3

Polyaggle, the Burden of Guilt
and the Yellow Brick Road

"Wake up, Leonie," said Pinocchio, shaking her shoulder gently. She looked at him for a moment as if she didn't know who he was, then brought her eyes into focus. She brought the bot to her bed occasionally for reasons of genuine affection or sheer loneliness or just sexual need. Last night she had brought him to her bed for reasons of misery.

Spindrift was dead, and almost every member of its native species along with it. She felt responsible. No matter that Polyaggle might be able to resurrect the Spindrifters as a species, Strider still felt culpable of a sort of inadvertent genocide. Pinocchio had spent long hours trying to talk her out of it, but there was a darkness in her soul that he couldn't reach. All the time, largely through Strider, he was learning more about human beings and, he believed, himself becoming more like them, but this was something he couldn't understand. She had made no mistakes and had committed no sins, yet she was racked by guilt. It was a mystery to him.

"Wake up," he repeated. "There is someone who wishes to speak with you.

Leaning over her, he saw her eyes moisten as a voice spoke inside both of their minds.

WE'RE BACK, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free. AT LEAST, THREE OF US ARE. NIGHTMIRROR HAS BECOME, FOR THE WHILE, PART OF SOMETHING ELSE.

Pinocchio could see Strider struggling to find something to say. She'd spent the past couple of days assuming that the Images were lost to them. The Santa Maria had been flitting around The Wondervale with no fixed purpose—which was probably the best way of keeping clear of the Autarchy's forces in the short term but spelt doom in the long. Pinocchio had done his best to stand in for the dead Main Computer when required, but he was no proper replacement for the Images. The Santa Maria was currently in orbit around the sterile inner planet of a red dwarf star. With luck, any Autarchy scan of the region would assume the starship was a tiny moon. It had been the best temporary stratagem Strider and Pinocchio had been able to think up between them. But it could never be more than that: temporary.

"Are you injured?" said Strider at last.

NO, ALTHOUGH WE FEEL THE LOSS OF NIGHTMIRROR MOST GRIEVOUSLY. HE WAS OUR FRIEND. NIGHTMIRROR WILL BE OUR FRIEND AGAIN, ONCE HE FINISHES WHAT HE HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH.

"He will live?" said Strider anxiously. She sat up on her bed, looking around the main room of her cabin as if she might be able to see the Image directly.

WE HAVE NO REASON TO EXPECT OTHERWISE, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free, BUT IT IS A SADNESS TO US THAT HE WILL BE ALONE FOR A LONG TIME UNTIL HE CAN DO WHAT HE WANTS TO DO.

"What is that? What is it he's trying to do?" Strider was making her way to the shower.

WE DON'T KNOW. HE WAS EQUIVOCAL WHEN HE SAID HIS FAREWELL TO US.

"Polyaggle's Image—is he, or she, prepared to work with us?" said Strider as the pelt of lukewarm water began to massage away the despondencies of what had been a very long night.

OF COURSE. AS ARE THE OTHER SPINDRIFTER IMAGES.

"Others?"

THERE WERE SEVENTEEN IMAGES ON SPINDRIFT WHEN IT WAS DESTROYED. TWO HAVE CHOSEN TO RETURN TO OUR HOME UNIVERSE, BUT THE REMAINDER HAVE DECIDED TO STAY HERE AND TO HELP IN ANY WAY THEY CAN THE EXTINCTION OF THE AUTARCHY. THE IMAGES WERE VERY FOND OF THE SPINDRIFTERS. HEARTFIRE, MYSELF AND THE IMAGE CALLED ANGLER HAVE RETURNED TO THIS STARSHIP. THE OTHERS ARE ELSEWHERE IN THE WONDERVALE, PREPARED TO WORK NOT SO MUCH AGAINST THE AUTARCHY, ALTHOUGH OBVIOUSLY THAT COMES FIRST, AS AGAINST THE REGIME OF KAANTALECH.

Strider arched her back, feeling the water beat against her belly. "Kaantalech?"

SHE WILL BE THE NEW AUTARCH.

Ten Per Cent Extra Free seemed unwilling to say anything more.

Pinocchio, standing watching Strider as she showered in the water that was clearly so very luxurious to her, wished he could feel genuine lust for her. Real people would have wanted to pick her out of the spray and carry her back to her bed. At the moment he was wishing he could find some tactful way of saying that he wanted to get to the command deck as soon as possible so that he could start once again gaining direct data from the Images by interfacing with them through the Pockets.

He was uncertain as to what he should do. She obviously wanted him there with her. His duty was to start working with the Images as soon as possible. His prime directive was now to do whatever Strider wanted him to do. At heart she probably wanted him to do whatever was in the best interests of the Santa Maria, but all he could interpret from her was that she wished him to be beside her.

He made up his mind.

"I think I should go up on deck," he said.

"Go, then," she replied, washing her face. "I'll join you there soon."

As Pinocchio ascended in the elevator he thought about what had just happened. He had been guessing too hard about Strider's wishes. She had treated him, once he had made his diffident suggestion, as if he were a human being with a human being's full complement of free will, of independence of thought. Even Strauss-Giolitto was now dealing with him as if he were a human.

Yet he didn't feel like a human. There were directives built into his software that forbade him true freedom of thought.

He wasn't certain he liked the position in which he found himself. In a strange way that was rather cheering, because not liking things was a human attribute, was it not?

#

Lan Yi was glad that the Images had returned, because it meant that Geena had returned as well. No one else on the Santa Maria knew that Geena was here. Her presence was a secret between him and the Images.

Once upon a time Lan Yi, then working in Algeria, had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics or Chemistry. He had been delighted by the honor, but less so by the gift of two billion dollars in cash: he and Geena were living in the lap of luxury by comparison with the people around them, and so after only a brief debate they had chosen to give the money to charities dedicated to alleviating inner-city suffering. This had not gone down well with the Algerian government, which was going through a phase of declaring that even the poor were happy that the rich were rich. Lan Yi's post at the Institut Chemique d'Algiers had curiously vanished overnight: he was offered a sinecure at a reduced salary, and naturally refused—it would be easy enough for him to find somewhere else in the world to work. But the politicians were truly vindictive: he had never discovered what particular piece of corruption it was that he was supposed to have committed, but the stigma was enough that no scientific establishment would touch him with a bargepole. Except, as he discovered much later, the SSIA, who welcomed him with open arms once he chose to apply.

By that time he was living in poverty in Algiers, deserted by his former friends, surviving on the scraps given to him by kind-hearted shopkeepers. His home was a plastic dustbin which he had stolen in one of the wealthier suburbs: the theft was the only criminal act he was aware of having committed during his life. His and Geena's beautiful white-stone house on the outskirts of Algiers had been possessed by the government on the grounds of non-payment of taxes—a trumped-up charge, but one that was impossible to contest.

By the time he was living as a modern-day Diogenes in a dustbin in the alleys of Algiers, Geena was long dead. Taller than him by half a meter, she had been twenty-two and he ninety-seven when they had married. They had rejoiced in the many differences between them: the contrasts in their builds, their heights, their skin colors, their ages, their skills—she had been a cellist. Sometimes they would stand together half an hour or more in front of the mirror, naked, talking quietly and admiring the comparisons between them.

Persecution by the Algerian government had affected her more harshly than it had him. He had known hunger during his youth; she never had. She could have gone back to her own parents, who were wealthy residents of the southernmost tip of Spain, but she had too much pride for that. Instead, one day when he was out looking for a job as a shelf stacker or a puter noik or a frankly-anything-so-long-as-it-pays, she cut a length from someone's laundry line (she was very well aware of the cost of cello strings, and wouldn't have wasted one), tied in it an exceptionally neat noose, and succeeded in the very difficult task of strangling herself using the ligature. By this time they were living in a one-room apartment; Lan Yi would never forget the sight that greeted him when he returned wearily at the end of the day—Geena, blue-faced, leaning outward on her knees towards the front door. That she had killed herself was bad enough; that she had chosen to do so in such a personally demonstrative and painful way was a sign that she had grown to hate him.

Many people would never have forgiven her. Instead Lan Yi chose never to forgive himself.

But the Images had brought Geena back to him. To be sure, he hardly ever saw her, but often he was aware of her presence. Sometimes she apologized to him for what she had done and sometimes she berated him for his foolishness in reducing them to the penury that had made her so miserable that death seemed the only way out, but most of the time she was just there, which was all he wanted. Often he woke to feel her breath softly against his neck, her body spooned around his. Sometimes, when there was nobody nearby to overhear, he held long conversations with her; he was constantly astonished by the wisdom of her advice.

At other times he wondered about the status of the Geena with whom he conversed. He knew that she had been conjured back into existence by the Images—but did that make her presence any the less real? Was it the real Geena who had been spun back from the groves of death, or had the Images plucked from his memories a perceived version of Geena? Logic dictated that the latter was the case; experience suggested the former.

FORGET ME, said a voice that was either Geena's or Ten Per Cent Extra Free's.

"I can't," said Lan Yi, addressing the wall of his cabin. Tears were flowing down his face.

