Date: Morning, 22 August 2158
Location: Traveler’s Transi-Lodge, 4Hotel/Cap, Satellite Colony YuriGagarin

From earliest childhood she’d always relished setup times, the move to a fresh location, the crackling energy generated by performing a different play. Oh, true, none of the satellites was exactly “fresh,” the plays “new,” but constant touring cast fresh light on familiar locations; each play, even the standards, revealed new facets, varied nuances in the faces of an unjaded audience. If the action, the speeches came by rote, you knew you’d gone stale.

But today, while the hustle and bustle of setup was the same, the atmosphere felt wrong—sullen, silent, almost brittle. As if an electrical charge were building, waiting its chance to surge and explode in a jagged bolt of recrimination and anger. Whom it would be hurled at she wasn’t sure, suspected she might even be the target if people were honest. But then, who was when it came to analyzing personal emotions? Hard to be dispassionate about passions.

And what…or how, precisely did she feel at this point? She sat or, more accurately, her life-support box sat in the center of the chamber, everyone dashing, ignoring her presence. Alone and unregarded, but definitely still guarded. The attack late yesterday, right before they’d left, she’d put out of her mind. A ripple of amusement. Where would I store it if it were out of my mind? Does the life-support box serve as my packing trunk? What else have I stored in it?

Shadings of fear…yes, fair enough to admit that…fear, not of death but of continued life. And its reverse, grudgingly acknowledged, fear of losing her life. Can I lose again what I’ve already lost? Amazing what I’ve become used to. I am an entire universe within my own mind. If I don’t exist, do they exist? Glynn and Masady? Dear old Rigoberto? Chance and his little sidekick? Am I the only sentient thing that gives them shape, existence? I am the Sun and they orbit about me, some near, some distant, like Staniar, but all in danger of being burned if they venture too close. Didn’t Daedalus warn his son, Icarus, not to venture too near the Sun?

The satrat, Tige, didn’t pose any real danger. The child never came that close to me. But I posed a danger to him, to anyone who unwittingly believes the atmosphere around me sustains life. Panthat took him out with pragmatic efficiency, no matter what Glynn and the others want to believe. Let them have that false security if it keeps them warm and content. Annie suspects otherwise, I think, wiser about life’s realities than Glynn, but equally confused, racked by conflicts. Doesn’t she realize how she swings between love and avoidance each time Glynn’s near? And Panthat, pure essence, honed sharp to survival essence. We all have an overwhelming desire to survive, but most of us haven’t a clue how to ensure our survival. And damn Chance for what he did to ensure mine, though Glynn gave him no choice.

That squabble in the shuttle-skiff earlier, I could hear but couldn’t see what happened. Again I played no direct part, but my presence, my being, served as catalyst. A poisonous atmosphere…all emanating from me. Some say that if you truly believe you’re dying that you will, that the mind can trick the body, convince it to fail. Wonderful, can I convince my box to fail? Managed to convince it to squawk for me, a screechy whistle-whine for attention. (Heard herself do it, cursed since she hadn’t meant to be noticed. Or had she?) How many hours have I spent forcing youngsters to delve into their minds? “What motivates your character?” Fine, what are my motivations?

Chance halted by her left “eye,” straining over his shoulder to read her LCD. “CHANCE, ARE WE FALLING APART FROM WITHIN?”

The broad planes of his face looked eroded, green eyes hazed as if he still floated somewhere else. Defenses down from the ganja, honesty too near the surface. “I don’t know,” his arms shot overhead, fingers interwoven until his knuckles cracked. “Ever since Annie arrived…like trying to jam the wrong key into a lock.”

“DO YOU THINK THIS HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH ANNIE?”

“Don’t know, don’t know, my mouth’s rattling along all by itself.” Massive shoulders hoisted in apology. The flying squirrel peeked out of one of the holsters on his tool belt. “‘Flight not too bad today till I started thinking about Rhuven, seeing his face everywhere, superimposed on everything I saw. Silliest damn thing.”

“IF I WERE YOU, I’D WORRY MORE ABOUT VITAROSA AND LESS ABOUT RHUVEN.” A statement, not a reproach, but she lacked vocal cords, could not couple emotion to the flat display of words. Sarcasm, humor, fear, a host of other emotions, all vanished without vocal inflections, without facial expressions or body language. Emotions existed only if she spelled them out.

“Never saw Vitarosa, just Rhuven on the Web.” A huge yawn. “Something to be thankful for, I guess. Listen, love, got to keep moving. Stay any longer and I’ll slumber at your feet, meta…” another head-splitting yawn, “phorically speaking.”

“POOR CHANCE. LUMBER ALONG, THEN.” Nothing to do but think. Amazing when your only activity was thinking how much you could think about thinking. And some level of me is always thinking whether I’m conscious of it or not. Perpetual motion machine, oh, please, God, let the cogs and gears of my brain grind to a halt!

Date: Morning, 23 August 2158
Location: Commercial Zone, 5Oscar/Mid, YuriGagarin

Scowling, Staniar thrust against the walkway traffic, not especially caring if he jolted people, whether his glower took them aback or frightened them. Yes, sir, yes, ma’am, aren’t I the absolute walking embodiment of the Stanislaus Troupe? Yes, sir, makes you want to hurry, come see the performance, doesn’t it? Sure, come see the freak show! ’Cept they never take the biggest freak out of her box ’cause she’d die!

When no empty hands grasped the handbills thrust at them, he contented himself with plastering them upside down in obscure places or balling them up and tossing them over his shoulder. Fine me for littering! Too bad I’m not in Z-grav, be like dozens of snowballs bobbing in the air. Finally, disconsolate, he shambled onto a bench, dug his heels in and pressed, heaved again, curious if he could rock it from its moorings. An omen if he succeeded. Not sure how much longer I can take it. Every muscle drooped, doleful, and he encouraged a tear of self-pity, blotted it against a 100% cotton-clad shoulder. Stanislaus and natural fibers! How can they keep going with Jere-in-a-box?—push the wrong button and up she’ll pop. Am I the only one who can admit how unnatural it is?

Unnatural, spine-tingling deviant, and…and they held conversations with it, her, whatever, as if it were real. Couldn’t be, couldn’t be possible. Oh, maybe, maybe, you could keep a brain alive like that for a bit, but vision, hearing, speech of a sort? Had to be some sort of microchip like they used with those super-smart computers. Force-feed all those plays into its memory bank, and you’d have won half the battle of making it “real.” And if it, she were real…condemned to “life” in the abstract, then didn’t someone owe her an escape?

By rights, Glynn. And what did he do? Lord it over them all, acting beyond Stanislaus’ age rule, snatching all Jere’s prime roles. While he, Staniar, slaved dutifully behind the scenes, still longing for that lost applause. If they were breaking rules, traditions, right and left, then why couldn’t he resume his place center stage? An encore—right? But no, they’d had it in for him ever since he’d joined, ever since he’d been a toddler.

Wasn’t his fault he’d been fretful, a fussy eater, petulant at this new life he’d been plunked into without any warning. How could you expect a little’un to understand that apprenticeship to Stanislaus Troupe was supposed to be such an incredible honor? Beta Masady always and forever shouting, poking and knotting him into unnatural positions. Hurtful she’d been, still was. Rigo and Vijay and Majvor not much better, always doing the same, though Majvor had loved him as much as she could, but never enough, never singling him out from the other children. Majvor hadn’t been very old herself back then, about his age now, he guessed. Masady and Majvor and Hulda, now dead, had juggled all the male leads.

So Jere’d waltzed back, triumphant, a baby on her hip, younger than he, and somehow—in ways he could never fathom, never mimic even when tried—more adorable, more outgoing than he. Quick learner, and the quicker Glynn’d learned, the more he’d faltered. The best plums for Glynn, always the best. Like swallowing burning acid to gag down the favoritism; temporary relief in the occasional pinch or poke he inflicted on Glynn.

So why stay, why put up with more injustice? A huge self-commiserating sigh and he began folding a handball into smaller and smaller squares. So get out. Hugo and Tarik scrammed after they “aged out.” Not unheard of for the boy members to collect their troupe shares in real credits, become real men and have real lives for themselves that didn’t revolve around play-acting. Real jobs, satellite-citizenship. Thing was, was it scarier being on your own or remaining part of a jinxed troupe? Ah, make some grand, sweeping, scornful exit! Another gusty sigh. If that damned satrat Panthat could survive on her own, couldn’t he with money plus the training he’d received? He heartily despised—even feared her—simply because she was so complete, so whole, needing nothing and no one. And now she belonged to Stanislaus in a way he’d never managed.

“So, that bad is it?” Staniar hadn’t noticed someone sitting on the bench beside him. Woman, he reckoned, though that was silly, course she was, showed in her build, her shape, but tough, stronger-looking than most. Charcoal gray skinny-suit, no trim or badges. Hair close-cropped like she doesn’t give a damn what she looks like, worth more than her looks. Maybe teaches at the training academy here, or pilots her own shuttle-skiff or maybe an entrepreneur. Have to be tough and smart for those things.

“Well, pretty much bad, I guess.” A hand toss as if to negligently throw his troubles away, show him man enough to cope.

“Your own troubles? Or is the show that rotten?” Despite himself he ruffled in defense, only belatedly realizing that passed for humor with her, though her face remained studiously neutral.

“Performance is fine. Stanislaus is the best troupe on tour. Everyone knows that.” Except her, so that must mean she’d only recently arrived from “below,” from Earth. “Just there’ve been tensions in the troupe lately. Lots of tension.”

“I should think so.” She’d risen, now stood facing him, one foot propped on the bench by his thigh, knee threateningly near his face. “Don’t see how any sane, rational being could live with an abomination to the human spirit like that brain box is. Immoral and callous, selfish to purposefully trap a human being in limbo, as if your wants take precedence over another’s needs.”

He gaped, tried to slide away, but the wall blocked his right side, her knee and strong, muscular thigh pinning him on his left. “How…?” A sickening swell of dread, a tremor of relief. That he hadn’t told. That someone else did know, could share the wrenching wrongness that tore his soul. Annie had at first, but somehow she’d been co-opted by the others, come to believe Jere was “right” and real. That it was right she existed in that box. Even liked Glynn better’n him. Way she eyed him sometimes, hot and heavy. “How did you find out?”

“That doesn’t matter, only that I know. And I’ve been appointed to bring her relief, release.” Her voice rolled on and on, soothing, righteous, justified, until he was fair mesmerized by it, the virtue of her thoughts…and the promise of more credits than his troupe share would provide. All his, his alone for just a little help at a strategic moment, a chance to reveal his higher moral principles simultaneously with thumbing his nose at the troupe, collecting his troupe share plus this newfound windfall.

Date: Evening, 23 August 2158
Location: Lebedev Gathering Hall, 2Hotel/Mid, YuriGagarin

A deep bow, as low as possible without jarring the concealing mask, as Glynn acknowledged the audience’s applause. Normally it rolled over him with an all-encompassing well-being, a validation of his artistry, though no one in the audience recognized the true scope of his artistry as they stamped and cheered for the Great Lynn. But tonight the applause sounded perfunctory, forced, a polite homage to past performances, not tonight’s piece.

Another bow, more shallow, the degree the waning applause demanded. Had tonight’s performance been that bad? He’d felt in his bones that something was wrong recently, timing slightly off, concentration faintly flawed, graceful gestures outweighing awkwardness, but only barely—as if the troupe’s collective soul was fading, buoyed only by past glories. Worst of all, beta Masady ignored it all, almost willfully blind to miscues, outright blunders. Without her as their conscience, who were they?

Scuttling and scurrying behind the curtain; the others poised for an ensemble bow if he waved them ahead. He swung his right arm high to whip them forward to greet their audience—except he’d misjudged, some already leaving, making toward the exits, a cohesive whole of viewers disassembling into individuals, some quickly, some laggardly. Hassiba stretched against him as she strained to clasp his raised hand.

With an abruptness that stunned, every light went dead, backstage and auditorium both. A double-blinding, Glynn trapped in mask-shadow-dark, the darkness outside even deeper. A whimpered query from Hassiba and he shushed her, the audience fraying toward panic, not sure what was where, and who was what. Rigo struck a resounding chord on his sitar and shouted, “Remain calm, ladies and gentlemen, the auxiliary lighting will come up in a moment. Remain calm and stand still, that’s all you need to do.” But the audience continued its murmurous shift, disjointed voices rising in doubt, a thud as someone toppled over a bench.

A muffled backstage scream; Glynn could barely hear it above the crowd’s lowing dismay. A second scream of sheer rage was punctured by pain, followed by a frantic cry of, “Ware! They’re after Jere!” Whirling, Glynn struggled against Hassiba’s clinging, fighting his way behind the curtain. But the troupe acted as disjointed as the audience, some struggling to escape the enveloping curtain and others in grim search of the horror prowling somewhere in the darkened backstage. He fought the curtain one-handed, the other desperately ripping at the straps that held his mask in place. Who was on guard? Who was protecting Jere? “Mama? Mama, what’s happening? Are you all right?”

Pointless to yell. She could hear him, but he’d never see her response. Frantic at fighting the curtain he dove to the floor, crawled beneath it, breathing hoarse and hotly moist within the mask. There! One final buckle and he’d have it! A stinging blow to his ribs as someone kicked him, half-stumbling over him before snatching him upright. A sawing motion at his chest strap and he gasped at the knife’s nearness, ready to die. “Me, boy, bet Rigo. Hang the mask, let it break—just get clear.”

The mask tumbled free just as three wavering, thready lights spiked on, Vijay’s shadow monstrous huge as he ran along stringing a secondary cable, shouting for Staniar. Another shout and in the dim light, a writhing group of figures, a box buffeted and kicked by flying feet. “Jere! No!” he protested and started to run, only to be yanked off course by Rigoberto.

“Make yourself scarce!” he slapped Glynn’s face to gain his attention, whispered, “May be you they want, may be her. Or both.” With a shove he planted Glynn behind the makeshift scenery and ran toward the melee.

Caught in the void of shock-induced calm, Glynn struggled to decipher the shifting scene, discover a pattern before he dove in. Three unknowns, three strangers—two men and a woman—battled toward Jere, barricaded by Annie, Chance, and Panthat. Limbs askew, Heike lay in a pool of blood, Jeremy wailing as he tried to drag her away. Majvor and Masady lured the plump intruder clear as Vijay came from behind hefting one of their props, a blunt pikestaff. Blunt though it was, it sufficed with Vijay’s fortitude behind it.

Painstakingly threading himself into the knotted cluster, careful not to draw attention to himself, he kept his focus riveted on Jere, her box still sliding, first one random kick, then another shifting it. Jasper, too, was inching toward the box from the opposite direction. Get the box, Glynn ordered his shaking body, shaking mind, grab the box and fade to safety. Then we can finish them off. But Stanislaus acts, doesn’t fight! Coward! If Vijay can do it, so can I.

A sharp, narrow stripe of white light singed the air, blossomed against Rigoberto’s chest; he collapsed, ponderously slow, and Glynn’s heart tore at the sight. The woman, the unknown woman posed the greatest threat, a highly trained fighter, knife in her left hand, laser pistol in the right. She seemed to favor the knife, indulging herself, and he cried useless warning as it whizzed in a flashing arc aimed at Chance’s groin. But Panthat had heeded his warning, almost shoving Chance clear, the knife slashing deep across his upper thigh instead. Annie now squared off against the dark-haired male intruder until Staniar bumbled into her, the intruder reeling clear. Cursing, off-balance, she righted herself, pushed Staniar away to resume her defense.

Still low, almost unnoticed, Glynn crept closer, worming his way between legs, bodies, props. Almost to Jere, almost there, fingers stretching, stretching…until Staniar’s unwary foot crushed his hand. “Damn it, Staniar! Move!” And move he did, falling athwart Glynn. Biding her time, Panthat feinted at the dark-haired stranger, knifed him ahead of Annie. Good! Another down! How could they lose with only one intruder left?—seasoned fighter though she might be. A heave and he bucked Staniar off, dove for Jere’s box just behind Annie’s equally fierce lunge. Their heads collided; Glynn saw stars, whirling constellations never viewed from the Observation Decks.

