The Summer Queen

ONDINEE: Tuo Ne’el

“Boss, I think we’ve got trouble.” Kedalion Niburu called the words over his shoulder without looking back, not able to take his eyes off the screen in front of him. It showed him the unmistakable expanding diamond of a pursuit pattern forming in their wake—at least half a dozen craft, still beyond sight but closing rapidly with their own.

“Who is it?” Reede dropped into the seat next to him, peering out with bloodshot eyes across the living-death landscape. Tuo Ne’el had been sliding past below them for several hours now; gradually lightening into the visible as they caught up second by second with the day. Kedalion had never thought he would be glad to see that view again; but, until he had done this last scan, it had almost seemed like he was coming home. They had been in flight for nearly twelve hours straight, coming directly off their landing at an obscure shipping field halfway around the planet, flightlagged and exhausted to begin with. But Reede had ordered it, Reede had not explained why, Reede had simply wanted it done, that way, in secrecy with faked codes and no rest at all… .

And Reede was swearing now, as Kedalion pointed at the displays, letting him see trouble for himself. “Whose are they?” His own hand moved over the control boards, querying, reconfirming, as if he thought he could somehow find a better answer

But it was an impossible question. “I don’t know,” Kedalion said, “except they’re not Humbaba’s welcoming committee. They don’t respond to any of the codes, and they aren’t talking. I’ve tried all the usual frequencies.”

“Shit. Shit!” Reede hit the panel with his fist, making some system bleat in protest “We covered our tracks coming in. How could the Blues have figured it—?” He shook his head. “It can’t be the Blues. They’d just nail us from upstairs.” He frowned, rubbing his face. “How far are we from Humbaba’s?”

“About ten minutes.”

“Can we get there first?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Are we transmitting a distress code?”

Kedalion looked up again, facing Reede’s expression with an effort of will. His own face felt paralyzed. “No one’s answering it, boss,” he said. “Seems like nobody’s home.”

“That’s insane,” Reede snapped, reaching for the comm. He stuffed a remote into his ear, sent out the same call, without even looking down. He got the same results: No answer. Nothing at all. Dead silence. His hand fisted on the panel, Kedalion felt his own hands beginning to sweat.

“You think they’re jamming us?” Reede touched the images on the screen.

“No. We’d get a reading off their beam.”

“By the Render—” Reede tugged at his ear, his eyes searching the featureless horizon for a sign of their pursuit, a sign of salvation. “Get me remote visual on the citadel, as soon as you can.”

“Boss …” Kedalion hesitated, remembering the mysterious meeting he had stumbled on before their departure for Number Four; remembering that Reede had told him to forget it. “Is there anybody else who can help us?”

Reede looked sharply at him; but then he sat back in his seat, actually seeming to consider the question. “Not close enough. Not that I trust. Not with what we’re carrying. Try the citadel again.”

Kedalion tried it. No results.

“Try our tail again.”

He ran a call all up and down the open frequencies. No answer. “You think they want our cargo?” He glanced into the rear of the hovercraft, where Ananke lay slumped across a seat in blissful ignorance, sound asleep. Concealed beneath the seat there was a heavy, unlabeled container—with the key to the universe locked inside it.

“That’s my bet.” Reede nodded. “But why—? The only ones who could possibly know I’m here and what we’ve got know I’m bringing it home for them.” He shook his hair back from his eyes; a muscle in his cheek was twitching.

“I thought Humbaba sent us—”

“No.” Reede looked at him suddenly, with cold disgust. “Humbaba did not send us. Humbaba doesn’t know shit. … I don’t like this, gods, I don’t… . Get the citadel on visual.” He pointed straight ahead.

Kedalion could see nothing. Wondering whether Reede actually could, he upped the resolution factor on the forward visual. A segment of their view appeared in abrupt magnification, showing him the distant spire of Humbaba’s fortress, rising like a beacon from the gray sea of impenetrable scrub. He heard Reede suck in a long harsh breath of relief, let it out again as he saw the citadel still intact. “Why don’t the) answer?” he murmured. “Unless someone’scut their entire power system … and that means no protection.” His knuckles showed white on the panel. “Try them again!” he said. Kedalion repeated the callcode automatically.

As he input the final digit a gout of flame rose from the image on the screen. ^ ball of white light expanded outward, filling the magnification segment, spilling over into their realtime view, blinding them even through the protected shield of the dome

Kedalion swore, shutting his eyes. Reede cried out, a sound that was more like despair than pain, as his hands flew up to his face.

An explosion. As his own vision cleared, it let him see that the white light & fading … let him see what it had done. Where there had been an impregnable, shining tower on the sullen plain, there was now twisted wreckage, a splinter of rum glowing cherry-red, flickering with the starpoint flares of secondary explosions.

“What … what … ?” Ananke groaned, stumbling forward from the back seat. “What happened— Hallowed Calavre!” He stopped, clinging to the seatbacks, gaping in disbelief at what showed ahead. A black shroud of smoke had begun to conceal the ruin, as the thorn forest ignited like a funeral pyre. Kedalion could see the forest blazing up now in explosions of its own as petrochemicals caught fire in bark and leaves, setting off a holocaust that would torch the plain for thousands of hectares in all directions. Beside him Reede stared, motionless, his face devoid of any expression, as if his mind had gone completely somewhere else. He twisted the ring he wore on his thumb. Kedalion looked away from the emptiness of his eyes.

The shockwave of the explosion hit them, the hovercraft shuddered and bucked, dumping Ananke on his butt. Kedalion used voice and hands to reintegrate their stabilizers and speed with desperate efficiency. He looked up and out again—saw one of their pursuers glide forward into visual range, pacing them easily as he pushed the hovercraft’s speed to its limit, racing fate toward a destination that had suddenly ceased to have any meaning. He looked down at the specs reading out now on the screen in front of him. Each of the pursuit craft around them was a flying armory.

“Reede Kullervo!” The voice burst out of the comm, through the linkage of Kedalion’s headset, making him wince.

Reede jerked as if he had been shocked. Kedalion saw expression come back into his face. “I’m here,” Reede said, his voice toneless with barely controlled rage. “Who did this, you shit-eating cowards?”

“We are talcing control of your craft’s operating systems,” the voice said, as if it hadn’t heard him. “Tell your pilot to activate override sequence.”

Kedalion glanced at Reede. Reede said nothing.

“We are armed. Activate override or we will shoot you down.”

“Copy. Activating override sequence,” Kedalion said, when Reede still did not answer. Maybe Reede figured this was as good a day to die as any … he ususally did. But Kedalion Niburu at least wanted to know who wanted him dead before he took a direct hit.

Reede’s expression was like the edge of a blade; but he made no move to stop anything as Kedalion let their escort take over the ship’s controls. Kedalion lifted his hands from the board in a shrug of resignation, watching data shift as they changed direction and speed. Ananke was on his feet again, peering over Kedalion’s shoulder in stricken silence as they flew on over the thorn forests, the blasted citadel and the raging wildfire falling away behind them like the past.

There was no more radio contact from their escort; they flew on in helpless silence. Ananke didn’t ask again what had happened. Kedalion decided that either he’d figured it out for himself, or he didn’t want to know. He sat down again in the back, stroking the quoll, staring out at the rearward view until there was nothing left to see.

Kedalion tried a few queries of the boards, the databanks. Nothing at all had been left under his control. He couldn’t even change the time on the clock. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the panel; shoved his hand into his pocket. His fingers closed over the huskball. He pulled it out, rolling it from hand to hand, comforted by the motion and its shabby familiarity.

