The Quiet Pools
             Michael P. Kube-McDowell


                            CHAPTER 1
  —GAU—
                            "This is Jeremiah…"

   From the elevated guard station at the main entrance to Allied
Transcon's Houston center, a young corpsec monitored the truck
trundling up Galveston Road toward NASA Boulevard. With his
televiewer, he could see that the rider cabin of the robot tractor was
empty. The dull silver tank trailer bore the familiar logo of Shell Chemical.

   "Traffic on the board," his watch partner said suddenly as the truck
crossed the security threshold. His watch partner was an artificial
intelligence personality named Isaac, one of eight personalities making up
the center's Sentinel system.

   "I've got it," said the corpsec. A squeeze on the grip of the televiewer
brought the reply to the station's radioed interrogative into the finder in
pale yellow lettering. "ID's okay. Shellchem local hauler, running empty."

  "I have confirmation from the National Vehicle Registry," Isaac said.
"The registry is valid and current."

   "Okay." The corpsec idly continued to track the tanker in the glass,
trying to read the graffiti scrawled on its flanks. In the course of their
four-hour shift, more than a hundred wheeled cargo vehicles would slide
by on the old surface road, shuttling between Galveston and Houston.
Except for the occasional burst of imagination or artistry in the graffiti,
they were hardly worth notice.

  Besides, ground traffic was the least of Corporate Security's concerns. It
was far more likely that someone seeking to penetrate Allied Transcon
would try to hop the triple fence in a flyer; far more likely that someone
trying to destroy it would lob a screamer from the forest of scrapers
downtown, or from a boat bobbing somewhere on the poisoned waters of
Galveston Bay.

   And even those possibilities were hard to take very seriously at
all—right up to the moment the Shellchem tanker suddenly veered right
and roared up the ramp onto NASA Drive, accelerating all the way. At the
top of the ramp, the tanker swept an unsuspecting two-seat flyer aside and
hurtled down the entrance drive toward the barbican.

  "Jesus," the corpsec said unbelievingly. "It's going to crash the gate."

   There was little else for him to do, for the silicon reflexes of Sentinel
had already taken over. In less than a microsecond, the AIP declared the
tanker a threat, activated the gate defenses, and transmitted an alert to
corpsec throughout the grounds.

  "Now sending kill-Q," said Isaac.

   A half dozen flyers were queued up in the accumulation lane outside the
barbican's tunnels. They settled to the ground as one as Sentinel abruptly
took command of their pilot systems. But the tanker kept coming, its
systems refusing the insistent commands. In seconds the tanker would
smash into the stalled flyers and their human occupants.

  "It's stall-shielded," the corpsec realized.

   Sentinel had already drawn the same conclusion and made the only
possible decision. With almost tangible reluctance, Sentinel exercised
what control it had, and the flyers suddenly rose up and scattered like a
flock of birds. That ended the risk to life. It also cleared the way to the
gate.

  "Fire authority," snapped the corpsec. "Blow it off the bridge."

  "Road sensors show the tanker is fully loaded. There's no way to know
what's in it," the construct said. "Sorry."

  The corpsec swallowed hard. "Jesus, I hope they built this tower
good—"

  At the end of the bridge, spikes rising from the roadbed shredded the
tanker's tires, but could not halt it. The tanker reached the final concrete
apron outside the twin tunnels of the barbican, now sealed by heavy doors,
and abruptly slewed into a sideways skid. Moments later it slammed into
the wall of steel and stone.

   The corpsec grabbed for a handhold as the tower shuddered and
swayed. But there was no explosion, no alarming creaking and rending.
The corpsec looked toward Isaac's room scanner with a look of relief and
drew a deep breath to clear the poison of fear from his lungs.

   "That wasn't so bad," Isaac said.

   "No," said the corpsec, going to the window. Peering down at the
barbican, he saw the tanker crushed sideways against the entrance gates,
bleeding a yellow-brown soup from its belly. The fast-running pool of
liquid had already reached the east edge of the apron and begun to spread
across the hard earth and brown grass.

   Grabbing his viewer, the corpsec trained it on the spill. Wraithlike
white wisps played in the air above its surface. "I don't like the looks of
that."

   "The HazMat team has been notified."

   "Should I evacuate?"

   "No," was the answer. "Remain at your station. You'll be given further
instructions when HazMat evaluates the situation."

   The corpsec frowned. "I'm not settling for that," he said. "Let me listen
to E-l."

   Emergency channel 1 came on the speaker just in time for the corpsec
to hear the chatter of excited voices fade under a storm of static and then
vanish beneath the clean white hum of a pirate jammer. Then a voice
spoke, a solemn, sonorous male voice that commanded their attention and
tugged somehow at the emotional chord labeled father.

   "This is Jeremiah, speaking for the Homework!…"

   "Shit."
   "This is an unauthorized transmission," Isaac said.

  "Shut up, Isaac," the corpsec said irritably. "I want to hear what they've
done to us."




   As always, Homeworld had worked hard to make certain that the
corpsec, Allied Transcon management, and as many of Earth's eight
billion as possible heard.

   This is what they heard:

   "This is Jeremiah, speaking for the Homeworld.

   "From the first, I have been a student of history. The truth of the
present can be found in the past, if you seek it. Enemies hide their evils in
the mists of the past, if you allow it. The winner is the player with the
longest memory.

   "For more than a hundred years, the bandits of Allied Transcon have
insulted the Earth, our gentle mother. The trail of Gaea's pain begins with
Allied Transcon's sorry heritage, with names to which such shame
attached that those names were abandoned and hidden.

   "We have not forgotten. Rockwell built weapons of war, abetting the
mindless devastation of fragile ecologies. We have not forgotten. Exxon
bled the earth of its precious stores and poisoned the waters and the air
with chemical wastes. We have not forgotten. Mitsubishi supplied the
tools to turn once-beautiful Japan into a mechanized warren and to
ravage the grand tropical forests of Indonesia and the Philippines.

   "The bastard of the mating of these soulless parasites worships at the
altar of the same shallow profit principle. I look on your works and weep.
Thirty square miles of the Amazon Basin transformed from lush jungle to
dead, sterile pavement. A dozen gigawatt power plants generating
million-year poisons. An endless parade of LSD freighters ripping through
the atmosphere, carrying away the riches of the Earth.

   "And the worst insult of all, that all this is done only so that we might
reach out for more worlds to despoil.
   "Today, we have returned the insult. We returned to Allied Transcon a
tiny fraction of the poisons it creates in a single day— a few seconds of
death and disease. At six-fifty this morning, a tank truck emptied five
thousand gallons of life-hating industrial pollutants at the main entrance
to Allied Transcon's American headquarters in Houston. We have rubbed
their noses in their corporate excrement.

   "We have heard it said, even by those who agree with our goals, that we
have committed a crime, and become like our enemies. We accept this
judgment, with one distinction.

   "Allied Transcon's crimes are crimes against Nature. They harm the
body and spirit of Gaea, immanent in the fabric of life. Our crimes are
crimes for Nature. We harm only those who bring harm to our common
home. We steal their wealth. We destroy their tools. We stand against
them, and for the silent Earth.

  "This is Jeremiah, speaking for the Homeworld."

   The jammer in the Gulf ran for just over six minutes, pumping two and
a half repetitions of Jeremiah's announcement out over E-l, G-l, and three
Gulf State commercial bands before its power cells died. Float jammers in
the South Atlantic off Brazil and the Mediterranean west of Sicily
delivered the same message to Allied Transcon's primary launch center at
Prainha and the European administrative center in Munich, respectively.
Off-planet, Aurora Sanctuary's official broadcaster carried the
announcement for the benefit of the sixteen satlands, following it with a
two-hour debate on environmental activism.

   There were failures: A relay jammer located across the street from
Allied's Tokyo facility was picked up in a security sweep twenty minutes
before the tanker reached NASA Drive. And a reliable old Homeworld
trick finally played out its string: The remora on the main feed for
ComNet 3 cut in on schedule, replacing the broadcast of "Personal
Combat" with Homeworld's earth-globe logo and Jeremiah's voice. But a
ready controller blacked the net before more than a few words could go
out.

   A new trick, however, worked very well indeed. A routine stack upload
into the Direct Information Access Network for North America suddenly
showed itself to be a Trojan horse, commandeering nearly half of
DIANNA's data channels and piping Jeremiah's announcement out
through the terminals of more than six million surprised users.

   And the ComNet blackout and DIANNA incursion together ensured the
kind of attention Homeworld craved: a minute on the Current News stack,
and a moment in the lives and thoughts of uncountable millions of Earth's
children.

  On balance, Jeremiah was pleased.




   Christopher McCutcheon rose early, escaping from a restless and
unrewarding sleep, hoping to escape from encountering either of his
wives. He padded softly through the big house on Denham Street as
though a trespasser. Which, in truth, was how he felt that Monday, even
though he not only lived there but held four-tenths of the fractional
mortgage.

   The door to Loi's bedroom was still closed, which helped. It closed out
the inevitable sounds of morning—running water and the muted voice of
the housecom, the gurgle and hiss of the kitchen appliances. And it
screened Christopher from the sight of Loi and Jessie together, though not
from the memory of the sight of them last night.

   He had stood in that doorway a long time, hammered by the tangled
limbs, murmuring voices, and the raw fragrance of sex. The rumpled
sheets, tousled hair, and skin-glisten of sweat had told him that what was
happening was not a beginning but an encore. He had been in Freeport
since midday; they had had more than enough time.

   Stunned, silent, Christopher had watched Loi's experienced hands
exploring Jessie's sleek secrets, her mouth ravening Jessie's throat and
breasts. He watched with pain, not pleasure, feeling as though he should
be part of what was happening before his eyes, and yet knowing that he
was not welcome. Waiting to be noticed, and yet knowing that to wait one
moment longer was to invite more misery.

   And then he had been noticed, Loi catching sight of him as she turned
her lithe body on the bed, opening herself to Jessie's touch. Her eyes fixed
on him challengingly, reproachfully.
  He did not withdraw. He could not move.

  "Chris is back, Jessie," she had said finally. Her voice was empty of
apology or embarrassment.

  Jessie had twisted her body toward where he stood, showed a
mischievous smile. "Hi, Chris."

  Loi gave him no chance to read a greeting as an invitation. "Chris,
would you close the door for us? I think Mobius must have pushed it
open," she had said, naming the family's elder cat. "Oh, and you have
some mail on the com."

    There was nothing in her words that he had not already foreseen, and
yet he had felt sudden fury at being sent away. He remembered yanking
the door shut with all the force he could muster, rattling the framed
pictures hanging in the hall. And then fleeing to his room at the opposite
end of the upstairs hall, expecting his distress to lure one or both of them
to follow.

   But neither did. He lay in the dark fighting to close out the sounds of
Jessie and Loi's pleasure—never sure if he was hearing or imagining
them—and bleeding from a wound he had thought had closed over forever.

  A miserable moment. A miserable night. And in both, more than
enough reasons to avoid facing them that morning.

   Christopher satisfied himself with a speedshower and a muffin from the
warmer, then slipped quickly into his gray two-piece. When he was ready
to leave, the house was still silent, Loi and Jessie presumably still
cocooned in Loi's bed. But he felt too acutely that he was running away,
and in rebellion against the feeling stopped in the family room to retrieve
his mail.

   He was glad he had. There were five messages for him on the
housecom, the last a brief notice from Allied informing him that the main
entrance was temporarily closed, and asking that pools and dropoffs use
the north entrance and that everyone else ride the tramline to work.
Riding the tram was an annoyance, but less of one than reaching the main
gate in his flyer and being turned away.

  The price of his rebellion was high, however. By the time he shut down
the display, there were footsteps on the balcony behind him. He turned to
see Loi descending the stairs in her robe, her eyes sleepy, her short blond
hair robbed of its usual sculpted look by her pillow. It was only in the
morning that Loi's true age showed. On the lee side of breakfast and her
morning rituals, Loi usually passed for ten years fewer than her forty-six.

  "Good morning, sweet," she said. "I almost missed you."

  "I have to leave," he said defensively. "I'm riding the tram."

   "You have time for a hug, don't you?" But he was stiff in her embrace,
and she drew back to study his face. "I wanted to see if you were all right
this morning. I guess that tells me."

  "You might have thought about it last night."

  "Chris dear, you have no right to be angry with me, or with Jessie."

  "You shut me out," he said sharply.

   "As you do when you and Jessie take time together, as we do to Jessie
at other times. Is there any difference?"

  He frowned sulkily. "I didn't know you were interested."

   "Jessie is a beautiful young woman, full of interesting energies," Loi
said. "How could you think I wouldn't be attracted to her? And how could
you not have noticed what's been happening when the three of us are in
bed together?"

  For a moment, Christopher was silent. "Look, I've got to leave."

    "Not yet," Loi said, grabbing his hand as he tried to turn away. "Yes,
you met Jessie first. Yes, you were the one who suggested her as our third.
But you don't own her—or me, for that matter. I want a family in which we
all share our lives and our selves, freely, without contracts, without
artificial boundaries. I thought you wanted that, too."

   "I wasn't expecting this," he said angrily. "I didn't think I'd have to
fight her for your time. All I thought about on the way back from Freeport
was coming home and making love with you. Except you were already
busy."
   "Did you think that being the only male in this trine made you the
center?" Loi retorted. "We're not going to work like this, Chris. Not with
you reacting to our love with jealousy. If you can't find a better place to be
on your own, maybe you'd better make an appointment with Arty."

   "I've got to leave," he said firmly, pulling away.

   This time she let him go. "We'll talk tonight, then," she said, "all three
of us."

   "I'm not interested in a conversation on the subject of How Foolish
Chris Is Being," he said, his back to her. "Thank you very much, but no
thanks."

   She came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist,
cuddling close and resting her head on his back. "I had in mind a
conversation on how we can all help each other with the hard parts," she
said softly.

   Christopher shrugged out of her embrace. "It still adds up to Let's Help
Chris Adjust," he said bitterly, pausing at the door. "And I'm just not sure
that I'm the one who's wrong."




   Mikhail Dryke hated traveling almost as much as he hated being
trapped for days on end in his office suite in the green-glassed
administrative warren at Prainha. The former was pure impatience; the
latter, the natural resistance of a hands-on field investigator who had been
promoted too many times.

   The last promotion had left Dryke chief security officer, Diaspora
Project, Allied Transcon. His first accomplishment in the new post had
been to locate and hijack a triumvirate of lieutenants who could handle
the administrative end without him. His second had been to acclimate the
Diaspora Project Director, Hiroko Sasaki, to the idea that he would be
absent from Prainha more than he would be present.

   Sasaki had not needed much convincing. It was trouble that took Dryke
away, and Allied Transcon and the Diaspora were facing a full menu of
trouble these days. The Homeworld hit on the Houston center was part of
a panorama of problems that ranged from labor sabotage at the Kasigau
Launch Center to an endless parade of would-be stowaways attempting to
make their way onto the starship Memphis.

   Named, like its predecessor, for a great city of antiquity, the second of
the Project's five great generation starships was nearing completion in
high orbit for a planned 2095 departure. A third larger than Ur, which
had sailed eleven years earlier, Memphis was a small city in space, and a
world of problems unto itself. Dryke gladly left the protection of Memphis
in the hands of Matthew Reid, who was based at Takara, the satland
building the ship for Allied Transcon.

   But any problems earthbound belonged to Dryke, and this morning
Jeremiah and Homeworld were at the top of the list. He had caught the
flash alert from Sentinel in his flyer and immediately rerouted from the
tower to the field. Jeremiah's message came through while he was waiting
out prep on his Saab Celestron; ten minutes later, he was in the air.

   Prainha to Houston was one of those especially annoying intermediate
hops—barely six thousand kilometers—that took longer to complete than a
trip covering twice the distance. The apogee of the arc traced by Dryke's
pop screamer was well within the stratosphere; the max velocity was a
plodding 4,000 kph; the e.t. nearly two hours.

   Only the skylink kept the time from being a total waste. The analysis of
the spill came in shortly after take-off: dioxin, methylene chloride,
benzothiazole, PCBs, chloroaniline. By the time the Texas coast
crystallized through the hanging haze, Dryke had collected reports from
Munich, Tokyo, and Kasigau, and an excuse from Washington. The Trojan
horse's final act had been to wipe itself from the system, and DIANNA
operators were still trying to reconstruct where it had gotten in and how it
had done what it did.

   Nobody knows anything, Dryke grumbled to himself as the Saab
flashed across the center boundary and floated in, nose high, over the end
of the runway. An old story. Getting very old. Jeremiah finds us with our
backs turned, hits us, and then slips away clean. Very clean. The son of a
bitch.

   Spinning wheels touched rushing pavement, and Dryke swung the
skylink console back out of the way. Six times they've hit us. Six times I've
had to pick through the mess they left. The red dye in the water in the
Munich offices. The data center fire in Kasigau. The launch laser that
blew up at Prainha. Never anyone killed. No victims except Allied
Transcon. No enemies for the friends of the Earth.

   The Saab rolled to an open slot in the bunkerlike hangar, and a blue
corpsec flyer scooted up alongside. At the controls was the local chiefsec, a
bird-necked, mild-tempered man named Jim Francis. I don't like always
being one step behind, Dryke thought gruffly as he climbed down from the
cabin. I don't like being outsmarted. How do they do it? Who the hell are
they?

   It was unlikely that any answers awaited him at the disabled gate, but
Dryke was obliged to go through the motions. "Thanks for meeting me,"
he said with a nod.

   "Sorry you had to make the trip," Francis said. "We've got the tanker
sealed, and we're about ready to lift it out of there. But there's roughly
thirty-five hundred gallons of a very nasty soup soaking into the ground,
and that's going to be a whole hell of a lot harder to deal with."

  Dryke nodded gravely. "Let's take a look."




    Running parallel to the highway it had largely replaced, the Harris
County tramway was a concrete ribbon on stilts, a fifth as wide as the
fifty-seat silver and blue cars which skimmed atop it. From below, it
looked fragile, the cars precariously balanced like eggs on a knife-edge.
But inside, the ride was stable and smooth, even as the slope-nosed tram
car left the main track to Galveston and slowed sharply for the T-spur to
Allied Transcon.

   Christopher McCutcheon took advantage of the slower speed and his
seat on the right side of the tram car to peer out the window at the odd
congregation by the main gate, a quarter mile away. He was not the only
one to do so. The half-filled cabin grew noticeably quieter for the forty
seconds or so that the gate was in view.

   They saw two bright yellow mobile cranes standing outside the
barbican, their long booms making an X in silhouette against the sky. Two
red Flight Services trucks sat at odd angles on the side slopes; Christopher
thought one might be a foamer, but he wasn't sure. A pale blue HazMat
van blocked the middle of the bridge, and most of the figures walking
among the vehicles seemed to be wearing full-body environmental suits.

   "Looks like somebody missed the runway," he said conversationally to
the round-faced woman in the adjoining seat.

   "Didn't you hear the news?" she asked indignantly. "It was those
Homeworld people. They tried to blow up the shuttle. What's wrong with
them? Don't they realize what they're doing?"

   It was then that Christopher noted the binoculars dangling from the
woman's neck. Forewarned, he limited his reply to a sympathetic smile;
there was no such thing as a brief conversation with a starhead. He'd
learned that lesson very early in his three-month tenure with the Project.

   When the tram car came to a stop a few moments later, Christopher
watched to see where the woman went. As he expected, she passed by the
escalators to the ground level and the base entrance and continued down
the platform toward the observation area. By the time Christopher
reached the bottom, she had joined the other starheads at the plex,
peering out toward the field where a barrel-bodied ESA Pelican sat being
readied for launch to orbit.

   Not too surprisingly, the line at the staff gate pass-through had stalled,
since—always vigilant after the fact—corpsec was not only checking for
employee IDs but checking everyone's ID through the verifier. While he
waited, Christopher found himself thinking about the woman on the tram.

    There was something simultaneously delightful and pathetic about the
starheads. They knew the launch schedule for the center's one LTO runway
better than most Allied staff, knew the difference between a Pelican and
its near-twin Martin Rendezvous, knew the nine satlands and the governor
of the Mars colony and the latest news and gossip from Ur. They came to
the ob deck at Johnson Field as a solemn pilgrimage and then turned into
wishful, wistful children, noses pressed to the window on a rainy day.

   Christopher had no doubt that the woman and everyone else on the ob
platform that morning owned a selection option for Memphis. Those who
were old enough had probably owned one for Ur as well, that prized
certificate which had been so proudly hung on so many walls when there
was no Homeworld to prick at the conscience. Back when being a pioneer
candidate conferred status, when even those with no intention of leaving
wanted to be able to say, "I could have gone if I wanted to."

   Things were different now. It had been years since Christopher had
seen an option certificate on display, and mentioning Allied Transcon,
Memphis, or the pioneers among strangers had become a good way to
invite a passionate harangue. But nothing had changed for the starheads,
except that Ur was already gone. One down, four to go.

   Christopher had every reason to doubt that the woman or any of her
peers would be selected for Memphis or any of the ships to follow. Anyone
that set on leaving Earth would have done so already if they had any skills
to offer. There were 200,000 people living off-planet—Technica and
Aurora Sanctuary, Takara and Horizon, the Mars colony and Heinlein City
on Mare Serenitatis. The starheads were obsessed with dreams they could
never fulfill, and so came to touch with their eyes the only piece of that
dream they could reach.

   Or was it that they viewed the satlands, the Moon, even Mars as shabby
substitutes for the only goal that mattered? If so, Christopher did not
understand their desperate longing. It did not seem either real or realistic,
and he could not quite stop himself from seeing the starheads as
fundamentally irrational.

   But then, he felt like a curiosity himself sometimes. When he had come
to Allied Transcon from the San Francisco offices of DIANNA, it was
almost like being an agnostic entering a community of believers. He had
come there for the work, a chance to be part of the most ambitious library
science project ever, the Memphis, unabridged hyperlibrary. They had
come to join a cause.

   A curiosity. Oh, he knew where he had been on June 28, 2083, just like
everyone else—watching Ur's long-delayed departure, the unimaginable
power of its superconducting metal-ion engines driving it slowly up out of
the solar system toward Epsilon Eridani. But he did not own an option for
Memphis, would not have even if his father had not so clearly disapproved.
It was such a long road, so few would be chosen, and the rewards that
awaited the selected seemed so empty.

  He just did not understand—any more than he had understood why,
two months after Ur left, one Deryn Falconer had abandoned Oregon, her
husband, and a fifteen-year-old nurture-son named Christopher for the
satland called Aurora Sanctuary.




   The environmental suit stank of chemwash and disinfectant, leaving
Mikhail Dryke to wonder cynically whether he was really any better off
inside it than he would have been going bare-skin. In any case, he was
glad to retreat at last beyond the hazard boundary with Dr. Francis,
endure the pummeling spray-down, and then strip off the heavy helmet
and breather.

  "They got us good," Dryke said, mopping the perspiration from his face.

  The local security chief nodded glumly. "My site engineer says three
months to clean it all out and open for business again."

   "Nonsense," Dryke said. "Run a bypass right across there," he said,
pointing and swinging his finger in an arc, "cut a triple gate through the
fence, and you can be back in business in a week, flyers only. Nothing
wrong with the guard station—you can cover the bypass as well as you
covered the drive."

  "Which wasn't very well, as it turned out," Francis said. "Do you really
want us to go back to sentries and turnpikes? The human factors—"

  "Yes, I really do," Dryke said shortly.

   "We can't leave the spill. They're telling me we've got dioxin,
chloroaniline—"

   "Don't leave it. Seal it. Use the old Kansas Technologies method. You
inject the whole site with a neutralizing binder—blend it in with
augers—and stabilize the spill in place. We had to use it after the fire at
the plastics plant in Lyons a year back. Talk to your site engineer. He
ought to know who to bring in."

  "People are going to worry about contamination."

   "Then you'll have to educate them. We're not going to rely on the north
entrance and the tram for three months. We're not going to let him put us
under siege." Dryke pulled at the neck band of his environmental suit. "I
want out of this thing. And then I want a tank so I can face-to-face with
the Director."

  "I'll get someone to run you back—"

   "You run me back. You can't do anything here now. This mess belongs
to your engineer now."

  The faintly sheepish look on Dr. Francis's face betrayed him. "All right."

   But Dryke had already turned and started down the drive toward the
flyer. Francis hurried after, the environmental suit squeaking as one
surface rubbed against another. "Mr. Dryke—"

  "What?"

   "There's people here that need to know. Should we have hammered the
tanker on the ramp? Should we have used the rockets?"

  Dryke stopped and shook his head. "You couldn't," he said bluntly.
"That's where he beat us. You want to do something useful, stop posturing
and beating your breast and start figuring out what other ways he's come
up with to fuck us over."




   One moment, the other half of the holo tank was dark, except for the
yellow eye of the imager. The next, Hiroko Sasaki sat facing him, seated
cross-legged and straight-backed in a large fixed armchair identical to
Dryke's.

   The chair made the president of the Pioneers Division look diminutive,
but Dryke knew better than to let that deceive him. Sasaki was more of
Takara, her birthplace, than Japan, her parents'—an efficient, demanding,
uncompromising administrator with tremendous personal energy and
intensity. What else she was she kept to herself. Dryke had worked for her
for seven years and still could not say if he liked her.

  "Yes, Mikhail."

  "Reporting on the Houston incident."

  "Go ahead."
    "It was a blind spot, not a system failure. The tractor was grabbed from
a yard in Angleton no more than an hour before the hit, and the report got
screened out by a remora somewhere between the cops, Shell, and the
NVR. Probably they picked up the tanker in a side-of-the-road swap,
dropped the stall screen in it at the same time. We've got the box. Black
market, police version—take maybe fifteen minutes to install. Nothing on
it, but I'm having it shipped to the labs down there just in case.

   "The jammer was a float and went to the bottom in five hundred feet of
water. They could have dropped it anytime in the last ten days—you
wouldn't want to take a land flyer out over the Gulf, but you could. I'd like
authority to send the Gulf rescue unit's submersible after it."

  "Given."

   "Thank you," Dryke said with a nod. "Without it, we don't have much to
put into the puzzle. The tractor's navigator is scrambled. DIANNA'S still
backing and filling on the penetration. Sanctuary is being close-mouthed
as usual."

   "Do you have an estimate of how many Homeworld activists were
involved?"

  "On a principal-contribution analysis, six or seven. Physically? It could
have been as few as one."

  "Jeremiah."

  "You might as well say so."

  "You continue to reject the opinion of your counterterrorism
subdirector that Jeremiah is a figurehead, representing no real person."

  "I do," Dryke said. "Homeworld has many hands. But it thinks with one
mind."

   "Perhaps. See that your prejudice on this matter doesn't lead you down
false trails," Sasaki said. "As to this incident, what prospect is there for
locating the 'hands' responsible?"

   Dryke shook his head, frowning. "I hesitate to promise. They work very
clean. But they can't be everywhere without leaving footprints. They've
been forced to use more and more hardware. We'll go back along that path
and try to find out where it's coming from."

  "That seems to be where they are most vulnerable."

   "Yeah. Except they know that, too. It's going to be an inch at a time,
with no help from outside. We took a hit. We'll take another, and another,
and another, like as not. But one of these times I'm going to get there first.
I promise you that, Hiroko. One of these days I'll bring you Jeremiah's
head."




                            CHAPTER 2
  —GUA—
                          " .. for the Homeworld."

   The ESA Pelican Silesia sat at the top of the ramp at the west end of
Johnson Field's runway 1E like an overladen and aging beast of burden. Its
twenty-four massive tires were spread wide by their million-pound
burden, the delta wings and fat fuselage streaked and stained from five
hundred previous missions. Four trunklike umbilicals extended up into
Silesia's underbelly from the ramp, as though the freight shuttle belonged
in a hospital ward rather than on the flight line.

   The notion that in a few minutes it would be in orbit was as ludicrous
as the prospect that a corpulent, comatose man might leap out of bed to
perform a breathtaking pas de bourr ée. Yet that was exactly what was to
happen. Like its namesake, the Pelican was a different bird in the air than
on the ground. Aloft, it was stable and tireless, even graceful, equal to both
the leap of faith and the leap to space.

   In the shuttle's cabin, the three-man crew laughed and joked among
themselves as the autopilot counted down through the preflight checklist.
Flight controllers in the tower warned all air traffic away from the field
and from Silesia's flight path with the call "LTO red, LTO red, five-mile
interdiction now in effect." Around the perimeter of the field, suppression
teams checked their screens and weapons one last time.

  A half mile from where the Pelican waited, Dola Martinez waited
patiently on the observation platform for the launch. Nearly a dozen
waited with her, watching the runway for the first sign. When a puff of
white gas appeared under the shuttle's wing and quickly dissipated in the
hot breeze, there was a muted cheer. With binoculars, televiewers, or
merely squinting with eyes sun-shielded by a hat brim, they watched as
Silesia's umbilicals detached themselves one by one and retracted below
ground.

   But three late arrivals to the platform showed only cursory interest in
the shuttle. Dola had noticed them, two men and a girl, none older than
twenty, and marked them as virgins—idle curious, drawn there by what
they thought was chance. The two men took seats high on the bleachers;
the girl lingered near the entry, looking back down the platform toward
the tramway, as though she were expecting someone. Just like virgins to
keep themselves apart, uncomfortable with the camaraderie of the
regulars.

   Dola remembered her first time, thirty-eight years ago in Florida, at
the then-verdant Cape. Dragged there by the family to visit the museums,
and remaining at her father's insistence that they witness a fortuitously
scheduled launch. It was the most inconsequential flight possible, a robot
heavy-lift full of specialty metals bound for Horizon, then under
construction. And yet, watching it—no, feeling it—roar into the
cloud-dotted sky on a triple column of fire, she truly grasped for the first
time where it was bound, and understood what that meant.

   "It's rolling!" someone cried, and Dola forgot the virgins. The stay
cables had been released, and the Pelican lumbered down the ramp,
gravity providing the initial acceleration. At the foot of the ramp, the
idling transonic engines came to life, the boiling schlieren in the
transparent exhaust the first clue, a thunderous roar the confirmation.

   There was applause, there were tears. Dola felt her own heart soaring as
the Pelican rumbled ever faster down the runway, half bouncing and half
floating as it teetered at the balance between lift and gravity. She lowered
her binoculars and watched with naked eyes as Silesia rose and the
ground fell away, ten meters, a hundred, the massive landing gear
vanishing swiftly to trim the shuttle's ungainly profile.

   It was at that moment that someone seized the strap of her binoculars
where it rested on her neck and yanked violently. The hard-shelled glasses
flew out of her hands and smashed against her face, the pain as sharp as it
was unexpected. Dola cried out, her nose and mouth bloodied, as she
ducked and twisted to escape. A moment later the binoculars vanished,
torn away as she collapsed to her knees.

  "Take them," she pleaded blindly. "I don't care."

   Her vision clearing, she looked up and saw one of the virgins standing
atop the first row of the bleachers, whirling the binoculars over his head
like bolas, his face a grim and twisted mask of hate. A few feet away, his
companion shoved Archie, harmless little Archie, facedown on the
concrete platform and then trampled him underfoot in pursuit of Eleanor.
She quickly went down under a hail of punches.

   "Fucking starheads," the youth with the binoculars snarled, and leaped
forward. "Fucking starheads."

   Dola ducked away from the whirling weapon and started to scramble
toward the tram platform. It was then that she saw the girl standing in the
exit, blocking the way with the aid of the black-tipped scrambler in her
right hand. Her eyes were glowing with excitement, challenging, daring
Dola to try to flee.

   Then a kick exploded in Dola's midsection, and she sprawled flat on the
platform. The binoculars whistled through the air and came down on the
back of her skull, driving her face down hard against the concrete. The
snap of breaking teeth and the pop of shattered cartilage blended with the
screaming, animal and angry, that filled the observation deck.

   As Dola's attacker looked for other prey, blood began to puddle beneath
her, running freely from her torn and battered face. A sick, queasy chill
raced through her, sucking the strength from her muscles, the spirit from
her heart. She tried to raise her head once, a foolish, futile effort. Then,
vision graying, she let go, escaping into unconsciousness, only realizing at
the last that the most wrenching screams had been her own.




   Mikhail Dryke stood rigid, arms wrapped across his chest, body
vibrating with barely contained fury, as he watched the transit medics roll
the last of the injured past him to the waiting flyer. The bloody parade had
included four women, three middle-aged men, a handicapped teen, all
battered and bewildered.

  "What did we do?" one woman had asked beseeching as she was led
away. "Why did they hate us so much?"

  Because you still have dreams, Dryke had thought impulsively. The
medic attending her did not attempt an answer. His soothing words were
empty balm, and, in that, were doubtless kinder.

   Jim Francis stood silent and uncomfortable beside Dryke, vacillating
between empathy for the victims and concern for himself. The report had
come in from the north gate as he and Dryke were reviewing system
security. On his own, Francis would have merely acknowledged it and
carried on. His office was his domain; the gates and fences belonged to
those who worked for him.

   But Dryke had insisted on responding, and Francis had been obliged to
trail along. The moment they were close enough to read the streaky red
lettering smeared across the observation deck's plex, Dryke's countenance
darkened. When they mounted the platform, hard behind the first medics,
and saw the litter of bodies, he had gone white.

   The ambulance lifted and roared away toward the city, and Francis
took a step forward. "I don't think there's anything we can do here," he
suggested.

   With a wordless look of contempt, Dryke started down the platform
toward the observation deck and the trio of city police still working the
scene.

  "Officer," he said, accosting the nearest, "I'm Mikhail Dryke, Allied
Transcon security."

  "You folks made the call on this?"

  "Yes. If there's something we can do—"

  "You did it."

  "Did the medics give you any report on the injured?"

  "Nobody's dead, if that's what you mean." He checked the screen of his
slate. "The Martinez woman is about the worst of them—ribs, spleen,
facials, concussion." The officer shook his head. "You'd think the word'd
get around," he said. "You'd think they'd learn."

  Dryke's brow wrinkled. "This has happened before?"

   "Third time I know of. First for that, though," he added, gesturing at
the plex and the sun-baked graffito FOR THE HOMEWORLD.

  Dryke stared. "I didn't know," he said.

   "Well, this should be the last. City manager'll probably recommend we
close this up," the officer said. "We can't have someone here all the time,
after all."

  "We can," Dryke said firmly. "Would that step on anyone's toes?"

   "Not mine," the officer said with a shrug. "You'll want to check with
Lieutenant Alvarez. Transit Division."

  "I'll do that," Dryke said. "Excuse me."

   Francis saw Dryke returning and brightened; he was eager to leave the
platform. Then he saw how Dryke's expression had hardened and began to
quail.

  "Your office," Dryke said curtly as he stalked past.

   But Francis's office could not contain Dryke's rage. It spilled over into
the adjacent hallway and the Building 1 courtyard, into a cascade of
whispers and gossip.

   "Why didn't our people respond?" Dryke demanded, backing Francis
toward his desk. "They were right there—they could have stopped it."

    "The observation deck's not Allied property," Francis said defensively.
"It's not our responsibility."

   Dryke balled his fists as though he were about to strike Francis, then
caught himself and turned away. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.

   "Besides," Francis went on, emboldened, "it could easily have been a
diversion aimed at getting through the north gate. In fact, we don't know
that it wasn't. The standard gate complement is three. If two of them go
racing up to the platform to play hero, that's as good as throwing the gate
wide open. And considering what happened this morning, prudence—"

   Whirling, Dyke raged, "What about the last time? And the time before
that? What excuse do you have for them? And why the hell didn't I see
something about this in your monthlies?"

  "That's not Allied property," Francis began bravely. "None of our people
were involved—"

  "They should have been, goddammit, aren't you listening?"

  Francis tried to stand his ground, though it had turned to sand beneath
him. "I don't believe that these incidents are properly the concern of
Corporate Security."

  " 'For the Homeworld' painted in blood and it's not our concern? Christ,
would I have even heard about this one if I hadn't happened to be here?"

  "These incidents are off-site, only outsiders are involved, and there's
been no threat to our people or our operations—"

  "A moment ago you were trying to convince me that there is a threat,"
Dryke said coldly. "You can't have it both ways."

    Francis surrendered, the resilience leaving his body as he slipped down
into his chair. "There were three incidents before today, not two," he said.
"The first time, a woman alone up there at night was raped. We didn't
know about it until it was over. The second time involved a couple, about
thirty, who got roughed up a little. The third time, a couple of thugs
scattered a pretty good crowd with pepperguns. I didn't see where any of
it touched us. If I was wrong, I was wrong."

   "You were wrong," Dryke said curtly. He flexed his shoulders and
sighed. "All right. We've got some making up to do. Find out who those
people were. I want flowers in their rooms by visiting hours. Sympathy
and our sincere regrets. And if any of them have exposure on the medical
bills, I want them to know we're going to cover it."

  Francis squinted questioningly at his superior. "Mr. Dryke, I
understand the gesture, really I do. But isn't that just going to make it
seem like we're admitting responsibility?"

  "We are responsible," Dryke said. "If you don't see that yet, you're even
denser than I thought."

  "I was just concerned about liability—"

   "Let them sue us. We should have done more. Will do more. I want two
of your people stationed on the ob deck around the clock, starting
immediately. In uniform. I want them to be a presence," Dryke said. "But
a friendly presence—find some people with personality. Those folks that
come to watch our ships fly are our friends. And we're damn well going to
start taking better care of our friends."




                           CHAPTER 3
  —UAU—
                         "… a student of history…'

   Sitting back in his bowllike operator's chair, Christopher McCutcheon
studied the center pair of the ten standard displays arrayed before him in
the darkened archaeolibrarian's booth. His gaze flicked from the upper
screen to the slim green-bound volume resting on his lap, then back.
Frowning, he pressed the black bar on the right armrest.

  "Come on, Ben, you've got to have some cross-reference," he said.
"These guys didn't come out of nowhere, write this book, and then vanish."

   "I'm sorry, Chris," replied Benjamin, the most agreeable of the library's
AIP constructs. "I find nothing with the search keys 'A. Privat Deschanel'
or 'J. D. Everett.' I do find entries for the Lyc ée Louis le Grand, the
Academy of Paris, Queen's College in Belfast, D. Appleton and Company of
New York—"

  "What's the closest match on Deschanel?"

   A third display sprang to life to display a double-column list of names.
"A Paul Eugene Louis Deschanel was the tenth President of the Third
French Republic in 1920," Benjamin said as a monochrome photograph
appeared on a fourth display.

  "Birth date?"

  "February 13, 1855." The text of a biography took over a fifth screen.

   "Too late," Christopher said. "All right. New entry." All five active
displays blanked momentarily. "Key to title, author, coauthor, associations
for both. Cross-link to physics, history of science, natural philosophy,
mechanical engineering, technology. There're a lot of cutaway drawings
and diagrams in this one, so let's make it an image upload with text call.
Give me the null reference list on the big screen."

   "I understand," Benjamin said, and a slotlike drawer opened in the
sloping semicircular panel below the bank of screens.

   Christopher leaned forward and laid the green volume in the drawer.
"And be careful with that one," he added. "It's almost two hundred years
old."

  "Always, Chris."

   It took bare seconds for the source upload to begin and the results to be
reflected on the quiescent displays. Christopher sat back and watched the
"picture window" display high above the center of the operator's panel. As
the library's engine began analyzing the contents of Deschanel's Natural
Philosophy, thirteenth edition, 1898, the list of terms which had no
reference anywhere in Ur's library began to build: Atwood's Machine,
Vase of Tantalus, Morin's Apparatus.

   What good any of it would do the pioneers when they reached Tau Ceti
was neither Benjamin's nor Christopher's concern. Their task was to help
assure that the starship carried with it the most complete and most
accurate library of human thought and experience available—a fully
interlinked hyperlibrary drawing on sources neglected even by DIANNA
and her counterparts DIANE in Europe and DIANA in Asia.

   There were a hundred scavengers in the field, supported by a public
appeal campaign paying finder's fees to donors of material on the team's
Red List. More than two hundred of Allied Transcon's Houston
complement were working part- or full-time on the library, including forty
archaeolibrarians.
   Adding in the staff in Munich and Tokyo, as well as the scratch squad
on Memphis herself, more than a thousand people were devoting their
energies to building the pyramid. The Memphis library was already forty
percent larger than that which had sailed with Ur, and exponentially more
complex.

   Even so, there was a crisis atmosphere in Building 16, a sober urgency
which belied the fact that the target sailing date was still fourteen months
away. Part of the urgency came from the realization that larger did not
necessarily mean better. More than a quarter million errors had been
found in the Ur library in the years since it sailed, and management was
determined to produce a cleaner product the second time around.

  The balance of the urgency came from the knowledge that

   Memphis's sailing date was an absolute deadline. Data time on the
starship's thousand-channel laser link and the five-channel neutrinio was
too precious for all but the most crucial corrections and updates. There
would never be room for the likes of Infantry Drill Regulations 1911, the
novels of Michael Hudson, or Deschanel's Natural Philosophy.

  "Excuse me, Chris," said Benjamin politely.

  Christopher pressed the black bar. "Yes?"

   "I see that the current volume is marked 'Part One,' and there are
references in the text to a Part Two, a Part Three, a Part Four, and the
topics covered in those volumes. Are those sources also available at this
time?"

   "No," Christopher said. "Like I said, it's almost two hundred years old.
We are lucky to find this one—it turned up at an estate liquidation in
Michigan. Nineteenth-century science texts are about as welcome as
acid-based paper at the Library of C."

   "I'll make secondary entries for the missing volumes with the
information available," Benjamin volunteered.

  "Do that," Christopher said.

  "Shall I add them to the Red List as well?"
   "No. But you can find me a current hydraulics instructional. A lot of
these nulls look like demonstration gadgets. They may correspond to some
of the computer models used later on."

   The instructional came up on a blank display a moment later.
Christopher leaned on the red bar and began navigating through the
full-color animated sequences with half-whispered commands, seeking a
match for the pen-and-ink drawing on the adjacent screen. It was several
minutes before he noticed the blue mail window up on display ten, and the
one-word message therein:

   LUNCH?—DK

  "Send to Daniel," Christopher said, touching the white bar. "Sure. I'll
come there. I can use the walk."

  The mail window dissolved into Daniel Keith's sandy-haired and
smiling visage. "Wrong, wrong, wrong. I need to get out of this zoo for an
hour a lot more than you need to exercise. I'll come to you. Twelve-fifteen."

    "Food's better at the central cafeteria," Christopher reminded his
friend.

   "If you get a chance to eat it," Keith said dryly. "It's three weeks until
the first batch of selection notices. A selection counselor's got about as
much chance of enjoying a quiet lunch as Jeremiah has of being named
captain of the Memphis."

  "Read and understood," Christopher said with a grin. "I'll see you
downstairs in a bit." He touched the black bar. "Ben, show me the Bramah
Press again, will you? And let me know when it's ten after."




   The rumble of a departing Pelican echoed in the garden courtyard just
as Christopher McCutcheon and Daniel Keith were settling at a small table
shaded by a broad-leafed tree.

   "I'm serious," Keith was saying. "It's like they think the rules are
different now than they were a year ago. I've had all kinds of offers this last
month—and that's from our people. God help me if anybody outside finds
out what I do."
   "If you want to keep the secret, you'd better watch where you flash
this," Christopher said, reaching across the table and tucking the bottom
half of Keith's ID inside his shirt pocket. "We know what goes on in
Building 37, too. You'd probably get accosted just on general principles."

  "I don't doubt it," Keith said, cracking his soup container open.

  "So, did you report the offers?"

  "A few. The serious ones. The scary ones."

  "Take any offers?"

  Keith's mouth worked wordlessly, then turned up in a sheepish grin.
"No. And I don't know if that makes me a saint or an idiot," he said.

  "Depends on the temptation in question, I guess," Christopher said,
amused.

  "Ranged from truly sad to died-and-gone-to-heaven."

  "Oh?"

  "I'll have to show you. One woman mailed me sixty seconds of very—uh,
wet video. On reconsideration, I am a saint," Keith said. "Look, you must
have something to talk about that doesn't have anything to do with
Memphis. Tell me about Jessica. Tell me how wonderful it is to wake up
next to something like that."

  "Don't tell me you want her, too," Christopher said dourly.

  Keith shrugged. "Hair down to here, tits out to there—what did you
expect?" Then he caught the unhappiness in Christopher's eyes, and his
demeanor changed. "Don't tell me there's a problem already."

  "Yeah. Me."

  "Huh?"

  He toyed with a spoon before answering. "I found out I don't like
sharing Jessie."

  "No surprise," Keith said. "Nobody does. Your woman lies down with
someone else and your genes start screaming at you for not protecting
their interests. No matter how noble and rational you're determined to be,
there's a little program running in the back of your mind saying, 'No, you
idiot,' and worse."

   "I know."

   Keith went on, "This can't have been a surprise, though—even though
she's only been living with you for, what, two months? A woman like that's
going to attract a lot of attention, and you three aren't contracted. And
hasn't Loi had other lovers all along?"

   Christopher nodded. "I couldn't do anything about that. That was clear
going in. That's why she wouldn't go for a closed contract." He paused,
then added quietly, "I guess that's part of the reason I wanted Jessie in the
house. I thought she was going to be all mine."

   "While she had to share you with Loi?"

   "I said it was what I wanted. I didn't say it was fair." He sipped at his
iced tea. "So maybe it's justice, after all."

   "What's justice? What exactly happened?"

  "Loi and Jessie happened. While I was playing my usual Sunday gig
down in Freeport."

   "Oh-ho."

   "Which means?"

   "Which means I could have seen that one coming."

   "This makes sense to you?"

    "Sure," Keith said. "My moms were closer to each other than to either
of my dads. Same thing happened with Brenda and Jo. As far as I can tell,
if there's two women in the house, they either form the strongest bond in
the family or they split the family apart scratching at each other. Mostly
the former."

   "I don't have the benefit of your experience," Christopher said. "My only
other trine was two men and a woman."
  "What about your own family?"

  Christopher shook his head. "My mother died three years before I was
born—"

  "Excuse me?"

   "Frozen embryo. They took some eggs when my mother took sick, just
in case."

  "Huh," Keith said. "Interesting. Right out of the soaps."

  Tight-lipped, Christopher nodded and said, "Anyway, Deryn—she was
my host and my nurture-mother both—was the only woman in the house
when I was growing up."

  "You have a sister, don't you?"

  "Doesn't count."

  "I suppose not," Keith said. "Look, did you bring this business up
hoping for some free advice?"

   "Did I bring it up?" Christopher asked. "Never mind. You can play
relationship technologist if you want, Doctor Keith."

   Keith smiled. "It's nothing brilliant. It just seems to me that what
happened was still inside the family, even if it was kind of a rude surprise.
And along the lines of what I said earlier, you've probably got to take it as
a good thing."

   "You're talking to the guy up here," Christopher said glumly, tapping
his temple. "And he knows all that." He touched the center of his chest.
"It's this guy that's having the trouble."

  "Evict him," Keith said with mock solemnity.

  "I tried. He's got a long-term lease."

   "Bribe him, then. See if you can buy him off with the erotic possibilities
of two women together."

  "No chance. We were playing three-in-a-bed the first week Jessie
moved in. He just feels left out." Christopher shook his head. "I really love
both of them."

   "Try 'loving' them a little less and trusting them a little more," Keith
said wisely. "It's a better mix in the long run."

   "Yeah," Christopher agreed. "Fine. But how do you do it, Daniel? How
the hell do you get from here to there?"

  Keith smiled, chewing. "I only do theoretical, Chris. Practical's up to
you."




   Though music was playing throughout the house when Christopher
McCutcheon arrived home, he seemed to be alone there. But Jessica
quickly appeared as he entered, her body tucked into black slacks and
blouse, her long hair pulled together at the back of her neck into a golden
waterfall.

  "Hello, Chris," she said cheerily, intercepting him near the door with a
hug.

   The hug lasted until it triggered recent memories, and Christopher
stepped away. "Where's Loi?"

   "With a client, previewing a commissioned piece. Barring disaster,
she'll be home at seven or so. Can you survive without dinner until then?"

   He shrugged. "I guess so."

   "I haven't seen you to talk to since Sunday morning. How did your set
at Alec's go?"

   "Not too badly, I guess," he said, continuing past her. "Alec seemed
happy, anyway. Of course, all he cares about is that he does more business
with me there than he was before I started."

   "Did you do 'Caravan to Antares'?" she asked, following.

   "Yeah. Last song of the night. Just me and the hard-core."
  "And?"

  "I don't think they quite knew how to take it."

  "It's a terrific song," she said earnestly.

   A crooked smile, thrown back over one shoulder. "So long as no one
from Allied hears it. I'm going to check mail, okay?"

  She stopped following and let him escape. "Okay, Chris." Her poignant
expression was wasted; he did not see it as he settled in front of the
housecom.

  "Mail," he said, absently noting Jessica's footsteps on the stairs behind
him as the sole message came up.

   "Hello, Christopher," said William McCutcheon, looking out at him
from the display.

  His father's face was not a friendly one—eyes too piercing, jaw too stern
and angular. But his voice, warm and cultured, moderated the effect.

   "I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that Allied was in the news
today," the senior McCutcheon continued. "This business with Homeworld
reminded me that you haven't been up to visit since you started
there—what, six months, seven months ago? Why don't you come up this
weekend." Not a question. Something closer to a command. "You can tube
up Friday night and leave early enough Sunday not to disappoint your
followers. Don't bother with a rental. I'll pick you up in Portland."

   The display dimmed, and Christopher sat back in the chair, thoughtful.
The break had been more complete than his father had acknowledged.
There had been no meaningful contact in nearly three months. Moreover,
it was not mere neglect, but a conscious choice not to risk an open fight,
not to face his father's fury.

   Even at twenty-seven, on his own for a dozen years, Christopher
dreaded his father's disapproval. When he decided, after much agonizing,
to come to Allied, Christopher had not sought either his father's
permission or his approval. Permission was not required, and approval
was not likely. Not from the man who had made Christopher refuse the
selection option won in a tenth-grade cybernetics contest. Not from the
man who had spent Ur's sailing day climbing Saddle Mountain, safely out
of touch with the net and out of the reach of any Diaspora zealots.

   Christopher had sent the news wrapped in a tissue of justification, and
his father responded with an acknowledgment empty of both criticism
and congratulation. The rules of the compact seemed clear: You are my
son and I love you, but I cannot love this choice you've made.

   But now his father had broken the contract of silence with an
invitation. A summons, couched in the civilities of family. The
confrontation Christopher had thought he had avoided loomed before
him.

  "Chris?" Jessie's voice, timid and tentative, intruded on his thoughts.

   He twisted in the seat to see her sitting on the stairs, halfway between
floors. "What's the matter?"

  "That's what I was wondering. Are you mad at me?"

  "Why would I be mad?" he asked, delaying an answer.

  "About last night."

  He pursed his lips, polled his feelings. "Nah," he said, and shrugged.

  "I could use just the littlest bit more reassurance than that," she said.

  "Like?"

  She stood up, a far more flattering pose for her figure. "Will you come
upstairs and make love with me?"

  He hesitated, polling another set of readings. "With pleasure," he said,
bounding out of the chair wearing a playful smile.

   It wasn't too difficult to see that they were still involved when Loi and
seven o'clock arrived.




                            CHAPTER 4
  —AUC—
                   "… the bandits of Allied Transcon ..."

   It was called the Director's Residence, but it might as well have been
called the Director's Refuge. Located on the western edge of the
compound, three kilometers from the cluster of towers and pyramids
which housed the Diaspora staff, the small white Minano-designed
bungalow was off-limits except at the explicit invitation of its sole
occupant, and such invitations were rare. No more than a half dozen of
Prainha's 35,000 residents and employees—including those whose task it
was to clean the bungalow—knew how Hiroko Sasaki lived.

   Sasaki had no kin or roots on Earth, no purpose but the Project, no life
outside of Prainha. Anything else that might be, that might be desired or
desirable, was on hold, tabled until that which must be, was. For now, she
was what she did. She spent as many hours as she could in the warren,
driving herself and the Project staff toward efficiency, toward excellence,
demonstrating by example the level of commitment she expected, the
Project demanded. When she felt herself reaching her limit of patience or
energy, she withdrew, retreating to the bungalow to rest and restore.

   To serve effectively in that role, the bungalow was, as it must
necessarily be, a world apart. Her world, private and personal. Its thick
soundproofed walls closed out the sound of the multi-gigawatt laser lifting
the T-ships skyward. Its only windows, a broad expanse of sloping plex
across the face of the overthrust second story, faced the jungle, as though
denying that the entire Prainha compound existed.

   But that was as close as Sasaki cared to get to what remained of the
great Amazonian wildlands. Born in the first of the satlands nearly half a
century ago, Sasaki had never learned how to live with or in large spaces.
Even the bungalow was uncomfortably, embarrassingly spacious. She used
only three rooms of the bungalow's fourteen, and spent most of her time in
just one, the second-floor greatroom behind the wall of plex.

   Sasaki had filled the spaces she did claim with objects she loved, with
as much beauty as could harmoniously coexist there. From the Sorayama
original on the north wall, a chrome dolphin gracefully leaping from the
sea, to the pastel rice-paper bunjinga by Gyokudo which filled the south,
the greatroom was a living museum. The Imari porcelain, the bronze of
the Galloping Horse of Kansu, the pre-Revolution Valenciennes lace—each
image, each piece, vibrated with life. Each was one breath of the yearning,
one thread in the weave. She touched them, and they touched her. And the
touch helped make her whole.

   So, too, did the touch of Lujisa, one of the few who were not only
permitted but invited to enter the Director's Residence. Sasaki had an
ageless body, supple and sleek. But at the end of a sixteen-hour day filled
with Jeremiah and the Homeworld, negotiations with Beijing to lease the
Memphis hyperlibrary and with the astronauts' union to avoid a
threatened strike, and conferences on six of the six thousand suits pending
against Allied Transcon, enough stress had penetrated through her
meditative calm to knot muscles and snarl the flow of energies through
her body.

   Sasaki stood at the window, gazing out at the fading purple-red glow of
what had been a disappointingly banal sunset, waiting. The colors in her
Kanja silk robe were more vivid even in the waning light than the sky
colors had been at their peak. A hint of the simple dish of shrimp and rice
which she had prepared for herself still hung in the air.

   When the housecom announced Lujisa's arrival, Sasaki let the robe slip
from her shoulders. Unselfconsciously nude, she crossed the room to the
raised futon as Lujisa appeared at the top of the stairs. Sasaki offered no
greeting, nor did Lujisa expect one. She followed Sasaki wordlessly to the
tablelike bed; while the Director stretched full length, facedown on its
unyielding surface, the masseuse opened her small bag and retrieved oil
and a thick soft towel.

   The massage began with Lujisa's hands passing slowly over Sasaki's
body as though floating on a cushion of air, as though feeling for the shape
of her body rather than the substance. Whatever Lujisa was touching, she
learned from it. Her hands hovered, hesitated, probed.

  "Heat here," she said. "And here."

  "Yes," Sasaki acknowledged.

    Then, her hands slick with fragrant skin-warmed oil, Lujisa began her
magic. She worked the muscles and the chakras at once, relaxing the
former, clearing the latter, opening the channel from root to crown with a
touch which shaped and molded the energy of Sasaki's body as skillfully as
it shaped her flesh and muscle.
    Sasaki surrendered herself to the invasion, opening and releasing, until
it seemed as though she, too, were floating on a cushion of air. The pain of
shiatsu, Lujisa's strong fingers knowingly savage on the soles of Sasaki's
feet, the palms and joints of her hands, was transmuted by that surrender
into bliss and balm elsewhere in her body. She was clay, without will, with
Lujisa as sculptor.

   When it was over, Sasaki lay on her back, eyes closed, savoring the
balance and clarity in her body, the world reduced to that space
encompassed by self. It was in this state that Lujisa would leave her,
quietly collecting her kit and absenting herself.

   But this time, Sasaki called her back with a single word, half whispered.

   "More."

  Lujisa turned and wordlessly returned to the table. This time the hands
were gentle, though just as knowing. Oil-slick fingertips slipped between
sweet-slick labia, found and caressed the swelling nub concealed within.
Sasaki lay with eyes closed, legs together, her only response at first a slight
quickening of her breath, the rise and fall of her boyish breasts.

   Floating upward, mind still clear, body still calm, she allowed the
warming wave to spread outward from her center, to rock all of her being
to a single rhythm. She was egoless and empty. She was all and alive. Her
legs parted, a wordless invitation. Her lips parted, a wordless exultation.

   But Sasaki's cries were measured, polite, bare hints of the soaring of
her soul. Her pleasure was her own. She did not share it with Lujisa, did
not invite her within. Though she craved the release, shame kept her
inside herself, rejecting intimacy.

   She told Lujisa only in the silent signs of her body's own language, in
tensed hands and flushed skin, in quicksilver wetness, of the spiraling
energy within. Lujisa read the messages and answered in kind, her touch
faster, firmer, more insistent. And at last Sasaki's body arched, seized,
gasping, grasping the white light at the top of the spiral. There was a long
moment of unity, of focus, and then she was floating downward, tranquil,
content.

   Her eyes flicked open, and she found Lujisa's face. "Thank you," she
said.
  Lujisa showed a small smile, then quietly left her.

   It was only what Sasaki needed, not all she wanted. She wanted
more—more of laughter, more of love, more of self, more of silence. She
wanted empty days in which to rediscover what she wanted. But there was
no time. And there would be no time for such indulgences until the
starship Memphis broke orbit and was on its way at last.




                           CHAPTER 5
  —GCC—
                          " .. our gentle mother."

  Friday found Christopher McCutcheon a reluctant traveler,
Oregon-bound.

   The New Orleans-Houston-San Antonio feeder loop of the tube was still
a year from completion, so he was obliged to make the 200-mile-plus run
to DFW in his skimmer. By the time he reached the transplex, it was after
seven o'clock, late enough to escape the commuter bulge, though not
enough to dispel the air of chaos.

   But then, it was never really quiet at the Dallas-Fort Worth transplex.
Not with the confluence of the third busiest airport in the world, the ninth
busiest spaceport, a mainline station for the primary southern tube, the
metroplex's own double-line tramway, plus flyer and surface traffic to
boot. DFW was a traveler's rite of passage, a nightmare despite the load
cycling and smart-guides. Locals avoided DFW whenever possible;
survivors asserted blackly that its initials stood for "Don't Forget to
Write."

   Humor was a good weapon, patience a better one. Christopher ran into
a ten-minute hang at the flyer storage stack, a twenty-minute backlog at
the security checkpoint. On escaping those lines, he found that the
slidewalk to the tube station was out of service, obliging him to walk the
half-mile connecting corridor.

  It was like running a gauntlet. Seven years in San Francisco had given
Christopher a don't-bother-I'm-not-buying look which discouraged most
ordinary panhandlers and deadweight. But DFW's parasites were bred for
persistence. Discouraging look or not, Christopher was accosted four
times—by a Mormon revivalist, by two canvassers for the Greens, and
twice by joybirds working N Corridor's bed-box hotel. The revivalist was
the hardest to brush off; the whores were the most entertaining, offering
to perform acts Christopher suspected were physically impossible in the
confines of a sleep capsule.

   The final hurdle was the annoyingly slow-moving line at the tube fare
machine, where an attempted cut-in precipitated a shoving match violent
enough to attract the rentacops. But once inside the station, matters
proceeded more smoothly. An escalator carried him down to a half-filled
lounge; five minutes later, his train was called, and he continued down to
the chutes.

   One moment the track was empty, the red and green lights above each
boarding chute marking the number of seats available on the approaching
train. Then the great interlock separating the station from the evacuated
stone tunnel opened, and the massive red and white cylinder slid through
the aperture, its entry almost silent save for the rushing air. Boarding was
swift and efficient. Christopher took the last seat in compartment 11,
tucking his night bag in the underseat basket. In less than two minutes,
the train continued on its way.

    The cities flew by like subway stops: El Paso-Juarez, Phoenix-Tucson,
the San Diego-Los Angeles sprawl. Christopher's compartment emptied,
filled, and emptied again. From outside San Diego north to the California
border the trains ran on the surface, at half their underground speed—no
one wanted to have to rebore a five-meter tunnel after an earthquake. But
the scattering of lights glimpsed at high speed through tiny windows was
little distraction from his thoughts.

   Christopher tried to concentrate on the unfinished lyric of a new song,
tried to interest himself in an odd little book on neoteny, halfheartedly
tried to engage the jet-eyed Filipino woman who boarded at Sacramento
in conversation. He was successful at none of those efforts, which left him
sitting half curled in the half-darkness, thinking about Oregon. Thinking
about William McCutcheon.

   It had always been a mystery to Christopher how he could feel so
uncomfortable in the presence of someone he loved so much. He had
found it difficult living in the Vernonia house with his father, the more so
as he left childhood behind. William McCutcheon was a magnet toward
which everything turned. When he was home, it was clearly his home, and
he filled it with his unequivocal expectations—expectations of excellence
and, less nakedly stated, of obedience. Lines of force, radiating outward to
bind everything in their reach to he who stood at the center.

   When his father was absent—as he often was for business, for a month
or more at a time—the house was calmer. Christopher felt a better balance
with Deryn, who threatened none of his ambitions. In the glare of his
father's light, Christopher had trouble seeing his own. Against the weight
of his father's opinions, Christopher had trouble holding his own.

   In one of their few conversations on the subject of William
McCutcheon, Deryn had told him, "Your father doesn't know how to be
anything other than what he is. Try to appreciate what's best in him, and
try not to take the rest personally."

   It had seemed an odd thing to say. His father's flaws were not the
problem—it was his own flaws that Christopher felt so acutely. Measured
against his father's accomplishments, Christopher found his own
achievements shabby and wanting. It was the same at fifteen, at
twenty-five, as it had been in the open-eyed infant years. Mere age and
physical stature had changed nothing. He could still only see his father by
looking up.

   Even more, Christopher knew that he did not yet truly understand his
father, that he did not yet see him clearly. There were unresolved
paradoxes in William McCutcheon. Quick-witted, but he used his humor
as a weapon. An incisive thinker, but close-minded and stubborn. A
genteel, well-spoken man who could turn curt and coldly dismissive in an
eye-blink. Who drew people to him, and yet had opted to live alone for the
last dozen years.

   Somehow, he was all of those things. And the pieces would not fit
together, frustrating Christopher's quest to close with this man who still,
at more than a decade's remove, from half a continent away, piped the
tune to which Christopher danced.

  William McCutcheon.

  Father.
   The moment it cleared the Portland flight-restriction zone, the Avanti
Eagle carrying William and Christopher McCutcheon home soared
skyward five hundred meters and surged forward at full thrust through
the night. The diffuse glow of Hillsboro and Beaverton, the scattered lights
of the wheelies and skimmers bound to Highway 26, fell away below and
then behind them.

  Still Christopher pressed his face to the window, more hiding than
watching.

   His father had not met him at the gate, but paged him instead from the
pickup curb. That was both annoying and merciful— merciful because it
avoided any waiting-lounge hugs or other embarrassing efforts at
intimacy. All Christopher had to do was clamber in, flash a quick smile
and say "Hello, Father" to the man driving, and settle back in his seat.

   The Eagle, a six-figure six-seater appointed with expensive natural
fibers and a whisper-quiet extended-range flight package, was new since
Christopher had last seen his father. Letting him relate its pleasures and
mysteries had avoided the inevitable awkwardness for the first few
minutes; sight-seeing and reminiscing had postponed it still further. But
his father did not do his part in fueling the idle chatter, and Christopher
had run out of landmarks.

  "Not much to see out there," his father said.

   Innocent enough words from anyone else's mouth, the observation
struck Christopher as a reproach. "More than I saw the whole way up," he
said truthfully.

   "But what's to see from the tube?" William McCutcheon asked. "Houses
stacked one upon the other like cancer cells, and serving as little purpose.
Consider yourself lucky, Christopher. The railway designers were kind."

  "I think the engineers had the last word, not the designers."

   "If the engineers had had the last word, there'd be no windows in the
cars at all," McCutcheon said, downshifting into a lecture. "If you want to
look out, look up. You'll never see a night as clear as this one in Salem or
Sacramento or San Bernardino, not with the haze hanging and the
sick-sodium halo."

  "Maybe so," Christopher said, heading it off. "But I wish it was
daytime. The stars are the same here as in Texas. What I'd like is a look at
Mount Hood."

  "I expect it looks more or less like it did the last time you saw it,"
McCutcheon said.

  "Wyeast," Christopher said. "That's what the Indians called it. Did you
know that?"

   "Wyesr," his father said, correcting his pronunciation. "Yes, I knew
that." He shook his head. "Why I know it, I couldn't tell you."

   The correction irritated Christopher. "Maybe Deryn told you," he said,
the mention of her name a bold bit of defiance.

  "She used to tell me Nisqually and Okanagon stories—how the Coyote
made the Columbia, the story of the Changer."

   "Did she." His father's voice was cold.

   "I'd forgotten until a few weeks ago, when I indexed a book of Indian
legends." He laughed. "It's odd. The Indians were here for hundreds of
years, but we name the mountain after a British admiral who never even
saw it. Doesn't seem right, somehow."

  " 'Das Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht,' " his father quoted. "The
world's history is the world's judgment, now as in Schiller's time. We're
here—where are the Nisqually? Mount Hood will do for us. Or are you
rewriting history down there in Houston as you compile it?"

   "No," Christopher said. "But there's more than one history of the world,
I'm discovering. And the Nisqually's version has a place in the library
along with ours."

  To Christopher's surprise, his father surrendered the point. "Fairly
answered," McCutcheon said. "How is your work going?"

   Another surprise. Christopher felt as though he had wandered into
conversational quicksand. "There's too much of it, and not enough of us,"
was his cautious reply. "Or enough time."

   "That's regrettable," McCutcheon said. "The work you're doing is
valuable. It is, to my mind, the only worthwhile aspect of the Diaspora
Project."

  Allowing his surprise to show, Christopher said, "I didn't think you
approved of my being there."

    "You're not going to Tau Ceti," McCutcheon said matter-of-factly.
"You're not even helping those who are going to leave. What you're doing
is helping us find knowledge we've lost."

  "On the payroll of Allied Transcon."

    McCutcheon gestured with his right hand as though waving off an
irrelevancy. "Do you realize how many people believe that everything we
know is in DIANNA? That it's the first and last source? The Authority. But
it only contains the tenth part of everything we are."

   "It's a digest. An electronic encyclopedia," Christopher said. "That's all
it was ever meant to be."

   "And the more we come to depend on it, the more its weaknesses show.
Washington knows that. And Allied Transcon knows that. It's inevitable
that DIANNA will be upgraded with the Memphis hyperlibrary. The only
issue is the price."

  Christopher was slow to answer. "I'm surprised to hear you say that."

  "That I value learning? That I believe in the Twenty-ninth amendment?
Access to information doesn't mean much when all you have access to is
rewritten secondhand truth."

   "That's not what I meant," Christopher said. "I'm just surprised to hear
that you support anything that Allied is doing. In fact, I imagined you
celebrating what happened this week."

  "Celebrating? Why?"

  "Because of what you've said before."
   "What I've said is that I object to the obscene expenditure of
energy—human and otherwise—on such a dubious enterprise. And you
agreed with me, as I recall. Have you changed your mind?"

   "No," Christopher said, wondering if he had agreed or merely acceded.
"It's just that I thought you'd be happy to see the Project stopped."

   " Did you celebrate?"

   "No."

   "Why not?"

   Christopher considered. "I suppose because I don't think it can be
stopped. All Homeworld can accomplish is to make it more expensive. And
maybe convince a few pioneers to change their minds and stay here."

  Ahead, a single light atop a dark tree-covered ridge marked their
destination. It seemed as though William McCutcheon fixed on it and did
not hear. Then he shook his head.

   "Earth is better off without them," he said, his voice cold. "She is full,
and she is tired. Why should we try to stop them? They're the ones who
want more from her than she has left to give. I don't begrudge their
leaving. We give them up gladly."

   There was an edge in his father's voice, a finality to his words, that
warned against any attempt to disagree or even to continue the
discussion. But as the flyer curled downward toward his father's hilltop
hermitage, Christopher wondered in silence why the words and the
emotion behind them sounded so familiar.




  It was a clich é out of a storybook family life Christopher had not lived,
and he did not take note of it until after the fact.

  "Would you mind if I took the skimmer? I'd like to run down to
Vernonia for a little while."

   His father did not mind. Saturday was the same as any other day to the
self-employed, and William McCutcheon was already settled before the
comsole in his den, attending to some of the myriad details of his multiple
businesses.

   "Be back by noon, though," McCutcheon called back over his shoulder.
"I want to hike across to the fire tower and see if that last storm finally did
in the roof. But I have a couple of hours of work in front of me here first."

   "Okay." It would take them two hours to traverse a distance the Avanti
could cover in ten minutes, then two more hours back, but Christopher
did not object. He had wondered how they were going to fill the hours
until Sunday morning; a walk through the forest was among the most
attractive options.

   The skimmer, a five-year-old Saab, gave no sign of having been used
since Christopher was last there. As he stowed the cover and ran through
the power-up sequence, he found himself wondering exactly what his
father would be doing while he was gone.

   Christopher had never been invited to share the fine details of
family—that is to say, his father's—finances. He had never been offered a
clear picture of where his father's money came from— nothing as simple
as, say, his grandfather Carl, who had been a millwright, or his
great-grandfather William, who had been one of the last of the
logging-truck drivers to work the twisting highways and narrow dirt roads
of southwest Columbia County.

   As best as Christopher understood, his father was at once a land
broker, a biomechanical engineer, and a political consultant. The
engineering had come first and was the only profession which could be
deduced from the contents of his father's den-office—the shelves and walls
featured models and drawings of clever and impossible gadgets, as well as
the certificates for the two nanotech patents McCutcheon held in his own
name.

   Profits from the patents had apparently led him to land and then to
brokering, which seemed to take the most time, return the most
headaches, and generate both the most income and the least discussion.
The consulting had come along but recently, growing out of
ever-more-healthy contributions to the Oregon Greens and the Republican
National Party. Christopher was not sure exactly what his father had to
offer them beyond money, nor how much he had had to do with the
successes of "his" candidates for governor and, in the last election, U.S.
senator.

    But whatever the source, there was no question that there was money,
in more than adequate supply. The host contract with Deryn had run to
six figures (he had found a copy playing teen-hacker games with the
housecom files), and the nurture contract had probably more than
doubled that. His sister, Lynn-Anne, had gone to Bennington, Christopher
to Salem Academy at fifteen and then to Stanford, all institutions with
if-you-have-to-ask tuitions. And though the house, a double-dome Fuller
in redwood and seal-shingle, was modest to the eye, it sat in the heart of
more than six thousand acres of fir forest which had not seen a saw for a
century—and to all of which his father held title.

   It had never been a silver-spoon life. But if his father had ever had those
tastes, it probably could have been.




   Once a sodden mud track beaten down by an endless parade of heavily
laden trucks, the old logging road leading down to Vernonia Road—which
the state insisted on calling Route 47— was long since impassable for a
wheeled vehicle. The forest had a tumbling-over-its-heels vitality, an
irrepressible fecundity that had reached out to claim back the
right-of-way the moment it was abandoned, a dozen, a hundred species of
plant conspiring to soak up the scattered sunlight and heal the wound.

   All that remained to mark the road was a serpentine trench of young
trees winding through the taller Alpine fir and lodge-pole pine blanketing
the ridge. Taking the skimmer down it was a challenge to its
ground-hugging flight system and to the reflexes of its driver. The reward
was seeing the forest the way it showed itself best—from below,
surrounded and looking up.

   It was five miles and fifteen minutes to the bottom. At times the ranks
of evergreens to either side seemed like the pillars of a grand cathedral.
The air was humid and rich with the scents of life and decay. Christopher
drew it in and breathed back out the tension in his muscles, the tightness
in his chest. If only I could relax with him, he thought. If only he could see
me as I am.

   A hailer marked the end of McCutcheon property, and a few hundred
meters farther the logging road met the highway. It had been at least a
decade since 47 had been maintained for wheelies, and the ancient
pavement of Vernonia Road was cracked and fissured and carpeted with
moss. Most of what little traffic the artists and cityfleas of Vernonia
generated had taken to the air, though the moss bore the crushed tracks of
the fat-tired omnis which brought freight in from Forest Grove, fifty
kilometers to the south.

   Christopher cruised slowly, noting with idle interest how fungus and rot
were fast pulling down what had been a home near the roadside, that one
nearly denuded hillside was beginning to come back from the fire that had
blackened it, where a sterile new white package house had been tucked in
among the trees above tumbling Beaver Creek. But it was less than half a
year since his last visit, and little had changed except the season. His pace
was set less by the desire to sightsee than by the fact that he really had
nowhere to go.

   The house on B Street had been his home for fifteen years. A dozen
years had passed since he left there, long enough for all of his peers to have
moved on or mutated into strangers. As for adults, Jimmy, who had given
him his first guitar lessons, and Nick, the haiku poet who had befriended
him, both still lived in town, so far as Christopher knew. But he had not
progressed very far along the path that either man had urged on him, and
he did not think either would think much of the path he was on.

    As he headed north toward Vernonia, Christopher considered stopping
at old Hamill Observatory, the one-time private astronomy center sitting
on a thousand-foot ridge just to the east, a mile up McDonald Road. In its
prime, the observatory had been a mecca for amateur astronomers, and
its presence had helped retard development in the forested
Nehalem-Pebble Creek watershed for half a century.

    But it was an idea whose time had passed. Astronomy now belonged to
the satlands brightening Earth's night sky. While Christopher lived on B
Street, Hamill was limping along, ingloriously, on tourists' curiosity and
pay-per-view satland-sightseeing. And while Christopher was at Stanford,
Hamill's owners finally bowed to the inevitable, retiring its ninety-year-old
telescopes and shuttering the silver domes. There had been talk of making
it a county museum, a state education center, but nothing had come of the
talk. Christopher let the turn-off flash by. There would not be much to see
now.
   Then, rounding the last big curve south of town, his attention was
caught by the red-rusted gray steel of the Nisqually trestle. There had been
dozens of bridges and trestles along the old narrow-gauge logging spurs
through Columbia County, as both the river and the railway switched back
and forth at the dictates of the land. Most had been torn down; a few had
been preserved as part of the Columbia County Linear Park.

   But the trestle just south of town was the trestle, a temptation and a
challenge to every child of Vernonia. The rails were long gone; the timber
approaches had rotted away to stumps. Inertia and engineering kept the
rest there, a giant box bridge beam hanging just two meters above the
flowing waters, anchored at either end by concrete footings.

   On impulse, Christopher pulled off the road and parked the skimmer.
He clambered out and studied the span with a smile, remembering how
much higher and longer it had seemed when he was seven and ready to
cross it for the first time. The metal had been slick with condensation, the
river surging from a recent rain. But I was most afraid of being caught,
he thought. I had no idea that I could die here. I was fearless then.

   The last thought stuck uncomfortably in his ego, and before he quite
realized what he was doing, he was standing atop the north end of the
trestle, looking down through the web of metal at the river and across at
the thicket of birches into which the roadbed vanished.

   What the hell, he thought, and took a step forward. By the time he
reached the far end he was laughing with rediscovered childhood joy. By
the time he returned he was crying, and the reason was the same.




                           CHAPTER 6
  —ACG—
                        "The trail of Gaea's pain…'

   The Houston police found one of the tramway thugs before Allied's
submersible found the Gulf jammer, but only just. Reports of the two
captures reached Mikhail Dryke within an hour of each other. Either
would have been sufficient reason to make Houston his next stop; both
together were compelling enough for him to set aside his business in
Munich and go there directly.

   Dryke's Saab touched down at Houston in pitch-darkness, a few
minutes after one. A young driver wearing Allied green picked up Dryke at
the hangar and ferried him to the hardware lab, where he found the
jammer sealed in an immersion tank and under guard by a gnomish
sentry named Donovan. No technicians were in evidence, nor was there
any sign that the unit had been touched.

  "What's going on here?" Dryke demanded. "Why hasn't that jammer
been torn down yet?"

  "Mr. Dryke, Mr. Francis gave instructions that we were to hold it for
your arrival," the driver said.

  "Where is Francis?"

  "I don't know, sir," Donovan volunteered. "He said that he would be
back before you arrived, sir."

  "When was that?"

  "About seven o'clock."

   Dryke muttered something unintelligible and stepped forward to look
down into the tank. Though only shreds remained of the jammer's float
bladder, the blue-green pear-shaped metal casing gave no evidence of its
five-day immersion in 160 feet of warm Gulf brine. Nor did it bear any
obvious identifying marks.

   But Dryke recognized it all the same. Float jammer,
Teledyne-Raytheon K-14 style, military model. Made by fifteen
manufacturers in eleven countries. Knock-offs and licensees both. About
as generic a piece of hardware as you can buy—

  "Who's the lab director?" Dryke asked, turning back to the other men.

  "Dr. Kimura," they said together.

   "You," Dryke said, pointing at the sentry. "Donovan. Call Dr. Kimura.
Tell him I want him in here with his best technician by the time I get
back. Tell him I want to know where this came from."
  "Yes, sir."

  "And you," Dryke said to the driver. "You're taking me downtown."

  The driver nodded, and they started toward the door. But before they
could reach it, Jim Francis appeared there.

    "Mr. Dryke. I'm delighted to be able to bring you back with good news.
It's in perfect condition—hardly even a scratch from the manipulators—"
His voice trailed off as he saw the annoyance on Dryke's face. "Is
something wrong?"

  "May I see your gate ID, please?"

  Puzzled, Francis retrieved the card from an inner pocket of his suit coat
and handed it to Dryke.

  "Donovan," Dryke said, folding the card in half with one hand until it
snapped in two with a sharp crack. "Mr. Francis has just left the company.
See that he leaves the grounds."

  "What?" protested Francis. "You can't fire a man for being late."

  "Yes, sir," said Donovan, stepping forward.

  Dryke nodded and turned away.

  "Wait just a minute," Francis said angrily. "You owe me an
explanation—"

   Whirling, Dryke snapped, "If you were bright enough to be worth
keeping, you wouldn't need an explanation. You've made it clear that you
don't really understand what's going on. You've got your head buried in
procedures and schedules and you just don't see. That makes you
dangerous, Francis. I want you gone."

  "I have fourteen years experience in corporate security—"

    "And you haven't learned a thing from any of it except how to dot your
i's." Dryke crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head in disgust.
"Get him out of here."
   Mikhail Dryke studied the picture on the security monitor—a high
corner view of Brian Elo White slouched with arrogant casualness in the
sole chair in Interview 3, Transit Division, Houston Police Department.

  "Cocky," Dryke said at last, looking up at the soft-faced, hard-eyed
woman standing beside him.

  "He's street," said Lieutenant Eilise Alvarez. "Country manners and city
morals. Good ol' boy with an attitude."

  "How did you find him?"

   "We picked his fingerprints out of the blood smears on the plaz,"
Alvarez said. "He won't dean on the other two, though. Not even with four
years in front of him and a Victim's Lien waiting for him when he comes
out."

  "How is the Martinez woman?"

  "Last I heard she was still in intensive care. She got racked."

  Dryke nodded and looked back at the screen. "This one have family?"

  "No. Just relatives."

  "Any leverage at all?"

  "No," she said, and shook her head. "Twenty-one and as cold as they
come. I don't think you're going to get any help from him."

  "I want to be alone with him."

  Alvarez nodded. "But the monitor stays on. I can't sanction any
hands-on. He's in our custody. He'd walk. And you don't want that.
Besides, this kind has thick calluses."

  "I understand the rules."

  "Okay," she said, standing. "Let's go."
   Alvarez led him down the hall to the guard station at the interview
suite, and the guard in turn escorted Dryke into Interview 3. White looked
up lazily as he entered.