As Annie staggered up, box clutched to her chest, the woman grabbed her from behind, knife to Annie’s throat. “Move, and she dies!” Annie froze, head canted at an unnatural angle. All movement around the tableau ceased. One person, and one person alone, moved. Uncowed, exuding confidence, Staniar stepped beside them as if by right, brittle happiness in his eyes. With deceptive ease the woman shifted her hold, her left hand now pressuring Annie’s pulse points, while the knife materialized in her right hand, snaking between Staniar’s ribs.

Despite his shock Glynn registered Panthat’s small, self-satisfied intake of breath at a neatly executed job, rather than Staniar’s demise, he suspected. Gauging her opponent’s momentary satisfaction, Annie slammed her foot hard on the woman’s instep, prepared to toss the brain box to Glynn, her eyes rolling to check for a clear path. But the knife, freshly blooded, hovered again at her throat, point piercing in warning. “I can kill you first, then dismantle her. Fast, slow? Cut the circuits, maybe just pry it open, toss the brain out? Anyone want to play catch?” Masady’s staff crashed floorward and she sagged beside Rigoberto’s body.

“Two hostages, right? The girl and the box.” She began backing, hauling Annie and her burden along with her. “Sorry to leave such a mess, but then, you need practice at cleaning up after yourselves if you want to play with the big girls and boys.” Taunting, teasing, she continued edging away. Shaking all over, Glynn took an inadvertent step after them, went stiff as the blade coaxed more blood from Annie’s neck. Jere, Annie—gone beyond his grasp. Past love, future love. Another failure.

Time: A few minutes later
Location: In the between-level tunnels of YuriGagarin

Once out of sight Becca slipped her knife into its invisible sheath down the outside seam of her skinnies. With a half-affectionate growl she chivied Anyssa ahead, the girl constantly glancing behind, face too devoid of expression for Becca’s taste. Reveal nothing, but don’t imitate a robot. Well, it caught some like that, their first real fight, when every blow or bullet, each stab had to count. And Anyssa’s had, almost too damn effectively. Becca fingered the gash along her ribs. Skin-suit fibers were devilish tough to slash, so Anyssa’d probed through the fabric until the blade slid directly along skin. A fraction of a second to catch Anyssa’s leading look and pull away just in time. Nicely handled on both sides.

“Good job, child, credible. Acted as if we were strangers, enemies.” Swinging Anyssa behind her, she halted behind a closed kiosk, checking the walkway ahead where another joined at right angles. Someone sauntering away from them and the direction she planned to take. The audience had apparently thundered off in another direction, gripped by a herd mentality. “Nuisance enough, Hamish and Falid faltering. No surprise, though. Turncoats, too true to be any good.”

A squawk from the box; Becca snapped around to examine it with all the jaunty confidence of a mongoose meeting a cobra. “What’s it doing?”

“She wants to talk with us,” Anyssa barely mouthed the words. “She hears what we’re saying, can see some of what we see. Pretend I’m trying to escape, that I’ve turned traitor, too.” The girl’s face loomed dead white in the semidark behind the kiosk, the thin trickle of blood on her neck meandering like a dark thread. Becca licked her thumb, wiped at it.

“Ah, bit of cat and mouse?” Exaggerated lip movements contorted her face. Turning, she took another exaggerated look—purposefully long—at the walkways, heard Anyssa’s feet pounding lightly along the way they’d come. With a grin she spun in pursuit, then looked aghast at the deserted walkway. Cursing, struck by the possibility of intentional deception from Anyssa, she ran, searching for hiding spots as she went. Girl was fast, took off like a jackrabbit, but had limited endurance. Endurance, Becca knew all about that, had endured enough, too much, these past years. Couldn’t be that far ahead, impossible, so she’d have to hide…somewhere…here! Sharp eyes caught the man-made fissure in the smooth wall, a hatch there, still faintly quivering from a rapid opening and closing. If she’d dodged far into the tunnels, Becca’d lose her.

Anyssa nestled inside, shielding the box, and Becca shoved her aside, rough with relief, as she crawled in and closed the hatch. “Don’t try me again, child, or I’ll kill you here and now,” she grunted, gave Anyssa a conspiratorial wink. If the box did contain a cognizant brain, it might well believe Anyssa was on its side, despite what it had overheard before. Might not hurt to have that edge, might learn something of value with sympathetic questioning. Not her favorite way of obtaining information. Still, the girl was clever, near as clever as Rosa. For all the good that had done her.

Rummaging behind Anyssa, she unearthed an old flexi-sack stenciled “recyclables” and shook it open. Now that she knew better, she finger-signaled, “Dump the box in it. Easier to carry and it’ll muffle what she can hear, can see.” The girl complied, swathing the box and cradling it against her chest as if were precious, fragile. Interesting…worth selling on the sly to some neuroscientist? Delayed gratification, not her own death blow, but it promised extra money. No, no need now.

“Come on, come on,” she risked whispering and felt Anyssa settle into a lope beside her as they searched deeper for a ladder. “Not much time to make port. May be too late even then. It’s our last chance. Staniar warned you, didn’t he?”

“Wasn’t sure whether to believe him. Always too full of himself and his woes. I take it you told Mother about Glynn or we wouldn’t have gotten the go-ahead.”

“Couldn’t wait, things’ve changed.” Becca searched out the code numbers on the walls, started up a ladder. Deviate from the coordinates she’d memorized and they’d wander in here until the final trump sounded. “Got to get to Newcome Port. With any luck the MabasutaGenDy skipper hasn’t heard they’re no longer bankrolling us, that we’re persona non grata. Usually takes time before word filters down through channels.” Reaching down she snagged the sack from Anyssa to free her hands for climbing, dangling it above her as if it were a carrot. “Always some fool who doesn’t read the ‘for your eyes only,’ ignores the message flasher to get to a meal. Don’t know how much time we have before your actor friends set off some alarm, send security after us.”

“Mother will be furious.” Anyssa’s foot slipped on a rung and she peered downward cautiously as she said, “What about Glynn? Won’t she be furious? She wanted him, not Jere.”

Popping clear, Becca stretched and caught Anyssa under the arm, pulled her through. A quick scan to determine her bearings and they set off again. In deference to Anyssa she held the box gently, tried not to jog or jar it. Anyway, Rosa’d be curious, would enjoy seeing it in one piece. A perfunctory pat on its top. “Well, isn’t this the perfect bait, the perfect lure? Don’t you think he’ll chase after us quick as he can? Easier than controlling a struggling boy, or explaining a drugged one at portside. Can’t exactly send him as freight.”

“Man,” Anyssa corrected. “He’s young yet, but he’s a man. Remember that, make sure Mother remembers that.”

Time: Later that same evening
Location: Lebedev Gathering Hall

The auxiliary lights crackled, hissed with a dazzling harshness that etched the disordered collection of bodies—living and dead—in stark relief. It emphasized things he didn’t wish to see, sights that seared his brain: Heike’s tumbled form with its smirking, red grin—not her mouth but the slash in her throat. The body of one attacker, the fat one, with a pikestaff lodged in his back, casting a long, narrow shadow, for all the world like the gnomon on an ancient sundial. Rigoberto, who’d once loomed so large, happily fussing over his life, lay utterly still. Chance, blood pooling around his thigh, first pressed against his groin, coached Jasper and Hassiba as they valiantly tried to staunch the flow with a rose silk kimono. And Panthat, shim knife orbiting the eyeball of the dark-skinned intruder, whispered hot, harsh questions tight to his ear. Staniar’s body he ignored.

As heartless as the overbright lights, the backstage area was abruptly flooded with sound and movement, security police marked with the Ring badge, an imposing dark-gold woman with tight-braided hair and governor’s epaulets, clearly in command. Slightly behind her, hovering as if afraid of the space she occupied, stood a petite red-haired woman. A distant part of his mind named her: Clea Tierney, of course. Annie Marie was Tierney Troupe.

Glynn kept shaking his head, praying for something, anything to make sense. Betrayal, death. Jere gone, stolen; Annie Marie with her. A blood-slick hand seized his, insistently tugged. Dragging him after her, Panthat spat instructions. “Come on, Glynnie, come on! Track’em-whack’em! Gotta find Jere. Catch and kill! The Allah-one told me where.”

He followed, feet obedient even if his brain refused to work, until a voice called, “All right, let’s all stay put until we can sort this out.” His feet, at least, recognized the aura of command and halted. Again the tug, equally demanding, but he let his hand trail free from Panthat’s, “Go ahead, I’ll join you shortly.” Outside rule, orders, would never leash Panthat, not as they did most people.

But now the red-haired woman—Clea, yes, that was right—had regained her courage, stepping in front of the governor, anxious blue eyes in a dead-white face raking the backstage area. “Where is she, where’s Annie Marie?”

Struggling to her knees, beta Masady gave a broken wave, ungainly for the first time he’d ever seen her, and Glynn hurried to her, offered his arm to help her rise. “Clea Tierney? I’ve not laid eyes on you for years, but you’ve the fresh-faced look of a Tierney to you. I know you’re concerned about Annie’s kidnapping, know it to my sorrow.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” For an instant Glynn feared Clea might hurl herself at Masady, shake her by the front of her robe. He interposed himself between them. Not beta Masady—he’d allow no more hurt to touch to her.

Huddled in the curve of his arm, Masady continued with dignity, “Annie’s been taken hostage. But on my honor Stanislaus Troupe will pay whatever ransom they demand, make every effort to secure her release.”

“Don’t you understand, you old fool?” Tears streamed down Clea’s face as she shook clenched fists in impotent anger. “That wasn’t Annie Marie Doulan of Tierney Troupe who was taken. Annie Marie never joined you, she died back at NelMandela! Murdered!”

After speaking with Chance and urgently beckoning a medic to his side, the woman with braided hair resumed command. “I’m Chance’s friend, Ngina Natwalla, Governor of SallyRide. What Clea means is that you’ve played host to a ringer, someone working from the inside to harm you.”

A voice from the carnage, weak but insistent on having its say; the dark-haired attacker had not yet died, despite Panny’s ministrations. “Allah be praised I die a martyr, but before I die you must listen!” They hurriedly circled his prone body, and Glynn winced at the new injury staring back at him: the assassin’s eye had been gouged out. “This is all Vitarosa Weaver’s doing, from NetwArk’s prayer assault on the satellites to this. But what she truly desires is much smaller, yet so much larger—revenge. And Jere and Glynn are to pay. You need to follow…” he swallowed, and his remaining eye gleamed as if it saw beyond his pain to paradise. With incredible discipline he drew his gaze back to them, “Hurry! MabasutaGenDy’s representative at Newcome Port. Stop them there if you can. I do not hold with harming children, not even the young one with the knife.”

Glynn and Ngina spoke together, “Thank you.”

“Sent to spy, you know, poor Hamish and I. He for the Pope, I for the Ayatollah. Came to respect him, poor Rhuven Fisher Weaver, but his wife, that one would topple every decency in the cause of hatred.”

Date: Early morning, 24 August 2158
Location: Aboard the corporate shuttle Peregrine, en route from YuriGagarin to NetwArk

Teeth clenched, Anyssa listened, fingers splayed on the deep, pile-cushioned arms of one of the twelve lounger shuttle seats. No standard issue mold-injected plastic with fraying harness straps, jamming buckles for a MabasutaGenDy shuttle with the latest in grav-control. The megaglom corporate colors of gray, burgundy, and royal blue repeated themselves tastefully throughout the ship, the burlwood trim real enough to fool her until she rapped a knuckle against it. Assured that Becca aimed a steady stream of chat at the corporate pilot, laying down their “cover” in no uncertain terms, Anyssa unbuckled herself. Under the seat in front of her sat the flexi-sack, but the bag moved reluctantly as she pulled it clear, the thick carpet dragging against it. Or Jere didn’t wish to come out, an omen, perhaps.

Chiding herself for being fanciful, she slipped toward the stern near the lavatory and carry-on luggage racks. Crouched behind a privacy bulkhead she at last felt secure enough to retrieve Jere’s box from the bag. For a long moment she held her breath, sure her hammering heart would pass its vibrations through her shaking hands to the box itself. All the dials and gauges looked to be in a perilously low position, as if the box’s power source had faltered, perhaps run down. Oh, Lord, no! I’ve killed her, killed her after all…after all…after all. Not that Mother will mind…mind…mind? What’s a mind?

Just as she became convinced she might faint, a needle floated from left to right on a gauge, other readings began to fluctuate. With that she could breathe again, relieved at the familiar hum beneath her trembling hands. “Jere, can you hear me?”

The blue strip blinked, slow and languid, as if awakening from sleep. “Jere, I’m sorry!” Would Jere believe her? Would she believe if their roles were reversed? Apologies—one of the oldest tricks in the book. But what if they were sincere? They could still cause harm—especially to the one who uttered them.

“WHOSE…SIDE…ARE…YOU…ON?” Each word a separate indictment.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I thought I did, knew who I was, what I was, what I was capable of doing…eing…but now I’m not sure.” A confessional pause, then a rush. “Can you understand that?” Important that someone would. Understanding, not absolution, was the most she could expect. To be accepted for who she was, uniquely Anyssa…with a past…a history she no longer wanted to claim.

The words scrolled more quickly now. “‘CHILD, CHILD. CHILD WHO ISN’T ANNIE MARIE DOULAN.” Anyssa winced at the reminder, the memory that she’d killed Annie Marie. “CHILD WHO MUST BE RHUVEN AND VITAROSA’S…AM I CORRECT?”

“Yes.”

“SO, ARE YOU YOUR FATHER’S DAUGHTER, OR YOUR MOTHER’S DAUGHTER?”

“Does it…” she stopped before she could say “matter,” because it did. Lie to herself, to Jere? “Both and neither, perhaps. Help me find myself.” Had she said too much, not enough? “I don’t want to hurt you, believe me. I did, but I don’t now. I’ll get you out of this, find a way, if you’ll trust me.”

“TRUST YOU? WHEN YOU DECIDE WHO YOU ARE, PERHAPS I’LL HAVE AN ANSWER. I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU AND VITAROSA DO TO ME, WITH ME—JUST KEEP GLYNN SAFE. THAT’S ALL I ASK.”

“I don’t want to hurt Glynn either!” Could she kill Glynn with the same efficient ruthlessness she’d employed to dispatch Annie Marie Doulan? Could she now kill other anonymous souls without wondering what they’d been like, what they were meant to be? A Little Sister could. Jere had been a “thing” at first—even more abstract, more literally “faceless” than a stranger—but now behind that wooden façade lived a brain that thought, felt, desired. Always look beyond the façade, beyond the “seeming.” Hadn’t that been drummed into her throughout her training? Masks behind masks, onstage and off. Two tears rolled down her cheeks, dripped from her chin, and marred the box’s finish. “I’ll try,” she choked, swiping at the box, her face with her sleeve.

“TRYING’S A START, A BEGINNING. PREVAILING IS EVEN BETTER. POOR, POOR CHILD. REMEMBER, OUR FAULT IS NOT IN OUR STARS, BUT IN OURSELVES. (JC I, i,139-40) THE BLAME RESTS WITH US, NOT THE HEAVENS, NOT OUR HEREDITY. NOW STOW ME AWAY BEFORE YOUR FRIEND DECIDES TO COME VISIT.”

Oddly reluctant, Anyssa shook out the sack, started to slide the box inside. “I have a name, you know, my own name.” Somehow it mattered that Jere acknowledged her by it. “Father picked it for me.”

“I KNOW. ANYSSA. IT’S A BEAUTIFUL NAME. FOR A BEAUTIFUL CHILD. IT’S FROM THE GREEK—MEANING FULFILLMENT, COMPLETION. MAY YOU FIND IT. NOW, FAREWELL.”