“Can you get a fix on where we’re going?” Reede asked.

Kedalion looked up, and shook his head. “Can’t get a damn thing out of the banks. And it doesn’t look like we’re flying a straight course. Reede—”

“Shut up,” Reede said. “Shut up, Niburu.”

Kedalion shut up.

After about two hour’s flight time he began to see the spine of another tower gleaming like a needle in the late morning sun. He wanted to ask whose citadel it was, but he didn’t. If Reede knew, he didn’t bother to share the information. A port blossomed in the fortress wall as they approached. Kedalion felt the invisible hand of a docking beam close over their craft, sucking them unerringly, inescapably into its waiting mouth.

Guards were waiting too, as they settled into a dock with a stomach-dropping lurch. Kedalion saw them peering in warily through the dome. The doors popped without his asking: an invitation.

“Let’s not keep them waiting …” Reede said. His voice was full of broken glass. He got to his feet, flexing his fingers like a man with a cramp; Kedalion was relieved to see that he made no move toward any of the weapons he carried.

“What about—?” Kedalion jerked his head at the rear of the craft, where the container of stardrive plasma lay concealed under the seats.

Reede shook his head, with a leave it gesture. He stepped outside.

Kedalion followed, reluctantly, glancing back at Ananke. Ananke was looking at the quoll, looking around, as if he was trying to decide whether his pet would be safer with him, or without him. “Bring it,” Kedalion said softly. “The gods only know if we’ll ever even see this again—” He gestured at the hovercraft.

Ananke nodded, tightlipped, and went ahead of him out the door.

Guards moved in on them, searching them by hand and with detectors, with rough efficiency. They had already relieved Reede of an assortment of weapons Kedalion noticed that Reede’s solii pendant—the one he always wore, the one Kedalion had seen once on half a dozen ill-met strangers in a bizarre back-alley meeting—was dangling free. The solii’s shimmering, hypnotic light looked strikingly out of place against Reede’s nondescript gray coveralls. For once he made no effort to conceal it, wearing it with an almost defiant insouciance. The guards watched him the way they would watch a wild beast, as if his reputation had preceded him Kedalion felt surprise, and then a wary relief, as he realized they were making no move to put binders on anyone.

Someone entered the docking bay, coming toward them, moving with a ruthless confidence that said he carried some power. The guards looked up at him, and moved out of his path. They were the usual mix of on-and offworlders, wearing the same pragmatic assortment of clothing that Kedalion saw all the time in the streets of Humbaba’s headquarters. The man coming toward them now was no more formally dressed. There was no way to guess who any of them worked for, nothing but the new arrival’s manner told Kedalion that he was in charge. He was close to two meters tall, and heavily muscled. Dark curly hair, dark upslanting eyes … Kedalion figured he was Newhavenese.

He stopped in front of them, looking Reede over while a smile pulled up the bum-scarred corner of his mouth. “Well, Reede Kullervo. Glad you made it.” He held out a hand.

Reede wiped his own hands on his pantslegs in response, his eyes glittering “You’re not the Man,” he said. “And you’re not glad to see me.” Kedalion couldn’t tell whether Reede actually knew the Newhavener or not.

“I heard you were smart,” the big man said, with the same sour smile. He let his hand drop. “Fucking brilliant, in fact. I guess that’s why the Man wants to see you about a job.”

Reede gave a bark of sardonic laughter. “He wants to work for me?”

Head shake. “He heard you lost your patron. Dangerous, being who you are, and without a patron.”

“He maybe have something to do with that?” Reede said.

“Yeah. Maybe.” The Newhavener’s grin widened maliciously. “You’ve been offworld a long time, Kullervo. That’s dangerous too. Things change.”

Kedalion sensed more than saw Reede’s breathing become quick and shallow. “Whose cartel is this? Where am I?” he asked, and Kedalion knew it had cost him to ask that.

The big man’s expression got uglier. “You’ll see,” he said. “You’re gonna love it here, Kullervo.”

“Okay,” Reede murmured, his voice rasping. “The Man wants to see me, where is he—?”

“Follow me.” The Newhavener turned and started back the way he had come, his boot heels ringing on the catwalk. They followed him, six guards moving with them like their own shadow. Kedalion resisted the urge to look back, at the hovercraft, at the priceless cargo still hidden beneath the back seat, lying in a bucket like yesterday’s lunch; at his last glimpse of the open air, and freedom, maybe forever.

The Newhavener took them for the three-credit tour, transporting them deep into the citadel’s city-size entrails by ways and means that were guaranteed to ensure they’d never find their way back out again alone. They stepped out of a final dizzying lift ride, into an airy, open space that made Kedalion blink with surprise. One wall let in actual daylight … or maybe it was a holo, he couldn’t be sure. If it was genuine, they were high up in the air, though he’d been sure they were working their way downward.

“The Man—” their guide said, gesturing across the wide expanse of shining floor toward a sealed door. A small garden spilled out into the open space beneath the windows; he heard the sound of dripping water. Surrounding it was what looked like the waiting room of some successful merchant co-op, filled with incongruously normal seats and tables. “After you, Kullervo.”

Reede took a deep breath, and started across the room toward the featureless door. Kedalion followed, with Ananke close on his heels. Midway across the room the Newhavener cut effortlessly between Reede and his men, forcing Kedalion to stop. “Have a seat—” he suggested, looking down at Kedalion.

Kedalion stood where he was and looked toward Reede. Reede turned back, and Kedalion was glad that what showed in Reede’s eyes was not directed at him.

Reede looked up at the Newhavener, down at Kedalion and Ananke. “Wait here,” he said, his voice coolly arrogant, as if the other man had not even spoken. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Kedalion nodded, trying to match the confidence of Reede’s manner as he moved toward the seats, knowing he was not succeeding. He knew Reede was nervous, even afraid, but Reede was burning now with the murderous intensity that made anyone with a shred of sanity get out of his way. Reede Kullervo might be a madman, but for once Kedalion was glad to be working for him. Maybe they’d even Set out of this alive. He almost felt sorry for whoever was waiting beyond that door, planning to make Reede an offer he couldn’t refuse. He managed to pull himself onto the couch with something like dignity, managed an encouraging smile to answer the unspoken question in Ananke’s glance. Ananke looked away again, through the ring of guards toward Reede. They watched the door go transparent, watched Reede disappear through it. And then they waited.

Reede stepped through the doorway into a featureless box. The security door rematerialized behind him, sealing him in before he had time to realize that there were no other exits. He spun around, getting a mild shock through his hands as they hit the screen, making it spark. Inside of a heartbeat it was as solid and featureless as the other three walls, the ceiling, the floor.

A trap. Reede turned back, searching the room with his eyes. A perfect, featureless cube. He clenched his teeth over the sudden urge to cry out, to throw himself against the walls like a panic-stricken animal. But the part of his brain that always seemed to be under someone else’s control held him motionless, pointing out to him that there was light here, which meant that there was probably full life support and fresh air; there had been a way in, which meant that there was a way out. It could even be some kind of lift, although he couldn’t detect any motion. They didn’t want him dead, at least not yet, and probably not at all. They just wanted him softened up a little.