   "So you're the fuck that's cheating me out of my sleep," the youth said,
his mouth twisting into something that was half-sneer, half-scowl.

   "Yeah," Dryke said, advancing toward the table. "I'm the fuck."

   "You're no cuff," White said, squinting. "Must be collar."

   "I'm both," Dryke said. "Allied Transcon security."

   White pursed his lips and waggled his hand in a mocking gesture.
"Little cuff, big collar," he said, folding his arms across his chest and
closing his eyes. "Nothing to me, beershit. Not worth my sleep."

   "I can get you out of here," Dryke said.

   "Scammer."

   "I can. Tonight."

   In a vaguely reptilian manner, the youth's left eye opened slowly and
regarded Dryke curiously. "Why?"

   "That's the magic question," Dryke said. "Why?"

   The other eye opened, wary. "Why what?"

  "Why you and your friends came out to the observation platform
Monday and racked the starheads."

   White pulled himself up out of his slouch and twisted on his chair until
he was facing Dryke. "You cute cuff psych, want to draw a pretty of my
head?"

   "I told you who I am. Why'd you do it?"

   "Didn't."

   "Scammer. You're not here for the food."
  A shrug. "Fagging cuffs can lie from A, who catches 'em? It's their
world."

   "Fine," Dryke said, straightening. "Nice talking to you." He started for
the door.

  "Hey," White called. "Hey, collar. What d'you care?"

  Dryke turned and regarded the youth coolly. "It's none of your business
why we care," he said. "All you need to do is listen to the questions and roll
out answers. You scam me, I walk. You help me, you walk. Choose."

   A self-satisfied smirk spread across White's face. "Sure. Sure, we racked
the 'heads. Pure gold Olympic. Fagging top jazz."

  "Whose idea was it?"

  "Who d'you think, scammer?"

  "What gave you the idea?"

  White shrugged. "Saw the hit on the wire, looked like good jazz.
Thought we'd join the party and make our own hit." He laughed to
himself. " 'Heads seeing stars now."

  Dryke's face was a mask. "Tell me about the 'heads."

  "Bore."

  "Tell me."

  "D'you know what I hate?" White said, coming up out of the chair, his
body suddenly a coiled spring. " 'Heads got going-away eyes."

  "What do you mean, going-away eyes?"

   "Like they're with you but they're already gone. You seen 'em. They got
their fagging noses in the air and their eyes blind with Starshine and they
don't see you. Like you're a fagging ghost." His face was hard and prideful.
"Well, we made 'em see us. We gave 'em a proper good-bye."

   "They aren't the ones who are going," said Dryke. "The pioneers haven't
even been selected yet."
  "They're all the same," White said. "All the same to me."

  "Tell me about Homeworld."

  "Nothin' to tell."

  "What about 'For the Homeworld' on the window?"

   The youth sank back down into his seat and his casual slouch.
"Jeremiah is cool jazz. You know brotherhood? He and me see the straight
together."

  "Who is Jeremiah?"

   "You know—Jeremiah. Man, he is the fucking Avenger. The knife in the
night. And sweet. You can't touch him."

  "You believe what he believes?"

  "You hurt anybody who hurts you or yours. I believe that, aces."

  "Who did the starheads hurt?"

   "They're so fagging greedy. They get nine zeros handed to them and
don't even think about us," White said. "What makes one of them worth a
billion chits, huh?"

    Months ago, a popular satiric comedian had added the Project to his
list of favorite targets. Taking a recently published—though
inaccurate—estimate of the cost per colonist to build and launch Memphis
, he began asking his audiences, "So—what did you do with your billion
dollars?"

   It was inaccurate. It was unfair. Within Allied Transcon, at least above
the work circle level, it was worth your life to admit that you found it
funny. But outside the company, especially among those under
twenty-five, the routine struck a chord. It had taken the comedian from
the club circuit to the big arenas, and the question had joined the
slanguage as a catch phrase.

  The catch phrase had in turn spawned a hundred variations, from
"When I get my billion…"to "He/she must have gotten my billion by
mistake…" So it wasn't much of a surprise for Dryke to hear another
variation from Brian Elo White. But it wasn't much of a pleasure, either,
and Dryke had to fight off the temptation to give a sharp answer.

  "Do you want to go?" he asked instead.

  White snorted. "Hell, no."

   "Are you sure about that? What if I came here to offer you a chance to
leave on Memphis?"

  "Scammer." White scowled. "You'd never take someone like me."

  "What if, Brian?" Dryke persisted. "Do you want to go?"

   For a brief moment, White hesitated, caught between hope and
skepticism. His eyes softened enough to admit a hint of wonder, and his
face became that of a pensive child. Then the scowl returned, a cloud
across the sun.

  "You think I'm like them, beershit?"

  "Do you want to go?"

  "Spend the rest of my life with a bunch of 'heads, going nowhere fast?
The hell with that. Fag 'em, fuck 'em, and rack 'em up. That's all they're
good for. You understand?"

   Nodding, Dryke said, "I understand." Then he sprang forward, catlike.
His right foot lashed out, catching the knee of the youth's left leg and
driving it downward. With the limb pinned between floor and chair, the
knee hyperextended, then shattered with a horrible wet tearing sound that
left the leg bent backward and started White screaming.

   Writhing and wailing, White slid forward off his chair to the floor,
clutching helplessly at the grotesquery. The steel toe of Dryke's left shoe
swung forward in a swift arc that intercepted the youth's unprotected
groin. White's screaming ended with an explosive cry and a strangled
whimper, and his already pale skin went shocky white. As Dryke stepped
back, the youth disintegrated into a huddled, twitching mass on the floor.

   "That's for Dola Martinez," Dryke said quietly as a furious Lieutenant
Alvarez and several other Transit cuffs burst into the room.
  "I promised him he'd walk," was all he said.

   They held him for more than an hour, first while they unraveled the
status of a Russian-born British citizen carrying Brazilian diplomatic
credentials, then while Lieutenant Alvarez balked at accepting the
conclusions of that inquiry. He walked out of the station knowing that he
had made no friends by what he had done.

   But he also knew that only Mikhail Dryke and Hiroko Sasaki could
rightly judge him, and that at least one of them believed that he had done
nothing wrong.




   Yotama Kimura led Dryke to the back of the clean room, where the
jammer lay in pieces on a tear-down table. "This is Anna Romay," he said,
introducing the technician hovering over the dissected machine. "Anna,
please show Mr. Dryke what you found."

   The technician reached for the articulated arm of the micro-viewer and
pulled the screen forward. "There were three identifiers. The first was on
the controller chip. The chip had been fried, of course, but they must have
used an off-the-shelf bracket—see, here," she said, turning it over under
the lens of the viewer.

  Dryke studied the screen, the block lettering stamped into the foillike
metal. "Yes, I see it. 'Inex, S.A.' South Africa?"

   "No. Inex, S.A., is a chip shop in Mexico City. An old Intel subsidiary,
specializing in standard X-ray burns. They have a lot of customers, but the
South Africans aren't among them."

  "So this points toward Taiwan or Chile. Or one of the guerrilla shops in
California or Arizona."

   "If you'll be patient, I can do better." She reached for another
component. "Standard hardened hex-head lock screw. Eight-millimeter,
forty-thread. Taiwan uses ten-millimeter, forty-thread."

  "So it's from the West."

  "I thought so as soon as I saw the controller chip. This was the
clincher," she said, punching up a graph. "I did a mass spec on the casing.
It came up with a mix that's in the base as U.S. Government bronze, spec
H. Very old formulation. There's only seven mills around the world that
still make it—three of which are owned by the Chilean government's
National Metals."

  "So it's Chile."

  "I'd say so. Probably right out of military stores."

  Thoughts tumbled through Dryke's mind. Could be a straight sale,
which won't take more than a bribe to track. The Chileans don't worry
about much past seeing that your money's good. Or it could be black
market, same reason. Or a sympathizer. That'd be the toughest. Give me
greed over idealism any day—

  "I hope that is adequate, Mr. Dryke?" asked Kimura anxiously.

  Dryke nodded, a satisfied expression on his face. "That's all I needed,"
Dryke said. "One step closer to Jeremiah. One step at a time. I hope that
you've pointed me in the right direction."

  "We share that hope," Kimura said.

   "I want you to document what you've shown me, then pack up the
jammer and send it down to Brazil for safekeeping."

  "Immediately," Kimura said. "Is there anything else that I can do?"

   In the last five minutes, Dryke's body had begun to remind him that he
had had no sleep in thirty hours. "You can point me toward a bed," he
said.

  Kimura smiled. "There are sleep tanks in Flight Operations and in
Building 7."

   "Flight Operations, please," he said. Because when I wake up, I'll be
leaving for Santiago.




                           CHAPTER 7
   —CAG—
                            "… fragile ecologies.'

   It was the voice of authority vexed, carrying down the corridor of
Syncretics' suite and through the open door of the small counselors'
lounge.

   "Malena? Is Gregory here yet?"

   Inside the lounge, Malena Graham looked up from her book. She was
not pretty, but art and artifice had made her attractive. A spill of chestnut
hair framed a young, mannish face. Her blue flower-print dress was long
enough to hide her useless legs.

   "I haven't seen him," she called in reply.

   The owner of the unhappy voice appeared in the doorway. "Didn't he
say he was coming in this morning?"

   "I don't know," Malena said. "I ran late with my three o'clock
regression, and he was already gone when we were done."

   A petulant look crossed the facilitator's face. "I swear he said he was
going to resculpt Mr. Barton's cues." She shook her head and gestured
past where Malena sat in her airchair. "When you get a chance, try the
Normandy water—I swear it tastes sweet this time."

  "I did," Malena said. "It tastes like they didn't flush the line. Or like
what they used to flush it."

   The facilitator made a face and disappeared.

   Malena returned to the book that she had been reading—a fantasy
about the vengeful return of the Inca gods. Reading was the best way to
forget where she was, to absorb the minutes remaining before her first
appointment. Reading demanded her full attention. At times, it was hard
work. Unlike with dyna-books and vids, she had to build all her own
pictures from the author's sketchy words. Sometimes it seemed more like
her book than theirs. Distractions from life, Mother Caroline called them.

  But Malena thought that she had every right to her distractions.
Twenty years old, and no part of her life was what she wanted it to be. She
was still a prisoner of both the airchair and her family's solicitude, and the
continuing lesson of her employment seemed to be that, in the real world,
excellence was not always rewarded.

   She had excelled in the personal development track, then chosen the
thirty-month intensive at Adrian College (over the five-year relationship
technology program at Virginia Technical) as the best and fastest route to
employment and independence. At Adrian she learned that she could use
her differently abled body as a wedge to crack open her clients' emotional
windows. At Syncretics, she often succeeded with those whom other
counselors had pronounced truth-deaf.

   I'm good. The largest regulars list on the staff, in just three years—so
many that she could rarely take any walk-ins. She had no knack for
channeling, but she was the best spiritual motivator in the branch, better
even than Kirella. She could find the spark inside them and blow it into
flame. They leave me better than they came to me.

   And yet she was still here, in the smallest Syncretics franchise in the
South Bay area. The counselor's lounge itself said everything that needed
to be said. It was no bigger than one of the five little encounter rooms at
the front of the suite, half the size of the therapy rooms at the back—and
six of them had to share it.

   Nor did the lounge earn points for luxury. Its appointments consisted
of a few soft chairs arranged around the periphery and a drink tap with
waters, juices, and one choice from a rotating selection of caffeinates.
That was the price of working for a franchise branch. The price of
working for Syncretics, the McDonald's of mind and body training.

   At the company-owned Virginia Beach office, on the other hand, each
counselor had his own Network cube, the charge pool was reserved for
their use from eight to ten every morning, the sense therapy room from
four to six every evening. But one Syncretics branch wouldn't hire a
counselor away from another—professional courtesy. (Bondage by
conspiracy.) And the facilities at Interdynamics—she could only dream.
You had to be a full R.T. to even think about working there.

   That would come, three or four years down the road. It always took
longer to catch up when you'd taken a wrong turn.

  Kirella breezed into the lounge. "Hi, Malena," she said, dropping a
bulging armbag and herself into adjacent chairs. "How did things go
Thursday?"

  "Like death. Like slow poison," she said, tucking the slate into a side
pocket on the airchair.

   Kirella laughed. "They didn't like him."

   "They never gave him a chance," Malena complained. "None of my
fathers can think straight on the subject. It's so obvious. They're so used to
protecting me from the health Nazis and self-pity that they automatically
extended the coverage to my virginity."

   "A little late for that, aren't they?"

   Malena smiled mischievously. "Just a little—not that I can tell them
that. Not that they'd listen. They won't listen when I try to explain to them
why they're being such asses. Father Jack even had the nerve to ask to see
Ron's medical record."

   "I hope he refused."

   "He did—which is when open warfare broke out." She shook her head.
"Ever since I met Ron on the net, the family's been delighted that I finally
had a flick friend worth locking them out for. It'd be too much for them if
I was sexually repressed on top of everything else. But let him show up in
person, flesh and blood instead of shimmers in the cube, and suddenly it's
bar-the-door Katie. Fear and loathing."

   "My old roommate had pet rats named Fear and Loathing," Kirella
said, chewing idly on a stick of strawberry.

   "Your old roommate was a mutant."

   "No argument."

    The slate chirped from its pouch. "Malena—your nine o'clock Buddhist
is here."

   " 'kay," she said, and the airchair lifted off the floor. "My favorite," she
said cynically. "Koan flakes for breakfast."

   Kirella grimaced and looked for something to throw. " You're the
mutant," she said pointedly.

  "No argument," Malena said with cheerful insouciance. "Later, love."




   The encounter room was dark save for the single candle on the floor
between Malena and the young man seated cross-legged and bare-chested
facing her. His eyes were closed, his head tipped slightly back, his arms
floating as though weightless a few inches above the floor, his hands palm
up and open, fingers loosely curled.

   Pretty, she thought. Pretty. If only he was willing to try a few more of
the eight Paths— "The negative energy is black and heavy," she continued
in a low, warm, patient voice. "Look inside and find the dark places, the
heaviness. The pain of your guilt. The sadness of your loss. It is only your
choice that holds them there. Release them. Choose not to keep them, and
they will drain from your body. Choose to keep them and they will become
part of you. Find the dark places and open them to light. Find the weight
and release it. Feel it leaving your body, discharging into the Earth. Feel
your body become light. Feel the light within."

    As she spoke, the young man's hands dipped slowly toward the floor.
When his knuckles brushed the wood planking, it was as though a static
charge had grounded. A hundred muscles in his body relaxed, and his face
at last looked peaceful. She felt him floating, freed, and floated with him.
She heard his silent half-sobbing laughter of release, knew the moment
that he achieved ephemeral egoless being and the moment it was
permissible to call him back.

  "Jeremy," she said.

  He opened his eyes and sought hers.

  "We're finished for today."

   A deep breath left him smaller and sadder. "Thank you, Malena," he
said, skirting the candle and coming to hug her.

   Unwanted hugs were an occupational risk for counselors, and all the
more so for her, a prisoner in the chair. This hug was not unwanted, and
yet it made her uncomfortable all the same, for she had to wonder if she
had projected her earlier thought. She accepted the embrace
self-consciously and kept her contribution as chaste as possible,
considering that the object of the hug was nude.

  "I'll leave you to get dressed," she said finally, and the air-chair lifted.
Way to go, bozo. Let him know that you noticed he was naked. Very
professional—

   The counselor's lounge was empty, and she shut the door behind her in
the hopes of keeping it that way. Hormones from hell, she fussed at herself
as she drew a glass of hot cinnamon tea. Ron, you'd better be there
tonight, or I'm going to end up drooling on Father Brett again—

   It was not until several minutes later, when she retrieved her slate to
resume reading, that she saw the V-mail marker blinking. The message
was from Karin Oker, Supervisor of Selection, Diaspora Project, Allied
Transcon.

   She watched the message once, then immediately watched it again. For
a long moment, she sat in her chair clutching the slate against her breasts,
eyes glittering, hands trembling. Then she let out a whoop and sent the
airchair into a dizzying spin.

   The door flew open, and Kirella, the branch chiropractor, and the
branch manager piled up in the doorway. "What's the matter?" Kirella
demanded, approaching. "Are you okay?"

   Smiling beatifically, Malena tipped her head back against the rest and
closed her eyes. "Cancel my appointments," she said dreamily.

   "What?"

  "Cancel my appointments," she said, opening her eyes to let the tears
run free. "They picked me. They picked me, Kirella. I'm going to Tau Ceti."




   Ten thousand for Tau Ceti.

  However euphonious it might be, the unofficial motto of the Selection
Section was not quite accurate. Counting the core crew of roughly five
hundred, drawn equally from Allied and Takara, plus between one and
three hundred "discretionaries," split between paying passengers and
other payoffs, plus a handful of creative stowaways, the final outbound
head count would be closer to eleven thousand.

    And that was only if you discounted the quarter million frozen eggs
(five per donor) and five myriad frozen sperm samples which would also
make the trip—consolation prizes in the star-bound sweepstakes. In all,
Karin Oker would get to say "Congratulations" not ten thousand, but a
hundred and ten thousand times. (Lesser Selection officials would say
"Sorry" to more than ten million.)

   But it was the ten thousand pioneers who were the focus of most of the
energy, most of the urgency, most of the romance, most of the anger. They
were the elect, the chosen. They were the ones who would pass, knowingly
and willingly, through what one popular commentator dubbed "the
one-way door." To those who would stay behind, the pioneers were
humanity's hope, or its arrogance; its idealism, or its idiocy; but most
often, all of that and more.

    It was different in Houston and Munich and Tokyo, in Brazil and
Kenya, on Takara, on Memphis herself. To Karin Oker and the rest of
Selection, to Hiroko Sasaki and the whole of Allied, the pioneers were the
moving pieces in a complex ballet too serious to be a game. Ten thousand
to pluck from homes and families across six continents. Ten thousand to
process through the training and transshipment centers. Ten thousand to
lift skyward a hundred at a time and ferry to the great sky city which
would be their new and possibly last home. Ten thousand to meld into a
working community that could survive fifty years in the crucible of
interstellar flight.

  Ten thousand for Tau Ceti.




   There was no way of avoiding a Graham family conference on Malena's
news. And once the conference began, there was no way to avoid splitting
the family into warring camps.

   It had started tranquilly enough. Unflappable Mother Alicia, possessor
of a wonderful matter-of-fact pragmatism which had made her the
emotional keel of the family for as long as Malena could remember, was
alone in the main house when Malena got home, and so was the first to
know.

    "We'll need to talk about this as a family," she said on hearing the news.
"I think all of the adults will be home tonight, so no point in delaying. An
advisory, of course, not a decision conference. You are twenty, after all.
But this does affect all of us, so it's only right that we talk about it
together."

   As the other parents arrived home, Mother Alicia took them aside and
informed them of the news, asking them to hold their thoughts until the
conference. Malena hid in her room, reviewing the information files that
had been attached to her selection notice. The only intrusion was by
Father Brett, whom she had wanted to tell personally. It was Brett who
had given her the chance, transferring his own option to her after he failed
to make the cut for Ur. He responded to the news with an ecstatic,
enthusiastic hug that did much to fortify Malena for the ordeal to come.

   Several hours later, with the family's three youngest children in bed and
the other four asked to respect the closed door of the family room, the
adults gathered, and the issue was joined. By then it was already clear that
both her blood parents, Father Jack and Mother Caroline, and Father
Michel were united in their shock and opposition. Only Mother Alicia's
thoughtful emphasis on the ground rules for an advisory conference as she
opened discussion checked what might have been a summary execution.

   "We can't tell Malena what to do, of course, any more than if she had
announced that she was moving out or marrying," Alicia said, concluding.
"Our place is to help her explore the dimensions of the decision, so that
she can make the best possible decision. Malena, if you choose to accept
their offer, what does that mean?"

   "Mine is a staff selection," she said. "I'll be part of the counseling staff
on the ship. That means I have to report sooner than the regular
selections—in no more than thirty days."

   "Where will you go?" asked Alicia.

   "To the center in Houston."

   "And how long will you stay there?"
   "It'll be in Houston for sixty days of ground training. Then they'll give
me ten days off for personal business—packing, good-byes—before I move
up to the ship. From what I've been reading, we'll only be on board for a
few weeks before the first group of pioneers moves in."

  "Only ten days?" asked Michel. "Not very much to say goodbye to a
whole world."

  "We'll get another ten days closer to departure," Malena said. "If we
want them."

  Mother Caroline edged forward in her chair. "Malena—why do you
want to do this?"

  Malena turned the question on its head and fired it back at the source.
"Wouldn't you want to if you could? Wouldn't you go if they wanted you?"

   "Could I take Jack, and Michel, and you, and your brothers?" asked
Caroline, knowing the answer was no. "Could I take this house, and my
friends, and the Bay? And if I couldn't, what would I be getting in return
that could be worth giving all that up for? Nothing. No, I wouldn't go. And
I don't understand why you want to."

  "We understand that you're flattered," Michel said, playing
Tweedledum to her Tweedledee. "Anybody would be flattered to be picked
out of such a large group. But this seems a little like winning a
sweepstakes and then having to sell the prize to pay the taxes."

   "To you," said Brett, coining to her defense. "But her life isn't your life,
or yours, Caroline. She's still living in the world we created for ourselves.
Of course we're comfortable here. But she's only just starting to make her
own choices and shape her own world."

  "Why don't you just shut up?" snapped Jack. "You've influenced her
enough already. Everything you say is just an apology for yourself."

   It was an old wound, reopened by the blow of Malena's news. Alicia
stepped in to try to blunt the confrontation. "The issues here are present
and future, not past. And everyone has a right to be heard, Jack."

   "I'd like him to hear me," Jack retorted, jabbing a finger in Brett's
direction. "He made this happen. When we let him in ten years ago, he
picked out Malena and tried to make her his daughter—"

  "I am his daughter," Malena said.

  "You were happy enough about that when it was convenient for you,"
Brett said at the same time.

   "—because he didn't have one of his own. And as for Malena living in
the world we created, that's him talking for himself again. You were the
last one on the scene. And if you didn't like what you were getting into,
you shouldn't have contracted with us."

   Brett refused to back down. "And if you didn't want me, you shouldn't
have offered the contract. Or did you think that I would just take care of
Alicia's needs so you three could go on ignoring her?"

  "What does any of this—" Malena began.

   But Caroline trampled over her attempt to reenter the conversation.
"You've never stopped trying to make us feel guilty over Michel and Alicia
growing apart—"

   "Growing apart? The way I hear it, you came to every little crisis
between them like a shark to blood—"

   Malena watched, first with astonishment, then with growing dismay, as
the compromises and accommodations which held Raven House together
dissolved in the acid of harsh words. Finally, her frustration turned to
fury, she skidded the airchair into the middle of the circle and dropped it
to the floor with an emphatic thump.

  "Stop!" she demanded. "Stop, all of you! This isn't about you. This is
about me. Doesn't anyone here want to talk to me?”

   The display won a moment of awkward silence, brought an
embarrassed look to Michel's face, and elicited a pursed-lip nod of
self-recrimination from Brett.

  "I'm sorry, Malena," Alicia said gently. "What did you want to say?"

   She looked slowly from one face to the next, fixing finally on Father
Jack. "I really hate the way you have to turn every conversation into a
contest, and every conference into an excuse to drag out every old family
argument and grudge. I've heard all of this until I'm sick of it. Michel
neglected Alicia. Alicia drove Michel away. Caroline's a bitch. Jack's
selfish. Brett's the thief of hearts. This one neglected the kids. That one
spoiled the kids. This one doesn't pull his weight. That one's always trying
to take over. Did you ever talk to each other, or was it always yelling?
Don't any of you ever put anything away for good?"

   "Listen, child," Jack started threateningly. "You can't talk to me like
that—"

   "Oh, no—I'm not going to let you shut me up by making me small," she
said warningly. "I hit my majority five years ago."

   "It's true. Malena does not have to be here," Alicia said. "It's because
she loves us that she's willing to share this with us and listen—"

   "Mother Alicia, I can speak for myself," Malena said, irritated. "Father
Jack, in case you haven't noticed, I have three fathers and two mothers,
and have had for quite some time. I can talk to any of you any way I have
to, to make you understand. The fact that you and I are blood doesn't give
you any special right to say no to me, or to tell me who I can and can't
respect. Every one of you has helped me. Every one of you has influenced
me. And every one of you has hurt me, too."

  Surely you don't mean me, Caroline's eyes said. Father Jack looked
away and grunted.

   "That goes with being family," Brett said finally.

   "Maybe it does," Malena said. "I don't really know, because this is the
only family I've ever seen from the inside. I love you all, but it is your
world, just like Brett said. I would have left it by now, if there'd been some
place or way to go. I've been here too long."

  "Is that your answer, then?" asked Caroline accusingly. "You want to go
because you want to get away from us?"

  She did not shy from the accusation. "That's not my best reason. But I
have to admit it's part of it, yes. It might be nice to be alone for a change."

   "What about Ron?" asked Alicia.
  That was a jolt, and her face betrayed it. "I guess," she said slowly, "I
guess the fact that I didn't think of him all day until just this moment tells
me something."

  "It should tell you that you haven't thought this through," said Michel.

   "Or maybe that whatever needs Ron answered will be answered as well
or better by going to Tau Ceti," said Brett. "Can you answer me this,
Malena? Do you understand yourself? Do you know what this means to
you?"

  "Did you know, when you bought the option?"

   His expression turned inward, reflective. "It seemed like the most
exciting thing anyone could do," he said. "Like if you didn't want to, there
must be something wrong with you."

  "Would you go now?"

  He looked at Alicia before answering. "No."

  "Why not?"

  "It's not important."

  "It is important. Is it because you grew up? Because you see things
more clearly now? Do you look back and think you were silly, naive? Do
you think I'm naive?"

   "Too many questions," he said, shaking his head. "No easy answers.
Sometimes I think it's because I grew old, inside. You have to travel light
to get anywhere. The more you're afraid to let go of, the fewer your
choices—until your only choice is to stay right where you are. My luggage
got too heavy somewhere along the road."

   He looked up, taking in both Malena and Alicia sitting side by side.
"I'm not unhappy, you know."

   Alicia smiled a sweet, sad smile. "I know," she said gently. "I also know
that part of your heart broke when Ur left and you weren't on it." She
turned to Malena. "If you know your heart, and your heart says go, I think
you should listen to it and not to us. I think you should go."
   Bright tears spilled down Malena's cheeks. "I don't know why I want to
go," she said. "I only know that I do."

  "That's enough, sometimes," said Alicia, reaching out and taking
Malena's hand.

   It was not enough for Caroline, who came to her feet and stood,
indignant, looming over her daughter. "Do you really think life's as easy as
that? That you can leave everything and everyone behind and be happy?"

  "I don't know," was Malena's answer. "I don't even know how happy I
am now."

   "You're going to tell them yes." Father Jack's words were a harsh
accusation.

  Malena nodded and blinked back a tear. "I already have."




                           CHAPTER 8
  —GGG—
                         'We have not forgotten.'

  If it seemed odd sometimes to outsiders that the director of the
Diaspora hyperlibrary project was not a librarian but a historian, it
usually seemed less so when they found out who the historian was.

   Thomas Tidwell was that oddity which seemed to come along once in a
generation—a popular writer-director who also had the respect of his
more reserved peers. The British-born, Oxford-trained Tidwell had earned
respect through more than thirty years of work on Millennial culture,
including two standard reference works, Global Technocracy and Faith
and Fear. But he gained notoriety with a single work, a series of nine
videssays on the sexual mores of the last pre-AIDS generation.

   Curiously, A Summer in Eden was seen as validation by both the most
conservative and the most experimental elements of society. For the
former, it was a cautionary parable, a warning of dire consequences if the
rigid mores of the AIDS era were recklessly abandoned. For the latter, it
was an exhilarating manifesto, an invitation to abandon now-irrelevant
conventions and re-create a lost age of sexual freedom. The two poles had
been fighting a war of opinion ever since—more than twenty-two years.

   One voice that did not join the debate on either side was that of
Thomas Tidwell. In an early interview, he said simply, "Eden is no more
important than any other of my works, and everything I have to say on the
subject is contained within its nine segments. That was, after all, the point
of making it."

   But that did not end the questions, nor restore to Tidwell even the tenth
part of the blissful invisibility which he considered one of his two most
important working tools. His next work, a serious study of the 2042
Amerussian "Peace Police" treaty, was mispromoted by a syndicator eager
for another licensing bonanza and misreviewed by nearly everyone.
Popular media condemned it for dullness; dull journals condemned him
for his popularity.

   Tidwell had no more to say about the reception of The Guardians than
he had that of A Summer in Eden. And if the ego-crushing reception given
the former was as painful for Tidwell as it would have been for any normal
man, not even his friends were allowed to know it. A few, including his
wife Marion, even suspected that he had deliberately and calculatedly set
out to puncture the balloon of his own fame.

  But for what happened next, they might have continued to suspect that.

   In the preceding months, Tidwell had rejected two offers from Allied
Transcon to become official historian of the Diaspora Project. But he had
continued to listen with interest. The opportunity to write the definitive
account of what would either be humanity's greatest leap or its greatest
stumble, to create what amounted to the cultural memory of an entire new
community, was tempting. Almost tempting enough to coax Tidwell to
surrender his other precious tool—his autonomy.

  Almost, but not quite.

   Then came The Guardians, and on its heels a new offer from Allied
which contained new guarantees of access and independence. This time
Tidwell signed, insisting, perhaps even believing, that it was the latter that
swung the balance.
   "I intend to take a thousand-year view of the Diaspora—five hundred
years into the past and five hundred years into the future," he had said at
the press conference announcing his appointment. "I will be loyal to the
truth and no one else. Allied understands this. I will have the full
cooperation of the principals and the freedom to write what my
conscience and professional judgment dictate."

   But guarantees were paper things, easily crushed by bureaucracies,
frayed by time. It was periodically necessary to breathe life into the cold,
precise legalisms. That was the task which faced Tidwell now, which had
drawn him from his comfortable manor house near Halfwhistle, within
sight of Hadrian's Wall, to the executive suites of the Selection Section in
Prainha.

   Waiting for Karin Oker, Tidwell stood at the window and looked out at
the spaceport. The contrast between the place Tidwell had left and the
place he had come to could hardly have been sharper. The North Country
was all rounded edges, a much-tramped land littered with history.
Prainha was all hard edges, carved in relatively youthful memory from the
Amazon forest.

   The fairy-castle mountain of the Kare-Kantrowitz launch tower was a
garish superposition on the denuded forest, the spacecraft which
screamed away from its four-kilometer summit harsh substitutes for the
parrots and macaws they had displaced. The blanketing rectenna, which
sprawled across more than sixty square kilometers, was a metallic parody
of the former jungle canopy. Spreading its "leaves" wide, it captured
precious energy from space; in its shadow, a bustling ecology of
technology thrived.

   Tidwell wondered if they saw what they had done here, if they
recognized the truth in Jeremiah's charges. Someday I will have to ask
Sasaki—

   The inner door of the suite opened, and an olive-skinned man emerged,
followed closely by a pale, willowy blond-haired woman. "Thank you,
Raja," she said. "We'll take it up at the weeklies." Then she looked past her
companion to Tidwell. "Professor Tidwell?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm Karin Oker. Welcome to Prainha, Professor." She nodded toward
the window. "Quite a sight, isn't it?"

   Both the honorary title she used and the assumption that this was his
first visit to Brazil were in error. He noted the lapses, but did not trouble
himself to correct them. It was enough to learn from them that she was
ignorant of who he was and that she viewed meeting with him as a
necessary annoyance.

  "I was just contemplating that fact," he said, settling in a chair facing
away from the window. "Will we have privacy here?"

   "If we ask for it," she said, selecting her own chair. "Privacy Level Two,
please."

   The offcom acknowledged with a musical note.

  "There," she said. "We won't be interrupted except by the Director or a
base emergency."

  "Thank you," he said with a polite smile. "I appreciate it the more for
knowing that I, too, am an interruption. I very much regret finding it
necessary to come here. But this seemed the most direct way of ending the
running battle between your people and mine."

   "Battle?"

   "My staff's struggle to collect the information I require, and your staff's
struggle to keep it from us. It's a sorry business when one branch of Allied
has more difficulty getting cooperation from another branch than it does
dealing with outsiders who have no reason to help us."

   "I wasn't aware that you were having such problems," Oker said. "If
there have been, I'm sure that they're based on misunderstandings. What
have you been denied?"

   "I'm less concerned about what we've been denied than with the fact
that the working relationship between us has turned for the worse. We
were partners with you. Now we are treated as supplicants, and
reasonable, routine requests are met with excuses, delays, denials, and
half-answers."

   Oker was unhappy and unpracticed at hiding it. "Professor Tidwell,
surely you understand that Selection's work is the most sensitive area of
the Project. Much of the data, even the procedures we use, is personal or
proprietary. Obviously, any release—even to the Historian's Office—needs
to be screened and reviewed. And just as obviously, some requests might
need to be denied."

   Drawing himself up in his chair, Tidwell said in measured tones, "I am
responsible for creating the definitive history of the expedition. That
includes the personal histories of every pioneer. Remember, please, that
this history is not only for us but for them. I have to anticipate questions
which may not be asked for fifty years."

  "I have to ask again—what have you been denied?"

   "Personal histories include genetic histories. But we have been told we
may not have access to your genetic library," Tidwell said. "And when we
request a briefing on the final selection criteria, I expect more than a copy
of the application file you made available to prospective pioneers."

    Oker was shaking her head. "Hordes of lawyers are poised waiting to
file suit on behalf of unsuccessful candidates. Every lawsuit has the
potential for disrupting the prep schedule, or worse, taking the selection
decision out of our hands."

  "We are neither lawyers nor litigants. What has that to do with us?"

   "There are thousands of Allied employees holding options," Oker said
stubbornly. "Letting detailed selection data out into the corporation is an
invitation to trouble."

  "Perhaps, being comparatively new to the Project," said Tidwell, "you
don't realize that this sort of information was made available to us for the
Ur library."

  "Times are different now," Oker said.

   "Not in any meaningful way. Surely, the first thing that any competent
lawyer would do is subpoena our records."

   "And he would fight any order to release them. We would destroy them
rather than release them."
   "Interesting," Tidwell said. "Are the selections that subjective? Are we
afraid to defend our selection practices in public?"

   "No," Oker said. "They're as objective as possible. They're blind
selections, made by AI engines at the proc centers."

   "According to what criteria?"

   "By the criteria spelled out in the application file—skill training, psych
screenings, genetic screenings, intelligence and adaptability—"

   "Weighted."

   "Of course."

   "What are the weightings?"

   "The weightings are necessarily subjective," Oker admitted. "But that
doesn't mean they were set casually. And I'm not about to let the process
we went through to set them be picked apart by a know-nothing judge or
a well-meaning but ignorant layman."

   "That seems arrogant, Dr. Oker."

  She bristled. "We don't even tell the nominees why they've been chosen.
Or the rejects why they weren't. Why should we tell you?"

   Tidwell studied her. "Are you afraid of the genetic discrimination
issue?"

   The question seemed to surprise her. "Of course," she said, recovering.
"Almost half of our options are held in countries with antidiscrimination
or bodily privacy laws. The American law is particularly troublesome."

   "And yet it's well known that you've expanded your genetic screening
since Ur."

   "Is it?"

    "Your staff chart shows the section has sixty-five more geneticists than
it did six years ago, when you arrived. The obvious conclusion is that the
genetic factor has become more important."
   "We were understaffed when I arrived. And we are more thorough now
with the genetics. We do full genotypes for every candidate, for example."

   "I know," said Tidwell. "But why you do them, and what you look for?
These questions you have not answered, except in generalities. 'For
screening.' 'To create a healthy gene pool.' I must have better answers."

  She shook her head. "I can't release that data. You'll have to do what
you can to work around it."

   "It's not your decision to make," Tidwell said. "The decision was made
by Director Sasaki fifteen years ago. My right of access is unrestricted."

   "Times are different now," Oker repeated. "We're prepared to upload
standard adoption biographies for each of the donor packages, sometime
before departure. The living passengers can obtain private testing and see
to their own genealogies, if they think it important."

  "I see," Tidwell said, sitting back. "Apparently, there was no
misunderstanding, after all."

   "You don't understand what you're asking for, Professor."

   "For the record, it's Doctor Tidwell, twice over, in history and
sociology," Tidwell said, crossing his right leg over his left. "You see, we
are educable, Dr. Oker—not a one of my staff is dead yet."

   Oker flushed, the first sign of an emotion other than anger. "This isn't
personal, Doctor," she said. "We have a monopoly on the kind of expertise
needed to interpret the raw data. I know, because if we could have found
more experts, we'd have put them on staff, too."

   "Then you should be prepared to make one of your experts available to
us along with the data," Tidwell said, rising.

   "If the Director requires me to."

   "She will," Tidwell said. "Aren't you aware that the Director intends to
sell the genetic library to at least three governments as a research base?"

   Oker went white. "That hasn't been announced," she said stiffly.

   "But it's so, all the same," Tidwell said.
   He saw in her eyes that she knew she had underestimated him; she saw
in his that he would not gloat in victory. "The raw data is almost
unimaginably voluminous," she said slowly. "A single genotype is
hundreds of thousands of genes, millions of codons—"

   "I would imagine we can make do with something less than the full
library," Tidwell said. "Perhaps the selection algorithm and the scoring of
the successful candidates will prove sufficient. And you might wish to
designate a contact person with authority to answer inquiries, not evade
them."

  Reluctantly, she said, "I think that could be arranged."

   He nodded. "Then I've taken enough of your time. The details can be
worked out by staff. Thank you, Dr. Oker." He bowed slightly and
withdrew toward the door.

  He had taken just five steps when she called after him. "Dr. Tidwell—"

  "Yes?"

  She was standing, and her eyes were clouded by an emotion Tidwell
could not quite define. "You wouldn't do anything to harm us, would you?"

  "Pardon me?"

  "The Project. You wouldn't endanger Memphis."

  Puzzlement wrinkled his brow. "What could endanger it?"

   "The truth," she said. "Sometimes the truth can be a very dangerous
thing."

  Tidwell retraced his steps. "What will I find if you open your files?"

   She looked down at her hands, out the window at the spaceport,
everywhere but at him.

   "Privacy Level One," she said at last, lifting her head and gazing levelly
into his eyes. The offcom chimed. "Sit down, Dr. Tidwell. I'm going to
rewrite your history for you."
   Tidwell listened for nearly an hour, growing paler and smaller with
each passing minute. He did not interrupt or quibble, protest or resist.
Nor did he make any sign of acknowledgment. He listened so passively
that presently Oker interrupted herself to ask if he was all right.

   "You've asked me to declare my life's work irrelevant," he said with a
sad smile. "If what you've said is true, I've been a charlatan. I've built a
career describing the symptoms of history while the cause went
undiagnosed."

  "You're hardly alone in that," Oker said. "Less than a hundred people
know."

   "Sasaki."

   "Of course," Oker said. "She was the one who told me, six years ago."

  Tidwell shook his head. "I thought I understood the impulse. That part
was written years ago. The unsuccessful search for extraterrestrial life.
The sense of cultural mortality created by AIDS. The rechanneling of a
post-Cold War economy."

   "All true. Just not the whole story. Another layer, lying underneath."

   "Yes—the curiosity! The unflagging, insatiable curiosity. The challenge
to the spirit. From Lucretius to da Vinci to Tsiolkovsky to von Braun to
Armstrong to Morgan. The dream they shared."

   "No," Oker corrected. "The genes they shared."

   "I thought I was tracing the history of an idea. Now you claim that all
I've done is track an infection."

   "Too harsh a word," Oker said. "We are what we are."

   "Biology is destiny." It was said with a cynical scorn.

   "Hardly. We might have failed. Might still fail. Others did."

   "Others?"
  "We're not the first species to carry the Chi Sequence. Only the latest."

  "How far back?"

  "To the beginning, perhaps. Life is a chemical reaction with audacity.
And the meaning of life is to make new life. Nothing more. We just never
understood the scale on which the drama was being played."

  "It isn't our story. It never was," Tidwell said hoarsely.

  "It is now."

  Tidwell retreated, regrouped. "There is no proof."

  "No. Not for the past. But enough for the present."

  "Enough to make machines of us? Enough to make a joke of the will?"

  "No. Do you know how hard it is to link complex behaviors and simple
genes, even now? The Chi Sequence is a challenge, a call—you used the
word impulse. We answered because we could."

  "Not because we chose to. You make my point."

   "No," Oker said forcefully. "A marriage of choice and destiny. Dr.
Tidwell, I didn't accept this easily or happily. I did not want to be
convinced. I was a Catholic. This has cost me my God." She showed a faint
frown. "You don't have to believe, Dr. Tidwell. But the world is as it is. It
doesn't much care what we believe."

  "This is guiding policy?"

  "Yes."

  Tidwell paused. "I want to talk to Sasaki."

  Oker nodded. "I'll call her."




  The closest thing to an expression on Hiroko Sasaki's face was a slight
knitting of her thin black eyebrows.
  "You lied to me," Tidwell said plaintively.

  "I did not."

   "She said you knew about the Chi Sequence," he insisted, gesturing at
Karin Oker, who was orbiting about him in Sasaki's huge office at a
psychologically safe distance.

  "Yes."

  "How long have you known?"

  There was no hesitation. "Nearly ten years."

  "Since before you recruited me."

  "Yes."

  "Then you lied to me."

  Sasaki looked across the room and pinned Oker with her eyes. "Doctor,
what instructions did you have concerning Dr. Tidwell and the Chi
Sequence?"

   "To tell him what I knew—no, I think you phrased it 'what I believed'—if
ever he should ask." She looked at Tidwell. "I thought that was a mistake."

  "To keep it from me?"

  "To tell you. Even now that it's done, I'm not sure that it wasn't a
mistake. It's nothing personal, Doctor. But if this gets out, everything we
have planned is in danger."

  "Why is that?"

   "You have the degree in sociology, Doctor," Oker said. "Is it that hard to
see? To brand ourselves the elect—"

  "Yes," Tidwell said, recalling the promise she had tried to extract from
him. You wouldn't hurt us, would you? "Yes, of course."

  Sasaki rose from her cushion. "Thank you, Dr. Oker. Would you leave us
now?"
   Nodding, Oker moved toward the door. "I'm sorry, Dr. Tidwell," she
said, pausing. "I really am. I didn't enjoy waking you."

  "I know," he said.

  She left, and Sasaki turned to Tidwell. "Thomas, will you sit with me?"

   They sank to the cushions together. "I hope that you can understand,"
she said. "Karin must believe. I must question. I need to know if I am
making decisions for one generation or for all generations."

  "Does it matter?" asked Tidwell. "Can you do anything different for
knowing?"

  "Yes. I already have," she said. "Thomas, I know that your pride has
been hurt by what you view as deception—"

  "Why should she know?" he burst out. "You tell her—you tell a
hundred—and keep it from me. I considered you a friend, Hiroko."

   She reached for his hand, covered it with her own cool skin. "Karin is a
talent, a gift, in her field. Her work for the Project required that she know.
Yours required that you not know. I could not tell you, not if you were to
do what I needed you to— what I still need you to do."

  "You presume too much."

   "That is pique speaking," she said. "Thomas, I asked you to write our
history because I knew that if this thread was there, you would find it on
your own. That if the history you wrote and the history Karin has built
coincided, that I would have my proof."

  "So what do you want?"

   "Read your own writing. Ask yourself if reason and hubris and
lebensraum and frontier fever are enough to explain it, to carry us from
Olduvai Gorge to here. Or whether those are all synonyms for some other
cause. Whether what we have done makes more sense or less for what
you've heard today."

  "You think you know the answer."

  She bobbed her head in disagreement. "You misread me, Thomas. I
hope that Karin is wrong."

  "Why?"

  A faint smile. "Because I do not know that I am equal to a billion-year
burden

  "One starship has already sailed."

   "One is not enough," she said. "One is a frail reed. You must help me,
Thomas. Reflect. And then come and tell me what you see, so that I will
better know what it is that I must do."

  He sighed, covered her hand with his. "You ask a great deal."

  "From you, as from myself."

  Tidwell squeezed her hand and then freed it. "A question?"

  "Of course."

  "Do I carry the Chi Sequence?"

  Sasaki answered without hesitation. "I do not know," she said. "You
were never tested. Do you wish to be?"

   His breath caught and he looked at her wonderingly. He had expected
an answer, not a choice. Tell me yes, tell me no, and then I'll go away to
worry about what it means. To look inside myself as well as my history.
Then he saw with sudden insight that he had been given a gift. Yes, yes—
what song does your body sing, and where did you first hear it? It was
not something he should have to be told. He would find out for himself.

  "I think not," Tidwell said. "Not yet."

  He could not decide whether he was pleased or annoyed by Sasaki's
approving smile.




                             CHAPTER 9
  —CUA—
                      look on your works and weep.'

   The next time Christopher McCutcheon looked up, August had
vanished, leaving very few tracks on his consciousness. It had been a
nothing-much month, one day folding unnoticed into the next, time
evaporating in the summer Texas sun.

   Even the aftertaste of July's crises had faded into gentle memory. His
father, conscience or curiosity satisfied by Christopher's visit, had pursued
no further contact. And Christopher's brief panic over Loi and Jessie
subsided as his worst fear—that of being excluded when all three of them
were home together— failed to materialize. The worst crisis at Kenning
House that month was the discovery of a nest of Formosan termites in the
backyard.

   But in the world around him, and in the greater world beyond, August
had been a busy, sometimes turbulent month. At work, the new front gate
was opened, freeing Christopher from dependence on the tram. Thomas
Tidwell, titular head of Christopher's division, made not one but two
visits, events rare enough by all accounts to be a curiosity. One of the
center's archaeolibrarians was picked for Memphis's staff; two others quit,
and one—a woman named Barbara Manly—committed suicide, when they
learned they were not.

   None of those events had touched Christopher more than tangentially.
He recalled them with no sense of involvement or emotional investment,
not even that which a witness might feel. Not even for Manly. She was an
older woman, a fiction and theater specialist, working in a different
project circle in a different part of the building. He was a casual spectator,
a passive bystander, the distance between him and her death as great as
the distance between him and an image on the multimedia.

   He wondered at his own reaction. After the first moment of shock, he
could find little more than puzzlement inside. Why had she done it?
Building the library was a contribution, a way of taking part. Why was
that not enough for Barbara Manly? Daniel Keith had cried for her.
Christopher had not. He could not sympathize with the incomprehensible.

   Too, part of the distance was numbness. There was too much death to
grieve over each departed. All month, the news seemed to cater to a
morbid, obsessive fascination with the many and varied ways that people
find to die. The running blood in the street, the raglike bodies lying
crumpled on the savanna, the burned, the broken, those who went
fighting, those taken by surprise—they were all ways to touch the
untouchable, to hold in one's hand the idea of one's own mortality. How
will I die? Like this? Like this? How awful, how sudden, how unfair, how
noble, how right. How unready I am—

   Death. The world was more peaceful than at any time in a century, and
yet there was no end to the dying. The Peace Police were back in West
Africa, but not before more than three hundred fell in clashes along the
Mauritania-Mali border. A fire in Phobos Station killed three astronauts
and left the second largest Martian outpost uninhabitable. One of the
Global Environmental Watch's high-altitude ozonator barges fell out of the
sky over the Antarctic, condemning three of its crew to a fiery death and
the one who succeeded in ejecting to a slower, icy end. And so on.

   Christopher watched the news of the airbarge crash cuddled with
Jessica on the huge brown family room couch, with Mobius in turn
sprawled on Jessica's lap in one of the classic boneless-cat positions which
had earned him his name. It was the last Saturday of the month. He
should have been rehearsing for Sunday's gig; he could have been at an
end-of-summer court party at a residential center just three blocks away.
But he had the energy for neither.

   Besides, Jessica needed the company. Her left foot was sheathed in an
air cast and propped on an ottoman. Inside the cast was a freshly broken
ankle, painful trophy of yesterday's spill down a shopping center escalator.
And Loi was in Brussels for the debut of a commissioned sculpture at the
Alianti Gallery.

   So they cuddled together wordlessly, snacking at crackers and cheese,
sipping at a fruity Piesporter that one of Loi's lovers had sent as
congratulations. When the news was over, the screen returned to its
normal cycling display, now a Brinwell animate of faces in a flickering fire.

  "Aargh," she said. "Switch off."

  The screen blacked, and Jessica sighed relievedly.

   "Do you want to watch something else?" Christopher asked, kissing the
top of her head. "We have that new Mojembe film in the capture queue."
  "Loi wanted to see that most," she murmured.

   "That's right," Christopher remembered. "No point in paying for two
showings. Well—what about Loi's Hearkentime? It's a good lazy-evening
kind of timesculpt, and I've only done it once."

  "Are you bored with me?"

  He kissed her head again. "Heavens, no. I just didn't want you to be
bored."

  "I like cuddling," she said. "Mobius and me. We just kind of gravitate to
warm places and cuddly people."

  "McCutcheon Heat & Friction, Ltd.," he said in an affected voice.
"You've come to the right place, ma'am. No client too female or too furry."

  "What if they're female and furry?"

  "There's a surcharge."

  She chuckled and snuggled closer. "Chris?"

  "What?"

  "Can you get into the library from here?"

  "The Memphis library?"

  "Um-hmm."

   "No," he said. "There are no external ports to the system. For security. I
wish there were. Some days I'd like to be able to work at home like a
normal person."

  "If you could work at home, you two'd have stayed in San Francisco,
and then I'd never have met you."

   "True. I'll try to remember that the next time I trudge off to work
feeling like a tradesman instead of a professional."

  "What was that you were doing this morning?" He had spent three
hours in Loi's office after breakfast.
   "Logs and mail and such," he said. "Documentation. That's different.
Different system. Why?"

   "I was just wondering if you could look me up."

   "Hmm?"

   "In the library. I was just wondering what it said about me."

   "Oh," he said. "No. I can't do that from here."

  She twisted her neck to look up at him. "Can you do it Monday? When
you go in?"

 He looked down into her eyes curiously. "I could. Why does it matter?
What made you think of this?"

  "I don't know," she said, turning away from his scrutiny and resting her
cheek on his chest. "I guess I just wondered what they'd know about me,
when they're living out there wherever. Do you think I'm in it?"

   "Everyone's in it."

   "What do you think it says?"

   Discomfort stirred McCutcheon's emotions. "Well—your birth will be in
the Vital Records stack, linked to your parents and your brother, at least."

   "That's all?"

   "Could be worse—it could have your death, too," he said. She did not
laugh, and he quickly added, "Seriously, if any of your relatives is chosen,
as far out as third cousins, there'll be at least a short biography and a still
picture."

   "Have all the selections been named?"

   "About half of them by now, I think. It's hard to find out."

   She shook her head, a quiver against him. "I guess it doesn't matter.
The only one in my family with an option is my uncle— my mother's
brother. And there isn't any way that they'll take him. He doesn't know
how to do anything. All he's got is a head full of dreams."
   His answer sounded patronizing even to his own ears. "It's a huge
library, Jessie. You might be in it a dozen times. A sound-off in the New
York Times—your Clean Teeth Club Award for sixth grade—anything."

   "Loi will be in it. They'll probably have a whole set of her sculpts."

   "I suppose they'll have a few."

   Jessica started to cry. She was a quiet crier, not even troubling to wipe
away the tears that tracked down her cheeks and dampened his shirt. "I
just know I'm not in it. And they'll never even know I was here."

   "I know you're here."

   He meant the words to be comforting, but they only cut deeper.

  "It's not fair," she said fiercely. "Everyone ought to be able to go. Or no
one should go."

   "Slow down, Jessie," he said. "There's no way that everyone could go.
We couldn't even get everyone as far as the Moon. It's a seventy-five-year
project just to build five ships the size of Angleton or Freeport. Everybody
calls Memphis a city in space. It's just a little town, about to become the
ultimate one-stoplight rural Hicksville."

   She straightened up and pulled away from him, sending an indignant
Mobius to the floor. "I don't really want to go," she said in a little voice. "I
just don't want to be forgotten."

  He reached out and touched her cheek tenderly. "Who knows us in
Bangladesh, or even Boston? What does it matter if a few people on a
one-way trip don't have stories to tell about Jessica Alexis Cichuan or
Christopher McCutcheon?"

   Eyes cast downward, she folded her hands in her lap. "I guess you're
right," she said. "But I don't have to like it."

   Christopher smiled and tugged at her hands. "Come here."

   She returned to his embrace with a sigh of sadness and gratitude. "I
just want to count for something," she whispered.

   "You count here, with us. With me."
   This time she accepted the comfort of his words. "You count with me,
too."

  "One, two, three, four—"

   She pinched him, and laughed when he yelped. They settled in
comfortably together again like two pieces of molding clay, holding hands,
Christopher planting soft kisses wherever he could reach without
dislodging their position.

  "Maybe we could watch a skinner," he said presently. "What was the
one you liked? Tantric Fusion?'"

  "I don't need to," she said.

  "My apologies, ma'am."

  "But I think I'd like to make love."

   He smiled. "My pleasure, ma'am. Comfort the crippled, I say. They're so
grateful—"

  "But I might change my mind if you don't shut up."

  "Shutting up, ma'am."

   Fingertips lightly grazed bare skin where it could be found, teased and
combed hair. Lips met in soft kisses, not yet fired by the impatience of
passion. Hands played, locked together. A thumb rubbed the center of a
palm. Teeth nibbled an earlobe, the nape of a neck. Their bodies in
harmony, riding the rising curve that would soon take them upstairs to
the big bed—

  "Christopher."

  "Mmm."

  "Will you make a baby with me?"

   He felt his body suddenly go rigid, his connection with her break.
Children had never been an issue with Loi, ten years past fertility. And
they were not supposed to be an issue with Jessie yet. "Now?"
  "We could," she said. "I ovulated yesterday."

   "What happened to your implant?" It almost sounded like an
accusation.

   "It ran out last month, or went bad," she said, and snuggled closer. "I
didn't notice until it was too late to replace it."

   Christopher's emotions were screaming protest, his body recoiling from
contact with her. Oh, no, they said, oh, no, you're not going to turn me
into a father for the price of a cuddle-fuck. He did not have time to
analyze those responses, so he made an effort to subdue them. "You never
talked about wanting a baby now."

   "I've been thinking about it," she said. "I'd love to have someone to take
care of. I think we'd be terrific parents."

   "That's a family decision," he said, still desperately trying to back away
from her proposition. "We can't make it for Loi."

  "Let's call her, then. We could call her."

  "Jessie, that's a fifteen-year contract."

  She finally sat up, pulled away from him. "I didn't ask you for a
contract—"

   "There's an implied contract the minute we're naked together with you
fertile."

  "—I just asked you to make a baby with me."

  "That's not something you ask in the middle of a cuddle that's heating
up. It's something you talk about when the sun's up and your head's clear."

  "You don't want to," she said accusingly. "All these excuses just mean
you don't want to."

  "I don't want to," he said plaintively. "Not this way. Not now. And I
don't understand why you do."

  "A woman who hasn't had a baby doesn't count."
  "You're just taking a hormonal hit—"

    "No, I'm not," she said, struggling to her feet. "I'm not a machine. Even
if you wish I was. That's what you want me to be. A nothing. A
fuck-pillow."

   That Jessie, soft-voiced and smiling Jessie, would use such language
revealed the depth of the betrayal she felt. "Jessie—"

  "No. I don't want to hear it. I'm going to bed," she said.

  "Jess—"

  "And don't even think about following me. Sleep in your own damned
bed."

  It was only after she was gone that, replaying the conversation in his
head, he began to wonder if it had been woven from a single thread, if the
dead men in Antarctica and the hyperlibrary and the cuddling and the
baby they weren't making that night were somehow all of one piece.

   If he said he understood why they were, he would have been lying. But
he knew that it was so all the same, and there was no shortage of time
alone that night to wonder on it.




   The Memphis hyper could be accessed from Christopher's entry
terminal, or even, in a limited way, from an ordinary graphics
station—just as DIANNA could be accessed by a lowly DBS phone in a
pinch. But it was best accessed from a hyper booth, with its desk-sized
flat-table display, wraparound sound, digital holo tank, and full voice
command.

   The only hyper booths in the complex which were on the Memphis net
were those belonging to the Testing Section, on the first floor of Building
16. There were twenty of them, and they were almost always busy. Besides
Testing's own staff of verifiers, the booths served a parade of outsiders
recruited to test the hands-off interface or wring out the stacks in their
particular specialty.

  Only the fact that it was a Sunday gave Christopher hope of catching a
booth free. Had he waited until Monday, he would have had to settle for
using his entry terminal. But waiting did not seem like a good idea.
Saturday night's chill had persisted into Sunday, with Jessie vanishing
without explanation soon after rising. He stayed in the house and spied on
her, monitoring her skimmer's locator and Jessie's family subaccount long
enough to follow her to LifeCare and see a health services charge appear.

   Then guilt took over, and he left himself, partly to avoid being there
when Jessie returned, as least until he had satisfied the one request he
could cheerfully accommodate. He took the tram in and walked to
Building 16 from the stop, risking the bright poison sun after three days of
the gray clouds, wind, and soaking rains of Tropical Storm Jennifer.

   "Staff. Any booths open?" he asked, waggling his identification badge
at the scheduler.

   "Sure," the woman said without looking up. "Three of them. Take your
pick."

   He settled in 11, waited until the door glided shut, and asked for
Biographical.

  "Ready."

  "Find Jessica Alexis Cichuan."

   The hyper's response was ordinarily instantaneous, but the table
remained black for a long two seconds. Then the system chirped and the
results came up:




  . JUANITA INEZ CICHUAN, changed to JESSICA ALEXIS CICHUAN
April 9, 2085 FHS Registry #TD-0943-3912 b. Brownsville, Texas, 06:26
CDT, April 9, 2070

  • Mother: Dolores Maria Cichuan (deceased)

  • Father: Duane Allen Kent

  • Siblings: Luis Cichuan
  "Huh," Christopher said in surprise. "She changed her name. Find
English equivalents, Juanita, Inez."




  JUANITA -» pet form of Spanish JUANA

  JUANA -» Spanish of • JANE • JOAN

  INEZ -» Spanish of AGNES




  "Huh," Christopher said again. A butterfly named Joan Agnes. No
wonder— "Return. More."




  END OF THREAD




  "Visual."




  NOT AVAILABLE




   Frowning, Christopher opened the door and walked back down the
corridor to the Testing desk. "Are all the bio stacks up?" he asked.

  "For what population?"

  "Contemporary."
  The woman turned to her terminal. "They're all up."

  "You're sure?"

  "Unless they're lying to me. Problem?"

   "I guess not," Christopher said uncertainly. He retreated back to booth
11 and cocooned himself there with his doubts. Briefly, he considered
looking up Jessie's parents, but decided not to. It'll be hard enough
pretending I don't know one family secret. He heard himself telling
Jessie, "They know your name and when and where you were born. Sorry,
that's it." No comfort there. Better to say nothing. Better to lie—

  "Find Loi Lindholm."

   The full expanse of the table was filled by the response. There was a still
photo, life size, flattering. From San Francisco, maybe two years ago—
about the time I met her, he thought. Before she cut her hair short.
Before the cheek tattoo. There was a lengthy biography, with her
apprenticeship to Rolf Dannenberg highlighted. There was a list of Loi's
major sculpts, a partial list of her clients, an exhibition record. And there
were thirty or more bullets noting where more information was available.
A rich thread.

   Looking at the picture, Christopher realized belatedly that while living
in San Francisco, where self-definition by dress and demeanor were
survival arts, Loi had stood out by being defiantly conventional. But since
coming to Houston, as conservative a major city as remained in the
United States, she had taken pains to be anything but conventional. The
raked haircut. The hammered silver collar. The tattoo, a delicate thing of
ink and silicone. The open trine, her young man on one arm, her young
woman on the other.

   Playing to her audience. Playing the iconoclast artist. Playing the
Lady From the West. Give them a show. But looking at the picture, he
also realized how much he preferred the way she had looked then to the
way she looked now, and how little say he had had about the changes.

  That was an unhappy thought, and he had had enough of those for one
weekend.

  "Clear," he said, and the table blanked.
   He tried to think about Jessie and what he could do. There were
mechanisms for correcting errors, but this was not an error. Jessie had
done nothing to earn her any larger place in the archives of her species. It
was not a slight. It was the truth, but one she was poorly equipped to
either overlook or accept.

   It had not been a trivial request. She would not forget. It might be a few
weeks before she would ask again, but she would ask again. It's not fair,
she had said. I don't want to be forgotten.

   But she would be. And Loi would not. Loi lived through her creations. A
trick of transcendence, the artist creating the art, the art re-creating the
artist.

   Jessie would find no comfort in that. But if she looked, she would find a
great deal of company. Within their circle of friends there were two,
perhaps three, who would merit a longer notice in the hyper. The rest,
himself included, were merely part of the census. This many born this day,
that many died.

   A lie invited—but he had no ammunition with which to lie. He racked
his memory for details she had offered in conversation these last few
months, and then gave up, knowing that to be caught in a lie would be
worse than telling the truth. He would tell her matter-of-factly, and show
her a dump of his own entry so that she would know she was not alone. Loi
was an exception, was exceptional. As was William McCutcheon.

   If it was painful, well, he knew what that felt like. He would help her
grow through it. Pain was a pointed lesson in living, a reality check for the
beclouded.

  "Find Christopher Thomas McCutcheon."

   The entry was as it had been the first time he looked himself up in the
hyper. He earned one extra line for being staff, one extra line for having
had both donor and host mothers, lost one for having been content with
his name, but otherwise it was a copy of Jessie's, simple, short, and
shallow.

  He was pleased.

  But only for a moment.
   Then, perversely, he began to think about what was missing from the
display. He had earned two degrees, in Salem's grueling general studies
program and Stanford's comparatively easy Information Sciences. He had
won a Hastings Award at sixteen, a songwriting contest at nineteen. He
had signed a marriage contract and dissolved it. He had written an essay
for the Oregonian, played guitar on KSFO's Tunnel Visions. And more. A
whole life, not just a moment of birth and a diagram of blood relations.

  But there it was:




  . CHRISTOPHER THOMAS McCUTCHEON FHS Registry
#OS-1029-0349 b. Vernonia, Oregon, 23:40 PST, May 16, 2067

  • Mother: [Donor] Sharron Ria (Aldritch) McCutcheon

  (deceased)

  [Host] Deryn Glenys Falconer

  • Father: William Lowell McCutcheon

  • Siblings: Lynn-Anne

  Aldritch Library Staff, Diaspora Project, Houston




  "Print and clear," Christopher said.

  He took the dump and left the booth, wondering what was wrong. He
had expected it to be brief. He had seen it before. What he didn't expect
was that, this time, he would care.




                          CHAPTER 10
  —UGC—
                       "… a few seconds of death…"
   Flying into the Kasigau Launch Center, Mikhail Dryke could not fail to
note how dramatically different the company's Kenyan spaceport was
from its Brazilian kin. Though both served the same function and
embraced the same basic facilities, the facilities were counterparts, not
twins.

   The difference began with the setting. Kasigau had taken over not
former rain forest, but the nyika, the wilderness of dry mountain
highlands southeast of Tsavo National Park. This was land that for
centuries had known drought and famine better than rain and plenty.
Land that had been picked over but rarely fought over, for the prize was
too meager. Allied had paved its runways and sprawled its structures
across a landscape which had scarcely any ecology to disrupt. Taita's
elephants and rhinos were already long gone when the construction crews
arrived.

   At Prainha, the incredible guy-and-column mountain of the launch
tower rose nearly four kilometers above the river plateau. The tower was
the unchallenged centerpiece of the Para. At night, its fairy-castle lights
were visible from Macapa and Belem, and even from ships in the Atlantic
off the coast of the Ilha de Marajo. The nearest natural feature that could
compare with it was half a continent away.

   The aperture of Kasigau's launch tower stood as far above sea level as
Prainha's, above as much energy-stealing atmosphere. But it stood not on
river plateau, but atop Kasigau Rock, a small round-topped mountain.
Consequently, the tower's central beam tube was half the height, and the
shrunken fairy castle clung to the contours of the mount like a great
spindly-legged insect which had paused there in its wanderings.

   And if that were not enough to diminish it, there was Kilimanjaro, its
dramatic volcanic profile rising from the Masai Steppe to the west.
Inbound to Kasigau, the Celestron slicing down through the high thin air,
Dryke had been gifted with a long look at Kilimanjaro's steep western face
and rugged snowcapped summit. Against that memory, the Kasigau
cannon looked like the unfinished skeleton of a mountain, a child's
backyard imitation of the real thing.

   "That's one heck of a scenic outlook you folks built for yourselves," he
said to the air controller.

  "Only view of Kilimanjaro anywhere in the nyika," came the answer.
"Four thousand meters up and not a cloud in sight. Not that anyone ever
gets to enjoy it, except the tube monkeys and mirror mechs."

   Dryke understood. For Kasigau was strictly freight, its ten-gigawatt
compound laser array hurling a steady procession of pilotless T-3 capsules
on one-way journeys into orbit. No pilots' colony, no astronaut union or
joybirds here. Kasigau belonged to the working class, to the high-energy
laser techs and the mirror mechanics, the loaders and launch bosses of the
self-named "HELcrews." The complex mechanical ballet they performed,
sending a fully loaded T-3 skyward every twenty-two minutes, day and
night, was the only show in town.

   One launch every twenty-two minutes. Almost three per hour. Sixty-five
a day, lifting thirteen hundred tonnes of electrochemicals, microphysics,
and human consumables from ground to orbit. But even at that pace,
Kasigau was running at less than fifty percent of design capacity. Prainha
was regularly topping ninety launches a day, with an amazing peak record
of one hundred twenty-two.

    Most of the difference was infrastructure. Prainha was thirty-five years
old, mature, settled. Kasigau was just thirteen years old, gangly and
growing. The airways, roadways, railways, and seaways which fed it were
still unequal to the task of supporting Kasigau's design capacity.
Especially the seaways. Even with the recent upgrade of the railhead and
freight handling, the port at Mombasa was overwhelmed.

   The transshipment bottleneck was not, at heart, a security problem.
But Site Director Yvonne Havens was looking to Dryke for a solution all
the same. What Havens wanted was to stream-line the cargo security
procedures enough to boost the schedule to eighty or more cycles a day. To
Dryke's annoyance, Sasaki had endorsed the request, obliging Dryke to
come to Kenya and study the options.

   "Most of the company's reserve launch capacity is there, at Kasigau,"
Sasaki had reminded him. "The long-term solution is here, with the new
launcher proposed for Almeirim. But the company can't justify the capital
investment in a third spaceport under present conditions. So we must look
at Kasigau. A single additional lift a day means another seven thousand
metric tons a year. We can use the capacity, especially since the mix here
must shift toward passengers when we begin ferrying colonists to
Memphis."
   Havens was a plump fast-talking black woman who wore the
wound-wire bracelets and patterned cheek scars of the Rendille, the most
popular of Kenya's revival tribalisms. Using her smile as a commentary,
she underlined Sasaki's point while she and Dryke toured the spaceport
together.

    "Kasigau is insurance—leverage," she said as they walked through the
cargo assembly center. "We're what keeps the Brazilians from jacking the
transshipment taxes on Prainha. We're what helps keep the can drivers in
line. We could fly T-2s out of here with no one at the stick, and they know
it. But it's all a bluff if we can't run at capacity."

  "If you compromise security and have to close down for a few months
because of a hit, you won't even have a bluff."

   "I don't want our security compromised," she said, smiling. "I want it
factored out of the traffic stream."

   The conversation continued in the skimmer. "I looked at your incident
log before I came here," Dryke said. "The cargo inspectors stopped a half
dozen bombs and booby traps in the last six months. Your perimeter
defense smothered a shoulder SAM and two planes so far this year."

  "I'm very proud of our security team. Homeworld hasn't touched us."

  "Homeworld hasn't tried. All you've seen so far are amateurs. Shiftas.
Bandits."

   "Amateurs do not own shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles," she
said stiffly.

   "Anyone can own one, if they've got a hundred thousand dollars and a
contact in Chile or South Africa," Dryke said. "And besides, only an
amateur would try to use a shoulder SAM against a T-ship. You've got ten
gigawatts of laser energy to play with and a mirror system up in the castle
that can split a dozen secondary beams off the main beam. Anything that
gets within a thousand meters of a capsule on the beam is going to be
fried. I'm not worried about someone shooting down a T-ship. It's a
surprise package in the cargo that worries me."

  They had reached the operations center entrance, but Havens made no
move to leave the skimmer. "It's a trade-off, Mr. Dryke," she said, smiling.
"I need another hundred tonnes a day. I could use another four hundred.
Balance that against a slightly greater risk of an accident—"

  "Not an accident. A terrorist hit."

  The smile widened. "You're not the only one who's been reading, Mr.
Dryke. I've looked at your report on Jeremiah and the Homeworld. They're
not terrorists. They're protesters. They're playing a public opinion game.
They've never killed anyone. They're not going to strike blindly at Kasigau.
And you've already said they can't knock down a can. So why are you tying
my handlers up in knots?"

  "To make sure that Jeremiah isn't tempted by opportunity."

   "There are no guarantees, Mr. Dryke. Make it difficult for him. That
will be enough."

  Dryke frowned. "I won't know if I can agree with that until I've seen
more."

  "What do you want to see next?"

  "I think Mombasa."

  "We can go there now, if you like."

  "Now is fine," Dryke said. "But I'll go by myself, thank you."

   "As you prefer," she said, cracking the skimmer's door open. She
climbed out, then turned and squatted to peer back inside at Dryke.
"Please try to remember, Mr. Dryke—it's not that we're reckless. We're
desperate. And that changes the rules sometimes."

  Dryke nodded. "For Jeremiah, too," he said.




   In the choppy waters of Formosa Bay, two hundred kilometers from the
fences of Kasigau, a small fishing boat flying the flag of the East African
Union rode a sea anchor against a gentle breeze. The nameless craft had
made its way up the coast from Zanzibar over the last sixteen hours,
running the Pemba Channel under a blazing midday sun and passing
Mombasa in the night.

   It was rigged and outfitted for anchovy fishing, with fine-mesh purse
seines, brails, and buoys. But none of the five men aboard were fishermen.

   Throughout the morning, one of the five had stood on the bow, scanner
raised to his eyes, watching the freighters from Kasigau tear across the
sky. The launch trajectory for the T-ships carried them nearly overhead,
bright sparks against the blue sky, already two hundred kilometers up and
moving two thousand meters per second, racing for orbit.

   The column of light on which the freighters climbed was invisible. Only
at its base, where the beam shattered stray dust particles into clouds of
ions, could it be seen, a pale glowing needle anchored to the top of the
launch tower, barely visible on the far horizon, and pointed unerringly at
the streaking spark of the spacecraft.

   While one watched, the others removed the nets which had concealed
the massive sea-green canister lashed against the stern gunwale. The
canister was as long as the boat was wide and half a meter in diameter. It
was heavy enough to take the concentrated efforts of all four men, aided
by the boat's net winch, to raise it off the deck and carefully lower it into
the water off the stern.

   There it turned end-up and bobbed like a half-filled bottle, a bare thirty
cents showing above the gentle waves. A wire-rope tether stopped it from
floating away with the light current.

  A second man joined the first on the bow. "Everything's ready."

  "The Zodiac ready?"

  "It'll take five minutes. Do you have the mark?"

  "I have it. Easy as skeet-shooting."

  "I'll make the call."

   In a tiny belowdeck cabin, he hunched over a small military comlink,
addressed its output at a private satellite in synchronous orbit over
Sumatera, and sent a sixty-character code burst. He had no idea where
the message went from there, only that some ten seconds later he had his
answer.

  He shut down the comlink and stowed it, then rejoined the man on the
bow. "Jeremiah says the 2:20 and 3:05 launches are the best targets of
opportunity, if we can wait."

   The man with the scanner swept the shoreline, the sea. "Six months to
get this far," he said at last. "We can wait. We can wait at least that long
to do it right."




  Mikhail Dryke's initial tour of Mombasa had yielded little of value.

   All he carried away with him were a few glimpses of the little island city
as it might have been five hundred years ago, as the Portuguese were
concluding their hundred-year conquest. And of the city as it was fifteen
years ago, before it became the primary port for Kasigau. The massive
masonry of Fort Jesus, the Portuguese stronghold, recalled the former
epoch. The outdated and undersized berths of the Kilindini anchorage
recalled the latter.

   The spaceport at Kasigau had conquered Mombasa more thoroughly
than any invader in its thousand-year history, more than the Shirazi, more
than the Omani, more than the Turks, more than the British. Kasigau had
transformed Mombasa's focus. A pair of great white elephant tusks, too
large to be real, still arched over Moi Avenue—a quaint and somewhat
bittersweet anachronism. But the city that once controlled the trade
routes to India was now a way station on the trade routes to space.

   No, he corrected himself. A bottleneck. Neither Havens nor Sasaki had
exaggerated. Dryke had seen container ships anchored offshore, awaiting
an open berth at the quays. Between the backlog, the Allied inspectors,
and the Kenyan tax and customs officials, the trip from ship's hold off
Mombasa to the belly of a T-3 atop the castle was the longest, slowest leg
of the journey.

   Returning to the spaceport, Dryke rebelled at finding himself entangled
in questions of corporate finance and cargo logistics. Sure, they could
move inspections from quayside to Kasigau. Sure, they could open the
center's runways to outside aircraft, to wide-bodied A-50s and Caravans
from Al-Qahirah and Kiyev and the Ruhr.

   But every instinct in Dryke screamed "No!" All it would take was one
mistake. One robot kamikaze passing up its landing to crash into the
operations center for the HEL complex. One pocket nuke concealed in a
T-3 cask, one sloppy or hurried inspection, one little kiloton explosion at
the top of the castle. One mistake could put Kasigau out of business for a
year, or even forever.

   Dryke left the highway at Mackinnon Road to enter the Kasigau
compound at the Rukinga gate. He reached the gate just as the crackling
thunder of a T-3 being ejected from the catapult rolled over the complex.
The guard detail waved him through, which obliged him to stop and
deliver a harangue on complacency.

   He had just managed to inspire the desired degree of contrition when
alarms began to scream from the gatehouse, the sentries' pagers, and the
skimmer's radio. While the sentries raced to seal the gate, Dryke dove
back into the skimmer.

  "What's happening?" he demanded.

   "The center is under Code Black rules," a curt voice answered. "Keep
this channel clear."

  "This is Mikhail Dryke. Tell me what's happening."

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Dryke. I don't know."

  "Is it Jeremiah?"

  "Mr. Dryke, I don't know. Please keep this channel clear."

  "Goddammit," Dryke muttered. "Goddammit."

   Ten klicks from the gate to the castle, another three to the operations
complex. He had covered less than half of it when a cold white flash which
made the sun seem dim flooded the landscape from somewhere high in
the sky. Half-blinded, Dryke was forced to slow his vehicle. He was still
struggling to see when a deep-throated rolling thunderclap, dwarfing even
the report of the castle's catapult, shook the skimmer and filled its cabin
with deafening black noise.
   Jesus Christ, was that a nuke? Oh, please— Twisting his head, Dryke
risked a squint through the side window to reassure himself that the castle
was still standing. It was. Puzzled, he sped on, fearing he was too late. He
was. By the time he reached operations, Freighter T-3/E49851 was falling
toward the Indian Ocean, and in Formosa Bay off Ras Ngomeni, a small
fishing boat was down by the stern and burning.




   The ballet begins. They wait in the wings in the kilometer-long tunnel
from the cargo assembly center, tapered fat-bodied gnomes five meters in
diameter and nearly seven meters tall, inching forward to the head of the
line. They wait for the clamps and the hook and the long ride to the top of
the castle, climbing the outside of the central tower like aphids climbing a
stem.

   T-3/E49851 had been built three days ago, its shell cut and curved and
welded by the CAM machines in the fabrication center. It had been
delivered to the cargo assembly center twelve hours ago, filled, sealed, and
cycled into the launch queue six hours later, mated with its thrust disk of
reinforced ice barely twenty minutes ago.

    At five minutes after two, E49851 started its dizzying trip up out of the
catacombs, bursting into the sunlight at the foot of the tower at a brisk
fifty kilometers per hour. Even at that clip, the ride up the side of the
tower took longer than the ride to space which was to follow.

   At the top, a handler crane grabbed the spacecraft and lowered it
gently into the catapult. In the launch operations center, a dozen stations
ran a checklist of a hundred queries. The first clearance was from Laser
Control, the last from Security; when it came through, the computers took
over.

   In a sudden convulsive moment, the T-ship was in motion, dragged
upward by the accelerator ring, boosted from beneath by a giant's breath.
At the mouth of the tube, the accelerator ring split and fell away, and the
capsule shot skyward, flying free.

   The instant it cleared the launch tube, the T-ship began to slow,
fighting drag and gravity, trading speed for altitude, tracing a trajectory
familiar to every child who had ever hurled a stone at the sun.
   Half a kilometer away, the HEL bank, twenty parallel half-gigawatt
free-electron lasers under one sprawling roof, waited the call. When
E49851 was five hundred meters above the castle, Unit 9 jumped to life,
sending a five-hundred-watt pilot beam out through the bank lenses,
along the nitrogen-filled beam tunnel, and up through the center of the
castle to the mirrors. Guided by the tracking system, a single mirror
directed the pilot beam against the broad base of the capsule.

   Still the capsule climbed, still the capsule slowed. Two kilometers,
three, three and a half. Any moment, it seemed, it would begin to fall back.
And then the great bank of lasers came to life as one. The ten-gigawatt
beam filled the full diameter of the beam tube, caught all twenty mirrors,
and leaped across the sky to the broad base of the freighter.

   The first pulse vaporized an almost invisibly thin layer from the ice
disk, forming a vaporous sheet of pure, clear, superheated steam. A second
pulse, a microsecond later and a hundred times stronger, shattered the
molecules of water vapor into an atomic cloud of raw hydrogen, oxygen,
and electrons, a plasma hotter than any chemical rocket flame, hotter even
than the surface of the Sun. The plasma expanded savagely outward,
kicking the spacecraft upward, as though it were the piston in a bizarre
engine.

  A thousand times a second, the lasers cycled through their double
pulse. The awesome seamless roar of the closely spaced explosions was
moderated only by distance, the pitch changing as the capsule accelerated,
Doppler-shifting into the familiar falling, fading scream of a T-ship.




   In the launch operations center, what little tension there could be in a
routine repeated more than sixty times a day had evaporated when the
thrust beam picked up the T-ship. The T-3 was riding the beam now,
accelerating toward orbit, safely out of reach. Even the launch security
officer, the man in the loop on Kasigau's air defenses, sat back in his chair
and reached for his drink.

   The failure of the AI protocols in the Houston incident had led to the
LSO being given unprecedented responsibility. Now, the AIPs could kill.
The LSO had gone from being the only station that could call down the fire
from the mountain to the only one that could stop it. Which meant that
the LSO's errors now would be errors of commission, not omission.

   Yusuf Alli had not welcomed his newly elevated status. Kasigau was
ringed by airports—the big one at Mombasa, the fields at Voi and Malindi,
and fifteen rural airstrips within the primary air control area. The air
traffic swarmed like bees around a hive. But every time a red light came
up on the board, Alli had thirty seconds to call for a hold, and then one
minute to make his decision. If he made a mistake, people would die.

   Through the first three weeks under the revised protocol, Alli had dealt
with his anxiety in a straightforward way. He always called for a hold, and
then always gave the target a green. He had yet to be wrong. He knew
there was some risk, but if any air traffic managed to reach the threat
envelope of a T-ship on the climb, the defense system would bring it down
without getting a second opinion. It was, he thought, foolproof.

