Omega

chapter 44

Near Avapol.

Friday, December 12.

THE SKY WAS blanketed by Marge’s rain clouds. Three of her chimneys were up and running. The fourth would be erected that night on an island forty klicks off the west coast, midway between Mandigol and Sakmarung. Over the last two days, no one in Hopgop or Roka, or in the four cities located in the center of the isthmus, had seen the sun, the stars, or the apparition.

It was still visible from T’Mingletep and Savakol in the south, and from Saniusar in the far north. There, the Goompahs watched the omega grow visibly larger each night. It filled their sky, a terrifying vision, grim and churning and lit within by demon-fire.

Digger sat, concealed within his lightbender, in a pavilion in the middle of a rainswept park. The park was deserted, as were the surrounding streets. Whit was out positioning projectors. He’d gotten good at it, and obviously enjoyed the work.

They’d done the calculations again, and the cloud was not compensating for its new position, was probably unable to compensate, and would consequently reach Lookout when it was early afternoon on the Intigo. Since it was coming out of the night, that meant it should expend most of its energy on the far side of the world.

Halleluia! Add that to the cloud cover Marge was putting up, and the Goompahs had a decent chance.

“Don’t get too confident,” Whit had warned him. “Conditions here will still be extreme.”

Digger had seen only the shimmering haze of Whit’s lightbender, and considered how difficult it was to communicate when you couldn’t see people’s expressions. Was he becoming seriously pessimistic? Or cautious? Or was it just a reflex that you never claim victory lest you tempt the fates?

“And don’t forget the round-the-world mission,” he’d added, apparently determined to dampen the mood. He’d been like this since they’d lost Collingdale. The others had expressed their regrets, had been sorry; but Collingdale reportedly hadn’t been easy to get to know. Digger, in fact, had barely had time to say hello as he passed through the wedding and took Kellie and the Hawksbill out to chase the omega. Kellie had spoken little about him since her return. He hoped she was too smart to assign any guilt to herself for the loss, but she had made it clear she didn’t want to talk about the experience.

Whit, however, must have been closer to Collingdale than anyone had realized. He’d been visibly shaken by his death.

The round-the-world mission had been gone ten weeks. Bill was keeping an eye on them and reporting periodically. They’d lost a couple of sailors. One had fallen overboard; another had contracted a disease of some sort and been buried at sea. Otherwise, not much was happening. The wind stops, they stop. The wind picks up, and they’re off again. “They’re steering crooked,” Bill had been saying the last three days. “They’re off course. Had almost a week of bad weather, so I guess they can’t see the stars to navigate.”

The ships were approaching the eastern continent and would soon, Digger thought, have to turn back.

The rain around the pavilion was almost torrential. It had been falling steadily for a night and a day. Marge, it seemed, was very good at what she did for a living.

A couple of signs were posted announcing an afternoon slosh at Broka Hall, giving the time by sundial. In the event of rain, bells would be rung at intervals. A moraka was also scheduled that evening at the edge of the park, weather permitting. Music and snacks. Compliments of the Korkoran Philosophical Society.

Whit had known what a slosh was. But he had not seen the term moraka previously.

“It’s hard to explain,” Digger had told him.

“Try.”

“It’s an orgy.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“The orgy starts at nine?”

“Something like that.”

“Sponsored by the Philosophical Society?”

“Apparently so.” Digger grinned.

“This place has some unique aspects.”

There was no one about. He could see a Goompah adjusting shutters in one of the buildings lining the park, and another hurrying across a street. And that was it.

Bill broke into his musings. “Weather update,” he said in a voice copied from weather reports back home. He enjoyed doing that. “Expect continued rain in the central sections of the isthmus at least until tomorrow.”

“Bill,” he said, “we only have three chimneys up. Are they more effective than we thought?”

“I do not think so, Digger. I believe what we are seeing is partially due to natural meteorological conditions. The arrival of a low-pressure area from the west coincided—”

“—It’s okay, I don’t need the details. Is there any chance the rain will remain with us over the next few days?”

“Until the cloud arrives? No. The weather system will pass over the isthmus by midday tomorrow. After that, it will be up to Marge’s chimneys.”

The streets and cafés in the cities were virtually deserted. The Goompahs were staying home in substantial numbers.

Signs had been posted announcing sloshen to discuss “recent unsettling events.” Digger and Whit had posted projectors at a couple of them so they could watch from the ship. Ironically,the unseasonable weather had added to native disquiet, as had reports of voices and disembodied eyes, mystical flashes in the sky (which might have been the chimneys or the AV3, or both). There’d been zhoka sightings on the highways and, most terrifying of all, the levitation of Tayma, the priestess at Savakol, followed by a window opening in midair. Witnessed by hundreds.

Digger, Whit, and Kellie had watched fully a dozen Goompahs rise and swear they were there, or knew someone who was there, when it happened. “She literally rose out of the sea,” one bull-sized male had said, “and floated through thin air across the water, over the water, until she was set down by an unseen hand on the beach.”

The consensus seemed to be that the confluence of supernatural events portended approaching catastrophe. But they wondered, if such a thing were actually about to happen, why the gods were permitting it. Where were they, anyhow? There was a palpable sense of irritation that the local deities were not on the job.

Earlier that day, Digger had stood outside a schoolroom and listened to the teacher and students discuss the approaching cloud. The students were probably a young-adolescent equivalent. It was hard to tell. But some of them wanted to know whether the teacher still believed that supernatural events did not happen.

“It is simply,” the teacher had argued, “that there are parts of the natural world we do not yet understand.”

The youth in Avapol may have been too polite to laugh, and too smart to argue: but even Digger, who had not yet begun to learn the nuances of nonverbal communication among this alien race, could see what they thought of that opinion.

As Whit put a projector in a tree, he caught a glimpse of Digger. When he’d finished, he turned, looked toward the pavilion, and waved. Digger waved back.

“That’s the last one,” Kellie told him. She was in the lander. This was her first day back at work, giving Julie a well-earned chance to sleep in a bed again.

The last one in Avapol. They still had two cities to visit.

It was getting tight. The Goompahs would have three more days of relative calm. During the midafternoon of the third day, the omega would hit the far side of the planet, and conditions would deteriorate. The cloud that had struck Moonlight had delivered most of its energy during the first seven hours. It had systematically picked out every city around the globe still standing and demolished it. Then it had abated.

At Lookout, the actions of the Hawksbill had thrown the omega off schedule. Furthermore, Marge’s weather would hide the targets. The cloud, not knowing better, would raise hell on the other side of the planet, and the Goompahs, during the first few hours, would get their feet wet. During the course of the evening the Intigo would rotate beneath the main body of the storm, but by the time it arrived in the lethal zone, the thing would be starting to dissipate. And it would, they hoped, not even see the cities.

“You guys ready to come home?”

Digger watched Whit moving steadily through the rain. “Give us thirty minutes to get there.”

She would pick them up on a hilltop on the northern edge of town. “I’ll be there,” she said.

Digger got up from his bench.

“By the way,” she said, “the media have arrived.”

“Really?”

“The Black Cat Network, of all people.” The Black Cat Network tended toward sensationalist journalism. “They’re asking permission to send in a ground team.”

“Tell them no. We have no authority.”

“I already told them.”

He sighed. He couldn’t really blame them. This was a pretty big story. And they’d come a long way for it. He was tempted to tell them to go ahead, but if he did, Hutch would fry his rear end. “They can do whatever they need to with telescopes.”

“Okay.”

“And tell them they can have access to the pickups.” He thought about that. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. For one thing, they’d undoubtedly find out about the morakas. “Do we have guidance from the Academy on any of this?”

“Hutch says cooperate, but they are not to set foot on the surface. If they do, they will be prosecuted. She says they’ve been warned.”

“Okay. Tell them we’ll help where we can. Don’t mention the pickups.”

“Good,” she said. “I think that’s prudent.”

BLACK CAT REPORT

Thanks, Ron. This is Rose Beetem in the skies over Lookout. At the moment, we can’t show you the cities of the Goompahs. They’re under a heavy cover of rainstorms. I have to report to you that we have been asked not to land on the planetary surface, because of the Noninterference Protocol, and we are adhering to that request.

But we expect to be able to follow the action on the ground as the situation develops. Meantime, it is late evening over the Goompah cities, which are concentrated on a relatively small landmass in the southern hemisphere. What you are looking at now is the rim of the omega. It is just rising, and, as you can see, it is an incredible spectacle.

Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks

It is hard not to conclude that my entire life has been a prelude to and a preparation for this moment. If we do not succeed here, nothing else I’ve done will have mattered very much.

— December 12

chapter 45

On board the Jenkins.

Sunday, December 14.

“WE’LL BE LEAVING orbit in thirty minutes.” Kellie’s voice came over the speaker from the bridge. She’d resumed command of the Jenkins.

They were running through the night beneath the cloud. The Intigo was on the daylight side of the globe, approaching evening. In a couple of hours, when it rotated beneath the omega, and the ship had withdrawn to a safe distance from Lookout, they would put Digger’s plan into effect and see whether the Goompahs could be persuaded to head for the high country. They’d have the night and much of the following day to get out of town. Then, at about midafternoon the omega would impact the far side, weather conditions would worsen, and the event would begin.

The projectors were in place, and the chimneys were up. Clouds were spreading out from T’Mingletep on the south to Saniusar in the north.

The situation was promising. The omega would, as predicted, hit the wrong side and spend the bulk of its fury before the cities of the Intigo rotated into its path.

Moody and dark and silent, lit by only an occasional flicker, it had almost completely blotted out the stars. The Goompahs could no longer see it, but the crew of the Jenkins knew. Digger hated looking at the thing. There was a tendency on the ship to walk softly, to hold one’s breath, and to speak in low tones, as if a little noise might draw its attention.

The plumes reached well past Lookout and lost themselves in the dazzle of the sun. On the surface of the threatened world, seas had become rough, in anticipation of the onslaught. Around the Intigo, the weather had grown cold and wet.

On the Jenkins, as they counted down the last few minutes, they talked about the ongoing debates over enhanced intelligence, about a report from Hutch that clouds did not survive their encounters with their hedgehogs, about an assassination attempt in the NAU Senate, about a new teaching system designed to bolster lagging literacy scores. The approaching omega was the elephant in the room, the thing no one mentioned.

The promised celebration of the marriage between Kellie and Digger never really happened. They’d had a few drinks and exchanged embraces all around, but that was about it. Maybe it seemed inappropriate after Collingdale’s death, or maybe nobody really wanted to celebrate anything until they had the results on Lookout.

“Daylight coming,” said Kellie.

The sun rose over the rim of the world, and the omega dropped down the sky behind them and receded below the horizon until only the plumes remained visible, great dark towers soaring into the heavens.

“Good riddance,” said Marge.

“Next time they want somebody to wrestle one of these things,” Digger said, “they’re going to have to find somebody else.”

“Twelve minutes to departure,” said Kellie. “Lockdown in eight. Anybody needs to do anything, this would be a good time.”

Digger felt an enormous sense of relief to be putting some distance between himself and the omega.

Julie commented that she was having the time of her life, and they all looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Well,” she said. “I haven’t been around as long as some of you guys have, but if things go well, or even if they don’t, I expect this will be the high point of my career. How often do you get involved in something that really matters?”

Mouths of babes, thought Digger. He was jiggling a puzzle on his monitor. Find your way out of the maze.

They were over ocean. Daylight sparkled off a few clouds, and he saw land in the north. In a little more than an hour it would be getting dark along the Intigo. Their last peaceful night.

Digger gave up on the maze—he’d never been good at puzzles anyhow—and headed for one of the acceleration couches. It felt good to lie down, punch the button, and feel the harness settle over him. The others laughed at him. “Anxious?” asked Whit.

“You bet.”

“I guess we all are.” Julie took one of the chairs; Marge, the other couch. Whit settled in beside Julie. “Congratulations,” he said.

She smiled. There was a touch of innocence in it, and Digger couldn’t help thinking again how young she looked. When they wrote the history of these proceedings, he suspected she’d get left out, pretty much. Collingdale would be seen as a hero who’d sacrificed himself to turn the cloud aside. He still didn’t have the story from Kellie, but he suspected something else had been at work. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so quiet. But it was okay. You always need heroes.

Marge would rank up there, too. And Jack, the first victim. That brought a rush of guilt. Killed by the stupidity of a colleague. If the historians ever got the truth, old Digger wouldn’t look very good.

Bill’s voice broke in. “Marge, Kellie asked me to pass the current weather report along.”

He wondered why it mattered at that point.

“What’ve you got, Bill?” she asked.

“There’s a storm system building to the west of the Intigo.”

“That’s just what we want, isn’t it?” said Digger. He glanced over at Marge and gave her a thumbs-up. “An assist for the little lady,” he said.

She frowned. “Maybe not. Bill, what kind of storm?”

