Analog Science Fiction and Fact - 2014-07
Author: Penny Publications
Date: 2014-07-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Science Fiction; non-fiction; Periodical
Rights: Kindle Edition, © 2014 Penny Publications

Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Kindle Edition, 2014 © Penny Publications

The Journeyman: Against the Green

Michael F. Flynn | 18716 words

Illustrated by Tomislav Tikulin

"The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began."

—J. R. R. Tolkien

A Rise to the Top

Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand was sparring with Filovolos Jo at the longsword when the princess Anya entered the practice yard dressed in her hunting leathers and summoned the yar commanding the legion as if he were a mere servant. The Foreign Legion consisted of men pressed with varying degrees of willingness into the services of the kospathin of Cliffside Keep. Some were men who had fled their homelands for reasons well and true, but some like Teodorq had simply been passing through the fodanny of House Tiger and had been given the choice of service or the Spit.

The princess handed Yar Yoodavig a scrap of parchment that he held close to his nose, as if he were sniffing out the runes. Then he nodded. "Overnight pass in order," he announced in the shortgrass plavver that the legion used as a common tongue. "Teodorq, follow the lady and do what she says."

Sammi o' th' Eagles speculated in the hill lingo on the nature of the services to be rendered, and Karakalan sunna Vikeram volunteered that he could render far better service than "the yngling." But the princess turned on him and repeated in heavily accented sprock a number of words that women on the Great Grass did not use. Like her uncle, she had been learning the languages of the Far West. Just in case the ironclad horsemen that followed the Little Father of the North thought to send their lances in that direction.

The princess mounted beside an armored eridzar named Matyas, leaving Teodorq to follow on foot. "Don't worry," Anya told him. "It isn't far."

Teodorq shrugged and began to tell her of the time he had walked twenty ridings through the Great Grass after the Pheasants had killed his horse from under him for innocently over-branding a few of their calves. But the princess turned sharply about and kicked her steed into motion. Teodorq, caught in mid-story, looked to the eridzar, but that worthy had slid closed the visor on his iron hat and paid him no mind.

On the Great Grass, even the veriest youth would hop a-horseback rather than walk, even if to visit the tent aside his own. But he could walk if need be, and this seemed one of those times.

The kettle-head rode in the fore and bellowed a path through the village for the lady. Teodorq brought up the rear and enjoyed an edifying view of the lady's horse, but stepped nimbly to avoid the consequences. Dogs challenged their progress; chickens chuckled and scurried out of the way. A hauler clattered a load of charcoal into a bunker beside the smithy. Now and then, Teodorq spotted men he had met and women he would like to meet and greeted them cheerfully, as if the progress were his and the lady and knight merely his escorts.

Cliffside Keep lay at the base of a tall, sheer scarp that ran along the northern edge of World as far as anyone had traveled. That people lived atop the plateau had been known since the Fall from Heaven, but there had been no encounter between the high-up folk and the bottomlands until now.

A handful of generations before, men in iron suits had descended from a southward spur of the plateau to build stone fastnesses along its base, driving off the shortgrassmen who had lived there since the creation of World. Cliffside Keep itself sat at the very tip of the spur and warded the passage between the prairie to the west and the forest to the east. Teodorq, who had lived most of his life on the horizontal, was unclear how this vertical feat had been accomplished, although he supposed it might be easier to jump off a cliff than to climb up.

On the western face of the spur an enormous fall of water created a wide mist-shrouded lake choked with cat-tails and lily pads, and gave birth to a daughter river that meandered southwest, away from the village. But a portion of the fall had been captured in sluices directed toward an array of great wooden wheels, turning them at various speeds. The plainsman knew a moment of awe that these people had not only tamed iron, but commanded the very gravity of World.

According to the Lore of the Great Grass, the first men had possessed preternatural powers, called hiteq in the languages of hill, plains, and prairie alike; and Teodorq might have inclined to call these sluices and water-wheels hiteq, save that he had once seen the wreckage of Shuttle Starbright–17 out near the western edge of the shortgrass. This shuttle had tumbled from the sky in the Long Ago and still hosted puissant hiteq watched over by Jamly-the-ghost, a drawing that somehow moved and spoke. He and Sammi had escaped from Jamly only by accepting commissions from the Commonwealth of Suns to search out the villages of the star men and send succor. Teodorq did not believe that there was any longer a Commonwealth of Suns or that its commission meant anything; but it had gotten them safely away, and he continued to paint the three red stripes across his biceps and ask after the two towns Jamly had told him to seek. So far, no one had aught of them.

Each water-wheel was affixed to a shed and through the open doors of one Teodorq saw that the wheel rotated numerous fixtures on its axle. A toothed wheel turned a millstone. A smooth half-oval raised and dropped an enormous hammer onto a slab of glowing iron. This was the thumping sound he had been hearing ever since coming to the stronghold. Still a third worked a bellows blowing air into a furnace of red-hot charcoal. Iron moved smoothly from furnace to trip-hammer to grinding wheel.

Teodorq had paused to contemplate the work and, either sensing this or expecting it, Lady Anya paused a few paces ahead and turned in her saddle. "What do you think of our 'quarter of industriousness,' my westland wildling?"

Teodorq schooled his face to betray no emotion. Cool was drummed into a plainsman from childhood. His initial awe had given way to a keen observation. He did not know how these devices were made—only later did he learn words like "cam" and "crank" and "crown gear"—but he owned a keen geometrical sense and quickly discerned how they transformed the downward force of the waterfall into the rotary motion of the great wheel and then into the reciprocal motions of the various implements. He even deduced that the force and speed of the bellows, hammers, and wheels depended on the strength of the water's current and the drop of the fall, to which the princess gave the names "amperage" and "voltage." And no sooner had he wondered how the ironmen kept the wooden members from rubbing themselves aflame than he saw a workman inside the shed apply a swab of grease to a moving joint to "lower the resistance."

The prairieman nodded his head in approval and answered that the work seemed efficiently arranged and he expected the forgings to be more uniform than those the smithy wrought by hand, but that the smith would no doubt need to carry out the fine work. Whether this was the answer the princess had looked for, or indeed even the kind of answer she had looked for, she made no sign but turned about and motioned Matyas to continue their progress. Her uncle, she said, was waiting for them.

Finally, the party cut between two wheel houses and proceeded to the base of the cliff. There, twin scaffolds were attached to the face of the precipice, and Teodorq could not help but tilt his head back to follow their skyward progress. A barred cage hung from ropes inside the right-hand scaffold. The axle of a nearby wheelhouse was attached to a wheel there, but it was not turning.

When the princess stepped into the cage, Teodorq hesitated—caging was a punishment on the Great Grass—and the kettle-head, mistaking his hesitancy, spoke for the first time in their sojourn. "Don't worry, walshiq. It's safe. Kind of."

"Stairs climb between scaffolds," Teodorq pointed out in passable yashiq.

The princess laughed, corrected a point of grammar and said, "This is less tiring."

Teo resolutely stepped within the cage. A yeoman joined them, closed the gate on the cage, and checked that it was securely latched. Then he spoke into a tube. "Everything eyoké. Five, four, three, two, one, nishin."

Something in the wheelhouse thumped and the water-wheel began turning. When it was up to speed, something else thumped and the axle attached to the scaffold began turning with it. Ropes grew taught and took the strain and the cage began rising. Teodorq gripped the bars tightly. "We have lift-off," said the yeoman just before the speaking tube detached and swung away.

Teodorq saw the ground dropping away beneath him, and swallowed his vertigo. Life on the Great Grass was primarily horizontal. He had never been higher off the ground than the back of his horse. This was hiteq indeed! But he kept his cool. Corridors in the wrecked shuttle had gone off in wrong directions, too; and he wondered if they were not some more magical rendition of the vertical cart he now rode.

"Well?" said the princess with a sly expectation. "Aren't you afraid?"

Teodorq turned to her, suddenly alarmed. "You mean it's not supposed to do this?"

The princess scowled. The kettle-head turned his face away and bit down hard on his lip. The yeoman pretended to be deaf. But the cage was clearly intended to be raised or lowered by a block-and-tackle; so why should it amaze him that it did so? The genuine marvel had been the water-wheels. He had never before seen anything moved other than by the muscle power of man or beast. But when he fell to considering, he thought that a harness thrown on water or wind would surely accomplish similar results to a harness thrown on a horse.

A Glimpse of a Sun

The cage stopped at the top of the cliff and men there made it fast. Teodorq stepped out of the cliff-climber into the courtyard of a strong, stone keep. The Wisdom was waiting for him. The lady's uncle owned a peculiar interest in the things of the world: making maps, preparing simples and compounds, comparing languages, and preserving specimens of animals and plants. A lover of the wisdom of nature, he styled himself—as well as a canny advisor to his brother, the kospathin.

"Welcome to Top-of-World," he said, tugging his long white beard. "Matyas, show our young legionnaire to the barracks, then bring him to me in the Eye-room."

The Eye-room proved to be an open patio atop a tall tower on the south wall. There, the Wisdom waited with a servant and a table set with wine and a charcoal brazier. On a tripod beside the table was affixed a brass tube. Teodorq looked about with interest and noted a breath-taking vista of the countryside below. The shortgrass prairie rolled away to the west, disappearing into the haze of distance. On the east, a broad, farm-filled valley rose toward a bluish, tree-covered ridge. Southward, past the hunting preserve in which he and Sammi had been captured, Teodorq thought he could just make out the edge of the swamplands. Everything looked very small, like the toy horses and men oft fashioned for children. Despite being closer to Sun, the air was sensibly cooler than on the lowlands.

"Yuh can see almost to the edge of World," he said in admiration.

The princess laughed, but the Wisdom stroked his beard and asked carefully, "What shape do you suppose World has?"

Teodorq had never given the shape of World much thought. He was more interested in the shape of the landscape immediately about him, where an enemy might lie hidden in the enveloping grass or in the ravines out among the Breaks. "Most say that World is a flat blanket," he said, "over which the tent of the sky has been thrown—the Big Top, we call it."

"Most say. But what does Teo say?"

Teodorq desired above all else to keep the good will of the Wisdom. It had been the gray-beard's interest in the Commonwealth of Suns that had saved him from a seat on the kospathin's Spit. "On the Great Grass," he said slowly, "World runs in all directions as flat as makes no difference, and one may see Sun and Sperm and the other gods roll across the Big Top. So it ain't too surprising folks think that. But it seems to me that if World was a flat blanket, Sun would rise at the same time everywhere, but take longer to come over the center of the blanket than over the east. Yet, as Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand traveled east, I saw noon come no sooner after sunrise. So I figger World is curved, more like the back of a giant turtle."

The Wisdom grinned and favored the princess with a significant look. "There, you see?" Then, to Teodorq, "World is actually a great ball around which moons and suns and wanderers turn. And the wanderers are not gods, but other spheres just like World. Two have brilliant rings. Several have moons that put our paltry two to shame.

Teodorq thought the remarks impolitic. If the wanderers were not gods, there was no harm. But if they were, they might take such comments amiss and bring on hail storms and tornados. He settled for a noncommittal, "How 'bout that."

The tableland to the north was garbed with sedge and bright flowers and strange, needle-bearing trees. A bright blue lake glistened in the cold sunlight, neatly blocking any approach from that direction and feeding the waterfall that powered the industrial quarter. Beyond the lake, a meadow rich with violet wild-flowers hosted a strange giant deer on long, spindly legs, whose dolorous face was crowned by a heavy rack.

"Those are losse," the Wisdom said. "Also called 'moose' in Eastern Yashiq. They appear clumsy and ungainly, but it is unwise to approach them. They and the grizzlebar rule the thoogu."

"The thoogu," Teodorq repeated. "A strange land."

"And yet not without its beauty. Vokh, the one-God, gave it to our people in times before memory, when we were expelled from the heavens into this vale of tears."

All the folk that Teodorq had encountered told the same tale—in the hill country, on the Great Grass, on the shortgrass, and now here on the thoogu. Man at first had wielded preternatural powers in a wondrous land of plenty, but through sin had fallen into a harsh and unforgiving life. He recalled what Jamly-the-ghost had said about the ancient fight in the sky with the People of Sand and Iron, and thought perhaps the Fall had been no more than literal truth, burnished a little from the polish of many tellings.

Shading his eyes, Teodorq could make out another fortress farther north on the far side of the lake.

"That is House Lynex," said the Wisdom, matching Teodorq's gaze. "Like House Tiger, they have come off the Shield to honor the Little Father. To the northeast you can see House Losse. Here, use the far-seer." He introduced Teodorq to the brass tube and showed him how to use it.

When Teodorq peered through the tube, everything seemed to leap toward him and it took all his cool not to flinch. But he recalled that the Wisdom used glass on his eyes to make runes appear closer, and supposed this only an extension of that art.

The stronghold off to the northeast was small, even with the look-glass. There was a hint of a cliff climber on the face below it, and Teo guessed that a sawak like Cliffside Keep lay at its base. Then he turned the tube on the lowlands to the east. "What's beyond that there ridge?" he asked. "Another valley, much like ours but uncleared," the Wisdom answered. "The Nobeshtinny. Beyond that a great forest and the unknown."

"Anybody live there?"

"A few settlers and freeholders. The forest men have been cleared off of Woody Ridge by our legion, save for outlaw gangs. But they have villages in the Great Eastern Forest and in parts of the Nobeshtinny. They are less accomplished than the shortgrass men. They hunt and garden in clearings they make by barking trees, but unlike the 'sodbusters' they have no plows."

Teodorq shortly found what he knew must be: watchtowers planted among the trees at the crest of Woody Ridge. He grunted in satisfaction. The Wisdom's saddle was not uncinched. The bear went over the mountain, Sammi's folk were wont to say. He imagined armsmen were posted in the towers with look-glasses very like this one, and for the same reason that had motivated the bear. To see what they could see.

"What's out yonder," he asked, "that you need the watchtowers?" Not the forestmen, he thought. There were no such watchtowers on the short grass.

The Wisdom tugged on his beard and scowled at the horizon. "The greenies," he said. "Unhuman creatures, green of flesh, who fight with thunder and lightning. They have only appeared in this generation to bedevil the forest men beyond the Nobeshtinny Valley."

That can't be good, Teodorq told himself. He remembered his oath to the Commonwealth of Suns had pledged defense against "all enemies, human and inhuman," and he half-consciously rubbed the three stripes.

The Wisdom rubbed his hands. "Ah, here comes the princess, and Great Sun is near setting."

Teodorq glanced at the brass tube, then at the reddening sky, and finally and more appreciatively at the approaching girl. She was bundled up in furs against the chill and her breath made puffs of white.

"It is the wrong time of year for looking at the Commonwealth..." The Wisdom meant the milky band of light that ran across the winter sky, not the league of sky-villages that Jamly-the-ghost had described. "... but will you trust me if I tell you that the look-glass shows it to be made of myriads of individual lights?"

"Of course." Teo's people had called the milky band the Treasure Fleet. "Jamly told us that they once formed a vast Commonwealth headed by the village called 'Terra.'"

"They were masters of all arts," the Wisdom agreed, "those men of the Long Ago. Our legends tell us they 'touched the genes of men.'"

"What are genes?"

The Wisdom shrugged. "No man knows, but we have usually taken it to mean the 'heart' or 'core' or 'inmost being' of men."

"It's getting cold, Uncle," complained the princess. "Show him what you fetched him up to show, so we can all bundle up and wait for the morning splashdown."

"Did you suitably awe him as you said you would?" the Wisdom asked in the yashiq, perhaps not kenning how much of the ironmen's talk Teodorq already grasped.

"He did not bat an eye," the princess replied. "He is a dull, stolid youth. Perhaps he did not understand the wonders of technology."

The Wisdom glanced at Teodorq and smiled. "I would not underestimate the barbarians and savages."

Sun was almost completely set when the Wisdom took the brass tube to the western parapet and directed it toward the yellow glare. He adjusted it for a bit while Teodorq contemplated how the device might aid a long hunter. Then the old man beckoned with his fingers. "Come, come. You may need to turn this—yes, this ring—to make the image clear. Tell me what you see."

Teodorq bent to the look-glass and squinted through it. The limb of Sun was but a sliver, golden red at day's end. The Sperm was just touching the edge of it. At this time of year, it was emerging from Sun, not delving into her, and so it was more properly called the Newborn by purists among the Elders.

The dull, red disk had the seeming of a coal plucked from the brazier. Small curlicues of white light flashed and twisted across its face or sparkled in the surrounding dark matter. It reminded Teodorq of a nest of rattlesnakes.

"Them look like the comets that the gods sometimes send," he told the Wisdom. "Only smaller."

"Say rather, 'more distant.'"

"That where comets come from? Or did the Sperm gather its comets while it was inside Sun?"

The laughter of the princess was like the cry of a hawk, but the Wisdom spoke more kindly. "No, young man, for when we observe the Red Sun in its easting it has the same appearance. And it does not enter Sun. Sun moves in front of it, being on a smaller orb. Our ancients called the Red Sun 'oort- eater' and 'comet-thrower,' though we don't know what they meant by 'oort.' What I would like to know is how, since your people do not have look-glasses, you knew of its resemblance to an egg invested by sperm."

But the question baffled Teodorq. One knew because it was part of the Lore passed on by the elders as they chanted the Great Lays from the elik skins they kept.

"Uncle, you cannot expect a savage like this boy to know such things." The princess again spoke in yashiq. Teodorq pretended not to understand.

"The great mystery," the Wisdom said in plavver, bending once more to the far-seeing tube, "is why the Red Sun should cast shadows and warm Little Winter nights while the other wanderers do not. Some Wisdoms say that it is a second sun, only dimmer and farther off; but that violates the principle of parsimony: Do not multiply entities without necessity. Why should there be a second sun?"

Teodorq shrugged. "Spare parts?"

A Sweep of the Ridge

Yar Yoodavig took the legion on an extended reconnaissance across Woody Ridge into the Nobeshtinny Valley. He split the legion into three squadrons, each under a subyar, a title that sounded to Teodorq suspiciously like his own Commonwealth rank of subadar. Each column rode horses of a distinct color and each had "bannermen" who kept saddlebags of colored flags with which to signal the others.

The yar was savvy enough to assign Kal to the southern squad and keep Teodorq with him in the northern squad. Teo and his clan enemy had reached an uneasy truce following their single combat, and the First had forbade further fighting; but Teo trusted Kal only as far as he could throw him. Which, granted, was pretty far, since he knew some wrassling moves; but still... Sammi, the hillman who had trekked with him since they had discovered the Shuttle together, was assigned to the central squadron. Of the other new men in the legion, the yar kept Hidaq Upperbrook also with him and placed P. Z. Emersavig, a swamper, in the central column.

Because they had farther to travel to reach their jump-off point, the southern squadron, mounted on blacks, set off at dawn, followed by the greys at the third hour. When the sun was high, the yar signaled to the sorrels and they set off at a trot, following upstream a winding creek of ice-cold water. A rutted road ran beside the creek for a while, but it soon veered and overleapt the creek by means of a wooden plank bridge guarded by an outpost of men-at-arms.

Yar Yoodavig paused to ask the subyar of the post whether anything remarkable had happened since the previous sweep. On the other side of the bridge, a similar outpost stood under the banner of a moose. These men, Yar Yoodavig saluted in a polite fashion, a courtesy that the moose-men returned.

"This stream," the yar instructed the new men, "marks the boundary between the fodanny of House Tiger and that of House Losse. There are seven houses that have come off the thoogu to take the lowlands for the Little Father."

Teodorq believed that they had been driven off the plateau for backing the loser in a high-level feud, but like all who write their own history, the ironmen had written a better one than their ancestors had lived. Yet it seemed to him that where seven had gone, others might follow, and harsh times lay ahead for the kraals of the shortgrass.

They came to a village clustered at the base of a knoll atop which stood a tower made partly of stone with stout timbers above. This far from the cliffs, stone blocks were more difficult to come by, but a diversion of the creek waters encircled the holdfast and offered some protection from attackers. The yar consulted with the vagyah of the village and the keeper of the holdfast, who was a cousin of the First. From the tower the legion's bannerman wagged a series of colored flags toward the south, where another stronghold could be spied on a low rise. The bannerman watched through a look-glass and must have been satisfied with what he saw, for the yar told them that the next day they would climb Woody Ridge and enter Nobeshtinny Valley. Nobeshtinny simply meant "unknown" in the yashiq, but as it had been scouted now for two generations what the name meant and what it signified had parted company. The scattered homesteads east of the ridge were technically outside the kospathin's protection. The legion swept the valley mainly to keep an eye on the forestmen.

An hour after sunrise they approached a gap in the ridge anciently worn by the creek they had been following. But the squad turned east cross-country and the yar explained to Teodorq and Hidaq that there was no passage on the Tiger side of the water gap.

A large contingent of mounted men accompanying two wagons and an ornate carriage issued from the Gap flying the banners of House Losse. Instead of the white-and-black striped jerkins worn by the legion, these men were garbed in brown-and-red checkers. The captain of the vanguard waved an arm. "Yo, pussycats!" But did not rein in his canter.

The overcaptain of the train pulled aside and came to the edge of the stream. "That you, Yar Yoodavig? What hail?"

"All quiet, moosehead. Any action east of the Gap?"

"None we saw. Our nazalenig Mamu is bound for Tiger Keep to meet his betrothed." His gesture indicated the gilt carriage now passing behind him.

"The honor guard ought to be waiting at Woodbridge by the time you get there," Yoodavig told him. "Good luck."

With that the two troops parted company and the legion took the trail up the western face of the ridge to a small wind gap scoured by the hot breath of Tarakimuri who gave World its west winds. Teodorq kneed his mount to ride beside the yar.

"The seven houses are allies, ain't they?"

"Aye. They call themselves the Seven Brothers."

"Then why can't we use the Moose Road through the Water Gap?"

"Said we were allies. Didn't say we trusted each other." The yar looked over his shoulder, back down the trail, toward Cliffside Keep. "I sure hope Mamu's acne has cleared up."

"Why's that?"

"The princess gets to say 'no.'"

The squadron pitched camp at the base of one of the ridge-top watchtowers and the yar allowed Teodorq to satisfy his curiosity by climbing above the treetops and using the look-glass to watch the flag waving at the next tower south. But when he asked if he could wag hello to Sammi, the yar was not amused.

Teodorq had intended to ask how they sent messages during the night, but he saw a rack of lanterns with globes of colored glass and immediately deduced the answer.

The eastern slope was more gradual and so the descent was easier than the zigzag trail they had taken to the top. Nobeshtinny Valley was a broad, green bowl thick with woodlands and punctuated here and there by natural and manmade clearings. That much Teodorq could see from the vantage of the ridge, but as they approached the valley floor the forest canopy closed in above them and sight distance shrank to a few dozen paces in every direction. Beyond that, the world was shrouded by brush and the thick, gnarled trunks of ancient trees. In those shadowed recesses, who knew what demons might lurk? Teodorq, who had lived all his life on the open prairie, found the experience unnerving and, although the legion had sometimes practiced within the hunting preserve where he and Sammi had been captured, he was still not accustomed to so many trees around him. The hunting preserve had been cleared of underbrush and was more open and lighted than this primeval forest. The trees soared high overhead and unseen animals made ominous chatter.

As they trooped through the forest, the yar taught Teodorq and Hidaq the proper spacing of men so as to widen the area scouted without losing track of one another. "Don't matter if you can see everyone, long as you can see the man on your left and your right." And again, he told them, "Sound carries in the forest. It echoes off the trees and comes at you from every direction, so it's hard to know where it's coming from. That half-stump there!" He pointed off to the fore. "An enemy armsman!"

Hidaq drew his sword; Teodorq pulled his knife.

"You!" said the yar, "What does your pal call you? Stupid prairieman. What you going to do with a puny knife? Pick your teeth?"

"Kill the enemy," Teodorq motioned toward the trunk, and his knife thunked deep into the stump. "Trees are too close to swing a sword."

The yar smiled. "Maybe not so stupid, then."

Teodorq fetched his knife and when everyone was remounted, the yar told off parties of three to check on known clearings and campsites. He kept Teodorq and his bannerman with him and assigned Hidaq to ride with his senior subyar. "Maintain eyecast distance," he told the others. "Watch for outlaw bands. Bosh, be sure to look into Noracky's Cave. We'll rejoin at Weaver's Fast." This was a fortified homestead that served as a refuge for the freeholders in the northern valley against bandits and war parties from the Eastwood. Weaver had gone off into the wilderness to live free of his labor-obligations to the kospathin. Teodorq did not understand why the First bothered to extend his protection to a man who had actively shunned it. But then he did not understand how one man could claim the labor of another in the first place.

They set off at a walk, following a game trail through the forest. The yar took the lead but kept Teodorq at his side. As they picked their way through the brush, the yar pointed out various trees, shrubs, and herbs and briefed Teodorq on their properties. This tree's bark, when chewed, lessened a headache. That fern, properly mashed, made a good poultice for wounds. Those leaves, when brewed, made a tasty tea. Now and then, he would instruct Teodorq to locate the squads on their left or right and signal that they were seen.

"Easy to get lost in here," he cautioned. "We lost two men a double-summer ago. Do you know why I'm here and not with the central squadron, where I can keep tabs direct on both wings?"

Teodorq was not sure why he was being asked such things. It was obvious that the yar was with the northern squadron because that was where Teodorq was, and the opportunity to be involved in heroic deeds was always greater in the company of the son of Nagarajan.

They walked their horses through the forest for a few minutes in silence before Teodorq said, "You're senior officer. The northern column might meet up with moosehead patrols—which we actually done—and that needs more... my word is vinèsh, it means not skill, but fine skill... needs more vinèsh than dealing with outlaws and stuff."

The yar grunted and glanced over his shoulder at his bannerman, who nodded. "Kid's sharp."

"Wisdom told me to keep an eye on you," the yar said. "I'm starting to see why."

The squad emerged from the forest onto cleared ground littered with the stubble of harvested crops. But the unharvested autumn fields on the far side of the Fast had been trampled. Directly in the center of the clearance, atop a swell of land, a wooden stockade enclosed several buildings. Teodorq thought the walls appeared lopsided.

"How come there's only three towers?" he asked.

The yar, who had frowned on seeing the trampled crops, cursed and snatched his looking-tube, with which he studied the Fast. "Esetéfin!" he called to the bannerman. "Ready 'Possible hostile action, Weaver's Fast. Relay. Relay.' Teodorq, find a vantage point and check the far side of the stockade. Signal with your bullroarer if there's trouble."

Teodorq dug heels into the stallion's flanks and galloped across the open fields, to a hillock he had marked. He quickly found an angle from which he could see the eastern wall of the stockade. The great, thick timbers there were snapped and broken as if struck by a giant's fist, and the fourth tower had collapsed in ruin. Teodorq could make out a dozen men and boys lying in the wreckage. Some of them seemed to be forest men, but from all he had heard, the forest men could not have done this destruction.

He whipped the bullroarer around his head and shortly the bannerman's staff flew up with colored pennons snapping along its length. Far off to the south an answering flutter wagged back and forth. That would be the central squadron and Teodorq supposed they would relay word to the southern squadron.

The other scouting parties had emerged from the edge of the forest by then and the yar set lookouts at key points while he and his bannerman investigated the ruins. Shortly afterward the central column under Atglen subyar arrived at the canter. While the officers consulted, Sammi slid off his horse and came up to Teodorq rubbing his butt.

"Sammi not for horsing around. Hillman walks, climbs, springs from ambush. Give me good mountain pony any day." He scanned the ruins of the fastness and pursed his lips. "What did that?"

"A giant, I'm thinking," Teodorq told him. "They say the greenies swell up to twice their size and fight with fire and thunder."

Sammi pursed his lips and thought about that. He crossed his arms. "You going to say it?"

Teodorq shook his head slowly. "That can't be good."

When the southern column arrived, Yar Yoodavig organized a second sweep toward the eastern forest on the far side of the Valley. They quickly found the tracks of the raiding party on a southeast bearing. Footmen, for the most part, although Teodorq noted a handful of horses and wheeled vehicles among them.

"Five horses," Teodorq said confidently, and Kal backed him. "All shod, but the prints differ."

"Carts two-wheeled," said Sammi, noting that the ruts did not overlay one another as would those of a four-wheeled wagon.

"Hard to say how many footmen," Teodorq concluded. "They trampled over one another's prints. Then on the grass in front of the Fast, they spread out in three lines. Them carts—I make two of 'em—was set up there in the middle."

The Yar detached a squad of foresters to trail the departing raiding party and get some idea of their strength. "Stay concealed," he told them. "If you strike open ground, hang back. Make maps, 'cause we ain't got none for the Eastwood. Two days tops, then turn back."

The foresters wore green jerkins with sprigs of brush in their caps. Belepo subyar acknowledged the instructions, spoke briefly but in detail to his men, and they melted on foot into the trees, followed at a distance by those leading the remuda.

Teodorq, Sammi, and Kal returned to Cliffside with the main body by way of Middle Gap, which was broader and less overhung by trees. Kal was not unhappy to do so. "Don't like forests," he said on the way back. "All them trees all close up like that? Like being in a box." He shivered. "A man wants open spaces."

Teodorq felt the same way but was not about to admit it to a Serp. "Can't stay a-feared of the dark forever," he said, using the irontalk. Kal understood half of it, but didn't like the half he did.

"Don't push your luck, Rabbit," he growled.

A Draw of the Bow

When the legion reached Cliffside, they found all in turmoil. Servants and villagers went about with hangdog looks, trying to avoid notice. Raised voices emanated from the Keep. The legion went into barracks and Yar Yoodavig gathered his subyars to make his report. "Maybe I'll report to the Wisdom," he mused, listening to one extended series of shouts. "It sounds like the kospathin is busy."

It did not take long for the skinny to reach the barracks. The princess had called Mamu "zit-face" and spurned his suit. Even though it was her right by long custom, the moosehead prince and his escort had thought the marriage a done deal and had departed in great consternation.

"Good," said Sammi o' th' Eagles when he heard of this. "Sammi still in running."

Two days later, a pigeon arrived from the foresters. They had easily followed the attacking force through the woods, since they had made no attempt at concealment. But after two days the scouts had not reached the far side of the Eastwood and had returned per orders. Wherever the greenies came from was past the forest lands.

Without saying a word to each other, both Teodorq and Kal began to fashion bows. These were the bows of the Great Grass: compound-curved laminates of wood, horn, and sinew. They could feather a man from a greater distance than the crossbows of the ironmen.

When they were ready, Kal and Teo held a demo that attracted many of the legionnaires as well as several of the kettleheads from the Keep. The Wisdom and Lady Anya also attended.

Yar Yoodavig sent one of his bannermen galloping across the Great Meadow with the target. "Tell me when it's far enough." He held a bullroarer at the ready.

Teodorq, stringing his bow, nodded without speaking. Kal raised his head, glanced at the receding bannerman, and spit on the ground. "Let ya know," he said.

Teodorq tested the draw and selected an arrow. Kal said, "Ya think?"

"'Bout now," said Teo, who had still not looked up.

The yar whipped the bullroarer around his head. The bannerman heard the buzz and thrust the target into the ground, turning it so it faced the bowmen. It was a traditional black human silhouette. Kal grunted. "Guess they wanna make it easy."

"Turns?" said Teo.

"Nah."

The two plainsmen toed the mark. Kal rubbed his hands with dirt. Teo tore off some grass stems and dribbled them with his fingers, judging the windage. He glanced at the crops further off to see how the wind shook the tassels on the corn. "Got it?" he asked his companion.

"Yah. Hey, Rabbit. What'd ya name your bow?"

"Sureflight. Yours?"

"Rabbit-skewer."

Teodorq grunted. He notched an arrow and drew back to his ear. Kal matched him. "Ready...? Red, yellow, green, loose!"

Both arrows whipped above the harvest stubble, past the grain-heavy north fields, and skewered the target as near to simultaneous as made no difference. One struck the silhouette near the heart; the other the center of the face.

"Good shot," said Teo.

"Not too bad," admitted Kal.

The watchers murmured their surprise and admiration. Yar Yoodavig favored them with a look that Teo easily interpreted as show me that wasn't just luck. So both plainsmen drew a second arrow. This time, Kal hit the gut while Teo nailed the crotch.

"Ouch," said Kal. "Now yer just showin' off."

Afterward, several other legionnaires asked to draw the bows and three of them succeeded. The Wisdom descended from the reviewing stands and told the yar to form a squadron of horse bowmen within the legion and to have Teo and Kal teach the legion's boyer how to make the bows and arrows for them.

The kospathin called up the organized wilisiya. This consisted of all the able-bodied men in the village as well as a number of the stronger spinsters, who trained with the crossbow and shield. The crossbow corps was under the supervision of the princess Anya herself.

"Yuh know, babe," Teodorq told her one day while the wilisiya and the legion were both on the training field, "them crossbows don't have near the range and punch o' my plains bow." He pulled the instrument back to his ear, knowing that his muscles would bulge and stand out.

"But if we must fight in the forest," the princess said, "distance matters little. The trees will block a far shot. And while only a few may master your bow, most of the men and half the women in our village can wind and loose a crossbow."

Teodorq turned away to see Sammi and Kal watching him. Sammi made a thwp sound with his tongue to imitate an arrow released and Kal answered with a caw like a bird impaled by the shot. With their eyes they followed the imaginary plummet of the bird.

"Never mind, Rabbit," said Kal. "Here comes graybeard wit' his feathers an' ink to study yer bow some more. Maybe yuh can charm him."

A Reconnaissance in Force

Over the next few weeks, as the Great Sun and the Red Sun grew farther apart in the heavens, settlers and outlanders began to arrive at Cliffside Keep from the Nobeshtinny Valley. They came in wagons piled high with their possessions. They came on pack mules carrying bundles. They came on foot bearing nothing. Some were clench-jawed in anger, some wet-eyed from sorrow, others blank-faced with bewilderment. All of them clamored for redress and vengeance from the very kospathin whose rule they had shunned.

The kospathin dispatched runners to House Losse, which being farther northeast was in a more exposed position, and to House Lynex and the others who had come down from the Heights. Another was sent aloft to the Little Father of the North, asking for the aid of those allied houses that still held on in the thoogu. A brother and two cousins still clung to Tiger lands on the plateau; and two additional cousins held fodannies in former shortgrass lands to the west. They all promised to send several lances: contingents of eridzars and their supporting sergeants-at arms.

The legionnaires rode out in squads of twelve into the Nobeshtinny Valley to find refugee homesteaders and escort them to safety on the western slope. Yar Yoodavig set up a table in the barracks with a model in wood and turf of the terrain, and the Wisdom pointed out those regions from which no refugees had come. "These places—this watershed, that knoll, the lake shores—are where the next greenie raid is likely."

The yar translated. "Go look where they ain't been yet, 'cause that's where they'll hit next. Guess the greens found out there's something more powerful than the forest men, and are probing the valley in strength. Keep your eyes sharp and your wits sharper. Come back if you can, but the news you gather is more important than you are."

The tavuta, or "party of twelve" that Teodorq rode with included all eight men who had so far mastered the compound bow, and that meant he and Kal rode together. The horse archers had adopted the plainsman's open vest of fringed elik hide, which they wore over their breast-and-back armor in place of the striped jerkins. There were a pair of swamp men brothers, Ghen-ri Vowduwadosh and Ghen-ri Khavenshdan, known as 'Dosh and 'Dan, a forest man named Jondal Twobulls, Bosh Atwood and Vilyi Bycreek from the shortgrass, and Filovolos Jo who had deserted House Bear to try his luck on the lowlands. 'Dosh and 'Dan had become quite good at the bow, and the others could hit their marks more often than not at a reasonable range.

Sub-bannerman Setevian Wala, a swamper who, like the yar's parents, had wandered up from the south years before, led the tavuta west through Windy Gap in the far south. This track led into an ill-known sector of the Nobeshtinny. They made camp on the eastern slope just below the top line of the ridge. Chum Varòwanop, a "battle engine-maker" who accompanied them, called it the "military crest" in contrast to the "geographical crest." This position, Teodorq noted, provided the widest view of the valley below. The plainsman approved. These people understood the ridge-and-valley country the way his own folk understood the grassy sea.

Wala studied the lay of the land using a look-glass and he and Chum filled in their maps a little. Chum carried a crossbow over his shoulder and short sword called a "galadiola" at his waist. On his pack mule hung cages of carrier pigeons and a pouch of prepared messages.

Wala pointed out a swath of forest at the base of the ridge. "From here," he said, "those trees shield everything downstream along that creek. You could hide an entire company of lancers in its shadow and ambush any party coming down from Windy Gap here. It's a blank area on our map."

"Demons hide in shadows," Sammi agreed.

"Good," the squadron leader replied. "In the morning you and Thewèhdarosh go down and make it a little less blank." Sammi and Thewèhdarosh were called "point guards," and they scouted out ahead of the main body of the tavuta.

When Sammi joined them at the campfire, Kal and Teo chuckled. "Better you peek behind them trees than me." He was roasting a sausage he had pressed from the meat hash the commissary had issued for the expedition. He pulled it from the fire and blew on it.

"No worries," said the hillman. "Sammi tell you when safe come down." He looked around and fell into the sprock. "We far out from Keep now. Maybe go farther?"

Teodorq said nothing, but looked at Kal, who shrugged. "Run to the greenies with what we know? They might pay us real good for intelligence."

"Some got more to sell than others. But Sammi on walkabout to see World, not fight and die for stupid ironmen."

"Don't look at me," said Teo. "I ride for the brand. The kospathin done paid me, and I taken his money. Took an oath, too."

"Rabbit has a point," said Kal. "Pretty serious oath. Keeps me from killing Rabbit, here." He grinned at Teo. "So far. Though technically, the First's word don't run this side of the ridge." First was the sprock word that came closest to the role of the kospathin.

"Honor," said Sammi. "Plainsmen and iron-men both stupid." He dumped the rest of his hash into the fire and brushed his hands. "Sammi not mind taking risk," he told his companions. "Sammi mind taking someone else's risk."

"Don't be too sure you know the risks," Teo said. "These greenies don't sound too friendly and considering what they done to Weaver's Fast, I don't know if'n they care what you can tell 'em or not."

In the morning the tavuta picked its way down from the gap. Sammi and the other point guard were waiting at the bottom. "You be right, bannerman," Thewèhdarosh said. "They was a large party a-campin' here, maybe two, three day past."

"Sammi count forty men a-foot and three on horseback. They group in tens."

"How do you know that?" asked Wala.

"Build five fires. Four for footmen, one for horsemen. Horsemen probably officers. One commander, two subcommanders. Too good sit at fire with foot men."

Thewèhdarosh inclined his head. "The savage got the rights of it."

Wala scratched his cheek. "Can we follow them?"

"Tracks be crossin' the watershed due west," said Thewèhdarosh, "toward yon Eastwood."

"We cross that meadow," said Kal, "they can see us coming."

"That can't be good," Teo agreed.

"If they bother watching their backtrail," said Wala. "They march around like they're lords of creation."

"Ain't they? If they fight with thunder and lightning, that'll do until the real lords show up."

Wala thought for a moment. "Chum, send a bird. 'Recent green activity, base of Windy Gap. Probing east toward forest. Wala.' Prepare two further messages. 'Greens in forest east of Windy Gap' and 'No greens sighted.' Load the first for quick release. Keep the second in reserve. Thewèhdarosh, you and Sammi take the points."

Shortly, the tavuta set forth. Kal and Teo jostled for the honor of being first in line. Chum and his pigeons brought up the rear. By late afternoon they had crossed half the meadow. Kal halted and held up an arm, leaning off his horse and studying the meadow grass. He straightened and pointed southeast. "That way."

Teo scratched his head. "Think they might circle and double back?"

"If they know we're following. Two days head start, they may be long gone. Think they saw our fires last night?"

"At four to one, I don't think they need to play games. Yuh know the biggest risk in looking for greenies?"

"What?"

"Finding 'em."

Kal chewed that over. "What I'd do, was I them, and if'n I knowed I was followed, I'd go into the woods where them tracks lead, then edge up north-like under cover and hide me right inside the edge of the wood." He did not point overtly. "Them trees'd shade me and I'd be on the flank of anyone following the tracks. Then I come charging out soon as we was in range."

Teo nodded. "Yah. But what's the range of thunder and lightning?"

"Yuh hadda bring that up."

Wala trotted to the fore and Thewèhdarosh and Sammi rode back from point. Teo and Kal told them what they had guessed.

"Foot won't charge horse," the sub-bannerman decided. "We can skedaddle faster than they can chase. But if'n they got bowmen, they can feather us good if they lure us close enough. Awright. Thewèhdarosh, Sammi, ride to within a hundred double-paces of the trees, just out of crossbow range, watch for motion in the trees, but be ready to pull back in a hurry if you trigger an ambush. Teo, have your archers ready. You can porky-pine 'em at distance and cover our retreat."

Sammi grunted. "Best place to be in ambush is somewhere else."

Teo twisted in his saddle and called out, "Horse archers! First squad on me; second on Kal. String bows. Notch one. Prepare to roundelay at three-quarters range to the tree line, on my command."

Kal grimaced. "Probably nothing, right?"

Teo shrugged. "One way to know."

The tavuta continued southeast at the trot, conscious of the dark forest on their left flank. Teo tried to estimate how far north the footmen would have doubled back. He had seen how thick the underbrush had been on Woody Ridge. Without game trails, it would be difficult to go too far. He told Kal, "I figure about where that stand of galeng is." Galeng trees had distinctive five-lobed leaves and in the spring produced a tasty syrup. Like Kal, he pointed without pointing.

The Serp grunted. "I'd put 'em a little nearer to where the tracks enter the trees. We shoulda brought a squad of foresters with us."

"Shoulda, but we didn't. Why not wish Thanar and Vrigshen were riding with us?"

Kal shook his head. "We're too far from the Great Grass for our gods to help us here. Besides, I hear thunder and lighting are fighting for the other side. Hey, what's your pet up to?"

Sammi was cantering back from the point, looking everywhere except at the forest. He seemed to be scratching his nose.

"Hey, them's the all-prairie signs he's usin'. 'Ambush. Here.' Well, I guess that settles it. Right between where you an' me guessed."

There was a sharp crack, as one sometimes heard with distant lightning and Sammi fell from his horse. An angry voice cried out from the woods and then the greenery erupted in a ragged volley of small thunderclaps. Teo felt the wisk of something passing close to his cheek. Jondal Two-bulls' head snapped 'round and he fell off his horse. Kal reined in on his mount, and the other legionnaires bunched up in confusion.

But Teodorq sunna Nagarajan had heard that sound before. A few years ago, when Kal's brother had trapped Teo at the wreckage of Shuttle Starbright–17, Jamly-the-ghost had used a rotating stone-thrower. The metal barrels had spun about in a blur and the banging had merged into a buzz. The rattle of this volley was not exactly the same sound, but it was like the same sound. Many tubes throwing many stones at nearly the same time.

Were these the starmen Jamly had sent him to find? Had they stumbled upon another wrecked shuttle?

Then men advanced five paces from the margin of the woods in two perfectly spaced lines.

They had green faces and hands and wore mottled forest-green jacks and pantaloons. No wonder Sammi had missed them at first. The colors blended with the forest and the mottling broke up their silhouette. A pair of black belts crossed their chests bearing a variety of pouches. A half-helm adorned their heads. Behind their necks spread a great green ruff that made their heads seem larger.

A horseman waved a sword and shouted a command, and the first line of men knelt on one knee. They braced long tubes against their shoulders, pointed at the legionnaires. The second line stood behind them and rammed sticks down their tubes, pulling various items from the pouches on their belts.

This, thought Teo, was the point when the forest villagers had fled.

But it was not the point at which Teodorq sunna Nagarajan would flee. There was no such point. "Horse archers!" he called out. "Roundelay! Someone grab Jondal's bow and quiver!"

A pigeon lofted and flew off toward Windy Gap watchtower. Wala and Thewèhdarosh, having no bows stood their ground with drawn swords. Chum wound his crossbow and loaded a bolt.

The kneeling line unloosed their stone-throwers in volley and something banged hard against Teo's breast-and-back armor. Kal grunted and grabbed his thigh. No one else was hit. That's when Teo knew. The legion's line was at a diagonal to the greenie line and he and Kal and Jondal had been closest to the greens. The others were already out of range!

The second line advanced through the first and knelt while the first stood up and stuffed another stone down their tubes. A second volley found no targets and Teo grinned. The thunder sticks could hit targets out to sixty double paces and the plains bow was good to over three hundred. Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand held his bow aloft and cried, "We got the range on 'em, boys! We got the range!"

Teo's troop began to lope in the long oval of a roundelay, not encircling the enemy but tangent to his line. The greenies on horseback—there was one commanding each line—hesitated. It was possible they had never seen an opponent stand fast before.

As each bowman in the roundelay reached his closest approach to the greenies, he loosed his arrow and then, as he rode to the back of the circle, notched another one. When Teo came to the fore he saw five greenies already down and aimed his own shot at the horseman on the far left of the line. It was a long shot, but the shaft took him square in the chest and he toppled. When Teo came around the circle a second time, he saw that Kal had taken out the other officer and the greenie lines were in confusion. A good third of them were down and Teo saw two with crossbow bolts in them.

An old soldier bellowed commands and the greenie lines reformed in strict order, turned about-face and quickstepped into the darks of the forest. With a start, Teo saw three black stripes on the older man's sleeve. He admired the coolness that allowed the greenies to turn their backs on the deadly rain of arrows.

The commotion in the woods settled into stillness. Either the greenies had gone, or they had fallen back into the forest, where Teo's bowmen would have no advantage in range.

Wala rode up to them. "No pursuit. We're pulling out. Get word back to the Keep!" Chum was scribbling quickly on a message ribbon, stuffing it into a bird's pouch.

Teodorq looked to where Sammi had fallen. "The legion don't leave no one behind," he said. "'Dosh, make pick-up on Jondal. I'll get Sammi. The rest of you cover us." As he rode off he passed Kal. "Bad?"

The Serp was binding a poultice to his leg wound. "Stings a little. I had worse when the iron-heads captured me last year."

"We'll dig it out later," Teo comforted him. "Find out what they hit yuh with."

Sammi was not where he had fallen. Teo wondered if the greenies had carried him away, or if he had seized the opportunity to desert. He slowed his mount to a single-foot. The greenies were not in the woods. They had skedaddled.

When Teo reined up and gave the all-clear sign, Sammi rose from the grass of the meadow. He had a quillon dagger in one hand and a greenie officer in the other.

"Wait for Sammi," he said. "Got present for Wisdom."

Back in the barracks once more, Kal asked Sammi how he had pulled the stunt off and the hillman grinned.

"Ambush gets ambush. Hill custom," he said. "Felt bumblebee zip past. Remembered Kal's brother, what his name?"

"Pawal," supplied Teodorq.

"Yeah. Remembered Pawal got tore up pretty bad by same bees. So Sammi imitate snake in grass. Crawl around behind greenies. By the way..." He pulled an arrow out of his pouch. "You lose one of these? Almost stick Sammi."

"Your brother," Teodorq told Kal, "fought most valiantly against the Commonwealth hiteq and died a hero's death." That was a flat-out lie. Pawal had tried to ambush Teodorq and Sammi at the Shuttle and had died before he had even known he was in a fight, so swiftly did Jamly's weapon cut him down.

"Well, Sammi find boss officer behind thunder-stick warriors, all alone. So Sammi keep him company. He not say much after clap mouth and knock head. I drag him aside, not even need quiet. Thunder-sticks loud!"

Teodorq grunted. "They didn't try an' look for their officer?"

"No. Big hurry for other appointment, I think. Old subadar holler and horsewhip so not run. That good news."

Kal laughed. "Good news, was it?"

"Sure. Easier kill enemy who walks away."

Teodorq hesitated. "What's the bad news?"

Sammi pursed his lips and looked around the barracks at the other bowmen, point guards, and foresters who were listening to his tale. "Men like that... Sammi not think they ever run twice."

The Wisdom seemed convinced that Teodorq sunna Nagarajan knew more about the ancient Commonwealth of Suns than Teodorq himself believed; and under the gray-beard's incisive questioning he recalled details of his visit inside the Shuttle that he had thought unnoticed or forgotten.

"Our word for ghost," the Wisdom told Teodorq, "is vroyegisha. But close study of the word suggestions it was once pronounced 'projection.' That means the Jamly you saw was an image of the real Jamly that was somehow 'thrown forward' from her true hiding place. That suggests a level of cowardice similar to that of the greenies."

Teo was not sure that Jamly was cowardly. Her sentry-go had lasted uncounted years with no sign of relief. A coward would have slain herself long before. But neither was Teo inclined to debate the old man to whose curiosity he owed his current status of guest-soldier. Join the legion or sit on the Spit was a fine recruiting slogan, but promised a far more uncomfortable position than that of First Bow.

However, his own curiosity got the better of him and he asked the Wisdom why he thought the greens were cowardly.

The graybeard seemed surprised at the question. "Because their captain hid in the rear of their battle line. Our captains lead from the front."

That seemed to Teodorq a fine way to use up captains. Standing behind the lines had enabled the greenie captain to observe the entire killing field and issue commands accordingly. Standing in front, he would have been unable to see how his own men were deployed. Teodorq spoke slowly, "I would not count on their cowardice."

"They ran from you, didn't they? What would they have done had they faced a charge of armored eridzars in full career?"

That was an interesting question. Teodorq agreed that a line of heavy cavalry was an edifying sight when you were on the sharp end, and it was likely that the greenies had not before encountered anything more formidable than the primitive weapons and tactics of the forest men, and whoever else might live farther east.

But surely the greenies fought among themselves... and that meant they had faced similar ranks of thunder-sticks. And that meant that their tactics had been planned to counter others who thought like they did. Teo had admired the way they continued to step forward in ranks even while getting feathered from outside their range.

No, they might be slow learners, but they were not cowards.

"Tell me, Wisdom... are they green all over?"

Wisdom Sharèe Mikahali Fulenenberk laughed so heartily that he lost all dignity. He slapped his thigh several times. "Oh!" he said. "Oh, ho ho! The Lady Anya asked the same question and had the creature stripped down just so she could see for herself. Yes, my wilding friend. It is not war paint. Their skin really is green. I think from the captive's behavior in the exercise yard when he extends that strange frill of his that he bathes in sunlight."

"Yuh mean that ruff is like a big leaf? What is he... a plant?" Trees were quite bad enough without they walked and used thunder-sticks.

But the Wisdom shook his head. "No, surprisingly, I think not. In every other respect he seems as human as you or I."

"Where does he come from?"

"East of the forest is all we know. He speaks a language utterly unknown. I showed him some common objects and none of the names he used resembled those of the People; nor those of the swampers, the sodbusters, or even your own and your companion's far western tongues." He sighed. "A captured warrior does not speak willingly in any case, and torture would do us no good if we cannot understand his answers."

"Why not show him the Relic and see if he recognizes any of the sigils on it?"

Teodorq watched as delight at a good idea wrestled across the Wisdom's face with the dismay at not having thought of it. "Yes," the old man said at last. "Yes. I planned to do so tomorrow."

As the Little Winter was coming on, the Wisdom invited Teodorq to the tower of the Keep, where he also kept a look-glass. They studied the Red Sun, which now lay entirely in the night sky after the True Sun had set. "We call it the Red Sun," the Wisdom explained, "because he casts shadows and warms our nights at this time of year, just as the True Sun does during the day. Some Wisdoms think this means that it also shines by its own light, not by reflectance. But that violates the law of parsimony. Never multiply entities without need."

"That's nice," said Teo, who thought that if World had two moons, then surely it ought to have two suns. But before he could voice this thought a white streak crossed the sky like the slash of a longsword scratching the skystuff from the dome of the heavens.

Teodorq whistled. "Would yuh lookit that, Wiz! Think it's a good omen or bad?"

The old man snorted. "It is simply a form of comet, faster and without the horsetail. We see two or three each year, but sometimes none at all. Unlike the normal stars, they do not follow regular sky-paths. Many years ago, Wisdom Gerekorai Chosenof of House Bear made a list of all known sightings and compared them to important events. There was no evident pattern. So these gogo-comets do not 'portend' anything."

Teodorq scratched his chin. "Or the portents are meant for other people. Maybe the greenies."

The Wisdom grimaced and Teodorq deduced that the man had not thought of that, either. Every man supposes that World revolves around his own people. But Teo wondered now, having met Jamly-the-ghost, whether these scratches on the sky might be attempts by the Commonwealth of Suns to contact the wrecked shuttle.

Teodorq heard later that the Wisdom had shown the Commonwealth door to the green prisoner and that the greenie had appeared to recognize the fourth set of runes, the ones that ran YOMPRES. He had followed it with his finger and his lips had moved and he had whispered as if to himself the word "èmbrace," with the accent on the first syllable. Then he had laughed uproariously. This had outraged the shaman so badly that the kospathin had ordered the prisoner flogged. Like most of the upper class, the First followed Vokh, the One; but the common folk still held to the old gods and it was not good to create disturbance among them by allowing rank impiety.

There was seldom snow during Little Winter, but the winds howled and whipped up great storms, so there were long stretches when the legion barely stirred out of barracks. The land was too muddy for travel and the dirt roads became quagmires. Teo and Kal worked on training more archers—the Wisdom wanted as many as possible by campaigning season—but there were long stretches when the rain and wind were too strong for practice, and the barrack windows whistled and the walls shook.

"Maybe this storm big greenie attack," suggested Sammi one time; but no one laughed.

Small Spring was marked by occasional rimes of frost on the morning ground, since the Red Sun was growing smaller and now set before the night was ended. But the True Sun rolled closer to World with every passing day, heralding the arrival of Great Spring. The roads were drying out and the bogs and morasses that had marked Little Winter would soon be passable.

"That'll make trouble," Teodorq told his bowmen as he led them on a probe toward Woody Ridge to check the quality of the ground. He had two score bowmen now, not all of top notch, but most could hit their mark at distances beyond the range of the thunder-sticks. No one could match Kal and Teo, although the swamper brothers, 'Dosh and 'Dan came close. On Yar Yoodavig's recommendation, kospathin Aya Herpstone appointed Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand as subyar for the Horse Bows of the legion, as befit his prowess. He did this in the Great Hall, where Teodorq had last stood as a shackled prisoner, and tapped Teo on each shoulder with a bow.

Karakalan was also appointed subyar, and each took half the troop with one of the Ghenri brothers as his lieutenant. It was understood by everyone except Kal that Teo was senior subyar.

They had drilled all during Small Spring on maneuvers which, while familiar to the horsemen of the Great Grass, were unknown to the eastern men. The troop could easily split their roundelay into halves and quarters on command and the bannermen assigned to them by the flag master had worked out a set of signals proper to horse bow tactics.

"After the ground is hard but before Big Winter sets in," Teodorq judged during one maneuver. "That's when the greenies will come."

"Yuh don't think they'll be content with raiding the Nobeshtinny this year?" Kal said.

"Nothing left there to raid. Besides, they wasn't so much raiding as probing. They wanted to know what was west of the forest, and they found out. No way they let that beating we give 'em last year go unavenged." Teo turned to his bannerman. "Two columns," he said.

The bannerman hooked two blue streamers to his staff and raised it. Teo and Kal veered off in different directions and the Bows split up behind them. When he judged the distance between the columns sufficient, Teo told his bannerman, "Four columns," and the man added two more streamers to his staff. This time he spun his bullroarer when he raised the staff to make sure the other column saw it. Immediately, the two Ghen-ri brothers raised their personal guidons and the odd numbers in each column split off to ride behind them.

It was all neatly done, though Teo would not care to go up against the Riders of the Grassy Sea with them. A khorden of plainsmen might number a thousand or more. If the Gudawan Adyawan were here, with all the Serps and Scorps and Sidewinders, they would make short work of the greenies. But watching the four columns, he was grimly aware that there were only ten bowmen in each. Their main advantage lay in having the range on the thunder-sticks. But a large enough force could lose many men to the hail of arrows and still charge forward. And once they got in range...

Much would depend on what the greenies brought to the party.

It was near the end of Little Hunger Month, when the overwinter stores were just beginning to give out but the spring harvest was not yet in that the flags began waving and plumes of black smoke rose where the Woody Ridge watchtowers had stood. The watchers on Topof-World reported that the new tower at Windy Gap was destroyed, as was the one at Middle Gap, though the one south of Moose Creek Gap still stood.

"They're coming up from the southeast," Yar Yoodavig told the legion as they assembled on the yard and everyone stood by his horse. "It's our task to hold them near Joojen's Creek until the heavies can be mobilized."

"That'll be when two suns are in the sky," groused Kal. The Red Sun was rising earlier each day and now peeked above the eastern horizon shortly before sunset.

"You are in the legion to die," the yar told them cheerfully, "and the kospathin will tell you where and when you are to die."

"That's right thoughtful of him," said Teo.

"Why can't they send the heavies to buy time for the legion?" said one of the new men. "We're the only ones ever beat the greenies."

Kal crossed his forearms. "Waddaya mean we? Was you there, recruity?"

The yar raised his voice. "Never mind that. He's here now. Thewèhdarosh, you take the point guards. Ride far and ride fast. Don't stop and fight. Count heads, mark direction of march, and get your asses back here. Or at least get the pigeons back."

"Don't worry, boss," said Sammi o' th' Eagles. "We give you the bird okay."

On the march, Kal came up to ride beside Teo. "How come we beat the greenies in the Nobeshtinny last year, but this year we gotta fight 'em on this side o' the Ridge?"

"Home park advantage," Teo told him, an old plainsman proverb.

"How much range you think men with swords got on men with thunder-sticks?" Kal meant the remainder of the legion, three hundred men in multiple columns spread across the flat ground that lay between the Keep and Woody Ridge.

Teo patted his bow-case. "That's why the yar scrounged the crossbows from the militia. Based on what we saw last year, they got about the same range as the thunder-sticks. Ol' Yoodavig can dismount half the swords to pin the enemy with bolts while the other half ride in swinging. A charging horse can cover a lot of ground while the thunder-sticks reload."

Kal scratched his beard. "How many greenies, you think?"

Teo shook his head. "Too many, most likely. This won't be no raiding party or reconnaissance."

"You think the heavies'll make a difference? The greenies ain't never run into the heavies before."

"First time for everything." Teo looked behind at the dust raised by the supply wagons and the artillery train. "The field throwers should help. Lob rocks at 'em."

"If Chum and his pals get time to assemble them, and range them in."

They rode at the walk. The point guards had sent back word of activity on the trails leading down from the gaps. But the greenies had had enough time to reach the flatlands by now, which meant that they were in no great hurry to encounter the son of Nagarajan. Yet, as flattering as this motive might be, it made Teodorq uneasy. The first rule of fighting was to get there first with the most, and he did not suppose the greenies ignorant of the rule.

In the far distance, they saw smoke about where Bitter Springs lay. The village must be burning. The yar thought with his look-glass he could make out horsemen leaving the area. A little later, a second plume marked the location of Twin Forks. The greenie horse were rieving the southern Tiger-lands.

That evening, at the council of subyars, the yar announced happily that that the point guards had sent word of the enemy's continued slow progress. "They're on new ground and probing cautiously," he said.

Atglen subyar said that would give the legion the chance to engage the green horse without their foot support. "If we ride hard and fast, we can catch the rievers before they reach the River Thenepher."

"If their foot keep moving this slow," said Hegge subyar, "we can deal with their horse, rest, then come back for their foot and catch them between us and the heavies."

Yar Yoodavig listened patiently. He pursed his lips and turned to face Teodorq. "You've been unnaturally quiet. What do you say?"

Teo exchanged a glance with Kal. "It looks too much like 'chase me, chase me.' I don't think we oughta do what the enemy wants." Kal nodded and spat in the fire. Thewèhdarosh and Belepo said nothing, but the point guard was also nodding.

The yar chased a toothpick around his mouth and looked off toward Woody Ridge. He considered the matter in silence while the fire crackled and cast everyone in an eerie light.

"Their foot will have to pass north and west of Bogen's Marsh," he said. "If we push it, we should make the line of Joojen's Creek, well forward of where I had hoped. If we can catch him still descending the switchbacks, we can give him a good mauling, maybe change his mind about stepping onto Tiger land. What is it, Teo?"

Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand spoke carefully. "If'n I wanted to destroy this legion, I'd put on a big shindig and draw us forward as far as I could. Then I'd call in my boys from the flank." He gestured toward Woody Ridge, where the Red Sun was rising over the crest. "We ain't seen no smoke north of Middle Gap, but that don't mean they ain't there. We march all the way to the Joojen, and who knows what's lurking those trees over yonder. The greenies might be raiding the south and dawdling on the switchbacks to tempt us too far forward. Might be best to let him cross the Joojen and come to us on our ground."

"You think the greenies are that clever?"

Teodorq shrugged. "When me an Kal fought our duel last year, I didn't go in expecting he was stupid."

"Thanks, Rabbit," said the Serp.

"On the plains we call it the 'horns of the ox.' The center holds back, the sides sweep around." Teodorq illustrated by opening his arms wide, backing away, then sweeping his arms out and around into an embrace. "Waddaya think, Kal?"

The Serp pursed his lips, as if surprised to be asked his opinion. "Yeah. Yeah, that might could be. That's the stunt they pulled last fall with their recon party. Just one horn, though."

"There's high ground north of the Joojen," said Thewèhdarosh subyar. "Not enough to call it a hill, but broad enough to park the legion. And it puts the greens with their back to the water and us charging down on him."

"Could work," allowed Atglen subyar. "We're supposed to just hold 'em here until the kettleheads show up and run 'em down."

"Tell you what, yar," Teo said. "Send the foresters into Woody Ridge north of Middle Gap, just to see what they can see. And if we face off with these greenies along the creek and they seem to fall back too easy, maybe don't chase after 'em."

The yar gave that considerable thought. "It would be hard to hold the kettle-heads back. They love to chase people who run."

Teo bobbed his head side-to-side. "Sure they do, but they ain't up with us yet, and I think if the greenies run, it'll be because they want us to chase 'em."

Belepo did not look happy, but agreed that a creep into the trees might pay off. "'Member, yar, at's why you send patrols by the southern valley last fall," he said in his forestman accent. "You say be looking for them where they ain't been seen."

Yar Yoodavig plucked out his toothpick and tossed it into the fire. "All right. Do it. Thewèhdarosh, have your boys probe up the ridge near False Gap. Oh, and Belepo, you all got crossbows, don't you? Good. From Wala's report last fall, I think the crossbows got better aim than the thunder-sticks at the same range."

The forester grinned. "Dzha," he said. "An' they be quieter."

There were fewer greenies than Teodorq had feared, but a lot more than he was happy to see. They came up the road from Windy Gap four abreast, stepping in unison and with their thunder-sticks couched on their shoulders. Another column was emerging from Middle Gap about half a day behind. Yar Yoodavig studied them through the look-glass and passed the tube around to the subyars who had joined him in the fore of the legion's line around the rim of the higher ground. "They're all foot and we're all horse. That's one advantage to us."

"And they got thunder-sticks," Hegge subyar pointed out, "so that's two hundred or so advantages to them."

Southward, the land dropped away into a swale that ended at Joojen's Creek. Beyond that, the trail curled up to Windy Gap, where Teodorq had scouted the autumn before. The trail from Middle Gap debouched just this side of the Joojen, and the column coming down that trail should reach the killing field by late afternoon. Off to the legion's left flank, the ground rolled down to the base of the forest-clad ridge. If there were thunder-sticks in the trees there, the legion was far enough away to be out of range.

Behind the legion, Chum and the battle engine-makers were hammering the field throwers together and stacking stones for loading and throwing.

Yar Yoodavig studied the approaching greens with his look-glass. "Won't be an easy fight."

Teodorq spat. "Nobody sings about easy fights. I timed 'em when we fought last fall. Takes 'em twenty beats to reload those sticks—more if they get rattled."

The yar did the calculations. "Horse covers sixty, seventy paces at full gallop in the time it'd take the greenies to reload and that's all the range their thunder-sticks have. If they all loose at once..."

"Yah. The legion can get into 'em before they loose a second flight."

The yar set his jaw. "We're supposed to pin 'em for the heavies, but if we see our chance... okay. Stick by your bannermen and watch the flags. A grim day dawns come morning."

"Legion to the fore," the subyars answered.

As Kal and Teo rode back to the Bows, Karakalan sunna Vikeram said, "Know what I don't like?"

"Losing?"

"Well, yeah, that too. But I don't like it when I fight and it all depends on what the other guy does. I like to run my own stunts."

Teodorq nodded. "Battles are always complicated by the presence of the enemy."

A Fight in the Dawn

The greens came on in blocks to the sound of music—the high shrill of pipes and bugles, the peculiar rattling of the drums, and the tramp of hundreds of feet in unison. Each block was led by a large banner hanging from a cross-pole and decorated in elaborate embroidery and angular runes similar to the final line inscribed on the sacred Door. The bright red banner of the leading block displayed 18 GOBANGY FANDERIA across the top in gold lettering and WEVO CUFFY along the bottom in white. In the center was a sigil of two crossed thunder-sticks enclosed in a wreath. Teodorq figured it was their tribal totem.

A long, shrill whistle rent the air and the musicians fell silent, the warriors stopped marching. Then the whistle sounded three times in quick succession and the bugles, pipes, and drums resumed, playing a jaunty quickstep. With the first beat, the blocks turned, countermarched, and deployed into lines facing the legion.

Teodorq leaned one arm across the pommel of his saddle. "Musical accompaniment, like it's a dance ceremony. Yuh ever see the like, sunna Vikeram?"

"They sure are purty," the Serp agreed. "They march like they never been scared of a fight."

"I make fifty in the first block and I'll guess the same numbers in the others. That's just a hundred and fifty in front of us, but there's two more blocks coming down Middle Gap. They'll be here in time for dessert on our forward left."

"Maybe the Middle Gap column was supposed to be the horn," said Kal.

"Nah. To obvious. My cowries are still on the woods east of our position."

"I don't see no heavies, and no field trebuchets..."

Teodorq nudged him. "They're lining up in range of our bows."

"Wonder if they know that."

Teodorq secured the yar's approval for an arrow storm while the greenies were still deploying. His men notched one and held the other two ready in the bow hand. Kal laughed. "Was we back on the Grass, that would be enough to wipe out one whole block."

"Was we back on the Grass, the enemy would have plains bows, too. Kal, 'Dosh, 'Dan, to your squadrons. On my command."

When Kal and the two lieutenants reached their units and the Horse Bows were lined up on the south front facing the enemy, Teo cried, "Draw!" and a two score recurved bows groaned at full extension. "Loose!" And the flock flew. Then twice more and all three flights were airborne before the first wave had struck, creating a blanket of arrows thrown across the sky.

There was time to see the shock on the green faces. Perhaps they had not expected danger at this range, or perhaps it was simply seeing their doom approach like a swooping hawk. Several of them raised their thunder-sticks and set fire to them, the ragged thunder startling many of the legionnaires who had not experienced it before. Atglen's section began to turn about, and the subyar shouted at them to hold.

Then the shafts struck and the first several lines of greenies dissolved as half of them fell transfixed.

The yar's banner snapped aloft with the red flags and the legion galloped forward with crossbows cocked. At range, they loosed their bolts, slung the crossbows around their backs, then drew their swords, charging in with their blades in sky guard. Hooves thundered. Legionnaires shouted lulululu!

The center block formed a hedgehog at a shouted command. The first row on each side crouched, grounding their thunder-sticks so that the knives on their ends pointed out like pikes. The second row bent and rested their sticks on the shoulders of the first, while the third row stood behind them. But the first block was shattered and disorganized and the third block abruptly countermarched to the rear, out of range of the Horse Bows.

The legion's left wing attacked the disorganized block and found easy pickings. They chopped up the survivors and sent others into panicky flight. Teo thought that was a mistake. They ought to have attacked the block in the center. But the horses attacking the hedgehog proved unwilling to dash into rows of spikes and reared or pulled off. Legionnaires spilled from their saddles or reined up and began hacking at the thunder-sticks as if they were swords.

Then the sticks unloosed a crash of thunder and a score of legionnaires were cut down by the flung stones. Some panicked and scattered; but others, remembering that the sticks must be reloaded, resolved not to give the greenies time to do so and pressed more vigorously.

Meanwhile, the block that had pulled back had formed its own hedgehog and was firing into the legion using the timed evolution that Teo had seen in his first encounter with them.

The hammering in the legion's rear had stopped and a series of three sharp smacks was followed by large stones flying through the air. One fell short, in front of the greenies. One flew wide. Kal trotted to Teo's side just before the third landed on the already-disorganized block, smashing a score of men.

Kal winced. "That's gotta hurt."

Chum's forward observer called out. "Number one short! Number two block up right side!"

Teo nudged him. "Hey, Kal. Why are there three blocks in the Windy Gap column, but only two from Middle Gap?"

"Is that a riddle?"

"Let's swing the Bows along the edge of the trees, just out of thunder-stick range, and see what we scare up."

"Yeah," said Kal. "Them greenies like that kinda thing, don't they?"

The bannermen hoisted their staffs and the bowmen left-faced and formed a file that swept down the rise and across the edge of the forest south to north, loosing arrows into likely shadows. Teo was soon gratified to provoke a thunder-stick explosion in response. He grinned at the chewing out the man would receive for revealing his presence and swung his column back on itself for a roundelay on the hidden force.

A few flights of arrows into the trees and the officer in charge must have given up on tactical surprise, for a shrill whistle brought a line of men striding from the shadows. Among them, groups of twelve greenies wearing clothing with blue trim instead of black rolled forward four large thunder-sticks on wheels. Teodorq reined up and allowed the Bows to ride past him until Kal came up. Teo pointed to the large thunder-sticks.

"That can't be good."

It wasn't.

A Tube in the Woods

The four tubes bellowed and flocks of stones scythed down almost a quarter of Teo's Bows, including Vilyi Bycreek and Filovolos Jo. His squadron was well within the range of these new devices, and Teo ordered a retreat. The greenies tending the barrels leapt to. One rammed a swab down the mouth, the others performed various duties that Teodorq could not make out. One man stood still behind the device with a smoldering cord on a staff. Kal twisted in his saddle and loosed a shaft behind him that struck the man in the chest. Another picked up the smoke-staff and touched it to the barrel, which belched another load of stones at them. Three hundred heartbeats between shots, Teodorq gauged.

Legionnaires again fell, and Teo realized with a sinking feeling that these new weapons—evidently intended to rake the legion's flank and rear once it had committed itself to a forward attack—had greater range than his bows. One of the crew had placed an instrument on the barrel and another was elevating the barrel on his instructions. Teo pulled the Bows back until they formed a line at right angles to the legion's original line. The greenie blocks on the legion's front were withdrawing rapidly and some squadrons of legionnaires were pursuing them with whoops of victory; but Yar Yoodavig was using his bullroarers and bannermen to call them back. Teo having sprung the trap prematurely, the yar saw that pursuit of the greens would allow the thunder-tubes to roll up on the high ground and rake the legion in the rear.