Date: Early morning, 24 August 2158
Location: Private Hangar—Authorized Government Personnel Only! Newcome Port, YuriGagarin

With long-legged strides, Ngina let the sight of her SatGov insignia clear her path, Glynn and Panthat trailing in her wake, supporting Chance, while behind them Masady leaned on Clea. “We need backup, more forces, hit them hard and fast,” Glynn panted, crimped under Chance’s weight. He wound his hand deeper into Chance’s waistband on his wounded side, used the grip to help Chance swing his bad leg ahead. “Call Security, all the Ring Forces! They’ve murdered, taken an innocent woman hostage!”

“Describe the kidnap victim, please,” Ngina never broke her stride.

A rumbling cough echoed deep in Chance’s chest; worriedly Glynn felt him shaking. Dawning frustration as he realized he heard—and felt—muffled laughter. “Well, Jerelynn is about thirty-six years old…and she…” he struggled to describe the being so uniquely “mother” to him, “…and she…. Oh.” His knees sagged, Chance’s bulk bearing down on him. Wonderful, send an all-points bulletin to the satellites and Earth: Be on the alert for a smallish wooden box, burled-maple, Earth-origin, approximately 25 centimeters a side. Answers to the name Jere.

Ngina half-swung around, shared a moment of commiseration. “And brain boxes, life-support boxes, are illegal both on Earth and here, though that’s the least of our worries now.” Slapping her palm to a wall sensor, she waited for it to read her and swarmed through the door as it slid open. They followed after her into a standard-grav repaint bay in the repair sector, the smell of heat-resistant, frictionless coatings heavy in their sinuses. “I’d relish more support, too, but I don’t think sheer numbers will matter in the end. Quintana,” she yelled, rocking back, hands on her hips. “Where the hell are you? Repair and repaint certified? Check-sheet done? Clearance for takeoff approved?”

A shape rolled from beneath the shadow of the speed-skip’s belly. “Of course it’s ready. Snail-hook to haul her clear for launching since you said you didn’t want her in plain sight. Fast-route outlined on the course screen, and I’ll shave some time off that.” In the light the shape turned into a heavyset woman wearing pilot’s wings on her midnight blue skinny-suit. Pilot’s wings and the staff insignia for governor of SallyRide. “Chance, love, is that you?” Lumbering to his side, she fingered bandage seals, slapped a medi-scanner against his neck to check his vitals. “You’re spacing?” A cough to cover her gaffe. “You’re in lousy condition to travel. Damn, that cuts the rocking and rolling I can milk from this tin can.”

“No joy, no jamming, Quint.” Ngina hit the hatch switch, ducked as she stepped into the bay of the skip. “You’re copiloting, you’ll deadhead back on your own. Assuming you’re willing to dip your toe across the strictly legal line. Prepare to sing the blues if we’re caught, ’cause we’re a smidge ahead of receiving official permission.” A thumb and forefinger wide apart showed the size of the “smidge.” “Now help Glynn board him.”

Chance half-roused, reached to touch the skip’s slick finish, only to jerk back as if it burned him. “Oh, no,” he whispered, “oh, no, not without…” he flailed, green eyes wild with fear. “Masady!” but the old woman only shook her head as she mimed her lack of cane. Grabbing the hatch’s sides to brace himself, jamming his good leg against the sill, he thrust backward to escape the skip’s beckoning maw, ready to suck him in. “Coward, coward, coward!” he groaned, face and chest ashy-gray, dripping with sweat. With a strength born of dread and fear he shoved away again, his size and manic strength more than Glynn and Quintana could budge. And through his moans, Sylvan’s panicky chittering as his claws gripped at Chance’s heaving body.

Negotiating a path through straining limbs, Panthat shoved in front of Chance, stretched to fold her hands over his clenched ones. “Chance stronger than any man Panthat knows. But Panthat strong too, that why she here.” Rubbing his hands, working up and down the thick, corded muscles of his arms, she soothed and stroked. “Chance name meaning many things—fate, randomness, like days luck comes knocking and days it don’t—not matter you been naughty or nice, deserve it or not. Chance taking a chance on me, Panthat. Panthat solid.” Turning her back, she loosened his hands, let them engulf hers as she folded his arms across her chest. “Come, Chance. Going to find Jere.” She began leading him after her, half-hidden by his bulk, and he followed, eyes squinted, mouth ajar in a silent plea. “This called Taking a Chance,” she muttered at Quint. “Your turn next. Taking a Chance heavier levy than I thought, taxing to the max.”

Intent on Chance’s progress, Glynn flinched at the hand on his shoulder, Clea’s. He’d minimized her presence, ignored it when he could. Why did she insist on tagging along? A sigh as he met her blue eyes, acknowledged her, wanted or not. But she’d suffered a loss as well, Tierney Troupe deprived of a budding actress named Annie Marie Doulan, and all in the cause of aiding Stanislaus. “What are you planning when we get there?”

“I don’t know yet. First we have to figure out how to get into NetwArk.” Amazing how his brain could be so coldly calculating, but he laid that aside, let her question replay itself. “…when we get there,” she’d emphasized. “I appreciate it, Clea, but it’s not ‘we.’ Stanislaus won’t drag you into any further disasters.”

She ignored him. “You can have the one who stole Jere, but dibs on the young woman, the one who pretended to be Annie, who…” the word lodged in her throat, had to be coughed out to save herself from choking, “killed her.” Her face was so white the freckles stood out like metallic droplets.

Annie, whom he’d liked, whom he’d judged a kindred spirit, one as confused and emotion-tossed as he at times. Annie, for whom he’d felt a strange, sexual stirring that neither had quite dared act upon. Annie, who in reality was his half sister. Who had fought to rescue Jere, to throw him the box. “Yes, she killed Annie, but I think she’s changed, become more what she should be. But you’re right, Clea, some punishment, some penance is required. But it’s not your decision or mine, Ring law prevails.” He paused, steeled himself, “I can’t take you with us, Clea.”

“You don’t own Tierney Troupe, Glynn! Remember that. You’re not the star here. The applause, if any, won’t be all yours. And I’ll—”

Dropping to one knee he reached for her hands as she tried to pull away, folded them in his own, both pairs cold as ice. “Clea Tierney, I’ve a final favor to beg, a favor larger than vengeance, a favor that means life. Please help me. Not my life, not Jere’s, but the continued existence of Stanislaus.

“Rigoberto’s dead, Heike, too. Staniar dead—good riddance! As Stanislaus’ senior member, Masady has the right to go. But Vijay and Majvor, Hassiba and the Gemmies are being left behind—we’re abandoning them. Fold them into Tierney for the time being, console them, give them a reason to continue, exercise their talents. The loss of Stanislaus would be too great—not just for us—but for the world. I don’t know what tomorrow brings for me, but there has to be someone to mourn our dead, see to their funerals.”

She broke free, stared down at his bent head. “You want vengeance. Why should I be any different? Why should I be noble, sacrifice my chance, Tierney’s chance to avenge its own?”

“Of course I want vengeance.” He tilted his chin to let her read his face, the set of every tense muscle in his body. “But what I want first and foremost is Jere. If I accomplish that, I’ll let personal vengeance go.”

“It means that much to you?” She was wavering now, and he knew the “it” she meant was the troupe. “As much as Tierney means to you and yours. By asking you to have and hold them dear, I’m asking you to do the same with my life—because they are my life—whether I succeed or fail.”

“Then don’t fail.” Clea bent forward to kiss his cold cheek. “Come back to us. Thrill audiences on every satellite as Stanislaus has for generations. I’ll stay, honor your living and your dead—ours as well.” She turned and half-ran out of the hanger, her red hair bobbing like a torch being carried farther and farther away. A torch to light the past, the future.

Date: 24-28 August 2158
Location: Aboard the ShanLucid, en route to NetwArk

They’d settled inside, strapping themselves in, while Glynn pondered for the thousandth time what they’d find, what they’d do when they arrived….

Nearly five days in space had given him plenty of time for decisions, revisions, regrets—and he still didn’t know what they’d do. It preyed at his mind—what he had, what he didn’t have. Things, people who were gone, and those who remained. For support, beta Masady, Stanislaus Troupe’s soul, its conscience, but now so weak, as if she’d aged fifty years in a day. Chance, so badly wounded and in mortal terror of flight. And finally, Panthat, hardly surprising, who’d attached herself to them as if she were glue, as if this…this motley collection were a real family. But so it was, by both blood and bond.

He dragged himself back to the present, heard Panny arguing with Quint, Chance chiming in. How long had it been? Perhaps he’d slept, but if he had, all his problems and sorrows had hounded him there and back again. “Hush!” Ngina broke in from the cockpit. “Radio transmission.” Quint flicked on the loudspeaker to let everyone hear. “…cleared to land in Houston, all tariffs paid. The tranny-van is programmed direct to NetwArk, no driver needed. Word of honor that it’s safe, no deceptions.” A crackle, static, or perhaps high laughter. “We hope you’ll enjoy your stay at NetwArk. Of course we’ll be offering a boxed lunch.” The radio went dead.

“Well, that solves some things,” Ngina commented, “now if you’ll solve some of our other problems—like rescuing Jere—I’d feel happier about landing at Houston. Or at least feel calm enough not to hide in the cargo hold when Quint heads back home.”

Date: Morning, 29 August 2158
Location: “Company,” Den, NetwArk

Jere strained to hold them all in view, an impossible task even with opposing visual fields. From the direction of Anyssa’s tired voice, Jere judged she was seated directly in front of her life-support box, patiently waiting to read whatever Jere chose to say. The others, Vitarosa—still commandingly handsome but so much older now than that long-ago holopic Rhuven had reluctantly shown her—and Becca, the assassin-kidnapper now possessed a name, wove in and out of her vision, arguing, bickering, surmising. At times she’d simultaneously sight them, one in each opticam, and strove not to blend the two into a composite whole.

“You’re sure the boy’s following?” A world of desperate longing freighted Vitarosa’s question. “I told you time and again I wanted him. My direct orders, as you may remember.”

Bored, Becca now lounged, a leg thrown over the leather chair arm, totally confident and at ease, despite her travel-worn appearance. Stay still, Jere begged. One less to track. “Of course, Rosa. He’s running to us like a lamb chasing after its mother’s teat. Wrapped round Jere’s little finger all his life. Nothing he wouldn’t do to save her.” A stabbing motion toward Jere, Becca’s finger looming impossibly large, close, before distortion occurred. “He did this, didn’t he? A boy child’s dream to eternally possess the mother. Oh, he’s nearly a man, but he’s not matured beyond that, can’t see how vile that contraption is.”

True, not true? A mental shiver at Becca’s analysis. Partially valid, at least, Jere had to admit it. If Glynn had done this to her, what had she unwittingly done to him? Been oblivious to his growing manhood, too wrapped up in herself, her acting?

Finally Vitarosa halted, addressed Jere directly. “You’re not nearly as lovely as your holoverts. Makes me wonder what Rhuven ever saw in you.” A smirking sarcasm, a self-satisfied presence that dominated the small, tastefully decorated room with its bright, woven blankets hanging on the walls.

Answer or not? So far silence had proved her chief weapon, allowing the others to snare themselves, reveal what they’d stored in their arsenal of hatred. Hatred over a transient affair, so long ago? Well, satelliters differed from Earth dwellers in many minor ways, but generally not emotionally. The human ego needed more than a century or two to change that radically. But this wasn’t a play whose lines remained immortal through time, but some macabre improvisation, hideous ad libs. Whatever she could devise to counter Rosa might or might not save Glynn. If she could redirect Rosa’s warped anger and attention to her—she’d deem it a tolerable risk. After all, wouldn’t the outcome be what she’d prayed for for so long—release?

“O! HOW MUCH MORE DOTH BEAUTY BEAUTEOUS SEEM BY THAT SWEET ORNAMENT WHICH TRUTH DOES GIVE!” Anyssa obediently recited her words, and the harsh clatter of feet, the hasty skid of a reversed chair revealed that both Vitarosa and Becca hurried to read her words themselves. “OH, I’LL GRANT THAT RHUVEN DID FIND COMELINESS OF BODY APPEALING, HE CHOSE YOU, HE CHOSE ME. BUT ASK YOURSELF WHY HE FLED YOU? DID YOU FRIGHTEN HIM OFF BY REVEALING SOME OF YOUR LIES, YOUR HATREDS WHEN YOU FELL APART AFTER ANYSSA’S BIRTH? EVEN LIKE THIS,” and oh, she yearned for but one of the troupe’s justly renowned, expressive gestures, “DESPITE THIS SHELL, MY MIND HASN’T TWISTED WITH HATRED, OR THE THWARTED DESIRE FOR CONTROL THAT ANIMATES YOU. AH, ALWAYS THE CANKER IN THE ROSE.”

Surprisingly, Vitarosa darted into view again, eyes locked on Jere’s opticam with a calculating stare. Her right hand pressed against her lower left breast, fingers seeking, kneading, her apprehension plain that Jere had somehow peered within her. A curiously intimate gesture that any woman would recognize; despite the advances in breast cancer care, there was still a tiny minority not protected by the vaccines. Jere wanted to shout, “For God’s sake, woman, it’s only a breast,” but it was a weakness to exploit.

“ANYSSA, TELL YOUR MOTHER I’VE A PERSONAL MESSAGE FOR HER.” Anyssa drew Becca to the side for privacy. Her memory served too well, and Jere never faltered, the blue letters whipping across the screen. “ROSES HAVE THORNS, AND SILVER FOUNTAINS MUD; CLOUDS AND ECLIPSES STAIN BOTH MOON AND SUN, AND LOATHSOME CANKER LIVES IN SWEETEST BUD.” Rosa’s eyebrows lifted, her only overt acknowledgment, a private touché.

It struck Jere then, the absurdity of straining after this petty victory, if she’d accomplished even that. No way to judge. Rhuven had claimed to be a healer, yet he hadn’t cured his wife? Was he a hoax? Or had she planned to stand strongly independent—never even asked? Mind racing ahead, Jere sought a less charged question. “DOES RHUVEN KNOW I’M HERE…OR THAT PART OF ME IS HERE?” That waning hope—that Rhuven was uninvolved, innocent—made her feint and parry, waiting until gentle Rhuven finally unmasked the evil lurking, growing under his own roof. Complicity? Guilt by association? “Oh, he may know, he may comprehend…though I’m not entirely sure. It’s so difficult to speak with him lately. Why don’t I call him in and you’ll see,” Vitarosa fumbled for a button on the underside of the desk.

“Mama, what do you mean? What happened? Is something wrong with Papa?” Anyssa burst into Jere’s sight, confrontational, yet looking even younger, in dire need of reassurance.

Becca’s rippling chuckle distracted Jere from the scraping sounds, thunks, as if someone pried at her box. “Haven’t quite figured out how this thing opens. What it takes to shut it off.” A cry of anger from Anyssa as she disappeared from view, followed by heavy breathing, the pound and slap of flesh striking flesh, blocking shoving.

Vitarosa’s crisp “Leave off, Becca,” coincided with a knock at the door, scant time for Jere to register it before the room swooped, her angle of vision shifting 90^°. Someone—Anyssa? Rosa?—had pivoted her a quarter-turn to give her a view. Nothing at first except to await the slow-swinging door, accompanied by panting grunts, the protesting screech of rubber skidding against floor tiles. Finally a small, white-clad backside hove into view. Craning over his shoulder, tugging with all his might, a boy of perhaps nine backed into the room, dragging a wheelchair.

“Artur!” Anyssa called, but the child ignored her, swung the chair around, cheeks and ears rosy with effort. “Papa gets heavier and floppier every day,” he complained. “Sorry, Papa, but you do.” He pressed his cheek against a hand and forearm strapped to the chair’s arm. With straps girding his chest and waist to hold him upright, restraints to keep feet from flopping off the footrests, a man semireclined in the chair. His jaw hung flaccid, a string of drool running down, dripping into his beard, eyelids drooping, seeing, not-seeing. Vitarosa claimed her place beside the wheelchair, stroked her husband’s cheek. A whimper, misty terror in those dull eyes. The boy dug a grubby handkerchief from his pocket, daubed at the face and mouth, fussy but tender, and the man’s eyes momentarily brightened.