“Electrical. I’d say the isthmus is going to get heavy rains tonight.”

Digger didn’t like the way she looked. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why is that not good news?”

“Think about it. How are you going to send signals to the projectors you’ve been planting all over the isthmus? During an electrical storm?”

Uh-oh.

“Isn’t it a bit late in the season for thunderstorms?”

Marge shrugged. “Don’t know. We’ve haven’t really had a chance to look at climatic conditions here. In any case, they could be starting to feel the effects of the omega.” The plumes had been burrowing into the atmosphere for a couple of days.

It didn’t bother Julie. “I don’t see that it makes that much difference,” she said. “The thing isn’t going to hit the cities anyhow. So even if they don’t get out, they’ll probably be okay.”

“That’s not so,” persisted Marge. “The omega is going to kick up a very large storm. Think maybe tornado-force winds around the planet.” She looked at Digger with frustration. “I don’t know. We just don’t have enough experience with these things.”

She released her harness and went back to one of the stations and brought up an image of the Intigo. “The cities are all at or close to sea level. They’re going to get high water. Maybe even tsunamis. If the population doesn’t get to high ground, the losses are going to be substantial.”

“Well,” said Julie, “what about this? We can use the landers. They’re still down there. Load the broadcast program into the landers now while conditions are good. Pick out four locations covering the eleven cities and have Bill move the landers. Right? One in each spot. Then when the time comes, just broadcast from the four sites. We can watch the storm and try to pick the best time for each.”

“Sounds okay to me,” said Digger. “I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t work.”

Marge’s expression never changed. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“Why not?” asked Digger.

“The landers are on Mt. Alpha at the moment.”

“Where?” asked Whit.

“It’s a mountain near Hopgop. Nice safe place. Nobody could get near it on foot.”

“—And?”

“They’re lashed down. To protect them from the winds. They aren’t going anywhere.”

“Well,” said Julie, “I guess we didn’t think this one through the way we should have.”

“We can’t release them from here?” asked Digger.

“They’re just ordinary cables tied to trees.” Marge looked uncomfortable. “Sorry. It didn’t occur to me we’d need them again before this was over.”

Julie took a deep breath. “It’s out of our hands then. Whatever happens, happens. We’ve done everything we can.”

Whit looked squarely at Digger. No, we haven’t. But he didn’t say it.

“Two minutes,” said Kellie. “Marge, you need to belt down.”

Digger had no idea where the isthmus was. There were too many clouds. The planet looked so big. Surely that little stretch of land with its cluster of cities would get by okay.

Whit was watching him, waiting for him to say something.

Digger sighed. “I’ll go down,” he said. “I can use the landers and run the signal from the ground. As opportunity permits.”

Julie stared at him. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Kellie,” he said, “hold off on departure.”

“Why? We’ll lose our window.”

“You’re going to need another one.”

“I’ll go with you,” Whit said.

“No.” Digger had released his harness and was sitting up. “We’ll only need one person on the ground.”

“What’s going on back there?” asked Kellie.

“The weather report created a problem,” Julie told her. She looked at Digger. “You’ll need a pilot.”

Kids always think they’re immortal. “Bill can take us down.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

Whit was still watching him. “I’d take it amiss if you don’t let me go along.”

Digger saw no point in it, but he also saw that Whit was serious. “If you insist,” he said. He was trying to think it out. The four landers were tied down on a mountaintop north of Hopgop. He’d need the AV3. And the helicopter. “Plus a pilot,” he said reluctantly. “I guess you’re in, Julie.”

“Why do you need the hauler?” demanded Kellie, who had appeared in the doorway.

“It’s got a better chance of surviving heavy weather.”

“I can pilot the damned thing. There’s no need to drag Julie along.”

“You’re not qualified.”

“Digger—”

“We need all the edge we can get. And don’t look at me like that. We don’t have time to argue about it.”

THEY HAD TO make another pass around the night side before they could get set up. Kellie told him it was a fool’s errand, and he could see she was struggling to hold back tears. But she finally admitted it was the only thing they could do.

God knew Digger didn’t want to go back down with the omega coming on. But he had too much invested in the Goompah cities to walk away from them now. “Listen,” he told Kellie, “we’ve been reasonably confident they can get through it. If they can, we can.”

He checked the prepared broadcast to be sure he hadn’t overlooked anything, downloaded it onto disk, made an extra copy just in case, and put both in a pocket. The sun dropped behind them, and they plunged into the night. The cloud rose and filled the sky. Everyone was quiet. They’d all seen too many sims, where you go one extra time into danger and pay for it. But they came back out into the sunlight without incident.

When the ship was clear, and they were getting ready to leave, Kellie joined him, and for a long minute, put her hands on his arm, held on, but said nothing.

“It’ll be okay,” he told her.

Her eyes were damp. “I have to take the Jenkins out of orbit.”

“I know.”

“That means—”

“—I know what it means.”

There was another long silence. “I won’t ask you not to go, Dig. Just, please, come back.” She looked around at the others, making her request binding on all.

“We will. We’ll be okay.”

“Don’t do anything dumb.”

“Nothing dumb. Check.”

“And make for the high ground.”

“Love,” he said, taking her into his arms, “I’m already on the high ground.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, Kel. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. I’ve too much to come back to.”

WHEN THE MOMENT arrived, she gave the word, and they slipped through the airlock, the three of them. They were tethered together, and Julie wore a go-pack. The AV3 was only a short burst away.

It was a big vehicle, but it was all storage space. Digger took a quick look in back to make sure the Falcon was there. The blades had been shortened somehow to save space. Otherwise, the oversize cargo hold was empty.

The cabin was no bigger than the one in the Jenkins’s lander. He climbed into the right-hand seat, Whit sat down in back, and the harnesses slid down over their shoulders. Julie settled in, turned on one of the monitors, and began powering up. Lamps blinked on, and Julie was talking to both Bill and Kellie.

Kellie gave her clearance to go, and she throttled up. “How are we going to do this?” she asked, as they slipped away and began their descent.

Digger explained what he wanted. They dropped through the cloud cover and emerged over the ocean. They were down among electrical storms, west of the isthmus, when Bill’s elderly sea captain image appeared on the overhead. “The Jenkins has left orbit,” he said.

Moments later Kellie was on the circuit. “We’re pulling out to a range of 3 million klicks. I don’t want the ship anywhere near this place when the omega hits.”

“That should be safe enough,” said Julie. Her smooth features were expressionless in the glow of the instrument panel.

Digger twisted around but still couldn’t really see Whit. “May I ask you a question?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Why did you come? You don’t have a dog in this race.”

Whit looked momentarily offended. “I’m as involved as anyone else, Dig. I don’t think I’d want to be on hand for this and have to tell my grandkids all I did was stand in the third row and watch.”

It occurred to Digger that none of them would have been out of the third row had it not been for Whit’s prompting. Digger didn’t think he would have gone back to the Intigo on his own. But it was hard to stay aloof after Whit had made it clear that they were preparing to abandon the Goompahs.

“Hang tight,” said Julie. “Rough weather ahead.”

MOUNTAINS JUTTED OUT out of the clouds. “Mt. Alpha is that way”—Julie jabbed a finger—“and Hopgop over there.” Off to the right. It was late afternoon in Goompah country.

“Do you want to wait until it’s dark?” Julie asked.

“No. Too much to do, and we’re too short on time.”

Mt. Alpha was craggy, snow-covered, probably the tallest peak on the isthmus. It was sheer on the west side, as if something had taken a hot knife to it. The remainder was broken into notches, ridges, slopes, gullies, and buttresses.

Julie brought the hauler down cautiously atop the snow cover at the summit and quickly lifted off again when the ground gave way. “Not too steady up here,” she commented. They made it on the second try.

The mountaintop was flat. A few trees were scattered about, and some bushes. It was about the size of a soccer field, maybe a little larger. A rock chimney rose out of the center, and a massive fissure had been gouged into the northern angle. Everything beyond it looked ready to plunge into the clouds below.

Two landers were parked on either side of the chimney, anchored to it, to a couple of trees, and to a spread of boulders.

“I think,” said Digger, “they’re safe from rising water up here.”

“We thought so,” she said, without a trace of a smile.

They released the cables and tossed them into the vehicles. Digger climbed inside each and uploaded the disk.

The third lander was in the shelter of a buttress, well down the side of the mountain. They were in the weather by then, lightning walking about, rain hammering down. It was secured to five trees. The fourth was in a clutch of forest in a saddle.

They piled out of the AV3 at the saddle and climbed into the lander. Julie activated the vehicle’s lightbender, while Digger inserted the final disk.

They were ready to go looking for broadcast locations.

SANIUSAR WAS EFFECTIVELY isolated in the northwest, and needed a site of its own. They picked out a ridge in a remote area, and Bill started one of the landers forward. It turned out to be an unnerving experience because the storm kept loosening Bill’s grip on the unmanned vehicle, and they almost lost it altogether while he was setting it down.

They settled on a second site midway across the Intigo, from which they could reach Mandigol and Sakmarung on the west coast, and Hopgop and Roka to the east. It had grown dark when they established a similar location farther south, which provided access to Kulnar, Brackel, Avapol, and Kagly. Finally, in the late evening, they took the AV3 to a mountaintop, where the broadcast range covered Savakol and T’Mingletep.

LONG BEFORE THE landers were in place near Brackel and T’Mingletep, Digger had activated the programs in the north. Unlike Saniusar, which was a sprawling collection of towers and ornate houses and bridges and public buildings spread across several urban areas, Hopgop was a modest town with about a tenth the population and an inclination toward the austere. Where the western city was flamboyant and almost baroque, the New York of its world, Hopgop liked to think of itself as casual, informal, no-nonsense. Another Moscow. Its architecture was purely utilitarian; its literature (as the translators were already learning) was lucid, uncontrived, vigorous. Sometimes lurid. And often powerful. Hopgop was the intellectual center of the Intigo.

When Digger started the transmission, which occurred shortly after the torches were lit in both cities, anyone passing before the cutlery shop on Hopgop’s main avenue, or in any of the major parks of Saniusar, would have been startled to see a luminous apparition appear apparently from nowhere.

Macao had been in Hopgop for three days. She’d been performing, visiting relatives, attending shows. The real reason she was there was that she had not forgotten Digger’s prediction. The timing was incorrect. The previous day had been the ninety-third day, the day it was all supposed to happen. She’d even talked her cousins and her brother into clearing out, into sitting on a nearby ridge under animal skins, while the rain came down and the sky remained in its accustomed place.

Still, she wondered if she might have misunderstood something. Whatever the truth might be, they had clearly fallen on ominous days, and, if Digger turned out to be belatedly right, she wanted to be with her family.

It was impossible to know what to make of events. Suddenly it seemed she lived in a world of zhokas and levitation and lights in the sky. A zhoka had been seen just a few days ago in Avapol. Of course, they had always been observed with some regularity, but that could usually be ascribed to an overabundance of piety or wine or imagination. Take your pick.

She wondered about the three ships, out in the night somewhere, on the wide ocean while terrible things were happening. She tried to console herself with the possibility that they were beyond the sunrise, and beyond the reach of the thing that seemed to be coming at them out of the night.

She was in her brother’s villa on the southern edge of town, near Klaktik Square. They had been at dinner when the next-door neighbor came pounding on the door. “Something’s in the sky,” he roared. And then ran off, leaving them gaping.

They opened the shutters and looked out at the storm, which had consisted only of gray rain all day. But now there was a downpour, and the evening was full of lightning. “I don’t see anything,” said her brother.

But Macao had a feeling, and she remembered Digger Dunn, would never forget Digger Dunn. She went outside and looked up. And she saw it in the flickering light: a giant bird, but not a bird, a thing that moved somehow independent of the wind, that did not seem to use its wings. She watched it vanish into a cloud.

Then she went back into the house and told her brother what she’d seen. “It’s hard to see in the storm,” he said. “Maybe it was something else.”

But it had been something not of this world. She knew that as surely as she knew the children were in bed.

AFTER ABOUT AN hour, the rain let up, and the thunder subsided. Macao was still wondering whether she should suggest they get the children and go out into the storm. Repeat the fiasco of the previous night.

Was it even possible the ocean could overflow the shoreline? Could such a thing happen?

She was thinking about it when a fresh commotion started in the street. Voices. Shouts. Running.

They hurried out, into the courtyard.

People were moving past. Toward Klaktik Square. “Miracle!” someone said. And another: “Have mercy on us.”

Klaktik was a large park, with shops and a children’s pool and a meeting house.

The street was full of shouts: “I don’t know, but it’s her.”

“What’s happening?”

“The goddess.”

“Lykonda.”

“Worst weather I’ve ever seen.”

The commotion quieted as they approached the square. There were a hundred people standing in the rain. More than a hundred. And they were coming in from all directions.