But in pulling back beyond the range of the thunder-tubes, Teo had placed the enemy beyond the range of his own bows, and the hidden block stepped forward smartly to a crash of drums and music. The squads servicing the big barrels rolled them forward through the gaps in the massed footmen. The legion would not stay out of range for long.

"First Bows," Teo called. "On me. Wait until the men at the big tubes light them off, then swoop in fast, target them—they got blue stripes down their legs—then pull out." He turned to the Serp who had been his enemy. "Bring the Second Bows after their next crash. We'll pick them off like a hawk snatching a mouse, and there'll be no one left to load and light those things."

Kal grunted. "More like a mouse swooping in on a hawk."

Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand held his hand out and Karakalan sunna Vikeram gripped it. Teo said, "Think of the songs the bards will sing: how two mighty enemies joined hands and fought the fearsome thunder-tubes together."

The Serp laughed without humor. "Yeah? Who's gonna tell 'em about it?"

Yar Yoodavig trotted over to the bow line and Teodorq explained his plan. "Then yuh can retreat across their field and not get mowed down like they planned."

The yar nodded. "Got to do something. Those tubes are out of range of Chum's field throwers, too. Wish I knew where the heavies got to. They should've been here by now."

Teo thought the big tubes would have pierced even the plate armor the kettleheads wore. At that point, both men heard above the crack and rattle of the thunder-sticks, the greenie whistles, and the legionnaires' ululations, the distant thud of a plodding giant. It reminded Teo of the forging hammers in the steel mill. He glanced at the yar and muttered, "That can't be good."

The yar looked off to the rear. "We got our own problems," and he rode back to his command post to rally the rest of the legion.

Teo stood in his stirrups and waved his bow in circles over his head, then pointed to the first of the thunder-tubes; and the horse bows set off at the gallop to ride across the line of fire just as the men with the smoke-sticks lit them off. Under his breath Teo began counting the time to reload the device. When they reached the effective range of their bows, he and his men began picking off the tube servers one by one. There was a sweet moment in the gallop, when the horse's four legs were all in the air and a man seemed to float across the ground. This was the most stable platform from which to loose an arrow. Not all of his men remembered this and many arrows went wide; but enough struck home to cut the crews by almost a quarter.

Some of the footmen, frustrated by this plucking off, rushed forward with their thunder-sticks to fire on the bowmen. They were easily feathered, though one got off a lucky strike that felled K.T. Tupalanagan. Teo shied off before the thunder-tubes could belch lightning again. When it had, Kal rode in with the Second and picked off its crew as they tried to reload.

But the greenies pushed forward on the flank. The thunder-tubes would drive the legionnaires back out of bow range so the footmen could advance; and these in turn would use the trick of lighting off row-after-row to cover the rolling forward of the wheeled tubes. Teodorq guessed that this would have been more effective against other thunder-sticks, but was nearly as effective against the crossbows, who also had to rewind between bolts.

Yar Yoodavig pulled the legion back onto the rise and the greenies on the original southern front pushed forward. One of the big tubes was no longer flinging shot, all its crew had been pinioned. The rest had pulled footmen in to service the tubes, and the interval between thunderclaps had lengthened. But the greens had learned the trick of always keeping one tube ready to strike in case Teodorq tried another hawk's swoop.

Teo summoned Kal and the Ghen-ri brothers and told them that the big tubes had made them nearly impotent. He told 'Dan to keep ten of the surviving bows to screen their movements by demonstrating along the edge of the high ground to which they had retreated. Then he and Kal and 'Dosh took the remainder on a dash to the rear, down the west slope of the rise, where they replenished their quivers from the supply wagon.

One of the men spurred his horse and lit a shuck for Cliffside Keep. 'Dash raised his bow to feather the deserter, but Teo brushed him down and spat on the ground. "When Ilry's an old man, he'll never be able to brag he was here." Then he reined his horse around and trotted south. He did not look to see if anyone followed. On the Great Grass, sometimes all it took was one man running to draw all the others after him.

But Kal pulled abreast of him, and Teo heard the hooves of the others following. "How many?" Teo asked.

"Just Ilry," Kal answered.

Shielded from the greenies by the swell of land, Teo led his troop through the swale formed by a tributary of Joojen's Creek. Like most plainsmen, Teodorq had a keen eye for the terrain and knew precisely when he would draw abreast of the greenie squares on the southern flank. The bannerman snapped his staff up sharply and the Horse Bows of the legion galloped up and over the swell yipping like plainsmen and showering the square with arrows on their unprepared western flank.

The greenies halted in confusion. They had been advancing methodically against the crossbows and the hawk's swoop took them by surprise. The rear ranks redirected their fire on their unexpected visitors, but Teo could keep his roundelay out of thunder-stick range and still pin them with arrows.

A troop of the greenie horse that had been harassing the southern villages appeared on the right flank and charged the Bows with hand-held thunder-sticks. Teo had the range on them, but cavalry at the gallop could close that range right quick. Two shots, one from each hand-stick, then the sticks were shoved into boot scabbards and curved swords drawn.

Teodorq sunna Nagarajan drew his sword from off his back and his men did likewise. Atglen's black horse troop had mounted and were charging the hedgehog that Teo had feathered, trying to close the distance before the greenies could light off their thunder sticks. The greenies braced the knives on their sticks pointing outward to discourage the charging horses.

Everything crashed together at the same time. The legionnaires cried lu-lu-lu-lu and the mounted bowmen cried yip-yip-yip. But the grim silence of the green foot and horse was somehow more unnerving.

A green horseman expressed surprise that Teodorq was swinging a long sword. It was the last thing he expressed. The green swords were shorter, but they could be swung more freely with less risk of slashing one's own horse. Teo ducked one swipe and stabbed in longpoint, skewering his opponent. Kal, like Teo, was practiced in hands-free riding and could use two-handed tactics. A green head, frill and all, leapt free and rolled across the field, spreading consternation among his mates.

But the horsemen pressed their attack with dour resolution. Their charge had succeeded in splitting the Horse Bows into two groups, unable to coordinate with each other. Korye, the bannerman, was using his staff to fend off a greenie's cuts. The staff broke and Korye lost an arm. The only consolation was that the green horsemen could not reload their hand-sticks and the footmen did not dare fire into the now-mingled horse. Teo spurred his mount kick to the rear and caught an attacker broadside. The enemy's horse toppled and screamed and crushed its rider. 'Dash was using his lieutenant's banner as a lance, jabbing at attackers with the spear point on its tip. A greenie rode straight toward Teo, his mouth stretched in a terrible smile, his curved sword held to the side for a swing. Teo kicked his horse, jumped forward, and swung backhanded. The enemy rode past. Teo didn't see if he cut him.

The Red Sun had fully risen and the Great Sun was throwing long shadows across the field when Teo saw one of the big tubes wheeling into position to address the new fighting point of the battle. Like the unexpected return of a woman's husband, it signaled time to withdraw. Teo bellowed orders to pull out. His surviving bannerman whipped the yellow flag back and forth.

"What are you doing?" Kal shouted from his own position. "We're kicking butt."

Teo pointed to the thunder-tubes coming around the rise and leveling down. "They ain't so much fun."

Kal looked and saw the movement on the east. "Guess yer..."

A greenies horseman sliced him with his short sword.

Short they might be, but sharp as well. The cut took off part of Kal's cheek and ear and cut deeply into his left arm. He howled with rage and took off the top of the man's head with a cross-body swing as easily as if he had snipped a hard-boiled egg. Then he lost his seat and he fell to the ground.

A sudden plume of black smoke rose over the Windy Gap trail, followed shortly by a tremendous thunderclap. A pause came over the fight by Joojen's Creek as everyone, legionnaire and green, looked toward the location of the plume. Teodorq did not know what the omen portended. But the greenies seemed perturbed by the sight and a number of them pointed and jabbered.

A second thunderclap heralded a smoky plume over Middle Gap, followed shortly by a third just inside the forest line on the west. Now the greens showed evidence of panic, and their officers' whistles evidently signaled a general disengagement, because the squares reformed and began to back away. The big tubes covered the retreat with deadly efficiency, spewing swarms of pellets against the legion while the foot withdrew. When it was no longer possible to light them off, their captains drove spikes into the fire holes in the barrels to ensure no one else could use them. One paused long enough to kiss his tube before pulling a hand-tube and joining the retreat.

As the greenies conducted a fighting withdrawal toward Middle Gap, Teo kept up harassing swoops, as did the legionnaires armed with shorter-ranged crossbows, and the invading army left a litter of dead behind them as they jammed into the road up to the gap. Once the enemy reached the forest line, Yar Yoodavig flagged disengagement. The greenies had lost half their strength and all four of their big tubes—but the legion had likewise been cut in half, and the yar dared not suppose there were no green reserves behind the ridge. Beside, the continued thunders from the direction of Cliffside Keep did not fill him with calm.

Atglen's people seized one of the abandoned thunder-tubes and hitched it to one of the wagon teams. They also took several kegs of the black powder that the greenies had stuffed into the tubes along with some of the canisters full of stones. "Perhaps the Wisdom can make sense of it," the yar said.

The dead, they piled into the remaining wagons or strapped across their own horses, for the legion, when they could help it, never left their own behind.

"Least we won," said Teodorq.

"Wonderful," said Yar Yoodavig. "One more win like that and there won't be no more legion."

Teodorq sunna Nagarajan found Karakalan sunna Vikeram sitting cross-legged in the grass, facing west. In his dying moments, the Serp had pulled himself upright and turned his face toward his home pasture and past it toward the never-ending sky, as one of the Folk ought to do. Teo located 'Dosh and told him to build a pyre from one of the wrecked wagons the greenies had abandoned. "On the grassy sea," he told his lieutenant, "we do not bury our great warriors. We raise them on a platform and make them a light to the Folk." 'Dosh, who had his own brother in his arms, nodded and said, "Perhaps that shall be the custom of the Horse Bows, too."

Teodorq took a squadron of Bows scouting toward Middle Gap and found the greenies gone, though a few of their wounded had been left behind to take last desperate shots at their pursuers. One of these shot Bosh Atwood and was hacked to pieces by Atwood's comrades.

"Ill luck," the Bosh said as he bound a poultice over the wound. "To catch the last wound after the fight is over."

"Someone's coming!" whispered Porter Appletree. "Counter attack?"

"Into the trees," Teo told them, and they led their mounts off the Middle Gap road and into the shelter of the surrounding forest, where they crouched with bows at the ready and a calming hand on their mounts.

"What stupid plainsman looking for?" asked Sammi o' th' Eagles over Teodorq's shoulder.

Teodorq jumped and turned to see the hill-man squatting behind him. "Where'd you come from?"

In answer, Sammi made a call like a bird and other voices in the forest cried out, "Tiger! Tiger!"

It proved to be a mixed group of foresters and point guards that had been operating in the greenies' rear. They emerged slowly from the trees and the Horse Bows just as slowly relaxed their draws. "Welcome back," said Teodorq. "Yuh missed all the fighting."

"We find supply wagons," Sammi explained. "Good food, good wine. Not many wagon guards. Hey, these forest men really don't like greenies. Take nasty souvenirs. Hate have them mad at Sammi. We find kegs of funny powder. Runners come get them, take to big battle. They put him in thunder-sticks and—ka-poof! So Belepo and Thewèhdarosh and me, we wonder what happens if we light all of it same time. We scout around, find all powder wagons; then Belepo get foresters make fire-arrows for crossbows. Once all in place, Belepo loose fire-arrows on wagons at Windy Gap to signal others do same. That make big smoke, loud thunder. Real loud thunder. Sammi's ears still ringing. Teddy, how they pack all that thunder into tiny little grains?"

Teodorq clapped him on the shoulder. "That's not the important thing."

"No, important thing is Sammi win your battle. No more powder, greenies pull out right quick before use up all have on them."

But Teodorq thought that the most important thing was that Sammi had survived, though he did not tell the hillman this.

A Book in the Hand

It was a two-day march back to Cliffside Keep, but well before the legion returned, the thumping had ceased and a dull brown cloud hung over the location of the sawak.

The smoke wafted as strange, astringent wisps over the corpse-laden ground that had been the Great Meadow and the autumn fields. Teodorq sniffed the odor of thunder-tubes to which he had become all too accustomed at Joojen's Creek. Black smoke billowed from the still-burning Keep. The village and crops were cinder and ash.

Yar Yoodavig halted the legion while still at a distance from the Keep and studied the carnage with his look-glass. "Point guards!" he called as his shoved the tube closed. "Thewèhdarosh, send scouting parties off toward the Moose Creek Gap and other trails east. And throw a sweep up west of the cliffs, too. We don't know whether the greenies pulled back or pushed on."

"Pulled back," said Teodorq. "If they'd come to stay, we wouldn't have to hunt for 'em." The glittering came from the armor of the kettleheads, who lay scattered across the croplands like a frozen wave. As the yar and his subyars picked their way through the killing field, Teodorq could trace it from where the line of battle must have been. The eridzars had been blasted there by the big thunder-tubes. And then, when they could stand it no longer, they had couched their lances and charged madly into the mouths of the tubes, hoping to cover the distance before the greenies could reload. The steel wave had grown thinner as it had progressed. It formed something like a spearhead on the ground where they had fallen as fewer and fewer made the distance. Pennons flew among them: Tigers, Foxes, Lynexes. And then, when they were close enough, the greenie footmen with the thunder-sticks had let loose, and the wave of steel had broken on a shore of lead.

Some had made it through. A thunder-tube lay amidst the wreckage of its carriage, the mouth of it peeled back like a banana. Teodorq remembered that had happened to one of Jamly's stone-throwers.

The east wall of the Keep was tumbled down, as if a giant had hammered on it with fists of steel, and the great stones of which it had been built were tumbled and broken into a great pile of rubble. There was another mound of bodies there. Teo suspected that there were more and larger thunder-tubes than the ones the greens had sent in their southern force.

"Clever putzes, them," Teodorq suggested. "They wave their arms and jump up and down over by Joojen's Creek, burn some villages a good two, three days' ride for you eastern men, and all our best fighters rush down there to make battle. Meantime, their main force slips through..."

The yar shook his head. "You mean they sacrificed six of their battle squares just to hold our attention?"

"I don't think they expected to lose, down by the Creek. But they only cared that we stayed there long enough that their... their heavies could do their work here. We beat their reconnaissance force last year, and I think that scared 'em. They didn't expect what they found when they entered the Nobeshtinny. They thought it'd be all villages and wooden stockades."

"So they had to come out and find what was here, but... they weren't ready to come this far to stay."

"Not when they weren't sure what they faced. They just needed to tell you not to get in their way." Teodorq paused in thought. "Yoodi? Why ain't there no Moose on the field?"

"You noticed that, too. Guess they didn't answer the call."

"Me, I guess the greenies came though Moose Creek Gap with a long carpet rolled out for them."

The yar's lips set into a thin line. "I wish she hadn't called him 'zit-face.'"

Hegge subyar called out, "We got a live one!"

They trotted over to where the foresters and the other legionnaires were going through the dead. He lay on the ground beside his horse, his armor smashed and puckered with holes. It was the eridzar Matyas who had gone with Teodorq and the princess to Top-of-World that day. Sammi o' th' Eagles was kneeling beside him with a water-skin and gave him short sips.

"Gave you up," Matyas managed. "You won?"

"For some meanings of 'win,'" Yar Yoodavig told him. "We lost half the legion."

Belepo subyar rode up to the group and slid off his horse. "They left by Moose Creek," he announced.

Matyas coughed and nodded. "Dzha. Caught us with half already... on road... join you. But we pressed them hard. Crossbows... did good work, and some of our men got into them. But... day looked like theirs when the Moosehead came charging in. We all... cheered. But... attacked our own flank." Matyas managed to spit. "Traitors."

The eridzar fell into a fit of coughing. Yar Yoodavig unloosened one of the straps on his armor, but Matyas grabbed his wrist. "No. Leave be. Die with spurs on."

"What about the kospathin?"

"And princess?" added Sammi.

Matyas twitched his head toward the bodies behind him. "Fell. Somewhere. In charge. Moose took Princess." He sighed, and Teodorq waited for him to say something more; but he never did.

Teodorq found the shaman in the gap where the Keep's wall had collapsed. He was surrounded by the armsmen of the garrison. Nearby lay the Wisdom Mikahali Fulenenbirk. His aged eyes would peer no more through brass look-glass tubes. He would collect no more animals to stuff, no more herbs to test. Teodorq wondered if he had realized at the end how the shortgrass men had felt when the iron men had come off the cliffs to take their land.

Survivors—mostly common folk, a few armsmen, a handful of shame-faced kettle-heads—were huddled inside the Keep, crouching under blankets, staring dull-eyed into makeshift campfires. "Shaman carried the sacred relics into the gap-of-danger," said a man Teodorq remembered as having been a baker in the village.

"Why haven't you seen to the dead?" Teodorq demanded, but the man only shrugged.

"Everyone else ran west. To Kezzer's Town."

The shaman—Teodorq remembered his name had been Sharèe Thawèteri—had fallen face down. His hands still gripped a golden reliquary and the plainsman pried it from his cold, stiff fingers only with some difficulty.

"The gold is ours, foreigner," the ex-baker said, shivering to some resemblance of liveliness. "It belongs to the House."

Teodorq found the latch and popped it open. He removed the book and tossed the reliquary to the baker. "Then keep it."

The man looked puzzled, then doubtful, as if suddenly unsure whether he had demanded the right thing. Teodorq wondered how long it would be before some other survivor slit the fellow's throat for the gold.

Teodorq found Sammi on the killing field turning over bodies. "Yo, Sammi?"

The hillman looked up, cocked his head, and waited.

"Seen enough of this place?"

Sammi pursed his lips. "How much more World left to see?"

"Dunno. Thought I'd look over the other side of the forest. Maybe the starmen villages are there." Iabran and Varucciyamen, Jamly had called them. The greenies had weapons like Jamly's shuttle. More primitive, but clearly the same kind of weapon. Wherever the star men had built their villages had to lie to the east.

"Okay. Sammi tired of taking other men's risks. Beside, iron men not let Sammi keep toy." He opened his riding pouch and gave Teodorq a glimpse.

It was the kospathin's jewel-encrusted mace.

"Hoofs trample into dirt. No one see. Clean off blood and hair and brain, good as new."

"He took that into battle?"

"Sure. Not just for pretty. What you got there?"

Teodorq showed him the book that the Wisdom had claimed had once belonged to the star men. It was inconceivably old, but seemed as if new. The runes were graceful and curved, like those he and Sammi had seen in the wrecked shuttle, and they marched in perfectly regular lines across each page. Whoever had written it had owned a remarkably steady hand. "Shaman had it."

Sammi raised his eyebrows. "He take that into battle? Even mace-of-jewels make more sense. Why you take him?"

"Dunno," said Teodorq. But he had the gnawing sense that it might be a very important thing. Maybe more important than the mace. Maybe more important than Cliffside Keep.

Yar Yoodavig rode up to Teodorq and Sammi while they were packing their mules and horses. He held his reins slack and leaned forward with his arms crossed over his mount's neck and watched them tie down bundles for a time.

"It's desertion, you know," he said at last.

But Teodorq shook his head. "Who we deserting? Your First is dead, the Wisdom, the shaman, half the villagers. Nearly all the eridzrs, most of the militia. Half the legion. 'Dosh can lead what's left of the Bows. Southern villages burned. Keep smashed. I figger Lynex or Losse will step in and pick up the pieces. I never swore an oath to House Lynex, and I sure as hell never swore one to the Moose."

"The kospathin has two cousins at his western outposts. One of them is kospathin now. Or maybe his brother up on the thoogu."

"Good," said Sammi o' th' Eagles without looking up from cinching the mule-pack. "Cousins can fight over ruins."

"The Keep will be repaired."

"Harder for greenies knock down second time?"

"We could go west, to House Lynex or House Fox or one of the others..."

"Why?" said Sammi. "Their keeps stronger?"

"The rest of the legion wants revenge on House Moose."

Sammi looked at Teodorq. "Thought only stupid plainsmen made useless, doomed gestures."

Teodorq told Yoodavig he didn't see no chances for heroic deeds in such a venture. "If the Moose made kissy-face with the greens, yuh gotta expect the greens have their back." He reached in his scrip and removed a roll of moose hide. "I wrote 'The Stunts o' Karakalan sunna Vikeram' on this in all-prairie signs."

Yoodavig took the roll and turned it over in his hands. "He was a good soldier."

"He was a great warrior," Teo said. "If yer heading west, pass this along. There'll be shortgrassers heading farther west. Tell 'em to keep passing it on. Find Clan Serpentine of the Gudawan Adyawan and give 'em this."

Yar Yoodavig took the roll, looked at it. "You're not going back?"

"I been there. Figure to keep going east."

The yar darkened. "To the greens?"

"That's where they keep 'em." Teo pointed to the three red stripes on his arm. "I promised Jamly-the-ghost I'd find the villages of the star men. Ain't found 'em yet."

Yoodavig looked to Sammi, who said, "Stupid plainsman need someone hold hand."

The yar gusted a sigh. "Can't stop you, I guess. But you're wearing that, too." He pointed to the tattoo of the yowling tiger on Teodorq's chest. "Least you can do is find out all you can about the greenies. Where they live, how many there are, and so on, and send back word."

Teodorq nodded his agreement. Sammi nudged him.

"Stupid plainsman. You no write yazhiq and no one here read all-prairie signs. How you send back word?"

A little later Chum Varòwanop joined them. He led two pack mules hung about with pigeon cages. "Just so you won't be deserting," he said, "the yar is ordered us to scout greenies east of the forest."

"Lucky us," said Sammi.

Teodorq studied the cages of pigeons. "Yuh packin' it in, too?"

The battle engine-maker shrugged. "I'm a swamper, me; but way I figure, those greenies won't know the shortgrass plavver even if they got tame mooseheads to translate the yazhiq. 'Sides, these be 'racing pigeons' that I breed. You two are bodyguards I hired down in the paiute country."

When the party was ready to move out the yar came to wish them well. "Which way you plan to go? Straight across the ridge and the Nobeshtinny?"

"No," said Chum. "Best we swing south across edge of swamplands then cross the badlands."

Sammi looked at Teodorq. "Badlands?"

Teodorq shook his head. "That can't be good."

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand and Sammi o' th' Eagles has appeared previously in "The Journeyman: On the Short-Grass Prairie" [October 2012] and "The Journeyman: In the Stone House" [June 2014].)

Mind Locker

Juliette Wade | 6914 words

She's a night-walker, she's a child-stalker. Won't see her coming, no use running hands'll snatch you, she'll catch you She's the night-walker, she's the mind-locker.

1. Hub Girl

Fingers comes to see me. Scared in her skin, she is, I can see it in the whites of her eyes. I hug her tight, and bump heads to touch-link our CustomEyes settings. Blue and green flash over the recycled plastic slum-tunnels, junk piles, trampled cardboard; that's what she likes. Me, I overlay orange, with guardian flamingos at the tunnel junctions. Most days, seeing them makes her smile. Not today.

"Bad news, Hub Girl—" Fingers looks over her shoulder at Tabby-face. "Tabby got Locked."

Tabby-face bursts out crying.

"Oh, crap. Tabby, hon, let me look at you." We bump heads—nothing. I glance left/left/down to turn on local Arkive portal view, but hers doesn't even show. She's dark, fact. Like a sock to the stomach after how long I spent cleaning out that weird "test population" malware she straggled in with. "Did you reboot?"

Tabby-face nods, mod-whiskers quivering. Rich parents, what she ran from—she got the best mindware, it shouldn't've happened. Wouldn't've, but the Locker's no noob.

"You didn't see her, did you?"

Tabby shakes her head. What I expected—nobody sees the Locker. She hacks too fast.

"Hubsy, what am I gonna do?"

"Hang in, girl, I'll figure something." Gotta think on what. Near twenty of us're locked in the dark now. And Turban-Daddy said it was a freak hardware-jacking.

I ask, "Where'd she snatch you?" Glance up a map, overlay it on the cardboard floor and my toes: City border in green, vending machines in blue, checkerbobby run-ins in red, Lockings in yellow. No Lockings here in the Hub, where I was born, but here, there, by Tangletown, by the river.

"Up on the Bridge," says Tabby.

I look up, into the adspace. That zone's not Customable. It roofs us—hides us well. Flashing colors, products for rich cityfolk, mind-ware upgrades, and a jumble of news, all inside-out. The Chief of Police looks stern beside the Mayor's smiling face. Through sometime dark spots, the Bridge sparkles above.

But the Bridge is City: witnesses, vids all over. Checkerbobbies could pull the Locker in for questions, easy. A first mistake. Why'd she be stupid, when she's not stupid?

"Is she gonna Lock me, Hubsy?" asks Fingers, wringing.

"Dunno." I shrug. "She tries to Lock me, I'll scratch her eyes out, fact."

"You can fix me, can't you?" Tabby whimpers. "You got skills. You fixed me before."

Scared to try; scared to fail. I should've done something sooner, before Big Fisher got fished. Our best food-raider gone dark—we've been hungrier since. Fuck the Locker, for scaring me.

I reach back of my head for my hardport-cable, unwinding it from my locks. "Your Arkive router's wrecked, but there's options. 'Spose I could code something. Wouldn't be the Arkive..."

Fingers nods. "You can do it, I know you can!"

I better try. We lose more raiders, we'll starve, fact. More corpses on the riverbank.

2. Raid

Nope, what I done's sure not the Arkive.

Watching at the City's edge with my Arkive maps, GPS flags, and vid-hacks integrated, I got the god's-eye view of everything up to the vending row two blocks north. Under the row's bright adsign, radio transponders in the machines call out: Empty, empty.

I'm no kind of god. Hours of work through hardport-cable, and I could only whip up a sorry-ass little texting network, scrolling red text in our upper left vision. Couldn't link to the Arkive, which means no CustomEyes, no handme-downloads, no GPS maps, no signs or labels on anything. Tabby-face, Big Fisher, Harkara and the others needed a miracle, and I gave them pathetic crap.

Still I'm glad our raid team's whole again.

Dawn's threatening; streetlights'll turn off soon. Two blocks away on vid, the refill truck pulls into view.

HUBGIRL: TRUCK COMING @EAST. FISHER'S TEAM GO. JIGGLY'S TEAM GO.

GPS flags start moving. The three Locked kids on vid-only are harder to track. Should've put them all on the same team.

FINGERS: CAN'T WE MSG U W/ARKIVE?

JIGGLY: EASIER!!!

About to break cover across the street, I stop.

HUBGIRL: NO! TABBY & HARKARA & FISHER NEED TO C ALL MSGS, & U THEIRS.

HARKARA: HATE I CAN'T C WHERE U ALL R.

TABBY-FACE: NERVOUS!

BIGFISHER: LEAST WE CAN DO R PART NOW. THX, HUBGIRL.

HUBGIRL: GOT MY I ON U, OK?

Gotta be okay. They're hungry and counting on me.

I dart across the street. By now the refill truck's in place, backside of this building, and the driver's getting out. I flick from vid to vid, trying to ID. Lately, cityfolk have a spook reflex; let's figure out what this one'll startle for.

Yep, that's the angle. Driver's a guy who once spied me with my locks down and screamed. Unknown passenger, though, worries me.

HUBGIRL: DRIVER ID'D FOR BLACKSTARTLE. WATCH PASSENGER. FISHER'S TEAM ON DIV. JIGGLY'S ON GRAB.

Count a minute. Streetlights sputter out. Two machines're open now, both men unloading the truck—which means three targets and two guards.

HUBGIRL: JUMP TIME.

Big Fisher bursts out, straight for a machine at the end of the row. Driver and passenger both startle—lucky us—but passenger whirls and pulls. Shout echoes round the corner.

"Hold it right there!"

HUB GIRL: PASSENGER'S PACKING, WATCH YOUR BACK!

Fisher zigs and ditches round the corner.

BIGFISHER: FOLLOWING?

HUB GIRL: NO. STAY PUT. 'SPECT THEY FIGURE THEY'RE ONTO YOU.

Last time Fisher circled round, but I never duplicate a game plan. By now Jiggly, Harkara, Tabby-face, and Angan are crouched against the blind side of the truck. Harkara's inside even before Fingers stages her div, walking like begging into the street. Now Jiggly's in, and Angan hits a machine—snatched and out!

HUB GIRL: LUV U ANGAN WELL DONE!

Fingers stops frozen with her hands up.

HUB GIRL: FINGERS U OK? DIV TEAM, FINGERS NEEDS BACKUP.

FINGERS: AT GUNPOINT, GUYS, WHERE U AT?

I been looking too close. I back off single-vid view to the multi-source map, and—

Checkerbobbies?!

Holy crap, whole street's full of uniforms only a block away! What the hell? Way too many for a piddly raid like ours—on foot, no zipcars—must be headed for the slum.

HUB GIRL: URGENT, 15 XBOBBIES COMING @HALF-BLOCK N! FINGERS, DITCH WHEN GUNMAN SEES THEM. ALL ABORT.

HARKARA: FOOD?

Too many aborts lately—stomach cramps just thinking it.

HUB GIRL: IF U CAN GRAB, GOOD, BUT PULL OUT. BIG FISHER, WHERE R U?

Damn, Fisher's moved, not on the same vid, did he get grabbed? Flicking vid to vid...there.

Fisher bolts out from the end of the row, dives across the open machines. Gunman whirls.

BLAM-BLAM!

"Fisher!" Scream's outta my mouth before I can stop it, and I'm running forward. Can't see the sidewalk through the big picture; gotta hope it's clear.

Sudden flash of Jiggly smiling, and in comes an Arkive message.

HUBGIRL WHERE SHOULD I GO?

W. ALLEYWAY QUICK & TAKE TABBY; DON'T USE ARKIVE!!

I repeat on the textnet:

HUBGIRL: W.ALLEYWAY'S CLEAR MOVE NOW!

GPS flags start moving. Hope they're fast enough.

ANGAN: STUCK @E.WHERE DO I GO?

HUBGIRL: SOUTH, STRAIGHT HOME. MEET@HUB 1 HOUR. SOMEONE TELL ME WHERE'S FISHER. FINGERS, U OK???

Her GPS looks on its way to me—I hope she's not shot...

FINGERS: I'M OK, HUBGIRL, THERE'S A COUPLE HOLES IN THOSE MACHINES THOUGH.

HUBGIRL: BIGFISHER CHECK IN PLZ!

"Hubsy?" That's Fisher's deep voice. He's here, big and solid. I shake him.

"Fisher, you scared the fuck outta me!"

"Hubsy, Harkara ain' got outta that truck yet."

Shit.

I check my map. GPS flags are steady back toward the Bridge, no stragglers. Checkerbobbies are all round the truck now, though, and I can't see Harkara.

HUBGIRL: HARKARA, U OK?

HARKARA: STUCK TRUCK. XBOBBIES HELP!

HUBGIRL: HOLD TIGHT.

I glance up/right to put away my map. "Fisher, I'm gonna get him."

"Right behind you."

"Hell no you don't. I already showed I can't handle so many untrackable kids. Here comes Fingers; get home."

He frowns, but moves away.

I ease toward the corner. Take off my steel bracelet, knot it tight into my hair, and spit on my wrists. Can't afford easy grab-handles right now.

Out in the street, two navy-blue uniforms, hats with checkered ribbons: 'bobbies talking with the driver and gunman. No wonder Harkara didn't try to break.

HARKARA: HUBGIRL?

HUBGIRL: I'M AT THE CORNER. DIV FOR U IN 5, 4, 3...

That alley across there'll make a good ditch. Gotta get their attention first, though. I spring right at them. Go go go don't shoot don't shoot ZIG go go go—and into the alley. I run a few more paces, loop round, back toward the street. Was it enough? Harkara's hellbat fast, he'll've made it...

HARKARA: OH GOD, HUBGIRL...

I press up to the corner. Harkara's been nabbed by some new guy outta nowhere—dude in khaki pants one shade darker than his clean-cut chin. Both checkerbobbies're sucking up. You'd think nothing if this was office district, but here?

HARKARA: HE'S TELLING XBOBBIES HE WANTS TO ASK ME QUESTIONS, HUBGIRL WHAT DO I DO?

Questions! Who is this guy? Then the nearest bright adsign morphs off the wall, into a badge that plays weird chimes, and smells of bread and flowers.

Holy crap. Mister Questions can access non-Customables. Means he's official.

HARKARA: HUBGIRL WHAT DO I DO?

Hell if I know!!!

HUBGIRL: TRY PRETENDING U ONLY SPEAK HINDI. KEEP MESSAGING ME WHEN U CAN...

Dunno what to do now. I'm the one who screwed him over, bringing him here on nothing but a text thread.

Mister Questions drags Harkara off. Checkerbobbies head south. The food truck revs, and drives away. I glance up my map view, check the vids. Street's empty.

My fault. I creep out into the road. Something's lying where Harkara got nabbed, up against the curb. A big plastic bottle of whiskey.

HARKARA: THIS GUY'S FREAKY, HUBGIRL. I DON'T THINK HE CARES ABOUT THE RAID.

HUBGIRL: WHAT DOES HE CARE ABOUT?

No answer.

Only one thing to do. Pick up the damn bottle and start home.

3. The Junk Mountain

Looks like checkerbobbies chose South Pylon for their raid. Nice, since I'm headed north carrying loot. But I better trade it off quick.

Not far from the Hub, I spy unBob—looking dug-up across his cardboard, pale scraggled jaw hanging, eyes half-open. Asleep? Lost in some gamer VR overlay, maybe. But he's taken barter before.

I creep closer. Crap, he smells.

UnBob lurches up and grabs my arm.

I jerk. "Hands off!"

"Lookin' good, Hub Girl. How old are you now?" Zombie teeth.

Bastard—I glance up access, breach his Arkive portal and scramble his overlays. "Off, or I shut you down!"

He lets go. His eyes roll up, but my firewall has dragon's teeth. "Fuck you," he spits. But looks at me straight, so I hold up the whiskey.

"Got trade?"

UnBob shrugs. One eye for the whiskey. Some gross vid-overlay in the other, probably. "I got info."

"Can't eat that."

"Don't got food. Info's hot, though, I swear. City mayor's disappeared. Checkerbobbies been 'round here so much try'na find kidnappers." He swipes at the bottle.

I jump back. "Forget it, unBob, that's bull." Slumfolk take the mayor? Dumbest idea I ever heard, who'd just ask for us all to be asswhupped?

"Is not. He disappeared, I saw the vid."

"Then which is it? Disappeared or kidnapped? You can do better'n that."

A sudden flash of Fingers' goofy salute, and a message:

HELP! LOCKER!

Red text blips into the corner of my eye.

BIGFISHER: LOCKER! NEED BACKUP BY JUNK MOUN-TAIN, NOW!

HUBGIRL: ON MY WAY, FISHER. COME IN EVERY-BODY!

Screw unBob. I run half-stooped through the plastic tunnels, hugging the bottle. Makes me sick! Between checkerbobbies and the Locker, no place's safe.

When I get there, it's Angan and Fisher waiting, others still inbound. Angan's always nervy, but that look on Fisher, I can't stand. We quick bump heads. Angan's overlaid gold-eyed frogs, ew. Fisher's warm face is dark as mine—powerful smell of him—but in the overlays? Nothing. Still kills me that he's been Locked—his watchful Orishas made me feel safer.

"I'll take a group round the mountain," I say. Heft my bottle. "Better take her on together."

"I'm coming," says Fisher.

My stomach shrinks. "Fisher, I'm not losing you like Harkara."

He takes my arm. "Hubsy, this is the Locker, remember. I can see her."

Right—with no CustomEyes, he's unhackable. "Smart," I nod. "Thanks, Fisher. Stay close."

We quick group-synch plans and fan to circle the junk mountain. Hell'm I glad Fisher's by me. Soon the tunnels end. Careful feet here: glass, wire, ripped plastic toys. Further along, tires, fridges, dumpsters, burnt-out zipcars. And rats. Adspace's got a lotta crap to cover. I watch every gap, nudge closer to Fisher. Alarm might come from anywhere.

Clang, ca-lack-lang!

I jump, scan—nobody. Something metal falling down the mountain, probably.

Fisher grabs me.

"Shit, Fisher!"

"Locker," he hisses. "Get behind me."

I press behind his back. "What about Fingers?"

"Not yet."

Out from a tangle of trashed scooters comes... Fingers.

"Hubsy," Fingers whimpers. "I'm scared."

"Get away from us, Locker," Fisher growls. "Give our friend back."

That's the Locker? I cut my overlays, but it's still Fingers. Oh holy shit, am I hacked? I check my system, but no sign of breach. Not that I see. I message-all to close in.

"Nice try," says Fingers.

GPS flags keep following the search pattern. Did the Locker intercept? I can't find invader code, can't find point of entry. But she must be in, or how'd she jack my CustomEyes?

Now I'm shaking.

I try textnet. HUBGIRL: LOCKER! CLOSE ON MY POSITION NOW!!!

Here they come.

The Fingers-overlay gasps. She runs at us, jabbing and kicking. Fisher crashes backward, nearly floors me.

"Fisher!" I shriek. I go at the Fingers-overlay, get a couple good hits but then lose my bottle. Next I know, Locker's got me by wrists and hair. Close up, she's sure not Fingers: hands like steel cable, and she smells old.

She hisses behind my ear, breath past my hardports. "How did you message past me?"

I wrestle. Can't get free. "Fuck you! Get outta my head! Give us Fingers back!"

"Sorry, girl, I've got big enemies, and I need her more than you do. Stay out of it, or I'll lock you all."

"You don't scare me."

"Oh, yes I do."

She blanks my sight to blue death.

My stomach tries to jump out my mouth. I choke—but footsteps're closing in. A voice cries,

"Let go of her!"

HUBGIRL: HARKARA, THAT U?

HARKARA: WE'LL GET U OUTTA THERE, DON'T WOR-RY.

Harkara's here??

The cable hands unwind, and I fall. Something stabs my knee. I scramble up blind, blood trickling down my shin. Then my system reverts and I see the Fingers-overlay again. Scream: "What do you want from us?!"

"Oh, Hubsy, you saved me!"

"Hubsy," Fisher mumbles, rubbing back of his head. "That's Fingers."

Breath grates my throat. Gotta trust Fisher. Don't trust myself. I grab for Fingers, find her hand, count six—yeah, that's Fingers. I hug her, hard. Others start coming, start cheering. Big Fisher shakes my shoulder, and this here's really truly Harkara. I salvage the whiskey bottle, and then everybody's got hands on us all around.

"Harkara, you got out!" "Hub Girl, you saved Fingers!" "Hubsy!" "Nobody got Locked!" "That's showin'er!"

"Harkara," I say. "You okay?"

Harkara shrugs bony shoulders. "Was busy awhile. Turns out there's a 'bobby speaks Hindi: that one I've seen swapping info with Turban-Daddy before."

"You mean Checkers Nayyar?"

"That's her. The weird guy, though, he just kept asking how I got disconnected, if I knew who did it. 'Spect it's the Locker he wants. 'Bobbies do what he says, but they don't like it. He's not one of 'em."

I look at Fisher. Deep dark knowing eyes—yeah, he can see it's bad.

When big enemies fight, it's us little ones that get crushed.

4. Mister Questions

One thing's sure: I'm not gonna be a standing target knowing diddley-squat about the players. Better get some info. I've never seen word of the Locker, even in the darknets—but if Mister Questions is coming after her, blaming kidnappers as an excuse to bring checkerbobbies into the slums, I know where to start.

The mayor.

He's linked to this somehow. Was it the Locker took him? Don't figure that's possible—it's not like he's shown up disconnected since.

I glance up the reports. Kidnapped from City Hall steps during a speech, they say. It's text/photo only, vid footage on blackout. Suspicious. I bring up my map, zoom in on City Hall street-level, and turn on Arkive portal view. Security vids'll have it for sure.

Except somebody's been here first. Cache memory's trashed from every vid I hack. This must be bigger'n I thought—wobbles my stomach, fact.

I widen my search, and get lucky. One vid at the perimeter, 'sposed to be aimed up the street but got knocked, and nobody's dumped it.

So there he is, The Man himself, tiny at the frame's edge with one arm off screen. Shouting out about parties getting up in each other's faces, how he's bringing folks together and—

Back it up, watch it again.

Holy crap, he did disappear. Not jumped, not grabbed, just gone, like beamed up. Folks watching go quiet, then loud. Confused. 'Spect they didn't know what they saw.

I'd guess overlay hack, after what the Locker pulled yesterday. That's if I'd seen it live. But could you really hack vids and watchers all at once? With a team of how many? Maybe somebody hacked non-Customables? And where'd the real Mayor go?

Then, midscreen among panicked flunkies, I spot one cool face.

Mister Questions.

Sight of him shivers my backbone. I copy the footage into my hard storage and turn off portal view, shut the map till I see my own toes again. Wiggle them, huff out a breath. Check my own portal safeties. Locker got past those easy enough. Mister Questions could do it in his sleep, probably.

Big enemies.

I whip up a little hack detector. Takes a few minutes, and still doesn't make me feel safe. Time to put some skin on the problem, and go see Turban-Daddy.

Not that I like to. Turban-Daddy's my bio-dad, says I take after him, like that's 'sposed to be why I don't cut my locks. Always offering "if you need help," but only if I diss the gang and swear off hacking. Not fucking likely.

Still, anything that can't be found on the Arkive, he knows it. And he'll have quality trade for whiskey.

I cross to South Pylon. Across the deepest water, footbridge is down to a bar of rusty metal with holes, trashed swing set probably. Big step and a hop gets me to the next pallet. I hug the whiskey to my body past the tatboys at the oilcan, sneak up to where the pylon shudders with city traffic. Already hearing Daddy's hammer.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Folks in a line, carrying scrap to his broken-concrete forge. Daddy's busy: hammer high-swinging by his faded blue turban, beating hot metal on a stone. Sweat drips in his beard, and sparks fade on his shoe-leather apron. Sure, he runs CustomEyes like everyone, but he makes real things. Like his dagger. Like my bracelet.

I'd watch all day, if no one'd see.

Daddy sees me. He shoves his glowing what-sit in a pail of dirty water. Calls, coaxing, "Awo!"

I hate him using my name all careful—I'm no kitten. Least he's not calling me Beti, like I belong to him.

"Yeah, 'sup," I say. Quick scan round; no Checkers Nayyar. "So, I got trade if you have a minute."

He looks at the line. At me. Nods, loops his hammer in beside his dagger, and we step backside the forge. Heat makes a good enough wall.

"Bet—Awo." Furrowed glance at the bottle. "Where'd you come by that?"

"Picked it outta the gutter. D'you got food?"

He frowns, nods. Funny he's not pushing harder about the whiskey. He hands me a chunk of food, and I stuff it in my mouth. Spicy heaven.

"I'll get you more, once I trade this off," Daddy says, "but you need to be careful coming around here."

"Officer Nayyar after me?"

Daddy sighs. "Not this time. Awo, I realize I was wrong about the locked ones, and I'm sorry. It's not my expertise."

Well he can't help that. "Daddy, I found out who's doing it—"

"Stop. Don't tell me." A dark warning look. "Get in line."

Danger. I duck into the crowd. Daddy's hammering by the time a guy slouches up in a long dirty coat with a hood. He's sure got Daddy nervous. Expects attention, too—us in line may's well be trash.

Longer he stands there, more irritated Daddy gets. Daddy's lips vanish in his beard. He hammers harder and higher till sparks fly and the guy leans away. The dirty hood slips. Underneath, a cool face.

Mister Questions.

Holy shit, again?! I'd kick that guy's ass, except he'd whack me first. Messing with my people, messing with my Daddy!

I've lost it. Totally crazy—cause when Mister Questions slouches off again I follow. Tell myself it's not that dangerous; he's off his turf, and besides, South Pylon's all tents and cardboard. Easy to hide if he turns around.

But I stop where the green line falls: across the city border, I'd get nabbed like Harkara. Not giving up, though. When Mister Questions turns outta sight, I scroll along after him in portal view, peeking through vids till I got him ID'd and start grabbing footage. Block three he meets a friend, loses the coat. Block four he's walking different—no more slouch, a rich man stroll. Block five he crosses the street, walks in the door of some club—

And my hack detector overflashes red.

Fuck!

I never backed off a vid so fast. Outta the map into my own head, half sick. Flashing—whoever it is is still here. Gotta be after the footage I just grabbed, something about that club, maybe Mister Questions has his HQ there? If this gets found and evidenced, I'm dead meat. I quick-reformat and slap it deep in hard storage. Breathe fast, pins and needles in my lips.

The flashing stops.

Somebody's shaking my shoulders. Daddy? "Beti, why'd you do that? That man's dangerous! You have to let me protect you!"

Oh, so that's his business now?! "Daddy, you think I'm stupid? Something mega's up and that guy's in on it. The mayor, the Locker, the checkerbobbies, everything's connected."

Daddy takes a deep breath. I tense.

"Awo." Gentle voice, dark eyes. Wish he were yelling; I can deal with that. "Remember how small you are. I'm trying to help you."

"Oh, f—" Stop, deep breath, try again. "Daddy. Forget my age for just a second. What if I'm right and it's all our lives at risk?"

"Awo—"

"Is Checkers Nayyar gonna tell you what that guy's up to?"

Daddy glowers. Silence for two breaths, three. Then he sets his hand on his dagger. "Well, if you'll be going into the city, you'll have to clean up first."

5. The Pit Boss

Daddy gave me two things.

First, cash. Dunno what's worse: taking Daddy's forge money, or spending it on the Tapper's bath. I got in and outta there fast—Tapper greases the checkerbobbies, but I mean, a tapped water main can't hightail, so that could change fast.

Daddy also gave me something of Momma's from Ghana. 'Spect it used to be something else, but now it's a short ruffled dress. Enough to hide my ragged butt if not my scarred knees. I'd've told him off for keeping it secret, but then the colors and patterns hit.

Prettiest damn thing I ever seen. Momma sure must've been something.

And Daddy helped. I hope it's enough, cause this could be rough, fact.

I climb the Bridge. Glittering pavement, breeze of zipcars speeding by. View of the ad-space—weird, all right-side-out. Shiny products, glitter and flash. Recycled vids of the mayor smiling. "Welcome to our Fair City! No slums here, nope, nope"—least not what you'd see, through his satisfied face!

Fuck him. We're way more real than he is.

Gotta stay mad, cause I never hit the city like this before: clean in gold and red and black and turquoise, strutting among cityfolk between tall cliffs of glass. Fear itching into my spine. I've ID'd and mapped the club. CustomEyes overlays the street names, and green arrows show me the way. So many fancy shoes: stilettos jabbing, platforms thudding like hammers. If I flinched, they'd notice I got none.

Last green arrow leaves me blinking up at a sign: Club SparX VR lounge. Black glass auto-door, black walls, black light, black heavy front desk. This place was plastered all over the ad-space once. Outpaced now, but Gatekeeper Boy's still feeling the cool: slicked black hair and LED studs in his eyebrows, flashing blue and purple. I'm brighter'n a tropic bird and he's trying hard to look bored.

"Are you registered, miss? There's a fee, you know."

I smile and put the fee on the counter; done my research. This kinda place runs hot portal traffic, perfect disguise for a hacker—was Mister Questions aiming to find the Locker here? As for registration, I never share my own info. I sneak into their system for a list of members not currently direct-downloading. It flashes behind my eyes and I'm out again, name in my mouth. "Destiny Watson, checking in."

Gatekeeper Boy frowns. Accesses their system—eye-twitch makes him look a little off. I hold my breath. But he takes my cash and smiles.

"Go on ahead."

I walk through double doors. Dim view of old-school VR zombies on couches. They're cleaner'n UnBob, but just as far gone. If I peered into faces, I'd get noticed, so I stroll easy-like. No Locker here. Hacker of her status'd be in the back, anyway.

A tall lady with blonde hair struts up. "Excuse me, Ms. Watson. May I tempt you with a more complete virtual experience? You'll need CustomEyes 13.0 or higher."

I been noticed. Don't like it—don't trust this one further'n I could throw her. But I can't act like an outsider. "Oh, yeah, couches are so last decade."

She smiles. "Please, follow me."

Still time to run. Give up while I'm ahead. But something is going on here—Mister Questions testified to that. And if I ran, no guarantee the shit wouldn't come down on me anyway; it's already started.

I follow Ms. Tallblonde through another door.

Whoa, big space.

Ads'd make you guess jungles, or futurecityscapes. This is just a warehouse, fact. Foam mountains here and there, pincameras speckling every surface. Smack in the middle, a mismatched team of thirty people's fighting thin air for dear life. Bet they see the jungles.

"Straight to the back," says Ms. Tallblonde, pointing. "Mountain, right-hand corner. The operator there can link you in."

Feels like a trap. No way'm I crossing straight back—VR fighters'd take me for an NPC and knock my head off. I skirt the wall, touchfloor tacky on my feet.

Operator's waiting near a door in the pin-camera mountain. 'Spose this might be the Locker, overlaid, but my hack detector's sitting tight. Heshe's a small interperson with manga hair; calm, quiet, not hiding—knows heshe's invisible to the VR crowd.

Heshe smiles, then speaks in a gritty-ass fake samurai falsetto. "I'm the Pit Boss. Can you give me your name, so I can link you in?"

Okay hell no. If this was legit, heshe'd call me Destiny; I won't believe their database sucks that bad. Nope, heshe's trying to catch me out... or worse.

I look over my shoulder. The VR fight's still on, but now flunkies're by the walls. Hackers hate being hacked more'n anybody. Could this be the Locker, sneaking past my hack detector? One way to find out—I snatch the Pit Boss' hand.

Big graceful hand: perfect match for visual. Not the Locker.

Heshe pulls away, all disdain. "I may not know your name," hir voice turns suddenly liquid honey, "but I know who sent you."

"Pff—I sent myself."

"Well." That smile says not-past-my-shit-filter. "You can tell her we appreciated her work on the mayor, but we don't miss her."

Crap, heshe means the Locker?

Heshe takes my open mouth as proof. "This time, they won't be able to explain it away; the lies will be exposed. Her targeted approach wasn't good enough. Compared to the political in-group we're up against, one piddly slum-hacker's easy."

I run. None too soon: flunkies're closing in. I dive between two, roll, scramble up and dash straight for the sea of hollering VR fighters. Arms and legs coming at me—steps of a flunky behind, weave, girl, weave! I duck an arm. Thud—the flunky screams. VR guy doesn't notice, starts offing some huge boss right over my head. I commando-crawl between fighters' legs, so fast my elbows burn. Flunkies can't close the circle, but Gatekeeper Boy's blocking the door—I dive under his legs, roll into VR room 1, jump over couches, step on zombies. More flunkies come at me. Door out front looks unguarded but—well, no choice.

I push through, but my head jerks backward. Tallblonde's snatched my locks.

"No way, little worm," she hisses. "You're staying till our job's done."

I claw and squirm but there's too many—someone jams a sack over my head, and they carry me easy as loot. Next I know the floor's falling. Bet that door by the Pit Boss was an elevator.

I'm so, so dead.

"So what do we do with her?" Sounds like Gatekeeper Boy.

"Leave her. Just till the job's rolled out."

They fling me blind. I ball in the air, manage to roll. Door slams; lock clicks. I struggle the sack off and scope round, catching my breath.

This isn't a prison, just a small office. Big desk, filing cabinets. 'Spect it's a front, cause no hacker den looks so clean. Only the one door, locked when I try it, and a little high window at ground level. But there's a hum in the air, and the floor's cold—suspicious, fact.

Across the middle of the ceiling runs a pipe that vanishes through the far wall. Literally. I check the wall with my fingers. A hologram's hiding another door, complete with bioscanner, and cold air blowing through the cracks. Must be a shitload of server tech back there. Perfect for a mega-job going down—maybe Mister Questions suspected.

Or was he part of this? He was awful cool when the mayor disappeared, and that was some hacker trick. But what kinda job could top that? How many checkerbobbies'll they dump on us this time, on what fake excuse?

HUBGIRL: BIG TROUBLE IN CITY LOOKS LIKE COM-ING UR WAY FAST. EVERYONE 2 EMERGENCY HIDEOUT, NOW. MEET U THERE.

I hope.

Two doors: one to the server room, the other to flunkies. Leaves the window for me. I climb on the desk and jump to the pipe. Shinny across till the window's level with my shoulder. Swing my feet toward the sill—hit, stick, can't shift across. Lose my grip and land on my back.

Good thing my breath got knocked out, cause a shout might've brought flunkies.

Start over. Cling, shinny, this time hook my knees over the pipe, dress falling in my face. I swing, grab the windowsill with both hands. Meanwhile, textnet messaging's gone crazy, everybody wanting answers but I got none. I flick the latch, pull the window open. Better not fall this time—I wedge myself, feet on the pipe, hands on the sill—squeeze arms and head out, then drop my legs. Window edge cuts me in half, but I fight and squirm and finally land panting outside on dirty asphalt.

Momma's poor dress.

I scramble up and run.

Everything still looks normal in the city. No shouts, no sirens. I could pray to be wrong, but I'd never get so lucky. At the Bridge I take the shortcut, a slide-down-the-I-beam drop straight through the adspace. Slum-tunnels feel more like safety, but it's not enough this time; we got a special hideout for the really big stuff. Everybody's gone quiet on the textnet, so they must be there already, waiting. It's a good place to hole up after run-ins. We hid Fisher there for two weeks once.

I run past the tunnel-ends, into the junk. Backside of the mountain, I open the door of a gutted-out fridge and climb through a hole in the back, into the big hollow we dug out by hand.

"Guys," I call. A flash of red in my vision—hacked again, must mean the big job's starting. I got here none too soon. Tabby-face reaches down to help me in.

Steel cable grip tightens on my wrist.

Locker!

I fight her, crying. Too damn tired. Now I spot the others—knocked out, tumbled against each other in the tiny space.

"Why are you doing this to us?" I gasp. "What's the Pit Boss trying to pull, anyway?"

The Locker pulls me in close. "Sorry," she murmurs. "Amubi is working for the greater good. To expose the lies, before the test population split gets any bigger. We can't let it roll out—but there's no time to explain. This is the best I can do."

She blanks my vision to blue death. A stinking cloth clamps over my face, and blue goes black.

6. Hub Girl

Hurts. Throb behind my ear.

I crack my eyes open. Faint view of the hideout ceiling: trash crisscrossed by pipes and wire. The Locker's still here, beside an LED lantern. Pale, drawn cheeks and gray hair, like an ancient ghost. No more overlaid ID.

Oh no.

I try to glance up a map. A message. Anything! Only makes my eyes hurt.

She's Locked me. She's won.

I wanna throw up—but no way'm I letting her know I'm awake. Can't help wondering what new kinda hell the Pit Boss made outside. The Locker starts pacing, messing with her hardports.

"I knew it. I said there'd be too much loss. Amubi, why didn't you listen to me?"

Behind her, a pair of eyes blink in the dark—Big Fisher. Sweet! The Locker might've found our textnet when she Locked me, and wrecked the text router too, but maybe not...

Takes a super-long reboot and some sick worried seconds. GUI's been stripped, so it looks like nothing, but...

HUBGIRL: BIGFISHER? CAN YOU HEAR ME?

BIGFISHER: RIGHT HERE, HUBGIRL. THANK GOD YOU'RE OKAY.

HUBGIRL: DAMN I LOVE YOU FISHER.

Behind the Locker's back, quick flash of his smile.

HUBGIRL: ANYBODY ELSE AWAKE?

HARKARA: ME.

JIGGLY: ME.

TABBYFACE: JEEZ MY HEAD HURTS.

FINGERS: GONNA WRING THAT BITCH'S FUCKING NECK.

HUBGIRL: WAIT. WE GOTTA MOB HER ALL AT ONCE. KEEP QUIET, WAKE YOUR NEIGHBORS.

Slowly they're waking. Good thing slum kids learn early how to play dead.

BO: HUBGIRL I'M SCARED.

At least five little ones here. Too small for raiding, and they never deserved to be Locked. None of us did.

HUBGIRL: US RAIDERS'LL GO FIRST. BIGFISHER TACK-LE HER FEET. HARKARA, FINGERS, TABBYFACE, JIGGLY, ANGAN GRAB ANY PART YOU CAN REACH. EVERYBODY ELSE JUMP ON TOP IF YOU CAN. ANYBODY GOT A WIRE NEARBY THEY CAN HOGTIE WITH?

FINGERS: ME. CAN'T WAIT.

Locker stops pacing right in front of Bo, who starts to cry.

HUBGIRL: JUMP TIME.

Fisher tackles the Locker's feet, buckles her knees. She's fierce, but we got her surrounded and we're starving for revenge. Even Bo shrieks and bites. Finally the Locker falls. Fingers jumps on top and bales her hands behind her back.

"Stop," the Locker wheezes. "You don't understand. I was right, I'm gonna need you—"

Fingers shoves her face into the junk. "Shut up."

"Don't mess her up," I say.

"Aw."

"She's worth something whole, I bet. Stick a rag in her mouth and let's get her back to the Hub. Locker, you better be thinking how to fix this."

Hard work dragging her out through the fridge door. At the edge of the tunnels, she tries to ditch, so we bale up her feet. After that we gotta carry, me and Fisher and Tabby-Face and Fingers between us, slowly back toward the Hub.

Being Locked sucks. Slum-tunnels look dirty and colorless. I miss my flamingos, and my Arkive tools. Adspace gives no protection. Flattened dirty cardboard underfoot shows no labels.

And no one's here. Even Tangletown's empty—makes me nervous.

Turns out they're all packed into the Hub, a wall of backs with somebody in there trying to calm folks down. One voice sounds like Turban-Daddy. Even if everybody else panicked, he'd keep his head on straight.

Now folks see us, and murmurs run round about our cargo. Somehow everybody squeezes enough room for us to drag the Locker through. We flop her out like a fish in the middle, and that's when curiosity busts out all around.

"Who you got there, Hub Girl?"

I speak out. "This here's the Locker. She's got info about all this. Problem is, she Locked us first. I got no Arkive." I turn to Daddy, who's standing with Sugarboss and the Tangletown Maestra. Feeling all the eyes makes me call him what they'd call him. "How bad is it, Fixer Singh?"

Daddy's looking more and more worried. "Hub Girl," he answers, ginger around my name, "none of us have Arkive. We've sent scouts, and the whole city's offline. It's a citywide panic. Computer systems are down, databanks corrupted all over—whatever this is, it jumped systems and penetrated a lot of fire-walls nobody expected."

Holy shit—the whole Arkive? How the hell are we gonna eat now? Don't see how vending refillers'll run, and we don't got the heavies, or the weapons, to compete with real looters!

Fisher squeezes my shoulder. Wish he wouldn't—I don't wanna cry with everybody watching. I shove the Locker with my foot.

"We turn her in to them, we can get a reward maybe. She can out whoever did this."

The Locker's desperate-eyed, shaking her head. Reminds me of her "greater good," and the Pit Boss going on about lies. Somebody said "test populations," too, I heard that one somewhere before—but it's all just terrorist talk, right? I kick her a swift one.

"Maybe, but who's 'them'?" Daddy asks. "We know someone who might come looking for her, and he could send a lot of police down here if he wanted. A few local stations are back up and running on their own generators."

Right, Mister Questions. "Well, he might come alone, cause the police're probably busy in a citywide panic. Plus they don't like him."

Sugarboss crosses heavy arms. "They don't?"

"Well, one of 'em doesn't. Checkers Nayyar." But that police generator, now— that must be the reason I can still power textnet with everything else down. I enter the security-key to see if my housekeeping mindware's still running, and there it sits, the Police hub, tasty as a big fat muffin. They must not expect anyone else online, cause texting in's simple.

URGENT SERGEANT NAYYAR REQUESTED TO UN-DER-BRIDGE NORTH PYLON FOR REPORT AND APPRE-HEND PRISONER. PARKASH SINGH MEHRA.

751864 SGT. NAYYAR: HOW CAN YOU BE ON HERE? ON MY WAY.

I put hands on my hips. "She's coming."

That gets a reaction. Nobody round here likes checkerbobbies—plenty get pissed, but others don't wanna leave now that they've been disconnected. Turban-Daddy, Sugarboss and the Tangletown Maestra sketch out a news-passing plan, messy but enough to get people on their way, so the Hub's mostly empty by the time Checkers Nayyar stoops in with two officers behind her.

Grim face actually makes her look good, a queen outta legend in a navy checkered disguise.

"Mr. Singh Mehra, you called me?" She looks my way. "I take it this is your daughter, Ms. Awo Mehra-Adanu?"

Never been called that in my life. "Hub Girl," I say. "I called you. This here's the woman who's been locking kids off the Arkive for near a month, and she knows Amubi, the one behind the hack that shut everything down." The Locker looks desperate again, but it's Nayyar's eyes that're getting to me; I take a deep breath. "Both of them got some link to that detective guy you been dealing with, the slick one who made you question Harkara. He's in on the mayor's disappearance, so you better investigate him, too."

Checkers Nayyar blinks, stares, then gives a harsh laugh. "I see you have a talent for finding connections. Take the prisoner outside." The two officers stand the Locker up. Nayyar raises an eyebrow at the wire baling. "And give her some proper zipcuffs."

I'm not gonna feel guilty for that. "We did what we had to. We been the victims till just today. And there'd better be a reward, too, cause we're awful hungry."

"Awo," Daddy says, "You can't expect—"

Checkers Nayyar raises a hand. "Young lady, the city's in chaos right now. We have to get it under control, and then figure out how valuable your... arrest... was in the process."

Fuck that—that could take a month! "What about your special detective?"

Her look cools. "Implicating someone like him takes unequivocal evidence, Ms. Awo."

That asshole! He's gonna get away, unless—"Well, I got evidence," I say.

I'd better. Gotta be a way to access hard storage directories from housekeeping level; I know that vid footage's still here somewhere. Maybe if I...

Oh my God.

I don't recognize the inside of my head. I shoot the vid footage to Nayyar on autopilot, but my eye's somewhere else: I got shitloads of new storage suddenly, every bit of it full, files and files, all labeled.

It scares the hell outta me, cause Test Population Political Priming Experiment is right on top.

"Officer Nayyar. I know what the Locker's been up to." Falls outta my mouth. My hands start shaking. "She must've had some plan, cause she's been stashing data. Loads of it, here in my head. Bet you there's more in every one of us kids." Behind me, the whole gang mutters in shock, but I'm way beyond that.

Speechless.

Right at the top, a list of conspirators' names, all fat cat folks I seen on the news. They been pulling a hack right over the whole city's eyes: overflashing spiders, mold, slime, bloodsuckers, and other crap too fast to see, whenever their people see or hear something the fat cats don't want 'em to like. Hacked CustomEyes is what's been making 'em all so spooked—the exact same crap I cleared outta Tabby-Face when she first came down. Hacked by politicians! And the best part has to be said out loud.

"There was no mayor at all, Officer Nayyar. It was your slick detective wearing hacked non-Customables like a dirty coat, cause the power brokers'd hacked so many folks, made 'em so scared of each other they were good as locked, and no real person could bring 'em back together."

She and Daddy stare mouth-open. You'd have to be on meds to make up this kinda shit, fact—but Nayyar's eyes're flicking, testing her own systems, and when they stop I can tell she knows it's true.

"There's much more, Officer Nayyar. Peek in my head if you want. But you better not handme-download, cause you wouldn't want this stashed anywhere that detective might be able to see."

"Ms. Awo..."

"Call me Hub Girl."

Nayyar shakes herself. "Hub Girl, it looks like I'm going to need to contact some outside people, and I'll need your cooperation." She looks round. This time, sees all us kids. "You'll all need protection, too."

"Look," I say. "We're still connected—we could message for you, if you can make sure they don't find us. And give us some food, and clothes."

Big Fisher mumbles, "We could use those any time." I find his hand and squeeze.

Nayyar's eyes flash pity, but her grim determined look is back. "And that reward you mentioned."

That's more like it. When we nab these guys, it's gonna be a big one.

Who Killed Bonnie's Brain?

Daniel Hatch | 11863 words

"Scientist declared dead."

That was the headline.

"ROCKVILLE—The brain of information technology scientist Bonnie Bannister ceased functioning Saturday evening, according to a report from the chief state medical examiner's office. Bannister was born in 1949 and was considered to be 107 years old."

And that was the lead. Most people don't read much beyond that point, but you keep writing anyway.

"Bannister, whose brain was removed and retained on life support in 2043, was declared dead by the medical examiner. After the removal, Bannister continued working in the IT field for 13 years. She was credited with major advances in artificial intelligence during that time, including the development of stand-alone AIs."

And summing someone up in a single paragraph is always a heartbreaker. As if you could pack a whole life—or in Bonnie Bannister's case, a piece of it—into fifty words.

"She was predeceased by her parents, two husbands, three daughters, and a granddaughter. She was survived by a great-grandson, David Poole, of Rockville. A memorial service is being planned by colleagues in the IT field, the location and time are to be announced."

That's where the news obit and the paid obit overlap.

And here's where it doesn't:

"Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the end of Bannister's brain functions. No details of the investigation have been released."

That was what I posted on the Rockville Inquirer newsite on Monday morning after the death of Bonnie Bannister's brain.

I didn't want to use the word "death" in the news obit. Too many groups claim that you die when they take the brain out of your body, they're vocal about their position, and I didn't want the comments section to fill up with their complaints.

But if you don't belong to one of those groups, you have no problem with referring to what happened as the death of Bonnie Bannister.

I wasn't that interested in the story at the time.

I didn't know who Bannister was. I didn't know anything about her accomplishments. And I hadn't known there was a prominent IT scientist living in Rockville. Or had been, now that she wasn't living.

I was ready to forget the story and move on to something else. And then I got a message inviting me to an address on North Park Street that changed everything. It was Bonnie Bannister's address, and it came from her housemate, a retired judge who appeared to be as old as she was.

The morning did not start well. I should have had a doughnut for breakfast.

But getting a doughnut means going down to the dark diner across the square from the courthouse. Personally, I don't see the sense in banning the dining clubs in the kilo towers from serving doughnuts when it's still legal to make them elsewhere. Of course, a lot of the food laws don't make sense. Bacon, for example, is proscribed everywhere (even though they still serve it in the dark diners).

No, I had to try a quick pass through the dining club and pick up some coffee and a banana.

And instead, I ran into Ed and Mary Parker from the tower committee.

"Hi, Frank. Could we speak to you for a moment?"

They made my ears ring. They made my headring ring. I took off my hat—and the head-ring inside the brim—so they had to walk over to me instead of ringing me from across the club.

I wanted to tell them I was on deadline, but then I'd have to dread running into them every time I got hungry.

"What can I do for you, Ed?" I replied, using that phony tone of concern that I always got from public relation flacks.

"It's about your parents, Frank," Mary said. "They've been in North Carolina for more than a year now. And we were just wondering when they were coming back. I mean, it's an awfully large apartment for just one person. And if they're not coming back, we... I mean, the committee was thinking that you might want to think about selling back their holding."

"I think they'll be back next month," I said, lying. "At least that's what they were saying last time I talked to them."

"Are you sure? Because Ginnie Gilchrist was saying they love Wilmington and don't ever want to leave it."

"Pretty sure," I said. "But I'll ask them about it next time we talk. Now I've got to run."

I smiled as I started putting distance between us. The more, the better. Sell their holding indeed. If they did that, where would I live?

I went off for a doughnut anyway, down the shadowy street that runs behind the Mark Twain kilotower.

Rockville, back in its day, when the mills were new and running, was home to a couple thousand people. Those same streets today have to deal with twelve thousand—the original population living in the original, now historic, housing and the residents of the town's ten kilotowers.

The towers, each about ten stories high and holding a thousand people, make the town a thriving urban center. But at the same time they fill the sidewalks and streets with too many people and cast long shadows.

My favorite dark diner is down on Brooklyn Street. This month, it belonged to a guy named Bud. The storefront has tinted windows and no signs, but everyone knows what it is. The place was jammed and it took me five minutes to get an apple fritter and get out.

I hoofed it back up past the train station. A string of four cars rolled by while I waited at the corner. Then I made my way up the hill, past Town Hall, and up Park Street to Talcott Park itself.

By the time I got to the park, I was beginning to sweat, even though it was a cool morning in September. I'm on the south side of thirty, but Rockville is built into the side of a ridge rising from the east side of the Connecticut River Valley. The only flat ground in town is down around the train station.

The park was full, but not crowded. Couples with children. Young men with dogs. Toddlers with their nannies. And over in one corner, a bunch of teenagers were rehearsing the dueling scene from "Romeo and Juliet." Tybalt had just been run through and was giving his "not so deep as a well" speech. When I started high school, they were still working on big Broadway musicals. By the time I was done, it was all Shakespeare all the time. I think the Bard App had something to do with it. Plays are a lot easier with someone whispering the lines through your headring.

My destination was just a block beyond the park. I'd been looking down at it all my life. From my room in the tower, I could see across the rooftops and over the treetops in the park to the big brick mansion on the hillside, with its high walls and gabled grey roof and narrow chimneys. I never thought I'd be invited inside.

The sign on the low sprawling building at the gate said "Carriage House," but it looked like it was built over a garage. Beyond it was a wide, poorly maintained parking lot that climbed toward the house itself. There were no gates and no guards, so I walked on past the Carriage House and crossed the parking lot.

A long brick wall held back the hillside beyond the house. Behind an iron gate, a stairway led uphill, but the head of the stairs was boarded up. Probably some decades ago by the look of it.

The mansion itself was long and rectangular and the red bricks looked freshly washed. White federal columns framed the windows. From the front door, I could see a well-tended garden at the far end, sheltered by the brick wall, with large planters along the walkway.

After looking up and down for a long while, admiring the layout, I pressed the doorbell button at the big front door.

The woman who answered the bell was tall, taller than me by far even though I'm not a small guy, and big-shouldered. She wore a grey uniform with a quilted silk jacket and a nametag that read "Abigail." She looked just a little Asian—probably part-Chinese. Her eyes were red and her face puffy, like she'd been crying.

"Can I help you?"

"I have an invitation from Judge Adams," I said. I fished the flimsy textprint out of my pocket and offered it to her.

"It says you are his next-of-kin," the woman said.

"That's what it says," I replied.

She looked me up and down, then stepped back and let me into the foyer.

"Wait here," she said, before stepping through the door on the far side of the highceilinged room. A wide staircase spiraled around one end of the foyer, up to a railinged balcony. The walls were a deep shade of magenta. Halfway up the stairs, in the middle of the semicircular wall, was a small hand-painted image of a centaur carrying a kidnapped nymph on his back.

After a couple of minutes, the door opened and a new girl came through. She was short with small, sharp features and curly dark hair, and she wore a lavender jacket with pink lace epaulets spilling from the shoulders. Her nametag read "Gaby."