THERE ARE SIX WOMEN ABOARD THIS SHIP WHO WOULD LIKE AN EXCUSE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU. YOU'RE A FASCINATING ANACHRONISM: YOU WERE MARRIED ONCE.

"I don't want to be anybody's curio."

Lan Yi thought for a moment longer. It had been a hell of a long time since he'd held someone in his arms. The sex part of sleeping together had never seemed as important to him as the stroking and being stroked: he could still feel the velvet of Geena's shoulderblades beneath his fingertips.

"All right." He sputtered with laughter. "Just every now and then I don't mind being a curio."

Geena spoke directly into his mind. YOU'LL BE MY CURIO TONIGHT.

#

"What I want to do," said Strider to Pinocchio, "is to kick the shit so far out of the Autarchy that it reaches orbital velocity. Then I want us to get home."

"The Spindrifters gave me very considerable information as to how we might get back to the Solar System," said Pinocchio. "I have yet to download this. They did not, however, give me enough. Perhaps others of the ancient species might . . ."

They were alone on the command deck except for Polyaggle, who had chosen to stay there seemingly in perpetuity. Strider had ordered O'Sondheim, Leander and Nelson to go and get some rest; she didn't feel she could issue any orders to Polyaggle, whose species would still be alive were it not for the arrival of the Santa Maria.

"What're you waiting for?" said Strider. "Though I don't know how much I like the idea of visiting other neutral species. Look what happened to the last one."

She had momentarily forgotten Polyaggle's presence. She bit her lip and wished she could take back the last few words.

"It is possible," said the Spindrifter, "that not all of those species may remain neutral now that they have seen what the Autarchy has done to our people." It was always hard to tell when listening to an alien voice through the medium of the Images, but there didn't seem to be a hint of grief in Polyaggle's words, nor even any desire for vengeance. All she seemed to be concerned about was the preservation of the ancient species, so that one day they could resume the arcadia they had enjoyed before the rise of the secondary peoples. Strider realized that Polyaggle would probably watch the demise of the Humans with complete detachment. Were the other ancient species the same? Was it a product of the Spindrifters' incredible age, as a people, that she could be so dispassionate? Her species must have seen others arrive on the galactic scene and then live out their cycle until eventual extinction. It was important that Strider kept it in mind that the aliens—all aliens—thought differently from the Humans. Otherwise there could be a foolish disaster ahead.

"Which of them do you think are the most likely to want to help us?" she said.

Polyaggle touched her claws together. "Once the bot has downloaded our information I will investigate the remains of your Main Computer to see what can be restored. At that point I will give you my assessment. In the shorter term, Captain Strider, I suggest you would be better advised to establish contact with some of the rebel species."

"Easier said than done," remarked Strider. "We don't have a holophone directory to The Wondervale."

Polyaggle closed her eyes. Concentration emanated from her like something tangible. Strider watched her, fascinated. For a moment she felt something of the same attraction that she knew Strauss-Giolitto did. Both Nelson and O'Sondheim had reacted to the Spindrifter in the same way. The alien was beautiful: it was not surprising that human beings perceived her as erotic, despite her strangeness.

The Spindrifter opened her eyes again. "I have been consulting with the Images," she said. "I have asked them to make some contacts for you. I would pay attention to your communications Pockets if I were you, Captain Strider."

Yet again Strider wondered who was in charge of her ship. First the Images and now Polyaggle were taking command decisions for her.

"Don't I have any say in this?"

Strider felt a wave of astonishment from the alien.

"Of course not," said Polyaggle. "I know what I am doing. You cannot—you have not lived all your life in The Wondervale, as I have."

Strider drew a deep breath.

"But I am the captain of this ship," she said, "and you are merely a guest. I don't know how you Spindrifters work out—worked out—such things, but we Humans operate on the principle that there's someone who's in charge." She tried to submerge her anger. "While you're aboard the Santa Maria I'd be grateful if you could operate according to Human protocols, not your own."

Polyaggle looked to Pinocchio. "Captain Strider is right," he said.

"This seems very foolish," remarked the alien. "Surely everyone should do what is right, without having to be instructed."

"It's not the way we Humans work," said Strider. "We cooperate with each other to achieve our best results. And someone has to oversee the cooperation. In this instance it's me. If you have any bright ideas about what we should do, tell me about them so that I can consider them. If I make the wrong decision, shout at me until I make the right one. But don't just go ahead and make decisions on my behalf without asking me first."

"Your point is understood," said Polyaggle swiftly—rather too swiftly, Strider decided. "I will not commit such a discourtesy again. I have much to learn about your mores."

And that, thought Strider, sounded like just about the most unconvincing climb-down I've ever heard.

"Your apology is accepted," she said formally. She turned her attention back to the Pocket in front of her. The Santa Maria continued to orbit the lifeless planet. There was no sign of any alien spacecraft in the vicinity, although Strider didn't know how she would be able to identify it if there were any. Using the tachyon drive, a hostile starship could be right beside the Santa Maria without any warning at all. She hoped that the Autarchy had decided the Humans were unimportant—that was the only explanation she could think of for why they had been allowed to flee from Spindrift's moon and why they had been thereafter unmolested.

"I wish to examine your Main Computer," said Polyaggle.

Pinocchio had finished downloading. "Feel free," said Strider, concentrating on the Pocket.

She looked up just in time to see Polyaggle disintegrating into thousands—hundreds of thousands—of disparate parts. The pieces flew with a speed that baffled the eye to form a thin film all over the walls of the command deck: only the floor and the view-window were left uncovered. Then the fragments melted into the walls, so that it was as if Polyaggle had never been.

"Good trick if you can do it," said Strider to Pinocchio with a shrug. She seemed to have lost the capacity for surprise—too many things had been happening, and too fast. Had Polyaggle proved capable of turning nearby stars into supernovae Strider might have raised an eyebrow. As it was, she just assumed the Spindrifter was some kind of colonial organism, and turned back to her task.

"I cannot," said Pinocchio, taking the remark literally. "Can you?"

#

Kaantalech had of course expected the Humans to run for cover, but also that she would be able to keep an eye on them. Instead it seemed that they had disappeared entirely from the face of The Wondervale. Perhaps they had gone home to wherever it was they had come from—or perhaps, after all, they'd gone on to their mysterious extra-galactic destination, Tau Ceti II. That wouldn't be a complete disaster, but it certainly wouldn't be as good as it could be. She wanted the Humans: more precisely, she wanted that technology.

The destruction of Spindrift had been very satisfying. The extirpation of the Spindrifters meant that there was one less species to attempt to counter her efforts once she had assumed the Autarchy. More to the point was the almost orgasmic joy she had experienced on sensing all those lives being extinguished. Even if the act had been unnecessary, it would have been worth it for those few moments.

"Find them!" she snapped at an aide, knowing even as she gave the order that it was worthless. The Humans had somehow managed to skip off the edges of the map, again. She wondered if they had had help. The aide gave a snort of salute, then rushed off to do his best to follow Kaantalech's command. There was the faintest of possibilities that he might be able to obey the instruction.

Kaantalech wondered when she should holo the Autarch with a progress report. He would be as delighted as she by the destruction of a supposedly minor world that had proved, instead, to be a technologically advanced potential hotbed of rebellion. On the other hand, he would probably want her to eradicate all the other seemingly insignificant worlds, on the basis that they, too, might one day be a threat to him. She wanted that threat to remain. Kaantalech knew better than the Autarch that many of the neutral worlds of The Wondervale were simply seeking an excuse to strike back against the tyranny. When the right time came—when she occupied the throne in Qitanefermeartha—she would issue orders for those worlds' destruction; she might even give herself the pleasure of leading some of the missions in person. But for the moment she had to play the game carefully.

There is no greater enjoyment than the anticipation of delight to come.

The first thing to do, though, was to find the Humans.

#

The left-hand communications Pocket surged into life. Pinocchio was nearer to it than Strider.

The creature displaying itself in the Pocket looked—Pinocchio checked his internal databanks—roughly like a terrestrial leech, but it had two blind heads and its slickly wet outer skin was covered with what seemed to be lesions; Pinocchio suspected these were sensory organs of some kind.

He looked over towards Strider. "We have company."

"Let me see," she said.

The thing in the Pocket made a few noises that sounded to her ears like the farts you perform when you are absolutely certain there is no one within earshot. Then Ten Per Cent Extra Free cut in, and the farts became words.

." . . communication from your Images. We are not seventeen parsecs from your current position, and like yourselves wish to see an end to the Autarchy."

"Oh, yeah? Prove it."

"Ask your Images."

THE PERSON IN THE POCKET IS AN ACCREDITED SPEAKER FOR THE HELGIOLATH, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free. THEIR WORLD WAS TORCHED BY THE AUTARCHY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO, AND SINCE THEN THEY HAVE LIVED NOMADICALLY. YOU CAN TRUST THEM.

"How much?" Strider subvocalized.

Implicitly.

"Do they all look as bad as this?"

YOU'RE ASKING ME TO MAKE A JUDGMENT ABOUT THE BEAUTIES OF FLESHLY INDIVIDUALS, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free blandly. THE HELGIOLATH LOOK AS GOOD TO ME AS YOU DO YOURSELF, CAPTAIN LEONIE STRIDER.