He leaned against the wall, fingering the jangling piece of jewelry hanging from his ear, and forced himself to relax, in case he was being monitored, which he probably was. He should be grateful: They were giving him time to think. He still had no idea who held him. All they’d said to him was, You’ve lost your patron, and that meant Humbaba. They’d talked like he was going to be working here, a simple survivor-claiming, a change of employers, but not careers. They hadn’t even asked him about the stardrive. Maybe they didn’t know….

Except whoever it was claimed that they’d dropped the lightning on Humbaba’s tower, right in front of his eyes, perfectly timed to his arrival. That meant they had somehow been able to shut down all its support systems first, leaving it without even communications, and utterly defenseless against the attack. And they had known exactly when he was arriving, how, from what direction. All of that screamed power, more power than any single cartel involved in a takeover struggle with Humbaba should have access to. It was only the existence of that higher power that let the cartels coexist here as successfully as they did. There were skirmishes, hijackings, ambushes. But when an entire citadel went out, it was something bigger. … It meant somebody had tried to cross the Brotherhood.

But he was the Brotherhood— He touched the solii pendant that Mundilfoere had given him. He knew its significance, knew why she had told him to wear it always. Mundilfoere … Not letting himself think about what he would do if she had been in the fortress when it went up, caught inside that blinding ball of light, incinerated … Gods, a man could go crazy trying to figure it out! Go crazy in here … He wasn’t going to work for whoever was doing this to him … he was going to kill the son of a bitch, with his bare hands. He was sweating; was it real warmer in here, was the air really getting thicker, heavier, harder to breathe, like being underwater— “Come on, motherfucker—” he muttered, beginning to twitch He forced himself to stop it, to curb the insane energy singing inside him. Save it. Save it, damn you….

The lights went out. No—! He almost screamed it, but the still-sane fragment of his mind that had kept him calm until now closed its hand around his throat, forced him to stand perfectly still in the middle of the utter blackness, his head up, his hands motionless at his sides. Wait. Wait.… He became aware of his own breathing, the way his heart was pounding, the blood rushing inside his ears. All his senses began to run wild, overreacting to the absence of stimuli. Did he really hear the sound of two people breathing? Gods, what was that smell in the air—not stateness, not his own sweat, it smelled like something rotting… . He was beginning to see things, to believe that he actually saw a glow like almost-dead embers on the wall ahead of him. He reached out, stretching his hand toward it—lurched forward as he discovered that the wall was no longer there.

Groping around him, he realized that there were no walls at all anymore; that the room he had been trapped in had disappeared. He was suddenly lost in a much larger room, a formless blackness like the space between the stars. But the glow he had seen was real. It had become barely bright enough to let him believe in it, even though it was too dim to give him any real information.

He started toward it, having no better guide … took three steps, and stumbled as his feet caught on something. He sprawled headlong onto a hard, slick surface that felt like ceramic tiles. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, his body and the remains of his confidence bruised and shaken. Something was still caught under his feet—whatever he had fallen over. He reached around, fumbling blindly until he could touch it. Cloth. An odd-shaped, rumpled mound of it, like somebody had kicked aside a rug … Like somebody had left a corpse lying there. That smell. Gods, was this—? Shit—!

He jerked his hand away, scrambled to his feet, before any part of his body could accidentally discover too much about the mound. And froze, suddenly certain that he had heard faint laughter. “Who’s there—?” His voice shook, telling whoever it was too much about how well their plan was working. “Turn on the lights, damn you. Talk to me!” Echoes of his own voice came back at him, were all that he could hear, distorted by surfaces he could not imagine the forms of.

“I prefer the darkness,” a voice said, a voice which sounded like something that had been torn physically out of its owner’s throat, the words striking him like gobbets of flesh “It’s so much more revealing… . Everyone is naked, in the dark.”

Reede froze, not even breathing; staring into the blackness with every nerve ending of his body. “You … ?” he whispered. Trying to make out a form against the dull red emberglow ahead of him, trying to make himself recognize a human shape in the silhouette he could now barely detect against the light. But he didn’t need to, knew already that it would be impossible. He felt his guts turn to jelly. The Source. That was what Thanm Jaakola called himself, that was whose citadel he had come to be held prisoner in. Jaakola’s cartel was one of the strongest, their drug production and distribution network had outlets on every world in the Hegemony. But Jaakola was more than simply a bigtime narco. He was one of the Brotherhood, and even Reede had no idea how far, how deep, his real power extended.

Reede peered into the darkness again, blinking compulsively. Rumor claimed Jaakola needed the darkness because there was something wrong with him, that light hurt his eyes, that he had some hideous, disfiguring disease. Reede had never believed it, had always figured it was a lie, a disguise, so that the Source could be anybody he wanted to be, and nobody would know. But now, lost here in the darkness, with only that misshapen mound of blackness ahead of him … now suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. What was that smell—was it whatever was lying on the floor, was it his imagination, or was it … was it—Stop it! Don’t even think about it.

“Come closer, Reede. There is a seat here by me. No need for you to stand.” It was a challenge: Jaakola sensing his fear, daring him to get closer.

Anger and old resentment goaded him forward. He moved with painful caution this time, testing the space ahead of him with each step; afraid of finding another trap, a corpse, a gaping pit. He found an unexpected step up, navigated it without falling on his face, and abruptly encountered the padded outline of what seemed to be a chair. He groped his way around it and sat down, after first exploring the seat and back thoroughly with his hands.

“You must be exhausted after your long, arduous journey,” Jaakola’s disintegrating voice said. “Congratulations.” For a moment Reede actually wondered whether Jaakola meant his journey back from Four, or the journey here to his seat. “You have been completely successful on behalf of the Brotherhood, I see.”

“You see?” Reede repeated, picking his words as carefully as he had picked a path across the room.

“We have the container of stardrive plasma that was hidden in your craft. A brilliant coup, how you stole it right out of the Kharemoughis’ hands—and you even brought us a stardrive unit! The name of the Smith will soon be legendary among the agents of Chaos. Perhaps you really do deserve to be called the new Vanamomen… . Taking the plasma home to your beloved Mundilfoere, were you?”

Reede felt the hatred inside the words close around his throat and squeeze. “Any reason 1 shouldn’t?” Focusing his own white-hot rage, he managed, somehow, to ask the question without his voice betraying him again. “You know I’m a member in good standing—I wasn’t trying to hide anything from anybody but the Blues. I sent Mundilfoere word, I said call a Meeting first thing. Why the fuck am I here with just you? And why shouldn’t I want to go home?”

“Perhaps the fact that you no longer have a home to go to … ?” The shadow against the darkness moved insinuatingly.

Reede’s fingers dug into the chair arms as the fireball went off again inside his memory, incinerating the citadel before his eyes. He let go, abruptly, as something about the consistency of the chair itself made his flesh crawl. “Goddamn you—” He broke off. “If Mundilfoere was—”

“She was not present when we took out the citadel,” the ruined voice murmured gently. “Rest assured.”

Reede sank back into the chair’s suffocating softness, as his rigid muscles let go. “Then, why—?”

“To prove a point, shall we say? To dispose of the middleman. To demonstrate my eagerness to have you as a member of my personal operation. To let you and every little operator out there in the thorn scrub see what real power is … and to give the outer world a reason for my claiming you, a tragically patronless biochemist, to do service with me.”