Thankful she lacked the luxury of tears, Jere feared her mind might balk. “Rhuven, what have they done to you, done with you?” but made sure her anguish did not flow across the screen. She’d not give Vitarosa that, much as she yearned to share with Rhuven. “All you wanted was to help others find the same peace and devotion your god offered you. Didn’t you realize you harbored your own Satan in your bed, by your side? Or did you truly believe that unconditional love and prayer could change that as well? A look around you at the world outside NetwArk should have told you better.”

But now Anyssa stumbled to her father’s side, and Jere schooled herself to witness further pain. Was this what Glynn had felt on seeing her so burned? Willing to move Heaven and Earth to salvage, if not completely save, the parent he loved? Anyssa and Glynn, both so near grown, yet still longing to bask in perfect parental love—surety against an untested world where the rules were so similar, yet so very different. Tears now, Anyssa’s, not hers, but they’d never wash away the pangs of separation. “Papa? Papa, it’s me, Anyssa, I’m back now. I’ll never leave you again, ever.” She knelt, face buried against her father’s knees, Artur hovering, uncertain, his hand raised to pat her shoulder, yet not quite daring.

“Nyth…Nythy?” A grimace pulled at one side of Rhuven’s mouth, no, not a grimace, a smile. “Mah…Nythy.”

Guiding Anyssa away, Vitarosa matter-of-factly blotted her tears, no wasted compassion. “Artur, take Papa back to his room. Hurry now. Be sure to change, I don’t want you all mucked and wrinkled for your prayer session. Remember—tell the flock how much Papa needs their prayers and their donations.”

Half-dubious, the boy nodded. “I’m gonna learn how to fix Papa. Maybe Anyssa can help now that she’s back,” he threw an appealing glance at his big sister. “You’ll get used to him, don’t worry.” With another screech of rubber wheels, the boy spun the chair toward the door, their final sight identical to their first: a small, white-clad bottom higher in the air than his head.

“Half-measures, Rosa, half-measures. When did you turn so soft?” Seated again, legs splayed as if staking a claim to what was rightfully hers, Becca began to clean her nails with her knife. “You, a Little Sister, tolerating half-lives all around you.”

Finally Jere captured all three in her sight: Becca to the left, Anyssa and Rosa on her right. Yet Anyssa stood separate, stranded in her own private world of pain, unable to grow beyond it.

“It’s not for you to say, nor for you to question.” Ready to protest, Becca heeded the warning of Rosa’s upraised palm. “Anyssa hasn’t, and you, with your years of service should know far better. Too many years as my confidante may make you believe you know my mind, but don’t count on it.”

“It’s understandable to weaken a bit, Rosa,” Becca attempted to be conciliatory, clearly discomfited, “but I’ve never seen you indecisive over your choices. You always know what has to be done, must be done.” A rap on Jere’s box with the hilt of her knife. Jere’d seen the movement but hadn’t registered its import, so engrossed was she in this new conflict.

“Half-lives.” The knife gestured again but didn’t strike. “A brain here. An unresponsive body in a chair—perhaps it has a working brain, perhaps not. Put them together and we might have one complete foe worthy of a Little Sister of Mortality. There’s no savor in taking on the lame, the halt, the blind—that’s mercy killing.” A rap again at the box, the rattling traveling through Jere, echoing in her brain. “Half-measures, Rosa. If you want Rhuven alive a bit longer, fine. Who’m I to say? We can use the increase in donations—pity works wonders. Though how poor Artur’s going to explain that their blessed healer requires healing himself is beyond me. Not good for business, I’d think.”

She turned cajoling, almost wheedling like old times. “But at least let me have this one, this thing. Let me crack it open like an egg, watch the brain yolk fall out. One less half-life for you to worry about. Isn’t it due me after so many years of loyalty, service?”

“Half-lives, Becca?” Vitarosa almost crooned, coming to stand behind her friend, her boon companion for so many years, hands resting lightly on her shoulders. Her hard features softening, one of Becca’s hands rose to shelter Vitarosa’s with a soft sigh of contentment. With a preternatural clarity Jere knew what was coming, would not, could not speak. The implacable guardian had dropped her guard, safe in the arms of her beloved companion. Companion-in-arms, more accurately. “Is this a half-measure, Becca?” By the time her question ended, so had Becca’s life. A shift of hands—one now under the chin—a rapid, upward twist, the crack of vertebrae. “Never try to make your own half-life whole by blackmail.”

Expressionless as an automaton Anyssa helped her mother lay out Becca’s body, and then Vitarosa swept out of the den. “Keep the box safe, dear,” she admonished as she left. “A brain’s worth more than Becca’s brute force any day.”

“ONE DOWN.” Jere offered nothing further, unsure of Anyssa’s mood. This new death seemed to have touched the girl more lightly than the half-deaths she’d witnessed, or perhaps Anyssa’s mind was full, no room for it to sink in. It made her wonder anew how Glynn, how Masady were coping with Rigoberto’s death.

Yes. One down, and one to go.” Anyssa stood loosely at ease, but her face betrayed her, brows knotted as she puzzled the conundrums of life and death. “If not for you and Glynn, then for Father. For me, if I’m to reach for what I am, what I choose to be.”

“HOWEVER YOU RATIONALIZE IT, ANYSSA, IS FINE WITH ME, AS LONG AS IT SAVES GLYNN.”

Date: Late afternoon, 29 August 2158
Location: Welcome to NetwArk

The tranny-van’s doors opened automatically with a sad sigh, the vehicle worn from long, hard use but competently programmed. The drive from Houston Center had been efficient and direct, whizzing through lighted tunnels, climbing sky ramps as necessary, the van’s sensors always attuned to routes where the least traffic, the fewest tie-ups existed. They’d measured their journey, not by passing scenery—the sights aboveground larger than life, too alien to grasp—but by following the progress of the red blip that skimmed the blue-lined route on the nav-screen. “You have arrived at NetwArk,” a tinny voice informed them. “God’s blessings on you here at the heart of the Web. Please take all parcels on departing the vehicle.”

They exited slowly, reluctantly, stiff with the exhaustion of five days’ travel, of recent travail and approaching torments. Glynn scooped a protesting Masady from her seat, eased her clear of the door, and gaping, froze, unable to put her down. Behind him sustained grunts as Ngina eased Chance out of the van without jarring his injured leg. Panthat stood beside Glynn, eyes saucer-wide, muscles quivering until, with a mewling cry, she bolted toward the safety of the tranny-van’s enclosed bulk, pretending to help with Chance. Panny? Afraid? Then perhaps he had a right to be as well.

The arc of sky overhead loomed immense and empty, not the blue he’d expected but a sour gray-yellow, and the wind whipped at his braid, tossing pieces of dried shrub and weeds, crumpled paper across the barren ground. How could something so high, so free, so empty, terrify him, cause his legs to quake? Directly ahead stood a post and wire fence—real wood, it must be, here—and a double gate. Two tall posts reared above the gate, a wooden sign hung between them. The breeze made the sign swing, a creaking protest of rusted metal on metal. Burned into the slab, the name, “NetwArk.”

Improbably distant yet still visible, not lost in satellite curvature, long, long lines of greenery rippled, strange scents floating on the wind, then lost in the harsh dust smell. Nothing like the groomed agricole tiers he knew. In the near distance he could spy the bulk of buildings, a roof here and there, a three-story tower. Everything looked incredibly rustic and old, lifted from the past and transplanted in the here and now. If one ignored the satcom dishes, antennae, and girdered towers dotting buildings and landscape alike. A “thing,” he didn’t know what it was, began to move and lurch; he wheeled, stifling a cry, prepared to flee. It resembled a giant metallic crane or grasshopper, its long neck, predatory pointed head dipping and rising, dipping and rising, though its base remained immobile. Anchored to the ground, he told himself—can’t chase me, can’t catch us.

A fist thumped his breastbone. “Put me down, Glynn,” beta Masady commanded, squirming like Jeremy. “I may be carried out of here, but I’ll not be carried in.” Embarrassed, he set her down, felt her arm slide around his waist, both for steadiness and for solace. His or hers? Both, more likely. “I knew it was a big world down here, Glynn. Jere knew it better than I, tried to explain it to me.” A momentary distraction as the grasshopper caught her attention. She shielded her eyes, squinted. “Oil rig…that’d be my guess. Pumps out the oil underground, if there’s any left to pump.”

She began rummaging through the past again. “Jere swore there was a freedom in having no walls, no ceiling in sight except the sky. Heady and frightening, especially with us so contained, enclosed in a satellite, no matter its size.”

He nodded, achingly aware of his insignificance, as if all that openness had diminished him. Panthat jittered to them, skittery-anxious but determined, the hard set of her jaw, the stubborn wrinkle in her brow intensifying. Her eyes swept the landscape, assaying, measuring, as she grimly planted her feet, worked her mouth and eloquently spat into the dust. “Shah! So there, world! Come and get me, get Panny if’n you dare!”

“Maybe Panthat’s right, Glynn. Spit on it. At least then you’ve claimed that much, marked it as yours.” Working her lips, Masady matched deed to words.

“I have to save her, beta. I have to rescue her from this.”

“What are you so eager to save, Glynn? Your pride, your self-image as a dutiful, adoring child? Jere didn’t want saving once and you saved her—at great cost to herself and to all of us.” He shied away from her wintery, brittle smile, the commiseration in her stone-dark eyes.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t rescue her?” No solace now in her embrace, but the arm clasping his waist refused to yield. “After what’s been wreaked on Stanislaus Troupe—Jere’s accident, bet Rigoberto’s death, Heike’s? Staniar’s corruption? The death and deception visited on Tierney? And all because of Rhuven Fisher Weaver, his wife, Vitarosa, who can’t let the past die.” The words poured out of him, “Well, I can’t make it over, pretend it never happened. At least I can set part of it right by saving Jere from their hands.”

From the opposite side another arm slid round his waist, Chance’s. Panthat had linked herself to Masady, while Ngina bolstered Chance’s other side. “And with your half sister’s complicity, Glynn,” Chance grunted, cleared his throat. “Our ‘Annie’ is Rhuven’s and Vitarosa’s eldest, Anyssa.” Sylvan popped out of Chance’s pocket to survey his surroundings, bright eyes darting, rapid-fire chittering. He sailed groundward, then ran up one of the tall signposts, paused, agile paws reaching for a connecting wire. A crack and spark, a scorching scent, and the little squirrel hung limp, then dropped lifeless to the ground.

Chance groaned, knees buckling, and Glynn’s eyes misted. “More death, more senseless death—why?” With a growl Panny darted toward Sylvan’s corpse, cautiously prodded it before lifting it in cradling dark hands. With ceremonious dignity she offered it to Chance, but Ngina reached out first, wrapped it in a handkerchief and took it. “Earth kills and kills, even little innocent creatures. It can’t seem to stop. We can’t let it have Jere, too.” Chance spat as Panny and Masady had, Ngina following suit. Mouth dry, Glynn did as well.

A disembodied voice echoed at them, “Please do not continue to expectorate on the grounds. It is highly unsanitary.” The gates swung open. “This way, please. You’ll be met shortly by two Able-Bodied Savers who will guide you, show you the way, the truth, and the light. Welcome to NetwArk.”

“Never a Prospero around when you need him.” And at Masady’s wink, Glynn took a hesitant step, the others yielding precedence.

A man and a woman, both in loose white clothing, approached and took up positions on each side of him after gravely handing him a bouquet. He accepted it, nervous, unsure what it contained, the odors strange, the blossoms unfamiliar. Their scents, their juices stained his palm as he juggled it, used a free hand to mop his face. Chance gave a disgusted snort. “NetwArk’s famous herbs. Undoubtedly rosemary for remembrance, Glynn. Watch out for rue.”

Beatifically bland, their attendants’ smiles showered them impartially, rarely speaking except to note which branching path they’d take. Guided they might be, but it was no guided tour, complete with thumbnail descriptions and compelling history of what they passed. Frankly, Glynn didn’t care. The dirt drive wound through cultivated fields, changed to a bricked road, buildings and decorative plantings passed in and out of view, people moving purposefully from building to building, never stopping to watch the strangers. Their route held no interest; let the others remember if they would. Ngina or Chance, both used to the vagaries of Earth cities. Either they’d succeed, or they wouldn’t, and leaving seemed too improbably future-far to worry about now. His stomach wound tight, his ears buffeted by alien sounds, the whup-whup-whup of a distant reaper, shrilling birds, insects. His nostrils tightened to filter out alien scents, alien germs.

Strange, surpassing strange to see buildings with distinct exterior dimensions, wide, unutilized spaces between them. Boxes set in the middle of nowhere. And now, this monumental building looming in front of them, its front carving the air like a ship’s prow parting the sea, not the seamless mellowed curves of living habitats, the satellite’s outer skin protecting it from the cold, dead atmosphere of space. This reared thirty meters high, ready to rush at him, bear down on them all with its planes and angles, different levels of thrusting red-tiled roof like sails, sides of adobe and wood, shimmering sheets of glass with almost wavelike green-blue reflections. But no fish swam in this pseudo mini-mer. Dauntingly monolithic in a way the satellites never achieved—their sectors, their rings, always subdivided and manageable, curiously intimate. Someone gasped behind him. A tree stood literally rooted in the ground, straight, unbending, soaring taller than the house. A wild look for the tethering umbilicals, the feed lines, but they weren’t there.

And then they were inside, engulfed, directed this way or that, marginally more secure at this enclosure, although everything was still faintly bizarre. So many things he’d seen in vidcasts, holopics, yet never experienced. Antiquated, sharp-angled furniture, so few wall-extrusions, everything juttingly geometric, a cacophony of colors and materials. Dust motes, moldy age-scent wafting up with each hesitant step on the thick mat of carpets. Not satellite compactness with its mushroom shapes, its efficient use of each centimeter of space, its monotone shades that preserved harmony, allowed the eye an impression of spaciousness through unbroken vistas of color.

“In here, please.” Young, passing pretty, the female guide sounded kind but cautious, like someone herding a pack of potentially recalcitrant animals, their ways utterly alien to her. “Our Vitarosa will join you momentarily. Please be seated.” She had waved them into a large, airy room with a glass wall running along one side, almost like an Observation Deck. Through it Glynn saw that the wind still blew, how it lifted and sifted dust through the air, whirled bits of dried debris higher and higher.

A bird soared by, and he nearly ducked, sure it would sail straight through the glass at them. A whole sky, a whole world for it to fly through, unimpeded. The vastness of an outside, outdoors for these people, these animals to partake of, boundless. Conscious that he’d been lost within himself, he hastily took a seat around the large, ovoid table that dominated the room. Fingers rubbed table’s edge—strange crevices and splits, all sealed under shining, honey-colored hardness. Bark? Did trees that large exist?

Forcing himself, he concentrated on how the others were coping, what they made of this new world. Ngina and Chance looked relatively unimpressed; they’d traveled back and forth from the satellites to Earth often enough. Chance, drawn, clearly in pain, marshaling his limited energies to serve. Ngina appeared coolly collected, a neutral observer, yet she’d thrown her lot in with theirs, regardless. It struck him then, and he swiveled his chair toward her, whispered, “Sylvan?” A mild grimace and she patted the cargo pocket on her right thigh.

Half-lost in the huge padded chair, beta Masady appraised their surroundings the way she’d judge a new stage set—and find it wanting. Panthat sprawled, hands busy just beneath the tabletop. Despite himself he smiled, suspecting what she was up to—busy making her mark, knife point scratching away. Given the right training and support, she’d be capable of claiming a land, a kingdom, a world—if she wanted it.