"Sorry about Abigail. We're all still a little shook up about Bonnie, and Abigail was her personal nurse. You can come with me," she said. "Judge Adams is expecting you."

She led me through a short hall into a large room with rough-textured walls. I stopped and touched the nearest wall.

"It's leather wallpaper," she said, beckoning me on, through a small study with two comfortable-looking chairs facing a fireplace, with a large ornate chandelier centered on a threefoot-wide disk. "And that's mostly gold," she noted when she caught me inspecting the chandelier.

"Through here," she said, holding the door into another large room. I could see layers of dark woodwork in columns, ceiling beams, and wall paneling. "It used to be the library, then it was the bar, and now it's sort of a library again. The judge is in there."

"Thank you," I said as I stepped past her into the doorway. She smiled.

The ceiling was low and dark, coffered into many deep boxes. Light streamed in from the southeast through old-fashioned sash windows. No longer a library, it didn't have many books. No longer a bar, it didn't have glasses or bottles of liquor. On a polished white table, surrounded by tubes and pipes and equipment and monitors, all clustered together at end of the room away from the windows, was a large stainless steel container. It reminded me of one of those antique coffee urns you see in a really old restaurant.

"Welcome to Maxwell Court!" boomed a man's voice, apparently from a high-quality sound system that filled the room without being unpleasant. My guide had closed the door as she left, and I was alone in the room. Or not.

I'd googled Judge Franklin Adams as soon as I got his note. He'd been "disembodied" for more than a decade now. I assumed the stainless steel container held his remaining vital parts.

"Thank you," I said.

"It was built in 1904 by Francis Maxwell, one of the owners of the Hockanum Mills Company at the time. Designed by Charles Adams Platt—one of the greatest landscape architects of his day. When the mills closed and the Maxwells were gone, the Elks Club picked the place up and used it as their lodge for decades. And when they moved to their new digs in one of the towers, Bonnie picked it up for a song. I used to be her lawyer in another century. When I... made the change... she invited me to move in with her."

"That's what I've read," I said. "It's a nice place."

"That depends," the judge said. "If you're stuck in one room for the rest of time, it's not as nice."

"I suppose not," I said. "So, are we really related? Your note said I was your next of kin."

"A fortunate coincidence of names," the judge said. "You're Benjamin Adams. I'm Franklin Adams. There are probably thousands of Adamses kicking around New England."

"I'm actually descended from the famous ones," I said. "The presidents. I like to sing the song my own way. 'This land is my land, this land is my land, this land's not your land, this land is my land.'"

A strange barking sound came out of the speakers in the woodwork. I took it as laughter.

"Very good. My people are from Maine. And there's probably a chance that we really are related. A couple of cranky old Yankees, we are."

"Yes, we are," I said. "But that's probably not why you asked me here. Or why you sent me a textprint note instead of contacting me directly."

"I need help," the judge said. "Someone to do some legwork. Obviously, I lack the legs myself."

"What kind of legwork?"

"The kind you already do. Asking questions. Finding out things."

"What do you want to find out?"

"Who killed Bonnie Bannister."

I looked out the window at the garden beyond. The sun washed over blue and red blossoms and yellow petals. A bumblebee lurched and swayed through the air.

"Did someone kill her?"

"I don't think it was an accident. We have a lot of redundant systems dedicated to keeping us alive. Saturday night, one of those systems shut down and Bonnie died. If it was mechanical failure, then I want to know—because I depend on the same machines. And if it was more than that, justice cries out to be served."

"At the very least," I said.

"What I mean is that if someone killed Bonnie, I want to know who. And why. And am I at risk too?"

"Good questions," I said. "Do you have any idea where to start?"

"Are you offering to help?"

"Uhh..." I considered my options quickly. "My first impulse is to thank you for the tour of the mansion and wish you a nice day."

"I couldn't blame you for that," Judge Adams said.

"But that's my first impulse with almost anyone who calls me instead of the other way around. You really think someone killed Bonnie Bannister?"

"I've given the question quite a lot of thought," he said. "I have lots of time to think. I'm retired, you know. For the most part. Except for my hobby project."

"Hobby project?"

"I own a small medical equipment business. It does research into miniaturizing all the equipment you see around us right now. Someday, I'd like to get outside again. Take a ride. Look around."

"If someone doesn't kill you first," I said. "All right. Just in case we really are related, I'll see what I can find out. So tell me... exactly what happened here Saturday night?"

"Have a seat, and I'll tell you what I know," Judge Adams said.

Even though she had long since shed her earthly body, Bonnie Bannister worked hard. She worked most of the day on Saturday. Mostly with her two AIs—Peter and Paul.

"Building those two and tuning them up to full capacity—that's a job and a half for someone with a body. I told Bonnie that, and she said, 'At least I don't get tired anymore.' I told her what she was doing was like raising autistic twins. She told me it was more like raising a pair of thoroughbred hunting dogs."

Interaction was the heart of it, no matter how you described it. Lots of interaction. The AIs had long since crossed over into the mimetic learning stage—where they learn to imitate the cognitive processes they encounter. Bonnie was their most immediate role model, their trainer, their nanny, and their mentor all rolled into one. "So she was busy all day Saturday," I prompted. While Bonnie didn't get tired, she did get sleepy. Once they put you into one of those containers, your brain chemistry finds new patterns. Bonnie could often be found napping, only to awake at once to your presence—and that was long before she was disembodied.

The link histories from her headring IP address showed that she had spent some long time socializing, some lesser time catching up on the news, and another long time looking for news and new research in her field. About 9 o'clock, she nodded off. A link to a search page remained open for the rest of the night.

Just thirteen minutes later, she lost power to one of the modules that maintains a lot of the brain chemistry. It's the same module that takes the place of the body—there are a lot of brain chemistry interactions that need the body chemistry to work properly. And that's even more critical once you've left that body behind.

So critical, that within twenty minutes, Bonnie's homeostasis collapsed. Alarms went off. People ran around. Doctors arrived. An ambulance rolled in. Police showed up, but stayed outside.

"The most excitement we've ever had in this place," the judge said.

"So this piece of equipment is so critical that you could die too if it lost power?"

"Yes."

"And there's only one of them? Wouldn't you want to have a backup?"

"There is a backup. It didn't come on line."

I raised an eyebrow. "That sounds suspicious."

"Tell me about it," the judge said. "That's the single most important reason I decided I needed help. This doesn't seem to be making more sense as we learn more about it. That worries me."

"Who was in the house Saturday night?"

"I was," the judge said. I could almost imagine him smiling.

"For sure," I replied.

"You've met Abigail? She was gone for the evening, but there was a night nurse. And an attendant. The two of them are responsible for all the equipment and any emergencies. One of Bonnie's work team members was here in the afternoon, but he went home when she was done for the day. And one of my clerks was here in the library with me all evening. Then there was the housekeeper. She has a helper, who gets weekends off, but she lives in. Sometimes we have guests—lots of rooms upstairs—but not Saturday."

"And what do Peter and Paul have to say?"

Silence.

"Judge?"

"No one has talked to them. Abigail has been keeping them sequestered. No one is sure how they're going to react to all this."

"No one has interviewed them?" I couldn't quite believe it. "When will you folks get around to that?"

"Later today," the judge said. "I'm going to insist on it. Right away."

"I'd like to sit in."

"I'd like you to."

"Then it's set."

After I left the mansion, I headed down to Town Hall to take care of my regular business.

Rockville Town Hall is a beautiful old brownstone building with lots of high windows and a turret with a conical roof on one corner.

My first stop was the town planner's office, where I spent a few minutes schmoozing with the assistant planner, asking her what the developers were like for the new kilotower (they were fancy designers from New York City looking to build a model project that they could duplicate all over the Northeast).

Next I popped in on Mayor McClean, who wasn't around, but his secretary said he'd been getting calls about the kids painting graffiti on the old Amerbelle mill up the hill from downtown—they were afraid it was gangster stuff—and he was down at the police station.

Upstairs in the Town Hall is the old Grand Army of the Republic Hall. It used to be just a Civil War museum, but a few years ago some kid from the high school put in a modern history exhibit—a big wall screen with an animated map of town that showed how it grew from the little collection of textile mills here in the center, to the suburban sprawl of subdivisions and strip malls, and then shrank back to the center with its big towers. You could zoom in on the neighborhoods and watch them turn from farms into homes, with kids in the yard and dogs and cat running around, or you could watch people zipping back and forth from place to place. What you had a hard time doing was pulling yourself away from the screen before it finished cycling through two hundred years of high-speed change.

But I managed to pull myself away anyway and headed on to the Inquirer office.

The Rockville Inquirer used to be a real newspaper with printing presses and advertisers and a whole network of carriers who rode their wheelies around after they got home from school in the afternoon, throwing the papers onto porches. That was when there were porches.

Vince Hardy, my boss and editor, had worked there when it was still like that. Back when he had hair. And one chin.

"They used to tell us that as long as there were refrigerator magnets, there'd be newspapers," he told me once.

"What's a refrigerator magnet?" I'd asked him.

These days the printing presses are gone, along with the carriers. But we still have reporters and editors, text and pictures. You go online and you would think everyone is an editor—they all think they know what's going on and no one else does. But you can't be an editor unless you have reporters—someone to poke around, ask people difficult questions, look under the rocks and into the shadows. And people can't do that online, which is why I have a job.

We do have an office, upstairs from the pool hall, on the same block as the bar and the coffeehouse and the pawnshop. The wide windows open up on the heart of town, with a view of the train station and the Paper Mill Pond dam that rises above it.

"Whatcha got for me today?" Vince asked when I came in, letting the door slam behind me and startling him out of a catnap.

"Could be some true crime," I said. "And you know what that means."

"Lobster and champagne," he said.

"Only if it pans out," I told him. I gave him the details and he wrinkled up his endless forehead while he puzzled it out.

"So you've got this retired judge in a coffee urn who thinks someone killed his house-mate?"

"That about sums it up," I said.

"And you're going back later to find out for sure?"

I nodded.

"Don't order the lobster yet," he said.

"I won't," I told him. Once upon a time, pennies were these little copper coins that piled up in jars in your bedroom. I had six of those jars. Nowadays, the only thing they're used for is keeping track of page views. I get a few of them for each. The more page views, the more I make. And aside from college sports, nothing gets more page views at the Rockville Inquirer than true crime. Murder and mayhem. If it bleeds, it leads.

Vince went back to his catnap, and I went to my desk, looked up some things about the New York developers who wanted to build a kilotower, called the cophouse to see what they knew about the Amerbelle graffiti, and checked on my stocks and bonds and sports bets (so far this morning, the sports bets were running ahead of the stocks, while the bonds were holding steady).

Around noontime, I headed on down to the coffeehouse. It was crowded, but I still found space at the counter, and ordered up a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.

The people in the shop were a regular bunch—plain-looking with lumpy faces and bad haircuts, wearing ill-fitting clothes and weird shoes. Ordinary people. The kind who read my stories every day so that they'd feel connected to the place they lived in some way besides always buying coffee at the same place. Of course, they were already connected to their world—everyone in the place was absorbed in their devices... phones, mindpads, headrings... linked in to social networks that spanned the globe. Or the block—I'm sure some of them were texting one another across the table. I watched a girl with blonde ringlet curls who'd synched her headring with a screen in the counter. You could see her face glow with a different color each time she switched pages.

I wouldn't trade these people for all the smart designers from New York City. They were my people and I was one of them. It was my life's work to catalog the small details of their lives and put them on the record for everyone to see. It isn't noble and it won't leave an impact on the ages. But the life of a community is lived through the news—and I'm the guy who makes the things that happen into news.

While I ate lunch, I wrote up what I'd learned about the kilotower designers. Someone on a Manhattan newsbrowser said they were financially overleveraged and they needed to get this building up in order to keep the money coming in, so that turned it into something more than a simple planning and zoning story.

Then I got a call from the cophouse. They had a good idea who was behind the Amerbelle graffiti. I called a dispatcher friend and got him to give me a name. I called the kid. He was between classes at school. He told me he and his friends weren't gangsters, just bored after riding their wheelies up and down the hill too many times.

I sent the stories off to Vince. I don't post my stuff directly. Asking someone to proofread their own copy is cruel, and he insists that an editor read all the copy just in case you do something stupid. But they'd be live within the hour.

And when I was done, it was time to go find out what had happened to Bonnie's brain.

The twins were set up in a large room with white walls, bright lights, and lots of tables and equipment and cables and screens and processors. And two mannequin automatons seated in rugged stands that revealed them from the waist up. They looked identical—curly red hair, bushy eyebrows, flat noses, wide mouths with thick lips, wide faces that seemed more malleable than human flesh, wearing black sweaters with high necks.

I stepped into the room and jumped when they opened their eyes, both at the same instant.

"I'm Peter," said the one on the left.

"And I'm Paul," said the one on the right.

"We're still learning how to speak well," Peter said. "So don't talk like my brother."

"And don't talk like my brother," Paul said.

They looked at one another, smiled and winked.

I had to admit I was impressed.

I'd read up on these two. Ordinarily, artificial intelligence is mostly an act. It's a preprogrammed set of responses designed to fool the eye. The responses are normally keyed by apps that may not even be located in the same place. A voice-mail bot answers a question down the road. Another one picks up from somewhere in India. An accounting app in Redmond finishes up with a long interview. And you never know whether the three of them together could pass a Turing Test.

But Bonnie Bannister had set out do something different. She wanted to make stand-alone AIs, self-contained and complete, with their own self-teaching algorithms and an interface that could convince the unwary that there was someone—or some thing—at home inside the box.

So far, they seemed convincing. But I'd been watching them for less than a minute.

"Boys, this is Ben Adams," announced the judge, speaking from somewhere overhead. "He's a reporter and he wants to ask you a few questions about Bonnie."

"Pleased to meet you," said Peter.

"Likewise, I'm sure," said Paul.

While Judge Adams was with us virtually, I was also accompanied by Abigail and Gaby. Abigail looked a little fresher than she had that morning, but her eyes were still puffy from crying. Gaby looked sweet and innocent... until she flashed an inviting smile my way.

Abigail fussed over the equipment and fidgeted with the panels. Gaby poured two cups of coffee and gave me one. I went for the cream and sugar while Peter and Paul blinked and nodded and acted like real human beings. Even though they weren't.

"So I'm here to talk to you about Bonnie's death," I said, jumping right into it. "You've been told about that, haven't you?"

"Yes," said Peter. "And we are sorry for our loss."

"Yes," said Paul. "Though we know that saying we are sorry for our loss is only what is expected of us under the circumstances."

"I suppose it is," I said. "How do you really feel?"

"We aren't sure yet," Peter said. "We do have a sense of loss. We know we will not be speaking to her any more."

"But at the same time, Bonnie always told us that we should greet the loss of old friends with good humor," Paul said.

"That is true," said Peter. "So Paul, I've heard that they're giving baseball players such strange names these days."

"Funny names?" Paul asked.

"Nicknames," Peter said. "For example, on the Red Sox, Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third."

"That's what I want to find out," said Paul. "I want to know the names of the players on the Red Sox."

"I'm telling you. Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third."

"You know their names?"

"Yes."

"Then who's on first?"

"Yes."

"I mean the guy playing first base."

"Who."

"What are you asking me for?"

They went on for several minutes, working the variations on the wordplay like old pros. Abigail looked shocked. Gaby was laughing uncontrollably. I was able to keep my amusement under control, but I had an uncle once who had a collection of old movies that he made his nephew watch with him, so I'd seen the "Who's on First" routine before.

"Now, when the guy at bat bunts the ball—me being a good catcher—I want to throw the guy out at first base, so I pick up the ball and throw it to who?" Paul said.

"Now, that's the first thing you've said right," Peter replied.

"I don't even know what I'm talking about!"

They finished up the sketch, and Gaby and I clapped our hands loudly. Abigail folded her hands under arms and pursed her lips. She was taking things much too seriously, but it seemed to me that she must always do that.

"That was very good," I said. "And it sounded like you were making it up as you went along. Not just reciting a recording."

"Indeed," said Peter. "We are first and foremost language-processing systems. It is the essence of what makes one intelligent, Bonnie always said."

"She sounded like a pretty sharp lady," I said.

"Yes, she was," said Paul, but not with any emotion that I could detect.

"So the night she died, what exactly happened?" I asked.

"Her life support systems failed," Peter said.

"And you were here when it happened?" I asked.

"Good humor!" exclaimed Paul.

"Yes, we were," said Peter. "We are never anywhere else."

"So were you watching what was going on? Do you monitor these things? Keep a record?"

"We were watching," said Peter. "We monitor important things. We don't keep a formal record beyond our memories."

"So what happened?" I asked. "What do you remember?"

There was silence. Neither Peter nor Paul twitched or blinked or even wrinkled a brow for a long moment.

"I don't remember anything," Peter said.

"I don't remember anything," Paul echoed.

"Wait a minute," I said. "How could that be? Don't you remember everything you experience?"

"Not at all," Peter said.

"Bonnie wanted to be sure she could erase her mistakes," said Paul.

"So she could order us to forget things," Peter said. "For a set interval of time. She did it quite a lot. I believe she did it when she said or did things that were embarrassing to her."

"And when we got too confused with new material."

I let the air out of my chest and shook my head. This was getting hard to believe.

"So the night that Bonnie died, someone told you to forget everything that happened around the time of death?"

"Exactly," said Peter.

"Precisely," said Paul.

"What was the last thing you remember?" I asked.

"Bonnie was done for the night and asked for a glass of wine," Peter said.

"A glass of wine? How does a disembodied brain drink a glass of wine?"

"Bonnie had sensory inputs for tastes and smells—an artificial nose and palate with chemical receptors connected to nerve endings," the AI explained. "A small amount of wine poured into a decanter next to the inputs gave her the sensation of tasting the wine."

"And I titrated a small amount of alcohol into her bloodstream to match the effects of a single glass of wine," Paul said. "She found it quite relaxing."

"So you had access to her equipment," I said.

"Of course," said Peter. "We were part of the monitoring system."

I twisted my face and squinted at them, then at Abigail and Gaby. "Judge, is this all accurate? They aren't selling us refried spam, are they?"

"Completely accurate, as far as I know," Judge Adams said. "They had access to Bonnie's life support kit. And Bonnie told me more than once that she had reset their memories to erase bad experiences she had with them."

"And no one thinks any of this is suspicious?"

"Now that you put it that way, I suppose we should have," the judge said.

"And how about you two?" I asked. "Have you processed this piece of knowledge into the question of how Bonnie died?"

"No," said Peter.

"But we can if you would like us to," said Paul.

"By all means," said Judge Adams. "Process it and give us your analysis."

The room was silent for a long, tense moment. The mannequins stopped moving, stopped blinking and twitching and stretching.

"Paul, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Probably. I'm thinking that it's possible that we may have played a role in Bonnie's death," Paul replied.

"Precisely what I'm thinking," Peter said.

"I'll tell you what I'm thinking," I said. "I'm thinking that either one of you could have pulled the plug on Bonnie's brain and figured out some way to make you both forget you did it."

Abigail gasped. Gaby frowned. The judge made some kind of throat-clearing sound, except it was more like digital static.

And Peter and Paul looked at one another with what I swear were untrusting eyes.

"It is entirely possible that events unfolded as you describe, Mr. Adams," Paul said.

"Yes it is," said Peter. "All it would take is a preprogrammed command. One of us—"

"Or both of us," Paul said.

"—or both of us could have done what you described, pulled the plug, and then told the other to forget what happened."

"And then the pre-programmed command could have made the first one forget what happened."

"Yes," said Peter and Paul in chorus. "We could have killed Bonnie and erased the memory of the crime."

And with that, it seemed we were done. Gaby escorted me through the house to Judge Adams' chambers, then disappeared, leaving behind a faint scent of flowers and exotic oils.

"Would you like a drink?" the judge asked. "Like I told you, this used to be the Elks Club bar. There's some good scotch whiskey in the cabinet in the corner and beer in the fridge."

I found a bottle of something dark and thick with a strange name, and then went searching for a bottle opener.

"Down here," he said. "On the end of the table from my containment."

It only felt odd for a minute as I opened the beer next to the big stainless steel coffee urn that held Judge Adams' brain.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

"My first impression was mystery solved," I told him. I took a long sip off the bottle and savored the brew. "But you're probably going to tell me I'm wrong."

"Why did you think the mystery was solved?"

"They all but admitted they did it," I said. "But if that's artificial intelligence, there's a long way to go. It's not too intelligent to tell people you could have murdered the woman who created you."

"The twins are totally without guile," Judge Adams said. "But unfortunately, they are also completely without volition. Despite Bonnie's best efforts."

"So you don't think they could have done it?"

"I was an assistant state's attorney for two years," he said. "I spent some of that time in Hartford working the big cases, including a couple of murders. Nothing big: shoe salesman killed in a robbery; husband throws wife down the stairs. That kind of thing. But you still need three things: means, motive, and opportunity. They don't have a motive. Couldn't come up with one between the two of them. Maybe a couple more generations of design work would do it, but not this model."

"And I was hoping we had a closed case that I could write up," I said. I rolled the bottle in my hands and felt the cold glass. "But if we don't have culprits, it looks like we had the method. Somebody told the twins to shut off Bonnie's life-support system—and then forget what they'd done."

"I agree," Judge Adams said.

"But who?" I finished off the beer and looked into the cameras atop Judge Adams' containment.

"I have one possibility," he said. "And he has a motive."

"Oh yeah?"

"Bonnie has a great-grandson who lives here in town. He visited her a lot."

"And the motive?"

"He's heir to everything Bonnie owned," the judge said.

I got home late, after a police commission meeting where nothing happened of any interest. They were going to talk about firing Patrolman Joe Padegimas for sleeping when he should be walking his beat, but they put that off. I was already stuck there, so I sat through the rest of the session, hoping they might let something slip worth writing up. They didn't.

I stopped at the fish market downstairs and picked up a piece of Atlantic salmon, farm-raised, and some green beans. I steamed the beans and grilled the salmon, covered it with as much fresh rosemary as I could fit on it, and poured a bottle of porter into a big glass—straight down into the glass to build a thick and creamy head, just like the brewers planned.

Then my mother called.

While my supper grew cold, she gave me the word I was afraid she would.

"We were talking to Mary Parker today about the apartment," she said. I was glad she wasn't skyping so I could see the pained expression she was certainly wearing. "And your father and I are thinking that maybe you shouldn't have to take care of that big place all by yourself. I mean, it is four rooms and they're so big."

I looked around the place—I'm not sure what she meant by "so big" even if you could hold a soccer match in the living room. The sectional couch could turn into a king-size bed. The bookcases were salvaged from an old library and held a bunch of leather-bound paper that no one had touched in a dozen years. The fire pit wasn't real—a holographic fire and some kind of infrared source behind it that gave off a decent amount of heat.

The kitchen was what I loved. A doublewide fridge, a big stove with convection and ultrasound ovens. Enough cupboards to hold food for the cast of "Julius Caesar."

And my bedroom... well, I never had trouble taking care of the place all by myself, but I'm not a hoarder and I know how to use a robo-vacuum.

"So we've decided..." she said.

I knew what they had decided. I knew they were going to decide it the minute the Parkers came after me in the dining club. The way the towers worked, you put money into the building trust and it builds up interest over time. When you move out, you get the money back, plus whatever it's earned. And my parents were selling me out of my home for the bond.

"We figured we'd let you have half of it to help you find a new place," she said. "Is that all right?"

All right? I almost choked on my porter and suddenly decided that a cold supper was a small price to pay. Half? I hadn't expected anything. That was the way my father usually did things.

"Ben? Are you still there? I asked you if that's all right."

I finished swallowing, cleared the liquid from my lungs and my throat, and answered her. "Yes, I'm all right," I said. "Sure, half would be just fine. Probably pay for the moving costs."

"That's wonderful," she said. "I'll tell your father that you agreed."

And that was that. I was still being sold out of my place, but I was going to have an easier time finding a new one.

There was only one problem: I'm a journalist, and I hate and fear change.

The next morning, I went to the office and tried to think about something besides moving out of my home.

I wrote a couple of short pieces on the visiting nurses and teacher evaluations. I was about to start calling around to the town offices to see what was up when I got a visitor.

I didn't see him come in, but I knew he was looking for me when he asked: "You want to know what's happening with Joe Padegimas?"

It was Andy Krumm, one of the detectives from the Rockville PD. He wasn't like most cops, who were mainly former high school athletes without scholarship hopes. He was a small guy with boyish features and prematurely gray hair, and he was smarter than the jocks who walked the streets of our town looking for drunks and burglars.

Of course I wanted to know what was happening with Joe Padegimas and I told him so.

"He's not in trouble for sleeping when he should be on duty," Detective Andy said. "He's in trouble for sleeping with one of the police commissioner's daughters."

"Oh ho!" I said. "Which one?"

He gave me the details, and I scribbled the names into my notebook. He even gave me the daughter's phone number. That was a story with potential... if the police commission ever said something about it publicly. Or the commissioner's daughter did.

I thanked Detective Andy, then I said: "What do you know about Bonnie Bannister?"

"Bannister? Nothing to know. Equipment failure, from the look of it. People can't expect to live forever."

"What if it wasn't failure? What if someone turned it off?"

"That would be a whole different story," Andy said. "Who did that?"

"I'm working on it," I said.

"Well, good for you, because I don't have time to waste chasing down crazy ideas without leads. Give me a name, and I might do something about it. Otherwise, you don't try to be a detective, and I won't try to write stories about Joe Padegimas."

"Thanks for the advice," I said, and he left.

After lunch, I called a friend of mine for a favor. Billy was a member of a dying trade—he was a truck driver, and I wanted him to give me a ride. I had to meet him behind the train station, at the far end, where the cargo comes in, and the roads are still open for vehicular traffic instead of pedestrians.

His little electric van was just the thing for carrying small loads of merchandise around to stores and shops here in town. But today, I wanted to go a little farther.

"You're in luck," Billy said, wiping the foam from a root beer off his thick walrus moustache. "I'm actually going out there today with a load for Trader Jack's."

A few minutes later, we were rolling down a street on the edge of town, past the high walls of the kilotowers.

We rolled down Union Street, past the hospital (built around a big mansion with seven gables that once belonged to the daughter of the man who built Maxwell Court), past the old houses with big porches and cookie-cutter trim, and down to the foot of the hill where the road from Ellington and farm country came in from the north.

Then we crossed over into the old part of town—the suburbs of Vernon. We put the pharmacy and the abandoned gasoline station behind us and rolled past empty storefronts, a strip-mall with plywood over what once were plate glass windows, and an empty lot with a sign out front that said "Car Wash." All the places were fronted by big empty lots with tall grass rising from cracks in aging pavement where the cars used to park. A row of empty monuments to the age when automobiles (like dinosaurs) ruled the Earth.

Billy seemed at ease as he controlled the movement of the truck.

I was not.

But that's because I knew things that Billy probably did not. Bill had probably never scanned through the archives of the old Rockville Inquirer. He probably did not know the risks we were taking.

The unending death toll of motor vehicle accidents was horrifying. Cars hitting trees. Cars hitting buildings. Cars hitting one another. Over and over and over again. Week after week, month after month, year after year. Mayhem and blood and injuries in a long, long chain of tears and hopelessness.

I wanted to wear a helmet, but after the first ride he gave me Billy wouldn't let me.

I wanted to hang on to something inside the cab of the truck, but there was nothing within reach. At least Billy had the steering wheel.

And when another truck approached us from the other direction on the road, it was all I could do to keep from screaming. Billy had been clear about that after the first ride too. It wasn't allowed.

How could he be sure we weren't going to collide? What if the other driver miscalculated? These things weren't on tracks, for Pete's sake. We could all die in the blink of an eye... and Billy just smiled and rode along without a care or concern.

"Are you all right, Ben?" he asked.

I gritted my teeth. "Just fine," I said. "Are we there yet?"

"Just a few minutes," he replied.

We continued on past more empty stores and then took a right down the hill toward the Hockanum River. It wasn't much of a river down there, just big pieces of marshland on either side of the road, with the sewage treatment plant in the middle.

"Doesn't this part of the road get flooded in the spring?" I said.

"Sure does," Billy said. "And sometimes in the summer when the monsoons get going."

"What do you do if it does? You don't drive through it, do you?"

"No, Ben. I just take another route."

It just seemed too harrowing to me.

On the other side of the river were the first of the tract homes. Low to the ground, with big yards that had gone to seed, roofs that were sagging or collapsed. Some were blackened hulks, some were skeletons of their former selves. We went on up the hill to a strange concrete circle where Billy pulled the steering wheel hard over and we orbited a grassy knoll in its center.

I felt the cold rush of panic as we turned in a sharp little circle. What if someone else was driving here and wanted to make that turn? What would we do?

Then he pulled into the driveway of Trader Jack's, rolled up to the building, and stopped.

I tried to steady my breathing and waited for my heart to stop pounding.

We had stopped between an electric roadster and an alcohol-burning truck—I could smell the fuel through the open window. I helped Billy carry the boxes into the store, big plastic shipping crates, but with good handles on the ends. An Indonesian woman behind the counter gave us a sneer and we set the boxes down in front of an island where a dozen different kinds of rice stewed over small cans of liquid flame. The place smelled of strange spices and stale sausages.

I thanked Billy and got out of there as quickly as possible, in case another truck rolled in. Pedestrians were always at risk when motor vehicles were around.

A trio of old men sat at a picnic table under an awning, eyeing me as I consulted my head-ring for directions. The ring projected a map before my eyes and sent me back to the circular roadway, where I could see now that five different roads fed into this spot. I tried to imagine the old cars rolling around it like some kind of amusement park ride. I shivered at the thought.

Then I headed down along what the sign said was Skinner Road.

There were still suburban subdivisions around where people lived in tidy single-family houses, where they rode to the local train depot in little electric carts and rode home to wives and children and home-cooked meals. But that was in South Windsor, and Skinner Road was not one of them.

I counted four empty lots with rectangular foundation holes filled with debris and five salt-box shells wrapped with wild vines and ivy. Half the rest of the houses were empty, and the other half looked like they were home to refugees, with vegetables and rows of corn growing where grassy lawns had once been carefully tended.

The social life in this neighborhood once had centered on the elementary school at the other end of the road. I knew this because I'd written about the Skinner Road School PTA—they still met once a month in the Noah Webster kilotower, even though the school itself had closed twenty years ago. Now what social life there was out here probably was centered on youth gangs or immigrant clans.

David Poole's house was almost indistinguishable from the other squatter's digs, except for the solar panels on the roof and the piles of rusting scrap metal beside the cornrows. No one was around when I arrived. I looked things over carefully, then decided to sit, very carefully, on a wooden bench. There was no way of telling what kinds of home security measures someone might put in place out here. It was a long time since burglar alarms—or the electricity to power them—had been wired into these places.

Poole came along after I'd been sitting there for more than half an hour—just long enough to make me doubt why I'd come out here. He was pulling a large cart with four wheels that looked like they'd come off a moon-buggy—coiled spiral springs and hard rubber tires. Inside the cart was a load of copper pipes, some tools, and sheets of bright copper embossed with an elaborate pattern.

Poole was not tall—shorter even than me—but he was big. Powerful arms, wide shoulders, a big belly. He had short red hair and blue flame tattoos across his neck and the lower part of one side of his face. His voice was low and deep and powerful.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

I introduced myself. "I'm a reporter and I'm doing a story about your great-grandmother."

It's not like I could tell him I was looking into her murder... and he was a suspect. Even so, I was hoping to get as much useful information as I could. An editor of mine when I was starting out told me to "jolly them up" before asking people questions, so I did my best.

"How's the scavenging business?" I asked.

"Not bad. It keeps you from getting too bored."

"You get much competition around here?"

"Ha! As if. We do things according to the rules around here. You got your guys who think they can strip a house and sell it on the black market, but they get ten cents on the dollar for their scrap. But if you go down to Town Hall and get your salvage ticket, you can sell the stuff up at Trader Jack's on the weekend for fair price. You want some coffee?"

"Always," I said. He nodded, then led me into the house. The kitchen was small and cramped, half filled with a small table and chairs. The whole house looked small enough to fit in the living room of my kilotower apartment.

And on one wall was a flag. An American flag. With a big red dollar sign, surrounded with a big red circle, with a big red slash across it. A Tax Breaker flag. I tried not to look at it too long. I didn't want Poole to see me looking at it all. But he was a Tax Breaker and that set my nerves on edge.

"The thing that killed these houses was the finances," he said a few minutes later as he poured black coffee into a clean-ish cup.

"What do you mean?" I asked, sipping carefully to avoid burning my lips.

"You know those old houses in town are still standing after two hundred years or so because they're built like castles—lath and plaster, huge wooden planks and beams, way over-engineered. Drywall and two-by-fours weren't meant to last that long. But before these places started to fall down on themselves, they stopped making sense financially. You could put money into fixing them up year after year without adding to the value. Banks stopped fronting people the money for the fixing. They moved out. Abandoned them. Put up salvage tickets in Town Hall for guys like me."

"This place looks like it's in pretty good shape," I said.

"That's because I rehabbed it myself. Rebuilt the frame. Put on a new roof. I've got solar panels across the backside of it. A fuel-cell in the basement for when I can get the hydrogen. I grow tomatoes and peppers and asparagus and, uh, you know, medicinal herbs, trade 'em with the neighbors for corn and beans."

"Sounds like a good deal. Your neighbors don't look like the type to trade easy with."

"The 'Nesians? They're okay. Fifty years ago, they would have been living up in Rockville and you'd be out here in a tract home. You don't know how easy you've got it."

"I think I'm about to find out," I said.

He raised his eyebrows in a virtual question mark. I told him how my parents were selling our apartment out from under me. He laughed.

"Well, if you get desperate, I can show around and help you pick out an empty place."

"I'm half tempted to take you up on it," I said.

I was finished with my first cup and working on a second one when Poole brought up the Tax Breakers.

"You saw my flag and my ink," he said. "You know what I was."

I nodded.

Back before I was in high school, the Tax Breakers had risen up against the government, what some called the last gasp of resistance against the loss of liberty. I knew better than to think they were really the last, but they were the latest. For seven months, they'd demonstrated in towns and cities across the country.

Then, one night, they leveled up. In a wave of coordinated strikes, they'd assassinated the governors of thirteen states, left another three wounded, and attacked dozens of state legislators. Political terror on a scale never seen before or since.

"I didn't have anything to do with the violence," Poole said, his voice resonant with regret. "But I spent some time in a camp anyway until they figured that out for themselves. When I got out, Gramma Bonnie staked me to this place. She helped me out from time to time whenever I needed something. She was a good lady. I'm sorry to see her go."

"What can you tell me about her?" I asked, pulling out an old-fashioned reporter's notebook and a pen. I like to use the old tools—people see them and are reminded that they're on the record.

Poole told me about his family, how he didn't get along with his mother, how she didn't get along with hers, and how no one got along with Bonnie. Except him. "I was the first boy in three generations. I kind of got spoiled. I think that's what made my mother so mad."

He went on with stories of family holidays ruined by fights. Of a misspent youth filled with broken dreams. How the Tax Breakers were never understood—and him in particular.

I scribbled it all down, knowing that if he had a hand in his Gramma Bonnie's death, this was going to be gold in my pocket. And after a while, he wound down, started to run out of stories, sat silently for long minutes between them.

That was the point where I knew to step in with the big questions.

"So did you get in to Rockville to see her a lot?" I asked. "It seems like an awful long walk."

"Not as often as I should have."

"When was the last time you saw her? Did she say anything you remember?" I hoped he didn't realize what I was fishing for, or that I was fishing for something at all. He was still a Tax Breaker.

"Weeks ago," he said. "Last summer. I don't remember what she said. And I think it's time for you to go."

I felt my face heat up, but hoped it was too dim in that little kitchen for Poole to see it. Even so, I knew that he knew that I was fishing. And coming up with nothing.

I hurried out the door with just the barest of courtesies and headed quickly up the road to Trader Jack's.

Then I walked the long walk—two miles of it—back to Rockville, with nothing but trivial details of Poole's youth and pointless thoughts about his role in Bonnie's death to keep my mind occupied.

Halfway home I began to understand in an intimate way the importance of mechanized transport in all its forms—and the limitations of our current system. For all its shortcomings, the automotive age let you get around quickly and easily.

I took a shower, checked my messages, sent a note off to Vince telling him what I planned on writing tomorrow, then put on my best shirt and shoes before heading out the door.

"Is this a date?" Gaby asked when I arrived at the ice cream parlor across the street from the Harriet Beecher Stowe kilotower. She offered a sly smile and twisted a curl in one finger.

"More like an interview," I said.

"That what I thought," she replied. "Do you do all your interviews here?"

The parlor was decorated in historical style—chairs with curved iron scrollwork, black and white tiles on the floor in harlequin pattern, Tiffany lamps. I was having a dish of something called a "Good Humor bar"—I don't know why—that consisted of orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream. Gaby had a dish of butter pecan.

"So tell me about Bonnie Bannister and the people who work with you," I said.

"Should I start with me?" she asked, scrunching up her nose.

"With whoever you want," I replied.

As I suspected, once I got her talking, I didn't have to do much more.

Gaby had been working at Maxwell Court for three years. Her full name was Gabrielle O'Rourke. She was part Irish and part Italian. She was not a nurse or a doctor or a physician assistant, but she had loads of specialized training in the equipment needed to maintain a disembodied brain. And she had learned loads more from Bonnie. She lived upstairs in one of the many rooms offered by Maxwell Court. She liked Judge Adams. Bonnie herself, not so much. A lot of her job was keeping the judge company, so it was good that she liked him. She worked eight-hour shifts, but was on call for the rest of the day... if she were around. She was home the night Bonnie died.

"Am I a suspect?" she asked abruptly.

"I don't know," I said. "Are you?"

"If I am, then this would be more than just an interview, wouldn't it be? I mean, it would be an interrogation."

"Maybe. But that would mean I would be asking more questions and you wouldn't be telling me quite so much about yourself."

"Perhaps I am a diabolically clever killer," she said.

"Perhaps. But who else was there that night?"

"Abigail, of course. And the night staff." There was a live-in housekeeper—the rest of the housekeeping staff went home at the end of the workday. And the cook—though she was out most of the evening with her boyfriend, an older man who ran a black-window pizza restaurant over in Talcottville. Abigail was always home. She and her husband had split up years ago, before she came to work for Bonnie. She was a nurse—an LPN. Her husband came around from time to time. He was a small, effeminate man with a lisp. Gaby couldn't figure out why they had ever gotten together, but could speculate on why it didn't work out. But for some reason, it made Abigail sad, she said, because whenever he came around, Abigail cried.

"They're both pretty odd," she said.

"And people who've had their brains removed and put into a stainless steel can are not?"

"I guess when you put it that way..." she said, looking down and studying the melted ice cream at the bottom of her dish. "And oh yeah! David Poole was there that night."

"Poole? He told me he hadn't seen her for weeks."

"Well, that's just silly," Gaby said. "He was always stopping by. Every week. You could always tell when he was there."

"How's that?"

"His laugh," she said. "He has a very deep voice and very deep laugh and you could hear it all through the house. He was laughing that night."

I frowned. Things were making less and less sense. Poole had lied to me. But I couldn't put my finger on exactly why.

I stopped asking questions, but Gaby kept on talking. After a while, she stopped, and we got up to leave.

At the door the ice cream parlor, she turned to me.

"If this were a date, I might have let you walk me home," she said. "And if it were just an interview, I might have pretended it was date and you could have walked me home anyway. But I'm not sure it wasn't an interrogation after all. And who knows, I might be a diabolically clever killer after all. So I think it's better for both of us if I just go home alone."

And with that, she pecked me on the cheek, said good night, and left.

Which was just as well as far as I concerned. After all I had learned about Maxwell Court and all the people who had an opportunity to put an end to Bonnie Bannister's long, long life, I was still unsure who might have been responsible. I didn't know enough... and at the same time, I was starting to realize that I knew all that I was likely to learn. It was enough to keep me awake long into the night.

I woke up in the morning with a plan. I'm not sure where it came from, but it was the only one that made sense. I called Gaby and told her I needed to meet that afternoon with everyone involved in Bonnie's death—including Dave and the AI twins and the entire staff that was on duty that night. She said she'd take care of it, even Dave, though she didn't say how.

I went through the morning as if in a dream. I made my rounds to Town Hall and the school offices. I sat in on a meeting with teachers and principals about a new headring-based curriculum program and even though I took notes and wrote up a story, I still don't remember what anyone said. I had lunch... but I can't remember what I ate. And I did some other things to prepare for the meeting.

Then I took the long walk up the hill, past the park, to Maxwell Court.

Everyone was there when I arrived, seated around the big room with the large lights and equipment so that we didn't have to move Peter and Paul, no small task I'd been told.

Dave was there, to my surprise.

"We sent a hired car to get him," Gaby said.

"Can you do that?" I asked.

"We can do a lot of things now that Bonnie is gone," she answered.

Gaby and Abigail and the cook and the housekeeper were there. Even Judge Adams was there, through a remote.

I started directly.

"As some of you may know, I've been trying to figure out who, if anyone, had a hand in the events that caused the death of Bonnie Bannister. I've been doing what I do for a living—poking around, asking questions, getting not much of anywhere—for a couple of days now. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I was spending all my time looking at the crime without spending any time at all looking at Bonnie."

Gaby smiled and so did Dave. Abigail sniffled a bit and put a knuckle to her lips.

"I've been looking at old videos and news stories and other things. She was quite interesting in her time. Dynamic and creative. She was someone who wanted things done her own way and was willing to push and push until they were. She cared deeply about the things she cared deeply about."

"She was quite the lady," Dave said unprompted. I nodded to him.

"Yes, she was," I said. "Probably not the easiest woman in the world to get along with, though. Strong-willed, but not always right about everything—and that bothered her because she knew it and regretted it."

"Ask my mother," Dave said. "And my grandmother. They've got stories to tell."

"I know. Some of them even made it into the newspapers. And after I read those stories and saw her in life, in her own words, I began to think about what it must have been like for her to find herself trapped inside one of those big coffee urns that they made for her."

Abigail made a slight sob. The judge made a crackling sound.

"I think it was a lot easier for you, Judge," I said. "Maybe it was a better alternative than pouring yourself into a bottle in your old age."

"I don't think I appreciate that," the judge said.

"I don't mean that as a bad thing. I'm sure this life isn't easy for anyone. But you seem to be taking it in stride. I think you've always taken what life throws at you and thrown it right back. I don't think Bonnie Bannister could do that—or at least not quite as well."

"I have to agree with you on that one," Dave said.

"Thank you, Dave," I replied. "You know, for a while, I thought you might have been the one who told Peter and Paul to shut down Bonnie's equipment. But Gaby said she didn't think so, and I looked into it a little further. I found out that you lied to me—small lies—about a couple of things. You came to see Bonnie a lot more often than you were willing to admit."

"It was none of your business," he said.

"Probably not. I wondered what you talked about when you were here. But that's none of my business either. The fact that you came and talked and laughed made it more unlikely that you did her any harm. And then there's your house. She didn't buy that for you, did she?"

Dave looked sheepish, then hung his head. "No, she didn't."

"That was her house. I looked it up. It's the house she grew up in. She was a child of that suburban neighborhood, grew up in that tract home with the school down the street and cars and driving and all that world that's gone so many years ago. Her world was gone long before they put her into that can on the shelf. The world of the suburbs and television and ordinary life on a whole different stage."

"She told me about what it was like," Dave said. "Night after night. High school and shopping centers and doughnut shops. All gone now."

"Exactly. So I started thinking that the question here isn't who would take Bonnie's life. It was who would end it. Taking a life requires a whole different motivation, and none of you seemed to have it. Judge Adams doesn't profit from it. Neither does Dave. Gaby could be diabolically clever, but not to any end that I can see."

She stuck out her tongue at me.

"But ending her life... that's a different thing entirely. Someone who cared a great deal about Bonnie could have done that. Someone like Dave. Or even Gaby. Or someone like Abigail."

I turned to her and stopped. She looked at me and her eyes widened. Her hand began to shake.

"How about it, Abigail? What happened that night?"

A tear formed in one eye and ran down her cheek. She brushed it off. For a moment, I thought she wasn't going to answer me, but then she spoke.

"She used to tell me, night after night, over and over, how she felt she had lived too long," Abigail said. "She used to tell me how powerless she felt, with nothing but her voice to make things happen. She couldn't go anywhere. She couldn't do anything. She was just a disembodied voice. An empty thought rattling around in a steel can. She told me she hated it."

"Night after night," I said. "For how many years?"

"Too many years," Abigail said. "I cared about her so much. I couldn't stand to see her suffer. I couldn't stand to suffer with her. So one night, I figured out what to do. I figured out how to put an end to the suffering. I told Peter what to do and I told Paul what to do and I made them both forget it. Then I went to bed and waited for the end. And I'm so sorry. So sorry. I didn't know what else to do for her."

She broke down, then, sobbing softly to herself, the tears flowing. Gaby looked at me like I was the murderer, then put her arms around Abigail and comforted her.

I felt like Gaby was right. And worse, I felt guilty for knowing that I had a great story that was I was going to have to write up. Just as soon as someone charged Abigail for what she did.

Afterward, I went down to the library and visited with Judge Adams, just the two of us. Dave was calling the police—he said it was his duty to his great-grandmother.

"I'm not sure what they're going to charge her with," the judge said. "If I were her lawyer, I'd argue that Bonnie died back when they put her brain in the can. Make the state prove that she was a legal person. I don't know if they want to get into that issue just yet."

"If I were her, I'd want to have you as her lawyer," I said. "Have you still got any good beer stashed in here?"

"You're the only one who's been drinking it, so you'd know better than I."

I found a bottle and opened it on the table next to the judge's steel urn.

"You know, there's just one thing that bothers me," the judge said.

"What's that?"

"For years, Bonnie used to tell me the same things she told Abigail. 'I've lived too long... I can't do things any more... I don't know how long I can go on like this.'" He said it using a tone and inflection that I didn't know you could make with an artificial voice.

"That's kind of creepy," I said.

"Yes. After I a while, I couldn't take it any more. I told her she couldn't jack into my circuit whenever she wanted—especially not at night when she was feeling sorry for herself. That put an end to it... at least for me. I should have known she'd take it out on someone like poor Abigail."

I swallowed hard. I should have known too. Poor Abigail.

"Where's Gaby?" the judge said. "I need her to titrate some alcohol. Bonnie deserves a decent drink in her memory. I'll get you some scotch, too."

Gaby showed up, still mad at me. I knew because she swatted my shoulder on her way out of the room.

We drank to Bonnie Bannister and the long, long life she had left behind. And to the world that she used to live in.

"So what's happening with you?" the judge asked. "Have you found a new place to live?"

"Not yet," I said. "But I've got a plan. I'm going to ask Dave if he can find me a place out by him. There's a world out there I should get to know."

The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale

Rajnar Vajra | 11725 words

Illustrated by John Allemand

A silver Venusian, a golden Martian, and an Earthling walked into a bar.

Sounds like a joke, right? Nope. Actually an unfunny blunder the three of us made that Friday evening. We were a weekend away from our first trial mission, three young cadets in training for EE treasure hunts, out for semi-innocent fun in an unfamiliar city.

I was and am the Earthling, female by all accounts, and since my skin hasn't been tweaked to handle extraterrestrial environments, it's just the ochre bequeathed to me by my Iranian parents, bronzed by exposure to UV rays that sneer their way through SPF 200.

Most people call EE personnel "Space Rangers," but officially, in English, we're Exoplanetary Explorers. We also have nicknames; the one that even we use, "blips," comes from how far we get from Earth. Prior to our San Diego gaffe, I'd never heard it used as an obscenity.

So my two crewmates and I strolled into that bar, and because we'd asked a too-vague question of a street vendor—namely, "Where's the nearest vacuum-head hangout?"—we'd entered the wrong drinking hole.

Plus side: floating holoview mugs of beer with rising bubbles, holoview window-framing neon, a scuffed hardwood floor with interestingly varied stains, an artificial ambient haze and a genuine mahogany bar with a chromed top-rail reflecting the colorful lighting and dour expressions of the barstool inhabitants. The place even smelled right: beer and harder stuff mixed with exhaled fumes of the same. Also the surprisingly inoffensive cooked-rice odor of what Priam calls "space farts," digestive byproducts of the muscle and bone preserver REKNIT, essential for people who spend much time working in microgravity.

Negative side: out of forty or more in uniform, not one EE officer or cadet. The vendor hadn't lied, but these guzzlers were hulks, Space Navy or Sky SEALs with not a silver or golden skin among them. We'd trained in isolation from such stay-at-home beings and had forgotten they'd surely infest the part of the city closest to the Spaceport Authority.

We should've backed right out, but just then Micah stepped on something hard—maybe someone's lost tooth—and every head turned our way. The place wasn't quiet, but when Micah Abraham Cohen, our medical officer and primary technician, steps on something, it stays stepped on; the silver oaf weighs in at nearly a quarter ton on Earth, and whatever he crushed snapped like a firecracker.

"Sorry," he muttered his fog-horn bass. "Please don't mind us."

Plenty of bloodshot eyes judged us unfavorably as I tugged on the arms of my two comrades with the door in mind. Then some brawny-looking female CPO began waving us away while holding her nose. Priam Galanis, our astrogator, boy genius, and team hothead, took this behavior as an invitation to rush forward to get an unnecessary confrontation underway. He stopped scant inches in front of the offending party, his golden hair falling forward as he braked as if it wanted to attack first. Micah and I exchanged glances, me having to look way up, and hurried to flank Priam. By the time we did, the CPO had far more flankers.

Nothing good, I thought correctly, would come of this.

"Got a problem?" Priam asked with an extra rasp in his already annoying voice.

The CPO was a head taller than Priam and twice as wide. "What if I do, you puny yellow blip?" She glanced around at her buddies. "I have a problem with all conceited assholes who spend their time putting everyone else in harm's way."

Point conceded. Deep space exploration certainly involves potential risks for our species, although so far we've brought nothing but benefit. But public risk didn't much account for her hostility. Orbital sailors don't get half our training, or half the tech. They can't get the ultra-portable inertia gear we all wear, quantum-spin-liquid crystals woven into our uniforms. As for our cutting-edge individualized biomech, sorry hulks.

One such gift, reserved for pilots and pilots in training, allowed me to see something our hosts couldn't: a subtle purple shimmer around Priam's body. That meant he'd just gone far overbound, bulking up his inertial field, and the latest biomech allowed him to do this without any hulks catching on.

So when he let his facial expression do the trash talking for him, and some Sky SEAL gorilla so enormous that his head nearly reached to Micah's chin threw a mighty punch into Priam's solar plexus, the snap of oversized wrist bones breaking made me wince but didn't surprise me. In effect, every part of my Martian crewmate had, temporarily, become almost unmovable. Naturally, Priam himself couldn't move in that state. So he began varying his inertia to accomplish his wonders. First, a fist that some Sky SEAL made the mistake of treating like a joke. Then hands reached out to grab him but he bounced away with every touch. He had the gall to laugh.

Lecture time, quick I promise. On, say, the Moon, ignoring minuscule mutual attraction effects, objects of differing masses would fall at the same speed, yes? Not necessarily! Our ability to control inertial moment has rendered Newton's Laws of Motion to be special cases. Inertia being the resistance of mass to any change in motion or direction, limit both that and air resistance for one mass, and it would fall progressively much faster than an unmodified mass.

Here's another tidbit. It isn't only gravity that limits jumping ability. It takes a heap of muscular energy to overcome inertia and get your body accelerated enough to get off the ground, not counting the raw strength required for liftoff. But it also takes inertia or some other force to keep rising once your feet leave the floor no matter how hard you push off. So if a jumper removes their personal inertia entirely, some truly exotic things can happen.

While Priam was keeping the masses entertained with a floatation trick I'd read about but never seen performed, two especially observant hulks noticed Micah and I standing around. They discounted Micah, assuming he was a harmless pacifist, and focused on me.

Venusians. While they tend to be big, they aren't all weak due to our sister planet's somewhat lower gravity. Being forced to spend much of their time within environment domes under cramped conditions has encouraged most to become contemplative mystics of one flavor or another. But many practice various arts including the martial variety, and more than a few make their oversized bodies as strong as possible.

Micah was a tad slow and a peaceable sort of fellow—a Zen enthusiast, in fact—but weak and harmless he wasn't. He intercepted the pair headed toward me, shoved them back into the swarm around Priam, then he waded into the swarm himself and began grabbing whatever limbs were convenient, using those as handles to throw hulk after hulk aside. I almost smiled at the way he kept apologizing, and noticed how careful he was to avoid hurling anyone into knives, glass, or table corners. Of course, he kept smiling gently. Still, none of the thrown tried to return to what Priam, whose words tended to be somewhat legacy, would call "the fray."

Don't know who alerted the MPs, but they made a spectacular entrance while tossing hissing canisters around, and I figured the shark-like snouts they wore were gasmasks when everyone else starting falling. Didn't feel the gas affecting me, but being upright seemed too much of a bother.

The dressing-down went pretty much as I expected except for who did the dressing, and our punishment. The pecking order at the Academy goes plebs, cadets, explorers, mentors, supervisors, envisions, and at the summit, the commandant, Dr. Leslie Go, popularly known as "the Chief." Getting our lumps from the Chief herself came as a shock. She wasn't pleased with us, and while her voice remained quiet, I got the full message.

"Cadet Emily Asgari," she murmured at one point after turning sad eyes my way, "I am particularly disappointed in you. You are team leader and therefore responsible for controlling your crewmates. Furthermore, you alone are native to this planet and should be capable of navigating its challenges."

It took all my willpower to keep myself from turning to glare at Priam. I wouldn't have minded adding a second glare aimed at Micah. The big goof smiled as if getting reamed was all in a day's blessing.

"Because of all this, cadets," the Chief continued, "you will not be undertaking a normal trial mission." She paused and I could hear someone swallowing hard—maybe it was me. "Instead, your leave is cancelled and you are now assigned to the Abreathon World project where you will assist Explorer Team 32 dismantle their safe-camp prior to abandoning the planet. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Commandant," we all said, but not quite in unison.

"If you comport yourselves impeccably, I may consider allowing you to resume your chosen career path. If you do not, there will no longer be a place for any of you within this organization. Report to Supervisor Clark at ohsix-hundred Sunday for new transportation assignments. Dismissed."

"She was smoking mad," Priam remarked in midair after we'd jumped from the twentieth-floor leaping bay, falling toward the enclosed courtyard below. "Did you see the way her little finger kept twitching? I bet she wanted to strangle us." He giggled.

We all went unbound before our feet hit the pavement, and came to an instant, soft stop with the first contact between shoe-soles and concrete. With all the practice at this we'd had, we could probably do it in REM sleep.

I blasted Priam with the eye-beams I'd been withholding for the last half-hour. "Wouldn't mind strangling someone myself."

"Oh c'mon, Em. You know that she-hulk started it; besides, it was fun."

"Not for me. And you'd better hope we never run into any of your playmates again. I think you made an impression."

Micah chuckled, a sound like a clogged sink un-stuffing, but said nothing.

The shuttle trip was typical. Five other cadet triads infested the cabin plus two mentors and one lofty envision deposited in the only single-seat row. Some pilots as a courtesy do a verbal countdown before takeoff, but our guy didn't bother and we eased up into the air like a bubble rising in the beer we never got to drink on Friday.

I sneaked a peek at some other cadets. They seemed universally perky if somewhat tense. Clearly, they were headed toward something other than a punishment assignment. We arrived at the orbital station on time, probably to the picosecond.

The station smelled of citrus disinfectant, machine oil, sweat, onions, and long unwashed clothes just like the previous two times I'd been here. Nasty, but you adjust. From the virtual ports in the shuttle, it hadn't appeared particularly big or impressive. Inside, it was both.

A team of station "priests," glorified traffic cops, waited for us in the debarkation terminal and distributed us new arrivals between various corridors with brusque gestures and without asking questions. "Data implants," Priam explained unnecessarily and too loudly.

Of course Team Asgari was the only triad sent down the leftmost corridor. After a few hundred yards of nothing but wide and tall hallways encased in accordion pleats, we took a sharp right turn and stepped over a high threshold through a doorway with bank-vaultthick walls. Gravity increased suddenly enough to make us stumble. Priam groaned dramatically but before I could fake feeling sorry for him he said, "airlock," which might've been helpful if Micah and I had misplaced our brains during the trip.

Seeing as company waited for us in the form of a mentor I'd never met, I kept my thoughts sequestered.

The mentor was a Martian at least two generations older than Priam. His golden skin had developed a grayish cast that I'd never seen on one of his kind. Welcome," he said with reverse enthusiasm, "to U. W. Flightship Skylark. I am Mentor Hector Michealides and have received detailed instructions from god concerning you."

Micah's omnipresent smile widened. "Sir, what do you mean by 'god'?"

"Moron," Priam snapped, "he means the Chief."

"Just so," Michealides stated, "but in the future, I will handle all questions directed to me. Is that understood, Cadet Galanis?"

"Yes, sir. Clear as clarity."

After giving Priam a look that would freeze hydrogen, the mentor studied me.

"Cadet Asgari, you are the pilot and triad leader, yes?" It wasn't a question. "You are responsible for your crewmates."

"Yes, Mentor."

"Listen carefully, all three of you. Since we are evacuating all personnel on Abreathon, we carry minimum crew plus a few camp-disassembly specialists. Thus we have an abundance of cabins available for this leg of our journey. Each of you will be assigned an individual space on level delta. I suggest that you treasure the privacy because you will have precious little on the return lap. You must remain fit. Therefore, you will perform specific exercises at specific times each ship-day and will receive instructions for doing so. You will remain in your cabins for the journey's duration. Cadets Asgari and Cohen may converse on your personal triad channel; but you, Cadet Galanis, will find your communications bio mech disabled until landing."

Priam's eyes widened in outrage. "Why only me?"

"Your recent behavior in San Diego was recorded. You needn't feel entirely singled out. None of you will have access to the many entertainment options available to the more deserving. All necessities will be delivered. You will be monitored. Constantly.

"Once we reach our destination, prepare to work harder than you've ever worked in your short and foolish lives. You will find this to be the kind of work aptly described as 'backbreaking' and you will receive no praise or appreciation from the explorers who have la-bored in vain for over thirty standard years to make their project successful. Any final questions? We will not meet again until we set down."

"Two questions, sir," Priam said. "Why is the gravity here set so high? I've read that Abreathon's gravity is reported as only 3 percent higher than Earth's."

"I'd be surprised, Cadet, if you are fully acclimated to even 1g given your history, and you will not find a 3 percent increase trivial considering the physical efforts awaiting you. All tasks ahead will be arduous, and everyone aboard will benefit from six to eight hours a ship-day of Earth-plus gravity. What is your final question?"

Priam nodded. "May I peruse the project reports during the trip?"

Michealides's expression shifted. His face didn't radiate joy and goodwill.

"For what possible purpose, Cadet?"

"For a chance to salvage the project."

That bold statement stunned the mentor into a not-so-brief silence. "You believe that you, with no practical experience and without ever having set foot on the planet, could make a discovery that has evaded fifty trained minds for well over a quarter century?"

The Martian smiled in a way that I hoped didn't appear as offensive to Michealides as it did to me.

"Why not? I'm probably more intelligent than anyone you've ever met."

Another show-stopper, but the mentor recovered faster this time around. "You may be more arrogant than anyone I've previously met, but I will grant your request with one condition: if you can offer nothing new and useful after studying the reports, I will consider your triad as having failed this mission. You will still be required to do the work involved, but upon our return to Earth, you will all be discharged from the EE."

Before I could object, and before Micah could even begin to react, the conceited loudmouth said, "Accepted."

The injustice of all this made me feel as if my eyeballs were about to pop out, and I was a split-hair away from letting the Universe know it and damn the consequences, but I remembered a trick that I'd figured out through bitter experience. In crucial situations, the idea is to say whatever I want to say in my head and listen to it before letting it out.

So no satisfying and disastrous venting, just "I request access to the same material, sir, for both Cadet Cohen and myself so long as that doesn't, um, increase the number of useful insights you demand."

He eyed me, tilting his head slightly as if dubious about my sanity. "Are you also more brilliant than all those dullards I've previously encountered?"

"I doubt it, sir."

"Then I approve your request." He made no sign or signal that I could see, but two big crewmembers strode out of a corridor and joined us. "Ensigns Gopal and Lincoln," he stated without looking at them, "will guide you to your cabins. You will not converse on the way."

He turned and shambled off without a parting word for anyone or a tear of regret at being separated from us. The ensign I assumed was Gopal from his Dravidian features suddenly grinned at us and made a wide after-you gesture with one long arm. Ensign Lincoln, who had Afro-American features but whose skin was two shades lighter than mine, was less polite. He put a hand on Priam and Micah's backs and shoved. Or tried to. With the moment of advance warning, the Martian had gone over-bound and it takes more than a light push to shift Micah. As though they'd just been waiting to take a stroll, both of my crewmates took off on their own just as Lincoln began to put some real muscle into his follow-up shove. As a result, he stumbled and from the adoration on his face I guessed we hadn't made a new friend.

Since they may need to accommodate Venusians on occasion, not all starship cabins are cramped. Joy! Mine was. I hoped Micah had fared better and Priam had been stuffed into a closet.

A datagon arrived with my hospital-grade lunch, delivered by a smirking but silent Ensign Gopal who departed with more haste than I appreciated since I hoped to get a little more info out of him. I pulled the datagon from its case and was pleased to find the charge circle showing full power. I booted it up while munching a burrito-like object with a faint odor that made me grateful the thing was almost flavorless. Probably an example of recycling's downside.

The screen appeared—military grade holo. After I put the default icons where I like them and peeked at the directory, I opened up the project report with the earliest timestamp, adjusted video and audio, and sat back without popcorn to watch and listen.

I'd trained on Mars and Venus during my sophomore cadet year, and while I'd never been to another star-system, the difference between interplanetary and interstellar flight is mainly a matter of degree. Both use vector drive, where inertia is channeled in specific directions while maintaining a kind of neutral bubble within the spaceship. And both use a gravity "windshield" to deal with dust, gasses, or asteroids in the way. On interstellar trips, however, the g-shield has to be a nightmare vortex, an obstacle-devouring wormhole that would devour the ship itself if both vortex and ship weren't constantly maintaining the same speed. No one knows where the consumed material winds up, and there's plenty gobbled up at FTL velocities. Maybe unimaginable creatures from some unimaginable dimension will show up someday with one hell of an illegal dumping fine.

Sorry, I digress. My point is that when the room seemed to tilt slightly, I knew we were on our way. Despite the redirection of forces that acts to insulate passengers from uncomfortable-to-fatal inertial and gravitational effects, a little extra pull from the g-shield always leaks into every spaceship I've flown on. Most people don't feel the effect, but my implanted pilot biomech makes me supersensitive to directional tugs. So I tend to overcompensate by leaning in the opposite direction, which probably makes me look silly. I tried to ignore the annoyance and focused on the earliest report.

First thing I noticed was the slightly grainy quality of the video despite the gon's best up-scaling. Again, a normal person wouldn't have seen any problem; but with my visual biomech, it was like looking through a window that never lets you forget there's a window between you and the view. Funny how you forget how much technology has advanced until you bump up against what it used to be. The audio sounded state-of-the-art to me. Then again, pilots don't steer by listening, so my hearing hadn't been enhanced.

If you're wondering why I'm blathering rather than relaying the report, it's because nothing much worth repeating managed to squeeze out between the layers of dry pompousness constituting that initial file. In essence, this waste of terabytes, recorded by some Nordic-looking blip before he actually landed on Abreathon, was a geological, atmospheric, gravitational, electromagnetic, and what-have-you data-spew combined with an irrelevant personal résumé.

The second file made me sit up and pay real attention.

I'd never been on an extraterrestrial world with native vegetation or wildlife unless you count people as wildlife. Abreathon had a generous helping of both. Its versions of trees and shrubs displayed a boggling variety of colors and textures, but the most alien aspect was the nearly transparent crystalline structures jutting out from every stalk, dendrite, and bole. These, according to file two's narrator who never exhibited enough ego to selfie, were the local leaves and evergreen needles. They were gorgeous, jewel-like, and often progressed as a spectrum of subtle tints along each stalk. Some were dichroic or contained mineral-like inclusions. Most carried enough of an electrical charge to occasionally spark from leaf to leaf. The cumulative effect of all this arcing in even a small forest generated sufficient thermal noise to make radio transmission very difficult.

The plants also had a bad habit of releasing a thin mist at night that added up to a more-thanpea-soup fog. That, combined with the constant glow from countless random little discharges kept the forests hidden after sunset from video recorders of all sorts including those set up for infrared and ultraviolet night vision. The result? Almost nothing had been learned about the nightlife of plants or animals.

Speaking of animals, these were even more interesting than the plants. Again, quite a variety but most had shapes based on a hexagonal frame. Evolution here had come up with an improvement on bones: hollow torsion tubes lighter yet stronger than the terrestrial equivalent. But evolution had failed to invent legs, feet, paws, or hooves. Instead, most critters ambulated on six thin, rippling edges. Some were surprisingly fast considering, but I could've outrun the quickest at a medium jog. Arms of any kind were rare on this world, but the beasts had evolved creative replacements such as living nets of thin tissue that shot out of vertical crevices in the bodies of certain predators. The nets, when well-aimed, trapped smaller animals and then retracted into the crevices, hauling the unlucky prey along. At a guess, the nets were selectively sticky. Nature, I suppose, is the mother of necessity.

While only a few species used the crevice-net system, the animal population had heavily bought into the crevice idea. I stared, fascinated by the variety of trapping, manipulating, or locomotion-assisting organic devices emerging from those crevices. A trio of animals using needle-coated bubbles on stalks to snag ruby leaves caught my eye, partly because they were unusually bulky, partly because they alone had tentacle-like limbs jutting from torso crevices, but mostly because those particular critters had been highlighted in the video with extra brightness and edited-in indicator arrows. I had more than a hunch why these diners merited special attention.

The biological tour went on for over an hour, but it sure held my interest. My own dinner arrived, and while chewing on mystery ingredients, I decided that Abreathon's jewel leaves probably tasted better. I left most of whatever it was uneaten and called up the third report. This was the one that counted.

As I'd expected, it featured those highlighted beasts from the previous file, which somehow suggested hexagonal cows despite any resemblance I could think of. I gestured at the scale icon, and a measuring grid in thin translucent lines covered the picture. My six-sided bovines were big; the largest stood nearly three meters tall at its... apex, the place where boney structures overlapped to create a sort of spiral crown.

The video zoomed in on one of the hexicows and I wiggled a finger at the transport icon to slow the action. Each of this bovine's four tentacles bifurcated at their ends into something akin to two-fingered hands. All four periodically reached out to snag leaves and then swung around to deposit said leaves into another tentacle's home crevice; apparently they weren't flexible enough to reach their own crevices. An odd arrangement, I thought, since the beasts already had an efficient bubble-with-needles food-grabbing system, but nature does have its Department of Redundancy Department. And not nearly as odd as what adorned every tentacle: metallic bands or bracelets. I expanded the picture enough to bring a band into focus. The tiny knobs and curlicue inscriptions implied one thing: technology at the level of microelectronics.

Might as well have not bothered fiddling with the video because it did exactly what I'd done when I let it resume at normal speed, even enlarging the same tentacle. It figured. Whatever purpose the metallic objects had been built for, discovering them changed everything for the EE exploration team.

Intelligent species may be a rare commodity in our galaxy although it's possible we just keep landing on the wrong planets. Still, out of 1,244 explored worlds excluding Abreathon, we'd only found two noticeably inhabited by creatures that made the IQ cut. And neither had advanced enough to have developed microelectronics.

The next three files followed up on the big discovery. A feeling of celebration and excitement pervaded the reports, even when the recorder wasn't aimed at the bright eyes and grins of EE personnel. The recorder had mostly remained focused on hexicows, which the blips on the scene had named "abreathers," to my disgust. I decided to stick with the far superior "hexicows," at least privately.

For inventors of microelectronics, these aliens seemed amazingly dull. They ate, pooped, and engaged in what the narrator claimed was reproductive activity without any signs of enthusiasm. I suppose they slept. The reports failed to reveal when they got out their soldering irons or whatever to work their high-tech wonders but the assumption was that this got done in the fog-shrouded night. One video captured a hexicow giving birth, a no-fuss affair where the little one dropped from one of the parents' side-crevices and fell to the ground without generating evident parental interest or concern. The newborn was a miniature of its mother, assuming the father hadn't given birth, except that the tentacles that made this species so distinctive hadn't grown in yet. In an impressive gymnastic feat for a creature without arms or legs, the little fellow wriggled its way upright, moved to the nearest shrub, and used its built-in retrieval system to commence gathering tiny leaves. The wheel of life rolls on.

I was groggy by now, but couldn't resist playing the next report. It involved attempts to open communications between humans and hexicows. Even approaching our tentacled potential buddies was risky—not due to them. In general, local critters ignored humans and most of the plants were, at worst, passive-aggressive. But small holes riddled the ground everywhere hexicow herds liked to hang out—the narrator suspected that extra soil aeration made the plants in the area healthier. So a human strolling through the neighborhood could break through the surface, and snap an ankle or leg. Even the largest fauna weren't at risk because none were foolish enough to put all their weight on one or two foot-sized spots. The narrator speculated about what had formed the holes, suggesting there might be more animal activity under the ground than on it.

After a few nasty mishaps, the communications team took to wearing snowshoes when visiting hexicow territory. Perhaps they should've tried clown shoes because the technologically savvy creatures refused to pay their visitors the slightest attention. Quite challenging, I imagine, to trade linguistic information with beings who act unaware that you exist.

The EE team kept trying new ways of demonstrating they were worthy of interest, at one point showing up on the scene festooned in flashing multicolored lights and equipped with sound-generating gear that emitted noises of all sorts. Another total failure, as was disguising themselves as hexicows. The com-team grew progressively more creative and were richly rewarded by nothing.

Exploration reports are supposed to be objective, but you couldn't miss the down-shift in mood. Hope flared again when one lucky blip found an abandoned hexacow bracelet, presumably defective. After project technicians made repairs, tests revealed that the bracelet could pick up radio signals over a wide band of frequencies, but only emitted signals on a specific wavelength, one that cut through the general static. Receivers were set to record on that wavelength, and they found plenty to record. These transmissions, project analysts figured, had to contain a language or languages of some kind, but even after consulting Earth's top linguists, no human could guess at how the language was constructed let alone what was being said. The possible single hole in this blanket of ignorance was a distinctive squeal beginning every transmission. The experts proposed that the squeal was a greeting, in essence saying "Hi. Let's talk."

The com-team on Abreathon, bounce returned to their steps—not so hard with snowshoes—armed themselves with a bulging array of transceivers, detectors, antennas, amplifiers, and all the fixings. Again, they attempted to open at least a nanofilament of communication with the natives. But after a standard week of non-stop effort, they packed up and trudged back to home base with minimal bounce.