Macao stood on her tiptoes, trying to make out what was happening. There was a glow in the trees. People were crowding toward the children’s pool. Toward the light.

She couldn’t make out what it was. The night grew quieter, and everything seemed to be slowing down, the people around her, the rain, the wind. Even the children.

A woman stood within the light. Incredibly, her feet rested on the air, unsupported.

It was hard to breathe.

The woman surveyed the crowd. She seemed utterly serene, sometimes solid, sometimes as insubstantial as the clouds.

She was dressed for the forest, in green leggings and a loose yellow blouse. And she carried a blazing torch.

People in front of Macao were removing their hats, whimpering, falling to their knees.

She was the most beautiful woman Macao had ever seen. And there was something eerily familiar about her.

The power that ran through the night, that brightened the skies, ran into Macao’s mind. And she knew who the woman was.

Lykonda.

Goddess of the hunt. Patroness of the arts. Protector of Brackel.

Another being who should not exist.

But in that moment of darkness and confusion and fear, Macao welcomed her into her heart.

THE GODDESS SEEMED detached from the physical world. The wind pulled at the trees, but her garments remained unruffled. The rain sparkled when it touched her aura, but never seemed to touch her.

In all that assemblage, no one spoke.

Macao heard the boom of the distant surf and somewhere behind her the brief cackle of an oona. And she realized this was the supreme moment of her life. For the first time, she embraced the faith of the Intigo, and knew the joy that came with it.

She was vaguely aware that people were still coming into the park, but how big the crowd might have become, she could not have said. Nor did she care.

And then, shattering the mood, a voice: “O Goddess, why have you come among your servants?” The voice was male, with a strange accent. She was annoyed that anybody would presume to speak. And she thought it a voice she had heard before.

The light changed subtly, and Macao saw that the goddess’s blouse was ripped, her leggings torn. And there was a smear on her right cheek that looked suspiciously like blood.

Lykonda switched the torch to her left hand and beckoned with the right. “Hear my words,” she said. “A great storm is coming. You have seen it now for many months. We have been engaged with it, trying to subdue it, and we have reduced its power. But know that even we cannot vanquish it altogether, and you must now look to your safety.”

The crowd stirred. Some began to sob. Cries and moans went up.

“The waters will rise and flow across the land.”

More lamentations.

“Take your family and your friends and hurry to high ground. Do not panic. There is time, but you must leave the city quickly. This is your last night before the storm breaks over you. Stay away from the city until the danger is past. Take supplies for six days.”

“Goddess.” It was the oddly accented voice again. “Many of us are old and weak and cannot make the trek you describe.” Macao could not see who was speaking. But she knew the voice.

“Be of good courage. You will not see me, but I will be with you.”

The whimpers turned to cries of thanks.

And then, abruptly, the light faded and went out, and Lykonda was gone.

IN BRACKEL, PARSY the librarian helped his kirma, his brother-husbands, get their twenty-two spouses to safety. He had witnessed, had been stunned by, the appearance of the goddess. Who would have thought such things actually happened? But he was, if anything, a prudent man. Having heard her words, he needed no additional encouragement.

Until this night, although he assumed the gods existed somewhere, that they kept the stars moving and brought the seasons and the harvest, he’d never thought much about them. To him, they tended to be occasional characters in the dramas, showing up to give advice, to move the plot along, to teach a much-needed lesson. He would be more cautious in the future. Whatever years were given him, he would reverence the gods and their ways, and he would walk in righteousness.

He stood on the crest of a hill within sight of Brackel. The roads between the city and the surrounding hills were narrow, and they were choked with the fleeing population. The dawn was near, although he didn’t expect to be able to see the sun. The rain had finally stopped, but it had gotten cool. The children were wrapped in skins, and the new day would be long and trying. But they would get through it. How could they not, if Lykonda walked with them?

The signs of the coming hazard were everywhere: The wind was rising, the tide was unnaturally high, and the rivers were beginning to flood. Parsy had long since discovered that prudence always suggested he assume the worst, and that if he did so, he would seldom be either surprised or disappointed. So he had ordered his family to bring everything they could carry. Prepare for a siege on the hilltops. And get high. No matter that the climb was tiring.

Now it was done, and they were as safe as he could make them. So it was time to consider his second duty. “Who will come with me?” he asked.

“Let them go,” said Kasha, his special mate, the woman with whom he shared his innermost thoughts. “In the end, they are only scrolls. They are not worth your life.”

“You won’t be able to get through that,” said Chubolat, signifying the refugees pouring out of the city. Chubolat occasionally worked at the library.

“I have no choice,” he said. “It is my responsibility.”

Tupelo came forward and stood by his side. Reluctantly, but he came. And then Kasha. “Where you go, I will go,” he said.

“No. I cannot allow it.”

“You cannot stop me.”

“And I,” said Yakkim, with whom he spent so many of his evenings in conversation about the ancients.

And brown-eyed Chola. And Kamah, who was the most timid of all. And Lokar, who had never read anything in his life.

“I only need two,” he said.

BLACK CAT REPORT

Ron, it’s becoming hard to see any separation between the cloud and the planet. The bulk of it is over ocean at the moment. Our sensors indicate that rock and dust are being hurled into the atmosphere, that conditions in the atmosphere are becoming, to say the least, turbulent.

The good news is that the Goompah cities are moving away from it, out onto the other side of the world. For the moment, at least, they’re shielded. They’re beginning to get some flooding, but other than that they’re still in pretty good shape. Tonight will be critical, Ron, when the Goompahs rotate into the heart of the storm.

This is Rose Beetem reporting from Lookout.

Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks

It has been the fashion since Darwin to attack religious belief on grounds that it is oppressive, that it closes the mind, that it leads to intolerance and often to violence. And not least of all, that most of the faiths are necessarily wrong, as they contend against each other.

Yet there is much that is ennobling in the belief that there is, after all, a higher power. That there is a purpose to existence. That we owe loyalty to something greater than ourselves. And it strikes me that, even when we get the details wrong, that belief can produce a happy result.

chapter 46

On the ground between T’Mingletep and Savakol.

Monday, December 15.

“HOW COULD YOU tell them that?” demanded Julie.

“How could I tell them what?”

“That the goddess would be with them. They’re on their own, and they’ll find that out quickly enough.”

Digger shook his head. “She’ll be with them,” he said. “They’ll discover they’re stronger and more capable than they ever thought. Anyhow, what would you have done? Tell them to go ahead and leave Grandma?”

Pictures were coming in. Throughout Savakol and the cities of the Triad in the south, in Saniusar and Mandigol and Hopgop in the north, across the midbelt of the Intigo, the Goompahs were on the move. Lykonda was appearing outside cafés and metalworking shops, theaters and public buildings, on bridges and docks. In Roka, she stood above the incoming tide; in Kagly, she showed up in the private home of the squant, a member of the town council. At T’Mingletep she took over the yardarm of a long-beached schooner. In Mandigol she stood on a river. Everywhere the word went through the streets. They got some interference from the storms, and occasionally the goddess broke up into an eruption of color. But it was working. They chose their times carefully, initiating the programs when the rains slackened and the lightning died down. To the Goompahs it must have seemed that the elements were bowing to her will.

“Get to high ground.”

It was Kellie’s contralto. With, he thought, some majesty mixed in.

“I will be with you.”

THE WIND ROSE during the night.

They flew over Kagly, north up the coast. The shoreline curved almost due west between Kagly and Avapol, which was about forty kilometers away. There were a number of islands. Lykonda had appeared on one, and they noted with satisfaction that the sea was full of lights. A small flotilla was moving back and forth between the islands and the mainland. The word was getting around.

Near dawn they hovered over Kulnar and watched cold, tired masses of Goompahs plodding out of the city and climbing into the hills. The storm abated and the sky became quiet, but it was still heavy with Marge’s clouds, cloaking the horror that hung over their heads.

The isthmus road was full of moving lights. The countryside, the crests of hills, trails leading into the uplands, were all alive with traffic. In the harbors, ships were pulling out, making for deep water.

Bill relayed pictures of the omega. It was coming alive, enormous lightning bolts rippling through it, crashing down into Lookout’s upper atmosphere. The sun rose, and the bolts brightened the western sky. But they were falling behind as the isthmus rode into the dawn.

“Last day,” said Julie, shivering.

Rain continued to fall in varying degrees of intensity across the peninsula. “This is the sort of thing,” Whit said, “that constitutes the stuff of legends.”

“You mean they’ll tell this story to their grandkids,” said Julie.

Digger smiled. “And nobody who wasn’t here will believe it.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Whit. “One day this might all become part of a sacred scripture.”

“Not on this world,” insisted Digger. “I keep remembering a sign we saw at one of the schools. ‘Think for yourself.’ If they can really push that, I doubt any of their grandkids will believe Lykonda actually showed up.”

“Pity,” said Julie. “It’s a lovely story.”

Bill’s features showed up on-screen. “One of the chimneys is down,” he said. “In the south. Near T’Mingletep.”

Much of the western coastline was beginning to flood. Marge got on the circuit. “The cloud is hitting the far side pretty hard,” she said. “The isthmus is already seeing the effects. Look for high winds, maybe tornadoes. God knows. It’ll get worse during the day, and they’ll get hammered tonight. Best for you is to skedaddle. Stay on the day side of the planet. Keep it between you and the omega.”

In fact, the omega was enormously bigger than Lookout, and Digger knew that it would fold completely over the world. And then, finally exhausted, it would pass.

One night. The Intigo only had to get through one night.

THEY DRIFTED OVER Mandigol, which was lovely in the gray dawn. There was a waterfall to the northeast, fed by a lake roughly a hundred meters above sea level. A bank of white mist crept down from the lake, drifting over houses and parks, closing in on the center of the city. Some of it had already drifted out onto the docks, where a few torches and oil lamps burned. A half dozen boats floated at anchor, and a single large ship was headed out to sea.

Mandigol was a city of architects. The inhabitants obviously liked cupolas and rotundas. Most of the public buildings were domed, the westside indoor market area was domed, scores of homes were domed, even the park shelters were domed. Many of these were supported by fluted columns. Cornices and transverse arches were everywhere. Several structures boasted upper and lower galleries, and four steeples marked the corners of the city.

There was a host of trees and gardens. The inhabitants of Mandigol loved their gardens. Vegetation was an art form, and when the mist moved in to shroud walls and buildings, when everyone had fled so there was no distraction, it took on the appearance of a celestial dwelling place. When the gods retire, one Goompah sage had observed, they will come to Mandigol.

THE REMAINING RAINMAKERS all let go within a few minutes of each other and drifted away.

The exodus was painful to watch. Everywhere, exhausted Goompahs had collapsed on the trails. Younger ones, dragged from sleep, screamed. Some took charge and tried to direct traffic. They were drenched by intermittent rain, and they shivered in the autumn air. They carried clothing and food wrapped in skins and bags, drove berbas and other domestic animals before them, sat on wagons, and generally looked miserable.

“Some aren’t going,” said Whit.

Digger had seen that there were Goompahs in the windows of many of the houses. “Probably rather die at home,” he said.

“Or maybe,” said Julie grimly, “they’re rationalists.”

“Storm’s going to get worse,” said Dig.

Whit looked depressed. “I wish we could do something for them.”

“There are limits to what you can do,” said Julie. “Maybe even if you’re a god. At some point they have to take responsibility for themselves.”

“We could try running it again,” said Digger. He wanted to go down into the town, bang on the doors, tell them for God’s sake to get out.

“I think Julie’s right,” said Whit. “Deities don’t make curtain calls.”

THE ROADS LEADING out of Mandigol were strained to the limit. There were overturned carts, dead pack animals, abandoned supplies. But the Goompahs kept moving.

The city was fortunate. High ground lay on three sides, and it was neither far nor positioned in difficult terrain. It wouldn’t be an easy night for refugees, and it was, of course, all uphill. But most should be able to get clear. A few looked up as they passed overhead, and Digger wondered if the lightbender had been inadvertently turned off. But the hull was invisible, and he suspected it was his imagination, or perhaps they’d heard the drive, which was quiet but not silent.

“Look down there,” said Whit, pointing.

There was a commotion on a forest trail.

Julie took the lander down to treetop level.

Hundreds of refugees had gathered on the southern bank of the river the Goompahs called the Orko, which flowed down from the mountains north of Saniusar and emptied into the western ocean. To get to high ground, the population of Mandigol proper had to cross the river. The river was wide and deep, a Mississippi, and it was swollen. There was no bridge, and no place where it could be forded. Crossing was done by ferry.

To meet the emergency, the Goompahs had collected a small fleet of shallow-draft vessels, flatboats, sailboats, canoes, and rafts. It looked as if everything that could float and could be gotten upriver had been thrown into the effort. But one flatboat had been overloaded. It had foundered in the middle of the river and was sinking.