Time: A half-hour later
Location: Conference Room, NetwArk

A golden-oak door opened to admit Vitarosa and Annie—no, Anyssa. Half a heritage shared, the two other halves so vastly different. Beyond comprehension—had she truly killed Annie Marie? Had she planned to kill Jere or save her? Conflicting answers warred in his brain, and the cold hatred for NetwArk he’d been hugging to himself struggled against the effort of understanding her, her life. A mother and father who were polar opposites, apparently. Little brothers, according to the holopics on the wall, a wall covered with glued paper. NetwArk itself—an obligation or a privilege? Who depended on her, whom did she depend upon?

Self-assured, satisfied, Vitarosa sat at the far side of the table, Anyssa placing herself at her mother’s right. She looked drawn, haggard, as if her mother had sapped her vitality, leeched the color from her—Anyssa in brown leggings and a khaki shirt, Vitarosa in a swirl of carnation pinks and reds. The older woman’s eyes devoured him, examining every feature with clinical detachment to determine what did and didn’t match Rhuven. A flash of confusion, embarrassment, swept over him, made him long to avert his glance, examine the tabletop, just as Anyssa did. Even Panthat’s whispered, “Shah! Nah!” in her direction as she signed the choppy gesture satrats used to intimidate another didn’t distract Anyssa.

“I never thought I’d see the day that I’d willingly welcome both the Great Lynn and her bastard son under my roof.” Vitarosa clasped her hands in a prayerful attitude and rested them on the table. Her hectic smile did nothing to animate the rest of her face. “That which was taken from me, stolen, has been returned. At last change is afoot at NetwArk.”

“I don’t care if they’re afoot, ahorse, or ashuttle,” Masady snapped, rearing out of her slump like a turtle coming out of its shell. “What hasn’t changed is your abiding hatred, woman. Doesn’t it gnaw you from within? Hasn’t it left you hollow, empty?” Vitarosa jerked as if struck, and Masady pressed home her point. “Jere stole naught from you except what Rhuven willingly shared with her. She had no idea he was married when she met him at that mountain retreat. That he didn’t confess until later. Blame him if you will, but not her, not the boy.”

“Oh, I do blame him, old woman. To err is human, to forgive divine. But then such sanctity doesn’t course within me as readily as it does within my husband. Perhaps you’d enjoy meeting him?” And her eyes swept them all. “NetwArk’s sainted Rhuven Fisher Weaver, who cares for the souls of thousands upon thousands, succors their bodies and their spirits, heals their afflictions.” She pressed tight against the table now, a barrier easily overcome, all impediments in her way as nothing, her glinting eyes warned. “You’d like to meet your father, wouldn’t you, Glynn?”

“If he wishes, if you wish me to.” How many times had he wondered these past months what it would be like to finally meet his father, absence become presence? Oedipus had met his father at the crossroads and killed him, not knowing the stranger was his father. Thus was prophecy fulfilled.

At her mother’s curt nod, Anyssa left, only to return shortly pushing a man in a wheelchair. No, not a man, the husk of a man. Glynn’s heart clenched. Movement gone, brain locked away inside, if it still resided there. The renowned faith healer unable to heal himself. Worse yet, he could sense Vitarosa reveling in the irony of it all. On his father’s lap rested the wooden box that Glynn knew as intimately as the contours of his mother’s face. “Reunited at last, isn’t it touching?” He didn’t recoil, refused to give her that, but noticed Anyssa did, caught the brief spark of hatred that flared and died as she fussed about her—their—father, stroking his brow, brushing his hair back.

“I want Jere back.” Not a demand, not a plea, just a simple declaration. “You’ve made your point, shown that Stanislaus can be humiliated, brought low. What else will it take to satisfy you? What more can you want of us—of me—to ensure Jere’s return?”

Her response came singsongy, childish, the recitation of a long-ago lesson. “And once I wanted my father to love me, praise me, value me. Oh, he loved me, but never the rest…the praise, validation…I was flawed, never good enough. Oh, he was wrong, how I showed him he was wrong! I didn’t need him…or my half brothers. Because my best was his worst. I crumpled his little empire, the one I wasn’t good enough to share.” Masady gave a protesting growl. “Oh, yes, you probably heard, didn’t you? Rumors, rumors, nothing proved. Never directly proved!” She gave the table a triumphant slap. “I suppose your Rigoberto heard the rumors.

“Well, all of life is a gamble, but the strong-willed can increase the odds in their favor.” Vitarosa shook an imaginary pair of dice, cast them away. “Yes, a gamble, a matter of fate, chance, like your friend’s name—or so it seems to those with no faith in God. The truth is that they tumble from God’s hand. Of course you can always jog His elbow. Something ‘dicey’ is dangerous, risky. The singular of dice is ‘die.’ So appropriate. Do you like to gamble, Glynn?” A whimpering protest from the side—Anyssa? Rhuven?

Was she mad—or merely manic at finally having them within her grasp? Years’ worth of stored hatred, bitterness, and jealousy pouring onto them. He didn’t, couldn’t know. And he’d thought that he could somehow march in, rationally demand Jere’s return. Fool, a thousand times fool! Like a child wheedling for a toy. He swallowed, staring steadily at her. Their stares clashed, and he shied away, lost a minor skirmish. Finally he swung toward Masady, Panthat, Chance, and Ngina, prayed they’d support him as best they could. Dismay, dread, determination—all that and more he saw reflected there.

Drawing on every iota of Stanislaus training, he sat straight, relaxed, wrists crossed on the table. “I suppose the gamble I take, risk all on, involves going onstage in a new role, seeing whether the audience will believe—not in me, but in the character I portray. A gamble that I can serve as a conduit into another’s mind and soul, instill belief in that character.”

“Not unlike religion,” Vitarosa crowed, clapping her hands. “You are your father’s son!”

“So what’s the game? What are the stakes?” He stood now, moved beside his father, laid his hand on Jere’s life-support box. Despite himself, overcome by sorrow and compassion, he laid his other hand on Rhuven’s shoulder, reassurance of his father’s existence. Never known, never to be known. Quickly Anyssa overlaid her hand on his. Slowly, regretfully, he slid his away, her touch beyond bearing for so many reasons. “I know what I’m gambling for, for Jere’s return to us, for her life. What stakes do you offer?”

Index finger tap-tapping her lips, Vitarosa played at contemplating her choices. “Stakes? Well, you’re correct: You play for Jere’s life. For yours, and your friends’ lives as well. My stakes are identical. A strange bargain, but I’ve always been generous to a fault. Rest assured that should you win, no one at NetwArk will lift a hand against you and yours. You’ll all leave unhindered.” Feigning sudden surprise at her forgetfulness, she continued. “Oh, the game. You never asked about the game. You really shouldn’t wager until you know what you’re playing.

“Still, the contest couldn’t be simpler, Glynn, the chance to test yourself in a totally new role.” Her eyes were wide with spurious delight, her breathing quick. “You can ad lib your half of the script; I’ll supply the other half. Your character: Avenger. The setting: a dueling circle. I hope you can act convincingly, Glynn, because the props will be real—real weapons. Knives, I think. I’ll be Me, playing myself, pitting myself against you.” Anticipatory, predatory, her whole body gave a suppressed quiver, the predator poised to launch its attack. “Tomorrow morning. A meal, a good night’s sleep beforehand, I think that’s fair, don’t you? Do you accept?”

Not real, not happening, no, it couldn’t happen like this, but it was. The play, the actor, doomed. Still onstage, so keep acting. He thrust his hand forward, ignoring the cries and shouts behind him. Heard but ignored beta Masady’s exclamation, “Glynn, the woman’s a trained assassin!”

“So be it,” he pledged as they shook hands. Unbelievable to agree to this when every fiber of him urged, Run, Flee. The willing sacrifice a parent makes for a child—cannot a child offer the same? Either they’d both live—or both die. Life—and death—so difficult to measure. Such close kin, opposite sides of the coin. One could be alive but dead inside, dead but alive within. Everything was relative.

“Anyssa will show you to your rooms. Until tomorrow.” With a teasing, backward glance, Vitarosa wheeled Rhuven from the room, but only after placing Jere’s box in Anyssa’s outstretched hands. Holding it carefully, Anyssa gestured them after her, down hallways, some bright, some dim, up a flight of stairs, and into a suite of rooms.

“Here,” she handed the box to Glynn. “For tonight at least. I’m sorry. Mother’s truly good, you know.” Glynn shook his head, appalled, puzzled—Vitarosa good? An impatient frown at his slowness. “No, not like that—I mean at what she does, is capable of doing. As a trained killer. Compared to her, I’m an amateur, despite the fact that she and Becca taught me everything they knew.” A desperate struggle within herself, “I wonder…I wish…I just don’t know any more!” In her honey-brown eyes a darkness, a shadow of the gallows, but whether it reflected his fate or hers, he wasn’t sure. “Until tomorrow morning, then.”

“Anyssa?” Glynn spoke her name, alien yet so familiar, familial. “Anyssa?” But couldn’t trust himself to say more.

She paused, waiting to see what he might demand of her, then shook her head in defeat. “Ring for food, anything else you may need.” Her hand stole out to caress Jere’s box and then she was gone, half-running.

Date: 30 August 2158
Location: NetwArk, Texas Republic, Earth

Blue. It teased and tingled behind his sleep-closed lids, ebbing and flowing across the unseeing crescents of his eyes. Eye-blue skies, skies the color of his mother’s eyes, except he’d never seen that shade of blue in nature, never seen these skies before yesterday—or had he, once so very long ago and far through space? He tossed, fitful, mind beginning to wake, though waking meant admitting what he faced today—the duel. And an admission of something more, something he’d refused to face for seven long, bitter months.

Glynn kicked back the sheet, forced himself to sit up, squinting at the alien, brightening blue of the sky through the window. Then, as he had each morning for so many months, he addressed the burled maple box centered on the bureau, the box with its dials, its sound-enhancing diaphragms, its lensed opticams on opposed sides, the Liquid Crystal Display strip that scrolled across its front. “Good morning, Mother.”

“GLYNN, LOVE, TODAY’S THE DAY.” The words printed themselves across the LCD strip, disappearing leftward to make space for more characters crowding from the right. “YOU’LL SUCCEED, GLYNN. YOU MUST AND YOU WILL. AND THEN WILL YOU HONOR LAST NIGHT’S PROMISE? WILL YOU LET ME DIE TODAY?”

He evaded answering by dropping to the floor, began his stretching exercises, methodically flexing knotted muscles, limbering his spine, pouring total concentration into each movement. So easy to lose himself in unthinking movement, the product of years of training. How much longer before the duel? He wasn’t sure, so best prepare now, center himself, aim for maximum suppleness, speed and fluidity of movement. It wouldn’t save him, but it might allow him to cheat death a little longer.

Finally, grudgingly, “I thought we discussed that last night,” he focused on his left leg, “that particular question, I mean.” Actually it hadn’t been last night but, more accurately, early this morning when he’d finally been left alone with Jere.

His rehearsal for a fight to the death had been cursory—and more than ludicrous. Years of pretense, not the actuality of killing, but the swashbuckling motions of the stage; years of dying, the epochal moment when a monumental character falls—each a patiently staged, artful production that heightened the viewers’ sense of reality in a way that actual death rarely accomplished. Ngina and Chance had tried, offering pointers and suggestions, but they were spacers, not military; their limited combat training aimed at protecting their ships, their cargoes from thieves. Most of that involved defensive measures, buying time until Security swept to their rescue. Masady had grimly choreographed his moves to a fare-thee-well, but was hampered by rehearsing only one partner in the forthcoming pas de deux of death.

Finally, exasperated, frustrated, Panthat had interrupted, satrat savvy to the core. Jerked him this way and that, repositioned his body, his pretend knife, and snarled, “Shah! Not pretty-play, pretty-act! This real, dirty dance to death. Slice, stab, blood.” Her stiff-fingered hand a black blade out of nowhere, fingers slamming between his ribs for emphasis, the motion almost too fast to register. “Big, sweeping gestures? Nah! Not showing audience now, cuz audience is Vitarosa. Bigwig gestures leave you open. Shah! Paint a target on your chest. You give her time to slappy-clappy and still stab you.” The hand darted again, struck at another vulnerability. “See?”

The exercises had been grueling, literally numbing, Panthat’s empty-handed blows real, over and over again without letup. Tight, controlled retreat, explosive attack with no warning, no leading gesture to expose her intentions. Feint, parry, thrust, evade. Ways to trip, to kick an opponent. Demoralize. And always the jab, jab of Panny’s stiff-fingered hand each time he was vulnerable, open to a hit. But three times—three astounding moments of absolute rightness, almost a purity of instinctual action—he’d scored off Panny. At last she’d shook her head, wiped her brow. “Enough. Either works or doesn’t. Be prayerful-careful that it works. Now, rest,” and had marched into her adjoining room.

Thinking of the bruises with which Panny had decorated his body, he hoped he’d made some progress. Whether it had been enough, time would tell. And once the others had settled for a few hours’ rest, he and Jere had finally talked. How, in the midst of danger, could she hark back to her desire to die? What was he fighting for, if not her life? “Your own,” a tiny, frightened voice whispered inside him.

He’d been so convinced she’d accepted what had happened, eventually reconciled at last. Now Jere’d dug it up again, thrust it in his face. No matter what evasion he tried, it always circled round again, snaring him. Her death. His responsibilities. Responsibilities—to himself, to his mother, to Stanislaus. Even Chance, Panthat, and Ngina were temporarily his responsibility. The circle suddenly expanded—what about Anyssa, his half sister? Her little brothers, his as well, Artur and Algore? His newfound father? By extension, NetwArk itself? No! That was asking too much—what about him, his wants, his needs? Didn’t someone hold some responsibility for him as well? A side-glance at the box as he shifted to limber his right leg.

“WE DID DISCUSS IT, BUT YOU NEVER ACTUALLY ANSWERED ME. IF YOU SHOW THE SAME NIMBLENESS OF FOOT TODAY THAT YOUR WORDS SHOW, VITAROSA WILL NEVER TOUCH YOU.”

Again he danced around her comment, fought himself to ask outright, “Then you actually think I might have a chance against her? Against a trained assassin?”

“IF I DIDN’T THINK SO, I WOULDN’T HAVE BOTHERED WITH MY REQUEST, WOULD I? IF YOU DIE AT HER HANDS, SO WILL I. SHE’S MADE THAT CLEAR.”

“But why choose to die now?” He knelt to meet her opticam “eye,” arms fisted at his sides.

“BECAUSE ANY DANGER TO YOU WILL HAVE PASSED. TIME FOR ME TO RECLAIM MY OWN LIFE, CONTROL IT AS I WISH…WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS IN THE WORLD, YOU ROBBED ME OF THAT BEFORE.” She hesitated. Jump in with a counterargument? But his chance to control the conversation ended as she spoke again. “I’VE STAYED ALIVE FOR ONE PURPOSE, TO PROTECT YOU. BUT I CAN’T SHELTER YOU FOREVER. YOU HAVE TO PROTECT YOURSELF, JUST AS YOU MUST AGAINST VITAROSA. YOU MUST LEARN TO SUSTAIN YOURSELF WITHOUT ME.”

Sulk, protest, rage, flail his limbs, all that and more he wanted to do. Wanted most of all to cradle himself against her, always have her presence to sustain and soothe, reassure him he was safe, caught within the circle of her never-ending, undying love. Undying love? “Mother, Jere—”

The knock came, an explosive rapping that made him jerk his head, his muscles go rigid. “Five minutes, please. Be ready at the door in five minutes.” An unfamiliar voice, but it hardly mattered, only the message mattered—the message that framed his future. He rose stiffly—all the stretching exercises for naught—and placed his hands on the top of Jere’s box. A deep breath. “My…my word on it. If I win, you’ll be free.” He kissed the box, picked it up and walked toward the door.

“WHEN YOU WIN, GLYNN, NOT IF. DARLING, I LOVE YOU, BUT EVERY CAGED BIRD YEARNS TO FLY FREE.” With the LCD pressed against his side as he numbly waited beside the locked door, Glynn didn’t see her words.