"Not very, huh?"

I ADVISE YOU TO SPEAK WITH THE SPEAKER, WHOSE NAME IS ANRABH'IT RE'ETLIKA'N ARB'ORTHIA'BBA KORTLAND BUR'CRAN'SKEWGI'LL MEARA'SHEEM'A. HE WILL RESPOND TO THE NAME KORTLAND.

"Thank Umbel for that," subvocalized Strider. Out loud she said: "Our Images tell me that you are called Kortland."

"It is part of my name. You may designate me thus. I would prefer that you used my entire name, but I understand that it is difficult for your people to pronounce in full."

"My name is Strider. That's not my full name either, but I'm content to be addressed by it."

"We already know this. Your Images informed us. They also told us that you have a Spindrifter on board."

"The last of the Spindrifters," said Strider. She hated herself for having to say the words. "The rest of her species is dead."

"Yeah, I heard about that," said Kortland easily. "Ugly lot of buggers though, weren't they?"

"They were sentient beings," said Strider. "As you are. As we are."

"True, there was that to be said for them."

Strider thought for a moment. "Just whose side are you on?" she said at last.

"Any side that will see the destruction of the Autarchy."

"And after that?"

"Then we can go to the safety of the muds of some uncolonized planet. We Helgiolath never wanted to be a spacefaring species. It was something forced upon us."

Strider wished she could conquer her revulsion and start to learn something of the Helgiolath's body language.

"Why do you think we can help you?" she said.

"We are not especially interested in you Humans, Strider," said Kortland, "but your Images could be of considerable assistance to us, as could the Spindrifter. As far as we are concerned, you are useful in that you offer them porterage."

"That's frank," said Strider.

"You mean?"

"Truthful. Honest."

"We are an honest species."

"Then let me be equally honest in return. I don't want your help under these circumstances." She hoped that Ten Per Cent Extra Free wasn't transmitting too much of her underlying fury. It was probably a safe assumption. She was receiving no emotion whatsoever from the Helgiolath.

"What have you got to offer us?" said the alien with apparent disinterest.

"We saw off Maglittel."

"That is exceptionally good news—although your Images told us that in fact it was them who killed it."

Now Strider was beginning to pick up, through the translation, an emotion—impatience. "They couldn't have done it without us," she said.

"That is true."

"So we're as much a part of the package as they are."

The alien said nothing for a few seconds.

"That, too, is true," he said eventually.

"Then hadn't you better stop being quite so frank?" said Strider. "We may not be as advanced a species as the Helgiolath, but our Images wouldn't have adopted us had we been totally useless. Do me the favor of thinking about that—don't just dismiss the idea out of hand."

Again there was a pause before the Helgiolath responded. "I do not understand why we are arguing. You are a single ship, which we wish to aid. I am in command of a fleet of seven thousand six hundred and ninety-two warcruisers and ancillary vessels."

"Ah," said Strider.

"So if you would like to join us, you are welcome."

"I must discuss this with my personnel."

"That is understood. I shall contact you again shortly." The communications Pocket went blank.

"What the hell does 'shortly' mean?" Strider said to Pinocchio. "A minute, an hour, a week, a month?"

"Who can tell?" said the bot.

"You're supposed to answer questions, not ask them," she said.

"Am I?"

She laughed briefly, humorlessly. "What do you think we should do?"

"I think we should join forces with the Helgiolath."

"Why?"

"Alone, the Santa Maria can do nothing except run from the forces of the Autarchy. Sooner or later we'll be caught. But in the middle of the Helgiolath fleet we have a good chance of survival—for statistical reasons if not for any other. And if Polyaggle succeeds in reconstituting enough of the Main Computer we may even be able to make our way back to the Solar System."

"But can we trust them?" she said, more to herself than to the bot. "For all we know, the Helgiolath might be just as bad as the Autarchy."

"They know where we are," observed Pinocchio. "If they'd wanted to, they could have blown us out of space by now."

Strider thought about this. The bot was right. If the Santa Maria was going to survive in The Wondervale she was going to have to make alliances. Part of Strider's reluctance to do so came about because of what had happened to the Spindrifters, but also, she recognized, there was more than a trace of xenophobia in her thinking. She knew it was illogical, but the fact that Kortland looked so hideous to human eyes made it difficult to trust the creature.

Not the "creature." The "person." She had to set herself straight on that. Members of any species capable of mounting a fleet of seven thousand six hundred and ninety-two starships were definitely "people." To date the human species had managed to launch exactly one, and in terms of the mission for which it had been designed it had not been exactly a dramatic success. The real question was whether the Helgiolath were good or bad people.

IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO JOIN THE HELGIOLATH, WE IMAGES WILL DO SO INDEPENDENTLY OF YOURSELVES, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free crisply.

The words jolted Strider. "Can you run that past me again?" she said.

WAR IS NOT AESTHETIC, AND THIS GALAXY IS UNDERGOING A STATE OF PERPETUAL WAR. THIS IS A CONDITION WHICH WE IMAGES WOULD LIKE TO SEE ENDED. THE HELGIOLATH ARE MORE LIKELY TO BRING ABOUT THE DOWNFALL OF THE AUTARCHY THAN IS A SINGLE HUMAN SHIP COMMANDED BY SOMEONE WHO IS INEXPERIENCED IN THE CONDUCT OF SPACE WAR. IT THEREFORE MAKES MORE SENSE FOR US TO ALLY OURSELVES WITH THE HELGIOLATH.

"You'd desert us?"

THERE ARE FEWER THAN FIFTY BEINGS ABOARD THIS SHIP. BY ALLYING OURSELVES WITH THE HELGIOLATH WE MIGHT SAVE THE LIVES OF MILLIONS. IN OUR POSITION, WHICH CHOICE WOULD YOU MAKE?

"Yeah. OK." She paced to the far end of the command deck, and then came back again. "See if you can re-establish contact with Kortland."

There was a subtle shifting of colors in the communications Pocket, and then she found herself facing the Helgiolath once again.

"You have consulted your people?" said the alien. Kortland seemed even uglier than before.

"No," said Strider. "I've consulted a bot and an Image. They've made a fairly convincing case."

"You will join us?"

"You bet. Give me your co-ordinates."

"Your Images already know them."

#

The myriad entities that were also the single entity of Polyaggle wormed their way through the dead landscape that had once been the consciousness of the Main Computer. There were wastes that could, she knew, never be recovered: they appeared to her like cities that had been nuked, with buildings shattered and fallen and the tang of death in the air. But there were other areas where life clung on. Swarms of her gravitated towards each of them.

Here she infiltrated a subroutine and coaxed it back into some semblance of activity. She felt as if she were a nanobot penetrating the slightest neuron of an almost-dead brain. Elsewhere she was discovering all sorts of kinks in the puter's basic programming, and components of herself were reflexively straightening them out. It was obvious to Polyaggle that the Humans were hardly above basic grade in the construction of artificial intelligences. This largely dead machine had once had just about sufficient intelligence to start repairing the basic design flaws that had been built into it, but little more than that. It seemed to have developed a certain amount of curiosity—the sign of a good puter—but to have been capable of little by way of creative thought. The millions of pieces that were Polyaggle sighed in unison as they worked their way through the turrets and sewers of the Main Computer's software.

Parts of her found a river that was frozen into immobility. On its silver surface there were small ripples with sharp edges. She skidded across the silent water, then nudged the first of the ripples into motion. The little wave broke, and in so doing caused others to break. Soon the river began to flow, albeit reluctantly: for a long time—milliseconds upon milliseconds—ice-floes bumped against the banks as the waters strove for motion. Somewhere far up ahead there was a waterfall that represented the start of a connective thought—a linkage between two remote parts of this thing that had once been a consciousness.

Somewhere else bits of Polyaggle encountered a sand desert that stretched for millions of square kilometers. They discovered that a weed was poking its pale green head through the surface. One of her touched the top of the weed while another blew up a wind, so that seeds were scattered all over the sandy surface. As much as a second was taken up while the weeds grew and died and grew again until a rainforest covered the land. Birds and bats flew between the sweaty trees, feeding on the humming insects. Polyaggle lost two of the particles of herself to the hungry creatures; each time she felt a small agony.

A highway on which the cars were still. Polyaggle touched them, and they began to move.

A nest of ants poised in motionlessness, one of the workers crushed almost flat by the weight of a crumb. A portion of Polyaggle buzzed against the nest and the ants lurched back into industry as if there had been no hiatus. The worker, the crumb on its shoulder, continued its relentless trek towards home.

A man in a laboratory was looking—had been looking forever—through an ultramicroscope at the colloidal solution on the bench in front of him. Suddenly sparks of light began to appear, moving in the drunkard's dance of Brownian motion. The activity of the sparks brought the man to life. He stood up, punched a button, and watched as the colloid swelled until those dancing sparks were the size of his own eyes. Stripping himself naked, he plunged into the liquid, at last feeling the soft, fondling touch of what, for all his life, he had been able only to observe.