“That’s crazy,” Reede muttered. Nothing he had heard so far made any sense—it only got progressively more maddening. He wondered suddenly if Jaakola was actually insane, or was simply playing with him. “You know Humbaba’s was my safehouse, the place where I ran my labs. We had an agreement—I kept him well-supplied and he didn’t ask me any questions about my real work. He wasn’t even Survey—”

“He was Mundilfoere’s pet horror.” Jaakola sniggered with sardonic amusement. “We both know who made him as successful as he was … who was the real Man at Humbaba citadel. But now that the Brotherhood has the stardrive plasma, our precocious Smith needs facilities appropriate to the task of developing the new technology. What better place than here? The Source and the Smith, in perfect symbiosis. You don’t have to play any loyalty games with me. … I exist on both planes, just as you do. I have the contacts, the tech base, the resources—everything you’ll need… . You can call me ‘Master.’ Everyone does.”

“Kiss my ass,” Reede said. “You don’t tell me what to do. I don’t see any Survey meeting here, I don’t see any voting quorum. It’s just you and me, Jaakola, equal votes.”

“There is no need to call a Meeting. This matter was settled among the Brotherhood well before you returned.”

“What are you talking about?” Reede snapped. “Mundilfoere would never—”

“You were gone a long time, Reede. Things change—alliances, fortunes, balances of power. And you do not have an equal say in Brotherhood matters. You never did. You weren’t Humbaba’s possession … you were Mundilfoere’s.”

Reede shook his head, feeling as if he had been expelled into sudden vacuum “That’s a lie.”

“Do you actually believe you ever really functioned at the same levels I did? Or even Mundilfoere? Did she actually let you think that? Yes, you were elevated to the inner circles; you were even raised to the tenth level, at Mundilfoere’s urging. But you have no idea how many levels there are still above you—or even the slightest idea of what goes on there, far, far over your head. Humbaba was Mundilfoere’s tool, she used him well … just as she used you.”

“Fuck you.” Reede tried to push up out of his seat—and could not. He tried again, throwing all his strength against whatever invisible bonds held him there; felt his muscles wrench with the effort, getting nowhere. He fell back again. The pressure eased as he stopped resisting.

“You were always her favorite tool, Reede,” Jaakola went on, as if he had noticed nothing. “Her other pet: the clever one, the pretty one … She made you herself, Reede—out of stolen pieces. There is no Reede Kullervo. Once there was. But he’s gone now. You’re not a man, you’re a brainwipe: nothing but the biological receptacle for the embers of a great flame. And even that heat is unbearable, it’s burning away what’s left of your mind. …”

“You bastard, damn you—” Reede jerked forward again, into a wall of self-inflicted pain; unable to reach Jaakola, unable even to cover his own ears. Every time he struggled, the invisible bonds tightened.

“You don’t believe me—?” the voice said, wounded. “Tell me about yourself… . What did you enjoy doing, as a child? What was your family like? Where were you educated? After all, when you came to Humbaba you had knowledge a brilliant master biochemist couldn’t have discovered in a lifetime … but you were barely seventeen years old. How? How did you do it? Don’t you ever even wonder about that?”

“I know who I am!” Reede said hoarsely.

“Then answer the questions. …” Jaakola waited, and the silence stretched Reede’s mind echoed with whispers and cnes, the stray fragments of a puzzle that had long since been jumbled and thrown away. “Or can’t you?” He chuckled, water going down a dram.

“Mundilfoere!” Reede shouted, crying out for her to bridge the pit of bottomless terror that had suddenly opened below him. “I want Mundilfoere here!”

“Of course you do,” the Source murmured, “to stroke you and make love to you until you forget, to tell you it doesn’t matter, to try to keep you sane until you’ve served our purpose. You love her more than your own soul, don’t you? You should … she took your soul away from you.”

“She loves me—”

“Yes …” Jaakola murmured, “I believe she did. But then, she was a woman—weak, flawed, for all her brilliance. A foolish mistake, to fall in love with her victim … an inevitable mistake … a fatal mistake. She wouldn’t give you to me, even to save herself.”

Reede felt his heart stop. “No. You said she wasn’t at the citadel—”

“She wasn’t.” The Source’s shapeless bulk shifted. “I said she wasn’t there … but I didn’t say she was still alive.”

“I don’t believe you.” Reede pushed the words out between bloodless lips. Sweat crawled down his cheek, but he couldn’t wipe it away.

“Things changed, while you were away—as I said. Power shifted … to me. Destiny delivered her into my hands … and with her, you. I had waited a long time, for her, for you. She took a very long time to die … I saw to it personally.”

“I don’t believe you,” Reede whispered again, shutting his eyes. “It isn’t true. Mundilfoere will come for me, she won’t let you hold me here. …”

“You want Mundilfoere? More than your soul? More than life itself?”

“Yes. Yes—” Reede said, grasping at futile hope like a drowning man; not caring what Jaakola wanted in return, willing to give him anything he asked for to make the unbearable untrue. “Anything you want. Anything—”

“Then have her …”the Source whispered. “What’s left of her.”

Reede felt something drop into his lap; something very small. He looked down, blind in the darkness, unable even to move his hands to touch it. He began to tremble helplessly.

A thin beam of brilliant white light lanced out of the darkness in front of him, striking the crotch of his pants, illuminating what lay there. Reede blinked, dazzled by the brightness; forced himself to look down at it, dizzy and sick.

A human thumb. The dried blood crusting it was almost the same darkness as the desiccated skin. And still circling the meaningless stub of flesh and bone was a ring of heavy silver, set with two soliis. The ring he had given to Mundilfoere before he left, a marriage troth.

Reede screamed, a raw souldeep cry of agony and loss, that went on and on, until at last he had no voice at all left to scream with. And that was when the single beam of light went out.

When there was nothing left in the black silence but the sound of his sobbing, the Source’s laughter began.

And when that was finished, the Source said, “I waited a long time for this, too, Reede. To hear you scream like that. You arrogant, strutting piece of garbage, calling yourself the Smith, wearing the genius of the ages in your brain and thinking it was your own. Acting as if you were our equal—believing it, when you were nothing but her creature. I only wish that she could have heard you scream … that you could have watched me take her apart.”

Reede groaned, a mindless, animal noise of grief that echoed in the blackness.

The Source made a low sound of satisfaction. “I knew there was nothing 1 could do to your body that would hurt you this much, and let you go on living. And you will go °n livmg. Reede. You’re my creature now. … I have great plans for our symbiosis. You’ll breed the stardrive, I’ll control its spread, causing the Kharemoughis the most inconvenience possible and bringing the Brotherhood the most influence possible. And when the time is right, you will return with me to Tiamat, and give us the water of life—”

“I’ll die first,” Reede whispered, his throat, his eyes as dry as dust. “I’ll kill myself.”

“No … I don’t think so,” the Source murmured. “And you won’t break down and go insane either. Do you want to know why? Because already some part of your mind is telling you that if you go on living, you’ll find some way to pay me back.” He chuckled again, as if he could see every thought in his prisoner’s mind. “You’ll live a long time trying, Reede… . But cheer up. I’ll keep you in comfort. You will have everything you need, the best equipment, the best researchers money can buy, plenty of credit to spend as you like—as long as you produce. There’s only one thing you had from her that you won’t be getting from me … unless, of course, you really want to share my bed.”

Reede’s head jerked up, as the Source’s obscene laughter ran its fingers over him. He spat, the only form of defiance left to him.

The Source made a wet kissing sound, and laughed again. “I even know the one thing you needed more than her. I even have it waiting for you. I believe you call it the ‘water of death’ … ?”