Date: Midmorning, 30 August 2158
Location: An underground arena, NetwArk

For no clear reason, Glynn had assumed the duel would take place outdoors, beneath the eye-blue skies he’d glimpsed this morning, the night’s storm past. Fitting somehow to die in the open, beneath the alien gaze of that arching blue sky. But the two male acolytes escorted him down flights of stairs, deeper and deeper, until they entered an enclosed arena sunk beneath the main house. Brought out through a near-invisible door in the arena’s curved side, he stared at the sanded surface, kicked at it, allowed his bare toes to burrow in the sand. A new experience, a new sensation.

With a whispered warning to wait, a hand on his shoulder in emphasis, the acolytes left. A cautious breath, then a deeper one, oddly comforting: The air in the underground arena was close, slightly stale, despite the fact that faint currents from the air-conditioning system brushed his bare chest. Just like satellite air, wonderfully familiar. A jolt of homesickness. Behind him the surrounding ring-wall stood about one-and-a-half meters high, black slick duroplast topped by plexiglass that reached the domed ceiling. Staring through his distorted reflection he judged the solid, regular shapes to be stadium seats, then caught a glimpse of movement. Shielding his eyes, he could just make out Masady and Ngina, Chance and Panthat being escorted inside, Masady’s paler complexion most visible against the darkness. Impatient knuckles rippity-rapping on glass, and he waved; Panthat waved back, contrived a rapid series of facial contortions meant to encourage and hearten him. Finally, she began jumping up and down, pointing.

Only then did it dawn that Jere’s box remained tucked under his arm, pressed tight to his heart. What to do with it? Why hadn’t someone taken it from him? Lurching, pivoting wildly, he scanned for an exit, some place to set her, someone to take her. Nothing, no one. So be it. Clamping down on his panic, he set Jere beside him, folded his arms and looked impassively across the arena. “Ringside seat, Jere. Sorry about that.” About fifteen meters in diameter, he guessed, with a smaller, six-meter circle outlined, black sand stark against glinting white particles. Room enough to feint and dodge, but not to run. Nothing to do but wait.

Time: The same
Location: Underground arena seating, NetwArk

Panny leaned forward, fingers splayed like spilled ink across the beige plush seat back in front of her, only her eyes and the top of her head showing above it. Dandy-nice unnoticed, half-hidden like this—all ready for pounce’n-bounce. She stared unblinking through the tinted partition surrounding the arena, tracking Glynn’s every fidget as he stood there alone, Jere’s box a few meters away. Glynnie-boy all twitchy, no surprise.

Stupid, stupid! Rubbing her upper lip against the plush, she strove to quell her rising frustration. Glynnie-boy all right, a-okay guy, knew lotsa smart things Panny didn’t. But Panny knew things, other things, like fighting. Oh, sweat’n’effort last night, plenty-plenty, but like…she groped for a comparative. What had Ruby said? ’Bout throwing meat to starving lion? Problem was, Glynnie only snicky-snack for Vitarosa’s hunger-hate. Yum! Next Jere be nibbled by Rosa—Masady, Chance, Ngina, Panny, too. Well, Panthat no cream puff for dessert!

Circles, circles, circles here—just like on satellites. Comforting, contained, a relief after her introduction to the out-of-doors. So big, so empty. Ready to devour her to fill its emptiness. Already’d devoured Sylvan. She brushed a watering eye with a knuckle. Silly-squilly but tickley-nice paws, sleek fur. Always chitter-chatter scolding like Masady. Risking a glance from the corner of her eye, she studied them: Chance, Masady, Ngina, seated slightly higher in the tier of seats, their eyes glued to the ring and Glynn. Glue, yes, Masady, Stanislaus, stick to you like glue. That was why she’d slipped to this aisle seat, secluded herself, needing to be alone with her thoughts. The rest of the seats were slowly filling, but no one wanted to sit with them. Fine by Panny.

A horizontal band of light flickered, a thin brightness on the floor ahead of the seat she leaned against. Not big, the length of two hands, maybe twenty-five centimeters long. Muffled sounds, voice murmurs wafting through. Overcome by curiosity, Panny ducked into the first row, crouched. Anyone sitting here could idly kick the dark wall surrounding the arena, press an eager face against the glass barrier. Hunkered on the floor she couldn’t see what was happening in the ring, the barrier-wall blocking her view. Fine, she liked inspecting vents—vents good to satrats, even thinny ones like this. Couldn’t see in, no, only glimmer-shine of light, but voices, yes, oh, yes, hearing them. Shush-shush, listen hard, and she pressed her ear close, held her breath.

Annie-voice. No ’bout-adoubt-it. A hackling shiver ran along her spine. Annie being Anyssa. Shah! What saying? She strained to listen. Annie-voice and old-man-voice, patient-splaining sounds like Ruby made. “No, the rules are clear, Anyssa, just as your great-grandfather set them down. Anyone can offer to serve as “champion” to either accuser or defendant. That person has the right to reject such a proposal unless suffering from an obvious physical or mental incapacitation. The next rule outlines methods to determine that.”

Almost growling, Panthat strained to catch Anyssa’s response, heard nothing except a quiet “thank you.” So, so, Annie-Anyssa going to steal scene, snatch Vitarosa’s place and fight Glynn! Sick-slick girl, sure enough! Panny’d seen the light in Anyssa’s eyes sometimes when Glynn was near, though most always when Glynn was unaware, engrossed in something else. Bleh! Almost gooey, lovey-dovey. Not approving ’cause Glynnie-boy Panthat’s true buddy-friend. Panthat there first, claiming-naming. Whack Anyssa if she could! Boy, oh, boy, whack her into orbit for playing Glynnie false like this! Hands fisted, she froze as Anyssa’s voice rose in pain. “I can’t let her kill Glynn, I can’t. I can’t let her go on like this…it’s all so wrong. Father would hate it.” Frowning, Panny cautiously scratched her arm. Anyssa not making sense. “Am I brave enough? I’m the only one who can end it all, salvage as much good as I can from both sides.”

Scratching until she nearly drew blood, mulling over what she’d heard, Panthat nodded once, hard. At length, listening to Anyssa’s sobs, Panny crept along the ring-wall, sheltered between the seats and the wall itself, testing, probing. Yah, yah, Panny, gotta be one somewhere, always is. Nah, nah. This? No. At length her fingers traced a shape in the floor, squared lines, a lump of hinges along one side. Shah-ha! Far enough from Anyssa? Not wanting to land on shoulders. No hesitating, slither-snake quick, or light’d show where she’d gone. Lifting the trapdoor, Panny dropped down, the hinges’ squeak muffled by the assembled crowd’s collective inhalation as Vitarosa entered the ring.

Skittering through the shadows of the corridor surrounding the arena, Panthat headed in Anyssa’s direction. Not sure what to do, but her mind relentlessly picked at everything she’d heard, tried it for size, twitched it this way and that. So, making sense yet? Anyssa right for wrong reasons, maybe Panthat righter-fighter?

Time: A few interminable minutes
later Location: The arena

Movement, muffled sounds surrounding him, the rest of the auditorium filling, shapes looming behind plexiglass. How many to witness Vitarosa’s triumph? His doom? Or perhaps he’d find within himself a depth he’d never plumbed before. Possible. Jere believed it possible, but so mothers always think. A lick above his lip, the taste of salt-sweat. For the first time he realized he wasn’t afraid. Anticipatory, yes. An elusive lightness to his thoughts and body that suggested a foretaste of triumph. The same butterfly tingling in his stomach that presaged the rising curtain. And some performances you knew—simply sensed deep in your bones, viscerally in your gut—would be special.

Deliberately he spat to the side to break the spell, to show the circle it couldn’t overwhelm him. It had helped before, outside the gates to NetwArk, perhaps it would again. This was real, not an act, not a play. Ran his hands down his ribs and discovered he’d never pulled on his shirt, wore just his skintight knee pants, medium blue against pale spacer skin. Almost dark blue, given six days of ground-in dirt. No shoes or sandals.

A sound and, near invisible in the curve of the partition, opposite him, anther door swung open and Vitarosa stepped out, stood looking across at him. In no seeming hurry, content to wait. Her dark hair was pulled back severely in a long braid. A woman’s shape, but lean, sinewy, comfortable within her skin and within the white, short-sleeved leotard she wore, a red skirt loosely wrapped over it. He’d not spoken with, even glimpsed Anyssa this morning, and that lack pained him, an unanticipated emptiness. Did she sit silent up above with the others? Waiting to see him die, wanting to see him die, except he couldn’t accept that any longer.

Two more doors opened, each bisecting the wall arcs between him and Vitarosa. From his left came an older man ceremoniously carrying a silver tray draped with a thick-woven white cloth. On it Glynn could just glimpse two shining knives, bone handles slightly elevated as if they rested on blocks. For no reason he could imagine, surprise animated Vitarosa’s face; she appeared to be searching for someone else, clearly expecting a second person to accompany the man walking centerward with slow dignity. Then, on his right, he spied Anyssa, staring straight ahead as she strode forward to meet the older man. More shocking, Panny slipped through the closing door behind Anyssa and hovered on the ring perimeter, dark against dark, barely visible.

“Will the combatants come forward, please,” the man intoned, tray balanced at chest height. Wordless, matching his pace to Vitarosa’s measured stride, he stalked toward the center of his new universe. Don’t look back at Jere, he ordered himself, don’t peer up at beta Masady, the others. It’s just Vitarosa, the two of us. Anyssa’s presence, Panny’s—doesn’t matter. Don’t be distracted.

Closer, closer now, and the anticipation in Vitarosa’s eyes nearly lit the arena. “Halt,” the man declared when they were a meter distant. “These are the rules, as formally set down by the first Weaver of NetwArk over a hundred years ago. There are times when God’s law must follow from our hands, when we must serve as the Lord’s defenders. This is such a moment, the sanctity and safety of NetwArk threatened by outsiders. This fight will be to the death. Any step beyond the marked boundary indicates an attempt to flee; the coward’s life will be forfeit.” Despite himself, Glynn scanned the line, mentally calculating strides in any direction.

A quick headshake to focus himself. Now what was the man droning about? The rules had been laid out, clear and simple. Not the moment to daydream, and Vitarosa’d registered his lapse, her rising eyebrows sharp-curved as scimitars made him sure. “Lastly, just as we serve as defenders of the Lord, so each justice-seeker here today may choose a champion to take his or her place in the ring. Do either of you choose to—”

Before the older man could complete his pro forma question, Anyssa moved from her silent station just beyond the boundary. Took one momentous step forward and crossed the line as she announced, “I claim the privilege of championing—”

But Vitarosa overrode her, “Anyssa, child, I admire your courage, your desire to spare me hurt, but I’m capable of—”

Anyssa simply raised her voice. “—Glynn of Stanislaus Troupe, known here in NetwArk and on Waggoner’s Ring as Glynn Webster Stanislaus, eldest son of Rhuven Fisher Weaver and Jerelynn Stanislaus.” Thumbs hooked in her belt, Anyssa stood waiting, head cocked at her mother. “There is no honor in any death bestowed in this ring today, you make it a travesty. There is no honor in the deaths you’ve sought, bestowed so casually in recent months, Mother. Death and terror that defame what Father worked for, what NetwArk stood for. In what you represented so long ago as a Little Sister of Mortality. I renounce and reject it all. I stand champion for my half brother.”

For a moment Glynn felt strangely superfluous, as unnecessary as the older man must feel, yet still trapped, reluctantly drawn by the hate orbiting Vitarosa and Anyssa. “I don’t want a champion,” he insisted, once his shock had passed. “This is my battle with your mother, not yours. I don’t want any debts.”

“I’m paying for past ones, not creating a new ledger,” Anyssa spoke softly in his direction without taking her eyes off her mother. “Not even a tithe of what I owe for her attempt to mold me in her perverted image.”

Despite her masked, frozen expression, Vitarosa’s whole being radiated a kindling hatred; as it flared higher she seemed to glow with an incandescent joy. “Oh, you are your father’s daughter. Never mine no matter how hard I tried. And riddled by weakness, by doubts and fears just as Rhuven was, as your half brother is! Well, what a challenge to extirpate this creeping weakness from NetwArk, root and stock!”

As if in strained parody of her mother’s denunciation, Anyssa collapsed without a word, Panny astride the still figure, rubbing the blade of her right hand against her thigh. Raising it, she made a fist, winced, and shrugged. “Oh, I’m not thinking so big deal. Emotions too messy here. Too many, too much. Glynnie-boy is needing a champion, a ramping-stamping-champion, just what Panthat, satrat, is meant for. You want razmatazing good fight, come to Panthat,” she beckoned cheekily.

A hoot of laughter from Vitarosa, head back, throat exposed. “Oh, child, you’re too perfect for words, symbolism beyond compare. Black and white in a fight to the death, its outcome preordained! You’re right, there’s too much messy emotion here—that can be dealt with later. I accept you as Glynn’s champion.” She sketched an ironic bow at Panthat.

“This beginning to be fun. Thrill you first, then kill you. Fight with Panny, you fight the best.”

“Wescott, clear out the bystanders.” With a flourish Vitarosa stripped off her red skirt, swirled it outside the ring. “So, shall we continue?”

At Wescott’s signal, Glynn found himself unceremoniously hustled away as he fought and shouted, pleading with Panthat not to intercede. Two more acolytes removed Anyssa’s limp body just as he was allowed brief seconds to snatch up Jere before being tumbled into a seat inside. He pressed a feverish forehead against the glass shield as Panthat took her place opposite Vitarosa at the circle’s center. It couldn’t be, wasn’t supposed to happen like this! Snatched away from him at the last second. He swiped at the glass where his breath steamed it, desperate to see, pounded it in frustration.

Black hand, white hand, both hovered over the tray with its double serving of death, each poised to snatch the bone handle of a knife. “On retrieving your weapons at my command, you will each take six steps back and remain motionless until I have left the ring,” Wescott stated. “Now!” The knives flashed down, the distance between Panny and Vitarosa increasing as he exited, churning the sand in his haste. “Clear and commence!”

Gripping Jere’s box so tightly he feared he’d break it, Glynn stared, riveted, as the duet began, only belatedly noticing Anyssa had slid in beside him, a wet towel draped round her neck. Groggy, green-tinged, a livid bruise on her neck—he could almost feel it throbbing. “Lord help us, she’d better be as good as she thinks she is,” she muttered thickly, “Gutter tricks versus training.” A clammy hand chilled his inner elbow, slid down to lock fingers with him while he positioned Jere so one ocular could sweep the ring.

Cool, calculating, the two fighters took each other’s measure, slipping forward and back, testing and probing. A restrained, almost balletic quality that reminded Glynn all too much of the stage. Who’d taught Panny? The long-dead Ruby, whom Panthat sometimes mentioned? Experience? As Masady had said time and again, “Experience is the best teacher.” He’d never been sure whether Panny’s toughness was a façade or a shield for a morality uniquely her own.

Can any teacher impart all his or her wisdom to a student? What is held back, omitted? What is added beyond the lessonings? Youth and middle age: the speed and resilience of youth, the willingness to take chances, versus burning personal desire backed by rigorous, formal discipline and control. For a moment he prayed; Panny was family now, Stanislaus, had earned the right over and over again. No longer a satrat but a Stanislaus. She’d adopted them, would battle twice as hard because she’d tasted the bitter difference between having and not having, recognized how tenuous love and acceptance could be. She fought not for him, but for the troupe.

“Shah? Nah!” Panthat whooped and swung clear as Vitarosa flashed inward, except Vitarosa was back in position, waiting. “Shah! First blood! Good for you, old bag!” A thin red line trickled down Panny’s upper arm, just below the shoulder. Her bare feet danced to dare Rosa to match her steps. “Ah! Nah, nah, nah!” the child growled as Vitarosa blocked her knife hand with her left forearm and slashed at Panny’s thigh. Unable to help himself, Glynn closed his eyes. Why was she holding back? Being so tentative? Was she truly out of her league? Panny would suffer, die for them, die for nothing as he and Jere then met their deaths. Coward! And forced his eyes open. It struck like a blow: This was real, it wasn’t theater, superlative acting.