For eternity a woman who believed herself sterile had been watching the slick greenish head of an infant emerging from her vagina. She would have been overjoyed—had she been capable of thought. Now a fraction of Polyaggle touched her belly, urging on the process of creation. The baby shouldered its way through to complete the greatest quest of its life. Another followed. And another. And another. And then there were more. The woman rejoiced as the room filled with babies, piling ten and twelve deep, all screaming for her milk. Still she kept giving birth until the room was full and she was smothered to death by the mass of writhing, mucus-covered flesh.

You lose a few, thought Polyaggle.

The wind that came from out of the rainforest that had once been a desert brought with it locusts which died and fertilized the plains and then seeds which floated mistily down on to them. In pursuit came the birds, many of which also died through starvation and thirst. But other parts of Polyaggle, seeing that there were clouds in the world that was the Main Computer's residual consciousness, winged their way through them, causing raindrops to form. The second wave of birds found green pastures.

Little brown mammals followed.

Satisfied that she had begun a process of evolution within the Main Computer, Polyaggle withdrew.

#

"Are you there, Geena?" said Lan Yi once again to the empty elevator. He had deliberately stopped it midway between two levels of fields. He needed time to talk this over.

Once again there was no reply from her.

He couldn't believe she had just deserted him like this. Was she punishing him for the times he had wondered about the possibilities of bedding Strauss-Giolitto? No, surely it couldn't be that. Back in the time before she had killed herself she had watched his occasional infidelities with a benign smile.

Lan Yi knew there was something wrong with his thinking. Geena was dead—had been dead for years. Yet since the Santa Maria had arrived in The Wondervale his wife had been alive, although it was evident that he was the only person able to see her or hear her. She couldn't be alive: he had seen her corpse in its coffin, and then the cremation of the coffin. So much for logic: he had heard her voice and seen her face, and he had made love with her tenderly and sweetly last night.

Somewhere far beneath the surface his scientist self protested bitterly. Lan Yi ignored the dissident voice.

"Geena?" he said to the vacant elevator.

There was no response, just the emotionless whiteness of the lighting.

Suddenly Lan Yi became aware of how utterly lonely he was. A few meters away from the wall of this elevator was the hull of the ship, and beyond that there was vacuum that stretched out for ever. Somewhere in that vacuum, almost as isolated as he was, a small planet swam through its orbit around a small yellow star. He perceived the distance between them not just in terms of parsecs but in terms of years. He knew, too, that there were years and parsecs between himself and Geena. But, at the same time, she had been with him only a few hours ago.

He couldn't stay here for ever. Others would be wanting to use the elevator. Perhaps already there was a posse of techbots on its way to try to find out what had gone wrong with the mechanism. He had to press the release button soon. But he also had to say at least one last goodbye to Geena.

"Speak to me!" he begged, falling to his knees.

The lighting hummed faintly.

#

"Let's get this boat on the move, then," said Strider to Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

Within the moment, it was as if all the surfaces of the command deck fell in towards each other in successive waves of colored, feathery flakes. She put up her arms instinctively to protect her face. Between the bright blue elbows of her jumpsuit she saw the tapestry of Polyaggle stitching itself back into existence. For an instant there was the sensation that iridescent wings filled all of the air; then the Spindrifter was standing in the center of the command deck as if she had never been away. Her wings collapsed easily in to her sides.

"Nineteen point eight one three seven six recurring of your Main Computer is now functional," said the Spindrifter, "and that portion is sufficient to locate for you the wormhole that brought you here."

"You mean we can get home?" said Strider.

"There is a chance. A good chance."

Strider thought hard. "Could you quantify your use of the word 'good'?" she said at last.

"Travelling by wormhole is always a risky business because there is never a one hundred per cent certainty where or when you will arrive," said Polyaggle as if speaking to a slightly backward child, "but I and the Main Computer estimate that your chances of reaching the Solar System again by this means are in excess of ninety-nine per cent."

"That sounds pretty good to me," said Strider. She sat down slowly. "When can we go?"

"There is one very grave problem."

"Oh yeah?"

"You are well over a billion parsecs from your home. Establishing timescales over that sort of distance is very difficult." Polyaggle paused. "But as far as I can work it out, you seem to be several million years in your own future. The worlds you go back to may not be the ones you left."

Strider shook her head wearily. "I'm not sure I understand you."

"If we successfully located this end of the wormhole, and travelled back through it, it is almost certain that you would discover your culture evolved several million years beyond the point where you left it. Your star would still be alive, of course. It is more questionable whether your culture would be."

"The human species might be already dead," said Pinocchio.

"It might indeed," replied Polyaggle. "The ancient species in The Wondervale count their ages in billions of years, rather than millions, but our experience has been that the successor species last less long than that. Most destroy themselves within a millennium of achieving interstellar capability."

"So there's no real way home?" said Strider.

"It depends what you think of as home."

"We have a tachyonic drive," said Pinocchio. "Surely that could take us back."

Polyaggle said nothing, and Strider immediately realized why. In order to get from place to place using the tachyonic drive you had to know where you were going. String on to that the fact that, apart from Polyaggle herself, the only ones aboard the Santa Maria who could operate the tachyonic drive were the Images, who presumably did not want to leave The Wondervale, and the problem became almost insuperable.

Besides, did Strider herself want to leave The Wondervale? Not long ago she had seen an entire species wiped out by the Autarchy. She didn't really understand the motivations that drove Polyaggle, and reckoned she would have had as much difficulty comprehending the imperatives of the Spindrifters as a whole—the Spindrifters had been alien and alien and alien—but the species had not set out to exterminate others. The Autarchy, by contrast, was only too happy to do so. There was a war between wrong and right to be fought within The Wondervale. The Santa Maria might be able to make only a very small contribution to the winning of that war, but it was a contribution nevertheless. Contrast that against the opportunity of going home . . . no, it wouldn't be going home, because home was not just a place but a time, and the time had seemingly slipped away.

Strider decided what she herself wanted to do: stay in The Wondervale and help the rebels. But it wasn't a decision she could take on her own—she had over forty people under her command, and a majority of them might want to make the break for Mars. She couldn't decide about their lives without asking them first.

"Can you make contact with Holmberg?" she said to Pinocchio.

"I've already done so. He's on his way to the command deck. He will be with us shortly."

"Shift us to join the Helgiolath fleet," Strider said to the Images.

IS THIS WISE? said Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

"I don't care if Holmberg wants to take the Santa Maria out from under me and try to get it home," she said. "I want to see this Autarchy driven from the face of The Wondervale." She looked at Polyaggle. "Even if I'm the only human taking part, I want to help avenge the death of the Spindrifters. This is a gamble I choose to take."

#

Holmberg looked up through the view-window and felt himself to be a very small fish in a very large shoal. The star they were orbiting illuminated only a minor portion of the Helgiolath fleet, but even so there seemed to be an infinitude of spaceships out there. He knew there were only a few hundred that he could see; Strider had told him that in total there were nearly eight thousand.

#

"Most of the personnel want to try to get home," he said a few hours later.

"And they want to take the Santa Maria with them?" said Strider.

"Is there any other way?"

"Not that I can think of."

"I want to stay here," said Strider. "I think there are a few accounts that have to be settled."

"I agree with you. I myself voted to stay in The Wondervale."

She looked at him in amazement. "I never thought of you as a natural-born revolutionary."

"I've represented the personnel as well as I could. That doesn't mean I don't have opinions of my own. Perhaps we could help these people."

"Who else wants to stay here?"

"Very few."

"Any names?"

"You. Me. Lan Yi, for reasons I can't quite understand, although he explained them to me in detail—the chance of carrying out a scientific investigation of the physiological construction of the Spindrifter appears to be a large part of it. Umbel Nelson. Maloron Leander. Maria Strauss-Giolitto, somewhat to my surprise. That's about the strength of your support, Captain Strider. Oh, yes, and the bot."

"That's a very big 'Oh, yes'," said Strider absently. "He'll probably be more use to the Helgiolath than the rest of us put together." She ran the fingers of one hand back through her hair. "What do you think we should do?"

She found it odd talking with Holmberg this way. Ever since the Santa Maria had left Phobos the man had been her bane, except for that one moment when he had declared himself—improbably—to be her ally, and she had believed him. Now they were reclining naked in the bath in her cabin. His pink stomach protruded above the surface of the water. It was as good a place as any to discuss this. In a vague way she would have preferred him to have had an erection—as a sign of respect, as it were.

"You say that Polyaggle has reconstituted much of the Main Computer—enough that the Santa Maria might be able to find its way home," he said.

"That's what she tells me. The Images agree."

"I think we ought to let the Santa Maria go home," said Holmberg. "O'Sondheim could take over as captain, surely?"

"You mean I should desert my ship?"

Holmberg splashed his chest with water, then reached for the soap. "One alternative is that you desert all the sentient species of The Wondervale. Another is that you get yourself and the ship back home but leave me and Nelson and the rest behind."

"How safe do you think the Santa Maria would be?" she said. She pulled a knee up to her face for inspection. Dammit, somewhere along the line she'd picked up a bruise. She wondered when that had happened. "I have a responsibility to my personnel, after all. A very heavy responsibility."

"Can I be blunt?"