Reede stared, his burning eyes filled with darkness. Something that was not—could not be—relief caught in his chest.

“Oh, yes, Reede … I know everything about you now. All your most intimate secrets. You miserable, self-destructive lunatic. You finally found something to do to yourself that frightened even you… . And I don’t blame you for being afraid. I had the water of death tested on one of my own people. The results were truly unspeakable, simply to witness. I cannot imagine what they must have been like to endure. And incurable—? Oh, you are brilliant. …” His voice dripped acid. “You forged your own chains—and now you’ve handed them to me. You’ll have the water of death, Reede; and as long as you are cooperative, you’ll have it on time. In fact—” the Source paused, and Reede could feel his smile, feel it like a blade slowly slitting his throat, “I expect you’ll be needing a fix soon. That is the real reason you were in such a hurry to get back to Humbaba’s, isn’t it? Because you’d run short, poor planning, and you were getting desperate. Not even Mundilfoere had that kind of hold on you… . You’ll find a maintenance dose waiting for you in your new lab. You’ll be permitted to make more, as long as you do your work.”

Reede said nothing. He swallowed the hard lump of loathing in his throat and took a deep breath, inhaling until his lungs ached.

“Any questions about your new existence?”

Reede said nothing.

“Any last requests?”

“Go to hell,” Reede said, his voice breaking.

“Didn’t you know—?” the Source murmured gently. “I’m already there, my pet. And so are you.” The dull-red glow that revealed nothing, worse than a lie, dropped suddenly, completely, out of Reede’s visible spectrum. The darkness around him was utter again, as it had been at the beginning.

Kedalion sighed and shifted position on the couch, glancing at his watch. The couch was not as comfortable as it had looked. He wondered if the perversity was intentional. Or maybe it was just him. This shouldn’t take long, Reede had said. Reede had been wrong.

Ananke had actually fallen asleep again, curled up with the quoll against his belly. Kedalion envied him his exhaustion. He was tired enough to sleep anywhere, himself … except in the middle of an enemy citadel, surrounded by guards. The fact that nobody had been harmed—yet—filled him with relief, but not reassurance. He listened to water dripping like a dirge, somewhere in the garden below the window that might or might not be real: to the distant noises, both strange and familiar, that drifted down the corridors and into the space around him.

The door that had swallowed Reede dematerialized again, abruptly, and someone came through it. The guards turned alert; Kedalion straightened, stanng.

At first his eyes refused to believe that it was actually Reede Kullervo they saw. The man who came back through that door wore Reede’s face; but the face was ashen-gray, with red-rimmed eyes that registered nothing at all. He moved like a stranger, crippled, broken.

“Reede—?” Kedalion said, keeping his eyes on Kullervo as he reached out to shake Ananke awake. Ananke jerked upright, startled, as Reede stopped moving and turned to look at them. Nothing showed in his eyes except a kind of vacant disbelief. Kedalion was not entirely sure he even recognized them. One fist was clenched tight, as if he held something in it; Kedalion couldn’t see what. He had never believed before this moment how young Reede actually was; stripped of his manic arrogance Reede looked like a boy, temfied, terrifying in his vulnerability. Kedalion felt sick to his stomach, wondering who or what had reduced a man like Reede to that, in so little time.

The Newhavener who had brought them all here crossed the room to Reede’s side, showing his teeth in a grin as he assessed the obvious damage. “Give me your hand,” he said. An order, not a request. Reede obeyed it. The Newhavener’s hand closed around Reede’s wrist, spread his palm open like a flower. His other hand pressed something down on it, and Kedalion saw a sudden flash of light. A tremor ran through Reede’s body, but he made no other response. “Welcome aboard, Kullervo,” the Newhavener said, still grinning in cold satisfaction. He turned away from Reede, heading toward the place where Kedalion and Ananke sat waiting. He reached them at the same moment as the smell of burned flesh did. He put out his hand.

Kedalion held up his own hand silently, his jaw clenched; knowing what came next. Most of Humbaba’s vassals had worn a brand—although Reede had not, and he had never marked either of his crew as property. Kedalion kept his eyes fixed on Reede, who stood staring at his own branded palm. He told himself fiercely that adoption by the enemy was the best thing that could have happened to them, when he considered the alternatives; kept telling himself that until the iron came down on his own exposed flesh. White-hot pain seared through his hand, went screaming up the nerves of his arm. He cried out, although he had sworn he would not; tried to jerk his hand free, but the Newhavener held it in a grip as inescapable as a vise until he was finished.

He released it, and Kedalion pulled it back, cursing under his breath, dizzy with pain. He forced himself to look at the brand. There was an eye burned into his flesh, staring back at him. He swore again as he recognized the mark. He knew at last whose prisoners they were; and he knew the Source’s reputation. He looked away from the livid burn, at Reede again. He looked back as the Newhavener reached Ananke.

Ananke held up his hand, held it steady in the air. His free hand knotted into a fist as the Newhavener spread his palm. He shut his eyes, and bit his lip. The brander came down on him; Kedalion grimaced as he saw the flash of light, saw Ananke shudder and the trickle of bright red that leaked down his lip and chin as the Newhavener let him go again. With his good hand, Kedalion fished a handkerchief out of his pocket, and passed it silently to Ananke. Ananke pressed it to his mouth, covering a crooked grin of desperate pride.

The Newhavener watched them noncommittally, then stepped back, and jerked his head toward the lift. “Come on. I’ll show you your quarters.” Kedalion hesitated, looked toward Reede; suddenly more afraid for Reede than for himself or Ananke, if they were separated. But the Newhavener moved back to Reede, tried to take him by the arm as if he thought Kullervo was incapable of obeying on his own. “Come on, Reede.”

Reede came alive as the Newhavener put a hand on him; caught the man’s wrist with his branded hand and pulled it free. The Newhavener stiffened; the anger drained out of his face as he looked into Reede’s stare and found no pain registering there.

“Stay away from me,” Reede whispered, and for a moment Kedalion saw something he recognized in Reede’s expression; something deadly.

The Newhavener backed off with a shrug. “No problem,” he muttered, and started toward the lift.

They took another labyrinthine journey through the hive of the citadel. This time the Newhavener took some pains to point out what they were seeing. Kedalion tried to ignore his throbbing hand and concentrate on the view, to get a feel for what he was going to be calling home from now on, whether he liked it or not. But his attention kept flickering back to Reede’s vacant face, and every time it did he got queasy again.

At last they reached their destination, deep in the heart of the laboratory complex. The complex covered fifteen stories, the entire south quadrant of the fortress, according to the Newhavener—who had finally told them his name, TerFauw—and it employed close to a thousand workers. By Kedalion’s estimate, that made it ten times the size of Humbaba’s labs. TerFauw took them up through the general living quarters, pointing out shops and eateries, but they didn’t stop until they got to an apartment which seemed to occupy an entire separate level of the complex.

He took them through its rooms, pointing out things with a disinterest Kedalion round remarkable, considering the luxurious elegance of the surroundings. He supposed, a little enviously, that these were Reede’s new personal quarters. He tried again to make the relative gentleness of their treatment jibe with whatever had been done to Reede in the three hours that he had been missing. Reede regarded his surroundings with bleak indifference.

“You’ve got access to your personal laboratories through that door, Kullervo—” TerFauw pointed. “Somebody‘11 take you the rounds of the whole complex tomorrow. Master’s real eager for you to get to work.”

