can be done. The artificial gravity fields are different. In a way, they're more of a shock. Except for gravity control, the rest of New City can be explained in terms of technology and insights brought by the Followers or by the knowledge that Engee could have attained through self-examination and passed on.' I paused and looked across the lake.

'Go on ... don't leave me in the middle of a thought,' Cerrelle prompted.

'That means' - I smiled more broadly - 'that the Authority will have to recognize Engee as something - another culture, an equal ... and they'll have to recognize the Believers, the Followers of the Angel of the Lord, or whatever they officially call themselves. Oh, the Authority can still require some service obligation, but it would be difficult - and stupid - not to set up some way of letting at least some go to New City. The Authority's not stupid.' I smiled. And for millennia people have been pursuing the dream of conquering gravity. Gravity dreams, if you will. But the Authority can't beg, or steal, or borrow, the gravity technology without contact... so... sooner or later, probably sooner, some accommodation will be worked out. Over time, that will change things.' I set down the empty mug. And for a while, it will make Rykashans a bit less arrogant.'

'That pleases you,' mused Cerrelle.

'I'd like to see a muting of the Rykashan arrogance. This might help.'

'It might.' An amused smile crossed her face. 'Do you think they'll send you out on another flight - ever?'

'Not for a while ... but they will. They will.' I took a last sip of the tea and set the mug on the table. 'After it becomes clear that Engee kept his word.'

Cerrelle looked at me. 'You have to finish it.'

I knew what she meant. 'In Dorcha, yes. Because I never really said good-bye to the past. What about you?'

'I did before I left Dezret. You never did.'

As usual, she was right, but I didn't have to finish it at that moment. So we sat in the warmth of the chalet and watched the sun set behind frosted hills on the other side of the lake.