"You're normally more than that."

Holmberg laughed. "I'm not really qualified to judge, but I think the Santa Maria has every bit as good a chance of making it home safely under O'Sondheim's captaincy as it would have under yours."

She'd been long enough in the bath. The skin of her fingers was beginning to crinkle as the water cooled. She stood up, making waves that smacked Holmberg under the chin. Again she found herself slightly annoyed that her nakedness was having no effect on him. On the other hand, she suddenly reflected, his nakedness was having no particular effect on her. Even so, her confidence could have done with a dose of atavism right now.

"Oh, yeah," said Holmberg, washing an armpit. "I forgot to mention. There's a kid—a little boy—who wants to stay here as well."

Toweling herself, she stared at him. "We can't take a kid along. What about his mother?"

"She's dead. When you put five gees on the craft she was standing by her bunk. She fell and broke her neck on the edge of it. The medbots couldn't get there in time to help her."

Oh great, thought Strider, something else to be guilty about. I've created an orphan. No matter how much she tried to rub herself dry, the area between her shoulderblades still stayed wet. She seemed to be on the verge of throwing away the chance of ever seeing Mars again. If what Holmberg had said was true, only a few of them would be joining the Helgiolath. Half a dozen human beings and a humanoid bot living in a community of beings that looked bad enough to make you want to turn away. Umbel alone knew how they smelt.

"I'd like to fight in this war," she said, working the corner of the towel into her left ear. "The funny thing is, I'd sort of assumed that you'd try to stop me."

Holmberg seemed to have found something fascinating in his navel. He was picking at it with a fingernail. "Why should you think that?"

"Well, you've been a bit of a difficult sod."

"So have you." Whatever it was that he'd been trying to scoop out now seemed at last to have come adrift. "This is the biggest adventure of my life. I don't want to go home now with my tail between my legs."

Strider climbed into her jumpsuit. Her back still felt wet. "You're not the man I thought you were, Marcial."

"I know. I've spent several years living with your opinion of me, and it hasn't been the best of times." He looked up at her with steady eyes. "Ever since this mission started it's been my duty to represent the personnel whose opinions you've far too often ignored, Leonie. I've told you before, but you didn't properly listen. Now it's time I started to take a few decisions on my own behalf."

She watched his bloated body as he sank himself further into the bathwater. "You've been shamming."

"Shamming about what?"

"About how things should be run aboard this ship."

"To tell you the truth," said Holmberg, "I think most of the people on the Santa Maria should have been left back at home. Have you got any nail-scissors?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I want to cut my toenails."

"No—I mean why do you say most of the personnel should have been left behind?"

"Because they're useless. If I'd been setting up this expedition for the SSIA I'd have made the crew no more than a dozen strong, and more likely half that."

"Hardly enough to colonize a planet," she said.

"My opinion, for what it's worth," said Holmberg with exaggerated gravity, "is that the first colony on any planet is doomed, no matter how many people are involved. There are going to be diseases—remember that killer diseases used to wipe out people by the hundreds of thousands? There are going to be creatures that want to eat us—not so much the big ones, which we can always laz if we're fast enough to see them coming, but the little ones, which we don't notice until it's too late."

"So why," said Strider, pausing by the door, "did you come along?"

"Because I wanted to." He smiled at her. "The stars are the final frontier, aren't they?"

His smile faded.

"Look, Leonie, I don't care what the rest of you decide to do. I want to join the Helgiolath. I want to help this poor bloody galaxy get itself out of the mess it's got into. Like Lan Yi, I want to see what happens when Polyaggle gives birth to her new brood. I want to be there when the Autarchy commander who decided to destroy Spindrift is suddenly faced by a fleet a million strong."

"Yeah, that's what I want to do as well. But . . ."

"But what? Let the Santa Maria go, Leonie, if that's what you really want to do. You've faced far more than you were ever expected to."

She ran a finger down the side of her nose. "So just the bunch of us stay here, huh? I dunno—just thinking about it makes me feel like I'm betraying the people under my command."

"I don't think that's the way they'd see it." Holmberg drew in his breath. "When it comes down to it, Leonie, the blunt truth is that most of the people on board don't give a damn who's running the command deck so long as they're doing it efficiently and, above all, unobtrusively."

Strider shrugged. "I'm going to make my mind up later." Once more she started to leave, then turned back. "How come you're so keen for glory yourself, Marcial? You've never struck me as being that type."

"I'm the last of a family of Reals. When I was fifteen we lived in Baghdad, where virtually everyone else was an Artif—hell, Leonie, we were unusual in being a family at all. One day my father got a bit stoned on ziprite and started telling all the people in the café he was in that Artiffing was immoral—that there was very good reason why we were all given just a single life. In the end they dragged him out into the street and drove a truck backwards and forwards over him."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know that."

"Then they came to our house and found my mother and my sister and did the same to them." Holmberg began to climb out of the bath. "It's OK to talk about it now. It was a long time ago, and most of the pain has gone. I was lucky—I was on the other side of town trying to make it with a girl whose name I can't now remember but who seemed very important at the time. What I can remember is getting home and discovering I didn't have a family any more. Toss over a towel, will you? Thanks. Polyaggle lost far more than a family on Spindrift. She doesn't seem to feel it the way you and I would, but I want to help right the wrong on her behalf, if I can. And there's not very much the good old human species—present company excepted, of course—has left to offer me. Any more explanations wanted?"

Despite his denial, she sensed that all this was a painful area for him. "No. Thanks for—well, for opening yourself to me this way."

"Even if I find I'm the only human being left in The Wondervale, I want to be here." He grinned at her. "I'm perfectly accustomed to loneliness."

#

Looking at the Helgiolath was never going to be easy, Strider thought for what seemed like the thousandth time. The faces of Kortland—assuming they were actually faces—were in the communications Pocket now. Strider steeled herself not to turn her gaze off to the side.

"We've discovered how we might be able to get this ship home," she said, "but a few of us have decided we want to stay here in The Wondervale and help you people as best we can. Will you allow us to do that?"

Kortland didn't answer immediately. "I think it may be possible," he said after a while. "There are difficulties."

"Such as?"

"The air we breathe has less oxygen than you are accustomed to. If any of you want to live aboard one of our vessels, either you'll have to bring your own environment or you'll require surgical modification."

Strider gulped. The thought of remaining suited up for the rest of her life was an unpleasant one. The thought of "surgical modification" was not particularly attractive either. She didn't like the idea of Helgiolath surgeons poking around in her entrails.

"The modification would be neither painful nor gross," Kortland was saying. "It is a very common procedure. I have myself undergone it several times when it has been necessary to meet other species face to face."

"What sort of modification are we talking about?" No way was Strider going to spend her remaining days looking like a Helgiolath.

"Your lungs would require alteration. The bacterial infrastructure of your body would need to be changed. The outer surfaces of your eyes would be toughened. There would need to be some minor brain surgery to alter a few of your sensory impressions, notably your sense of smell—and there'd almost certainly be a few trivial changes to your own bodily chemistry as well. Species of utterly different forms, as yours is to ours, normally stink intolerably to each other."

Yeah. Strider could imagine that Kortland and his kind would stink. It hadn't occurred to her that the same might be true the other way round.

"This doesn't sound like minor surgery to me," she said.

"The practices are well established," said Kortland. Ten Per Cent Extra Free was introducing a touch of weariness to the alien's voice. "We have machines that routinely perform such tasks."

"I need to think about this. I need to talk it all over with the few of us who want to join you."

"Please don't be too long." She could sense that Kortland was becoming utterly exasperated with her. "Your assistance is not very important to us. In fact, to be frank—to use your word again—your presence among us would be more of a nuisance than a help. But we're prepared to put up with that if we can have your Images and the Spindrifter as well."

"I have a better idea," said Strider. "Give me a moment."

"Granted."

"Listen here, Ten Per Cent Extra Free," she subvocalized.

I'm listening. I could hardly be doing anything else.

"You and the others have already done a lot to the Santa Maria. What more could you do to it?"

A great deal.

"Could you turn it into the best fucking fighting vessel in The Wondervale?"

We could make it a good fighting vessel. We are unable to give it the power of procreation.

"Then we stay here and fight. Damn what the personnel want to do. We can go home later."

This will not be a popular move.

"I don't care."

Very well.

"How long will it take?"

Four hours.

Strider put her forehead back into the communications Pocket. "Within four hours you'll have an extra warcruiser," she said to Kortland. "Our Images will transform it within this time. Can you wait that long?"

"Possibly. Probably. Yes."

IT WOULD BE BEST IF YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE WERE UNCONSCIOUS WHILE THE TRANSFORMATION IS BEING EFFECTED, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

"We make contact again in four hours," Strider told Kortland.

"Agreed."

The Helgiolath's semblance vanished from the communications Pocket.

"What do you want me to do?" Strider impatiently asked the Image. "Go all over the ship knocking everyone over the head?"

That will not be necessary. I am speaking with Pinocchio at the same time as speaking with you and explaining to him what we are about to do. He alone will be aware of it all. As for Polyaggle and you Humans,

#

you have been unconscious for three hours and fifty-three minutes.