Reede turned to look, showing real interest in something for the first time. The door was secured; Kedalion saw the familiar red outline glow of a Kharemoughi stasis lock. “Open it,” Reede said.

TerFauw shook his head. “Can’t.”

Reede turned back to him. “Cancel the fucking lock—”

“Only the Master can do that,” TerFauw said. “I can’t. You can’t. He’ll open it when he decides he wants you to have what’s in there… . It’s not up to you, anymore, Kullervo, you understand me?”

Reede glared at him; and then the sudden fury in his eyes turned to ashes, as if TerFauw had said something more than Kedalion had actually heard him say. TerFauw smiled; his twisted lip made a sneer of it. Reede turned his back on them, and went into the next room.

TerFauw turned back to Kedalion and Ananke. Kedalion held his breath, wondering what kind of hellhole TerFauw had in mind to drop them down; sure that they were not going to rate the kind of consideration someone like Reede did. “You two are staying here with him, until we figure out what to do with you.”

Kedalion nodded wordlessly, surprised and relieved.

“I’m putting it on you both to watch him till he settles in. He’s still a little out of phase right now.” The sneer pulled TerFauw’s lips up again.

Kedalion glanced at the doorway to the next room, thinking the man had a gift for understatement.

“See that he doesn’t do anything to himself.” TerFauw met Kedalion’s questioning stare. “Anything that happens to him, happens to you. Both of you.” He bent his head at Ananke. “I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Kedalion muttered. He was suddenly, painfully aware of the throbbing burn on his palm.

TerFauw went out, leaving them alone. Ananke put the quoll on the floor, one-handed, and headed for the bathroom. The quoll snuffled the deep green carpet, decided that it wasn’t edible, and began to wander across the floor. It scuttled under a table as Reede came silently back into the room.

Reede’s gaze went straight to the locked laboratory door. The seals were still red. He raked the room with his eyes, as if he was reassuring himself that they were finally alone. He sat down on a couch covered with brilliant, flame-patterned cloth, looking like a refugee, saying nothing. Staring at the door. One fist was still clenched over something.

Ananke came back into the room, carrying a can of skingraft in his good hand. “I found this, Kedalion—” he said, and tossed it out.

Kedalion caught it, awkwardly, shook his head as he looked at it. “You put some on already?”

“Yeah.”

“Wash it off, or you won’t have a scar. The whole point of it is that they want you marked. Unless you want to go through that again—”

Ananke looked sick, and shook his head. He started away down the hall toward the bathroom. “You did good,” Kedalion said. Ananke glanced back, and smiled feebly. Kedalion followed him; he took a leak while Ananke gingerly rubbed the bandage off his hand, keeping his eyes averted. Kedalion checked through the supplies in the well-stocked medical cabinet, wondering morbidly if someone had put them there as a precautionary measure, in case Reede tried something drastic. He pushed the thought out of his mind, and took out a tube of ointment. “Here,” he said to Ananke. “This’ll kill the pain.”

Ananke smeared some of it across his palm, wincing; handed the tube back to Kedalion. Kedalion took it with him into the other room, where Reede still sat staring at the door. Kedalion spread ointment on his own palm in full view of Reede, sighed as the pain went out like a smothered fire. Then he approached Reede, offering him the ointment at arm’s length. “Boss—?”

Reede looked up at him, down again at his own blistered palm. He closed his fingers over the burn deliberately, and tightened them into a fist. “No,” he whispered.

Kedalion moved away from him, swallowing. “Come on,” he said quietly to Ananke. “Let’s eat.” He went into the kitchen, where they could be private enough to talk and still see Reede. Ananke sat on the counter, looking out the doorway, while Kedalion queried the food systems and put in an order.

“What happened, Kedalion?” Ananke said at last. “Gods, I’ve never seen him like that. What do you think they did to him—?” He touched his own bitten lip, and flinched.

Kedalion shook his head. “I don’t know,” he murmured, feeling fear knot up his stomach again. “I don’t think I want to. But TerFauw’s right … we’ve got to watch him like cats.”

“He needs more than that,” Ananke said, meeting his eyes.

Kedalion nodded, feeling a frown settle between his brows. “I know,” he muttered. “I know that. But, damn it, I don’t know what to do—” He grimaced, filled with a sense of helplessness as he admitted the truth … admitted to himself how much he wanted to help the human shadow huddled on the couch in the next room. The sight of Reede’s suffering and vulnerability had gotten to him, in a way Reede’s anger and moods never had. It made him feel responsible. He hated the feeling. But he realized, suddenly, that he didn’t hate the man. He rubbed his aching eyes, remembering again just how tired he was, how long it had been since he’d had any sleep. He turned back as platters of food appeared on the shelf above him.

Ananke moved them across to the counter and gave Kedalion a hand up onto a stool, before he whistled for the quoll. The quoll came scurrying into the kitchen, greeting Ananke with enthusiastic whistles of its own as he put down its plate of fruit and vegetables. He crouched beside it, stroking its back while it chortled contentedly. Kedalion saw a smile come out on his face.

“Is that thing a male or a female?” Kedalion asked, wondering why it had never occurred to him to ask before.

Ananke straightened up again. He shrugged, stuffing a fishball into his mouth and swallowing it whole. None of them had had a meal in nearly a full day. “Female, I think. It’s hard to tell with quolls. They don’t look that different.” He gulped cold kaff.

“I’m glad I can’t say the same thing about humans,” Kedalion murmured, thinking with sudden bittersweet yearning how long it had been since he had had an opportunity to really enjoy the difference; wondering when he ever would, now. Ananke gave him a brief stare, folded his arms across the front of his coveralls and looked away as Kedalion raised his eyebrows. “Well,” Kedalion said, letting his own gaze drop, watching the quoll eat, “I guess they know the difference.”

He finished his food, drank down a glass of bitter, double-strength Ondmean tea, hoping it would help keep him awake. “We’d better take turns sleeping. One of us should watch him all the time.” He gestured toward Reede.

Ananke nodded. “I’ll take the first watch.”

“You sure—?” Kedalion asked. “Can you stay awake?”

“Yeah.” Ananke shrugged, looked down at his palm. “I don’t think I want to go to sleep for a while, you know?” His voice trailed off. He looked at Reede, sitting alone, and his mouth pinched as he picked up the third tray of food.

“Right,” Kedalion said. “Wake me up in four hours, then. Sooner, if you get tired.” He found his way to one of the bedrooms, dragged himself up onto a bed, and let go. The tea he had drunk was no problem at all.

It felt like he had been asleep for only minutes when he woke up again. Ananke’s hand was on his shoulder, shaking him insistently. He looked at his watch, saw that it had been over six hours, and sat up, yawning. “Thanks,” he murmured, rubbing his face. “How’s he doing?”

Ananke glanced toward the door, his own face tense. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think something’s wrong with him, Kedalion—I mean really wrong. He looks sick.” He spread his hands helplessly.

Kedalion slid down off the bed, shook his head to clear it out. “I’ll see what I can do. Get some sleep if you can. I’ll call you if I need you.” Ananke nodded, holding the quoll under one arm. He stared at the bed with mixed emotions. Kedalion went out of the room.

Reede was still on the couch; lying down now, with his knees drawn up and his arms folded tight against his chest. The tray of food sat on the table beside him, untouched. He glanced up, dull-eyed, as Kedalion entered the room; looked back at the laboratory access door again without comment. The locks were still red.