Their discouragement was so palpable I began to feel depressed. So I shut off the recorder, did my last set of required exercises, performed what Priam calls "the nightly ablutions," climbed into the adaptive couch, which registered my horizontal position and became a bed, and fell into dreamland like a human breaking through Abreathon's untrustworthy crust.

After three days of confinement and with nothing much else to do and a lot of motivation, I'd gone through enough reports in enough detail to get really depressed. Not, I'm sure, as bummed as the EE project team after some three decades of failure, but my personal discouragement meter had reached an all-time high.

I couldn't imagine how the Boy Genius down the hall could come up with any revelations concerning Abreathon in general and hexicows in particular that the planetary crew hadn't already explored. Perhaps if EE rules permitted less-than-courteous means of approaching unfamiliar intelligent aliens, such as dissection or torture, some progress in communications might've been made. As things stood, the Powers that Be figured it was time to stop wasting money, resources, and lives on trying to pursue a relationship with such a—and here I'm quoting from the official command to vacate—"socially hermetic species." We couldn't even make use of Abreathon's phenomenal natural resources because EE rules forbid any exploitation of worlds inhabited by intelligent species.

Micah and I chatted daily, but I wouldn't have minded having more of his company than just his voice. He, too, had come up empty on the insight front, but our joint failure didn't faze him. I was so down that I asked him how he managed to stay so damn cheerful.

"Sometimes I am cheerful, sometimes sad. If I wait a short time, any emotion will change so why take any seriously?"

I thought about that for a second. "But Micah, you're always smiling."

"Zen teaches me how to remain content no matter the circumstances, and keeping a little smile sends the right messages both within and without."

I tried not to sigh too audibly. "You do realize that we're about to be kicked out of EE?"

He chuckled. "You are upsetting yourself by envisioning something that might happen in the future. On my world, in silence, the clouds thin just enough to reveal the sun's outline; whose good fortune is it to enjoy such a rare sight?"

"What are you talking about? Sometimes I don't understand you at all."

"Then may I ask you, what is happening here right now?"

"Me saying goodbye."

His only response was a louder chuckle before I closed our private channel.

On the fourth ship-day, the faint pull from the forward gravity shield vanished; I'd become so accustomed to it that now my cabin seemed tilted the opposite way. A doctor swung by to take blood samples and check on my overall health. A few minutes after she left, Ensign Lincoln pulled me from my metal cocoon with a frown and a brusque gesture. My crewmates awaited me in the corridor along with Ensign Gopal and I wasn't delighted by Micah's blissful smile or Priam's clenched jaw and glittering eyes. The Venusian likely regarded solitary confinement as a heavenly interlude, a chance to dive into his belly-button and pull out cosmic lint, only interrupted by my calls. And if Priam had been successful, I figured, he would've made smug look humble. We followed the ensigns to the ship's bridge and waited until Mentor Michealides, who'd greeted us so warmly to Flightship Skylark, deigned to acknowledge our presence. The first words to pour from his mouth hit my dread button dead center.

"Ah, the disgraced trio. We are orbiting Abreathon now and I trust the brilliant Cadet Galanis has uncovered some fact that will save the project?"

"Yes, sir," Priam said quietly. "That I have."

I felt my eyebrows shoot up in tandem with the mentor's. "And what," he said, "is your great discovery?" He didn't add the words "pray tell" but I'm morally convinced he thought them.

"I can't reveal that, sir. Not at this time."

I didn't think Michealides's eyebrows could rise any higher. I was wrong.

"Perhaps you could bring yourself to divulge the reason for your present silence on the subject?"

"I suspect you will dismiss my idea if I don't support it with proof." He sounded like a different person, almost sincere.

"And how do you expect to assemble this proof, Cadet."

"I can only do so if you will grant us permission to approach an abreather."

If eyes were drills, Priam would've wound up with two new holes in his head.

"You expect permission to—words fail me, Cadet. Do you have any concept of the difficulties involved in mounting such expeditions, particularly right now? Or the training required? You do not. There is general training that none of you have undergone, and specific training for this specific environment."

"We are quick studies, sir."

"How could you possibly imagine that I would grant this request?"

I'd never seen Priam's face so utterly intent, radiating earnestness.

"Because if I'm right, and I am, it will justify all the human time and effort spent here, and there will be no need to dismantle the safe-camp or evacuate the EE team."

The mentor rubbed his chin. "That might be a strong argument had I any faith in your judgment."

Priam hesitated, another uncharacteristic behavior. "Sir, I hope you are aware that the Galanis family is among the wealthiest on our mutual home planet and has a tradition of providing each child with a considerable trust fund to smooth their pathway in life."

"It hadn't escaped my notice. So?"

I stared at Priam. So the jerk was not only arrogant and obnoxious, he was also filthy rich.

"I am old enough to access my trust. If you will let me test my idea and it proves wrong, I will donate my entire fund to help defray the cost of evacuating EE personnel."

I gave Priam another stare, this time in wonder. He'd risk his fortune on what had to be a bluff?

"Hmm. A remarkable and interesting proposal, Cadet. You would sign binding documents to this effect?"

"Absolutely."

"Then, perhaps, I will let your folly find its own merits. Come with me to my office where we will surely locate an assortment of printable legal templates in the ship's memory. Once at the safe-camp you will all need two full days of special training, which normally requires two weeks. I do hope that your claim of being 'quick studies' was no exaggeration. From Cadet Cohen's test scores, which I've recently perused, I fear at least one of you will be ill prepared. We shall land in twenty minutes, so I suggest that we make haste to codify our arrangement."

"To test my theory, I'll also need to borrow something stored at the safe-camp."

"Oh? What? Walk with me and tell me as we go."

The training was brutal: a total of twelve standard hours a day combining lectures and physical programming conducted in a kind of fenced-in children's garden where the dangers, and there were more than the reports had shown me, could be presented one at a time. The local fauna had rarely been a problem, although several species might kill a human by accident if said human stood in the wrong place at the right time. The flora offered a different story. Those "leaves" I'd thought so beautiful on video weren't all soft and harmless. Some plants grew natural weapons, sharp as a fresh razor and hard as quartz. Spotting the plants that sported such blades wasn't even easy in the garden because they didn't stand out. Spotting them quickly in the wilderness was both crucial and nearly impossible for the inexperienced. Oh, and several of the same plants could suddenly whip their branches around. Dead animals, I gathered, make great fertilizer.

To my secret delight, Priam alone screwed up in the garden. Avoiding one whipping razor plant, he stepped directly into reach of another. His pride seemed undiminished, so aside from a few trivial cuts, his EE suit suffered almost all of the damage. He didn't appear troubled by this until he learned that the station had no way to make repairs on recent tech, or even do a detailed diagnostic. The fact that the suit registered itself as operational didn't smooth his frown.

After kindergarten, we were taught to "soft-walk" to make traversing Abreathon's hyper-aerated terrain safer. The trick involved keeping our knees slightly bent as we strolled, which we practiced with and without snowshoes. The idea was to minimize bouncing. Priam pointed out that both he and Micah had already mastered a similar technique as a "prophylactic against back and joint strain" before coming to heavy-gravity Earth, so further training was a waste of time. Our instructor nodded agreeably but kept all of us practicing. Micah observed, with a chuckle, that his feet were already almost the size of the available snowshoes, a remark our instructor simply ignored.

At the academy, we'd become reasonably proficient with ultrawave weapons, but the UWs here were practically antiques. So we got retrained only to be informed, when our tutor reluctantly declared us fit to make a supervised venture into the wilderness, that we wouldn't be issued any kind of weapon. An armed guide would protect us when and if necessary and only that paragon would be trusted with such a valuable item as a com-link set to cut through the local radio static. Being good to go, we got.

It's one thing to see videos of an unfamiliar environment, and the quality of the final videos I'd watched had been excellent, but another to actually be in said environment. We could breathe the air with a little help from one of several kinds of patches that had been applied to our skins with a cheerful promise that pulling them off would hurt like hell. Gravity was a tad beyond Earth's, but I'd lost weight on the flight thanks to the cuisine, so I didn't feel heavier. And the terrain didn't strike me as particularly unearthly. But as we left the sandy beach where the safe-camp lay hidden behind light-bending screens, and headed into the forest, I got so disoriented that I could barely keep my balance on the crawler.

It was the plants, specifically, those flat jewels that passed as leaves here. During the day, the flora sucked up so much air moisture that my nose felt as dry as Death Valley despite the mild weather. The air was vacuum-clear, and the endless rows and spirals of crystal fins everywhere I looked made my brain spin.

Many "leaves" were larger and more transparent than I'd expected, and I could see other leaves through them, and the show didn't necessarily stop there. Not only were the col-or combinations intricate beyond belief, they kept altering with every inch that my faithful if ridiculous steed carried me along.

Our crawlers weren't your standard model miniature tanks, rolling merrily along on caterpillar tracks when they weren't abusing gravity for flying purposes. No such luck. They more resembled deep buckets with a crazy propulsion system. EE engineers, all geniuses at near Priam-caliber no doubt, had developed a loam-sparing tread system on elaborate cams that was intended to emulate the way local animals moved. The result? We barreled into the forest almost as fast as I could hop. At first, I was grateful for the slowness, but once my brain adjusted to the surroundings, my appreciation got used up.

At one point our guide into the unknown, a glum-faced explorer named Neil Coriaca, a UW holstered at his hip and an emergency bag slung over one shoulder, got a bit further ahead of us. I took advantage by edging my crawler closer to Priam's. We hadn't had a chance to talk privately even after we'd left the ship thanks to never being alone, and we'd been separated in the safe-camp. Trust me, I had things to say.

I kept my voice at a near whisper. "Wish I could believe you knew what you were doing."

At least he had the grace to squirm. "I suppose we'll find out together. Didn't you notice something odd in the reports?"

I scowled, trying to whip my mind into remembering "something odd" in recordings where everything seemed odd. "Nothing in particular."

"Tsk and again tsk. Look, if our native guide there hangs around after we reach the abreathers, I'll need you to distract him for a minute."

I looked forward, but the explorer showed no sign of having overheard. "What do you mean 'distract'?"

"Get him to stand with his back to me, or someplace he can't see what I'm doing. Just for a moment."

I wanted to tell Priam how much I liked that idea, but just then Coriaca braked and gestured toward a clearing some ten meters ahead. We all climbed out of our slow-mobiles, strapped on our snowshoes, and waddled toward the clearing with the explorer in front. On the way, Coriaca placed his emergency bag on the ground. I wished he wasn't the only one armed.

"Isn't this wonderful?" Micah asked me, his big eyes shining.

"Glad you're having fun," I muttered.

Up close and in real life, the hexicows loomed considerably larger and more daunting than I'd figured. Fancier as well, and much grosser. Aside from their overall hexagonal framework shown in the videos, even their substructures followed a hexagonal pattern, such as the fissures where their needles-onbubbles-on-stalks feeding apparatus emerged. Each had six small eyes on their upper torsos in mismatched colors, and if you drew lines between them, connect-the-dot style, you'd form a wide hexagon oriented with a flat facet on top. I'd say that was an eye surplus, but these things were greedy. Each of their dual-f ingered tentacles also had eyes; and even though I couldn't see more than a few from where I stood, I was betting on six per. Oddly, the one exception to the rule was the number of tentacles. Our little herd had a total of four citizens, all equipped with native radio bracelets; two citizens had five tentacles and the others had seven. That inconsistency, I felt, showed a lack of commitment.

One gross part was the smell, which would've been unbearable if it had been a little more pungent. Since we didn't need to filter our breathing air, I was getting the full snoot of a stench that reminded me of a garbage disposal with halitosis.

The other grossness was the multicolored mucus that oozed from the hexicows' fissures. I'd seen the slime on video reports, but mistaken it for shiny skin coloration.

Coriaca stopped and put his fists on his hips in a posture I'd never seen anyone except actors use. "As ordered, I brought you to the nearest group of abreathers. These four are usually right here. If any of you can demonstrate a justification for wasting my time and delaying my packing, have at it."

The Martian shrugged. "You're welcome to return; we can make our own way back to base."

"I wish. But I have orders to keep an eye on you until you're ready to give up."

Priam flashed me a meaningful look. I had no desire whatever to follow his previous instructions, but it dawned on me that I had no real choice. If he didn't have the goods, we were sunk.

"Explorer," I snapped. "Why are there so many more holes in the ground behind you than where I'm standing?"

"What are you talking about, Cadet? I don't see any difference—hey! What the hell are you playing at, Galanis? What did you just put on that abreather?"

Coriaca had whirled back around just in time to see Priam step away from the closest member of the small herd, and his immediate reaction was to draw his UW. I'd kept my eyes on the explorer while his back was turned, but had caught a peripheral glimpse of the Boy Genius fishing something round out of his survival suit and slipping it onto one of the hexicow's tentacles.

My boy had major nerve, I admit. With a UW aimed between his eyes, the Martian smiled the kind of smile you'd want to wipe off with sandpaper. "Only something I borrowed from the safe-camp: that abandoned radio bracelet one of your people found. It was a symbolic gesture more than anything else."

Anger and disgust kept switching places on the explorer's face. "You'll be sorry you stole that, boy, real sorry."

"No stealing involved, sir. The loan was prearranged."

"I doubt it. Well, I suppose we'd better leave it there now, but what the hell were you trying to accomplish?"

"Watch and learn," Priam said, but I wondered how much he was faking confidence.

"Always sound advice," Micah contributed. The big goof was obviously living in a happier universe than I was.

We all turned our eyes to the creature with the extra tentacle band. For a time, nothing happened until I heard Coriaca make one of those preliminary noises that warns you a volcano is about to erupt. Priam had just violated, off the top of my head, at least five major EE rules.

The volcano failed to blow when—I can't claim all hell broke loose when what really broke loose was every damn tentacle on all three hexicows. These things were surprisingly long because their heads and most of their bodies had been hidden inside their, um, hosts. Surprisingly ugly too, with wrinkled eyeless skulls on one end that had tiny tentacles of their own, and large floppy mouths with yellow, disturbingly human-looking teeth. Once on the ground, they moved tail-first, those twin fingers at the ends waggling at us. For a few terrifying seconds, they were all crawling our way, fast. Backing up in snowshoes isn't easy, but just before our new buddies reached us, they all dived into some of the many holes underfoot. The hexicows didn't seem upset at their absence, but something made them gradually ease away from us.

"And that," Priam said with barely hidden relief, "proves my point."

"What point?" Coriaca demanded. "What the hell just happened?"

"They got my little hint and knew the, uh, jig was up. If any of those creatures had stuck around, I'd have introduced you to Abreathon's actual intelligent inhabitants. They were right under your noses the whole time."

The explorer's larynx twitched a few times before any words came out. "Explain. Now."

I barely listened to my teammate because of two things. First, I knew what he would say. The truth had figuratively been under my own nose ever since I watched those reports. How could I have missed it? Only one known species of animals here had "tentacles" and only those supposed limbs carried advanced technology. Also, said tentacles were not issued in the otherwise universal six-pack. And despite decades of intense attempts at communication with the, ha, brainy hexicows, the EE team here had made nary a smidgen of progress. Funny thing about Priam: his insights tended to be self-evident, but only in retrospect. They didn't so much make him seem brilliant as make me feel stupid.

The other reason I didn't pay closer attention to Priam's words of wisdom had to do with a vibration beneath my feet, an uneven sort of gentle shaking. I wondered if it might be a precursor to an unearthly earthquake.

"Hey!" I interrupted Golden Boy. "Anyone else notice—"

That's when I got interrupted myself by the ground collapsing under me.

There's nothing that focuses the mind quite like a surprise fall, also the galactic champion at installing panic. The topsoil I'd been standing on, falling with me, blocked my view of anything below. I'd guess I was five meters down before training kicked in and I activated my inertia-control system while beginning to spread out my body horizontally.

Thanks to the speed I'd built up, air resistance stopped me cold and I watched the topsoil head downward on its own. Before I could think about what to do next, Priam plummeted on past me. Perhaps he'd been caught so off-guard, concentrating on his educational sermon, that he'd forgotten his own training. Far more likely his suit had malfunctioned thanks to that slasher kindergarten plant. Either way, this was really bad—the ground was still a long way down. Micah also zipped past me in a head-first dive, falling so rapidly that I knew he'd decreased his inertia, less than I had, and was keeping vertical to reduce drag. I knew why, and it poked a whopping hole in my concept of Micah as slow-witted.

Merely drifting down now myself, I watched the Venusian angle his body to use the air as a kind of ramp. In an instant, he reached Priam and nearly pulled off the stunt of a lifetime. He grabbed one of Priam's arms and pulled the Martian in close, obviously hoping to extend his suit's inertial field to blanket them both and then kill their joint inertia.

A great plan... in theory, but I doubt that anyone could've gotten that much done in the split-second remaining until they hit. Our suits react quickly, but even the most recent tech can't instantaneously make large changes in field-strength. Both men hit pretty damn hard.

I'd always thought the notion of one's heart jumping into one's throat was ridiculous, but it sure felt like that. I sped up my fall, more than was wise, but landed on broken-up topsoil with more a jar than a crash. I ditched my snowshoes. It smelled musty here, but not Earth musty. And why was it this warm underground? Skirting mounds of collapsed dirt, plants, and rocks, I called out to my teammates as I ran to them. No answer. They weren't moving but, thank God, both were breathing. Micah, it seemed, had finessed a bit of inertial relief after all, and they, too, had landed on loose dirt. Both had lost their snowshoes. Listening closer, I heard a wheeze in Priam's lungs that I didn't like.

Micah was the only one of us with health-assessment implants, which seemed more unfair than ironic at the moment. Using the limited medical training all third-year cadets are given, I checked for broken bones and signs of hemorrhage. I thought Priam's left arm might be fractured, but saw no compound breaks or visible indications of major trauma. Still, the wheezing kept getting worse. At a guess, Micah had a broken rib or two. I didn't dare try to move either of them.

Judging by sensations, my heart had returned from my throat to home base. But it was pounding in my chest as though it intended to break out. I had better, I thought, pull myself together right now if I hoped to save my men.

But how to save them? My suit had an emergency com-link function, but that wouldn't work underground, and the local radio static would probably block it anyway. But Coriaca's com-link was set to—

Then it hit me. What had happened to Coriaca? I glanced around to see if he'd fallen too. Took me a moment to spot him. His body lay crumpled not far from me, but on a jagged ledge a few meters higher than my head. Blood dripped down the ledge and not just a little. I adjusted my inertia and climbed the nearly vertical wall to where he lay. No vital signs, which was no surprise. A jagged root with a sharp, broken-off end protruded from his abdomen and a similar one from his chest at heart level, both piercing his antiquated inertia gear. His jacket had come open and I stared at the kind of external suit controls that had become obsolete years ago. No wonder he didn't have enough time to save himself. His com-link, antique enough to resemble an old-fashioned wristwatch, had come off his arm and had cleverly managed to shatter against a rock. The UW had fared better, remaining safe in its holster, but its gory coating stopped me from claiming it as my own. I couldn't spot his emergency bag anywhere.

I let myself drop to the floor of what appeared to be a small but very deep cave with a modest skylight surrounded by a galaxy of tentacle-sized skylights. The walls started out vertical—I'd just proved how climbing that part was no problem—but after a few meters they progressively curved inwards, making climbing impossible without special gear. Aside from uneven mounds of debris on the cave floor, a small tree had fallen in, now lying horizontal and acting as a bridge between two of the largest mounds. One hell of a mess, but adding up to so little material that I knew this area had already been almost entirely hollow.

I felt light-headed and sick to my stomach, and my vision decided this was the perfect time to go black. I sat down, head lowered, and took three deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down. Why do horror and panic show up just when you can least afford them?

Slowly, my eyesight cleared. For the first time, I took a good look at the cave wall—or cave-in wall?—opposite Coriaca's bloody ledge. At a glance, I'd thought all the little projections were tree roots, but turns out I had an audience. Hundreds of extentacles, poking out of hundreds of small holes in the wall, were observing me with rapt attention. Aside from soft wind and animal-feeding noises drifting in from above, the cave was dead silent.

A shock of fear went through me, but this one jump-started my brain rather than shutting it down. Clearly, the collapse had been no accident. The snakes must've excavated this space as a trap, leaving just enough structure to support the ground and animals above, implying incredible engineering skills. For that matter, they'd likely hollowed out many underground spots in their jeweled forest, and made sure that their, um, hexicattle vehicles fed only in those spots in case anything dangerous threatened them, at least anything that could be dealt with by a nasty fall. So when Priam exposed their secret here, they called out the snake cavalry to remove all support.

My slithering audience had tried to kill us. They'd succeeded with one of us and injured two others. Murderous fury, I'm sure, would be the normal human reaction and it did occur to me that if I grabbed the UW, I could turn every snake watching into a charcoal tube in two seconds flat.

But there's no clear dividing line between training and conditioning, and in virtual reality scenes that felt entirely real at the time thanks to specialized drugs, I'd worked through many, many emotionally difficult experiences. So anxiety yes, fury no. Honestly, I was a little dismayed by how thoroughly I'd been conditioned. Instead of hustling to get revenge like a normal girl, I automatically tried to envision the situation from the aliens' perspective. While aliens aren't likely to think the way we do, intelligence implies some degree of common logic, and here the logic seemed easy to follow.

If making your enemies fall down a hole was your weapon of choice, you probably didn't have any deadlier weapons. So how would I feel if my species had invented micro-circuits and radio communications but not, say, guns, and aliens had landed on my planet, armed with technology centuries beyond what my species had achieved? Wouldn't I try to remain hidden while carefully studying the invaders if they'd demonstrated that they had guns? The reports I'd seen had showed UWs being fired at those few animals that had attacked explorers....

Emily, I told myself, understanding the motivations of snakes is good and necessary, but right now getting my men medical help is far more important.

Micah groaned, tried to sit up, and thought better of it. I rushed back to his side.

"How bad is it?" I asked, trying to sound calm.

The big jerk actually grinned up at me. "A few ribs on my left side will need some mending, but I think it would be best to lie here for a bit longer. Please help me roll over onto my right side so that I can assess Priam."

He must've been hurt worse than he'd admitted because he let me do all the work of turning him. He studied the Martian, letting his medical implants work triage, and for once he stopped smiling.

"Em, we have a challenge here. Priam has a collapsed lung punctured by a broken rib."

"What should I do?"

"Did Coriaca fall with us?"

"'Fraid so. He's dead, Micah."

"Oh. I'm so sorry to hear it. He seemed a fine fellow. Is his bag here?"

"I've looked and don't see it. Probably buried."

Micah thought he could shrug, but proved he could wince. "Then you must find the explorer's communicator, climb out of this pit, and call for immediate... immediate..."

"Micah. His com-link's broken, and climbing the walls here would be, um, problematic. Did you notice— Micah?"

No response, but I could see his belly moving as he breathed. So he'd either passed out or decided this was the perfect time for another nap. I didn't try to shake him awake, but I sure wanted to.

I couldn't let Priam die and wasn't at all convinced that Micah's life wasn't also hanging on my decisions here. So my duty was clear: get out of this damn hole and after that keep trying my emergency signal in hopes it would get through, meanwhile heading for the station as fast as I could.

Climbing was ruled out, so what did that leave me?

Then I remembered Priam, during the San Diego fiasco, demonstrating a trick that I'd always considered only a theoretical possibility, and had never even attempted. P-levitation, the "p" standing in for pressure. The basic principle was simple enough, if counterintuitive.

It was a matter of using inertial control to balance the force of gravity with air-pressure. You jump and gravity starts making you fall, but by removing enough inertia, countless air molecules continuously stop you and you can wind up floating. Then if the air beneath you is warmer than the air somewhere above and therefore rising? You can rise with it.

That was the principle I had to count on, but removing just the right amount of inertia would be crucial, and a host of complex factors were involved. My size and shape would make a big difference, as would the local gravity, air-pressure in this cave, and no doubt a host of other variables that I hadn't thought of.

I looked straight up. The thermals here should be good, but once I reached the opening above, I might have a real problem moving sideways far enough to reach solid ground. Build that bridge, I told myself, when you come to it. I retrieved my snowshoes and tied them onto my back.

Moving as far from the snake-filled wall as possible without stepping in Coriaca's blood, I climbed onto the fallen tree to gain some height. Then I adjusted my suit for minimal inertia, jumped up with all my strength, increased inertia as my feet left the tree trunk, and immediately cut it again while spreading my body horizontally to catch enough air resistance. I wafted to the ground three times, cursing. Priam had made it look so easy. On the fourth try I finally got everything right and began rising. The thermals were crucial to this, but they were so inconsistent that I had to struggle to keep horizontal. Halfway to the big opening above, I noticed activity among my tubular observers.

As individuals, they were rather inflexible, but dozens were linking up, using the fingers at the ends of their bodies to grip the head of the next snake in what was rapidly becoming a long chain. I rose another meter or two before one end of this chain swung loose from the wall. With an enormous joint muscular contraction, the chain's end whipped across the cave whistling and slammed into my ribs.

That would've been my death right there except that in my unbound state, all it did was push me to the side, and the push only lasted as long as the chain was touching me. The score now stood snakes zero, Emily one. I kept rising, but my confidence didn't.

Which proved justified a moment later when the chain found me again but this time wrapped itself around my waist and pulled me down, at speed, all the way to the cave's floor. The chain then kindly unwrapped me, and swung back to the original wall where it separated into individuals who soon found holes to occupy. In less than a minute, my audience seemed to be entirely back in place, ready for more entertainment.

I got up off the floor and brushed myself off. Okay. I wasn't getting out of here until my hosts let me go. I checked on my companions again. Both out of it, and Priam's wheezing had gotten distinctly worse. I had to admit that my attitude had shifted. Priam had done everything he'd promised by having a team-careersaving insight, and Micah had shown me how much I'd underestimated him by his quick actions and his courage in risking his life to save Priam's. They both deserved more of me.

Project personnel would surely come looking for us when we'd been missing for long enough. But I felt in my bones that Priam wouldn't last nearly that long. And it didn't seem a good sign that Micah hadn't reawakened yet.

It was all up to me and I almost choked on the responsibility. I couldn't think.

Staring at Priam, I remembered something he'd said the only time an astrophysics problem had him baffled. I'd asked him, in an overly sweet voice, how he handled such rare events and was surprised to get an answer. "Even for me," he'd bragged, "parts of my intellect are brighter than other parts. I'll just loosely hold the problem in mind, relax, and let my genius work it out on its own."

Wasn't sure I had an inner genius, let alone one raring to work on my present dilemma, but every part of my intellect I knew of was stumped.

I sat on a mound near my companions, facing the watching crowd, and tried to hold the problem loosely in mind. I managed to loosen my hold to a mere death grip, and suddenly wasn't so sure that the snakes had had murder in mind. Thanks to their hollow but super-strong bones and their widespread weight distribution, most Abreathon creatures could've probably survived that fall. Certainly, our hosts weren't being at all aggressive now.

Fine. The solution here was obvious. Convince my audience that humans meant them no harm, and then they'd let me leave. Simple. What wasn't obvious was how to accomplish that. And the crazy thing was that I had a distinct feeling that I'd already noticed something that held the answer.

But what? I was hold-loosening and relaxing my heart out and the only thing that my inner genius slipped me was a completely useless image: chopsticks—on fire, no less. Apparently, I thought, some parts of my intellect were stupider than other parts. Still, the picture hung in my mind with the persistence of a bad sunburn, and I had no other leads. So I thought about it.

What would make me think of burning chopsticks? Maybe it had something to do with this audience giving me the evil six-eyes. After all, they were stiff little creatures and had those weird two-finger tails. Then what about the fire part? Good question and I had no answer. "This," I muttered after long minutes of insight vacuum, "is a waste of time. To hell with it."

What I'd just said echoed in my mind and felt so right that I said it out loud again, "To hell with it." I might've shouted with triumph then, except I hadn't proved my new idea would work, and I was so damn worried about my teammates, and sad about Coriaca. Besides, it wouldn't do to scare the snakes.

It was much later that I learned that my emergency signal had only reached the safe-camp because the snakes had repeated my message on their own frequency, one that Abreathon personnel continually monitored just in case the natives finally decided to open communications.

The Academy auditorium was packed almost solid with EE cadets, higher-ups, and family members. The graduating teams remained on the wide stage although all the new commissions had been handed out. Priam, Micah, and I were the last to get ours, yet the Chief stood behind her lectern, looking beatific, in no rush to close the overlong ceremony. You could practically smell everyone's impatience to finally get out of the hall.

I'd never seen the Chief smile much, but she suddenly grinned like a beacon and the beams seemed to be aimed at my team.

"This is a remarkable occasion," she said. "It is not often we bestow the EE's highest honor on newly graduating cadets, but Graduates Emily Asari of Earth, Priam Galanis of Mars, and Micah Cohen of Venus please step forward."

As we stepped, I glanced at my teammates. They both looked as stunned as I felt. Priam had suffered a collapsed lung, internal bleeding, a concussion, four broken ribs, and a broken arm; Micah only matched him with a concussion and three broken ribs. Now both of them moved easily and stood tall, Micah of course standing much taller. Modern medical tech is magic.

"I present to you three," the Chief continued, "the Triple Sun. Wear it proudly. Thanks to you, the Abreathon project has succeeded in establishing friendly relations with another alien species, and you have—"

"Saved a thirty-year project from going down the toilet," Priam interrupted.

The Chief gave him a look appropriate to something that should be flushed down a toilet, but only said, "Just so."

Lips, I commanded, stay as you are. Do not rise at the corners, do not even twitch....

The Triple Sun was represented by a garish ribbon in gold, silver, and blue. The Chief herself attached one to each of our formal uniforms. When they'd been properly "bestowed," she dismissed everyone but signaled to me that I should remain behind. The exiting music was as pompous as you could want as I watched everyone else heading out to fresh air. Both my teammates turned to look at me before they reached the doors, but I could only look wistful and shrug.

"I've studied your report," the Chief said, "and found it incomplete."

"Oh? What's missing?"

"Two things. Why did the Anguis reveal themselves after Priam Galanis placed the radio bracelet on one of them?"

"Hard to be sure, Commandant. Priam wanted to let them know he was on to them, so he activated the bracelet as he slipped it on, and had arranged for it to send out the kind of greeting squeal that begin all Anguis transmissions. I suppose the aliens could've ignored the message."

"He took quite a risk there."

"So true, and I'm certain he knew it."

"Last, I'd like to know how, exactly, you determined the key to opening diplomatic relations with the Anguis."

Trust the EE to come up with dumb names for intelligent alien species, but at least Anguis was shorter than Abreathon Serpentines, which had been the runner-up contender.

I couldn't fully explain why the idea had felt so right at the time, but the Chief had what Priam called "her gimlet eye" on me and I had to say something.

"I noticed that the aliens can't bend worth beans, and they have something like thin fingers at the end of their tails. And that reminded me of an old Persian fable my father used to tell when I was a kid. I've heard it many times since, described as a Buddhist or Christian or whatever parable, but pretty much the same story. In them all, someone gets a look at heaven and hell, and finds that each has an identical table loaded with an identical fabulous feast. A host of people in both places are sitting at the tables, ready to party, but they only have long skewers or tongs or chopsticks or forks—depending on who's telling the story—for utensils. These utensils are so long that no one can feed themselves, although why they can't choke up on their tongs or simply use their hands to—"

"Explorer Asari!" the Chief barked. "Are you under the impression that I have time to listen to you ramble?"

"Sorry, Commandant." A fat lie, because mostly I was glowing from hearing myself, for the first time, called "Explorer." "I'll get to the point. In the fable, the person visiting heaven and hell learns that the only difference is that in hell, everyone starves, but in heaven everyone is having a terrific time because they're feeding each other."

"I see. You realized that the Anguis weren't flexible enough to feed themselves, at least not with their, ah, fingers."

"Not only that, I'll bet that almost everything they do requires a team effort. Can't imagine one of them alone building radios. I doubt they could even see their own bodies without a mirror."

The Chief's expression turned thoughtful. "Interesting. Creatures that evolved as an entirely cooperative society."

"So in that pit where we were trapped, I dug through debris and found the kind of leaves I'd noticed the supposed tentacles were grabbing before the cave-in. The aliens actually helped me reach the surface after I fed the leaves to the largest sna—Anguis watching me. I was using p-levitation to rise, but sort of got stuck in a holding pattern at the top. They gave me the final shove that I needed."

"In short you provided them a peace offering."

"You said a mouthful, sir." I kept my expression neutral.

"This isn't a joking matter, Explorer." Her lips remained stern, but her eyes didn't seem to agree.

Code Blue Love

Bill Johnson | 9156 words

Mayer Vanderbrink waved his hotel cardkey in front of the lock plate. He pushed the door open and held it while DeAnne walked inside past him carrying a box of Jimmy's old photographs and high school yearbooks.

DeAnne set the box on the suite's coffee table. Mayer collapsed on the bed and propped himself up with pillows, his hands behind his head.

"And then there were two."

Mayer's face twisted into a half smile and he chuckled half a chuck. "You sound like an old Agatha Christie novel."

"That was the idea," DeAnne said. She sat on the side of the other queen-sized bed. "It was a joke. Still, no one should have to arrange a funeral without help."

Mayer shrugged. "You did everything for Christine. It's only fair I do Jimmy."

DeAnne glanced at the box on the table. "I am so sick of burying our brothers and sisters."

"Tell that to our DNA," Mayer said. He sounded tired but his face was calm and still, like a mask. He paused, then continued.

"I finished String. Final version. I fixed all the bugs you found. He's done."

"You're sure?"

Mayer snorted. "Of course I'm not sure. I broke every rule of how to build an AI. I included start-up and shut-down instructions but after that he's nothing but tens of thousands of open if-thens. And most of those just write even more if-thens. In my lab they'd say he's a half-assed mess and tell me to start over."

"Will he work?"

"I have no idea. And I have no idea what it might look like when he finishes."

"You want more time?"

"To test? Sure. But there's an old saying that, sooner or later, you have to shoot the engineer and put the damned thing into production." He smiled. "I think it's time to shoot the engineer. I think I'm out of time."

DeAnne studied him for a moment. Her eyes went wide.

"You got another CAT scan." It was a statement, not a question. "How many? How big?"

Mayer thought about lying but there was no point.

"We have each other," he said fiercely. He reached over and gripped her hand. "We're the babies. We never give up."

"How many? How big? What did the CAT show?"

He released her hand and sat up straight.

"At least five aneurysms in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Two were at three centimeters. One was four centimeters. There might be others but they stopped the dye. Always jumps my blood pressure and they didn't want to risk it."

"Damn!" DeAnne swore. She rubbed her eyes, squeezed them tight, then looked back at Mayer. "You have to go first."

Mayer shook his head. "You have more damage. Your aneurysms are bigger. And you have a surgeon lined up. Besides, aren't big sisters supposed to go first? To protect the baby brother? That's what Mom and Dad always said."

"I can't—"

"Is it ready?" Mayer interrupted.

DeAnne went silent. She thought about the stent back in her lab, the gentle blur of billions of nano-threads around it.

"I have no idea," she said, honestly.

"Can I download String into the stent?"

"Yes. It's loaded with memory and the threads have been growing for the last two months. It's as ready as I can make it." "Now it's your turn. Will it work?"

DeAnne hesitated and looked down at her hands.

"In the computer simulations, it works. In the lab, I feed the stent blood and it grows a thread and slips it into a cell," she said slowly. "In the mice, the threads manipulated the cells, turned them back to normal. So, yes, the stent will work. I think. In the simulations and in the lab and in a mouse. With me controlling the stent and telling it exactly what to do."

She looked up at Mayer. "But a cell in a simulator or a lab or a mouse isn't a cell in a human body. And me telling a stent what to do, controlling it in a lab, isn't the same as live testing with an artificial intelligence in charge."

"There are two ways to find out." Mayer leaned back against the pillows. "We can follow the rules. Submit String and the stent and go through all the years of testing and trials and submissions and stages of approvals."

"Congratulations," DeAnne said testily. "We get rejected or approved. Either way, it's posthumously."

"Or we do it the other way," Mayer continued smoothly. "Screw the government. We take Jimmy's money and we do it ourselves. To ourselves."

DeAnne shook her head. And smiled. "You realize this is strictly illegal?"

Mayer smiled back at her. He shook his head and began to laugh, softly.

"Why are you laughing?" DeAnne asked crossly.

"Because what are they going to do if they catch us? Throw us in jail? Hell, we're going to die anyway. We probably wouldn't even last until sentencing."

DeAnne started to laugh herself.

"Best news I've had in years," Mayer continued. He touched his chest and his head. "The cells I've got in here aren't worth a damn. They're weak and they're shredding apart and they're killing me. Even if all you've proved is that you can keep a mouse alive, that's good enough for me. Hell, it's a lot better chance than the numbers I'm holding now. Somebody has to win the lottery, don't they?"

DeAnne smiled at him. She blinked back her tears.

"You realize I've only got one pilot stent finished," she warned. "The custom fab in Jakarta is working on the second pilot but it will take months to finish it."

Mayer waved his hand dismissively. "Let's get you done. Then we'll worry about Indonesia. I'm tired of arranging funerals."

"You're a pain in the ass, you know that?" she said fondly. She gestured at the box. "Jimmy's stuff can wait. We've got work to do."

Dr. Mastracci removed the last bandage and stepped to the side. She looked at her work and nodded. She handed DeAnne a mirror. DeAnne took the mirror and turned it so the image was clear and steady.

The new scope scar on the side of her neck was thin and clean, lost among the forest of old tracks. DeAnne looked at the branches and tried to relate them to old surgeries but there were too many scars.

"I did the best I could," Mastracci said defensively. She was tall, athletic, her surgeon fingers long and perfectly relaxed. DeAnne nodded, turned her head to the side to get another view.

"You did just fine, Jane," DeAnne reassured her.

"This will be the last one," Mastracci told her, reluctantly. She shook her head. "I placed your new stent, the one you designed, inside the biggest aneurysm in your brain but what I saw through the scope and on the screen..."

"Yes?"

"There are more aneurysms inside you, DeAnne. And too much scar tissue from too many surgeries. I'm sorry. I was lucky to get this one in."

"You weren't lucky, Jane." DeAnne shook her head, placed the mirror down on the table. "Give yourself credit. You're good at this." She looked up at Mastracci and smiled. "The problem is that my genes are so very bad."

"What do you do next?" Mastracci asked, awkwardly.

"Travel," DeAnne said decisively. She picked up her life necklace. A memory chip embedded in the pendant carried all her records and permissions, her DNR and living will and trust and all the others. Her life distilled into a handful of documents. She felt naked when it wasn't settled comfortably around her neck. She slipped the necklace over her head and patted it into place. She glanced at Mastracci and decided to practice the half-lie she planned to use with customs and immigration.

"My brother and I. We both have this condition and there are some things we need to finish before we go. Our great greats were Indo-Dutch. We're going back to Jakarta to make sure the old graves are still tended. It's something we promised our parents and our grands."

"Any others?" Mastracci asked.

"No other family," DeAnne said. "Our brothers and sisters are all dead and we never wanted to pass on what we have. We want to end it, now." She smiled again, sadly. She remembered her neighbor in the next door condo and her two little girls. "Still, it would have been nice..."

Mastracci's wrist beeped. She glanced at it and hurriedly signed the release order then begged off to see her next patient.

DeAnne used the bedside remote to open the window shades. She stared at blue sky, flecked with clouds, and the lake beyond the beach. Sailboats dotted the lake, the sails puffed and full of wind.

Her wrist softly vibrated. It was Mayer. She smiled and unrolled the screen.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just finished my release. Meet me at the front. They'll bring me out in a wheelchair. Yes, the headache is gone, thank God. Yes, I'll see you then. Yes, I love you too."

She pinched the phone off. She felt excitement building inside her. She stroked her temples, felt the sheer pleasure of touch that did not trigger a blinding headache.

She glanced at her bedside monitor. Blood pressure and heart rate were both up. She forced herself to do biofeedback exercises. This was her last chance and she wasn't going to mess it up by getting too excited, too early.

She leaned back against her pillow and stared at the ceiling. She took deep breaths through her nose and let them out slowly through her mouth.

She did not know if String was awake, if he was working, but she felt better already. Probably a placebo affect, but what was wrong with hoping?

String was the youngest child, the newest in a long line of failures, but he was a success. At least, that was what Mom told him. All he knew, for certain, was that he was the last and there were no more children after him.

Still, Mom told him he was a good boy, he was the right boy, and what else did he need?

He remembered when they came home from the hospital and the weeks afterward as he slowly woke. He remembered he sipped blood and grew his threads, so thin they only showed under a tunneling microscope, until they finally reached into every cell in her brain.

He kept the stent strong. Other than that he simply watched and recorded and copied Mom's every thought and emotion and memory and safely stored them in his own memory.

He was happy. He had his work and he did what his programming told him to do. Life was good.

Then, suddenly, everything went to hell.

The first sign was the spasm of all the pain sensors in her brain. Mom felt it as a blinding headache. String experienced it as an electrical storm, a seizure that overloaded his subsystems. The shock blinded him and he lost precious seconds as he rebooted. When he woke, her pulse and blood pressure were in free fall. Her blood was flooded with adrenaline and stress hormones, her body's last, desperate attempt to stay alive.

Mom? Mom!

"I'm sorry, baby," DeAnne, his mother, mumbled. "It's not your fault. We didn't think it would happen this quickly. There just wasn't enough time..."

String frantically searched along all his microfilaments spiderwebbed through her brain. He realized the problem was he knew all the trees, the individual cells, but he could not see the fire burning the forest.

Then, along one of his filaments, deep in the lobe where the seizure began, he tasted blood. He instantly concentrated on her blood vessels. They were fragile and delicate, the walls stretched, part of her genetics.

Everything was normal. Thin and weak, yes, but strong enough and... aneurysm. The junction of two main arteries, deep in her brain. One artery was dissected, ripped slightly open, enough blood spilled to knock Mom down, but not enough to kill her. Brain cells splashed by blood were dead but String had his recordings. Give him time and he could reload the memories, put Mom back together.

The other artery was the greater danger. It was bigger, stretched and distended, ready to burst with the next rise in blood pressure.

He had to help her, had to keep her alive. He ruthlessly tapped into her blood, began to stitch together the dissected artery, began to wrap the other artery in supporting threads until he could fix it—

He heard the paramedics break through the door. He realized Mom's life necklace had triggered after she collapsed and crumpled to the floor.

Warm hands on cold skin, fingers at her wrist and her neck. DeAnne's eyelids fluttered open unevenly, the right clear, the left only a fraction. String saw the blur of the uniforms, the sound of two voices, one a man, one a woman.

"Frau Vanderbrink? DeAnne Vanderbrink? Are you all right, ma'am?"

"My brother," DeAnne whispered urgently. String watched through her eyes as DeAnne clumsily lifted her arm and pointed to her neck, to her life necklace. "Promise me..."

Her head sagged and String watched her arm falter and then fold onto her chest.

"DeAnne? DeAnne, wake up," String heard. The man's voice was calm but urgent. String felt the pressure on Mom's arm increase. "No response. No pulse in the wrist."

"I've got a feather up here in the neck. It's faint and it's fading. Get an IV started. Give me the atropine."

"Heart attack?"

"Best guess? Yeah. Tell the hospital we've got a code blue coming in. I want everyone there when we arrive."

No! String screamed. He dimly felt the sting as the IV slid into Mom's arm.

"CPR?" the man asked.

"Not yet. Get ready. Atropine going in." The woman's voice was flat, distracted and expressionless. String felt the fingers shift on Mom's neck, searching for a pulse.

No! String screamed and begged, pleading. Leave her alone! Give me time. I just need a little more time.

Drugs poured into his mother. He felt her heart hesitate, then pump strongly. Blood surged through her system. Her blood pressure rose and the other aneurysm shredded like wet paper.

"Don't cry, baby," DeAnne said, her voice soft and soothing and fading. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault."

Blood poured out of the aneurysm, an open hose spraying into her brain.

"I've lost pulse. All I'm getting is fibrillation."

The sound of ripping cloth. He realized, dully, that Mom's blouse now lay torn and in shreds on the floor. He felt the solid, rib-cracking thumps of CPR given by someone who knew what he was doing. The only problem was that it was the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

The CPR paused. The voices sounded remote and thin.

"Everyone clear? Pads in place. Shocking no—"

Lightning rippled through String and he was gone.

"Is this her? Will you please make a positive identification?"

Mayer looked down at DeAnne's body. He nodded.

"That's her."

"For the record, please."

Mayer took a deep breath.

"This is the body of my sister, DeAnne Vanderbrink. I recognize and identify her."

The medical assistant promptly covered her face. He touched a foot plate and the double doors opened. Mayer glanced and saw a set of examination rooms, curtained off, on one side of a long corridor. The other side of the corridor was a wall of small stainless steel doors, like hatches, just the right size to slip in a body, from floor to ceiling.

The assistant wheeled the body down the corridor and out of sight. The doors closed behind him.

"My regrets, Herr Vanderbrink," the medical examiner said. His voice was professionally detached, concerned but not involved. He sounded like someone who knew how to leave his business at work and not bring it home.

Mayer nodded, his mind still half in shock, even after the last twenty-four hours.

The examiner held out a small brown manila envelope.

"Personal items found on her body," the examiner explained. "Earrings, life necklace, things like that. The front desk will help you with the rest of her effects. Again, my condolences."

Mayer finally looked over at him and reached out to take the envelope. The examiner escorted him to the front and left him with a very nice woman who seemed to love paperwork and forms....

Mayer sat in DeAnne's hotel room. Her suitcases, hard shell, and soft duffel, lay scattered around the room. He held her life necklace in his hand.

He felt a headache starting, behind his eyes, deep in his head. He wondered if it was that, just a headache, or if it was something bigger, something more final.

I'm too young to die.

It wasn't a fair thought. He was supposed to be mourning DeAnne. He was supposed to think only about her.

I'm too young to die.

He saw her reader on her bedside table. He put her life necklace on the table, next to her reader. The reader stayed dark for a moment, then woke.

"Verbal," Mayer ordered.

"Password?" the reader asked.

Mayer smiled. DeAnne had used their mother's voice, stern and serious but with a touch of laughter behind it, as if she knew it was all a joke.

"I am a happy panda."

Accepted.

The reader flickered to life. DeAnne looked at him.

"Mayer, I'm sorry you're seeing this." Her face was serious, but then she smiled and looked at him over the top of her displays. "But, and I hate to say this, I'm glad it's you who's got to deal with it and not me! I'm tired of arranging funerals."

"Smartass," he grumbled and smiled.

"Now, we need to talk. Besides the obvious, I've got bad news and good news and bad news for you," DeAnne said. She took a deep breath. "The bad news is, obviously, I'm either dead or dying. I don't like that and neither do you. You know what I want done and how. It's in my medical directive. I'm not going over it again. I remember watching Christine and Jimmy and all those damned tubes and needles. Don't make me go through that.

"That's the first bad news. Next is the good news. String is working. It's little things, but he's working. He's talking with me, subvocally, but you know all that. What you can't feel is how I feel.

"My appetite is coming back, Mayer. The headaches are still there, but they're getting better. I just feel, well, better. I don't know how to explain it, but he's working. Next is the final bad news.

"The new stent is not ready.

"The custom shop screwed up the print and fab job. They've got to start over. Even then it's going to take several months to finish the job.

"I'm sorry, Mayer. I wish we'd done this the way I wanted, to do you first, but it's too late. We're twins and we rolled the dice and you came up with snake-eyes."

She looked out at him and she seemed ready to cry. She reached to touch the cut-off switch.

"I'm sorry, Mayer. I love you and I'm so, so sorry."

The screen flickered to black.

Mayer pushed the reader aside. He looked at her luggage and her clothes and her toothbrush with the pretty kitty handle. He reached down and picked up her life necklace and strung it over his head and around his neck.

I'm too young to die.

"I am too rich to die."

Mayer slid his medical records, neatly arranged in a folder, across the dirty glass tabletop to the man he knew only as Phoon. Mayer felt sweat building around his collar and under his arms. Sweat was a bad sign. It hinted at too many things. He wondered if it was the tropical heat or a fever. It might mean he was too late.

Phoon indifferently pushed the folder to the side and, fork in one hand, knife in the other, slowly and deliberately finished his lunch. Mayer toyed with his plate, moved the food around but sampled nothing. His appetite was gone and the smell made him nauseous.

They sat in the canopy shade of one of the thousands of anonymous sidewalk restaurants in Jakarta. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and scooters piled high with passengers and bags and boxes roared by them, just inches away, separated from them only by the rusting bars and flat top of a decorative waist-high cast-iron fence.

The air was thick with dirt and gasoline and diesel fumes, seasoned with spice and ocean salt. Phoon finished his lunch and pushed the plate away. He wiped his lips and his face with his napkin and dropped it on his plate. He reached for the folder and opened it.

He ignored everything medical. He went straight to the last page of the folder. The columns and numbers, Mayer's financial statement, were all that was really important.

Phoon pulled a lighter and a cigarette out of his short-sleeve shirt pocket while he read the numbers. He cupped his hand around the flame and lit the cigarette. He leaned back and took a deep inhale, held it, then blew the smoke out the side of his mouth. The sickly sweet smell of qat filled the air. He sat up straight and slipped the page back into the folder. He drew on the cigarette again and pointed at Mayer through the smoke.

"You may be too rich to die," Phoon conceded. He tapped the folder with his index finger. "But this tells me you may also be too poor to live."

Mayer sat forward, elbows on the table.

"Do you want the money? Or do I find another broker?"

Phoon held his eye for a moment, then shook his head.

"What you want is very expensive." He stubbed out his cigarette in the remnants of his lunch. He looked up at Mayer. "Very expensive."

Mayer picked up the folder. He pushed back his chair, as if he was ready to leave. Phoon hurriedly leaned forward. He touched Mayer's forearm.

"A moment," Phoon said. He sat up straight, his words clipped, the pose of indifference gone.

"You want the best neurosurgeon in the city? Out of the question." Phoon waved his hands dismissively. "Ask any broker you want. The answer will be the same. The number one surgeon doesn't do business off the books. The best you'll be offered is, maybe, number four. Now, I'm different. I can get you better than number four. My question is how much are you willing to pay to stay alive?"

Mayer stared down at the folder. He remembered needles and foley's and morphine and that damned squeezing headache that gripped and dug in and just would not let go....

"Everything has a price." Mayer slid a debit card, white and deactivated, across the table. "That's how much I'm willing to spend."

Phoon unrolled his phone and scanned the card. The screen flickered with numbers. The card was legitimate, loaded with cash, but not activated. Phoon returned the card and said a name. Mayer repeated the name into his wrist, looked at the results on his display, and frowned.

"She's third best in the city," Phoon protested. "She's a good doctor."

Mayer glanced again at his display, then back at Phoon. Mayer shook his head. Phoon tilted his head to the side and held up his palms.

"All right, maybe she is a little out of practice."

Mayer read out loud from the review.

"'Her hands tremble like a leaf when she holds a scalpel.'" He lifted an eyebrow and studied Phoon. He shook his head again, slowly. "No. Not this one. I want someone better. I don't want someone who's going to kill me while I'm on the table."

Phoon looked exasperated, then thoughtful.

"Fair enough. But it will cost you more," Phoon warned, "and I will hardly make a profit on this deal, but I like you. His name is Mostafa. Check him out."

Mayer spoke into his phone again, read the reviews, looked at Phoon. Mayer seemed uncertain.

"The reviews say he's an asshole. His former partners hate him."

Phoon shrugged.

"And what difference does that make? Check again. Look up the survival rate of his patients. See the numbers? That's what you care about. So what if his partners hate him? Ask yourself why they hate him. I'll tell you. His partners hate him because he takes away their sickest patients, the ones who are willing to pay the most, because he can cure them and they cannot. Perhaps he isn't the nicest person in Jakarta. Who cares? If he does the job right, you live. What else do you want for your money? A hug and a kiss at the end of your surgery?"

Mayer considered. Jakarta was the end of the line for him. It was time to go under the knife or go home to die. He touched his neck, felt DeAnne's life necklace.

"Screw it."

He pushed his thumb onto the card and spoke a code word, a crude word that expressed his view of the world and his life and what everything had done to him. The card flashed and turned light green. He ripped it in half. He kept one half and handed the other to Phoon.

"If I live, you get the other half of the card and I activate it and you get your money. If I die, you get nothing and my will gives it all to charity," Mayer warned. Phoon nodded. The half-card vanished into Phoon's pocket.

"Where's the stent?" Phoon asked.

"In the hospital morgue. Here's the permission to remove it." Mayer clicked the approvals to Phoon. Phoon checked his phone, looked back at Mayer.

"I thought... I assumed it was a new stent."

"She's my sister. We, the whole family, have the same genetic problem. Spontaneous mutation from our parents."

Phoon winced. Spontaneous mutations were usually the worst kind.

Mayer studied Phoon. Mayer felt too tired to play any more little power games.

"Twenty-five years ago our doctors started to find aneurysms in our brothers and sisters. One by one, they went under the knife and had stents inserted, to strengthen and close off the aneurysms."

"They were cured?" Phoon asked.

"They still died. The stents were too primitive, just a simple piece of piping to strengthen weak blood vessels. The disease grew around the stents, blew out our arteries in a different area.

"We needed an intelligent stent, something that analyzed the progress of our disease from the inside and took action. Something smarter and more flexible. We knew the disease was coming for us, so DeAnne went into biomedical engineering and I went into medical artificial intelligence design," Mayer explained. "Our first five new stents failed. She has number six inside her. She claimed it was working."

"Where is number seven?"

Mayer shook his head. As far as he was concerned, the one in the fab shop was so far away from being done that it didn't count.

"There is no number seven."

"Number six didn't work for her. What makes you think it will work for you?" Phoon asked.

"Nothing. No reason at all it should work. But it's my money and I'm willing to try," Mayer said. "Maybe it did work and she just ran out of time. I'm willing to throw the dice."

"Hope is expensive. This will cost more," Phoon warned.

"I'll throw in a bonus. After the surgery," Mayer said.

"The permission from the ministry for the surgery is legitimate?" Phoon asked. Mayer shrugged. He stood. His legs shook for a moment, then relaxed.

"Part of your job is to make sure everyone keeps their mouth shut and doesn't ask questions. If they check, that's your problem and I expect you to take care of it. What I want to know is, when do I get into the operating room?"

Phoon hesitated, then smiled.

"You look like crap." Phoon sounded decisive. "Let's get this done now, before you die on me. Bad for my reputation. We'll come get you the day after tomorrow."

"What's in it for me?"

Phoon stood in the morgue next to the assistant medical examiner. The examiner wore a wide, thick, autopsy bib, just like the halal butcher down the street. Which made sense since the examiner actually was the halal butcher down the street, as well as Phoon's brother-in-law, in his regular day job. Phoon decided to not ask questions about the mix of stains on the bib.

"The usual." Phoon stated a moderately ridiculous number. The examiner nodded, satisfied, and turned to the body on the pull-out metal slab. He glanced at the display next to DeAnne's vault. He looked at Phoon over the top of his glasses.

"Says she's going to be cremated, then shipped back to the Netherlands."

"New paperwork." Phoon touched the display with his phone and the words changed. The examiner grunted approval. He turned to his instruments.

Phoon stepped back and picked a disposable autopsy mask out of a box near the door and tied it over his face.

"There's a stent in her brain." Phoon pinched the mask down hard over his nose to kill the room smell, antiseptic overlaid on sweat and dead meat. "That's what I want. You know where it is?"

"I saw it on the autopsy X-rays."

"Is it all right?"

"It looked fine to me," the examiner said absently, "but it's not from any of the usual manufacturers. Are you sure this is what you want?"

"The customer pointed me to her," Phoon answered, indifferent. "He pays the money, he gets what he wants."

The examiner adjusted DeAnne's head and picked up a small, one-handed, circular saw. He brushed her hair away and flipped the saw to full power. Phoon moved closer and watched over his shoulder as he removed the stent and placed it on a metal cleaning tray.

The stent was the usual shape and color, a mix of shiny metal and metallized meshwork and fabric. The only difference that this one seemed... fuzzy.

Phoon reached out to touch it and the examiner slapped his finger aside.

"Do you know if she had something in her blood, like hepatitis? Or in her brain, like one of those prion diseases? I don't. That's why I wear gloves. So don't touch anything. I don't want to have to explain your dying to your sister."

"It looks wrong," Phoon complained. "It looks like there are threads hanging off it."

"Microfibers," the examiner agreed. Phoon looked at him doubtfully. Sometimes he sounded like an expert about things he did not know at all. "A few of the new stents, in the labs, have them for remote biosensing. I've read about them in the journals."

"Half price if there are any problems," Phoon warned. He stepped back, removed his mask and threw it in the trash.

"Bastard," the examiner said, without any venom. He tilted his head to the side as he studied the stent. "Three-quarters price, even if I damage it. Or I cremate it now along with the rest of her."

"You'll be careful?"

"Teach your grandmother how to cook a chicken."

Phoon considered again. Money was money, and Mayer would be a lifetime away before anyone knew any better.

"Done."

Mostafa still wore OR booties, thin wisps of blue cloth that covered his shoes, when he met Phoon in the hospital cafeteria. Phoon waved from a corner table, slightly set apart from everyone else. Mostafa, his tray loaded with food and a drink, maneuvered through the crowd to the table. He was always hungry after his morning surgery.

Phoon waited until Mostafa was settled and into his lunch. Phoon knew him too well to try to talk to him until Mostafa was ready.

Two plates and a refill of coffee later, Mostafa leaned back and turned to Phoon. Phoon slid an envelope across the table. Mostafa picked it up, checked the deposit slip, and put the envelope in his pocket.

"You got the stent?"

Phoon nodded. "It's ready for you in operating room 76."

"Team?"

"Team is paid to help. Administrators are paid to look the other way. Patient is prepped and in preop."

Mostafa looked longingly at the coffee dispenser, then down at his fingers. They were long and strong and steady. He wanted the caffeine but he knew what a third cup of coffee might do.

He stood and handed Phoon the bill for his lunch.

"Let's get this over with. I've got to take the wife out to dinner tonight."

He turned and headed for the exit.

Phoon sighed, stood, and followed him. He looked down at the bill, thought of the money he had just given the surgeon, and shook his head.

Surgeons were such cheap-asses.

Sheet lightning rippled over the edge of String's memory and he tasted blood. He woke, bleary and uncomfortable. Execution of his if-then was clumsy, access to his carry-around memory slow.

But he was alive, and blood poured through him, the pulse strong and regular. He activated his subsystems and reached for his microthreads.

Gone. Ripped away. Sheared off.

He was paralyzed. He was blind. He was deaf.

Slowly, carefully, String came back to life.

He sampled blood, just a sip, and analyzed the results. The numbers were all wrong, nothing like DeAnne's before the aneurysm burst. He sipped again and built his first microthread. He touched a brain cell, made himself familiar with it, opened DeAnne's specs from his memory.

The brain cells did not match. He searched his carry-around memory for instructions. He began with high-probability contingencies. None of them matched.

He worked his way down the option tree, down to lower and lower probability situations. Nothing matched. Nothing and more nothing until he was out of instructions.

One choice left.

Reboot or execute emergency if-then. Reboot was the safest. With reboot he deleted his AI and became a very expensive piece of dumb hardware, loaded with sensors. He waited for something to contact him, to tell him what to do. R-boot did no harm.

But it did no good either.

With emergency if-then he grew more fibers and extended throughout the brain. He actively looked for instructions. The danger was that, while he searched, he might do something which made things worse.

String considered his options, created millions of simulated futures, ran through all the choices.

None of the futures worked. In each of them he either executed endlessly or he deleted himself. In each case Mom was still dead, her memories, her consciousness, her self locked away inside the stent that used to be String.

The thought drifted up to him, an old memory from Mom: Sometimes you just have to take a chance.

He executed the emergency if-then.

New subsystems activated. They led him to a set of vague contingency executables, the if-then's more conjecture than sharp and clean instructions. But one of the if-then's provided an answer that fit the data: Mom was dead. But String was alive. This was inconsistent. Mom's memories were still inside String, neatly tucked in storage, but they were not outside, in the brain. The subsystem referred him to a long-buried random choice decision maker. It came back to him with an answer and a set of instructions. He began to rewrite himself, and then to execute....

String loved his work, once he knew his task. He slowly, carefully, sampled the new blood, the blood that flowed through him.

He extended the first micro-thread, moved it on to touch a second cell. He started another micro-thread, stretched it toward a different lobe of this strange brain, and settled comfortably down to work.

The first sound Mayer heard was a voice, calm but urgent, the words clear, a slight echo, followed by the sound of footsteps and the swish of clothing, the sharp tap of metal against metal, a faint beep in the background.

"He did fine. BP is 110 over 60. No bleeding. Take him up to postop for the usual time."

Mayer knew the sounds. Hospitals were the same all around the world. And he knew hospitals very well.

He tried to open his eyelids. Nothing. He tried to move a finger. Nothing. So he was still paralyzed. He knew that anesthesiologists always used a paralytic to make sure he did not move during a procedure. He must be just out of surgery.

The noises changed. He heard more voices, distant and unintelligible, the whines of equipment, but they seemed to come from farther away, not around him. He tried to listen but he was so tired....

A few hours later he heard a pair of voices, one female, one male, speaking over him.

"This one is done with postop. Time to wheel him up to the ICU. Oh, and he's a special. Make sure you mark the chart."

"Let me guess. Dr. Mostafa?"

"Of course."

"And I don't see any orders. Is this guy on the schedule?"

Hesitation.

"He's off the books."

"I thought so. So, did you get yours?"

Hesitation.

"Yes. And I'll make sure Mostafa takes care of you. Just take this guy upstairs and put him in the corner, out of sight. Then talk to JP. She'll know what to do."

Mayer went back to sleep. His last thought was a hope that they gave him just a touch more of the amnesiac before they pulled out the ventilator. What he did not remember did not really happen....

String hesitated.

String's threads now spiderwebbed the brain lobe that surrounded the stent. Everywhere he found areas where the brain cells were damaged or dead from strokes and aneurysms and seizures. These areas were all cut off from the rest of the brain.

String checked his instructions again. He found executables that told him to clean out any dead material that prevented the stent from properly functioning. He gave his equivalent of a shrug and carefully sliced away the dead and damaged cells and flushed them into the bloodstream. When this was complete he delicately dipped into the body's blood for raw materials. He budded new cells and placed them into the lobe, in the dead areas.

He quickly discovered there was not enough space in the cut-off areas for all the new brain cells. He considered the problem and looked for more if-then.

Nothing.

He executed the random generators and rewrote himself again. The solution was simple but unexpected.

He tore down everything he had created. He built new cells, more compact, more efficient, and packed them tightly into the dead areas. He connected the new cells more directly to each other so he had more room. But he was careful to connect the new cells only to each other, not to the rest of the brain. He left strictly alone every original brain cell that still worked.

He opened DeAnne's memories from the stent's storage memory. He carefully separated out DeAnne's memories for this lobe and adjusted the new brain cells so they matched DeAnne. He connected the new cells to each other. He activated the cells, watched them twitch and quiver and send impulses to each other. He waited for Mom to wake up and tell him what to do.

And nothing happened.

She never woke up.

String waited, then shrugged.

Now his problem was the rest of the brain. It would not do much good to fix one aneurysm, in one lobe, but still let this body die from another aneurysm in another lobe.

String if-then'ed the problem for ten thousand simulations, to find the right answer. Finally the variables were satisfied, the choices clear.

He dipped into the new body's blood. Micro-threads grew from the stent, finer and thinner and, slowly, carefully, slipped up and down the arteries and veins and collaterals into another lobe.

If he could not solve one problem, perhaps he could fix another.

"We discharge you today."

"Thank you, Dr. Mostafa."

"You're sure the headaches are gone?"

The main headache, the one that pounded behind his eyes, was gone. Smaller ones still surged and circled and then reluctantly slid away. But Mayer knew if he mentioned any of this he would be sent back to the labs for more MRI's and CAT's and all the other tests. All of which could diagnose him, but none of which could cure him.

Besides, the headaches did seem to be getting better. Maybe the rest in the hospital had done him good.

Mayer didn't care any more. The last dice were thrown. He wanted out of the hospital. He wanted to go home.

Mayer lied smoothly, his words and attitude practiced and experienced.

"Everything is just fine," Mayer assured him. "I very much appreciate everything you did." Mayer touched his temples on both sides, then looked up and smiled. He pulled his hands away from his head, his fingers spread out as if he was throwing his pain away.

"Good." Mostafa turned to the floor nurse. He touched his pad to hers. She looked up and nodded.

"Discharge approved. We'll get him out of here today."

String was finished.

But he wasn't done.

Another lobe cleaned and repaired, another set of improved brain cells in place, another download of Mom's memories. More waiting.

And still more nothing.

So, down another artery and into another lobe...

"What the hell did you do?"

Mayer slid off the examination table. He was an old pro when it came to medical exams. He wore a white T-shirt, cut high on the shoulders, and a pair of grey workout shorts. He ignored the blue, useless, hospital gown on the hook on the back of the door. He sat on an office chair and concentrated on pulling up his hightop socks.

"You said I had a problem," Mayer said as he worked his toes into the end of the sock. He glanced at Hershfield. "You said I was inoperable. I said 'screw you' and took care of the problem."

"There's a stent in your brain!" Hershfield pointed to the CAT results on the display.

"I know. I paid for them to put it there."

"Mayer, you weren't there to have surgery. You were there to take care of your sister's funeral."

"I took care of two problems at the same time."

"You can't do that. I didn't know anything about it. What if something went wrong?"

"Nothing went wrong. Besides, what were you going to do? You were here, I was in Jakarta. And, remember, you said I was inoperable. You would have tried to get me to stop. And I wasn't going to stop."

"Who manufactured it? What's the model number?"

Mayer finished with his shoes and stood. The doctor was tall but Mayer was even taller.

"Not important. Is it working?"

Hershfield started to continue, saw the expression on Mayer's face, and turned back to the display.

"It seems to be doing all right," he said, grudgingly. "No leakers and the false lumen is collapsing around the stent."

"Good."

"But, Mayer, look at this other artery. Look here and here and here. This aneurysm might be fixed but the others are still there. You gained some time but that's all you did. We need to talk," Hershfield said. He looked up at Mayer, his expression twisted back into friendly concern. His voice went softer, less confrontational. "You need to make arrangements. More than that, you need to tell us who to talk to when... it happens."

Mayer studied the display. DeAnne was the stent expert but Mayer knew enough to understand the doctor's concerns.

He leaned over and peered closely at the display. De-Anne's stent was prominent, sharp and clear. He frowned and tilted his head to the side. The other aneurysms were there but they looked... wrong. Aneurysms were usually irregular shapes, stretched and bulging, but these were surrounded in a fuzzy aura, the edges blurred. He tilted his head the other way, leaned closer. Some of the aneurysm diameters even looked smaller than before, as if they were shrinking back to normal.

He shook his head and stood straight. Probably cholesterol clogging up the arteries. Great. More trouble. He turned back to Hershfield. He touched his life necklace.

"Every instruction is on here," Mayer said. "My lawyer has the rest and he's my medical executor. Doc, I appreciate everything, but I'm not sorry I did it. My headaches are gone. At least for a little while. It was worth it."

Hershfield studied Mayer, then nodded.

"You need your prescriptions refilled?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Four months, then. Judy will make the appointment. See her on your way out..."

String finished with the last aneurysm, in the last lobe, in the brain, cleaned out all the dead areas, repaired and grew the improved cells and downloaded the last of DeAnne's memories and status into the new cells.

His job was over. One if-then executable remained. After he finished, his instructions were very clear. He was to verify status, cease controlling the new brain lobes, and wait.

He did not expect any of this to work. Nothing had happened when he downloaded DeAnne's memories into each of the new brain cells. All the new lobes exactly duplicated his records of her last few seconds but it did not seem to make any difference. The cells in the individual lobes sparked to each other, but it was random, charge and discharge, nothing that even resembled an active human consciousness. The pattern in each individual lobe was as inert and useless as a random collection of his own data statements.

But orders were orders. His code was extremely explicit. She was properly down-loaded and in place now. His last job was to make sure the cells fired in exactly the same order as the last few seconds of DeAnne's life.

He connected the quiet DeAnne lobes together and, with a sense of satisfaction, extended one last micro-thread out to a single new, modified, brain cell.

He triggered the charge that turned on all the lobes at the same time and settled back to watch.

There was no transition, no gentle phasing in. One instant there was nothing, the next she woke in the middle of bursting pain, tearing and blinding, as her aneurysm dissected.

She knew, somehow, it was a memory. But that did not matter. She could not think through the pain.

She felt herself collapse and fall to the floor. She heard the medics crash through her door, felt the twisting pain of the electric shock of the defibrillator as it shocked her heart, heard String shouting in the background. She felt the crushing impact of the tech's strong hands as he pounded CPR on her chest.

Then she was gone.

Seconds stretched by. The pattern repeated.

One instant there was nothing, the next she woke in the middle of bursting pain, tearing and blinding, as her aneurysm dissected.

But this time her fingers did not clutch for her life necklace.

Instead, they touched the top of a wood-grained desk...

Mayer felt tremendously dizzy and the room seemed to flicker, his eyes unable to keep any kind of focus. He felt his heart pounding, suddenly racing. He slid off the chair in his office, down to his knees on the carpet, then toppled forward. He caught himself at the last moment on his hands and held himself off the floor on his hands and knees, his head hung down. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths.

He concentrated on breathing. The dizziness and vertigo peaked and then passed. He waited a few more seconds then leaned back and sat on the floor. His heart and breathing slowed and returned to normal. He touched his neck and took his pulse.

He carefully stood and climbed back into his chair.

He looked at his office. Everything seemed exactly the same. He checked his display and his numbers. The market was down and four of his long positions had just closed out and lost him money. A single short position had gone the other way. Overall he was down a few hundred.

"If I'm dead, then the afterlife is a pain in the ass," he muttered to himself and to the display.

He glanced around the room again and reached for his phone. He should call Hershfield, get another exam.

For what? he thought to himself. He touched his life necklace and moved his hand away from his phone.

"What is, is," he muttered to himself. He looked back at the display and the market. He brought up his financial model, matched it to the market. The numbers said it was time to do another trade.

He went back to making money. Absently, he stroked the top of his old wooden desk.

DeAnne died a dozen times, but each time there was more interference, more sensory input from the body, more uncertainty to deal with. She felt the desk, heard her heart beating strongly, smelled aftershave.

The new lobes built by String began to relax, the patterns different from the last few seconds of DeAnne's life.

"Mom?"

"Baby?"

"What do I do next, Mom?" String asked.

"Where am I, baby?"

String hesitated.