A dark foot lashed out, Panny’s catching the back of Vitarosa’s calf, and her knife scored a line across the underside of Rosa’s left breast. Red against the white of the leotard. For some reason the minor wound shocked the older woman more than it should, and she trembled, eyes unseeing as she held her hand there, cupping her breast. Curiously, Panny retreated, didn’t press home her advantage, waiting for Rosa to recover. “Damn it, Panny! Again!” Anyssa screamed beside him, and Panny obeyed, though not the killing stab that Anyssa called on her to administer. A duck and a high slash and Vitarosa’s right ear fell redly on the sand like an autumn leaf.

Now there was no holding back, no subtlety, as Vitarosa threw herself at Panthat, her mouth spewing words that Glynn couldn’t hear. Strangely, Panny laughed, finding some sort of perverse humor in the situation. And on it went, sometimes stingingly fast, sometimes achingly slow, as Panny made Vitarosa traverse the entire circle, goading her forward and back, luring Rosa after her. Glynn had no idea how much time had passed, knew only that he felt exhausted, muscles sore and cramping, heart pounding, mouth dry. First one, then the other would toy with her opponent, leaving Glynn cheering Panny’s rallies, cold with terror at her reversals, her retreats. And blood continued flowing from new and old wounds. Barbaric, was this how Earth truly functioned these days, with the ancient barbarism of hand-to-hand combat?

Both faltering now, woman and child, feet dragging, the sand scuffled around them, sea peaks and troughs of sand, caplets of blood. The harshness of his breathing matched theirs, Anyssa slumped beside him, sunk into herself, moaning at each blow, mourning whomever it had struck. Hurt and hatred together, her mother out there, and Anyssa lost no matter who won.

Transfixed, he saw Vitarosa’s knife traveling in a quick, compact sweep, groaned as Panny stumbled toward it, took that final, unwieldy step, unable to envision any other—a side step or a lurch to temporarily evade the knife. Vitarosa’s eyes glittered, the side of her face and neck a mask of blood as she drove forward, only to discover Panny’s left hand now held the knife as she swung home, connecting beneath Rosa’s rib cage, sinking it deep. The unaccustomed move left Panthat pivoting like a creaking, swinging gate to regain position; Vitarosa’s counterblow struck and glanced, left yet another blood trail.

On his feet now Glynn screamed himself hoarse, trumpeting all his hopes and fears, letting them fill the air as Vitarosa sank to her knees, dropped forward to let her hands take her weight. With effort she pushed up off one knee, struggling to stand, her mouth a rictus of delight as she realized Panthat’s knife was still lodged in her chest—that she now controlled both knives. A moment of triumph as she reached for the embedded knife, struggled to stand erect, only to topple forward, the weight of her body driving the knife home. Glynn screamed again, pounded the glass, capered and danced, but when he reached for Anyssa’s hand, he discovered she’d silently slipped away.

It was over. Done. Vitarosa was dead. A dry, rasping sound as Panthat rubbed her hands together, then turned and limped from the ring, never looking behind her.

Date: The day after the duel, 31 August 2158
Location: A sitting room, NetwArk

A part of her, a large part of her (Which part? Jere asked, inquiring minds want to know. My thalamus?…cerebellum?…amygdala?…what?) wished this ordeal over, ruefully conceded it was part of freedom’s price. Yet another part of her sparked with a singular harmony of being she’d not previously experienced. A natural high, a synchronous galvanic dance of neurons. I am out of my senses. Have been—literally—for some time. Deprived—or liberated from them? With liberation one has endless time for deep thought. Ah, liberation….

I see this room with its pale yellow walls, wispy lace curtains at the windows—ah, windows!—the carpeting a complex pattern of pastel knotted flowers and vines. A similar design on the chair facing me. That I know because Chance has set up a mirror again, gruff instructions ordering Ngina left or right to position it. Thus, anyone I speak with will sit directly in front of me, read my words, yet I will see that person in the mirror.

The beginning of an end, farewells. I owe them that, and so much more. Soon they’ll come, in the order Glynn and I set. Ah, the first, SatGov Ngina Natwalla. Leggy, clever, tough yet tender. Sounds like verse…or worse. No giddiness, Jere.

“NGINA, SIT, PLEASE. MY HEARTFELT THANKS FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE. YOU’VE BEEN A DEAR FRIEND TO CHANCE, AND I’M PLEASED TO CALL YOU FRIEND AS WELL, A FRIEND OF STANISLAUS.”

Folding her long legs, Ngina sat, solemn and steady at her first talk with a brain box. “Somehow saying it was a pleasure doesn’t quite fit the bill. However, I’m glad I did. Glad to have met you and the others as well.”

“LIFE TAKES UNEXPECTED PATHS. YOU ROSE TO GOVERN SALLYRIDE WHILE CHANCE LOST WHAT HE HELD MOST DEAR. NOT ALWAYS EASY TO JUDGE TRUE GAINS AND LOSSES.”

“True, though I think Chance gained more than he lost. For what it’s worth, I agree with your decision. I’ll keep an eye on everyone best I can—provided they look out for me.” She rose, tossed a half-salute, did a neat about-face. But before she could leave, Jere “squawked” her.

“BY THE WAY, WHAT DID YOU FINALLY DO WITH POOR SYLVAN?”

Self-consciously Ngina touched the cargo pocket on her thigh. “Buried him, out in the gardens. Chance wanted it so.”

Next through the door, Panthat, her movements stiff and awkwardly formal, decorous in a stretchy, short-skirted dress in dusty rose. Absorbing the setting, the mirror’s placement, she limped beyond the mirror’s range, leaving Jere conjecturing what she planned.

“Squawk!” “GAK! PANNY, BACK OFF, DON’T STAND SO CLOSE!” Jere exploded as Panny stared directly into Jere’s right opticam.

“Checking if you still home, not roaming yet.” Unrepentant, she plopped into the chair, the bandage on her arm flashing white as she scrubbed at an ear. “Squawky-talk ouch-making. Eardrum still thrumming, thank you very much.”

“LUCKY I CAN’T BOX YOUR EAR. I’LL HAVE BETA MASADY DO IT.”

“Wishing she would, wishing she take her mind off end of world, end of Stanislaus, and box Panny.” Serious worry lines marched across her brow. “Then I know she still care about something, even if only lowly satrat.”

How often had she viewed this child from afar? Following Glynn during those first, haphazard meetings that quickly became childhood ritual. Had yearned to help but hadn’t dared. Informing the authorities would have throttled what Panny seemed to hold dear—her freedom. How to repay her now, for what she’d meant to Glynn, to them all? “PANTHAT. YOU ARE STANISLAUS THROUGH AND THROUGH. YOU BELONG. WE’LL DRAW UP THE PAPERS.”

A squirm, a wince as bandages under the rose top dragged at wounds. “Well, honor-right-bright, and I am thanking you for that. But not much to belong to. More satrats than Stanislaus these days, I ’spect, if you check each satellite.”

Shocking, but true. Out of the mouths of babes—and shim-knife-wielding outcast children. Jere sensed the germ of a plan seeding itself in her brain, germinating, flowering. “SO, YOU KNOW ANY SATRATS WORTHY OF BECOMING STANISLAUS? THAT IS, IF THEY WORKED HARD, LEARNED WELL, SHARED THEIR OWN SKILLS AND CLEVERNESS WITH US. OF COURSE YOU AND BETA MASADY WOULD HAVE TO DECIDE IF THEY WERE WORTHWHILE MATERIAL.”

“As in giving beta Masady more to worry-furry about? Can’t grieve when dizzy-busy, and Panthat guarantee she find satrats who can do that!”

“THEN SEE THAT YOU DO, COMB THE SATELLITES FOR THEM. AND WATCH OUT FOR GLYNN FOR ME.”

An indignant sniff followed by a tragic pose worthy of a Stanislaus. “I been doing that alla time. Tough job! Wear you to skin and bone or, worse, carve skin from bone!” A thin black hand whick-whacked the air.

For a moment genuine sorrow overwhelmed Jere—to never see the woman Panthat would become in a few short years. “BE THERE FOR HIM, DON’T JUST PROTECT HIM FROM PHYSICAL HARM. GOOD-BYE, PANNY, I LOVE YOU.”

With reluctant dignity Panny stood, lower lip out-thrust, brows drawn, only to suddenly skip forward, again out of Jere’s line of sight. Heard—though she couldn’t see or feel—a kissing smack on her box. “Wherever you going now, share that with Ruby if you meet him. Panny too late before.”

A glow, a warmth from that unexpected kiss seeped through wood and stainless steel to lodge inside her. Silly, autosuggestion at best. That long-ago playwright James Barrie would understand. Ah, mention that to Masady! Do Magyar one better, compete for their children’s audience! Satrats as Lost Boys. Panthat as Panny Pan. No more time to think it through, for now Chance hobbled inside.

Only Chance has an inkling of what it’s like to be trapped, snared like this, though at least his cage was larger than mine. I loved him once, still do. A less complicated love than Rhuven, but a longer-lasting one.

Hunched forward in the chair, massive forearms resting on his knees, Chance stared moodily at the carpet, tracing the circuit pattern made by knotted vines and flowers. “Mirror satisfactory? Need it moved, can get someone…” He attempted to heave himself upright, but his leg wouldn’t cooperate. “Damn! Hurts like a son of a gun!” He twisted, resignedly resettled himself, still keeping his face averted. “Jere, I’m sorry. Said it before, have to say it again. Shouldn’t have boxed you. Should’ve known better, trusted my instincts.” His hands shook. “I was so panicked, so scared for Glynn, thinking he’d lose his mind with grief.”

“THE BLUNDERBUSS WAS HIGHLY PERSUASIVE, ACCORDING TO GLYNN.”

His reluctant chuckle transformed itself into a rolling belly laugh. “You’ve got that right! Staring down that barrel? Phew, like being swallowed in a dark hole.” An incredulous headshake. “Should have been, then none of this would ever have happened!” He faced her now, tears silvering his broad, cocoa-tinted cheeks. “Turned into a damned coward!”

‘CHANCE, NO. THE PAST IS PAST, DON’T LET IT HAUNT YOU. BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT. WILL YOU FLY WITH THE SPACERS NOW, STRAP ON YOUR TOOL BELT AND REPAIR THE STARS? ANY SHIP THAT SIGNS ON MR. FIX-IT CAN REST EASY.”

A long pause, his green eyes distant, staring beyond her. To the stars—or something nearer, dearer? “Don’t think so. That was someone else, Tinker II Evers II Chance. I’m just Chance now, and that suits me fine.” Amazing how a man of his bulk could almost wilt with shyness. “Kinda’d like to stay with the troupe. I can’t fill bet Rigoberto’s shoes, but beta Masady will need help—if she decides to continue.”

“I THINK SHE COULD BE CONVINCED. ASK PANTHAT. CHANCE, I LOVE YOU. THANK YOU.”

Prepared this time, he shifted his weight to his unwounded leg and levered himself up. “As I’ve always loved you.” His massive hand reached toward her left auricular scan, a tender, finicky caress as if tucking something in place, the way he’d always tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I won’t forget.”

A weariness to all this, the hungry drag of emotions, but soon she’d be shed of them. Thus, treasure them, remember they affirm your humanity, the unflagging resilience of the human spirit. Do I treasure them enough to make me stay, tell Glynn I was wrong? No, I embrace my humanity, yet am composing, conducting my own elegy—in five-part harmony! No, not elegy, my legacy! Not just the latticed chain of my DNA, but of my thoughts, my dreams and hopes, all my futures, all their futures and beyond, part of an infinitely larger, twisting coil!

Unaware her excitement transformed her final thought into flashing, triumphant blue, “PART OF AN INFINITELY LARGER, TWISTING COIL!” Jere realized with a pang that Anyssa stood half-shielded behind the chair, barricaded and ready to bolt in retreat. “AH, CHILD. ANYSSA, HAVE YOU FOUND FULFILLMENT YET?”

She had meant no irony, no sarcasm, but from Anyssa’s recoil, Jere suspected Anyssa had projected them into the question. Still, the girl was a fighter—of many sorts. “No. But I’m a few steps closer.” A deep breath as she stepped forward until she stood beside the chair, body taut. “I ask forgiveness. For me, for what Vitarosa and Rhuven did to you, for what NetwArk tried to do to you.” She raised her chin, not with defiance but with dogged acceptance, waiting to receive a blow. “Name your penance.”

“SACKCLOTH AND ASHES? NO. CARE ABOUT GLYNN FOR ME.”

“How? He hates me,” and rushed on, “not that I blame him.”

“YOU NEED EACH OTHER, YOU’RE FAMILY. LET HIM LEARN ABOUT THE OTHER HALF OF HIM, THE GOOD THINGS. HOW IS UP TO YOU.”

“But he has every reason to hate, and I…. There’s so much to do. NetwArk, I need to save NetwArk, not let it wither….” Hands sketched deft sculpting motions, imaginary buildings taking shape, definition.

“YES, FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, NETWARK IS YOURS. DISBAND IT, REBUILD IT, RESHAPE IT. WE ALL NEED FAITH, SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN, A HIGHER GOAL TO REACH FOR. SO DOES GLYNN. USE YOUR BRAIN, ANYSSA, GIVE YOURSELF AND GLYNN A SPECIAL GIFT.”

Still dubious, “A gift? I don’t know.” A deep breath, “But I can try to find one worthy.” Her mouth quirked, a dimple flashing, so like Rhuven. “Perhaps there’s a mountain you’d like moved instead? I’m good with a shovel, diligent, too.”

“NO, TOO EASY, ANYSSA. IT’S EASIER TO MOVE MOUNTAINS THAN PEOPLE. YOUR FATHER KNEW HOW TO MOTIVATE PEOPLE, HELP THEM UNCOVER THE GOODNESS WITHIN THEM. YOU’LL LEARN AS WELL. TAKE CARE OF RHUVEN FOR ME.”

“Oh, I will, I shall. And I’ll honor my promise about Glynn, somehow. Go well, Jere—and God bless you.” A new purpose informed her stride as she left.

Ah, ah, one more left undone. The hardest last, short of Glynn. No, perhaps hardest of all, for the years shared together. Does Masady grieve as I would grieve if Glynn had to die? No tears, I have no tears to shed. I cannot weep, I cannot wail, I cannot hold her close. Is what’s left enough for a true farewell?

“Girl, Jere-girl, are you there? I’ve been talking to you, at you, but you’re not answering.” Beta Masady knelt stiffly in front of the table, a frail hand on either side of Jere’s box. “Don’t have gone yet, Jere, please, not without…not without saying…” Tears coursed down her ancient face, the ivory skin, landing on and spotting the yellow silk blouse with its high collar, the silk woven Earth-side so long ago.

“MASADY, DEAR HEART, DEAREST ONE!”

“Ought to box your ears, child! Always were a troublesome handful! Frightening me half to death like that!” Masady eased onto her heels, heedlessly wiped her eyes with the silk sleeve. “Oh, Jere!”

“SORRY. HOW ABOUT TWENTY REPETITIONS OF ‘GOLDEN PHEASANT IN THE CORNFIELD’?” Anyssa had asked for a penance; so could she.

A wondering smile, tremulous and sweet with a youthfulness that erased the years. “You hate ‘Golden Pheasant Attracts a Mate’ even more. Don’t try to weasel out of it, child! Can’t fool me!” Her wail caught Jere by surprise, the abrupt keening sound welling from the depths of Masady’s soul. “Jere, don’t leave us, please! Don’t leave me. Without you, there’s nothing left! You’re all I have now, you and Glynn! Don’t tear another piece of my past from me until there’s nothing left!” Her fists pounded the table, and Jere heard their echoing thuds, so regular, so like Masady’s heartbeat when she’d gathered Jere close to her breast.

“I drove you from Stanislaus once, yet you returned. Don’t abandon me again…everything’s crumbling around me!”

“DEAREST, MY MAMA MASADY, THERE’S ALWAYS A FUTURE.”

“I’m too old to have a future, and my past is dying, dead!”