Kedalion looked toward the far wall of the room—transparent ceralloy from ceiling to floor, opening on an uninterrupted expanse of blue sky. A garden with a small waterfall hid the bitter endless gray of the thorn forests from sight. On the other side of the room was a shielded balcony with a spectacular view down the greenery-wall well of a labsec airshaft, onto more greenery in a park space far below. There was a threedy screen and interactive equipment occupying part of a remaining wall, books and tapes. Kedalion wondered why, with all that to occupy his senses, Reede chose to stare at a locked door. He was only sure of one thing—that it wasn’t because Reede was eager to get to work.

Reede cursed, so softly that Kedalion barely heard the sound. He turned back, saw a faint spasm run through Reede’s body, and his jaw clench. Reede’s white face was shining with sweat, even though the room was not warm. Kedalion crossed the space between them, until he reached Reede’s side. Reede ignored him.

“Reede,” he said. “Tell me what to do. …”

Reede’s bruised, haunted eyes fixed on him suddenly. “Leave me alone,” Reede said, between clenched teeth.

Kedalion nodded mutely, trying to make himself obey and move away. He r eached out, touched Reede’s shoulder with an uncertain hand.

Reede gasped in startled agony, as if Kedalion had struck him. Kedalion jerked his hand away, backed off as Reede pushed abruptly to his feet. Reede stood swaying, and Kedalion retreated across the room. But Reede only stumbled past him and down the hall. Kedalion heard water running in the bathroom; wasn’t certain he heard the sound of someone vomiting. Knowing he should follow Reede and keep watch, he stayed where he was—half afraid of what would happen if he didn’t do it, more afraid of what would happen if he did.

After a long time Reede came back into the room, his eyes red and swollen and his nose running, and Kedalion began to breathe again. Reede lowered himself onto the couch, moving as if every cell in his body hurt, and stared at the locked door. Kedalion studied the bookshelves with eyes that refused to read a title; he picked one at random and climbed up into a seat with it. He opened it, and found endless pages of hieroglyphic Sandhi characters, as completely incomprehensible to him as everything else had suddenly become.

He looked up, startled, as a chime sounded somewhere in the room. Reede gave a small, raw cry; staggered up from the couch and crossed the room to the laboratory door. The lock seals were green. He hit the access-plate, swearing with the pain of it, and it let him through into the next room.

Kedalion leaped out of the chair and followed him, as he realized what Reede could find, and do, in a well-stocked lab.

Reede was already at the nearest terminal, voice-querying desperately in some unintelligible language or code. His hands called up displays as if it were something he did in his sleep, moving almost by instinct. Locks unsealed on a series of stasis cubicles; the fields blinked off. He stumbled across the lab, began to peer frantically into one cubicle after another, oblivious to Kedalion’s presence. He laughed once, almost hysterically, as he pulled out a container no bigger than his hand. He clawed it open, lifting it to his mouth.

Kedalion swore under his breath. He lunged forward, jerking Reede’s arm down. Heavy, gunmetal-colored liquid spilled onto his hand. Reede spun around, faster than he could think, and caught him; Reede’s knee slammed into the side of his head, sent him reeling halfway across the room to crash into the metal-drawered base of a work table. Kedalion lay where he had fallen, tasting blood, seeing stars as the astrogation implants in the back of his skull struggled to reintegrate. Paralyzed by pain, he watched Reede gulp down the rest of the silver-gray liquid.

Reede flung the bottle away with trembling hands. Kedalion closed his eyes as Reede looked in his direction suddenly, and started toward him. He felt Reede’s hands take hold of his coveralls, jerking him forward through a haze of red, shaking him. “Look at me, you bastard!” Kedalion opened his eyes to Reede’s hate-filled stare. “If you ever try to do that to me again, I’ll kill you, you motherfucker. I’ll break your fucking neck.” He caught Kedalion’s jaw, jerked it sharply, painfully to one side. “You hear me—? I’ll kill you!” He let go. Kedalion fell back against the metal drawers.

Reede turned away from him, swaying suddenly, and staggered back across the open space to the storage shelves. He caught hold of the counter edge, sagged against |(. sank to his knees; hanging on, as if his life depended on it. He murmured words

Kedalion stayed where he was, dazed and still in too much pain to move He watched Reede with uncomprehending eyes. If you. ever do that again … How many times could a man poison himself and die? Unless it wasn’t poison he’d been after. Not poison, but something he desperately needed … In a moment of sudden, sickening insight, Kedalion understood the meaning of everything he had witnessed here today, and more.

Across the room Reede hauled himself to his feet again, shaking his head. He sucked in a deep, ragged breath, looking around him as if he couldn’t remember how he had gotten there. He looked down at his hands, one burn-marked, one empty; closed the empty one, opened it again, and swore softly. He got down on his knees, running his hands over the floor, searching for something. He gave a small cry as he found it, and picked it up. He kissed it, sitting on the floor. Bowing his head as he held it against him, he began to rock silently forward and back, like a mourner, his body shaken with hard, uncontrollable spasms.

Kedalion stared, as he realized that Reede was weeping. He watched, completely forgotten, as Reede mourned some incomprehensible loss. At last Reede climbed to his feet again, moving unsteadily past Kedalion to the incinerator chute. He stopped before it, opening his hand; stood looking down at whatever he held there, while tears ran silently down his face.

Kedalion turned, driven by compulsion and pity, pushing himself up until he could see what lay in Reede’s hand. What he saw made no sense at all to his eyes: a dark, unidentifiable lump, like a snapped-off piece of stick, circled by a ring of bright metal. A ring. Kedalion saw something flash in the light, the eerie brilliance of soliis. A ring … a finger, from a dark-skinned human hand. Kedalion slid back and down, choking on disgust. He had seen a ring like that before, a ring exactly like that; seen it every single day now for nearly a year. Reede wore it on his own thumb He was wearing it now…. Mundilfoere.

He turned back, watching again, hating himself but unable to stop, as Reede gently removed the ring from the severed thumb, his hands trembling so badly that he could barely manage to work it free. He kissed the bloody fragment of his dead wife again, and tossed it into the chute’s beam. It went up in flash of light, and was gone.

Reede reached up, caught the chain that held the solii pendant dangling againsi his chest, and snapped it. The pendant dropped into his branded palm; he looked at it, with the same kind of raw hatred that had been in his eyes when Kedalion had spilled his drugs.

In a fever haze of memory, Kedalion saw that pendant where it lay shimmering in the dust of a Razuma back street, saw it shining at the throats of a group of sudden strangers with his death written in their eyes … saw it at Mundilfoere’s throat. Mundilfoere, dressed like a man, unveiled, watching as Reede turned those death-filled eyes away from him… .

Reede’s hand closed over the pendant, his fist jerked with rage or pain as it began an arc toward the incinerator … stopped, before the fingers opened, and pulled it back. Slowly, clumsily, he put the pendant onto its chair again; the ring followed, clinking silverly as they met. He knotted the chain around his neck, dry-eyed now.

He lifted his head, and his gaze found Kedalion, still silently witnessing. He came back across the room, moving more steadily, his eyes like a desert. Kedalion tried to get his feet under him; couldn’t. Reede bent down beside him and touched his face, looking stupefied. Kedalion saw fresh blood, his own, on Reede’s fingertips as they came away again. Reede stared at the blood, almost incredulously, and wiped his hand on his coveralls. He turned away, dropping to his knees, sagging forward, as the fractured glass of his self-control fell apart under the pressure of Kedalion’s gaze. He covered his head with his arms. “Oh gods … no, no… .” The desolation of a man who had been utterly, unspeakably violated laid a blackness between the words as vast as the void between the stars.