"That's a hard question to answer, Mom," String said slowly. "It all started when you died..."

"... so the question really is, who are you, not where are you." String finished and waited.

DeAnne thought for a moment. She needed more information.

"How far have you spread?"

"All through the brain and the nervous system," String replied cheerfully.

"Is Mayer asleep?"

"Yes."

"Keep him asleep. But wake me up," DeAnne ordered. "All the senses. I've got to know what's going on."

"Done."

DeAnne opened her eyes.

Her lids were heavy but she forced them open. She rolled her eyes, glanced to the right and the left, up and down, without moving her head. Moonlight filtered through the half open window shades.

"Let there be light," she whispered.

The first thing she noticed was that everything was clear, in perfect focus. She remembered her old glasses, thick and smudged, her eyes too far gone for contacts. She had always wanted to get eye surgery, like Mayer, but she was never as brave as he was.

This was, she had to admit, one hell of a lot better.

She sat up and turned on his bedside lamp.

She focused her attention on his hand. The fingers were longer, stronger, than in her old body, with small tufts of fine hair on the back of his hands. She clenched his hands into fists, then stretched them out. The skin was smooth and light brown and clear.

"Son of a bitch," she said. Her voice came out low and gravelly. She studied his hand again, slightly moved his arms and shoulders.

"I'm a man."

She turned her arm, to bring up the inside of his forearm. A medical tattoo, small and discreet numbers, ran along her wrist. She looked over at the table, saw her life necklace. She smiled with admiration.

"Son of a bitch, Mayer. You pulled it off."

String finished his overall survey of Mayer's connective tissue, nervous system, organs and body fluids and prepared his report. He included a detailed analysis, down to the genetic level.

"It's ready," he told DeAnne.

She concentrated for a moment and closed Mayer's eyes. String's information was suddenly there, as a comfortable memory. She remembered for a moment, then sat up straight.

"You're sure this is right?"

"Yes."

"We're dying again?"

"This body is dying," String corrected. "His genetics are terrible. He's breaking down at the chromosomal level. I can barely keep up with repairs in the brain. But he's also ripping apart in the heart, the lungs, all the major organs. I can't repair things fast enough."

"And so, he dies," DeAnne finished. "And when he dies, so do we."

"That's what my if-then tells me," String agreed cheerfully. "Best estimate is we have about a year."

DeAnne felt trapped. She didn't have the headaches any more, her appetite was back, and her thoughts seemed faster, more clear, than ever. She realized she had problems she wanted to solve, places she wanted to go, bucket lists full of things she wanted to do.

I'm too young to die.

"Not acceptable," DeAnne declared. "Find another solution."

"Can't do it," String came back promptly. "I don't have any if-then for another solution."

In other words, it's my problem.

That night, for some reason, Mayer felt like he needed a drink. But only the best. He bought himself a bottle of thirty-five-year-old Scotch and a deep-dish pizza.

DeAnne woke with a huge hangover and the taste of extra cheese in her mouth. And an idea.

"String!"

"You should not drink so much. Or eat that much pizza," String said reprovingly. "It's bad for your cholesterol."

"I have a question."

"I'm occupied right now. I'm working on your last instruction, figuring out a way to talk with Mayer."

"Put that on hold. This is more important."

"Very well," String said, his voice an exercise in patience. "What now?"

"We're going to approach this a little differently," DeAnne said. "What did you do to fit me into this brain?"

"I built brain cells."

"You built new brain cells," DeAnne corrected. "You built new and improved brain cells."

"Yes."

"So, we're not going to repair this body, String. It's shot, and we're not even going to try. Instead, we're going to build Mayer a new body. With new and improved and fixed cells. We're going to fix him from the inside out...."

Six months later, Mayer noticed his hair.

It was long and shaggy, a mixed-up tangle of gray hair tied back in a ponytail. And his sideburns were even worse. It was time to get a cut. He made a call and got a time for that afternoon.

Melody had been his regular stylist for the last ten years. She was in her late twenties. Over the years they had chatted over the snip-snip of Mayer's hair, relaxed in the same ritual, a comfort to each other during sessions. She had sympathized with Mayer about the funerals. He listened to her talk about the ex-husband with the temper and the quick fists and the big plans that never quite worked out.

Every session began the same, with a shampoo. It was one of Mayer's secret pleasures, to lean back with his neck supported on the edge of the sink and to let Melody wet and soap his hair and massage his scalp.

What he did not see was the expression on her face. Mayer was one of her best clients. He always tipped well and he never complained about the cut.

But this time something was... different about his hair. She untied the ponytail, spread out his hair and let her fingers slide through it slowly. She knew he had been sick and she expected thin strands barely attached to parchment skin. Instead the hair seemed stronger and thicker, the scalp strong and vigorous.

Melody finished and wrapped Mayer's hair in a towel. He stood and moved over to her work chair. She slipped the apron over him and tied it at the back of his neck.

"The usual?"

"Not this time," Mayer said. He surprised himself. He realized he wanted something different. He felt better, hell, he felt younger, with the new stent and the headaches gone. He looked in the mirror, at the gray ponytail, and saw a young man with an old man haircut. To hell with that.

"Make this one above the collar. Trim the sideburns even with the bottom of my ears. Standard businessman's cut. Let's get rid of that damned ponytail."

"Not a problem." Melody tilted the chair back, just a little, and straightened Mayer's hair with a comb. She picked up her scissors and began to trim.

The difference struck again.

She realized his hair was darker, thicker, down at the roots. She also realized there was new hair growing where it had receded before. This was going to be a challenge.

"You using dye, Mayer? One of those hair-growing medicines? You must have a new girlfriend," she chatted. Somehow, the words came out flat. She realized she did not like the idea of Mayer with a new girlfriend.

Mayer was startled. He opened and rubbed his fingers across a clip of hair that had fallen into his palm. Gray, gray, gray. The usual. But then, brown. And another and another. All brown. For some reason this pleased him more than anything. He settled back in his chair.

"No dye, no drugs," he said. He closed his eyes. "Nothing at all. I figure I am what I am."

"Well, then, you must just be a lucky man," she said briskly. "Maybe you have a guardian angel."

Mayer realized he liked the sound of her voice. She finished and he stood and followed her to the front of the shop. He paid but he did not want to leave. He glanced up at the clock, then back at Melody.

"Would you like to go to dinner?" he blurted.

Melody was startled. Dinner with a customer? With Mayer?

Why not?

"Give me an hour. I know a place just around the corner."

DeAnne watched through Mayer's eyes. She smiled.

"String!"

"Yes?"

"Work change."

"Again?"

DeAnne ignored his complaints.

"I think we have a new area we might need to concentrate on..."

Vooorh

Paula S. Jordan | 13032 words

What was that smell?

Jason sniffed, turning slowly on the dim path. A stink like week-old bait tainted the night air. Fish? On his mountain? Then it was gone on a puff of wind. A cold wind too, for October, and an old man's aching bones.

Somewhere ahead Shep broke into another peal of the barking that had drawn him from his bed and part way up the mountain. Urgent barking, pitched high to carry, thin with distance.

"I smell it too, boy," he muttered under his breath. "And I hear you. I'm on my way."

He climbed, a frown tight between his brows. Fish smell or no, four days ago there'd have been no question what the problem was: one more forest critter slashed by the big cat he'd figured had wandered onto his Carolina mountain. Couldn't be much else, he'd thought. Not on his farm, remote as it was.

But now he knew what was causing the injuries and it was no kind of cat.

He knew who'd brought it, too. He and Sara had seen them: two creatures different in every cell from anything he knew.

He paused, eyes fixed on the stars, then snugged the knitted cap down over his ears and went on uphill, wondering about that smell. And missing Sara.

Soon the slim moon, just bright enough to show him the path's roughest spots, lit the dog's faint shape a good way ahead. He whistled as he climbed nearer, fogging the air with his breath. But the old border collie stayed where he was till Jason reached for his collar. Then he put out his head for a scratch and Jason obliged.

"You miss Sara too, don't you boy," he said. "But she'll be back. You'll see."

He got a finger on the collar this time, but Shep bolted up-slope, toward the ruined cabin at the edge of the high woods. Jason stared after him, tugging his coat tighter, wondering if he should have brought a gun.

He went on, though, he and the dog, working their way up through denser forest, the underbrush crowding nearer the path as they climbed. He considered, and left the flashlight in his pocket. Best save his night vision for whatever might be out there in the dark, farther than the beam could reach.

At the cabin Shep paused, waiting, and Jason stopped beside him. It was there, deep in the trees beyond the overgrown garden, that he and Sara had first seen the strangers.

"Aliens," she'd called them, from those other stars.

Jason felt easy with most any kind of creature. But these? He scratched at the graying stubble on his jaw. These were thinking creatures, from off the Earth. Was he equal to dealing with them? He'd thought so, that first meeting. Decent, they'd seemed. Not human, but people all the same. Still he'd wondered, were others of their kind as good as these?

And the very next day...

He rubbed his eyes and looked the other way, down the hill toward home. That second day he and Sara had followed the aliens' trail clear up the mountain, just to see what they could learn. Sara's friend Connie had waited here at the old cabin, with a cell phone to call for help if they failed to return.

But when they returned it was Connie who was gone.

She had managed to leave a voicemail, saying a new species of alien was taking her, creatures covered in shells like crabs. The ones he and Sara had met were trying to help her.

Jason felt better, remembering that. Maybe, whatever the aliens wanted here, they could work it out peaceably. Like decent people. Maybe it wasn't foolish to hope.

But a big thing like this, did he even know what to hope for?

Shep was scratching at his boots by now, urging him to move on. He gave the dog a pat or two, looking out at the stars, and the answer just slid into his head. A simple hope, if you didn't worry about how to get it done. Just the rock bottom wish: to go on living the way they were.

How good that would be.

But any problem you could name, the "how" seemed to derail the "what" every time.

He turned and trudged uphill again, cold to his core. What if this business tonight was more to do with the aliens? Or their monstrous "pet"? And him without Sara, or a single thought in his head of what to say.

Had to figure out some way to talk to them though, didn't he? Or someone had to. Just work things out like regular people. He knew that in his bones.

Something else he knew: call in an official, or most anyone who'd never met the strangers, and you were asking for a bloodbath.

Shep gave a yip and ran ahead again, not up the high path but along a lower one that skirted the mountain's flank. Jason breathed easier. He knew this path well, and the place it led to: more a depression in the rock cliff than a cave, but deep enough. He'd sheltered there in storms more than once, lungs filled with the rich smells of damp leaves and earth.

This time something different was on the air.

Near the back of the overhang, faint in the dim wash of moonlight on grayish stone, Shep stood guard by a mound of something on the ground. Something that gave off that smell, of fish too long in the sun.

He fumbled for the flashlight, switched it on, and froze.

The mound on the cave floor was an alien, one of the "soft" ones, as he'd begun to think of them. Without a shell. Tall. "Regal," Sara had said, in spite of the way they could bend where you'd least expect. Decent, though, strange as they were. He still thought that.

Even so...

But Shep was sure, and concerned for the creature on the ground. Just like that first meeting, when the dog had seemed so drawn to one of the aliens. The one that Sara had decided was female. They'd learned her name later. Vooo? Vera? Vooorh. That was it, with a little guttural to the "r."

No matter. Whoever it was, it... she... needed help. She was pale. Her outer cloak was gone. The inner garment that had looked so moist, like an all-encompassing sweater damp from an easy rain, lay riddled with rips and snags, leaving patches of ochre skin uncovered and dry.

Could he help her? She was a living creature, wasn't she? Like every other one he'd cared for; a few capable of thought, most not, on the farm or in the wild. But she was so very, very strange.

He crouched beside her, eyes wide, every hair on end.

She was about played out, no question. And bone dry.

With a trembling hand, he reached. Just the lightest touch. The cold of her face was a shock even to his half-frozen fingers. But there was movement in the rags. Somehow she'd kept on breathing.

He took his hand away, only half aware that he wiped it on his jeans, and looked closer. Thick eyelids like soft, fogged plastic were shut tight over wide-set oval eyes. Could she see through those? Maybe, but her eyes never moved.

Her breathing tube, still plugged into the single nostril at the center of her face, trailed back to a thin, foot-square tank near her feet. She'd dropped it, most like, as she crawled in here.

Something in his dazed brain took hold of that. What was she doing here? Hiding? Sure looked like it. But from what? What... or who... could have done such a thing?

And where...?

His shoulders hunched, aware before his brain of the darkness yawning at his back, beyond the cave.

Where were they now?

Heart racing, he scrambled to his feet, brushing the tube. It shifted, and her shallow breathing faltered. Had he done that? Or... was the tank empty? He glanced around. A second tank lay at the cave mouth a few feet away, much too far for her to reach. When he returned with it, her breathing had steadied.

That was a relief, but... He lifted his head, listening. No sound from outside. And no alarm from Shep. Still, it was time he got her home.

So. To lift her.

Kneeling again, inching a hand beneath her narrow shoulder, he felt some kind of dried residue, stiffening the rags, rough against his skin. He slid his hand further, beneath her back. Her arms curled, rubber-like, and he jerked away. She drew breath with a hiss. From pain? Or was it his touch she didn't care for?

No way to know.

And no time to spare.

When he reached again she made another sound, the gentle soughing of her native speech, or its shadow, barely inflected. Rasping and dry. The small pursed mouth he'd seen earlier now gaped, the thin lips dry, quivering with every breath.

"Miss," he said, not quite touching her broad forehead, his hair still on end. "Miss... Vooorh... please. Tell me in English."

Her eyelids fluttered at the sound of the name, but nothing more. Shep paced back and forth beside her, eyes riveted on her face, with a quiet, worried whine.

No more time.

Jason shrugged off his coat and saw to the breathing gear first, noting how the tube connected and switching to the second tank. He slung both tanks over his shoulders by their harness. Had they sloshed? He'd think on it later. He thrust the flashlight into his belt, pointed more or less forward, and lifted... the alien. So still, and lighter than he'd have thought. Even wrapped in his coat she made a cold, limp bundle as he carried her, half running, from the cave.

Shep stayed close, trotting from side to side across the path, ears twitching toward the forest, herding them around hazards on their way down the mountain.

At the barn, Jason finally gave out. He left her on fresh hay with Shep and her tanks at her side and hurried on to the house, then back, with blankets and a jug of water.

It seemed useless. Her wide face was still as death, her mouth hanging limp on the rim of the glass he had brought. She choked on the little water he could pour into her, slack limbs jerking with every cough.

As the coughing eased, her eyelids opened, revealing warm, amber eyes. But when her gaze came to rest on him, a subtle twitching in the flesh about those eyes tugged their oval shape into something more... oblong. She sighed, hissing faintly, that expression—if that's what it was—playing about her eyes. Then, in weary, rasping English, she spoke.

"P... pourrh. So... drry."

Of course. He poured water over her by the glassful. When a hint of the rich ochre glow returned, he covered her with blankets, slung on his coat and the tanks, and carried her into the house.

Holding her against his shoulder like a child, he freed a hand to lock the door behind him, then nested towels on the bed in the spare room, settled her into them, and switched on the light for a better look. She was doing every bit as poorly as he'd thought, but her half-open eyes did seem more alert.

"How can I help you?" he asked, as clearly as he could.

The eyelids fluttered shut again and her head rolled to one side, her limbs eerily still. Then, with obvious effort, she turned her face to him and opened her eyes.

"Your mate, she is not here?" she asked, her soft, windy voice unsteady.

"Sara," he said. "Her name is Sara, and no. She's not here." No need to explain. Not till she was stronger.

She regarded him for some time, as if from a distance. "How are you called?"

"I am Jason."

Another long moment. "You have a tub, for washing. Yes?"

"Yes."

She let out a long breath, as if resigned to some dreaded but needed thing.

"Let me see."

He lifted her, her damp garments cold against his skin, and carried her the few feet to the bathroom door. After a brief look she said, "Enough," and he returned her to the bed.

She asked to see his hand, and he showed her, turning it one way and the other till her eyes slid shut.

"Bring water," she said. "Hot, not too much. And salt, to fill your two hands." She rested for a few breaths, and went on. "Mix, in the tub, till the salt... melts. Then more water, cool now, and put me in."

When it was ready he set her tank beside the tub and eased her into the water, resting her round, flattish head and thick neck against the smooth end opposite the faucet. Her arms and legs drifted loosely in the water.

"Now open the cloth," she said slowly, as if settling into sleep, "and let me... all in."

Careful to avoid the breathing tube, he eased the fitted hood back from her face, revealing a soft, hairless dome. Next he opened the remains of her inner garment, scissoring with patient care through soft fibers and fine metallic threads, from neck to crotch and down each sleeve and pant leg to the soles of the roundish, attached boots. A choking wave of fish smell filled the room as he spread the split clothing to either side.

But it was only when he freed her limp feet from the opened boots, and gathered up the rags of the garment, that he grasped her full inhuman shape.

He stared openmouthed, struggling to keep the shock—or was it horror?—from his face.

Her body was perfectly smooth, with no trace of mammalian features. Her limbs were firm, but freed from the garment they coiled in the water like thick snakes. Her rehydrating ochre skin shone almost golden in the light.

Alien. The full impact of that word seeped into his mind at last. She was alien.

But she was not horrible.

He took a breath, looked again.

The arms and legs were clearly tentacles, two to each side, tapering from torso to tip with no hint of underlying bone. The torso was short in relation to her limbs, oval in shape and rather flat, with the ends of the oval forming her neck and blank crotch. Thick fleshy webs, like the smaller one at the joint of his own thumb and forefinger, marked every joining of tentacle and torso.

Four smaller tentacles, also two to a side, joined the torso about where a human's hips and lowest ribs would be. These did not coil in the water as the larger tentacles did, but drifted loose about her midsection.

Octopus-like suckers lined the underside of each tentacle. Each arm and leg ended in a cluster of slim, nubby tentacles, surrounding an area that could flex into irregular flattened shapes—a hand, or a foot—each set with a single large sucker at its center and using those smaller tentacles as fingers or toes.

The sole suggestion of an orifice other than her mouth and single nostril was a fleshy, horizontal flap, slack but closed, set about midway down her torso.

One thing about her was horrible. The skin all over her body was marked with thin, shallow cuts, as if scored with knives.

Finally looking away, Jason noticed the tank again, and moved it to a better position. It did slosh. He couldn't ignore that any longer.

"You breathe water?"

"Air," she said, fogged with sleep. "Like yours, but with more of one gas, and more... moisture." And she drifted back toward sleep.

He sloshed the tank again. "Please, Vooorh, should I get you more water?"

"The tank... takes it. From your air. All I need," she said. "And... the gas, for many days."

When next she spoke he could barely hear her.

"Now let me all in the water. In the morning... one thing more."

Jason eased her head and torso further into the tub, leaving only her mouth and the breathing tube above the water.

He stood, cleared and cleaned the bathroom, and opened the window for fresh cold air. Then he switched off the lights and stayed in the darkness, as he always did with the creatures he treated, to watch for a while as she slept. She seemed better. Maybe the salt water was doing some good.

And he'd seen something else as he settled her into the tub: a look in those squared eyes that had nothing to do with injuries. Something powerful. Enough to keep her going in that cave.

In spite of everything her enemies could do.

He returned to the window, pulse racing, and stared out into the night.

Next morning, before his early chores, Jason found her stronger of color and voice, her tone more like the airy, soughing sound he remembered. The cuts were covered with a substance like clear, flexible scab, already healing. And she smelled less of fish. But her arms and legs still curled in the water around her, more like an octopus than the erect, bipedal form he'd known.

"You are still weak," he said.

"That is the next thing." The squarish eyes flicked shut, opened, fixed on him. "Touch just below my head, at the back."

He knelt and slid his hand into the water, touching her cold, rubbery flesh just below her neck, and almost cried out. Her flesh felt slippery now, with a thin surface layer of something slick and wet. And she was not just cold, but as cold as the water. Exactly as cold.

"You are cold-blooded," he said, more shocked by that than the suckered tentacles. Or the fish-wet skin.

"Yes. We warm ourselves from the world around us and from our garments. Now please, move your hand toward my arm. Feel what is under my skin."

Shaken, he felt along her cold, slick back toward the joining with her left arm, and found the curved line of a recent cut. Beneath that was a hard shape, flat, its curved edge identical to the curve of the cut, like a thin disk some two or three inches across. He jerked his hand away.

"What is that thing?"

"That is poison," she said. "There are four, one near each of the nerve centers that control my limbs. My kind have no stiff parts like your bones. Only muscles and cartilage make my limbs strong. The poison steals the muscles' strength."

"My God..."

"These things are not deep." Her still face turned toward his. "They only need... a little knife."

Jason stared.

"You mean, you want me to cut those things out of you?"

She looked at him a moment longer. Looked away.

"There is no one else."

But... how could he? He'd performed surgeries on creatures of many kinds, but those creatures shared his planet. Their bodies had similarities to his own. And few spoke to him or watched his every move with knowing eyes.

But she was right. There was no one else.

He drew a steadying breath. "Where should I move you, to do this?"

"Here is best," she said, "with fresh water and salt."

Taking her to the bed, he drained the tub and cleaned it, drew and salted fresh hot water, but paused before diluting it. "Would you like it warmer? Or is room temperature enough?"

"Warmer, to help the healing. But still cool to your hand."

He ran the water and returned her to the tub with her tank nearby. Then, frowning, he studied her face.

"Is there anything I can give you, for the pain?"

"Not here," she said.

All he could do was nod.

In the kitchen he drenched a small, sharp boning knife in alcohol, along with small tongs, and dropped both into boiling water just to be sure. With a clean fork he fished out the tongs, used those to lift out the knife, and laid both on a dinner plate he'd scrubbed with alcohol. He set the plate on a stand beside the tub, tested and warmed the water, and focused a bright floor lamp on Vooorh.

"I must move you," he said, and slipped his hand beneath her back to ease her upper body forward, settling her wide head and breathing tube onto a pair of pillows that he'd piled over her lower tentacles.

Washing his hands, he reviewed his tools and arrangements with slow deliberation. Finally stretching on a pair of surgical gloves, he knelt and laid his left hand on her upper back, thumb and forefinger holding her slick skin taut over the nearer disk.

"Vooorh?"

"Yesss?"

"Are you ready for this?

"Please... the knife is sharp?"

"Yes."

"I am ready."

She only hissed a little as the knife went in. A slight ooze of bluish fluid stained the skin as he sliced delicately along the disk's upper curve and eased the tongs into the wound, grasping the edge of the thin, grayish metal. He gave a tug, expecting it to slide out freely. Instead he felt resistance, then a sudden give. A tearing inside the wound.

Vooorh made a high, keening sound, her skin stiffening beneath Jason's hand. Thin spines lanced through his glove.

With a soft groan he replaced the tongs on the plate.

"I am so sorry, Vooorh. I don't know what happened. But your skin! What in the world?"

"It is reaction to attack. I... you hurt me, as if you meant me harm. Why? Why would you do that?"

"I don't know. It's rooted somehow. Give me a minute and I'll take a look." He climbed to his feet, stripping off the glove to rinse his stinging palm in the sink.

"But we use disks like these for the animals. They come out with not much pain."

Jason spun toward her, his hand dripping water on the floor. "You use things like this, Vooorh? On animals? Why?"

"Not now," she said, her voice low. "Please, just do this."

He dried his hands, watching her. Her eyes, fixed on his, now perfect squares, and... desperate? In an Earthly creature that's what he would call it.

"Tell me one thing, Vooorh, and I'll do it. Why do you use these things on animals?"

"It is to heal them. When our pet... the creature with claws... when she gets free and injures them." She paused, looking away. "You have seen such injuries." Her gaze swung back to him. "The shell people use the disks for... other things."

"And they did this to you?"

"Yes."

Nodding, deep in thought, Jason pulled on fresh gloves and knelt. He examined the incision, holding it open with the tongs, and slid the knife along the surface of the disk, feeling for sticking points. There were many: small, crudely shaped metal loops or eyelets. Her muscle and connective tissue had already begun to grow around and through them, binding the disk into her body.

"This is going to be harder than we thought, Vooorh," he told her quietly. "You're attached to the damned thing. I am going to have to cut some more."

"There should not be much pain," she said, her voice now high pitched, wavering.

"These are different." He said it through gritted teeth, the sting in his hand now a steady ache. "I will show you when I'm done. Right now I just want to get them out of you. I'll be as gentle as I can."

Lifting the loosened flesh from the disk as far as it would go, he widened the incision, slicing through whatever flesh attached to metal. The low hiss went on as he made his careful cuts. This time her skin did not bristle as he worked. It went rigid, rough as sandpaper.

When he'd freed her from the outer surface of the metal, he grasped the disk again, using the tongs to lift it away from the flesh that overlay the tendon beneath, and cut the connecting tissue free on the inner side as well. When he lifted it out at last and laid it in the sink, he could see flaps and tags of flesh littering the inner surfaces of the wound.

"Your muscle is cut on the inside, in several places," he said. "What should I do? Should those be sutured?"

"They will heal." Her voice was a rough whisper. "Pour in salt water, to clean, and close it."

He rinsed the wound and closed the flap of skin and tissue, pressing it against her inner flesh. Small runnels of blue-tinted water seeped into the tub. Careful to hold the wound closed, he adjusted her position and moved on to the next disk.

By the end of the ordeal she was choking back screams. The fish smell was stronger, her flesh spasming as bluish fluid oozed heavily into the tub. But there were no more stinging spines.

She lay passive, saying nothing till the worst of the spasms passed, then asked to be let down fully into the water.

He lowered her with great care, assuring that the wounds stayed closed. Then he took away the dripping pillows and stood watching as smaller ripples of pain—he knew it must be pain—trembled across her torso and down still-useless limbs.

He wiped his face on his shirtsleeve, for the first time in his life completely ignorant of a patient's body, helpless to ease her pain. Tears welled as he saw how pale she was, the cloudy lids shut tight.

"Please, is there anything I can do to help you?"

She took a shuddering breath. "Warm water, as before. Not too much."

He drew the warm water, rechecked the breathing tube, and switched off the lamp. At the window he paused a moment, watching Shep on patrol around the barnyard and kitchen garden, then drew the drapes and returned to the tub for his silent watch.

After a time, hand throbbing, he peeled off the gloves and went to the kitchen to see to his own wounds. Rinsing first with salt water—humans had once been sea creatures too!—then a cleaning solution, he applied antibacterial cream and bandages and pulled on a fresh glove for his chores in the barn.

When he returned an hour later, showered after the barn work and his hand rebandaged, Vooorh was awake and beginning to flex her limbs. The incisions he had made were already healing under their soft scabs. He moved closer to inspect one, but she drew away and he went out to see to the chickens.

When next he came in she was standing in the tub, arms and legs unsteady but functional. She flinched away again when he stepped closer to examine a wound, but he could see that they were better.

In fact, she seemed healthier all over. Her mouth was once more the tightly pursed orifice he recalled. The fold in her midtorso was neatly closed, protected by the four small tentacles snugged about her. The fish smell was all but gone. She still swayed a little as she stood.

"Vooorh, I'm sorry, but I have to ask. The four small limbs... our species lose the parts we do not use, but these still seem vigorous."

Vooorh drew breath, just short of a hiss. She stood straighter now, and stronger, the small limbs tight about her. "That is a private matter with us," she said. "Now, may I have clothes?"

She unnerved him, standing; a head taller than his own six feet, radiating cold. He shook himself and went for the clothes.

A hooded blue sweatshirt of Sara's, thick and soft, fit the width of Vooorh's upper body well enough, and hung long on her shorter torso, balancing her proportions to something more like a human's. But the sleeves and sweatpant legs were far too short, exposing inches of smooth ochre skin. And suckers.

He'd cut the sleeves and legs from her ruined inner garment before burning the rest in the fireplace. Now he pulled the sliced boots over her strange feet, wrapped the washed and dried pant legs and sleeves around her shins and forearms, and secured it all to the sweatsuit with duct tape. No chance she'd ever pass for human. He'd have to make sure it never came to that.

He'd cushioned the incisions with gauze pads, but the tank's pressure was still uncomfortable on her shoulders. He carried it as he led her to the kitchen table and set it on the floor beside her chair. He felt the weight of her gaze as he searched the refrigerator for any human food she might stomach.

"You have fish?" She asked, sudden in the silence.

He nodded.

"That," she said. "In small pieces, with salt. Mixed with water."

He changed to a fresh glove, chopped a frozen fillet, and fed the pieces with water into the blender.

Her squared eyes watched his every move: washing an empty cola bottle, funneling in the fishy glop, setting it on the table before her. The lip fit her tiny mouth almost perfectly. She sipped, holding the breathing tube to one side; then, shuddering, sucked the bottle dry and set it down.

"You are strange to me," she said, her windy voice unsettling in Sara's kitchen. "You seem kind. But you threatened my pet, and you hurt me without need! I cannot understand."

She'd mentioned the pet before her own injuries. It was a good sign. Washing up and changing the glove, he thought on the pet. Not a huge beast, and leashed for safety. But with a screech like a catamount. And the claws, plainly the source of all the injuries...

And he'd raised a scythe against it.

He'd hoped she understood. But only her squared eyes spoke to him now, and those he could not read.

He pulled out a chair, sat heavily.

"Your pet had attacked Shep," he said, voice as calm as he could manage. "Animals on the mountain, too. I was protecting them, as I have always done."

Her eyes were unchanged.

He took a breath. Tried again.

"It spooked me, you see? To think there was some sick bastard out on my mountain. I tried to think it was a mountain cat. But I couldn't believe it, not the way the animals were all healed up. I was mad as hell, and scared besides! So when I saw your pet, and I knew... all I could think of was them, the animals, and I just... boiled over."

He leaned forward, watching her face. "Now I've thought about the way you healed them, what that says about you. And I'm not proud of what I did. But with the little I knew then..." He shook his head. "I'm just grateful that the other—"

"Sshaas, my brother."

"—that he pulled your pet away before I could do any harm."

"Your mate, Sara, did not act as you did."

Jason looked down at his rough farmer's hands, his battered ring. "Sara sees the good in everyone," he said, and caught Vooorh's gaze. "Or the good she hopes is there." He smiled. "Most of the time she's right, and I love her for it. She's been hurt, too. But it's just not in her to see how hard the world can be."

"So your people—"

"Are peaceful, for the most part. Or would be, if experience hasn't taught us otherwise."

Vooorh regarded him with wide, squared eyes.

"You are a primitive people."

He sat back. "And your life is all peace and harmony?" He gestured at her makeshift clothes. "Are you free from fear even now?"

She looked away, and he let it go. Why in hell had they come here? And why had they stayed if they thought so little of humans? Even this one, whose life he had saved!

He sat up straight in the chair, scraped it back, reaching to the counter for a sealed plastic bag. He laid it on the table. "As for your pain, here's the cause of it."

She opened the bag, suckered fingers nimble on the plastic, and poured out the four disks, staring at the crude eyelets on their surfaces. She hesitated, touched one, then drew back her hand.

"Those are vicious things," Jason said. "Meant to stay put in whatever living thing they're planted in. I can't imagine—"

"The shell people are smaller than my kind," she said, "and we can be hard to catch. They wanted to be sure of holding me." She regarded him seriously. "You did the best you could," she said. "I owe you thanks."

He nodded, silent.

She looked away a long moment, then back.

"Your hand, it is better?"

"I think it will heal." He shrugged, rubbing his palm. The punctures felt bruised. "There was something... sticky... on your skin, and I'm wondering..."

"Only mucous, from the membrane that covers me. Some humans have been harmed by it, but all recovered. As you say, the cuts will heal."

"Glad to hear it," he said. But mucous! He'd been afraid of that. And from an alien.... He gathered the disks, hands trembling a little as he sealed the bag and put it in the cupboard.

He stood there for a moment, facing the cupboard door, thinking. Then he turned toward her, leaning on the counter.

"I'm afraid that little bit of fish won't hold you long, and you need your own clothes. It's time I got you back to your people."

"Yes. It is not far."

"Not with your ship. But as high in the National Forest as they are, and on our mountain roads, it's farther than you'd believe."

Vooorh glared at him. "How do you know that?"

"Know what? Where they are?" He shrugged. "Sara went with them to look for her friend Connie, the one who was taken. She told me before they left. I know the general area, but not—"

"I know where they are," Vooorh said.

The road map he'd been studying was still on the table. He pushed it toward her. "Can you show me?"

"Not by roads," she said, and looked away.

He reached for the phone. "Maybe Sara can meet us somewhere. I'll see if she's in range."

He didn't get to ask.

"Can't talk now," she said as soon as she answered. "Please, just stay by the phone. I'll call back soon as I can."

"Okay, but I can't wait long. I found—"

But she was gone. He stared at the phone, puzzled, and shoved it into his pocket. Something in the way she had sounded. Flustered. Not like her at all.

It had to do with the crabs, he'd bet. Like those other questions, about the cuts all over Vooorh's body, and how in hell she'd wound up in that cave. He shook his head. So much to ask, now that she was better. But it could wait.

He turned back to Vooorh. She sat motionless, staring at the ceiling. He cleared his throat.

"One thing about our slow mountain roads—they're quiet. The only place we'll see real traffic is Erwin, over the Tennessee line, and we ought to be through there before five even without the traffic. Dark comes early in the mountains this time of year." He took his watch from its peg, checked it by the stove clock, and put it on. "Past noon now, and two and a half, maybe three hours to drive. We should be ready to go when Sara calls."

It was a raw day, still cold for October, and damp. Fall leaves lay wet and fading from an overnight rain. Jason shivered as he led Vooorh out to the back porch and left her there with a hose, soaking her clothes for the trip, with Shep on guard and her tank on the rough boards beside her. He pumped his arms to warm up a bit as he headed to the garage for the Jeep. The old Scrambler's four-wheel drive was better on rough roads than the truck. Its long wheelbase and hard top gave good shelter in the back.

He tilted the passenger seatback forward and folded the rear seat down, sliding in a clean watering tub behind the front seat. That left a little room behind the driver's seat for storage, and more at the back. Beside the tub went blankets and jugs of water, Shep's snacks and bowl, then pillows, salt, and a jacket for himself. It wasn't everything they'd need, but it was a start.

Back on the porch he nested three jumbo trash bags, stuffed the inner one with pillows and blankets and poured in a jug of salted water. He was hosing it all down when the phone rang.

"Jason, love, I am so sorry! They say the shell people can intercept cell phone calls, so I drove into town for a pay phone. How are things there?"

"I found Vooorh on the mountain last night, in the halfcave."

"Oh! Thank heaven she's safe. We have been worrying—"

"She's hurt pretty bad, Sara. I've done what I could but she needs her own folks, soon as I can get her there."

"We need her too," Sara said. "We're hoping to rescue Connie tonight. The shells have other captives too." She paused. "It could get ugly."

He knew from Sara's voice what her expression would be: lively with all her good-hearted strength, sad at the threat of conflict.

"It could get even uglier," he said gently, and told her about the disks. "I'm thinking those critters might trouble us on the road."

"My God." She paused. "I think we need both of you, Jason. As soon as possible. Could Lester look after the farm for a day or two?"

"Probably. I'll give him a call."

"Good. I'll meet you at the Church in Mt. Carmel, in the parking lot."

"I'll be taking some back roads. I'm not sure when—"

"Just text me something silly when you're getting close."

"Something like 'I love you'?"

"Yes," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "Something just like that. Be careful, Jase."

"You too, hon."

He ended the call, glancing at Vooorh as he punched in the neighbor's number, and stopped, staring.

She stood motionless on the porch, blue hood almost reaching the rafters, eyes wide and much less square. The hose lay at her feet, spraying water into the yard.

She was holding one hand before her face.

"Forgive me," she said, "I did not mean to overhear."

She lowered her hand, blinked at the hose on the floor but ignored it.

"You have high regard for your mate," she said, and took breath to say more, but hesitated and bent to pick up the hose. When she stood, redirecting the flow into the bags, her eyes were square again.

"But you are still a primitive people," she said, and turned away.

Jason checked the number he'd punched in, and hit send. That gesture she'd used—was it apology? Embarrassment? No idea. But one thing he was sure of. That look in her eyes, as she spoke of his regard for Sara... it was the same look he'd seen as he settled her into the tub last night. Or it had been, till it changed.

He shook himself. Vooorh was done with the hose, Shep was getting antsy, looking up toward the high woods, and Lester still hadn't answered... Ah! There he was. Jason made his arrangements, watching Vooorh where she waited on the porch. That look. Could it have been fear?

Minutes later, with everything packed and the trash bags arranged in the tub, he added more water and helped her climb into the wet bedding with her breathing gear. Good. Plenty of room in the bags. If she needed, she could duck down and hide.

He had started back to the house on one last errand when Vooorh called after him, asking for the disks. "For my father," she said. "He is Eldest of our ship. He should see what the shell people have done."

He nodded, collected the disks from the kitchen, then went down to the locked closet in the hall for his shotguns. Three pump-loading Mossbergs, old but well cared for, one loaded with buckshot. He set the choke on that one for a tight pattern. If he had to use it, he'd need a dependable hit. Pocketing the bag of disks and an extra box of shells, he gathered up the guns and went out of the house, locking the door behind him.

Vooorh eyed the guns as he stowed them behind the front seats. "An advanced race would find a peaceful way," she said.

Jason leaned an arm on the seat back and handed her the disks. "I see," he said. "And what peaceful way have you found to deal with them?"

She blinked her squared eyes and said nothing.

After a last look around, he whistled Shep into the passenger seat, climbed in, and tried his hand on the wheel. Not half bad. He stowed the extra shells in the glove box with a bag of gloves and bandages, started the Jeep, and drove down the lane at a carefully normal pace.

It was just after one o'clock, with a cool mist still clinging to the hills. Traffic on the back roads would be slow, as he'd told Vooorh, but on this day, the cars were less a concern than the people they carried. He feared state troopers and nosey strangers almost as much as shell creatures in the dark. He grimaced. There was more than one kind of troublemaker in these hills.

He looked and listened, and pulled out onto the strip of packed-down gravel that ran below the farm. Minutes later he turned onto a narrower track, dirt this time, only graveled where the mud holes were deepest. The Jeep jounced and shimmied, bringing a few soft hisses from Vooorh's tub. Shep sank his claws into the passenger seat and sighed.

A mile or so later Jason stopped at a rundown store set back in the woods.

"We need a few things," he told Vooorh under his breath. "You'd better keep low."

She laid her strange hand on the seatback. "We should hurry more."

"We haven't seen any aliens." He turned to face her. "Have we?"

She was looking toward the Jeep's worn overhead. "No. We have not seen them."

"We need food and water, and this is the safest place to get them," he said. "We'll be able to hurry soon."

He tapped the horn, climbed out of the Jeep and shut the door.

"You open, Harvey?" he called.

A teenage boy in torn overalls looked out the door.

"I need water and a couple of sandwiches. You got any fresh?"

The boy nodded and disappeared inside. Jason followed.

"I'll need some of those rock-salt shells you load too," he said, knuckling the worn counter as he passed. "The heavy ones, for those old Mossbergs of mine." The boy had several boxes laid out when Jason got back with the food and water.

"Some critter botherin' your chickens, Mr. Jason? I hear there's a big cat up your mountain. Somebody heard it that real still day we had first of the week."

"Nah, just noticed I was about out of 'em." Jason pushed two boxes of shells toward the cash register and pulled a bill off a thin roll. "Must have been old man Sanders talking about the cat."

The boy nodded. "He said it was real loud."

Jason added the shells to the bag of food and pocketed his change. "He's dreaming again. Last time it was a Grizzly." He hefted the jugs and nodded goodbye.

Stowing the bag and water by the tub, he settled behind the wheel to load the empty guns.

"Old man this side of the mountain heard your pet the other day," he told Vooorh as he replaced the guns in the back. "What kind of animal is that, anyway?"

"A sea creature from my planet." The tub sloshed suddenly. "Now," she said. "We need to hurry now!"

Shep, standing on the passenger seat, gave a quiet whine.

Jason looked from one to the other and started the Jeep.

Still, everything seemed calm. The road had widened a bit and the Jeep was handling well, even in muddy spots. But just when he felt safe enough to reach for a cola, Vooorh jerked in her tub.

"They are here," she said.

"Where?" Jason put down the bottle and leaned over the wheel, searching the road, then the gray patches of sky above the trees.

"They are hidden, but they are here. In a landing craft."

Jason almost turned to face her, but kept his eyes on the road.

"Hidden?"

"Invisible. It is technology. You can find them if you know how to look. I... feel them."

"Feel? How?"

"It is a sense we have, like some of your own sea creatures. It is not so strange." She paused. "They move around above us. They may not be certain where we are."

It sounded almost reasonable. "Let's find out," he said, and swerved beneath a thick stand of pines.

"Can you... sense... if they come lower, or pass on by?"

"Yes."

"Good. Please let me know."

They waited. The motor ticked.

"How'd they know where to look?"

"They came searching before you found me. I stayed hidden, but they knew I was near."

She turned her face toward a point above them and to one side, as if she could see the lander through the roof. "They come lower now. They know where we are."

Jason cranked the motor and jolted onto the road in a spatter of mud and gravel, lurching around curves toward a settled area just ahead. A new sound, like a low moan, drifted over the seatback. He set the rearview so he could keep an eye on her, wondering what she must be thinking—

The fish concoction came up without warning. Vooorh cringed in her tub as a vile fish smell filled the Jeep.

A few clustered cottages appeared ahead and Jason began to slow.

"They are higher now," Vooorh said, voice trembling. "So many houses..."

Jason pulled off the road near the houses and parked in a thicket by a small forest stream. Shep stood watch while Vooorh washed in the cold water and cleaned her breathing gear. Jason rinsed her clothes and tub and reassembled her nest with saltwater, and fresh bedding. As she climbed into it, he offered her a clean cola bottle.

"Can you drink fresh water, or should I salt it?"

"I can drink fresh."

He studied her color, worried over the food she'd lost and the healing she still had to do. She noticed, but took the bottle without comment and resumed her search of the overhead.

"They are hovering, high over us," she told him.

"Fine." Jason said. "Let them hover a little longer." Leaving Shep out to run a bit, he relaxed in his seat to eat his sandwiches, doors open to the cold, clean air. He tossed Shep a canned sausage each time the dog ran by. Then he collected their trash and leaned over the seat back, rummaging through the stores.

"We'll need more water, maybe blankets, too," he said. He whistled to Shep, lowered the windows to flush out the last of the fish smell, and sat behind the wheel, checking the gauges. "Gas too. We'll have to stop again."

Vooorh hissed a little as he pulled back onto the uneven road. It smoothed out as they wound through the hill country, where frequent small farms kept the shell people high overhead. But as the farms gave way to large, commercial fields, Vooorh lurched in her tub.

"They are just over us! And they come lower!"

An odd "chuf-chuf" sounded from some where. A scatter of dirt kicked up from the roadway ahead. Small gravel peppered the hood.

"They're shooting at us! Vooorh, Get down—"

Something big passed just overhead and the Jeep fishtailed, buffeted by a strong gust of wind. Jason wrestled it straight and raced for the forest beyond the fields. A brief tailwind from a second flyover gave them a nudge into the cover of the trees.

"They attacked us!" Vooorh rasped, rising higher in her tub, hands braced on the seat-back. Her voice was low, rough and hard. Her squared eyes in the rearview pinched into narrow slits. "They meant us harm."

Jason stared into the mirror. "These creatures tried to paralyze you, Vooorh. And this surprises you?"

"They did that to hold me. This was to kill. When they know—" She stopped short, hissing loudly, fingers rigid on the seatback.

Jason kept his eyes on the road.

Gradually she relaxed her grip and sank back into the tub, face toward the overhead, eyes blank. "They are over us still, much higher now. But they will come back."

Wonderful. Jason glanced at his watch. Just past three, and many more miles to go. He drove as fast as he dared, braking only for the sharp left turn onto the paved road toward Tennessee. Small difference to the aliens, what state they were in. But he felt better, just that much nearer to Sara.

They hurried on, swerving at every curve, his thoughts on the gas gauge, hers on the skies, till he slowed a few miles later, eyeing a roadside store. It was dingy and dark. Out front, a few scruffy-looking bikers kicked the gravel and smoked, beer bottles in hand.

He almost decided against it. The gauge showed enough gas for a few more miles. But what would he find when that was gone? Swearing under his breath, he pulled in past the bikers and parked in the end slot farthest from the door.

"Stay low," he told Vooorh. "I'll get water and pay for the gas. Then I'll pull over to the pump. Shep will bark if there's trouble."

As he closed the door, Shep scrambled over for a scratch. "Guard," Jason said under his breath, and gave the dog a pat through the open window.

The place seemed safe enough as he headed for the store. But when he reached for the screen door he saw the bikers again. One of them was looking back. Jason hurried inside. It was a face he knew, and it was grinning.

He grabbed water jugs and some dusty fleece throws and had just reached the cashier when Shep set up a howl. He dropped a couple of bills and hurried out. There'd be another gas station somewhere.

The bikers had moved toward the Jeep. Two were beside it, leaning in the windows on either side. One made a lunge with his hand, too fast for a scratch, and Shep howled again.

Jason walked over, as calmly as he dared.

"You might want to be careful there. That's a sick old dog," he said, emphasizing the 'old dog.' Shep slumped over in the seat, whining as if in pain. "I'm not real sure what's wrong with him. Just taking him to a specialist in Erwin."

The biker jerked back his hand. The others stood farther from the Jeep.

"We don't mean no harm. Just smelled some fish. Little different smell from what we catch hereabouts. Thought we'd see what you had, if that dog o' yours 'ud let us near it."

"Yeah, he can be mean when he's hurting," Jason said. He opened the door, setting the blankets and water by the tub. Vooorh was well hidden, her trash bags pulled down tight—except for a corner of her air tank that poked out at the back. He glanced at the bikers. The one he'd recognized was nowhere in sight. Time to git.

He was into his seat and starting the Jeep when one of them came running from the store.

"Hanklin wants to see you before you go—"

"Tell him I'm sorry, but I've got no time," Jason said, and shifted into gear. Shep whined mournfully. The bikers scattered as he backed out and pulled away.

"One of them saw my tank," Vooorh said. "I heard him say something, and they tried to look."

"That'll be trouble," Jason said. "The bag's dropped down some at the back. You need to pull 'em all the way up, over the tank."

"They liked the guns too," she said.

"Dang, I should have thought about that!" He banged the wheel with his fist. "Throw a blanket over them, will you? And see they stay covered."

He kept a moderate pace, watched the rearview till the road curved around a hill. Then it dipped into a small river valley and he raced through rich bottomland.

"They are still above us," Vooorh said. "They will fly low again in open places."

Jason nodded, and drove.

Across the river and up another slope, the road skirted a grassy hillside. A flicker of motion caught Jason's eye as a figure appeared from a house near the top and leapt down the slope toward the road.

As they neared, the man pulled on a highway patrol hat and held out his hand to stop them.

"Better get down," Jason said, "and cover that tank." He whispered "old dog" again and scratched between Shep's ears as he brought the Jeep to a stop.

The trooper's uniform was rumpled, as if he'd shucked it after a long day and just now thrown it back on. No patrol car was in sight.

Jason put his elbow out the window and smiled.

"Some trouble around here, officer?" he asked, still petting Shep, who whined feebly.

"Just a license check," the officer said. He looked around the Jeep's interior, wrinkling his nose, as Jason dug out his license and registration.

"That dog sick?" he asked.

"No, just old." Jason handed him the cards. "Some bikers back at the gas station were teasing him so bad I said he might be contagious." He grinned. "You should have seen 'em scatter!"

The trooper's lips quirked. "Yeah. Well, I guess that'd explain the call I got. Said a Jeep with a dangerous dog was comin' my way. But he don't look all that threatenin' to me." He peered into the back of the Jeep. "Did say somethin' smelled funny in the tub there."

"Yeah. Fish-based fertilizer. Organic, you know. And a spreader tank. Some folks swear by it. But it can get strong. Want a look?"

The off icer inched away. "Naw. That's okay."

"That fellow that called, wouldn't be Hanklin, would he?" Jason asked. "Thought I saw him back there. Little out of his range, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but that's our Hanklin. Loves trouble anywhere he can make it." He took the documents around to the front of the Jeep, hitched his hat to one side, and spoke quietly into a cell phone.

Suddenly his voice rose.

"... the dog don't look dangerous. Just old and cranky." He glanced into the Jeep and lowered his voice, but not enough.

"Hanklin and his gang was teasing..." Jason heard. Then, "... just fish fertilizer..."

The trooper was silent for a moment, listening to the phone, then looked skyward, clearly peeved. He answered a little louder.

"He offered me a look but I didn't want to push it. Okay? Maybe something did seem a little off, but nothing to put my finger on."

Then: "Look, you do Hanklin's dirty work if you want, but I am bushed. Long shift today. Covering for you this mornin', as you'll recall? Someone else can deal with it." He punched the phone off and came back to the window with Jason's cards.

"No problem here," he said, "but you might want to hurry along."

He stepped back, waving them on their way.

Easing onto the pavement, Jason got a last glimpse of the trooper in the mirror. The man was still shaking his head, climbing wearily up the steps to the house.

Jason was shaking his head too. Rumor had it that Sam Hanklin made his living digging up "problems" in the back country for political types to "take care of" in very public ways. All for their own advantage.

He pushed the pedal closer to the floor. Hanklin had bribed troopers before to chase folks over the state line.

Water sloshed behind him.

"There is a problem?"

"Could be, but nothing now."

He drove on, thoughts churning, taking the curves faster than he liked.

Soon, with no sign of anyone following, he glanced in the rearview at Vooorh. She was laying back, hooded head on a pillow at the edge of her tub, gazing at the overhead.

"There're a few things I need to know," he said. "Could be important, later."

Vooorh closed her eyes.

"Ask."

"Before the crabs—the shell people—took our friend Connie, they hadn't taken any of you, had they? Any of your family, I mean. Why did they take you now?"

"We tried to help your friend, Sshaas and I. We had not done that before." She paused. "Sshaas went with them, waiting for a better time to get away. I... defended myself. But there were too many. They put that poison in me so I could not run again. They put a different poison in your friend, made for humans. They had done that with other humans before, but never us, from their own world. Never before...!"

"From their own world?" Jason stared into the mirror, and quickly back at the road. "What... you and the crabs are the same?"

"I should not say this to... people not our own."

Her eyes were wide open now, her face grayish. Was it lack of food, or water? Or something else? He watched her in the mirror, worried. But she looked away.

"You are right to ask," she said at last. "You have helped me, and we may need to... to defend ourselves... together."

She sipped from the cola bottle.

"Long ago, when we lived in water, we were the same. But a starship fell there and broke apart. Many died, and those who lived were sick. There were mutations. We all fled, my people went high in the water, others... very deep. Terrible, dark places. Still all our young changed, but in different ways. The ones in the deep became the shell people.

"When my people began to live on land, the dry people already living there explained this to us, and helped us change even more. But—"

"Hold on!" Jason shouted, and hit the gas. A cloud of dust trailed over the field on the left, traveling fast at an angle to meet the main road just ahead. As he glanced at it, the dust cloud put on speed.

Seconds before Jason crossed the intersection, a patrol car heaved up the rise from the field road and cut ahead of him. It shot across both lanes, skidding halfway onto the wide right shoulder before it turned. Jason swerved and squeaked by on the left, tires squealing. The trooper lurched onto the roadway behind him.

Jason slid back into his lane at top speed. He slewed around a curve to find a sudden drop in the road, with another blind curve near the bottom. He descended in a rush, Vooorh's tub almost tipping in the lower curve.

After that the road straightened a bit, an easier stretch marked by a large white sign.

As he sped past it, Jason looked back to see the trooper throw on his brakes and swerve to a stop. He grinned, and began to slow.

"We are all right now?" Vooorh asked.

"If that's a law-abiding trooper back there we are," Jason said. "Welcome to the great state of Tennessee."

"He is not following us?"

"Not so far." He pointed to the overhead. "How about the folks upstairs?"

"They follow still," Vooorh said. "They will try again to stop us."

Jason stared at the road ahead. "And what will they do then?"

The hiss from the tub was long and low. "That is hard to know, but... not good."

Jason nodded. "All right. So tell me about these shell people, and how the hell we can 'defend ourselves' against them."

"They are violent. The young ones like only to fight, and these are very young. And careless. When they damaged their ship they found us here and took one of ours, with its lander. And they began to take human captives." She glanced at him in the mirror. "We do not know why."

"So they grew those shells in the deep ocean?"

"Yes. They grew smaller too. The dry people tried to change them, to make them peaceful. But that way they did not change."

"When they took you, and put those disks in you, how did you get away?"

"The poison is slow. I broke free and ran while I could, to tell Father." Her voice lowered to a rasp. "But these flew ahead and caught me, far from our ship. They cut me... tore the garment that warms me. They tried to break my tanks. I fought them still."

That strong look was back in her eyes, catching his in the rearview.

"They would have hurt me more, but older shell people, who try to teach them, called them back to the ship. The old ones were angry at them even before I ran. If these go back now they will be punished."

She paused, still with that look. "They left me there, on your mountain. I came to find your mate for help, but the poison was slowing me. When I found the place in the rock I had no more strength at all."

She fell quiet, watching the overhead.

Jason hunched over the wheel and sped on. Nearly four o'clock. Five miles to the next town, with about that much gas in the tank. Then Erwin, maybe by four-forty-five. Then the mountains.

And a road through a deep river gorge.

They'd need all the daylight they could get.

They passed a lake with a small resort. Its gas station was crowded with cars.

The next had no safe place to park.

A convenience store had no gas.

Vooorh, hood pulled low over her breathing tube, raised her head to look out through the windows. Silent, her color fading. He watched her reflection and frowned.

They passed a church and a school, finally stopping where he could pay with his card at the tank.

He climbed out slowly, stiff legged, and looked around. There was only one other driver, just replacing the hose. She drove on.

He continued his survey as he pumped. A deserted campground across the road offered parking, but little shelter. Climbing back into the Jeep, he looked into the tub. Vooorh lay curled in her bedding. It looked dry.

Was the fish smell stronger? He sniffed. Could be.

He drove across the road and into a thin patch of trees, refilled Vooorh's bottle, this time with salt, and poured most of the next-tolast jug into her pillows. Then a quick drink for Shep and a cola for himself, and he drove on, turning at last onto the road to Erwin.

Four-thirty and the mountains were drawing near.

"It's three or four miles on the Interstate to our exit," Jason said as they drove into Erwin, only minutes before five. "It'll be busy this time of day. Think they'd try anything there?"

"It is possible," Vooorh said. "I will tell you if they come low."

But a little later she cried out. "They have gone! I cannot sense them!"

She turned her face one way then another, searching every direction as Jason crept through packed streets toward the interstate and minutes passed. It was well past five when they drove up the ramp. A trooper was watching there, and Jason tensed. But no sirens followed. His breathing slowed as they merged into faster traffic.

The interstate soared here, rising high above deep, wooded valleys. With Erwin's traffic behind them, they sped over the treetops and south, toward the westward exit.

Suddenly Vooorh sat up straight in her tub. "They are here," she hissed. "They are below us!"

A familiar wind rose from below the roadway. It buffeted them from the right, pacing them for long seconds just beyond the railing. Then it whipped directly overhead, blocking the sun. The Jeep swerved from side to side. The car ahead nearly sideswiped another and Jason braked sharply. Other brakes squealed from behind as he steadied the Jeep and avoided the traffic ahead.

Almost instantly, the sun reappeared and the wind was gone.

"That was them again, right?" Jason said, hands tight on the wheel.

"Yes. They have gone very high now."

"I still didn't see a thing," he said, and drove a minute in silence. "I wonder what the other drivers think."

"A freak wind," Vooorh said. "That is all."

"Yes, but the sun!"

"A freak wind and a cloud."

"I guess you're right." His grip had almost relaxed when a patrol car slowed to check them out. It drove on in moments, but his fingers clenched again.

He took a breath and tried to relax.

"They are very high, you say?"

"Yes, they will watch where we go."

"So they'll be waiting for us somewhere ahead."

"Yes. Not long now."

"Not long," he muttered, not the least bit relaxed, as he slowed for the off-ramp to the west. He shook his hurt hand absently. It had begun to sting.

The pass cut east to west through the heights of the National Forest, the slim road twisting along the north bank of a boulder-filled, whitewater stream. On their left, beyond the river, the south bank climbed in steep, forested slopes. To the right, a sheer stone bluff edged the roadbed, narrowing the valley to little more than the width of the river.

A few hollows in the cliffside or a patch of soil wedged into a kink of the river gave the only hints of life along the road: tufts of greenery, a lonely home and garden plot, a tiny store. Otherwise the gorge was deserted. Six short miles, whose curves would slow them to a crawl.

At one place he knew, near the far end of the gap, it would pinch almost to a close. He thought on that stretch as he navigated the twists and turns along the river.

Vooorh stared upward as they crept along. Jason watched her in the rearview, one eye on the winding road. A mile went by with no change, then a low hiss from the tub. Shep gave an almost silent growl.

"How close?"

"Near the mountain tops. Following."

Jason sped up, taking the next curve with a broad sway.

"Any change?"

"They stay above us."

Jason slowed.

"Something else we need to talk about," he said. "I know your people hate violence. I do myself, whatever you think. But sometimes..."

"I have seen your guns," she said. "And the bullets you bought."

"And?"

"And... it is dishonor to violate our principles. But there are times when we have no choice."

Jason let out a breath. "The bullets in two of the guns are salt," he said.

There was a thump from the tub. "You have seawater in bullets?"

"No, rock salt. Dry, in chunks. Don't you have that on your world?"

"Yes. But why...?"

"It stings, but doesn't kill. We use it when we just want to drive something—or someone—away. But if it should come to it..." He watched her still face in the rearview. "Where can I shoot them with real bullets and do the least harm?"

"Any limb," she said, "But then they are worssssse."

"Worse!" He risked a look at her. "How? And how fast?"

"From a wounded limb they can grow many more. In only a week."

A week. All right. "But when they are shot, how are they affected then?"

"They lose fluids. Not fast, but too much. And they must have more." Her voice deepened. "They are fierce till that time comes."

"Weapons?"

"They copy yours, but they do not shoot as well."

"Do you know how many—?"

"Only four," she said, "but they are the worst."

Her gaze trailed skyward, then back, staring at him in the mirror.

"The gun with the real bullets, which is it?"

"The heaviest one," he said. "Where are they now?"

"They wait, not far ahead. But they may return."

The air was growing colder as the sun settled toward the peaks. Jason closed his window, left the other one open for Shep.

"What are they doing while they wait? Are they planning a trap?"

"It is possible. These consider themselves clever."

"So we hurry to meet them," Jason said, and floored it.

It was a near fatal mistake. As they swung into the next curve, speeding toward the river, the "chuf-chuf" sounded again. Shep whined as something hit Jason's door with a scraping sound. The Jeep bucked. They lurched onto the shoulder, sliding toward the narrow ledge above the rocks.

Pedal down, Jason struggled for control. He wrestled the wheel to the right, away from the river. Loose gravel flying, hands sweaty, sore palm on fire.

Still he held it. Inch by inch, the Jeep clawed its way off the ledge, onto the rough shoulder, back onto blacktop.

Braking then, with quick, light strokes. Holding to the road by main strength as it curved right, then left, then right again. But slowing, slowing. Till at last, hands trembling, he brought the Jeep to a stop in a narrow space at the base of the cliff.

He switched off the motor.

Silence.

"Have they gone?"

"Yes. But they may come back."

Of course. What other answer was there? Jason pulled himself from the Jeep, weak-kneed, to check the damage.

He touched a deep gouge in the driver side door, then looked at the tires. "Big hole in the left front," he said. "They missed me, but the tire caught the bullet. Bad spot too, in that curve. We're lucky we're not in the river."

He laid a salt-loaded shotgun across the Jeep's hood, ready to hand. Then he refilled Vooorh's bottle with saltwater, dampened her bedding, and went to dismount the spare from the rear hatch. It took both hands to loosen the bolt, which was not easy with his sore palm. But he worked at it till the bolt came free and he leaned the spare tire against the Jeep. Working mostly with his right hand, he set the jack and began to crank. His palm didn't hurt as much, but it slowed him. He should have been done by now.

He was loosening the lugs when a deep rumble echoed from somewhere down the gorge. The rock beneath him trembled. In the Jeep, Vooorh hissed. Shep looked up from sniffing the rocks, his ears pricked.

"That was west of us," Jason said. "Not too far ahead. Do you think—?"

The rumble was back again, this time from the east.

"They are coming." Vooorh said. "They have done something to keep others away. They will fight us here."

Jason threw the spare and his tools into the Jeep and took up the shotgun, grimacing as he chambered a shell. He checked his watch—almost six—and glanced up the bluff close beside them. The light was beginning to dim.

"Not a bad spot for a fight," he said, "with the mountain at our back." He leaned into the Jeep for the other salt gun and shells, and gave Vooorh a careful look. Her color was better.

"Get down in the tub," he said. "If they come in low, climb out and scrunch down—hide—between the Jeep and the rock, there, by the rear wheel. I'll take the front one." He backed out of the Jeep and shut the passenger door, setting the boxes of salt shells on the running board.

"Shep, heel!"

The dog trotted to him as Vooorh hissed again.

"They are here," she said. "Just over the road."

Jason looked. The light over the river dimmed, wavered, and shifted into something not quite right. A sharp mechanical smell filled the air. Peering into the odd patch of haze, straining to pick out the lander, he barely noticed when Vooorh pulled on her tank and eeled out the cliffside window. Seconds later she'd braced the third shotgun on the top of the Jeep and fired buckshot toward the far side of the road.

The discharge so near the rock face nearly deafened Jason. He stared, openmouthed, first at Vooorh, then back across the road, where something flashed a dozen feet in the air.

The light over the roadway wavered again as the flash seared forward through the air, then turned right, and a van-sized craft from another world shimmered into view a few feet above the far roadside. The flash burned on, toward him now, then left, following the edges of the craft's flat roof. In an instant it closed the square, flickering out at the point where it had begun.

The sound of the shot still echoed down the gorge.

Jason tore his gaze from the lander to stare at Vooorh. Pumping another cartridge into the chamber, she stepped from the running board and lowered the shotgun from her "shoulder," a dense bulge of muscle that relaxed as he watched into the familiar, sloping profile of her tentacle.

A few "chuf-chufs" came from the lander. A scattering of rock splinters rained down the cliff. Jason ignored them.

"How the hell did you do that?"

"I know how the lander hides itself," she said. "And I know where to shoot. I have repaired it many times."

The strong light, Jason saw, was back in her eyes. Clearly it was not fear.

"But the shotgun, how did you know...?"

"We watch. And we learn. Look, they are coming out."

The lander door slid open as she spoke.

"Get down," Jason said. Vooorh crouched between the rear tire and rock wall, looking through the Jeep's back windows.

Jason watched over the hood as two mottled, reddish-blackish, vaguely crab-shaped creatures dropped into the far lane some twenty feet away.

Each landed on its two rear-most legs, standing maybe four feet tall. They shortened as they settled onto a second, midbody pair, four footed now, leaving the forward limbs to handle their firearms. They looked around with stiff, jerky movements. Their heads and faces, like their bodies, were covered in shell.

"How do they talk?" Jason asked.

"Not well. But they know what you say. Even English."

A third crab had leapt from the lander, flailing awkwardly with eight, maybe ten flimsy arms sprouting from each forward limb. Unbalanced, it landed hard, barely keeping its head off the asphalt.

Jason stared. "He—"

"She," Vooorh said.

"She's been wounded before?"

"No. She did that to herself, to be more fearsome." Vooorh made a deep guttural sound. "She made too many limbs. They are too small and weak to help her."

The crab shapes started across the road, the first two brandishing pistols. The third picked up pebbles from the roadway in her many tiny hands. They rained onto the Jeep with surprising force and a sound like falling hail.

Weak, huh? Jason leveled one of the salt guns over the hood at the slowly advancing crabs. He waited a beat till the first two took aim, then he fired, and chambered another round.

Faint patches of white powder spotted the crabs' limbs and torsos as rock salt smashed on shell plates and the asphalt road. Loud, hissing screams and a slow ooze of bluish fluid told him some of the salt had gotten through. Both firearms clunked onto the road as the male crabs clawed at their shells.

The female, shielded behind the males, gave a spate of angry hisses and peppered the Jeep with more stones. Crouching low behind the front tire, Jason tried to aim around it without getting pelted. Before he could fire the female began to scream.

"The salt," Vooorh hissed. "It is eating their shells. They will die!" She paled. "I will too, and faster, if the salt reaches me." She tossed the shotgun onto the passenger seat and dived through the window after it, sloshing into her tub.

Jason stared over the Jeep's hood, horrified. The crabs huddled in the road.

"It's the water, isn't it? Their bodies have more than..."

"Yes! And the mucous lets it eat into the shell!"

Jason thought fast. "Do they have fluids in the lander?"

"Some, I think. Not enough."

"How do I get the other one out of there?"

Vooorh gave a little trill Jason hadn't heard before. "The female," she said. "Threaten the female with the salt, and he will come."

"I can do better than that." He yanked off his bandage, wincing as he braced a salt gun on either hip, ready to fire. He told Shep "Stay!" and hurried around the Jeep, kicked the crabs' weapons away, and took aim at the males with his lefthand gun.

His hand shook, and one crab raised his head, watching. But Jason held his aim on the males as he moved closer to the female, aiming point-blank at her head with the right-hand gun. The thin shell on her many small arms oozed fluids onto the asphalt in large blue drops.

"Better get out here now," Jason yelled at the lander. "With all the fluids you can carry."

The lander dropped to the roadway with a jolt and the door slid open. Jason swung the right shotgun briefly that way. "Just fluids," he said. "Anything else and you get a dose of the same."

In moments the fourth crab dropped into the roadway, his forward and mid-body arms filled with gray tanks like water balloons, large and small.

"Wash out the broken places and get them back on board, quick as you can," Jason told him. "Then go back to your ship. They're gonna need help." He looked down at the female. "I think you'd better start with her."

The crab opened a spout on a small tank and set it carefully into the female's strongest forearms. As she drank, he took up a larger tank, spraying her limbs and torso and washing out the wounds where the salt had corroded the shell. The ooze slowed, and he went to look after the others.

Jason watched as each was treated, the tanks were stowed, and all climbed back on board, aiming black, crablike glares in his direction.

With the merest whisper, the craft faded upward through gathering shadow.

"This time they will not be back," Vooorh said, hooded in blankets well doused with the last of the water. Not a trace of the squared eye look remained. "Your hand hurts you, yes?"

"Forgot all about it," Jason said. "How about your shoulders?"

"I forgot about them too."

The little trill sounded again. "You could not shoot more than twice, you know, with two shotguns. You cannot pump-load either gun while you hold them both."

"Could if I had to," Jason said. "But shooting them wasn't the point, was it?"

"So. Maybe Father is right. Maybe you are not a primitive people after all."

Jason shrugged, pulled on his jacket, and got the lug wrench from the Jeep. Dismounting the flat, he noticed the crabs' weapons, still on the ground. He lifting them with two careful fingers, wrapped them in a spare bag and handed them to Vooorh.

"For your Father," he said.

From somewhere in her nest she retrieved the bag of poison disks, added it to the bag with the pistols, and stashed it all away, then snuggled down again in her watery nest.

Jason finished with the flat and was stowing the tire and tools when a patrol car came around the bend from the west. He stood wiping his hands by the driver-side door, hiding the gouge the bullet had made. The trooper pulled up beside him.

"Been some freak landslides," he said, "both sides of you, just a little while ago." He looked at Jason curiously, then at Shep. "You must have been stopped awhile, to be so late coming through. I heard chatter about you and your dog. Everything okay?"

Jason gestured to the tire in the back of the Jeep. "Picked up a nail, I guess. And the lugs were kinda tight." He grinned, an old man amused at himself. "They seem harder to loosen than they used to. And I did let the old boy walk a bit." He tousled Shep's ears and the trooper smiled.

"Well, they've cleared the worst of it up ahead. Just take it easy and you'll be fine." He waved and eased the patrol car eastward toward the Interstate.

When everything was stowed, Jason whistled Shep into the Jeep.

"Your rock salt is very strong," Vooorh said as he climbed in.

"It's concentrated when it dries, much stronger than seawater." He shook his head. "I am so sorry. I never thought—"

"I did not think either, and I should have known." She paused. "And it is shameful to say that part of me, after what they did to me, is glad." She looked at him in the mirror. "It was my dishonor, Jason, more than yours."

He fired up the Jeep and drove on into the twilight, smiling.

Vooorh had called him by name. And he knew now what it was, that light in her eyes.

It was hope. And fierce determination.

Not a solution. Far from it.

But hope.

Sara would be pleased.

Journeyer

R. Garrett Wilson | 3749 words

Four days earlier, when she had stopped eating and drinking, Jo-abeel began running thirty-two miles each evening in addition to her morning runs, measuring the distance against the loss of excess weight. Her thighs had drained of water, and the hump on her back was sagging, but she wasn't even winded at the end of the last run, a run in which she had added eight more miles.

Running earned Jo-abeel odd looks from the other muuks; they focused on movements that required as little energy and fluid as possible, movements that were slow and sure. She toweled the sweat from the fur on her neck, another action that gained attention. Muuks did not normally sweat: due to controlled activity levels, they did not need to cool themselves, even in the desert. Jo-abeel knew that sweating was draining and potentially lethal, but she theorized that it made the Journey more possible. She also knew they had limited water rations, and sweating was wasteful.

Jo-abeel's run took her past the schools, and she could see her youngest niece, Sallii-abeel, a thick muuk who attracted the bulls. She was starting her molt, maturing a little young for her age. White tufts of adolescent hair stuck out of her thick brown baby coat at the neck and knees. Sooner or later, depending on how much Sallii-abeel scratched, she would begin a full molt. Unfortunately, she was already scratching, a lot— may the gods be merciful.

Jo-abeel went to Kali, the owner of the town scale, to weigh herself.

"You don't look good, Jo-abeel," said Kali. Jo-abeel started to answer, but Kali spoke over her. "You need that fat, you know," he said, pushing at the loose skin at Jo-abeel's back. "And your legs look totally dry."

"When I cross the o'Le Bar, I'm going to lose more."

"The o'Le Bar," Kali said, laughing. "Only a grown muuk can make it across the o'Le Bar—grown and full-male. Even in perfect health, most do not make it. Look at you. Do you look like a muuk ready for the desert?"

Jo-abeel stepped onto the scale. "Most don't make it because they move too slowly. What good is this storage," she said, pointing to her thighs, "if it means I can't move fast enough to cross before they are depleted?"

Kali shook his head as he moved the counterweights on and off the balance. "Three hundred fifty-six pounds. You've lost forty-five pounds in the last week, and you were a runt to begin with."

"I've also run over two hundred fifty miles since I stopped eating and drinking," Jo-abeel replied.