As they drew close, Digger saw a couple of Goompahs fall overboard. Ropes were thrown to them from the boat, but hauling them back would do no good: The vessel was minutes from going down. There were close to forty refugees packed onto it, maybe three times its capacity. The deck was half-submerged.

A small boat, not unlike an outrigger canoe, was hurrying to the rescue, but it was far too small to be able to help.

Digger activated his e-suit and strapped on the lightbender.

“What are you going to do?” asked Julie.

“Rescue drowning Goompahs,” he said. “It’s my specialty.”

“Where are you going to put them? Anyhow, you damned near drowned yourself last time.” She looked at Whit. “We’re going to open up,” she said.

Whit understood and activated his own suit. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Just stand by.”

“You sure you can do this, Digger?” she asked.

“Are you serious?” In fact it looked a little scary, but he couldn’t sit there and watch a boatload of Goompahs go down.

When the cabin pressure had equalized, she opened the airlock. Digger switched on his lightbender, activated his goggles so he’d be able to see the outside the spacecraft, and grabbed two coils of cable from the storage locker. He stuck his head through the outer hatch and looked down.

The vessel’s anchor was a rock. It was tied to a line, located forward at the prow. The line was secured through a hole in the planking. Aft, the tiller had a housing that looked pretty solid. “Lower, Julie,” he said.

She took him down onto the water and he opened the hatch wide. It may have been that the occupants of the boat were too preoccupied to notice the sudden appearance of a disembodied airlock. Whatever, they paid no attention.

He slipped out onto the treads and secured each of his two lines to the undercarriage, one toward the front, one in the rear.

“They told me you were a kind of bookish guy,” Julie said.

“Books? Yep. That’s me.”

“I hope,” she continued, “you don’t tear the bottom out of this thing.”

“Get us in front of the boat,” he said.

She complied. “I wish we could get a picture of this.”

Digger was in fact impressed with his own display of audacity. It was out of character. He’d always been willing to help when people needed it, but his enthusiasm usually ran in inverse proportion to any degree of personal risk. He wondered what was happening to him.

It would have been easier if he could have gotten onto the deck. But there was no room. Working off the tread, he leaned down, pushed one of the Goompahs aside, got hold of the anchor line, and tied the cable to it.

“Hurry,” said Whit.

The prow was going under. Goompahs grunted and screamed. More fell into the river.

Julie took him to the after section on the flatboat, and he jumped into the water, hauled himself up near the tiller housing, and decided it wouldn’t do. Up close it looked spindly.

He took the line and dived beneath the boat with it, came up on the other side, tried to measure it so he had as much slack as the front line had. Then he looped it around the tread.

“Okay, Julie,” he said. “Lift.”

The after section rose first and a couple more went into the river. He didn’t have it quite right. But it was close enough. Most of the passengers hung on, although they were whimpering and sobbing.

Julie didn’t actually lift the flatboat out of the water. In fact, she couldn’t have even had she wished. The boat was far too heavy. But she was able to keep it afloat. Some of those in the water were picked up by the outrigger. But a few were swept downriver.

Gradually, with Digger hanging on to one side, the flatboat got across to the northern shore. Several of the survivors declared it a miracle.

DIGGER’S SURPRISE AT his own heroism was dampened by the knowledge that some of the refugees had been lost. But when he got back inside the lander, Julie insisted on delivering a passionate smooch, commenting that she knew Kellie wouldn’t mind, and Whit shook his hand with obvious respect. It might have been the first time in his life that Digger had earned that kind of reaction from someone of Whitlock’s stature. He began to feel he could do anything.

The winds were getting stronger. “Time to recall the landers,” said Julie. Put everything back on Mt. Alpha and tie it down. And get back into the AV3. Put some heavy metal between themselves and the coming storm. They should, she said, take off and head west. Safety for the next twenty hours or so lay in daylight.

They returned the landers to Mt. Alpha and spent the rest of the morning securing them as best they could. Another thunderstorm rolled past at lower altitudes, and by noon they had boarded the AV3 and were ready to clear out.

Digger wondered about Macao, where she was, what she was thinking, and hoped she was okay. He would go back eventually, at least to assure himself that she’d survived. And maybe, if things had worked out reasonably well, he’d say hello.

Challa, Macao.

“We’re forgetting something,” Whit said, as they strapped in and prepared for flight.

“What’s that?” asked Digger.

Whit heaved a long sigh. Bad news coming. “The round-the-world mission.”

Digger hadn’t really forgotten. He’d been aware of it, in some remote corner of his mind, but he’d been telling himself the three ships were already as safe as anything he could arrange. They were in deep water, and all they’d have to do was trim their sails, or take them down, or whatever it was you did in one of those things when the wind started to blow. And ride it out.

Julie brought the AI up. “Bill,” she said, “what do we have on the round-the-world mission? Where are they?”

“Last sighting is twenty hours old,” he said. “At that time they were doing well. They have reached the coast of the eastern continent and are now sailing north, looking for a passage.”

Should be as safe as anybody could reasonably expect, thought Digger. At least they’re not standing on an island.

THE GOOMPAHS, WHIT predicted, would later tell their children that Lykonda was everywhere on this night. She directed traffic in each of the eleven cities, assisted those who had fallen, used a torch to show the way around a flooded valley outside Kulnar, held a bridge in place until several hundred had crossed safely, lifted several who’d been stranded on a rapidly disappearing island, taking them into her hands and transporting them to safe ground. She will have found a lost child in the rising waters outside Avapol; provided light to those struggling along a narrow mountain ledge; returned to Sakmarung to help those who had refused to leave until the floodwaters came.

“The legend will grow,” he said.

“It’s the way religion is,” said Digger.

“I suppose. But I prefer to think of it as the way human nature is. It’s a great story. On the night when they most needed her, Lykonda came. It tells me that they are a lot more like us than would make some folks comfortable.”

“I suppose,” said Digger. “All in all, we’ve gotten a lot of use from her tonight.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s hard to be sure who’s using whom.”

BILL WAS PICKING up bits and pieces of transmissions from the omega monitors, and also from satellites placed in orbit by the Jenkins.

The cloud was such an amorphous object that it was impossible to say precisely when it made contact with Lookout. But what was clear was that, by midday on the Intigo, the planet was in its embrace. Rain and high winds swept across the Goompah cities.

The Jenkins stayed in contact. Giant storms, they said. Some loose rock that had been traveling with the cloud was coming down. The ocean surged from the west and, as they’d expected, submerged wide parcels of land. The river that flowed out of T’Mingletep overwhelmed its banks and spread out in all directions. The city on the island went underwater.

They were getting ready to depart Mt. Alpha when Bill reported an earthquake on the floor of the eastern ocean. “ Tsunamis coming.”

“How bad?”

“They look relatively small. I can’t be certain at the moment because they’re in deep water. But they’re approaching an island chain, and I can let you know then. Just a few minutes.”

“When are they going to get here?”

“Hour and a half.”

He relayed satellite pictures of the islands. The weather seemed quiet. In fact, the sun was out and the beaches were gleaming. Long-legged birds strutted on the sand, which was bordered by forest. “This where the tsunami’s headed?” Digger asked.

“Yes, Digger.”

The picture broke up, came back, broke up again.

“There’s a lot of interference,” said Bill. “The wave should be imminent,” he added.

They saw the sea beginning to rise. A large wave became a wall of water and kept getting bigger. It raced across the surf. The birds scattered, and the ocean spilled onto the beach, submerged the trees, and crashed against a series of ridges.

“About twelve meters,” Bill said.

Marge’s voice broke in: “It’ll be about the same when it gets to the Intigo.”

Digger breathed a sigh of relief. It was high, and it would raise hell with the cities, but most of the refugees should be out of reach.

“There are at least three follow-on waves,” Marge continued. “All appear to be less of a threat.”

“What about the other direction?” asked Whit.

“How do you mean?” asked Julie.

“The round-the-world mission. Are they still cruising the coastline?”

“Skies are heavy in the region.” said Bill. “And we don’t have a satellite in the area.”

“They’d have to be,” said Digger. “Is that a problem?”

“Pretty much,” said Marge. “They need to be in deep water.”

Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks

I cannot help wondering what has been, for the Goompahs, the more terrifying aspect of this business: The threat posed by the omega, or the appearance of the goddess?

— December 15

chapter 47

On board the Regunto on the eastern ocean.

Ninety-fifth day of the voyage.

TELIO HAD BEEN hardly a week at sea when he was ready to turn and go back home. That reaction had surprised him, because he’d spent much of his adult life as a sailor and fisherman, moving up and down the coast of the Intigo. He’d even been on an exploratory mission ten years earlier, when they’d pushed into the regions where the sun was in the middle of the sky and the air became hot beyond what one could bear. It was the longest foray in modern history, made under Hagli Kopp, as fine a captain as ever sailed. He wished the current captain, who commanded all three vessels, were of his quality.

Not that he wasn’t competent. But Mogul Krolley lacked the fire and presence of Kopp, whose sailors would have followed him anywhere. In the stifling heat, Kopp had called them together. Scholars maintained that the boiling air did not go on forever, he said, that if one could break through the barrier, the seas would become cool again. The captain did not know for certain what conditions were like farther on. He suspected the scholars were correct, but he told the crew candidly they had reached a point from which going ahead would, in his view, be foolhardy. He did not wish to risk their lives. Or, he admitted with a chuckle, his own.

And so they had turned around and, as the first mate put it, lived to go home.

There were no natural barriers to an east—west voyage, no heat in one direction or ice in the other. But there was the haunting possibility that they were sailing on an endless sea. Or that there was an abrupt edge of things, as some warned. The notion that they could proceed east and eventually would come upon their own west coast had seemed plausible, and even likely, back in the cafés and sloshen. But out here, on the broad sea, it approached absurdity.

They had indeed found a continent, and they’d spent sixteen days examining its harbors and rivers, looking for Saniusar or Mandigol or T’Mingletep. But this was Korbi Incognita. Unknown country.

Should the occasion arise, Telio did not think Krolley would have the self-assurance to admit failure, to recognize reality and accept defeat. It was more likely that he would press on, that if this wasn’t the Intigo, he’d look for a way to pass through it, a river, a series of lakes, whatever was needed. He was rumored to have considered the possibility of abandoning the ships, if necessary, to travel overland, and build new vessels when they found the sea again on the far side. If indeed there was a far side.

That had led to talk that the world might not be constructed in the form of an infinite sea with scattered landmasses, that Korbs only thought that because they lived near ocean. But it could well be that it was land that went on forever, with occasional stretches of water. Who knew? Telio was certain only that he was ready to concede failure and go home. He thought of himself as being as courageous as the next person, but he also knew that, when the evidence was in, it was prudent to draw the proper conclusions and react accordingly. There was no point being an idiot. The way was blocked.

Which brought him back to Captain Krolley.

The thought of a mutiny never crossed his mind. It would never have occurred on any Korb ship. It wasn’t that authority was held inviolate, but that a contract entered into voluntarily was sacred, regardless of circumstance.

They had adequate water and stores on board, having just filled up a few days earlier. And the only immediate problem they faced was that many of the sailors, like Telio, had had enough of the open sea and simply yearned to go home.

Telio missed Moorka, missed all the females in his genus, missed the evenings on the Boulevard with his brothers, missed his son, now about to have a child of his own.

He hadn’t realized it would be this way. He’d expected to be gone for a couple of years, but he’d thought the time would be spent pushing forward across an open sea, and not poking into endless bays and rivers along a vast landmass. Moorka had asked him not to go, but he’d explained how he’d always wanted to sail past the sunrise, to be part of the great mission that people always talked about but never seemed to get around to launching. He had joined a group years earlier for such an effort, but funding had never appeared. And he’d spent his life since regretting the lost opportunity.

Well, he’d gotten past that piece of stupidity, at least. When he got home, he’d stay there and enjoy his family, and never again sail out of sight of the Intigo. And he’d leave the adventuring to those young enough, and dumb enough, to want it.

He wondered what Moorka was doing. That was most difficult of all, lost out here on the sea and no one near with whom he could slake his passions. No luminous eyes watching him in the night, no soft cheek on the pillow beside him. It was an unnatural way to live, and it reminded him of the old argument that the gods had given the Intigo to the Korbs with the understanding that everything else was a divine realm, that the Korbs were to stay in their assigned lands. And to remind them of that truth, the gods had sealed it off, heat to the north and ice to the south, and the boundless ocean on either side.

He looked up at the sky. The sun was bright, but a storm was coming. He could smell it in the wind. And he was almost grateful. The heavy clouds would conceal them from the thing in the night sky. Almost everyone believed that the apparition was intended to warn them to go back. To remind them of the Covenant.

It was impossible to know what Krolley thought. Few of the men would have dared mention their doubts to him. Although Telio had made up his mind that he would do it, next time he had the opportunity. He’d asked the officer of the rigging whether he thought they’d come too far, that they’d offended the gods, and the officer had smiled and shrugged it off. Ridiculous, he’d said. Don’t worry about it, Telio. If a divine ordinance prohibited what they were doing, did he think they’d still be afloat?