Strider slumped by the communications Pocket. There had been no sensation of the passage of time at all, yet her mouth tasted the way it always did when she had just woken up from sleep. She rolled her tongue over her upper front teeth, feeling their griminess.

"That's it?" she said.

The task has been performed.

She moved to an adjacent Pocket and called up into it a representation of the Santa Maria.

"Oh hell," she said.

The craft she was looking at was virtually unrecognizable. The Santa Maria had been designed for the mission it was intended to accomplish. It had not been pretty or sleek: it had been competent, if perhaps clumsily so. The Images had modified it so that it looked a little better and had been able to make planetfall, but still the Santa Maria had not been a truly elegant craft. Now it was an altogether different fish. It looked like a long dart, complete with tail feathers—in fact, it looked much like one of the Helgiolath warcruisers that formed the fleet among which the Santa Maria floated. It was visibly a creature designed purely for space: planetfall was no longer an option.

"What have you done?"

What you asked us to do.

The command deck itself had changed. The Pockets were still there, but in front of each of them there was now an elaborate keyboard. She looked down at the one before her and realized that she could understand not just the conventional Argot symbols on the keys but also all of the others. This one here would open one or other of the blisters on the side of the Santa Maria, the blister concerned being determined by the use of other keys. Two of the blisters still contained shuttles; the others were each armed with twenty-three missiles of various types. Twenty-three seemed a perfectly natural number for the Images to have chosen, and then she remembered . . .

"It's not just the Santa Maria you've modified, is it?" she said. "You've modified us as well."

That was an essential part of the alteration you asked us to make. You are components of the warship.

Strider could feel the difference. It was as if her blood were coursing more swiftly through her arteries. She drew herself up to her full height, reached out her arms to either side and slowly clenched her fists. She felt stronger. And faster.

"These aren't just illusions I'm sensing, are they?" she said.

No. We've improved you. All of you people.

"Polyaggle? Pinocchio?"

We've added a little bulk to Polyaggle's body so that she's less frail, but there wasn't much we could do without taking away her ability to fly. Pinocchio we could not further alter usefully. We proposed to build weapons into him, but he refused us—we would have violated one of the prime imperatives of his software.

The communications Pocket lit up. Strider expected to see Kortland there, but instead there was an utterly different creature. This one looked somewhat like a tuskless woolly mammoth. "Will you speak to me?" said the face.

"Who is this?" Strider subvocalized.

A servant of the Autarch.

"My name is Kaantalech," said the face in the Pocket.

Get rid of her!

"How?"

Just walk away. You must contact Kortland at once. If Kaantalech has traced you here then the whole of the fleet is in danger.

It was difficult to imagine a fleet of seven thousand six hundred and ninety-two warcruisers—no, ninety-three, now that the Santa Maria was a part of it—being in any danger, but Strider took Ten Per Cent Extra Free's word for it.

It was Kaantalech who murdered Spindrift.

"Then I wish to continue this conversation." Strider subvocalized. To Kaantalech she said: "What do you want of me?"

"Just a few moments. There are many ways in which we could help each other."

"Name two."

"I know where you are. I know that you are in the midst of a rebel force which the Autarchy will soon take pleasure in destroying. I could spare you and your people. I have that power."

"That's one." Strider spoke with deliberate flatness. This was the thing that had virtually wiped out the Spindrifters. It was difficult to know if one could actually be a friend of Polyaggle, but Strider felt that way towards her. The Spindrifters had done nothing to deserve to be wiped out. Leaning into the communications Pocket, she focused hatred on the creature.

"You yourself could be raised to a position of considerable eminence within the Autarchy," said Kaantalech, clearly sensing nothing of Strider's feelings.

"I'm not interested."

"It would seem such a waste to kill you all. Both the Autarch and I are eager to know where you have come from. We do not believe that you are from Heaven's Ancestor."

"So that you can go and massacre the rest of my kind? So that you can conquer another galaxy?"

Kaantalech made a little pooting noise that Ten Per Cent Extra Free was unable to translate. "You misjudge our motives. The Autarchy dominates The Wondervale because otherwise there would be anarchy and starvation."

"The Spindrifters won't be starving to death," said Strider drily.

"Precisely," said Kaantalech, obviously missing the point.

SHE DOESN'T KNOW THAT POLYAGGLE IS HERE, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free. IF SHE DID SHE WOULD DESTROY THE SANTA MARIA WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. KAANTALECH DOES NOTHING BY HALF MEASURES. CAPTAIN LEONIE STRIDER, I BEG THAT YOU DESIST FROM SPEAKING WITH HER. YOU NEED TO WARN KORTLAND.

"Can't Pinocchio do that?"

I HAVE ASKED PINOCCHIO TO COME TO THE COMMAND DECK FOR EXACTLY THIS PURPOSE. BUT THE WARNING SHOULD COME FROM YOU, YOURSELF—KORTLAND KNOWS WHO YOU ARE. HE DOES NOT KNOW PINOCCHIO.

"The only thing I would enjoy more than seeing you die," said Strider to Kaantalech's semblance in the Pocket, "would be seeing you die very slowly. Even better would be watching you rot in some dungeon somewhere. You murdered an entire species."

"We put it out of its misery," said Kaantalech.

"It had no misery, as far as I can gather."

"If that is your feeling, I see little option but to put you Humans out of your misery as well, along with the Helgiolath foulness."

Strider thought swiftly. Most of the people aboard the Santa Maria had not elected to stay here in The Wondervale. She had responsibilities towards them. She had very little doubt that Kaantalech could put most of her threats into effect, if the occasion arose—at least so far as the Santa Maria was concerned. Strider thought it less likely that the creature could so easily tackle the Helgiolath fleet—otherwise the Autarchy would presumably have done it long ago. However vast The Wondervale was and however adept the Helgiolath were at concealing their whereabouts, it was difficult to keep an armada of nearly eight thousand vessels secret.

"Don't ring me," she said. "I'll ring you."

"You turn down my offer?"

"Too damn' right."

"I sorrow for you."

"Sorrow away."

Strider retreated from the communications Pocket and it faded into blankness. "Where's Pinocchio?"

HE'S ON HIS WAY.

"Boot up the Pocket so that I can speak with Kortland."

AS YOU WISH.

Strider didn't bother with any formalities. "We're with you," she said as soon as the leech-faces of the alien appeared in front of her. Quickly she told Kortland about the conversation with Kaantalech.

"We must move the fleet," said Kortland promptly.

"That had occurred to me too, yeah."

"Please load these co-ordinates into the remains of your Main Computer." The alien gave a string of noises which were incomprehensible to Strider, but nevertheless she found her fingers were moving obediently across the keyboard in front of her. She felt a surge of energy far behind her in the Santa Maria.

And then everything changed.

#

Darkness, and the stench of decay. Loneliness. No stars in the sky, wherever the sky had gone to. She lifted her face above the surface of the rank sludge and tried to breathe, but all she did was drag some of the mud up her nostrils and into the back of her throat. She coughed for air, and at last her lungs were rewarded. Strider ran one hand down her own side. As far as she could tell she was entirely naked. She flexed her toes and felt the mud squidge between them.

She managed to get on to all fours just before a heavy foot came down with crushing force on her back, thrusting her face-first into the mud once more.

A moment later everything was different again.

She felt as if she were being turned inside out, so that her raw flesh was being exposed to the blaze of a million stars. She saw the brilliance of their light so vividly that she experienced it as pain, as if it were fire burning against her flesh. The radiance was bright enough that she was seeing it not only with her eyes but with the whole of her body. She had never known such agony. She would have preferred to have had her face stuck back into the inky darkness and the sludge.

And then again she was somewhere else, floating free in space, looking at the grey-white disc of a lifeless planet or moon. For a second or two she felt nothing but relief—weightless, painless, it seemed to her that she was dancing through the vacuum. Then she realized that she was still naked, and that her skin was peeling away in strips and her eyes were bulging as they struggled to escape from their sockets. The pain returned, this time like two blades of ice being thrust up through the soles of her feet to meet somewhere around her heart.

Yet again a shift of perception. Her hands and feet were tied together behind her back, and someone unseen was tightening the bonds. Her spine strained in the reverse curve, and she could feel the vertebrae pulling slowly but inexorably apart. There was a ripping sound as the skin of her belly rent itself asunder, setting her entrails free . . .

Crammed into a tight tin too small for her even to breathe. Nevertheless she dragged a breath, smelling her own sweat and the last piss she had had. The tin was getting smaller, crunching her shoulderblades, forcing her face into her knees.

And then freedom again. The atoms of her body were co-extant with the Universe. Her eyes were expanding gaseous nebulae left in the aftermath of supernovae. Her nipples were galactic clusters. The length of her body was the fabric of spacetime, all-encompassing and all-embracing. She was the goddess who was also all of eternity. Through her would be born every living thing that the Universe would ever see. She roared with triumph at each moment of parturition. She was the birthing of all things, way back when the Universe was nothing more than a thought written across emptiness and timelessness.

And then she was none of this. She was being very loudly and messily sick on the floor of the command deck of the Santa Maria.