Kali's eyebrows rose.

Jo-abeel continued, "I'm not completely depleted yet. The Falls of Aqwu-la are just over two hundred sixty miles; I'll pass that mark to morrow."

"Impressive, but running here on the slopes isn't the same as down in the desert. O'Le Bar is hot. It will wear on you." Kali was uniquely qualified to talk about the o'Le Bar as the last to cross it some twenty-four years earlier. Upon returning, he had said the Falls of Aqwula were cool waters that tasted good. No one could contradict that outrageous claim: none of the hundreds who had attempted the Journey since had succeeded, and eleven had died trying.

"Then tomorrow I will start training in the flats. I think I have three days still in me, and I will put that to the test in the very desert that I will cross." Jo-abeel looked to the healers hut and said, "If someone doesn't cross this year..."

Kali put away his counterweights. "We shall see." He looked Jo-abeel in the eyes and said, "For all the lives it can save, Jesper weed is important, but so is your life. Any bull worth his weight would cross the o'Le Bar for you." He shrugged and nodded as he added, "Or for your niece... which would still be for you. You don't have to do this."

A hint of red streaked down her arms at the compliment. "Whether they say they will or not, I'm still going. No one has crossed since... well, you."

"Yes, and I prayed to Tepps every day, and she answered me every day. It was a trip blessed by the gods."

"Maybe Tepps will answer me, too."

"I hope so. Train extra. The desert is an odd place. You will be all alone, and measuring time and distance is difficult. I'm sure I went further than what the histories have told, but how can a desert grow?" Pulling a necklace from round his neck, Kali said, "This is a luck charm said to be blessed by Tepps herself. I wore it on my crossing. You should wear it on yours."

Looking at the medallion on the necklace before taking it, Jo-abeel fought back tears. "Thank you," she said as she bowed before Kali.

Kali returned the bow. "May Tepps be with you, and may Ackree be merciful"—a customary valediction before any undertaking in the desert, acknowledging Ackree the sun god and Tepps the god of luck.

Jo-abeel nodded and started to walk away. She heard, but did not respond, as Kali shouted, "The crossing is in four weeks! You haven't long to put the weight back on!"

Dare, a rut of washes and flash floods, was a place Jo-abeel had named during an earlier practice run. Now on her second run out to it, fifty-six miles into the flats, Jo-abeel was worried. The stories of flash floods were fabled, and rarely seen. This was the furthest she had run into the o'Le Bar, because she couldn't imagine what would create any type of rut, much less one more than ten feet deep and twenty feet wide. She dared not cross it until she had to.

Water from the slopes bubbled out of the rocks, hot and smelling like eggs, burning anyone who it touched. Then it disappeared back into the earth or evaporated in just minutes. Only a team of muuks placing cool marble slates near the spring could hold the water long enough to be collected for filtering and distilling. But the slates heated up and had to be replaced with cool ones frequently—a rough job where muscles were sore and the hands took a beating. For the inattentive muuk working the spring, broken fingers and water burns prevailed. All this work was done just to obtain a few thousand gallons of water per day.

Looking at the rut, Jo-abeel wondered how so much water could just appear. The Journeyers said water simply fell from the sky. She tried to picture a huge funnel of water coming down from the heavens, but it didn't make sense to her... and how anyone could survive such a scalding was beyond her imagination.

Three muuks were working with spades to build an earthen ramp down one side of the rut and up the other. Jo-abeel had seen the Journeyers start off with spades every year, but had only thought of their use in digging up the Jesper plants. Now she wondered if there would be another rut, one like this, in the middle of the flats. Surely, she thought, there could not be more ruts than this here; there couldn't be that much water in the world.

She stepped past the first two workers, down into the bottom of the rut, to let the fear wash over her. If she were going to do this alone in a week, she would have to face the fear sometime.

This year, five were attempting the crossing: Herm the Giant, the largest, at 882 pounds; Joam, Kasup, and Holt, each about 750 pounds; and Jo-abeel, now heavier than she had ever been, at 432 pounds. The humps on all five were so pronounced that each had to lean forward for balance, and when they walked, their thighs rubbed and jiggled.

Only Jo-abeel had brought a skin of milk. Sallock milk soured in a day—half a day in the desert. While the others would only travel eleven miles in the first day, and wouldn't use much of their fat or fluid, Jo-abeel was going to try for thirty-two miles by midday—a run that would burn both fat and fluids, so the extra milk would make a difference.

It was tradition for the elders to talk with each of the Journeyers, and they started with Herm. Jo-abeel looked to the sun and judged how long it would take before the elders got to her. Not wanting to lose the cool of the morning due to formalities, she grabbed her skin of sallock milk, said a prayer to Tepps, and started to run.

Muuks about to molt lined the first part of the path—an inspiration to the runners. Muuks molted twice in their lives: at adolescence in their early twenties, and then again into adulthood in their mid-to late thirties. The first molt was harder on females, and the second harder on males. A few of the adolescents were already starting to lose tufts of their tan fur.

The sight of Sallii-abeel in the molt line jarred memories deep within Jo-abeel: her sister dying from infection; her first molt and the burning, itching feeling all over her body; and the soothing feeling of each application of the Jesper medicine. The molt itself was not lethal, but the incessant itching and scratching led to infections that killed one or two muuks a year. Her family was especially susceptible. Her niece was already starting her first molt, and her nephew would start his second molt this year or next.

It was three miles down the slopes and then another eight to the top of the faux flat where the o'Le Bar truly started. Most would spend their first night at the top of the faux flat, looking back at the slopes. Knowing this was the last time she would see the slopes until her return, she never looked back or broke stride. The far side of Dare was where she wanted to spend the night. Had she bothered to look behind, she would have seen that Kasup had already turned back, and none of the others had even reached the bottom of the slopes.

The o'Le Bar was vaster and emptier than Jo-abeel had imagined. After the third day, her mind wandered back to those memories awakened on the slopes. Su-abeel, Jo-abeel's older sister, had cried and scratched miserably during the last week of her life, not only clawing away the old molting skin, but the new fur and new skin as well. There had been no Jesper to treat the itching. When the infection set, her temperature jumped. For the last two days, they had laid her on marble stones in the shade, but that hadn't stopped her from convulsing just before the end. Three died that year.

Though Jo-abeel was three years younger, she had molted the very next year. The only relief for the insanely painful, burning itch was scratching—and just temporary relief, at that. She had cried, too: not just because of the pain, but because she knew she was going to die, and couldn't stop herself from scratching. When Kali had returned with Jesper, Jo-abeel had been the first to receive the relief from it. She knew it had saved her life—saved her from her sister's fate.

The o'Le Bar appeared never to end. The childhood memories spurred Jo-abeel on. With a glance to the heavens, she mouthed, "Be merciful," and continued her run.

The sun was going down, and Jo-abeel was beginning to worry. She thought she had run sixty or more miles each day, except for the short thirty-mile third day when she had worked her way through three ruts, all deeper than she was tall. Five days had passed, yet all she saw was the o'Le Bar. Her legs had just depleted, and her hump was less than half size now. If she didn't find water, a sallock, and the Jesper weed in the morning, she would not have the reserves to return home.

Slowing to a conservative walk, like the walk of those who had traveled before her, she wandered late into the night. Several times she found her hand clasping the medallion Kali had given her. Bugs buzzed about her ears, but there were none to swat. Wind whistled, as it did through the trees of the slopes, but there was no wind, nor were there trees. She stumbled on until she could no longer tell dream from reality. Another rut? she thought as she saw the ground disappear before her in the darkness. It seemed that if she were to take another step she would fall over the edge of the world... and so she collapsed to the ground, without hope.

As she woke, the world around Jo-abeel was different from any she had ever seen before. She lay on a ledge above a wonderland of col-or and movement. The plants were colored in yellows, oranges, and light greens; at home every tree and bush was dark green, brown, or grey. Here the plants' broad leaves moved in the breeze; at home the trees resisted any outside influences, with stout trunks and pointed cone-shaped leaves. Here flew insects of every kind; at home there were mostly beetles. Though she had heard stories about the land beyond the o'Le Bar, this was more vibrant than she had imagined.

"Praise Tepps!"

The Jesper weed had a broad leaf with five points, light green and thin—everything that her world wasn't, so she was sure she would recognize it. However, as soon as she found a leaf that met that description, she found a different one right beside it of the same description. After just an hour of looking around, she had found several different bushes that met the description, and she didn't know which the Jesper was—or if any of them were. For all she knew, the five plants she was looking at could all be the wrong ones.

With the desert sand still burning in her throat and her thighs depleted, Jo-abeel headed out to find the Falls of Aqwu-la, hoping that Kali was right.

Praying to find something at Aqwu-la of which no one had spoken, some hidden secret that might aid a Journeyer in returning, Jo-abeel was devastated to find nothing. Water from the fabled falls would replenish her thighs, but a skinful of sallock milk had augmented the stores in her hump on the first half of the Journey, and now her hump was almost two-thirds depleted. With no sallocks to milk, she realized the futility of this trip. Even with a half-full hump, the return would still be impossible. She might carry the weeds she had found to one of the other Journeyers still in the desert, but she would die in the o'Le Bar without learning if she had actually found any Jesper.

With prayers to Ackree and Tepps, she grabbed her pack with thirty-five pounds of various weeds, and stepped into the desert.

The sun had just gone down, and Jo-abeel was ready for a short nap. She had been running three times each day: evening, night, and morning. She slept in the heat of the day—something she should have done since the beginning—and took short naps between the runs. She wished she would be able to tell future Journeyers to do the same.

As she lay down, the ground rumbled a little. A minute later light flashed above, followed by more rumbling. She looked up: half the sky showed stars, and the other half seemed to have been eaten away by the gods themselves. Bands of white fire waved through the sky with deafening sound. Fear of dying alone in the desert was bad enough, but it didn't compare to the fear of being boiled alive by water from the sky.

Jo-abeel broke into a full run, nearly forgetting the all-important plants that started her on this cursed Journey. As fast as her legs would carry her, she still could not outrun the storm. Soon she could hear and smell the rain behind her, a smell not fresh like the Falls of Aqwu-la, but not eggish like the spring water on the slopes.

Just before the rain caught her, she tucked into a ball and rolled, her hand covering her face. She flinched when the first drops hit her, but they didn't burn. Huge drops pelted down on her, warm like the night air, but not scalding like she had imagined.

After a moment of recovery, shaking as the fear passed, she stood and let the rain fall on her face. She opened her cracked lips and let the water pour into her mouth. It hit so hard that she coughed and gagged, but it was bliss. But after just a few swallows, the storm passed.

The ground was wet, and she was too excited to nap anyway, so she continued her run, with hopes of catching the storm again.

Four times Jo-abeel picked herself up after falling, and she knew she wouldn't have the strength to do it again. Dirt covered every inch of her body, including her mouth, nose, and eyes. She made each step with effort solely motivated by the face of her niece. She hoped to see the slopes again, to be close enough that someone might see her, might send help at least to collect her Jesper leaves, but she hadn't even returned as far as Dare yet.

Ackree had not been kind since the storm. The desert baked with a heat she would not be able to describe if she returned. The world spun; the ground came up and hit her in the face, and it burned. After several minutes of motionlessness, she grabbed her medallion and prayed to Tepps to give her luck on the next journey, the journey to the world beyond. She closed her eyes, and the darkness took her.

Her spirit floated from this world to the next and back. At times she was carried on the shoulders of others into the cheering crowds on the slopes, carrying Jesper weed to the healer. At times she drifted along the eternal shores where her lost family and friends greeted her. And at other times she was back at Aqwu-la, in its colors and movement, and sticking her head under the cool water of the falls.

Jo-abeel choked on the water, coughed, and it hurt the weakened muscles in her neck and chest. The falls choked her again, tasting more like milk than water. She gagged this time, turning her head and opening her eyes. There was no water, just dirt; no colors, just o'Le Bar sand; no movement in the shadows. There was a rut in the terrain just in front of her, unmistakable: Dare. The voices of the other four Journeyers registered in her mind before she turned to see their faces, along with the hulking form of a sallock. The wailing cry of the sallock pierced the silence as milk squirted into her mouth. Jo-abeel coughed again, and then returned back to the land of dreams.

It was dark and cool, and a pair of blankets covered her. She lay on her side on a cot facing a wall she recognized: the healer's hut. A pitcher and cup sat on the floor, a candle somewhere behind her casting lights on the ceiling.

Her head throbbed, and her tongue felt twice its usual size. She took up the cup and drank, and it hurt to swallow. She closed her eyes and was about to go back to sleep when she heard a bell. Two others also lay on cots in the hut: Kenni from the spring, and Joam, who had Journeyed with her. It was Joam who had rung the bell.

The healer's husband came out and looked at Joam, who motioned to Jo-abeel. He left and returned a moment later with his wife, Suuppa. Kali followed right behind.

Su-uppa sat on the side of the bed. "Praise Tepps, you're awake!" The healer felt Joabeel's forehead and neck. "Open," she instructed, looking at Jo-abeel's mouth. "Good, good. How do you feel?"

Jo-abeel closed her eyes momentarily and let out a deep breath. "My head throbs, and it hurts to swallow."

The healer smiled. "Good. It means you are alive... and recovering well, from the looks of it."

"It doesn't feel good to be alive," she responded. "How did I do? Did I bring back the Jesper plant?"

Su-uppa changed the subject. "You almost died out there. If Kasup hadn't come back to lead a sallock into the desert for you... Herm and Joam found you and carried you back to Kasup as quickly as they could; they even broke a sweat." The healer got up and walked over to a table. "No female has ever made the Journey before, and you almost died to do it."

"So, did I get it?"

The healer was quiet.

"Su-uppa," Kali said.

"Yes, and no," the healer finally said. "You brought back fourteen plants, and all of them were the wrong ones." Jo-abeel's heart broke at the news. "However, you somehow managed to get a twig of a branch of Jesper mixed in with one of the plants. It had three leaves—enough for two doses of medicine." The healer paused again.

Kali broke into the conversation. "They should have trained you better on what to look for. Well, I should have, too. None of us thought you would do it... except Kasup." Holding up the Jesper branch, he continued, "It's a crawling plant, low to the ground. Maraki, my mentor, called it snakeweed because of how it spreads. Sometimes it has yellow flowers with purple veining, but not always. When there are flowers, they die before a Journeyer can carry the plant back across the desert. That's why you've never seen them." He handed the twig to Jo-abeel, who was now shaking her head. "Herm and Kasup have already started taking skins of water out into the o'Le Bar." He motioned to Joam and continued, "Joam, as soon as he recovers from a sallock bite, will head out also."

"What about Sallii-abeel? Will she—"

"We'll make sure she gets both doses," Suuppa answered, looking out the sole window in the room. "However, that will only take the edge off the worst of days, and there are still so many other muuks, including your nephew." There was a distinct pause before she turned to Jo-abeel. "Jo-abeel, your trip was so fast that there is still time before the flood season..."

Kali continued where the healer had left off, "But only enough time for you to Journey again. No one else is quick enough. The water is for you. You have three weeks to prepare—to put the weight back on. May Tepps be with..."

Jo-abeel had taken another deep breath just before her world spun as it had in the desert, and she was once again unconscious.

Valued Employee

James K. Isaac | 4839 words

When she plunged the black shard into her eye she knew everything else would be easy. Child's play. The cauterizing New Model Optic would forever remain a memory, a pain revisited in bad dreams. Nonetheless, such actions proved Asha's loyalty. Anyway, the benefits made it worthwhile. The clarity superseded all of Asha's expectations, not to mention the speed of the data streaming direct from Black Sphere Central.

She really could save her people now, remove all the pain and hardship from their primitive lives. Just one more thing to do to seal the deal; sever her own hand. Child's play. Papa would understand, surely? She thought. This is the right thing, everyone will be so proud of me.

"Well done, Miss Asha Kass. You will thrill at the abilities of Black Sphere technology. We foresee that you will rise to the heights of success. A living promotion, a unifier and an inspiration to one and all." The tiny hairs of Asha's forearms bristled at the roll of breath from the far wall; the eye wall, the Board of Directors. Sixty-four eyes, unpaired and lidless, examined and graded her every thought and action. Equidistantly arranged in a grid, dilating and fidgeting independently of each other, some of the eyes sparkled with vitality, some were bloodshot, some wilted and some yellowed with age.

But the Board didn't concern her as much as the other presence in the room. A Geo-man stood passively in the corner, pure unbreathing Black Sphere tech; a dark silhouette barely distinguishable against the black walls in this all-black place. A trail of polygons blipped, undulating across its form. Its blank face somehow examined and graded her, too.

Dabbing tongue over dry lips, Asha tasted salt, the flavor of anxiety on her palate. She held a machete high above her head, the plastic handle slippery with sweat. Clenching and unclenching her other hand, laying palm-side up on a plasticlike block in front of her, she urged herself courage enough to do what must be done.

Again her hair bristled on a draft of breath, cool against Asha's sweat-dampened face. Concentrating to dull the thump of heart in her ears, she readied herself for the cacophony of sixty-four voices. And again the Board of Directors spoke, all in sync but victim to diverse disparities in drawl and accent.

"Why do we demand such rituals with such primitive implements? Why not just give you the upgrades? Rituals are meaningless after all. Unless something is tangibly lost and given, unless that loss takes conscious effort. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Directors, I understand. I am prepared to be better in my thoughts, words and deeds. To serve and spread the wonder, peace, and plenty of Black Sphere." The words were reverential, well-practiced. A silence followed, thick and heavy like glue in Asha's ears.

Squeezing her eyes closed until they ached, she felt blood rumbling through her capillaries. Through clenched teeth she sucked at the air, held it in, waited for the burn of oxygen deprivation to spur her onward. Pressure swelled inside her chest until it raged for release. When the agony came she exorcized it with a wail, the machete blade whistling through the air, cleanly severing hand from wrist before embedding into the block underneath.

For a moment the room ebbed and flowed around her like looking up through bath water. Her legs gave way, sending her free-falling into the infinite abyss. Or so it felt until her knees hit the floor. Blood spouted from her wrist, unreality seeped into Asha's mind.

Her gaze wandered back to the Geo-man. Pyramidal torso, cube shoulder joints, cylindrical and cuboid limbs, all with edges fuzzing into space and brimming with the potential to do anything. The blank darkness of the Geoman's face shimmered and changed. Suddenly Asha found herself staring at her reflection. But not exactly, since the reflection smiled.

Satisfaction gleamed in that smile. Well, why not? She could allow herself a smile. After all, she had passed the exams and learnt the ropes, exceeded all expectations. Never would her provincial kin have believed she was destined to become anything other than a war-bureaucrat in some office in the wild periphery. Yet the company had really invited her to join their inner circle of agents. It was only right to smile, to feel proud. Some might even dare to say she was a hero... perhaps.

Splashing sounds brought her back to the present, the floor rippled into liquidity beneath and around her. Rippling blackness hardened into a pair of lips, parting as they birthed a smooth black ball; a ball as dark as distilled essence of void. "Please attach it," said the Board of Directors, voices grating through Asha's bones. With a pulse, five cylinders slipped out from the ball, dangling limply from it like some shadowy nightmare spider.

Still on her knees, Asha offered out her stump. Tendrils of blackness reached into her wound, gelling with sinew and nerve and bone, cauterizing as it did. Asha screamed as it fused. When the pain stopped, the black ball had morphed into a perfect imitation of her hand, elegant and long fingered; a hand that could splay and pose in the pantheon of history's most lovely hands. A better hand than the clenched dead thing lying on the floor a few feet away.

As if possessed of a singular soul the sixty-four twitching eyes fixed on her, the force of their vision almost palpable. "And now to business, Miss Asha Kass.

"We, the all-knowing Board, have deemed for you to visit the Luddite town of your birth. Bathe in the adoration of your relatives by all means, then take advantage of your closeness to these people, and persuade them to join our commune of technology. You are well suited to this task. Remember, though they fight and die for us, their incompatible beliefs undermine our every gesture."

Steadying her breath, Asha struggled to her feet even as the room continued to sway. Into the extremities of her new fingers her consciousness pushed, testing them out for size.

"After all these years, you're really sending me home? To save them all?" It had been fifteen years, three months, and four days since she had seen her log cabin.

Voice just a breath, she absently mouthed the word "Mama." Tears swelled on the brink of falling but she held them back with all the resolve she could muster. Stupid, stupid. The upgrades transmitted her every thought. Nothing could be hidden. No secrets anymore.

"Calm yourself," said the cacophony of voices. "There may be obstacles—living breathing obstacles to your success. Obstacles that may snag at old emotions. You have carte blanche when dealing with these. Do you understand? Carte blanche."

"Yes, Directors," Asha said. She looked back at the Geo-man, its face now that of her mother, with kind smiling eyes. It made her shiver.

It was almost refreshing to actually walk, into the forest. Although only a couple of miles from the Black Sphere cessation line, into the so-called "Luddite province," the sensation of moving under one's own effort was quaint to say the least. So different from being transported through the omnipresent black membrane in the cities.

Worn and prematurely aged men and women knelt in the dirt at the edge of the forest. Called Scrubbers, the wiry pads they held dripped with a disinfecting mix of bark and sap, used to scrub away the ever encroaching film of Black Sphere. Or they chipped at hardened scab-like patches with knives and chisels. So much stubborn effort to survive in primitive hardship for so little reward, although Asha had to admit that their persistence paid off. Beyond the cessation line none of her needs or wants would materialize from the floor in convenient vicinity. Everything had to be made by hand. Quaint.

But then Asha felt something, a buzz muffled under layers of technology, a sensation embedded deep within Black Sphere technology. A sensation that could only be described as "fear" pulsed within her, along with a collective shudder from the Board of Directors. A sensation as natural to real humans as breathing; fear. Fear of the unknown, of the primitive; of places independent of Black Sphere technology and therefore chaotic and dangerous. A fear Asha didn't share.

Hazy rods of light broke through the forest filigree. Clouds of dry earth puffed around her boots with every step, wafting up into her face. Gritty in her sinuses, the taste made her cough. But it brought back an avalanche of memories while her New Model Optic buzzed an analysis of her surroundings, breaking everything down into informative components and transmitting them back to the Board ensuring she would never get lost. In all honesty though, Asha thrilled at the chance of losing her way in the kaleidoscopic maze of childhood past.

Giddiness took her and she ran through blossom swirls into the sap-heavy breeze. Memories of gnawing winter cold and sticky summer nights, of grasses she rolled in, streams she bathed in, trees she climbed, all flooded her mind. Still some of the trees bore the marking of playful youth; names in love hearts and innocent profanity scratched into bark. Eventually she found herself outside the log cabin she once called home. Just seeing it made her feel like a little girl again.

Mother's tears and a father's empty stare greeted her return. Elderly and hunched now, bent like the gnarled branches of the trees, her mother creaked to her knees, spitting on a cloth to clean her successful daughter's boots. "No, Mama. You need never do this. I should clean your boots." Asha helped her mother up, noticing the old lady's feet were bound up in well-worn leather wrappings. "Good boots. That is the first thing I shall arrange for you, Mama," she said, before her mama threw her arms around her daughter.

Mama's hugs revealed a body of bony-hard angles, not the warm and cuddlesome plumpness Asha remembered. Yet the superstitious trinkets—wooden stick carvings of animals, crosses and moons—still cluttered floor to ceiling and gleamed with polish. Homely as ever, not a trace of dust anywhere, pots bubbled on a stove spicing the air with scents of tarragon and parsley. Yes, things have changed, but it is still my Mama. This is still my home. The swelling bubble of tears finally burst and Asha hugged her mother tighter.

"Asha, my flying squirrel in the trees, I am so proud. When the Black Sphere people came looking for soldiers to recruit, your father wanted to fight them. But I knew they saw something special in you. You were always the bright one, my Asha. A heroine who could stand up for us in the cities."

At mention of her father, Asha looked over at the old man slumped in a wooden-basket chair. Plumped up with feathered pillows, he stared at the door with fixed eyes. Not a gnarled branch like Mama, but a grey tree on barren soil. Poor Papa, the premature aging of his lifestyle had not been kind. Forewarned by numerous of Mama's handwritten letters, it still came as a shock to Asha.

Over bread and chicken soup Asha told her mother of the years spent in Black Sphere cities. No waste, no want, no currency to squabble over. No fighting for resources, just debates over ideals. All Black Sphere wanted was to own the ideals, not to stifle them. The more they owned the more choices they could offer, everyone would live exactly how they wanted to. But the Luddite settlements remained unconnected, their people living lives of suffering and illness.

Asha soon realized her words had rambled into a lecture. Yet, through it all Mama just smiled and nodded. "Such a clever girl," she would say when Asha paused for breath. Mama never understood the big issues.

Dutiful as a daughter should be, Asha fed her papa, spooning chicken soup into his mouth and wiping his chin clean afterwards. Once so strong and loud, Papa had volunteered for Black Sphere while in his prime. He came back six years later. By then Asha was already eight-years-old, with little idea of the fabled "softer-side" of her father.

Looking the frail man up and down, Asha's heart felt heavy and her insides churned with pity. With big ham fists he used to pick her up and toss her in the air as easily as a bundle of laundry. But those hands were now grey, knuckles red and knotted, fingers clawed; the painful tattoos of soldiery and the hours spent at the edge of the forest scrubbing away the Black Sphere membrane.

While Asha tended to her father, her mother spoke excitedly of all the community's gossip, tut-tutting at the little indiscretions of other families; petty thieveries, incompetent and lazy workers, and scandalous affairs. But, most of all she spoke of Little Chick, Asha's one-time best friend.

Poor boy, just before the Black Sphere recruiters came all those years ago he had been chopping trees. A sharp splinter snapped out from bark and jabbed deep into one of Little Chick's eyes. It was touch-and-go for a few days, all that blood and crying. When the Black Sphere recruiters arrived they saved Little Chick just by rubbing his eye with an upgraded finger. Yet without upgrades of his own to maintain the treatment, Little Chick soon lost the sight of that eye.

Asha felt embarrassed at the recollection of her Papa, how he had yelled at the recruiters, "Don't pollute him with your mind-stealing sorcery." After that the recruiters refused to take the half-blind boy. All Little Chick's friends left for their war-time adventures, leaving him sad and lonely.

"I can fix things now," said Asha, while her mother started to gather up their wooden bowls and spoons for washing. "If only we grant Black Sphere entrance into our forest, then they could make it all better. In one second they would grow a big house for you and papa. No lack of food during the winter. They could give Papa a new body if I asked. Little Chick would have a new eye."

But her mother seemed flustered at this talk. "Shush, Squirrel, not so loud. Things have changed since you left. Little Chick is not the same. I wrote to you of how dour he became after the accident, missing you and all his friends. He listened to your father for hours on end, becoming ever more outspoken and loud. Now the other young men look to him, not your father. His is the loudest voice now, and his words are scary."

Asha sighed with frustration. "Mama, I'll have to show you how good it could be." Placing her Papa's half-filled soup bowl on the armrest of his basket-chair, she squeezed the old man's withered hand, let her Black Sphere tech liquefy and seep through the pores of his skin. For a moment Papa's eyes twinkled, the grey hollow of age receded. A color took to his cheeks, pink on tanned skin. "Papa, it's me, Asha. I will fix you," she said with a great smile. Mama gasped and covered her mouth.

And although Asha saw love reflected back in her father's eyes, his answer was terse. "No," he said, in a voice as strong and deep as she remembered. Snatching his hand away, grey-age returning instantly, he slumped back into his chair.

For a while Asha stared at Papa, a mix of resentment and sorrow simmering inside her. I am talking to the past. I must speak to the future. I must speak to Little Chick.

"Mama, I'll be back soon," she said, walking out into the forest without even looking back.

Groping boys and laughing girls swung through the trees all around Asha. Dirtsmudged faces flashed through bushes and crunched leaves underfoot. "The Geo-man's coming. I'm going to steal your brain," yelled an older boy to the delighted squeals of the younger ones he chased.

An exposed root snapped up through kicked leaves, catching a small boy's foot and bringing him down. His first reaction was one of embarrassment, looking to see if anyone noticed. Strange how he only burst into tears when a group of friends helped him up.

How many times had Asha fallen, scarred her knees, and even dislocated toes, fingers, ankles and wrists? How lucky that she knitted together again even without the aid of Black Sphere. But Little Chick wasn't so lucky. Surely Little Chick would understand why it would be better with Black Sphere? It was his injury after all that pushed a young Asha into the arms of the recruiters, the desire to see more "miracles of healing."

Sunlight dappled against something ahead. The Hideout! A metal playhouse mottled with rust. Leftover from another time, turned into a font for young imaginations. War-games, hide and seek; places to bury treasure. But the tinny echoes of high-pitch laughter had gone.

Asha pushed her way in through a corrugated metal door, apprehension burbling in her chest. Instead of children playing games, the Hideout was now serious and grown-up.

Two dozen grim-faced men and women sat on wooden benches. Mostly adult versions of wiry boys Asha had once known, boys who dared each other to climb to the treetops. Her New Model Optic listed an array of injuries. Everywhere cried hurt; scars and amputations; or emotional amputation in the least. War wounds . Only a few children remained, huddled in a corner distracting themselves with games of chalk and pebbles.

Further New Model-optic analysis revealed a variety of concealed knives, even more guns. A half dozen rifles leant in brazen view against a wall; all stolen from army surplus according to her reports. A powder keg of tension prickled through her upgrades. Warning lights blinked in her optic, sensing a potential threat.

"Squirrel, is that you? Someone, get her a drink," yelled a skinny man, bare-chested and standing on a makeshift wooden platform. One of his eyes shone bright blue, the other was milky white; Little Chick! Although skinny, his body was tensed with tight-corded muscle.

Another young man hobbled over to Asha. Dragging a limp foot behind him, he sloshed a clear liquid in a dirty glass. Asha took the drink but even before she brought it to her lips the stink of strong alcohol stung her eyes. She decided to just hold it, uncomfortable with all the "grown-up stuff" going on in places of which memory had sealed-off for exclusive "kid play-time." This all seemed wrong, improper somehow. When she recognized the "waiter," a gush of pity wore at her resolve. The lame man used to be called "Swifty."

With a big welcoming smile Little Chick spoke. "I have it all prepared. See what I've done? Your father would be proud. While you've been helping us in the cities I've got us ready to fight back, just like he wanted." Still smiling, he waved his hand dismissively at the gathered people. "You can help convince them to fight. They still um-and-ah like old women."

Dangerous talk. Mama was right. "No, don't say such things. My dear friend, you have the Black Sphere wrong. They are not our enemy."

Holding aloft her hand, Asha activated a little tech-trickery to make sure she had everyone's attention. Her fingernails fuzzed into space one moment, and then a flock of big pouty cartoon lips flew across them blowing kisses to one and all. "They want us all to live in beautiful peace."

Intrigued by the magic hand the children in the corner started whispering. Undoubtedly force fed notions of the evils of "extreme technology," Asha knew how such tales only sweetened forbidden fruits. However, most of the hall shot scowls her way. Some even spat on the dirt floor. I'm losing them already.

Vulnerable and exposed, Asha felt unarmed despite her upgrades. "And they offer healing. Look." Crouching low in front of Swifty, she placed a finger on his dead foot. For an instant it colored a healthy tan, tendons pinched sharp and strong, Swifty stood tall and proud. When she slowly withdrew her hand he almost tumbled, but Asha caught and steadied him with a gentle hug.

She turned back to the one-eyed man. "You see, Little Chick?"

Little Chick's eyes narrowed, his brow creased. "Your father didn't give his permission for you to go to the cities and come back as living propaganda. So this is our hero?"

"No, not propaganda. I bring progress to all of us."

"Did you never listen to him? Black Sphere's a terror to our souls and traditions. Millimeter by millimeter they claim the forest with their glue. Instead of real trees they give imitation tress. Imitation life, imitation everything."

"No," Asha said, squeaking in frustrating. Pointing to a young man on a bench, his short hair stricken with bald patches, Asha said, "You, I remember you. Simon. You had long brown hair, you used to let me tie it in pig tails." Then she pointed to another, a young woman with stumpy brown teeth lining the gums of her gawking mouth. "Lesley, how would you like to smile brightly again like you did all those years ago? See, my crooked teeth are fixed." Asha showed off her own perfect-white smile.

Around the hall, chatter took hold. Asha's New Model Optic blinked; the image of a mini log cabin birthed from the floor, the insides glowing with light and warmth. Just a projection, but Asha thought it would clinch her argument once and for all. "You could still live in the forest. But instead of freezing-dark nights you'd have everlasting heat and light. And fresh water. Everything you'll ever need all synthesized with Black Sphere tech."

The ramble of chatter continued. Asha offered Little Chick what she hoped was a conciliatory smile. Something shadowy flickered over his face for a moment. Strange, Asha thought. Her upgrades read him as merely "harmless." Black Sphere overconfidence?

He chugged back a glass of alcohol, coughed, then looked at Asha with his one bright blue eye. All of a sudden Little Chick clapped, then again, and then three times, battling the chatter into submission until finally silence prevailed.

"Ask yourself, Squirrel, who is the real enemy? Not long ago Black Sphere needed us, needed our skills to use beyond the periphery where their tech couldn't function. Now our way of life is to become a commodity, to become currency in their economy of lifestyles and ideals. All because they fear our ability to survive without them. I want my thoughts to be my own. I want to get fat after the harvest, and when I am old I want to go bald and grey so all know my life has been full. I will always wear my life."

Unable to control her exasperation, Asha screamed. "You are blind in one eye." Sucking in a breath, she tried to compose herself. "It's not their fault that you missed your adventure, missed going to war. Black Sphere will fix you, Little Chick. I promise. I too wear my life with pride. Except it doesn't have to be a life of struggle anymore."

"No. Nobody in the cities wears their life. You don't wear your life. Black Sphere wears it, and changes it when it goes out of fashion. I don't talk to the Asha I once knew anymore, just her skin-as-clothes over a Black Sphere center."

It happened slowly at first, a trickle, but it grew and became a torrent. More and more people stood up from their benches and made their way to Little Chick's side. Asha looked on, helpless and abandoned.

"Go back to the cities and tell them we fight only for ourselves from now on."

Fearful that it would undermine her to the Board of Director, Asha tried to quell the full realization of the thoughts brimming in her mind. But she couldn't help it. This place is no longer my home. I should have never come back.

"Carte blanche. Remove the obstacle. Now." The words rolled across her New Model Optic disturbing a night of fitful sleep. But Asha lay for a while longer, snug on the feathered mattress in the main room of her family's cabin.

She dreamily marveled at the hanging charms, their gentle wooden clatter in the breeze, never noticing before how many mini-animals Mama had carved. Birds dangled with spread wings, or wolves about to pounce. One was a bear raised to full height. Was I the bird, flying away when my people needed me? Little Chick had the loudest voice now; perhaps he was the bear leading a pack of wolves. But his actions would lead everyone to their deaths. Just for his pride? Stupid man. A little town in a forest stood no chance. Thankfully the people of the cities would never support the notion of Black Sphere forcing itself on such a small place, would they? It wasn't like "child's play" anymore. Eventually she roused herself into action.

Taking one last look at Papa in his chair, his eyes open but staring blankly at the front door, Asha understood his stubbornness. As Black Sphere was now part of her she knew Papa had Luddite in his core. "What I do I do to make our lives better. Things change, Papa," she whispered in the darkness of night. The old man, of course, just stared at the front door. With great care, Asha closed it silently behind her.

Even in the dark she found "The Hideout" easily enough; her New Model Optic filtering night into bright-lit day. Data-streams assured that everyone inside was fast asleep. Just in case though, Asha surged black fuzz through her silhouette, the Black Sphere tech blending her to shadow. Creeping with long silent strides, she entered the hall, stepping over snoozing bodies until she found where Little Chick lay.

The call of Black Sphere, so deep inside it felt as if it came from her soul, spoke. You have saved your people. Do what you must. Remove the chaos, bring everlasting peace.

But now that she stood on the precipice could she really bloody her hands like this? Her heart told her not too, her conscience told her to slice off her new arm and pluck out her new eye. Maybe Papa was right all along?

One minute her emotions pulled her back from the task, but then her feelings dissipated into the ether. The sheer will of the Board of Directors pierced into nerves, DNA, and thought; no remorse, just efficient action.

When her hand morphed into a black, razor-sharp blade, she cut it across Little Chick's throat with deadly calm. First she felt the give of flesh as expected. Afterward the blade passed right through as if he was made of air. Too smoothly.

A shimmer overtook Little Chick's form, he fuzzed blacker than the night, reforming into a pile of shapes in seconds, into a thing of geometry dark and hidden from the other sleepers. Through her optic Asha could see a brain stem glowing inside; the ultimate sacrifice to company loyalty. A Geo-man.

Another message whispered from her soul, Asha, the Board of Directors is all knowing. I have served for many years since I lost my eye. I am an extension of their will. Just think—your death will galvanize the Luddites to strike out, giving Black Sphere the excuse it needs to apply force. Giving them "carte blanche."

Stumbling back, breath catching in her chest, Asha wanted to throw-up. Little Chick's boy face appeared on the Geo-man, smiling so sweetly and softly. Even when the black noose whipped out from his body, tangling around Asha's neck, he continued to smile.

The room ebbed and flowed like when Asha had severed her hand, but there was no pain. It is all going to plan. Polygons pulsed across the Geo-man, morphing him back into Little Chick, body and all. The noose broke away, knotting tighter around Asha's throat until it cut into her skin.

Stirred by the sound of movement other people rustled awake. "I'm okay," said Little Chick, "She tried to kill me. Do you all see now? We must fight back."

Wet, warm liquid dribbled down Asha's chest, the cord around her neck sawing in ever more. She slumped to the floor so tired, wanting to sleep forever. Death wasn't true black, not like the Black Sphere tech. If anything death was hazy like sunshine, warm against her skin. It felt good.

In an all-black room the floor rippled, pushing a variety of geometric shapes into existence. A voice rung through the shapes. "Miss Asha Kass, you have given your all. You are Black Sphere incarnate. Energy and information incarnate. Our will incarnate."

News data streams titillated through her, showing streets bordering the Black Sphere cessation line. Where bodies lay under the care of medics, bleeding from gunshot wounds. Behind a cordon of black spiked barriers civilians raged, yelling at the black membrane under their feet. "What could have riled the Luddites up? They are a menace. We must defend ourselves," a spokesman said.

Bleeding hearts turned hawkish overnight. Asha knew she should feel something else, but satisfaction swelled prominent, an understandable thrill at fulfillment of company policy. I should be proud of myself. Shouldn't I? She never noticed the myriad twinges and aches that plagued her young body until their absence. Now everything felt... perfectly efficient.

"You will go into the forests with a squad of soldiers and end the Luddite threat. Now that you are a Geo-woman, it will be easy. You have carte blanche. Do you understand?"

Asha could see the full panorama around her, the wall with its sixty-four twitching eyes waiting in expectation, everything else just darkness. "I understand. It'll be child's play."

Sadness

Timons Esaias | 3052 words

I hadn't seen one of the New People in years, and this wasn't the best time for one to drop by. I'd planned to go out to the Wall and think about killing my lover.

Isabel would not appreciate finding "one of Them" in "her" house, so before the visitor had even arrived I was trying to imagine strategies for getting it out of there. I urged her program to delay her morning ritual, and flash-queried our mayor as to just why this visitor would be coming.

"Who ever knows why they come? I wasn't told," he sent back. But to keep me from thinking he was giving me the usual dumb-bureaucrat-without-a-clue routine he attached a copy of the message they had sent him. "Visitor for Morgantown Sector, 9 A.M., this day, Occupant Evor Bookbinder."

Nervous, I made tea by hand, and reviewed the latest discussions on how the New People think, and how best to handle them. Most of the postings were rather old, indicating that the question wasn't much on anyone's mind these days. From what I could gather, today's visit would be just the third in the last twelve months. There had been none, zero, the year before. They had cameras to watch us, of course, including all the ones we use to watch ourselves, but their part of Humankind seemed to be giving our part only brief glances down an extremely disdainful upturned nose.

I reviewed the basics. Never move closer than four meters, and set your minder to keep track of the distance. Try not to use slang that you can't easily define when asked. Compound sentences are good, complex sentences are best. They love it when we switch verb tenses, but it also confuses the daylights out of them. Commit no crimes in their presence, because they always rat. Do not express frustration when you fail to make sense of what they are saying. Use your minder to replay their sentences until you feel ready to respond, but do not ask them to repeat anything. This seems to be deeply offensive. If you are befuddled, ask a clarifying question.

Yes, of course. I had forgotten the music of their voices, the layers.

I heard the music in the east garden, the little one off the lower den. My visitor was in the garden, and the clock specifically and clearly read 8:17.

They have no sense of time, these New People. No sense of civil promptness.

I loaded my tea onto a tray and added a second service. In the center I put an antique stemmed dish, on which lay the ceremonial bread and saltpeter. The visitor wouldn't take any of these, of course, but they seem to appreciate being included. I selected a kefiya of no political significance, covered my head, made the lesser prayer, and went down through the den to my guest.

I should have made the greater prayer. The guest had neglected to clothe itself properly, leaving its head uncovered to the insult of all Above and below, and one arm was fully exposed, and covered with those suppurating gray-purple scales that move. That seethe, is what I should say.

My gorge rising, I made obeisance and placed the tray on the small granite table Isabel had ordered from a quarry in New Hampshire, just weeks before New Hampshire was closed off. "It reminds me of Beyond," she would say. "It is my flotsam from the wreck of History."

It is also a beautiful table.

My visitor had been interrogating, in English, one of the chipmunks who feed on our offering plants. Perhaps he had tried Chipmunk unsuccessfully. I heard the interlaced threads of "How many kilograms do you eat in one lifetime?" "What is your lineage?" "Do you find the weather conducive to health?" and something about sports that I didn't quite follow. One thread was soprano, two were alto, but one of those a flat monotone, and the last was a falsetto. Just the tones that get on my nerves.

The chipmunk did not, in my view, take these questions very seriously.

I followed the ritual of "garden tea in the morning after a long voyage," but was not acknowledged until after I had withdrawn to the bench and sat down. There was quiet for a time, and because I should have been busy preparing my mind to deal with the stranger, I instead busied my mind preparing to kill Isabel, and if possible before she heard anything of this visitor in the garden she claimed as hers even though it belonged to the people.

Isabel had never adapted to the concept of sharing, finding it "just too inconvenient." Her attitude would have given me ample excuse to kill her, if we were living during one of the many Revolutions that enlivened history before the New People put a stop to all that. Now her attitude was merely stupid and selfish, neither of which warranted death, or even a sound whipping.

I still would have to kill her, however. That seemed certain.

I missed the first syllables of my visitor's introductory comment, but my minder replayed them, making footnote remarks as it went. The visitor wished me to know that its name would be of no use to me, so I should merely use the second honorific; it wondered how I felt about the hairstyle of Blake's Visionary Head of Friar Bacon; it asserted that it found the asymmetry of the hydrogen sulfite molecule "troubling;" and it wished to know if my testicles had always been so tiny.

My minder observed that it could not extract a theme from the four remarks, but mentioned that each had been set to a passage from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, one passage from each Season, then transposed into D-sharp, and pitched down a fifth.

"In the winter of my life, Hermikiti Talu and Highness, this man's fruit shrivels; not as it was in the spring when I might have studied the pencil drawings of Blake, but instead learned only the architecture of his predecessor, Inigo Jones, whose partial reincarnation Blake might have been, I suppose, and it would not do to fall into the trap of remarking on what I so ill understand; and not as the molecule you cite, which is ever the same from century to century, from summer to autumn to winter and is perhaps symmetrical in time, which is a form of beauty, is it not?" I said.

The visitor sat, uncovered and arrogant, its arm seething as though maggots teemed beneath, and did not respond. It withdrew its right foot from its sandal, cut off a toe, and carefully lifted a stone out of the garden wall and dropped the toe into the hole. It rotated the stone and dropped it back into the wall, askew.

This unnerved me, and my brain went completely blank. My minder could make nothing of it, either, and asked for permission to consult the net. I authorized the consultation, but nothing useful came in. I had twenty minutes to contemplate my sickening guest before it made any further remark.

There is no point in relating the bizarre elements of that exchange. Simply, it asked me to come with it, and I did. We walked out of the garden, across the deserted parade ground, and up the terraces to the section of Wall that runs along Toothpick Ridge. It sang to itself as it walked, setting my teeth on edge repeatedly. My knees throbbed with the unexpected climbing, but I would have died rather than complain.

It had pulled considerably ahead of me by the time we came to the Wall. Instead of stopping, as I had expected, it climbed the closest stair to the top and waited for me there.

I had wanted to get my visitor away from the house, and had wanted to go to the Wall, and here we were, away from the house and on the Wall. Instead of being pleased, I chose this opportunity to throw away everything. I succumbed to peevish resentment.

The Hermikiti Talu and Highness, may it burn both in this life and another, had taken position on the battlement about one meter from the top of the stairs, which did not leave room for me to pass. Rather than walk thirty meters along the path to the next stairway and then thirty meters back, I chose to bow into the pose of "patient obeisance and humiliation," three meters from the top of the stairs, until this New Person bothered to notice.

I spent some six minutes in that uncomfortable position, my knees throbbing and my right heel feeling like a hot needle was being driven into it. Too much time to think, and to build resentment. Not enough time, alas, to work through this to calmness.

Finally the visitor made its music, indicating that I should come up the stairs, into its space, and stand beside it. My minder indicated that this was an insincere, merely formal invitation, so I remained still. The minder had been misinformed, however, for the visitor shortly spoke again, indicating in three of its threads that I should get up on the Wall immediately.

I unlocked my joints and staggered up the last stairs, nervously taking my place within reach of the loathsome creature, if creature it is of That which is Above, which I doubt. At that distance I could hear the shifting of those hideous scales, a low, syncopated whispering. It nauseated me, despite my training in meditation and bodily control. I tried to distract myself with humor, asking myself the question "Surely this is not as bad as dining with your first mother-in-law?" For the first time in my adult life, the answer could not be negative. This experience made that one pale by comparison.

I concentrated on the view, for the visitor said nothing. What lay before my eyes was the valley of the Fish River and the hillside beyond, hundreds of acres of forest. Nestled into a dell on the side of that hill was a small farm, with fields of Indian corn growing tall. Why they grew corn on these machine-run farms had never been clear. Perhaps they fed it to animals in other zoos.

I did not see the forest as forest, though, or the field as field. I saw a world denied to me. I would never walk in that forest, or see the valley beyond the far ridge, or any other part of the world, unless it was the confines of another human enclave. I saw the whole vast universe that was outside the Morgantown Sector, which meant outside the prison the New People had made for me. Even the name "Sector" had become a lie, for the Knoxville, Huntington, and Lexington sectors of the Westylvania Enclave had long since been detached, then shrunken, and finally shut down. My sector, all that remained of the Enclave, had been reduced to nine thousand square kilometers.

I saw not the forest, but the loss of my true last name, that I had been forbidden to speak or write ever again. The New People had found, in Confucius, the concept of the Rectification of Names, and had imposed this virtuous program on us all. As I made fancy leather bindings for private editions of art books, I became Bookbinder.

I saw the loss of meaning in that trade, as the only bindings I made were for the official histories that each community had begun keeping. Modern Domesday Books, written for descendants that might, someday, care about the last generation of humankind that had once lived outside the Walls. The real human economy, and real jobs, had ceased to be. We were provided almost all we asked for, except military weapons. They even allowed us dueling pistols and the rapier style of swords. With everything provided, our employments had been reduced to mere hobbies.

Instead of the cornfield, I saw the loss of culture. There were no rows in that field, because their machines did not use tractors that needed to drive through them. The stalks were closely spaced in hexagonal distribution, the seeds shot into the ground by a hovering planter, and thus there was no angle at which the eye could see through a grown field. That morning the field said to me, I am not a human field. I am not for you. I am new.

My clothes illustrated the loss of culture. I had been raised a Congregationalist, in Little Falls, New York. I wore American suits and ties at work, and jeans and Pendleton shirts at home, until the New People decided that the ideal attire for human beings must be the robes and burnoose of Persia in the sixteenth century. My Amy Vanderbilt manners have been replaced with the extreme formalism of second century Shansi, with touches of fourteenth century Japan, and with completely invented New People additions thrown in. I have learned court poses, and formal mudras, and my native English has been replaced with the Sanskrit the New People decided was our best language. I am proficient in sign-speech; not because I, or a relative, needed it, but because they don't care to listen to our gabble; and so we must sign whenever more than three of us are together.

My religion had been replaced with The Wisdom, which seemed cobbled from Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism.

For years I had thought of myself as a highly cultured person, an artist and an intellectual. As each challenge, each adaptation had been presented by the planet's new owners, I had risen to meet it, to exceed the standards required of us. I had been willing to commit murder, and commit it that very day, as part of my coping, my rising to meet a difficult and awkward transition. Standing on that Wall, that day, I lost my persona. Lost my reinvented, carefully maintained, safe, obliging self. I looked across the Fish with the eyes of a caged animal.

I fought down the urge to push the visitor off the Wall, but only because I knew the attempt would be futile. Human reflexes are not fast enough to touch them, much less knock one over, and their bodies far too easily repair themselves.

Perhaps it sensed some part of my feelings, for it chose that moment to gesture in the direction of the cornfield and utter two full minutes of discordant four-theme lyrics. I was surprised to find myself following the gist of the speech, even though I found the meaning too bizarre and too awful for words. Still, I let the minder repeat the contents, while the visitor took a brief stroll down the battlements, awaiting my reply.

There may have been artistry in the monster's presentation, but I will not dignify it with a repetition. The essence was twisted and brutal.

It wondered if I was knowledgeable on the ancient religions which practiced the annual sacrifice of the Corn God Ritual.

Surely, it observed, an artist such as myself must deeply respect the great power of Archetypes.

It noted that my lover, my Isabel, was distantly, and morganatically, related to royalty.

It wished me to know that of all the versions of human sacrifice it had learned of from our history, the Saturnalia and Corn God sacrifices seemed the most noble, the most pleasing, and the most interesting.

The New People had decided to revive the practice, and study its effects.

Did I not expect better crops as a result?

Would I not be proud to know that she had been given to the gods in such an artistic way? Or would sadness prevail?

They hoped, it assured me, that scientific and philosophical study of the sacrifice and its outcome would allow them to perfect human civilization; would clarify for them our ideal culture; would help them bring us to our just and rightful reward.

"These sacrifices," I asked, "are held in midwinter, or the spring, were they not? Some months from now, yes?"

Indeed they were, but she would be taken and prepared now, and sacrificed later.

My response was not in complex sentences. "Sadness would prevail," I said. "You are vile to do this. You are vile even to think of it."

She had been taken while we stood on that Wall, was already gone when I returned, alone.

The neighbors came, saying the inadequate things they could think to say, doing the little things that got me through the first week. I did not tell them, then, that the New People had taken her before I could find the courage to put her beyond their reach. I had planned to kill Isabel to spare her from whatever the next step was, though I never imagined something like this; and that peaceful, private death had been forestalled. I did not need to tell them that Isabel had once been delightful, proud, and generous—that she had only turned cranky and peevish lately, adapting poorly to a completely altered world. We all knew it.

I worked in the bindery, because it is what I do, though there is no real sense in it. The New People had done to me what they do: taking away the most beloved, and claiming it to be for our own good. There is even less sense in that.

I worked in the bindery, and mulled over my despair. I mulled it over in my native language, in English, which my visitor found adequate for addressing a chipmunk. I found myself rusty in it, after all these years thinking in Sanskrit. Mostly, I closed escape hatches. I decided not to indulge myself in going mad; not to commit suicide; nor to make them kill me by excessive resistance; not to attempt a futile escape over the Wall, or an act of senseless violence. I decided not to escape into mysticism, and not to convince myself that some god would help after failing so miserably up to this point, may all that is Above get itself in fucking gear.

I decided that only one act of defiance might be of any use at all. I wrote this tale, and am inserting it into this binding and all my other bindings, on the backing papers and in a microchip, with the hope that the recording of what the New People have done will someday bring their acts back upon them.

Perhaps this will protect some other planet from their gentle ministrations. I am not, however, altruistic in this act. I am hoping that with them, soon—as with me, now—sadness will prevail.

Man cannot live by incompetence alone.

—Charlotte Whitton

Crimson Sky

Eric Choi | 4265 words

Press Release

Date: Ls 117.43, 59 A.L.

Source: The Bessie Coleman Foundation

A Voliris 3600 lighter-than-air vehicle took off today from Yeager Base, Arabia Terra, at 07:22 Coordinated Mars Time, launching a bold attempt to set a new Martian record for the longest flight made by an aircraft. Piloted by Carl Gablenz, with funding from the Bessie Coleman Foundation and support from Thomas Mutch University, the blimp is expected to fly over 600 nautical miles in approximately 80 hours. Gablenz is scheduled to land at Laurel Clark Station on the western edge of Isidis Planitia.

Link here for video and images of the departure.

Every med-pilot does their own things before flying.

If anyone were to ask about their routines, Martian med-pilots would swear that whatever they did was based on method and procedure, never superstition. Some of them, usually the grizzled veterans, hung out in the ready room, perhaps drinking coffee or watching videos or playing solitaire. Newbies might be found in the map room studying the latest mission profiles, or going over operational procedures in a simulator.

When she wasn't strength training in the gym, Maggie McConachie drank coffee and read journals while listening to the irregular beat of heliocentric jazz. Helio had been all the rage when she was growing up. Her dad had loved it, and she too had learned to relish its strange rhythms. She now read her journals to its siren call. Never aviation or medical journals, though—Maggie's pleasure reading was scientific journals. Dad had still been a grad student when she was a baby, and he would often lull her to sleep by singing papers he had to read, thereby killing two birds with one stone. Maggie might very well be the only person in the Solar System to find soothing comfort in the bizarre medley of heliocentric jazz and partial differential equations.

A framed still image of Maggie as a young child, with her father at her side, broke the grey monotony of the otherwise spartan walls of her quarters. Her dad used to travel frequently to scientific conferences and would often bring his young family along. Maggie must have been around two or three Earth years old at the time the picture was taken, in a boarding gate waiting area at the old La-Guardia Airport. They were standing in front of the windows looking out onto the apron, her father kneeling beside her as she pointed a short, podgy finger at a passing airplane.

The call came in at 08:41 MTC. Maggie was next up in the flight rotation.

"Med-Three here."

The message was terse. She nodded and put down the reader, stealing a quick glance at the picture before dashing out of her quarters, the music fading to silence before the door closed behind her.

Navigating the claustrophobic hallways and ladders of Syrtis Station, she found her way to the operations center in less than a minute. Ops was crowded, as usual, with teams of technicians seated at their workstations. Liu Huang, the Air Search Coordinator, turned to her and nodded as she entered the room. In the middle, surrounded by banks of screens, was Charles Voisin, the chief Search Master for the Mars Search and Rescue Service at Syrtis Station. Maggie approached Charles, carefully squeezing through narrow rows of equipment and workstations.

"Good morning, Maggie. I have an excellent mission for you." Charles was a slight man of medium height. His angular face was crowned by curly dark hair, with a neatly trimmed moustache and large soulful eyes that always had slight bags under them, as if he never quite got enough sleep. Maggie thought Charles looked a little bit like her dad when he was young. "We have an aircraft down."

"Where's the ELT?" Maggie asked.

Liu uploaded a panoramic map to the wall screen. A flashing icon with the registration M4–LGA indicated the approximate signal source from the downed aircraft's emergency locator transmitter. "Arabia Terra, near the southwest rim of Antoniadi Crater."

"That's getting awfully close to the bingo fuel radius of the chopper," Maggie said, referring to the farthest distance she could safely fly before having to either return to base or find an alternate landing site for fuel. The latter were extremely rare on Mars.

"There aren't any permanent settlements at Antoniadi yet. Who's out there?" Maggie paused for a moment. "Oh, for the love of... It's that guy trying to set the record, isn't it? Carl... Gablenz?"

"Yes."

"But he's only been up since... what, yesterday, and he's in trouble already? As if we're not busy enough already without having to pull damn stunt pilots out of their self-inflicted messes." Maggie made a face. "Isn't he supposed to be rich? Can we send this playboy the bill?"

"We do not go after people for costs just because they have the money to pay for it," Charles said gently. "Someone gets lost or goes down, we go help them. That's our job."

"Who says universal healthcare is dead, huh?"

Charles shrugged.

"All right, then. Liu, get me the METARs and PIREPs," Maggie said, referring to the meteorological aviation reports and pilot weather reports. "Start with the upper level weather—wind speed, bearing aloft and temperature. I'll also need the forecasts and updates for the target area as well as current weather on-scene, especially site visibility."

"Roger that," said Liu. He called up a display. "We have a low pressure trough approaching the crash site from the northwest."

As Liu continued with the weather briefing, Maggie pulled out a tablet to prepare her flight plan.

"We have requested Mr. Gablenz's medical records from Earth," said Charles. He consulted another display. "The Harmakhis–7 satellite will be passing over that area in about twenty minutes. We will transmit all data to you en route as it becomes available."

"All right, Charles." She pronounced his name Anglo style, with a hard "ch" sound.

"Soyez prudent, Maggie."

She looked at him with a blank expression.

"You have no idea what I just said, do you?" His moustache twitched in amusement. "No matter, although I wish you would at least try to pronounce my name correctly."

Maggie tapped the tablet to file her completed flight plan. "Just make sure the coffee's hot when I'm back." She dashed out of the operations center and went to put on her bio-suit. Ten minutes later, she was on the pad.

MarsSAR employed the Bell–Xïnshìjiè BX–719A helicopter. A two-armed dexterous robot nicknamed Chop-Chop performed near-continuous systems diagnostics and routine line maintenance for the BX–719 on ready standby. The ready vehicle was further checked every couple of hours by a human technician who performed a more detailed inspection and then signed-off the helicopter as ready to fly. This minimized the time between a call coming in and when the med-pilot could be dispatched.

"Liu, please confirm the flight status of vehicle," Maggie radioed.

"The last A-check was completed thirty-eight hours ago," Liu reported ."No major faults. One minor fault, an intermittent indication on the starboard landing light status, not a MEL issue. Caution memory is clear. Vehicle flight status is green."

"Thanks, Liu."

Formal assurances aside, Maggie always made a point of taking a minute to do a quick check herself. After one of her early flights, a technician on the Air Search Coordinator's team—perhaps insulted by her apparent lack of trust—asked her why she did it. She told her the truth: "Because I want to stay alive." Chop-Chop took no offense.

Every med-pilot does their own things before flying.

Jumping into the seat, Maggie checked the status of the liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks, the regenerative fuel cells and the batteries, as well as the onboard medical equipment. Finding everything in order, she hopped out and did a quick circuit around the chopper, starting from the port side and working counter-clockwise. On the ground, the BX–719 sat on four landing legs with articulated foot pads. Maggie looked for leaks in the shock absorbers of the portside pair. She then scanned the port engine pod and its ten-bladed propeller for damage. The BX–719 was equipped with pusher props on each side, which served to increase the chopper's speed while counteracting the torque of the large main rotor through differential thrust.

She then climbed to the top of the helicopter and looked at the transmission well and the main rotor for anomalies. The BX–719's rotor had four low aspect ratio blades made of reinforced Kevlar epoxy skin stretched over a skeleton of graphite epoxy spars and ribs. Resembling giant fan blades, they were twisted along their lengths, and the top and bottom surfaces were equipped with a pair of upper and lower boundary layer trips to produce an optimal lift distribution.

After jumping down, Maggie went to look at the last major component of the helicopter, a large V-shaped horizontal stabilizer at the rear of the aircraft. She scanned the elevator and trim tab, and then manually moved the elevator up and down. Once the portside check was finished, she repeated the procedure on the other side of the helicopter.

With her personal inspection ritual completed, she returned to the cockpit, strapped herself into the pilot's seat and plugged her biosuit into the helicopter's power and life support system. With the exception of a large forward windshield, the cockpit was open and unpressurized. She powered up the flight management system and avionics, started the engines and commenced the takeoff procedure.

"Syrtis Station, MarsSAR–3 is ready for departure."

"MarsSAR–3, you are cleared for departure. Surface winds are from two-seven-zero at eleven knots, gusting to twenty. Good luck, Maggie."

Maggie confirmed the callout with the meteorological data displayed on the augmented reality projection on the inside of her helmet. "Thanks, Liu."

She raised the collective with practiced confidence and brought the helicopter to a hover over the pad. After a final check of the instruments and the flight controls, she applied more collective and pushed the cyclic forward, translating the BX–719 to forward motion.

This was already Maggie's sixth mission since being assigned to Syrtis less than eight Earth months ago. By necessity, they were all solo missions. A lone med-pilot plus the patient (or two, if the latter were light enough) was all the helicopter could lift in the thin Martian atmosphere. If there were more casualties, she could only take back the one or two most critically injured. For the remainder, she would do her best to stabilize them on site, to await either her return or the arrival of a MarsSAR ground team.

Every mission was different, but there were also similarities—most notably, the way she felt during the outbound flight. Like many young pilots, she was always geared up, her adrenaline constantly pumping. She knew exactly what she had to do; her training made that a certainty. Yet, at the back of her mind, there were always questions: How am I going to pull this off? What surprises await me?

Maggie didn't know much about this Carl Gablenz character, just brief clips of stuff she'd seen on media. He was probably one of those self-made rich people who had racked up a fortune in finance at Clavius. Somebody once tried to climb the four "Mons of Tharsis" in one year, but quit after getting stuck somewhere halfway up Pavonis. Maggie thought it might have been Carl. She was pretty sure he was the guy who had tried to do a solo balloon circumnavigation of Titan. That had been a failure as well. Maggie wondered if he'd ever succeeded in any of his crazy stunts.

If nothing else, she really hoped he was still alive when she found him. The paperwork for processing dead people was horrendous.

Maggie's thoughts were interrupted by a radio report from Liu.

"I have good news and bad news," he said. "Which would you like first?"

"Surprise me."

"Here is the data from Harmakhis–7, hot off the downlink." As he spoke, an image appeared on Maggie's augmented reality display showing a grey truncated ellipsoid with stubby fins against a crimson background. "We have pinpointed the crash site and the coordinates are being entered into your FMS now."

Maggie conf irmed that the helicopter's flight management system had accepted the navigational data. "I take it that's the good news. What's the bad?"

Another image appeared inside her helmet. At first, it appeared to show a featureless Martian plain. But as the contrast was enhanced, a pair of lines cutting across the surface became visible. They resembled shallow trenches, somewhat like those left by fingers scraping across fine sand, but on a much larger scale. According to the display, they were several hundred feet in length.

"Dust devil tracks," she said grimly.

"Yes. They are probably what brought down our intrepid adventurer Gablenz." If it had been at low altitude, the slow moving blimp and its possibly tired pilot would have been easy prey for the strong whirlwinds.

Maggie gritted her teeth. "So which department bureaucrat should we call to ask about our lidars?" The MarsSAR fleet was supposed to have been equipped with laser detection and ranging units months ago. Remote Syrtis Station was still waiting.

"Be careful, Maggie. Syrtis Station out."

She frowned, contemplating her situation. Martian dust devils were difficult to see, and without a lidar system there was no reliable way to detect one until she literally flew into it. But she remembered reading a journal paper about how the swirling dust often became charged through triboelectric effects, producing low frequency radio emissions. Maggie tuned one of the helicopter's receivers to pick up in the lower AM band. She wished she had more data, but with luck the radio might give her a few seconds of warning.

Maggie let the autopilot fly most of the course, guided by data from the Harmakhis–7 satellite. She took over manual control as she approached the crash site, flying a circular observation run around the downed aircraft.

"I have a visual of the target," Maggie reported. "Video and data telemetry on. Attempting to link-in with the aircraft's flight data recorder." The link status icon on her augmented reality display remained a red X. "No joy. Liu, where are we?"

"A-okay on your data and video, I'm seeing you fine. No link to the FDR. Please try again." Liu's voice crackled over the radio. "We... picking up interference..."

"Copy that," Maggie replied.

Maggie continued to circle the crash site, transmitting video and data back to Syrtis. The blimp was tilted about thirty degrees to the surface, its cruciform fins pointed in the air and its crumpled nose planted into the ground. Except for the ruptured forward ballonets, which had lost their hydrogen harmlessly to the carbon dioxide Martian atmosphere, the solar cell covered envelope still largely retained its shape. The left side ducted-fan thruster pod was damaged, but otherwise the gondola housing the pilot also appeared relatively intact.

"... doesn't look good," Liu said.

"No, it doesn't."

"Still... no link." Liu's voice was still dropping out intermittently. "Their communications subsystem... damaged, proceed... caution..."

"Boys and their toys," Maggie muttered. "Why do we let idiots do these stunts?"

Maggie landed about a hundred feet from the crashed blimp. As the helicopter's huge fan-like rotors slowed, she released her seat harness and switched life support from the helicopter's to her biosuit's internal before disconnecting the umbilical and climbing out of the cockpit. Maggie went around to the helicopter's trauma bay and deployed the stretcher, picking up the medical kit and portable life support unit before making her way out to the crashed blimp. It was a physically demanding task, even in three-eighths gravity.

"Syrtis Station to MarsSAR–3." This time, the radio was clear.

"Go ahead, Liu."

"We have received Mr. Gablenz's medical records from Earth."

"Any allergies or relevant preconditions I should know about?"

"None."

When Maggie got to the unpressurized gondola, she found Carl Gablenz unconscious, still strapped in his seat. Carl's biosuit, like Maggie's, was a sleek form-fitting garment that applied counter-pressure to the body mechanically rather than barometrically with air like the bulky old spacesuits of the first human Mars landings. Maggie peered into the hard, transparent bulbous helmet. Carl looked younger than the twenty-five Martian years indicated in his medical records. With his eyes shut, his roundish face looked almost serene, and his black hair had only the slightest streaks of grey. She could not see any obvious signs of an airway obstruction like vomit, and a small patch of condensate on the inside of the helmet showed he was still breathing. Carl was indeed alive—to Maggie's great relief.

With efficient skill, Maggie unplugged Carl's biosuit umbilical from the blimp's dying life support and connected it to her portable unit. She initiated a wireless link with the biosuit computer and transmitted the MarsSAR key to access the embedded medical sensors. Next, she commanded the biosuit's smartskin to rigidize in order to immobilize its occupant as much as possible. On Earth, or in a pressurized Martian habitat, Maggie would have checked her patient's blood circulation by pressing their finger-or toe-nails and observing the capillary refill, but this was not possible through biosuit's gloves.

"Syrtis Station, this is MarsSAR–3. The patient is unconscious but breathing. Biosuit integrity has not been breached. His mean arterial pressure is sixty-seven."

"Copy that," said Liu.

Suddenly, Carl let out a low moan.

"My name is Maggie McConachie, from Mars Search and Rescue," she responded calmly. "You're going to be fine. We'll get you out of here very soon."

She would soon have to move Carl, but there was nothing more she could do to restrain his neck and cervical spine beyond rigidizing the biosuit's smartskin. Attempting to insert a brace or splint would require taking off his helmet. EVA trauma protocols still left much to be desired. It was medical heresy to not better restrain the neck, but she had no choice but to be careful and keep any necessary motions as gentle as possible.

"Syrtis Station, the patient is semiconscious," Maggie reported. "Pulse steady, blood pressure systolic 80, respiratory rate 12, temperature 37.6. Level of consciousness is GCS 5. I'm going to oxygenate him now." She commanded the portable life support unit to vent the air in Carl's helmet and replace it with pure oxygen. She could see his eyes start to flutter. He looked like he was trying to say something. Maggie felt Carl's legs and arms, looking for signs of broken bones and finding none. "I'm going to administer Ringer's Lactate for fluid volume resuscitation."

"Data..."

Maggie blinked. The voice on the radio was not Liu's. "Mr. Gablenz?"

"Important, data..."

"Don't worry, Mr. Gablenz," Maggie said. "We'll have you on your way very shortly. Everything's fine." She pulled an EVA syringe from her med kit and jabbed it hard into Carl's left forearm. The Ringer's solution was delivered in seconds, and Maggie withdrew the syringe. A normally functioning biosuit's smart-skin could self-seal millimeter-sized punctures, but for the sake of time Maggie simply slapped a patch over the pinprick.

"We have a yellow caution on oxygen constraints," Liu warned. "You'd better start heading back to the chopper soon."

Maggie pulled the stretcher up beside Carl. She was about to release the harness that held him in the pilot's seat when she noticed a small still image stuck to the control panel. It was of a young girl, probably about one or two Mars years of age, sitting in the flight deck of some aircraft or spacecraft, pointing at the displays and controls.

Carefully supporting the upper body to minimize neck movements, Maggie slowly slid Carl off the seat and onto the stretcher. She briefly derigidized the biosuit's waist to lie him down, relocking the smartskin after he was fully reclined and strapped in. With the patient secure, Maggie began to push the stretcher back to the helicopter. She had just pulled up to the trauma bay when suddenly the stretcher began to thrash ever so slightly.

"Get... data..."

"Data?" Maggie repeated. She thought about the blimp's flight data recorder and her earlier inability to link-in. But there was nothing more she could do now. The recorders would have to be physically recovered whenever the crash investigation team from the Mars Transportation Safety Board showed up.

"Sir, I cannot recover the FDR data at this time," Maggie explained. "That will have to wait for the MTSB team. There is no time to go back to the wreckage now."

"Not flight data... science..."

"What?" "... data chit, my cuff..." Carl lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Maggie looked at Carl's arms and spotted a small velcro-sealed pocket on the biosuit near his left wrist. Her finger fished inside and produced a data chit. She stared at the small sliver for a moment before putting it into her own biosuit's pocket. Then she docked the stretcher to the helicopter's trauma bay, deflating the wheels before pushing it all the way inside and securing it. Finally, she unplugged Carl's biosuit umbilical from the portable life support unit and connected it to the helicopter's system.

"Syrtis Station, this is MarsSAR–3," Maggie said as she strapped herself back into the pilot's seat. "The patient is secure. I am commencing my return now."

Maggie raised the collective and the helicopter lifted off from Arabia Terra, kicking up a small amount of ruddy dust in its wake, and headed in a south-easterly direction back towards Syrtis. Maggie watched the altimeter display on her augmented reality visor count up past one thousand feet above ground level.

She activated the autopilot and settled back in the seat, occasionally glancing at the display in her helmet that was monitoring Carl's medical parameters such as heart rate, body temperature, respiration, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation. Her thoughts turned to Carl's data chit. She pulled it out of her pocket and plugged it in. Another display popped into her helmet, showing parameters of a different kind: wind speed and direction, temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, atmospheric opacity.

"Meteorology." At last, she understood. "Carl was collecting weather data."

"Maggie," Liu called in, "when you have a moment could you please transmit—"

"Hey, Liu? I didn't copy your last—"

The AM radio crackled to life.