But afterward he’d seen him talking seriously to the executive officer.

The ships had been moving south along the new continent. And, as at home, it was getting colder with each passing day.

Telio watched the wild coastline drift by on his left. The Hasker was running behind them, closer to shore and out of their wake. The Benventa stood farther out to sea.

The plan was to proceed south until they could round the continent, or, as the crewmen said, until they froze. Whichever came first.

If any candidate for a passage through the continent presented itself, they would try that, but there’d been nothing even remotely promising for several days. Many of Telio’s compatriots back home would be surprised to learn there was another major landmass. Most thought there was only the one on which the Korbs lived. It had, at one time, been an article of faith.

They’d sent landing parties in twice since arriving on these shores. The water was good, and there was plenty of game. But the animals were unlike any they had seen before. The trees were different; as were many of the bushes and shrubs. And one of the crewmen had been attacked and killed by a terrible creature of enormous size. His companions had riddled it with arrows, and they’d dragged the thing down to the beach for everyone to gawk at. It had fangs and claws and fur the color of the woods in which it traveled. Witnesses to the attack said it had reared up on its hind legs.

It reminded Telio of the keeba, which could be found in the lands north of Saniusar. But this thing was bigger, even in death. Well, it wasn’t as if the captain hadn’t warned them to be careful. There’ll be wild beasts, he’d told them before the first group went ashore. And there might even be tribes of savage Korbs.

Now there was a chilling thought.

TELIO WAS SUPPOSED to be mending sails, but one of the crew had fallen from a spar and sprained his wrist. Telio had some experience as an apothecary, and he doubled sometimes as ship’s surgeon. There was a fully qualified surgeon on the voyage, but he was on the Hasker, and would only be called in the event of serious injury.

Telio put soothing gel on the damaged limb, wrapped it, and warned the crewman not to try to use it until Telio had looked at it again. He was just putting away his ointments and wraps when a sudden burst of wind struck the ship. It came without warning and was of such violence that it almost capsized them.

The captain ordered the fleet to haul down some sail. The sky began to darken. The blow was out of the east, a change in direction for they’d been riding with the westerlies throughout the voyage. The sea had been rough all day, but it had gotten abruptly worse while Telio was below mending the crewman. The ship rode up one side of a wave and crashed down the other. As he watched, all three ships turned to starboard, to put distance between themselves and the shoreline.

Rain began to fall and quickly became torrential. The crew secured the hatches and tied everything down. Lightning ran through the sky.

There was no longer anyone on the Regunto who did not fear the sunset. Night would bring T’Klot, rising black and terrible over the new continent. It was impossible to set aside the notion it was coming after them.

After a time the rain blew off, and they were running again before a gentle northwesterly wind. The sea turned to glass, and the world grew quiet.

The Regunto adjusted its sails and glided beside silver cliffs.

The captain came out on deck, wandering among his deck-hands, reassuring them, finding things to laugh about. Telio watched for an opportunity to take him aside.

When it came, he asked if he might have a moment of his time. “If you’ll excuse my brashness, sir.”

“Of course,” he said, glancing at the deck lieutenant, who framed Telio’s name with his lips. “That was a quick storm, wasn’t it?” And, without waiting for an answer: “What can I do for you, Telio?”

Telio looked up at the Korbs working in the masts, adjusting the sails. “Indeed it was, sir,” he said.

Krolley was tall, lean, with mottled skin and a serene disposition. There was much of the scholar about him: deliberate speech, careful diction, intelligent eyes with a golden cast. He was always impeccably dressed. His posture was perfect, his expression composed. Even now, after a heavy storm during which he certainly had not had time to change, he looked well turned out. It was almost as if he was always ready for someone to carve his image.

“Captain, some of us are worried about T’Klot.”

Krolley bobbed his head up and down. “Ah. Yes.” He smiled at the deck lieutenant, a smile that indicated this is the sort of triviality about which the seamen concern themselves. The lower classes. Not to be taken too seriously. “It’s all right, Telio. It’s simply a weather phenomenon. It will be passing us by in a few more days.”

“Captain—”

He patted Telio on the shoulder. “It’s nothing to fret over. Just pay it no attention, and I think you’ll find it will pay none to you.”

He started to walk away, but Telio stayed with him. “Captain, the thing is not natural. It isn’t just a storm we can run from. There is some suspicion among the crew that it is after us.”

The deck lieutenant tried to interpose himself, and gave Telio a strong look. He’d be scraping down the decks for the next few days. “Telio.” Krolley was being careful because a number of the crewmen had gathered around and were listening. “You’re a scholar. An apothecary. You know, as I do, that the world is not governed by supernatural forces.”

“I’m not so sure anymore, sir,” he said.

“Pity.” The captain studied him closely. “Keep your nerve, Telio. And your good sense.”

BLACK CAT REPORT

Ron, it’s early afternoon on the Intigo. The pictures you see are courtesy of surveillance equipment inserted by the Academy of Science and Technology. This is a view of the harbor area at Roka. There’s a map available on our alternate channel.

Anyhow, it’s quiet there now. The rain has stopped—it’s been raining across the isthmus on and off all day. We don’t see anyone out on foot. There are still some Goompahs who’ve stayed behind. Probably older ones. And it looks as if some who might otherwise have gotten out have stayed with them.

This is the way it looks all across the Intigo. I’m tempted to say there’s a sense of waiting for something to happen. But that’s subjective. I know tidal waves are coming. The inhabitants have no idea. Although they are certainly aware that they are facing a severe hazard tonight.

This is Rose Beetem, near Lookout.

ARCHIVE

We are adrift in a divine tide. Those whom the gods love will find themselves carried to a friendly and amicable shore. Others, not so fortunate, will be dragged into the depths. The terrible reality is that those of us embarked on life’s journey cannot readily separate one from the other, nor have we any idea which will claim us.

— Gesper of Sakmarung

The Travels

(Translated by Nick Harcourt)

chapter 48

Lookout.

En route across the eastern ocean.

Monday, December 15.

THEY WERE THREE hours out from the Intigo and threading their way through storms, crosswinds, and downdrafts, when Bill informed them they were passing over the eastbound tsunamis. The sky had cleared off, save for occasional clouds and lightning. The ocean was churning, but there was no sign of giant waves. “Don’t expect to see much,” said Bill. “We’re over deep water.”

Tsunamis only manifest themselves in shallows. Digger had been researching Bill’s library, and there were stories of people in small boats going over them without ever knowing it. That happened because the bulk of the wave was submerged. When the ocean became shallow, the water had no place to go, and, consequently, it pushed high into the air, forming the wave.

“Traveling at 630 kph,” said Bill. “I still make out three of them. Big one’s in front. They’ll hit about fifteen minutes apart.”

“One for each ship,” said Julie. “Tell me again how we’re going to do this.”

Digger had seen her disapproval the first time he’d explained the plan. “Same way we did things on the isthmus. We’ll use the Lykonda projection.”

“Okay. What is she going to tell them?”

“Bill,” he said, “run the program for Julie.”

Lykonda appeared on the overhead. The implication that she’d been through a struggle was gone. Her garments were white and soft, and an aura blazed around her. She said that it was essential for the ships to turn west and to continue straight out to sea until she told them to do otherwise.

When he’d translated for Julie, she frowned again. “What happens,” she asked, “if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction?”

He hadn’t thought of that. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Can’t they tack against the wind or something?”

“I don’t think so,” said Whit.

She smiled patiently. “If a goddess gave me that kind of command, I’d expect she would supply the wind.”

Digger didn’t know which way the wind would be blowing when they reached the eastern continent. He did know that where they were it seemed to be blowing out of all directions at once.

He’d been considering another idea: They had a sim library on board, which would unquestionably include the previous year’s big horror hit, Fang. The show had featured batwinged horrors that would have scared the pants off the Goompahs. If those things came out of the forests and seemed to be attacking the ships, there was no question which way the ships would turn. It would save a lot of talk. But it still wouldn’t work if the winds weren’t right.

“We need Marge,” said Whit. But they’d lost all contact with the Jenkins.

“Something else to think about,” said Julie. “The waves are going to get there less than an hour after we do. These are only sailing ships. Even with a good wind behind them, they aren’t going to get far in an hour.” She sighed and shook her head. “Small wooden boats. I wouldn’t give them much of a chance.”

“You have a better suggestion?”

“I’d tell them to land and climb trees.”

Digger was tired and unnerved. He knew Goompahs were going to die in substantial numbers before this was over, and he was in no mood for Julie’s acerbic humor. “Just let it go, will you?” he said.

Whit caught his eye and sent him a silent message. Cool down. She’s telling you stuff you don’t want to hear, but you’d better listen.

As they proceeded east they were headed into the late afternoon. Digger wanted to bring off the warning, do whatever they could, and get clear before night came.

He saw lightning ahead and thick dark clouds.

“Hang on,” Julie said. “It’s going to get a bit rough.”

“Can we go around it?” asked Whit.

“If we had time to spare, sure.”

They got hit before they even got into the storm. Digger heard things sizzle, lights went out, an alarm sounded, and it was free fall, grab the arms of your chair, and hang on. Julie fought the yoke and stabbed at her panels, and the lamps blinked on and off. He smelled something burning. The sea spun around them, and Julie damned the spacecraft to hell. Then he was rising against his harness. They continued dropping toward the sea, but she finally gained control, more or less. Digger started breathing again and looked out the window, and the ocean looked very close.

She leveled off just over the waves. “Room to spare,” she said. “Everybody okay?”

We’re fine. Whit laughed and commented he’d never been so scared in his life. Thought it was over.

Digger’d had a few bad moments himself, but he wasn’t admitting it. Didn’t want Julie to think he didn’t have confidence in her. The cabin seemed extraordinarily quiet. He couldn’t hear anything except heartbeats.

“It hit the tail,” she said.

“Are we okay?” asked Digger.

Her fingers moved across the status screen. “Yes. We’re okay. We can stay in the air. Some of our sensors are out. Long-range communications are down.”

“That’s not good,” said Whit.

“Doesn’t matter. We haven’t been able to talk to anybody anyway. I can jury-rig something later.”

“Okay.”

A frown creased her forehead. “But I think we’ve lost Bill.”

A large sea animal surfaced near them, a thing that seemed mostly tentacles. Then it slipped back beneath the surface.

“Bill? Do you hear me?”

More lamps blinked.

Digger realized what a good thing it was to have a human pilot along. “Can you fix him?”

More fingers across the screen. “No. He’s gone.”

Digger felt a wave of remorse.

“It’s only a software program,” she reminded him.

“I know.”

“When we get to one of the other landers, he’ll be there.”

“Can we still find the mission?” asked Whit.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” She went back to her status screen, changed the display, and made a face. “There is one thing, though—”

The moment stretched out. She continued poking at the screen while Digger waited, holding his breath.

“We’ve lost Bill’s memory banks. I should have realized.”

“Why’s that a problem?” asked Digger.

“That’s where Lykonda was stored.”

“Are you saying we can’t use her?”

Julie nodded. “She’s kaput.”

Whit looked over at him, having assumed his most reassuring face. “We’ll have to talk to them directly.”

“Won’t work,” said Digger. “We’ve had experience with that.”

“What else do you suggest?” Whit was wearing a bright green shirt, as close as he could get to the styles favored by the Goompahs, and a coffee-colored vest.

“What do you think would happen if they saw the lander?” Julie asked.

“Don’t know,” said Digger. “They’d probably panic. Jump overboard.”

Another bolt hit nearby. They were passing over an island chain. “Pity,” said Whit. “A whole world to explore. The ultimate odyssey, and they run into one of these clouds.” He gazed at the islands. There were eight or nine of them, big, covered with forests. Rivers cut through them. As they passed overhead, hordes of birds rose from treetops.

Digger was more concerned that they’d take a second bolt up the rear end and wind up fried or in the drink.

“Odyssey,” said Whit.

Digger looked at him. “Pardon?”

He was opening his notebook. “I have a thought.”

THE THREE SHIPS were moving steadily, if slowly, south. Trees and shrubbery pushed down to the water’s edge and spilled into the ocean. The sun was approaching the horizon.

The Regunto was immersed in a sense of foreboding, a conviction that the thing in the sky was on top of them, that it would come for them that night. Krolley was on deck constantly, strolling about as casually as if there were nothing to worry about. Telio had to concede he feared nothing. But under the circumstances, courage and defiance were not virtues.

A few of Telio’s shipmates were gathered aft, talking idly. A couple were in the rigging, getting ready to come down. No one was supposed to be up there after dark, unless specifically ordered.

The night before, when they’d passed beneath the cloud, the sky had been black and threatening and streaked with lightning in a way he had never seen before. He would not be on duty again until morning, and he thought it would be a good night to spend in his bunk, belowdecks, away from the spectacle.