She hauled herself up on to her haunches. A cleanerbot would sweep up the mess. Damn it, there must be a cleanerbot somewhere around. The stink of her own sick almost made her retch again, but there was nothing left to vomit.

She staggered to a Pocket and called up the representation of the Santa Maria's position. The ship was still in the midst of the Helgiolath fleet. She looked up through the view-window and saw sparkles of confirmation swimming against the stars. Moving to a communications Pocket, she tried to contact Kortland, but it was impossible. The best part of eight thousand other ship commanders were presumably trying to do the same. Had they all gone through the nightmare she had just had? Maybe to a Helgiolath it wasn't a nightmare but a welcome temporary reminder of the glories of the mud.

She shivered. How had her personnel taken this? Had they shared the experience? She slipped a commlink into her mouth.

"We are perfectly safe . . ."

#

The sound of Maria Strauss-Giolitto screaming jarred Lan Yi from his sleep. He threw open the door of his own cabin and began to sprint towards hers.

He was halfway there when he realized that everything was utterly different. The shape of the space around him was all wrong. He paused, and looked upwards. Thirty or forty meters above him there was a shiny metal ceiling. The elevators were still there, but they were far nearer to him. The cabins themselves were much more closely clustered together than they had been. The air smelled of oil and electricity; before, it had smelled of the contents of the fields. The light was a slightly bluish glare.

Strauss-Giolitto was still screaming. There was no other sound.

He discovered that he was at the door of her cabin. The plastite looked less and less like wood as time wore on. Lan Yi tugged open the door and saw Strauss-Giolitto lying on her forcefield bed, her mouth in her hands. Her eyes were wide open but it was obvious that they saw nothing except the visions that her mind was creating.

He moved to her side and put his arm around her shoulders. They were slithery with cold sweat.

"Wake up," he said. "Wake up."

Her shrieking became more muted, but would not stop. Her staring blue eyes turned briefly towards him and for a moment it seemed that she might have recognized him, but then all intelligence vanished from them. He stroked the soft fuzz of hair on her head, wishing that he could do more to help her than just mutter soothing nonsense words.

Her body suddenly twisted, as if she had been kicked in the back by some colossal force. The blow threw her at him so hard that he was smashed down on to the floor, with her on top of him. His head hit hard. The impact drove the breath out of his lungs, and for a moment he almost lost consciousness: intriguing lights and sounds, none of them making very much sense, filled his mind.

Reality returned. He pushed himself out from under Strauss-Giolitto. She was no longer screaming but weeping soundlessly, as if in the extremes of pain. Snot was running from her nose; he wiped the clear liquid away with a finger. He looked at her body as it writhed on the floor, then at the forcefield bed. There was no possibility of his being able to lift her up there.

He slapped her face lightly, hoping to shock her out of whatever trance she was in. There was no response. He made to strike her again, then held back. She seemed to be suffering misery already: no need for him to add to it.

He became steadily more aware that there was no sound at all from any of the other cabins. Usually there would be something—the din of a holo or a musibot turned up too loud, the noise of voices raised in argument, a kid yelling about a stubbed toe.

Standing, he looked down at Strauss-Giolitto. There didn't seem to be anything he could do except wait for her to waken from her nightmare. Whether she would want him to be there when she did was a question he couldn't answer.

Lan Yi dithered. The fact that the Santa Maria had changed so dramatically was something he ought to investigate. He should also try to find out why it was that the other cabins were so oppressively silent. The life of a single person was of little significance if the whole of the ship were at risk.

Making a rapid decision, he left Strauss-Giolitto's cabin and walked quickly to the nearest elevator, glancing up frequently towards the new ceiling. The metal was reflective enough for him to see himself like a small rodent moving among the cabins. Why was no one else awake? Why had no one else responded to Strauss-Giolitto's screams?

The elevator was a long time in coming.

As he waited for it he wondered if he were the last person alive on the Santa Maria. Surely not: certainly Pinocchio would have survived. Or maybe not, because whatever had happened was just as likely to damage the bot's artificial brain as it was to throw Strauss-Giolitto into seeming madness.

Finally the elevator arrived. He pressed the pad for the command deck.

And found himself back in Strauss-Giolitto's cabin. She was stiller than she had been, but otherwise there was little change. For the first time since this had begun it occurred to him that he was looking at an exceptionally attractive woman. He whipped the thought aside and once more headed for the elevator.

This time it came more quickly, but again he found himself back in Strauss-Giolitto's cabin the moment after he had pressed for the command deck.

Perhaps her need is the greater, he told himself.

Bending his knees, he grappled her shoulders and struggled to take her weight. The edge of the forcefield bed seemed an impossibly large distance above him. Somehow he got her into a sitting position. She was still sobbing silently, but the expression of agony had gone from her face. He waved a hand in front of those wide-open eyes but there was no sign of recognition. Moving around the other side of her forcefield bed, he hoisted her up by her armpits. Her body seemed to be glued firmly to the floor. He dragged again, and this time got at least her torso on to the bed. Straining himself until he thought he might pass out, he heaved once more, and this time her buttocks moved easily on to the softly glowing surface. One of her breasts brushed the inside of his elbow; it might have been erotic had she brushed it there herself, deliberately, but as it was he felt no more than slight exasperation—her impedimenta were getting in the way of what he was trying to do.

Moving again around the forcefield bed, he lifted her legs on to it. She was at a diagonal angle across the bed, her head hanging over the far edge. He did his best to try to straighten her body out. She must mass at least fifty per cent more than he did.

Her eyes closed. He hoped that this meant that she had fallen into real sleep, rather than whatever it was that she had been experiencing.

For a third time he ran to the elevator. Now it refused to respond to his call. He beat the side of his hand repeatedly against the pad, but nothing happened.

The elevator two hundred meters away likewise declined to appear for him. It didn't seem worth trying another.

He was increasingly unnerved by the almost-silence. There were still faint sounds from Strauss-Giolitto's cabin, but everywhere else there was nothing. He hadn't realized until now how much a part of the environment within the Santa Maria the insects and birds were. Yet again he looked up at the ceiling, seeing himself looking back.

He stopped at the next cabin he came to and nervously opened its door. All the holohorrors he had ever watched told him this was the wrong thing to do. When there's a preternatural silence you shouldn't be opening doors, because on the other side of them you'll inevitably find nasties. Much better to run like fuck.

Except that Lan Yi had nowhere very far to run.

The forcefield bed in the cabin had fallen to the floor. The glow of the forcefield was absent. There was dust everywhere, as if no one had been in here for a decade, or a century. Carefully moving his foot aside so that he did not step on the desiccated corpse of a spider, Lan Yi went through to the further rooms. He was less worried now about horrors, more concerned that he was trespassing—as if he were deliberately trampling on someone's grave.

The bathroom was empty, although the bath itself was full. He dipped his fingers into the water and found it hot. He flushed the lavatory, just to reassure himself that something around here still worked normally. He was back in the cabin's main room before it registered on him that yes, the damned gadget had done its stuff.

The little kitchen was likewise deserted. It was perfectly clean and dustless, as if its owner had scrubbed every surface carefully before departing.

This wasn't like the personnel aboard the Santa Maria. The joys of rediscovering plenteous clean water and safely edible food after a lifetime of Earth's pollution or Mars's shortages made most of them profligate with the stuff—had turned them into slobs. There should have been some scraps lying around, unless the cleanerbots had got here first. But if that had been the case the bots would have cleared all the dust out of the main room.

He checked the next cabin and found things very much the same, although the bath was empty. As he left the little building Lan Yi sang a few notes from Donizetti's Maria Stuarda just to make himself feel that he wasn't the only person left alive. Then he remembered how Mary Stuart had come to her end and the song stilled in his throat.

Four more cabins went by. Could it be that Strider had called everyone up to the command deck? No—that didn't make any sense. If that had been the case there'd still have been junk left lying around—half-eaten meals or kids' toys or anything. Instead, everywhere he looked there was this bizarre mixture of utter cleanliness and a mess that betrayed all the signs of years having passed.

"Is there anyone there?" he yelled. The only replies were echoes.

Lan Yi squatted down on his lean haunches for thirty seconds or so and looked all around him. He knew this wasn't just a rotten dream—he was always aware of it when he was dreaming.

Just as he was getting to his feet again he heard a tiny sound. There was a whir as something rubbed against something else, and a small human grunt of effort. Infuriatingly, the noise stopped just before he could locate where it had come from.

Then he heard it again. It had come from one of the nearby cabins.

Hilary, playing with a spinning top, looked up as Lan Yi appeared in the doorway.

"Why didn't you answer when I called?" the out-of-Taiwanese asked, not sure if he was angry with the child or relieved that at last he'd found someone else alive. He softened his tone. "Are you all right?"

"I'm perfectly fine," said Hilary, "except I can't get this bleeding top to stay upright, no matter how hard I try. Could you help me?"

Something drastic had happened to the Santa Maria, Lan Yi knew, but right now it seemed as if getting the kid's top to work was more important: big tragedies can be put out of your mind for a while, but small ones are more immediate.