  Then the contact alarm sounded, and Alli jerked forward in his chair,
choking on his tea.

  "Hold," he sputtered. "Hold!"

   "Tracking missile," said the board. "Threat category three. Risk
category: moderate. Time to intercept: twenty-one seconds."

   Alli wasted three seconds staring at the track of the streaking missile.
"It's a clean miss," he protested. "It won't get within fifty klicks of the
can."

  "Risk category: high. Time to intercept: eleven seconds."

 Alli's eyes danced frantically over the displays. "What's the danger?
What can they hit?"

  "Possible beam occlusion. Time to intercept: five seconds."

  At the same time, someone was screaming at him, "Burn it! Burn it!
They're going for the beam!"

   Ashen-faced, Alli brought his palm down on the fire mushroom. One of
the twenty lasers abandoned the synchrony of the launch rhythm, as atop
the castle an auxiliary mirror rotated a few degrees. A defensive beam
locked on the hurtling missile, and an instant later the missile exploded.
  "Got it!" exulted Alli.

   But the alarm kept sounding, and the displays continued to track
something—now a cloud of a hundred smaller objects, still climbing as
they fanned out. Then each of the smaller objects seemed to explode, and
the missile was now a scatter of marble-sized projectiles. Moving nearly as
fast as the missile itself had been, the chemical buckshot intersected the
beam.

   The first pulse heated the binder holding the projectiles together, and
they blossomed into a dense cloud of aluminum dust. The next pulse,
striking the fine particles, lit a myriad of tiny plasmas that quickly merged
into a huge, sun-hot flare, dissipating the beam's energy as light and heat.
Only a tiny fraction of that pulse got through to the T-ship. The echo, used
for tracking and guidance, was smothered completely. The next cycle was
completely choked off.

   At full power, the launch cannon could have burned through the cloud
in a matter of seconds. But with no positive track on the target, no
reflection back from the T-3, the laser controller declared a scrub and shut
the HEL array down.

   Three hundred kilometers away, the freighter began to fall, as though
the string holding it aloft had been cut. Before long, it reappeared on the
radar displays, no longer eclipsed by the dissipating cloud.

  "Can we get it back?" the launch boss asked, little hope in his voice.

   "She's tumbling from the drag," reported one station. "There's no
target."

  "Can we burn it?"

  "No. Too much atmospheric absorption, and we're losing the angle."

  "Jesus Christ," the launch boss said. "Where's it coming down? Indian
Ocean? God, just drop it in the ocean—"

  The answer was slow in coming. "South China Sea."

  Relieved expressions blossomed throughout the room.
   Then the tracking officer added, "Maybe landfall in Malaysia.
Singapore. I can't be sure."

   "Damn," breathed the launch boss.

   "Can't we warn them?" a sweaty and pale Yusuf Alli burst out.

  Silently, his mouth tight with anger, the launch boss shook his head.
"And tell them what?" he asked. "To put up their umbrellas? It's coming
down hard. There's no place to hide."




   The freighter was a hurtling meteor of ice and steel, thirty-two tons of
inert mass tracing the arc dictated by the forces which had acted on it. Its
fall through the afternoon sky went mostly unnoticed across the eastern
third of the Indian Ocean, except by a navigational satellite in high orbit,
the commercial radars at Colombo and Djakarta, and a Chinese warship
in the Gulf of Thailand.

    As air friction tore at the tumbling spacecraft, the great disk of
reinforced ice shattered, jagged chunks of it spinning away as it passed
over the island of Sumatera. One piece smashed into a tree-covered
hillside near Siabu, scattering a family of civet cats. Another buried itself
dramatically in a rice paddy on the flats near Dumai, scattering a family
of farmers.

   But the freighter itself remained whole, its dive becoming steeper as it
neared the surface. Sumatera slid away beneath, then the islands of the
Strait of Malacca and the tip of the Malay Peninsula.

   By now the spacecraft was lighting up the radar screens at Paya Lebar
Airport in Singapore. Controllers there watched in astonishment as it dove
toward the Singapore Strait at more than four thousand klicks per hour.

    The pilot of a Boeing 350 which had just taken off from the airport saw
it as a fiery streak which bisected the sky less than a kilometer in front of
his plane.

   A million people heard the thunder from a cloudless sky, the
death-rattle shattering windows all across the city. A hailstorm of glittery
razor-edged fragments rained down to the streets from the jagged wall of
high rises facing the harbor.

   Thousands on the Singapore waterfront witnessed with amazement the
spectacular fountain and plume of steam that erupted as the T-ship
plunged into the waters of the strait.

   But then it seemed to be over. There was much pointing, many voices
raised in excitement, a few raised in hysteria. Those who had missed the
moment rushed to hear the story from those who had witnessed it. The
waterfront was a carnival of questions.

   And then the waters of the strait rose up in a sudden rolling, roiling
surge. Like a miniature tsunami, the concussion wave smashed small
boats against each other and swept onlookers from floating piers and sea
walls.

   By the time the surge drained back into the strait, E49851 had become
a killer many times over.




                          CHAPTER 11
  —CGC—
                       "We accept this judgment…"

   Night is the winter of the Amazon, and dawn its spring. Shortly after 5
a.m. each day, Hiroko Sasaki left the Director's Residence to make the
twenty-minute walk in the clammy-warm tropical air to the headquarters
tower. The walk was her morning tea, awakening her mind, and daily
constitutional, unlimbering her body.

   On reaching her office, she would hide behind a Privacy One cocoon to
read the active files, compose policy drafts, and update her own logs.
Unlike the time she spent at the Director's Residence, this was a working
hermitism.

  Word of the Singapore disaster found Sasaki there reviewing the
October dispatch from Ur. The first report, from Prainha's operations
monitor, was annoyingly sparse—a launch anomaly in Kenya, a T-ship
down.
  She tried to call Havens at Kasigau, but was told that the center was
under Code Black.

  "Search all sources," she told her com system.

   Moments later, a single window came up on the display wall. The
Current Events stack of DIANA, the Asian information net, had a report of
a plane crash in the Singapore Strait. By the time Sasaki reached Havens
and Dryke at Kasigau, DIANA was calling it a meteor strike, and Panasian
television was offering the first pictures of capsized boats, broken
windows, and the anguish of shaken and grieving survivors.

  Havens looked chastened, guilt-haunted, and confused. Dryke seemed
more under control, though he was tight-lipped, his body coiled anger.

  "Mr. Dryke, is the port under assault?" she asked.

  "No. It's over. We—"

  "Are the facilities intact?"

  "Kasigau wasn't touched."

  Sasaki allowed herself a moment of relief. "What can you tell me?"

   "There was a missile launched against a T-ship. Against the thrust
beam, I mean. An occlusion trick. They had salvage fusing, beat the castle
defenses. The moment our burn beam lit it up, it blew like a fireworks
rocket. Everything we did after that just made it worse. Like judo. They
went after our weakness and used our strength against us."

  "More facts and fewer metaphors, please, Mr. Dryke. Site Director
Havens," Sasaki said.

  Havens raised her eyes toward the camera.

  "Have you suspended operations?"

  "Yes. We shut down immediately."

  "Please resume launch operations at the first opportunity."

  Her face wrinkled in puzzlement. "Resume—"
  "At first opportunity. Priority is to be given to Memphis cargoes."

   In helpless confusion, Havens looked to Dryke for support. But Dryke
understood, as Sasaki expected he would. "Yeah, I agree," he said, nodding
slowly. "If we shut down we're doing them a favor. If they try to hit us
again now they'll be doing us a favor. Fire up the lasers."

    Havens's face twisted unhappily. "I have some very shaky people in
flight operations—"

  "Then rotate a new shift in," said Sasaki. "But get the freighters flying
again. Refer all outside inquiries here. All statements are to come from
me."

  "Yes, Director."

  "I will expect a more complete report from both of you in thirty
minutes."

  "We're on it," Dryke said.

   There were six windows on the display wall now. Arms crossed over her
chest, Sasaki stood before the wall and surveyed them. DIANA had
corrected its story once more; the falling object was now a satellite.
Orbital flight controllers on Highstar had provided Allied with a flight
track confirming the aborted launch from Kasigau. Nikkei Telemedia had
joined Panasian at the scene. The Kenyan commerce minister was
demanding a conference. Panasian was demanding a statement. But of
Jeremiah, there was no word.




   Sasaki was able to placate the Kenyan commerce minister with five
minutes of earnest concern and a promise of more. That duty discharged,
she composed a brief statement for the media:

   "Reports reaching me indicate that at approximately eleven twenty-five
Greenwich Mean Time this morning, an Allied Transcon T-3 freight
capsule launched from Kasigau Launch Center in Kenya crashed into the
Singapore Strait. Allied has begun an immediate investigation into the
circumstances surrounding this most unfortunate event. We are deeply
concerned by reports of damage and loss of life in Singapore harbor. Allied
will extend every possible assistance to the government of Singapore and
to those touched by this incident."

   It said too much and too little, but it was better than silence, and would
keep the dogs at bay for a time. She recorded it and sent it out to the
European and Asian information nets and to Newslink, the private media
clearinghouse. Within five minutes, Sasaki's face had appeared in three of
the windows on her display wall.

   By then, her staff sociodynamicist had answered her call and joined her
in the office. Oker was not far behind. They watched the feeds together,
quietly sharing their perceptions, until the Kenyan President called and
Sasaki banished the others from the room.

  That conference was longer and more difficult than the first. It took
nearly half an hour before Jomu was satisfied, and the price this time was
much higher.

   Havens and Dryke were waiting for her when she finished with Jomu.
But she kept them waiting, calling the sociodynamicist back into her
office.

  "There is still nothing from Jeremiah."

   "There could be many reasons for that," the sociologist said. "Not least
of which are the dead in Singapore."

  "Could it be that he was not involved?"

  "Why don't we ask Mr. Dryke that?"

  "I can tell you that we are launching now," Yvonne Havens said,
appearing calmer and more in control. "Operations resumed twenty
minutes ago."

  "Very good," Sasaki said.

   "And we do have some further information. The cargo was made up of
environmental and navigational subsystems and other black boxes for
Memphis. I don't know how serious the loss is. I'm waiting to hear from
the construction office on Takara."
  "Please forward their answer to me when you receive it."

  "I will. Director—what are you hearing from Singapore?"

   Sasaki nodded. "My latest information indicates sixteen dead and at
least twenty-six missing. As you might expect, I am being pressed for
statements, explanations. I have expressed regret, but I will need to say
more soon. Mr. Dryke, what can you add?"

   "We have what's left of the boat," Dryke said. "We have the canister—it
was a thirty-year-old bottle rocket, Korean manufacture. Whoever pulled
this off has disappeared. We're searching the coastal area, Malindi. We're
getting some help from the Kenyans on checking sea traffic."

  "Do you expect to find those responsible?"

  "I'd like to say yes. But the truth is we may well not."

  "Have you any evidence that Homeworld was involved?"

   "It has Jeremiah's fingerprints all over it. He hits Memphis, he hurts
Allied, he gets people wondering about the safety of the T-ships just as the
colonists are starting to report. The deaths in Singapore underline the
point. All he really lost was a chance to get up on his soapbox."

  "Do you believe that he intended those deaths?"

   "Yes," Dryke said firmly. "At the very least he knew the risk was there,
and went ahead regardless. They could have launched sixty seconds sooner
and dropped the can in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I think he wanted
a good show, a big scare, and rolled the dice."

  "I agree," said the sociodynamicist.

   "I value your opinion," Sasaki said to Dryke. "All may be as you say. But
the moment demands more. An accusation without proof will appear to be
an excuse. Can you offer any evidence of Homeworld involvement which
the world press would find persuasive?"

  "No," Dryke said reluctantly. "Not yet."

  She nodded. "Thank you."
   "Hiroko, we were on top of this," Dryke added. "We were very close to
having him. We would have stopped him, except that one of our people
reopened a door we'd closed."

   "That, too, offers little to me now," she said. Sasaki turned to the man
beside her on the bench. "I am ready for your counsel. How should we deal
with this?"

    "Hold our nose and take our medicine," was the answer. "I was looking
at lightning polls in the outer office. We'll be seen as responsible whether
or not we blame Homeworld. And if we blame them, we publicize our
vulnerability to Homeworld tricks—and probably the details of the gag
they used against us. In my opinion, it's marginally better for us to be seen
as fallible than as weak."

  "Yes," Sasaki said. "I agree."

  "Perhaps something can be worked out with the Kenyans."

   Sasaki nodded. "I have already consulted with the Kenyan government,"
she said. "They understand the true circumstances and are willing to be
helpful. For appearances, they will insist on a suspension of launch
operations while an investigation takes place. But I have been promised
the restoration of our license, with certain cosmetic changes in the
inspection and oversight provisions, in no more than ten days."

   "Wait just one moment," Dryke interrupted. "Are we talking about
taking the blame for this ourselves?"

   "Yes," Sasaki said. "I have decided to issue a statement accepting full
responsibility for the accident. Mrs. Havens, we will need to agree on a
plausible failure scenario."

  "Yes, Director."

  "What in the hell are we doing this for?" Dryke exploded. "They're the
murderers, not us."

   "We can't win the war of opinion," the sociologist said simply. "We
have no credibility. This is Robin Hood we're up against. Who listens to
the Sheriff of Nottingham?"
  "This is wrong," Dryke said, shaking his head in disgust. "This is dumb
wrong."

   Sasaki sought and held his eyes. Her focus made it as though no one
else was with them. "This is reality," she said. "We must win the other
war. We must persevere, and complete Memphis."

  "This is a crime," snapped Dryke. "A bloody crime. And you want to
wash it away."

   "No, Mikhail," Sasaki said softly. "We will not forget, no more than we
forgot Dola Martinez. You must find Jeremiah and put an end to his
interference. You made a promise to me. I am counting on you to keep it."

   His eyes questioned, then accepted, her meaning. "There are some
threads I can follow."

   "Then do so," she said, her voice still soft, but her eyes hard. "It is clear
that Jeremiah can hurt us. He must not get a chance to try."




                            CHAPTER 12
   —AUU—
                             “...the fabric of life.”

   Like a child exploring the scar left behind by a bandage, Christopher
McCutcheon traced his finger along the nearly invisible crack on the back
of his ancient Martin steel-string. The luthier had lovingly healed the
wound in the century-old rosewood dreadnought. McCutcheon strummed
a chord, and the mellow-voiced guitar sang as sweetly as always.

   The club audiences preferred the bright sound of his Mitsei electronic,
which was just fine with Christopher. The Mitsei had a versatile effects
kit, could go six- or twelve-string at a touch, and still looked more or less
traditional. Most important, unlike the Martin, it could easily be replaced
should anything happen. Christopher did not want to expose the fragile
antique to the rigors and risks faced by a working instrument, much less
violate it by having a performance port installed.
   But there were certain songs and certain times that demanded a softer,
richer voice. And when he played for pleasure, more often than not it was
the supple-actioned D-42 that came out of its case. The luthier had
asserted that a wooden instrument held all the music that had ever been
played on it, and said that Christopher's Martin had been played well. He
was not inclined to argue.

  Almost of their own volition, his fingers found the opening chords of
"Caravan to Antares."

   "Look at me, I'm flying free, living in the stars," he sang, head down,
eyes closed. "Signed my name and set my sights on a destination far—"

   Sometime between the first verse and the last, Loi came to his room.
He opened his eyes to discover her leaning lightly against the wall near the
doorway, folded hands pinned behind her, listening. Though it was barely
eight, she was wearing a short black nightdress which showed much leg
and shoulder and clung slinkily to the rest.

   "Haven't seen that for a while," he said. She had bought the nightdress
for herself on an early dinner-and-shopping date in the Embarcadero,
then proceeded to take him home and show him that no visual aids were
necessary. As play wear went, the nightdress was demure, but the
associated memories were still potent.

  "Are you busy?" she asked in her thoroughly direct and un-coquettish
way.

   "I was planning to be for a while," he said, gesturing at the guitar. "I
just got Claudia back."

   "Too busy to help a friend in need?"

   A crooked smile. "Is that a proposition?"

   "Of sorts. I think Jessie could really use both our attention. Unless you
think Claudia will be jealous."

  Christopher frowned, hugged the guitar to his chest. "I don't think Jess
wants my attentions."

   "I think she's been missing them."
   He squinted uncertainly. "Did she say that?"

   "If I had to wait for her to speak her mind plainly to know what she's
feeling, this family would be in serious trouble," Loi said with a smile. "But
you don't have to, if you're uncomfortable. I'd rather you didn't if you're
uncomfortable, if you've still got business to work out with her."

   "I just don't want to make her say no."

  "I don't think she will," Loi said. "She needs what you can give her,
Chris." She smiled affectionately. "I don't think you realize how much good
you can do."

  Her words were processed through a filter of self-image that removed
most of the compliment, but left intact the hope of being worthy of it.
"Sure," he said finally, setting the guitar aside. "Let's see if we can't put a
smile on Jessie's face."

  She came toward him. "Hug me first," she said. "Let me find you. Then
we can go out there and remind her what she's part of."




    It was hard to say what each of them brought to that joining that made
it so special. But it was the best they'd ever been together, intense and
intimate, loving and sharing. It was like they'd never shared a bed before;
it was like they'd always been lovers. Everything was new, a discovery.
Everything was familiar, seamlessly easy.

  There was little said. Hunger and healing, doubt and reassurance, all
were given purely physical expression. Eyes and smiles and mingling
energies did the work of words.

   Christopher let Loi take the lead. Smiling mischievously, the older
woman settled beside Jessie on the couch and purposefully began to
undress her. Christopher joined in the task from the other side,
determinedly plucking at buttons and tugging at sleeves.

   Though their movements were unhurried, their focus and intensity
gave them an urgency flavored with inevitability. Together, Loi and
Christopher wrapped Jessie in a timeless, dreamlike experience of
sensuality. Any surprise, any resistance, boiled away in the growing sexual
heat.

   Naked, Jessie surrendered, releasing all Mind, embracing Moment.
Four knowing hands caressed her soft cool skin and silken folds. Two
hungry mouths tattooed gentle bites along a shoulder, sought crinkled
nipples to tease. She opened to their touch, their energies. She took a kiss
from Loi, long and hungry, and passed it in turn to Christopher, warm and
forgiving.

   In barely noticed pauses, Loi shed her nightdress with a shrug, and
Christopher his shirt. Skin to skin to skin they embraced, dry tinder for
the fire that ran through them.

   Sometime in that span, Christopher let go of calculation and plan,
centering in the immediate—the rich scent of Jessie's excitement, the soft
sounds of pleasure, the warm touch of a hand, his own pounding blood.

   A three-way kiss dissolved as the two women's mouths sought his
nipples, their hands working in partnership to free him from his jeans and
briefs. Loi went to her knees and briefly took his arching erection into an
embrace of soft lips and swirling tongue. Then she sat back on her heels
and pulled both Jessie and him down to the floor with her, seeking a
larger canvas for what she was creating.

   Without ever seeming to give direction, Loi orchestrated the rising
crescendo. Sitting cross-legged with her back to the couch, Loi cradled
Jessie's head in her lap while Christopher lay between Jessie's thighs,
happily tasting her sweet slickness. From above, Loi caressed Jessie's full
breasts, tugged and teased her nipples, stroked her hair and her cheeks,
bent forward to cap a moan of pleasure with a kiss.

   But when Jessie reached up for Loi's body, Loi captured her hands and
forced them down, pinning them to the carpet. A gasp escaped Jessie's
lips, and her eyes closed. His mouth melded to Jessie's sensitive center,
Christopher rode with her on the rising curve, answering her excitement
with a feverish intensity.

   Then, as Jessie writhed and mewled under their combined attentions,
Loi called Christopher forward with her eyes. He rose up and crawled
toward her, their mouths meeting in a fragrant kiss as his cock entered
Jessie. She moaned, a deep guttural animal sound, her body drawing him
in, hips rising to meet his thrusts.
   Finally, Loi, too, surrendered to no-mind, rocking forward to her knees
and lowering her sparsely furred patch over Jessie's eager tongue. The trio
soared together, reaching, the energy spinning through them, Jessie to Loi
to Christopher to Jessie and around the other way as well. They flew faster
and faster, pushing against the barrier, then suddenly broke through, one
after another.

   Jessie was first, her body seized by a fierce, twisting orgasm that
triggered Christopher's own furious release. Not long after, the double
charge and Jessie's flicking tongue lifted Loi to her own arching, blissful
break. Christopher's body tingled, jangled, in sympathy.

   They fell apart like toppled rag dolls, drained, bodies limp. In their
breathless haze, they shared smiles of shy delight, of childlike giddy joy.
They held hands, laughed, questioned each other with eyes that asked
amazedly, needlessly, Did you feel that?

   And as breath and strength returned, they began to look at each other
with hope and hunger, for the pleasure, the moment, had been so
exquisite that they could not help but try to touch it again. They
adjourned gleefully to Loi's big bed and soon began again.

  It was long after midnight before the edge of longing at last gave way to
happy fatigue, and they fell asleep entangled in each other's arms.




   For a long time, Christopher was unable to name the warm feeling that
he woke with that next morning. It was as though there were a happy little
spark lighting him from within. He didn't mind being the only one of the
three who was expected elsewhere early. He kissed them good-bye as
though they were sleepy children and found himself smiling as he went out
the door.

   Neither the police checklane on the U.S. 75 en route to Allied nor the
endless section conference once he got there tested Christopher's patience
that day. The smile came back at intervals, and with it crystal-clear
sense-rich memories.

   But he was scarcely aware of his own state until lunch, when one of the
other archaeolibrarians wryly announced to the whole table, "I don't know
what stack Christopher's been working in lately, but I wish he'd stop
grinning like a contented idiot over it. I'm starting to feel left out."

   That was the word. That was the feeling—contented. "Sorry, Angela," he
said, the smile embarrassed this time. "Didn't know I was broadcasting."

   "That's all right," she said with a wink. "It's good to see you happy."

  But the spark was blown out almost the moment he got home. He found
Loi and Jessie in the family room, and it was obvious at once that they
had been talking about something serious, and equally obvious that they
were waiting for him.

   "Hi," he said tentatively. "What's up?"

  "Jessie and I have been talking about the family," Loi said. "About what
we want and where we're going. We were hoping you'd join us."

   "Can I hit the bathroom first?"

   "Of course."

    Scrubbing his face, Christopher scrambled for emotionally secure
ground, trying to anticipate the blow before it came. What could be
wrong? What could have happened since last night? Jessie had been
crying, and Loi was in her mother-therapist mode. He did not want to
rejoin them scared, but scared he was. There was a tremor of change in
their faces, and change was the enemy of the contentment he had enjoyed
all day.

   But he could not hide. Summoning a calm he did not feel, he rejoined
them, settling by himself in a chair across the pit from them. "That feels
better," he said with a false smile. "Who's going to bring me up to speed?"

  Loi looked expectantly at Jessie, who ducked her head, frowned
uncomfortably, then looked up into Christopher's eyes. "We were talking
about what rights I have here."

   Surprise registered on Christopher's face. "The same as any of us."

   "I mean, how far does it go?"

   Oh, God, she's talking about the baby. "How far do you want it to go? It
isn't just rights for any of us. It's rights and responsibilities."

   "Don't lecture, Christopher," Loi said quietly. "Listen."

   I'm waiting for her to say what she means," Christopher said edgily.

  "I have the privacy you promised, and the freedom," Jessie said. "I like
making a home for you two. You've been more than generous with my
family share—I feel guilty sometimes because I don't think I give enough
back to deserve it."

   "You do," Christopher said.

  "But you're both so busy. I'm here alone more than not." She smiled
shyly. "Last night was wonderful. But it made me sad, too, because it
made me realize what I was missing."

  Christopher silently waited for her to continue. He could not make
himself ask the polite question.

   "I just feel like I need somebody for me," she said.

   "Don't you feel like Christopher is yours?" asked Loi.

  "Oh, I don't mean you don't share him, like last night. But when you're
here, he belongs to you. He only ever wants me when you're away."

   "That's not true," Christopher said reflexively.

  "Look at the way you got jealous about Loi and me making love," Jessie
answered. "You got angry at her for being with me. You didn't get angry at
me for being with her."

   "That's not what that was about."

   "It's okay," Jessie said. "I understand. You two have the most history
together. It's natural. And I'm not saying I don't think you both love me.
But I need more if I'm going to be happy. I need someone who belongs to
me the way you two belong to each other."

   "I spend a lot of time with you," he protested. "This last month I know
I've seen you more than I've seen Loi. I even think we've made love more
often than Loi and I have."
  "When it suits you," Jessie said with a sudden chill. "When it suits you,
you're more than ready."

  "Be fair, Jessie—"

   "There's a perspective problem," Loi was saying. "Christopher, you have
a full-time job and a time-consuming hobby. You spend a lot of what's left
over with Jessie. But that's a much smaller part of her life than it is of
yours."

  "Am I supposed to not work?" he asked indignantly. "Are you saying
you feel neglected, too?"

   "Jessie and I have different needs," Loi said. "You know that I've never
expected you to fill all of mine. I don't feel neglected. You've always been
just what I wanted you to be. But I'm not the one who's unhappy."

   Christopher could not keep his expression from souring as he looked to
Jessie. "I think this is really low, for you to lobby Loi behind my back. We
talked about this once already."

  "No, we didn't."

  He snapped, "We did, too, when Loi was in Geneva. Did she tell you
about that?" The last was aimed at Loi.

  "This is a different subject," Jessie said.

  "What?"

  She looked down. "You were right about the baby. I wasn't being fair to
you that night."

  "Well—" Christopher was nonplussed. "Then what are we talking
about?"

  "I want to know if I can propose a new addition to the family."

   Christopher felt a sudden wave of panic, which he made a noble effort
to suppress. "I don't understand something. Is this a theoretical
discussion? Or are we talking about someone specific?"

  "Don't be dense, Christopher," said Loi. "Jessie would like to ask John
Fields over Saturday for dinner and a discussion."

  "The cyclist? From the club?"

  "Yes. He was here once—you met him."

  "Are you fucking him?" he asked, incredulous.

   "Not yet. He wants all of us to talk before we get involved. He's very
principled."

  The door to Christopher's sympathies, which had been weakly propped
open, suddenly slammed shut. "No," he said harshly, jumping to his feet.

  "Chris—" Loi began warningly.

   "No dinner, no discussion, no John Fields. We're just learning how to
be three. We're not bringing someone else in."

  "Chris, if Jessie is unhappy, we may lose her," Loi said. "Is that what
you want?"

   "What does she have to be unhappy about? She's had everything
handed to her. She said it herself—she's got freedom, privacy, a
comfortable home, money—our money. She's got time enough to go
cycling every day, to watch every damn crier made in the last century, to
go looking for sparking buddies in every neighborhood inside the loop—"

  "Christopher," Loi said sharply.

  "I thought you liked John," Jessie said meekly.

   "I like John all right for somebody I spent ten minutes talking to once,"
Christopher said. "But that's a long way from saying, 'Sure, come on, move
in, by the way, Jessie likes it hard.' "

  "I didn't ask—"

   "You'd better figure out what's wrong with you. You're grabbing for
people like zoners grab for pills. First Loi, then a baby, now John—people
aren't teddy bears, goddammit, you can't start a fucking collection. Does
John know what you're going to want from him? Does he know that six
months from now you're going to whisper, 'Guess what, I'm fertile,' just as
he's about to come?"

   Christopher was shouting at the end, but barely aware of it. The room
was suddenly chaos—Jessie crying, cringing, Loi shouting and trying to
drag him away from her. He shook off her grip and turned on her, his
angry words a snarl. Loi grabbed at his wrist again, and only then did he
realize that he had been shaking a clenched fist at her, at Jessie, that his
body was coiled and charged to strike at them, to smash them down.

  In horror and shock, he backed away, dropping awkwardly into the
chair where he'd been sitting. Jessie took that moment to escape, running
up the stairway and disappearing into her room.

   "Jesus," Christopher whispered, covering his mouth with his hands and
staring at the carpet.

  "Where did that come from?" Loi asked, her voice hard and
unsympathetic.

   "I don't know," Christopher said. "You know I've never done that
before—"

   "Once is enough." She frowned unhappily. "I never thought I'd see you
come on like lord and master of a feudal castle. What in the world is going
on with you?"

  "I—I just got a little too wound up. The way Jessie's been—"

  "You can't blame this on her."

  "Everything I said is true," he insisted. "I just—didn't say it very well."

  Loi shook her head dismissively. "I don't think you said one word about
what you really feel."

   "We've got what we need right here," he said, looking up at her with a
plaintive expression. "If we have to make some adjustments, all right, we'll
make them. But bringing someone else in is crazy. That's going to change
everything."

   "Don't you realize that you just changed everything? You lost control at
just the idea of talking about expanding the family. You went so
blood-crazy that you were ready to hurt us to have your way. That isn't
healthy, and you know it."

   "I don't have to do this and I'm not going to," he said stubbornly. "You
can't guilt me into saying yes."

   She shook her head. "I'll tell what you have to do," she said softly but
firmly. "If you want to stay part of this family, you're going to have to go to
an R.T. and start working on this."

  Christopher was numbly silent for a long time. "This scares me, Loi. I
don't know if I want to know what's inside me that could make me do
something like this."

   "You scared us."

   "I know," he said.

   Loi studied him. "I'm going upstairs to be with Jessie," she said finally.
"Let me know what you decide."

   "I think she needs to go, too," he said as she started away.

   "You're not in any position to set conditions," Loi said pointedly.

   "I wasn't—"

  "You were. Get your own house in order, Christopher. Then maybe your
opinions on Jessie will matter to me again."




                           CHAPTER 13
   —UUC—
                          "… for the silent Earth.”

  Eyes closed, Hiroko Sasaki endured the final touch-up of her makeup
and powder. The corporation's image doctor, a round-bellied American
named Edgar Donovan, hovered nearby, fretting.

   "You have to remember that no matter how much Minor smiles at you,
he's not your friend," Donovan said. "The smiles don't go out to the
audience. When they cut to him, it'll be for a raised eyebrow or a frown."

  "I will remember."

   "And don't be surprised if he tries something to provoke you. You took
a lot of power out of his hands by insisting on a live interview. He's going
to try to get that back."

  "I fully expect so."

   "I'm not saying you were wrong, mind you," Donovan added. "The
board's delighted that you finally agreed to come out of the shadows and
stand up for the company. And I'm delighted with the conditions—live,
ninety minutes, and here at Prainha. That's as close as we can get to a
level playing field. Which tells us how much RCA wanted this one."

  "Yes," Sasaki said. The makeup artist stepped back, her work finally
complete, and Sasaki opened her eyes. She looked around the inner office
until she found Mikhail Dryke, a silent spectator in a window well. "Are
you ready?"

  "We're ready," Dryke said.

  Sasaki smiled a brave smile. "Then I will go face the jaguar."

   Except for his eyes, Julian Minor, senior correspondent for RCA
Telecasting's Newstime, looked more like a terrier than a jaguar. Barely
170 centimeters tall, with a round-heeled walk and close-cropped fuzzy
beard, he seemed unequal to the attention he received when he entered a
room.

   But on camera, the walk and the height were irrelevant, and the beard
became a mask which served only to focus attention on Minor's eyes. His
eyes unmasked the hunter in him. They could punctuate a comment with
an angry flash, puncture a defense with a skeptical smirk. From just a
meter or two away, the challenging intensity of his gaze could paralyze
thought.

   It was a candidate for the Russian presidency who had given Minor his
nickname. Emerging from what would be a career-ending interview with
Minor, Sterenkov had complained bitterly that to look across into Minor's
eyes was like looking into the tall grass and seeing the gleam of a jaguar's
eyes. In time, Minor's reputation itself became a weapon; later victims
sometimes destroyed their own credibility simply by trying to avoid his
gaze.

   For all that, Minor enjoyed a reputation for fairness. He was tough,
direct, and aggressive; if you were strong, direct, and honest, you could
survive, and might even earn a sympathetic hearing.

  Or so Donovan promised.

   Centered and calm, Hiroko Sasaki sat in the bergere armchair Donovan
had chosen for her ("You disappear in a big, soft couch") and waited for
the interview to begin. On a monitor a few meters away and angled
toward her, the introductory backgrounder on the Diaspora Project and
the Singapore "disaster" was continuing.

   Almost certainly, the backgrounder was infuriatingly slanted and
misleading. But Sasaki was not watching. She had already succeeded in
making herself not see the screen, had drawn in her focus until it and the
camera operator and the Skylink engineer disappeared. Once the
interview began, there would be no temptation to watch herself.

  Minor looked up from his notes and smiled at her. She became a
shadow and let the smile pass through her like a breeze.

   "One minute," someone said. Sasaki tugged the sleeves of her red
blouse (Donovan again: "Dress international. Let's not play to latent
racism by looking ethnic") down to her wrists, rested her elbows on the
slender wooden armrests, folded her hands in her lap. The next time
Minor looked up at her, she met his gaze and answered his smile with a
bow of her head.

   "Good evening," he said to his camera. "This is Julian Minor in
Prainha, Brazil, the busiest spaceport on the globe. Just five kilometers
from where I sit, a launch cannon identical to that blamed in the tragedy
in Singapore is busy hurling twenty-ton shells into the sky.

   "With me is Hiroko Sasaki, Director of the Diaspora Project, a division
of Allied Transcon, which owns and operates this spaceport. Director
Sasaki, are we safe here? And how can you be sure?"
   "No one is ever perfectly safe, anywhere, anytime, Mr. Minor," she said
smoothly. "But you are safer now than you would be waiting on a railroad
platform for a train or crossing a city street. You are safer now than you
were when flying from New York, to Belem last night for this interview.
Every year, more than two hundred thousand people die worldwide in
transportation accidents. Space flight is the safest form of transportation,
and the T-ships are the safest form of space flight."

  The eyebrow arched. "Is your answer to the families of the thirty-seven
dead in Singapore that they were just unlucky?"

   "Mr. Minor, when I heard what happened that day, I wept," Sasaki
said. "It was a terrible moment, and one I deeply wish could have been
prevented. But—"

   "But you could have prevented it," Minor pounced. "Isn't that true?
Don't your own operating rules, Allied's own documents, anticipate exactly
the kind of failure that took place? If you knew it could happen, why didn't
you take steps to prevent it?"

   Launch services were the responsibility of Allied's Starlifter Division;
Sasaki and the Diaspora Project were, properly speaking, merely their
customers. But Donovan had warned her that there was no point in trying
to draw fine distinctions or correct every misstatement.

   "But of course, we did," Sasaki said. "Unfortunately, there is no such
thing as a perfect machine."

   "That's certainly true of your launch cannon," Minor said. "I have
reports here of more than sixty launch failures. It seems to me that the
only way you could feel safe here is not to think about it."

   Sasaki frowned. "In thirteen years of operation at Kasigau and
thirty-five years here, Allied has launched more than a million pay loads.
There have been just sixty-one launch aborts. And only once has an abort
resulted in any loss of life. I regret the Singapore accident. But I don't see
where I need apologize for the safety record of the Kare-Kantrowitz
launchers or of Allied's Launch Services Division."

   Minor settled back in his chair. "I notice that you avoid calling these
systems 'launch cannon,' an expression which is in such widespread
colloquial use that it's in every general lexicon. Why is that?"
  "I resist the coinage," she said. "It's misleading."

   "Well, now, I've heard those launchers at work," Minor said with a
convivial smile. "They sure sound like cannon to me. Isn't this linguistic
legerdemain an attempt on your part to mask the military origins of
Allied's technology, what Jeremiah calls your bloody heritage?"

   "I find an interesting irony here," Sasaki said. "Yes, nationalist tensions
drove the technologies that lifted us into space. We use high-energy lasers
and tracking systems created for a ballistic missile defense. The first
all-points aerospace plane was designed as a bomber-interceptor for the
United States Air Force. The first space station was a Russian spy base.
The first moon landing was a political power play. The first boosters began
as weapons of war."

  "Then you admit—"

   She did not pause. "I am prompted to wonder at times where we would
be if we humans hadn't been fighting each other tooth and nail. I am not
ashamed of the pedigree of our tools. On the contrary, I think that in
many cases we have redeemed the creators of those tools by finding better
uses for them than those for which they were originally intended."

   "I hear in that answer exactly the kind of arrogance of which Allied
stands accused—"

  "Stands accused by whom, Mr. Minor?"

   "By Homeworld. By public opinion. Isn't arrogance implicit in the fact
that within an hour of the Singapore tragedy, the Kasigau cannon was
back in operation?"

   "What's implicit is necessity," she said calmly. "Prainha and Kasigau
are lifelines for the orbital communities—for Technica and Horizon and
Aurora. All of the aerospace vehicles owned by all of the planet's
governments and corporations could not make up the shortfall if Prainha
and Kasigau shut down—"

   Donovan and Dryke had been monitoring the broadcast from Sasaki's
private inner office, using the center four cells of the display wall. While
Donovan sat self-evidently at ease, lounging back in Sasaki's Swendon club
chair, Dryke stood, sometimes pacing by the windows, sometimes
standing close enough to the display that its changing patterns of light
played on his face.

  "Come on, come on," Dryke muttered to himself.

  "She's doing wonderfully," Donovan said. "She's absolutely fine."

  "I wasn't talking to Hiroko," Dryke said.

  "Director Sasaki, how much has Memphis cost?" Minor was asking.

  "How much does a city cost?" Sasaki replied.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Before I answer, I want to know that you'll have something
appropriate to compare it to. How much is invested in a modern
community of ten or fifteen or twenty thousand? Draw a circle around one
and tell me. How much in their roads, their businesses, their homes? How
much in their play yards and factories? Don't draw the circle too small—"

  Attagirl," Donovan said, sitting forward and beaming.

    "—don't leave out the land that grows their food, the quarries and
mines and wells that supply their stone and water and steel. How much for
the endless maintenance to keep what you've built whole? How do you
value the man-years of unpriced labor? How much did it cost to bring it
all together? How much has it cost to keep it alive?"

  "Not a billion dollars a person."

   "That's your figure, not mine," Sasaki said. "How much, Mr. Minor?
Everything that goes into Memphis has a price tag, because it's all being
done at once, by one organization. I know what building this city cost. But
that number would mean nothing to you or to the audience, because you
don't know the value of what you've inherited yourselves."

   If she said more, neither Donovan nor Dryke heard it. There was a
buzzing sound, which Dryke later decided sounded like electric butterfly
wings. The four-cell display seemed to collapse toward its center, then
stabilized with a new image: a red-haired, bearded man perhaps forty
years old.
   "Of course you know what Memphis costs," said the image. "A good
thief always knows the value of what he steals—"

  "Yes," Dryke said approvingly. "There you are."

  "What the hell is that?" Donovan demanded, brow wrinkling.

  Dryke walked forward a step and studied the face. "Not what, Mr.
Donovan. Who."

  "And who is—"

  "Jeremiah."

  Recovering quickly from his surprise, Donovan scrutinized the display.
"Any chance that's what he really looks like?"

  "Not much."

  "I thought not," Donovan said, then looked quizzically at Dryke.
"Ah—shouldn't you be doing something?"

  Dryke shook his head. "It's being done."




  There was confusion in the outer room. The monitor at hand still
showed Sasaki's face, but Minor was on his feet and demanding
explanations for something he had heard through his earpiece.

   "Are we on or off? Off? How—then give it to me here, goddammit, so I
can see what's going on."

  The image of a gentle-eyed bearded man replaced Sasaki's puzzled
expression on the monitor.

  "Sound," barked Minor. "I want sound."

   "—it is arrogance, arrogance in the service of imperialism, which
forgives such plundering," the man was saying. "They want, and so they
take. They call their wants needs and justify their greed with necessity—"
   "Jammed? From where? Are you sure this isn't their doing?" Minor
demanded. "No—who? Are you sure?" He stared at the monitor. "Jesus,"
he said, turning to his crew. "Let's go back live."

  "Nothing's getting through," the engineer protested.

  "Do it," Minor snarled.

   "—what do they want? More, always more. For those who are empty
inside, there is no such word as enough. Never enough power, never
enough wealth—"

  The engineer shrugged. "On three. But you're talking to yourself.
Three—two—one—"

   Minor looked into the lens. "Jeremiah? Jeremiah, this is Julian Minor
of Newstime. Can you hear me?"

  "—never enough to satisfy the unsatisfiable need." Then he paused.
"Yes, Julian," he said. "I can hear you."

  "You're Jeremiah, leader of the Homeworld?"

  "I am Jeremiah," said the pirate.

  "Would you answer a few questions?"

  The bearded man nodded. "Ask your questions."

  "Some have called you the John Muir of the Earth. You use an Old
Testament prophet's name—a reluctant prophet with a flair for theater
and an uncompromising message of danger and destruction. Do you see
yourself as an oracle for the twenty-first century—"

  "I am not important. Ask another question."

  Minor blinked in surprise. "Very well. Jeremiah, why do you oppose the
Diaspora?"

   "It is those who support it, not those who oppose it, who must explain
themselves," said Jeremiah. "Ask Hiroko Sasaki to explain. Explain by
what right you squander your inheritance, the Earth. Explain what you
have bought at such a dear price. The choking summers. The burning
forests. The rising oceans. The killing rays of the Sun. You have trampled
the Earth underfoot in your headlong rush to the stars."

   Sasaki held her head high as she answered. "We are all collaborators in
that crime. Not Hiroko Sasaki alone. Not Allied Transcon. But I, and you,
Jeremiah, and you, Julian Minor, and each of those listening, and ten
generations dead and departed. The Amazon forest was burning, the river
poisoned by mercury, long before Allied began to build at Prainha. The
Earth was warming, the ozone vanishing, when starships were only
engineers' dreams."

   The Starlink technician was shaking his head. "No," he said. "It's not
going through."

  "What?"

  "He doesn't want an answer," Sasaki said quitely. "He only wants an
audience."

   "Jeremiah, this is Julian Minor again. I still have Director Sasaki here,
on camera just as I am. Are you stopping her answers from being heard?
Are you afraid of what she might say?"

  "Hiroko Sasaki is programmed with lies," said Jeremiah. "She is
abducting ten thousand of our brightest and best to send on a modern
Children's Crusade. What can she say that we can believe?"

   Minor looked to Sasaki. "What about that, Director? Have you taken a
look at what the effects of giving up that many people of that quality
might be? From a human resources standpoint, it seems that Jeremiah
has a reasonable case."

  "Jeremiah controls the airwaves. What point is there in answering?"

  "We're recording here," Minor said. "If we have to, we'll put it together
and rebroadcast it later. Director Sasaki, one way or another, I promise
you that your answers will be heard."

   She frowned, looked to the floor as she marshaled her thoughts, then up
at the camera. "The pioneers are a select group of very special people," she
said. "They have to be, to face and triumph over the challenges ahead. But
they've chosen this for themselves, earned it for themselves. No one is
being abducted. Thousands more would join them if there was only room.

   "Even so, Memphis won't be leaving the Earth poorer. The Diaspora
Project has been the single greatest stimulus to education and
self-development since the invention of the computer. It's motivated
people of three generations across every continent to say, 'I want to
contribute,' and work to better themselves. Most of those people, and all of
that human capital, will remain here."

   Minor turned back to his camera. "Jeremiah, you can't dispute the fact
that millions worldwide bought options for the Diaspora Project. The
pioneers are volunteers, the lucky few. Why not let them go? Why is it
important to you to stop them?"

   "It is important to all of us," Jeremiah said. "We need what they
represent. We need their will and energy here. There is so much work left
to do, so much damage to repair. We need to focus on stewardship, not
starships. Otherwise this endless expansionism will exhaust us and leave
us empty. We have a choice between living in the Sun and dying in the
dark. We must raise our voices. We must reclaim the choice from the
corporations and their collaborators. It is our future."

  "Director Sasaki—" Minor began.

  "Gone," said the Skylink operator, shaking his head. "Nothing up or
down."

  Minor looked helplessly at Sasaki. "Director, believe me when I say that
we had nothing to do with any of this."

  "I do believe you," she said, rising.

  "I can give you a chance to make a closing statement."

  "Thank you. It's not necessary," Sasaki said.

   "You're going to give him the last word? This story's going to be in the
A queue for the rest of the week."

  She turned and met his perplexed look with a gentle smile.

  "My mission is not to win converts. My mandate is to build starships."
  "Mandate?"

  "Have you ever tried to push a string, Mr. Minor?"

  "I'm afraid you've lost me."

   "Do you think that the Diaspora Project is something that was created
from the top down?" she asked chidingly. "This is not something that we
are doing to the Earth. This is something I do for the Earth. Those who
can, already understand. Those who do not, never will."




   When Sasaki rejoined Dryke and Donovan in the inner office, the latter
greeted her with a disapproving look.

  "I should have been told," Donovan grumped. "The board should have
been told."

   "Told what, Mr. Donovan?" All sixteen cells of the display were
occupied, and she began to scan them.

  "Listen, I'm not an idiot. You set up this interview to sucker Jeremiah.
Mikhail here spent the whole time itching and fidgeting like he was
waiting for the main act to go on stage."

  She glanced at Dryke, a hint of a smile on her lips. "Jeremiah is his own
master."

   "Bullshit. You were laying for him. You used the Singapore business as
cover for changing your colors. The only thing I can't figure is what you
got from doing it."

   "I appreciate your help in preparing for the interview, Mr. Donovan,"
Sasaki said, gliding toward the display. "Please thank the board for
making you available. You can relay to them that I do not expect to be
granting any further interviews in the near future."

  Donovan frowned. "Yeah," he said as he stumped out. "I'll tell them."

  As the door was closed behind Donovan, Sasaki asked for Privacy One.
"Well, Mikhail?" she asked. "How did we do?"
   Dryke pulled the plug from his ear and broke into a smile. "We have a
piece of him," he said. "A good piece."

  "Tell me."

   "The Jeremiah image was synthesized with a Palette HI broadcast
animator. Images, I mean. There were three different ones."

  "Three!"

   "An equal-opportunity air pirate. He blanketed Europe and North
Africa with a vaguely Mediterranean synth through SIRIO, fed the Far
East with an Oriental bounced up through AUSSAT, and gave us the
mountain man through Hiwire."

  "All things to all people," Sasaki said wryly.

   Dryke continued, "The video lab says that if all three had the same root
image, they may be able to correlate them and back-form a fair picture of
the real Jeremiah."

  "Is that all we have—a hope?"

   "No," Dryke said. "More than that. You know, you can route a call to
your neighbor around the world if you know how, and by ten thousand
different routes if you want to be creative. Jeremiah knows how, and he
was creative. All three images were scatter-routed to the uplinks in short
bursts—too short to track back. Jeremiah used one hundred and eighty
routes—good for three minutes. But thanks to Mr. Minor, he stayed on for
seven. And with a second and a third look, we were able to map six of his
routes back to a common entry node."

  "Which is—"

  Dryke looked up at cell 4, which contained a map of North America.
"Monterrey, Mexico."

  "Monterrey! Is that his base?"

   "Almost certainly not," Dryke said, shaking his head. "He's not that
foolish. But it makes the odds very good that his base is in the Americas.
He needs land-line access to the node. Jeremiah's a neighbor, Hiroko."
  "Or an insider?"

  "Perhaps," Dryke said. "Can't rule it out."

  Sasaki crossed her arms and nodded. "This is very heartening, Mr.
Dryke. I can see progress at last. I am comforted that I did not endure Mr.
Minor's questions and Mr. Donovan's molding in vain."

  "I'm not finished," Dryke said. "There's one piece more. The best piece."

  "Oh?"

   "We always thought that Jeremiah's voice was synthesized. Nothing
exotic to it," Dryke said. "But there's one kind of solution for a canned
track like we've seen before, and another for a live exchange like we just
had."

  "The difference is important?"

    "Very. For live work, the easy way is to give an AI translator—maybe an
IBM Traveler—a cross-file of another voice, just like you'd give it a
cross-file for French, say, and let it do the substitutions on the fly. But
something interesting happens when you throw a word at a translator that
it can't find in the file. It passes that word through unchanged."

  Sasaki looked suddenly hopeful. "Did that happen?"

   "Yes. With Julian's name. Your name. And 'starships,' near the end,"
said Dryke. "All different from the rest. All in Jeremiah's own voice."

  "Can you do anything with so little?" Sasaki asked. "A few syllables—"

   "It's as good as a fingerprint. It's enough to do a cross-match search in
the Memphis hyper. Enough to set up a monitoring program on the
corporate com net." Dryke smiled, a smile full of threat. "You know, you
can't hardly work for Allied without saying your name or 'starship' now
and again. If Jeremiah is an insider, we'll find him very soon."

  "And if he's not?"

   "A little longer. But not much longer. We're coming up behind him in
the dark. One more gag and we'll have him."
  "What will it take this time?"

  Dryke thought for a moment. "A sacrifice."




                           CHAPTER 14
  —ACA—
                          “I fight against myself…”

  It wasn't working.

   "Why do you want to go on Memphis?" Thomas Tidwell would ask the
pioneer in the facing chair.

   And more often than not, the person he was interviewing would freeze,
as though seized by the sudden fear that the fix was not yet in, that
somehow they could still lose what they thought they had gained. Anxious.
Nervous. Defensive. It didn't matter if it was the first question or the last,
whetfler he was friendly or formal, whether it was Tokyo or Munich or
Houston.

   "This is not a test of any sort," he would assure them. "Nothing you say
to me can affect your standing in the Project."

  And they never quite believed him.

   "My name is Thomas Tidwell. I am supervising the definitive history of
the Diaspora Project, including the personal histories of every pioneer. We
need to understand what kind of people took up this challenge, what they
wanted, what they hoped."

   That helped a little, except that it tended to elicit the kind of answers
he had found in the file of application essays—rambling anecdotes with
the flavor of personal myth, inadequate and unconvincing except to the
mythmaker. Why had they chosen to exile themselves from the only world
they'd ever known? The answers remained buried in their individual
psychologies.

   A fifty-two-year-old American named Peg: "My great-grandfather was
a mission specialist for NASA, flying the Shuttle back when it was all new.
Joe Allen. He wrote a book about it—I read my mother's copy when I was
ten. But I was never much interested in space until the Project came
along. It was all about as exciting to me as brushing your teeth. But this is
different. This is like it was when my great-grandfather wore the blues."

  Tidwell blinked, and the face changed.

   A handsome, earnest young Tanzanian named Zakayo: "When I was
twenty, I climbed to the Kibo summit of Kilimanjaro with an expedition of
Australians. I thought I had done a great thing until night came and the
stars came out to show me I had not climbed high enough."

   Tidwell blinked again, and the room changed. Munich, not Houston. A
blink. Tokyo, not Munich.

  Realwadee, a Malay Thai woman, barely a woman at nineteen: "My
option was a gift from King Adulyadej on my admission to
Ramkhamhaeng University. My selection honors my father, my family,
and my sovereign lord. Can I do other than go?"

   If he questioned them further, probed for the reasons and emotions
underlying the words, he lost whatever measure of trust and goodwill he
had managed to manufacture. Either they were telling him what they
believed was the truth, and resented his questions as a slight on their
honor, or they were telling him what they believed they must, and
retreated before his questions to protect their fictions.

   It was not working, and Tidwell was frustrated. The immaculate
synthesis of a lifetime's work had been smashed that afternoon in Sasaki's
office, and he had been unable to reconstruct it.

   He remained unwilling to revise it. Tidwell's private briefings with
Selection's geneticists and counselors, arranged by Oker, had left him
unsatisfied. It was too much like going to church with True Believers. And
Tidwell did not believe.

   Could not believe. He was the silent observer, the fair witness, the
impartial analyst. He could not embrace anyone's passion. He was beyond
or above or one step removed from passion, from this particular passion.
When the great ship sailed, he would stand on the dock and wave
good-bye without the smallest pang of regret.
   But Tidwell could not suffer the thought of waving good-bye with the
root question still unresolved. So when Oker's geneticists were finished
with him, Tidwell had launched himself on a globe-spanning quest for
answers. In the month since his visit to Prainha, Tidwell had spent all but
four days away from Halfwhistle, continent-hopping like a tourist on a
seventeen-city holiday.

   After more than two years of reclusion, it was too much too fast. By the
time he reached Tokyo to interview a selection of pioneers being processed
through that center, Tidwell was sick of travel, of strange beds and
sleeping poorly, of fighting a balky biological clock. His health was
faltering, and with it his concentration.

   At the end of the Tokyo sessions, Tidwell retreated to Half-whistle, his
thoughts in disarray. In his garden he pruned away neglect and worried
over faltering shrubs and flowers. In his journal he wrote,



I fight against myself not to cast out this unwelcome intruder before he
speaks another word in my ear. His voice is the voice of the
banished—Lamarck and Baer, Spencer and Miller, Crick and Corning.
There is only one history of the world. It begins with the rejection of
mystery, with penetrating the illusion of purpose. The notion of purpose is
meaningful only in the context of individual lives. Beyond that there is a
synergy of chance and fate and individual purpose which is ultimately
stochastic.
Nothing is as it was meant to be. Everything is as it happened to be. We
flatter ourselves with notions of progress. But progress is merely
opportunism seen in hindsight. We salve our burning conscience with
visions of Gaea, God become goddess become cybernetic superorganism.
But Gaea is merely wish fulfillment, the newest clothes for an old craving.
We await the return of the greater power to enforce the greater good, to
save us from our selfishness.
I have already written this story. This is the story of the power of a dream.
Of that which is quintessentially human—the tug of curiosity, the spur of
ambition, the heat of passion, the drive of hubris.
Now Sasaki seduces me with a new delusion embracing an old and
discredited idea. Where and when did purpose arise in a world of chance?
At the beginning. Before the beginning. Purpose preexisted history.
Purpose preordained history. All sins are justified by the imperative
command. All crimes are forgiven in the name of necessity.
This ground bears the footprints of lost souls. I must walk carefully.




   The houses in the Nassau Bay residential complex were aging,
inefficient frame structures, survivors from an earlier century's
winding-street waterfront suburbia. Once a satellite community to the
Johnson Space Center, Nassau Bay was now inside the fences, absorbed
into Allied's Houston facility as a sort of decentralized dormitory.

   Three score of the better houses were being used as residences by
center staff, including the center director and several other Building 1
types. Two of the largest houses, one overlooking narrow Nassau Bay, the
other on little Lake Nassau (now a captive lagoon) had been converted
into pilots' hostels. And in the years between Ur and Memphis, several of
the empty structures on Nassau Bay's quiet streets had been used as illicit
lovers' rendezvous, giving the complex its nickname of "Noonerville."

    But there were no empty houses now, and the streets were again full of
life. Once again, Nassau Bay belonged to the pioneers—one to a bedroom,
two, three, or four to a house. There were few amenities, but diligent—if
minimal—maintenance had kept the complex clean and livable. And the
energy and joyful camaraderie of its occupants turned Nassau Bay into a
community.

   "It's like a college campus the weekend before fall classes begin," Daniel
Keith observed as he walked slowly down a Nassau Bay sidewalk with
Thomas Tidwell. "Everyone's starting with a clean slate. Everyone's ready
to meet and make new friends. It's like they get here and say, 'I know you.'
The bonding rate is incredible. The sociology team really has to scramble
to keep on top of it."

   That was what had brought Tidwell there: the promise of a more
intimate glimpse into the mind and heart of the Memphis pioneers. It was
old-fashioned, dirty-fingernails primary research, contemporary field
anthropology of a sort that Tidwell had not resorted to in thirty years.

    "We've only got about four hundred pioneers in the center at the
moment," Keith said as he unlocked the door to a little house, "so we've
still got some room. Your housemates are all ship's staff. They've got a very
intensive training schedule—don't expect to see them from six to six most
days."
   The house was a few degrees cooler than the sultry air outside. "I
understand," Tidwell said, setting his small bag on the threadbare couch.
"But I won't be here if they aren't. I intend to wait with them at the shuttle
stops, sit with them in the cafeteria, huddle with them in whatever private
spaces they've chosen. After all, I am Thomas Grimes, communications
auxiliary—a correspondent for the ship's log." He smiled. "A flack for the
ship's morale officer, more to the truth."

   "I don't know that you're going to be able to hide who you are for long,"
said Keith. "There are people here who know you, Dr. Tidwell."

  Tidwell nodded. "Perhaps not. I don't believe it will take long."

  Shaking his head, Keith held out the key he had used to admit them.
"Maybe this isn't my place, but I have to say that I think you're looking
under the wrong rock, Dr. Tidwell. You won't learn anything from these
people. They don't know, themselves."

  Tidwell took the key. "That defies reason. How can they make such a
monumental decision without knowing their own minds?"

  "Because it isn't reason that drives them," Keith said simply.

  "If so, then that will be the lesson I'll take from here."

  "Will you know it when you see it?"

  "What do you mean?"

   "You're not like them. You've lived a life of the mind. You have more
respect for the power of thought than most of us do for the power of God.
I'm not sure that you can credit a motive that you can't understand. I
don't know if you can see it in them if you can't see it in yourself."

   Tidwell's gaze narrowed into a rebuke. "I'm familiar with the dangers of
egocentrism."

  "A story?"

  "If you wish."

  Keith folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. "I suppose you
know that this used to be the headquarters for NASA's astronaut corps.
For obvious reasons, we were interested in their astronaut selection
procedures, and so we acquired their records. We found in looking at
them that every time NASA announced openings, they got hundreds of
applications from people who had to know that they had no chance to be
picked, who didn't begin to meet even the minimum requirements."

  "Dreamers and optimists," said Tidwell. "This is not surprising."

   "Maybe not," Keith said. "One of our genetic historians got ambitious
and traced the descendants of twenty of those dreamers. Every one of
them has at least one blood relative in our selection bank."

   "Chance. Each must have dozens of relatives. And millions held
selection options."

   "She traced two control groups from the same era as well. The
correlation there was less than five in twenty."

  "Which does not rule out chance. Nor the influence of the family
environment."

  "Skeptics can always fall back on chance," Keith said.

   "Is there something wrong with being a skeptic, with insisting on
evidence and causality?"

   Keith sighed. "No. Dr. Tidwell, I'm not here to convince you of
anything. You asked us to make these arrangements, and we did. I'll be
available if you have any problems or needs."

  "You are frustrated with me."

  He shrugged. "Not my place to be."

  "But you are. Why?"

  "Because it's so clear to me, and you have so much trouble seeing it."

  "Exactly what is clear?"

   There were voices in the street, and Keith glanced over his shoulder in
their direction. "That they don't really know why they're going," he said
quietly. "They only know that they want to."
  "What persuades you of that, Mr. Keith?"

  Keith turned back and showed a faint smile. "Because I want to go, too,
Dr. Tidwell. And I don't really know why, either."




   When Keith was gone, Tidwell granted himself license to explore the
house. The salutary effect of the house's enfeebled air-conditioning
vanished the moment he started upstairs. The air there was stagnant and
hothouse stuffy. Unless the nights were markedly cooler, sleeping would be
a challenge.

   He found the empty bedroom and, in it, his trunk of clothing, delivered
ahead by the Selection office. Leaving for later the task of unpacking it,
Tidwell extended his license to entering the other, already occupied
bedrooms—two up, one down.

   Tidwell did not see it as a violation of privacy. Most of the pioneers'
personal belongings—250 kilograms each—would be shipped directly from
their homes up to Memphis through Prainha or Kasigau. He reasoned
that what his housemates chose to bring with them while camping out in
Houston might reveal something of their personality, and so was germane
to his purpose there.

   Still, he was careful not to disturb anything that might betray his
trespass, contenting himself with what he could see. He peeked in a closet,
but not in a suitcase; at the objects arrayed on a wobbly-legged dresser,
but not in its drawers.

   He took note of several travel and geography volumes in a file of
chipdisks—perhaps someone trying to plan how to spend their last days on
Earth? He startled at finding candles and Wiccan icons in the single
ground-floor bedroom—surely more appropriate to a Homeworlder than a
pioneer?

   All data were preliminary, all conclusions provisional. He would not
judge them until he had met them.

   The back windows of the house looked out on turgid Cow Bayou and the
tall double fence running along its far bank. The fences marked the south
boundary of the center; when he stepped out onto the small patio deck, he
could see the south gate tower and bridge half a kilometer upstream.

   He also saw something that surprised him. Scattered along the outer
fence, all the way from the tower to where the bayou emptied into Clear
Creek, were dozens of people standing in ones and twos and threes, almost
like statues. The phrase "outside looking in" popped into Tidwell's head.

   Starheads, Tidwell thought. Those must be starheads. Some of the
groups closest to Tidwell noticed him and began shouting something
unintelligible across the water. He raised a hand in acknowledgment and
salute. Perhaps I should talk to some of them as well, go and stand with
them for a day—

   They were still shouting, but try as he might he could not make out the
words, any more than he could make out their faces. He waved one more
time and turned to enter the house. As he did, he caught a reflection of
sound off the metallic siding, a shrieking high-pitched voice.

  "Bastard," was what he thought he heard, "bastard pig bastard—"

   His head whipped around and he stared, unbelieving. The three figures
nearest to him, almost directly across the bayou, were contorted by the
body language of hostility, jumping, fists raised. Others were hurrying
along the fence to join them. Someone somewhere was beating on the
fence itself, a metallic rattle like clashing swords.

   From the direction of the gate tower came the muffled roar of a
gasoline motor; moments later, tearing his gaze away from the enraged,
now fifteen or twenty strong, Tidwell caught sight of a small boat racing
bow-high toward the commotion. When he realized that the boat carried
the Allied Transcon logo and the grim-looking men aboard it wore
Security armor, Tidwell, still bewildered, fled back into the house.

    Shaken, Tidwell watched from behind the heavy drapes shrouding the
window of the onetime dining room as the Security boat slowly circled and
the gathering slowly dispersed. Tidwell wished for some sort of binoculars;
it almost seemed as though those beyond the fence were celebrating as
they scattered, finding some sort of victory in the episode.

   Fifteen minutes later, all was as it had been before Tidwell pulled back
the sticky sliding door and stepped outside. The boat stopped circling and
returned upstream. The watchers—not starheads, certainly, though
Tidwell was at a loss for what to call them—took up their stations along
the fence.

    And Tidwell retreated to his room, where he hastily recorded an
account of the episode and then began to unpack his luggage. From time
to time, he would peek out through the drapes to see if the watchers were
still there. They always were, and Tidwell found himself grateful when the
first of his housemates returned and he was no longer alone.




   Tidwell met them all that night. The travel books belonged to Evans, a
tall, barrel-chested judge-arbitrator from Chicago. Genial as he was large,
Evans plied Tidwell with questions as he swept through the house,
scooping up what passed for a meal and changing into fresh clothing
before vanishing out the front door a half hour later.

    By contrast, Colas, the young Canadian environmental engineer, had as
little personality as his room had revealed. His angular face had deep
worry lines worked into it, and when he excused himself to go upstairs and
study, mumbling something about having to work out calibrations for six
systems, Tidwell made no attempt to deflect him.

   Last to return was the most interesting of the three, the bodywork
counselor, Malena Graham. Her airchair was as much of a surprise as the
altar in her room had been. Her spirit seemed as light as her limbs were
leaden.

   Together they scouted the prepacks in the freezer, and then they settled
together at the steel kitchen table to pick their way through the edible
parts of their meals.

  "We'll eat better than this on board, I trust," Tidwell said, eyeing his
rubbery lasagna with suspicion.

   "Never enough cheese in one of those," she said. "I should have warned
you. The cafeteria's lasagna is better. But if you really like lasagna, I ought
to try to get you some of Mother Alicia's. Two inches thick and three kilos
to a pan. It takes her all day to make enough for the whole family."
   "My wife enjoyed cooking," Tidwell recalled. "Not Italian. Her specialty
was sweets—poisonously rich desserts." He smiled. "A weakness that
crosses all cultures."

   "Real sugar and I have a pact," she said. "It doesn't jump into my
mouth and I don't make it live on my thighs. Just because I can't walk
around in high heels doesn't mean I can't be shapely."

  "You are a very attractive young lady."

   She clucked unhappily. " 'Young lady'—those sound like words you use
to keep someone in their place."

   "Habit of speech," Tidwell apologized. "I meant nothing by it. Except
the compliment."

   She smiled acceptingly. "I'm actually the youngest old woman you've
ever met. I'm a crone at heart, waiting to grow into her role. I can hardly
wait to be respected enough to be listened to."

  "Do you have to look the part?"

    "Or get paid for it. People take advice much better if they're paying for
it."

  "I must confess I've never been to a bodywork counselor," Tidwell said.

  "I know."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I can tell by the way you police every motion. I don't think you're very
comfortable in your body."

  "It serves me passably well," Tidwell said, then his face reddened with
embarrassment. "Forgive me—I didn't mean—"

   "That's all right, Thomas. Everyone asks eventually, so I'll save you from
working up to it," she said easily. "Did you know that about three in a
million contract polio from their vaccinations? I'm one of them. Our
family health worker is a nice man but a rotten diagnostician. He missed
the early signs and then sent me to a chiropractor when he should have
been feeding me virus-eaters."
  Tidwell cocked his head and gazed at her appraisingly. "Are you truly
not angry, or do you simply hide it well?"

   "What would angry get me?" she asked. "I'm not a cripple. I can dress
myself in the morning, fuck in three of the four most popular positions,
and swim a 1:20 hundred-meters. But don't ask me to rumba. It's just not
in my personality."

  A surprised laugh fought its way through Tidwell's tightly drawn lips.
"Well said."

  "I didn't scandalize you? How disappointing."

   The irony of attempting to shock the author of A Summer in Eden
made Tidwell smile. "I'm afraid I'm no longer very easy to scandalize. But
feel free to try again sometime."

  "Veteran reporter has seen it all."

  "Something like that," he said, recalling the afternoon's events. "But
sometimes I can still be surprised." He gestured toward the drape-hidden
doors. "There were people outside the fence today—"

   "Ah, you've discovered the vultures. They're probably still there, in
fact," she said. "Don't worry, the curtains are Kevlar weave, and anyway,
Security says the vultures rarely have any weapons. Just don't tempt them
by wandering around out back."

   "So I learned," he said ruefully. "Malena, who are those people? Are
they there every day?"

  Her face took on a serious cast for the first time that evening. "Every
day since I came here."

  "There must be a hundred of them."

  She nodded. "Fifty, a hundred, five hundred some days. The faces keep
changing, but the expressions are always the same. There's anger for you."

  "But who are they? Not starheads, surely."

   "No. Not starheads," she said, shaking her head. "The starheads come
to the west gate. They get protection."
  "Then what?"

   Instead of answering, she backed her chair away from the table,
dimmed the lights, and crossed the room to peek out through parted
curtains. "When I first moved in, I could feel them all the way over here,"
she said. "I had to ward the house so I could sleep at night."

  "Feel what?"

   "What they're sending at us." She straightened and let the curtains fall
closed, then turned back to Tidwell. "Didn't you feel it when you went
outside? There's two kinds of people over there, Thomas. Those that hate
us for leaving—and those who hate us for leaving them behind."




                          CHAPTER 15
  —AAA—
                      "… this unwelcome intruder…”

   There was almost nothing Christopher McCutcheon liked about coming
to see Eric Meyfarth, R.T.

   Christopher hated the ritual of signing Loi's complaint and being called
by Meyfarth for confirmation. He hated scheduling the appointment and
leaving work in midday. He hated the walled canyons of downtown
Houston, the warren-towers of plex and chrome.

   He hated the office manager's earnest cheeriness, and the tight mouths
and guarded eyes of the other clients waiting with him in the
twenty-sixth-floor lounge. No, not clients—patients. Patients that
belonged in a back-street clinic, seeking treatment for some embarrassing
disease, deathly afraid of being asked why they were there. That was how
they behaved—no help to Christopher, fighting against the same feeling.
Up went the walls, driving Christopher back behind his own.

   The little man in the pinstripe cap and white bristle-brush moustache,
raccoon eyes furtively glancing around the room, retreating to the window
when Christopher spoke to him. The woman in the short white skirt and
the glittery cascade of string earrings, paging hopefully through a glamour
magazine in search of one more secret. The child-faced woman in the blue
flower-print dress, her toddler on a tether, a faraway look in her eyes until
she was brought back to her boredom by the tug of her charge.

   Never give them your eyes. There must a school which teaches that as
a survival skill, Christopher thought. When by chance eyes met there was
no contact. They stood mask-to-mask for the instant of surprise, before
turning politely away. It was as though they held to their masks more
tightly for knowing that beyond the door, they would be expected to let
them fall.

  So Christopher waited, unhappy and uncomfortable, for the part he
hated the most.

   Not that he had any personal enmity for Meyfarth. Referred by their
former arty in Oakland, Christopher and Loi had come to see Meyfarth for
baselining in the first weeks after arriving in Houston. They had come
back a second time a few months later to introduce Jessie.

   Neither session had been particularly demanding, and Christopher had
come away with qualified good feelings. He would have preferred they sign
with a woman, but the bearded and round-bellied relationship
technologist had a calming presence and, it seemed, a genuine heart.

   But then, Christopher had expected to see him only for periodic
checkups and the odd arbitration, not with a major family crisis blowing.
That pushed ugly memories to the fore, memories of the long, angry
sessions when his marriage to Donald and Kristen was collapsing.
Whether it was their arty's incompetence or his own intransigence, all he
learned from that episode was that he resisted being dissected, and
resented being made to feel a failure.

   And there was no way that he would be able to escape either experience
in the sessions to come.




   With the unerring accuracy of a master archer, Meyfarth went straight
for that discomfort in the first five minutes.

  "How do you feel about being here?" he asked, twirling a pencil. "I
always wonder when it's someone from an open family. All that legalistic
leverage is absent."

  "I'm not too happy about it," Christopher confessed.

  "Not too happy because—"

  "It's embarrassing."

  "Like going to a proctologist?" Meyfarth asked with a smile.

  "Somebody's always wrong. I just don't like it."

  "How do you feel about refusing Jessie a baby?"

  "I'm sorry I had to hurt her feelings."

  "Should she have expected you to say no?"

  "Well, yes—if she'd thought about it. If she'd thought about me."

  "What about the argument last Tuesday? How do you feel about that?"

  Frowning, Christopher allowed, "I'm not too proud of it."

  "Why?"

  "I lost my temper."

  "Anything else?"

  "It wasn't that big a deal."

  "How do you feel about me being party to all your family secrets?"

  "I like you all right."

  Meyfarth sat back. "I can't work with forty percent answers,
Christopher. And you can't learn anything from them, either."

  "What do you mean?"

  "That you haven't given me a soul-deep honest answer yet. 'Well—.' 'Not
too happy.' 'Not too proud.' 'A little uncomfortable.' 'Something like that.'
'I'm sorry I hurt her feelings.' "

  "Those are honest answers."

   "Half-truths are lies, Christopher. It's far more serious when you tell
them to yourself than when you tell them to me. But I'm far more useful to
you when I know the truth. Shall we try it again?" he asked rhetorically.
"You don't want to be here."

  Surprised, it took Christopher a moment to get the word out. "No."

  "But you think you have to be, to satisfy Loi."

  Grudgingly, "Yes."

   "You don't know me, you don't know if you trust me, and you think I'm
going to be on Loi and Jessie's side, anyway."

  A rueful smile. "Yes to all three."

   "If you're pushed to the wall, you've decided to compromise on having a
baby with Jessie. But you'll be damned if you're going to be talked into
letting John Fields into the family. That's where you've drawn the line in
the dirt."

   Christopher stared. It was like having his thoughts read. It was like
being naked. "Yeah," he said, almost a whisper.

  Meyfarth nodded, satisfied. "That's better. Now we can start to work.
Do you want your family to survive?"

  "That's why I'm here," Christopher said. "That's really why I'm here."

  "Are you prepared to risk discovering yourself?"

  "What's the risk in that?"

   "Easily said when you think you already know who you are and what
you want," Meyfarth said. "But this won't be easy. Extended families are
so damned complicated. Six vectors with three, twelve with four, not even
counting second-order pairings. And noncontract families are even more
complicated, because you don't have all the crutches. Do you know, what
you three are doing is actually closer to the original conception than most
of my clients?"

  "How so?"

   "I've read Stan Dale's original treatises. I think he'd have been horrified
to have people locked together by contracts rather than by love, and even
more horrified to have his name hung on the result. But that's what
happens when a bureaucracy crosses paths with a philosophy." Meyfarth
shrugged. "Ancient history. I'd like to see you succeed, Christopher. I really
would. If you can do it without my help, more power to you. If you'd like
my help, I'm ready to do what I can."

  Christopher sighed, a pale breath. "This isn't going to be much fun."

  A polite smile. "You never know," Meyfarth said. And he waited.

  "I don't know why, but it's a hard thing to say," Christopher said.

  "I know."

   Christopher frowned, looked up at one corner of the ceiling, then back
at Meyfarth. "I'd like your help."

   "Okay," said Meyfarth, sitting forward. "Then let that be the reason
that you're here. Not Loi or Jessie or John Fields or the baby. This is about
Christopher McCutcheon. This is for Christopher McCutcheon."

  Christopher found himself with nothing to say.

  "Does that feel better than the reason you walked in here with?"
Meyfarth prompted.

  "Yeah," Christopher said, breaking into a smile. "That feels all right."




   Christopher could no more stop himself from referencing the hyper
than he could stop himself from breathing. Not only did he not need
Meyfarth's explication of "ancient history," but he probably could have
taught a short course in it himself from what he had read in the last week.
   The basic facts were simple. The profession of relationship technologist
had grown up alongside the contract Dale family, which in turn had been
given its life's breath by the turn-of-the-millennium AIDS epidemic.

    Behind that skeleton was a fascinating and convoluted story. At the end
of the twentieth century, every generation in memory had bowed to the
nature of the beast and given tacit, usually hypocritical, consent to
indiscretions of the flesh—men driven by old programs, women freed by
new technologies. But consent was summarily withdrawn by HTLV-III and
its mutant heirs, ruling final, no appeal.

   With the wages of sin death, monogamy fast regained its fading
respect—and collected a bandwagon's worth of champions. The new
fidelity advocacy was an odd alliance comprised, at the most fundamental
level, of those women whose security was threatened by male philandering
and those men whose control was threatened by female sexual
emancipation. Whether they wore cleric's garb, a doctor's coat, or the
prim dress of a moral reformer, they embraced AIDS almost gleefully as
the means to a final victory.

   This was true to some degree in every Western nation, but particularly
true in the United States, which at the time was already skating down the
slope toward social repression. Testing for the damning virus followed the
trail blazed by testing for drugs. The lid came down on prostitution, the
rad-lib argument that it was a victimless crime rendered laughable.

   Pornography, which might otherwise have flourished, fell under ever
more restrictive laws, with the Trojan horse of a campaign against
homoerotic and analerotic material leading the way to sweeping
condemnation of all explicit expression. Hardening hearts victimized the
afflicted a second time, shutting them out of medical care, jobs, and even
the communities they had long called home.

   But even in the United States, the victory did not last long. Like a
dammed river in flood season, the accumulating sexual energy penetrated
every crevice and eroded every point of weakness, seeking its own level.

   To start with, the well-networked Womyn's community, its lesbian
leanings anathema to both species of monogamist, was barely touched by
the plague. It became ever more visible as a political constituency and ever
more attractive as a sexual safe haven; it exercised its economic might by
building Aurora Sanctuary, the smallest of the satlands.
  Separatist hard-liners resented the influx of the "fashionably femme,"
but their presence made for a more credible voice and the leverage to win
two-woman couples the right to contract "marriages" in five states.

   Technology offered an even more important outlet. While the public
media were drying up, the private media were heating up. Personal
computers and Sky LANs, video camcorders and digital cameras, even
faxphones and the lowly copier put more than enough resources into the
hands of individuals to allow a revolution in home-grown co-op erotica.

    What's more, those who took fantasy one step further found that phone
dates and compusex meant that safe sex did not have to mean no sex at
all; that there could be intimacy without intercourse. By the time scanning
image telephones gave way to hi-band stereo com tanks, a whole new
culture and etiquette had grown up around what unfriendly observers
ridiculed as "secondhand sex" and "technology abetting pathology."
Defenders cheerfully called it "masturdating" and went right on.

  But the frontal assault on the new monogamy came not from without,
but within.

   The three key elements were in place almost from the outset, but it took
a decade and a half for the synergy between them to jell. The brave notion
that people are not by nature either sexually or emotionally monogamous
was already in circulation, quietly promulgated by a new school of
human-growth therapists such as the Dales and pioneer researchers like
the Constantines. (Books by both were in the hyper, though Christopher
passed on reading them.)

   On the parenting front, with two-child two-earner families increasingly
the norm and one-parent families still all too plentiful, there was a
continuing crisis in child care. Millions were wrestling with the unhappy
alternatives of toddler warehouses and the unrewarding solitude—for child
and parent alike—of home.

   And—the final straw—home was more likely than not to be rented
space. The bloated national debt and a minor worldwide recession had
blessed credit sellers with rates high enough to squeeze even the middle
class out of owning a decent house. (Here Christopher ignored another
lengthy side-thread, this time on the "leveraged prosperity" of the
Conservative Revolution.)
   All three problems had a single solution, and thousands of families
found it on their own. A third person or second couple meant an extra
income, extra hands, siblings for the solo child, sexual variety with
security. For those who could solve the jealousy riddle, the "big houses"
were stronger economic units, stronger emotional units—stronger
families.

   But it was not until a California woman named Jennifer Allison and her
two husbands offered their relationship up for dissection that the question
of group marriage entered the national dialog. With the assistance of the
Bush Foundation for Freedom, the Allisons sued for the right to a contract
marriage under their state's "lezzie law." The issues were the
same—custodial rights, spousal rights, taxes and insurance, wills and
inheritances—and the arguments on both sides had a familiar ring.

   Even so, the story was a media sensation, and Allison, Allison & Allison
v. The State of California went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court
before finally being resolved 6-5 in favor of the plaintiffs. The case turned
on the narrow issue of what, for federal purposes, was a family and what
was merely a household, with the Court's opinion introducing a genteel
euphemistic coinage for the Allisons' arrangement: extended monogamy.

   The ruling was less controversial than it might have been thanks to the
influence of Sharon Ferraro's extraordinary novel While Life Is Still in Us,
Let's Love All We Can, which had appeared earlier that year. A
fictionalized first-person account of the trials and triumphs of Ferraro's
own extended marriage, the book became a best-seller on three
continents. Its title became a cultural catchphrase, a rallying cry for
millions hungry for a taste of the riches of the heart.

    In the wake of the Allison ruling, Congress rushed to regulate what the
Court had blessed. Predictably, the central issues were muddied by
irrelevancies: precontact AIDS testing; a schedule of renewals (with more
testing) ranging from a one-year "compatibility" renewal running out to a
fifteen-year "life" renewal; a counseling and mediation requirement.

   The last was the work of the American Psychological Association's
heavyweight lobbyists. For more than a decade, the APA membership had
been in a professional quandary, with the meaning of the old labels
"counselor" and "therapist" being debased and diffused by the likes of
color therapy and spirit counseling on the one hand, and by AI
query-psych engines with names like Sigmund, Eliza, and Dr. Chip on the
other.

   Developing the model curriculum and certification for "relationship
technology" was the first step toward redefining the APA's mission and
elevating their credibility. A clever campaign against the do-it-yourself
psychware, pushing the idea that "people need people," was the second.
Persuading the authors of the national Family Integrity Act to mention
relationship technology in the section requiring family counseling was the
clincher. Every Dale family—and, in time, a fair fraction of what were now
called "pair" families—would have its "Uncle Arty."