The Hasker was still running behind them, shoreward; and the Benventa was off to starboard. But the three ships had uncustomarily pulled closer together as night approached.

There was a sudden commotion near the rail. Several crewmen were jabbering and pointing. Toward the Hasker. He joined them and was surprised to see that the other ship had put up a signal and was engaged in turning toward shore.

The signal consisted of three pennants, two red, one white, the white on the left, signaling a turn to port and requesting the other vessels to follow. As Telio watched, they dropped anchor, and began preparations to put a boat over the side.

That was extraordinary behavior since the fleet commander was on the Regunto.

One of the officers went after the captain, who’d just gone below.

There was a harbor coming up ahead, and the Hasker had anchored in its mouth.

Then Telio saw what appeared to be a canoe, a couple of canoes, running alongside the Hasker.

“What’s going on?” demanded Krolley, who appeared on deck like a summer thunderstorm. He was not happy.

Everyone pointed.

Three young females sat in each of the two canoes. They were half-naked, despite the coolness of the evening. But incredibly, they wore the green-and-white colors of Savakol!

He stared.

“We’re home,” said one of the crew. And a cheer went up. They’d done it. Completed the mission.

But it wasn’t true. Telio wasn’t the only one there who knew the home coast too well to mistake it for this wilderness. But how then did one account for the Korb females and their Savakol colors?

He scanned the shore and saw nothing but forest and hills. The canoes were turning into the harbor and apparently making for shore. Beyond it, atop one of the ridges, he saw flames begin to flicker. Someone was building a campfire.

“Hard to port,” said the captain. “Bekka, signal the Benventa. We’ll lay up alongside the Hasker.”

The sailors cheered again.

A second fire started near the first, and Telio heard distant voices singing. Young females again. Doing one of the mating chants from back home.

“We’re obviously not the first to reach here,” said the captain, sounding disappointed. If he was, he was alone.

“I think it’s from up there,” said one of the officers, indicating the fires. A drum began to beat. And then several more joined in.

Barbar Markane, who found trouble with everything, shook his head and said they would be prudent to stay away. Stay on the ship, he advised. It’s Shol’s work. “Don’t go there.”

THE CREW OF the Benventa had to run for their lives. They had just reached shore when someone spotted the blue line on the horizon, just visible in the encroaching twilight. At the top of the ridge, the crews of the Hasker and the Regunto were trying to figure out why someone had made a pair of large fires, then abandoned them and, stranger still, where the females had gone, and how they had managed to hide their canoes. The drums and the voices had fallen silent, and except for the fires, it was as if none of this had happened.

It was hard to say how the seamen and their officers might have reacted to so unsettling an event, had their thoughts not been instantly diverted: The Benventa crew was scrambling desperately up the side of the ridge, yelling at the tops of their lungs about the ocean.

The ocean. Telio turned and looked in its direction and watched in horror as the sea rose up, swallowed their three ships, roared inshore, crashed into the harbor, and surged up the ridge. Some of the crewmen tumbled down the other side in a desperate effort to get away from it.

The top of the wave boiled over the crest. It knocked Telio down, put out both fires, and then, exhausted, began to recede.

The chief mate, who’d thrown himself behind a small boulder, got unsteadily to his feet and looked around. Some of his mates were on the ground; others clung to trees. “A miracle,” he said.

“But the ships are gone,” cried the sailors.

Everyone watched the water go down. The captains stared aghast at the magnitude of the disaster and, responding quickly, assigned their officers to find out who was missing. A quick count indicated they’d lost about twenty, including Markane. It was sad, heartbreaking, but had it not been for the intervention of the Savakol females, they would all have been lost.

How did one explain such a thing?

While Krolley considered the implications, a voice, a male voice, spoke out of the wind. “Stay as high as you can,” it said, in an odd accent. “There are more coming.”

BLACK CAT REPORT

Ron, we’re watching a tidal wave approach Brackel. I’m sorry to report there are still a lot of Goompahs who elected to stay inside the city. This view is from a surveillance package that we’ve been told was inserted along the waterfront. You can see the wave in the distance. Our information is that it’ll be about three stories high when it arrives. The real problem, though, is that it’s traveling hundreds of kilometers per hour, so the chances of the folks inside the city aren’t good.

The picture keeps breaking up because there are numerous electrical storms in the area. But we’re going to try to stay with it. If you look closely, you can see that there are a few residents who are over in the shelter of that large building at the end of the pier. They seem to be watching the wave.

Ron, I wish there were something we could do—

chapter 49

On the eastern continent.

Monday, December 15.

BLACK CINDERS WERE falling out of the sky, trailing fire. Something ripped into the sea out near the horizon and sent yet another wave—though much less ferocious than the others—against the shore. The wind howled, sometimes from the east, sometimes cold and icy out of the south. The ocean maintained a steady roar.

The sun disappeared into a thunderstorm, and the world got dark.

The AV3 was on the eastern side of a ridge, shielded from the waves, across the harbor from the Goompah sailors. Julie had recommended they not try to fly the damaged craft through the storm-laden skies, so they’d lashed it down, and she’d gone outside and replaced the long-range antenna. Not that it mattered. The evening was so full of interference that they couldn’t hear anything anyhow. When she was finished, as though it were a signal, the weather got abruptly worse. They huddled in the cabin, lights out, waiting for the night to pass, hoping not to attract the attention of the omega. “I know that sounds paranoid,” said Julie, “but the one at Delta tried to destroy the lander my father was in.”

Nobody was going to sleep well. Rain hammered on the hull and the winds howled around them.

“In the morning,” said Julie, “when you talk to the Goompahs again, what are you going to tell them?”

“If there are any left,” said Digger.

“There’ll be some left. You need to figure out what you’re going to say.”

“Why say anything?”

“Because,” said Whit, “they’re going through a terrifying experience. When it’s over, a little reassurance wouldn’t be out of place.”

“Hell, I don’t know.” Digger looked around the cabin. “How about, ‘My children, all is well. Come down off the hill.’ How’s that?”

“Okay,” she said. “I was talking about their ships. About going home. Are you going to tell them the planet’s round, but it’s too big for sails? That they wouldn’t have made a successful voyage anyhow?”

Whit’s features softened. He canted his head and waited for Digger’s answer.

“No,” Dig said. “If the situation has calmed down, I’ll just tell them it’s over, and let them decide what they want to do.”

She let him see she didn’t approve.

“It’s not up to us to tell them what they’re capable of, Julie,” he continued. “How do we know they can’t make it around the globe?”

“Well, it’s not going to happen now, anyway,” she said. “Whatever you tell them.”

That was true. If they were able to construct a fresh set of ships, they’d go home. At least, they would if they had any sense.

Outside, something broke and fell heavily to the ground. A tree.

Whit took a long sip from his coffee cup. “Are we going to be able to fly this thing when the storm’s over?” he asked.

“I’ll let you know,” she said.

DIGGER SAT IN the dark, trying to sleep, trying to think about something else. Well after midnight, he heard a distant explosion. It blended with the continuous thunder, and the lander shook. Lightning filled the sky.

They talked for hours while the storm raged. About how none of them had ever been through anything like this, about the Goompahs on the other side of the harbor and the Goompahs on the Intigo, about books they’d read and places they’d been, about how it couldn’t last much longer, about how glad they were to have the AV3. Whit said it reminded him a little of a rainy evening he’d spent in a cabin when he was a Boy Scout.

Eventually it dissipated. The night grew quiet, the winds subsided, and there was only the steady beat of the rain.

Julie came to attention. “Listen,” she said.

He heard a burst of radio interference and then Kellie’s voice: “—breaking up—when you can—clouds—”

It was her standard professional tone. Level, unemotional. “—storm—”

Dawn was about two hours away. That meant it was a bit after midnight on the Intigo. The cloud was directly over the cities.

“—total—”

“We were lucky,” Digger said.

“How do you mean?” asked Whit.

“The lightning strike. If we’d used Lykonda to warn the ships to go to deeper water, they might have survived the waves, but they wouldn’t have gotten through the storm.”

Whit passed his cup forward for a refill. “No luck involved. You and Julie made the right decision.”

THERE WAS NO dawn. The sky stayed dark. Sometimes the wind and rain slacked off completely, and the night became still, but both inevitably came back with a rush.

He sat with his eyes closed, dozing, but still aware of his surroundings. Julie had put her seat into its recline position and had finally drifted off. Whit was busily tapping on his notebook. Eventually, he too slept.

Digger listened to the weather and the sea. If the storm was bad here, in this out-of-the-way place, he wondered what it would be like to be in the crosshairs. Not a stone upon a stone, he suspected.

THE INTENSITY OF the storm decreased after sunrise, but weather conditions remained too severe to attempt a flight. So they sat it out through the daylight hours and into another night.

At dawn on the second day, the winds finally abated, the rain slowed and stopped, and the sun came up.

“I think we’re over the hump,” Julie said.

They were too washed out to congratulate one another. Julie went outside to inspect and repair the lander, while Digger and Whit slogged over to see how the Goompahs had managed. They were scattered across the ridge, squatting exhausted and frightened in the mud. Some were injured. A few had descended to the lower levels and were fishing. Others were scavenging for fruit or small animals.

He would have liked to tell them it was all right to abandon their refuge, but the ground was so muddy he couldn’t approach without making large footprints. In the end he cornered his old friend Telio and stood behind a fallen tree. “Telio,” he said, “it is over.” He’d planned to say no more, but decided on the spot that Julie was right. “Rebuild your ships and return home.”

The Goompah looked for the source of the voice. “Who are you?” he asked, frightened.

Might as well play it through. “I am sent by Lykonda,” he said.

Telio fell to his knees and Digger was stuck, unable to move without giving himself away. He waited, and finally Telio asked in a low voice whether he was still there and, getting no answer, muttered his thanks and returned to his comrades.

“And God bless,” Digger added, uncharacteristically.

The three ships lay shattered and covered with mud. Two were on their sides in shallow water; one had been jammed into the trees. They were so badly wrecked that he wondered whether the Goompahs could tell them apart.

Trees were down everywhere, some from the waves, some blackened by lightning.

Later, when he told Whit what he’d done, the older man frowned. “They’ll go back with the idea their gods don’t want them to leave the isthmus.”

“Maybe,” said Digger. “But they’ll have a much better chance to go back. Right now, it’s all I care about.”

At the lander, Julie told them she’d been in touch with the Jenkins. “The channel’s down again,” she said, “but it should only be temporary. Roka and Kulnar are pretty well destroyed. T’Mingletep took a major hit. But Kellie says the rest of the Intigo looks pretty good.

“Marge said there was a substantial storm surge, as well. Seven, eight meters of water across much of the isthmus.”

“How about the Goompahs?”

“They can’t tell for sure. It looks as if a lot of them should be okay. The ones who were smart enough to do what the goddess told them.” She smiled, nodded at Digger, and broke out a bottle. Drinks all around. “Gentlemen.” She raised her glass. “To the defenders of the weak.” It was a French cordial. Where had she been hiding it?

THE BEACH WAS covered with dead fish and shells and debris. The smell was terrible, but Telio was grateful that he was still alive. And ecstatic that the celestial powers knew him by name. And cared about him.

The captains had formed a small party, and they were inspecting the three hulks. There’d already been talk that they would be taken apart and the wood used to make new vessels. Some of the crew had brought in fresh water. They had plenty of fish, and they’d discovered a fruit very like the kulpas. And some of the local game had proven to be quite savory.

He was going to be busy taking care of the injured over the next few days. That was a task that would be difficult because his medicines had been lost with the ship. There were a few strains and some broken bones to tend, and one case of a sweating illness that would probably respond to cold compresses and rest.

But it was over, whatever it had been, and most of them were still alive. T’Klot was still visible in the sky, both night and day, but not as a thunderhead. Rather it was now simply shreds of cloud.

Under ordinary circumstances, with their ships wrecked and the mission in ruins, he suspected they’d all have given in to despair. But he had heard the voice in the wind, and his comrades wanted to believe him. They knew now what they had not known before, that the gods were with them. The road home would not be easy, but Telio had no doubt he would see it again.

Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks

Tonight, perhaps for the first time, I can see the true value of faith. It strikes me as a priceless gift. Those of us who have traded it for a mechanical universe may have gotten closer to the actual state of things, but we have paid a substantial price. It makes me wonder about the value of truth.

— December 17

chapter 50

Lookout.

Friday, December 19.

THE RETURN TO the Intigo was painful. The cities were filled with mud and debris. Buildings were smashed, towers knocked over, fields flooded. The eastern cities, where the waves had hit, had been virtually swept away.

And there were corpses.

“No way you can get through something like this without losing people,” said Whit. “The consolation is that there are survivors.”

Yes. But somehow Digger had thought they would do better. He could see the Korbs beginning to file back down from the ridges and mountain slopes.