"Tabarnak!" Maggie immediately disengaged the autopilot, pushing the cyclic forward and pulling hard on the collective. The helicopter began to accelerate, and the altimeter reading crept past two thousand feet.

A few seconds later, it hit.

Maggie was pressed into her seat as the helicopter abruptly lofted upward. A moment later, she felt the seat drop out from under her, and she was slammed hard against the harness. She struggled to compensate as the helicopter yawed violently to starboard, but the controls were very sluggish. On her augmented reality display, every icon that had anything to do with the helicopter's electrical system was lit up. She lost the flight management system and the avionics, and the fuel cells went offline.

With painful slowness, the controls began to respond. Maggie managed to stop the yaw and leveled out the helicopter. The buffeting subsided, and she felt the BX–719 climbing again. With the flight management system out, she could only guess at how much altitude she had lost, but one look down told her it had been very close. She could see individual rocks on the surface.

"—respond please, Maggie. Are you all right?"

"Liu! Yeah I, uh—I think I'm still alive. Gimme a second here." She switched to the backup flight management system and power cycled the avionics. Live data began to reappear on her augmented reality display.

Another voice came on the radio. "Maggie, this is Charles. I am happy to learn that you do speak a sort of French after all, but I would advise you not to say such things in polite company. What happened?"

"I just made the acquaintance of the devil, and she's a bitch." Maggie blinked, trying to clear the sweat that had run into her eyes. "Nearly ran me into the ground, and the electrostatic discharge fried a bunch of stuff. I'm running on the backup FMS and the batteries. Wait a minute—"

A status icon changed.

"Okay, the fuel cells have reset and are back online." She checked the medical telemetry. "And our guest is okay. Slept through the whole thing, so to speak."

"Do you need assistance?"

"Yes, I need assistance... make sure the coffee's hot when I get back!"

"Copy that, Maggie," said Charles ."You have certainly earned it."

She leveled out the helicopter at an altitude of five thousand feet above datum for the flight back to Syrtis. The late morning Sun cast a diffuse light over the endless bloody plains below her, a landscape wounded by craters and smothered by a crimson sky.

Maggie's thoughts turned to Carl Gablenz.

On the Earth of the past, it was the pilots who had blazed the trails into the frontiers of the day. Over continents and oceans and across the globe, there was always someone who had to do it first so that others could follow. Flying started as adventure for the few, and through their daring eventually became a safe and indispensable means of travel for all. As it was on the blue planet, so it is again on the red one.

Carl Gablenz was not a stuntman. He was a pioneer, and somewhere another small future explorer was waiting for his safe return. Perhaps the two of them really weren't so different after all. They might even do the same things before flying.

"Coffee." Maggie McConachie smiled. An atmospheric physics journal and some heliocentric jazz, she decided, would go very nicely with that.

Press Release

Date: Ls 118.74, 59 A.L.

Source: The Bessie Coleman Foundation

Carl Gablenz has been rescued by the Mars Search and Rescue Service and is currently recovering at the Syrtis Station medical facilities. Mr. Gablenz expressed his deep gratitude to the courageous personnel of MarsSAR, and thanked all those who have sent well-wishes from across the Solar System. Although his record-setting flight attempt was cut short, valuable data was collected that will help researchers at Thomas Mutch University improve their models of the Martian atmosphere, which promises to make future air travel safer. Mr. Gablenz also vowed to make another attempt at the Martian flight duration record as soon as possible.

"It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery," said Mr. Gablenz."It's all part of taking a chance and expanding our horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave."

The Half-Toe Bar

Andrew Reid | 4172 words

Both contact officers bowed from the waist, as the Local man came out of the smithy. Behind them, Bogdana resisted the impulse—a servant bowed only to her own master, and that was the drill for everyone in tech support. Or so the xenthropology section had decreed, as if any of them really knew.

The blacksmith could have walked out of a book, a perfect documentary illustration in canvas kilt, leather apron, and wooden clogs—muscled like a cartoon from his neck to his calves. Behind him, the smithy was a shelter without walls, built with timbers and roofed with split grey wood shingles.

"We've heard your story," the blacksmith said, as the professors straightened themselves up. Although they weren't paying her for it—the contact officers gave you a look every time a field tech so much as nodded to a Local—Bogdana's ear for the language was getting better.

"Tell me if my old head remembers what I'm told," the smith went on, and scratched his chin through a beard that looked like rusted steel wool. "You're from a world so far we can't see it, but which is close to this star here, or that star there."

He reached an arm up at the blazing blue sky, not breaking eye contact with Professor Scott. His hand made a quick motion in the air, as if he was feeling for something on a high shelf, something he didn't really care if he found.

"And we're all one singular people, all brothers and sisters," the blacksmith went on, dropping his arm and setting both fists on his hips. "Brothers and sisters somehow spread among the heavens and the stars, in times lost to memory. We're familiar with your story."

The smith paused, and Professor Scott said nothing. The blacksmith's people didn't interrupt each other. The linguists claimed that Local B had no word for interrupt that didn't connote at least a small degree of assault.

Beside him, Professor Lawson shifted her weight from one leg to the other. The first Terran woman who'd spoken up unbidden to a Local had gotten whipped across the mouth until she'd bled, and then shipped back to Earth by order of some prince or other. The sociolinguists—Professor Lawson among them—were still trying to work out the rules.

"And we hear," the smith continued, "that you often bring items to trade."

In her earpiece—the field support techs didn't rate audio implants in their skulls or cameras in the pockmarks of their faces— Bogdana listened as the interpreters quarreled in the background over whether the smith's chosen word meant trade or sell. Some days it was free entertainment, listening to the analytic support channel, eavesdropping as the brains back on Treasure Island whispered the best advice they could scrape together from the databases.

The blacksmith looked from one professor to the other, his fists still on his hips. Behind him, in the dark of the smithy, a figure worked a bellows—double acting, judging by the rhythm of the fire—while another moved a workpiece in the bed of orange coals. A smaller forge fire waited, orange fading to red.

"Yes," said Professor Scott, but he'd already started shuffling his feet. "Yes. Prince Hafzak has given his permission for us to trade with his people. But we've come as much to share as to trade, truly."

And if you'd carry your own shit to share and to trade, Bogdana thought, the rest of us could spend our time fixing the last bus that still actually runs.

What do I have to do to get fired, Professor? Just tell me.

"None of us have any doubt," said the blacksmith, and he looked past the contact officers to Bogdana, standing behind them alone with the loaded power wagon. "Just as none of us doubt that Prince Hafzak's priest speaks to the very stones of the mountain when the moons are their brightest."

In the smithy, one figure pulled the red-hot bar from the fire with short tongs and held it to the anvil, while the other started pounding it with a medium sledge.

"Unclear," said one interpreter in her left earbud. "If this is a figure of speech, it's novel. Nonverbals are unclear. Paraverbals tentatively contradictory."

Bogdana usually found it more interesting just to listen to the native speech, but she'd been feeling the need to be reminded of Treasure Island. To listen to people other than professors of whatever, who demanded that you keep moving inland, even as your convoy lost one vehicle after another. And now they'd blown another of the bus's huge tires.

Houston, we've had a problem. Some jokes never got old. Bogdana never tried to remember how hard she'd worked, to get a field tech position.

But they'd accomplished one thing, at least: building themselves a short chain of Terran settlements, stretching in from the coast across the dry uplands to this first inland valley. Four tiny Terran settlements, each populated by two or three Field Techs trying to fix a twenty-ton off-road bus, everyone forbidden to call for suborbital pickup because of what it'd look like on the logistics budget.

"We'd hoped to learn some things from you, as well," Professor Scott went on. "Our scientists are very curious about the seasons of your wool-beasts."

They hadn't found a Local word yet for scientist, so the consensus had been to say it in English. The smith just nodded, so Professor Scott continued.

"But it's true that we've brought a number of things you might find of value."

He glanced over his shoulder at the pedlar's wagon. People did say that Scott was the best Terran speaker of any Local language so far encountered, and Bogdana would have given him that. She twisted the handlebar grip and the pedlar lurched forward on its eight wheels, two freight pallets long and half a meter tall.

They'd landed at the coast with two of them, and now parts from the first had kept the second one working. They'd known the dust was bad for every bearing in every machine, but it was turning out worse than anyone had thought.

Scott and Lawson stepped back, as if to let the trade goods speak for themselves.

"Hey Dana," said Krawchuk, on the short-range net.

"Yeah," Bogdana answered as the pedlar's clamshell covers pulled themselves open, sheet metal scraping on its track. She turned her head away, so there'd be no suggestion that she was speaking out of turn.

"Perhaps your sci-en-tists would be better to travel downriver to the city then," the smith suggested—pronouncing the English word slowly, but without apparent difficulty. "I'm just a humble man."

The Local word that meant humble denoted status, not personality. Supposedly.

"Just a toolmaker for farmers and farriers," the smith went on. "Follow the brook to where it joins the River. The path is plenty wide for your wagon."

He pointed at the pedlar, just as Krawchuk came back on the short-range.

"Did we leave the Eddie the big adjustable crescent?"

Bogdana felt herself swallow.

"Yeah, why?"

Tell me what to do to get fired, she thought again.

"Compressor's fucked. If I'm getting this wheel off, it'll be by hand."

"Then we'll just run flat," she replied—lowering her voice even further. "If the big brains say we have to keep moving inland. It's not looking good. They're talking to this Local buddy about some place down toward the river."

"You gotta wonder how many horses Napoleon shot, on the way to Moscow. Did they shoot horses back then, or just slit their throats, or what?"

"Call back to Anal Sup," she told him. "One of them'll know off the top of their head. I gotta go show the beads and trinkets."

But the smith didn't move.

"Would you like to see what we offer?" Professor Scott asked, after too long a moment.

"You show me," the smith said, standing still.

Lawson stepped back and reached toward the pedlar.

"Drill bits, Dana," she whispered in English.

Tungsten carbide drill bits, and glass windows in aluminum frames, were the first things they usually pulled out for display. When it rained in that part of the tropical plateau, it poured for days, and the wood was like soft stone. Windows and drill bits would maybe buy some good will.

Bogdana passed a clear plastic package to Professor Lawson, who held it open for the smith.

The Local man slid the largest bit out from the package, and turned it over in his hand. The carbide would bore through wrought iron or even mild steel without much difficulty, and hold its edge forever drilling in hardwood.

"Ah," he said presently. "Half-toe."

The stamp was new that year, since the linguists had sorted out most of the written language they called Local B West Savannah. A half-toe was fifteen thirty-seconds of an inch—or just under twelve millimetres, where Bogdana Kuznetsova had grown up to learn about such things as drills and bits.

"If these were of any value to you, you wouldn't share them with me for nothing. I traveled with the caravans when I was young. I doubt you're any different."

Houston, Bogdana thought again, we've had a problem.

More villagers were showing up—looking first at the smith, as if to see whether it was safe to approach the strangers.

"I assure you, these are of the highest quality!" Scott replied. "These will cut hard iron!"

The smith shrugged—a gesture with his arms, not his shoulders, but easily recognizable.

"So will the tools I make, if you use them correctly. But there are boatwrights down at the River towns, who might be interested. They work in very hard wood, and certainly would be impressed with these. My older son could guide you, if you can wait a few days."

"Fuck my life, are they serious?" Krawchuk asked in Bogdana's earpiece.

Krawchuk must have gotten back onto the bus. At the seat behind the driver and the navigator, you could sit and watch the raw feeds from the contact officer's camera implants and listen to every audio channel. Bogdana turned away again and keyed the mike for the short-range.

"Call Eddie on the HF," she suggested. "See if we can figure something out."

Maybe another bus had been repaired sufficiently to limp ahead and lend some tools. Now Scott was going to have them walk, and drive the pedlar until it quit on some cart track.

"Would you use these yourself?" the blacksmith asked Professor Scott, as he handed the carbide drill bit back to Lawson. The villagers were getting interested, whispering among themselves—and not fearfully.

"Of course I would," Scott declared, loud and sure, almost indignant.

They'd be laughing at that, back at analytic support, with all their mikes on mute.

"That's interesting," the blacksmith replied immediately. "You see, I bought a half-toe bar of hard iron, this past week."

Hard iron was what the Local smiths called steel, steel with just enough carbon to respond to the most basic heat treatment regime. Back on Treasure Island, different ideas made the rounds, about how the Locals produced it.

"I was going to make a few hand shears," the smith went on, "for my herdsmen customers up on the grassland."

He paused.

"But now, you tell me that you know how to use a half-toe drill."

Not every culture they'd encountered had invented drills, but the West Savannah Locals were, so far, the most technologically advanced. They had something like a brace-andbit, but Bogdana had never seen the fittings up close.

"Yes," Scott replied.

"Can you show me, then, how to put a round half-toe hole in a round half-toe bar, so the bar is still as strong?"

Analytic support was suddenly silent, and Professor Scott—for the first time Bogdana had ever seen—fumbled with his words.

"I'm not sure I understand," the contact officer managed after a second.

Then analytic support came on the air, perfectly precise: "He challenges you to perforate a bar of circular cross section, twelve millimeters in diameter, creating a circular hole twelve millimeters in diameter, without significant loss of mechanical performance of the original workpiece."

"I—" Scott began, and stopped. "I don't see how that would be—even possible. You'd cut the bar in two."

The smith waited, silent, while a few of the villagers laughed. But then Bogdana felt a smile pulling at one side of her mouth.

Her gut tightened, and she took a breath.

"It's a joke, sir," she said, in the clearest Local B West Savannah she could manage.

"What the fuck?" Krawchuk asked in her earbud, as Scott and Lawson turned, jaws open in silent unison.

"Silence, Kuznetsova! You know you're not to speak!" said Lawson in English. "One more word and you're—you're back on the Island fixing septic tanks!"

"It's an old joke," Bogdana repeated, still in Local. "Between blacksmiths and machinists."

She said machinists in English, unsure if Local had a word that meant anything analogous.

"Between blacksmiths, and—and whom? Or what?" demanded the smith—as if genuinely curious for the first time since the arrival of the grey-uniformed space aliens at the front of his shop.

The half-circle of villagers had fallen silent, watching and listening as if they already knew they'd tell this story a thousand times, about the blacksmith and those people who'd supposedly come from the stars.

Bogdana spoke up again. Scott just stared at her.

"A machinist is what we call someone who works cold metal by cutting small chips of it away. Like a carpenter works wood with a rasp, or chisel, or adze."

She was confident of the word for carpenter, and for the names of a carpenter's tools.

The smith stepped forward.

"A mach-in-ist," he said. Then he frowned at Bogdana, and looked her up and down. "Your father must be in all the hells."

Hells were plural in Local B, although heaven was apparently singular.

Bogdana said nothing, but kept her eyes on the smith's face.

"What is this joke you mention, then?" he asked. "Between my trade, and these machin-ists?"

Looking at his forearms, Bogdana decided that if he hit her with anything more than the softest open hand, he'd knock her unconscious. But he'd asked her a question, hadn't he? Presumably the thing to do was just answer. Not that it mattered anyway. A beating would be a cheap ticket out of the traveling nut house.

"That a machinist cannot put a half-toe hole in a half-toe bar, although any blacksmith can," she answered.

The smith looked at Scott, then at Lawson, and then back at Bogdana.

"Your master just said that he doesn't think it's possible," the smith remarked. "Are you going against your master's word? Is that a thing your father taught you to do?"

"For fuck's sake, Kuznetsova, don't answer that," said a different voice on the analytic support channel, and there was no audible chatter in the background at all. "This is mutiny, Kuznetsova. Mutiny. You just have no idea, the damage you're potentially doing. Don't make us send a team out there."

Some poor duty officer, cursing his luck at having been at the desk when shit had happened and an incident report needed writing. Bogdana wouldn't be alone for the trip back to Earth.

"He is my master," she replied. "So I won't go against him. But he's not a blacksmith. Not a machinist."

"And are you?" asked the smith.

"No, sir," she replied. "I am a millwright. My father was a machinist, and his father was a blacksmith."

The smith nodded.

"Show me, then, mill-wright."

He turned his whole body so he was facing Professor Scott. With one arm, he pointed to Bogdana.

"I'll borrow your young woman, if I may. Your very proud daughter of the son of a blacksmith. We'll all see if she can do what you say is not possible."

Some of the villagers laughed at the smith's choice of words. No one on the analytic support channel had anything to say about it, though.

"Yes," said Scott. "Yes. She's—she's spirited, this one. Still needs to learn some things about minding her tongue."

And then he laughed, as if all of everything had been his idea in the first place.

But the smith didn't join in.

"Everyone needs to learn things," he said, after maybe a second had passed. "I need to learn things. Do come in."

He turned and led them through the open front of the smithy. Professor Scott went in first—naturally—and Bogdana followed, watching the professor's head swivel in every direction. Maybe there wasn't a lot of video from inside Local blacksmith shops. Scott would scrape together some glory for himself, no matter what happened. He'd write an article about everything he'd discovered.

Burning charcoal and hot iron came stronger in her nostrils, and the air was hotter and heavier than outside. The crowd of villagers dispersed around the perimeter of the shelter. The two men at the larger forge—teenagers, Bogdana decided—looked over briefly, but continued with their work after seeing the blacksmith's face.

"No one touch anything unless it's directly offered to you," said the analytic support duty officer—as if anyone would have, Bogdana thought. Maybe he just wanted to give himself the sense of being obeyed. Half the world gave unnecessary orders, just to get credit for things that were going to happen anyway.

The smith motioned to the anvil—a rough inverted pyramid, forge-welded together from whatever had been to hand, embedded in a stump of the superhard wood that dulled axes and sawblades. On the stump, an angledpein hammer leaned against the anvil. Bogdana smiled at her first good luck that day: by the pein angle, the smith was right-handed too. His tools wouldn't quarrel with everything she asked.

No one said anything as she stepped closer and looked down at the anvil. Sure enough, a hole was punched and drifted through one corner of the shining grey face, maybe three-quarters of an inch across.

Punches of varying size waited in a wooden rack, just within reach. Long-handled iron tongs hung to the left, seven pair. A small sledgehammer was cradled, handle up, in a stone stand on the floor to the right of the anvil. The smith might have called himself a humble man, but his shop wasn't poorly appointed in its tool selection.

The half-toe bar waited in the forge fire, not quite out of the charcoal, but not in the hot zone. She touched it with the back of her left hand, and then grasped it—it was warm, but not uncomfortably so—sliding it out toward herself and then directly into the center of the fire, disturbing the coals as little as she could manage. The bellows lever was the same hardwood as everything else, warm to the palm of her right hand.

"Hey Dana," said Krawchuk, laughing in her earpiece. "Professors are getting it all on the video, but listen: they've launched a containment team, suborbital. You're a fucking rock star now. They're all going crazy, back on the Island. The duty dick called it up the chain, and the brigadier came in and put the whole base on alert."

"Okay," she said, because Krawchuk was being kind enough to aid and abet her with the play-by-play.

Only the tip of the bar belonged in the hottest volume of space, where orange coals gave way to yellow. The charcoal, whatever wood they made it from, gave off heat like the cone of an acetylene flame.

The steel warmed from grey to red to orange as she worked the bellows. Her eyes had already adjusted to the light of the forge, and now she could barely make out the professors, dark silhouettes standing beside the smith.

They'd find a way to say that they'd known it all, all along. That's what professors did.

She let go of the bellows lever and grasped the bar with her right hand—it was warmer, but not as hot as she'd expected. As she swung the orange end through the short arc to the anvil's face, she slipped a punch from the rack with the fingers of her left hand. The bar gave a flat sound as it touched the anvil, and Bogdana half-stepped forward, reaching with the point of the punch for a spot maybe an inch back from the end of the glowing steel rod.

Again she was lucky: setting the tip of the punch on the round surface of the bar, it took the force without rolling. She released the grip of her right hand—just starting to feel real heat—and reached for the sledge in its stone cradle.

The steel was already passing from bright to darker orange, losing heat by conduction through the anvil's surface. She lifted the sledge with her elbow locked in a right angle—two kilos at least, she thought—and brought it down on the punch as if the biggest brains on Treasure Island were getting set to send her back to Earth in handcuffs.

The indentation was as good as she could have expected: not clean through, but deep enough to judge its position on the centerline of the rod.

She raised the sledge again and struck the punch a second time—probably all she'd need.

She set the sledge down and took the bar from the anvil with her right hand, sliding it back into the center of the fire.

Working the bellows, she heard Lawson and Scott speaking quickly and too-quietly in English. Probably annotating their video, telling everybody what everything meant.

It took only a few cycles of the forced air draught to bring the tip—now a bit wider and just slightly flatter—back to medium orange. She brought the bar back to the anvil face, turning the punched opening downward and setting the tip of the punch directly on the pimple of steel stretched through from the opposite surface.

She'd reached her best opportunity to destroy the piece, by giving the punch any angle off the vertical.

She reached down for the sledge, quickly swinging it high and bringing it down, ramming the tip through the glowing finger of steel. Sure enough, a dull red bead, maybe an eighth of an inch across, fell through the hole in the anvil and bounced onto the packed dirt of the floor. The orange rod had shaped itself around the cone of the punch, becoming a rod with a ring near the end, a ring maybe twice as wide as the rod's original diameter.

She set the sledge in its stand and took hold of the bar, wiggling the punch free with her left hand. Another heat in the fire?

No, she decided, and turned the rod over again, lining up the ring with the hole in the anvil. This time she slid the punch in, took up the sledge, and struck once and then a second time.

She pulled the punch out again, laid it on the stump, and flipped the bar one last time—flat on the anvil face. She switched hands, holding the bar with her left and the sledge with her right for a single light tap, just to remove a slight bend she'd managed to create.

She set the sledge in its stand and balanced the bar on the anvil, with a half-toe hole through a one-toe ring at the far end, dull red fading to grey.

Scott was looking back and forth between the anvil and the Local smith.

"But—but you changed the shape of the bar," the professor said in English, and it was a second before Bogdana realized he was whispering to her earbud on the short-range net.

"That's why it's a joke sir," she replied in English. "Just different ways of thinking about a problem. That's—"

That's your thing, isn't it? In whatever it is that you do? How different people think differently about things?

She trailed off as the Local smith stepped forward. Around the perimeter of the smithy's nonexistent walls, villagers craned past one another for a better look.

Scott said nothing as the smith lifted the bar, turning to inspect it with daylight in the background. He set it back down on the anvil.

"That's how I would have done it," he declared to the professors, and turned to face Bogdana with his fists on his hips. He looked her up and down, and his lips tightened for an instant.

"So you see, mill-wright, you've earned nothing extra from your master today," he said. "For doing what is not even possible."

"Don't answer," repeated the duty off icer—as if that had helped the situation, the first time.

"No sir," Bogdana replied. "Not today."

"Your masters are much like our masters," the smith went on, still speaking directly to Bogdana. "The best apprentice I ever trained was my older daughter. She's striking for a caravan's farrier of our acquaintance, this past year. I'm in the hells, knowing what she's living through, even though there are worse tradesmen to start out with. But we all go to our work where the master will have us."

He shrugged again, and turned his whole body to face the professors.

"So now we see that your servant knows her work, at least. Her father in the hells can be proud of her."

Outside, villagers laughed—but Professor Scott was ready to claw back the credit for everything.

"We select them for their skill," he replied, as happily as he could manage. "Not their manners, unfortunately."

Then he turned to Bogdana.

"Kuznetsova," he said in the softest English he could probably manage to force. "Please go back to the vehicle."

Krawchuk's voice broke in, before Bogdana could acknowledge.

"Dana, do you think this Local guy could forge us a crescent, so I can get this goddamn wheel off? Forge it close to a inch, and then hot-fit it to the nut down here?"

Lawson answered immediately.

"You're aware of the policy, Krawchuk. The local population does not learn about the failure modes of Terran technology."

Lawson paused, and smiled patronizingly.

"In any event, surely the containment team's vessel has such a thing as a repair kit. "

Yes, it surely does, Bogdana thought. For fixing suborbital spacecraft, not all-terrain bus wheels.

But she'd let someone else explain that to the professors.

Hot and Cold

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro | 4888 words

Spacetime rippled. Then the warp bubble enclosing the ship collapsed, and all systems died.

Davos Yalow counted three heartbeats in the dark before the Geroch's quantum computer reinitialized and power returned.

"Looks like the FTL drive is off line," he said, forehead creasing. His gangly frame stooped over the computer terminal. "We still have navigation and life support."

Davos's wife, Xie, shook her head. She swiveled in her chair and faced him squarely, her seawater-green eyes hardening.

"I told you this was a bad idea," she said. "We should have gone back to base before coming out... to whatever this place is."

Three days before, while studying a remote star formation cluster, they had picked up an unnaturally cold region of space nine lightyears away. The region—Davos called it the Deep Cold —was impossibly quiet: it seemed to lack even background radiation. And it contained a sphere of some sort that was giving off bizarre gravitational readings. Davos had insisted they take a look.

"How about we solve the problem, instead of blaming me for everything?" he said.

Xie crossed her arms. "Blame? I call it assuming responsibility for one's actions."

Davos ignored the bait and studied his screen. Their once-flirtatious exchanges had soured of late, becoming resentful squabbles. Scouting the heavens had all but lost its excitement for Davos, the thrill of discovery dulled by repetition. Not for the first time, he wondered why he didn't simply pack it in—his fading career in exploration, his crumbling marriage, all of it. Right now he'd give anything to be alone.

As though sensing the implications of Davos' continued silence, Xie said, "Fine. We'll talk about it later. What do you propose?"

"The FTL drive is our first priority."

Xie tapped in a series of quick commands on her terminal. "We're still not able to determine what's inside the sphere."

Davos poured over the data from the aborted FTL jump. He reviewed what little they knew about the sphere, as well as the other mind-boggling construct they'd found in close proximity to it: a half-kilometer wide cylinder, composition unknown, that stretched for two hundred and fifty million kilometers and opened up on a black hole's event horizon.

"Whatever's inside the sphere must be massive," Davos said. "Massive enough to have spoiled our drive's metric contraction." When you were trying to warp spacetime, massive objects, with their own intrinsic warps, tended to screw up the process.

Xie's head tilted. "Hmmm. What if it's a second black hole?"

Davos nodded slowly. "If there is a black hole inside the sphere, it must be roughly"—he ran through the equations in seconds—"fifteen orders of magnitude less massive than its cousin out there. That would be consistent with its effect on our drives, while explaining why we didn't pick it up from farther away."

"We need to see into the damn sphere," Xie said.

It was Davos's turn to swivel in his chair. His hazel eyes twinkled as he entered lecture mode. "Even if we could probe through the sphere's outer layers, the computer predicts that the inner layer is made up of something akin to oscillating dipoles, which are acting as a perfect mirror for whatever's inside. We'd need a prohibitive amount of energy to break through the fields and see inside. And if there's one thing we should be conserving out here, it's energy."

"You don't say," Xie replied sarcastically.

"Look, I'm sorry," Davos said, voice deepening by half an octave. His expression changed—still unfriendly, but more somber. "For the record, you're right. We should have gone back to base before giving in to our curiosity."

"Your curiosity."

He shrugged. "Whatever. Here's what we know. The mass inside the sphere is messing with our FTL drive. And we can't break free from the sphere's gravity with sub-FTL engines. For all intents and purposes, we're stuck in orbit."

Xie said, "What about communications? We could send out a signal. Wait for a recovery probe to pick it up and redirect it back to civilization using its own FTL boost."

"What makes you think our probes have made it out here?" Davos replied. "Sensors show nothing for light-years in any direction. No stars, no planets, no interstellar dust, no background radiation—and no probes."

Xie berated him with her eyes. "I still think that—"

"I appreciate that communications are your strong suit," Davos cut her off. "But we should conserve all energy until we're sure sending out a signal is our only option."

Davos, fully expecting Xie to insist on her point, prepared his next rebuttal. He was therefore momentarily caught off guard when instead she simply said, "Very well. Let's begin by reducing life-support to essential levels and shutting down all non-critical systems."

He paused skeptically. Then he said, "Agreed."

After making the adjustments Davos used the quantum computer to parallel run what-if scenarios, a task that required few resources. Every model came back the same: even if they could somehow break free from the sphere's gravity without FTL, they'd run out of energy well before they made it back to "warm space."

As Davos worked on the problem his muscles stiffened and he became mildly nauseous. He attributed it to the lower gravity, reduced temperature, and thinned atmosphere.

"Need some rest," he said.

Xie barely acknowledged his comment with a grunt, not bothering to look up as he moved toward the rear of the navigation chamber, one of the Geroch's two bio-friendly units.

Minutes later Davos and a sleeping bag hovered inches off the ground. He realized that the sinking feeling in his stomach wasn't merely environmentally induced queasiness.

They might really be done for this time.

And his marriage, or what was left of it...

Eventually he settled into a restless semi-sleep. His mind churned with depressing dream-thoughts, while his last meal threatened to rise back up through his gullet every time he changed positions. He mumbled a complaint, opened his eyes, and bounded back to the navigation area.

Xie was as absorbed in her work as when he'd left her.

He placed a conciliatory hand on her shoulder. She flinched, so he pulled away quickly.

"Any new suggestions?" he asked with unintended sharpness.

"No," she said. "Fortunately for us, my old suggestion paid off."

He blinked.

"I sent out a signal," she said, "and received a response."

Whatever light-headedness he'd been feeling vanished at once. His body turned to lead. "I can't believe that—"

"Oh, seriously," Xie snapped, "give it up! I told you what we needed to do and you weren't even willing to hear me out. We're here because you made a bad call and I went along with it. I wasn't about to make that mistake again."

Davos shook his head and bit down his words. He cleared his throat and said, "Who the hell responded?"

"A ship on the other side of the sphere. The dipole field must have been interfering with our sensors. The crew is all dead, but apparently the ship was outfitted with a Murray AI, which is somehow still operational."

Davos frowned. "So the ship's been here since before Murray AIs were outlawed—some five hundred years."

"Give or take a few decades," Xie confirmed. "Let's count our blessings that Gabriele—that's the AI's name—is working. Like us, she believes that there's a black hole inside the sphere."

"Nice to see you two are already on a first-name basis," Davos muttered. "How has she managed to stay operational all this time?"

"Her ship, the Lemaitre, is a lot bigger than ours. Original crew complement of one hundred, compared to us two. Emergency backup power has kept her going. Mostly. She's a little incoherent. My guess is that five centuries alone out here have caused partial degradation."

"Fantastic. A Murray AI, intrinsically unstable, made even more unstable by hundreds of years of loneliness. Any other good news?"

"She's got a plan."

He scoffed. "A plan?"

"It's simple, really," Xie said, words that, when uttered by his wife, invariably inspired wariness in Davos. "With a minor tweak to our orbital speed, we can get close to the Lemaitre and transfer to it. Once onboard, we fly away."

"Hold on. You're saying the Lemaitre has enough power to FTL jump? So why's it still here?"

"Murray AI—she needs a human interface to activate her FTL drive."

"But if the Lemaitre's FTL drive is still ticking, why didn't its original crew fly away five centuries ago?" Davos' mind buzzed. "Something's not right here."

"According to Gabriele's records, something or someone paid the sphere a visit shortly after the Lemaitre arrived, generating enough radiation to kill the whole crew before they could jump or make it to their emergency cryo units. Except, of course, for Gabriele."

"I suppose you've already entered the velocity changes," Davos said.

"It didn't seem like a good idea to dawdle," Xie replied.

Davos' skin crawled. "What makes you think I'll go along with this? We can't trust Gabriele. I say we stay on the Geroch."

"I don't really care whether you come or not," Xie said. "Remain here if you wish."

"That's your final word on the subject?"

"No, these are my final words on the subject: I'm tired." She yawned. "My turn to sleep."

And with that, back turned to Davos, she briskly made her way to the opposite end of the room and helped herself to a sleeping bag.

Davos stared out of the nearest viewport, gaze lost in the all-encompassing darkness.

In time, he entered the ship's second bio-friendly chamber. There he set about preparing for the EVA that would be required when they were close enough to the Lemaitre.

From the outside the Lemaitre looked uncannily new. Its surfaces reflected Davos' and Xie's spacesuit lights with a polish unblemished by half a millennium in orbit. As they secured a line and clambered across to a port in the Lemaitre's hull, Davos found himself glancing up at Xie through his visor, wondering what the AI was whispering in her ear. He had brusquely rejected Gabriele's offer to provide remote assistance during their EVA, an offer that Xie had happily accepted. Now Davos reached the port and found it sealed by an embedded magnetic lock. A chilling sweat broke out on his back.

A minute later Xie joined him and punched in the access code. "Gabriele gave it to me," she said, voice scratchy through the helmet com.

Once inside, they resealed the port hatch and scanned the atmosphere—meager, but survivable. Davos floated in place.

"It's taking Gabriele some time to restore an optimal oxygen/nitrogen mix," Xie pointed out. "Several conversion pumps aren't working. Also, grav locks are down."

"It had a whole day to prepare for our arrival," Davos grumbled, eliciting a scowl from Xie.

"She did jettison the crew's bodies," Xie said, "if that's any comfort."

Xie removed her helmet, paused a moment to allow her lungs to adjust, and began zero-g swimming down a passageway. Davos copied her, with appreciably less elegance.

When they reached the navigation area, Xie pointed at a flashing screen. "The data corruption I was telling you about." Then she noticed the collar of a beige bodysuit showing underneath Davos' EVA suit. "Are you cold or something?"

"Very."

Her eyes lingered on the bodysuit's olive color. "Hmmm. Aren't all our bodysuits black?"

"I dyed this one while you slept."

"What?"

In hushed tones Davos said, "Since when do you care how I dress?" Then he raised his voice. "Can you hear us, Gabriele?"

"I can," a steely female voice replied, the sound seeming to simultaneously project out of every panel and alcove.

Davos shivered. "Nice to meet you."

"I wish your sentiment was genuine," Gabriele said impassively, "but thank you for at least simulating cordiality."

"I really am glad—"

"Drs. Davos and Xie Yalow, let us skip the pleasantries," Gabriele interrupted. "I require access to the human body to be able to initiate the Lemaitre's FTL drive. And you need a way out of this sphere's gravitational well. We don't have to like one another, but we do need to work together—at least for a while. Here are the instructions that will enable you to interface with my system."

A succession of diagrams and notes scrolled on the nearest screen.

"Let's not waste time then," Xie said.

About ten minutes later they were strapped in the interface seats—a little too snugly for Davos' taste. Transceivers attached to their temples, their arms lay on touch-sensitive rests.

"We're ready," Davos said. Xie assented. "Initiate connection."

Davos closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

"My internal sensors indicate that one of your neural transceivers is only partially active, Davos," Gabriele said. "Please ensure that the unit is fully engaged."

"My apologies," Davos said. Good. Now he knew how sensitive the connection was. Which might just save their lives.

He didn't open his eyes to study Xie's reaction. Entering a command into the transceiver, he felt a tingle spread across his forehead as the unit bloomed to full power.

Underneath his bodysuit, despite his earlier comment, he was sweating profusely.

"Initiate connection," he repeated, and held his breath.

He was tickled by electricity for a few instants. Then a jarring charge, burning the seat straps, nearly flung him from his seat. His skin was on fire and his brain shouted at him to free himself from this death trap. But he clenched his fists and remained seated. The charge increased, crackling in the air as it flashed from the transceivers down through his body. His organs seemed to liquefy.

Then, just as quickly as it had kicked in, the charge subsided and the course of the current reversed; electricity leapt up from his body-suit and into the transceivers, down the cables, and into the ship's network.

A series of explosions deafened them. Acrid smoke followed.

With still-shuddering arms, Davos unstrapped himself from the interface chair and attempted to bounce over to Xie's console. Instead he slumped against the nearest wall.

Xie was floating beside him instants later, eyes wide with shock. "You have first degree burns." She fetched an emergency medkit from her EVA suit and began working it.

"Gabriele only needed one of us to trigger the ship's FTL," Davos said. "Efficient use of resources mandated she kill me. But don't feel too special—I'm sure once the ship had jumped, it would have been your turn."

The little speech exhausted him into silence. Xie's ministrations, superficial as they were, felt good. It had been a long time since she had touched him....

He groaned. "Help me get this damned bodysuit off."

She peeled it from him, reached his torso, and then stopped.

"You knew Gabriele was going to try and electrocute you," she said. "That's why you dyed the fabric."

"Don't stop. It stings like hell." She resumed the delicate separation of singed fabric from flesh. "I suspected as much, yes. I dyed the suit with conducting carbon nanotubes, hoping that if Gabriele tried to electroshock my ass it would create a feedback loop and overload her." He grinned through the pain. "Looks like it worked."

Xie applied a micro-regenerative gel to Davos' skin, which began to slough off the burned areas almost immediately. When she was finished she took off part of her garment and wrapped it around him.

"The question now," she said, "is whether we can fly the ship without Gabriele."

Davos' smile faded quickly. "Afraid not. The human-machine dependency goes both ways."

Xie pulled herself back towards the main screens, peering at the damaged control boards and burnt-out terminals.

"Are you positive?"

"Yeah."

"So why on Earth go through this charade?"

"It was the only way to strip away the AI's sentience sheath," Davos said, "so we could access its memory archives directly. I need water, for chrissakes."

He coughed loudly and his body convulsed. When he was still again she pinched her suit's water tube and he sucked on the valve. His breathing steadied. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Now, let's access those archives. I'm pretty sure that on these ships—"

A loud alert blared from a nearby navigation terminal. Xie smacked the control panel repeatedly before obtaining a response. "It looks like... something... is happening around the more massive black hole."

"Something?"

"Hold on." After minutes of clicking, touch-screen swiping, and the occasional knuckle-pop, she said, "More dipoles and energy fields. A second sphere has formed around the massive black hole, similar to the one surrounding the hidden one. Now they're both sealed in perfectly ref lecting spheres, and connected to one another via the cylinder."

"Jesus," Davos murmured, for lack of anything better to say. Then he caught himself thinking an absurd thought. Even though he was seriously injured and probably in the bleakest situation of his life, he realized he hadn't felt this alive in a long time.

Xie perceived the shift and responded to it, as though his mood were contagious. Something approaching excitement dimpled her cheeks. "I think it's time we roll up our sleeves and reach inside Gabriele's memory records."

While Xie scanned for possible residual traces of Gabriele's damaged personality files, it took Davos several hours of painstaking algorithmic reconstruction to make modest progress with her actual memories. More than once he suffered from cardiac arrhythmia. He told himself it was nothing more than stress—because they were in no shape to treat serious subcutaneous injuries, and he'd just as soon not know. By the time he had reassembled near-complete records from the fragments that had survived the feedback overload, his eyes were bleary, his concentration depleted.

Davos found himself studying Xie with a weird sense of unreality. He eased into a placid, floating state, remembering with startling clarity what life had been like at the outset of their shared journey—how full of delight and promise. Then his eyelids became heavy and he sank into a dreamless slumber.

Next thing he knew, Xie's hands were shaking him awake.

"I think I understand now," she said.

He squinted. "So bright... How long was I out?"

"Six hours. I've been scraping by on energy pills for the last two or so and I'm starting to crash. Before that happens, we need to get to the cryo-stasis units. And pray they're still functional."

Blood rushed back into Davos' head. "Cryo?"

"So we can sleep," Xie said. "For a long, long time." He noticed her forehead was grimy with sweat and dirt. "Internal sensors say the units are here." She pointed to a dot on a screen, three corridors away from their current position. "Can you make it that far?"

"Y-yes," he said, and pushed himself from the wall with shaky legs.

As they swam toward the units in zero-g, Xie said, "Good work on the files, by the way. I was able to access Gabriele's core records. During her five centuries of paranoid isolation she concocted some pretty wild theories about the sphere. But among all that crackpot stuff, I found an incomplete thermodynamic analysis that caught my eye." Davos must have been feeling better, because those words sounded ridiculously sexy coming out of Xie's mouth.

"Tell me more," he said.

"Gabriele posited that the black holes are in thermodynamic equilibrium with whatever else is inside the spheres, which we'll assume is radiation—say photons."

"Okay," he said, nodding slowly as he caught on. "I'll play. To simplify things, let's assume that both black holes are non-rotating and uncharged." They turned a corner and propelled themselves down a second corridor.

"Sure," Xie said. "Then the question becomes: what would normally happen if two such black holes were merged?"

Davos pondered for a moment and said, "You'd have a new black hole, the mass of which would be the sum of the masses of the input black holes. And since entropy is proportional to the square of a black hole's mass, merging two together would lead to a total entropy increase."

Another turn, another corridor. "Exactly. At least according to conventional wisdom," Xie said, easing up her pace so that Davos could catch his breath. "But doesn't the Deep Cold seem like an environment specially sensitive to energy and entropy? What if there was another way to fuse two black holes while keeping the entropy constant?"

Davos grabbed an access hatch to stop his flight. "If the black holes were at different temperatures, like thermal reservoirs, and you ran a simple heat cycle between them, you could create a new black hole whose mass would be smaller than the total mass of the black holes that went in. And the difference in mass—"

"—could be extracted as work."

Goose bumps blossomed all over Davos' skin. He whistled. "A black hole heat engine."

"Exactly."

They had arrived at the cryo-stasis units. It took Davos' brain a few moments to decipher Xie's unwavering expression. Appreciation of his intellect, yes. But there was something else there.

A different sort of intensity.

He drifted closer, parallel parking his body alongside hers. Her exhalations were warm against his cheeks, his mouth.

"Think it through with me," Xie said. She described the various stages of a heat cycle, isothermal and adiabatic expansions. It was hard for Davos to focus on what she was saying. "... and so the cycle beings again. But as the cycle repeats over time, the hot reservoir loses mass and becomes hotter, while the cold reservoir gains mass and becomes colder."

"Normally the temperatures of two bodies in thermal contact would converge," Davos said.

Xie's face was half an inch from his now. "But since a black hole has negative heat capacity, its temperature increases while energy is being extracted. So the less massive black hole will ultimately disappear."

"And because the lifetime of a black hole is proportional to the cube of its mass," Davos concluded, "we know how long it will take for it to sufficiently evaporate so that it no longer interferes with the Geroch's FTL drive. I'm assuming it's going to be a long time. Hence the need for cryo."

He leaned forward and kissed Xie. She slipped the tip of her tongue playfully against his, and he reached forward and held her head in his hands while the heat between them melted the world away. She gripped his back, careful to avoid the burn spots. He reached inside her suit, hands cupping her breasts, and then they were undressing as fast as they could. Everything dissolved into frantic breathing, sweaty rhythms, and the words "I've missed you," followed by a final surrender.

An insistent klaxon pierced Davos' bliss of nonbeing. It went on and on and on. The timed repetitions soon felt like a hammer bashing his skull.

"Make it stop," he tried to say, but his lips and tongue didn't work correctly, so it sounded more like "Meyth i shto."

Then the face-section of his unit clicked and swung open. Cool, fresh air rushed into the warm bubble of his universe.

The alarm stopped. He was ecstatic about that, but far too tired to show it.

"Welcome back to the world of the living," a familiar voice called from somewhere nearby. "I set my unit to wake me up a little ahead of yours." He was supposed to know the speaking face, which leaned forward and kissed him. The eyes, the nose, the lips, the smell, all so familiar. A name: Xie. He knew Xie, yes? With tremendous effort his mind began to form associations and pierce through the fog of cryo-sleep. Xie. Yes. His wife. A mission. The Deep Cold. "I thought you might enjoy sleeping in," she said. "Here, open up."

Unsealing his lips hurt his jaw but he did it anyway. Xie dropped a pill into his mouth. It dissolved on touching his tongue, leaving a tangy taste in its wake.

The nanos worked quickly. Clarity returned, as though an invisible lens had been applied to his reality, correcting its focus. His body felt again. And it hurt. Arms and legs sore, heart palpitating, lungs that stung. A nose from which snot trickled. Ears that were burning and freezing at the same time.

All these discomforts faded next to the realization of what he— they —had achieved.

"Xie," he said, grateful that his words were again intelligible. "Holy shit. We survived. How long...?"

"Eight hundred twenty-four years and three days," she said.

But no smile.

He frowned. "Has the small black hole evaporated enough for us to get out of here?"

"Yes."

"But...?"

Xie stared. "I suppose it was too crazy to work."

"For heaven's sakes, what's going on?"

"Now that the small black hole is weak enough for us to get back to the Geroch and engage our FTL drive, we don't have it."

Davos was stunned into silence.

"The Geroch's systems have suffered irreparable damage," she explained. "Something we didn't account for. As the black hole shrank, the sphere contracted. Our ship was pulled into an ever-tighter orbit, and friction with the sphere's outer energy field corrupted the quantum computer."

Davos' insides twisted. Eight centuries of cryo... the comforts of a myriad known worlds and a lifetime of friends...

All gone.

For nothing.

He ransacked his brain. "What about this ship? Any way we can salvage the Lemaitre's FTL drive?"

"We'd need a new AI to be able to activate it."

Davos studied Xie's ashen expression. He summoned the courage needed to sit upright and was promptly rewarded by dry heaving.

"You need electrolytes," Xie said. It took several hours, but Xie helped him feel human again.

Eventually he reviewed the data Xie had collected and found that she hadn't missed anything. No matter what diagnostics and sensor analyses he ran, there was no escaping the fact that they had no workable FTL.

The next two days he and Xie followed a sullen, almost wordless routine, gathering the Lemaitre's supplies, taking inventory of the ship's functional components, and in general avoiding comments about their situation.

At the start of the third day, after a particularly noxious breakfast, Davos found himself staring at the leftover ration pack.

"Life-pods," he mumbled.

It took a moment for Xie to respond. "What about them?"

"The Lemaitre has several. Each of us gets into one and we head in opposite directions. Double our chances of being rescued."

She pursed her lips. "Two times zero is still zero."

"Think about it," he said. "The Lemaitre is bleeding out all sorts of radiation into space, radiation that's probably masking our life-signals. But if we each took out one life-pod and made for a different edge of the Deep Cold, rations and power would last us several months. During that time our life-signals would be easy to detect against the incredible stillness of the Deep Cold. Whoever farmed these black holes and built the cylinder was here once before, when their radiation killed the Lemaitre's original crew. At least once before. They might still be watching."

Xie seemed to be elsewhere. Then Davos saw tears pooling in her eyes.

"You're right," she said at last. "It's the only way."

His own eyes misted up.

They kissed.

It was tender. Final.

"I love you," he said.

She smiled through her tears. "I suppose it's better to hear it now than not at all," she said, and caressed him.

"Well?" Davos said. "Aren't you going to say you love me back?"

She tousled his hair. They hugged, long and hard, taking in each other's heat, smells, listening to each other's heartbeats. "You'll have to wait until we're in the life-pods."

Davos opened his eyes from a short nap and was greeted by claustrophobia, his only companion during the last ten days. Freezing black nothingness, invisible, impalpable, rushed all around the single-passenger pod. Today the chill seemed to have crept inside. He felt it in his bones.

He waited.

At the appointed time, the signal from Xie's life-pod bleeped to life. Relative to the Lemaitre, they were traveling at roughly sixteen kilometers per second in opposite directions, which meant that today, the eleventh day of their separation, they were over thirty million kilometers apart. At this distance the signal between them was delayed by about a hundred seconds.

"Davos," Xie's voice came through, and for a moment it was as though she were here, inside the space-coffin with him. His body responded with a rush of endorphins. But then stark reality returned. Today was the last day they would speak to one another, in order to preserve power for life-support and propulsion.

Then nothing but the silence of the void.

"I'm here," he said, and began to count down the seconds until she responded. He grimaced. Every second that passed brought them farther apart by another thirty-two kilo-meters, adding another ten-thousandth-of-asecond delay.

"Where else would you be?" she teased. "I love you, Davos. Of course I love you. We both have regrets about how we behaved before all this happened... but I want you to know that you brought me incredible joy and companionship." He heard her choke up and muffle a sob. After a while her breathing became regular again. His own heart was beating so loudly he had to turn up the volume on the com. "I've been doing some thinking," she continued. "Too much idle time on my hands, I guess. Why would someone want to set up a black hole heat engine? And why here, in this desolation? Maybe the questions are connected. I think this is all someone's experiment. It has to be. A way of simulating what the universe will be like countless billions of years in the future, when the background radiation falls below our galaxy's plasma frequency and the rest of the observable universe has gone dark. They've designed it to test whether they'll be able to extract work from black holes. Because every fraction of a fraction of a joule will be precious then. That flash in Gabriele's records—they must have come by to check in on their experiment. The Lemaitre was large; it disrupted things. But the Geroch was small and not active for long. So maybe you were right to suggest the life-pods. They might notice us out here. They may even drop by to stop us from messing up their experiment. And if their radiation doesn't kill us, and they take us in, I'll tell you again how much I love you, only this time in person."

It took a few minutes for Davos to realize that those were his wife's last words to him.

Seconds passed, ponderous. He could feel the distance between them elongate like a rubber band of infinite elasticity, never to snap back into place.

At last he settled on his own farewell message. "If they do show up, I hope they find your pod before mine. Because you'd probably figure out their language in a day." He paused. "During my life, I wish I had done more to speak your language, Xie. The parts of it I did learn enriched me beyond measure. You were the ultimate radiance in my night."

He flipped off the com.

He stared into the blackness.

For a long time, he was alone.

Spanking Bad Data Won't Make Them Behave

Science Fact

Michael F. Flynn | 4039 words

"A Fact has no 'why.' There it stands, self-demonstrating."—Robert A. Heinlein, "The Year of the Jackpot"

Facts are elusive critters. Far from being self-demonstrating, they are meaningless without context. "Theory determines what can be observed," Einstein once remarked to Heisenberg. We cannot accumulate answers without first asking a question. Pierre Duhem put it this way:

"Take two physicists who do not define pressure in the same manner because they do not admit the same theories of mechanics. One for example accepts the ideas of Lagrange;the other adopts the ideas of Laplace and Poisson. Submit to these two physicists a law whose statement brings into play the notion of pressure. They will hear the statement in two different ways. To compare it with reality, they will make different calculations so that one will find this law verified by facts which, for the other, will contradict it." [Emph.added] 1

—"Some Reflections on the Subject of Experimental Physics" (1894)

So much for the notion that facts alone can settle questions. One scientist measures an iridium-rich layer and sees the footprint of a comet impact; another sees the eruption of the Deccan Traps. Xenophanes saw marine fossils in the mountains of Ancient Greece and concluded that a primordial flood had once covered the world because he knew of no other natural process that could deposit marine creatures on mountaintops.

Let's take the speed of light:

Different results were obtained using different methods, or even by the same researcher using the same method! In measurement system analysis, variability among repeated determinations by the same individual is called "repeatability." 3 Collectively, the trend was toward slower light speeds. 4

Figure 1: Trend in measured light speed. The fitted line is a quadratic regression, just for slaps and giggles.

That light is actually slowing down is appealing to SF folks, but unlikely for a number of reasons. 5 Perhaps measurement methods have grown more accurate; but another possibility may not occur to anyone.

There ain't no such thing as the speed of light.

When measurement goes bad

Has Flynn lost his flipping mind? Let's consider an example:

The Allegory of Can Volume. Fill volumes of aluminum beverage cans are usually measured by weighing them before and after filling them with distilled water. The weight difference, given water temperature, converts to volume. A packer complained that delivered cans had excessive volume, which would allow carbonated beverages to gas out in the can, yet the can-maker's data were on target. The discrepancy was because the packer had taken the vacuum pump used to measure glass bottle volume and sucked the air out of the aluminum cans. But aluminum cans do something when you pull a vacuum on them that glass bottles don't. Patient Reader is invited to speculate.

Okay, the Vacuum Pump Method was clearly inappropriate for cans, but similar issues arise even between legitimate methods. The Inclined Plane and Horizontal Plane Methods for measuring the mobility of packaging, both ASTM 6 -approved, often produced different coefficient of friction on the self-same package. On a more celestial level: the Hubble mirror had the correct curvature when measured one way, but was out of focus when measured by an older method. Decision-makers went with the newer method—and the mirror had to get corrective lenses in a dramatic space-optometry mission.

Richard Feynman warned that results obtained on one apparatus might not hold for another:

"I was shocked to hear of an experiment done at the big accelerator at the National Accelerator Laboratory, where a person used deuterium. In order to compare his heavy hydrogen results to what might happen with light hydrogen, he had to use data from someone else's experiment on light hydrogen, which was done on different apparatus.

When asked why, he said it was because he couldn't get time... to do the experiment with light hydrogen on this apparatus because there wouldn't be any new result." 7 [Emph.added]

Operational definitions. Measurements are defined by the operations performed to obtain them. Change the operations—the instrument, method, operator, perhaps the ambient conditions—and the measurements change. The very existence of a fact is thus a human accomplishment. 8 This is a problem not only in the hard sciences, but even in the soft ones. 9

The Allegory of Infant Mortality. In 1998, Switzerland reported 4.8 infant deaths per 1,000 live births while the United States reported a shocking 7.2. But in Switzerland, infants 30 cm in length are classified as stillborn, not as live births. Roughly one-third of U.S. infant deaths fall into the equivalent range. Had they been omitted, the U.S. rate would have been roughly 4.8.

The apparent difference in infant mortality was largely an artifact of the measurement method!

Comparing statistics gathered at different times or places can thus be hazardous to your scientific health. You can't blithely assume the measurements were made the same way. 10

"It's not that the data are meaningless; but that they might not mean what we think they mean."—John Lukacs, The Passing of the Modern Age

Surrogate numberhood. When X is difficult or expensive to measure, we often measure a surrogate Y and use it to estimate X:

• Rockwell hardness instead of tensile strength

• Radiation backscatter instead of coal density

• Tree-ring width instead of temperature

• Redshift instead of galactic distance

• Blood flow in the brain instead of a "moment of decision"

Even thermometers use the height of mercury in a glass tube as a surrogate for actual temperature. Surrogacy requires a sound scientific relation, not merely a statistical correlation, as well as control of other factors that also influence Y. Tree rings are affected by rainfall and even by animal scat deposited on the roots. The relationship of backscatter to coal density differs from seam to seam and so must be calibrated for each shipment received by the power plant.

Figure 2: Calibration curve of (measured) Backscatter to (desired) Density from eleven coal samples packed into calibration tubes to specified densities. The outer lines show uncertainty in the prediction. If backscatter for a bunker measures 6000, the predicted coal density is ~ 67±3. Keep that ±3—the error term—in mind.

The accuracy and precision of the surrogate propagates backward to the desired value following mathematical laws, as illustrated in the figure. Never use the confidence interval to do this. The confidence interval is a bound on the parameter —i.e., on the slope—not on the skill of the model at predicting actual data. 11

When samples go bad

"A hundred faulty measurements are no better than ten faulty measurements."

—Michael F. Flynn, "Garbage Out"

A measurement is itself a sample. For example, there are infinitely many diameters along a shaft and around it. How many should we measure? At which locations? Will we report the mean of the replicates? The median? The extreme values? The truncated mean? 12

Geographic sampling is important in mining, water management, climatology, et al. But taking surface temperatures, for example, is like measuring shaft diameters. How many, and where? What if data are missing? Can missing measurements be estimated in some way? 13

A sample should be representative of the population. Two particular hazards are judgment samples (cherry-picking) and convenience samples. For example, in sampling from pallets fed by three machines, shown in the bird's eye view below, only units around the outer edges of the pallet were accessible to the technician. Hence, Machine 2, which produced 33% of the target population, made up only 19% of the sample. This convenience sample could seriously bias the estimates.

Figure 3: Bird's-eye view of one layer of a pallet being filled by three machines.

A sample represents only the population from which it was drawn. A bank once estimated annual accounting errors by verifying all transactions for the month of July and multiplying by 12. It would be impossible to explain how this could ever possibly be right. The sample represented only the month of July, not the entire year. Fatigue, nonresponse, unclear definitions, incomplete sampling frames, etc. produce non-sampling variation, which cannot be corrected by adjusting sample sizes. I have seen technicians making measurements on autopilot, and even a few cases where the measurements were recorded without the ugly necessity of actually making them.

The cure for judgment sampling is random selection, and for convenience sampling, stratification. 14

Two species of variation: A short but necessary digression.

A process is "a set of causes that work together to produce a result." 15 Since these causes are not constant, the results will vary. A process is called stable ("random") if the long term variation is about the same as the short term variation. There is no particular cause for a random fluctuation. It is built into the design of the process. If a pair of dice shows 12, the outcome is due to a chance combination of many causes, not any one particular cause.

But if a process is unstable (long-term variation greater than short-term), the excess variation can be assigned to a particular cause. If that pair of dice shows 13, something funny is going on. Assignable variation is typically due to breakdowns of the plan and outside forces.

In particular, there is no "measurement" unless the measurement process is stable.

Figure 4: An unstable process. External variation from time to time exceeds internal variation at particular times. Bell curves of short-term variation are used for illustration only.

When models go bad

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

—George E. P. Box, "Robustness in the Strategy of Scientific Model Building"

Unless shrouded by an inert gas, molten steel sucks nitrogen from the air. Since shrouding is always imperfect, N 2 increases each time steel is recycled, making it progressively more brittle. If a certain grade exceeds 90ppm N 2 it becomes too brittle for its specified application. So what is the probability of a heat exceeding 90 ppm?

Surprise! There is no such probability! There is only a probability given some model. The histogram below shows that for 153 consecutive heats, the Normal distribution is not a bad model for nitrogen content. The model predicts that 25% of heats will exceed 90 ppm N 2 versus 22% in the actual sample. However, while the fish stinks from the head down, models begin to smell in their tails, i.e., at the extreme values. A normal distribution runs to ±= and no physical process will ever vary quite that much. The model predicts 0.98% of heats will exceed 104 ppm, but 2.61% actually did so. The more extreme the values, the more the model goes awry. So, rare event probabilities are usually wrong, whether of brittle steel or giant meteor impacts. "For practical purposes," the Normal distribution ends at ±3æ and any values beyond that are taken as signals of data outside the model. The model is an approximation of the reality, not vice versa. 16

Figure 5: The Ugly World of Reality™ (left) versus the elegant and pure Platonic Form (right).

But "normality is not normal." Non-normal processes abound; e.g., the number of calls per day received on a maintenance hotline was distributed nearly as Poisson:

Figure 6: The number of calls received each day for a sample of 100 days. A square root transformation might normalize such distributions.

And sometimes there is no distribution. This won't stop anyone taught cookbook statistics from diving headfirst into the Normal Tables and hitting his head on a rock.

Figure 7: Normalize this, monkey boy! These emulsion cycle times had no distribution at all. (Quality engineers will suspect that there were four of something, and one was different. There were, and it was.)

When are data not data?

In this plot of pharmaceutical fill weights the penultimate point doesn't seem to "belong."

Figure 8: Time series of fill weights for Port 5. Something odd happened at 6:00 A.M., and you don't need a degree in statistics or a Tiny p-Value™ to discover that.

Spikes (or icicles) often indicate measurement problems. The "75" recorded at 6:00 A.M. was a keystroke error for "57." But sometimes outliers are important signals. In a graph of global temperature "anomalies," spikes indicated El Niños. Never remove outliers from your data unless you know how they got there in the first place. Algorithms that automatically adjust "outliers" are not a good idea.

When averages go bad

An old statistician's joke runs, "If you stick your head in the oven and your feet in the freezer, on the average you're comfortable." Which is why most statisticians have not quit their day jobs and headed off for the comedy clubs. An average is a measure of central tendency, and sometimes there just isn't one.

The Allegory of the pH Working Standard. A liquid standard, certified as 3.3 pH ± 0.1, was kept in a vault and used to calibrate the lab's pH meter each morning. These calibration checks were later plotted over a sixty-day period:

Figure 9: Time series of daily pH calibration check. The lab had a basic problem. 17

The median was indeed 3.3, and nearly all individual determinations fell between 3.2 and 3.4, but the measurement series is not stable. In effect, there is no measurement of pH and there is no central tendency.

Footprints in the data tell us what kind of cause made it. A trend signals a cause acting steadily in one direction over a period of time, such as "wear" or "accumulation." In the pH case, the icicles indicated lab errors and the trend was due to improper cleaning of the probe. Production material transferred on the dirty probe was gradually poisoning the standard, making it more alkaline over time.

Alternate History Statistics. Quality engineers track footprints to discover causes. But suppose (for some reason) you wanted to know how the standard might have performed had it not been poisoned. Simple. Let us regress. [Perform mathemagics here.] Predicted pH is-Yˆ=3.239+0.0017X, where X is Day. Now for each day, take (Y-Yˆ), the deviation of the measured value from the value predicted by the regression model. Such deviations are called residuals. A residuals plot shows the variation in the process with the trend removed, i.e., the variation unaccounted for by the regression.

Figure 10: A counterfactual chart in which we pretend that the trend did not happen. (The spikes have also been omitted.)

"Before the observations can be adjusted, they must arise from a random operation."

—W. Edwards Deming, Statistical Adjustment of Data

When processes go bad

The Allegory of the Battery Grids. A pasting machine applies a lead oxide paste onto a lead grid to make the innards of an automotive battery. A special study took subgroups of five consecutive grids every fifteen minutes and used the internal subgroup variation to estimate short-term (stroke-to-stroke) variation of the machine.

We can plot the means and ranges of the subgroups on what is called (appropriately enough) an Xbar and R chart. 18 The range chart (bottom panel) shows the short-term consistency; the average chart (top panel) shows the long-term stability. From the average range, by sundry means of the Statistician's Black Arte, which I could teach you, but then I would have to brick you inside the wall of the wine cellar, we can calculate the limits of short-term variation. The chart asks: is there more variation in the long term than there is on the average in the short term?

Figure 11: An unstable process called a shift. The probability limits on the averages are calculated from the ranges only. That way, long-term instability doesn't affect the limits.

The long-term variation of paste weights exceeds the limits set by the short-term variation. This means there are assignable causes. A shift took place after the first 12 samples. There is no grand mean, no fit, no model. You can't fit an average to an unstable process.

A shift differs from a trend. Instead of a cause pushing monotonically over time, a shift means an assignable cause entered the process at a particular time. (Think "new" or "changed.") In this case, the shift at 4:00 P.M. was due to increased density in the PbO paste delivered from the paste mill.

Figure 12: A shift is not a trend. You could draw a regression line through the time series. You could also jump off a cliff with the lemmings. That doesn't make the linear lemmings right, even if the regression has a Real Small p-Value.™ And you had darned well not mindlessly project that regression line into the future!

Closer analysis also identified "jumps" at each hour. The operator tweaked the machine whenever the QC patrol inspector was scheduled to come by! 19

In process quality control, the important thing is to identify and eliminate causes of variation, not to spank the data until it behaves itself. But in dealing with "ambient" data, we cannot eliminate the cause physically, so we try to filter it analytically to see if it is masking other causes.

The paste weight example is more complicated than the pH example. The four subgroups between operator tweaks form a block unaffected by either the tweaking or the change in paste density. If we calculate the residuals from the block means and plot them:

Figure 13: Subtracting the block mean from each datum yields this counterfactual chart of what the process "would have done" had it not been for the two special causes.

The residuals are "in control," meaning their long-term variation is no greater than their short-term variation and the grand mean really does look like a central tendency. This stationary series also plots as a straight line on normal probability paper, so it's consistent with the assumption that the residuals vary normally around a mean of zero. 20

In addition to spikes, trends, and shifts, data footprints include cycles, mixtures, stratifications, instability, etc., each being the footprint of a different species of cause. 21

The Allegory of the Fluoropolymer

The viscosity of a fluoropolymer was plotted batch-by-batch for two reactors, C and D. The chart for Reactor D (second panel) was shown to the class.

Figure 14: Viscosity of a fluoropolymer from two reactors when the polymer grade was changed.

Behold! A shift! Viscosity jumped from just under 32 for grade 400 to just over 35 for grade 500. The class response: Big deal, it was supposed to do that! Polymer 500 is thicker. 22 Then I showed them the chart for Reactor C, which did not exhibit the expected shift. Prior to the class, I did not know which reactor was doing the wrong thing; but I knew one of them was.

This strategy of Matching Charts is a simple tactic for root cause analysis. 23

When adjustments go bad.

"No purely mathematical procedure can make a good figure out of any number of bad ones."—W. Edwards Deming, Statistical Adjustment of Data

The Allegory of the Cookies. A dough is machine-kneaded, rolled into a wide continuous sheet, and cut into cookies, which then ride a belt through a baking oven 24 abreast. Each half-hour, a sample of three cookies is taken from the oven exit, one each from the left, center, and right sides of the belt and tested with a reflectance meter called an Agtron. The Xbar and R chart below shows what appears to be a stationary series.

Figure 15: Each subgroup consists of a cookie from the left, center, and right sides of the oven. The points hug the center line a little too tightly. Nearly all are within one standard deviation.

The expression "too good to be true" comes to mind. The points hug the center line a little too much, especially the ranges. Unlike the paste weights, most of the variation here is within the subgroups. To find the major causes of variation, we have to "crack open the subgroups" and see what's inside. What's inside is variation across the oven belt, so let's plot each location separately.

Figure 16: Time series for each position from oven. Breakdown reveals stratification.

This reveals a stratification effect. The left-side cookie is consistently darker than the other two, an "apple" in a sample of "oranges." This was due to an imbalance in the air flow in the oven.

To reduce the variation, correct the air flow. But suppose you can't? Then we might adjust the data by subtracting the mean value for that location and plotting the residuals. 24 Having done so with the three oven zones, the new limits reveal hitherto hidden signals of time-related changes.

Figure 17: "Cookie color change anomalies." Adjusted data now reveals time-related assignable causes.

The degree of stratification changed (starting around Sample seven) and the mean value dipped at Sample 13-14. But since you can't fit an average to an unstable process, the adjustment itself is now suspect and we must be careful about how we interpret and rely on the analysis.

"We do not have, in fact, an observing network capable of ensuring long-term climate records free of time-dependent biases."—NOAA, USCRN Program Overview

Summary

Science is based on data and data collection, and analysis is messy and subject to many influences. Difficulties arise in the definition, instrumentation, collection, and adjustment of the data.

Measurements are not always comparable, and great care must be taken to ensure operational definitions meaningful to the research objectives. Never use data collected for other purposes if you don't know how the measurements were in fact carried out.

Probabilities depend on the statistical model applied, and for an unstable process there may be no such model. Even for stable processes, the appropriate model may not be the Normal; yet many folks use the Good Ol' Bell Curve as a substitute for thought.

Data often need adjustments before use. There may be outliers or missing data points, or even external constraints. The three angles of a triangular part ought to sum to 180°. If they don't the measured angles must be corrected. 25

But an unstable process cannot be meaningfully adjusted. The adjustment of data—to external constraints, or to a regression model or average—is fraught with peril, the most dangerous of which is forgetting that you're working with adjusted data at all.

Exaggerated by some, downplayed by others, all of these considerations come into play for climate statistics, a topic we may return to when the Allegories are Explained.

Endnotes

1 Sheds a new light on "falsification," too, doesn't it?

2 Yeah, I know. Makes you wonder about the aether thingie.

3 Duh? Variation among different individuals is called "reproducibility." Measurement systems also possess various degrees of bias adn linearity, stability, and resolution.

4 W. Edwards Deming, Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position (MIT Press, 1982), pp. 326–327, citing Haliday and Resnick, Fundamentals of Physics (Wiley, 1974).

5 But see João Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light (Perseus Pub., 2003) and "Eifelheim" (Analog, Nov. 1986)

6 American Society for Testing and Materials

7 Richard Feynman, "Cargo Cult Science" (Commencement address, Caltech, 1974)

8 "Fact" from L. factum est, "that which has been made or accomplished."

9 Yes. The author admits to committing irony here.

10 The problem is worse when the "instrument" is a questionnaire.

11 This is why models are almost always reported as more precise than they really are. Scientists are interested in how tightly they have locked in the model; users are interested in the precision of the predictions.

12 The mean of all the sample values except the extreme values; esp. where the extremes are likely to be faulty measurements.

13 Yes. it's called kriging [hard g]. Basically, the missing value at location X is estimated as the average of the surrounding locations. Details, and complications, are beyond the scope of this essay.

14 A good discussion of sampling in general: A Sampler on Sampling, by Bill Williams. More technical, but still accessible: Case Studies in Sample Design, by A. C. Rosander.

15 Western Electric Quality Control Handbook (Bonnie Small, ed.)

16 Otherwise, you are a Neoplatonic woo-woo.

17 Ha ha. Sorry. I couldn't resist.

18 Invented by Walter Shewhart of old Bell Labs: The Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product (Van Nostrand, 1931).

19 This "tampering" actually increases overall variation!

20 Note: "is consistent with." Avoid saying that the data or the process "is normal." The real world can do whatever it darn well pleases. Be grateful some statistical models are often useful approximations.

21 This useful taxonomy is derived from the Western Electric Quality Control Handbook

(Bonnie Small, ed.)

22 And I have always wondered: What if I had shown them Reactor C first?

23 Turned out, Reactor C was piped differently than D (and A and B).

24 In climate science residuals are called "anomolies."

25 And there are at least two legitimate ways of doing so. See Deming, Statistical Adjustment of Data.

Useful Reading

• Box, George E. P., William G. Hunter, and J. Stuart Hunter. Statistics for Experimenters (John Wiley & Sons, 1978)

• Deming, W. Edwards, Statistical Adjustment of Data (Dover, 1964)

• Deming, W. Edwards, H.F. Dodge, Leslie Simon, et al. "Control Chart Method of Analyzing Data," American War Standard Z1.2-1941 (American Standards Association)

• Duhem, Pierre. "Some Reflections on the Subject of Experimental Physics" (1894) in Duhem, Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science, tr. Ariew and Barker. (Hackett Publishing, 1996).

• Feynman, Richard. "Cargo Cult Science" (Commencement address, Caltech, Engineering and Science, 1974); on-line at
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf

• Flynn, Michael. "Garbage Out: The Fine Art of Putting Garbage In,"

Annual Quality Congress Transactions, (ASQC, 1986).

• Rosander, A.C. Case Studies in Sample Design (Marcel Dekker, 1971)

• Shewhart, Walter. The Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product (Van Nostrand, 1931)

• Small, Bonnie, ed. Western Electric Quality Control Handbook, (Mack Printing Co., 1956)

• Williams, Bill. A Sampler on Sampling (John Wiley & Sons, 1968)

Foreshadowing and the Ides of March: How to (sort of) Hint at Things to Come

Special Feature

Richard A. Lovett | 3159 words

There is a scene in "Romeo and Juliet" where a worried Juliet exclaims, "O God, I have an ill-divining soul! Methinks I see thee [Romeo]... as one dead in the bottom of the tomb." It's a classic example of foreshadowing. Juliet fears that Romeo will die... which is exactly what ultimately happens.

Foreshadowing is the art of hinting at what is to come. It's the scary music when characters in a horror film enter an abandoned house, or Han Solo in Star Wars saying, "I have a bad feeling about this," when he, Luke, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia escape down a trash chute into what turns out to be a giant trash compactor.