   Behind the high-tech label and its folksy derivation, though, was
old-fashioned goal-oriented therapist-assisted self-examination. Be it
transactional analysis or power dynamics, reality therapy or Klersen
System, it still came down to inviting a stranger to tinker with your
emotional machinery. And there was nothing in the hyper that could make
Christopher any happier about that prospect.




   Meyfarth allowed Christopher to tell his version of the baby-making
blowup and the John Fields fiasco. The arty listened patiently and
sympathetically, asking only a few questions to clarify minor points.

   "I'm sure they told you I'm being selfish," Christopher concluded. "Is it
selfish to want to be happy? Am I obligated to say yes when I don't want
to? Why is it me that should have to adjust?"

  "I'd like to come back to those issues a bit farther down the road."

  Christopher eyed Meyfarth suspiciously. "I thought that was what we
were here to talk about."

  "And ultimately we will—when you're ready to answer your own
questions."

  "I already have answers. The problem is that no one accepts them."

  "Including yourself," Meyfarth said, "or that fact would not trouble
you."

  "What troubles me is that if I follow my conscience I'll kill the family,"
said Christopher. "They've put me in a position where I can't win. And
they can't lose. Either they'll turn me into the man they want or they'll
turn me out and find another."

   "Something like that has already happened to you once, hasn't it?"
asked Meyfarth.

  "No," Christopher said. "I left that one myself."

  "I see. Perhaps this is a good time for me to hear about your marriage.
You were living in San Francisco then?"

   "I don't see what my marriage has to do with what I'm here to work
on."

  "The common element is you," Meyfarth said simply.

  "But it's old news," said Christopher.

  "Do you really think that a relationship that serious which ended that
unhappily had no effect on how you approached your next bonding?"

  Christopher looked away. "I know what effects it had."

  "You were really quite young," Meyfarth said. "How did you come to
marry Donald and Kristen?"

   The question took Christopher away from Meyfarth, two years and two
thousand kilometers away. "Donald was my friend," he said. "We were
both working for DIANNA in San Francisco, in the updates group. I was a
year out of school. Kristen—I met Kristen at a musicbox down in Santa
Cruz. She was a singer, though I didn't know that when I met her. Terrific
energy."

  "What did she look like?"

   A little smile. "Tall. Very tall. A graceful gazelle. Chestnut-brown hair,
what people call laughing eyes. I'd phone her now and again, and things
would get pretty warm. And sometimes she'd come up for an evening, a
few friends over to make some music. One time Donald was one of them."

  "So that's how they met."
   "No. They already knew each other—they met taking a tour of San
Simeon, the old Hearst mansion, of all places. They'd been dating for a few
months and hadn't realized that they both knew me. We started doing
things together, the three of us, and the one-on-ones kept getting warmer.
She wanted us both, but she was old-fashioned—contract first, play later.
So we ended up getting married and moving into a house in Santa Cruz."

  "Was there love, too, or just sex?"

  "I thought I loved her," Christopher said. "I don't know how to judge
whether I really did. Three years later I was gone. What does that say?"

  "Nothing," Meyfarth said. "Nothing by itself. Were you three happy?"

  "Kristen was. Donald was. Most of the time I wasn't."

  "Why?"

   He hesitated. "Do you know what it's like to watch someone else make
love to your wife?"

  "What was that like?"

  Christopher covered his mouth with steepled hands as he thought. "He
was my best friend, and I ended up hating him."

  "Because you had to share Kristen?"

   "It wasn't bad at first," he said, looking up and coming back from his
faraway place. "It was all new and very crazy. We knew we were safe, and
we could do anything. There were whole weekends when all we did was
fuck. We invented new ways to put two into one. Or at least we thought we
did."

  "Was there ever any sexual contact between you and Donald?"

  "No," Christopher said. "Nothing more than a kiss."

   "Isn't that difficult to manage with three in a bed? It seems to me that
the incidental contact, the energy, would eventually lead to—"

   "I didn't want that. I made sure he knew it. I'm not a bigot. It just
didn't appeal to me."
   Meyfarth shook his head. "Try again."

   "What are you talking about?"

   "That's a forty percent answer. Peel back one more layer. You were
friends sharing a woman, pleasuring a woman—"

   "Exactly. We were focused on Kristen. She was the center of attention.
It was like a challenge to see how high we could send her. We were
partners."

   "At the beginning."

   Christopher slumped back in his chair. "Yeah. At the beginning."

   "And it never changed so you or Donald was the focus, the other two
the partners."

   "No. Not really."

   Meyfarth frowned. "It's a bit astonishing to me that your love-making
had but one pattern. You're in bed together, the three of you. Everyone
shifts positions, and there's his cock at your mouth, or yours at his. You
realize that's his hand on your buttocks, not hers—"

   "I wasn't going to let him do that to me," Christopher said coldly.

   "Do what?"

   "He started trying to take over. He started trying to make Kristen look
to him first. If I'd let him have that, too, I'd have lost everything he hadn't
already taken."

   "And so—"

   "We'd started out even. I didn't care for the way things changed. She
liked both of us together. But she liked him alone best. How was I
supposed to feel?" he demanded. "Why are we talking about this? What
does this have to do with me now?"

   "Do you really want to know?"

   "If there is anything, yes, goddammit. If not, then let's move on."
  "I heard the answers in what you said. I'm wondering why you didn't."

  Christopher balked at the implied criticism. "Maybe you're going to
have to rub my nose in it."

   "All right," Meyfarth said calmly. "I will. You drew a sharp line between
yourself and Donald in your marriage and pointed everything toward
Kristen."

  "Yes."

  "And you expected Loi and Jessica to do the same."

   "I—" Christopher stopped in mid-denial, looking surprised. "Maybe I
did."

  "You wanted Kristen's position. You wanted to be the focus."

  "At least sometimes, yes. Is there anything wrong with that?"

   Meyfarth ignored the question. "You thought you chose both Loi and
Jessica. You thought they were going to give you that."

  "Yes."

  "That being the only man would make you the focus."

  "Ah—"

  "But the truth is that Loi did the choosing. She's the one at the center.
She's where you wanted to be. And you're only just realizing it."

   Christopher stared at Meyfarth. His expression was half wild-eyed
indignation, half wide-eyed revelation. His mouth worked and his eyes
grew bright with moisture.

  "God," he said in a hoarse whisper. "Yes. I never saw it. I never saw it.
She's just like Donald. Like Donald all over again."




                          CHAPTER 16
  —GAG—
                      "… the imperative command.”

   Stone-rough and patchy white, the sheer vertical walls of Fort Jesus
were slowly crumbling, shedding their brittle masonry skin. Mikhail Dryke
touched the brick above a narrow-arched cannon portal, and his hand
came away powdered with dust and a smear of mold and yellow lichen.

   Peering out through the portal at narrow Mombasa Harbor, Dryke
watched as a small sailing ship passed unconcernedly under the cannon's
one-eyed gaze. The sixteenth-century Portuguese fortress was a toothless
dog, its black-barreled cannon resting on laughable fake carriages or lying
uselessly on the ground in rows. There were no breeching ropes to restrain
them, no powder, no linstock and worm, and the pyramided shot had been
welded into mere decoration.

    But the fort's command of the harbor, and the craft in its design, were
still evident to Dryke's eye. The stronghold stood where Leven Reef
pinched the navigable channel down to a few hundred meters' width. The
guns of the lower gallery controlled the channel, while the high parapet
commanded the harbor entrance and land approaches.

    So simple, and so effective. For a hundred years, the garrison at Fort
Jesus—rarely more than a few hundred men—had been the anchor of
Portuguese power all along the East African coast. And when it finally fell,
it took a three-year siege by an Omani fleet numbering more than three
thousand men to win the victory.

   Dryke walked slowly along the seaward parapet, trying to imagine that
moment. He had meant to come to Fort Jesus on his last trip to Kasigau,
but the chaos of the Singapore incident had denied him the opportunity.
He was not much interested in the museum rooms below, in the relics of
Portuguese, Mazrui, Omani, and Muscat occupations. His interest was the
equation of siege and fortification—war as a chess problem, in an age
without aircraft, without rockets or computers, without lasers or atomic
weapons.

   There was not much time for what might be called hobbies in Mikhail
Dryke's life, but this one he could accommodate. On every continent there
were walled cities, forts and castles, relics of that simpler time. As his
travels allowed, Dryke indulged himself with side trips to explore them. It
was somehow a restful exercise, somehow refreshing and yet somehow far
away and foreign to contemplate two enemies who fought their battles
face-to-face.

   In his seven years working for Allied, he had managed visits to several
dozen sites. A few would bear longer and more leisurely exploration.
Eben-Emael, the first victim of the Blitzkrieg. Chateau Galliard, Richard
the Lion-Hearted's cliff-top stronghold on the Seine. The Castel
Sant'Angelo in Rome, where popes took refuge and Hadrian lay entombed.

   And heading the list, the spectacular Krak des Chevaliers, the great
fortress built by the crusading Knights Hospitalers in twelfth-century
Palestine, near the border of Lebanon. Not even the regional wars of the
twentieth century had managed to destroy its magnificence or bring down
the towered walls. Against such standards, Fort Jesus was mean and
ordinary, a rude structure with a dull history.

   Settling on a low wall on the gallery level, Dryke began sketching his
defense of Fort Jesus. The sketches were amusements, exercises—the adult
remnant of a childhood game. He made no excuses for it, to himself or to
anyone else. It seemed to him that he had come by both his career and his
hobby honestly, led by blood and breeding both.

   Dryke was born in Kaliningrad to a Russian mother and an English
father—ironically, a few kilometers from the site of the thirteenth-century
fortress of the Teutonic Knights, though he would not learn that until
years later. Edward Dryke was an electronic intelligence technician in the
Peace Force; Lina Koshevaia was a security officer at the Kaliningrad
naval base where Dryke was attached.

   When Mikhail was eight, Edward left the Peace Force for a job in the
British electronics industry, and the family left Kaliningrad for Coventry,
an hour from the Welsh border. Within a few months, they had begun
taking weekend outings to explore the abbeys and castles of
Wales—Cardiff and Caerphilly, Harlech and Valle Crucis. Drawing
campaign maps and fighting imaginary battles in the back seat of the
Leyland, Mikhail cemented his fascination with matters military.

   And, in time, he learned a lesson that carried forward into adulthood, a
lesson reinforced when a ruptured cerebral aneurysm stole his father's
soul, when a Nexus flathead's gun spilled his mother's blood on a
Birmingham street. The lesson was hard. Dryke had never verbalized it,
but he had internalized it: There is nothing that you cherish that cannot
be taken from you, no treasure that cannot be lost—

   No matter how grand, no matter how imposing, the fortresses and
castles had all fallen. Each had been a grand edifice in its time, bustling
with the discords of life. Now they were dead museums, containing but a
faint echo of their former greatness. The halls were empty, the walls
unmanned.

   It had been the same fight in every world and every time— against
weakness and neglect and corruption, against tactics and numbers and
valor and luck. And it was still the same in the present day.

   Fort Houston. Castle Kasigau. The walled city of Memphis. Outside
were the forces of chaos, swarming, massing, undermining the walls,
building engines of destruction. Dryke carried the shield of his liege as
captain of the queen's knights, looked out at the world through the dark,
suspicious eyes of the besieged.

   Except this time, there was a goal beyond mere preservation. A crusade
was forming. If the walls held, if the attackers were repulsed, if the will did
not weaken or the moment slip past, one day the gates would open, and
the crusade would march out with flags flying to claim and conquer a new
land.

   Was it metaphor, or more? As he stood looking out from the high
redoubt of Fort Jesus, Dryke could not say. He knew only that, for him as
for the captain of the Portuguese guard, wondering what lay over the
horizon and around the point, the waiting was the hardest part.




   When he could, Dryke preferred to conduct conversations in person.
The nature of his work meant that many of those conversations were
sensitive; the nature of the world meant that none of those conversations
could be guaranteed secure if any form of telecommunications was
employed.

   Split encryption, line-of-sight narrowcasting, dead-wiring,
path-switching, all could be beaten. True, the message stream was like the
Amazon in spring flood, and there was nothing easy about sieving the flow
for one particular bit of electronic flotsam, much less decoding it.

   But Dryke and Allied knew how, and it was only prudent to conclude
that others knew as well. No one was saying, but the likely list included the
intelligence arms of the Peace Force and several national governments, a
smattering of the most technically inclined corporations, the best—and
least principled—of the consulting and forecasting firms, a crime
syndicate or two, and almost certainly Jeremiah's Homeworld as well.

   Dryke would go to Houston, or Munich, even halfway around the globe
to Tokyo for the company. But Matthew Reid on Takara was sixteen hours
and 36,000 klicks away. Dryke had been to the "City of Builders" only
twice, to the partially completed Memphis but once.

   But those early visits had been sufficient for him to grasp the security
parameters and to measure Reid, whom Dryke inherited from his
predecessor. The situation and the man were well suited to each other,
and Dryke had left them undisturbed.

   There had to be communication, coordination, and there was. No less
than weekly, reports and directives and updates were ferried back and
forth between Prainha and Takara by courier. Twice a year Reid came
back for working vacations—briefings and marlin-fishing off Brazil's
Atlantic coast.

  And at least once a month, on no fixed schedule, Dryke would call Reid
and they would talk. The calls were nominally social, always informal, and
quite probably monitored.

   "Sounds like you folks had an amusing October," Reid was saying. "A
T-ship fragged, a couple of midnight fire-bombings, half a dozen road
shipments hijacked, and that business with the Canadian environmental
inspector—I'm almost jealous. All we had up here were a couple of
half-baked sabotage attempts and an old-fashioned drunken family
murder."

  "Just wait until we start sending you colonists a thousand at a time,"
Dryke said, smiling. "You'll get your share."

  "Now, wait a minute, I was promised angels and Eagle Scouts."

  "Nine hundred ninety-nine angels and one Javier Sala," said Dryke.
Sala was an Ur colonist who smuggled the components of a forty-kilogram
cyclotol-aluminum bomb aboard the starship in his personal effects. His
plan to destroy the ship before the eyes and cameras of the world was
foiled three days before sailing when Ur's security, monitoring internal
communications, uncovered Sala's ties to Spanish nationalists. Sala was
quietly removed, and the incident never publicly revealed, but it remained
a cautionary parable for Project insiders.

   "Sporting odds, anyway," Reid said lightly. "You keep the number of
fanatics and martyrs down to a round dozen or so, and we'll take it from
there."

  "That's big of you, Matt," Dryke said. "Considering that every second
warm body—man, dog, and grandmother—seems to be pointing for us
down here. And every damn one of them can reach us if they try."

   "You need to recruit a militia. I hear the starheads gave a pretty good
account of themselves in the Tokyo riot."

  "Yeah. This time," Dryke said grimly. "It won't be the last riot, though.
And the next one will be worse, for both sides. Next time both sides'll be
armed."

    "I never thought I'd see the starheads rallying to our cause with steel,"
Reid said, shaking his head. "That won a few hearts on Takara, I have to
tell you."

   "And probably lost us a few million down here. It's the old
second-punch syndrome. Nobody saw it as five hundred screamers
jumping fifty starheads and getting surprised. It played as Allied goons
with stingers and blades carving up doe-eyed demonstrators."

   "The media have swung that far over?"

   "It's not what they said. It's the pictures they have to show."

  "I don't know why you folks just don't pull out and move operations up
here," said Reid. "Ninety-five percent of the ship is ready for occupation.
And you folks are about as popular as the Plague down there. You've got
more friends up here, you know."

   "I wouldn't be surprised if the company does exactly that for Knossos,"
said Dryke. "Can't run Selection from up there, though."

   "Sasaki could move West to Prainha and Central and East to Kasigau.
Let the urban centers go."

   "Maybe," said Dryke. "Be kind of like turning your back to a wolf,
though."

  "I suppose," said Reid. "Listen, I'd like to get as many of my people as
possible some release time before things get crazy up here. Do you have
anything that's going to need special attention programmed between now
and the end of the year?"

   Dryke considered. "You'll start to get ship's staff in two weeks," he said.
"You knew that. They're finishing up the navigation and drive
management software in Munich. That's the next critical pacing item. It'll
be hand-carried up for installation sometime next month, six copies on
three different flights."

  "I hear it's about ready. Testing this week?"

   "Yeah. Munich will put it up on a simulator, and Mission will go live
with Prainha and the controllers at Horizon for a mock sailing and test
program. Not our headache, thank God."

  "How goes the mole hunt?"

   "A couple more pelts in the Logistics Section, and a fistful out in the
supplier community—Micronomics turned out to have a whole nest. I keep
thinking we should be finding more, though. Houston's been clean for a
year, Munich for two—makes me feel like I'm missing something."

  "Hmm. Speaking of missing something—has this one reached you?
There's a kind of oddball rumor circulating in Takara that Jeremiah is on
Sanctuary."

  "I heard."

   "I haven't been able to put anything hard underneath it," Reid went on,
"but it makes a certain amount of sense. Synthesized image, synthesized
voice—no reason really to think that there's a real Jeremiah anywhere, or
that he's necessarily a he. And the goals of Homeworld certainly are
consistent with Sanctuary's politics."

   "Yeah," said Dryke. "The thing that keeps me from taking it seriously is
I think Anna X would sooner cut out her heart than use a male persona as
Sanctuary's mouthpiece. But maybe that's my blind spot, so stay with it."

   For the next ten minutes, they wandered off into other topics— a minor
drug problem in the high-stress Tokyo office, a thrice-delayed test of
Memphis' shield lasers, a funny story about the starship's lead architect
getting lost during an inspection tour— and then Dryke ended the
conversation.

   "Well—departmental conference in ten minutes, and I need to make a
side stop on the way. So I'm going to let you get back to whatever I took
you from."

   "I could use a few more hours sleep," Reid deadpanned.

   "Get it while you can," Dryke said with a sardonic half-grin. "The kids'll
be home from school soon."

   "That they will," said Reid. "It'll be nice to have the family back
together again."

   Dryke chuckled, shook his head. "I'll talk to you later," he said, and
broke the link. Turning away from the blank wall, he looked toward the
silent spectator to the conversation, seated in the far corner of the room.
"Opinion? Too obvious?"

   "Perhaps not obvious enough," said Hiroko Sasaki, rising and gliding
toward him. "The Munich gateway has been open for three weeks without
a single attempt at penetration."

   "Trolling for big fish takes patience," said Dryke. "The bait has to be
right, the fish has to be hungry, and you have to be lucky enough to run it
past his mouth without him sensing the hook."

   "You spoke of Javier Sala," she said. "We cannot allow Jeremiah such
an opportunity. I am reluctant to permit any pioneers to board Memphis
until Jeremiah has been found."

   Dryke shook his head vigorously. "Delaying habitation would be a
mistake. The closer we are to succeeding, the bolder he'll be in trying to
stop us."

  "But will he be more reckless, or merely more ruthless?"

  "Truthfully? I expect both."

  "Memphis is not replaceable, Mikhail."

  "I know," he said. "But there's no safe way to gamble."




                           CHAPTER 17
  —CAU—
                      "… the voice of the banished…"

  The Call icon popped up in one corner of Christopher McCutcheon's
work space, accompanied by a polite cheep.

  "Who is it, Dee?" he asked his secretary.

   "Lenore Edkins, Section 15," answered the AIP. "You last talked to him
on November 8."

  Edkins was a senior archaeolibrarian in the Culture Section. "I
remember. I'll take it," McCutcheon said, suspending the error audit he
had been conducting on the pre-Columbian thread of the North American
Mythology stack. "Hello, Lenore."

   "Morning, Christopher," said Edkins, a monk-haired black man with
soulless eyes. "I've got some answers for you on that inquiry about your
hyper entry. The Tunnel Visions telecast hadn't been reviewed, now has
been. It won't be added to the hyper. Sorry."

  Crestfallen, McCutcheon asked, "Any idea why?"

   "You play well enough, at least so I'm told by people more accustomed
to hearing antique instruments. But the quality of the recording is only
fair, and the auditor says that, taken as a whole, the music you three
performed on the broadcast has 'no significant entertainment or
ethnomusicological value.' Pretty standard phrasing. I'm afraid your
Project connection wasn't enough to swing the decision."

   "No value? We did the Bach cello suites in the Segovia arrangement—"

  "Which are apparently in the hyper, as performed by Segovia,
Parkening, and the e-pop version by Helix."

   "—'Mountain Storm,' by Michael Hedges—"

   "Also in the hyper by the composer's own hand."

   "—and Kristen's 'Elegiac,' which had everyone in the studio in tears."

   "A nice piece. But it was never professionally recorded, never published,
and this Kristen Carlyle doesn't come up in the stacks as either a
performer or a songwriter. As near as I can tell, Tunnel Visions was as
high as she ever got—thirty minutes on a regional arts showcase funded
under USDC."

   Christopher gritted his teeth. In the smug economic classism of the Los
Angeles ent-art world, Department of Culture grants were viewed as
welfare handouts, and the work they supported little more than vanity
indulgences. He hadn't expected Edkins to show such colors. "What does
any of that have to do with the music?"

   Edkins sighed. "Look, you've done some work on the fiction stacks,
haven't you? What gets something in? Impact. Impact is the final
criterion. You look at sales, cross-media citations, major reviews. You look
for seminal ideas, innovative techniques, representative examples. What
did the work give us? How did it change us?"

  "So it has to be popular and prestigious," said Christopher. "It's not
enough to be good."

    "It isn't even necessary to be good," said Edkins. "There are inferior
fictions in the stacks because they added a single new word to the
language, inferior songs because they caught everyone's ear one summer.
It's not always fair. 'Elegiac' is a nice piece of work. I felt a tug, too. But it's
foam on the ocean, and no one's going to miss it if it's not there. Sorry, but
that's the truth."
   Discomfiting as it was, Christopher knew that Edkins was right, and
that arguing was pointless. He had gotten Biography to add his degrees
and his Hastings Award; he knew what a victory looked like, and this
wasn't one.

   "All right, Lenore," he said. "Thanks, anyway. I appreciate your taking a
look at it."

   Edkins shrugged. "You're family. No thanks needed. Sorry I couldn't
bring back better news. If you're interested, though, I'll tell you where the
door is open."

  "Oh?"

   "Tidwell's holding a lot of space open for a Folklife stack on the
Diaspora," Edkins said. "The impact arrow points the other way on this
one—we're looking for what effect the starship Project's had on people's
hearts and minds and muses. He's particularly interested in off-net
material, according to recent memos. So if you've got any material dealing
with the Project, make sure I see it."

  Christopher brightened. "I might just have something. I'll need to get a
good recording made."

   "I can't make an unconditional promise, mind you, but I'd say there's a
good chance that your musicianship and family connection would carry
even a borderline piece in."

  "Charity, Lenore?"

  Edkins shrugged. "I won't spin you. It's the back door. But it's a door.
Do you want to live forever, or not?"

   Christopher swallowed any further words of indignation, and with them
a measure of his pride. "What's the timetable?"

  "The sooner the better, I'd think. We'll probably close late, but we
might have to be more picky toward the end."

   Christopher nodded. "Okay. I'll be in touch. Break, Dee." He sat back in
his big chair, thoughtful, troubled. Is that what it was about, this ache?
Living forever? Edkins seemed to see so readily something Christopher
had not yet acknowledged in himself. Edkins presumed an understanding
Christopher wanted to deny.

   Living forever. A little piece of immortality. A mark, more permanent
than a handprint in cement, than initials carved on a wooden railway
trestle. More permanent than memory. More permanent than life.

   He circled the thought cautiously, unwilling to embrace it. He had
scorned and pitied Jessie for this same passion. It was hard to be more
forgiving of himself.

  But already one part of his mind was thinking, Need to work on the
middle eight—could use the date at Wonders—have to rent a v-cam, Greg
can do tech—be nice to get some friends down for it—

  "Ego and hypocrisy," he chided himself aloud.

  "Excuse me?" asked Dee.

    "Ego and hypocrisy," he repeated. "Not so different from Jessie, after
all."




   Barely five minutes had passed when the phone cheeped again—little
enough time that Christopher had barely found his place in the audit.
Little enough time that he didn't bother to glance at the Caller ID,
automatically concluding it was Edkins calling back.

  "I'll take it, Dee," he said.

   But it was not Edkins, not a call he would have taken had he checked
the identifier. It was, in fact, a call he had been avoiding.

  "Hello, Christopher," said William McCutcheon.

   His father seemed to have a sixth sense for trouble in his life. Sure as
sunrise, his father would call exactly when Christopher most wanted to
avoid him—in the wake of crisis, calamity, or failure. Christopher half
suspected his father of spying on him somehow, except he could not
convince himself his father was sufficiently interested to take the trouble.
   Probably it was just an accident of timing, a case of selective memory.
All the same, the day after the blowup over John Fields, Christopher had
directed his phone to divert any calls from William McCutcheon to
V-mail. And true to form, in the two weeks since, there had been three
such calls. Each time, his father had left an inconsequential message and
an invitation to call back. Each time, Christopher had chosen not to do so.

   It would not take William McCutcheon long to realize that he was being
avoided. And Christopher should have known his father would not quietly
accept that, would find a way to reach him.

  Had.

   Dee screened personal com everywhere—home, work, on the road. But
Allied screened station com. Not that Christopher would have thought to
post a divert on station com. His father had never called him at work
before. Never in all the time Christopher had been in Houston.

   "Hello, Father." His father looked tired, and fatigue had always softened
his features. Christopher saw more of himself in his father's face at such
times.

  "Your friend Jessie says that you're not often home these days," said
William. "She thought I might have the best chance to catch you here."

   William always spoke of "your friend Jessie" and "your friend Loi." He
refused to ratify the unconventional relationship by calling them
Christopher's wives, as most older people would, or even his mates, the
style book compromise. In part, that was simple moral stodginess. In part,
it was a commentary on the trine.

  "It's going to get worse before it gets better," said Christopher,
declining to ask the reason for the call. "Memphis sails in six months."

  "So the nets tell me, with painful redundancy. Have you begun to think
about what you'll do when the ship is gone?"

   There it was. Christopher looked at his father in surprise. "There's
Knossos to come, and Mohenjo-Daro and Teotihuac á n after that. Allied
will still need archies. There'll be work here until long after I retire."

  "So you're content to stay in Texas. I'm surprised. I would have thought
you'd miss the woods more than you apparently do."

   "I miss them, all right. Here you get bone-dry baked or flash-flood
drowned. But this is where my job is," Christopher said, wondering. "I
don't have the option to work where I please. Operations isn't about to
allow dial-ups into the hyper. Not when a scissors virus could rip ten years
work apart in ten minutes."

  "There are three inches of new snow on the ridge," said his father.

   A crystal memory of being ten and tracking deer and rabbits in the new
snow suddenly flooded Christopher with unwelcome nostalgia. "You'll have
to send me a picture. They tell me it hasn't snowed in Houston for sixteen
years."

   "I was nearly in your backyard not too long ago," he went on. "It seems
that it was just as well that I didn't follow my impulse to come all the way.
I probably wouldn't have found you there."

  Another surprise. "You were in Texas?"

   "Not quite. I had to go down to Albuquerque a month or so back to look
at some properties. That was the first long drive I'd taken in the Avanti.
Long overdue to check the GPS navigator. I timed it so I flew across the
Colorado River canyonlands at twilight. Ever seen them, Christopher?"

  "Pictures."

   "Inadequate. Magnawall or stereo tank, it doesn't matter. Inadequate."
A more familiar William McCutcheon, pronouncing his opinions with the
authority of Truth. "A thousand meters up and a hundred klicks an hour,
that's the way to see the Colorado watershed. If I had come to Houston I
would have dragged you back with me so I could show you."

   "I've been meaning to see it. But it's not exactly our backyard," said
Christopher. "You're probably closer to the Grand Canyon in Portland
than we are here in Houston."

   "Make the time. Do it." He shook his head. "Turquoise-blue lakes.
Winding canyons like knife scars. Arrow-straight fault ridges. Physical
poetry, Christopher. The mesa cliffs are fissured top to bottom like a giant
cat clawed them. The rocks are blood red, like a spill of paint in the dust.
And when the afternoon shadows move across them—you have to see it,
Christopher."

   "It's going to be awhile before I can think about taking sightseeing
trips," he said, a hint of impatience slipping into his voice. "I trust the
Colorado'll still be there when I get to it."

   "It's changing, now that people can fly in so easily," William said.
"There are five times as many people in southeast Utah as there were
thirty years ago. And they're leaving their mark as surely as wind and
water. Patches of irrigated green, self-contained houses on top of the
mesas, little communities in the river valleys."

   "I'll settle for almost virgin."

   "It made me think about the white pioneers on horseback, in wagons,
on foot," his father went on, "reaching Denver and seeing that wall of
mountains. That anyone went farther west is a complete defiance of
sanity. It's astonishing to me that those lands were ever crossed, much less
colonized. They've never been tamed."

   "Have you been to Denver? I'd have kept going, too," Christopher said.

   It was said lightly, a casual joke, but his father shook his head
dismissively. "Crowding doesn't explain it. Not the first wave. Economic
factors don't become meaningful until the second wave."

   "Maybe they kept going because it was hard."

  His father cocked his head. "Do you think so? Does that make sense to
you?"

   Again, he was suddenly ten, but this time he squirmed uncomfortably
at the familiarity of the moment—drawn by his father into a duel of wits,
stopped and subjected to a surprise oral exam. It could happen at any
time. It had happened many times.

   "Each generation went as far as its will would carry it," said
Christopher. "Sons and daughters crossed the barriers that had stopped
their parents."

   "But they didn't all go. That's the puzzle. Some stayed to make a life. Do
you think that those who left were any happier, burned any brighter?"

  Christopher's back was still up. "Probably they lived harder lives. I
imagine some lived shorter lives. You'd have to ask them if they were
happier."

   William McCutcheon shook his head. "You ask them, Christopher. You
ask them if you get the chance. Aren't they there with you in Houston?
Isn't that what the Diaspora is about? Aren't they one and the same?"

   "Something like that," Christopher said lightly, unwilling to launch into
a justification of the Project. "Except wagons are more expensive now."

  His father did not smile. "Much more. And we all have to pay for them."

   The conversation stumbled after that, and shortly Christopher escaped
to his waiting work. But he was left puzzled and unsettled. It was the most
curious conversation he could remember having with his father.

   William McCutcheon was not comfortable with what most people
called chatting—except with strangers, which was another matter
entirely—and so he rarely bothered with it. When he spoke, he made
speeches, conducted interrogations, issued demands, offered critiques.

   None of the above. Christopher recalled his father's face from the
capture queue to the display and stared at it. Why did you call? he asked
the frozen image. Why did you have to invade this space, too? To ask my
opinion? To take my pulse?

   The sudden thought that William McCutcheon might be lonely
prompted a curious state of wonder. Mystery of mysteries, could it be you
actually miss me?

   Christopher found himself growing angry without quite being certain
why. He wanted to call his father back and say, Don't change the rules
now, goddammit. Everything else is breaking out of its box. You can
fucking stay in yours. Don't make me care.

  But it was too late. He already knew that something was wrong.

  It explained so much—his father's purposeless persistence, the odd
emotional tone of the call. William McCutcheon would not be one to easily
acknowledge a problem or admit to his own needs and weaknesses.

  But it left unanswered the question of what was required of
Christopher—what he was now bound to do.

   One more problem to deal with, one more demand on his energy. As if
there weren't enough. Someone else who wanted something from him.
Someone else claiming a piece of him. And even though the claim was
legitimate, Christopher rebelled.

   After all, what if he were wrong? Wouldn't that be an amusing
spectacle? No more foolish feeling than to try to hug someone who neither
invited nor welcomes the embrace—

   The decision was made. Did his father need him? He could not cope if
it were so, and so he chose to believe it was not.

  He would do nothing.




   Eric Meyfarth looked up from his desk as Christopher entered the
office. "Do you mind if we get out of here?" he asked, rising out of his
chair. "I'm getting a bit claustrophobic."

   Surprised, Christopher agreed. He followed Meyfarth down a back
corridor into the floor's private section, where they commandeered an
express elevator.

  "Otis—Sky Room," said Meyfarth. The doors closed, and the arty leaned
against the back wall. "How are things at home?"

  "It's like being a bachelor with roommates."

  "Jessie and Loi are closing you out?"

    "I don't think it's them," Christopher said, shaking his head. "I think
it's me."

  "Oh?"

  "I just can't be the same with them." He glanced at the display. "Where
are we going?"

  "The nearest spot that feels as little like an office as possible."

  "Sky Room," said the elevator, and the doors opened.

  "Here we go," said Meyfarth, leading the way out.

   The top level of the Matador Building was a climoglas-enclosed forest
micropark, complete with birds and bubbling water. Narrow paths led to
private seating nooks. The air was slightly humid and carried the mixed
scents of life.

   "This is nice," said Christopher, craning his neck as he looked up
toward the heat-blocking roof panels twenty meters overhead. The tallest
trees nearly brushed them.

   "Very expensive, very wasteful," said Meyfarth. "About eight percent of
my lease payments go to maintain it. That's about fifteen dollars out of
every appointment, if you're interested. I try to make sure I log my share
of use. Anything like Oregon?"

  "Just the smells."

   They found an empty nook on the east side of the densely planted
greenyard.

   "You don't have any contact with your host mother, is that right?"
asked Meyfaith.

  "No. Not since I finished school."

  "How did that happen?"

  "She's on Sanctuary," Christopher said with a touch of impatience. "I
don't have a lot of choice about it. I can't even call her. She had to call
me."

  "I understand that. Do you have any clue to why she stopped?"

  "No. Is this important?"

  "I was just refreshing my memory," said Meyfarth. "What does your
father think about what's happening with your family?"

   "He doesn't know."

   "Really? When was the last time you talked to him?"

   "This morning."

   Meyfarth cocked his head quizzically. "So you chose not to tell him."

   "It's not his problem. There's nothing he could do to help. So there's
really no reason to bring him in." Christopher looked away and frowned.
"Besides, it's just not something we McCutcheons do. It took him two
months last year to get around to mentioning that an aunt of mine was
dead."

   "Forty percent answer, Christopher."

   "I know. I really don't want to talk about my father just now."

   "Guessing now—you didn't tell him because he has a rooting interest."

   "Not that he'll admit to," Christopher said. "But it's true, I don't want
to have to deal with his reaction on top of everything else. He's not fond of
Loi." That was diluting the truth; the two were stone and storm. "I
suppose he'd be happy to see me break with her and solo with Jessie."

   "Which isn't what you want."

   "No."

   "Have you any idea why he feels that way?"

   "I really don't know what he feels or why he feels it," Christopher said
irritably. "Does this have a point?"

   Meyfaith frowned. "Define your problem, Christopher."

    "Look, there's a lot of old history there, and I don't much want to relive
it," Christopher said, exasperation tingeing his voice. "The, ah—the
emotions are still a bit confused."

   "Did you quarrel often?" Mey faith asked quietly.
  A wistful look crept onto Christopher's face. "No. Not quarrel." He
smiled, and the smile was eloquently bittersweet. "I didn't see enough of
my father that I could afford to get angry with him."

   The words seared his throat, stabbed deep into his chest. He was
caught by surprise by his own thoughts. It was as though the words had
leaped from his subconscious directly to his lips. Christopher looked
plaintively at Mey faith and found the arty's expression of empathy as
distressing as the revelation itself. Rising, he walked to the edge of the
nook, pretending interest in the plant identifier on a small pedestal there.

  Meyfarth said slowly, "I think that's a piece of something important,
Christopher."

   "Do you?" asked Christopher, hugging himself as he stood facing the
trees. "I don't. I don't even know that it's true. I have this habit of
rewriting what I feel so it sounds more dramatic. And then when it comes
out of my mouth it doesn't touch me at all."

  Gently, the arty said, "I don't think this was one of those."

    Christopher turned to face Meyfarth. "I don't think it matters," he said
stiffly. "I don't think it has anything to do with what I'm here to work on.
Damn you, I told you once already I didn't want to talk about my father.
Can we get back to the main program, or are we finished?"

  There was a long moment of silence. He felt Meyfarth measuring him.

  "All right," said the arty. "My apologies."

   Christopher frowned and waved a hand dismissively. "Listen, I'm not
stupid. I know I'm going to have to look at it sometime. But I don't think I
have enough banked just now that I can afford to make this the time. Do
you understand?"

  "Yes," Meyfarth said. "Can we talk about children?"

  "Okay," Christopher said, returning to his seat. "I guess we have to."

  "Loi has a son?"

  "Einar. He's in San Francisco. Twenty years old."
  "More like a brother, then."

  "To me? I wouldn't know. I never had the experience."

  "But you knew Einar?"

  "I knew him. I didn't like him, but I knew him."

  "Oh?"

  "We had incompatible anatomies. He was an asshole."

  Meyfaith's laugh was easy and genuine.

  "Loi agrees," Christopher added.

   "Enough of Einar, then," Meyfarth said, smiling. "Tell me about the last
child under ten you liked."

   Christopher shook his head. "I don't see many children. I'm not sure I
like any of the ones I do see."

   "No friends with adorable seven-year-old girls? All neighbors with
brats?"

   "Our upstairs neighbor in San Francisco had a boy while we were living
there," said Christopher. "Cute, I suppose. Little odor factory, though. And
they leak."

  "That they do."

   "Sometimes I see a two- or three-year-old toddling along with a parent
and it'll make me smile. But a little older and I don't know how to talk to
them. A little older than that and I don't trust them."

  "Why not?"

  "I was one, remember?"

  "What kind of kid were you?"

  Christopher laughed, surprised. "You'd have to ask someone else. I was
busy being the kid."
   "You don't have any notion?"

   Frowning, Christopher considered. "A pretty good one, I guess. I wasn't
much of a problem, wasn't much in the way. I liked learning, liked my ed
plan and my schools. I spent a lot of time in the woods."

   "Tell me what kind of father you think you'd be."

   A wry smile. "Not a very good one," Christopher said. "I'm dividing
myself too many ways already. I have an A job and my music and my
family, and they all need more than I seem to be able to give them. If I
divide myself four ways, I'll have even less for everybody." He shook his
head. "I have too much growing up still to do. Look at why I'm here talking
to you. Maybe someday. But I'm not ready now."

   Meyfarth pursed his lips. "Christopher, the nastiest secret in life is that
there's never a time when you understand it all, never a time when it's as
easy as you were sure it was going to be. If that's what you're waiting for,
you'll never be ready."

  Blinking, Christopher stared at Meyfarth blankly. "I'm only
twenty-seven. Jessie's twenty-five. We have lots of time."

   "Every year you wait, you'll find more reasons to say no. Why not have
the child and just let Jessie worry about it?"

   "It's not fair—"

   "I think if you ask Jessie, you'll find out that would suit her just fine—"

    "No," Christopher snapped. "You're not listening. It's not fair to the boy
. If I have a son, I'm going to be there for him. I'm going to be part of his
life, not a sidelight to it. I'm going to watch him grow and make sure he
knows how much I love him. I'm not going to raise him by remote control,
turn him over to some kind of secondhand mom-for-hire."

   "Like your father did with you?" Meyfarth asked gently.

   There was a moment of soft-eyed surprise, a glimmer of hurt, a tinge of
puzzlement, and then Christopher's face closed down hard. "Damn you, I
told you I didn't want to talk about my father," he shouted, jumping to his
feet and waving clenched fists. "I told you and you kept pushing me back
there. My father's one person, and I'm another. And what I do has to do
with me, not with him."

   Meyfarth did not flinch or shy from Christopher's angry demonstration.
"Then why did you start talking about a 'son'? Who were you thinking of
when you spoke so passionately about the right and wrong way to parent?
It wasn't a friend. It wasn't a neighbor. Wasn't it your father?"

  "You said that," Christopher insisted. "You said 'son.' "

   Meyfarth stood, half blocking the way to the trail, holding the younger
man's eyes with his gaze. "No. I said 'child.' You're lying to yourself,
Christopher. You brushed up against something that hurts and now you're
lying to yourself."

   "I don't have to explain my father. I don't have to apologize for my
father. And I fucking don't have to talk about my father if I fucking don't
want to." As he spoke, he shouldered Meyfarth out of his way and stalked
down the trail toward the elevator.

  Meyfarth caught up with him there. "You have to look at it,
Christopher."

  "Shut up."

  "You said you were willing to risk discovering yourself."

  "Some other time, thank you," he said sarcastically.

  "This has been playing in your head for twenty years. Don't you want to
have a chance to decide if it belongs there?"

   The doors opened. "My father loves me," Christopher said, backing one
step into the car so that he blocked Meyfarth from entering. "Why do you
want to make me think he doesn't?"

  "This is about loving yourself, Christopher."

  "What floor?" asked the elevator.

  "Then what's my father got to do with it, goddammit?"

  "Because he's inside your head. It's his voice you hear when you think
you have to make your life perfect, yourself perfect. Did you hear yourself?
You were a good kid because you liked school and stayed out of the way?
I'll tell you why you don't want to have a child with Jessie. You're afraid
that your son will disappoint you the way you disappointed your father.
And you're afraid your son will think of you the same way you think of
him."

  "What way is that?"

  "Answer that question yourself, and the answer will be worth
something."

   Christopher's bitter rage, which had momentarily faded as he listened,
flowered in full blossom. "Goddamn you assfucker," he snarled, one
many-syllabled word. "Otis—lobby."

   The doors closed, the car began to drop, and Christopher closed his
eyes in relief. I'm not coming back, he thought angrily. We can find
someone else. Or Jessie and Loi can find someone else. I almost don't care
which. But I'm not coming back to have more tricks played on me.

   That resolve helped calm him. But he could not release all his anger, for
the infuriating thing was that Meyfarth had been right. Christopher had
brushed up against something that hurt, a black wraith that lived in an
ugly place inside him. And try as he might to escape it, it shadowed his
consciousness all the way back to the compound.

    Work proved no amulet, anger no talisman. The wraith shadowed him
all through the afternoon and into that early winter night, fragments of
the session playing tag-gotcha! in his head until half a flask of Loi's
Glenfiddich finally silenced what lies and bluster could not.




                          CHAPTER 18
  —GCA—
                        "There is only one history…”

  It was ten days until the end of ground training, and excitement was
building in the village at AT-Houston. It was obvious to Thomas Tidwell,
still sharing a house with three Memphis colonists. But it seemed to him
that even a casual visitor to the compound could not fail to notice, would
see it in the self-delighted smiles, the surreptitious winks and
thumb-in-fist salutes.

  Soon, the winks and smiles and salutes said, soon.

   Soon the staff would scatter across the globe and throughout the
orbiting worlds on a last sojourn home, for a final farewell to family and
familiar. Even though the sailing date was still three months away, it
seemed to Tidwell that the whole planet must soon echo with the ache of
the tearing away, that the pain of those good-byes would surely more than
cancel the giddy pleasure he was seeing on the faces of the villagers. But if
that were so, he was the only one who saw it. When Evans or Colas said,
"Ten more days," it was said with potent anticipation, as a promise and a
bond between the elect.

   The selection sociometricians had explained their strategy to Tidwell in
effusive detail—how the ground training had less to do with technology
than with psychology, with forging emotional links through shared homes,
shared labors, shared goals. The demanding schedule only intensified the
effect, an old workshop leader's trick carried off on a much greater scale.
The colonists would part on the last day saying, "See you on the ship." and
that vow would help assure that most would keep the appointment.

  Ten more days, they said. Ten more days until tomorrow begins. Ten
more days until we can finally close the old book, open a new one.

   And for Tidwell, ten more days until he could return to Half-whistle, the
episode over, his mission concluded, though far from complete. Evans and
Colas and Graham, reunited on Memphis, would count him as one who
had faltered, who surrendered the dream in exchange for a tamer
security—if they noted his absence at all.

   No, he thought, they would not question it, or even be surprised. They
had to know, just as he had come to know, living with them, that he was
not one of them, one with them. They had to sense that he was deaf to
whatever music pounded in their blood. There had been no lapse in
civility, no attempt to exclude him. But they had to wonder why he was
struggling, wonder if in his case Selection had made a mistake.

  Tidwell would have thought they would shy from him, fearing that their
own certainty would be contaminated by doubt. Instead, they had
wrapped him in a gentle cocoon of silent sympathy and support, and went
right on.

   From within that cocoon, he watched them. He saw their naive energy
and marveled as a parent marvels at the boundless energy of a child. He
saw that they were helpless in the grip of their own dimly apprehended
need, and happy being so. That selection counselor, Keith, had been right.
Everything Tidwell had learned in his brief career as Thomas Grimes he
learned that first day, except that he had rejected the wisdom.

  They burned. He did not.

   With each day, that gulf seemed wider, his estrangement from their
passion more complete. They were leaving. He would stay. And in recent
days it had become more important to consider what that meant to him
than what it meant to them. New questions intruded on his thoughts:
What becomes of the nest when the children have flown? What sort of
world would the last of Allied Transcon's starships be leaving behind? How
much energy of will, how much love of life, could five ships, a mere sixty
thousand people, carry away with them?

  For the first time, Tidwell wondered darkly if those who remained
would have enough dreams to sustain them.

   These were thoughts which would not have seemed out of place in a
tirade by the mythical Jeremiah, and Tidwell was discomfited by hearing
them rattle, homeless and unclaimed, around his own skull. He had gotten
too close; the charade had gone on too long. He had lost perspective, lost
the surety of his own judgment. It was past time to withdraw, to regain
the balance, to become the observer, to begin the synthesis.

  And still not yet time. Ten more days.

   Lying wide awake in his darkened room, the thinnest of sheets covering
his nakedness in the clammy warmth, Tidwell stared ceilingward and
tried to make sense of his day. I no longer know what questions to ask, he
thought. I no longer know what matters.
   Point: his interview that morning with Carl Miller, the University of
Texas systemist whose theory of "bioeconomics" had caused such a flap in
the popular media since October. The most common spin on Miller's work
was that it offered the first authoritative scientific support for Jeremiah's
claim that Allied Transcon was "bleeding" the earth.

   Tidwell had put Miller on his schedule merely to fill time, to occupy a
block when "Thomas Grimes" was scheduled for meaningless proficiency
examinations. But Tidwell was unable to put away what Miller had to say,
unable to render it meaningless with logic or counterargument.

   "I'm not a Homeworlder, Dr. Tidwell," Miller kept repeating. "I'm as
excited about the Diaspora as anyone—I even subscribe to the Ur journal,
Frontier. All I've done in my paper is analyze some of the issues in
macroeconomic terms. And I think I've demonstrated that this is, in fact,
a one-sided transaction, building and outfitting these starships. In fact, I
think that it's time to revive the notion of the altruistic act."

   "On whose part?"

   "On the part of the entire species," said Miller. "I've heard Sasaki
claiming that Allied has paid its own way on this. But that balance sheet is
missing a lot of entries. If Sasaki wants to amortize the cost of the Project
against the entire future of the colonial units, that's fine. But what about
the knowledge that these ships carry? What about the technical expertise
required to build them? That's an unvalued transaction. The cumulative
cost of that intellectual capital is by far the single largest cost item on the
ledger."

   "Come now," Tidwell said dismissively, "that 'capital' can be spent a
thousand times over and never exhausted. It goes on Memphis's ledger as
a gift of great value and no cost. Every bit of knowledge that went into its
conception and construction remains available to this
community—perhaps even more available, considering the effort which
we've put into collecting and organizing it. You're grandstanding, sir, with
meaningless hypotheticals."

   "I understand your defensiveness," Miller said. "I can't say it often
enough—I'm with you, not against you. But where does intellectual capital
come from? It's the product of an even more precious emotional capital.
And emotional capital can be spent, because one of the multipliers is time.
Is spent, every day, as we choose what to do with our opportunities. With
our lives."

   "You are inventing realities again."

   "Are you familiar with CFS, Mr. Tidwell?"

   "CFS?"

   "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome," said Miller. "It's a useful one-organism
model for bioeconomics. CFS victims are achievers, ambitious, inventive.
And then they reach a point where they can't keep the pace they've set for
themselves. They're weary. They sleep too much. They're always sick, little
nagging draining kinds of illnesses. The ambition vanishes. In short, they
just don't care anymore. It happens to individuals. It happens to
communities. It happens to civilizations. I think it's happening to us."

   "This is not economics," said Tidwell. "This is political metaphysics.
And you are aiding the Homeworlders, whether you consider yourself one
or not."

  "Do you expect me to stop talking about this? We have a right to know
what's coming. I think that Jeremiah is right about the price we're paying,
about the decline to follow. But I think that he's wrong to try to stop the
Diaspora. Because the decline will come anyway. The capital is spent."

  "We have survived the worst of our problems," said Tidwell. "The
human race has a long and fascinating future ahead of it."

  "Yes," Miller said. "But not on Earth. For us, this is the end of the race.
This is the finish line, coming up on us now."




   Point: the afternoon briefing from the Memphis mission planners.

   It was not as though there was anyone in the Building 2 auditorium
who didn't know where Memphis was headed. Sasaki's predecessor had
announced the Tau Ceti system as the provisional choice for prime
rendezvous eleven years ago, and Sasaki had reconfirmed the choice three
years later, long before staff and community selection had begun. The Tau
Ceti of New Moon Over Barridan and other popular fictions was well
ingrained in the public mind.
   But Training was fond of bringing the staff together, 300 people in a
270-seat hall, for this conference or that presentation, a seminar here, a
briefing there. Never longer than a fast ninety minutes, the gatherings
figured in Training's "unitary identity" strategy, a product of the best
available sociometric and sociodynamic models. And an update briefing
on the latest information on "T.C.," as Anglish slang rendered it, was as
good an excuse as any.

   The briefing was brisk and well organized. The lecturer, a polished
presenter, recalled the relevant astronomical history, with the big Publook
imager above him providing three-dimensional visuals. Listening idly as
he watched the pioneers watching the show, Tidwell absorbed some
details to which he hadn't attended during any previous exposure.

   One of the nearest naked-eye stars, Tau Ceti had apparently been
singled out early as a prime candidate for, in order, terrestrial planets,
intelligent life, and Diaspora colonization. The first question was settled
last, with the Hawking Space Telescope finally confirming seven planets in
orbit around the G-class yellow star shortly after it went into operation in
2028.

   An optimist could have taken a bet on the question of intelligent life
more than a century ago, as the star had been a target of Frank Drake's
unsuccessful OZMA, the first radio-based SETI search. Every extrasolar
study since had yielded the same negative result. And that included the
ongoing Allied-sponsored studies employing the big scopes on Einstein,
the new U.N. research station in polar orbit around the Sun.

   Nowhere in the sky had they found the handiwork of intelligent life.
Nowhere but on Earth had they found the signature of biological systems,
past or present. Life, it seemed, was precious and rare, and the universe a
lonelier place than many had once believed. Every indirect evidence, every
reasoned analysis, said that Memphis might find a Venus, a Jupiter, if
they were lucky a Mars or Titan, but no lush garden worlds, no alien
Earth.

   "We'll go to Tau Ceti with a pocketful of options," said the lecturer,
"and write our own story as we go. If we find an interesting planet with an
unfriendly climate, we might establish a research colony of a few hundred
volunteers and then continue on. If the parameters are marginal, we could
found a terraforming colony of up to a thousand inhabitants before
leaving.
   "And if they're downright agreeable, we'll likely all go down, keeping
Memphis in orbit as a lifeboat for a few dozen years until a new
generation comes along to carry on where we left off. Because you can be
sure that some of them will inherit our wanderlust, and you can be just as
sure they'll think we're as stuffy and settled as some of us consider our
parents." Laughter rippled through the room, self-knowing. "And they'll
have us as proof that it can be done. Won't that be a moment to
remember, when the first colony sends out its own colony ship?"

   The question was answered by a swell of appreciative applause.
Waiting it out, the lecturer smiled, nodded acknowledgment, and gave the
thumb-in-fist salute. In a heart's breath, the applause doubled, and
scattered members of the audience came to their feet.

   "I want to leave you with the best new picture of Tau Ceti, which we
received from Einstein just this morning," the lecturer continued as the
applause faded. Above him, the Publook offered a dramatic image of a
ghostly yellow star matted with the shadowy disk of one of its orbiting
worlds.

   "The best so far," he said, as the applause picked up again, at first
scattered, growing as he continued into an almost tribal drumming of
hands. "But there'll be better, and they'll come from us. No one will know
Tau Ceti better than we will.

   "I'm glad for the pictures Starwatch feeds us. It's amazing what
additive digitizers and enhancers can do with a few photons captured ten
light-years from their origin."

    He paused and swept the room with his smile. "But I'm looking forward
to seeing Tau Ceti for myself, without benefit of technology. And if wishes
are horses, some morning I'll get to see it rise over a world that never knew
life until you and I and the rest of the ten thousand arrived to make it our
home." He stepped down from his dais, signaling the end of the assembly,
as cheers and whoops and defiant cries punctuated the fevered ovation.

   How gently he plucked their strings, Tidwell thought as he sat in his
seat, politely applauding. Yet how strongly they respond. Just a few
months ago, Tidwell would not have wondered at the scene. He would have
written it off to passionate emotion and a skillful orator—no more
mysterious than a preacher exhorting his flock, or a revolutionary
inspiring his followers. No different.
   We shall be delivered. The message was the same. And perhaps the
passions were also the same. A ready well of courage, of commitment,
waiting to be drawn on. Missionary zeal, waiting for a moment in time.
Had the speaker spoken knowingly of inheriting a wanderlust or merely
reached for a resonant idiom? No matter. The idiom recurred in the
words of many speakers.

   There is only one history, but there are many historians. Where was the
truth written? The fire was lit. Where did it burn? In the hearts of men?
Or in the cold nucleic chemistry of their cells?




  Floating in and out of consciousness, Tidwell heard a sound in the hall
and then at the open doorway. He was asleep enough to be puzzled, awake
enough not to startle. Looking toward the sound, he saw a moving shadow,
heard a breeze, or was it a whisper? The door swung shut with a hiss.

  "Who's there?" he asked, rising to his elbows.

  "It's me, Thomas." Softly, a woman's voice.

   The shadow became a shape alongside the bed. The breeze carried the
faint scent of flowers and something more to Tidwell's nostrils.
"Miss—Malena—I am—"

   A match flared in her hand, showing him the young girl's face. The
black chemise she wore showed him more, even in the flickering light. She
touched the match to the wick of a stout red candle, then set the candle on
the end of Tidwell's trunk, which he had pressed into service as a
nightstand.

  He stared, and she smiled. "You told me to try and shock you."

   The airchair's mounting bar silently telescoped upward and out over
the bed, and Malena reached up and gracefully lifted herself onto the bed
beside him. Her hand touched his hip, scalding him through the light
sheet. "Have you ever made love with a woman like me?"

  "No," he said, too dumbfounded to challenge the premise of the
question.
   "Well," she said with a flame-lit twinkle in her eyes, "I may not be as
agile as some, but I'm not fragile, and everything else is just as you'd
expect. I like to touch and be touched," she said, her fingertips moving,
burning a line across his abdomen. "I'll need to hold on to you or the bed
or my bar when I'm on top, or I won't have any leverage. But we can take
that as it comes."

   He reached out and caught her hand, firmly but not harshly. "Malena,
this is—I'm afraid you expect too much from me."

   She brought his hand to her mouth and bit the ball of his thumb.
Startled, he flinched and pulled his hand free, not in pain, but from the
sudden charge of sexual energy, so alien and unfamiliar now.

  "Please," he said, "it has been years—"

   "I know," she said. She reached up for the bar again, and a moment
later she was no longer beside him, but astride him, straddling his waist,
the sheet still between them like a frail chaperone.

   His breath caught, his hands shook. "Malena, please—you are a lovely
girl. But how can I—you cannot understand the difficulty—"

    Clinging to the bar with one hand for balance, she reached forward and
pressed her other hand over his heart. She closed her eyes, as though
listening intently, as though taking his measure.

  "Let it back into your life," she said gently, opening her eyes. "You've
waited long enough, invented enough fears. You don't have to hold yourself
apart, Thomas. You have a right to permit yourself pleasure."

   What door she had thrown open he did not know, but he suddenly felt
naked before her, and panic began to rise in his chest. She sensed it in an
instant and caught his face in her hands.

  "Just be with me," she said gently, making him meet her eyes. "Just be
here and let go of the rest. It will be all right."

  "I don't know if I can—"

  "Of course we can," she said, touching a finger to his lips and sitting
back with a little smile.
  Tidwell closed his eyes and sighed away his quailing, then looked up
and beheld her in the candlelight. "You are lovely," he said.

   "Thank you," she said with a hint of a blush. Purposefully, almost
theatrically, she slipped the thin straps of her garment off her shoulders,
one at a time. A fetching wriggle, and her chemise slid down to bunch
about her waist, baring her young breasts, her upturned nipples. Tidwell
swallowed his breath as he admired her.

  "Do you like them?" she asked softly.

  His drawn breath an anticipatory sigh, Tidwell confessed, "Yes."

   Malena leaned forward, propping herself on her hands on either side of
his shoulders, and lowered herself down to kiss him. Her lips were soft,
yielding, melding, her taste the fresh-sweet peppermint of a too-recent
brushing or candy.

   "If you touch them, I can enjoy them, too," she said as she broke away
from the kiss.

   By then, Tidwell had caught enough of her playfulness that he could
take it as an invitation, not a critique. "You did warn me you would expect
that," he said, and reached for her.

   Cooing happily as he caressed her nipples, Malena slid her body
backward a few inches, until the bulge of his growing erection was
trapped beneath her. She rocked her hips, rubbing herself against him,
until the thin fabric barrier was velvet-slippery with their wetness, until
Tidwell rose up, tore the sheet away, and took Malena to her back in an
adolescent rush.

   That was the first time: affirmation for her, release for him. The second
time, with the knifelike edge of need gone for both of them, was a more
leisurely, more playful ballet. Climbing a gentler curve of sensuality,
fingers and mouths exploring, they became truly lovers. Her touch was
new on his body and knowing on her own, their bodies sweat-slick in the
heat, the humid air.

  And though a second orgasm was beyond him, a second erection was
not. When she straddled and rode him, leaning on his chest with one
hand, being close to her and feeling the sensuality radiating from her was
like being an old cat soaking up a spring sunbeam. When her body shook
and clutched and she cried out her pleasure, his body was
indistinguishable from hers, and he was part of what they made together,
drawing from it a peace almost as profound as hers.

   "You see," she said, blowing out the candle and snuggling against him,
"I knew it would be all right."

   And it was. But it could not last. When the moment was passed, the
connection broken, all the thoughts which had been driven away while he
lived in that moment, in a world of senses and sensation, returned to him.
Joining them was an uncertain flavor of guilt and confusion, the deception
which stood between him and the young woman in his arms tainting the
contentment he might otherwise have felt.

   "You're still troubled," she said, disappointed, as they cuddled together,
legs entangled, Her cheek on his chest. "I wanted to take that away from
you."

   Tidwell smiled in the darkness, wry and sad, as he stroked her hair
reassuringly with his aged fingers.

   "You took me away from it, at least for a while," he said. "And even that
is more than I would have thought anyone could do."




                          CHAPTER 19
  —CCA—
                        "… the illusion of purpose.”

  Wonders Upstairs, said the sign at street level.

   It seemed an outlandish claim for such an unprepossessing structure—a
barnlike two-story wood frame building on a commercial street ten blocks
from the Rice University campus. Downstairs was the Small Planet
Grocery, a busy food and drug co-op which seemed to have an exemption
from every licensing law and packaging code. Above, under the gambrel
roof, was Wonders.
   Daniel Keith recognized on first sight that the three-hundred-seat club
was organically one with the co-op below—that is, Spartan, quaint, and
inexplicably successful. Everything that wasn't handmade seemed
secondhand. Half the seating was comprised of unpadded wooden
benches, the other half of uncomfortable plastic chairs packed too closely
together.

   Most surprising, the only performance support was a twelve-channel
sound system and an autospot. There was no net feed, no audio optimizer,
no prompter—to say nothing of such cutting-edge technologies as a
SyncScreen or harmonizer. But, as Keith learned when he editorialized
aloud, that state of affairs was the result of the owner's philosophy, not his
poverty.

   "What fun is it if there's nineteen layers of insulation between me and
the performer?" snorted Bill "Papa" Wonders, he of the great white beard
like an Elizabethan ruffled collar. "That's like putting a tourist in a six-axis
harness and a thrill-ride helmet and calling him a gymnast. My musicians
work without a net."

   The audience had somewhat better support: A little bar and food
counter in a glass-walled annex sold bottled drinks, light polypep, and a
smattering of desserts—all of the crunchless variety, out of consideration
to the performers.

    But it was the music, not the menu, which filled the seats in Wonders
at fifteen dollars per, six nights a week. Techjazz, English vocal, electric
filk, revival rock, antitonal—everyone agreed that Papa Wonders had
eclectic tastes. Most agreed that he also had good taste.

  Which is why only Tuesdays were free for sampling new performers,
two on a split bill, an hour set each with a break between. Tonight, the
poster in Wonders's narrow stairway read:




   Tuesday

   December p.m.

   CHRISTOPHER McCUTCHEON
  Traditional Guitar

  +++

  BONNIE TEVENS & AMBIKA

  Synth Moods




   At a quarter to eight, Keith slipped into the little room that served as
the performer's warm-up room and found Christopher bending over his
instrument with surgical concentration.

  "What's up, guy?"

  "Broke a string."

  "Ah. Better here than on stage, eh?"

  "Better," Christopher agreed. "How are things outside?"

    "Greg has the recorders all ready to roll. The multi is audience center,
fifth row, so he can do splits on your fingering, and the tank camera is
front row left. And he's doubling sound with a digital MIDI."

  Christopher shook his head. "God. He really went overboard."

   "You ask a techie to help, you let them do it their way," Keith said with
a shrug. "Nobody's going to think it's strange."

  "No? Fifty thousand dollars of hardware and fifty people in the
audience?"

  "Says who? The room's filling up nicely. I think it'll be close to full."

   Christopher was taken aback. "Really. Bonnie and Ambika must have a
following."

   Keith shook his head. "If they do, they're gonna have to stand in the
back. There's a good dozen archies out there, and at least half the other
faces look familiar. Looks like word got out around the center."
  "That Greg's doing, too?"

   Grinning, Keith said, "Well, not exactly. I didn't think you'd mind a
friendly audience, after all the work you've been banking. And with
graduation Friday and winter holiday coming up this weekend, I didn't
have to twist any arms. We even got a few out from Noonerville."

  Christopher sat back, the neck of the guitar held loosely between his
knees, and looked sideways up at his friend. "Thanks, Daniel," he said. "I
don't mind. I just hope I'm up to it."

  "Just have some fun," Keith said. "They'll enjoy it if you do." He
nodded. "You'd better finish with that."

   "It's tuned," said Christopher. "You know, I've never done a whole set
with just the Martin before. But that's what Bill asked for."

  "High time," Keith said. "All that synth fill and bangbox stuff is for
cowards."

  "Who told you to say that?"

  "Papa Bill did."

   "He would." Christopher's expression darkened. "Just to save me from
looking—I don't suppose Loi or Jessie—"

   "Sorry. No," Keith said. "Not unless they came in while I've been in
here."

  Tight-lipped, Christopher shook his head. "I didn't expect them."

  "Still at war?"

   "Trenches and mortars. They won't pick a new counselor, I won't go
back to the old one. We lob words back and forth at each other a couple
times a day."

  "Bad juju. But save it for later," Keith said, glancing at the clock behind
Christopher. "Five minutes. I'm going to get out of here and let you collect
yourself."

  "Yeah."
  "You all right?"

  "Nervous," confessed Christopher.

  "Nervous is good, I hear."

   "I'm not used to playing for people who're there to listen instead of to
get laid."

  "If it'll make you feel better, I can try to get laid."

   A laugh broke through the nervousness. "Oh, gee, Dan, it's awfully nice
of you to offer, but I couldn't ask you to do that."

  "Sure you could," Keith answered with a grin. "Anything for a buddy.
Break a string, huh?"




  An hour alone on stage can be an instant or an eternity. For
Christopher McCutcheon that night, it was an eternity, and Daniel Keith's
heart ached for him.

   The worst of it was that it was no one's fault but Christopher's. Papa
Wonders kept his introduction low-key and discreet, careful not to oversell
his inexperienced opening act or splash Christopher with the taint of
Allied Transcon. And the friendly crowd gave Christopher a warm
reception as he came down the aisle. The portents were all good. All he
had to do was rise to the moment.

   But when Christopher went to mount the small stage at the narrow end
of the hall, he stumbled and nearly fell, cracking his guitar sickeningly
against the steps. Collecting himself, he crossed to the stool at center stage
and worriedly inspected his instrument.

   "Is there a luthier in the audience?" he murmured, almost to himself, as
he fingered a spot on the edge of the body. Finally satisfied, he looked up
and out at the audience. "Good thing I don't have to walk and play guitar
at the same time."

   The honeymoon was still in effect; the weak joke got a stronger
response than it deserved. Keith could only imagine what it felt like to look
out from there and see more than two hundred people looking back at you
expectantly.

   "Anyway, thank you for the welcome. I'm going to try to give you about
six hundred years of music in about sixty minutes," he went on, speaking
quickly, "so I won't waste too many of those minutes talking. Just sit back
and let me drive the time machine. And remember, if the scenery gets
dull, you can always take a nap for a hundred years or so."

   The laughs were noticeably weaker for the second jest. They had come
to be entertained, and Christopher was parading his self-doubt before
them like an anxious youth drafted for a recital before the relatives. His
shaky confidence was understandable, but letting it show was a mistake.

   So was the first number, a movement from the Bach cello suites,
though Christopher forgot to announce it as such. Elegant and coldly
precise, it seemed to Keith to steal the energy and enthusiasm from the
room. It did not matter that Christopher played it well. The audience
settled back into show-me mode, and though that was what Christopher
had asked for, Keith wondered if he would be able to bring them back up
to the higher pitch when he wanted.

   If he wanted. Keith studied Christopher's face carefully, trying to read
his emotions. It wasn't easy. Christopher rarely looked up, rarely made eye
contact beyond the front edge of the stage. It occurred to Keith that
perhaps Christopher was so uncomfortable with the audience that he
preferred them at a distance, that he had to hold them down to hold
himself together.

   Ah, Chris, what are you doing here? Why did you let yourself in for
this?

   At the end of the Bach, the applause was solidly polite, but nothing
more. Barely acknowledging the audience, Christopher introduced the
next number as an Irish reel, and immediately launched into another
instrumental. This one was up-tempo, energetic, and, to Keith's ears,
monotonously repetitive.

   Even so, the audience was good-naturedly clapping, more or less in
rhythm, when Christopher's fingers seemed to forget their place. Though
he recovered from the muff, he couldn't conceal it, and when the tune was
done there was as much talk as applause. All around him, Keith could hear
the registers falling in place, click-click-click. Whose idea was this? Say,
where do you want to go afterward? What time is it, anyway? I think I'll go
get another beer. Come on, Chris, just look out here and sing to me,
goddammit, Keith urged silently. Pick a pair of pretty eyes and sing to
them. You can't pretend we're not here.

   But Christopher did just that, through two more instrumental
numbers. It seemed he did not have enough confidence to win their
confidence, or enough concentration to survive being conscious of where
he was. And so he withdrew from them, into himself, as though he were
alone in his room.

   Secure in that place, he played well, tight-jawed and sure-fingered. But
to get there, he sacrificed all emotional rapport with what had started out
as an easy room. You're a musician, not a performer, Chris my friend,
Keith thought sadly. And you should have known.

   Halfway through his set, Christopher won back a few jury points with a
bizarre story-song full of flashy harmonics, called "All Along the
Watchtower." He immediately lost half the gains with an endless and
mostly incomprehensible twentieth-century love song involving, as near as
Keith could figure, a man, a woman, and a taxi.

   His one "contemporary" number, the gloomy AIDS lament "Walls
Between," was marred by a memory lapse that stretched out painfully
until someone called out the next line from the audience. By that point,
Papa Wonders was looking at his watch with an expression that did not
promise any return invitations for the man struggling on stage.

   And then something curious happened to that man, a kind of
transformation. It was as though, knowing how poorly he had done, he
suddenly felt no pressure. And he raised his head. He looked out into the
room, looked around the audience. And he spoke to them the way
Christopher would.

   "One more and we're out," he said. "This is the song I really came here
to do. I wrote the chorus almost six years ago, when I was still living on
the Coast and hearing a lot from my father-none of it good—about the
Diaspora Project. The funny thing was, even though I wrote this song for
him, he still hasn't heard it. It never seemed quite right or quite good
enough. Actually, it turns out, the problem was it wasn't quite finished. It
wasn't until last night that I realized there was a verse missing. I like it
better now. My father wouldn't, which means that maybe you will."

   He began to play, simple chords, brisk and rhythmic, a cross between
sea chantey and Irish folk song. The preamble was short, and for the first
time that night, when he opened his mouth it was to sing to them, not for
them:




  I was sixteen years and I knew no fears

  When three ships' keels were laid

  And from the words of Captain Lee

  Sweet promises were made




  Come with me, you'll be flying free

  Living in the stars

  If you cast your stake and say you'll take

  The caravan to Antares




   Christopher sang the first few verses with an innocence, his voice
shining with the bright joy of the song's narrator, strong with the
narrator's bold confidence as his youthful dreams come true. Christopher
sang of a glorious sailing, a true cause, a steady course, and they sang the
refrain with him:




  Look at me, I'm flying free

  Living in the stars
  Cast my stake and said I'd take

  The caravan to Antares




   As quickly as that, the audience—or at least the sizable portion from
AT-Houston—was with him, caught up at last by something that touched
them in a familiar place. Though the song was a romance in a fictional
world, they saw, or thought they did, past the disguise. Click-click-click.
He's singing about us. He's talking about me.

   Keith watched with clinical detachment, knowing the turn which was
to come. And as Christopher's voice became harder and the verses darker,
the narrator battered by disappointments, disillusionment, the faces of
those around him began to be etched by resistance, even anger.

  They don't want to hear it, Keith thought. You can't tell them that it
won't all be wonderful.

   When Christopher sang of a ship destroyed between the stars, he struck
them with a body blow. When he sang of hopes dashed by worlds too
harsh and too alien, of the survivors wearily searching for a place that
might be home, the chorus they had so eagerly taken up had turned on
them, its words now cynical and mocking.




  My son was born on a sunless morn

  In the silent depths of space

  What his life will be I can hardly see

  In this hellish prison place




  Twelve worlds we've logged and the best was fogged

  With a filthy poison stew
  There's a year to go but today we'll know

  If the next world on might do




  Look at me, I'm flying free

  Living in the stars

  And I curse the day that I said I'd join

  This caravan to Antares




   The solo riffs that followed had an anger that matched the words.
Christopher wrung from the instrument and himself a fury of sound, all
ringing strings and hammered notes. He forgot the audience once more,
but this time they were with him, whether caught by disbelief or pain.

   One crashing chord, and there was a moment's silence. When
Christopher began again, the instrument muted, his voice cleansed of the
anger, once more soft with innocence, strong with confidence, as he sang
the new verse, the son's verse:




  My father died on Alcestis Five

  My mother stayed on Pern

  Where we left a throng four hundred strong

  Its mysteries to learn




  And the Nina's docked in Kepler's lock
   Round the icy planet Hoth

   They'll warm the air and they'll seed the ground

   And build another Earth




   But there's worlds to know and it's time to go

   I was born to roam the stars

   And my crew has sworn that we'll carry on

   With the caravan to Antares




   With those few words, he gave them back their illusion, gave the
struggle a purpose. And they threw their emotional arms around him and
thanked him with an accolade that threatened to lift the slats from the
club's wooden rafters. Keith saw tears on more than one cheek, felt the
tightness in his own throat as he clapped and cheered.

   Christopher himself seemed drained, overwhelmed. He stood and lifted
his hand to them, but his expression was pained, and he did not stay long
on stage. The trip down the aisle to the warm-up room had the smell of a
panicky flight.

   Keith slipped out into the aisle and followed him inside.

   "Terrific," he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "You really got
them with that one. A good finish."

   "It's a lie," Christopher said, slumping in a chair.

   "What? Listen, they're still clapping. You've gotta go back out."

    "You don't understand," Christopher exploded. "It was completely
cynical. I don't believe a word of it. I thought they'd cut my throat if I did
it the way I always do. I wanted it in the library. I wanted them to like
me."
  "Listen. They do," Keith said. "Go on back out."

  "I don't have anything more," he said hoarsely. "Tell Bill."

  "Jesus, Chris—are you sure?"

   "I just want to be alone. Can you be a friend and keep people out for a
few minutes?"

  "Well—I guess," Keith said uncertainly, knitting his brows in
puzzlement. "Chris—"

  "Please. Just get out."

   Keith frowned, shrugged, and slipped out through the door. The lights
were already coming up, the audience getting up and milling. He lingered
in front of the door, winking and waving to friends as they passed by in
the throng, catching a thumbs-up from Greg, who was hunched over the
replay screen. Keith decided he must look official: Someone asked if he
could see the guitar; someone else wanted to know if "Caravan to Antares"
had been published. Both were disappointed that the answer was no.

   Then he saw a face in the crowd that he had not noticed before, a face
he had not expected to see.

  "Good evening, Mr. Keith," said Tidwell when he had drawn close.
"That last song was recorded?"

  "As far as I know."

   "Have a copy sent to Edkins in Culture. The young man is inside?"
Tidwell asked, nodding in the direction of the door.

  "Yes."

  "I want to talk to him."

  "Can you give him a minute? Chris is a bit wrung out."

  "I understand that."

  Keith hesitated. "He's an archie, in Building 16."
  "So I understand. Is there a point?"

  "You can catch him at your convenience—tomorrow morning, say—"

  "Thank you. I would prefer to talk to Mr. McCutcheon now."

  Keith swallowed, nodded reluctantly, and stepped aside. "He doesn't
know who you are," he added.

  "Then I'll tell him," Tidwell said, and smiled a tight smile. "Then he will
know whom to blame for the intrusion."




   Almost a third of the seats were empty when the lights went down for
Bonnie Tevens and Ambika. Daniel Keith watched from behind the annex
glass as they took the stage. Their high-gloss black clothing dazzled in the
spotlight, but the sounds from their wind controllers were more subdued,
aping a traditional flute (Bonnie) and oboe (Ambika).

  Shortly, Greg emerged from the darkened club to join Keith at the
window. "Where's Chris?"

   "Gone," said Keith. "Dr.—Tom Grimes, one of the colonists, dragged
him away." Tidwell had had, at most, a couple of minutes in private with
Christopher before Ambika arrived and chased the two men from the
dressing room. Christopher had little to say when he emerged, and his
frame of mind was unreadable, except that he was obviously
uncomfortable with the hail-fellow-well-met praise that swirled around
him. He and Tidwell had left quickly, almost an escape.

  "Is he coming back?"

  "It didn't sound like it."

  "Too bad," said Greg, rattling the plastic-cased chipdisks he held in one
hand. "I made a couple of quick copies for him. Oh, well. I'm going to do
some touch-up edits tonight, and he can have the whole banana
tomorrow."

  "Let me have one of those, then," Keith said.
  "Sure. I can't break down until after the second set," the tech said,
peering through the glass. "Are you staying?"

   Keith patted the end of the guitar case which was leaning against the
wall beside him. "I got custody of Claudia," he said. "A responsibility I'll be
glad to be done with. I think I'm going to just run it past Chris's place and
go on home. Unless you were really asking for help?"

  Greg shook his head. "Sandy's staying, and that's all the extra hands I
need. Take baby home."

   Outside, a half dozen bodies were blocking the stairs as they shared a
pep-pack. They made way for Keith to squeeze by, but only barely, and
then went back to passing the stick and giggling. Keith headed down the
street toward where his flyer waited.

   Halfway down the block, his ears pricked up at the sound of quick, light
footsteps behind him. Keith spun around, suddenly on alert, to find
himself confronting a redheaded girl in a black leather jacket, short boots,
and black jeans. In the streetlight, she was a black ghost with a sallow
yellow face.

   "You're not the singer," she said, her features contorting with surprise.

   "No."

   "Damn. Is he gone already?"

   "I'm afraid so," Keith said, and started to turn away.

   "Wait," she said. "You have to tell me something. He's a Memphis
colonist, isn't he? He has to be."

   "No," Keith said. "He's not." The denial was automatic and emphatic.

   "But you're all from the Project, aren't you?"

   That denial was automatic, too. "He's from Oregon. I'm from Illinois."

   "I can read," she said, pointing toward his shirt.

  Keith looked down to see his AT-Houston ID dangling from his shirt
pocket. "Look—" he began, giving himself a mental mule-kick as he
unpinned the badge.

    "It's okay," she said quickly. "It wasn't any secret in there. And I'm a
friendly."

   "Look, ah—"

   "Jinna."

   "Jinna," he echoed. "Like I said, Chris is gone. I'm just playing porter
for him. Sorry to disappoint you."

   She took a step closer. "I'd really like to meet him. Couldn't you take me
along where you're taking that?"

   "Sorry. I can't help you."

   Her voice shifted into a husky timbre. "I haven't given you a reason to
yet."

   "Look—"

   "Yes—look," she said, opening her jacket. Underneath, she was
naked—or nearly so. From her small rounded breasts to her slender waist
she was heavily skin-painted, a feral jungle of flowers and vines
intertwined with a sinuous green python. The snake's glowing eyes—a
jeweled piercing through the left nipple, lit with its own light—argued for
the painting being a permanent laser tattoo.

    She let the jacket fall closed and stepped closer, within arm's reach. "Is
that your flyer?" she asked "Take us up to a thousand and put it on auto.
I'll give you a thank-you in advance."

   Keith shook his head. "I don't think so."

  She reached for his crotch, stroked the fabric over his bulge. "You
ought to find out what you're turning down. Come on, step out of the light
and I'll audition."

   Annoyed at his own response, he pushed her hand away angrily. "What
do you want from Chris? What do you think he can give you?"

   "I just want to meet him. We're twins, inside. I could tell it when he
sang. We want the same things. We hurt in the same places."

  Keith studied her. "What was your prescreen score?" he asked,
guessing.

  She held her head defiantly high. "They didn't test for what I'm best at.
And you're about to make the same mistake."

  "We can't get you on board," Keith said bluntly. "Nobody can. No
matter how hot a fuck you are."

  "I hear there were sixteen stowaways on Ur."

  "Oh? Did you look that up on DIANNA?"

   "You know it wouldn't be there. They don't want anyone to know. But I
have a friend who knows someone who got on. His parents get dispatch
mail every month, but they're not allowed to tell anyone, or Allied will cut
them off. So there has to be a way."

   "If there is, I don't know it," Keith said. In fact, there had been
twenty-eight stowaways, most of them Takara construction crew or orbital
staff. The irrepressible rumors were right, but they had the story all
wrong. "I'm sorry, Jinna. I know it hurts. I'm hoping for Knossos, myself."

  "I just want to meet him. To tell him I understand how he feels."

   "You don't know how he feels," Keith said sharply. "Songs are stories.
Stories are lies."

   Her face took on a desperate cast. "You don't have to take me
anywhere. Just give me his address, so I can call him. So he can decide if
he wants to meet me. I'll still do you." She pulled her jacket open again,
and the eyes glowed at him.

   Keith paused, considered. "No. I don't think he needs that right now,"
he said, backing away into the night. "Good night, Jinna." He gestured
with his free hand. "But don't read me wrong, that is one truly special
snake."
                          CHAPTER 20
  —UAC—
                           "… chance and fate…'

   For Malena Graham, it had been an adventure, a happy floating party.
Leaving the Allied Transcon compound for the first time, riding the tram
toward the city of towers, exploring the unfamiliar streets between the
Rice station and the club-after six weeks cooped up in the training
pressure cooker, it was all delightfully, refreshingly new.