THEY GOT COMMUNICATIONS back with the Jenkins. Kellie and Marge had also been sobered by the carnage, but they were nevertheless putting the best face on things. “We saved the bulk of them,” Marge told them. “I think we did pretty well.”

In the midafternoon sky, the last pieces of the omega were drifting sunward. Whit gazed after it. “When can they expect another one?” he asked.

“If the pattern holds,” said Digger, “about eight thousand years.”

“Long enough,” he said. “Good-bye, farewell, amen.”

He wrote something in his notebook, frowned at it, shook his head, rewrote it, and entered it with a flourish. Then he sat back and looked outside at the flooded land below.

Digger found himself thinking about Jack. He’d have been pleased they’d done as well as they had. In fact, he suspected Jack would have been surprised that Digger had come up with a workable plan.

“Problem?” asked Julie, glancing over at him.

“No,” he said. “Just thinking about the ride home.”

THE JENKINS WAS on its way back to Lookout. Kellie reported that a fleet of ships, loaded with supplies, would begin arriving in a few days.

Julie took them to Mt. Alpha, where they traded in the AV3 for one of the smaller landers.

They switched on the lightbender and, at Whit’s request, made for the temple at Brackel.

The city itself wasn’t as severely damaged as they’d expected. A lot of buildings were down and areas flooded, but a substantial number of structures, occupying the wide arc of hills that circled the inner city, had escaped the worst of the water damage.

The temple had also come through reasonably well. A few Korbs were there, wandering through the grounds, looking dazed and battered. The walkways were covered with fallen trees and limbs and an ocean of sludge. A section of roof had been blown off, the interior was flooded, and several statues had been broken. But Lykonda still stood proud, her torch raised. A circle of Korbs stood respectfully around her, and someone had planted a small tree at her base.

ON HER HILLTOP outside Hopgop, Macao pulled an animal skin around her shoulders and tried to smile bravely for the children. Pasak, her cousin, had returned with an armload of cabaros. Ordinarily, cabaros weren’t considered very tasty. But there wasn’t enough fish to go around, and everything else was pretty much depleted. It looked as if it was going to get pretty hungry in the neighborhood over the next few days.

Nevertheless, she would have been ungrateful to complain. She was alive. As was most of her family. A few names were missing, including one of her cousins, but when she thought about the nature of the disaster that had overtaken them, she realized how fortunate they had been. Had they been in their homes when the storm surge came, few of them would have survived.

Everyone was giving thanks to the gods. As if they weren’t equally responsible for the storm that had drowned the land. Yet Lykonda had come to their aid. She’d seen the goddess herself.

It had been a Lykonda who somehow resembled Macao.

Well, that had been a trick of the light. But how did one explain the rest of it?

Behind her, someone threw a few more branches on the fire.

She looked out at the ocean, cold and gray. She had never before thought of it as a monster that could hurl giant waves at them. Who would have believed such things could happen? None among them, not even the oldest, knew of any similar occurrence. Nor was there anything in the Archives.

Yet it was precisely what the zhoka had predicted. Except that he’d had the wrong night.

How was that possible? Why would a demonic creature try to help them? She’d told her story over and over during the last couple of days, while the rains were pouring down, how the zhoka had warned her they needed to get to high ground, that T’Klot was a terrible storm. So many had seen the goddess in the streets that they were now prepared to believe anything. Unlike the audiences that had debated her over her tall tales, people now accepted her story, and assigned everything, good and ill, to celestial powers.

For Macao, the problem went deeper. Her view of reality had been shattered. The world was no longer a mechanical place, a place controlled by physical laws that were accessible by reason. There were gods and demon-storms and a creature called Digger Dunn and who knew what else?

She shuddered, pulled the animal skin close round her shoulders, and leaned nearer the fire.

Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks

Eventually, we will discover that honest communication with the Korbs will be to the benefit of both species. But that day is far off, because it will require more wisdom than we now possess. And more experience than they now have. Meantime, we can take pride in the fact that we have done what we could, and that the Korbs will, one assumes, still be here when that far-off day arrives.

— December 19

chapter 51

Woodbridge, Virginia.

Wednesday, December 24.

THE REPORT FROM Lookout arrived, as it always seemed to, at 2:00 A.M. It was the best possible news: as much success on the ground as they could reasonably have hoped for. There’d been substantial casualties among the Korbs, but an estimated 80 percent of them, thanks to Digger’s inventiveness, had taken to the hills. Of those the vast majority had survived. And her own people had come away with no additional casualties. Hutch never got back to sleep.

The staff came to work knowing that the Academy had a new set of heroes, and emotions ran high through the morning. The commissioner called a press conference, the politicians were delighted, and, because it was Christmas Eve, everyone went home early.

Hutch, of course, was ecstatic. The Korbs would live, and it was possible to assign meaning to the deaths of Jack Markover and Dave Collingdale.

She spent the afternoon toting Maureen through the malls for some last-minute shopping. Then, reluctantly, she went home, knowing the media would be there.

Did it seem like coincidence that the good news had come on Christmas Eve?

Was it true that the Academy teams had violated the Protocol?

No, she replied to both questions. And added not exactly to the latter.

They crowded up onto her front porch. A few neighbors wandered over to see what was happening. Drinks appeared from somewhere. Bells jingled.

What could she tell them about this Digger Dunn? Had he really masqueraded as a god? Wasn’t that—?

Digger was a good man. Pretty creative, wouldn’t you say? Saved tens of thousands of lives.

The porch was big and enclosed, and it turned into a party. Season’s best. Happy Hannukah. Merry Christmas. To us and to the Goompahs. To the Korbs.

“By the way,” asked the UNN representative, “have we figured out yet what those clouds are? Any idea at all?”

“We’re working on it,” she said. They shook their heads and rolled their eyes.

Later, when everyone had gone home, she relaxed with a drink and watched Tor and Maureen trying to get a kite into the air. They weren’t having much luck. Tor, who seemed to have no idea how it was done, charged about the lawn while the kite whipped in circles behind him. Maureen trailed along with all due seriousness, only to break out giggling every time the thing crashed.

In his way, Tor possessed the same innocence as the child. It was part of his charm, his sense that the world was essentially a good place, that if you worked hard and paid attention to business, everything would work out. He’d explained to her that he’d grown up with two ambitions: to become a professional golfer, and to create art for a living. He liked golf because it was leisurely, and you always went to summery places to participate. But the truth was that she had a better swing than he did.

Art, though, was a different matter altogether. Give him a brush, and put him near a passing comet, and he was a genius. When you aim high, she decided, one out of two wasn’t bad.

Actually, he was luckier than most people, and not because he had talent. What he really possessed was an ability to enjoy life on its most basic levels. He loved having Maureen chase him around the lawn, enjoyed slapstick comedy, talked endlessly about his camping experiences with the local Boy Scout troop (where he was an assistant scoutmaster), and he could never get enough ice cream. He was a big kid.

He pretended to be modest about his work, to look surprised when he was nominated for the Delmar Award, or the Fitzgibbon. And when one of the media did a piece on him, he was thrilled.

She watched the kite arc high. It had gotten dark, and the Christmas lights were coming on. A virtual stable blinked into existence on the lawn at the Harbisons. Complete with kneeling shepherds, camels, and a blazing star a few meters overhead.

Projectors came on all over the neighborhood. Santa and his sleigh were just landing on Jerry Adams’s roof. A river of soft blue-and-white stars floated past the Proctors’ place. No red or orange or green for Hal Proctor, who claimed to believe in the power of understatement. At the far end of the lane, three camels were approaching with wise men in the saddle.

It was all a bit much, but Hutch never said anything, knowing she’d be perceived as having no spirit. Still, she wondered what invisible aliens, had they been there somewhere, would have made of it all.

“By the way, have we figured out yet what those clouds are? Any idea at all?”

A group of carolers were wandering from door to door.

Tor gave the kite more string and a quick pull, probably a mistake. It turned over in midflight and crashed. Maureen exploded with giggles.

She pleaded for a chance to try, and Tor let her have the string. She raced off, still screaming with laughter, dragging the kite behind her.

Tor joined Hutch on the porch. “You’re woolgathering again,” he said.

She laughed. “You really look good out there.”

“One of my many talents.” Maureen charged by, squealing with delight. “You okay?”

“Oh, yes. I’m fine. Couldn’t be better.” An elf turned methodical somersaults on her lawn. And a blue lantern glowed in a window. They were her sole concessions to the lighting frenzy.

“It’s over,” he said gently.

“We still have a supply problem. I’ll feel safer after Judy gets there. When we’ve begun to get some help to the Goompahs.”

“You think?”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. You seem restless.”

“I wish Harold were here.”

Tor rocked back and forth a few times. “He may not have known anything.”

“It’s not that. I’d just like to see him again.”

What had he known?

They talked about inconsequentials. Then Tor asked whether Charlie Wilson had gotten any closer to a solution.

Charlie was a good guy, but he wasn’t the right person to figure it out. Charlie was an analysis guy. Here’s the data. Here’s what it tells us. But he was not equipped to make the kind of imaginative leap that Harold might have done. “No. I think Charlie feels we don’t have enough information yet. He’s like you. Doesn’t believe Harold really had anything.” She shook her head. “Maybe that’s right. Maybe Harold was going to say that the omegas are a gigantic research project of some sort, probably gone wrong but maybe not, and that would have been it. No big secret. That’s, by the way, pretty much what Charlie thinks. But as to what sort of research, he says there’s no way to know.”

The reindeer atop the Adams house appeared to be gamboling, enjoying themselves, anxious to get to their next stop.

“Everything’s showbiz,” she said.

Tor’s eyes darkened momentarily. “Sometimes you’re a bit hard on people. Showbiz is what life is about.”

Lights appeared in George Brauschwitz’s array of hedges, green and white and gold, and began to ripple in waves through the gathering twilight.

Green and white and gold.

A myriad of color, hypnotic in its effect. It was hard to draw her eyes away. “I wonder,” she said. “Maybe there’s a connection with the Georgetown Gallery after all.” A possibility had occurred to her. But it was so outrageous that it seemed impossible. Yet right from the beginning they’d noted that the tewks showed up in clusters.

Tor watched her while she surveyed the stable, the camels, the hedge, Santa.

“We’ve assumed all along,” she said, “that, in some way, the clouds were connected with research. Or that they were a weapons system run amok, or a slum clearance project run amok. These were things we could understand.”

“Okay.”

“Were they performing light experiments? Testing weapons?” She pushed back in her chair. Maureen tumbled over, scrambled back to her feet, looked puzzled, and began to cry. Hutch hurried to her side. “Skinned your knee,” she told the child. “Does it hurt?”

Maureen couldn’t get an answer past the sobs.

Hutch took her into the house, repaired the damage, got her some ice cream, and took a little for herself. She read to the child for a while. Lobo Louie. As she did, she considered the possibility that had occurred to her, and began to wonder if she might have the answer.

Tor came in and built a fire. “So what are they?” he asked.

She smiled at him. The house smelled of pine.

“Showbiz,” she said.

He laughed.

“I’m serious. The arts are all about perspective, right? Angle of light. Point of view. What the artist chooses to put in the foreground. Or in shadow.”

“I’m sorry, Hutch,” he said. “I don’t think I see where this is leading.”

“Do you remember how Maureen reacted to the tewks?”

“She liked them. Thought they were attractive.”

“ ‘They’re pretty,’ she said.”

“So—?” Maureen was arranging her dolls, seating them on the floor, their backs against a chair, positioning them so they could see the tree.

“We’ve been watching them from God’s point of view.”

“How do you mean?”

“By eliminating distance, we’ve looked at them as they actually exploded—if that’s the right term—to try to get a perspective on what was really happening. We ruled out the possibility that time and distance might be part of the equation.”

Tor tilted his head. “Plain English, please.”

“Think about the art gallery.”

“What about it?”

“I missed the point. It didn’t affect Harold because of something he saw inside it—”

Tor’s brow creased. “—But because it was there.”

“Yes.”

“So what does that tell us?”

SHE SLIPPED THE disk into the reader, and a cross section of the Orion Arm blinked on.

“I’ve always believed,” said Tor, “that the whole thing was a project by some sort of cosmic megalomaniac who just wanted to blow things up.” He had mixed two white tigers for them. “But you don’t think that?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“The method’s too inefficient. There are a lot of omegas out there. Thousands, maybe. And only a handful that will actually destroy anything.” She tried the drink. It was warm and sweet and made with a bit more lemon than the recipe called for. Just the way she liked it. “Tor, it doesn’t feel malicious.”

“It feels dumb.”

“Yes.” She gathered up Maureen, and they threaded their way through the constellations to the sofa. “Exactly what I’ve thought from the very beginning.”

“Like Santa’s sleigh over at the Adams house.”