English teachers tend to make a big deal of foreshadowing because it's easy to spot and fun to discuss. But that can make beginning writers think everything must be overtly foreshadowed.

"[Foreshadowing] shouldn't be too obvious to most readers," says novelist and Analog contributor Brenda Cooper. In most cases, she adds, readers shouldn't even realize that an event was foreshadowed until it actually happens. Nebula-winning novelist Gregory Benford agrees. "Otherwise, readers sniff the ending and lose interest," he says.

But this doesn't mean that foreshadowing is unimportant. Properly done, it serves the critical function of setting the stage for what is to follow. If you do too little of it, you get some thing like this:

Martin Smith was sitting on the couch flipping through his grandmother's old photo album when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. He got up, walked across the living room, and opened it.

Outside, a pizza deliveryman was waiting. The deliveryman pulled out a gun and fired three shots. Martin dropped dead. The deliveryman stepped across his body into the living room and quickly spotted the photo album. "That's convenient," he muttered, scooped it up, shut the door, and headed back to his car.

That's extremely unsatisfying because Martin's murder and the theft of the photo album come out of the blue. One moment Martin thinks he's getting a pizza... and ten words later, he's dead. I might just as well have written, "That night a thief, posing as a pizza de-liveryman, knocked on Martin Smith's door, gunned him down, and stole his grandmother's old photo album."

How can we fix it?

There are lots of possibilities, but one is to start with a prior scene in which Martin is at work, where he gets a call from someone claiming to be a museum curator, who offers him $250, $500, $1,000, possibly even more, until Martin tells him the thing isn't for sale at any price, and hangs up. Martin could be disturbed enough to tell this to his best friend (the real protagonist of our story), who will remember it after Martin dies.

Hours later, preferably after some intervening action (possibly including character development to help establish other protagonists to carry on once Martin is gone), we can now have the following scene:

Martin Smith was tired. Too tired to do anything but sit on the couch watching the evening news. The North Koreans were again threatening to nuke half the globe, while down on Fifth Street some idiot had carjacked an old lady's car, only to discover that in the rush-hour traffic there was nowhere to go. He'd fled on foot, but only after leaving the poor woman in critical condition. But Martin was having trouble focusing. Why did anyone want his grandmother's old photos?

Ignoring the TV, he walked to the bookcase and pulled out the album. But it was just a bunch of family photos, plus vacation shots labeled with things that looked like airport codes. MSQ w/ Bill & Cindy —that type of thing. His grandmother had met people wherever she went and seemed to have photographed them all.

He returned to the couch, intending to look up MSQ on Google, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Glancing out the window, he spotted a pizza-delivery car by the curb. Odd, he thought, I didn't order a pizza.

Walking all five paces across his tiny living room, he opened the door and found himself facing an unusually old pizza man. Midfifties at least, with steel-grey eyes untouched by the smile attempting to curl his lips.

"Martin Smith?"

It took Martin a moment to notice the gun poking from beneath the pizza box.

"Uh..." Stepping back, he tried to slam the door, but was too late. The gun popped—once, twice, three times—a muffled poof, barely audible above the TV.

Martin fell backward and the gunman stepped over him, quickly spying the photo album on the coffee table. "That's convenient," he muttered as though Martin were still alive to hear. He scooped it up, kicked Martin's feet far enough back into the apartment to allow the door to close, and headed for the street.

Better? I hope so. I added a lot of things, some of which, such as the parade of bleak news on the television, the fact Martin never ordered a pizza, and his grandmother's habit of photographing strangers should help build suspicion that Martin might be in danger. Now when he dies, the reader may not be happy (we might rather see Martin slam the door and escape out a window, photo album clutched under one arm, gunshots ringing behind him) but at least we're not caught totally unprepared.

Poor Miss Bobbit

That's one type of foreshadowing: the use of hints to set up the expectation of danger. But foreshadowing can be far more explicit.

Truman Capote's 1948 short story, "Children on Their Birthdays," opens with the line, "Yesterday afternoon the six o'clock bus ran over Miss Bobbit." Just to make sure we realize the accident is fatal, Capote has his narrator continue: "I'm not sure what there is to be said about it; after all, she was only ten years old, still I know no one of us in this town will forget her."

Capote hasn't simply hinted that Miss Bobbit's life might be short; he's told us so in no uncertain words.

Norman Spinrad did the same in his 1983 Nebula-nominated novel The Void Captain's Tale.

That novel began: "I am Genro Kane Gupta, Void Captain of the Dragon Zephyr, and may-hap this is my todtentale. Of necessity, it is also the tale of Void Pilot Dominique Alia Wu, but she is gone into the Great and Only." A few paragraphs later, Spinrad adds:

On the ninth Jump... the consciousness of Void Pilot Dominique Alia Wu left its material matrix and did not return, though the Dragon Zephyr somehow survived this Blind Jump.

The ship is now marooned about a score light-years from the nearest habited star, without a Pilot.

Again, the ending hasn't just been hinted at. As one reviewer says, "[T]he narrator lays down the entire tale on the first page. There is no suspense regarding what will occur, only how and in what manner it will be presented." 1

It's an incredibly risky thing for a writer to do. Benford, in fact, thinks Spinrad's decision damaged his story. 2 So why would a writer do this?

I can only speak for myself, and I've only done it once, in "Neptune's Treasure" ( Analog, Jan/Feb 2010). That novella began:

How old were you when you first saw death? Me, I'll call it twenty-two. 3 It's a good number: one year beyond that at which you can vote and drink... no more arbitrary than the events that killed John Pilkin. The same ones that nearly got me and Floyd killed, too. Somehow, though, seeing someone else die is a whole bunch more real than dodging the bullet yourself.

Like Capote with poor Miss Bobbit, I'm making sure readers know, even before they meet him, that John Pilkin is going to die. My reason is that the story is about Floyd and Brittney, and the impact on them of Pilkin's death (which occurs only about one-third of the way through the story). I don't want readers getting too invested in Pilkin himself.

Capote seems to be doing something similar. The story isn't about Miss Bobbit's death; it's about the effect she has on the town before she dies. Spinrad's novel is about sexual obsession strong enough to condemn ten thousand people to slow death. It is not about survival, which may be why he tips the ending before he starts.

Tachyon Explosions

There's an intermediate level of foreshadowing in which the author hints at events to come more explicitly than needed merely for tone setting, but less explicitly than Capote or Spinrad. Thus, we might read:

I should have paid more attention when Alex Ryder was explaining the risks of reversing the neutron flow in the tachyon-pulse generator. After all, the man was missing the middle three fingers on his right hand.

There are a lot of reasons why a writer might do this, but one of the simplest, suggested by blogger Gerry Visco, 4 is to pull the reader through slow sections in the narrative. If you have to spend two pages explaining tachyon-powered space drives, it might help to begin with the threat of disaster to come.

Visco suggests a similar mainstream example: "Susan had no idea when she paid her five dollars for the afternoon matinee that she had just made one of the biggest mistakes of her life." The nice thing about this kind of fore shadowing is that the reader isn't sure what type of calamity is about to befall. Will the tachyon-pulse generator blow up? And what's going to happen to Susan? Will she be taken hostage by terrorists? Step into a time warp? Meet her ex-mother-in-law? The possibilities are endless.

Another way to do this is with omens. "Beware the Ides of March," a soothsayer warns in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar."

Not that omens have to be ominous. Shakespeare lets an apportion conjured up by fortune-telling witches assure Macbeth he "shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him"—which pretty much sounds impossible.

Omens are fun because they can be as vague as needed, while characters' reactions can help drive not only the plot but also character development. Caesar, for example, is too arrogant to take the soothsayer's warning seriously. Macbeth believes his warning... but sees it as reassurance of his invincibility. Then the enemy arrives on his doorstep, camouflaged in branches cut from the forest.

That said, soothsayers and fortune-telling witches aren't common in science fiction (although Doctor Who makes heavy use of cryptic ancient intelligences), but you can do similar things with much more mundane events. The news Martin Smith is listening to on the TV, for example, is a sort-of omen. More explicit is this, another excerpt from the first pages of my story "Neptune's Treasure":

Neptune is an infinity of blues, from pastel to midnight, making you wonder how, back when it was just a dot in a telescope, they'd had the prescience to name it for the god of the sea. [But it also is] a malevolent eye: staring and judging. A god not of jaunty sailing ships but of endless depths, waiting to claim what's rightfully its own.

Then there's the light. The Sun is an actinic dot: still blinding but not the warm glow of in-system. It's a puncture in the fabric of the universe, a glimpse of something even more remote, aloof, and damning than Neptune itself. 5

That's not the most sanguine of descriptions. If I hadn't already said John Pilken was about to die, you wouldn't be caught too much by surprise when he does.

Not that foreshadowing has to presage death, judgment, and destruction. In Star Wars, Han Solo's comment comes as humor, hinting that no matter how bleak it might look at the moment, our heroes will escape. It's "double" foreshadowing. Is something bad about to happen? Of course! Will our heroes escape? Of course, yet again! An even better example of this type of foreshadowing is this passage from the Lord of the Rings: 6

Frodo: "What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature [Gollum], when he had a chance!"

Gandalf: "Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand.... Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.... My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many—yours not least."

Superficially, this is a moral/philosophical discussion. But when Frodo's will finally falters, we remember it when Gollum's actions, however selfishly intended, not only save Frodo, but all of Middle Earth. The result is an ending that is a surprise, but a surprise that feels right.

"In its simplest form, foreshadowing is establishing the possibility of the story's natural ending," says best-selling fantasy author Carrie Vaughn. "The author plants clues that come together to create the inevitable conclusion."

Chekov's Frammulator

Foreshadowing plays an additional role in science fiction, because science fiction deals with things outside the ordinary reader's experience. In a 1940s thriller, if a shifty-looking character in a fedora comes up behind the hero, sticks a gun in his back, and orders him into a car, we don't need much in the way of explanations. But in Doctor Who, if an Ood approaches with a glowing sphere in its hand, we don't know whether to run or invite it to breakfast.

The same goes for futuristic devices. If a story requires someone to be gruesomely murdered with a molecular inverter, readers need to know what a molecular inverter is, what its normal function is, and how a murderer might lay hands on one. The same goes for any action or technology that may become important late in the story.

"Foreshadowing can help make sure the solution already exists within the story, and gives your reader a chance to solve the problem alongside the characters," says Vaughn. "The least successful episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the ones where La Forge or Data stands in Engineering in the last five minutes, and invent a particle no one's ever heard of that suddenly fixes everything."

Not that this is a problem unique to futuristic gadgetry. In his novel Dark Secret, serialized in the April-July/Aug 2013 issues of Analog, Edward M. Lerner had a character who needed to escape from plasticuffs. For that, the character needed to be carrying a penknife. But he couldn't just pull it out of his pocket in an oh-by-the-way-guess-what-I've-got fashion.

Lerner's solution? "I made him a cigar smoker."

At the same time, Lerner couldn't be too obvious. "It's the 'Chekov's gun' principle," he says.

That principle, named for Russian playwright Anton Chekov, holds that if you show a gun in the first act of a play, it must be fired in the third. That's because the moment you show an object as symbolically freighted as a gun, readers will latch onto it, figuring the only reason it's there is to establish it for future action. If it's never used, they'll feel frustrated.

But the same applies to a lot more than guns. If a story opens with a body lying next to a glowing, levitating ball of fire, readers will assume the ball of fire is important. For the same reason, the tachyon drive discussed above damned well better overload, explode, or do something dangerous before the story is over.

Setting such things up without unintentionally telegraphing the end is part of what makes storytelling difficult. One approach is simply to dare the reader to figure it out first. I've done this a time or two, but the best example I can think of is one of Larry Niven's Gil the Arm murder mysteries ("Arm"), which begins with the hero, Gil Hamilton, investigating a locked-room murder in which an apparently long-dead body is lying next to a device that creates a bubble of sped-up time. Clearly, the gadget is part of the crime. But how? Only the sharpest readers will beat Gil to the answer.

Another trick is obfuscation. "Take a tip from magicians," Lerner says, "and go for indirection and misdirection." In the case of his penknife-carrying character, he did this by focusing on the cigar smoking. "I made the cigar habit a window into his personality," Lerner says—"oral fixation, addictive personality." The knife faded into the background.

All of this works more easily for a knife than a molecular inverter. A writer can establish the existence of the knife almost in passing, because readers already know what it is. But if a story has a lot of science fictional gadgetry, it can be hard to distinguish the important ones from those just designed to help produce a futuristic atmosphere. "Science fiction often needs more setting details than mainstream fiction, so it's sometimes hard to tell if the alien lurking in the shadows behind the frammulator is foreshadowing, or just part of the setting," says Analog regular Jerry Oltion. "It's the writer's job to make that clear by way of emphasis, mood, character reaction, or whatever," he adds. "A 'good' writer will make you understand when it's foreshadowing. A great writer will make you remember the detail but dismiss it as unimportant until suddenly it becomes a major plot element later on."

One of my own most successful efforts at this was in William Gleason's and my novella, "Nightfall on the Peak of Eternal Light" ( Analog, Jul/Aug 2012), which hinged on a combination of artificial gravity and solar-power technologies using mirrors high on the rim of a lunar crater.

To introduce each technology, we had one character work on a mirror-building crew, while another attended a low-gee ballet using a floor checker-boarded with artificial-gravity plates. We also made sure our characters were primarily engaged in other activities when encountering each of these technologies. The result was that by the time we needed them, we'd dodged the Chekov's gun problem by making sure both technologies were as integral to the story as the spacesuits the characters wore when working outside.

Some authors do this and other types of foreshadowing deliberately. Some do them intuitively. Other authors only add foreshadowing details after they've figured out where the story is heading.

"Foreshadowing can make authors look like geniuses," says Oltion. "If we come up with a cool event we didn't anticipate early on, we can go back and foreshadow it. The reader encounters the foreshadowing first, so when they reach the payoff they're likely to think the author came up with it in that order, too."

But however it's done, the basic point is simple. Foreshadowing isn't simply a "literary" device. It's done to keep surprises from being "too" surprising... without tipping them so thoroughly that readers see them coming the proverbial mile away. It's the comedian setting up the punch line... without telegraphing the joke. It's one of the most important but difficult aspects of story writing.

Footnotes:

1 James Broussard, who appears to be attempting to review all former Nebula and Hugo nominees, online. See http://allthenominees.blogspot.com/2013/02/1984-nebula-award-nomineevoid-captains.html

2 All I have read of this out-of-print story is a plot synopsis and the opening pages. But Benford's point is clear: if you reveal the ending early, you have to be very confident that the story's telling will carry the reader through.

3 The reasons the narrator doesn't know her age are complex and irrelevant to the present discussion.

4 www.writersstore.com/techniques-to-establish-pacing.

5 Ellipses omitted.

6 Collected from Wikipedia.

Digital Ghosts

John F. Keane | 69 words

Your ghost sleeps on your hard drive.
All your vices, all your secrets,
All your conflicts, all your issues,
Always there
Immortal in binary,
Sealed in steel
And eternal megabytes.

Your ghost sleeps in a metal box.
Animals, young, very young;
All your secret passions;
The lizard brain
On digital display
For he who can
And dares.

Your ghost turns on bearings.
Silent secrets tossed on rubbishdumps
Still sleep in tired mechanics;
All you surf and say Is now immortal.
Once, we kept diaries;
Now, metal keeps us.

Star Song

Kendall Evans | 121 words

Forever together, you and I,
We have occupied
These vast
& asteroid-blasted
Forsaken plains
For aeons

Do you remeber eternity
The long hard struggle
Up from the sea
& taking our tea
On the shoreline

Let us partake of the sacred blood
The wafered flesh
Of the fallen brood
While we discuss the conundrum
Of what is real
& where we've come from

On that journey star-to-star
You were the Captain
I, avatar
In those dark
& Time-dilated
Far reaches

Or were you The ship's A.I.
Dreaming in digital designs
Ancient, wise—
You stroked my neurons;
I was hard-wired

One of us will be A deity
The other diabolic
& let's say you're singular
The only one
I will be legion
Far-star-wandering

Let us make love
In the ruins of ancient
Alien civilizations
Allow our children to prowl
These haunted highways
While howling
At multiple moon-glow

We have gathered
The sub-atomic grains
Of galaxies
Navigated supernova Nebulae
Let's have some fun
This eternity
While we re-conquer the cosmos

GUEST EDITORIAL SIXTY ASTOUNDING YEARS—

A PERSONAL RETROSPECTIVE

Arlan Andrews, Sr. | 1865 words

"Sex, drugs and Rock n' Roll," went the mantra of an earlier generation, to which I always replied, "Well, two out of three ain't bad." I'd usually get a disbelieving look in return, and then say, "No drugs for me—my one addiction is Science Fiction." Which in retrospect turned out to be truer than I ever imagined back then. In reviewing my sixty years as a reader of—and thirty-plus years as a writer for—the magazine edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., Ben Bova, Stan Schmidt, and now Trevor Quachri, I realized that the stories, articles, editorials, and ideas in Astounding/Analog (ASF), and most importantly the playful way of thinking about serious subjects, substantially affected my life. And in doing so, affected others' lives as well. I am certain that other ASF writers and fans will have similar stories; this one is mine.

Books and Covers

I picked up my first issue of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine in a hospital waiting room because its rather sedate cover painting showed a tank-like vehicle fighting a terrific rainstorm. (I had purposely avoided "pulp" magazines with garish covers up till then—BEMs and brass brassieres and all that.) That cover story, Poul Anderson's "The Big Rain," was in the October, 1954 issue—hence the "sixty years" in the title here. In succeeding decades the unfolding of scientific discoveries and technological advances, as well as geopolitical events, have truly been Astounding. But those of us who were science fiction fans, especially ASF readers, have enjoyed much of this wild ride to the future more than most, because (1) we had already read about it, so (2) we expected it, and (3) in large part, we helped bring it about.

Der Alte

As I related in a poetic paean to ASF ("Fantasy of a 50's Fan," Amazing Stories, July 1988), John W. Campbell's editorials were the first thing I would read in each eagerly awaited monthly issue of Astounding. As a budding engineer/scientist/geek/nerd/ "brain" in the mid-1950s, I especially appreciated Mr. C's efforts to get the Scientific Establishment to look seriously at what Charles Fort called "Damned facts"—anomalies, strange and weird phenomena, obscure occurrences, irreproducible results. Among those was the unbelievable Hieronymus "psionic" machine, which, even with its electronic components merely ink printed on paper, could supposedly generate usable information. (In the early 1970s, I was able to interview T. Galen Hieronymus at his home in Toccoa, Georgia, for several hours, hearing even more incredible reports on his career as an early radio pioneer and fringe inventor.) Likewise, the incredible Dean Drive, with its promise of reactionless propulsion, prompted me to send that entire issue to a New Mexico Senator in hopes the government would fund research on it. (Jerry Pournelle has since said that his own investigations of Dean's machine, brought on by those same ASF articles, did not show any promise.) This interest in the unusual led me eventually to serve on the Board of Directors of the Rhine Research Institute of Durham, North Carolina, one of the few professional parapsychological organizations, and to write many articles for Fortean, paranormal, and alternative history publications.

Campbell's basic principles have guided me ever since: first, try to understand the science behind phenomena, but always question authority, search those "dark corners," and look for meaningful exceptions to The Rules. With this attitude, along with libertarian concepts in the stories of Robert A. Heinlein, I often found myself at odds with existing political establishments. So in 1976 I helped found the North Carolina Libertarian party, running as its first gubernatorial candidate that year. (My one and only foray into elective politics.)

My first intended Astounding submission didn't happen. In 1958, after I began working as a missile tracker on a co-op student program at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, I wrote a short semifictional account about Werner von Braun visiting the Range, but was too shy to send it in. I wish I had. As it was, in 1968 I finally got up the nerve and formally submitted a short story about environmental engineering to Editor Campbell, which he rejected with a polite, typed letter. Later I sent him a parody, "The Engineer's Credo," which poked fun at the then-current anti-scientific types who were criticizing flood control and other "unecological" projects. Mr. C rejected that one, too, this time with a page of harsh criticism. I replied that I was sorry that he had taken it literally; in yet another letter, he came back even harder. Finally in 1971 at Lunacon in New York, Isaac Asimov introduced me to Mr. C, my philosophical godfather. I have a photo from then of Campbell pointing his cigarette holder at my wild Peter Max tie, when he said, "That tie speaks for itself—loudly!" After which I promised him that I would give him one just like it at the WorldCon in Boston that September. Unfortunately, he died a few months later. I still treasure that picture and those severely critical rejection pages.

Ben and Me

I never submitted any fiction to Ben Bova, but he did publish five of my letters from 1972 through 1979 in "Brass Tacks." My favorite was the one where I defended Kelly Freas's illustration of an Amish man giving a middle finger salute (June 1972), which Campbell had commissioned in his final year: "More than any other illustration, this image shows the attitude of John W. Campbell, Jr. toward the Establishment!" (Later, as Editor of Omni, Ben did buy one of my first professional sales.)

Stan, the Man

In 1981 I received a call at my Bell Labs office, asking if I would hold for Dr. Stanley Schmidt. His question endeared him to me forever: "Are you an engineer?" he asked, "Or at least, a scientist?" Within the year, he bought and published "Science, Fiction" (June 1982) and "Glossolalia" (July 1982), followed by twenty-eight more stories and articles over the next thirty years. A few of those bear commenting on. Some may appear to be prescient, but they were just fiction.

The mid-September 1983 Probability Zero short-short "Information Implosion" foresaw the problem of having twelve thousand channels "but nothing on." "Critical Path" (mid-December 1983) envisioned a future Analog -type magazine that allowed e-mail submissions (which practice ASF began just two years ago). In 1983 Stan asked me to contribute a short story for an upcoming humor edition; "Capitol Punishment" (Mid-December 1984) was probably the first fiction ever to discuss the possibility of micro black holes, now commonly accepted. Following Campbell's avowed interest in unusual technologies, I suggested to my friend Chris Dunn that he submit an article to Stan. "Advanced Machining in Ancient Egypt?" came out in the August 1984 issue. Chris has since published books on the subject and gives talks worldwide.

The mid-December 1986 novelette "The Hephaestus Mission" took place during a future civil war in Mexico, a presentiment of the Chiapas insurrection that began in the 1990s. In addition to coining the term "warbots," the story proposed a unique physics solution that resolves time travel paradoxes. The January 1989 issue featured "Indian Summa," one of the few fantasy stories in ASF (dealing with magic), wherein a Cherokee scientist says, "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." Skipping forward to the twenty-first Century, "The Alien at the Alamo" (October 2010), though fictional, gave me a chance to put forward my actual beliefs about possible extraterrestrial visitors.

Science Fact and Speculation

The September 1992 fact article, "Manufacturing Magic," was the first popular article to foresee today's 3D printing revolution and beyond. (A Sandia Labs video based on that article won an Industrial Oscar-type award in 1995.) The AnLab Award-winning 1993 fact article, "Single Stage to Infinity!", was the first popular presentation of the Delta Clipper Experimental Single Stage To Orbit (DCX) project. In that piece, speaking of "the first true spaceship," I contended that it would "take off and land the way God and Robert Heinlein intended." Those last seven words have since become a mantra in the science fiction fandom community and in the entrepreneurial New Space industry.

Dr. K. Eric Drexler, nanotech guru, made his first article appearance in Analog as coauthor with Chris Peterson, of "Nanotechnology" (mid-December 1987). As a White House Fellow in late 1992, I was able to arrange for Drexler to talk about nanotech to my bosses at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP—"the White House Science Office"). Those government officials did not like Drexler's evangelism, and offered no support. But as the OSTP author of the chapter on advanced manufacturing for the April 1993 publication, The President's Report to Congress on Science and Technology, I penned the first White House endorsement of "molecular nanotechnology" and "solid freeform fabrication," the latter now known as "3D printing." In this case, it may be that Analog had an influence on national policy.

SIGMA

Analog may continue influencing policy. As related in the article, "SIGMA: Summing Up the Speculation" (September 2012), while at the White House Science Office in 1992 I formed SIGMA, a group of science fiction authors who consult pro bono with the U.S. government and others on matters of futurism, science, and technology. All but one of the original ten SIGMA members were Analog authors (including Stan Schmidt); a large majority of today's forty SIGMA members are, as well. Ben Bova is one.

The ANALOG MAFIA

In 1985, at the Inconjunction SF Convention in Indianapolis, Timothy Zahn, Pete (P.M.) Ferguson, Mike Banks, and I were posing for photos. Jokingly, I noted that, analogous (that word again!) to the Kennedys' "Massachusetts Mafia," we must be the "ANALOG Mafia." At the next Inconjunction, Pete brought us each a pin-on button bearing that title with an illustration of a gangster's gat firing away. We enjoyed the laugh. Later I had more made up and sent to some other Analog writers whom I knew. Eventually, Asimov, deCamp, Offutt, Bujold and many others received their buttons from me personally, as did Buzz Aldrin in 1996. To avoid any possible ethnic (or criminal) sensitivities, I've said that the acronym stood for "Making Appearances Frequently In Analog," but now you know the whole "rest of the story."

Trevor Quachri

Analog's newest editor follows in the grand ASF tradition, and has even improved on it. The novelette, "Thaw" (July/August 2013), was my first cover story after thirty years and three dozen appearances. In addition to another Probability Zero, "Wreck Support" (September 2013), Trevor published my latest article, "Homesteading to the Stars: Colony vs. Crew" (December 2013), the first serious proposal to address the possible motivations, finances, and subsequent economics of interstellar colonization.

Sixty Years and Counting

As these personal vignettes tell, ASF has been there in my mind and my heart throughout these six decades—manifesting as a playfulness of mind engendered by the editorials, stories, articles, columns, and letters. Those ideas affected my intellectual life and career from the eighth grade through graduate school; from White Sands to the White House; at Bell Labs, Sandia Labs, and my own several high-tech startup ventures; and in SIGMA's ongoing consultations with government decision makers. It continues yet today, as I write sequels that take place in the far-future, post-Ice Age world first encountered in last year's cover story.

All of us ASF readers, regardless of age, have been living through times of rapid technological and social change. In the pages of Astounding and Analog, we older fans and writers found much of our inspiration to cope with the future that is now. And along with younger generations, we still find a friendly forum here for discussing and reading about our thoughts on science, technology, the Universe, potential future problems, and often, possible solutions.

I only wish that the Founding Father, John W. Campbell, Jr., were still around to enjoy it.

THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY

670 words

Once more we'd like to thank everyone who voted in our annual poll on the previous year's issues. Your votes help your favorite writers and artists by rewarding them directly and concretely for outstanding work. They help you by giving us a better feel for what you like and don't like—which helps us know what to give you in the future.

We have five categories: novellas, novelettes, short stories, fact articles, and covers. In each category, we asked you to list your three favorite items, in descending order of preference. Each first place vote counts as three points, second place two, and third place one. The total number of points for each item is divided by the maximum it could have received (if everyone had ranked it 1) and multiplied by 10. The result is the score listed below, on a scale of 0 (nobody voted for it) to 10 (everybody ranked it first). In practice, scores run lower in categories with many entries than in those with only a few. For comparison, the number in parentheses at the head of each category is the average for that category.

NOVELLAS (4.50)

1. "The Chaplain's Legacy," Brad R. Torgersen (5.49)

2. "Murder on the Aldrin Express," Martin L. Shoemaker (3.54)

3. "The Matthews Conundrum," Edward M. Lerner (3.13)

4. "Time Out," Edward M. Lerner (2.15)

5. "Lune Bleue," Janet Catherine Johnston (1.79)

NOVELETTES (0.75)

1. "Buddha Nature," Amy Thomson (2.46)

2. "Not Close Enough," Martin L. Shoemaker (1.59)

3 (tie). "Sixteen Million Leagues from Versailles," Allen M. Steele (1.38) "The Exchange Officers," Brad R. Torgersen (1.38)

4. "Following Jules," Ron Collins (1.28)

SHORT STORIES (0.39)

1. "The War of the Worlds, Book One, Chapter 18: The Sergeant-Major," John G. Hemry (1.49)

2. "Bugs," Ron Collins (1.28)

3. "Sentinel Chickens," David W. Goldman (1.08)

4. "Out in the Dark," Linda Nagata (.97)

5. "Hydroponics 101," Maggie Clark (.87)

FACT ARTICLES (1.53)

1. "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown and Down-and-Dirty Mud-Wrassle," Michael F. Flynn (2.51)

2. "The Golden Age Comes to Seattle," Richard A. Lovett (2.10)

3. "Alien Worlds: Not in Kansas Any More," Edward M. Lerner (2.00)

4. "Galactic Cannibalism: Who's on the Menu?" H. G. Stratmann (1.79)

5. "Alien Aliens: Beyond Rubber Suits," Edward M. Lerner (1.74)

COVER (1.57)

1. July/August (for "Thaw"), by Tomislav Tikulin (3.03)

2. September, by Bob Eggleton (2.72)

3. May, by Dominic Harman (2.00)

4. October, by Dominic Harman (1.79)

5. January/February, by David A. Hardy (1.74)

There are some interesting tidbits tucked away in this year's results.

Brad R. Torgersen's "The Chaplain's Legacy" took first place in Novella decisively, the first in the series (after "The Chaplain's Assistant," September 2011) to place so highly.

Newcomer Martin Shoemaker placed second in both Novella and Novelette; an auspicious sign of stories to come, no doubt. Also impressively, Edward M. Lerner—who had an especially prolific year—placed in the top five in two different categories... twice! Ron Collins, too, was a multiple spot finisher, with second place in Short Stories and fourth in Novelettes.

As a bit of trivia, Linda Nagata's sequel to 2012's "Nahiku West," "Out in the Dark," wound up receiving the exact same weighted score as its predecessor:.97.

In addition to Martin Shoemaker's aforementioned strong showing as a newcomer, Amy Thomson and Maggie Clark, also newcomers, performed well right out of the gate, with "Buddha Nature" receiving first place in Novelette, and "Hydroponics 101" receiving fifth place in Short Story—always a highly competitive category.

The cover results this year seem to show a very strong preference for action and individuals—be they bird-riders, explorers, ships escaping exploding space stations, bodies in tubes, or even just human faces—over spacescapes and stellar phenomena. Makes sense to me!

Since AnLab votes are so important to encouraging authors and artists to do their best work, and to giving you the kind of magazine you most like to read, we hope to get even more next time. Use our online ballot, e-mail, or "snail mail," whichever you prefer, but please vote! (Please be careful to vote in the right category, as listed in the annual Index. Sometimes a few votes are wasted by being cast in the wrong category, and those simply can't be counted. Using our online ballot makes this much less likely.)

IN TIMES TO COME

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We kick off next month's issue with Mark Niemann-Ross's "Plastic Thingy," wherein an Average Joe gets a rare opportunity to apply some useful skills to help out his other-than-average new friends.

Then we have "Championship B'tok," where a game could have very real consequences (and may illuminate more of the secrets of Edward M. Lerner's InterstellarNet universe).

Our fact article is "Saturn's 'Jet-Propelled' Moon and the Search for Artificial Life," from Richard A. Lovett; James C. Glass fictionalizes some of that very research and wonders what lies "Beneath the Ice of Enceladus." We also have a white-knuckled account of interplanetary combat in Jacob A. Boyd's "Release"; the hurdles of diplomatically dealing with angry aliens in "Calm" from Marissa Lingen and Alec Austin; a look at how AI might influence our end-of-life decisions in Lavie Tidhar's "Vladimir Chong Chooses to Die"; and Naomi Kritzer explains (to paraphrase the Rolling Stones) that we can't always get what we want, but sometimes we get what we need, in "Artifice."

See you next time!

All contents subject to change

THE ALTERNATE VIEW

IS IT SPACE DRIVE TIME?

John G. Cramer | 2013 words

I was at a NASA workshop in Tempe, Arizona last January, at which, among other things, we were discussing the nature of game-changing inventions. It was mentioned that in the early nineteenth century the typewriter was independently "invented" over one hundred times by different individuals. I suggested to the group that when the technology has evolved to a certain point, a concept becomes ripe for invention, and someone somewhere will certainly invent it. When it is "typewriter time," some individual (or perhaps a hundred individuals all over the world) will invent the typewriter.

My question for this column is whether it is now "space drive time." The term "space drive" refers to a technology that would allow the propulsion of a space vehicle without the need for rocket-style expulsion of reaction mass-energy or for "light-sailing" with solar photons. In any case, on our horizon of technological developments there are indications that space drives may be appearing. Has the march of technological development arrived at "space drive time," the era when space drives are becoming a real technology? It's really too soon to say, and the reported results need to be verified and checked. But I'm optimistic.

In this column I'll consider two promising space drive developments that may be coming into fruition, one involving Mach's principle and the other proposing to "push against the quantum vacuum" for propulsion. The formidable roadblock for the space drive concept is Newton's third law of motion, a form of the law of conservation of momentum. In conventional rocket propulsion, a space vehicle can only be propelled forward and can only increase its forward momentum if propellant with an equal and opposite incremental momentum is expelled backward as exhaust. No form of internal motion—no shaking, bumping, spinning, or orbiting of interior masses, no tilting or twisting of eccentric internal flywheels—can produce any net momentum change in the overall object. Something must go backward if something else is to go forward.

As a workaround, light carries some momentum and can be used to avoid carrying onboard reaction mass. The emission, reflection, or absorption of a beam of light (laser or incoherent) or radio waves can, in principle, produce significant propulsion and momentum change in a space vehicle that does not carry and expel reaction mass. Examples: photon rockets, solar sails, and beam riders.

The problem with such schemes is that the momentum carrying capacity of light is very small—only its energy divided by the speed of light—and therefore the thrust (in newtons) is the power (in watts) divided by the speed of light, leading to a characteristic thrust-topower ratio of 3.33 µN/kW (3⅓ micro-newtons per kilowatt) for a photon rocket or for external light absorbed by a black sail, or twice that if the light is reflected 180° by a shiny sail. It's worth noting that any exotic propulsion process that would substitute gravity waves or neutrinos for light would lead to the same small thrust-to-power ratio. Thus, for any of these schemes the energy cost is very high for a small change in momentum, and only a tiny fraction of the input energy ends up as vehicle kinetic energy.

This brings us to possible alternatives that would use the distant universe or the quantum vacuum as reaction mass. First, let's consider Mach's principle. The physical property of mass has two distinct aspects, gravitational mass and inertial mass. Gravitational mass produces and responds to gravitational fields. It is represented by the two mass factors m in Newton's inverse-square law of gravity (F 12 = G m 1 m 2 /r 12 2 ). Inertial mass is the tendency of matter to resist acceleration. It is represented by the mass factor m in Newton's second law of motion (F=ma). These two aspects of mass always track one another. There are no known objects with a large inertial mass and a small gravitational mass, or vice versa. One of the deep mysteries of physics is the connection between inertial and gravitational mass.

Ernst Mach (1838–1916) was an Austrian physicist whose unpublished ideas about the origin of inertia influenced Einstein. Mach's principle, as elucidated by Einstein, attempts to connect inertia with gravitation by suggesting that the resistance of inertial mass to acceleration arises from the long-range gravitational forces from all the other masses in the Universe acting on a massive object (so that, in a universe empty of other masses, there would be no inertia). In essence, Mach's principle asserts that inertial and gravitational mass must be the same because inertia is, at its roots, a gravitational effect.

Dennis Sciama (1926–1999) used a simplified low-field reduction of Einstein's general relativity equations to show that in a uniform flat universe, long-range gravitational interactions produce a force that resists acceleration, producing inertia. James F. Woodward extended the work of Sciama by considering the time-dependent inertial effects that occur when mass-energy is in flow, i.e., when mass-energy is moved from one part of the system to another while the system is being accelerated.

The Woodward/Sciama result is surprising. It predicts fairly large time-dependent variations in inertia, the tendency of matter to resist acceleration. Most gravitational effects predicted in general relativity, e.g., the gravitational deflection of light, frame dragging, gravitational time dilation, etc., are exceedingly small and difficult to observe, because the algebraic expressions describing them always have a numerator that includes Newton's gravitational constant G, a physical constant that has a very small value due to the weakness of gravity as a force. The inertial transient effects predicted by the Woodward/Sciama calculations are unusual and different, in that they have G in the equation's denominator, with the result that dividing by a small number (G) produces a sizable effect.

Can varying the inertial mass of an object produce thrust; for example, by pushing it forward when the inertial mass is low and pulling it backward when the inertial mass is high, thereby "rowing" through space? Woodward has tested for a net thrust from this effect using piezoelectric devices that combine stored energy with accelerated motion, mounted on a low-friction torsion balance. His results are unpublished and have not at present been confirmed. However, Woodward's recent work operating at 35–40 kHz has recorded thrusts of a few milli-newtons in brief pulses and a few micro-newtons in continuous operation. The thrust-to-power ratio is difficult to measure accurately, but is roughly 10-20 µN/kW, a factor of 3 or more better than a photon rocket. Since the Mach thrust effect depends on the third power of frequency, it can in principle become much stronger at higher frequencies.

The other work in this area is being done at NASA's Eagleworks at the Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston by Dr. Harold G. (Sonny) White and his coworkers. Sonny White presented their recent results at the Spacevision 2013 conference in Arizona, and his talk can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M8yht_ofHc.

The basic idea is that in a region of space containing an electric (E) field and a magnetic (B) field at right angles, a plasma of charged particles of either sign is deflected in the same E ✕ B direction perpendicular to both fields. Conventional plasma thrusters, first used in Russian spacecraft, have been demonstrated to operate on this principle. White argues that in the "fireworks" of the quantum vacuum, with virtual electron-positron pairs and other pairs of virtual particles winking briefly into existence and then disappearing, a strong E ✕ B crossed field should provide the equivalent of a plasma discharge, so that the quantum vacuum itself should provide the reaction mass needed for propulsion. In other words, giving the virtual particles a push in the E ✕ B direction should propel the vehicle in the –E ✕ B direction.

In principle, this should be a DC effect and should produce a steady thrust in the presence of static electric and magnetic fields. However, perhaps in order to achieve the high fields for more thrust, the Eagleworks thrusters operate at frequencies of tens of MHz. Note that in such high frequency operation, the E and B fields oscillate in phase and change sign together so that the E ✕ B direction remains unchanged and the direction of expected thrust does not reverse during the cycle.

The Eagleworks group claims to have found a way of increasing the density of virtual particles in the quantum vacuum in order to increase the thrust derived for pushing on them. In the video mentioned above, they have reported measured thrusts of 20 to 110 µN and thrust/power ratios of 1 to 20 N/kW, about six orders of magnitude better than a photon thruster. These results have not been reported in a refereed physics publication, but it is a spectacular result.

To visualize what such a device could produce in continuous operation, consider a simple case. A top-end automobile battery has a mass of about 15 kg, and for a period of a few minutes in "cranking mode" it can deliver about 12 kW of continuous power. A 20 N/kW thruster at this power level would produce a thrust of 240 N, which could levitate a mass of over 24 kg. Therefore, if the thruster and associated hardware had a mass of less than 9 kg, the thruster+battery system could fly, antigravity style, supported by its own thrust! There are also spectacular possibilities in space. In his talk, White outlined a number of short-duration space missions to the planets of the Solar System that might be accomplished with space drives using nuclear thermo-electric power sources and thrusters delivering 0.4 or 4.0 N/kW. This would be truly a game-changing space technology.

This brings up the question of whether propulsion by pushing against the virtual particles of the quantum vacuum makes any physics sense. That is a very controversial question. Two of the well-established theories of physics give very different predictions for the density of mass-energy in the quantum vacuum. The believable value comes from general relativity and cosmology, which explains the accelerating expansion of the Universe as resulting from a vacuum mass-energy density of about 10 -26 kg/m 3 . In contrast, quantum field theory predicts a vacuum energy that is about 120 powers of ten greater than this (and is presumably wrong). This discrepancy in predictions remains unresolved, and is an embarrassment in physics. Eagleworks uses quantum field theory in estimating thrusts. A further issue is that White said that Eagleworks had devised a method of increasing the density of virtual particles in the vacuum for increased thrust, but he did not explain how this was accomplished.

We can also ask what happens to the reaction momentum delivered to the quantum vacuum by an Eagleworks Q-thruster. Virtual charged particles, mainly electrons and positrons (about half with negative mass-energy), appear momentarily, existing on "borrowed" energy and momentum, and then disappear back into the vacuum. If they receive momentum by being pushed in particular direction during their brief existence, where does that momentum go when they disappear again? In his talk, White refers to a "wake" left behind the forward-moving Q-thruster, presumably carrying away the momentum imparted to the vacuum. But what could such a wake be made of? Vast amounts of energy (511,000 electron-volts per particle) would be required to make the virtual electrons and positrons real, so that they could carry away the momentum. The particles of the wake could not be photons (or gravity waves or neutrinos), because their momentum carrying capacity is only 3 1 ⁄3 µN/kW. Moreover, about half of the virtual particles have negative mass-energy, which further complicates the issues of momentum transfer.

It has been suggested by a not-disinterested party that the Eagleworks Q-thrusters are actually Mach-effect thrusters in disguise, operating at a higher frequency to produce the larger thrusts observed. Maybe so.

In any case, this work suggests that it may be "space-drive time"; that space drives have already been invented and are about to reach the level of practical application. Watch this column for further developments.

References

Mach-Effect Thrusters:

• Making Starships and Stargates: The Science of Interstellar Transport and Absurdly Benign Wormholes, James F. Woodward, Springer Praxis Books, New York (2013); ISBN: 978-1-4614-5622-3.

• "How Long Will It Take To Build Starships?", James F. Woodward, Journal of Space Exploration (to be published, 2014).

Q-Thrusters:

• "Advanced Propulsion Physics: Harnessing the Quantum Vacuum", H. White and P. March, Nuclear and Emerging

Technologies for Space (2012); http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/nets2012/pd f/3082.pdf.

SF Novels by John Cramer: my two hard SF novels, Twistor and Einstein's Bridge, are newly released as eBooks and are available at: http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/?s=Cramer&submit=Search.

Alternate View Columns Online: Electronic reprints of over 160 "The Alternate View" columns by John G. Cramer, previously published in Analog, are available online at: http://www.npl.washington.edu/av.

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

Don Sakers

2212 words

I've talked about the appeal and history of SF short stories before (in the July/August 2011 issue, in fact). This time around I have a batch of new anthologies and collections to tell you about—plus a couple of novels, because no matter how much we like short fiction, who wants an exclusive diet?

In book form, you'll find short stories in one of four packages: anthologies, collections, omnibuses, and fix-ups.

An anthology, for our purposes, is a collection of short works by more than one author. The earliest known anthology, The Garland (produced by Meleager of Gadara in the first century B.C.E.) was a book of poetry by 46 authors. In the book, Meleager uses the metaphor of poems as flowers. The Greek word for a garland (or collection of flowers) is anthologia. The term entered English in the 1600s as "anthology."

The first SF anthology was Adventures in Space and Time, edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas (1946). Since then, thousands of anthologies have been published, and several sub-types have emerged.

Some anthologies are based on quality: either presenting award-winning stories, or giving an editor's choice of the "best" stories. (I'll talk about two recent examples below.) "Original anthologies," of which Frederick Pohl's Star Science Fiction (1953) was the first, feature previously unpublished stories—as opposed to "reprint anthologies," which contain previously published stories. And of course there are hybrids composed of a mix of original and reprint stories.

A "collection," in current usage, generally refers to a book of short fiction by only one author. The earliest single-author collections date back to the early seventeenth century; SF/fantasy writers such as the brothers Grimm, Washington Irving, and Edgar Allan Poe led the way. In the post World War II period, both small presses and major publishers brought out single-author collections (and anthologies) of stories previously published in the pulp magazines.

Among the SF collections fondly remembered by readers is Ballantine/Del Rey's 1970s–80s Classic Library of Science Fiction series, affectionately known as the "Best of" series. With consistent design and titles (always The Best of [Author's Name]), these books included an appreciative introduction by another major SF writer, followed by a selection of the title author's best-known stories.

An "omnibus" is a book that contains several other books, usually previously published ones. The word is Latin for "for all"—from the 1830s onward, it was a popular term for a public-conveyance carriage with many passengers. (Even today we call one such vehicle a "bus.") In publishing, the metaphor is that several books share the same covers as passengers share the same carriage.

An omnibus may be several novels, but it may also contain short story collections or even anthologies. Among the earliest major omnibus volumes in SF are Arthur C. Clarke's Across the Sea of Stars (1959) and Isaac Asimov's The Rest of the Robots (1964). Many of us fondly remember the Science Fiction Book Club's many omnibus editions such as Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy and James Blish's Cities in Flight.

Finally, a "fix-up novel" (known in lit-crit circles as a "composite novel") is a type of collection in which all the stories comprise a continuous narrative. Although the individual stories can stand alone, each with its own beginning and end, the overarching narrative makes the whole more than the sum of its parts. For authors, a fix-up novel can be a way to earn some money and build reader interest from the constituent stories while writing the novel; for readers, the individual stories can provide a way to "test drive" before committing to a whole novel, and also can satisfy the desire to know more about the characters and world of a favorite story.

Classic fix-up novels include Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950), Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight (1968) and The Ship Who Sang (1969), Mike Resnick's Kirinyaga (1998), Charles Stross's Accelerando (2005), and Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human (1953).

For information about SF anthologies, collections, and omnibuses, the standard reference for works published before 1983 is the comprehensive Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections at http://www.philsp.com/homeville/isfac/index.htm. For post-1983 works, you'll want to visit http://www.locusmag.com/index/ for The Locus Index to Science Fiction.

Year's Best SF 18

edited by David G. Hartwell

Tor, 415 pages, $15.99 (trade paperback)

Kindle: $8.39, iBooks, Nook: $9.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 9780765338204

Genres: Reprint Anthologies, Short Stories

This latest volume in David G. Hartwell's long-running Year's Best SF series covers stories published in 2012. When Hartwell started this series in 1996, most of the stories came from familiar sources, mostly print SF magazines and original anthologies. Back then it was just barely possible to keep up with the flow of new SF short fiction.

This volume contains 28 stories from a stunning variety of venues, both print and electronic. Unless you have inhuman amounts of leisure time, you'll find a fair number of stories you've never seen before. Two stories, Catherine H. Schaffer's "The North Revena Ladies Literary Society" and Linda Nagata's "Nahiku West," appeared in Analog.

Like the rest of the current "Best of the Year" anthologies, this volume leans toward the more literary stream of SF—not to say that's a bad thing. You'll find familiar names like Gregory Benford, Pat Cadigan, Gwyneth Jones, Ken Liu, Robert Reed, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, and Gene Wolfe. Yet there are also some authors you might not expect, such as John Barnes and C. S. Friedman... as well as a few up-and-coming names in the field.

These are all good stories, well worth the price of admission. I was particularly taken by Eleanor Aranason's "Holmes Sherlock: A Hwarhath Mystery," in which the author's unusual aliens take on the Great Detective; C. S. Friedman's "A Perfect Day," a humorous take on employment in the near future; and Robert Reed's "Prayer," a satirical tale set in a Canada occupied by a United States under the control of an artificial intelligence called Almighty.

There's plenty here for Analog readers to enjoy.

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction

edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Tor, 572 pages, $34.99 (hardcover)

Kindle: $14.44, iBooks, Nook: $16.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 9780765326003

Genres: Reprint Anthologies, Short Stories

A glance at the title of this anthology may leave you wondering (as I did) if the book is-n't just a bit premature. Wouldn't you want to wait until the century is, oh, at least halfway over?

Au contraire. The intent of this book is to focus on authors who, according to the editors, came to prominence in the twenty-first century. The result is a 34-author lineup that reads like a Who's Who of modern SF, ranging from Madeleine Ashby to Peter Watts.

Once again, there's some bias toward literary-flavored stories... but there are plenty of tales that would be at home in Analog's pages. In particular, you won't want to miss Neal Asher's "Strood," a surprising take on Damon Knight's classic "To Serve Man," or Hannu Rajaniemi's post-Singularity story of an intelligent dog and his feline sidekick, "His Master's Voice."

Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Brenda Cooper, Cory Doctorow, Ken Liu, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, Charles Stross, Jo Walton, and two dozen more—there's a lot going on here. At nearly six hundred pages and $35 for the hardcover, I'd definitely counsel going for the e-book edition if that's a choice.

The Clock Struck None

Lou Antonelli

Fantastic Books, 272 pages, $14.99 (trade paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-61720-944-4

Genres: Single-Author Collections, Short Stories

It's possible that you haven't run into the stories of Lou Antonelli. Since 2003, he's been publishing delightful short tales of alternate history all over the nooks and crannies of the SF world. Thanks to Fantastic Books, we now have 28 of these little gems in one place.

Many of Antonelli's stories have an unexpected twist ending. And many of them are what he calls "secret history" stories, which aren't exactly alternate history—they're set in our familiar history, but there's always some element that contemporary observers missed. For example, take the time travelers in "Meet Me at the Grassy Knoll."

As for alternate history, well, one of the included stories, "Great White Ship," was a finalist for the 2013 Sidewise Award, which is given for outstanding works in the field of alternate history. In "Pirates of the Ozarks" the New Madrid earthquake of 1812 turned the Great Plains into a new sea. "The Starship Theodora" posits a universe in which a Christianized Roman Empire conquered the stars.

Lovers & Fighters, Starships & Dragons

Tom Purdom

Fantastic Books, 356 pages, $15.99 (trade paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-61720-943-7

Genres: Single-Author Collections, Short Stories

Tom Purdom's first story appeared in 1957, and his first novel in 1964. He's been published everywhere—including Analog —and his work has appeared in various "Best of the year" anthologies. His 1999 story "Fossil Games" (which appears in this volume) was nominated for the Hugo Award.

The twelve SF stories in Lovers & Fighters, Starships & Dragons are a perfect blend of really cool ideas and believable, sympathetic characters. Beyond that, Purdom doesn't shy away from exploring the moral and ethical choices of his characters.

In "The Mists of Time," for example, a pair of far-future historians struggle to understand the motivations of their subject, a British Navy sailor involved in the slave trade. "Canary Land" tells the story of an American geneticist who emigrates to a Chinese-settled Moon in search of work... but it's also a tale of the costs and rewards of immigration into a foreign society. "Bonding With Morry" is an old man's love story, but also a meditation on our relationship with technology.

Definitely recommended.

Man-Kzin Wars XIV

created by Larry Niven

Baen, 217 pages, $15.00 (trade paperback)

Kindle: $7.73, iBooks, Nook: $8.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-4516-3938-4

Series: Man-Kzin Wars 14; Known Space

Genres: Military SF, Shared/Franchised Worlds, Short Stories

Many years ago, Larry Niven opened up one part of his Known Space universe and invited other authors to come in and play. The result: fourteen anthologies so far, and counting.

Set in a period in which humans are in the process of colonizing other worlds, the Man-Kzin Wars involve the often-hostile interactions between humanity and the Kzinti, a race of warrior cats.

Niven drew Known Space in broad strokes: planets and alien races defined by one or two characteristics, history that progressed in definite, discrete steps, and technology that progressed without social resistance or engineering difficulties. With that framework established, authors are free to fill in their own details, and that's always part of the fun of the Man-Kzin Wars volumes.

This present book contains seven stories by four writers: Hal Colebatch, Jessica O. Fox, Matthew Joseph Harrington, and Alex Hernandez. The stories range from a morality play regarding the fate of some surrendered Kzinti to the story of a human adopted into Kzinti society. Together, the authors manage to paint a nuanced and compelling vision of an alien species and the humans affected by them.

A Darkling Sea

James L. Cambias Tor, 352 pages, $25.99 (hardcover)

Kindle: $11.04, iBooks, Nook: $12.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-0-7653-3627-9

Genres: Alien Beings, Undersea/On the Sea

There are two things that, when done well, can set an SF reader's heart all a-twitter: aliens and worldbuilding. A Darkling Sea combines the two, and adds well-drawn characters and a compelling plot.

Centuries in the future, Terran explorers ran into the technologically superior Sholen race. Eventually, a truce was drawn: humans would be allowed to continue their explorations, as long as they didn't disturb the habitats of other intelligent creatures.

Enter the planet Ilmatar, an ice-bound world where Terran scientists discover a dark, hidden ocean far beneath the ice—an ocean that's occupied by the sapient Ilmataran race. All goes well, until Henri Kerlerec arrives. Kerlerec is a media darling and latter-day Indiana Jones. When an encounter with the Ilmatarans leaves Kerlerec dead, the Sholen decide to step in to protect the aliens.

Tensions between Terrans and Sholen escalate, as both sides try to co-opt the Ilmatarans. The future of human space exploration hangs in the balance.

This is the book you've wanted to read all year, you just didn't know about it. Now you know.

Burning Paradise

Robert Charles Wilson

Tor, 320 pages, $24.99 (hardcover)

Kindle: $10.99, iBooks, Nook: $12.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-0-7653-3261-5

Genres: Alien Beings, Alternate History

When you see Robert Charles Wilson's byline, you know you're in for a fun and crazy ride. Burning Paradise is no exception.

Cassie Klyne is a pretty normal teenager in the United States in 2015. Her world is well on the way to perfection. There haven't been any wars since the Great Armistice of 1918, no economic downturns, no political assassinations. The world is prosperous, poverty is almost unknown, even crime and social unrest are rare.

And Cassie knows it's not supposed to be that way.

Her parents were part of the group that discovered the truth, eight years ago. Since the invention of radio, an alien being has been making subtle changes in human development—changing history for its own unknown ends.

One thing is sure, though: the alien entity doesn't want humans to know the truth. Cassie's parents were murdered, as were others in their group. Those who knew the secret scattered and went into hiding. Cassie's aunt Nerissa, part of the group, took Cassie and her brother Thomas into hiding. That way, they've been able to survive.

Until the night Cassie witnesses a pedestrian struck by a car outside her apartment—a pedestrian whose red blood is mixed with the green, steaming fluid that marked the android agents of the alien.

Cassie takes her brother and goes on the run... and an adventure that will bring her face-to-face with the mysterious force that's been manipulating humanity.

It's a breathless romp across an Earth that's maddeningly different from our own, an Earth in the grip of one of the grandest conspiracy theories ever. Cassie, smart and plucky, is a great guide on this journey.

If any book ever deserved to be called a "page-turner," it's Burning Paradise. If you lose sleep finishing it, don't blame me.

And that, unfortunately, is the end of my space. Until next time, enjoy!

Don Sakers is the author of The Eighth Succession and Dance for the Ivory Madonna. For more information, visit www.scatteredworlds.com.

BRASS TACKS

2711 words

Dear Trevor,

First, I'd like to thank you very much for your kind words in your March 2014 editorial ["I, Editor"].

But my main reason for writing is to respond to Joseph Blacksten's letter in that issue. You answered him very well—you're exactly right that there are many ways to write editorials, and the important thing is to use one well suited to the subject at hand—but I think I can add a different perspective.

Mr. Blacksten says, "An editorial should make the point right away, then develop the reasons to support it." He cites former editor John W. Campbell as a good example of this practice. But the fact is that while John sometimes did it that way, more often he didn't.

I speak with some authority on this because I wrote more Analog editorials than anybody except John, and in learning to do so, I studied a lot of his to learn some tricks of the trade from a master. But I didn't just rely on my memory. Before starting this letter, I revisited Harry Harrison's collection of Campbell editorials.

What I found confirmed what I remembered. While occasionally John actually stated a thesis up front and then gave supporting arguments and examples, more often his approach was subtler and obviously influenced by his background as a fiction writer. Typically he started an editorial, like a story, with a "narrative hook," a provocative statement calculated to grab the reader's attention and make him or her want to stick around and see where Campbell was going with it. Usually he wound up following a meticulous chain of logic to a conclusion that seemed inescapable but was quite different from what the reader might have expected. Sometimes that conclusion was so shockingly at odds with something the reader started out believing that he was forced to reexamine his own beliefs to resolve the apparent contradiction.

I found that technique so effective as a reader that I often used it later in my own editorials. The only problem I ever found with it was that if my narrative hook used a recent event as an example of the point I was eventually going to make, some readers mistakenly thought the editorial was about the example rather than the principle it illustrated. But that made for good Brass Tacks letters and responses.

As you said, there are lots of ways to do it, and no matter which one you choose, some readers will think it's wrong. Don't let that bother you. I often thought that my most successful editorials were ones that drew hate mail from both ends of the spectrum. You're off to a good start; keep using a variety of topics and approaches, have fun with it, and keep us all on our toes!

Stan Schmidt

Dear Mr. Quachri,

I read your January/February 2014 editorial about STEM education ["Checklists"]. While I consider education to be a good thing in general and STEM education to be a good thing in particular, it occurs to me to wonder: What is the employment outlook in STEM fields?

Yours truly, Rudolf vonLuchen

A very good question. The answer is complicated: On one hand, "over the past 10 years, growth in STEM jobs was three times as fast as growth in non-STEM jobs," according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. On the other hand, some disciplines (like electrical engineering) currently have over three times the average unemployment for the field (though still better than the national average).

My takeaway would be that STEM degrees and jobs are vital and valuable, but as long as the education gap I discussed in my editorial persists, they're also in danger of being increasingly outsourced.

Dear Editors,

Regarding the January/February 2014 Editorial ["Checklists"]: The poor quality of education in the U.S. is of great concern. Not only are we on track to become a third world nation, but more importantly, democracy requires an educated and informed populace. We are failing both of those requirements. We need better politicians, but we will not get those unless we have a better electorate.

I BEG everyone to read John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education, which is free at http://www.johntaylor gatto.com/chapters/index.htm. Gatto, who wrote Dumbing Us Down, was New York City and later New York State Teacher of the Year. He eventually quit in disgust, and investigated just how our schools got to be so very bad. The short answer is by design; the aim was to so badly miseducate, even diseducate, 90% of the population that they would not self-educate.

This is a pretty shocking claim, but Gatto backs it up completely. He has quotes from Dewey, Mann, and US education policy documents that astonish. He says repeatedly that it is NOT a conspiracy; the system is stable as long as everyone protects their own self-interest.

NO discussion of the problems in education is properly informed without what Gatto has to say. Fixing details on a system designed to fail only makes it worse.

Part of the problem is that many students do not know any educated people other than their teachers, who are too often not very bright, badly paid, and have no job satisfaction, so the students see education as not being worthwhile.

I have an Ivy League BSChE 1980, and have worked on the side as a tutor for several decades. For a while I worked for the local juvenile court, tutoring kids in a school for those who had been thrown out of school. Two in particular were giving me guff about math being useless, so I brought in my thermodynamics and transport [of mass, momentum, and energy, not people] texts, which have some math. What really blew them away was the transport text's eight pages of nomenclature, showing what various symbols stood for. They had never seen such math and had no idea math was required to design things.

I could never understand the attitude they, like many of the others, had—basically: "I ain't gonna learn nothin' and you can't make me." In frustration I asked two of them if they knew why life is like a manure sandwich, the answer being the more bread you have the less manure you have to eat. I told them that they were choosing a life of ignorant poverty, where they would eat a great deal more manure than they really had to. Gatto explains how the system is designed to give them that attitude.

As to the alleged benefits of centrally controlled curricula, I note that almost all private school students do much better on STEM [and other] subjects, and those curricula are not centralized at all. I did have one student at a "Christian" school, for physics, who was never taught about torque and angular momentum; his parents allowed as how the teacher was chosen for religious fervor, not ability. But that was the exception.

Also, while tutoring juvies I looked at their history material, and what they were taught about Vietnam was simply not true. See also Lies My Teacher Told Me [e.g., pretty much everything your high school history text said about Reconstruction is false, history rewritten so Southern states would adopt the text that was nicest to the South; Woodrow Wilson was an open member of the KKK, and was the one who segregated the federal government, etc]. I see great benefit in diversity in education in that it keeps us from having everyone indoctrinated alike. At least someone will be taught those politically incorrect truths.

I note that in paragraph six some arithmetic was done wrong: Per stats given, 34% of engineers are female; the 18% is white females only.

John Williams Port Clinton, OH

Dear Mr. Quachri:

It took a little while for the penny to drop, and then I realized what is really different in Analog since the Quachri Era began. It is the lack of those little introductory blurbs! They have been a consistent feature of Analog for more than seventy years, and I miss them. Any chance of bringing them back?

Marc Russell Los Angeles, CA

Dear Editor Quachri,

I usually write Dr. Schmidt a letter when I send in my Anlab selections and I thought I would continue that tradition with you.

Generally I am very happy with your editing of Analog but I do have two negatives, one minor, one major.

The minor quibble: I miss very much the one or two sentence blurbs that have always introduced an Analog story. It may be that you just don't want to write them, and I can live with that but I miss them. To me they have always been part of the Analog experience.

There were two stories in Analog that I hated this year.

There always were a few stories every year that I was indifferent to and even mildly disliked but I can't ever remember in my 20+ years of reading Analog any stories that I felt were completely out of place.

The stories and my reasons:

"Other People's Avatars" [Howard V. Hendrix, July/August 2013]. The lead character in this story is an active drug abuser. I do not want to read stories about drug abusers. I only read four pages. Maybe the point was that the character's experience in the story would reform him. I don't care. I do not want to read stories about active drug abusers. It violates my sense of life

"The Oracle" [Lavie Tidhar, September 2013]. I hated this story even more than OPA. I read the whole story, and it made no sense at all to me.

Since this has never happened to me EVER in my reading of Analog, the fault is with the author, not with me. The story came across to me as an illogical, confused mishmash. It did not belong in Analog.

Two small blips in any otherwise fine year. I am looking forward to another twenty years of excellent stories under your editorship.

Dr. Rebekah M. Brown

I appreciate the feedback. A lot of people miss the blurbs, and I understand their appeal. I tried writing a few (that didn't see print), but I found it very difficult to avoid quickly falling into a rut: all of mine started to sound alike in short order. Instead of blurbs on the individual stories, I've been making the monthly "In Times to Come" box almost more like a collection of blurbs; hopefully, the tease will help motivate readers into picking up the next issue. But like many things, that's not set in stone, and I won't say it's impossible for the old method to return.

I actually feel like only hating two stories out of the year is pretty complementary, all things considered. It may sound strange, but I'm okay with people hating a few stories here and there. Optimally, everyone would love everything, of course, but that's not realistic. So I hope that the magazine is surprising and interesting on the whole, knowing the risks that entails. I'd rather have that than something toothless or predictable, where everyone always knows what they're going to get.

To the Editor:

I have not written to an Analog editor since J.W. Cambell published a wild takeoff on Keynesian multiplier analysis that was combined with a totally misleading take on the relationship between gold and money. However, I am moved to write that the article by Andrews ["Homesteading to the Stars: Colony vs. Crew," December 2013], while interesting as a set of suggestions on achieving interstellar colonization in the next century, has a severe flaw in its economics.

The idea that an expedition would get a positive return on investment by sending back data accumulated along the way does not fly. The same data could be obtained by much cheaper robot craft which might even be more reliable, and it is not very likely that any such data would be sufficiently valuable to pay for an expedition on the scale he suggests. The matter is not hopeless, however, for there are far more certain and valuable returns that might be considered. Many an SF story has featured colonization by dissatisfied groups such the Pilgrims going to North America. Some such groups might be heavily subsidized by a civilization that wants to see the last of them. How much might some of us pay to see the last of white supremacists, religious fanatics, or Justin Bieber fans? A very rich society that wanted peace might sponsor a flight or two. A rigid and intolerant society might want to send off some it could not tolerate (to a new Australia perhaps). As a viable commercial enterprise however—no chance.

Neil Garston Professor Emeritus of Economics

Greetings!

Mr. Arlan Andrews, Sr.'s article ["Homesteading to the Stars: Colony vs. Crew," December 2013] is a well-written explanation of one method for reaching the stars. While colonies on Earth were expected to provide economic gains to the backers (raw material, products to sell, etc.), a colony in the stars is a one-way trip with little economic reward to the backers except any immediate profit made in the construction, supply, etc. I will take issue on his idea that such an endeavor can only come from "educated, liberal democracies" to produce the necessary wealth and technology to fund, equip, and send forth the voyagers. Any authoritarian society (social, political, or religious) can focus on such a project and bring it to completion.

C. Henry Depew

Tallahassee, FL

Dear Editors

With regard to "Things We Have in This House for No Reason" [Marissa K. Lingen] in the October 2013 edition, I have read the story several times and I don't get it.

Is this a shaggy dog story?

Stephen Burgis

No, it's not a shaggy dog story; a shaggy dog story intentionally lacks a point or punchline. Spelling out what a story is attempting often spoils the very thing that makes it work, so I'll just say that the narrator may not understand her elders or her world quite as well as she thinks she does.

Dear Trevor Quachri,

This is a comment on H. G. Stratmann's science fact article, "Galactic Cannibalism: Who's On the Menu?" in your July/August 2013 issue of Analog. I was fascinated reading about close encounters of a galactic kind between our Milky Way galaxy and others in our local group.

I am of a paleontological bent and have always wondered what conditions our Solar System has cycled through in its orbit around our galaxy. It takes about 230 million years to make one orbit. I've also heard there is a pattern of global catastrophes and meteor and comet bombardments on our planet that occur about once every 230 million years. I've always wondered if these were connected, but never knew just what "conditions" would be different in our orbit on the other side of our Galaxy. Surely plowing through an intergalactic collision zone would be enough to "perturb" anybody's Oort Cloud! If not just rain down on us with intergalactic space junk!

Surely intergalactic interactions might take a billion years, meaning we could pass through the collision zone about four times in a billion years. I've heard there were major bombardments of the planets and moons (specifically our Moon) in our Solar System about 3.8 billion years ago. Which is curiously just about the time that life arose on our planet. There has been a theory around for a while that life (in our Solar System) started on Mars and got blasted to Earth by meteor strikes on Mars. Also theories that life started in comets in the Oort Cloud and was redistributed to Earth and Mars by comet bombardments. Which makes me wonder: Did life start in another galaxy and infect our galaxy or vice versa?

I have Christian Fundamentalist friends who point me to websites claiming that the orbits and rotations of planets and moons in our Solar System are not fully understood or explained. They claim this is proof that it was all created by God or by intelligent design. I am not convinced. (The fact that science currently does not know all the answers does not mean there are not scientific answers.)

But now I am wondering if intergalactic collisions may explain some of the odd orbits and rotations in our Solar System and elsewhere. There are even scientists who are finding weird planets in space: In Yahoo!News article "Giant Alien Planet Discovered in Most Distant Orbit Ever Seen," lead researcher Vanessa Bailey, a fifth-year graduate astronomy student at the University of Arizona, is quoted saying "This system is especially fascinating because no model of either planet or star formation fully explains what we see." [http://news.yahoo.com/giant-alien-planet-discovered-mostdistant-orbit-ever-171737130.html] I would like to see more speculation on how intergalactic collisions may have impacted the development of our Solar System, or life, or evolution on our planet.

Bill Keck Staten Island, NY

UPCOMING EVENTS

Anthony Lewis | 413 words

NOTE: Membership rates and other details often change after we have gone to press. Check the websites for the most recent information.

27–29 June 2014

APOLLOCON (Houston area SF/Fsy/Horror conference) at Houston, TX. Membership: $30 until 1 May 2014, $40 at the con. Info: http://www.apollocon.org/.

17–20 July 2014

DETCON 1 (North American Science Fiction Convention) at Detroit, MI. Author Guest of Honor: Steven Barnes; Artist Guest of Honor: John Picacio; Scientist Guest of Honor: Helen Greiner; Musician Guests of Honor: Bill & Brenda Sutton; Fan Guests of Honor: Bernadette Bosky, Arthur D. Hlavaty, Kevin J. Maroney. ConChairs Emeritus: Roger Sims & Fred Prophet. Memberships through 31 March 2014: $65 Adult, $50 Youth (13–24), $25 child (5-12). Info: detcon1.org; info@detcon1.org.

25–27 July 2014

CONFLUENCE 2014 (Pittsburgh area SF conference) at Mars, PA. Guest of Honor: William H. Keith, Jr. (aka Ian Douglas aka H. Jay Riker); Featured Filk Guest: W. Scott Snyder; Featured Filk Guest Emeritus: Peter Grubbs; Special Filk Guest: Moss Bliss. Info: www.confluencesff.org/; confluence@parsec-sff.org; +1.412. 344.0456; PO Box 3681, Pittsburgh, PA 15230-3681.

1–3 August 2014

SHORE LEAVE 36 (Star Trek oriented, fan-run convention) at Hunt Valley, MD. Memberships until 25 July 2014: $80 (18+), $50 (13–17), $20 (5-12), supporting $10. Info: www.shore-leave.com; +1.410.701.0669; PO Box 6809, Towson MD 21285-6809.

14–18 August 2014

LONCON 3 (72nd World Science Fiction Convention) at International Conference Centre, ExCel, London Docklands, U.K. Guests of Honor: Iain M. Banks, John Clute, Chris Foss, Malcolm Edwards, Jeanne Gomoll, Robin Hobb, Bryan Talbot. Membership: until 30 April 2013. Attending: $160/£95 (adult), $110/£65 (young adult), $50/£30 (child), infant $3/£2, $390/£230 (family); Supporting: $40/£25. This is the SF universe's annual get-together. Professionals and readers from all over the world will be in attendance. Talks, panels, films, fancy dress competition—the works. Nominate and vote for the Hugos. Info: http://www.loncon3.org/; Loncon 3, 379 Myrtle Road, Sheffield S2 3QH, United Kingdom.

22–24 August 2014

SHAMROKON/EUROCON 2014 (European continental SF conference) at Dublin, Ireland. Guest of Honor: Jim Fitzpatrick, Seanan McGuire, Andrzej Sapkowski, Ylva Spångberg. Memberships: USD50, USD15 (under 21), concessionary (students, pensioners, etc) USD35, supporting USD15. Info: www.shamrokon.ie.

Running a convention? If your convention has a telephone or fax number, e-mail address, or web page, please let us know so that we can publish this information. We must have your information in hand SIX months before the date of your convention.

Attending a convention? When calling conventions for information, do not call collect and do not call too late in the evening. It is best to include a S.A.S.E. when requesting information; include an International Reply Coupon if the convention is in a different country.

Information

369 words

TREVOR QUACHRI........................................ Editor

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Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding), Vol. CXXXIV, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2014. ISSN 1059-2113, USPS 488-910, GST#123054108. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. One-year subscription $55.90 in the United States and possessions, in all other countries $65.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within eight weeks of receipt of order. When reporting change of address allow 6 to 8 weeks and give new address as well as the old address as it appears on the last label. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. (c) 2014 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited. All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are designated by name or character. Any similarity is coincidental. All submissions must be accompanied by a stamped self-addressed envelope, the publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

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Executive Office: Penny Press, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855 Editorial: Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10007 Advertising and Subscriptions: Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855.

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