Please, old woman, don’t be so obdurate, so bloody stubborn! If I can face a new world, so must you. “TAKE THE BEST OF THE PAST, THE OLD WAYS, PROJECT THEM FORWARD AND FOLLOW AFTER. CREATE A NEW STANISLAUS—IN HONOR OF ME, IN HONOR OF YOU. YOU’LL HAVE HELP, MORE THAN YOU EVER DREAMED.”

“What?” Masady’s scorn rang clear, dismissive. “A ragtag of actors who’ve dropped out of other troupes, couldn’t make the cut?”

“WHAT DID STANISLAUS AND SIEM VY BUILD FROM? A RAGTAG GROUP OF YOUNG AND OLD, SOME KIN, SOME NOT, TALENTED AND UNTALENTED. BUT ALL WHOM THEY HELD DEAR.”

Faded tatters of hope began to reknit themselves as Masady frowned, calculating. “Any other surprises you’ve not mentioned?”

Date: Evening, 31 August 2158
Location: A walk around NetwArk’s grounds

Restless, Glynn prowled the hallway outside their suite, staring out first one window, then the next and the next. Earlier he’d been transfixed by the sunset, almost giddy as vermilion and shocking pinks with golden underbellies muted to mauves, finally darker purples, a backdrop to a molten copper-red disk sinking lower and lower. The gaudy confluence of colors outstripped by far the orchestrated, mechanized sunsets each satellite offered. Now stars popped out one by one; haunting memories with each distant glow. After all, within this dark dome each pinprick of light could be a familiar star, a planet, a satellite, a distant space shuttle….

His emotions ebbed and flowed, a high tide of riotous joy at life, living, stunned amazement at surviving, and always, clenched tight within, tomorrow’s low tide when he’d allow Jere’s life to ebb away. A hand brushed his shoulder and he whirled defensively, gasping, the long months of fear, heightened alertness impossible to set aside. “Anyssa!” His voice rose a strangled octave, made him slap fist against palm in chagrin.

“Shh. Come walk with me? Outside?” she whispered. “Please?” Suspicious query plain in the tilt of his head, Anyssa waited, patient, humble, for his distrust to fade—if it would ever completely abate. “I need some fresh air. You, too.”

A half-bow and a sweeping arm indicated she should lead the way. Tossing a navy woolen shirt to him, she cautioned, “Cooler out under the stars. You’ll need it.” She wore a similar one over denim trousers and a cotton smock. Assured he’d follow, she led, confident, along darkened halls, hung with portraits in oil, photographs, and holopics, ghost-reflections of their passage in the glass. Down stairs, her hand light on the railing, the caress of its worn smoothness. The murmurs of an old building settling for the night, full of regret and relief, aware its life would alter on the morrow, but perhaps she was being fanciful.

Outside he moved nearer, still behind her but with his shoulder practically touching hers. Darker here as well, trees and shrubs shading paths, especially the secluded ones she instinctively sought. Odd to hear him stumble on occasion, his feet scuffling, testing their way, but then he trod her territory, not his. Through the market-garden plantings, following rows tamped by many passing feet, tender plantings skirting their legs. Now onto rolling land, not hilly, precisely, but hummocky.

Just over the top of one rise Glynn tripped, fell full-length and lay there, head buried in his folded arms. “All right?” she dropped to one knee, a restraining hand on his back at the waist.

He lifted his head, face white against his dark wool sleeves, the dark hill. “Uh-huh. Counting stars, forgot where my feet were.”

“Good.” With a spring she leaped over him, stretched on her back beside him. “Now here’s what you do when you fall. Watch.” She began rolling down the hill, heels, shoulders digging in to propel her until momentum took over. A quick uphill glance revealed Glynn beginning an inexpert roll. From the bottom she watched him tumbling after her, braid whipping, his face intent yet split by a demonic grin. Wary, she sprang to her feet, too late as he crashed into her, sweeping her legs out from under her and sending her flying. “I take it,” she picked herself up, dusted herself off with wounded dignity, “you don’t know how to stop?”

A wordless, apologetic headshake, his face studiously neutral. And the sensation his clenched jaw restrained a chain of giggles. Abruptly she hiked away, muttering a brusque “Come on” at him. Too adult for that silly moment of play, she counseled herself, too much at stake, too much to decide.

Up a rise to the dinosauric shape of the oil rig as the moon cleared a cloud, gilding it silver as it bobbed and bent, flexed, protesting squeaks echoing with metronomic regularity. Watched him retreat, stare up at it, arrested by its angular bend and rise.

Now or never, best now, while he scrutinized it, not her. “I’m sorry. Sorry about everything.” No matter how genuine, each word raw-scrubbed her throat. “I’ve been wrong about so many things, done wrong. I am not an extension of my parents, we’re all separate beings, capable of our own unique good and evil. I repudiate the evil within me, hope that you may believe there’s goodness within.” Her apology as awkwardly stiff as her stance, she suspected how false, how fabricated it all sounded.

Fisting his hands inside the shirt’s side pockets, Glynn scuffed his shoe, drew lines with the toe. So very, very tired, mentally, emotionally, physically. “It’s hard,” he ventured, shivering under the cool night-dome of stars, the moon, so much smaller here. “I’m only,” he kicked at a pebble, heard it “spang” off the oil rig, “beginning to come to terms with everything myself.” He forced himself to meet her eyes, gauge her reaction. “Would you truly have killed Jere? Me?” They stood in this vast openness, so why not get everything out into the open?

Her head snapped back as if he’d struck her, and he had—verbally. A stiff nod of acknowledgment, “Yes. At first, yes, at the beginning. I thought that killing you, killing Jere would erase some of my anger.” Her hand sought the side of the rusty rig, pounded it, felt it snag and score her knuckles. “I was so jealous of you, afraid that if Father knew you existed he’d choose you over me. It happened to Mother like that and oh, how she harped about past injustices. And then somehow I came to envy you and Jere, your relationship, the whole—oh, I don’t know,” her bruised knuckles sought her mouth as she groped to explain, “I guess—connectedness of Stanislaus, a family solidarity that always eluded me, us.” She waited, but he made no comment, just stood, chewing his lip, deep in thought. “By the way, I plan to make it right as I can with Tierney Troupe about Annie Marie Doulan.”

He took a condemnatory step closer, gray eyes hard but so silver-bright in the moonlight. “You can never make it completely right. You took another human being’s life.” No matter how often she’d berated herself for that act, his flat, matter-of-fact censure pierced her. “Would you really have killed Vitarosa?”

Wounded, heartsick, she hunkered against the rig’s bulk, hid her face in her hands. Answer, say the truth. Glynn deserved it; she deserved whatever it revealed about her. “I think so.” She looked up at him, “Every life, even a flawed life, is precious in God’s sight. But there were so many other lives in the balance. If you discovered a beloved animal with a creeping, incurable disease that will infect and kill hundreds of others, should you risk letting it live…?” It struck her then, his question’s dual purpose, his true need for asking. How could she have been so blind? “Can you let Jere go tomorrow morning?” An absurd euphemism, “let her go,” not “kill,” though the end result was the same. “Oh, Glynn!”

He spun away, refusing or unable to face compassion, his absurd narrow braid lashing out, flagellating him. “I promised. I’m strong enough now to see her as she is, how it must drive home her mutilation to be caged like that. But it’s not as simple as opening her cage door and setting her free!”

Silence—a deserved one given the dilemma, the strong emotions involved—though hardly a tranquil one. At length he edged near, sat by her, their shoulders touching. His body warmth felt good; her thoughts more chilling than the night air. “Then what will you do? Afterward, I mean.” She tried in vain to deduce his plans from his expression, looked away, feeling like a voyeur spying on his private anguish.

“Don’t know. I think about tomorrow, but then my mind balks,” he slumped. “Can’t think any farther ahead, can’t think beyond my promise to Jere, afraid that I’ll fail, compromise her again.”

Sagging against him comfortingly, she murmured, “Well, I’ve a proposition for you.” He stiffened, jerked clear so hurriedly she almost fell backward. What had gotten into him? A flash of insight, unbidden, and she cursed her innocent stupidity, because she’d experienced the attraction herself, had fought to conquer it. That temptation was dead now, burned away by circumstances, by blood. Half brother, half sister only a small part of it.

She still loved him, but differently now, the burning refining that love into something more enduring. “Not that kind, you, you…” she desperately searched for a word, snatched at Artur’s most current derogatory expression, “you divot-brain!” A burst of startled laughter erupted from Glynn, and she joined in, the expansive silliness healing some minor hurts to the soul.

“No, Glynn, seriously.” A light punch to his shoulder to bring him back, force him to pay sober attention. “Stay here, help me. Help NetwArk spread its true message of hope and faith. I can’t heal like Father, but perhaps I can help cure NetwArk, give its believers continued hope.” She rushed on, excited now, “With your training, with your dramatic techniques, just think! You could act out Bible scenes. Now there’s truth and wisdom that has survived through the ages, messages of hope that can sustain others!”

“From what I gather, doesn’t the Bible include a number of families with problems? Just like Shakespeare, Sophocles?” He reached to encircle her wrist with his hand, link them together. “I’d like to stay, learn more about your message. Learn more about Father, about Artur, Algore.”

“Then will you?” Too easy, hoping against hope. It can’t be this simple. Oh, Lord, let it be—even though I don’t deserve it.

The grip on her wrist disappeared and he rose in one swift move, irrevocably sundering them. “I don’t think I can. I have to return to Waggoner’s Ring, to Stanislaus. Beta Masady, the others, they need me.”

Annoyed despite herself, she leaped to her feet, clutched at deep folds of Glynn’s shirt, turning him to face her, make him see. “How can you make Stanislaus rise from the ashes like the Phoenix? There’s so little left of it. You know, you know that, don’t you?” Hammering at his shoulder now, willing him to admit the truth. “The years of training needed! Anything you can do will just prolong Stanislaus’ agony, a pale imitation of itself! Some things have to die to let other dreams be born!” Oh! Oh, Lord, she’d done it again! Hadn’t intended it that way, not like that! Yammering fool with a mouth racing faster than its brain!

“So, I should let Stanislaus wither, let it die just as surely as I’ll kill Jere tomorrow?” His clenched fist hovered near her chin, and she feared this time he truly would strike her, couldn’t blame him as she braced herself. Instead, one finger after the other unfolded, snapped out as he relentlessly ticked them off. “And kill beta Masady, Majvor, Vijay, Hassiba, Jasper?” A final handshake, “and Jeremy—perhaps, what?—a year younger than Artur? If Stanislaus dies, their hopes, their dreams die, too, forcing them to concede their craft was worthless in the end.”

Desperate, she churned her muddled thoughts for an idea to save him, to rescue her from her bluntness, her blatant need grinding his own needs into the dust of NetwArk. Use your brain, Jere had admonished her this morning. Use it! “Leave it alone. Let it evolve, Glynn. Grow into something else before it becomes extinct.”

“Evolve into what?”

“I don’t know, but think hard, break out of bounds! Think about old lives and new lives. That one doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of the other. Don’t be too proud to ask questions, confront old assumptions. Stanislaus already did when you took Jere’s place. Maybe you already hold the key, the answer that unlocks the past. Maybe beta Masady does, or Chance or Panthat. Challenge them, challenge yourself!”

“I’ll think about it. That much I promise. But I’m not making any decisions yet.” The stars wheeled overhead, not pretend stars, but real ones. Could he live with the blue of the sky as a constant, a given? Such vastness, nothing to constrain him, hold him back—but was that liberation? This world was larger, more imposing, more magnificent than anything he’d ever dreamed of, broad enough to encompass every thought, every emotion, every endeavor he might essay. Did he dare?

Date: Morning, 1 September 2158
Location: A hilltop at NetwArk

He sat at the crest of a low knoll, arms loosely wrapped around knees, watching the figures grow smaller in the distance. One, Panthat, turned and gave a final wave. No, not so much a wave as a salute, arm upthrust and rigid, the thin black arm with its white bandage around the biceps. Did she point toward Waggoner’s Ring, toward Rhuven’s heaven—where?

The farewells were done, not his but theirs, Masady and Chance, Panthat and Ngina, and Anyssa. The lid of Jere’s box glistened in the morning sun, its gleaming wood warm to his touch. Flopping, he pillowed one hand behind his head, the other still resting on the box and stared skyward. Blue, so very blue, arching over all as if it would always hold him in its sight. Twisting to face Jere, he asked, “It’s so like your eyes, but it’s not quite right. We weren’t here that time, were we? Someplace else?”

“YOU REMEMBER THAT? YOU WERE SO LITTLE THEN.” Grass the color of emerald rippled, a breeze loaded with unfamiliar sea scents caressed the box. “YOU’RE RIGHT. WE WERE IN THE CAN-MONTAN TERRITORIES—ACROSS THE CONTINENT. THAT WAS WHERE I LEFT HIM…AFTER THE RETREAT.”

“Mmm.” Sleepily he watched an ant crawl up a blade of grass, consider exploring the plateau of Jere’s box. With a roll he flipped on his stomach, fist supporting chin. “Do you think Anyssa will be all right?”

“I’VE ASKED HER, YOU’VE ASKED HER. NOW IT’S UP TO HER.”

He had, but he wasn’t sure he understood her, though he was coming closer.

“THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR FAITH. EVEN FAITH HEALING AND THE HEALING OF FAITH. WE’VE YET TO EXPLORE ALL THE MYSTERIES OF THE MIND, STILL CAN’T CHART IT LIKE THE DIMENSIONS OF EARTH, THE DISTANCES OF SPACE.”

Despite himself he smiled, reminiscing. “Didn’t you tell me once that long, long ago the early mapmakers used to write ‘Here be dragons,’ at the edges of their maps when they didn’t know what came next?”

“UMMHMM,” and the silence between them lengthened, wordless and companionable, a final hiatus. At length Glynn sat, bowed his head into his hands, then tossed it back.

“Ready?” He had to ask it, make sure.

“YES. I LOVE YOU.”

Reaching for the dials he began to shut the system down.

Date: All time and no time
Location: Inside Jere’s brain

Neurons. Clicking, ticking, spasming, connecting. Bright flickers trying, dying, the absence of nutrient, slow-seeping away, oxygenation exhausted. Synaptic connections spanning all directions, flickering, reaching for contact points. Reaching…reaching…to explore new and alien connections…everything…nothing…crashing…soaring…bonding….

“I AM ETERNAL, BUT WHO AM I—JERE, GLYNN, YOU, ME? SOME OF THESE PATTERNS WILL PASS ON…SAME…NOT SAME…SAME…PASSAGE…OTHERS…OURS…THEIRS…ME…YOU….

Date: Now and forever
Location: A hilltop, a universe

He froze, incredulous, scrubbed at his tears, not daring to tear his eyes off the box. Everything had stopped, the LCD had faded long minutes ago. No reason it should light up again, no reason, and no way it could. Impossible—there was no stored power, he’d bled everything down, disconnected the backup solar batteries before they’d come outside. He was no Chance, with the ability to tinker, to fix—and most of all, had promised faithfully that he wouldn’t. But there it was—the letters a blue so faint he had to squint to make them out.

“OUR OWN UNIVERSE WITHIN OUR MINDS…PART…WHOLE…SAME…NOT SAME. DOES IT REALLY MATTER? WE ARE ONE AND MAKE OUR OWN UNIVERSES, YOURS IN MINE, MINE IN YOURS. ALWAYS A PART OF EACH OTHER. A UNIVERSE UNLIMITED IN THE MIND. DO I DARE DISTURB THE UNIVERSE? YES…OH, YES…YES! ALWAYS DARE, GLYNN, ALWAYS DARE!”

No way he could halt his racking sobs, but they didn’t matter because he felt oddly joyous. So, she would always be a part of him. There on Waggoner’s Ring, or here at NetwArk, and he knew with certainty for the first time that he would stay here. At least for a little while. Then, who knew? Well, he probably did, deep inside. And Jere knew as well. Would always know, just as he’d always know she loved him. Separate but indivisible.