Kedalion leaned forward, shaken; his hands made fists as he fought the urge to reach out. “Reede—” he whispered, and broke off, not knowing how to reach a man who had always been impossible to reach, even to touch … like quicksilver, shining and deadly. Not knowing how to catch a man who had always walked a frayed tightrope of sanity above a pit of oblivion, now that his line had been cut, and he was falling … “Reede,” Kedalion spoke his name again, the only word that entered his mind which did not seem as hopelessly inadequate as an obscenity; proving to the man gone fetal beside him on the floor that Reede Kullervo still existed, and was not utterly alone in the hands of his enemies. He repeated the word again, uncertainly.

Reede raised his hand, finally, reluctantly, letting his hands fall away. He stared at Kedalion with nightmare going on and on behind his eyes. But one hand moved, slowly, uncertainly, reaching out.

Kedalion caught it, held on; caught the unexpected weight of Reede’s body as the younger man swayed forward and clung to him blindly, like a child. “Reede,” Kedalion said again, and, finally, “What happened … ?”

Reede pushed away from him, falling back against the side of the table, letting it support him as though he had used up all his strength in the effort of reaching out. “Jaakola …” he said, and for a moment the light of coherence began to fade from his eyes. He pressed his hand against his mouth, held it there, finally let it fall to his side again. “Mundilfbere. Killed her, she’s dead … tortured her to death.” He turned his face away, toward the incinerator chute. Kedalion pressed his lips together. Reede stared at him, with his throat working. “And he—he said … said … I don’t know who I am. What I am. I’m just meat. She used me, brainwiped me, put somebody else’s mind inside me. … I don’t understand—!” His fists clenched, his face twisted, spasming. Kedalion waited, until after a time Reede’s breathing eased, and he opened his eyes again.

“Who—?” Kedalion murmured.

“Mundilfoere! He said she loved me… .”Reede’s voice broke. “But I’m just meat.”

Kedalion shook his head. “He was lying. He said it to hurt you—”

“No!” The word was a pain cry. “Does your life make sense?”

Kedalion laughed. “Not right now, boss …” he said; and regretted it instantly as Reede’s eyes darkened with nightmare.

“Do your memories fit together—!” Reede spat out, trembling, “Damn you.”

Kedalion offered his hand; Reede’s fist closed over it in a deathgrip, holding on. “Yes,” he said steadily. “It makes sense. They fit together.”

“Mine don’t,” Reede whispered. “It’s like somebody set off a grenade in my brain. Wreckage … fragments … don’t fit together, no way at all. Some of tiern completely impossible. Working vacuum in deep space, no suit on … worldhopping—worlds that don’t exist, on real starships, not coinships. People I don’t know, making love to me….” His hand reached up, touching his earcuff. “I had one of these once … it let me … I’d just think, and talk to somebody on another planet, interface like a navigator, access a datanet that makes the sibyl mind seem like … like …” He tugged on the earcuff, jerked it off, with a curse. “I keep trying to find one like the one I had. … I keep thinking if I could just find one like that, I could call them, and they’d come … let me out of this flesh prison full of wreckage…. But it never works, because it doesn’t exist yet, or anymore….” He lifted his hands, staring at them as if they belonged to a stranger. “Ilmarinen—!”

Kedalion bit his tongue, and said nothing.

“It’s real!” Reede caught the look that registered on his face; Reede’s hand caught him by the front of his coveralls, shook him, shoved him away. “I’m not crazy, I’m not! I’m a fucking genius; how else could I know what I know? I never finished school! Who am I really? What am I—? I tried—tried to ask her … but I couldn’t remember the questions. I’d get crazy because I was so afraid…. And forget… forget, she told me. She’d put her mouth on mine … put her hands on me like that, like that … oh gods …” His own hands slid down his body, clenched on his coveralls. His head fell forward. “And I’d always forget… . Because I was just meat.”

“Reede,” Kedalion said softly. “You’re a man. She loved you.”

Reede opened his eyes, looked up again, almost sane.

“She loved you,” Kedalion repeated.

“But she’s dead …” Reede said thickly.

Kedalion nodded, looking down.

Reede looked at his branded palm, the eye staring back at him. “He’s probably listening to us right now, that—” He broke off, and spat, as if he couldn’t find words ugly enough, filled with enough hatred and pain. “Watching me howl, watching me bleed. Jerking my chain—” He ran unsteady hands through his sweat-soaked hair, looking toward the cubicles where he had found the drug. “He told me … said I won’t kill myself. Won’t go crazy. Just go on, holding the pieces together, doing anything he wants … because I figure if I live long enough, I’ll find a way to get back at him. … He doesn’t think it’ll happen.” Reede lifted his head. “It’ll happen!” he shouted. “You’re my meat, you rotting piece of crud.” His hand closed over the ring, the medal, dangling against his heart. His voice dropped to a whisper. “If you’re not dead meat now, you will be. I swear it.” The man Kedalion knew was looking out of Reede’s eyes again, hungry, deadly, and perfectly rational.

“What does he want from you?” Kedalion asked. “The stardrive?”

Reede’s mouth twisted. “Oh yeah … for a start. Got the plasma already, probably got your ship and the drive unit, too. Wants me to breed plasma so he can sell it. Shit work. That’s not my big job. … He says when the time’s right we’re going to Tiamat—”

“Tiamat?” Kedalion said blankly. Realization caught him. “The water of life-“

Reede nodded. “Tiamat,” he whispered. “The water of life …”His gaze faded, as his mind went somewhere else; as if it couldn’t help itself, drawn compulsively to the challenge of making the impossible real

“Can you—?” Kedalion asked.

Reede blinked at him. His eyes filled with fleeting panic, sudden pain, as he remembered where he was again. He held his breath; let it out in a ragged sigh. “We’ll see,” he said, and shrugged. His hand came up, touching Kedalion’s bruised face gently, as he had touched it before. “I hurt you bad—?”

Kedalion thought about it, shook his head. “I’ve had worse.”

Reede pushed to his feet, moving gracefully again. He offered his hand to help Kedalion up. “Niburu,” he muttered, looking away. “You know now. Don’t ever fuck with me like that again. I will kill you.”

Kedalion nodded slowly. “What’s the drug?” he asked.

“Don’t ask,” Reede said. “There’s no point.” He rubbed his face. “I want to sleep. Got a lot of work to do, tomorrow.” His voice turned bitter. “Got a lot of answers to find, before I die. …” They started back toward the open door.

Reede stopped abruptly, as they crossed the threshold; caught Kedalion’s wrist, turning up his palm. He looked at the eye; met Kedalion’s gaze again. “You always hated this job,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you quit me, years ago, while you had the chance?”

“You wouldn’t let me,” Kedalion said, looking pointedly at Reede’s hand trapping his own.

Reede laughed, and let him go. “You could’ve quit,” he murmured. “I never marked you as property, like this. If you’d hated me enough, you would have gone anyway.” He looked curious. “You’ve had reason enough to hate me, considering all I’ve done to you. Why didn’t you leave?”

Kedalion touched his palm, winced. Property. “I don’t know, boss.” He looked up again, into Reede’s dark curiosity. “Maybe because in all the times you swore at me, and even knocked me around, you never once insulted me about my height.”