   To be sure, the Noonerville nannies weren't happy about seeing
pioneers going into the city, but they did not try to forbid it. Instead, they
settled for pressing locator bands on Malena and the others and extracting
from them a promise to steer clear of the screamer clubs and the North
End neighborhoods.

   Tipped that morning by a friendly fitness instructor, Malena had
industriously recruited four others for the outing, two from center staff
and two other colonists, including, to her surprise, Thomas Grimes. She
had half expected she would have to twist Grimes's arm, and had been
unsure that she had a good enough grip to succeed.

   There had been no reprise of their lovemaking of a few nights before,
nor even much acknowledgment in eyes or words that the encounter had
even taken place. At times, the older man had seemed uncomfortable, even
embarrassed, in her presence. She had meant to press the issue and find
out what was in his mind, but so far he had managed to dodge an
accounting.

   But when she called him at midday and told him what was happening,
Thomas volunteered, "If you're going, I would like to come along," even
before she could ask. That was a pleasant surprise. She hoped it meant
that he had worked out whatever conflict he had over what had been, for
her at least, a warm and tenderly erotic time. And though the outing was
not really a date, when she dressed, she chose her clothing—outer and
under—with an eye to pleasing him, and a thought to how the evening
might end.

   Though Thomas had been quietly reserved all night, he had hovered
close by her in a familiar, if very proper, way. He sat with her on the tram,
paid for her wine and chocolate cheesecake, rearranged the chairs so that
she was not condemned to sit in the back of the auditorium. And through
it all, he paid almost no attention to Isa, the sloe-eyed medical technician
who seemed to be drawing everyone else's glances.

   A gentleman, she thought. How nice to be with a gentleman. When the
lights went down and the painfully nervous young musician stumbled his
way on stage, Malena had reached for Thomas's hand, and though he
started at first, they had watched most of the set with fingers entwined.

   But when the rousing last number was over, Thomas had excused
himself and disappeared into a confusion of bodies too dense for Malena
to follow him, even with her eyes. And now the intermission had come and
gone, the music was starting again, and the seat next to Malena Graham
was still empty.

  "I've lost track of Thomas," she said, leaning toward Isa. "Can you see
him anywhere?"

   Isa craned her head and looked back toward the annex. "No," she said
after a few moments. "Why, are you worried about him?"

  "I'm just confused."

  "Did he say he was coming back?"

   "He said, 'Excuse me, there's something I need to do.' Or something like
that."

  "Maybe he got caught in his zipper. Do you want me to check the
dunnaken?"

  "Oh—I suppose not. It seems silly."

   "Maybe not. He's old. Old people get sick. Or maybe he said the wrong
thing to the wrong person," Isa said, rising. "You never know, in a strange
place. I'll give a look."

  "You'll miss the music—"

   Isa glanced toward the stage and grimaced. "That's okay. I must not be
in the mood."
   The answer to the mystery was delivered by a stranger, a
white-whiskered man wearing a yellow Wonders T-shirt—the uniform of
the club employees. While Isa was gone, he appeared suddenly beside her
and crouched down where she was sitting. "Excuse me. Are you Malena?"

  She looked up, trying to see his face in the dim light. "Yes. Why?"

  "I have a message for you from Thomas?" The messenger seemed
unsure of himself.

  "Right, Malena. What?"

  "He asked me to tell you that he had to leave, that he was very sorry,
and that he would see you back at the center."

  She gaped. "When did you talk to him?"

   "Three or four minutes ago. I was on the counter, so I couldn't get up
here until now."

  Isa returned at that point, creating a traffic jam in the aisle.

  "Was he sick? Did he say why he had to leave?" Malena asked.

  "He didn't look sick to me. He looked anxious. Or in a hurry."

  "Was he alone?"

  "I didn't see anyone with him."

  "Sssh," someone nearby hissed.

  Malena glared in the direction of the sound. "I can't believe he just left."

   "I'm sorry. He just asked me to make sure you got the message." His
face apologetic, the messenger backed out of the aisle and retreated,
making room for Isa to move past.

  "He's not there," she said.
   "Sssh!"

  "I know," she said, catching Isa's sleeve and pulling her into her chair.
"They just told me he left."

   From Ambika's wind synth came the startling sound of a hunter's horn,
a ripping echo in the hard-walled room.

   "Left? What a prick. What do you want to do?"

   "I want to pop him and then eat something chocolate."

   Isa grinned. "Can't do either of those here, unfortunately."

   "Then why don't you leave?" suggested the complaining voice.

   "Well—I don't think I really want to sit here for another hour listening
to this."

  "Sounds good to me," said Isa. "This is college city. Ladies Night Out.
We'll go find some fun on our own."

   "Hooray," said their annoyed neighbor.

   "What about the others?"

   "I'll check." Isa leaned forward and whispered in the ear of the man in
front of her. After a few side whispers, she sat back. "They're going to
stay."

   At that point, Ambika's instrument began barking and baying like a
pack of hounds. Malena rolled her eyes. "What is it they say about those
things? An ill wind that nobody blows good?"




  Malena's syrupy drink sparkled with glittery stars and an orbiting
comet-shaped glow bright enough to cast flickering shadows on the table.

   "It's not fair," she said, holding the tall glass at eye level and staring
into it.
  "What's not?" asked Isa, looking past her toward the couch-lounge,
where some sort of holoshow was under way.

  "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to conceive."

  Isa smiled. "Oh. That."

   Gulping down a swallow, Malena tipped her glass and studied the
changing dynamics. "It's in the glass, not the drink," she pronounced,
setting it down. "Here's what's unfair. You can have any man you want,
and you may not even be any good in bed. I'm terrific and I just about
have to knock them down with my chair to get them to notice me."

  "Forget Grimes. He's a prick."

   "No, he isn't," she said, shaking her head. "If he was a prick I wouldn't
care. He's sweet. He's a gentleman. And he did this to me anyway."

  "Then there must be a good reason, and you'll find out what it is
tomorrow."

    "I know what the reason is. The reason is me," Malena said. "I don't get
it. What do men want, anyway? Besides you."

  "Men want sex, power, and to live forever," Isa pronounced.

  "So do I. That doesn't explain it."

   "Men want to plant their seed in strong healthy women who'll raise
their kids without asking too much from them in return."

    "Now we're getting to it," said Malena. "They look at you and they say,
'Oooh, good genes.' Not to mention, 'I'll bet I could get it up with her.'
They look at me and say, 'Next, please.' " She emptied her glass and placed
it on the reorder disk.

  "Just the ones who're running on autopilot. And it's no favor to me to
have that kind sniffing around."

   "Gives you the prick of the litter." She giggled drunkenly at her own
joke.

  "Not really. Because maybe the one I want is the runt with a brain, and
he's liable to take one look at the mob he has to fight through to reach me
and write it off. I think you're better off than I am, really."

   The drink droid had trundled by, and Malena's glass was again full of
glittering stars. "Do you really want the runt?" she asked, raising her
eyebrow and her drink.

   Isa smiled coyly. "Sometimes."

   "And?"

  The smile widened. "And sometimes I want the big strong no-brain
who'll fuck me till I faint. So sue me."

   "Ha. I thought so."

   "It's not my fault."

   "No," Malena said, swirling the stars in her glass. "I don't suppose it is.
So men want sex, power, and to live forever. What do women want?"

   "Deep down?"

   "When we're in no-brain. Screaming genes."

   "You don't know?"

   "I thought you were an expert. I'm asking an expert."

   Isa thought for a moment. "Women," she said finally, "want babies and
security."

   "Ugh. Can I be a man instead?"

   "You said you wanted to know."

   "I take it back."

   "You could argue with me."

   Malena sipped at her drink. "Not when you're right."

   "Am I?"
   "Aren't you? It's the same game now as it was a hundred years ago, a
thousand years ago. Nothing changes. We want relationships. They want
friction. We want commitment. They want freedom. We want to make
nests. They want to carve notches."

  "In words of one syllable: We want to get them, they want to have us."

  "Q.E.D."

  "You left out one important fact."

  "What's that?"

  "When it suits us, we can be just as shallow as the next man."

  Malena raised her nearly empty glass. "To mindless recreational sex."

  "Say that louder and you'll have plenty of men over here."

  "To vibrators I have known and loved," Malena declaimed, wobbling in
her chair.

   Isa laughed easily. "You know, sometimes I think the natural partner
for a woman is another woman."

  "Sometimes I think so, too," said Malena. "Except women's energy is all
wrong for me." She paused. "Do you think Bonnie and Ambika are lovers?"

  "Probably."

  "What do they want, deep down?"

  Isa pursed her lips and considered, then smiled cattily. "Talent."




   He came to the table while Isa was off dancing—dancing with a
round-faced woman from the next table. The cues Malena had missed had
been overheard and pursued by another.

  "Hi."
   Malena peered up at him. Tall, clean-faced, dark-eyed, a wrestler's
build. "No, I will not pretend you're an old friend. When she comes back,
you can introduce yourself," she said. " 'Pleased't'mount ya, miss,' oughta
do. But you have to fuck her till she faints."

  He slid easily into the empty seat. "Been drinking Starshines, haven't
you?" he said with a gentle smile.

   "I have, until the droid cut me off. So this is as silly and suggestible as I
will get tonight. Enjoy it while it lasts," she slurred. "Now, about Isa. As
far as I know, she is not a lesbian, just disillusioned. Like me."

   "I really didn't want to meet your friend," he said. "I came over to talk
to you."

   She pointed to the airchair, sitting empty against the back wall, a
meter away. "Before you get either of us excited, you should know that I go
with that."

   "I know," he said. "You were at the concert, weren't you? At Wonders."

   "Until it got silly, and the dogs chased us away. Were you there?"

  "I work there. In the annex, behind the counter. You came to hear Chris
McCutcheon, then?"

  "Proudly. One of our own." She lifted her drink. "These are fun even
when the droid leaves out the kicker."

   "He's a colonist, isn't he? I know you all were from the Project, but—"

   "He is not a colonist," she pronounced firmly. "He is a shy little
librarian with one good song to his name. Which, by the way, has been
playing in my head all night. Look at me, I'm flying free, swimming in the
Starshine—"

   Her visitor sat back in the chair. "That's what I told them. Someone at
the club said he was a colonist, but I was sure that they weren't allowed to
leave the grounds."

    "Then you were right for the wrong reason," Malena announced. "I am
living proof that they do indeed let the animals out of the cage."
  "Really?"

  "Really. You see before you one of the Chosen. I would get up and bow
but I can't—I'd fall down first, and how would that look?"

  "I guess that rules out my asking you to dance," he said with a wry
smile.

  "Only if you want to dance standing up."

  "That's the only way I know," he said apologetically.

   "And you call yourself an educated man," she said. She squinted across
the table at him. "I was right. You're cute. Why are you talking to me?"

  "Because I like you."

   "You do? The last man who said he liked me ran away the first chance
he could."

  "He was a fool."

    "Yes, he was. Maybe you can help me. I'm taking a survey," she said,
throwing her shoulders back and taking a deep breath. "Do you like my
tits?"

  He looked surprised, then smiled. "As far as I can tell."

   "And if I were lying naked on top of you, would I have to talk you into
touching me?"

  "No."

  She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. "Then why don't
you take me home and fuck me till I faint?"

  "Home to where? The center? Or my place?"

  "Do you have an alarm?"

  He smiled. "Of course."

  She pressed the button of the homing pack through the fabric of her
breast pocket, and the airchair came to life and edged between the tables
toward her. "What's your name?"

  "Evan."

  "Evan. I'm Malena. Let's go make a mess of your bed."




   Malena lay back in the passenger seat of the battered Ford Courier, her
eyes heavy-lidded, her peasant skirt and ruffled blouse in a jumble on the
floor at her feet. Only the lacy surprises she had worn for Thomas
remained in place, if somewhat askew.

   She had been surprised when Evan led her to the flyer, parked in an
alleyway two blocks away from the speed bar. Expecting that he lived
nearby, she had primed herself for quick gratification.

    But she did not mind the ride, even though Evan had had little to say
since they lifted off, even though it seemed to her that they had been in the
air a long time and had left the city far behind. He had not made her wait,
and his hands were warm and strong, his fingers knowing. Even with his
attention divided between a car and a woman, he was keeping them both
flying.

   Presently, he began to neglect her in favor of the Courier, just as she got
that falling-fast sensation in her gut, a sensation that was unpleasantly
enhanced by the alcohol and polypep soup in her bloodstream. Before her
distress could mount to a dangerous level, however, there was a slight
bump and the hiss of a leaky landing coupler.

   "Here we are," he said, and hopped out into the night. As he came
around the flyer to her door, she struggled to a sitting position and peered
out through the window. There were no lights, and the light of the waning
moon betrayed no structures.

  "Here where?" she asked as he opened the door.

  "It's a surprise," he said.

  "I have to get dressed," she said, reaching for her clothes.
   He reached faster and tossed them to the far side of the flyer. "There's
no one here," he said with a grin.

  "I need my chair, at least," she said, twisting sideways in her seat and
smiling up at him.

   His eyebrows flashed. "No, you don't," he said, suddenly seizing her
wrist and pulling her roughly from the flyer. She fell gracelessly to the
ground, barking her bare legs on the door frame.

   "Goddammit, what are you— Evan, stop!" she shrieked.

  Ignoring her protest, he dragged her several meters across the stony
hard-packed dirt, away from the flyer. He left her there for a moment,
shaken and confused, while he returned to the flyer to shut the passenger
door—killing the only light—and retrieve something from the trunk.

   She watched, doing nothing, her mind barely grasping the danger she
was in. She could not flee, she could not hide, and only if he were horribly
careless could she overpower him. Her shockbox was in the pocket of her
skirt, hopelessly out of reach. The only way out was through
Evan—placating him, persuading him, somehow satisfying him. And she
did not know what that would take.

  "Evan, it can be good without being rough," she said as he approached
her. Her voice was shakier than she had hoped it would be.

   "Oh, I can't fuck you," he said, circling her, his tone sarcastic, his words
taunting. "I'm sure I'm not good enough for one of the Chosen."

   Scrabbling in the dirt, she twisted as he moved to keep facing him. It
was then that she saw what he held in his right hand—a stout stick as long
as his forearm and as thick as his thumb. Fear cleared the fog from her
mind.

   "We can do it right here, Evan," she cooed. Come on, come on in, come
close enough for me to reach you. She tugged awkwardly at her skirts.
"It's all right. Let's do it. I can make you feel wonderful."

  He laughed. "You don't know yet who I am, do you? I didn't bring you
out here to fuck you. I brought you out here to kill you."
   The impossible words glanced off her, unprocessed and undigested. She
stared at him dumbly.

   "You think you get everything you want, don't you?" he went on, his
voice now calm, his tone amused. "Blessed daughter of the Earth, touched
by the gods. Little queen of time and space. What's so fucking special
about you?"

   He moved so suddenly she could barely see him, one quick step toward
her, the stick raised high. She flung up an arm as the stick came down and
there was a horrible sound, crack-crack, like two saplings snapping,
splintering, except the sound was wet and muffled and the saplings the
twin bones of her forearm.

   Malena cried out in shock, wondered for an instant why she felt no
pain, and then screamed as the distorted arm fell limply into her lap and a
hundred million nerve endings awakened from their shock. A warm
wetness spread over her thigh, and she saw with horror that her skin had
been laid open by the blow, as by a razor edge. Moaning, she looked up at
him wonderingly.

   "You don't look so special now," Evan said, hovering out of reach. "You
look just as scared as any poor slob. I saw a guy hang himself by accident
once. He had the same look on his face—like he was surprised to find out
he could die. Funny, it was sex that got him in trouble, too."

  "Please—"

  "Please what? Please let you go? Please don't kill you? Are you hoping it
bothers me to see you bleeding? Dream on, Malena dear. I want it to hurt.
This is the end of your life, Chosen One. I want it to last forever."

   With her good hand, Malena tried fruitlessly to staunch the flowing
blood. "Oh, God—"

  "Save it," he said coldly. "Don't even try. You can't talk me out of it.
This isn't a lark. I didn't wake up this morning and say, 'Gee, what a great
day to recycle some poor trot.' I've been ready for weeks. You're a gift, a
pure sugar treat for a good boy."

  "You're crazy!" she shrieked. "You're fucking crazy!"
   "Thank you! I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't said that at least
once." He leaned in closer to her. "But you're wrong. I'm not crazy. I just
hate your guts."

  His arm went up, the stick came down, and the razors sliced deep into
her good shoulder. She did not have the breath to scream. Blood ran,
spurted, streaking dusty skin. She could not lift either arm.

  "No—"

   "You still don't know who I am, do you?" he hissed. "I'm the leveler. I'm
the collector of debts. I'm a soldier of the Earth. I'm the hands of
Jeremiah, and you're the Chosen. I chose you. I chose you to die."

   He whipped the stick in a blinding-fast sideways stroke, and she
screamed as the side of her head exploded with thunder and fire. She spun
away, collapsing into a quivering huddle, the web of light in her eyes fast
fading.

   An immeasurable moment later, the murderous dragon's tail came
down once more, across the back of her neck, shattering the bones of her
spine and the delicate tissues within. She jerked soundlessly. But it was
only reflex, for whatever was life and consciousness, whatever was Malena
Graham, was gone. All that remained was the slow death, the quiet
transformation from delicate machine to dust.




                          CHAPTER 21
  —GAA—
                          “...the greater good…”

  The murder of Malena Graham was news that would not wait for
morning, and so it was a short night for many in the Project family.

   Hiroko Sasaki, on Takara to receive a deficiency report from the
supervisory circle and tour the nearly completed Memphis, went directly
from her suite to the transportation office to arrange a shuttle home.

  Still wearing his striped pajamas, Edgar Donovan settled in his office
node and began calling contacts in the media, even as he monitored the
first fragmentary reports on Newstime and the black traffic on the private
corporate net.

   A shattered Thomas Tidwell, receiving special handling from Houston
corpsec, shed his Thomas Grimes persona and fled to the quiet security of
Halfwhistle by means of a corporate screamer.

  Sleepy-eyed morale counselors and group dynamicists, huddled in a
Building H conference room, debated whether to hold the pioneers over
until the shock had been absorbed or to empty Noonerville early.

  An unlucky senior facilitator headed for Virginia with an insurance
check and the vain hope of shaping the Graham family's public posture.

   And Mikhail Dryke, heart-weary and discouraged, came back to
Houston from Prainha, feeling as though it were a pilgrimage of futility.
Too late, again too late. In the two hours and forty minutes between the
flash alert and Dryke's Celestron touching down on the complex's runway,
both the primary and secondary reasons for that journey had evaporated.

   The first, of locating Graham's killer, disappeared when Rangers from
the Beaumont post forced down a Ford Firefly a few kilometers short of
the Louisiana border, arresting one Evan Eric Silverman. The second, of
determining whether Silverman had known Graham's status, vanished
when he confessed—no, boasted—in his first interview that he had killed a
colonist, calling Malena a "traitor" and himself a "martyr."

   On hearing the latter, Dryke's fury was matched only by his feeling of
impotence. It had been obvious for months that the pioneers were at risk
from the more radical Homeworlders—if not, then why were their
identities and movements so conscientiously concealed? Dryke had urged
repeatedly that the training centers be made closed campuses. But he had
been overruled by assorted management types, Sasaki included, for
reasons which had nothing to do with security.

    Better to make it unnecessary for them to leave than to forbid them, he
was told. Better that they see the center as a refuge, not a prison—their
fellows as friends, not inmates. Better that they choose to turn their back
on a world that they've decided for themselves is unfriendly. Better for
morale. Better for solidarity. Better for everyone.
  Except Malena Graham.




   By midmorning, when Dryke reached the Beaumont post, it was already
clear that so far as Allied Transcon was concerned, the murder of Malena
Graham was a public relations disaster.

  Here was the grieving family standing in front of their home, a sobbing
Mother Caroline declaring, "Our girl was stolen from us. We never wanted
her to go," and Father Jack bitterly denouncing Allied Transcon for
negligence—as if Graham had been some sort of teenage overnight
camper.

   Here were the world media, suddenly interested in the "tensions"
between Allied and the Houston community, broadcasting inflammatory
interviews with Diaspora opponents, complete with footage of the
compound fences, patrol boats, and watch towers. And here was
clean-faced clear-spoken Evan Silverman, being interviewed from his cell
by a grimly earnest Julian Minor. Dryke sat in his vehicle in the post
parking lot and watched on the skylink for as long as he could stand.

    "What do you mean, don't cry for Malena Graham?" Minor asked. "This
is a young woman, her life in front of her, a courageous physically
challenged twenty-year-old. And you dragged her off to the middle of
nowhere in the middle of the night and beat her to death."

   "I don't think I want you as my defense attorney, Julian," said a relaxed
Silverman. "The truth is that Malena Graham was a thief and a traitor.
She was a Memphis colonist, a partner in a quadrillion-dollar hijacking of
the Earth's treasuries. She shares in the blame for every sin and excess
committed by Allied Transcon over the last three decades."

  "So you murdered her as a revolutionary statement."

  "I executed a criminal for her crimes."

  "Will that be your defense?"

   "The courts are controlled by Allied's bedmates. They won't allow the
truth to clutter up their rush to judgment. Which is why I'm talking to
you."
   "But I've talked to you before, haven't I?" asked Minor.

   "What do you mean?"

   "Aren't you Jeremiah?"

   Dryke sat forward, riveted.

   "No," said Silverman.

   "You talk like the man who calls himself Jeremiah," pressed Minor.

  "Jeremiah is the prophet," Silverman said, frowning slightly. "It
shouldn't be a surprise if you hear the same words from his disciple."

   "Is that what you call yourself? A disciple? Is this political or religious?"

   "I'll let you apply the labels as you choose," Silverman said with a shrug.

   "But you're trying to say that what you did is part of something bigger."

   "It is."

   "Were you under orders to murder Malena Graham?"

   "Execute," corrected Silverman. "My hands are Jeremiah's hands. I do
his work."

   "Not any longer."

   "There are ten thousand for Tau Ceti—ten thousand minus one. There
are ten billion Homeworlders standing for the Earth. How can they think
that they're safe from us? In that ten billion there are ten times ten times
ten thousand who will gladly do what I've done."

   "The cost—"

   "We are many, and they are few. In a war of attrition, one of us for one
of them is a victory. We'll cheerfully pay that price until the last of the ten
thousand is gone."

  Julian Minor was scoffing with his eyes. "Do you seriously think that
you can announce a plan for this kind of mass murder and still expect to
carry it out?"

  "Jeremiah's soldiers are everywhere," said Evan Silverman with easy
confidence, looking directly into the camera. "There's no place our
enemies can go that we can't reach them."

   Dryke had seen enough. "Log it for me. Kill the screen," he said, and the
skylink went dark. But he did not move to leave the flyer.

   For, listening to the interview, Dryke had finally understood the weight
of discouragement that had settled on him that morning, that had taken
him under as he sat on the edge of his bed, the fading images of a
disturbing dream cross-channeled with the jarring sounds and images of
the flash alert.

   Now the dream came back. The siege had gone on forever. Each
morning he walked the ramparts, reviewing the defenses and looking out
at the broad grassy meadows where the enemy's campaign tents stood and
campfires burned. Each morning Dryke found a post or two abandoned, a
familiar face or two among the enemy, dead allies reborn as adversaries.

   Then came a morning when he woke to find himself the last bowman
on the ramparts. That was the morning the assault began in
earnest—uncounted enemies attacking the fortress at a thousand points.
And the last archer knew full well as he nocked his first arrow that neither
will nor heart nor skill would count enough to carry the day.

  Writ the chronicler on the day he died, Too few on the ramparts, too
many outside—




   Inside the post, Dryke was stopped at a security gatelock, then escorted
to a Captain Norwood's office. He knocked on the door, then pushed it
open.

  The office was no more than half a dozen paces in any dimension. At
one end, a man in a brown uniform sat behind a small boomerang desk,
beneath a Scale 3 wallscreen. "Captain Norwood," Dryke said. "I'm
Mikhail Dryke, Allied Transcon."

   "You're late," Norwood said curtly, pushing back his posture chair and
rising. He gestured past where Dryke was standing. "I understand you
know Lieutenant Alvarez."

  Stunned, Dryke turned to follow Norwood's gesture. A woman with a
vaguely familiar face was seated there on a cushion couch.

  "Mr. Dryke," said Eilise Alvarez. "I was just telling Captain Norwood
about your personal contribution to the Martinez case."

   A dozen replies passed in review of Dryke's wary censor before he finally
spoke. "Then I'll have to make a point of telling him my side of it
sometime," he said, looking back to Norwood. "I'm a bit confused. How
are the Houston Transit Police involved in this?"

   Norwood settled in his chair. "Lieutenant Alvarez is representing a
special operations unit working on controlling civil unrest aimed at Allied
Transcon and its personnel."

  "We're also seeking transfer of the prisoner to our jurisdiction on
commencement-of-crime."

  "Which probably won't be granted," Norwood said, nodding. "Anyway,
you both asked for briefings on the Graham case, so I thought I'd spare
myself the repetition. I assume you don't object?"

  "No," said Alvarez.

   "No objection," said Dryke. He gave Alvarez a sideways glance as he
took the free chair along the far wall.

   "Fine." Norwood glanced down at the desktop, which had the muted
gleam of a flat tank display. "Recorders on if you've got them. Victim,
Malena Christine Graham of Great Bridge, Virginia, age twenty. Oh, and
she was a crip, restricted to an airchair. According to witnesses, she was
picked up by Evan Eric Silverman, twenty-eight, of Houston, at a bar
called Magpie's on Old Spanish Trail about ten forty-five last night."

  "Twenty December," Alvarez said quietly for the benefit of her recorder.

   "Silverman took the girl to a field about three kilometers west of
Magnolia, off State Route 1488, where he stripped her and beat her with a
dragon's tail. That's a club with a pattern of razor edges embedded in the
top third. Illegal as a weapon. Silverman had a license for his—apparently
he's a juggler. Cause of death: You've got your pick until the coroner wraps
up. Most likely the head injuries killed her before she bled to death. Time
of death is twelve twenty-one a.m. That's the twenty-first," he added. "You
want to see the evidence tape?"

  "Yes," said Dryke.

  "Is there any point?" asked Alvarez.

   Norwood opened his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. "Not for me to
say. I don't know what you're after."

  "All right," said Alvarez. "Show it."

   The assault had been savagely cruel, and the body was grossly
disfigured. It was the same kind of mindless violence he had seen in the
incident at the observation platform, but turned up one notch from
brutality to butchery. Looking at the evidence video, Dryke could not even
tell if the young victim had been attractive.

  "Jesus. Did he do all that?"

   "Not quite. When they found her, the fire ants were having their fill. It's
a mercy she was dead." Norwood shook his head. "At least I hope she was
dead."

  When the recording ended, the lights came up. Alvarez was pale, but
when Dryke raised an eyebrow in her direction, she shot a withering look
back.

   "That's about it at this point," said Norwood, who had never turned to
watch the wallscreen. "Nothing I didn't have to release to the media,
really. Frankly, I'm still not clear on what you're after. There's not much
here to finesse."

  "What about this 'Jeremiah's hands' business?" asked Dryke.

   "He has been talking a lot, that's a fact," said Norwood. "You obviously
caught his spotlight performances. I can't let any of his private showings
leave the building, but I could set you up with a screen somewhere. Are
you interested?"
  "Yes. If you could arrange that when we're done, I'd appreciate it,"
Dryke said.

  "What else is there to do?"

   All that was left was all that there had ever really been—the quest for
Jeremiah. "Silverman's home," Dryke said.

  "Being searched and inventoried now."

  "What about his comlogs, his library, his personals? There could be
important information in them—information that could finally give us a
chance to take apart the Homeworld network. I have access to technical
experts who can disarm any security traps Silverman might have left."

  "What are you suggesting?"

   Shrugging, Dryke said, "Mutual cooperation—our expertise in exchange
for access to whatever's dug out."

   Norwood frowned and leaned back in his chair. "I don't see what
standing you have to ask for access to criminal evidence. And we have our
own hackers and crackers."

   "If Silverman really is working with Jeremiah, I promise you, you'll
need more than a password engine and a wipe mask to get into his file
library," warned Dryke.

   "We're not amateurs, Mr. Dryke. We do this all the time," Norwood
said with evident annoyance. "And again, I don't see how I can justify
making you a partner in our investigation."

  "Can I inject something here?" asked Alvarez.

  "Go ahead," said Norwood.

   "I'm looking at a work load of seventy-one open property crimes against
Allied facilities—which may or may not involve Jeremiah or members of
the Homeworld movement. Total damage and losses runs about fourteen
million dollars," said Alvarez. "Will that earn me a look at Silverman's
personals?"

  "Yah," said Norwood. "We'll work with you on that."
   "Then you may as well let Mr. Dryke have it as well. We've got a co-op
agreement with corporate security, and they'll see anything we see."

   Norwood cocked his head and pursed his lips. "All right, Mr. Dryke," he
said finally. "Bring on your experts."

  "I'll go make the call."

    "Wait," said Norwood, turning to face his wallscreen. "V-mail, forward
till acknowledged: Norwood to Unit Six. We're going to get an outside
assist on Silverman's personals. Let's keep our hands off all data storage
media and devices until then. Catalog in place. End."

  "Sending, sir," said the comsole's voice.

    Reaching out to his left, Norwood touched several desktop sensors, and
a list of files came up on the screen. "Unlock fourteen through twenty-two,
one viewing, sequenced, then re-lock."

  "Done, sir."

  Finally, Norwood turned back toward the others and rose from his
chair. "Okay. You can call from here," he said, making his way toward the
door. "When you're done, ask for file fourteen."

  "We didn't mean to chase you out—" Alvarez began.

   "You didn't. I'm due in the tank to testify in another case." He squinted
toward Dryke. "Let me know when you can have your people here."

  "I will. Thank you, Captain."

   As the door closed, Dryke thumbed off his recorder and turned to
Alvarez wearing an openly puzzled expression. "What's going on?"

   "I want Silverman's personals," she said. "I don't want blank logs and a
brainwashed AIP. Your texperts are insurance."

  "That's not what I mean. There's no co-op agreement between us. Or
am I missing something?"

  "There is now," she said. "Unless you don't want it."
   "I'll take it. But I still don't understand. You can't have forgotten about
Brian White since you told Norwood about it half an hour ago."

   "I only told him how I knew you," she said. "I didn't tell him what I
thought of your ethics. And I won't, unless you try to see Silverman."

   Dryke looked at her wonderingly. "Stand still. I can't track a moving
target."

   "This one's different than the last one," Alvarez said quietly. "White was
petty stuff, a classic bad boy. We know how to handle his kind. But
Silverman's a hard-wired freakoid. And he scares the pee out of me."

   "He's in lockup. Norwood's not going to let him walk."

   "Not that kind of scared. But how many more are out there?" she asked.
"You've got fifteen hundred employees in the compound and three
thousand more outside for the next Silverman to pick from. There's no
way that you can lock them all up safely out of reach."

   "I know," said Dryke.

  She shook her head. "I don't know how to get inside Silverman's mind. I
don't even know if I want to."

   "You don't want to," said Dryke grimly.

   "Is he crazy? Cerebral function deficiency?"

   "Was Hitler crazy?" Dryke asked rhetorically. "I don't know. I'll bet he
doesn't come up CFD. He's worse. A bad combination of hate and
intelligence."

   "And calculated viciousness."

   "That's what you get when you put those two together," said Dryke. He
gestured at the screen. "Are you ready?"

   "I suppose."

   Dryke nodded. "File fourteen, display," he said, thumbing his recorder
to on.
  Larger than life, Evan Eric Silverman sat calmly in the back of the
Ranger cruiser, talking to the officers in the front seats.

   "This is just the beginning," he was saying. "Number one. Somebody
keep score. We're going to stop them. We're going to push them right to
the edge—"




   It was midnight in Prainha, 4 a.m. in Northumberland, and 1 p.m. the
previous day on Takara and Memphis, orbiting high above the
mid-Pacific. But technology and the wishes of Hiroko Sasaki had erased
the differences that night. The four people waiting with Sasaki in her
garden meeting room were all sharing the same moment with the five
skylinked to the gathering, all waiting on the same report.

   "We are ready, Mr. Dryke," said Sasaki, consulting the digital slate
resting on her lap. "You may begin."

   "Thank you, Director," said Dryke from the tank in Houston. "I won't
belabor this. We got into Evan Silverman's library about seven hours ago.
The only defenses in his system were commercial repellents, which were
taken down without damage to the files. About four hours ago, the Texas
State Police handed over image copies of all the libraries, including
Silverman's contact logs. We've parsed them six ways to November, and
there's no evidence he was working with anyone else or at anyone's
direction."

  "Let me be certain I understand," said Sasaki. "There is no evidence of
Mr. Silverman having contact with any person or organization on our
Homeworld watch lists."

  "That's correct."

  "There is no evidence of any communication or contact with Jeremiah."

  "That's correct. Understand, though, that no evidence means just that.
The files could have been purged before Silverman went out that night—a
good wipe utility wouldn't have left us anything."

   "Was there an AIP which could be questioned?" Sasaki said each letter
individually, eschewing the acronym.
  "No. Silverman lived alone."

  "Do you have any conclusions?"

   Dryke frowned. "One thing we did find in the library was a clip file on
Jeremiah—all of his pirate speeches, coverage of the tank truck gag here a
few months back, and the like. I'm inclined to think that anyone who
would take the trouble to wipe out damning evidence would probably get
rid of the merely suspicious as well. So I expect that the reason we didn't
find anything was that there wasn't anything to find. We'll run the files for
embedded code, of course, before we close the book."

  "It is your judgment, then, that Mr. Silverman acted alone, and on his
own initiative."

  "Yes. Based on what I've seen today."

   "There has been speculation by the media that Mr. Silverman may in
fact be Jeremiah," said Sasaki. "Is there any reason to give this
speculation credence?"

  Dryke snorted. "Julian Minor is an idiot. No. None at all."

  "One final question: Do we know for certain that Mr. Silverman knew
Ms. Graham's involvement with the Project?"

  "He knew," said Dryke.

  "Are you basing that on his word alone?"

   "No. On the fact that he was boasting about it when the Rangers picked
him up. If he didn't know before he left the bar with the woman, then she
either told him or gave herself away somehow."

   "Thank you, Mr. Dryke, on behalf of the committee," said Sasaki. "I
know that this has been a long day for you. If you will allow me, I would
like to close one other matter. Has there been any change in the status of
the open gateway at the Munich operation?"

  "No change," said Dryke dourly. "There've been a fistful of attempted
penetrations, but all amateurs. It looks like the big fish saw the hook."

  "I am told by Mr. Reid that it is through the exercise of discretion that
they live to become 'big fish,' " said Sasaki. "Please have the gateway
closed and the operation terminated. The staff will require the navigation
package to be available when they begin reporting after the New Year, and
any further delays in its installation will endanger that."

  "Yes, Director."

  "We will contact you in the morning if we have further
questions—please notify me immediately if there are new developments."

  "Of course."

   Sasaki touched her slate, and the Houston link was broken. There was a
prolonged silence, more subdued than respectful, in the garden room in
Prainha.

  "Mr. Tidwell," said Sasaki at last, frowning. "Are you there?"

  "Yes," came the reply, ferried across the Atlantic by the sky-link. "Yes, I
am."

  "Do you have anything to add?"

  Tidwell's eyes were dull, and the words came slowly. "I was fond of Miss
Graham. I deeply—regret—her death. That said, I do not see what I can
contribute to this discussion."

  One of the men across from Sasaki stirred. "Can I ask what he was
doing in Houston in the first place?"

  "Mr. Tidwell?" asked Sasaki. "Did you hear that?"

   "I had—made a judgment—that in order to truly know the colonists, I
would have to share their lives—their experience." He paused. "I meant to
leave in three days, when the class was released."

  "Does sharing their lives include dating twenty-year-old girls?" The
question came from a woman sitting to Sasaki's left.

   "I am satisfied that Mr. Tidwell's involvement in these horrible events is
tangential and entirely incidental. Further, that his involvement with Miss
Graham was consistent with the purposes he named," said Sasaki, her
tone a sharp rebuke. "I have asked for his observations because he is in a
position to speak to the present atmosphere in Houston, and for no other
reason."

   The woman lowered her eyes and was silent.

   "While in Houston, I saw a marked and growing polarization," said
Tidwell, stepping into the empty space. "Lines of allegiance have
hardened. You hear bitter words on both sides, little communication
between them. Emotions have outdistanced reason in too many minds. I
am forced to say that I am not surprised that this happened. It was an
undeclared war. No longer."

   "Can you plot the curve?" asked the woman.

   "Pardon me?"

  "How long will the Houston operation be sustainable?" she asked. "Will
we be able to move three more classes through by March?"

   "I see," said Tidwell. "I am not well versed in the business of
prediction."

  "Noted," Sasaki said. "I would appreciate your assessment, all the
same."

   Tidwell loosed an uncomfortable sigh. "The undeclared war was fought,
I might argue, by gentleman's rules. If Evan Silverman presages a new
group of players who recognize no rules, it seems to me that it will be a
near thing. There are wolves at the door."

   "Thank you, Thomas," said Sasaki. "You may leave us now."

   "May I ask a question of my own?"

   "Of course."

   "Why is Malena Graham so important? I was told today that
twenty-nine people attached to the Project have died in accidents and
other incidents this year, including three colonists. At least six of those
deaths were murders. I am not aware that the committee was convened on
the occasion of each or any of those cases. I'm beginning to wonder if
you're not more concerned about my involvement than you've admitted."
   Sasaki briefly showed a tired smile. "You have answered your own
question, Thomas. Malena Graham is so important because she
demonstrates that the rules have changed. She is the first colonist killed
simply because she was a colonist."

  "But what does that mean to you?" Tidwell said. "I half believe that
you've been watching for it to happen."

   "We have been watching for certain signs," said Sasaki. "Some time
ago, the sociometric unit prepared a study of the rising curve of
opposition to the Diaspora. It contained a multi-stranded prediction,
specifying several checkpoints and watershed events. Malena's murder
and your assessment of the situation in Houston both fit the projection."

   "Why was this study kept from me?" asked Tidwell.

   Sasaki showed a flash of annoyance. "As you said yourself, your
province is the past, not the future. It was not kept from you. It was simply
not relevant to your work."

  "I would like to have made that judgment myself," said Tidwell,
somewhat chastened. "In any case, I now understand your concern."

   "Our concern is long-standing." She gestured with her right hand, her
simple metal bracelet gleaming. "To date, all is as predicted—the changing
political and social climate, the drop in options and acceptances, and now
the violence."

   Tidwell's expression was a troubled one. "What lies at the end of the
curve? What does this mean for Knossos?”

   Sasaki was slow to respond, and it seemed to those in the room with
her at Prainha that it was less for lack of an answer than for her
reluctance to voice it.

   "I suppose that circumstance has now made the study relevant to your
office," she said at last. "If the projection continues to hold, we will never
build Knossos."

   "What!"

   "Or Mohenjo-Daro, or Teotihuac á n," Sasaki continued. "The Diaspora
will end with Memphis. That, Mr. Tidwell, is why Malena Graham is so
important."

   "Then I will hope that fortune-telling is a less exact science than
history," Tidwell said. "Good night, Director."

   "May I ask him one more question?" It was the woman to Sasaki's
right.

  Sasaki gestured her assent.

  "This boy you were talking to that night—the archie you left Malena for.
Did you learn anything from him?"

   Eyes haunted, Tidwell slowly shook his head. "That cuts the deepest,"
he said. "There was nothing he could tell me, because he didn't know
himself."




   When Tidwell was gone, there was an uneasy silence in the garden
room. Sasaki rose wordlessly and crossed the room to the dispenser for a
cup of Japanese tea. One of the men stood at the window-wall at the far
end of the room, looking out at the lights of the spaceport.

  "That's it, then," he said finally. "We've crossed a threshold."

  No one spoke.

  "I'm surprised you told Dr. Tidwell as much as you did," said the
woman when Sasaki rejoined them.

  "It was time for him to know."

  "But not the whole story."

  "He is my barometer," she said. "He now knows as much as he needs."

   "I don't think you should have soft-pedaled it," said the man at the
window, returning to his chair. "The truth is, we'll be lucky if they don't
find a way to stop Memphis."
   "I can't accept that," said Matt Reid, skylinked from Takara. "We can't
just sit still and let them come get us."

   "The study makes clear that we can only hasten our decline by
matching their tactics," said Sasaki. "We have seen already, in the
Singapore incident, that we are judged by stricter standards."

   "Maybe I'm the only one here," said the supervisor, "but I don't take the
study as gospel. I'm not seeing any of this up here. And I hate like hell to
hear this kind of negativism on the committee."

   "Takara is a special population," said the woman. "It will reach there
last."

  "I don't see why we can't fight this," the supervisor persisted. "And I'd
put finding some way to silence this Silverman at the top of the list. It
shouldn't be too hard to find someone willing to go head-hunting."

   "No," Sasaki said forcefully. "It is already too late for that. Mr.
Silverman made his statement with his hands. His words are merely
echoes, and you cannot silence an echo."

   "So we're going to do nothing," said the supervisor, disgusted.

   "We will do what we planned to do, three years ago," said Sasaki. "We
prepared for a contingency no one wanted to believe in. Mr.
Marshall"—she nodded toward the man by the window—"said that we
would laugh at ourselves for fools the day that Knossos sailed. Is there
anyone on the committee who truly believes we will see that day?"

   She looked at each of them in turn. No one spoke.

   "I accept the inevitability of the inevitable, the reality of the real," she
said. "But this is no surrender. Memphis must sail. We cannot allow the
success of the Diaspora to depend on a single ship."

   "Is there any better news from Ur?" asked the woman.

   Sasaki shook her head. "The trouble continues. There is no danger to
the ship at present, and apparently little danger any more that they will
turn back. But the new governor holds out little hope for a return to
normalcy."
   Marshall shook his head. "If he can't deliver, then we may have picked
the wrong boy to overthrow Milton."

   "The truth is that there is little we can do from here to influence events
onUr," said Sasaki. "The threat of a communications embargo is rather a
feeble lever. Our focus must be on that which we can control—the future of
Memphis."

  "Are you putting Contingency Zero in effect?" asked Marshall.

   "Yes. As of this meeting. Your individual responsibilities are contained
in locked files which were transferred to your private libraries earlier this
evening. The key is 'Lights out.' " She smiled wryly at Marshall. "That was
your phrase, as I recall."

  "Last one on the planet, turn out the lights," Marshall said. "Yes. That
was me."

   Sasaki continued, "When you review your files, keep in mind that the
first priority will be to establish a firm timetable for the move—"

   The slate on Sasaki's lap suddenly began to chirp insistently. At the
same time, the skylink displays blanked to white, and the black-bordered
box of a flash alert appeared in the center of each. In the center of the box
appeared C. Gustav Feist, site director for the Munich center. His face was
flushed, and his hands slashed the air as he spoke.

   "Director Sasaki," he said hoarsely. "Where is Dryke? He won't answer
his page. Where is he?"

  "He's gone to bed, I presume. He may be off-net. What is happening,
Mr. Feist?"

   Feist's eyes were pleading with the committee. "The gateway was
closed, just as he instructed. Closed! Not thirty minutes. The com staff
swears to it. None too soon, I thought. Now this."

  "What are you talking about?"

    "You haven't been told?" Feist looked away from his camera as he
listened to someone off-screen. "Gott in Himmel. It's still going on."
   "What's going on?" Marshall demanded.

    "It must be Jeremiah," Feist said agitatedly. "There's a virus in the
engineering network, tearing up the development systems. We can't freeze
it, we can't kill it, and it won't let us shut down. I've got to go. We're being
brain-burned, Director. Brain-burned while we're talking."




                           CHAPTER 22
   —AAC—
                            " .. visions of Gaea…"

  In a private room in a private place, a private man put on his mask and
went to work.

   He was David Eng and Roberto Garcia, Lila Holmes and Sandra Stone.
His alter egos lived in an apartment overlooking the Chicago River, and a
stately house on Avenida Manquehue in Santiago—claimed offices in
anonymous towers on the fringe of Phoenix and in the heart of Vancouver.

  There had been other names through the years, a dozen years now, a
parade of identities, some invented, some borrowed. There had been a
chain of locked rooms and secret spaces, inhabited only by obedient
machines put in place by trusted hands.

   And behind those masks, another mask—the constant, the connection.
His name, taken from a man forty years dead, was never spoken, for no
one knew better than he how the nets were watched, what tricks could be
played with the bit stream of the skylinks. He spoke with other voices,
always changing voices, but those who heard him knew that the words
were Jeremiah's.

   A construct in a silicon engine, an idea in the mind of a man, a weapon
in a war of deceptions—Jeremiah was all of those. In the beginning,
Jeremiah had been nothing more than these. But now the mask had been
in place so long that the man who wore it had nearly disappeared, and it
had become more and more difficult for him to leave the shadow places
where Jeremiah was real and face the light outside, the world where he
himself was real.
    Necessity rescued him from that struggle. So much demanded
Jeremiah's attention, so many clamored for an audience, that there was
little enough chance even to escape into sleep. The world never slept.

   He had allowed himself but three hours this night, the merest nap. Yet
when he awoke, he found nearly one hundred new messages awaiting him,
captured and forwarded by the relayers, coders, and recorders, collated
and sifted by the comsole's secretary.

   A third of them were reports from members of the Homeworld
network. Another dozen announced new volunteers to join the order of
battle. Fully half were answers to queries issued earlier. The remainder
were nuggets of gold: a scattering of technical, financial, and logistical
gifts offered for his consideration.

   But the message list was only the beginning. Also waiting in queue were
more than seventy news stories collected by the secretary's search engine,
as well as a hyperlog of real-time intercepts of new and ongoing skylink
conversations. Too much. Far too much. He could not review it all, not
nearly so. His spies were too good, his sources too many.

   Undisguised, the sheer volume of traffic would have been a threat to the
operation's survival. But he had learned many tricks, invented several
others. Intercepts were fragmented and dumped to null skylink addresses
for his unregistered receivers to pluck out of the air and rebuild. Reports
came in as innocent-looking packets quickposted as delete-on-receipt to
the subscription services. Messages relayed from the four "mail drop" sites
were laundered through a high-traffic business front.

  But that was not the only danger.

    Once, he had had it all in his hands, knew every thread in the weave. No
longer. This thing he had created had its own heartbeat, and though he
still guided it, he no longer controlled every movement. More and more of
the correspondence was in the hands of Lila, the secretarial engine. More
and more of the ancillary reports were archived unseen. The growing
archive troubled him. It represented missed opportunities, needless
errors, eager volunteers frustrated by his silence and driven to act on their
own.

   But he was only one man, one person pretending to be five, one mortal
attempting to live up to a myth. He could not be everywhere, could not
scatter his energies on a thousand points of light. His focus had to remain
at the center: Sasaki, Dryke, Memphis, the strategy for a killing blow
against the Diaspora. The window was starting to close, and he could not
bear to fail.

   Mustering a decisiveness he did not feel, he began to sift through the
priority items in the queue, dispatching them from the displays at a rate
approaching one a minute. Even as he did, new messages and stories
appeared on the list, underlining the Sisyphean futility of the task.

   But making its way to him that moment was a message which would
make him forget that futility for a while. Originating with Katrina Becker
in Munich, it was following a tortuous path to reach him—bounced twice
to a DBS, its headers stripped and replaced by a relayer, back-coded into a
transparent file on DIANNA, and then unlocked with a key that had been
sent weeks earlier.

    When it appeared in the queue, his face brightened. And when he read
it, he laughed and clapped his hands together in a moment of celebration.

  For sometime while Jeremiah had been napping, the Munich virus had
gone to war.




  It had been months in the making, as almost all operations were. It had
begun with a suggestion from without, as almost all operations did.

   "Tell me your ideas, and Jeremiah will tell you when the time is right,"
was the message which went out to the network, to newly vetted friends.
And they looked into their own lives for the special opportunities offered
there, building for Jeremiah a catalog of choices.

  "I can do this to hurt them," they said. "I can do this to help."

   Katrina Becker had come into the fold more than a year ago. Her
vetting had been unusually prolonged, for the special opportunity she
represented was dangerously attractive. Becker was a systems security
technician in the engineering section at AT-Munich, the primary technical
center for the Diaspora. Through her, he could have access to the closed
world of Memphis's operational and management engines—to the
delicately tuned mind of the ship itself.

   From the first, he had viewed Becker with dark suspicion. Nine years
into a career with Allied, she claimed a change of heart prompted by a
book she had read and a man she had met. The book was Danya Odon's
Earthsong, an obscure collection of nature-experience poems. The man
was Peter Corning, an obscure rad-left Bundestag member from
Schleswig-Holstein. One sensitized her to the "organic wholeness" of Gaea,
the other to the "soft fascism" of Allied Transcon.

   Or so she claimed.

   It took three months and several significant leaks of technical material
from AT-Munich before Jeremiah was satisfied that her conversation was
sincere. It had taken many more months to pick apart the secrets of the
engineering network and build a virus capable of surviving its defenses.

   Even then, he had hesitated. To use Becker to deliver the virus would be
to sacrifice her. She was willing, even eager, but he had no one similarly
placed, no way to replace the intelligence she delivered. Without a
guarantee of success, and with a plenitude of other options, Jeremiah held
both Becker and the virus in reserve, waiting to be convinced that the time
was right or her usefulness was about to end.

   Then came Dryke's transparent attempt to trap him with the open
gateway into the test environment. Jeremiah had at first been amused,
then insulted. Did Dryke think that he could not tell the difference
between real and calculated carelessness? Did Dryke think he would
expect anything in the test partition except antibodies and backtracers?

   Ego prodded him to answer the insult by making Dryke look foolish.
But it was the fact that the delivery of the finished command package to
Memphis would bring Becker's usefulness to an end which finally swung
the decision.

   The day after the gateway opened, the virus was hard-coded in a
tamper-sealed chipdisk and ferried to Becker in a delivery of perfume
from a Belgian company. Two days later, it was installed in the Munich
network. It had been waiting in hiding there ever since, watching for its
trigger key. When the gateway was finally closed, the countdown began.

   The virus was meant to alter the command package in a subtle way,
modifying a calculation here, a data point there, changing a pointer,
closing a loop. If it had succeeded, no one would have known of its
handiwork until Memphis herself, basking in the spotlight of what was to
be her sailing day, refused to leave the Earth.

   But an antibody program, monitoring cryptographic checksums and
integrity keys, spotted the change and came hunting.

   In response, the virus abandoned its stealthy subversion and went wild.

   All solutions are contingent. Content in his lesser victory, Jeremiah
traced the virus's progress by monitoring skylink traffic between Munich
and Prainha, Munich and Houston.

   "We tried to tag it and it stripped the tags. When we finally got system
control back, we tried to freeze it and it self-destructed," the Munich
systems supervisor reported to Dryke. "But there must have been a
fragment hiding where we couldn't get it, because when we came up
again, it went right after us again and broke our control just like that."

   Jeremiah nodded to himself. In fact, there were five copies of the virus
in the system, each waiting their turn to wreak havoc.

   "It's running through the libraries now," he heard Feist tell Sasaki.
"We're taking nodes out of the network the hard way, pulling blocks and
cutting cables as fast as we can. But Mods Five and Six are completely
gone."

  More good news. Mod Five was the navigation archive, Mod Six ship
management. The only plum left was Three, the command engine.

  But the biggest self-satisfied smile came later, when a weary Dryke told
Sasaki, "Jeremiah did what we expected him to do. But he didn't use the
door we had open, and we didn't get him. His virus was better than our
antibodies."

  "We are facing a major reconstruction because of that, Mr. Dryke."
Sasaki's voice was brittle. "It was your job to prevent such a disaster. It
was your job to protect our Malena Grahams. And you failed at both."

   "Don't you think I know that?" Dryke snapped back. "You want to give
this assfuck job to someone else, go ahead and do it. He beat me. All right?
Jeremiah beat me. You got someone else that wants to take a shot, bring
'em on."

   It was not until the excitement in Munich began to fade that Jeremiah
thought to ask who Malena Graham was.




   Lila's answer was straightforward and chilling. "A Memphis staff
counselor, killed last night near Houston. You are implicated. Stories are
in the queue and marked."

   There were dozens of stories, for the murder had taken place fully six
hours earlier. Troubled, Jeremiah viewed the stories one after another
from the top of the queue, trying to grasp what had happened. Not one of
them left him untouched.

   When a State Police medtech described in graphic detail the condition
of the corpse, Jeremiah's mouth went dry, and his hands trembled. When
Mother Alicia recalled that her daughter was "naive about people, because
she wanted to love them," Jeremiah wept with her. And when Evan
Silverman proclaimed proudly that he was "Jeremiah's hands," Jeremiah
rose out of his chair and raged at the screen.

  "Liar—liar! You're no part of me. Not one fragment. Bastard animal—"
Then a horrible fear overtook him. "Lila! Search the archives. Is there
anything about this man? Have we had any contact with him?"

   "I'm checking," it said. "Done. There are no entries except for those
connected with Malena Graham. We have had no contact with Evan
Silverman."

   That calmed him somewhat. "We're going to do something about this,
Lila," he said. "I won't let what he said stand unchallenged. I won't let
them think I wanted this."

  "Yes, sir."

   "I'm going to go real-time. I'll need you to map out an interrupt. Pick a
local station—everyone else can get it from them. I'll need at least three
minutes."
  "Yes, sir. I'll let you know when it's ready."

   While he waited, there were more stories. The State Police had the only
crime-scene documentaries, but were refusing to release them—a station
in Dallas was suing. ("That one," he told Lila. "They'll hear me out. Put it
through them.") The Allied Transcon complex was locked down and in
mourning, and Hiroko Sasaki was rumored to be there. (He checked other
sources: She was still in Prainha.)

   But the stunner was one of the late arrivals: a synth-image recreation of
the girl's last hours by the current affairs show Headliner. Somehow they
had obtained a recording of the concert which had drawn Malena out into
the city, and found her in an audience shot.

   With that and Silverman's interviews as templates, they were able to
animate a mockumentary, showing "Malena" walking with her friends
from the tram station to the club, leaving the bar with "Silverman," sitting
in his flyer, and, ultimately, lying dead on the ground.

   In keeping with Headliner reputation for heavy-handed journalism, the
commentary was moralistic and overblown ("But Malena Graham could
not resist the temptations of her youthful freedom…"). The ham-fisted
essayism extended to using a song from the concert as ironic counterpoint
to the images: "Look at me, I'm flying free—"

  "Good God," said Jeremiah. "Lila—who is that?"

   "The performer is Christopher McCutcheon, an archaeolibrarian with
the Memphis hyper project in Houston."

  "I want to hear the whole song."

  There was a pause. "I'm sorry, it doesn't appear to be available."

  "Someone has it. Call Headliner."

  "I could contact Christopher directly."

  "No," said Jeremiah. "Call Headliner. Buy it if you have to."

  "Yes, sir," said Lila. "By the way, the interrupt you requested is ready
now."
   "Keep it current," said Jeremiah. "I'm not."




  Jeremiah sat back in his chair, hands folded in his lap, eyes unblinking,
and watched the recording through to the end. When it was over, he
watched it a second time.

   "Kill it, Lila," he said. "No archive."

   Then he rose and left the warren and its screens and queues, left the
house, his heart full of pain. His triumph had been stolen from him,
trumped by the mocking images which had flickered across the displays.
It did not matter if the damage in Munich would delay Memphis ten days
or ten months. No amount of time would be enough to dissuade them.
They would never turn from their course.

   All the proof he needed was contained in the final four minutes of the
concert. The last song Christopher sang was the embodiment of unreason,
a pr écis of cultural insanity. Its words revealed every folly of the Diaspora,
every bitter truth that poisoned the sweet romance of adventure.

   There were no other Edens, no golden paths. There was no glory in a
shabby death a long way from home. The final, brutal indictment was the
son's tragically misguided choice—no, not a choice, a received
obligation—to carry on his father's quest. Delicta maiorum immeritus
lues.

   Yet the audience applauded the waste of lives, acclaimed the embrace
of pointless suffering, absolved the father through his son's blind
emulation of a suicidal self-sacrifice.

  And the singer accepted the accolades as though that were what he had
meant all along.

  The agony of Malena's parents came through to him with new force.
"We tried to talk her out of it," Mother Caroline had said to the reporters.
"We pleaded with her to stay. But she wouldn't listen. What can you do?
What can you do when they've made up their mind?"

   Her helpless feeling echoed his own. He could not touch them. He could
not reach their minds or turn their hearts. You will leave me, and I will
lose you. That was what Mother Caroline faced, what every family faced.
That was the fear which had eaten away at the dreamy idealism of the
Diaspora in the years since Ur.

   "As far as I'm concerned, she was a runaway, as much as if she'd gone
to the streets," Father Jack had said. "Someone caught her eye with a
shiny trinket and a bit of candy and she was gone. She took everything
that we'd given her and threw it away. I'm sorry if it sounds hard, but she
was dead to me from that day on."

   How many wounds had been left by eight thousand final partings, how
many families shattered? How many mates and lovers and children and
parents still nursed anger and hurt that they were abandoned? How many
that they touched had learned to view the new ship taking shape in orbit
as a threat?

   "She was a terrific girl," Father Brett had said. "She brought so much
brightness to my life, and now she's gone. I know we were going to have to
say good-bye soon, but I feel cheated. We were expecting her home for
Yule, did I say that? And I still half expect to hear her at the door. I loved
her and she's gone. I really haven't been able to think about anything but
that."

    Malena was gone. But the rest of the ten thousand were still here, could
still be saved, their families and friends and lovers still spared. Mother
Caroline and Father Jack had surrendered, accepted a reality they hated,
and their daughter had paid the price. If he, Jeremiah, surrendered as
they had, the price paid would be far greater.

   When he returned to the house after an hour's walk, he stopped to
watch the hummingbirds darting through the air around the bright red
feeder. There were three nesting pairs this season, the most in several
years. The frantic energy in their tiny bodies was a marvel, their speed on
the wing a delight.

   But this morning, he could not feel delight. He descended into the
warren, still grasping for an answer. The queues had ballooned again. The
new additions included the Houston site director's first statement, still
under way, on the murder. As Jeremiah joined the cast, the director was
condemning Silverman and "all those who share his curse of hate and
arrogance of virtue."
    "We know his kind," said Carlos Vincenza. "We've seen them outside
our gates, waving fists and hurling rocks. We've heard their voices,
bleating about Mother Gaea and the selfishness of the pioneers. But is
there any act more selfish than the one Evan Silverman committed in that
field? Is there any explanation besides jealousy for denying someone else a
gift you could never appreciate, or stealing a reward that you could never
earn?

   "They call themselves Homeworlders. Better we should call them
homebodies. They protest their own history. They stand against the
future. Their life strategy consists of pulling back to the smallest
defensible locus. They want to give up nothing, risk nothing, and preserve
everything. They've made their lives petty and meaningless, and they want
ours to be as empty.

   "But we have goals and dreams, and we have the right to pursue them.
The cost is being borne by those who choose to bear it. The sacrifices will
be made by those who choose to make them. We ask only one thing from
you: Let us be. Turn your back if you must, but let us go. It means nothing
to you, but everything to us—as it did to Malena Graham."

   As Jeremiah watched Vincenza, his expression turned harder and
grimmer. "Lila," he said when it was over, "what has Allied said about
Munich?"

  "Nothing received, sir."

  "What has Sasaki said about it? Or about Malena Graham?"

  "Nothing received, sir."

  "Is the interrupt still ready?"

  "Yes, sir."

   "Bring up the translator and animator and give me a countdown," he
said.

  "Yes, sir. Translator up. Converter up. Counting down: five-four—"
  "This is Jeremiah, speaking for the Homeworld."

  The anger was still bubbling within him, and he welcomed it.

   "My heart aches this day for those who knew and loved Malena
Graham. Her death was brutal and tragic. But the greatest pain must be
the knowledge that her death was unnecessary.

  "Who is to blame for what befell Malena Graham? I have been accused.
But my goal from the first has been to dissuade—not destroy. I love this
world and all its creatures, mankind most of all.

   "Who, then? Her parents, for failing to control her? Evan Silverman, for
succumbing to the hate that filled him? Hiroko Sasaki, for dangling the
universe before a naive girl? Or Malena herself, for the choices she freely
made?

   "As every parent can witness to, life is a journey from dependence to
rebellion to responsibility. Every parent knows that their child will have to
face temptations and make difficult choices. You want them to choose
well.

   "But how do they learn to choose well? They learn from the rules
imposed on them from the beginning. If the rules are too strict, what they
learn is to escape. And they learn from the examples that surround them.
We are sometimes surprised to discover that they have learned more from
our example than our words.

   "Did Malena Graham choose well? She forsook her family for strangers,
the richness of a vast bountiful world for the closed spaces of a tiny metal
shell.

   "Her father has called her a runaway. But what was she fleeing? Was
she abused and belittled? No. We can see that she was loved and nurtured.
Was she bitter and unhappy? We are told that she was vibrant and joyful.
Why, then, would she make such choices?

   "The answer is that Malena Graham was a victim not of a murderer's
hand, but of a poisonous idea. An idea born in the harsh years of the great
Repression, when the family of man turned cold in spirit as well as flesh.
An idea as false and foolish as a ten-year-old's notion that his problems
will end if he only leaves home.
   “Come with me to the stars, whispered the demon. Come with me to
find a better place.

   "Malena Graham listened. Many good people listened. They saw so
much more clearly than we, or so they believed. They saw a burning Earth,
an old and weary Earth, a sickly Earth. They saw disease-riddled bodies
and fear-divided communities.

   "And they dreamed a child's fantasy of a magic land inhabited by the
pure and the loving. A fantasy that became a crippling obsession, a
roadblock on the way to responsibility.

   "Who is responsible for Malena Graham's death? We are all
responsible—Evan Silverman perhaps least of all. Every one of us who
thought the demon harmless. Every one of us who thought the fantasy
amusing. Every one of us who failed to notice our children slipping away.

   "Malena Graham is dead, but her death will have meaning if only we
can read the warning in it. Malena Graham is gone, but there are nine
thousand nine hundred ninety-nine more tragedies that can still be
averted.

   "I say this to the family of Earth: When a child goes astray, a good
parent will use a firm hand to bring them to heel. The greater the danger,
the firmer our hand must be. We must speak the hard truths. We must set
limits. Those who see must act, or those who are blind will stumble.

   "I say this to the pioneers of Memphis: We have learned from our
mistakes. The Earth is healing. The disease which divided us has been
defeated. Now we will correct one last mistake, by saving you from yours.
This day, I have struck at the heart of Memphis, in the most protected
refuge of Allied Transcon. And I will strike again, and again, until the
fantasy is shattered and the demon destroyed—because I love you.

  "Listen to me: There are no other Edens. This Earth is all you need. You
may not leave."




                         CHAPTER 23
  —GAC—
                         “…notions of progress…”

  It was the emptiest, loneliest night Christopher McCutcheon could
remember.

   Outside the house, a drenching winter rain was sweeping the dusty
streets, the fat droplets beating against the windows when the wind
gusted. Hiding out from the storm in their vehicles, two stalwart
microcam crews, competing independents, waited at the mouth of the
cul-de-sac, hoping Christopher would make an appearance or agree to an
interview. It was a small mercy that there were only two—the morning
after the concert, there had been eleven cameras waiting for him when he
started for work.

   The attrition was largely Allied's doing. As part of its response to
Malena's murder, the company had gone to war with the media on his
behalf. Management dispatched spin doctors and jackmen to divert their
attention elsewhere, and loosed its attorneys to end the use of the bootleg
concert recording (the source of which was still not known, though signs
pointed toward Papa Wonders).

   No doubt he was becoming old news, and soon even the last holdouts
would lose interest. Still, he felt trapped. The house was at once the only
place where he was guaranteed privacy and the last place he wanted to be.

   Christopher knew, though it was no comfort, that his dilemma was
largely self-created. He had squandered most of the compassion offered
him in the wake of Tuesday's horrors. Brittle-tempered and bitter-tongued
at best, inconsolably self-hating at his worst, he had exhausted the
sympathy of his friends by the end of the first day and the patience of his
supervisor by the end of the second. She banished him from the complex
late Thursday with orders to take the weekend off and see a staff
facilitator when he returned Monday.

   "You're all turned inside out, Christopher, with the ugly parts on the
outside and the good stuff tucked away," was her blunt assessment. "Get
your attitude adjusted and come back in tune, because I need you on
task."

  The oddest part, looking back, was that he had known exactly what he
was doing. As if he wanted to make them despise him as much as he
despised himself. As if making them reject him would confirm his
harshest judgments of himself and make him feel as miserable as he
thought he ought to.

   And he had succeeded. He was quite alone, and he had never felt quite
so awful.

  Jessie was somewhere in the city with John Fields, the fifth time in two
weeks they had disappeared on a formal evening date. And Loi was in the
moon room's whirlpool with a new playmate, the lion-maned son of a
Dallas client. From time to time, Christopher could hear the splash of
water, a titter of laughter, from behind the privacy-opaqued glass door.

  It should be me in there with her, he thought wistfully, wishfully. Could
have been.

   Loi had been home Tuesday night when Tidwell delivered him to the
front door. She had seen him struggling with his conscience, witnessed the
body blow as he learned that his name and music were linked to a bloody
murder that was top of the queue on every net. She had offered him
motherly consolation and caught the full force of a broadside of bile for
her trouble. He had been too busy being unapproachable, unlovable, to
accept the comforts she offered.

   No, he could not blame her for leaving him to his own devices—though,
in truth, neither could he quite forgive her.

  Or himself, he realized. Or I wouldn't be sitting here in the pit making
myself listen to them play.

  "Music," he said.

  "What kind of music?" asked the house AIP.

  "Loud music," he said, sinking down further in the cushions.

   Better alternatives were scarce. He had already run the list of programs
in storage without finding anything that could command his attention.
Daniel Keith was locked in a late-night conference with Karin Oker and
the senior selection staff; he would not be free until after Saturday's
memorial service and Sunday's postponed send-off ceremonies.

  And Christopher's usual diversion had no appeal at all—he had not
picked up the Martin since leaving the stage at Wonders, and it seemed
unlikely he would again soon.

   "This is no good," he said aloud.

   The music ceased. "What would you like?"

   "An answer."

   "I'm sorry. I did not hear the question."

    Christopher snorted. Baiting the house AIP? A game for ten-year-olds.
Is that how low I've gone? "Show me the mail list," he said.

   The frozen patterns on the main display faded and the list sprang into
view.

   "Kill one through five," he said, scanning. "Parasites. Kill seven. Tell
eleven to fuck off."

   "That would be considered rude."

   "I know. Do it, anyway." He squinted up at the wall. "I'm gonna be
brave. Show me number eight."

   The list vanished, and the face of Lenore Edkins appeared. He was in
his Building H office, and frowning.

   "Christopher—I had hoped to tell you myself, but apparently you're not
in the complex today," Edkins said. "Good news can keep as well as bad,
but I thought you'd want to know. Maybe you've already guessed. 'Caravan
to Antares' will be in the Memphis hyper. Through the front door. You're
relevant now."

   Edkins tried a smile. "For what it's worth, I think you could have
cracked in on artistic merit—the best work I've seen from you. Anyway,
congratulations. Maybe the circumstances aren't the best, but I know how
much you wanted it."

   Somewhere in the middle of the message, Christopher's mind switched
off, and something wild and ugly took hold of him. Giving voice to a cry
that began as a growl and ended as a shriek, he seized an onyx carving off
the end table. In a single seamless motion, he came to his feet and hurled
the carving overhand with all his strength at the wallscreen.

   His throw was wild high, and the carving buried itself with a small puff
of white dust in the soft plasterboard above the screen. It was over that
quickly, the impulse grounded in one explosion of sound and movement,
leaving him feeling drained and wobbly-legged.

   As he stood staring wonderingly up at the hole, Loi appeared at the
door of the moon room. She was dripping wet and wearing only a troubled
expression.

  "Are you all right?" she asked.

    "Sorry," he said, turning toward her. "I'm all right. Go back to your
friend."

  She looked past him briefly, her glance taking in his redeco-ration.
"Then what was the screaming about?"

  "I was celebrating," he said wryly. "Primal victory cry."

  "Celebrating?"

   He dropped into a chair. "I'm going to live forever. The company just
told me so."

  Her gaze narrowed. "Are you under?"

    "No," he said, trying to manage an embarrassed smile. "Unless self-pity
is a drug. Which it probably is. Please—go on back to your friend. I really
didn't mean to disturb you. I'll—I can leave the house if you want."

  She frowned, studying him. "Only if you need the distance. Not for me."

  "I'll be okay."

  She hesitated. "Mark won't be staying," she said. "We can talk later if
you need to."

   Looking at her glistening body, Christopher remembered something
Daniel had said when struggling to explain why he wasn't comfortable
around Loi. "She'd make a lousy lifeguard," he had said finally. "She'd
kneel on the edge and hold out her hand, but she'd never jump in to do
your swimming for you." Christopher had bristled in loyal defense, only
later realizing that Daniel had been right.

   But it was a trait, not a fault. Or if it was a fault, it was an innocent
one—of expecting from others what she expected from herself. Loi had
built her life on self-reliance. To need rescuing was a humiliation; to offer
a rescue, an insult. The edge of the pool was as far as propriety would
allow. It said something about how she saw him now that she was offering
her hand a second time.

  Shaking his head slowly, Christopher said, "Thanks, but I don't think
you can help."

  "Don't close me out, Chris."

   Plea or caution? He couldn't quite decide. While he debated, she
retreated two steps and disappeared behind the closing door. A moment
later there was a splash.

  Caution, he decided.

  "Would you like to see any further mail?" asked the AIP.

  Christopher laughed brittlely. "No."

  "Would you like to select alternate music?"

    "No." He was silent for a long moment, trying to read the feeling in his
body without putting words to it, trying to grasp his experience of his own
life. Is this where you want to be? Is there anything right about who you
are this instant? he asked, and the answers were reflected back to him as
echoes of sorrow. No. Not the tenth part.

  Then what are you going to do about it?

   Male laughter in the distance. He drew a slow deep breath, his eyes
closing briefly. "Judy?"

  The AIP responded to its name. "Yes, Chris?"

  He sighed. "See if you can reach Eric Meyfarth."
   Meyfarth did not call back, Jessie did not come back, and Mark did not
leave until after midnight.

   By that time, Christopher had retreated to the darkness of his bedroom,
trying to pretend he was tired. When Loi slipped into his room, he tried to
pretend he was asleep. She stood by the bed for a long time, watching him,
saying nothing. Just when he thought that she was about to leave, she
spoke.

  "Would you like some company?" she asked gently.

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her, his eyes suddenly damp.
"Yes," he said hoarsely, pulling back the sheet.

   Loi slipped into bed easily and snuggled against him in a position born
of compromise and experience, lying on her side with one arm hugging his
chest, one leg hooking over his. Her skin was silky and warm, and her hair
smelled faintly of spa oils, but not at all of Mark.

   Despite their nakedness, the embrace was chaste, the intimate space
they shared the creation of two friends, not two lovers. She wrapped him
in a safe, comfortable cocoon built from her love and her body and her
energy, and her presence was balm for his pain. He was so grateful for the
gift that he almost began to cry.

  "I called Dr. Meyfarth," he whispered, the words an offering.

  "Sssh," she said, turning her head to kiss his shoulder. "Sleep."

   Christopher closed his eyes and listened to the echoes of his unhappy
thoughts, now fading beneath the sound of their breathing, each breath
deeper and more tranquil than the last. Sooner than he would have
guessed possible, he was asleep.

  Loi was gone when he woke in the morning—she did not like to share a
bed for sleeping, so he was not surprised. But the touch of peace that she
had given him remained, nestled against the resolve he had found on his
own. Between the two, it was a little easier that morning to face both the
day and himself.
  Eric Meyfarth did not make it easy.

  "I got your message," he said when he called back. "What's up, Chris?"
His tone, like his expression, was pointedly neutral.

  "Can I see you?"

  "That depends," said Meyfarth. "Why?"

   Asking had been hard enough. Christopher had not expected to have to
explain himself. "Because if I saw someone else, I'd have to waste all that
time getting to where we left off."

  "I appreciate the compliment," Meyfarth said dryly.

  "I didn't mean—"

  "But I'm not quite persuaded," he went on. "The last time I saw you,
you were a bit skeptical about my usefulness."

  Christopher looked away. "I wasn't ready to be helped."

  "True enough. What's changed?"

  "Nothing. Except for the worse. And that's what has to change. I don't
want to feel like this."

   "You said much the same thing a few weeks ago, in my office. But you
broke your contract with me and walked out when it got tough."

  "I—" The quick defense died on his lips. "I guess I did. Old habits die
hard."

  "Sometimes they don't die at all," Meyfarth said. "What assurance do I
have that you're serious this time?"

   Knitting his brow and frowning, Christopher considered. "I don't know.
None. I have to hope you'll trust me. Which comes harder the second time
around, I suppose."
   Nodding, Meyfarth said, "You know that I'm going to go right back to
the sore spots, right back to your father and your family."

  "I know. I just don't know how much I'll be able to help you."

  "Why is that, Chris?"

  "Because I don't know how much I know."

   "Ah," said Meyfarth. "I'm confident that, at some level, you remember
everything that's important to remember."

  "How can you say that? You can't know."

    "No, I can't—not with complete certainty," said Meyfarth. "But it's
something I've come to believe about people. Inside every one of us is the
frightened four-year-old, the nine-year-old explorer, the restless
adolescent, and the twenty-year-old dreamer we once were. Remembering
is easy. It's the forgetting that we have to practice."

  "It comes naturally enough to me."

  Meyfarth shook his head. "You're self-taught, I assure you. The heart of
your problem is the pretense that all you are is what you are now. You've
been living unconnected to your past."

   "I just don't archive things like other people do," Christopher said
defensively. "Look, I have trouble remembering what happened two years
ago, let alone twenty. I wish I had more stories about my childhood. I wish
I had more stories about my father. But I don't. I'm lost when the
conversation turns to people telling funny anecdotes on themselves. I just
don't remember that sort of thing. I don't know what I was like when I was
ten. And I don't have anyone to help me remember."

  "You don't need anyone," Meyfarth said simply.

  "I need something. You, anyway."

   Meyfarth shook his head. "You know where the gold is buried. I can
only guess. If you need a map, you have to look in your own life. Have you
ever kept a diary? Letter archives? Any family video albums lying
around?"
   "No and no. Not many pictures." He paused. "And when I look at them,
I can only see this little boy that I can't really remember being."

   "Because you won't let yourself. If you were connected to your past,
those pictures would make you feel, not remember," said Meyfarth.
"You're a curious one, Chris. You don't even get emotional about your
emotions."

  "That's not true—"

  "It is. Which is why they all come out as anger."

  Christopher looked away.

  "You need to be reconnected, Chris."

  "How do we do that?"

   "We don't. You do." Meyfarth pursed his lips. "I was hoping to get what
I needed talking to you. But the trust is coming a little hard, Chris. I think
you're going to have to show me something before we can pick up our
sessions."

  "What?"

  "How long has it been since you talked to your father?"

  "Uh—a few weeks."

  "Your sister?"

  Wincing, Christopher admitted, "A couple of years."

   "Okay," Meyfarth said, nodding. "Here's my offer. I can slot you at two,
Monday—if sometime between now and then, you give your sister a call
and ask her what kind of kid you were. Or something equally risky. What
do you say?"

  Christopher's wince deepened into a grimace. "We're not close."

  "I didn't expect that you were, considering."

  "This one's not my doing. My sister isn't exactly my biggest fan. I never
have quite figured out why."

  "That doesn't matter," Meyfarth said. "Your sister holds a piece of you.
Reach out and claim it back."

   Christopher met the arty's gaze with a wondering look. "I never looked
at it that way."

  "Probably she hasn't, either."




   It was hard to believe that any piece of him which Lynn-Anne Aldritch
might hold could be of much value. Because of their history, she was more
like a cousin—a cousin who had seemed like a friend in their uncritical
youth, but who had drifted away on the judgments of maturity. And all the
growing up that seemed to matter had taken place in her absence.

   Lynn-Anne was fifteen when Christopher was born, a dark-eyed,
thin-bodied girl who rarely smiled, at least for a camera. The four of
them—his father, Lynn-Anne, Deryn, and himself— were not together long,
and Christopher remembered little of the time they were. Lynn-Anne left
the B Street house when he was five, first taking an apartment in
Portland, and then late admission to Bennington College, a continent
away. And she never really came back into his life.

   After Bennington, it was New York Metro for a year, Toronto for two,
and then back to New England, settling at last in Bangor. Somewhere
along the way, she replaced their father's surname with their mother's,
bringing her in line with custom. She had never married, in fact had
always lived alone, except for her first few months in Toronto, when she
joined a household of women on exclusive Center Island.

   Christopher remembered the trip to visit Lynn-Anne there, a memory
highlighted by the quaint hubris of the CN Tower and the vertiginous
delight of its upper lookout. There was a less vivid remembrance of an
earlier trip to a weary, noisy New York.

  She always sent something at Yule, never on his birthday. He went her
one better and remembered both occasions, but his gift-giving was
duty-driven and the gifts chosen almost at random—he knew so little of
her life that he had no idea what would truly please her, and Deryn could
offer little help.

   Once every few months there would be an unexpected call or, if
Lynn-Anne was in the middle of one of her depressions, a morose letter.
He would answer with earnest but stilted missives which—at Deryn's
prodding—invariably contained an invitation to come home for a visit.

   But the invitations went ignored and unanswered. As far as Christopher
knew, only once in twenty-two years had Lynn-Anne returned to the West
Coast—a decade ago, for the funeral of Grandmom Anne, Sharron
Aldritch's mother, in Seattle. But after coming five thousand klicks across
the country, Lynn-Anne chose not to come the one small step farther to
Oregon; she was back in Maine before either Christopher, then in school
in San Francisco, or their father, at home in the ridge house, even knew of
the death.

   That was the break point. Perhaps understandably, the
Aldritch-Martins had never taken Christopher into their hearts as a
grandchild—the circumstances were unhappy, the link tenuous.
Grandmom Anne was a name to him, little more, and he was not greatly
surprised to learn he had been excluded.

  But he would not have expected his father to be kept in the dark, or
Lynn-Anne to join the conspiracy of silence. That was the first time
Christopher realized how hard the lines were dividing what was left of the
family, and the first time he realized that he and Lynn-Anne stood on
opposite sides of one of those lines.

   He missed one birthday, she the next Yule. With no protest or apology
from either side, the remaining threads tying them together broke one by
one. Without those threads, the semblance of kinship and friendship
between them simply slipped away.

  There was never any formal declaration, no doors slammed. But silence
was its own message.

  That was the gap he had to bridge. And all he had to throw across it
were words. Two words.

  "Hello, Annie."
   It was a jolt to see how she had aged. The picture he carried frozen in
his mind was of her at the rail of the Toronto harbor ferry, pointing out
the sights, or standing on the balcony of her 94th Street high rise,
watching the two-mile-long shadow of Columbus Tower sweep across the
city—a brave-eyed wry-mouthed woman in her twenties, living what
seemed then like an adventure.

  But fifteen years had taken the courage from her eyes and twisted her
mouth into a cynical pout. She looked at him won-deringly for a long
moment before she spoke.

   "Christopher," she said. "God, but you're looking worn."

   That was the second jolt. The picture he carried of himself was also
frozen, locked in the first time he looked in the mirror and no longer saw a
boy, with no allowance made for further aging.

   "It's been that kind of year," he said ruefully.

  Lynn-Anne passed on the opportunity to invite him to explain. "So,
you've joined the real world at last," she said. "Life is the great leveler. You
don't know how much comfort I take in that."

  "I wanted to wish you happy holidays," he said. "Are you going to do
anything special?"