“Well, okay. It feels showy. Pretentious.” She drew her legs up, tucked them under, and turned off the tree lights. A log crashed into the fire. Sparks flew and mixed with the stars. Maureen wanted to know what was happening.

“We’re going to watch the sim for a few minutes, Love.” And to the AI: “George, run the patterns. Fast forward.”

Among the stars, tewks blinked on and off. A few here, a couple there, a few more over by the window. A half dozen or so by the tree. A cluster near the bookcase, a group by the curtains. Some on this side, some on the far side. Altogether, there were now 117 recorded tewk events.

“What are we looking for?”

“Bear with me a bit. George, change the viewing angle. Pick a site at the galactic core. More or less where the clouds would be originating.”

The stars shifted. The familiar constellations vanished.

“Run them again, George.”

They sat and watched. Lights blinked on and off. Some here, some there, a few over near the clock.

“There’s a pattern,” she said.

“I don’t see it.” Tor’s hand touched hers. “What sort of pattern?”

“I don’t know. You get a little bit in one place, but then it breaks down everywhere else. George, take us out to the rim. Let’s have a look from, uh, Capella.”

The starfield shifted again. “Run it?” asked George.

“Yes. Please.”

Again the lights winked on and off around the room. She had to swing around to see everything. Tor gave up and edged off the sofa onto one knee, from which it was easier to follow the images.

“What’s the time span here?” he asked.

“From start to finish,” she said, “about twenty thousand years.”

“How long do you think it’s been going on?”

“No idea,” she said. “Could be millions, I suppose.” And to George: “Try it again, George. From the Pleiades.”

And: “From Antares.”

And: “From Arcturus.”

Maureen got down off the sofa and headed into the kitchen.

Tor resumed his seat, but made no further effort to see into the far corners of the room. “You give up?” she asked.

“I’m tired twisting around to see everything. We’d do better to go sit by the door.”

“George,” she said, “can you make out a pattern here anywhere?”

“Please specify parameters.”

“Never mind.” She heard the refrigerator open.

Tor started to get up, but she pulled him back down. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

SHE GOT SNACKS for all of them, chocolate cake for Maureen and herself, ice cream for Tor and when the child had finished, she put Maureen to bed. Later they had visitors, Tor’s brother and his wife, who lived in Alexandria, and MacAllister, who brought an armload of presents. More reporters showed up, and Michael Asquith called to tell her that she was invited to the White House for dinner Friday.

“You’re on top of the world,” Tor told her. “Enjoy it.”

She was doing that. It was a nice feeling to be the toast of the town. She understood she was getting credit for what other people had done, but that was okay. She’d be careful to spread it around when the opportunity offered.

Finally, at about 2:00 A.M., things quieted down, and they found themselves alone. They brought Maureen’s presents out of the closet, put them under the tree, and went to bed. On her way up the stairs, Hutch was still thinking about the tewks. Somewhere, she’d missed something.

Tor headed for the shower. Hutch brushed her teeth and decided to let her own ablutions go until morning. She changed into a sheer nightgown, thinking it would be nice to celebrate properly. But as soon as she slipped into bed, her eyes closed, and her head sank back into the pillows.

The tewks went off in various series. A pattern of sorts. A few here, a few there. Why?

She got up, went back out, and stared down into the living room, its outlines just visible in the soft glow of the night-light.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tor, appearing suddenly at her side.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I asked what was wrong.” He was pulling his robe around his shoulders.

“No. Before that.”

He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“You said, when you’re on top of the world, make it count. Or something like that. And earlier you said we’d do better to go sit by the door. That’s what I’m going to do.”

His hand touched her shoulder tentatively. “Priscilla, my love, what are we talking about now?”

“Point of view,” she said. “We’ve been looking for a pattern while we’re sitting inside it. George?”

“Yes, Hutch?”

“George, I want to run the program again.”

“From what perspective?”

“Try from above the Orion Arm. Maybe twenty thousand light-years or so.”

THE TEWK EVENTS exploded in glorious rhythm, one-two-three, magnificent eruptions, a few seconds apart, and then six blue lights flaring in sequence near the picture of Maureen, and a series of green flashes, erupting in perfect sync, up and down in a zigzag pattern just over the armchair. And four more, blood red, a vampire’s eyes, near the windows.

It went on and on. There were parts missing, of course. The great bulk of it was missing, if she was correct in assuming that all the clouds in time would become part of the same incredible light show. The ultimate work of art. What they were looking at was no more than a few fragments, a chord here and there. But magnificent nonetheless.

“My God,” he said.

“It’s the way it would look if you were sitting sixteen thousand light-years above the Milky Way, and you had a different sort of time sense. And you liked fireworks.”

“But who—?”

“Don’t know. Maybe long dead. Maybe not. But I suspect, whoever they are, they aren’t very bright.”

“They have to be,” he said. “Look at the engineering involved.”

She looked down on the grandeur of the Milky Way, watched the tewksbury objects blaze in a kind of luminous choreography, and thought it was one of the loveliest and most majestic things she’d ever seen.

“Well,” she said. “Not very bright. Or don’t give a damn. Take your pick.”

LIBRARY ENTRY

. We continue to pour resources into star travel.

The question no one ever asks is why we should do this. What possible benefit has the human race received from the fact that it can visit Alpha Serengetti or some such place. We are told that knowledge is its own reward. And that there have been practical benefits as well. That household AIs work better because we can travel faster than light, that we know more about nutrition, that we would not have developed artificial gravity, that our shoes are more comfortable, and that we have a better grasp of our own psychology, all because some of us have gone to these impossibly distant places.

But which of the above advantages could not have been secured by direct research? And who would even need artificial gravity if we had the good sense to stay home?

We have yet to find a new Earth. And one might argue sensibly that we have no need of one.

Maybe it’s time to call a halt, and to rethink the entire effort. Before the assorted crazies who want to go to Epsilon Eridani, at taxpayer expense, ruin us all.

— Paris Review

December 27

chapter 52

Brackel.

Twenty-fourth day after T’Klot.

THE LIBRARY WAS finally ready to receive the scrolls that Parsy had rescued the night of the storm.

The walls had been refurbished; the floor had been replaced. New chairs and tables had been brought in; the librarians’ counter rebuilt. New shutters installed, compliments of one of the library’s several support groups. People had contributed lamps and pens and parchment. Several of those who had died on that terrible night had left bequests of which the library had been the beneficiary. He’d ordered a statue of Lykonda to be placed at the entrance.

Tupelo and Yakkim came in with the scrolls, which had been carefully stored at the villa. There would be a reopening ceremony the next day, and Parsy was determined that the library would look good. Two new maps were up, to replace the ones that had been ruined. The scrolls would be back in the inner room, where they would be available once more, and two fresh sets, a history of intellectual thought during the current century by Pelimon, and a collection of essays by Rikat Domo, would be contributed by the Society of Transcribers. To further mark the event—

— What was that?

Yakkim had seen it, too. A tube lay atop the table at the head librarian’s station. “Where did that come from?” Yakkim asked. “It wasn’t there yesterday.”

Tupelo frowned. Parsy signaled him to open it.

There was a scroll inside.

“Must be another donation,” Yakkim said.

Tupelo removed the roll of parchment. Parsy, who knew the work of all the master transcribers, did not recognize the hand. “Maybe one of the workmen left it,” Tupelo said. He handed it to Parsy.

“That’s very odd,” Parsy said.

“It’s a play,” said Yakkim. “But I do not know the author.”

Nor did Parsy. Here was the cast of characters, and there the setting. In the palace at Thebes. He studied the page a long time, reading down the lines. The form of the play was unfamiliar. “Where is Thebes?” he asked.

Tupelo had no idea.

“It must be fictitious,” said Yakkim. “There is no such place.” He looked over Parsy’s shoulder. “What do we do with it? Shall we add it to the holdings?”

“I’ll ask around. See if anyone is familiar with it.” He laid it down. Strange title, too. Antigone.

“Antigone? That’s a curious word.”

“It’s the name of one of the characters.”

“It sounds made-up.”

“Indeed.” He looked around. “Well, we have a lot to do. We can look at this later.”

“MACAO, MY NAME is Tasker. I’m a visitor to Kulnar. Never heard you speak before, but the regulars tell me you’re prone to exaggerate.”

“Not this time.”

“Of course. But you really want us to believe you saw a zhoka?”

“Believe as you wish, Tasker. And no, I am not sure that it was a zhoka. It looked like one.”

“What form did it take? Was it flesh and blood? Was it a spiritual entity? A ghost of some sort?”

“It was solid enough.” She signaled to someone in back. “Pakka? Did you have a question?”

“Yes. I’ve been here many times. As you know.”

“I know.”

“Heard you often.”

“As we all know.” That brought a laugh from the audience. Over the years, Pakka had developed into a good-natured antagonist, instantly recognizable to anyone who attended Macao’s events.

“Yes. Well, however that may be, can we assume you are now willing to admit that the world operates under divine governance.”

“I never denied it.”

“You’ve always said all things are open to reason.”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “I have, haven’t I?”

“Do you wish to change your position?”

There was nothing for it, in the light of recent events. “I suppose I shall have to reconsider.”

“It is good of you to say so.”

She smiled. “An open mind is of the essence, Pakka.” It was in fact the beginning of wisdom. Accept nothing on faith. Verify the facts, and draw the logical conclusions. She found herself fingering the necklace given her by the zhoka. “It appears the world is more complicated than we thought.”

The audience, most of it, nodded their agreement.

Tasker was on his feet again. “Tell us,” he said, “why you think this Digger Dunn—that was his name, right?—”

“Yes.”

“An odd name, don’t you think?”

“Who am I to criticize the names of such beings?”

“Yes. Of course. But you say that, despite his appearance, you doubt that he was a zhoka. Would you tell us why?”

She looked out over the hall. It was on relatively high ground, fortunately, and had survived almost intact the floods that had ruined so much of Kulnar. “Yes,” she said. “I will tell you why. Because Digger Dunn warned me about the cloud. Wanted me to warn everyone. To get the word out, to get the city evacuated.”

“But you said he lied about the date.”

“I prefer to think he was simply wrong about the date. It hardly matters. What does matter is that he tried to help. And I—” She trembled. Her voice shook, and tears came to her eyes. “I refused to believe.”

The hall became very quiet.

“Unlike him, I failed to help.”

WHEN IT WAS over, when her listeners had drifted away, she lingered, until only the service personnel were in the room with her, putting out the lamps, checking the fire screens, picking up whatever trash had been left behind. And then they, too, were gone.

The entire business was so fantastic that she would have ascribed it all to too much wine if she could. But the destruction had been real. And thousands had seen Lykonda.

She slipped her necklace over her head and gazed at it.

Incredible workmanship. A tiny silver chain unlike any she had seen before. And a strange circular jewel that glittered in the firelight. She could not escape the sense that it was somehow alive, that it watched her.

Even had she gone to the authorities, they would never have believed her story. Wouldn’t have acted on it if they had. You don’t accede to the wishes of a zhoka. Unless you are very foolish.

Or perhaps unless the zhoka’s name is Digger Dunn.

She sighed and wandered out of the auditorium into the corridor and out through the main entrance. The stars were very bright, and a cold chop blew off the sea. Winter was beginning in earnest.

Pakka and Tasker and several others were waiting for her a few steps away. It was traditional to take the guest speaker out for drinks and a good time after the slosh. But she hesitated in the doorway. Something, a breath of wind, an air current, brushed her arm.

“Challa, Macao.”

The greeting had come from nearby, a pace or two. But she saw no one.

“I’m glad you came through it okay.”

She knew the voice, and tried to speak, but her tongue caught to the roof of her mouth.

“I enjoyed the show,” he said.

“Digger Dunn, where are you?”

“I’m right here.”

She reached out and touched an arm. It was a curious sensation, solid yet not solid, rather like putting her hand against running water. But her hand remained dry. “Why have you come?”

“To say good-bye,” he said. “And to thank you.”

“To thank me? Why would you wish to thank me? I am sorry to say so, but I did not believe you when you told me about T’Klot.”

“You tried. That was as much as I could ask. It’s hard to fight lifelong reflexes”—he seemed to be looking for the right word—“lifelong habits of thought.” And here he used a word she did not understand. It sounded like programming.

“Digger Dunn, can I persuade you to do a slosh with me?”

He laughed, and the sound was loud enough to draw the attention of those who waited for her.

“I’m serious,” she said. “We would be wonderful.”

“I think we would cause a panic.”

He was right, of course.

“I’d better go,” he said.

“Wait.” She removed the necklace and held it out for him. It was difficult because she wasn’t sure precisely where he was standing. “This is yours.”

“Actually,” he said, “it belongs to someone very much like you. And I think she’d like you to keep it.” A pair of lips pressed against her cheek. “Good-bye, Mac,” he said.

She reached out, but he was gone. “Thank you, Digger Dunn,” she said. “Do not forget me.”