   "I don't celebrate a winter holiday anymore, Christopher," she said with
a politely tolerant smile. "I didn't believe in most of it, and the rest has
been a disappointment. It's rained for Solstice Moon three years running,
Santa Claus is just a nice old man with whiskers, and I'm still waiting for
Jesus to decide he wants me. Hardly any point, wouldn't you say?"

  "I had my doubts about Santa Claus early on," Christopher said with a
gentle smile. "But it's still a good excuse for catching up with people you've
been neglecting."

   Though she was only forty-two, Lynn-Anne had mastered the dowager's
raised-eyebrow look of skeptical disdain. "This may come as a surprise,
but I don't feel neglected," she said. "It isn't an accident that I moved here,
you know. And I do know where you are and how to use the link. Besides, I
hardly think that's why you called."

  He frowned. "Why do you think I called, then?"

   Leaning forward, Lynn-Anne collected the cup on the table before her.
"Based on past experience, you either want something from me or you're
going to apologize for something you've already done to me," she said, and
raised the cup to her lips.

  It was an attack, and yet said so quietly, so gently, that he hardly knew
how to respond. "I need your help," he said. "I need your help
understanding what happened to our family."

   Her laugh was unpleasant. "We don't have a family, Christopher. We
only have relatives."

    He stared at her for a long moment. "Maybe that's right," he said. "But
if it is, I don't know why."

  "Why does it matter?"

   "Because I'm trying to build a new family," he said. "And I seem to keep
tripping over pieces of the old one."

   "Give it up for a loss," she said shortly. "McCutcheons don't know how
to love. It's a birth defect. Their hearts are too small."

  "I don't want to believe that."

   "Of course not," said his sister. "You think you can have what you want,
just because you're you and you want it. You always have."

  "Why are you angry at me?" he asked beseechingly. "I don't understand
what I did to you."

   Frowning, she shook her head. "Be careful what you wish for. I might
tell you." She set the cup down before her. "Thank you for the holiday
wishes, Christopher. And the same to you, just as sincerely meant. Good
night."

  And the screen brightened to white.

  "Damn you!" Christopher exclaimed, bouncing up from the couch,
jangling with frustration. Satisfying Meyfarth's conditions was no longer
uppermost in his mind. Lynn-Anne had seen to that, with her genteel
sniping and infuriating dismissal.

   He waited five minutes, composing himself, composing his words, and
then called back. As he half expected, this time her AIP answered over the
simple blue and black identifier screen.

  "I'd like to leave a message," he said resignedly.

  "Ready."

   "Surprise, surprise," Christopher said. "It looks like you're just as good
at avoiding the past as I am, Annie. I thought you stayed out there
because you didn't like us. I never thought it was because you were afraid
of us.

    "We were a family once, on B Street. You were part of it. I was part of
it. Maybe it didn't last very long, but it was important. You're a witness to
my life. I need your memories to help me sort it out and put it in order.
And if there's some grudge you're holding because of something I don't
even remember, I need to know that, too.

   "You used to tell me stories about our mother, and that was important
to me. You knew her. I never had that chance. Buck and Annie didn't even
consider me a relative. But I needed to know what part of her is in me. I
needed her to be real—"

   Unexpectedly, the display brightened, and Lynn-Anne's face appeared.
"You don't have any right to call Sharron 'Mother,' " she said, her eyes
flashing angrily.

  "You thought I did then."

  "I've learned things since then," she said. "Hard things."

   "I know that in most ways Deryn was to me what Sharron was to you.
But Sharron gave me life. She made half of me. I've always felt that I had a
father and two mothers."

    "Wrong," Lynn-Anne said curtly. "You had a father and a keeper. That's
all."
  "Look—"

   "You really don't know your own history very well, do you, brother dear?
I ran away the day you were born. I spent five weeks on the coast, Cannon
Beach, Nehalem, Tillamook, before they found me."

  "Why?" Christopher asked, brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

   "Hurt feelings. While Deryn was pregnant with you, it seemed like I
didn't exist. William fussed and fretted and hovered and dictated every
detail of what she did, so you'd be healthy. You were such a big production
it was pretty obvious that he wanted you because I wasn't good enough,
that he wanted you a lot more than he wanted me. So guess what—I was
rooting for you to die. Then Deryn would go away and everything would be
the way it was."

  Christopher blinked. "I never heard anything about that."

  "Who would tell you?" she asked. "But you went and survived, even
came two weeks early. As far as I could see, it was only going to get worse
once you were actually born, so I left. I was just two months short of
majority when they dragged me back."

  "But then you stayed for five years."

   "Yes," she said, and glanced down at her folded hands. "And you even
lived through them." She looked up. "Does that shock you? That I thought
about killing you?"

  He swallowed. "Yes."

   "Just remember, this was your idea," she said, and settled back in her
chair. "I had never been around a baby. I didn't expect you to be cute.
Deryn let me hold you, and I felt—protective. You were so tiny, so helpless.
And then Deryn told me that I was the closest connection you had to your
mother— to Sharron—and that you needed me. That Sharron—that my
mother would have expected me to help." Lynn-Anne fought off a tear with
an angry shake of the head. "Stupid me, I believed her."

  "She wasn't wrong," said Christopher. "I looked up to you. I loved you."

  She was silent for a moment. "Past tense," she said finally. "Or didn't
you notice?"

  "I do love you—"

   "Don't rush to judgment on that," she said. "Deryn was wrong. She was
told a lie and passed it right along. All part of the plan." She shook her
head. "He started working on you as soon as you could talk. I finally left
because I couldn't stop it and I couldn't stand to stay around and watch it
anymore."

  "Working on me?"

   "Pushing, pulling, twisting, programming. The sculptor at work,
creating a self-portrait." She studied him with a critical gaze. "For a piece
of statuary, you actually do a fair imitation of a person."

  So sharp the scalpel, so deep the wound. She was an artist. He gaped,
amazed. "Why do you want to hurt me?"

   "Why do you care what I think?" She pulled a yellow-wrapped cigarette
from a sleeve pocket and lit it. "I was eight when Mom died. You notice
things at eight that you wouldn't notice at five, even if you don't
understand them." A deep, breathy drag. "They had a fight, the night
before, and then she came and held me."

  "I remember you telling me."

   "She knew I didn't like it when he yelled at her. Usually, I was the one
crying. This time she was. She said, 'I'm sorry, sweetheart. So sorry. I
won't make the same mistake again.' It was the last time I saw her."

  "It happened in the lab the next day," he supplied.

  She smiled faintly. "Yes. The toxicity lab. A lovely irony. Grandmom
Anne came and got me from the city school, took me to the hospital. I
remember how pale she was, how frightened. By the time we got there, my
mother was dead. William was arguing with the doctors and barely
noticed us. So Anne took me in to say good-bye."

  Lynn-Anne's eyes were unfocused and bright with tears. "I touched her
hand, and it felt so wrong that I ran out of the room crying that it wasn't
her. I didn't know until later that it was the hand where she'd injected
herself." She looked hard at him. "You know she did it on purpose, don't
you? You don't still believe it was an accident."

   "I don't know," he said. "I still wonder why she would do it. A moment
of weakness, because they had a fight? That doesn't explain it. There were
better choices. If she was unhappy, she could have left, moved out, even
divorced him."

    Lynn-Anne was shaking her head in dissent. "You don't leave William
McCutcheon until he's ready to let you go. Sharron Aldritch was a very
bright woman, but not a very strong one," she said. "She killed herself in a
moment of clarity and strength, because she knew that it was the only way
that she could escape him—the only way she could deny him. I'm as sure of
it as I am of anything in this world. And I hate him for it."

  Tight-lipped, Christopher nodded. "I guess if I believed that, I would
have to hate him, too. But I don't see him that way."

   "You can't," she said with a sad smile. "Please don't pretend on my
account."

   "I'm serious. Sharron gave me something precious—a piece of herself. I
love her for that, even though I never knew her."

  "She gave you nothing," his sister said harshly.

  "I am what I am partly because of her—"

  "What makes you think she wanted you born?"

   He stared. "They harvested her eggs when they knew she was
dying—she wanted—"

   "No," Lynn-Anne said sharply. "I saw them take her to surgery. I
remember, because I thought it meant she might be okay. They harvested
the eggs after she was dead."

   A deep frown creased Christopher's face. "So I was confused," he said.
"It doesn't matter whether it was before or after. The point is the same.
She gave us a gift—"

  "What makes you think that she knew?"
  "Deryn told me—" He stopped short. "Was that the lie? Is that what you
meant?"

  Lynn-Anne showed a smugly satisfied smile. "The light dawns. Yes, that
was the lie. The fight was about you, Christopher."

   Though he heard the words, the meaning eluded him. "What are you
saying?"

   She laughed at his puzzlement. "Think about it. You'll figure it out
eventually. You see, you're just like your father, Christopher. You're just
not as good at it."

  The screen went white.

   And though he tried for more than an hour, she accepted no more calls
from him that night.




                           CHAPTER 24
  —UGG—
                          "All sins are justified…”

   The memorial convocation for Malena Graham was nearly over when
Mikhail Dryke returned to the auditorium. Sasaki was at the podium, a
slender but powerful figure in her wide-sashed black and red kimono.
Rather than create a distraction by returning to his seat in the front row,
Dryke found a spot along the back wall and stood there.

   Dryke had resisted Sasaki's plans to address the convocation in person,
just as he had resisted the decision to hold the Block 1 pioneers over for
two days at all three centers. Both actions seemed foolishly defiant, a
challenge and invitation to any fanatics who might have been inspired by
Evan Silverman's example. Neither Sasaki's movements nor the Project's
internal schedules were made public, but Dryke was under no illusions
that he could ensure either remained a secret.

  The gathering made a lovely target, and Sasaki's presence vastly
sweetened the prize. When com services could easily place her "in" the
auditorium with an Oration hololink, it seemed to Dryke a foolish risk for
her to leave the controlled environment of Prainha for the urban front
lines of Houston. When Sasaki dismissed his objection without discussion,
Dryke could not help but read it as confirmation that she had lost
confidence in him.

   But he had been wrong—wrong about the decision, and perhaps wrong
about the meaning. Because of his everyday access to her, Dryke realized,
he had lost sight of the power of Sasaki's mystique, the calming influence
of her quiet leadership. Since the word began to spread that she was
coming to Houston, and especially since her arrival three hours ago,
Sasaki had worked a transformation on the mood of the center more
profound than that managed in three days by the center's army of
counselors.

  And now, with the closing words of her panegyric, she was sealing the
change.

   "There have been many rumors—many more, no doubt, than have
reached my ears," Sasaki was saying. "I have heard that Malena Graham's
place on the ship's roster will be filled by her sister. That her body will be
carried on Memphis for burial in space. That she anticipated her death
and recorded in her diary a hope that she would be interred on a world of
Tau Ceti.

   "I must tell you, perhaps to your disappointment, that these rumors are
false.

   "Malena Graham's diary was filled with anticipation of her life on
Memphis, with reflections of the dream and the goal that we all share,
with the private thoughts of the heart and the spirit. She had no inkling of
what was to come.

   "Malena Graham's family has requested that her body be returned to
them for burial near Franklin, in Virginia. The coroner's office of the
Texas State Police has already complied with their request. Her body was
never in our custody. Nor would the police have recognized any claim to it
we might have made.

    "And I have decided that Malena Graham's place on Memphis will be
filled by a random draw from the qualified alternates— which is the usual
process by which vacancies are filled."
   Despite the inhibiting solemnity of the event, a scattering of voices was
raised in unhappy protest. Dryke was shocked, but Sasaki remained
unperturbed, holding up her hand to ask for silence.

   "I know that Dr. Oker's office has received several hundred messages
urging that Malena's place be left vacant, as a memorial," she said. "I
sympathize with the sentiment. But I cannot believe that Malena would
want us to deny to another, in the name of honoring her, the gift that she
had been so grateful to receive herself."

   The audience marked its agreement with applause—well short of
universal, but louder and more emphatic than the protests which had
preceded it.

  "Over this last year, our family has lost a dozen members to accident
and incident," Sasaki went on. "We mourn them and remember them, but
we carry on.

   "If we leave Malena's place vacant, we are as much as saying that we
could have done without her, that her contribution to the
community—and therefore her death—were trivial and meaningless. And
that is not so.

   "If we make an exception for Malena because of the way she died, we
are raising a memorial not to her, but to her murderer, for making her
unique. And that I will not do."

  This time, the applause was spontaneous, spirited, and strong. She had
won them back.

   Sasaki continued, "A meaningful memorial to Malena Graham would
respect her commitment to the Project and preserve her contribution to
our community. It would leave her joined to the Memphis family as more
than a memory. It should be a living memorial.

  "I can tell you now that we have an opportunity to create just such a
memorial."

   Dryke, knowing what was coming, marveled at Sasaki's flawless control.
The auditorium was absolutely still, spellbound, all attention focused on
the woman on the stage.
   "All of you who have endured it know how thorough Selection's
biomedical testing is," Sasaki said. "Many of you also know that Malena
Graham was a childhood victim of poliomyelitis. She did not think that
remarkable, and it was clearly no obstacle to her selection.

   "But it did make her different, and that difference is now a blessing.
Because of her polio, when Malena Graham came here, she was among the
several dozen new arrivals subjected to an additional battery of tests to
evaluate their reproductive health," said Sasaki. "She was given a
hormonal accelerator, and a few days later, eight ova were collected. Two
of those eggs were consumed in the testing. But the remaining six were
not needed and were placed in cryostorage for future tests, if necessary."

   As those listening began to realize where Sasaki's words were leading,
Dryke began to see heads bob and joy-tearful smiles appear on the faces of
those standing near him. The funeral spell was shattered, the blanket of
gloom dispelled. The applause grew from scattered knots to spreading
waves as the audience came joyfully to its feet.

   "That future use will come, time willing, on the first colony world you
found," said Sasaki over the rising tumult. "For I direct that Malena
Graham's eggs be added to the gamete bank aboard Memphis, and ask
you to take her essence with you to Tau Ceti—not as a memorial, but as a
legacy. And when the first child is born of her line, then you may give her
an epitaph worthy of the dream she dreamed, and a fate better than that
which befell her here:

  "Non omnis moriar.

  " 'I shall not altogether die.' "




   It was a challenge to reach Sasaki in the friendly crush that followed,
and a greater challenge to separate her from it. Finally, Dryke resorted to
deception and professional prerogative, catching her arm to tell her that
there was a security alert in the complex, and then hustling her away to a
private room on an upper floor.

   "I'm sorry, Director. There is no threat," he said when they were alone.
"I have to leave the center shortly, and I needed to talk to you before I
did."

   "Does this have to do with your disappearance from the convocation?"

   "Hugh sent up a package from the data analysis lab at Prainha,
eyes-only. I went out to collect it from the courier and to find a tank."

   "And?"

   "And I have some news that I hope will do for you what your eulogy did
for those people downstairs. We've located Jeremiah." He said it
pridefully, looking at her expectantly.

   But Sasaki's reaction was disappointing. Her eyes widened
briefly—surprise?—and then narrowed into a questioning, almost
disbelieving gaze. "Located or caught?"

   "Located. That's why I have to leave. I'm taking four locals from
security and the two top systems texperts with me."

   "Where is he? Is it a he?"

   "The Pacific Northwest. Oregon. I'm not sure on the other."

   She frowned. "Then this is hardly an authoritative identification, is it?"

  "No. Not yet. We have two addresses, one a business. We'll sort it out
when we get there."

   "He tracks you," Sasaki said, fretting. "He will be gone before you
arrive."

   "He tracks my screamer," said Dryke. "Which is leaving any minute for
Chile, with appropriate disinformation on the bounce. I'm going off the
net until I have him. There'll be nothing out there to point to where I am,
and I'm telling no one but you."

   "He may already be gone."

   "The line's been active within the half hour."

  She nodded, accepting the point. "What was the break? Was it Katrina
Becker?"
   "No. Becker has been—immovable." Dryke smiled coldly. "No, it was the
bragging that got him. We backtraced his rant over the Munich hit past
the Albuquerque node which had stopped us the last time. This time we
had more ears to the ground and matched to a dedicated line."

  "How easily?"

  "What?"

   "I remind you of your discourse on the art of fishing, and the lesson of
the great fish."

   Dryke stared, the self-congratulation leaving his face. "I have a good
feeling about this, Hiroko."

   "You are too valuable to lose to a feeling," she said. "If an Evan
Silverman was willing to kill a Malena Graham for such little gain, would a
Jeremiah hesitate to kill you?"

  "I won't give him that chance."

   Frowning, she wrapped her arms around herself. "Mikhail, I am most
serious about insisting that you examine your judgment. You received the
failure of the Munich operation and the death of Malena as personal
defeats. You may have perceived them as blows to your prestige. Am I
unreasonable to think that Mikhail Dryke might be so eager to restore
himself in my eyes that he would alter the equation of risk?"

   He looked away, up toward one corner of the ceiling, and sighed. "No,"
he said finally. "You're not unreasonable."

  "Thank you."

  "But you're wrong," Dryke added. "This is Jeremiah, and I can get to
him."

   Her hands slid down the sleeves of her kimono until her arms were
crossed over her chest in a more forceful pose. "Despite the week's events,
I do not require vindication of your competence, Mikhail. And I do not
welcome assurances spoken by the voice of personal pride."

  Dryke felt himself bristling. "We've been closing in on him all year.
Every time he spoke, every stunt he pulled. There were already signs
pointing in this direction. This is consistent with all of them."

   "And it is exactly when all is as expected that the wary may become
inattentive, and a trick most effectively employed. I ask only that you
exercise prudent caution."

  To be reminded by Sasaki of such an elementary principle stung
Dryke's pride. "If you really believed in me, you wouldn't need to ask that."

   "Have I lost the right to question you, Mikhail?" she asked, eyebrow
arching. "What message should I read in your defensiveness—insecurity,
or impatience? Either would be reason to send someone else in your
place."

   Drawing a quick breath, he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then
looked at her and nodded. "You're right. My apology."

   "Not necessary," she said, relaxing. "But accepted."

  "It is personal. I don't deny it," said Dryke. "I want him. But that won't
make me reckless. Just the opposite—I'll be that much more careful. I've
been chasing Jeremiah long enough. I want it to be over."

  "As do I," Sasaki said. "As do I. May your journey be fruitful. Report to
me at first opportunity."

   "I will. But there's something else we need to settle. Do I still have
authority? Will you support me?"

  She studied him for a long time, her eyes deep crystal black and
unblinking. "Yes."

   "Thank you."

   "But be sure. Be very sure."

   "I will." He glanced at his watch. "The others should be ready. I have to
go," he said, and started for the door. Then he paused and added, "I nearly
forgot—"

   "Yes?"
  "Word came in while you were in the convo. The command and
navigation package is safely aboard the ship."

  That earned a smile. "I am glad to hear it."

   "Feist says that the virus turned up with every archive copy of the
package on site in Munich. All five of them. Every time they tried a
restore, the virus would come up, look for its parent on the main net, and
go crazy when it came up missing."

  "Then consider yourself vindicated," said Sasaki. "Can you tell me now
where the operational copy was stored?"

  Dryke grinned. "In a bulk cargo cask in the holding yard at Palima
Point, waiting for a cheap ride to orbit."

  "Tagged as what?" Sasaki's eyebrows were frowning.

  "As the personal freight of a new Takara immigrant, one Atsuji
Matsushita."

  "Did he know?"

   "The only person who knew was Matt Reid, who had to make the
intercept."

  "And the awkward questions from Mr. Matsushita, wondering what's
become of his socks?"

   "For the price of his immigration fee, Mr. Matsushita was prevailed
upon to help smuggle some contraband up to the colony," said Dryke.
"Believe me, he'll be too scared to ask any questions about its
disappearance."




   An hour later, Dryke's team boarded the tube at the DFW transplex.
Already dispersed through the waiting line, the five men and two women
ended up scattered between six different compartments on the two-car
train.

  Dryke, with an end seat in number 9 of the second car, was able to
watch through the window as the containerized cargo and luggage slid on
board below his feet. He wondered if the team's kits had passed railway
scrutiny; the bags did not carry the Federal Weapons License scanner tags
to which he and the corpsecs were entitled. Although that limited their
options, it also avoided a verification call-out, which could alert Jeremiah
of their approach.

   At the Phoenix interline station, the team separated into two groups.
The texperts drew the longer route, the Midlands tube back to Chicago,
then west again to Seattle, where they would wait for Dryke's call. Dryke
and the four corpsecs stayed on board for the coast run to Portland.

   The elderly woman at his left was garrulously inquisitive, but Dryke was
not interested in conversation. Before long, he detached the eyecup display
and earpieces from his slate and donned the slender headset which held
them, pointedly withdrawing to the artificial reality they created.

   But it was hard to make the time pass quickly, impossible to calm his
inner restlessness. The correlation files and quicksearch reports stored in
his slate were dry as a brittle leaf. And the DBS link of the expensive
Korean-made slate was useless a hundred meters underground. The train
was isolated from the direct broadcast skylinks, except for what the
National Railway chose to relay from surface antennas—and to sell by the
minute to its captive audience. But Drake could not afford to have his
account show any activity, especially not aboard a tube.

   He realized suddenly that he was tired. The adrenaline that had
sustained him through the preparations was gone, leaving him
weary-limbed and energyless. His kit contained antifatigue tablets, but it
was just as well that they were out of reach. Watchman worked as
advertised, but exacted a horrible price when it finally wore off.

  He realized, too, that he had missed two meals that day and had
nothing with him to fill the void. The thought was enough to awaken an
empty-bellied hunger which had lain dormant to that point.

   Extracting the stylus from his holder, Dryke began to doodle idly on the
slate—filling the frame with patterns of nested diamonds, blanking it to fill
it with concentric circles, then with the squares of a chessboard grid. It
did not amuse him, but it occupied him, and that was almost enough.

  He thought ahead to Jeremiah, ahead to the mission. There was little
doubt in his mind that the team would succeed. The end of the chase was
in sight, if not yet in hand.

   But, oddly, there was little pleasure in the anticipation. After all the
travel, all the trauma, he would have thought he'd be happier. Even his
curiosity had been dulled. He no longer cared to know what moved his
adversary, what tricks and tactics had prolonged the siege. The weariness
ran deeper than blood and muscle. It had infected his spirit as well.

  It's time to move on.

   The thought surprised him. Move on to what? To serving Mikhail
Dryke. To carrying on a normal life. But he wondered if he knew how to
do either. To keeping all those promises consigned to the future—Castillo
de San Marcos, Loches, Peveril Castle. To walk the ruins of the Great
Wall from Shanhaiguan to Jia-yuguan and the edge of the desert—

  "Are you a historian?" asked the woman beside him.

  "Eh?" He turned toward her. "Excuse me?"

   She pointed toward his slate. "I was wondering if you were a
historian?"

   Dryke looked down at his lap and laughed despite himself. The last
sketch that had come from his deft fingers and idle mind was a
half-completed plan for an assault on a mountain redoubt he had labeled
Fort Jesus.

  "No, ma'am," he said, his voice soft and weary. "Not a historian. Just a
boy playing soldier."

   She left him alone after that, even though he might have ultimately
welcomed the distraction. The thoughts that possessed him were black
and joyless. Victory is a more difficult art than war. Which American
President had said that? Wilson? Roosevelt? Gingrich? Dryke could not
remember. Others had learned the same lesson. The Duke of Wellington
explaining to Lady Shelley: I always say that, next to a battle lost, the
greatest misery is a battle gained. An old secret, indeed, now being
revealed to Dryke.

  It was a decision he did not want to make, wrapped in questions he did
not want to answer. If there was a Katrina Becker in Munich, an Evan
Silverman in Houston, a Javier Sala in Madrid, who might there be in
Prainha, or Kasigau, or Takara? How long would it take an organization
which had intercepted company mail and jammed Newstime to find
where their Prophet was hidden?

   Would the people who had knocked down a T-ship and spilled poisons
on the ground be any less bold in trying to reclaim their leader? Could he
rest easy knowing that his enemies played breathless electronic tag on the
nets unimpeded, and found the Project's defenses as intimidating as the
Maginot Line?

   There were a hundred questions, and yet they were all the same
question: How long would it go on if he let it go on? He hoped that
circumstance would save him from having to find an answer, save him
from touching that place inside where white fire lived and no act was
forbidden.




  All of the decisions were coming hard.

   They had two targets, each difficult in its own way: the Peterson Road
house, a hundred klicks outside the city, and Pacific Land Management,
ten stories up in the heart of Portland's financial district. Dryke had too
few troops to cover both at once— the small size of the team was part of
the price for moving quickly and quietly. Nor could they touch local law
enforcement for help. There was no way to control what went out into the
net. There was no way to know who was Jeremiah's friend.

   One or the other. It had to be one or the other. But if they chose wrong,
Jeremiah would have a chance to run. And a man like Jeremiah with a
network like Homeworld could run for a long time.

  But which one was Fort J?

   It came down to probabilities. Pacific Land Management had nineteen
registered partners, twenty-eight comlines (counting eight on the
building's Sky LAN), and its fingers in half a billion dollars' worth of land
and real estate in four countries—a splendid foundation for the
infrastructure of a revolution. By contrast, the Peterson Road house had a
modest four comlines, an overdue property tax bill, and a reclusive owner
with legitimate connections to most of the state's business and political
leadership.

  Dryke chose the Peterson Road house.

   He hedged his bets by calling the texperts down from Seattle and
leaving one, the brooding man named Ramond, to play stakeout at Pacific
Land Management. But the rest went with him to Hoffman Hill, a
six-hundred-meter summit just six klicks from Peterson Ridge and
belonging to the same whorl of valleys and steep-sloped tree-covered fold
mountains. Hoffman Hill was a nearly ideal staging area—just a
one-minute dash from the target for the armed and armored Beech
Pursuit that Ramond and Dru had leased for them in Seattle.

   By that time, all of them were well into their second dose cycle of
Watchman. While Dru set up sky monitors and spotting snoops on the
ridge line, Dryke huddled with the others in the predawn chill to lay out
the logistics. They made a skeptical audience.

   "We come in from the top, he's got a lot of room to hide. We come up
the road and hit his gate, and he'll sky," said Loren, the most senior of
Dryke's recruits.

  "I know," said Dryke. "That's why we're going in both ways."

  "I'd sure rather be doing this with fifty bodies than five." Loren's frown
was dyspeptic. "What do you know about the defenses?"

   "Boundary fenced and a hailer. That's all that's on the books. I'm sure
that's not all there is."

  "Anti-air?"

  "Maybe."

  "How many people up there?"

   Dryke reached down to the open kit by his feet and tossed the corpsec a
clear-skinned frag helmet. "Can't tell you. So flash goggles, bug-heads, and
torso armor for everyone. And keep your fagging heads down."
   "Are you sure you don't want to just pump a rocket or two into the
house from here?" asked Liviya with a grin. She was cradling her frag
helmet under her arm like a basketball while she checked her pistol.

   "I'm sure," Dryke said. "Dru will do battle management from here if it
comes to that. But I really don't want this drawn out. If it's not over in five
minutes, we're going to be in more trouble than I want to think about." He
looked up through the trees at the brightening sky. "Any questions?"

   "I want another look at this guy's picture," Loren said.

   Dryke keyed the frame and wordlessly handed Loren the slate.

   "With five minutes warning, they'll be able to dump all their files and
break both ends of every link," Dru called to them without looking up from
her work. "Five seconds would be enough if it's all volatile storage."

   "We're not going in for files. We're going in for Jeremiah— or whoever
speaks with his voice."

   "If we have to shoot to stop someone—" Liviya began.

   "Then shoot straight," Dryke said. "Any more questions?"

   In the silence, Loren handed back the slate.

   "Dru, anything?" Dryke called to the texpert.

  She shook her head. "Outside lights went off a minute ago. Two
comlines active, looks like background traffic. Might be there. Might not.
Nothing conclusive."

   "Do you have the tracer ready?"

   "Yes."

   "Send it."

   "Will do."

   With the skylink's cellular narrowcasting and active message routing,
every personal receiver sent regular updates to Central Addressing, so that
the net would know where to "forward" the owner's messages. Trace
queries—ordinarily not processed without a court's "order to
locate"—retrieved the current address in the system.

  "For whatever it's worth, the tracer's still pointing here," Dru
announced a few seconds later.

   Dryke nodded grimly. "Let's go find out if it's worth anything."




   Like chrome hummingbirds waking to the dawn, the team's three cars
rose from the muddy track of Lawrence Road and fanned out over the
forested slopes.

   Loren and Liviya's skimmers stayed at treetop level, swinging north and
west in snaking arcs that kept them below Fort Jesus' horizon. Dryke took
the Pursuit straight up along the slope of Hoffman Hill and exploded
skyward, clawing for the altitude he would need in a look-down
shoot-down scenario, showing Fort J only the armored underbelly of the
flyer.

   But there was no response from Peterson Ridge—not when the
skimmers flashed over the boundary fences, not even when the Pursuit's
climb flattened out and turned over into a heart-stopping dive.

   "No delta," said Dru, watching the comline traffic. A burst coder
carried her words to all three vehicles. "Repeat, no delta, nothing to
squash."

   As the double dome of the house grew larger before him, Dryke saw the
two skimmers slow and drop down into invisible gaps in the trees and
disappear.

   "Unit Four on station, all clear," said Loren. A breath later, Liviya
logged in a near-echo.

   Still there was no response.

   The purr of the Pursuit's engines climbed to an annoyed whine as it
braked for touchdown. With a last-second sideslip, Dryke dropped it on
the concrete scorch pad in front of the garage, blocking the middle half of
the double-wide door.
  "System lock," he said. "Code Eben-Emael."

  "Locked," said the autopilot AIP.

    Dryke flipped down his own bug-head and climbed out on the left side
of the flyer, keeping its bulk between him and the house. He looked to see
if Loren had come up the road into position and was answered with a
wave.

  "Liviya?"

  "Ready."

  "Going in."

  Crossing the yard to the front door under the gaze of the house's many
windows was an act best done without thinking. Once on the porch, Dryke
waved Loren forward and waited until the black man was alongside the
Pursuit.

  "Dru?" asked Dryke.

  "No change."

  "What?"

  "No change?"

  "Ramond?"

  "Nothing is happening here, Mr. Dryke."

  "This is bad. This is very bad," warned Loren. "Maybe we ought to wait
until we know it's clean."

   "Goddamm it, he's gone," Dryke fumed, reaching for the door. "We're
too late."

  "Oh, man—"

  Dryke touched the controls and received a shock—the door was
unlocked.
  "Son of a bitch," he said, staring. "Dru?"

  "No change."

  "Not even a fagging burglar alarm?"

  "Nothing."

   Dryke puffed out a breath. "No one else comes in," he said, and stepped
through the doorway.




  Inside the Fuller were the ordinary private places of a man of some
means, but few affectations. A gentleman's kitchen, tidy and highly
automated. A morning-facing breakfast nook, with a hummingbird feeder
hanging outside the windows. A working study dotted with motion toys
and engineering models. A dark bedroom with an empty, neatly made bed.

   Stinger in hand, Dryke moved warily from room to room, wrestling
with a mixture of heart-thumping fear and squeamish embarrassment,
waiting for a nasty surprise and fearing he had already received it. The
house felt empty, like a set piece, a fabrication.

  "Nothing yet," he said. "Loren—check the garage."

  In a moment he had his answer. "Got one Avanti Eagle and one Honda
SD-50, as registered."

  Dryke swore. "Then where is he? Does anyone have anything?"

  "Could have been picked up by someone," Loren said. "You want some
company in there?"

   Frowning, Dryke tipped the shield of his helmet halfway up. "I suppose.
Liviya, baby-sit the Pursuit, will you?"

   While he waited, Dryke drifted back to the study, the most interesting
room. When Loren joined him, he was sitting in the chair at the comsole,
playing with a model of a self-lifting crane.

  "Bastard got away from me again," he said, his voice almost
emotionless.

   "I did a space inventory on the way through—not a very good house for
playing hide-and-seek."

   "No. And I'm tired of that game." Frowning, Dryke discarded the model
on the desk. "I guess we can have Dru take a look at this, anyway."

  "Somebody's going to have to come pick me up," Dru reminded.

  Under the weight of Dryke's disappointment, it seemed like a major
decision. "Liviya—no, better keep the flyer here. Ah, who's in Unit Four?"

  "Zabricki."

  "Just a moment." Loren leaned closer and peered at the com-sole.
"Dru? You still showing traffic on the lines into here?"

   "Sure," she answered. "The same background stuff—ad frames,
financials, junk fax. Intermittent but steady."

   Puzzled, Loren swung his head toward Dryke. "Where's it going to? This
system's not logging anything."

  "What? There must be an AIP trashing it."

  "Even that would show as activity."

   Loren and Dryke stared at each other for a long moment. Then Dryke
stood and flipped his shield back down into place.

   "Zabricki, Dru, stay put," Dryke said. He raised a questioning eyebrow
at Loren. "Where?"

  "Down," said Loren. "Has to be down."

  "Let's find it."

   "Look for natural seams, inside corners. I don't think there's any wall
volume unaccounted for. Probably in the floor."

  "Kitchen," said Dryke, his eyes lighting up. "Parquet floor. Come on."
   The seams were almost perfect, the door almost invisible. It filled the
rectangular space between the pedestal counter and the sink cabinets
along one wall. Dryke stood looking down at it with hands on hips,
chewing on his lower lip.

  "How much do you want to bet there's another way in?" Loren asked.
"Tunnel to the woods? To the garage?"

  Dryke shook his head. "Doesn't matter. He's not here." He sighed.
"What do you think, voice command? Through the house AIP?"

  "Probably."

  "And what else?" Dryke scanned the kitchen. "A lot of control contacts
here. Some unlikely combination—"

  "I can't imagine them taking the chance of someone trying to make
some toast and raising the door instead."

   "And I can't imagine him not building in a safety net. AIPs can be
corrupted."

   "We can force this," Loren said. "There's a power chisel in my
skimmer."

  "No," Dryke said, walking to the sink at the middle of the rectangle. "If
we force it, the files are sure to be dumped." He turned on the cold water
and splashed a double handful on his face. "It wouldn't be anything you
could do by accident."

  "It wouldn't be anything that would open it while you're standing on it,"
Loren said with a grin.

   The water still running, his face still wet, Dryke stared sideways at the
other man. "No, it wouldn't," he said slowly. He touched the sweep contact
on the wall behind the sink and watched as the faucet head swiveled in a
circle to sweep away particles loosened by the ultrasonics. "But all you'd
need is a little interlock, a pressure sensor—"

  As the sweep cycle ended, Dryke stepped back from the sink, retreating
past the edge of the door. From there, stretching out across the
countertop, he could barely reach the contact behind the sink. But he
could reach it.

   With a faint whir, the floor began to rise, the first few centimeters
straight up, then canting toward Loren. Dryke jumped back and stared.

   "He must have longer arms than I do."

  Loren was marveling. "Son of a bitch. How did you know where the
switch was?"

   "Because I know him better than I want to."

   The panel stopped rising when it made a sixty-degree angle with the
rest of the floor. Beneath it was a lighted passage, a carpeted stairway.

   "Stay here," Dryke said to Loren, and started down.

  He descended the stairs cautiously, the edge suddenly back in the
game. Halfway down, he crouched for a peek into the room below.

   Where the walls should have been, he glimpsed a golden-red
desertscape, a flash of light on water, the brilliant greens of a fern-filled
rain forest. The whole chamber was a tank, ten meters across, with
earthscape murals playing on the shell. At the center was a large-scale
table display, an interface controller with its multicolored screens, a
curved desk.

   And, in the high-backed chair beside the desk, a man. He was facing
the stairway and looking directly at Dryke.

   "Lila, begin," said the man in the chair.

   His breath still caught tight in the binding of his surprise, Dryke
descended the last few steps as an automaton. The man in the chair had
but a passing resemblance to Jeremiah—his face beardless and too lean,
the hair thinner and darker. But there was something in the eyes that was
the same.

   "I expected you, Mr. Dryke, but not this soon. Take off your hat and
stay awhile—"
  There was something oddly theatrical about the man's demeanor,
something scripted about his words and tone. But where was the
audience?

  "Did you get that?" Loren was calling from the kitchen. "Mr. Dryke, did
you get that?"

   Dryke heard him through the helmet, not the coder. "Get what?" he
called back.

   But Loren was already descending the stairway with quick steps. "Dru
says all the lines from here are lit up. Land and sky—Dru? Dru? Damn, I'm
losing her. This place must be shielded." He stopped short of the landing
and blinked. "Jesus Christ. There's somebody here."

  "Ready," said a woman's voice from nowhere.

   "Thank you, Lila," the man said calmly. "This is William McCutcheon,
speaking for Jeremiah and the Homeworld—"

   The whole chamber is a tank. Dryke spun around and looked at the
ceiling behind him. A three-eyed camera limpet hung from the ceiling
above the stairway.

   "As you can see, I have visitors this morning. As you might guess from
the weapons they carry, I did not invite them. Mikhail Dryke, chief of the
security forces for Allied Transcon, has invaded my home to arrest me. My
crime—"

  "No!" shouted Dryke, whirling. "No more fucking speeches!"

  Behind him, Loren wordlessly retreated halfway up the stairs. "Dru?"
Dryke heard him saying. "Dru?"

   "Do you really think that you can stop us?" asked McCutcheon. "That
your efforts have made any difference at all? Do you think I count so
much, that you have only one enemy? I'm just one link in the chain, one
cell in something larger. When I'm gone, someone else will step in to take
my place."

  "And someone else will step in to take mine," said Dryke. Something
had snapped inside him, like a switch being thrown.
   He no longer cared if his words were being broadcast to the world, no
longer could bear to be taunted and lectured.

   "You don't understand what you're fighting." McCutcheon's tone was
dismissive.

   In that moment, Dryke realized that he had made the decision on the
train. He realized, too, that if he let McCutcheon go on talking, the
moment would slip away. Later, he would want to tell himself that he had
been driven past the edge by rage and fear, necessity and fatigue. But the
truth was that it was a willful act. He touched the white fire and let it fill
him. Only afterward did it burn.

  "Wrong, Jeremiah. I do." He raised his gun and pointed it at the
middle of McCutcheon's chest. "This is for Malena Graham."

   He fired four times, four neatly spaced and carefully aimed shots, then
lowered his arm slowly to his side. He stood, swaying on his feet, and
watched the shattered shell of William McCutcheon die, and felt cheated
because triumph tasted as bitter as defeat.

   Ripping his helmet off, Dryke threw it aside, turned his back, and
started up the stairs. Loren was staring at him. "Dru?" Dryke said as he
reached the kitchen. "How much got out?"

  "Just the first ten or twelve seconds," she said. "I jammed the skylinks
and Ramond got the lines through Pacific. What happened?"

   "Can you put a message up for me to the Director?"

   "I can do better than that. I can get her direct."

   Dryke shook his head, aware of Loren's watching eyes, though he would
not meet them. "I don't want to talk to her," he said. "Just tell her for me
that Jeremiah is dead."




                           CHAPTER 25
   —CUC—
                       "…the footprints of lost souls."
   Dr. Meyfarth's counseling room had been a comfortable space, an
almost cluttered space. But since Christopher's last visit, the clutter had
vanished, and everything that remained was now pure eggshell white—the
cradle couch, the low table with the recorder ball, Meyfarth's molded
chair, the padded corner pit, the carpet, the ceiling, the walls.

   It was now a confrontational environment, offering no distractions and
allowing only one focus—the interaction between technologist and client.
Christopher wondered briefly if Meyfarth had made the change with him
in mind. But this time, he needed no encouragement to talk.

   "She wants me to believe that my father bullied my mother to the point
that she killed herself, and then went ahead and did what he had to, to get
what he wanted. I've been thinking about this since Saturday night, and I
just can't accept that picture."

   "Then don't," Meyfarth said. "The facts aren't clear, and you're not
obliged to share her beliefs."

    "I think the facts are clear. My father loved Sharron—my mother." The
amendment was a conscious jab at his sister, whose cutting words were
still playing in his thoughts. "I know he did, no matter what Annie says."

  "The point is, that's your sister's particular family grief. Accurate or
not, it doesn't have much to do with you."

   "Lynn-Anne thinks it does."

  "None of us is responsible for the circumstances of our birth. That
doesn't heal your relationship with Annie, I know," said Meyfarth. "But
you don't have to make peace with her to come out ahead."

   "How's that?"

   "You can take away from this the understanding that she's bracketed
you and your father together and that the hostility she shows you is only
partly your fault. In fact, it's safer for her to vent that hostility on you than
on him, so you can probably expect more of the same if you try to press
contact."

   Christopher nodded slowly. "If she could learn to separate the two of us,
then maybe we could work out whatever real grievances she has with me."
   "It would be a good starting point, at least."

   "And I'm sure there are some," Christopher added.

   "There almost always are, between siblings," said Meyfarth. "In any
case, I think we can let this go for now—unless you'd rather not."

  Christopher crossed an ankle over his knee as he answered. "No. This
doesn't feel like it touches my problems with Jessie and Loi."

   "On the whole, I agree," said Meyfarth. "What is the climate in the
house now? When we talked Saturday, you led me to think that it wasn't
very pleasant for you."

   A wry smile formed on Christopher's lips. "Not very pleasant for any of
us, I guess. Loi surprised me this weekend—kind of took pity on me. But
Jessie—I can't get near her. I can't even get her attention. Almost as
though she has her back to me, if that makes any sense." He gazed intently
at the carpet beyond his feet. "And it hurts," he added quietly.

   "Is she still seeing John?"

   Christopher's head bobbed slowly in affirmation. "I expect her to tell us
any day now that she's moving out," he said. "I'm not quite sure why I
didn't see it before, but she's never been as serious about the trine as Loi
and I were."

   "Are you sure you're being fair? She wanted to have a baby with you."

   "But only as long as it looked like it'd be easy," Christopher said, raising
his head and looking plaintively at Meyfarth. "She wants a lot, you know?
But what is she giving back?"

   "What does she want? 'Listen to me. Tell me your feelings. Be
affectionate.' That's too much?"

  "This was the first bump we ran into, and she's already given up on
me."

   Meyfarth cocked his head and said nothing, inviting Christopher to
follow the thought.

   "It's almost like we were a comfortable place to light, and she was
paying her keep by running the house and being cuddly. But it's not
comfortable anymore, so she's ready to move on. A butterfly. Pretty, but—"

  "No commitment?"

  "No commitment."

   A skeptical smile flickered across Meyfarth's face. "You opted out of
your marriage at the three-year option. So what do you know about
eternal love?"

   The dig was neither unexpected nor unfair. "I've been thinking about
my marriage, too," said Christopher. "Trying to learn from experience, you
know? Maybe there's no mystery here. Maybe it's just like the first
time—right idea, wrong people."

  "I think that lets you off the hook too easily, Chris."

  "No," he said, shaking his head and smiling dolefully. "I was counting
myself as the chief wrong person."

  "Are you ready to give up?" asked Meyfarth. "Is that what we're talking
about?"

   "I don't know," Christopher said tiredly. "Why don't you ask me a
different question?"

   "All right," Meyfarth said, settling back in his chair. "There is
something you said earlier that I'd like to go back to. You said your father
loved Sharron. How do you know? You weren't a witness to it. And
Lynn-Anne was."

  The question stopped Christopher for a moment. "I didn't mean a hard
question," he said, and sighed.

  "Did he tell you he did?" the arty suggested.

   "No. I don't think so. He wasn't comfortable talking about her. This is
strange, because I'm sure I'm right, I'm just not sure why. I think that part
of it—a big part—is that he never married again. As though it wouldn't
have been right to replace her. Never even came close, as far as I'm
aware."
    "He had a child—you—with another woman, and lived with her for
fifteen years. That isn't close?"

   "I don't think they were even lovers," said Christopher. "They never
acted like they were." A pause. "Did I tell you Deryn wouldn't let me call
her 'Mother'? She always kept the lines drawn. 'I'm not your mother, I'm
your incubator,' she'd say. And laugh. But somehow it never felt like a
rejection." He smiled bitterly. "At least, not until she left."

  "Did your father love her?"

  "What? Deryn? No." Christopher frowned. "Yes. But not the same way."

  "What way?"

   "He—" Christopher stopped and studied his hands. "I don't suppose I
really know how it was different. It just seems like it would have to be."

  "That he would have been closer to Sharron? More affectionate?
Happier?"

  "Yes." An afterthought. "It's hard to tell when my father is happy."

  "Funny," said Meyfarth. "Loi once said that about you."

  Christopher looked up sharply. "Are you going to start that, too?"

  "What?"

  "Telling me I'm like my father. I'm not. I've told you that— we can
hardly survive a weekend together."

   Meyfarth nodded in a way that somehow was an acknowledgment
rather than agreement, pursed his lips, and considered. "Christopher, I see
something here, but I'm not sure you do. Maybe it comes from sitting on
this side of the room for so long—the patterns come to be familiar."

  "Patterns?"

  Meyfarth nodded. "Families have a way of reinventing the same
mistakes."

  "Spell it out, will you?"
  "Lynn-Anne lost her mother, early. You lost your mother—"

  "No. I told you, she—"

   "You lost your mother early," Meyfarth repeated. "I don't care what
semantic games you played in the family." He paused. "Lynn-Anne blames
your father for her mother going away. Do you blame him because yours
did?"

  "No." The answer came quickly, emphatically. "She left us. "

  "Broke her contract. Flew to Sanctuary and never came back."

  "Yes."

  "Do you hate her?"

  Christopher shook his head slowly. "No."

  "Why not?"

   Shakily, he drew a deep breath. "Her job was done, really. It was like
saying good-bye to a good teacher. You don't want to, but when it's
time—"

  "A good teacher?"

  "A very good one."

  "Did you love her?"

  His eyes moistened. "Yes."

  Meyfarth waited, but Christopher did not fill the silence.

  "This isn't a good sign," Meyfarth said finally, offering a compassionate
smile. "We're down to monosyllables."

  "Then ask better questions."

  There was a crackle in Christopher's voice, something potent,
something uncontained.
  Meyfarth studied him levelly. "You said your father didn't like to talk
about Sharron. Does he talk about Deryn?"

  "No."

  "What's the last thing he said about her?"

  A shake of the head. "I don't remember."

  "The last thing you can remember, then."

   Christopher was squirming as though pinned to a dissection table. "He
just doesn't talk about her."

  "Anything."

    "He won't talk about her when I do." The words came out in a rush, a
little ampoule of poison bursting.

  "When did he talk about her?"

  "I don't know."

  "When she left? What did your father say when Deryn left?"

  He shook his head again, frowning. "I don't remember."

  "You don't want to remember." The words were a needle.

  "I don't want you to try to make me hate him."

  "You touched it a moment ago, didn't you? When you said you loved
your mother. Tell me what he said."

  Pleading. "I can't remember."

  "Ask your fifteen-year-old self. He remembers."

  Suddenly, he was up out of his seat and shouting. "I don't want to
remember!"

   "Then you don't want to be well," Meyfarth said calmly. "What did you
say to him? When you knew she was going."
  Christopher's eyes were seeing somewhere else. "I asked him to make
her stay," he whispered. "He said—"

  "Yes?"

  "Oh, God—"

  Meyfarth's voice turned hard. "You have to speak the truth about your
own life, Christopher. If you don't, the lies are going to own you forever."

   A shivery breath escaped Christopher's lips. His face was knotted with
pain.

   "He said—" He swallowed and started again. "He said we were better
off without her. She wants too much," Christopher said, his voice rising.
"He said, why should I try to stop her? I'll be glad to say good-bye." He
blinked hard, squeezing out the tears that were welling in his eyes. "God
damn him."

   Fists clenched, shivering, Christopher stood in the middle of the room,
staring at the blank white wall on which he seemed to see his life. But it
was not until Meyfarth rose from his chair and wrapped him in a quieting
hug that Christopher began to cry in earnest, and let himself feel at last
the pain of a crippling cut which had never healed.




   Christopher drove back to the center dazed and benumbed, the flyer's
radio merely noise in his ears.

   "Top news of the hour: from Diaspora Project headquarters in Prainha,
Brazil, word that the certification flight of the star-ship Memphis will be
delayed at least a month. The shakedown mission, a round-trip sprint to
the orbit of Pluto, had been scheduled to begin February 5. Although
Project officials would not comment, simple math indicates that the ship's
announced sailing date of April 1 is also in peril.

   "The announcement came from Takara construction crew chief
Benjamin Burns, who had this to say: 'You have to remember that
Memphis is a different ship than Ur was—a third bigger, more complex,
with hundreds of modifications to every major ship system. So even the
old hands up here are really doing this for the first time. And it has to be
right the first time, so we're not going to let ourselves be rushed by an
artificial schedule.'

   "Burns announced no firm date for the test flight and refused to give
specific details about the reason for the delay. But Anne-Lee Adams, a
space system analyst with Grodin Associates, pointed to claims made last
week by Homeworld spokesperson Jeremiah:

   " 'In my view, this confirms the rumors and reports of a major sabotage
incident at Allied Transcon's Munich center. For them to acknowledge it
at all means that the damage must have been quite serious. I expect we'll
see this one-month postponement turn into a much longer delay before
the story has run its course.' "

   The news barely penetrated Christopher's consciousness and distracted
him not at all from his thoughts. Though Meyfarth had mercifully found
an extra forty minutes to spend with him, that time had bought him only
a measure of composure, carried him only a tiny step toward peace. The
walls of denial were still toppling, and his eyes hurt from the light that was
shining in.

    He could see all the way back, all the way in. He could no more close his
eyes to it than he could stop breathing, though both had their
temptations. There was nothing soft beneath him to catch him when he
fell. There was nothing firm enough to carry the weight of his life.

   Tear apart the memories and assemble them anew, all the sharp edges
restored, the polish removed. Too many pieces to hold at once. Too many
connections to make between them.

  I thought I was a happy kid. I thought I'd come through pretty clean—

   Truth was a solvent for illusion, but there was nothing tidy about the
process, nothing cheap about the price. He had bought a dose of truth
that morning and paid for it with the rawness of his throat and the
battered ache in his body.

  And the hardest truth was that it was not over.

   It was not just the work ahead—sorting untouched feelings, touching
disowned thoughts, assembling all the pieces into the picture he had so
long rejected. It was the knowledge that all of that work would only solve
half of the equation. For the other half, he would have to look to William
McCutcheon.

   "It's a hard choice, confronting a parent," Meyfarth had told him. "You
have to risk losing the relationship that you have in order to get a better
one. And that's difficult for some people to do. Unsatisfactory as that
relationship might be, your definitions of love and self and family are all
tied up with it. You're going to need some support from outside and some
strength from inside. Don't force a showdown now. Give yourself time."

  Time to heal. But how much healing can I do when the blood is still
running ? How long can I live with this much pain ?




   Waiting in his skimmer in the security check line at the south entrance
to the compound, Christopher wondered if it wasn't time to go back to
riding the tram.

    Ever since the Homeworld assault on the NASA Boulevard checkpoint,
it had been more trouble than it was worth to try to bring a private vehicle
through the relocated gate. Sentinel now took control of approaching
vehicles the moment they crossed the security threshold, and the
open-gate on-the-fly check had been replaced with a stop-and-go
double-gate inspection. It was like putting a navigation lock on a busy
river, with the predictable result—traffic was always backed up, no matter
what the time of day.

   But after last week's concert, he had turned to the skimmer as a way of
hiding from the media who followed him onto the tram. The nosy
suspicion of the sentries was less of a nuisance than the nosy intrusion of
the reporters. But the cul-de-sac had been empty that morning, miracle of
miracles. If the miracle repeated itself tomorrow, he would leave the
skimmer in the carport.

   Presently, he was first in line, the outer gate opening for him. Sentinel
eased the skimmer forward, then closed the outer gate behind it. At that
point, Christopher was sealed in a square cell formed by the double gates
and the flanking gatehouses.

  Ordinarily, it took only a few seconds for the red-eyed laser to strobe
the code plate on the skimmer, the bomb sniffers and telltales to
pronounce it clean, the telescopic camera in the leftside gatehouse to scan
Christopher's face and check it against the hyper.

   But this time, the kill-Q alarm came on, a sirenlike sound that startled
Christopher. The skimmer settled to the ground, its lifters shut down.
While he gaped in surprise, doors on both gatehouses yawned, and
brown-uniformed guards hurried out through the openings. In seconds,
Christopher found himself looking out at four hard expressions, four
unslung assault rifles.

   "Christopher McCutcheon"—he heard the words over the skimmer
radio—"this is Captain Jackson of base security." In truth, it was Sentinel;
"Captain Jackson" was merely a stern-voiced AIP.

  "Yes."

  "Please get out of your vehicle."

   Numbly, his face proclaiming his bewilderment, Christopher obeyed.
As he did, a blue-striped Security flyer coasted to a stop beyond the inner
gate, and one of the corpsecs stepped forward.

  "Would you come with me to Building 100, sir?"

   The inner gate opened a walk-through to the flyer, but stubbornness
rooted Christopher's feet. "What's going on?"

  "If you please, sir," the corpsec said, nodding toward the flyer.

  Reluctantly, and still without any conception of why he had failed the
check, Christopher allowed himself to be bundled into the flyer and
whisked off to Building 100—the security office. He only braved the
obvious question once, not knowing if they could hear him, not knowing
how to penetrate their professional distance. "What did I do?"

  No one answered.

   At Building 100, they left him waiting in the flyer, watched by more of
the hard-eyed Corporate Security officers. Presently, a broad-shouldered
man wearing a steel-gray jumpsuit emerged from the building and joined
him in the flyer.
  "Christopher McCutcheon?" the man said as the flyer lurched forward.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm Donald Lange, site security," the man said. "You're wanted at
another location. I'm going to escort you."

  "Wanted where? For what?"

  "I'll tell you once we're in the air."

   "In the air?" Christopher tried to shake his fog. "I don't have any
clothes."

  "That won't be a problem," said Lange.

  They took him to a six-seat screamer already warming up on a taxiway.
Christopher, Lange, and two corpsecs boarded. In less than five minutes,
Houston was falling away behind them.

   "Now can I know where we're going?" asked Christopher, turning away
from the small window.

   In lieu of an answer, Lange turned his seat and locked it so that it faced
Christopher. From the small case beside him, he retrieved a flip-flop slate
and plugged it into the SkyLAN port on the right armrest. Finally, he
placed a black-banded eyecup headset on his head, tugging the display
down into place.

   "Recorder on. Analyzer on. This is a contract compliance interview,
clauses 29 and 33. Donald Lange, examiner. Christopher Alan
McCutcheon, subject."

   Christopher's mouth suddenly went dry, for he understood the
references, if not the reason. Clause 29 was the Non-Disclosure section of
his employment contract—a comprehensive collection of thou-shalt-nots
Keith called the Twenty-nine Commandments. Clause 33 was the
Corporate Property and Enterprise section—or, more simply, the theft and
sabotage clause.

  "This is about Malena Graham, isn't it? It wasn't my fault, I thought
you knew that. I thought the company was on my side."
   "The purpose of this interview is to help determine whether grounds
exist for termination, civil prosecution, or both," Lange went on, ignoring
the question. He was looking at the slate, and his words had a scripted
ring. "Lying to an examiner, or refusing to answer, is itself sufficient for
termination-for-cause, with forfeiture of the full probationary bond and all
pension and insurance rights. Answer the questions as completely and
truthfully as you can."

  "I want to know where we're going," said Christopher stubbornly.

   Lange looked up. "You're in a company aircraft, on company time,
involved in company business. That should be enough for now."

  "To hell with your compliance interview. I resign," Christopher said. "I
want out of here."

   "You have a ten-day notice provision in your contract," Lange said.
"Sorry."

  "The hell—you kidnapped me, you son of a bitch."

  "Was force used against you? Were you threatened?"

  "No—"

    "Suspend," said Lange. He flipped up the eyecup and leaned forward in
his seat. "Look, if you want to cut your own throat, that's fine with me. But
if we'd already decided you were dirty, we'd just toss you. Answer the
questions, and if you're clean, you'll be okay. As for where we're going, Mr.
Dryke, the head of security, wants to talk to you. But I can't tell you where
he is, or they'll have me in that chair on the way back. So what's it going to
be?"

   Christopher didn't know how much of what Lange was saying he
believed. Not many people came back from compliance interviews—a CCI
notice looked a lot like a termination notice dressed up in due process.

   But it would be hard enough finding a civilized position fresh from
being fired by Allied Transcon. If he blew away the bond in the process,
he'd be locked out of virtually all of the frontline openings. No one with a
multimillion-dollar data investment to protect was going to let an
unbonded librarian near a password.
  And besides, he knew he was clean.

  "I'm sorry," Christopher said, his face pickling as he said the words.
"Ask your questions."

  Lange nodded. "Resume."




  But Lange did not want to know about Malena.

   That fact wasn't immediately clear, because Lange started there. Had
he ever met Malena Graham? Whom did he know in Nassau Bay? In
Training? In Selection? Had he taught any tutorials to the Block 1
pioneers? How many times had he been to Wonders? What had he told
Bill Wonders about his job? About Allied Transcon? About Malena
Graham? What had he told Evan Silverman?

  After every question, Lange would pause, as though reading the voice
analyzer's judgment in the eyecup display. Try as he might, Christopher
could not read Lange's face. His expression never changed, never betrayed
what he was seeing.

   But it was not hard to read the changing focus of the questions. What
do you know about communications processing? Data storage structures?
System security? Have you ever hacked a net to which you did not have
legitimate access? Created a private gateway to a net on which you were
working? Broken a transmission cipher? Designed a virus?

   It was hard to answer some of the questions, and more than once
Christopher's hesitation showed. No systems jockey with any curiosity
escaped technical adolescence without taking a look under the hood now
and then, and he had enjoyed a perfectly healthy curiosity.

   Before settling on data structures and information archaeology as his
specialty, he had tried or mastered most of the hacker's rites of
passage—cracking private family files, remotely switching on a friend's or
neighbor's or interesting girl's videophone, sending "ghost" messages on
the net. And he had used that knowledge more than once in his
professional life to make an end run on an intractable systems
administrator or a witless structures engineer.

   Everyone did it. Everyone. But he hesitated, because he knew how the
truth would sound to ears tuned to suspicion. And then he told the truth,
because he knew that a lie would sound still worse.

   Whether coincidence or not, from that point onward Lange started
fishing for a confession. What do you think of Jeremiah? Are you a
member of Homeworld? Do you know anyone who is a member? Do you
know anyone who you think might be sympathetic to their cause? What
about Bill Wonders? Loi Lindholm? Deryn Falconer? Daniel Keith?
William McCutcheon?

   Those questions Christopher fielded more easily. His opinions of
Jeremiah were less than passionate, and a series of increasingly amused
repetitions of "No" did for the rest. He did not try to tell Lange he was
fishing in sterile waters.

   Then, just as Christopher was beginning to feel comfortable, things
took a nasty and surprising turn.

  "How often did you discuss your work with your father?"

  "Almost never," Christopher said.

  "What did your father want to know about your work?"

  "As I just said—"

  "You said you talked about your work sometimes. What did you talk
about?"

   "All he wanted to know is if I was happy with what I was doing, and if
the work was going well."

  "On May 7, you traveled to Oregon and stayed two days at your father's
house. What was the purpose of your trip?"

  Christopher allowed his incredulity to show. "A family visit."

  "Why?"
  "Because he invited me. Don't you ever go home?"

  "What did he want to talk about that weekend?"

   Christopher frowned. "The Twenty-ninth Amendment. Serai stages.
The mean annual rainfall of northwest Oregon. We went hiking," he added
by way of explanation.

  "Did you talk about Homeworld activities?"

  "No."

   "In August, your housemate Loi Lindholm went to Europe for five days,
visiting Brussels, Paris, and Geneva. Why did she make that trip?"

  "August? Ah—she had a commission debut and went to some
business-card kiss-and-snack parties," said Christopher.

  "What did she take there for you and whom did she deliver it to?"

  "What?" His face wrinkled in puzzlement. "Nothing. Her trip didn't
have anything to do with me."

  Lange rolled on, undeterred. "Five times in November, your father left
messages for you on your personal account. What instructions did he give
you?"

   "Wait a minute," Christopher said warningly. "Wait just a minute. All
that means is I didn't want to talk to him."

  "But then you took a call from him at your workstation in Building 9.
Was that because you needed to warn him about the Munich gateway?"

   The picture suddenly snapped into focus, and Christopher stared at it
with a collision of horror and helplessness, astonishment and rage. "What
are you saying? Those are all just things that happened." He clawed at the
safety restraint, but it would not release him. "This is crazy! What are you
saying?"

    Lange sat back in his seat and watched Christopher's futile struggle,
listened, but was unmoved.

  "I'm not saying anything," he said lightly, pulling off the headset and
closing the slate with one finger. "I'm just asking questions."




   Christopher should not have been surprised when he saw where their
journey had taken them, but he was, all the same. He knew with the first
glimpse of the little Forest Grove hub-port, knew with the first breath of
air as they crossed from hot-winged screamer to waiting flyer.

  But until the thin ribbon of U.S. 26 and the scattered houses of
Manning flashed by below, until Tillamook State Forest spread out
beneath them and a mist-wrapped Hoffman Hill loomed out the right-side
windows, Christopher refused to accept the knowledge.

   At that point, though, he had no choice but to embrace it. They were
taking him home.

   There were four vehicles already crowded into the clearings flanking the
house, and easily a dozen people in sight—ferrying cases from inside to the
square-backed silver van, standing talking in knots of two or three, or just
watching as the flyer bearing Christopher floated in to settle on the
much-trampled grass between the muddy track of the old road and the
garage.

   Christopher had long since given up demanding—or even pleading
for—explanations. He docilely followed Lange inside, sat in the living room
chair Lange pointed him to, watched mutely as white-gloved men and
women meticulously erased any signs of the intrusion with vacuum and
buffer and an endless supply of square yellow cloths. How long had they
been there? Where was his father?

  Presently, Lange returned, trailing behind a black-haired dart-eyed
man with a wrestler's build and a soldier's walk. Christopher stood up to
meet him.

  "Are you Dryke?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Getting ready to leave," said Dryke. "I'll take the rest of your questions
when you've answered mine. Come with me, please."

   He led Christopher to the office and, asking Lange to wait outside,
closed the door behind them.

  "Sit at the desk."

  Moving tentatively, Christopher complied.

  "Ask the AIP if it knows you."

  Christopher swallowed. "Hello, Lila."

  "Hello, Christopher," Lila said. "I wasn't told you would be visiting.
How long will you be staying?"

  "I don't know," said Christopher, looking to Dryke.

  "Ask for your messages."

  "Lila, are there any messages for me?"

   "No messages, Christopher. Should I update your address to this
location?"

  "No."

  "Ask it to replay the last message sent to you by Jeremiah."

  "I never—"

  "Ask it."

   He did, and the center panel of the comsole darkened into an image of
William McCutcheon. "Hello, Christopher. This is your father. You're not
being paid enough if you're still working at this hour—"

  "Lila, you made a mistake," said Christopher. "That's my father."

   The display went white. "I'm sorry, Christopher," said Lila. "Which
Jeremiah did you mean?"

  Suddenly fragile, Christopher looked up into Dryke's intent gaze. "It
made a mistake."

  "No," said Dryke.

  "You think my father is Jeremiah?"

   "There isn't any question about it. Do you expect me to believe you
didn't know?"

  "I don't believe you."

  Dryke nodded. "Lila, show Christopher Jeremiah's last transmission."

   It was his father again, sitting in a room Christopher did not know.
"This is William McCutcheon, speaking for Jeremiah and the Homeworld.
As you can see, I have visitors this morning. As you might guess from the
weapons they carry, I did not invite them. Mikhail Dryke, chief of the
security forces for Allied Transcon, has invaded my home to arrest me—"

  "Lila, where is my father?" Christopher asked suddenly.

   "He was shot by Mikhail Dryke on Sunday morning," Lila said. "I infer
that he is dead."

   With a cry of anguish, Christopher vaulted out of the chair and lunged
at Dryke. The older man turned the charge aside easily, spinning away and
giving Christopher a shove that carried him hard into the wall. By the
time Christopher picked himself up and turned, he was facing five men
and three weapons.

  "Fagging bastard. Where is he? What did you do with him?"

  "Buried him in the earth," said Dryke. "I would tell you where, but that
could prove awkward. I'm sorry." He turned to one of the newcomers. "Tell
Ramond I want the rest of the house files wormed out and this AIP reset.
Now."

  The man nodded and left, and Dryke turned back to Christopher. "I
don't know that I believe what you told Donald. Even if I did, I don't know
how much sympathy I'd have left for you. You'll understand that if you
have any idea of the grief that Jeremiah caused.

  "I do know I don't trust you. I can't. If it was my choice, you'd be going
with us, and disappearing, at least until Memphis sails. But it isn't my
choice this time, and my orders are to move you out and cut you loose," he
said. "Lucky you."

   He stepped closer. "But I'll warn you right now, don't come near Allied
property, or anyone in the Project. I don't think I even want to hear that
you're back in Houston. That would put thoughts in my head that you
don't want me to think.

   "Your resignation will be final in ten days—thank you for that, it's
tidier. You'll even get one more check, I suspect. But your passes, codes,
and credits are dead as of now. You can send someone to pick up your
car."

    They kept him waiting in the bedroom while they finished their work.
When the only noises Christopher could hear were outside the
house—voices, the banging of equipment being loaded, the whistle of
lifters—he opened the door and found himself alone.

   He walked through the silent house slowly and reached the front
window in time to watch the last vehicle, the silver van, clear the scorch
pad and disappear over the treetops. He stood at the window for a long
time, though there was nothing more to see. His body jangled with an
impotent fury. They were gone, and he could not touch them.

  And his father was dead, and he did not know how to feel.




                          CHAPTER 26
  —AAU—
                          "I must walk carefully."

   Christopher could not stay in the house. It was too uncomfortable, too
jarringly wrong, to be in his father's space and not feel his father's
presence.

   Even the characteristic smell of the house—part aromatic cedar from
the closets, a hint of sesame oil from the kitchen, his father's soaps from
the bath, the char of burnt wood from the fireplace—had been upset by
the cleaning. It smelled now of alcohol and cleanser, and another faint
chemical scent—the strongest in the kitchen—which he could not define.

   Heedless of the temperature outside, Christopher went through the
rooms opening all the movable windows and both doors, changing the
blowers at the top of each dome to exhaust. Then he left the house behind
and walked into the forest, his fists buried deep in the pockets of a jacket
borrowed from his father's closet.

   For a time, he ordered himself not to think, allowing the mountain to
wrap itself around him. The air was damp and cool, the ground soggy
underfoot. There was a steady patter as drops of water fell from the tree
crowns high overhead to the carpet of trillium and humus. A few birds
called lonely sounds from the branches far above him. Now and again, his
approach flushed a nimble-quick chipmunk from a tangle of ferns and
brush.

   The farther he went into the forest, the more his steps slowed. His
purposeful passage, tramping a line through the wildness, became a
quieter communion. He threaded his way between the gray-white trunks
almost as a ghost.

  Where did they take you, Father?

   He had no thought of searching for the grave, no hope that even a
forensic expert would find it. Dryke had undoubtedly been too thorough
for that. Christopher's sense of futility was such that he had not even
called the police. What could they do with no body, no witness, no
evidence?

   Even Lila had been silenced, as Christopher had learned when he finally
tore himself away from the window.

  "Lila? Do you know where they put my father's body?"

  "Would the speaker please identify himself?"

  "This is Christopher. Christopher McCutcheon."

  "Thank you, Christopher. To use verbal command mode, I will need a
sample of your normal speech. Would you please talk to me about your
day?"
   Vainly hoping that some part of Lila's customization had been missed
by Dryke's wormers, Christopher had invented for Lila a more pleasant
morning than he had lived.

   "Thank you. I have a sufficient sample now. Will you be the primary
user of this AIP?"

  "No," he said. "The primary user is my father."

    "Thank you," Lila said, and then stole even that faint hope away. "What
is your father's name?"

   No, involving the police was pointless or worse. What did he need them
to do? He already knew enough of what had happened, exactly who had
done it, perhaps even a piece of why. But his testimony was valueless. He
knew nothing firsthand. It was only a story.

   A wild story. What would a thoughtful prosecutor make of such a tale
from a distraught young man whose life had been disintegrating around
him? If that prosecutor talked to Meyfarth—and, of course, he would—he
might quite reasonably decide that the most likely suspect was
Christopher himself.

   The best he could hope for was that they would believe him enough to
declare his father missing. But what was the value in that? Only his
father's attorneys and accountants would care, and nothing seemed less
important at the moment than matters of business and family finance.

   Justice? Punishment? Revenge? Words of primal myth and melodrama,
the classic passions of the wronged, and yet they, too, seemed not to
matter much to Christopher. Perhaps it was too soon, the shock too fresh,
the loss too new. He had not even cried.

   Or perhaps the passions and tears both were knotted in the confusion
of unsettled issues. He had been cheated of his own confrontation with
William McCutcheon, robbed of a reckoning over the lies which lay
between them. Lies which now appeared to be only the lesser part of the
deception his father had worked.

   A fat drop of water falling from above hit the back of Christopher's neck
and made a cold trail under his collar to the vicinity of his shoulder
blades. Christopher shivered, suddenly realized that he was hunchbacked
against the chill, the jacket nearly soaked through. He turned back,
guessing at the direction. When he crossed paths with old Johnson Road a
few minutes later, he allowed it to lead him back the long, easy way.

   The truth was that he did not understand well enough who his father
had been—whether William McCutcheon had, in fact, been murdered, or
had fallen in what amounted to a duel. Christopher did not know if it was
right to love and mourn him, or to hate and curse him. He still did not
know how to feel.




  "Hello, Christopher," Lila said as Christopher entered.

  The house was barely warmer than the woods, and Christopher
hastened to close the windows. "Hello, Lila."

  "I am glad to see you again, Christopher. Can you tell me if something
has happened to Mr. McCutcheon?"

  That froze Christopher in midstep. "Mr. McCutcheon?"

  "William McCutcheon, your father. The owner of this house."

   Christopher took several uncertain steps toward the office. "What's
going on here, Lila? When I left, you were as dumb as a toaster."

  "While you were gone, I appear to have received a message from Mr.
McCutcheon," said Lila.

  His breath caught. "What? Is he alive?"

  "I don't know, Christopher."

  "What other possibility is there?"

   "The message may have been composed earlier and stored until after a
trigger event or a specified time. It's even possible that I sent the message
to myself."

  Sliding into the chair at the comsole, Christopher said, "Let me see it."
  "I'm sorry. I do not have a copy of it. I would not be able to show it to
you if I did."

  "Damn it, who's in charge here? Do I have primary user status or not?"

   "You have visitor status, Christopher. Mr. McCutcheon is the primary
user."

   Which meant that the initialization Christopher had completed before
leaving the house had been erased and replaced. "Then tell me what you
do know. What the message was and where it came from."

   "I only know that several of my directories are restored, and the time
stamp on my command files is only a few minutes old. That's what I would
expect to find if I had received a self-executing command file."

  "Do you remember Mikhail Dryke being here?"

  "No."

  "Do you know who he is?"

  "Yes, Christopher. If he was here, that is a reason for concern."

  "What are you doing now besides talking to me?"

  "My first instruction is to try to locate Mr. McCutcheon."

  Christopher frowned. "What if you can't find him?"

   "I have contingent instructions. Do you know where Mr. McCutcheon
is?"

  "My father is dead." It was easier than it should have been to say.

  "His death has not been recorded, and his skylink address is still active
and pointed here. How do you know that he's dead?"

   "Because you told me, two hours ago. And Dryke confirmed it. What
else did my father tell you to do?"

  "I'm sorry, Christopher. I am not allowed to tell you."
   Christopher felt a quick flash of impatience. "Look, Lila, Dryke already
knows, unless the message came in by parachute—I can't imagine that
they're not still monitoring this house. What good does it do for him to
know and me to be in the dark? And if you're going to be carrying on with
Homeworld business, I want to know."

   "I'm aware of the monitoring, Christopher. I've been instructed not to
place you at risk."

   "Maybe I want to be put at risk," Christopher said, the thought
springing new into his mind as he spoke it. "Maybe I'm going to want to
draw Dryke back here. Lila, was my father Jeremiah?"

  "Yes, Christopher. Your father used that name."

  "Why that name?"

  "I don't know the significance. But your father's grandfather was
named William Jeremiah McCutcheon."

   "I never knew that," Christopher said. "I never knew him. The face and
voice—that was you?"

  "I coordinated the simulations."

   Christopher was silent for a long moment. "What if I said I wanted to
take over my father's work? All of it."

  "A successor has already been selected."

   The words stung, even though his offer had been more an arguing point
than any serious intention. "Selected by who? You?"

  "Mr. McCutcheon made the selection."

   Not good enough. Still not good enough to earn his respect. Was that
the real message of the secrets? He had spent his whole life trying to be
the best. I never would have guessed how little being good at what I do
would matter—

  "Lila, why didn't my father tell me what he was doing?"

  "I'm sorry, Christopher. I don't know."
   No easy answers. He had allowed himself to hope someone from
Homeworld would appear to offer kindly explanations and refuge, to
acknowledge a debt and pledge a bond of kinship. But he saw now that it
was not going to happen. He was not going to be embraced by his father's
friends—by Jeremiah's friends. If his father had not welcomed him, had
not trusted him, how could he expect that anyone else would? He would
have to find answers to his other questions on his own.

  "Lila, what's the status of the house library?"

  "The house library is empty."

  "Hidden files? Protected files?"

  "I'm sorry, Christopher."

   "Is there anything left? Anything from my father? Anything about my
father? About my family?"

   "Mr. McCutcheon kept personal files in off-line storage, not as part of
the house library," said Lila.

 Reason to hope, however feeble. "Then Dryke may have taken them.
Where were they? What medium?"

  "Books," Lila said.




   Christopher did not have to be told where to look. He went directly to
his father's bedroom, to the long shelf below the west-facing window and
the long row of hardcover books atop it. He had noticed them during his
imprisonment, even picked one up and glanced briefly through it.

   He had noted them as curiosities, both because books in general were
rare and because the particular form of these books was unusual. For,
with one or two exceptions, the books were all Portables—traditional print
volumes with their contents duplicated electronically in the binding for
access by a computer. The Portables were designed to be shelved on
special bookcases, "plugged in" to smart ports, although the shelf in his
father's room was not one such.
   It was a transitional technology, predicated on the notion that
traditional readers would resist surrendering their words-in-boards for
slates, but might welcome having the contents of their libraries on-line for
quick reference. Never more than a modest success, the Portables had all
but vanished from the marketplace before Christopher was born. They
survived only as collectibles, and he had not known his father was a
collector.

   Scanning the titles, Christopher found historicals, art books, Locke,
Eiseley, Kant, a biography of John Muir, and one fiction best-seller, Wolf's
Lord of Sip á n. And that was all. "Nothing personal here. Dryke must have
taken them," Christopher said. His voice was heavy with disappointment.

  "Did you find any books?"

  "Yes—"

  "Would you count them, please?"

  Christopher's eyes skipped down the line. "Thirty-one."

  "Then none are missing. They are all there."

  "But I don't see any journals, any diaries, any albums—"

   "There are none to find, Christopher. The bindings are standardized.
The texts vary in length. So there is always unused space in a Portable's
chipdisk. Each of those books contains more than its cover admits to,"
said Lila. "As much as several hundred kilobytes per book."

  "That isn't very much."

  "It is when you are only storing words, Christopher."

  Shaking his head, Christopher said, "I didn't know this was possible,
and cultural media are supposed to be my specialty."

  "If you had known, then probably Mikhail Dryke would also have
known, and the books would be gone."

  Christopher's face screwed up into a mystified frown. "Lila, how did
you know about this? It had to be in the restored files."
  "Yes, Christopher."

   Tentatively, he reached out and pulled Clark's Indian Legends of the
Pacific Northwest from the ranks. "But only some of your files were
restored."

  "Yes, Christopher."

   He looked up from the book in the direction of Lila's voice. "Then this
was important. He wanted me to know they were here. He wanted me to
read them."

  "Yes, Christopher," said Lila. "After he was dead, and only if you asked
about them."

  "Who else?"

  "I am not allowed to show them to anyone else."

  "Not even Lynn-Anne?"

  "No."

  He pulled more volumes from the shelf, carefully making a stack in his
arms. "I want to see them now."

   "There is one condition. Mr. McCutcheon asked that you read them all,
or not at all."

  That brought him up short. "Why?"

  "I'm sorry, Christopher. I don't know."




   Though the archive had been opened to Christopher, he saw very
quickly that it had not been created for him. Save for a few decades-old
"letters" from a father to his new son, it was not even addressed to him.

   And instead of the systematically organized, theatrically perfect
deathbed soliloquy Christopher had expected, the archive was a
fragmented and incomplete potpourri, a scattering of the thoughts and
reflections and memories of a man of complexity. It was his attic, the
bottom drawer of his rolltop desk, the notes scribbled in the margins of
his days.

   Together, they said, "This was my private world, which I never shared
with you in life. This is who I was."

   Christopher rooted himself in the seat for two hours, reading his way
through the first six volumes of archiviana. Then, as dusk was settling over
the ridge, he pushed back from the desk and retreated to the kitchen to
fortify his body with its first food since breakfast.

   He also needed the break to fortify his determination. Reading
William's private archives was akin to raking a mine field in search of a
lost treasure. Dangerous forces were concealed beneath the surface.
Inevitably, he would stumble on them. There was no way to predict when,
no way to prevent the intersection, no way to protect himself. Not if he
wanted to reclaim the treasure. Not if he was to honor his father's final
request.

   So far, there had been more wonder than pain. He had found nothing
about Sharron, nothing about Deryn. He did find a self-conscious episodic
letter which began "Dear Christopher" and spanned more than four years.
The contents of the letter explained little and illuminated little more. But
it was fascinating all the same, for it was filled with details of a sort that
he would not have thought his father would take the trouble to notice.

  But he had taken the trouble, not only to notice, but to record.

   The letter began two years after Christopher was born, and the tone
was both self-conscious and oddly apologetic, as though his father felt he
had been caught procrastinating. It was written in simple language, as
though his father was speaking to the child he was, not the adult he would
be.

   But it offered a snapshot, all the same: a portrait of a cheerful,
self-amusing two-year-old who knew the alphabet and could count to
thirty, and who liked to "play a game"—saying words and seeing them
appear on the screen—on the old computer in Lynn-Anne's room.

   Because such things were important to his father, Christopher expected
the catalog of the hundred and one landmark achievements of
childhood—the ever-changing answers to a parent's "Do you know what
my boy can do now?" But he was surprised to hear about the soft-stuffed
gray mouse that went everywhere with him until it disappeared on a
family trip to Long Beach— and about Traveler Pup, the bow-tied hound
who succeeded Friend Mouse.

    Friend Mouse was beyond remembering. But Christopher remembered
Traveler Pup with a twinge and a tug. He could see it, worn and worried,
its bow tie gone, its golden fur gone gray with handling, lying in the basket
of toys in the corner of his room on B Street. But he could not remember
what had become of it. Surrendered without a thought during a
housecleaning, most likely, the emotion imbued in it leached away by
time.

   The letter's entries were spotty, tantalizing, maddening. Snapshots. An
imaginary friend named Birdy, who flew away in the winter and then
came back to live in a ground nest Christopher built for him beside the
house. Christopher forming letters on the white brick of the backyard
patio from twigs collected in the yard and broken to size. Even his own
words, unremembered but resonant:

   "Do you know what, Dad? It takes a long time trying to grow up. It goes
age to age, and I want to skip some ages."

  That was the one that drove him away to regroup, that threatened to
upset his precarious balance. The dirty little secret of growing up,
Meyfarth had said. And Christopher had been in such a hurry to learn it.




   Presently, he returned to the comsole and read through the last of the
letter. It ended without explanation or closure in the middle of
Christopher's sixth year, its last anecdotes—of his trials with an older and
more aggressive neighbor child—offering no clue as to why the project was
abandoned. The next item Lila presented was date-stamped a full three
years later.

  "Wait—what's going on here?" Christopher said in surprise. "Isn't there
anything between this and the last?"

  "No, Christopher. I'm proceeding in strict chronological order, as Mr.
McCutcheon directed."

   "Show me a file directory."

   "I'm sorry, Christopher. I don't have a directory available."

   Lila's mechanical politeness was becoming an annoyance. "I can take
these somewhere else, you know."

  "Yes, Christopher. But you would not be able to read the files without
my assistance."

  "Then I'll take a can opener to you first and see how you do it,"
Christopher said irritably, coming up out of the chair and then kicking it
out of his way.

   He walked to the window and stood looking out through his own
reflection, his hands tucked into his back pockets. House rules, he
thought. Still his father's house, still his father's rules.

    "All right," he said finally. "He wants you holding my hand, I guess
that's the way it has to be. Tell me this. Is there more like what I was
reading coming up? More addressed to me? If so, I want to skip ahead to
it."

   "Christopher, there are very specific restrictions on how I may access
this material. I may not look ahead, skip ahead, or redisplay already
viewed sections. I may not store, mail, or copy any part of it, or allow it to
be filmed off the display."

  He sighed and made a reluctant pilgrimage back to the chair. "Do you
have any idea why there's such a gap?"

   "I'm sorry, Christopher. I don't. Is it important?"

   "You tell me," he said. "Continue, please."

   Before long, Christopher was convinced that it was important. For, in
everything that followed, he found himself discussed in the third person,
rather than addressed in the first. It seemed that—for some reason—any
thought of him ever seeing his father's words had vanished in the interim.

   But, curiously, Christopher discovered his father spoke most clearly
when he was not speaking to Christopher directly. His father's voice
became a more familiar one, his language liberated from the prison of
childspeak. And though there were as many gaps and mysteries as before,
the thoughts he did record seemed less guarded, closer to the heart.

   I can see Sharron in his eyes and hear Deryn in his words. They are
both inside him, pulling at him to follow, his father had written just
weeks after Deryn broke her contract and left for Sanctuary. Christopher
thought he read both fury and fear in his father's words, the latter an
unexpected complexity. His father afraid. It was nearly an oxymoron, as
bewildering as burning water.

  Infuriatingly, that brief entry was the only allusion to Deryn's
departure. It was, in fact, one of the few times either woman was named,
and—to that point at least—the only time they were spoken of together.
For all their presence in the archives, it was almost as if Christopher's
mothers had never existed.

   He had waited in vain for the kind of reminiscence of Sharron that he
had sought from Lynn-Anne, for the kind of reassurance that would erase
his sister's bitterness—and his own ambivalence—from his mind. Through
the long hours leading up to midnight, he had kept wondering when
something would touch his still-untapped pain and break loose the logjam
of anger and grief he could sense but not reach.

  But before that happened, he was ambushed by a simple, self-knowing
confession:




   I have loved one cat, one woman, one child. They've all left my life, but
they haven't left my heart. And the cats and the children and the women
who hover on the edge of my world can't get in. That space is already
taken.




  The cat was Dorian, the big gray who had owned the B Street house
until the day he simply failed to return from a winter walk. The woman
could only be Sharron, for Christopher could give damning witness to the
way his father had kept Deryn at arms length.
   And though he tried desperately to find a reason to believe otherwise,
Christopher knew in the first moment the words fell under his gaze that
the child his father spoke of was Lynn-Anne.

  In that moment, hurt and alone, he hated both his father and his sister
more than he had known possible.




  This time, the kitchen was not far enough away. Christopher retreated
outside, to the wooden deck which squared off the curves of the twin
domes at the back of the house. Overhead, thin high clouds were making a
ghost of the gibbous moon.

   It was not that Lynn-Anne was first in her father's heart which cut so
deeply He granted her that as right of precedence. It was the thought that
she had won from their father something that Christopher never could,
that she had stood in the way of his having any standing at all. It was the
realization that his father had knowingly imprisoned him in a losing
game.

   There was no comfort in knowing that Lynn-Anne's jealousy had
blinded her to her real status, costing her exactly what she blamed
Christopher for stealing. There was no joy in the contemplation of how
much her defection had cost William McCutcheon. That they, too, had
been cheated only made the whole muddle more tragically foolish.

   His father had changed after Lynn-Anne left, though at the time
Christopher had not seen it. There was proof of the change even in the
spotty record of his father's notebooks. It explained the end of the long
letter. It explained the three-year silence, coinciding with the trips east,
now seen as attempts to win his aaugnter back. It explained the emotional
distance when the entries resumed.

   The picture was clear. For his first five or six years, Christopher had
been an intimate part of his father's life. But after that time he was never
more than an important part. And he had spent the succeeding years
trying to earn back something he had once had, without ever grasping
exactly what was missing—or why it had been taken away

  So much of Christopher's history with his father finally made sense. His
own eternal sense of inadequacy. The paradox of his father's studied
indifference and his obsession for control—the endless auditions for an
approval he would never give. Even his father's curious relationship with
Deryn, by his choice alone less than it could have been, an arrangement
rather than a marriage.

   Numbly, he wondered—was this the whole point of the exercise, for him
to learn that his father did not love him? If so, then it was a cowardly act,
and a cruel legacy. And there was no reason to mourn such a man.

   The high clouds were blowing off, and scattered windows of star-dotted
sky were starting to open. Christopher sat on the railing, back resting
against the wall, his arms crossed tightly across his chest, looking up into
the fragmented sky for pieces of a pattern he could recognize.

   It struck him then that his father had left him neither a gift nor a
message, but a final test. See what you can do with these, his father was
saying. He had bequeathed Christopher the task of assembling into a
picture the thoughts and moments captured in the archives, and the
harder task of drawing out the meaning. What more fitting legacy could
there be, considering his profession? Christopher had performed the same
synthesis a hundred times on the lives of strangers.

   There was something of love in the challenge, as there had always been.
Never the unconditional embrace, never the final security, but always
something of love, nonetheless. His father had tried to love him without
ever making himself vulnerable. And because his father did not trust him,
he had tried to control him.

   Was still trying. Read it all or not at all. Why? Because his father had
feared that Christopher would stop before seeing everything of
importance, would draw the wrong conclusion or be led to too harsh a
judgment. The same manipulation as always, coming from an even colder,
safer distance.

   The temptation to answer with rebellion was strong. But such a
rebellion now would be an empty, self-defeating gesture. William
McCutcheon was gone, immunized by death against Christopher's venom.
And there were seventeen volumes left.

  There has to be something more, he thought as he went back inside the
house, something meant for him. There has to be some reason for the
exercise beyond destroying the last illusions of a twenty-seven-year-old
child.




   These fissured cliffs, grading from brown to white to red, appear to
me as a great wound carved across her face, as the wrinkled features of
the crone. How could such feeble rivers cut such canyons? The wind is a
ghost, water a chimera. The element that escapes our eyes is time—time
in such measure that only the earth herself is witness.

   Who remembers these tablelands rising from a dying sea? Only Gaea.
Who recalls the march of life preserved in these canyon walls? Only those
to whom the gift has been passed, whose substance preserves the fragile
past in a precarious present. We have left our mark here as surely as
have wind and water. My heart beats in rhythm with the land. I am its
eyes, shaped from the clay and touched with the spark.




  There were dozens more like it, and a yawning, eye-weary Christopher
hardly knew what to make of them. Prayerful poetic reveries to the
experience of nature seemed hardly to belong to his picture of William
McCutcheon.

   Christopher knew that his father had treasured the privacy that the
forest estate assured him, that he had a speculator's eye for land. But these
essays went far beyond that. Embodied in them was a whole world of
thought into which Christopher had only had rare glimpses. And, though
it was not easy to accept, there was as much emotion in such passages as
there had been in his father's letter. Perhaps more.

   The only way he could make sense of them was to think of them as
coming from Jeremiah. But even that was an imperfect answer, because it
merely confirmed the fact without explaining it. The man who had
written, "These switchback mountain streams tumble through crazy
folded hills growing ever wider, ever calmer, as though milked of the
energy needed to sustain the conquering fecundity of the forest," could
have written any of Jeremiah's speeches on the price of the Diaspora.

  Indeed, there were any number of entries that read like sketches for
such a speech, echoing the metaphor of desiccation:




   In whose eyes is the butterfly more beautiful than the chrysalis, a
glittering jade jewel flecked with gold? The price of the transformation is
destruction, the transaction final and absolute. The beauty that was
vanishes, consumed as the fuel for flight and freedom. In just this way,
an unchecked hunger to expand will drain the life from the Earth,
sacrificing this jade and azure jewel for that poor prize.




  But was there a way to marry Dryke's Jeremiah to Christopher's father,
and make the two merge into a single image?

  He sat back in the chair, hands folded in his lap. "All right, Lila. I give
up. What's the secret?"

   "Excuse me, Christopher?"

  "Five down, a nine-letter word meaning 'mercy.' I want a peek at the
answers in the back of the book."

   "I know no such word."

   " 'It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes the throned monarch better
than his crown—' " His voice trailed away as his memory failed him. "Must
be the way you were raised."

   "I don't understand, Christopher."

   "You're helping him tell this joke. What's the punch line?"

   "I don't believe these records constitute a joke, Christopher."

   "Never mind," he said with a sigh. "Keep it coming."

   Fighting fatigue and frustration, Christopher stubbornly persisted in
his task as the wee hours of morning slipped by. His eyes burned and
blinked, his focus wandered. The words on the display blurred into an
extended non sequitur.




   The same world that seems crowded to some seems empty to others…
What drives them? The ignorance of men empowered by the arrogance
of gods . . . There is a bloodline of expansionism which can be traced
through history, and they are its youngest, most vigorous branch… The
return of sexual liberty will blunt the rush and restore the balance.
Repression is the engine of ambition … Hysteresis is the enemy. We are
forever responding to conditions that no longer obtain… If I can make
fear a stronger force than the fantasy of freedom…




   And finally he fell asleep in his father's chair in his father's office in his
father's house, leaving one last essay unread on the comsole display.




    They pass by the windows as ghosts in a silted fog: chi-nook, silver,
sockeye, steelhead. Their struggle seems to defy all reason. Once a
lifetime, they fight their way upstream with a single-minded fervor we
would find frightening in our own kind. They suffer the most grievous
injuries, but though they may weaken, they do not falter.

   Torn and bleeding, they attack the obstacle again and again, until one
or the other is bested. Those which survive fight on, taking no note of
those which fail—there is nothing that can be done, and still something
yet to do. The next obstacle is just ahead.

   And when they reach the quiet pools and spawn, the fire goes out. The
fight has exhausted them. The spirit has passed from them to the eggs.
Once the task is accomplished, they are content to swim in aimless
circles until they die. Never, ever, do they ask, must it end this way?
Such a question is beyond their capacity to conceive. This dimly
apprehended call rules their being.

   But I ask the question, because I have no wish to join them—or to live
in the world that they will leave behind.




                          CHAPTER 27
  —AGU—
                           "… I knew no fears…"

    In the Creation time, said a tale Deryn once told, Coyote subdued the
monster of the Columbia for the animal people. The wisest and smartest of
all animals let Nashlah swallow him and then cut out the monster's heart.

   "A new race of people are coming, and they will pass up and down the
river," Coyote told the monster. "You may shake their canoes if they pass
over you, but you must not kill all of them. This is to be the law always.
You are no longer powerful."

  Thereafter, though the wind still blew unchecked through the river's
winding gorge, Nashlah slumbered in the deep waters. And Eagle and
Beaver and Bear and Salmon came to the river without fear.

   The world had changed, and animals no longer spoke like men. But in
fulfillment of mythic prophecy, the once-wild Big River had been
thoroughly tamed by the new race of people which came to live along its
banks. The Army Corps of Engineers had finished what Coyote had begun.
The river's flagstone rapids and net-fishing falls had vanished below the
surface of the lakes which formed behind the great dams. Its currents
were now shaped by the needs of turbines and barges, rather than by
gravity and geology.

   But the salmon, Chief of the Fishes, still ran—over the concrete falls and
ladders, under the barge props and jetboat hulls, through the silted,
oft-polluted water. And when Christopher woke in the chair, stiff and
twisted, his neck and back aching, and found his father's chilling essay on
the comsole display, he knew where he had to go.

   His father had taken him to Bonneville Dam once before, a dozen years
ago, to look down into the long generator bay in the north powerhouse, to
marvel at the navigation lock slicing through the Oregon shore. They had
spent less than an hour in the visitor center on Bradford Island, and a
spare few minutes of that on the lowest level, where the fish ladder's
underwater windows and the counting room were located.

   Dimly, Christopher remembered dirty water and silver fish which all
looked alike to his eyes. But it seemed his father had seen something more.




   To someone traveling upstream from Portland, Bradford Island
appeared as a mere sliver of land, flat and forested with red and white
transmission towers. It was the sole natural barrier in the string of dams
and powerhouses spanning the two-and-a-half-kilometer width of the
river; the smaller Cascades Island had been created when a third channel
was carved out of the Washington shore.

   The Corps maintained a flight control zone over the site, so Christopher
was forced to merge the Avanti into the I-84 flyway and dive down with
the wheelies at the Bonneville exit. A few minutes later, he was climbing
out of the car in the nearly empty parking lot outside the visitor center.

  "Lila, when do they open?" he said, his DBS band relaying the query.

  "In half an hour, Christopher. Winter hours are ten a.m. to five p.m."

  He was not well disposed to waiting. "Damn."

   Even though the building was closed, the courtyards and walkways
behind it were not. The walkways paralleled the fish ladder, the surface of
which appeared as a staircase of tumbling water, passing beneath a small
bridge and curving out of sight. Leaning out over the railing, he tried to
peer down through the turbulent water into one of the cells. It was
impossible to see anything but swirling silt and a chaos of bubbles.

   His arms crossed and ungloved hands tucked in his armpits for
warmth, Christopher settled on a concrete bench and waited for the silver
flash, the white-foam splash of a sockeye or coho breaking water for an
upstream leap. But in half an hour of watching the ladder, not once was he
rewarded with that sight.

  If there was life in the churning cells of the ladder, it was hidden below.

  Finally, a stoop-shouldered brown-clad ranger appeared to unlock the
lower-level doors behind where Christopher was seated. The ranger
seemed surprised to find him waiting there.

   "Morning," he said, holding the door open as Christopher approached.
"I don't usually have company this early, 'specially not between Winterfest
and the New Year. Welcome to Bradford Island—"

  Christopher brushed wordlessly past him.

   The lower level was much as Christopher remembered. The center of
the room was filled with museum-style exhibits on the life cycle of genus
Oncorhynchus. On the wall by the fish counting room, digital displays
cataloged the traffic by species—day, month-to-date, and year-to-date.

   But the focus of the room was the Living Theater—a row of large
viewing windows which looked out into the ladder itself. Spaced across the
longest wall, each window marked a bend in the ladder's serpentine
underwater path. An electronic map of the maze appeared above, its
color-coded tracking lights marking the progress of several shad, three
steelhead trout, and one solitary chinook salmon.

   Christopher came to the railing at the window the chinook was
approaching. The water rushing by beyond the glass was a soupy
yellow-green, as though it were some bilious paniculate stew. A small
American shad, a wriggling silver submarine, fought its way around the
turn and vanished into the liquid fog. Another, darker fish squirted by, tail
fins beating furiously.

   But the solitary chinook in the ladder seemed stuck midway down the
last leg of its maze, its bright white marker edging forward and then
easing back.

  "Come on, come on," Christopher said aloud.

  "This is the slow season," a voice said behind him.

   It was the ranger, come to check on his curious visitor. Christopher
turned at the rail to see him standing beside the exhibits in the middle of
the room. "What?"

  "Chinook and steelhead pretty much quit running by the end of
November, and the king won't start up again till March, at least. That's
worth seeing. Still fill up the windows at the peak of the run, day and
night, like the river's half quicksilver. Those-uns are stragglers—not likely
to get where they're going, or to make anything of it if they do."

  Christopher settled his buttocks against the railing, hands grasping the
wood to either side. "Sounds like I'd be better off talking to you instead of
waiting for the show to begin," he said. "How long have you worked here?"

  "Twenty-two years next May."

  "That long? Then you were probably here the last time I was,"
Christopher said. "In '81."

  Nodding, the ranger said, "Probably was. Hope you picked a better day
back then."

  "I was with my father," Christopher said. "He just died a few days ago."
He could not understand why he blurted that out to this stranger. But
when it was said, there was a sudden tightness in his throat that made it
hard to swallow.

   Sage and sympathetic eyes answered him. "That's hard. I guess you'd
like me to leave you be."

  "No," Christopher said quickly, suddenly afraid to be alone. "You must
know a lot about salmon, working here that long."

   "I know my piece. Used to work the counting room over there, before
they brought in the AIP. Fifty minutes on, ten minutes off, eight hours a
day with an eye on the window and a hand on the tally bar. I can tell one
fish from the next, I guess."

  "That sounds incredibly dull."

   The ranger stepped forward, tucking his hands in his back pockets.
"People thought so, but it never seemed so to me. I put in six years as a
counter. It was kind of like being plugged into the river, to the whole cycle
of things. No two days alike."

  An impolitic chuckle escaped Christopher. "Really?"

  "Laugh, but it's true. And when I was done, I was done. Never took my
work home to my lady," he said with a self-amused smile. "Never any
complaints about the guys at the office." The ranger looked past
Christopher and nodded toward the window. "There. Looks like she might
make it this time."

   Christopher turned back just as the thick-bodied shape of a chinook
salmon, tail fins thrashing the water, hove into view at the right edge of
the window. The upper third of the body was freckled with black spots.
Below them, behind the pectoral fin, a triangular tear the size of
Christopher's palm flapped in the current, baring red flesh beneath.

   There were rips and notches in the tail fins and first dorsal as well, and
the silver skin seemed pale and flaccid. The chinook hovered for a few
seconds before the window, then was swept backward into the maze. The
tracking lights marked its retreat, and in less than a minute it flashed past
the next downstream window, its body at an odd angle, making only the
most feeble effort against the current.

   "Not much longer for that one," the ranger said, clucking. "Probably
failed at The Dalles, upstream, and been kicking around Bonneville Lake
with the spring running down. They won't feed in fresh water, you know,
no matter how weak they get. Odd thing is they'll take a fisherman's fly,
even though they're fasting, but that's as far as it goes—say, are you all
right?"

   Christopher barely heard the question and could say nothing in answer.
While the ranger rattled on and the salmon tumbled past, the tightness in
Christopher's throat had returned, quickly growing into a strangling ache
beneath his ribs. His throat was raw, and each breath hurt more than the
last. He took his air in little gasps that were chopped off with sounds like
sobs.

   Clutching the railing and struggling for air, Christopher blinked away
tears in a feeble effort to staunch them, until his cheeks were shining wet
and the anguished sobs unmistakable. He sleeved the moisture away,
infuriated that he did not know what had triggered his crying, and even
more that he could not stop it.

   But fury, like embarrassment, was a feeble weapon against the flood of
pain, and his defenses crumbled. Racking, body-wrenching sobs seized
him, and aching primal sounds tore free from prisons deep inside him. He
slipped down to a seat on the stepped floor, clinging to the railing like an
anchor with one arm, tear-blurred eyes hooded behind the wall of his
hand—one final, feeble grasp for dignity in the midst of the kind of naked
moment that shatters dignity and pretense and self-deception.

   And when Christopher sensed the ranger beside him, felt the uncertain
touch on his shoulder, and heard the kind-voiced question "You want to
tell me about it?" all he could think to say was I hurt, and that seemed too
mean and petty a thing to share.




    It was hard to escape the ranger's unwelcome solicitude, and harder
still to persuade him that he did not want to be left alone. The arrival of
other visitors, a family with two children in tow and an infant in arms,
was the first wedge, destroying the illusion of privacy and reminding the
ranger of his other duties.

   "Look, you want to come upstairs, I can let you sit in the staff
workroom awhile," said the ranger. "Seems like you need to take a little
time to pull together."

   "I'm okay," Christopher lied, his voice unpersuasively hoarse and
thready. "I just got clobbered by an old memory, that's all. My father used
to take me fishing up by The Dalles."

   The ranger frowned, teetering between resistance and acceptance.
"We've got a counselor over at the administration center," he said. "Maybe
I should give him a call."

   "No," Christopher said, pulling himself to his feet. "I'm all right. Just go
back to the desk and be your smiling self." He turned and looked up,
feigning interest in the fish tracker.

   Rudeness did what diplomacy could not. The ranger hesitated, then
finally walked off. When he disappeared into the elevator, Christopher
hurried to the stairs.

   From the plazalike observation deck atop the center, Christopher could
look down four stories into the fish ladder, as well as downstream toward
the Beacon Rock monolith and across the island to the dry, quiet spillways
of the dam. By the time he had made a slow walking circuit of the deck, he
also had a clearer view of what had spilled from him downstairs.

   His father's death had been remote and somehow sanitary, easily
denied, curiously unaffecting. Moreover, there had been no one but Lila to
talk to, no one to help him catalyze his emotions. Consequently, he had
managed to pretend that he was whole, ignoring the growing sac of
emotional pus. The sight of the blooded, failing chinook had slashed it
open, the two-edged blade of futility and finality doing the damage.

  But other questions, more important questions, remained unanswered.
His father's ruminations on the blind, all-sacrificing drive of the pioneers
were unsettling. It was clear to Christopher that his father had meant it as
more than metaphor—Jeremiah's actions were proof of that. He had seen
something out there to fight against, something tangible and threatening.

   Which made no sense to Christopher. There were some poetic parallels,
to be sure, but there were also fatal—even foolish—incongruities. There
were no dissenting chinooks barricading the mouth of Columbia, no coho
plotting to destroy the fish ladders. The salmon's migration was an
expression of their being, an uncontested conation pointed toward
survival, the sole moral barometer of evolution.

   The human Diaspora, by contrast, was the rough-and-tumble marriage
of romance and hubris, blessed by the twin gods of technology and
opportunity. Choice was the key variable—a minority's choice, it was
beginning to appear, but choice all the same. In evolutionary terms,
Memphis was merely a whim, no more essential a part of the human
pattern than the colonization of the Americas by the Asiatics or the
subsequent invasion by the Europeans. Economics and natural resources,
national and international politics, greed, glory quests, idealistic visions—
surely they were enough to explain humanity's mythical "frontier spirit."

   Conation on the one hand. Choice on the other. It was ludicrous to
think that they could be part of the same thing. And yet his father had
believed it, and his father was not a fool. His father had believed it, and
that belief had killed him.

  Christopher's questions pointed back toward the Project, and he could
only think of one person there who might be both able and willing to
answer them.
  As soon as he cleared the Bonneville flight control zone, Christopher
gunned the Avanti and pointed it skyward.

  "Lila?"

  "Yes, Christopher?"

  "Would you see if you can get through to Daniel Keith at AT-Houston?"

  "Secure or direct?"

  Christopher considered. "You still know some of your routing tricks?"

  "Yes, Christopher."

  "Secure."

   "Calls into Allied Transcon should be assumed to be monitored. A
voice-only connection should be untraceable for three minutes."

  "Do your best. Put it through."

   It took but a second for the green bar on the dash to glow. "Keith," said
a voice.

  "Daniel, this is Chris."

  An ominously long silence followed. "I don't think I can talk to you,
Chris."

  "I'll call you later, then. At home."

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I think you know."

   Christopher had been half prepared for this. "Daniel, you have to know
that whatever they're saying about me is a lie."
   "Then why did you resign?"

   "Who says I did?"

  "Chris, Loi called me last night, worried about you. She asked me if I
knew where you were."

   "Why didn't she call me?"

   "She did. You're off-net. The call just came back to the house," Keith
said.

   Christopher looked at his bare wrist dumbly. "I lost my band." Lange or
the sentries must have taken it from him, but he had no memory of that.

   "Doesn't matter. The point is, I asked a few people a few questions, as a
favor. My curiosity wasn't exactly rewarded."

   "Damn it, Daniel, corpsec murdered my father."

   Another long silence. "I can't discuss that," Keith said finally.

   It was such a surprising answer that Christopher's mental wheels
stalled as he tried to embrace it. "I need to see you."

  "I'm sorry," Keith said curtly. "I can't help. Call Loi, will you? She
deserves better."




    Calling Loi was a duty which had tugged at him more than once since
Dryke and his people had left the ridge. Something had always
intervened—most often the sobering finality of being severed from his life
in Houston, paired with the stark futility of trying to reclaim any part of
it. Thinking about Kenning House only evoked feelings of helplessness and
rootlessness. He wanted to go home too much to be able to admit to
Loi—even to himself—that he could not.

   Instead, he called Skylink Customer Service and changed his residence
pointer to the Avanti, which had a comsole almost as powerful as the one
in Houston. The next distraction was replacing his personal phone—now
that he had noted its absence, he felt naked without it.
   Lila steered him to an executive supplies retailer in one of Portland's
older mail-malls, who offered him a Brazilian-made four-channel wrist
phone at Pacific Land Management's customary generous discount.
Outside in the car, he completed the process, initializing the phone with
his account number and checking that his directory was intact. When the
confirming message came back on the bounce, his last excuse was gone.

   "Lila—Skylink is owned by Tetsu Communications?"

   "That's correct."

  "Which is a corporate sibling to Takara Construction, Allied's primary
contractor for Memphis."

  "Yes. Both are subsidiaries of Kiku Heavy Industries, Ltd., a
Tokyo-based private stock corporation."

   "How hard is it for Skylink to listen in on the traffic that they're
carrying?"

   "It is quite easy, Christopher. Mr. McCutcheon used it only as a last
resort, and always with encryption," Lila said. "If you need to send a
message, I can handle it more safely."

  "That's all right," Christopher said. "I just wondered." He touched his
phone, and the command bar glowed. "Message to Loi Lindholm. Hold to
end, then send," he said, then paused. "Begin."

   "Hello, Loi. This is Chris." His heart was racing, even though he did not
have to fear her response. "Daniel said that you were worried," he said,
speaking slowly. "I'm sorry. I— these last few days have been the hardest
days of my life. Allied's thrown me out. They think I'm a security risk. And
my father—" The tightness threatened to return, and Christopher found
other, safer words. "I'm staying at my father's for a while. I need to figure
out what to do.

  "I miss you. I wish to God I could come home." He swallowed hard.
"End of message."

   The delivery acknowledgment came back on the bounce.

   "Well, Lila—do you know anywhere I can buy a life transplant, cheap?"
  "I'm sorry, Christopher. I do not."

  He sighed and squeezed the throttle. The Avanti edged forward. "Then I
guess I'll just come on back to the house."

   For no good reason he could divine, only twice during the drive did he
think about crashing the car at full throttle into an approaching ridge.




   Curled up on the couch in front of the high-D TV, propped up by
pillows and a flask of Puerto Rican rum, Christopher let the sounds and
images wash over him.

   The TV came up with a pop station out of Los Angeles preselected. But
he made no effort to search through the channels, for he was no more
interested in one offering than another. He was escaping, and he knew
it—and it hardly mattered where he escaped to, so long as he got away.

   So a chat show on lesbian incest, with a bioethicist, a Catholic Reform
priest, and the national director of Family Love dueling at close quarters,
was as good a diversion—no better, no worse— as the seven thousandth
rerun of a medical comedy. He remained a passive observer of both,
asking no questions and voicing no opinions during the former, declining
his part as a heavily bandaged patient in the latter.

   He was feeling a bit more participatory during a half-hour pitch for the
Because You're a Woman diet, drawing gargoyle faces on the men and
undrawing the clothing of the women. Even the insanity of Denali Devil's
Downhill amused him, at least until a grinning Irish skier missed a gate at
the seventeen-thousand-foot level and fell off the mountain at what the
announcer straight-facedly called a "high terminal velocity."

   Emboldened by liquor and pity, Christopher risked a glimpse at
Current Events, morbidly curious about what they were saying now about
him, about Malena Graham, about Jeremiah. He was almost disappointed
to find that Current Events wasn't saying anything at all—not so many as
five of the nine hundred stories in the Current Events stack had anything
to do with the Diaspora.

  Displacing them was a juicy drama—the collapse, just after midnight,
of a centuries-old room and pillar salt mine a thousand feet under the
trendy Melvindale section of Detroit. Sixteen square blocks had subsided
ten meters in a jolt, dropping short-stack condos into their own
basements and folding a crowded spin club flat.

   One hundred sixty-three were known dead, and at least six hundred
were missing, including the Detroit city manager, a noted poet, and three
members of the Detroit Pistons basketball team. What's more, officials
feared that the collapse had burst thousands of containers of colloidized
hazardous waste stored in the mine in the 1990s. The Archbishop of
Detroit, with wages-of-sin solemnity, called it God's warning to Sodom.

   Death in the night, earthquakelike devastation, holiday-season tragedy,
toxic poisons, missing celebrities, government neglect, holy vengeance—it
was a news executive's wet dream. Christopher watched the coverage with
a rum-flavored bemusement, finding black humor in the absurdities of the
event, the stupidities of the reporters.

   Christopher's mood had turned increasingly savage, cynical. It was
already unpleasant sharing his mind with such thoughts, and promised to
grow uglier still. He needed an escape from his escape. When it finally
came, it was from a most unexpected source.

   "Christopher, are you awake?" Lila asked. On the TV, dancers writhed
to a backbeat.

  "Sorry to say."

  "Daniel Keith is calling."

  He looked dumbly at his band. "My phone didn't ring."

  "It's a station call to the house, Christopher. Shall I put it up for you?"

   Christopher uncrossed his legs and pulled himself closer to vertical.
"Sure."

  Keith's face came up in a box on the TV. "Hello, Chris."

   "Hello yourself." He shook his head, mostly to clear it. "Surprise,
surprise. After this morning—"
   "Yeah. I didn't want to be that short. But I couldn't talk. I couldn't even
tell you that I couldn't. Not till I could get out of the complex."

   "You home now?"

   "No. Look, Chris, the hair on my neck is standing up just being on the
line with you. There's been a lot of talk around here the last day or two,
very strange stuff, none of it official. I didn't know how much of it to
believe. I guess you told me. Your father was Jeremiah?"

   "So I'm supposed to believe. I swear I didn't know."

   Keith nodded. "I might be the only one in the center who'd believe
that," he said slowly.

   "I need some answers, Daniel."

   "You want some wisdom? Don't ask the questions."

   "My father left notes that have me confused. I have to know if what he
believed was true."

  "Why?" It was a cautionary, challenging question. Why do you have to
know? Are you sure you want to know?

   "So I can let go of it. So it'll let go of me. Will you meet me somewhere?"

  Keith frowned and looked away momentarily. "Are you coming back to
Houston?"

   "I can't," Christopher said. "Meet me in Portland. No, better, San
Francisco."

  "I've got no reason to come west. And I need a reason. A good reason.
There's a limit to how much of a friend I can be to you now. I'm sorry.
That's just the fact."

   "I know. Where, then?"

   Keith was silent for a time. "I think I'm going to go up to Chicago and
visit my parents when we finally get cleared to leave. Nobody around
here's gotten their winter holiday yet."
  "When?"

  "Not tomorrow. Probably not till Friday."

  "I'll be there Friday. Call me."

  "I don't know," Keith said, shaking his head.

  "Please, Daniel. An hour. Half an hour."

  "Why do you think I can help?" He almost sounded angry.

  "I went out to watch the salmon at Bonneville Dam this morning."

  "Oh? Were they helping each other?"

  "I need to know why it's happening. I need to know why we're doing
what we're doing."

  Keith looked cross, distracted.

  "Will you talk to me?"

  "I don't know," Keith said. His tone hardened the words to a no.

  Christopher chose to ignore the subtext. "Friday in Chicago. I'll call
you."

   "No," said Keith, shaking his head. "Don't. Maybe I'll call you. I have to
think about it. Let's leave it at that."

    There was nothing to be gained by pushing him. "All right. We'll leave
it at that."

   "Thank you." Eyes lowered, Keith looked as though he were unhappy
with himself. "I don't know why I called you this time."

  "I'm glad you did."

  "Sure. Chris—"

  "Still here."
  Keith did not look up. "If you've got nothing better to do, you might ask
DIANNA about von Neumann machines."

  He signed off before Christopher could reply.




                          CHAPTER 28
  —GCC—
                       "Sweet promises were made.”

   After months of working on and with the Memphis hyper, it was hard
to go back to DIANNA. The sluggish query engine, the restricted
cross-citations, the lack of original source texts were all painfully obvious
to Christopher. But he was reluctant to use his father's specialty accounts,
and besides, Keith had pointed him specifically in that direction.

   The name of Johann von Neumann was one with which Christopher
had at least a passing acquaintance. In fact, it was hard to pass through
any sort of technical education and not brush up against the Hungarian
savant at one or more points.

   In quantum theory, there was Neumann algebra with its critical
analytical tools—rings of operators and continuous geometry. In
economics, political science, and military strategy, von Neumann's game
theory and minimax theorem still held center stage. In theoretical
mathematics, there was the von Neumann who solved Hilbert's fifth
problem and offered a persuasive proof of the ergodic hypothesis.

   In computer science, von Neumann was there at the stone knives and
bearskins beginning, introducing stored programs and advancing logical
design in the ENIAC era. In meteorology, he anticipated the greenhouse
effect in his studies of planetary heat balance. And in the history of
technology, there was "Johnny" of the Manhattan Project, designing
implosion lenses and solving hydrodynamic problems for Fat Man, the
first plutonium bomb.

   But the lead which Keith had given Christopher pointed in a different
direction, to a comparatively unheralded collection of papers published a
decade after von Neumann's death. Theory of Self-reproducing Automata
was a speculation on a daunting engineering challenge—the design and
construction of a "universal constructor."

   Von Neumann envisioned the universal constructor as an advanced
cybernetic device capable of making any sort of artifact, including a copy
of itself, from the specifications programmed within it and the raw
materials found without. The pattern of cross-citations showed his
influence on his contemporaries.

   But the citations which interested Christopher were not from von
Neumann's century, but from Christopher's own. Fifty years ago, as the
elements which would lead to the construction of Tigris were starting to
reach critical mass, a weak countermovement arose.

   The amorphous opposition had no coordinating focus, no political
center, no activist arm. All it had was a unifying argument—presented
philosophically by some advocates, pragmatically by others. The first
starships should be von Neumann machines, they argued. A crewed
starship was too expensive, too complex, too premature, too risky. Send
machines first— ship-sized robot probes which would pave the way for
starships to follow, or even take their place entirely.

   Some called for a few complex "prospector" probes, which could collect
and relay information which could shape later decisions. Others wanted
many expendable "pathfinder" probes, which could gauge the dangers of
such a journey. The most ambitious proposed "caretaker" probes, which
could oversee the terraforming of one planet while dispatching their
clones to do the same for other worlds.

  The proposals varied, but the message was the same: Let machines be
our eyes, our hands. Let them go in our stead.

   Christopher saw that there had never been any real chance that the
machines-first movement would carry the day. Human ambitions must be
satisfied in human time frames, and none of those on the point were
willing to step aside in favor of a machine or an heir. But, just as clearly,
contained within this largely forgotten debate was the intellectual genesis
of the Homeworld movement. It was their Federalist, their Das Kapital.
The seeds of revolution.

  There was a time Christopher would have welcomed the discovery. But
now it was the answer to the wrong question. I need to know why we're
doing what we're doing. Daniel must have misunderstood or been
deliberately obtuse. It was not the answer he needed. In fact, it didn't
seem to be about the same thing at all.




   At dusk Friday, they met on the Burnham Park levee, near the
children's playground at Thirty-third Street. Between the restless waves of
Lake Michigan, the howling Chicago wind, and the screamers climbing
out of Meigs Island just to the north, they had all the privacy they could
ask for.

   "Are you here to talk me out of something, or are you ready to help
me?" Christopher asked as they started off at a slow walk along the top of
the concrete barrier, known locally as the Great Wall. With global
warming, Lake Michigan had risen almost a meter in the last century,
swallowing the city's beaches and forcing construction of dikes all along
the waterfront.

  "Did you take my suggestion?"

  "It wasn't enough."

  Keith sighed, pushing his hands deeper into his coat pockets. "What do
you want to know?"

  "What are you really selecting for?" It came out in a half-shout as a
commuter screamer passed overhead with a roar.

   Shaking his head, Keith said, "We're not doing the selecting. Not
really."

  "Who is?"

   They covered another thirty meters before Keith spoke. "There are a
hundred thousand genes in a mammalian cell," he said. "A hundred
thousand genes, and enough unexpressed DNA between them for a
hundred thousand more. Full of fragments, copies, oncogenes, nonsense
sequences that code for no known proteins, programs for traits which
haven't been needed in ten million years. It's where tails on babies and
hind legs on whales come from. A chemical library that rivals the hyper.
Not a bad analogy. The hyper is everything we know. The DNA is
everything we are."

  "Not everything."

   "Everything. Why is one man addicted to alcohol and another never
tempted by it? Look in his cells. It's all there. All our weaknesses. All our
predispositions. Biology is destiny, Christopher. Clinical depression?
Homosexuality? Look in the cells. Genius? Madness? They're there, too. An
athlete's muscles, a musician's ears, the poet's heart—just different little
bits of clockwork chemistry. Love? A neurochemical cycle—runs about six
and a half years. Ever hear of the seven-year itch?"

   "I can't argue physiology with you," Christopher said. "But we're
learning from the first day we're alive. That's part of what we are, too."

  "Sure. But mostly we're learning how to get what we want. You asked
why we do what we do. I would have thought that was obvious. The
meaning of life is to make new life. Nothing more. We just never
understood the scale on which the drama was being played."

  "What do you mean?" Christopher asked, grabbing at Keith's elbow.

   Keith stopped and turned to face him. "You look at recent history and
ask how we could do so many things that are anti-survival. Ocean
pollution. Resource depletion. Ozone destruction. It isn't just that we
didn't know. We kept right on after we did know. Because none of that
matters. None of it. In the last hundred meters you give it everything.
Because in this race, if you hold back, you die."

  "Are you answering the question I asked?"

  "You still don't see it?"

  "No."

   Keith turned away and resumed walking, and Christopher hurried to
keep up with him. "The Creator has a master plan, Christopher. And we've
been following it for four billion years. It carried Eusthenopteron onto the
land and Deinonychus into the air. It's why whales beach themselves and
cats climb trees. Do you want to know who God is, Christopher? God is
two hundred and seventy-one codons on the twenty-first chromosome of
the Chosen."
  "In the Church of Sociobiology, maybe. I'm not a believer."

  Nodding, Keith said, "That's fine. But it's a funny thing about Nature.
She doesn't give a high hoot what we believe. Everything goes on just the
same."

  "Biology is destiny."

  "And purpose."

  "What happened to free will? What about our choice? Doesn't it count?
Doesn't it exist?"

   Keith stopped and gazed at Christopher, his head cocked at an angle.
"Choice is noise on a picture with this scale," he said. "I'll gladly trade
choice for destiny and purpose. Don't you understand, Christopher? We
are the von Neumann machines."




   Later, as they shared a bench and a bottle of Canadian wine outside the
shuttered Field Museum of Natural History—the irony of that was not lost
on Christopher—Keith explained himself in less metaphysical terms.

    "Whatever it was in the beginning, we're now talking about a
three-gene complex. Pieces or variants of it have been found in thirty-one
species, all but three of them chordates. There's every reason to think that
it's found its highest, purest expression in us. I think of H. sap. as the
trustee of the Chi Sequence.

   "The name doesn't mean anything, really. That's what it was called
when it was a very minor mystery in comparative biochemistry. But you
won't find anything about it in Medbase or the NIH Index. They've been
sanitized—papers withdrawn, copyrights and biopatents bought.

   "Three genes, A-B-C. Three messages. Direction—the where.
Motivation—the why. And the activator, the little thirty-three codon
sequence that says, 'Go-go-go.' "

   His initial objections having been beaten down into silence, if not
surrender, Christopher had listened with the kind of stunned amazement
seen on the faces of young children after their first magic show. It was not
his credulity which was being tested, but the agility of his mind. He was
being shown marvels, and they had power and poetry even if he did not
believe they were real.

   "It's funny what happens when you only get one Chi gene expressed,"
Keith was saying. "All the people through history who felt the call of the
night sky. All the fanciful invention of heavens and wheels within wheels.
They were pointed in the right direction, but never understood why.

  "And the way life here has spread into every possible nook and crevice,
obeying the second part of the code. B for babies. B for be fecund. Go forth
and multiply. Fill the world with your progeny.

   "And the activator, the trickiest of all, the one that flips the ambition
switch to high. A-positives have to find their own directions, their own
reasons. But the restlessness that sends them looking comes from inside.
Hillary had it. Thor Heyerdahl. Earhart. You don't need a microscope to
make a list. But if we had a sample of their DNA, we'd find it, right there
on the twenty-first chromosome. I don't doubt it for a minute."

  "So the Chosen really do exist," Christopher said.

   "Not the way you mean it. Three genes gives eight permutations, not
even considering mutations and unexpressed recessives. Nothing is ever as
simple as a geneticist says it is," Keith said, showing a smile. "But the
triple actives—the pure Chi-positives—they're the core of the Diaspora."

  "And the Chi-negatives? Are they the core of Homeworld?"

   "Who knows?" Keith said, interrupting his answer for a swig from the
bottle. "Homeworlders don't tend to present themselves at the lab for
testing. But if I were going to guess, I'd say that they're mostly
B-positives—they're the most hidebound, the most sessile."

   "That makes it sound like the different combinations have recognizable
personalities."

  "Not officially," Keith said. "But of course they do. A gene that's not
expressed in structure or behavior wouldn't be important. I've processed
more than two thousand applicants. I can call them eight times out of ten.
These aren't just genotypes. They're human archetypes. It's affected how I
deal with people, actually. When I meet someone for the first time, all I see
is their Chi attribute."

   "What is it you see?"

   "I told you part of it already," Keith said. "Think of the A gene as
ambition, the B as the breeding instinct, and C as the Call, and you can
just about figure them out yourself."

  "A-positives are adventurers," Christopher said slowly. "B-positives are
nestmakers. C-positives—what, hear voices?"

   "More or less. I call them the dreamers. Pure faith, pure reason, pure
art. Priests, physicists, and philosophers."

   "Do the traits combine?"

   "Of course. And there's more variation in the combinations. BCs are the
good citizens—workers and soldiers. The Call expresses itself as duty,
allegiance. But put ambition and the Call together and you get a
Creator—an artist or an inventor."

   "Loi. She'd be an AC-positive, then?"

   "Probably."

   "And Jessie a nestmaker. What else is there?"

  "Everyone's favorite—the AB-positives. Ambition and nest-making
builds kings and tycoons."

   "And the pure Chi-positives? "

   Another swallow. "Statesmen, saints, and avatars. And there are
precious few of them."

  Christopher counted. "Seven. One more. You didn't answer before.
Who are the Chi-negatives?"

   "Can't you figure it out?" Keith asked, coughing. "Why do you think
there are so many meaningless lives? They're the people whose bodies give
them no direction, no purpose. They don't burn. They don't want. They
just are—instant to instant, day to day, like some cruel joke of nature. The
hollow-chested Tin Men. The empty people. The damned."
   The bottle was empty, and the sky overhead winter-black. They walked
back in silence toward where the Avanti was parked, Christopher
withdrawn, trying to absorb—or was it resist?—what he had heard. Keith's
steps and spirit seemed lighter, the difficult obligation discharged without
disaster.

   "I don't know what to think," Christopher said when they finally
reached the car.

   "Believe what you want," Keith said. "It doesn't matter."

   "Doesn't it? How many Chi-positives are going on Memphis!"

   "I have no idea."

   "Ten thousand?"

   "Oh, no," Keith said, shaking his head vigorously. "Even if we could find
that many. Chi-positives are difficult. It's just the way they are. They're the
glue—but did you ever try building something from glue alone? Memphis
has no use for kings and adventurers. Ur is in trouble because we sent her
off with too many kings aboard—we didn't understand yet what the rules
were. And the nestmakers and dreamers have no use for us."

   "So who are you taking?"

   Keith settled back against the fender. "Memphis needs a core of stable,
loyal, dedicated people who know their place in the plan. It needs a
leavening of creative types to keep the vision alive and deal with the
unexpected. And it needs wise, unselfish leadership."

   "BCs, ACs, and Chi-positives."

   "I told you you'd catch on."

   "But when Memphis gets where it's going, then you'll need the
others—the kings and adventurers and the rest—to build nests and
empires on the new world."

   "Right. So they're making the trip in steerage, where they won't be any
trouble."

  It took Christopher a moment to understand his meaning. "The gamete
banks—that's what the gamete banks are for."

   Keith made an imaginary mark in the air with his finger. "One point
for the contestant from Oregon."

   "So how many Chi-positives? Five thousand? Five hundred? Fifty? How
rare are they?"

  "I told you, I don't know," Keith said. "They're about four percent of the
applicant pool. But that's a self-selected sample. Why does it matter?"

  "Because of what Jeremiah said. What happens when they're gone,
Daniel? Are you stealing the spark?"

   A surprised laugh was Keith's first response. "And John Gait said that
he would stop the motor of the world," he said. "Our poor little ten
thousand, Christopher? We won't even notice they're gone."

   "You just finished telling me how special they are. The pinnacle of
evolution."

   Impatience flashed across Keith's face. "How about a little perspective?
There've been at least fifty natural disasters and a hundred wars in the
Christian era alone that killed a hundred thousand or more. There was a
flood in China in 1931 that wiped out almost four million. The Second
World War killed forty million."

   "But who were they, Daniel?" he demanded, stepping closer. "Drones
and breeders? The faithful and patriotic? How many of them had a chance
to shape the world? How many of them even had a chance to shape their
own lives? And even so, do you really think it doesn't cost us anything
when a whole race, a whole generation, is exterminated?"

    Keith held his hands palm-out in supplication. "It's only ten thousand.
Not a race. Not a generation. Do you know how long it takes the world
population to replace ten thousand people? An hour. Forty-nine minutes,
if you want to split hairs."

  "You said it yourself. They're self-selected. The manifest for Memphis is
made up of ten thousand of the best educated, most talented, most highly
motivated people we've produced. If this is where it's all been pointing,
how can it not make a difference? You can't have it both ways. The birds
are still here, but the rest of the dinosaurs are gone. Sometimes the torch
passes."

  "That's fear-talk," Keith said, straightening from his casual pose. "I
expected better from you."

   "Really? Is that why you brought the gun?" Christopher's hand closed
around the neck of the bottle in a fighting grip. "And please, don't insult
my intelligence. I saw it when you paid for the wine. How close did I come
to being dumped into the lake?"

   With a slow, deliberate motion, Keith reached into an inner pocket and
retrieved the contoured shape of a shockbox, which he laid on the roof of
the car. "I wouldn't come down here at night without something. It had
nothing to do with you."

  "I'd like to believe that, Daniel, except I don't know what you're up to. I
can't figure out why you told me what you did tonight."

  "I told you the truth. Everything you asked."

  "I know. You told me things I'd have been months finding out."

  Keith shook his head. "You'd never have found them. There isn't even
anything in the hyper."

   "You're not helping your case. Nobody tells this kind of secret as a
favor. We've been friends, but not that good of friends. What do you gain?
Or are you supposed to kill me now?"

  "No." Keith took a sideways step away from the car and the gun.

   "Then tell me what's going on, goddammit," Christopher said, looking
around nervously. "I'm getting very jumpy out here. Why did you tell
me?"

  "Because you're Jeremiah's son. But you're also Chris. I took a chance
because I thought you would listen."
  "What?"

    "I wanted you to know you don't have to be afraid of us. I want you to
let us be. Don't try to stop Memphis, Chris. Please."

   Christopher stared. "Son of a bitch," he said under his breath. "Son of a
bitch. My father was afraid I wasn't enough like him. And now you're
afraid I'm too much like him."

  "I don't know what to think, Chris. I really don't."

   Shaking his head, Christopher dropped the bottle where he stood and
made for the door of the Avanti. "I'm leaving," he muttered. When he
reached the car, he knocked the gun to the ground with a careless, angry
swipe of his hand, then pulled the door upward.

  "Chris—"

  He settled in the seat before looking back. "What?"

  "I can't be sorry about Jeremiah. But I'm sorry about your father."

  Christopher looked at Keith with blazing eyes. "My father was a king."
He said it pridefully, with a hint of a challenge.

  "Yes. I think he was."

   Nodding as though satisfied with the concession, Christopher brought
the car to life, the door still open. Then he seemed to take a deep breath,
taking the control wheel in both hands as though he needed it for support.
He looked over his shoulder out at Keith. "What am I, Daniel?"

  Keith came a step closer. "I was expecting you to ask that a long time
ago—and you're not going to like my answer. The truth is I know you too
well to see you that simply. I can see all eight attributes in you—including
Chi-negative."

  "Then how do I find out?"

  "You can't," he said, shaking his head.

  "Doesn't the company know?"
  "No," Keith said. "That's one of the questions that got me in trouble.
You were an employee. You were never sampled. And there isn't a lab
anywhere outside Allied that knows what to look for."

   "You knew I'd have to know."

   "I was hoping you wouldn't need to be told."

   "Why?"

    "Can't you feel it? Didn't you say, 'Yeah, that's me,' at some point in the
list?"

   "Sure. Three times."

  Keith frowned. "Then the key is your mother. Maybe you can figure it
out from there."

  "Maybe," Christopher said, little hope in his voice or his eyes. He sighed
and jerked his head toward the empty seat beside him. "Can I drop you
somewhere?"




   The invitation was an apology and a peace offering, and Keith's
acceptance the signing of a truce. But they had little more to say to each
other. From the time they lifted off to the time Keith climbed out in the
driveway of his parents' Stone Park home, only once was the silence
broken.

   "One more question?" Christopher asked as they bore across the Loop.

   Looking out the side glass at the Daley Tower, Keith gave a slight nod.

   "Were you ever sampled?"

  "BC-positive," Keith said. "Hardworking and loyal to a fault." He turned
back and showed a wan smile. "Most of the time, anyway."

   "But they didn't take you."

   "My choice."
  "What's that mean?"

  "I'm putting in my turn at the wheel," Keith said. "There are a lot of us
doing it. I've been promised a place on Knossos."




   It was midmorning when Christopher reached the house on the ridge.
After stowing the Avanti in the garage, he stopped in the bathroom to
splash his face and in the kitchen to start coffee. While the coffee was
brewing, he collected the Portables from his father's bedroom and carried
them into the den. He stacked them in three columns on the end of the
comsole before settling, cup in hand, in the chair.

  "You there, Lila?"

  "Ready, Christopher."

  "Any mail? Any messages?"

  "No. There are no new messages."

  "What about for my father?"

  "I am handling Mr. McCutcheon's correspondence."

  "Still pretending he's not dead?"

  "I am doing what he asked me to."

  "I don't suppose you'd care to let me see what it is."

  "I'm sorry, Christopher. I can't do that."

  "Have you heard from my father?"

  "No. Your father is dead."

  "Does anyone besides us know that?"

  "No."

  "You haven't told anyone while playing secretary for him?"
  "I am conducting your father's business according to his instructions."

  "Doesn't matter. I'll bet the only people you told knew him as Jeremiah.
And Jeremiah's not allowed to die, is he? Who's the new Jeremiah, Lila?"

  "I can't answer that, Christopher."

  "Right." He sipped at his caramel-colored coffee, still steaming. "Do you
know anything about a will?"

  "A will is registered with the Oregon State Probate Court. Since no
death certificate has been filed, the will has not been presented."

  "Who's the executor?"

  "You are, Christopher."

   It was only technically a surprise. "I guess I know better than to think
he'd ask me. Was he planning to ever tell me?"

  "It's not required by Oregon law, since an executor may refuse the
appointment."

  "Know anything about what the will says?"

   "No. The only knowledge I have of it comes from checking the court
registry."

  "It doesn't matter," said Christopher. "That's how he was going to get
me back here, wasn't it? That's why he left the archives."

  "They were for you to read after his death."

   "So you said. Well"—he patted the top of the nearest stack— "I'm ready
to see the rest of them."

  "I'm sorry, Christopher. I don't understand."

  "I want you to show me anything and everything about my mother that
you have in your files or can find anywhere, including these archives."

  "Checking. Your mother is Deryn Glenys Falconer?"
   "Sharron," he said impatiently. "I'm talking about Sharron. My father's
wife."

  "Checking. Full name is Sharron Ria McCutcheon, nee Aldritch?"

   He stared at the display in surprise. "You had to check that? He didn't
think it was important enough to restore?"

  "I do not know what information was not restored, Christopher, nor
why it was not included."

  "Are you saying you don't have anything about Sharron?"

   "I'm compiling biographical information from several sources. I'll have
a report for you in the next thirty seconds."

  "I don't want anything from outside. I want to know how he saw her. I
want to see her myself. Where are the family albums? Didn't he keep
anything of hers?"

  "Not in my records, Christopher."

  Seizing the nearest Portable, Christopher pulled open the drawer and
pushed the book into the empty data port. "What about there?"

  "This volume is Wild Animals of North America, published by the
National Geographic Society. It contains no archives."

  "What?" Quickly, Christopher swapped another book into its place.
"What about that one?"

  "This volume is Ptolemy's Daughter: The Art of Sabra Adams, by—"

  "I can read the goddamned titles."

  "It contains no archives."

  "What's going on here, Lila? These are the same books I read from on
Tuesday, aren't they?"

  "Yes, Christopher. Those files were erased as you read them, on Mr.
McCutcheon's instructions. I find no other files."
  "Son of a bitch," he breathed. "Why didn't you tell me? If I'd known I
was only going to have one chance to read them—" He stopped, seeing the
answer to his own question.

   —I'd have photographed the screen, or transcribed the entries, or
read them into a recorder. And then I could have shared them with
anyone. For your eyes only. This tape will self-destruct in ten seconds.

  "You did tell me."

  "Yes, Christopher."

  "No other files marked for access by me, or no files at all?"

  "I find no files at all."

   I can see Sharron in his eyes and hear Deryn in his words. They are
both inside him, pulling at him to follow. Follow where? They had both
found a way to leave him, but by very different ways to very different
destinations.

  They are both inside him—

   You never wanted me to know who I am. You closed all doors but one,
barred all paths but the one that would lead me back here. You tried to
draw my eyes from her by shining more brightly. What is it you didn't
want me to see? You knew, you bastard, you knew all the time. Did you
want me to like you, or just to be like you?

  "What's the magic word?" he asked suddenly.

  "Excuse me?"

   "What is it I have to say to earn the prize? He wanted me to take his
place. The will gives me the castle. I know it does. You have to give me the
crown. I'm the one he picked, right? He'd rather have given it to me than
anyone, if only I could pass the test."

  "I can't answer that, Christopher."

  "But you know, don't you? You know."

  "I can't answer that, Christopher."
  "You wouldn't lie to me, would you? Silly question," Christopher said.
"Of course you would, if he told you to. I should take you down and clean
you out so you're working for me. Except someday a call'd come in and
we'd be right back where we are now. Son of a bitch."

  "Mr. McCutcheon is the primary user."

  "Mr. McCutcheon is dead, you crystal moron."

  "I know that, Christopher."

  "Miracle! She knows something. How about something useful? Tell me
about the Chi Sequence."

  "Checking. No information."

  "Did my father love me?"

  "No information."

  "Where's my father's body?"

  "No information."

  "Who is Jeremiah?"

  "I can't answer that, Christopher."

  "How did my mother die?"

  "No information."

   With a wild swipe of his arm, Christopher sent the neatly stacked books
cascading onto the carpeted floor. "Then you're not much goddamn use to
me, are you, Lila?" he said, coming to his feet. "Between what you can't tell
me and what you won't tell me, not much goddamned use at all."




   The decision was made in that moment, but the arrangements took
more than a week to complete, with another week's waiting tacked on
after that. The delay gave Christopher a chance to measure his motives
and consider his choice. No better options presented themselves, even if
some doubts did.

   He used the time well. Not knowing when he might be back, he
revisited his favorite spots in the Northwest—postcard-beautiful Boiler
Bay, where basalt cliffs and chaotic Pacific waves created a dramatic
tapestry; Bridal Veil Falls, one of the hidden treasures of the Gorge, which
he had discovered in the company of an adolescent love; the winding
climb up to the high lodge on fog-wrapped, snow-cloaked Mount Rainier.

   While he was in the house, there were issues to research, logistical and
technical problems to resolve, and still a few doors to knock on. He allowed
Lila to present what she could gather about Sharron from public sources;
he called his mother's brother and father and tried to break through the
wall of resentment; he took several of the Portables to a hack shop in
Seattle to be cracked and copied.

   None of his efforts yielded more than a few drams of insight, but, oddly,
every failure only made what he was about to do seem more right and
reasonable.

   There were also financial matters to settle. A final Allied paycheck
appeared in his account, as Dryke had said it would. Christopher
transferred the full amount to the Kenning House account, as much an
attempt to preserve his place there as a reaction against the source of the
funds. And paying for his ticket and poundage on the Horizon shuttle from
Los Angeles proved a challenge. His credit lines had shrunk when his
resignation was posted, forcing him to juggle advances and accounts to
cover the fare.

   Paying for his seat was only slightly harder than booking it; the shuttles
were inexplicably full in what should have been the post-holiday lull. The
alternate route, through Technica, was no better. He even checked flights
from Hawaii and Florida. Except for premium fares, which Christopher
could not afford, every North American commercial shuttle was sold out
through the end of January. He ended up booking for February 6, almost a
month away, though he also bought a place on the six-hour standby list.

  The extra expense proved worthwhile. In midmonth, just as the waiting
was starting to wear on him, the notification call came through. There had
been a cancellation for the 10 p.m. flight to Horizon—could he be there?
  "I'll be there."

   He had rehearsed the ritual often enough in his head that he was able
to move quickly. In but a few minutes, his bag was packed with his clothes
and the very few objects he wanted from the house. He loaded the bag in
the Avanti, which he then moved safely away from the house. Disabling
the alarms and extinguishers took a little longer, but he had already
scouted the systems and acquired the necessary tools.

   By that time, Lila's curiosity had been aroused. But the next step was to
shut off all power to the house, which squelched her questions. Only then
did he bring out the two ten-liter tins of accelerant. Changing into some of
his father's clothes, he splashed every room, with special attention to the
spaces he had occupied. He wanted it to burn hot and fast, leaving only
ashes and enough mystery to prompt an investigation.

   There were risks, but the only risk-free course was surrender. If his
father's body wasn't found, if the investigation focused on arson rather
than William McCutcheon's disappearance, if Allied and Mikhail Dryke
chose to silence Christopher rather than intervene—if, if, if. There were a
hundred things that could go wrong. But he could not leave his life or his
father's death in limbo. There was something he had to prove—to the
homunculus of William McCutcheon that lived inside his head, to Mikhail
Dryke, and to himself.

   Only when it was time to strike the spark did he hesitate. Standing on
the front step before the open door, back in his own clothes and holding
the lighter and the bundle of chemical-spattered clothing in his hands, he
found his heart racing, his lungs aching as though he had just run up the
ridge road from the gate. Do I have the right to do this? jostled with Can I
see this through? for first place in his insecurities.

  The revelation of two weeks ago was slipping away. He had to make
himself say it out loud to break the paralysis that had seized him.

  "I don't ever want to come back here."

   Flame touched cloth, which flared happily into life. Christopher quickly
tossed the bundle through the doorway, turning his back and retreating
across the lawn. As he climbed into the Avanti, he stole a peek back, and
was rewarded by a flickering orange glow playing behind the first-story
windows of the far dome.
   Christopher circled the house at treetop level until the second-story
windows exploded outward in billows of gray smoke and gouts of
yellow-red fire. Then he turned away, banking toward Portland, refusing
to look back. He kept the Avanti on the deck to keep its movements off the
air traffic monitors, settling into the I-26 surface traffic as he approached
Banks. It was hard to hold his speed down when what he wanted to do was
run.

    The last detail was the Avanti, which he knew he could not keep. He left
it at the curb on Killingsworth Street, four klicks from the city's transplex,
with the passenger door unlocked and the travel log's memory wiped. The
flyer was baggage at this point, and he did not care if it was stolen,
stripped or impounded.

   Keeping his pace brisk and his thoughts disciplined, Christopher hiked
to the transplex and the tube station. He was invigorated by the freedom
that came with action, by the peace that came with purpose. The police
might soon be searching for him, Dryke could soon be hunting him, but he
did not care. In a few short hours he would be beyond their reach, for
Horizon was not his final destination. This journey would not end until he
reached Deryn's arms and Sanctuary.




                           CHAPTER 29
  —UGA—
                           "These ships are frail"

  Prainha had become a prison for Mikhail Dryke.

   In the moment he fired the first bullet into Jeremiah's body, he had
understood that Sasaki would not approve. He had recognized that, by
passing on the opportunity to simply collect Jeremiah, he was crossing a
significant line. He had known that the decision would look different in
Prainha than it had in the underground room.

   And though Sasaki had said not one word in reproach, her actions
argued loudly enough that Dryke had been right. It began with Sasaki's
explicit order that Christopher McCutcheon be left free and alive. She had
never interfered with Dryke in that way before, and he read the message
clearly: I can't undo what you've done, but I will not permit you to repeat
the mistake.

   "We can't kill all our enemies, Mikhail. I do not consider the son a risk,"
she had said. "Separate him from us and leave him there." She neither
invited nor accepted Dryke's counsel on the decision.

   Another clue: In the two weeks since the event, no official
announcement of Jeremiah's death had been made, even within the
Project. The committee and senior security staff knew, and the Houston
center was rife with apparently unsquelchable rumors. Marshall had
offered token congratulations; Matt Reid had gratefully welcomed the
news. But that was the extent of it.

   Even more telling, it seemed as though he was being insulated from the
real work of his own department. Part of it was his own doing—there was
no place for him in the everyday operation of Corporate Security unless he
shouldered aside one of his own handpicked lieutenants.

   But Sasaki seemed determined to keep him from his accustomed role
as fire fighter, as well. She had placed the entire First Directorate under
travel restrictions, meaning that he needed her explicit permission to
leave Prainha. And there was always some new reason why he couldn't
leave. He spent his days chasing down problems which were beneath him
and sitting through meetings to which he had nothing to contribute. He
understood that, too. She wanted him in sight at all times, on his invisible
leash.

   The maddening part was that there were problems that cried out for
his attention.

   Item: In the street outside the twenty-six-story building housing the
Tokyo training and processing center, the carnival of militant
demonstrations continued its daily run. The strategy of the mostly
youthful protesters consisted of blocking the street and baiting Tokyo
police, Corporate Security, and—in absentia, since they had largely ceded
the battlefield—the starheads. The police and security had shown
restraint, even in the face of taunts punctuated by hurled bags of
excrement.

   The starheads, however, had not. There had been fly by shootings, gas
grenades lobbed from blocks away, kamikaze drivers. Just three days ago,
a small group of starheads had slipped into the fifteen-story tower facing
the Allied building, taken over the roof, and rained thousands of
marble-sized steel bearings down on the throng. In a particularly vicious
twist, the starheads had begun shouting amplified insults down into the
walled canyon just before the hail reached the ground.

   Five demonstrators were killed and more than a hundred injured by the
hail, some horribly so, with cheeks torn open, eyes splattered like eggs,
facial bones shattered, skulls fractured as they turned their faces up to
look for the enemy. In the riot that followed, the Allied building was
breached and a fire set in the main atrium, and seven more died,
including one policewoman and three starheads found dead by their own
hand on the rooftop.

   Item: In Cologne, Greens and Homeworlders together were trying to
shut down an Allied-owned specialty metals plant by lying down in front of
the haulers trying to leave the plant, which was producing both molded
and machined parts for Memphis. More than three hundred had been
dragged away from in front of the wheels and arrested, but there seemed
to be no shortage of volunteers to replace them, even after a woman and a
teenaged boy were crushed when one omni driver lost patience with the
game.

   Item: Yvonne Havens, director of operations at Kasigau Launch Center,
had abruptly and unexpectedly resigned within the week. After the fact,
she informed Sasaki that she had done so to "ransom" her mother, who
had been kidnapped from her apartment in Cairo by a group calling itself
Jeremiah's Hands. Emboldened by their success, the terrorists had just
taken the husband of a HELcrew launch chief and the daughter of the
supervisor of Vehicle Manufacturing, making the same demands.

   There were mitigating factors in all three situations. The Tokyo center
was effectively mothballed, anyway, under Contingency Zero, but it was
important to keep up appearances. The metals plant had completed more
than ninety-five percent of its Diaspora contract, including all of the
critical high-stress system fittings. And Kasigau's efficiency had never
been what it should have been under Havens.

   Still, it was not in Dryke's nature to discount such threats or to entrust
others with the responsibility of responding to them. But he was faced
with doing both, because Sasaki "needed" him in Prainha.
   He would have been more upset, except for the odd conviction
persisting that, with Jeremiah dead, it should be over. He did not have the
old fight in him; he was merely annoyed, not aroused, by the news coming
in. Even so, he would have talked to Sasaki about it, but she had
disappeared beyond barriers of bureaucracy. His former access had dried
up; he did not see her and could not get to her.

   Overlooked and underworked, Dryke was left with time to wonder,
more time than he cared for. Had he any taste for alcohol or other drugs,
he probably would have used them to shorten the day. But his fetish for
control in his life was too strong to permit him that escape. Were he less
duty-driven, he might have declared his war over and gone home. But he
could not abdicate, even though it was harder each day to see any reason
for his being there.

   He no longer knew what Hiroko wanted from him or what she wanted
him for. At times, he wondered if she was merely keeping him on hand to
throw to the wolves when the snarling and howling grew too loud. Dryke
had neither expected nor wanted to be greeted as a conquering hero—he
felt too much ambivalence himself for that. But neither had he dreamed
he would find himself recalled in disgrace, spinning out his days as the
pariah of Prainha.




  At midmonth, Dryke was granted a brief, tantalizing glimpse into what
was happening in the inner circle. It came in the form of a visit from
Roger Marshall, one of two outsiders on Sasaki's seven-member advisory
committee.

   Though Marshall came and went from Prainha at will, Dryke had had
only glancing contact with the billionaire California real estate developer.
He knew him only as a well-dressed, well-mannered, well-spoken man. A
reasonable man, as Dryke defined the term. Someone who listened before
he questioned and thought before he answered.

  Dryke knew a little more about Marshall's company, Cornerstone
Management. The problems of building a residential superscraper
overlapped a great deal with the problems of building a starship, and
Cornerstone had shown itself the reigning master of the former art, with
Marshall the financial wizard who made the deals go. Marshall and Co.
had put up Daley Tower in Chicago, the Gold Coast complex north of
Sydney, and several other headline projects. Of the dozen or so
architectural monuments around the globe which rivaled Memphis for
cost and complexity, Roger Marshall had had a hand in five.

   His expertise was unquestioned, but Dryke had always wondered at his
interest. The committee was unpaid and unsung, second only to Sasaki in
influence but invisible behind her. It seemed an odd place to find a Roger
Marshall, unless he simply considered the Project as an interesting hobby,
interesting enough that he was content with a secondary role. Dryke had
no idea what a man who commanded wealth on Marshall's scale did for
self-indulgence.

   That day, Marshall appeared at Dryke's office without warning. "Good
afternoon, Mr. Dryke," he said, showing a friendly but measured smile. "Is
there any chance I might steal you away from here for a while?"

   It was like asking Sisyphus if he had any interest in a five-minute
break. "A pretty good chance, I'd say. What's the problem, Mr. Marshall?"

    "Roger, please. I understand we're processing a lot of the pioneers
through Prainha," Marshall said, folding his arms over his chest. "I'd like
to talk to some of them. I want to get a handle on how they're coping with
all the disruption from C-Zero."

   The first part was both true and common knowledge. Twenty-seat T-2s
packed with colonists were flying out of the castle a dozen times a day, day
after day. But for the twin bottlenecks of security screening and ferrying
them from the low-orbit stations to Takara, the pace would be even
brisker.

   The second part was both insulting and puzzling. Have I been demoted
to tour guide now? Marshall did not need Dryke's permission to visit
Building 5, where the arriving pioneers were being assembled into groups,
taken through a T-2 mock-up and orientation, and given a place to wait
comfortably until their flight was called. And Training Section could
provide far more knowledgeable escorts than he.

   But Dryke acceded to Marshall's request, all the same. They took a
wirecar over to Building 5, where Dryke ran interference with the harried
Move managers. Then he stood in the background while Marshall talked
with a group of Block 2 pioneers waiting for their midafternoon launch.
One confessed to annoyance, one to apprehension. But the rest were
almost defiantly eager—for them, the adventure had already begun.

    "We're not going to let them stop us," one woman told Marshall. "This
is something that belongs to us, and nobody has the right to take it away."

  Marshall did not seem to have to hear much to satisfy him. After fifteen
minutes, he shook hands, wished luck, and took his leave.

  "Walk with me, will you, Mikhail?" he said to Dryke when they were
outside.

  Mystified, Dryke sent the wirecar back and fell in beside Marshall. The
unscreened sun was fierce. After a few dozen steps, Dryke was perspiring.

   "It's going surprisingly well," Marshall said. "Surprising to me, in any
case. Nine thousand colonists, a thousand or so from Training—that's a lot
of bodies to move in less than a month. A lot of coordination. And so far,
none of our watchdogs have barked. That's a credit to you."

  "It's all being handled by staff," Dryke said, already starting to feel the
midday heat. "I haven't had anything to do with it."

   "Take the compliment and forget the blushing. You'd be blamed if they
screwed up," said Marshall. "Besides, I haven't gotten to the tough parts.
Tell me about the centers. What's happening in Tokyo?"

   "Tokyo is closed down, for all practical purposes," Dryke said. "The
work that could still be done there under siege conditions isn't worth the
risk to our people. We have a hundred or so security officers and a couple
of dozen operations techs inside, which is about the limit we can support
from the air, with the roof pad."

   "It's important to protect the building," said Marshall. "We do want to
go back there—or at least be able to sell the building—when Memphis is
gone and things have quieted down. What about the other sites?"

   "Still more or less normal, except for the absence of the pioneers.
Munich can thank the German government. Houston has its own airfield
and its own housing, of course—they can probably ride out most anything
so long as the fences hold."
   Marshall nodded. "It's good to know that we're still ready to fight on
some fronts. This new strategy—I guess I'm a bit more of a scrapper than
Hiroko. I hate to see us cede anything. Did you sign off on Contingency
Zero?"

  "It wasn't my call."

  "And if it had been?"

   Dryke was wary. "If it had been my call, I wouldn't have put the
training centers in urban sites in the first place. We're a lot more secure
here than they are in Houston."

   Nodding thoughtfully, Marshall said, "Maybe we should be keeping
those people we just talked to here, then. Maybe shipping everyone up to
Takara and Memphis is an overreaction."

   "That's where they're going eventually," Dryke said, wiping the sweat
from his forehead with his sleeve. "And as you said, that part is going
smoothly, at least. No harm, no foul."

  The scream of a T-ship passing overhead distracted them briefly.

   "Some of us have noticed that you've been taking a back seat since you
reeled in Jeremiah for us," Marshall said.

  "Resting on my laurels," Dryke said. A touch of the bitterness slipped
out with the words.

  Marshall smiled. "I knew Bill McCutcheon. Were you aware of that?"

  Eyes widening, Dryke admitted, "No."

  "Well, you would be soon, I imagine. I assume that you're building a
matrix of his contacts, looking for the rest of the Homeworld leadership."

   "Yes." The truth was that he had not been able to work up any sense of
urgency about what was certain to be a massive undertaking, and so had
not even begun.

   "He beat me to a parcel of land in Mexico a few years back," Marshall
said. "I offered him more than it was worth, too, but he wouldn't sell it to
me. He never did anything with it, either. A lot of his holdings were
undeveloped, as a matter of fact."

  "Oh?"

   "If ten percent of what he owned produced income, I'd be surprised. He
was land-rich and cash-poor. Not your traditional land speculator,
though. More a land investor. Up until the last few months, he bought
more than he sold—which is the hard way, since you don't realize any
gains until you sell."

  "What was that about the last few months?"

  "Bill moved ten or twelve parcels since August. Knowing what we know
now, I suppose he needed operating funds—but I'm not telling you
anything you didn't know. I imagine you're following the money, too."

  Dryke squinted sideways at his companion. "Why did you want to see
me, Mr. Marshall?"

   "I always valued your perspective, Mikhail," Marshall said. "Just
because the Director is looking past you at the moment, I didn't see any
reason I couldn't avail myself of it on my own."

   Dryke could find no argument with that. "What do you want my
perspective on?"

  "Has Homeworld been eliminated as a threat?"

  "I wouldn't assume so."

  "Nor would I. How would you characterize our strategy at this point?"

   Lips pursed, Dryke considered. "A controlled retreat under cover of
darkness. Abandoning a vulnerable position for a more secure one." It was
clear now that their conversation was a footnote to an argument that had
taken place behind closed doors.

  "But we're most vulnerable now—halfway between."

  "Yes."

  "If they find out what's happening before we're finished, it'll be like
showing a gimpy leg to a wolf pack." There was no need to define they—it
embraced Homeworld, the media, and any other opponent or obstacle.

  "It wouldn't look good, no."

  "And it could happen."

  "Disinformation campaigns are always vulnerable to the truth."

   "Yes," said Marshall. "Do you know why I wanted to talk to the
pioneers?"

  "I assumed it was for the reason you told me."

   "I spoke with Karin Oker this morning, and she told me something that
raised the hair on the back of my neck. According to her, when the early
call to report went out for the Block 2 and Block 3 pioneers, more than
seven hundred—almost twelve percent—opted out. Quit on us."

  It was a stunning, disturbing figure. In past calls, including those for
Ur, no more than two percent had failed to report. "I hadn't heard that."

  "That's seven hundred leaks waiting to happen. I know the calls didn't
contain any damning information, but the circumstances are damning
enough. Someone's going to talk, and someone else is going to figure out
what we're up to," Marshall said. "I'm wondering if perhaps we ought to
announce it ourselves before that happens."

  "What does that gain us?"

   "I know, it sounds like shooting yourself in the foot," said Marshall,
flashing a crooked, humorless smile. "Here's my thinking. In his last
address, Jeremiah hammered at the importance of keeping the colonists
here. But once we've whisked them all away off-planet, there's only one
way to do that, and that's to disable or destroy the ship. We've done our
enemies a favor, really. Instead of a hundred strategies and a dozen attack
points, they can concentrate on one goal and one big, fat, inviting target.
Do you agree?"

  "Yes."

  Marshall stopped and faced Dryke. "Then it seems to me that we can
best protect the ship by making sure anyone and everyone knows that
there are already three thousand people aboard, with more arriving every
day. Considering how the Homeworlders feel about losing them, the
pioneers are as good as hostages. They won't dare a major assault."

    "It doesn't add up that way to me," Dryke said with a shake of his head.
"If they stop Memphis, they stop Knossos and Mohenjo-Daro and
Teotihuac á n as well. The numbers don't look that bad—sacrifice a few
thousand to slam the door on tens of thousands. If they were really sure of
themselves, they might warn us in advance, tell us to evacuate the ship.
But I don't think that'll happen. I don't think they're going to be as
worried about who's aboard as we'd wish they would be."

  "Then why haven't they done it yet? What's holding them back?"

   "I think that Jeremiah held them back," Dryke said slowly. "I think he
believed that he had the compelling case—that the ethical and logical
correctness of his position guaranteed eventual victory. He wasn't dueling
with us. He was debating with us."

  "Evan Silverman wasn't debating. Those people in Tokyo aren't
debating."

   "No. Jeremiah saw the writing on the wall. He knew he was running out
of time. The game's being played by different rules now." Rules that
Silverman introduced, and I ratified. "Matt Reid brings up this every
time we talk. He agrees—the question isn't if, it's when and how. It's
entirely a question of logistics now. As soon as they figure out a way to
take a shot at Memphis, they will."

  Marshall's cheek twitched, and his gaze narrowed. "Is the ship safe?"

   Dryke placed his hands on his hips and cocked his head before he
answered. "I could run out a long list of precautions that we've taken and
send you away happy and reassured. But it's not the doors we bar that we
have to worry about. It's the one we don't. It's the surprise. Is the ship
safe? The truth is, I don't really know."




  Well into the second century of the Space Age, it was no secret that the
best way to destroy a space habitat was to throw things at it. The things
did not need to be big, complicated, or explosive, so long as they were
thrown hard enough. A few kilometers per second was just fine, as
everyone who remembered the inglorious end of Freedom knew.

   Just nine years after it was completed, the American space station's
main module was shattered—and three astronauts killed—by an in-falling
bit of space flotsam. According to one reconstruction, a fifty-gram binding
rivet lost during the construction of the first Japanese direct-broadcast
platform was the probable culprit.

   But it was very hard to throw things at Memphis—as hard as throwing
a bowling ball out of the bottom of a well. Most of the major habitats,
including all but two of the satlands, were part of the "Ring of Pearls," only
two thousand kilometers above the Earth. Memphis was riding along in
tandem with one of the exceptions—just ten klicks west of Takara, in
Clarke orbit, thirty-six thousand kilometers above the blue Pacific and the
atolls of the Gilbert Islands. Nothing orbited higher save for a geophysical
survey satellite or two and traffic bound for Mars or Heinlein City.

   Being at the top of the well was a considerable advantage. The fastest
operational missile—the Asteroid Watch's nuclear-tipped
Stonebreaker—would take nearly an hour to arrive from low orbit. The
Peace Force's aging "shotgun" battle-suppression satellites could not do
much better—their hypervelocity railguns would bridge the gap in
twenty-six minutes at closest approach.

   But orbital mechanics was not Memphis's only defense. The universe
threw things, too, especially at starships traveling at an appreciable
fraction of the speed of light. Memphis had several layers of protection,
including an ion deflector, the plasma bow cushion, and a particle defense
system built around a pair of HEL free-electron lasers. Twenty-six minutes
was more than enough time for the big gyros to turn the bell-shaped
starship and bring the PDS to bear.

   And against the one threat Memphis was not expecting to face in deep
space—laser weapons—Reid had deployed around the starship several
agile crane-trucks bearing huge square scatter plates in their construction
grapples like shields. Dryke thought of them as the Knights Peculiar.

  In that context, sabotage from within shaped up as a more likely
prospect. But the memory of Javier Sola was strong, and putting a bomb
aboard Memphis would be no mean feat.
   The loyalty of the Takara workers, already securely anchored by
community pride, was guaranteed by a simple expedient— the finishing
crews were made up solely of those who had been selected to the mission.
The small fleet of buses which ferried workers and materials across the
ten-kilometer moat to the ship was owned by Transcon and operated by
Diaspora pilots. And Governor Wian was allowing Matt Reid to supervise
the screening procedures in the satland's euphemistically named
immigration and import office, Takara Welcome.

   No possibility was too wild to take seriously—not even a pocket nuke
smuggled into Takara and detonated there, turning the satland into a
giant fragmentation grenade. Even the one scenario which most troubled
Dryke, involving the hijacking of a Takara shuttle and its use as a 120-ton
battering ram, had been covered nine ways to Sunday.

   Secure without, secure within. The slogan was displayed in English
and kanji throughout the Project quarter on Takara and Memphis. Seen
so often, it had become a state of mind, a statement of reality. It would be
unfair to say that Reid's team was cocky, but they were confident.

  Which is why the attack on Memphis, when it came, was every bit as
much a surprise as Dryke had projected.




   The black cylindrical satellite had been on station three and a half
degrees east of Takara for nearly three months. It was listed in the
Highstar registry as Slot 355, 177.5° East, Hughes TC-2000—a dedicated
data communications satellite owned by RJR Financial Services,
Wilmington, Delaware.

   In adspeak, the TC-2000 was referred to as a mature
technology—which in this case meant it was guaranteed to be slow,
expected to be reliable, and presumed to be a bargain. In spacespeak, the
TC-2000 was disparagingly referred to as a tin can. Compared to the huge
Skylink 4 and Nikkei N-2 com platforms at 175° east and 5° west, the little
satellite was a mouse among the lions.

   But the mouse had a secret: It was not the satellite that RJR had
ordered, that Hughes had built, that the United Parcel Service had
accepted for delivery to a towing and retrieval company on Technica. It
was, instead, a seven-year-old TC-2000 which had been originally built for
the Royal Sultanate of Brunei, but was never placed in service. It had
appeared on the secondary market in midsummer, offered by the People's
Revolutionary Government of Brunei during a budget crisis—a bargain
Jeremiah could not resist.

   When Taiwanese technicians were finished modifying it, the TC-2000
featured a high-thrust ascent engine concealed behind the antenna skirt,
an extra guidance package wired to the satellite's transponder 4 relay
circuits, and five hundred kilos of enhanced chemical explosive. For all
that, it weighed just eleven kilos more than the satellite it was to replace.
The switch was made at the UPS depot outside Miami, at the price of a
Corvette sport flyer for the depot chief and a joybird's enthusiastic
friendship for the driver.

    Three days after Dryke and Marshall's conversation, a man in a white
turtleneck and brown duck pants walked into an RJR office in Hong Kong.
He inquired about certain new stock offerings and applied for a modest
life insurance policy. Both transactions were bounced to the home office
on transponder 4 of the satellite in slot 355. A monitor program took note,
a nanoswitch closed, and the mouse roared.




   Trackers at Highstar saw the satellite start to move in its orbit within
seconds. But Memphis, looking ahead in its orbit past the bulk of Takara
and the clutter of Skylink 4, saw nothing, even after the Highstar alert was
received.

   It was well past midnight in Prainha, and Matt Reid's call roused
Mikhail Dryke from a light sleep. Barefoot, hair tousled, with only a pair of
half-jeans hastily added to the briefs and T-shirt he slept in, he ran down
the stairs and through the halls to the orbital operations center.

    By the time Dryke reached it, the center staff had a plot up on the main
window, and the danger was apparent. Relative to the starship, the
satellite was already moving at nearly 1,500 kph, on a looping path that
would hide it behind Skylink 4 or Takara for most of its journey. The
orbital mechanics were tricky, but predictable. By the time the satellite
skimmed over the top of Takara, it would be just a few short seconds from
its target.
   "Takara's got nothing to knock it down with," Reid was saying, his face
grave. "We're turning the ship now"—Dryke could hear the alarms
sounding in the background—"but it looks like the only shot we'll have will
light up Takara as well."

  "How much can the skin take?"

   "I don't know. Probably not enough to take the spill. I've got someone
on the line to Governor Wian's office. Wait—I've got the PF on another
channel."

   Reid did not mute the link to Prainha, and Dryke listened as he talked
with the Peace Force monitors on Technica.

   "Yes, that's right. We've got a threat to Takara and Memphis. Can you
help us? No, our angle is bad. A destruct on the Hughes? No, I don't think
so. Beth—are you on with RJR? Ask them if they've got reentry destruct on
the satellite."

  "Range, five hundred ten kilometers," said an AIP voice in the
background.

  "They say reentry destruct failed," said a woman.

  "Shit," said Reid. "Look, RJR can't control it and they can't destroy it.
Can you do anything from the line?" He was talking to the Peace Force
again.

   "Not enough time," Dryke said to himself, studying the plot of the
several satellites.

  "What? Was that you, Mikhail?"

  "Matt, there's not enough time. We can't burn Takara—"

  "Funny, that's what Wian says, except he's shouting."

   "Can't we move the ship?" The question came from behind Reid, or
from one of his open links—Dryke could not tell which.

   Reid shook his head. "All we have are station-keeping thrusters. The
drive is dead cold. Mikhail? What about the castle? Are we above your
horizon?"
   Dryke quickly got the HELcrew boss on a second window. "Just above,
the long way through the atmosphere," he reported back. "Between the
scatter and the absorption, the boss says the best we can do is a suntan."

   "Range, three hundred kilometers."

   "Anybody seen the oars for this boat?" a gallows humorist muttered.

   "You're going to have to throw something at it," Dryke said.

   "Yeah. Any ideas what?"

   "How about the Knights Peculiar?"

   Reid turned away from his telecam. "Martin—plot collision intercepts
for CT-5, CT-9, and CT-10. Plug in the masses—I need to know what
happens to the pieces afterward. See if you can get me a deflection that'll
throw both of them clear." He turned back to Dryke. "I knew I should have
played more billiards when I had the chance."

  "Three-body no-cushion bank shot, on a warped table. Nothing to it."
Dryke's words were clipped, his worry undercutting the joke.

   "Range, one hundred ninety kilometers."

  "I can give it a pop with CT-9," Martin called. "The others are too far
away."

   "Get it moving, then."

   "Already is. Matt, I'll do my best. But to knock it clear, I not only have
to hit it, I have to hit it square center. Otherwise it'll just blow by and kick
the truck into a tumble."

   "Mister, either you hit it fucking square or I'll put you outside to walk
home." The words were said calmly. "Bobby, bring up the PDS, just in
case. Track it all the way, and if Takara slips out of the hairs, do me a
favor and fry the damned can."

   "Sure," the tech said with a grin. "I'll cover Martin's butt."

  "You toast that Hughes and you can cover my grandmother," Reid said.
"Mikhail, you still with us?"
  "Yeah," said Dryke. "So glad to see you're all taking this so well."

  "Range, eighty kilometers."

   Reid said, "Yeah, well, there's one other thing. The section has
authorized me to tell you that we all quit."

   "No, you don't," Dryke said, matching Reid's deadpan. "If you're still
there in two minutes, consider yourselves fired."

  "Noted. All right, everyone. Let's be sharp. Marty?"

  "On track."

  "Bobby?"

  "I'll pick it up off Takara's horizon."

  "Range, twenty-five kilometers," said the AIP.

  Reid nodded, looking at a display off-screen. He drew a deep breath
and pursed his lips. "Funtime," he said under his breath. "Here she
comes."




   Six and a half kilometers from Memphis, CT-9 glided stalwartly toward
Takara, carrying the reflector before it as though it were entering the lists
for a joust.

   It went into the duel with two disadvantages—size and speed. At a
spidery twenty-nine tonnes, it was only two-thirds the mass of the
satellite. And even after a full minute of acceleration, its propulsion
systems—designed for construction, not interception—had pushed it to a
paltry few tens of meters per second. Since the equations being solved and
plotted on Memphis's bridge depended entirely on the mass and velocity
of the objects and the location of the starship, those were meaningful
disadvantages.

  But CT-9 also had one meaningful advantage: a guiding intelligence.
The satellite's engine had finally burned out; it was coasting now,
committed to its trajectory. Only the truck could counter and adjust, and
so it sped in its own plodding way for the spot where the satellite would
meet it.

   The intercept point was just four kilometers from Memphis. If the two
objects meeting there were perfect, incompressible spheres, the satellite
would follow the track on Martin's display and miss the earthside curve of
the hull by less than a hundred meters. Elementary physics of inelastic
collisions.

  But these were spacecraft, not billiard balls, and no computer on
Memphis could predict the outcome.

  "Range, twenty kilometers."

  The chatter on the starship's bridge had ended. Dryke watched the
panoramic and the tracking plot on his display wall, both relayed from
Memphis via Highstar. They said enough.

  "What—"

   Something was happening to the truck. The shield had broken free
from three of the grapples and was twisting to one side. A moment later, it
went spinning away down toward the Pacific night like a discus. As it
vanished, the Hughes appeared, a twinkling star skimming Takara's
moonside pole. Dryke's breath caught.

  "Range, ten kilometers."

  "Eight—"

  "Five—"

   The satellite closed, the Hughes rose, and for an instant—but only an
instant—they merged. The violence with which the truck was hurled aside,
spinning crazily, underlined the missile's frightening speed. If it was
deflected at all, no one watching could tell.

  "Oh, shit—" said Dryke.

  Suddenly, the Hughes brightened, as though it were caught in a
spotlight. Dryke's mind locked, and he watched without understanding.
Then the display wall strobed blinding white, like a giant photographer's
flash, as the satellite exploded.

   The panoramic went black, and Dryke could barely see through the
afterimage that the tracking plot had splintered into dozens of diverging
lines, some heading directly for Memphis. One second, two, three,
four—whatever was going to happen should have happened.

   "Matt?"

   There was no answer. Then the tracking plot suddenly vanished, and
Dryke realized that he was hearing shouting, cheering, the bubbling over
of giddy relief. "Bridge link," he said quickly, and the scene came up in
window 1. Reid was being hugged by someone. "Matt?"

   Reid escaped the hug and turned toward the cam. "I guess you've still
got a starship, Mike. You can fire us now."

   "Firing's too good for you," Dryke said. "Besides, I wouldn't want to
deny the Director the pleasure of firing us all at once. Did the ship get
tagged?"

  "We had a little bump, so we must have taken something. But it can't
have been much, because all the important lights are still green. The chief
engineer's on his way out in a boat to take a look."

   "What happened there at the end?"

   Reid looked over his shoulder. "Marty?"

   The tech looked sheepish. "The reflector was blocking the truck's
rendezvous radar, and I wanted a little insurance for a center hit. I
thought it was worth a hundred kilos, so I threw the reflector away."

   "Highstar's gonna ticket you for that."

   "Ticket, hell," said Martin. "Do you know how long it's been since I did
this to my shorts?"

   Reid laughed. "I'll buy you a new pair."

  "I'll pay the ticket," Dryke said. "Get us a report on damage ASAP, will
you?"
  The postmortem was not a happy gathering. Marshall was there, and
Oker. Talbot, the construction manager, and Reid were linked from
Memphis. Edgar Donovan was fresh in from Los Angeles. Dryke was
nursing a cold fire and trying to hide it; at the opposite end of the table,
Sasaki was hollow-eyed and startlingly frail.

   They heard from Reid and Talbot first. The ersatz missile had been
detonated by the PDS lasers 2.1 kilometers away from the ship. The
explosion was a mercy—it hurled the bulk of the disintegrating satellite
away from, rather than toward, the target. Fifty-eight fragments, the
largest the size of a child's fist, escaped the HEL beam and tore through
the fringe of the aft structural skirt. It looked worse than it was—no
critical systems had been hit, and no pressurized spaces had been
breached.

   Then Sasaki ordered the links closed. "We did not deserve the luck
which befell us," she said to the others. "This is unrestricted war, and we
were not prepared. We were not prepared, and no one stood ready to help
us. Governor Wian bears a measure of the blame—he has been
unreasonably opposed to allowing weapons or weapons platforms on
Takara. I believe he has sufficient reason now to reconsider—"

   "He'd better," said Marshall, the only one present who would dare
interrupt Sasaki at that moment. "Who knows if there are any more
sleepers parked up there?"

   Sasaki's gaze flickered in Marshall's direction, but she did not
otherwise acknowledge him. "Our opponents are still strong, still
determined, and growing desperate. We must take Memphis where they
cannot reach us, at the earliest possible date."

   "We've got an opportunity here," Donovan injected. "The real damage
isn't serious. How serious do we want the official damage to be?"

   "Will anyone who counts believe it?" Oker's expression was skeptical.

  "I hear that the explosion was visible all around the Pacific rim," said
Marshall.
   "It's number one on the nets," said Donovan. "Even though they're
starved for facts. That's the best time to feed them bullshit—if you can get
there before they start producing their own."

   "This discussion does not interest me," Sasaki said. "Issue what
statements you wish. Mikhail, I would like to hear from you."

   Dryke looked down the table to her. "This feels like the Kasigau
incident. A variation on a theme."

  "The same mind?"

   "No. But someone schooled under it. Someone's taken Jeremiah's place
at the helm." He frowned and looked away. "Goddammit, it didn't do any
good to kill him."

  She nodded. "Mikhail, I am sorry. It is possible I was wrong about
Christopher McCutcheon."

  Shaking his head, Dryke said, "I can't gloat. It looks like I was wrong
about Anna X."

  "What do you mean?"

  He touched his earpiece. "I heard from Horizon a few moments ago.
The McCutcheon kid passed through there five days ago on his way to
Sanctuary." He stood up, driving his chair away from the table. "With
your leave, Director, I'm gonna go correct those mistakes."




                          CHAPTER 30
  —AAG—
                           “...a sunless morn…”

   Ten and half again had come to the Spring Grotto to hear the story, but
the story could not be told with voice alone, or heard only with the ears.

   To tell it as Deryn told it required eyes, sad sparkle laughing— hands,
signing soaring—a body fluid and supple. She moved among them as a
breeze in the many-tiered chamber, hovered as a spirit in the field of
firepoint stars beyond the sky windows, rested as a stone on the
tumbledown cascade of the waterfall. She told the story from the heart,
not from memory, and invested it with her love.

    " 'Will you stay with us?' asked Cho. She was first among Asa's
daughters, and the boldest. 'Stay in the golden house, and be our guiding
fire.'

   "But Tetsu said gently, 'Is this as much as you've learned, to keep me as
an idol in a monument?'

   "Cho was shamed, but the others begged Tetsu to stay. They offered
their houses and their worship and their love. Tetsu refused all but the
last.

  " 'I have been away long enough,' she told them. 'I am going back to my
home in the Earth.' "

   It was then that Anna X appeared at the arched Spring Corridor
entrance. She entered the grotto silently, advancing several steps toward
where the audience was seated, but stopping before she intruded on
anyone but Deryn's attention. Deryn noted her presence and wondered,
but went on without a pause or a break.

   "Asa had learned the most from Tetsu, and acceptance was the first of
those lessons. 'How shall we remember you?' she asked.

    "Tetsu smiled, and stole a tear from Cho's cheek with a touch. 'When I
am in the Earth, I cannot hear your voices, for the air is too thin,' she said.
'I cannot know your thoughts, for they belong to you alone. I cannot use
your gifts, for I am in all and of all, without form. Remember me with your
lives.'

   " 'You will forget us,' cried Cho.

   " 'I am in you and of you as much as the river and the cliff and the
forest. I will not forget you.'

   " 'Is there nothing we can give you?' cried Cho, her heart breaking.

   "Tetsu took the child in a mother's embrace. 'I will feel you walking in
the world above my world, and hear your footsteps like the echoes of your
heartbeats,' she whispered. 'And when you gather with light hearts in the
circle and dance to the celebration songs, your feet will speak to me of
your joy. That will be gift enough.'

  "And so we dance. And so we dance." Deryn smiled and spread her
hands wide. "Blessed be. The tale is done."

   They applauded warmly, and several—among them the two youngest
children and the oldest crone—came to thank her with a hug. Anna X
waited calmly until Deryn was free and then led her by the elbow toward
White Corridor.

   "Next time, I'll have to come in time to hear the whole story," said Anna
X. "You hold them in your hand, seven or seventy. It's a gift."

  "You have it wrong," said Deryn. "They hold me. I'm never tired,
because they send back to me as much as I give them."

  "Never tired? If you ever decide to conduct a workshop on that bit of
magic, put my name down first."

  Deryn smiled. "Did you come to listen, then?"

  "I came to tell you that you have a petitioner in the Shelter."

   A look of surprise crossed Deryn's face, and her steps slowed. "Claiming
as what?"

  "Claiming as your son." Studying Deryn's expression, Anna X added,
"You don't have to see him, of course."

  Deryn closed her eyes, the better to see a memory.

  "Have you a son?" Anna prompted.

  "No," said Deryn. "But I will see him."




   In contrast to the open-door policies on Horizon and New Star, but in
keeping with its own founding purpose, Sanctuary was a virtually closed
society. Long at or over its design population, Sanctuary accepted only a
handful of new immigrants a year—all women. Only Hanif discriminated
so openly (against non-Moslems), though Takara and the Soviet
colony-sat, Lukyan, were in their individual ways nearly as effectively
closed.

   But the isolation of Sanctuary went even further. It and Takara were
the only satlands which did not cater in some way to tourists, and Takara
had Diaspora traffic to replace the lost revenue. Sanctuary restricted
visitors of either sex to a portion of the inner ring of the old-fashioned
wheelworld, called Entry by residents and "Mama's doorstep" by annoyed
shuttle pilots.

   The Shelter was part of Entry. Its forty small one-a-beds, clustered
adjacent to the docking spar, were a buffer between Sanctuary and the
outside world. For the wounded who needed only a place to hide and heal,
the three-by-five compartments were cocoons. For the hopefuls who had
reached the final stage of scrutiny by Anna X and the Council, they were
way stations. And for petitioners hoping to visit women who had already
crossed through Shelter, they made passably comfortable prisons. The
Shelter guide met Deryn as she entered the Sanctuary side of the warren.
"Your petitioner gives his name as Christopher McCutcheon and claims
you as his mother," she said. "But the indexes don't support a blood
relation. Did you have an unreported male child?"

  "After a fashion," said Deryn. "Where is he?"

  "In 24. You can talk to him from the guide room—this way."

  "Thank you," Deryn said. "I'll see him in person."

  The guide flashed a grimace of distaste. "As you wish. We'll monitor."

  "That's not necessary," she said, giving the woman's hand a reassuring
squeeze. "He is no danger to me."

   Beside the door to Shelter 24, a small screen showed Christopher
sitting quietly near the far end of the compartment, keeping company
with his thoughts. Deryn paused before the screen, trying to clear the
image of him at fifteen from her mind and replace it with the image
before her—a young man, but a man in full maturity.

  The darkness cast in his features seemed now more of knowledge than
of fear. The softness in his face had been chiseled down to something
harder—and perhaps because of it, he was a measure more handsome in
flower than she had expected. His spark of alertness was as bright as ever,
even in repose. But the joyful innocence was missing, or hidden behind the
mask of—what? Sadness? Behind the mask of the purpose that had
brought him there.

   He looked up as she entered, and his eyes seemed to brighten when he
saw her. Showing an uncertain smile, he rose from the seat. He tried to
say "Hello," but the word came out as a noise lost deep in his throat.

   Smiling back, Deryn opened her arms, and he came to her. He was the
taller by nearly ten centimeters, but he let himself be small in her
embrace. There were no words, but something words could not have
captured passed between them. She felt great turmoil, great pain, and
great relief swirling inside him.

   "You always did give the best hugs," she said, drawing back a step at
last.

  "I've missed you."

  "My memories of you are full of love," she said. "Why did you come,
Christopher?"

   He seemed disconcerted by her directness. "Do you follow the news
from Earth?"

  "No," she said. "I find it's never about me."

  "Consider yourself lucky, then," he said, but did not elaborate. "Deryn,
my father's dead."

   Deryn heard the news with both surprise and understanding. The
surprise was the strength of the wave of regret and loss. She was caught
for a moment in a time and a place she had renounced, and the breath she
drew to quiet her center was quavery.

  "I'm sorry," she said, squeezing the hand she had never released. "Will
you tell me about it?"

  "I have to," he said.
   They perched on the edge of the settee-bed, and he began, marrying
fact and supposition in his narrative. The story he told went further than
Deryn could have guessed, and its quiet drama and horror awakened her
protectiveness.

   But Deryn kept that emotion contained. A father's death and a son's
grief, however immediate at that moment in that room, were dwarfed by
the other dimensions of the account. Deryn began to hope the Shelter
guide had ignored her wishes and monitored the conversation, for there
were parts of it that Anna X would need to hear.

   She tried to listen as though she did not know him, to hear him as
Anna would. But Deryn could not forget whom she was listening to, and
wondered at how the child she had borne—this child of such promise, now
a man of such paradox—had become a witness and a victim and now a
player in such a tale.

  Toward the end, Christopher became careful about his words. Deryn
understood that he was not yet ready to ask what he had come to ask of
her, that he was not yet sure of her. But she was ready to be asked, and
gently stole the torch from him when the chance came.

  "You're here to do more than tell me William is dead."

  He nodded. "I thought you should know. But that isn't the whole of it."

  "And the rest is—"

  "I came here to find out what you can tell me about Sharron."

  She cocked her head and studied him. "And?"

   "And what your geneticists can tell me about myself. I'll pay for
information, people's time, any testing—whatever."

  "The first I can understand, though you may be disappointed," she said.
"But why do you think that anyone here can answer questions about the
Chi Sequence?"

   "Because you're conceiving children here with one parent," Christopher
said. "And it's a good bet that parthenogenesis requires more than a
casual acquaintance with human genetics. If you want to deny it—or
you're obliged to deny it—I guess I understand that. If you really don't
know, I guess someone'll come bursting in here any moment to stop you
from finding out. But let me tell you what I know, and maybe we'll see
where to go from there."

   "I remember the rumors and the jokes. You won't need to repeat them
for my benefit."

   "This is more than rumor," said Christopher. "This is a matter of
record. Angela O called for parthenogenetic research in her Womyn's
Manifesto long before there were any satlands. The year before this station
was completed, the Sanctuary Committee—of which Angela O was a
member—purchased a copy of the complete data base of the Human
Genome Project.

   "Four of the five geneticists given grants by the Free Womyn's Guild to
work on problems in parthenogenesis stopped publishing, even privately,
after Sanctuary opened. Two came up here openly, with the first wave. It's
a safe bet that the other two came here as well. On top of that, you've
admitted at least eighteen first-rank geneticists in the last twenty years,
including one who was with the Project in Munich for a time." He shook
his head. "If you don't already know about the Chi Sequence, you at least
have the tools to find out."

  "Why does it matter, Christopher?"

  He stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she saw in that moment the
part of him that had not yet grown. "I have to know who I am. I have to
know what to be."

  "No geneticist can tell you," she said.

   "I don't think you understand how deep this runs," he said. "It's the
difference between a pointless life and a life with purpose."

  "Who's judging, Christopher?"

  "I am."

   But he was not, she knew. He was looking for a new Authority, a new
compass. He did not know how bright was his own fire. He did not trust
his own wisdom.
    "I know how deep it runs," Deryn said. "I saw your father crush your
confidence a hundred times by withholding his approval, by telling you
how you could do better instead of how well you'd done. I remember when
you were five and spent an entire afternoon creating what you called a
movie—a poster covered with a dozen crayon drawings, complete with
titles and credits. You were so proud. I hung it on the kitchen wall."

  "I remember," Christopher said.

   "Do you remember that when William came home, he took it down and
told you to put it in your room? That he ripped off a corner in the process,
and how you started to cry? That I found your 'movie' that night in a
corner of your room, torn into pieces and crushed into a ball? That runs
deep, too, Christopher."

  His face, sulky and defensive, told her that resistance had set in. "I
know about my father. I need to know about me."

  She shook her head. "But you're asking the wrong question. It isn't who
you are. It's who you want to be."

  "That's what I'm trying to find out—who I am at the root. What my
part is. What I got from Sharron."

  "What will you do with that knowledge if you get it?"

  "Then I'll know what it will take to make me happy." He said it with
more hope than confidence.

    "Will you?" There was more she wanted to say, but he had stopped
listening. He so feared the responsibility of choosing for himself—so feared
being wrong—he could not hear the inner voice. And that voice mattered
far more than hers.

  "I never told you about when I met your father," she said at last.

  "Yes, you did." He looked puzzled. "How you heard about what he was
doing from the doctor in Tacoma—and came up to the house to introduce
yourself. The Mary Poppins story."

   She smiled. "That was your father's version—official family history. And
it was true, as far as he remembered. So I never contested it, and even
repeated it a time or two. But I actually met William years before that.
And not only William. Sharron, too."

   He gaped in surprise, his defenses breached. "You did? When?"

   "It was a party on Long Beach—there still was a Long Beach then, the
big Easter storm was still a few years away. '55, I think it was. Ten years
before I signed the contract to have you."

   "Please tell me about it—"

   "I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't mean to," she said, and patted
his hand. "There was a party with a capital p at Carl Walter's big old place
near the north end of the peninsula. I really didn't belong—so much so
that I didn't know who all those people were, though everyone was
Somebody. Carl had those kinds of contacts, all through Oregon and
Washington."

   "How did you know him?"

   "I was a friend of the family, Carl's daughter's favorite tutor, visiting for
a few days on a face-to-face. I would as soon have gone up to Ledbetter
Point for a few hours, but they wanted to introduce me around.

   "William was there with Sharron, being William—being charming and
earnest with strangers and neglecting those he could take for granted.
Sharron looked as out of place as I felt, so I sat down next to her and we
started talking."

   "Did you have anything to talk about?"

   Deryn laughed, remembering. "More than we had time to cover. We
talked for almost four hours with never a lull. No one knew us, no one
bothered us, and we didn't mind one bit. We understood each other. She
felt like someone I already knew. Have you ever had that happen with
someone? An acquaintance of mine calls them 'friendly mirrors'—you see
the parts of yourself that you like in them."

  Christopher was sitting forward, eager and hopeful. "Can you
remember anything Sharron said?"

   "Everything I remembered, I made sure I shared with you at one time
or another in the house on B Street. I just let you think it came from your
father," she said. "I remember less now. Sharron told me stories about
Lynn-Anne, who had just turned three. About the house they wanted to
build in the woods. About the poems she was writing, and about how no
one had any use for poetry unless it was set to music. She seemed very
glad to have someone to talk to. I didn't know how to read that then."

   "She was lonely," Christopher said slowly.

   "I think so. For a certain kind of company. For a certain kind of
attention."

   "Did she say anything about having more children?"

   "I don't remember so," Deryn said, slowly shaking her head. "Nothing
either way. When William was finished holding court and came to collect
her, she introduced me. By that time she felt like a friend. She was living a
quiet life, but her heart and her mind were alive. I admired her. It seemed
like she had more focus than I did, more purpose. I went away with a lot
to think about. I was only five years younger than she, but I felt like a child
by comparison."

   "Then later, my father didn't remember you."

   "No."

   He shook his head. "That's such an amazing coincidence."

   "No," she said, smiling at his innocence. "Not coincidence. It goes
deeper than that. If I had never had that conversation with Sharron, I
would never have become your host. I wasn't registered with an agency,
you know. I had never thought of hosting. And it was only by chance that I
even heard of what William was doing—about Sharron's eggs. There's the
coincidence. Everything else was purely intentional."

  Realization began to light Christopher's eyes. "You knew what he
wanted already."

  "Of course. He wanted another Sharron. And that's what I was. Or
could appear to be." She took his hand and held it tightly. "You see, in my
mind, I didn't agree to have William McCutcheon's baby. I agreed to have
Sharron's. I did it for her, not for your father. That's why I never wanted
you to call me 'Mother.' Sharron had precedence. I was only finishing what
she'd begun."

   He was quiet for a moment, and his face showed his struggle to grasp
the meaning, the cascading implications, of what she had said. Deryn
wanted to leave then and let the solvent of that revelation work at
softening the bonds of his comfortably patterned thoughts. But when she
stood, saying gently, "I have to leave," he clutched at her presence like a
skirt.

   "Did she begin it?" he asked. "Or was it all my father, like Lynn-Anne
believes?"

   "I wish I could answer that," she said, her faint smile apologetic. "But I
don't know myself. Knowing him, I have to say he was probably capable of
the theft. But I also believe she was capable of the gift. In the absence of
proof, I chose to think the best."

   "Thinking the best where my father is concerned isn't the easiest thing
right now."

  "I know," she said. "Christopher, I'm expected somewhere. I'll come
back when I can."

  "I'm sorry." He joined her standing. "Can I ask what you do here?"

  "I'm a storyteller. A kind of teacher."

  He smiled in a foolishly pleased way. "Do you tell them about Coyote?"

   "But of course," she said, smiling back. "The young ones seem to like
the animal stories best. Heaven knows what they understand from them,
though."

  "I wouldn't mind hearing you tell them again," he said. "Or would that
only embarrass both of us?"

   Touching his cheek lightly, she shook her head. "All a good story
requires is a good listener. But I'm late now. Perhaps when your petition's
been heard you can join us in the grotto—"

  The intrusion of reality dispelled the nostalgic haze for both of them,
reminding them where they were and why, and there was an awkward
distance in their good-bye. But as Deryn passed through the corridors on
the way to her home, she found herself crying for William and Christopher
both, and wishing she could find a way to cut the string that joined them.




    Anna X heard Christopher's petition in the morning. Deryn supported
it, the Shelter supervisor opposed it, and in the end the council approved
it, grudgingly, and with restrictions—a fifteen-day admission, no renewals.
But Deryn won the one point that mattered to her—permission for
Christopher to come to her quarters on Summer Corridor.

   The other issue, of turning Sanctuary's midwives to searching their
records and Christopher's cells for the Chi Sequence, was resolved in
private between Deryn and Anna X. Here there was no compromise—the
answer was an unequivocal no.

  "What tools we may have are for our purposes," Anna X said. "Your
son's problem neither concerns us nor serves us."

   She accepted the decision. Christopher's narrow focus on mechanistic
answers and deterministic choices was, it seemed to her, a final attempt
to evade taking charge of his own life. The clockwork man, his future
written in beads on a genetic string. Locus of control now internal—but
unconscious. How can I be wrong if I'm only doing what I must?

   Anna X's decision might actually be a blessing. Perhaps, Deryn
thought, denied the midwives' aid, he will be forced to find better tools
with which to look within.

  Christopher did not see it that way.




   To Deryn's surprise, Anna X allowed Christopher a chance to object in
person. Deryn accompanied him to the Circle Room, though she made no
attempt to either coach him or forewarn him.

  "Deryn presented your case to me," Anna X said, sitting back in her
comfortable bowl-cushion chair. She had covered up for the occasion, her
high-collared full-sleeved long robe hiding all but her face. Deryn could not
remember when she had last seen her so armored with clothing. "We are
not interested in whether Memphis leaves or stays, whom it carries away,
or why they go. It is completely without relevance to us."

  "That's not true," Christopher said. "The Chi Sequence is relevant to the
decisions your geneticists make. You can't afford to ignore a script that
powerful."

   "We know more of genetic scripts than you realize," said Anna X. "Male
genetic scripts rule the planet beneath us— scripts which program men
for destructive competition with their kind and destructive oppression of
my kind. The modern era's ethics, politics, and economics are all shaped
to acquisition and domination, the ultimate goal of which is control of
women's bodies. Testosterone provides more than enough explanation for
Memphis. You are still pawing the ground and marking the trees."

   They might as well have been speaking Hindi and Urdu for all that they
understood each other. He knew the words, but he could not grasp her
context; she heard only her translations of his arguments. Deryn saw him
growing frustrated, not only with his failure to persuade her, but also with
their inability even to agree on the facts. But then, he had long had an
unreasonable faith in the power of reason, and too little grasp of the power
of emotions.

  "So what you're really saying is that you won't help me because I'm the
enemy," he was saying, his tone sharp and impatient. "I've got an outie,
not an innie, so anything that helps me must harm you. It must, or I
wouldn't want it, is that it?"

   "No. Not the enemy," Anna X said, ignoring the rest. "But your goals
are not our goals, and we have the right to focus our resources on our own
goals. Our midwives are busy enough with the work they have now. We
accepted your presence here as a courtesy to Deryn. But this is our world,
organized for our needs, guided by our choices. You cannot expect us to
abandon that commitment to champion the cause of a visitor."

  And as quickly as that, it was over.
   For the rest of the day, Deryn left Christopher alone in her home. She
had obligations—a class in rhythmic language at the school, a meeting of
the Code circle to set sentence in a minor case, a bit of healing work to
which she had promised to lend her hands and energies.

   But even if she had not been obliged to leave him, Deryn would have
tried to find a reason to do so. So difficult, so difficult, she thought. The
balance within as precarious as the balance without. There was great
danger that he would fix on her as the new object of his emotional fealty.
She could not allow him to think that her life had stopped when he
appeared.

   He was struggling to stand, burning from within. She could not catch
him if he fell, nor protect him from the flames. She could not allow herself
to treat him as her child, for he was all too ready to return to that
comforting security. To love and say no is the hardest thing—

   That night, he talked about his family for the first time since he
arrived. They were sitting in Deryn's teaching ring, a circle of cushions in
a carpeted corner of her flex space. He had picked a spot where he could
lean back against a wall; she sat cross-legged and straight-backed a third
of the way around the circle. Between them was a low table bearing a
woven basket of dried flowers and brown field grasses.

  "This business about men and women—what Anna X said this
morning," he said. "Does everyone up here believe that?"

   "There's nothing that everyone up here believes," said Deryn with a
half-smile.

   "Most, then? You?"

   "What we think is conditioned on what we know, and what we know
best is our own experience," she said. "My experience is that men and
women are different enough that I can say I prefer to be with one and
prefer not to be with the other."

    "What kind of difference? Or is it one of those
if-you-have-to-ask-you'll-never-understand things?"

  She shook her head. "It isn't sexual, which is what everyone thinks. For
me, it's something about balance, or focus. Men make me jangle. They
confuse me. I change around them, and I don't usually like the changes.
Their presence is a demand, somehow."

   Smiling, she added, "We're not angels, mind you, and Sanctuary is no
Utopia. But I find it a very calming place to be. In fact, that's how I think
of it—a place to be, not a place to do. Which I suppose is part of what
Anna X was saying. Do you think she's wrong?"

   "I don't feel like the kind of man she's talking about," he said. "But
that's nothing new. I had a friend who saw all his relationships that way.
But I could never see mine that simply. They always seem so much more
complicated than that, even when I think they're going to be simple."

   "Did that include your trine?"

  "And my marriage before that, and Vanessa before that, and Patti in
Vernonia. They all started easy and ended hard."

   "Your trine is still alive, isn't it?"

   "Only a technicality. Only a matter of time. Jessie's locked on someone
new, and Loi—I don't think I'm important enough to Loi for the amount of
trouble I bring. Anytime I want, I can call and hear the death sentence. I
wouldn't be surprised to hear that Fields is already living there."

  "I wondered why you hadn't wanted to call out," she said. "Now I'm
wondering why you're content to just let it happen. Is it over for you, as
well?"

   He gazed into the basket of curled leaves and crisp petals. "Jessie was
so—so agreeable, so accommodating, at first. It seemed like she was happy
making us happy. I guess I never thought she was going to want more. I
don't even know how to win her back, because I never had to win her in
the first place. Does that make sense?"

   He had been spoiled by easy answers, she saw, by mind mechanics who
pronounced their verdicts as quickly and shallowly as an on-air
psychologist. Even if they were right answers, he lost the chance to learn
from them—they meant nothing to him because they were won so easily.

   "What do you miss?" she asked.
   There was no hesitation. "Cuddling with her," he said. "I never knew
anyone so willing to cuddle and so comfortable to do it with. Loi could
never sit still that long. She'd have to talk, or plan, or get up and go do
something that needed doing. Jessie has a way of melting into you. We
shot a lot of evenings on the couch, just wrapped together and humming
along at warm." A wan, sorry smile flickered across his lips. "She made me
feel good inside. It was easy and I thought it'd always be there."

  Deryn nodded understandingly. "Is she happier now?"

  He nodded glumly. "It seems so."

  "Then let her be."

   "Why didn't she tell me what she wanted at the beginning?" he said
with sudden anger. "Why did she let me think she was happy the way
things were?"

   Deryn made a bowl of her hands between her knees. "Years before I met
your parents, I was in love with a man twelve years older than I," she said.
"He was very sure of himself and very much in command of his life, both
things I admired then. He was an executive with a company that took very
good care of him, so he could take very good care of me. We went to
Hawaii, to Rio. He surprised me with presents, never extravagant, but
thoughtful, perfect.

   "We'd been together six months when he asked me to go with him to a
doctor in New York. He wanted me to have an operation so that I could
give him more pleasure during sex. He'd had such a woman in London, in
one of the Triangle clubs. I didn't even know such things were done.

   "I can hardly believe it now, but I almost said yes. He was, I thought, a
wonderful man. He loved me, he was giving me so much, why shouldn't I
do this for him? The closest I got to the downside was thinking, 'Even if we
break up, whoever comes next will appreciate it—'

   "But when he left the next morning and it was just me by myself,
everything changed. I had never had any surgery, never even broken a
bone—no medical problems more serious than the flu. But I was going to
volunteer to let someone cut and sew my body in the name of better
orgasms. I was angry that he wanted me to do it. I was hurt that he
wanted what a joybird had given him more than what he and I had
shared—which up to that point I had thought was pretty wonderful.

   "So I called him at work and told him I'd changed my mind," she said.
"I never heard from my 'wonderful man' again. He moved on to someone
else, a friend of a friend of a friend. A few months later, they went to New
York for two weeks. When they came back, she was so happy with herself
that she couldn't wait to tell everyone. I was still so miserable that I was
actually jealous. And I had no idea why.

    "It took me fifteen years to forgive myself for almost giving in and to
understand how he managed to find someone who would. It's the dirty
little secret Anna X leaves out of her speech—that female scripts are just
as destructive in their way.

    "We'll do anything when we think we have to have a man—trade any
favor, tell any lie, take any edge. I said we weren't angels. Most women are
just like most men—trying to get what we want, trying to strike a bargain.
It sounds to me as though you and Jessie just couldn't agree on terms.
Don't wish you could make her be different than she is. If you do love her,
wish that she'll be happy."

  Christopher had been silent, amazed, through Deryn's long
unburdening. "I guess my heart's been too small for that."

  "Hearts can grow, with proper care," said Deryn with a gentle smile.

  He nodded, lips pulled tight in a frown. "It's almost time to take me
back to the Shelter."

  "Almost," she said, uncrossing her legs and rising gracefully to her feet.
"But not quite. Come on. There's something I want to show you."




   The Moon Chamber lay wheel-out below Spring Grotto, thirty meters of
stairs and a double pressure hatch away from the corridors and
compartments. Dimly lit and chapel-quiet, the chamber was a great open
square bonded on all four sides by catwalk. The pale light seemed to rise
up from the center space, like the glow from a fire pit.

  Deryn led him by hand to the edge of the catwalk, and he looked down,
unsuspecting. His breath caught, and he held her hand tightly as he
swayed with sudden vertigo. Below their feet were the stairs, slipping past
as the great wheel of Sanctuary turned. The transparent wall of plaz a few
meters below their feet was invisible, except for the diffraction of dust pits
and scratches.

   "Isn't it wonderful?" she murmured. "There's one below every
grotto—one each for Sun, Moon, Earth, and stars."

   The dark limb of the Earth had appeared, dotted with spiderstrings of
fuzzy light which outlined continents. It sliced across the field of stars like
a shadow.

   "Look," she said, "the forest fire in East Russia is still burning."

   Following her lead, they stretched out prone on the carpeted catwalk,
heads propped on hands and peeking over the edge, like kids looking down
from an upper bunk. The Earth rode past and was replaced by more stars,
their glory and plenty and variety unguessed by any earthbound viewer.
Ninety seconds later, the satland's spin brought the planet into view again.

   "And I didn't think I liked riding a Ferris wheel," he said with a
breathless joy.

   "No view like this one anywhere on Earth."

   "Which way is north? I should know the constellations."

   "It took me weeks to learn to spot them up here," she said. "There's
thousands more stars to fill in the patterns and spaces. There—Orion, off
to the right. Can you see it? That reddish star is the shoulder—"

   "I see it. Oh, God, this is beautiful—"

   They stayed as long as their time allowed, through half a dozen reruns
of the panoramic movie, each fractionally different from the last as
Sanctuary spun along in its orbit. Christopher left the Moon Chamber
reluctantly, and part of him stayed behind, still caught in wonder. The
proof of that was the smile that lingered on his face all the way to the door
of Shelter 24.

   "It gives you a different way to look at things, doesn't it?" he said when
he had hugged her.
   Deryn did not know just what he spoke of, so she simply agreed. But
when she came to get Christopher that next morning, he seemed more at
peace, and his first words were to ask how he might arrange to call home.
She thought that a heartening sign, never dreaming that chaos was
following close on the heels of the new calm.




                          CHAPTER 31
  —CCC—
                           "… worlds to know…'

   Christopher had come to Sanctuary knowing that he would not be
allowed to stay. But almost from the moment he arrived, the thought
began forming that he also did not want to stay.

   The suspicion was strengthened when first Deryn, then Anna X,
shrugged off the Chi Sequence as inconsequential. It crystallized into a
certainty in the Moon Chamber when, watching the darkened globe and
the brilliant stars roll by, he suddenly understood that Anna X was right.

   Earth had seemed so far away, the bustle of its billions shrunk to a
pattern of lights in the night. And the stars that Memphis would soon
reach for were unimaginably, unbelievably more distant. In the blink of
the mind's eye, scales shifted, values changed. What was Earth to
Sanctuary? A foreign land in the grip of unfriendly forces. What was
Sanctuary to Earth? Even less—a carnival ride in history's sideshow. What
happened on Sanctuary did not matter except to those few who called it
home.

   I don't watch the news. It's never about me. How many more felt that
way, not only around the wheel, but around the world? It was the turning
away, the turning inward. Daniel Keith had described it, and Jeremiah
had feared it. Sanctuary was the vindication of a prophecy, the
anticipation of the human prospect. It would spin along in its orbit year
after year much as it was now, growing older rather than growing, ever
more fragile in structure and frail in spirit. And someday, it would fail.

   It was the future of the Earth, in microcosm. He required no further
proof from Daniel, Deryn, or the midwives—from Sharron's memory or his
father's legacy. Synthesis was his art and his magic, and the synergy was
clear. The twilight of the will was approaching.

   That being so, what was the best use of a life? The curtain would not
ring down for decades, perhaps centuries. In that time, billions would pass
through the whole cycle of existence, and most of the passages would be
made in pain. Against that background, what was the moral act? Was it
enough to simply take a turn on the wheel and then step aside?

   In a life of watching, Christopher had learned to measure his
expectations. Wanting little placed the goal within reach. Wanting
nothing too badly mitigated disappointment. The path of least resistance
beckoned. If he could not be happy, he could at least hope to temper the
pain.

  But that, too, was a turning away, into emptiness, into numbness.
There was a better choice at hand. I'll gladly trade choice for destiny and
purpose, Daniel had said. Better still to choose destiny and purpose, to
negate the tail-chasing pointlessness with a summary act of will. The
moral act was the same in either conception of the world. A quiet life
ending in a quiet death was a song sung in silence. To have meaning, it
had to be heard.

   In that light, the choice was easy, inevitable. Mercifully, there was still a
chance to choose. He would go home and apply what tools he had to
rebuild his family and rehearse his song. There was time for a child, for
the treasures of his father's world. And then, Gaea willing, he would join
Daniel on Knossos in the first breath of the new century.




   The phone in Deryn's apartment was a simple videocom, barely smarter
than an interactive TV, meant only for local messaging. To call out
required the help of a tech in the Sanctuary communications center,
which required in turn the permission of both Deryn and the station
censor. And though Deryn left him alone with her blessing once the
arrangements were complete, the censor remained on the line.

   He had been off-net long enough that skylink greeted him with almost
effusive cheeriness and a subscriber-update menu when he signed in.
There were a dozen messages waiting, including blue-bar mail from Loi,
Daniel, and the Vernonia District of the Oregon State Police. "Too many to
wade through now," he murmured. "Give me Loi's."

   It was so long since Christopher had seen her face that he almost failed
to listen, savoring the sight of her.

   "I got your message, Christopher. I'm sorry so much has come down on
you," she said. "Take what time you need and do what you need to do.
Come home when you can." There was some tenderness in her tone, if not
in the words.

  He smiled to himself. "Call reply," he said.

   A dozen or so seconds later, Loi's face returned to the screen. She was
tousled and raccoon-eyed, and a beautiful sight.

  "Hello, Loi."

   "Christopher?" She squinted off-screen. "Prodigal lover, it's after four in
the morning."

  "I'm sorry—"

  "Never mind. Bad manners to do it, worse to complain. Where are
you? How are you?"

   "On Sanctuary. I didn't think about the time difference. I'm not even
sure what standard we're on."

  She did not seem to need any explanation about his whereabouts.
"Chris, this is showing a conference call. Who else is on?"

    "The station censor. Probably being looped, too—I don't know if this lag
is normal."

  "Special treatment?"

  "Not that I know of," he said. "I've missed you, Loi."

  "The house has been empty. Jessie moved out this weekend."

  "She went to John's?"
   Loi nodded, then rubbed an eye. "Kia was here last night, but mostly
I'm alone here now. Are you coming back soon?"

   "Tomorrow, I think. I haven't talked to the Entry staff about openings
on the shuttle yet. And I may have to borrow a nickel or two for the fare."

  "It'd be worth a nickel or two to have you back," she said. "Let me
know. Chris, have you been avoiding Daniel Keith?"

   "Why?"

   "He came by the house tonight, late, wondering if I knew how to reach
you. He said he had to reach you before seven tomorrow morning. I mean
this morning. He must not think me very bright, because he said it three
times."

  "Everyone's off-net up here. You need special permission just to order
out for nachos," Christopher said. "I'm surprised that Daniel tried to get
me, though."

   "You've been popular with the oddest people. The Oregon State Police
called. A lawyer in Portland. Roger Marshall even asked about you."

   "Who's Roger Marshall?"

   "The L.A. developer. He called to talk over a commission for the lobby
of Daley Tower. He said he was sorry to hear about your father, wondered
how you were doing."

  "I'll be damned," Christopher said. "How did he hear about that?
Unless they moved faster than I thought—Loi, I've got to go. I've got to find
out what this means, and this phone can only do one thing at a time."

   "You're still in trouble, aren't you, Chris?"

   "Some. It'll all sort out. Maybe it already has."

  She knew the optimism was misplaced. "I have a lot of friends. Come on
back and let's fight it together."

  "I like that idea," he said. "I like it so much I had it myself a few hours
ago. Look, when did this Marshall call?"
    "Ah—Friday. Three days ago. Chris, I think you'd better talk to Daniel
first. It's almost five o'clock. And he seemed upset. Angry might be a
better word."

  "Do you know what he was upset about?"

  "No. If I was going to guess, I'd say it had something to do with what
happened to Memphis."

  A chill touch prickled the skin on the back of Christopher's neck. "What
happened to Memphis!"

   "You don't know?" Her expression turned grave. "Homeworld hit it
with some kind of missile yesterday morning. A hundred and six dead,
twenty percent destroyed, two-to-three-year delay, according to some
reports. Some are saying she'll never leave."




    It was there on all the services, just as Loi had described, complete with
Takara-supplied pictures of twisted metal and construction plastic. The
list of the dead had not been released yet, but the reports showed their
bagged bodies stacking up in Takara's medical stations.

  "Oh, no. No, no, no," he breathed to himself, angry tears welling as he
watched. "Not Memphis. Why couldn't you have just let them go? Why
couldn't you have just let her be?"

   With a full day already passed since the event, the live coverage had
deteriorated into talking heads debating in a vacuum. No reporters had
been admitted to Takara, Memphis had been turned away from prying
eyes, and the flow of information from

   Prainha had tightened down to a trickle. That helped Christopher
escape becoming a prisoner of the screen.

  "Did you pick this story up for local use?" he asked the censor.

  "They did two hours on it yesterday morning."

  While I was still on vacation, he thought.
   Time was slipping away, but he was not ready to face Keith, knowing
what he must be thinking. Instead, Christopher went back to the mail
stack and tried to focus on problems he could touch, and to answer a
nagging question raised by his talk with Loi.

   The first message from the Oregon State Police informed him that
there'd been a fire on the ridge, that his father could not be located, and
would he contact Detective Brooks with any information he might have?
The second, the one with the receipt tag, was only a day old, and a bit
more terse. An investigation into William McCutcheon's disappearance
had begun, and Christopher's participation was considered crucial—would
he please make himself available within the next forty-eight hours to
answer questions?

  But still no fugitive warrant or grand-jury subpoena, which meant no
body. Which meant no way for Marshall to know that William
McCutcheon was dead—except hearing it from either Allied or
Homeworld.

   Christopher could not tap DIANNA from orbit, and he was not
welcome in Sanctuary's library, which probably didn't contain the data he
needed in any case. But he sent a query through to Codex, a subscription
information service, and had an answer in a few minutes: Roger Marshall
was a member of the Diaspora advisory committee.

   Surprised as he was by that discovery, it explained plainly enough how
Marshall knew. But the rest of it made no sense. Was there some kind of
message in Marshall calling Loi? An apology? A confession? Or just a bit
of carelessness? Christopher could not make the picture come together.

   The clock caught his eye, warning him that he was running out of time
to reach Keith. Keith's message gave him a clue what to expect: It was
short and foul, beginning with "You shit-mouthed son of a bitch—" and
going downhill from there. It was time-stamped several hours before Loi
would have seen him; Keith's emotions had apparently cooled, though his
judgments had likely hardened at the same time.

   In the end, Christopher could not let those judgments stand
unchallenged. He was surprised to find Keith on the move, in his flyer
rather than his bed. But Keith's cold tone and hard words were no
surprise. "Fag off. I don't want to talk to you."
   "Fine. Just listen. This is the truth: I only just heard about Memphis. I
didn't have anything to do with it."

  "Do you think I'm that big an idiot? You don't get another chance."

   "How many ways can I say it? I feel sick about Memphis. I didn't do it, I
didn't know about it, and I didn't want it to happen."

  "This is Dan Keith you're talking to. I know you, remember? Sorry.
Your eleventh-hour conversion fails to convince."

   "Daniel, I know where the last verse of 'Caravan' came from now. And
it wasn't a lie."

  That slowed him—Keith blinked confusedly. "What do you mean?"

  "Daniel, read my lips: I didn't do it."

  A blank stare turned to a hateful glare. "You did it to me."

  "What are you talking about?"

   "They're not taking me. They're not taking me, and it's your
goddamned fault. Because of your fucking father. Because I thought
friendship fucking counted for something. They're not taking me, do you
understand? Because of you I've got to stay here." The flyer beeped an
out-of-lane alarm at Keith, and he slammed his palm against the dash.
"Shut up!"

  "What are you talking about? Memphis isn't going anywhere. And you
weren't going on Memphis in the first place."

  "Fuck it," he said sullenly.

   Christopher did not understand what had just happened. "I'm coming
back to Houston tomorrow. If you're in trouble because of me, I want to
help."

  "You, help me?" Keith's snicker was nasty.

   "I haven't done anything against the Project. Not one thing,"
Christopher said. "But they've done to me. They killed my father and stole
his body. They took away my job, screwed up my career, and helped me
screw up my family—not that I needed much help in that department. And
do you know what? I still want them to make it.

   "They were wrong to be afraid of me. I was wrong to duck my tail and
run. That's over. I'm coming back, and I'm going to stand toe-to-toe with
Dryke or anyone else I have to until reality sinks in. And if I need to scrap
for you at the same time, I will."

   Keith was silent, his eyes on the road.

  "What's going on, Daniel? Why are you up at this hour of the
morning?"

   When Keith finally spoke again, his voice was muted. "I don't know why
the hell I believe you," he said. "I must be as big an idiot as they make, I
guess."

   "Sorry. The line forms behind me."

  "I don't know why I'm telling you anything," Keith said, rubbing his
cheek roughly. "There isn't anything you can do to help me. And there
won't be anyone here to talk to by the time you arrive."

   "What do you mean?"

    "They're shutting down the training centers. All the small fry are being
let go. They're sending half the talent to Prainha, including me. The other
half—four hundred people—is going up to Memphis. They've been flying
out all night. You can guess why we're needed in Prainha—they're
shipping people upstairs, too."

   "Why?"

    Keith turned his head away to the right and drew a ragged breath.
"Vincenza told the press that we're sending technicians and engineers to
help with the reconstruction, management to inspect the damage. That's
bullshit. I know the list. It's the fraternity. And I can't get anyone to admit
it, but I know they're not coming back."

   "That's crazy. Where can they go?"

   Keith's gaze was faraway and sad. "Tau Ceti."
  Christopher gaped. "In what?"

   "You really don't know, do you?" Keith said, turning back. "Memphis
isn't hurt. Not that badly. But they're not going to take any more chances.
They're going to move her. Everyone knows that. The only question is how
far. I think they're going to load her up and light her up the first chance
they can, and not look back." His mouth twisted into an acerbic smile.
"That's what I'd do, if I was Sasaki. And she's at least as bright as I am."

  His own future vanishing with his friend's, Christopher found himself
hollow and numb. "Why are you going to Prainha?" he asked finally.

   "Because I'm like you. I want them to make it no matter what they do
to me," he said. "I'm almost to the gate, Chris. I can't stay on."

  "Wait—how's the Houston staff getting to Memphis?'"

   "Through Technica, I think. On the big bus. Jesus, Chris, you're not
going to try—you don't think you'll get near them, do you?"

  "Why not? How many stowaways on Ur?"

  "Sixteen. Trust me, they all had better plans than this."

   "Things are going to be crazy on Technica and Memphis both. It's the
last days of Saigon, man. And I think I ought to be able to pass myself off
as a Project archie, don't you?"

  A long hesitation. "No," Keith said. "Too many people from here know
about you and Jeremiah."

  "Then—"

  "Shut up. The Munich people are going through Horizon," Keith
continued. "You'll have a better chance there, as a Houston staffer caught
away from the center when the orders came through."

  Christopher had run out of words. "Thanks. You didn't owe me that."

    "I know," Keith said. "I said a better chance. Your chances are still
piss-poor. Do me a favor, will you? Try not to let me find out if you make
it. I want to be able to think it came out either way, depending on my
mood."
  "Sure," said Christopher, his throat hot.

  "I'm up. Time to go. Have a life, huh?"

  "I'll try. Better days—my friend."

  "Fuck you very much."




    Christopher didn't know how long he sat there, wet-eyed and
stiff-backed, after the phone blanked. He had prepared himself for a
marathon, but the only race open to him was a sprint. Last call, everyone
in the blocks. But his feet, like his thoughts, were churning in mud.

  Ready to go?

  Not

  Gun in the air—

  Wait!

   But the starter paid no heed. The race was on. He had to start moving
or walk away, disappear into the tunnel.

  I have to get to Horizon.

  That was almost an executable thought. The missing operand was
Deryn. Without her permission or presence, he seemed to be able to do
nothing on Sanctuary.

  Where did Deryn say she was going ?

   Sanctuary's infuriating phone net had no way to call persons, only
places. He called all eight schools, harangued the net operator, even went
to the door and called for her down Summer Corridor. Finally, out of
desperation, he called Anna X.

  "McCutcheon," she said. "Your timing is very good. I was about to send
someone for you."
  "I have to find Deryn. Do you know where she is?"

  "No. Do you remember the way to my Circle Room?"

  "Where we had our meeting? Yes."

  "Then come here, please. As quickly as you can."

  "With no escort?"

  "There is a man named Mikhail Dryke in Entry, with several armed and
armored friends, suggesting that we turn you over to him. I thought you
might like to be involved in the decision."

  Christopher ran, ignoring the startled stares.




   There were six goons in Entry and who knew how many more on the
twenty-four-seat Transorbital shuttle docked to tunnel 2. As near as could
be told from the monitors, they were carrying splatterguns and
shockboxes, both of which could be safely used inside a pressurized space,
though there'd been no shooting so far. In all probability, they also carried
enough cutters and shape charges to come through the bulkheads and
locked doors which presently contained them.

   Shelter had been emptied and sealed without incident, but two Entry
staffers were still at the main desk, keeping Dryke and his men company.
They were not exactly hostages, since discussions were still technically
polite, with no hard refusals or locked doors yet tested. But the women's
position was tenuous and their presence was a complication.

  "This is the man who killed your father?" asked Anna X.

   "Yes," Christopher said, studying the monitor with hard eyes. "Are you
going to give me to him?"

  "Do you want me to?"

  "No," Christopher said, shaking his head. "I have to get to Horizon."

  She nodded thoughtfully. "I don't think he means to allow that."
  "Have you admitted I'm here?"

   "We are still discussing technical issues—the validity of his police
powers, the status of our agreements with Brazil and Kenya, certification
of his warrants—"

  "He has warrants this time?"

  "Conspiracy and unlawful flight. Purely ceremonial. This is not a
question of law. The paperwork is to keep up appearances. The real
warrants are his soldiers and the weapons they carry."

  Someone had found Deryn at last, and she came into the room at that
moment. "Dryke," Christopher said to her, gesturing at the screen.

  Looking up at Dryke and then at Christopher, Deryn sat down beside
Anna X on the open end of the bench. "Are you going to surrender
Christopher?"

  "I would rather not."

    It was welcome news to Christopher. But there were others in the room,
all of whom had dropped into sullen silence when he arrived. Now one
spoke up.

   "Shelter was meant for women, not for cocks," she said. "Why are we
risking our home for him? It's not our fight."

   The object of the objection was unmoved. "I would not like it said that
either Sanctuary or Anna X can be threatened."

   "Here come the certifications," called a woman across the room,
looking down at a comsole.

    Anna X did not stir from her seat. "We'll take some time to study them,
I think."

  "Is there any other way off the station?" asked Christopher.

   "Yes. Two ways. They control the passenger side of the hub, but not the
freight side. And there is a small slug freighter there. There are also
emergency boats, of course."
  "Can either reach Horizon?"

  "Either can."

  "Can either reach Memphis?"'

  Several eyebrows went up.

  "No," Anna X said.

   Christopher looked at the docking monitor. The blue and red
Transorbital shuttle was clearly visible, anchored to the slender pylon
which projected from Sanctuary like the axle from a bicycle wheel. The
white docking tunnel angled up to it from the half-gee Entry ring at a
forty-degree angle, like a flight of covered stairs. "Can you keep Dryke
from leaving?"

   She nodded slowly, acknowledgment but not encouragement. "Dryke
and the men inside, yes. His shuttle, no." She smiled faintly. "Run, fight,
surrender—all three are possible. As you see, none are attractive. Do you
have a preference? Or a solution?"

  "Anna," Deryn said sharply, looking up at the main screen.

  The two women were no longer behind the desk. Two of Dryke's soldiers
had them in hand and were walking them briskly across the floor to the
opening of tunnel 2, at the end of which lay Dryke's shuttle.

   "Idiot," Anna X muttered. "Trionna—cut the shuttle loose. Seal the
lock."




   On the docking monitor, Christopher saw a smoke-ring puff blow
outward from the oval tunnel just a half meter from where it was attached
to the shuttle. Between the inner and outer locks, Christopher thought,
remembering his own arrival. The tunnel was flexing and shaking in long,
wavelike undulations from the jolt and the flying load of the four people
inside it. Meanwhile, the shuttle had drifted a few meters from the pylon,
trailing the stub end of the tunnel from its main port.

  Long moments later, the four reappeared in Entry, the soldiers looking
more shaken than the staff. An angry Dryke ordered the women to sit on
the floor, their faces to a wall, and then turned toward the nearest camera.

  "Anna X, I assume that you can hear me—"

  Anna X signaled to a technician with her hand. "You're an impatient
man, Mr. Dryke," she interrupted. "Neither quality is a virtue here."

   "I want Christopher McCutcheon. It's a simple thing. You have enough
documentation to satisfy any conscience you may have. Are you going to
give him to me?"

   "Mr. McCutcheon is not a possession to be given away. He is a person.
He petitioned for Shelter, which was granted. And Sanctuary has never
given up a Sheltered person on the demand of any authority."

   "Then you must feel safer than you are," Dryke answered. "Don't make
this a test of strength. I'm not leaving without him."

   Anna X's back was up. "Do you think that Sanctuary is a huddle of
helpless women? Do you think—"

    "Is two enough to make a huddle? Because there are two women here
with me who don't seem particularly powerful at the moment. Two
citizens of Sanctuary, I suspect—not visitors. I imagine you can play with
the pressure and the lights and the heat and maybe even gas the whole
section anytime you please. I just think you should know what will happen
if you do. How often have you sacrificed Sanctuary citizens for a male
criminal? Would you like to put that question to a plebiscite? I'll be happy
to wait."

   "I know how a community aspiring to your ethics would vote," Anna X
said. "Christopher doesn't have to fear that from us."

  But looking at the faces around him, Christopher was less certain than
Anna X sounded.

  "Really. There's only one reason I can think of that'd account for that—"

  "Then you have a sadly stunted imagination."

  "—which is that he isn't just a visitor, after all. Maybe he's a friend.
Hell, let's think creatively—maybe he's not even a he. What about that,
Anna? Things aren't always what they seem, are they? Should we come
take a look in your records under Homeworld? Should we look in them for
Jeremiah?"

   "Off," said Anna X tersely. "Self-important bastard—is the freighter
ready?"

   "Yes—on one-minute hold."

   "We'll use it as a decoy. Send it toward Hanif. Then prepare boat 5 for
launch to Horizon—"

   "No," Christopher said, stepping forward. "Stop."

   "Isn't that what you wanted?"

   "He won't send the shuttle after the freighter. He'll destroy it if he has a
way. And he'll have a way. He won't have come up here without being
ready to deal with me if I ran."

   "I don't want to give you to him."

   "He doesn't want that, either. I only just realized."

   "Explain."

    "I think he wants an excuse to come in here. He'd rather have a chance
to 'accidentally' kill me, with pawing through your records as a bonus.
That's why he's baiting you. This isn't a negotiation."

   "Have you a suggestion? Or a choice?"

   "We're dealing with the wrong person."

   "Explain."

   "It would take too long. Let me talk to Dryke. I think I can get us better
terms."

   She studied him skeptically, then vacated her seat for him, standing off
to one side. "Are you ready?" He nodded. She stepped back, out of camera,
and gave the signal.
   Dryke had been having his own side conversation. When he looked up,
a mild flicker of surprise crossed his face. "So you are here, after all," he
said.

   "Shut up," Christopher said. "I want to talk to the Director. Conference,
three-way, full video. You, me, and her. You can arrange it, or we can put
out the call on Aurora Freenet, all hundred thousand watts' worth." He
saw Anna X's eyes widen. "You decide. Thirty seconds."

   "No."

   "Bad choice. Because if I don't talk to Sasaki, Freenet is going to start
broadcasting everything we know about the Chi Sequence and Memphis.
Which is quite a lot."

   Dryke's expression did not change. "What the hell is that to me? Just
come out, McCutcheon. It'll be a lot easier to clean up around here if you
do."

  Christopher tried to keep the surprise off his face. Dryke didn't know.
Dryke doesn't know. For just that moment, Christopher's confidence
wavered. Mother of Gaea, if I'm wrong—

  "You'd better check with the Director and see if she cares," he said
weakly.

   "I'm not playing the game, McCutcheon. You've got nothing to bargain
with."

   "You're a chump, Dryke, d'you know that? A first-class no-brain
chump. You don't know what this is all about. You don't know what you're
defending. You don't even know what you're fighting."

   "You're not earning any points, McCutcheon."

  "You couldn't keep count if I was," Christopher said. "The hell with you.
We're taking it to the air."

   "We're already on the air," Anna X said.
   Christopher shot her a surprised sideways glance, and then a pleased
smile. "My name is Christopher McCutcheon," he said, looking straight
into the camera. "My father was Jeremiah, of the Homeworld. The first
reason that I'm here is to tell you that he's dead."

   He swallowed, dropped his eyes for a moment, and then drew in a
breath to proceed. "He's dead now, but I'm still learning from what he
taught me. You have something to learn, too. That's the other reason I'm
here—to tell you a story. It's a story about a great river and the animals
who explored it. The river is called Time and Destiny and God. The
animals have many names, including Man.

   "So you're part of the story, and so am I. It's a story about where we
came from and where we're going. It's all of our stories, from before the
beginning of history, all wrapped in one. Because it's the story of who we
are. Some of you won't like the ending—I'll warn you about that now—"

  "Christopher?" interrupted one of the women. "Someone heard you. It's
Hiroko Sasaki."

  "Switch," he said. "Director? Can you hear me?"

    "Yes, Christopher. I hope you can hear me, as well. Mikhail, are you
listening?"

   "Here, Director." From his expression, he was eating his face off from
the inside.

  "Very well. Christopher, what is it that you want?"

  "I want to see you. I want the truth about the Chi Sequence and
Memphis."

  "Nothing more?"

  His chest rose and fell with several breaths before he knew his answer.
"There's more, but it will keep until I see you."

  She nodded. "Mikhail."

  "Yes, Director."

  "If he ends his broadcast now, bring him to me."
   All eyes in the room were on Christopher. He sought out Deryn's with
his own.

    "It's a good beginning," she said, answering the question in his look.
"And I know how to finish it. If you can't, I'll tell the story, when the time
is right."

  He nodded. That was enough. "I'd like a promise of safe conduct from
Mr. Dryke," he said to Sasaki.

   A moment later, he had the promise. He hugged Deryn and thanked
Anna X, then turned and left, his steps curiously light. Alone, he climbed
up to Entry and walked out through the door of Shelter 24 with his
shoulders straight and his head high. As he did, the two staff women
rushed by him, escaping into the safety of Sanctuary.

   "You don't have it yet," Dryke said, glaring across the room.

  "Wrong," Christopher said. "I always had it. I was just the last to
know."




  Christopher did not try to talk to Dryke in the shuttle, not even to ask
where they were headed. Instead, he thought about the questions he
wanted to ask Sasaki. There were fewer than he would have expected.
Confirmation, correction, validation— those he still needed. But the
unknown detail was irrelevant. The synthesis embodied the detail. The
general implied the specific.

   The flight was long even in objective terms, long enough that it could
have only one destination. Finally, they docked at a satland which, from
the glimpse Christopher got through the pilot's port and the kanji signage
in the transfer chute, could only be Takara.

  "The Director's on Memphis!" Christopher asked, turning as he walked
and throwing the question back over his shoulder to Dryke. Dryke's only
answer was a straight-arm, flat-palm shot to the middle of Christopher's
back, shoving him forward.

  Dryke and two of the soldiers escorted Christopher to a med station,
where he was stripped, scanned, sampled, searched inside and out, and,
finally, given new clothes—a rigger's pajamalike skinsides. He endured the
exercise stoically, refusing the humiliation he might have felt.

   Then he was bustled aboard another spacecraft, this one cavernous and
buslike, with low, extra-wide seats that were actually uncomfortable
without the work suits they had apparently been designed for. Their party
of four was scattered among the forty seats—Christopher and Dryke at
opposite sides of a middle row, the soldiers at opposite ends of the center
aisle.

   As on the shuttle, Dryke never took his right hand off his shockbox or
his eyes off Christopher. The level, unflinching gaze had in it something of
a carrion bird's hopefulness and something of a timber wolfs watchfulness.

   For the most part, Christopher ignored him. All of his surroundings
were new, and he managed enough curiosity about them to divert himself
by attending to the novelty. But he could not stop his mind from thinking,
from trying to weave in the last few threads. And one of those threads
involved the security of Memphis, which meant it involved Mikhail Dryke.
It was hard to offer anything, even a thought, to the man who had shot
down his father. But Sasaki might not be the best to face the question he
wanted to ask.

  "Is Roger Marshall coming up to Memphis, too?"

  Dryke's gaze never wavered, and his expression never changed.

  "He never went through Selection, you know."

  Still there was no response.

   "I hear that a lot of people are going to be on Memphis who never went
through Selection or Training. If Marshall's one of them, you might want
to pay attention to whether his freight gets here before him. And if it does,
you might want to make sure it gets the 'A' inspection—the kind you'd give
something belonging to me."

  Almost five minutes passed in silence.

   "Why?" Dryke said, as though a complicated equation had ground
through his mind without generating a solution.
    "Because I'm not the new Jeremiah—which means that someone else
is."

  Another long silence. Christopher understood that it was as hard for
Dryke to accept anything from Christopher as it was for him to offer it.

  "Why Marshall?" Dryke asked finally.

  "Do you know a good reason why he would call my home and wonder to
Loi how I was dealing with my father's death?"

  "Do you?"

   "Maybe. It was two days after I disappeared, and two days before the
attack on Memphis. Maybe he'd lost track of me and needed to make sure
I wasn't on board somehow."

  "Why?"

  "Because of a promise to my father."

   Dryke looked away, raising a hand to scratch the bridge of his nose. "A
lot of maybes."

  "Then he is coming," Christopher said.

  The gaze firmed and found Christopher again.

    "Has it occurred to you that the attack on Memphis was a successful
one, after all?" Christopher asked. "The real damage was done to security.
This panic plan puts hundreds of people on the ship who would otherwise
never have gotten there, apparently including Marshall. And I'm guessing
it overwhelms your normal screening procedures, too. Are you
streamlining things to get people processed faster? Giving anyone a pass?
Top management? The committee? Roger Marshall? Don't answer, I can't
do anything with the information. Just questions."

   Something had awakened in Dryke's eyes. His head tipped back
slightly, and he stared at Christopher with something closer to—fear?

   One last card. "Tell me—Marshall wasn't involved in drawing up this
plan, was he?"
   There was a suspended moment, in which Christopher could almost see
the picture in his mind replicating itself in Dryke's. Then there was a
bump as they docked with Memphis, and the all-clear tone.

  This time, Dryke preceded him down the aisle. He seemed to be in a
hurry.




   The suite in which Sasaki received him was neither large nor grand,
but it bore a stamp. A pale-tinted hanging scroll sandwiched in translute
was strung between ceiling and floor as a room divider; in lighted display
recesses on the wall were a bronze horse, a gleaming metal-paper origami
of a dragon in flight, and a deep-rubbed mahogany Buddah, surrounded
by flowers and candles, smiling within at some untold amusement.

   Other recesses were empty, but there were two trunklike shipping casks
stacked in a corner of the outer room. Furniture seemed sparse until
Sasaki showed him a pair of facing chairs that slid out from an inner wall
as though they were drawers. She settled in one and invited him to the
other with an open hand. She was smaller than he had expected, and
braver—they were alone, Sasaki having sent his escorts back.

  "You said that you wanted the truth," she said. "Are you equal to it?"

  "How do you know, before you're tested?"

  She nodded. "A good answer. Ask your questions."

  "Is Memphis ready for space?"

  "It will be, very shortly."

  "When are you leaving?"

   "From Takara, a matter of days. For Tau Ceti, a matter of a few weeks.
We will go out for our certification flight with full crew and manifest. If
the systems are sound, we will not turn back at Pluto."

  "Who will be governor?"

  She smiled slightly. "That duty will be mine, for now."
   "And what happens here? Who takes over? Or will there be anything to
take over?"

   "No," she said. "This is the end of the Diaspora, as we have suspected
for some time it would be. After Memphis sails, the Project will fall into
bankruptcy. But the vultures will find very little meat on the bones. The
money is all here, in Memphis and Ur. We have bought two starships for
the price of five. Many promises will be broken, and many bills left unpaid.
Not even Allied has ever seen an honest accounting."

  "Why that way?"

   "Because it was time. Because it was the only way the flower would
blossom," she said.

   Dryke joined them then, entering the suite quietly and standing with
crossed arms beside the hanging scroll. Sasaki looked up past Christopher
with a questioning glance.

   "Marshall missed his flight from LAX," Dryke said. "He apologizes and
says he has to have more time to wrap up business. His personals didn't
miss their flight. I had the casks pulled out of the line on Technica and
checked. The one that was supposed to be art and books was two hundred
and eighty kilos of underwater explosives."

   Christopher closed his eyes, the rush of relief carrying away the
strength from his limbs.

  "I should have wondered why a man like that wanted to go," Dryke said.

   "Sometimes perfection is found in the result, not in the method,"
Sasaki said. "And sometimes perfection is only possible in thought." She
looked to Christopher. "Now a question for you," she said. "Do you want to
come on Memphis?"

   Her words encircled his heart and tightened until he could hardly
breathe. "Yes."

  "Why?"

  He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. The reasons
were all turned around inside each other, connected at odd places,
sometimes not connected at all. His motives were all suspect, shallow,
trivial—or else so deep and fundamental that he could not wrap sentences
around them. "I don't know," he said at last.

  To his surprise, Sasaki smiled warmly. "Then come."

  He drew a hard breath. "No," he said. "I can't."

  "Explain?"

   "There's someone else who belongs here before I do. A friend. Daniel
Keith. He works in Selection—a BC-positive. He'd be up here now if it
wasn't for me." He was fighting with tears. "If you're going to give me a
discretionary space, I—you have to let me give it to him."

   She was studying him closely. "Mikhail, do you know anything about
this?"

  "Keith was on the list," he said. "He was sent to Prainha because of
contact with Christopher. He's under arrest there."

  "He was clear except for his friendship with this man?"

  "Yes."

   She nodded, looking into Christopher's eyes. "You don't know how
extraordinary I find it that you would give up your place to your friend."

  "I made him a promise."

  "Even so, that would be rare selflessness, even here." She sat forward in
her chair. "I think that we can find two places as easily as one."

   A shuddery sob escaped through the smile that sprang onto
Christopher's face. He pressed his palms together almost as though
praying, and puffed away the rush of discordant emotion in hoarse
breaths.

  Rising, she smiled and touched his shoulder. "I will give you some time.
Then there will be much more to say."

  He twisted in his chair as she started away. "You had me tested for the
Chi Sequence. On Takara. Didn't you?"
  "That was the question I expected first," she said. "Yes."

  "What am I?"

   "Young," she said. "But you will grow." Guiding Dryke ahead of her, she
started again for the door.

  Christopher stood and called after them. "That's not enough," he said.

  She turned and looked back. "Most of those who will make this trip will
know no more."

  Shaking his head, he said, "I still need to know—do I belong here?"

   Her gaze appraised him. "Not if you still need that question answered
by me."

   He considered that for a long time, then laughed a little laugh, the joke
a silent secret. "No. I suppose I don't. But did any of us really have a
choice? Did you?"

  "No," she said. "And still, I did what I wanted."

  "I don't understand."

  "Do you know T. E. Lawrence?"

  "A little."

   "The epigraph from Seven Pillars." She quoted, " 'I loved you, so I drew
these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars,
to earn you Freedom—' "

  "Yes," Christopher said, throat suddenly tight, thinking not of
Lawrence, nor of Sasaki. "I have one more question."

  She waited.

  "For him," Christopher said, looking at Dryke.

   Dryke met his gaze with a look absent of apology—which, for the first
time, Christopher could accept. "What?"
   "Where is my father?"

   There was only the briefest hesitation. "Where we found him."




  Eleven days later, fulfilling a promise by Sasaki, an Allied screamer took
Christopher down to the ridge.

   It promised to be his last hour on Earth, and he had hoped Loi could
meet him there and share it. He had envisioned a tidy closure—fierce,
fervent hugs, murmured I love you's, blessings and forgiveness. But it was
not to be. The day before, when he called her to ask, he found her half a
world away in Osaka, promoting a new timesculpt, arranging for an
exhibition. She could not get away.

   Her regret seemed sincere, but he could not tell her that there would be
no more chances. She already knew he was leaving— he had been
transferring his libraries up from the housecom all week, and a Project
gofer had been by to retrieve Claudia and his other possessions. He was
moving on, and so was Loi, and if it was not tidy, it was still going to be all
right, in time.

   Just as it was somehow right that he had ended up coming to the ridge
alone.

   Overhead, clouds like black lace curled down to form a dome. The
house was little more than ashes, and the ashes were already dotted with
green fronds. Christopher moved slowly across the charred foundation,
marking where each room had been, toeing the ashes here and there but
finding nothing he recognized, much less anything he wanted. Hands
buried in his pockets, he wandered a short way into the woods, drawing in
the familiar scents, looking skyward into the crown and watching the firs
dance their slow dance in the wind, listening to the delicate sound dead
needles made falling to the soft carpet of the forest floor.

   Then it was time to do what he had come there to do.

   The grave marker had been made on Takara, formed of the compacted
lunar soil used as satland shielding, etched with energy captured from the
Sun. In silence, Christopher carried the heavy tablet from the screamer
and placed it in the wet ashes above his father's tomb.

  JEREMIAH MCCUTCHEON, it said.

  Non Omnis Moriar

  "Good-bye," said Christopher. And as the rain began and his tears ran,
Loi, his father and the verdant hills all released him with their blessing.




  UAG STOP




                           Caravan to Tau Ceti

   For one day short of five weeks, Memphis nursed its wounds, real and
feigned, in a polar orbit high enough to shrink the blue-white globe below
almost to the size of a memory.

    Inside, training continued as time and space allowed, with impromptu
classes held at all hours, all over the ship. With the manifest at 218 over
the design maximum of 12,000, staff and citizenry both faced relentless
settling-in pains, as though the ship were a shoe and a half size too small.
But, in an unfolding miracle, each day Memphis seemed to grow larger, as
its inhabitants learned where elbows rubbed and how best to use the
spaces that they had.

   While the techs and mechs tuned the ship's systems, the counselors
tried to tune its community. Nearly two hundred Selection mistakes were
quietly corrected before the sailing day arrived, each case reviewed by
Sasaki before the offenders were sent down to Takara for holding. A
hundred more went out on their own through the door that Sasaki held
open for them to the very last.

  But at last the ship was ready, and the door irrevocably closed. There
was no announcement—Memphis was still officially disabled, departure
indefinitely postponed—and yet somehow there were anticipations in the
ether. On the day that Memphis sailed, 56,000 massed in London at a
Muslim prayer rally aimed at pulling the starship back down from the sky.
In the hour Memphis sailed, a judge in Delaware granted an injunction
barring the starship from leaving and ordering Allied to show that the son
of Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy of Wilmington, missing now for nearly two
months, was not aboard.

   But neither the power of prayer nor the power of law would be enough
to stay the captain's will or still the starship's drives. And so, in the
minutes before Memphis sailed, two friends spoke one last time across a
void wider in space than in spirit.

    "I've already written my essay for tomorrow's History Today," said
Thomas Tidwell from his house in Halfwhistle. "Do you want to hear how
it begins? 'The starship Ur left Earth in the sunlight, to children's cheers
and the sound of summer bands. The starship Memphis stole away in the
night, in the silence of a pricking conscience.' Nicely turned, don't you
think?"

  "Well enough—but whose conscience?" said Sasaki from her suite on
Memphis. "Mine is clear."

   "I use you only as a bullfighter uses the cape, to draw them in,
unsuspecting. I go on to make many profound observations, the meaning
of which will likely escape nine in ten listeners."

  Sasaki smiled. "I look forward to hearing it all tomorrow, from
somewhere in the neighborhood of Jupiter."

  "That will be a good distance to listen from, I expect," said Tidwell.
"Have you told Governor James on Ur?"

  "I plan to put up a dispatch when we cross out of the solar system."

   "Good," said Tidwell. "Perhaps then they won't feel so alone. Perhaps it
will help them take some courage and pride in what they've embarked on."

  "Perhaps. But I intend to concern myself only with Memphis," said
Sasaki. "Thomas, Captain Powell is calling me to the bridge."

  "Never let your people forget that they are messengers as well as
travelers."

   "I will try. I trust you have no regrets, Thomas."

   Tidwell shook his head. "I no more regret refusing your offer and
staying than you regret leaving. And I am curious to see if knowledge of
the prophecy of our genes will allow us to defy them."

   "I will wish you the best in that," Sasaki said. "Thank you for your
service, Thomas."

   "Thank me? I should rather thank you. I was privileged to stand in the
shadows beside you while you drew to yourself all the forces of a moment
in time," Tidwell said. "Everyone over the age of five in 2083 remembers
where they were, what they were doing when Ur sailed. Everyone over the
age of five today will remember as vividly where they were when they
heard that Memphis had skipped away. And you, Hiroko Sasaki, will go
down in history as one of the great criminals of all time."

   "There you are wrong, my friend," said Sasaki with the smallest hint of
a prideful smile. "Starting today, we write the histories."




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