He went down on his knees beside the boy. "The trick is," he said, "to wind the cord very accurately and neatly around the spindle. Oh," he added, picking with his fingernails, "and it's a good idea not to get knots in the string."

"Where has everyone else gone?" said the boy. "I'm getting hungry."

"I'm not sure," said Lan Yi. "Apart from you and me, the only other person around seems to be your teacher."

"Maria?"

"Yes."

"Oh, that's OK then. I like her." Hilary gave the cord a sharp tug and this time he got the top to spin rapidly. It waltzed away across the floor of the cabin, made an astonishing dart under the forcefield bed, and hit the far wall with a clatter. "Could you wind it up again?"

"I think you had better come with me. I want to check up on Maria. She wasn't in very good shape when I left her. Bring the top with you if you want to."

Hilary fetched the toy. It was obvious that Lan Yi was being boringly and disgustingly adult. Also, both he and Lan Yi had been here before: there had been some trouble, and Lan Yi had come along with Maria to rescue him from it. It had happened so long before that Hilary could remember it only as if it had been part of a dream. The child's face was telling Lan Yi that the best way of coping with a nightmare that keeps coming round and round again was to ignore it. One method of ignoring it was to perform displacement activity—like spinning a top. It was as good a way as any.

Was Lan Yi in Hilary's dream, or was Hilary in Lan Yi's?

Dream. Not-dream. It didn't matter. This was the reality with which Lan Yi was trying to grapple.

"You can play with the top in Maria's cabin, if you want to," said Lan Yi as he took Hilary's hand. "It might even help her. Even if it doesn't, I want the three of us to be close together."

"Yeah, I guess that's OK," said Hilary. His mother had kitted him out in a miniature replica of the standard-issue SSIA jumpsuit. Lan Yi wondered where Hilary's mother and her seamstressry skills had gone to. He had a sudden vision of himself as a surrogate mother, and didn't like it at all. Geena would have been an excellent mother, but it had never happened; perhaps that was one of the reasons why she had died. "When you have a cello, who needs a brat?" she had often said, and he'd believed her. "They say that Kiliostrov's Second Concerto is more difficult than labor pains, particularly the pizzicato bits," she'd said, "but a lot more rewarding when you get it right." He'd believed her then, as well. "And a cello costs less," she'd said one night in Algiers, "except when an effing string breaks. Lan, there's this place down by the river that stays open late. Do you think you could . . .?"

And he'd taken the money that had been going to be a bottle of rosehip juice and bought her a new string. Maybe that was something else that had turned her away from life—the lack of the rosehip juice one night. He'd never know.

Lan Yi deliberately walked at a child's pace as they went towards Strauss-Giolitto's cabin. His own mind was racing, trying to figure out various possibilities as to what might have happened, but he wanted to keep Hilary as calm as possible. Lan Yi still had to get Strauss-Giolitto out of whatever form of hysterical attack it was that she'd fallen into. The longer Hilary simply accepted that, you know, things were a bit odd but there wasn't much to worry about really, the easier Lan Yi's task would be.

When Hilary saw Strauss-Giolitto contorted on her forcefield bed he let go of Lan Yi's hand and ran to her.

"She's ill!" he said. "Maria's ill!"

"She will be all right soon," said Lan Yi, following more slowly, wishing he was a bit more certain about what he'd just said. "She is just having a tough dream. You must have had bad dreams in your time. Now it is her turn."

Lan Yi sat down beside Strauss-Giolitto and put his palm on her forehead. It was much cooler than before. Her breathing seemed to be easier, and her eyes were still closed.

"She mending is," said Lan Yi and was almost at once annoyed with himself for his lapse in basic Argot. "She's mending," he said.

As if on cue, Strauss-Giolitto opened her eyes. The madness had gone from them but it was plain that she was puzzled. "Where are we?" she said.

"Where we've always been," said Lan Yi. "On board the Santa Maria. At least, that's where I think we are. The cabins are more or less the way they used to be, but the rest of the configuration of the ship seems to have altered. To have been altered."

In her left hand she took one of his. In her right she accepted Hilary's small fingers, which were pursed tightly and only reluctantly eased open to curl round hers.

"I was somewhere else entirely," she said, "and it seemed to be forever. I was trapped in rotting mud, and then something stamped on me, and then I was being turned inside out, and then . . ."

"You were here on your bed," said Lan Yi, and then realized how foolish the statement was. Her body had been here, but it had been all too obvious that her mind had not been. He was prepared to take her word for it that she had been suffering some quite different existence.

He said this.

"There were others there with me," she said once he'd finished. "I could sense them being there."

"Others of the personnel?"

"I don't know," she said. "Just others. I think they weren't humans. It didn't feel as if they were."

She sat up and wiped her eyes with her hand, getting rid of the tears. "Why's Hilary here?"

"Because the three of us seem to be the only people left on this level of the Santa Maria," said Lan Yi. "I can't get the elevators to work. Everyone else seems to have vanished."

He could see Strauss-Giolitto feeling around with her tongue for the commline that had been there throughout her adult life, then saw her disappointment. "Yes, it is like that," he said. "I begin to wish that I had allowed myself more augmentation than just a secondary retinal screen—then perhaps I could try to communicate with any others who might have survived this . . . hazard."

"What's so bad?" said Hilary. "Maria's OK now."

"Kid, where's your mother?" she snapped. Lan Yi thought she was being cruel, then realized she was giving Hilary the equivalent of a therapeutic slap across the face, much as Lan Yi himself had done to her a little while ago.

"I dunno," said Hilary. "She died a while ago. Maybe she'll be back in another while."

"Let's hope it's not too long a while," said Strauss-Giolitto, pulling herself into her jumpsuit. In other circumstances Lan Yi might have been sad to see her nakedness covered up. The child seemed not to have noticed. Lan Yi's mind was roaming around all the physics he knew, trying to figure out what had happened. Parallel universes—yes, the Images might have sucked away most of the Santa Maria's personnel to their own reality for some reason of their own, but it seemed hardly likely. A reverse in the time flow, so that the Santa Maria had gone back to a time before any of the personnel were born—but then why would he and Strauss-Giolitto and Hilary have been exempted? Or were the three of them victims of some gross mental abnormality, so that their memories were misleading them?

None of it made sense.

"I think we should try the elevators again," he said.

"Too right," said Strauss-Giolitto, resuming the child's hand. "Hilary, look, dammit, just leave that blasted top here. We can come back and get it later."

"Aw, but I wanna . . ."

"Belt up," said Lan Yi.

"Where'd you learn that?" said Strauss-Giolitto, looking across at him. For a second or so he thought she might smile, but there was still too much fear in her for that.

"From Strider," he said. "When she first told me to do that I started looking for a belt, assuming it was a safety instruction. It was very embarrassing for her to have to explain to me."

This time Strauss-Giolitto did smile, albeit wanly. Lan Yi felt he had got rid of another obstacle. Strider had never in her life even dreamt of telling him to belt up, but the lie had served its purpose. There were now at least two adult human beings capable of dealing with the strange new environment this part of the Santa Maria had become. That was twice as many as there had been a couple of minutes ago.

"Hey, that's not a very kind thing to say to a . . ." the child began.

"The motion has been proposed and seconded, Hilary," said Strauss-Giolitto.

Lan Yi took the boy's other hand. "We must explore the Santa Maria and see if we can discover the root of this mystery," he said, again aware that his Argot was slipping. "This is a brave endeavor. We shall all gain great glory through it, not least yourself."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes," said Strauss-Giolitto. "Say, would you like us to swing you?"

"Spose so."

After three swings between them, the third time doing an alarmingly dangerous-seeming backward somersault, the child was prepared to be cooperative. Strauss-Giolitto gave Lan Yi a glance over Hilary's head that said a lot. Lan Yi remembered what a pain in the butt he himself had been at this age and was able to give her back no more than a feeble grin. He reckoned that, on current showing, Hilary was in for a bright future. Although Lan Yi had no scientific evidence to back it up, he believed that the most intelligent people displayed a form of neoteny: they became mature long after they had reached physical adulthood. Before that they were insufferable. Hilary, who was about five—he had been one of the first born to the Santa Maria's personnel—looked according to this theory as if he were going to be a genius in later life. At the same time, Lan Yi wished he could think of a good excuse for dumping the kid somewhere safe, secure and soundproofed.

The first elevator they tried was as unresponsive as the ones Lan Yi had stabbed at earlier. He insisted that all three of them press the pad—Hilary first, Strauss-Giolitto second and himself, as a last hope, third. Nothing happened at all. At least it was a relief that he didn't find himself transported back to Strauss-Giolitto's cabin again. He wasn't certain he could have stood that.

"I don't like the light out here," said Strauss-Giolitto, looking backwards over her shoulder as if there might be somebody watching her. "It's all wrong."

"Everything's all wrong," said Lan Yi, giving the pad a final press with the heel of his hand, knowing that it was useless.

"Are we actually still on the Santa Maria?" said Strauss-Giolitto.

"Better hope so," was all Lan Yi could manage.

He wondered yet again if it were true.

"Let's try another elevator," he said.

The third elevator obeyed Hilary's summons, its door sliding open in front of them as if there were absolutely nothing the matter, its bright light inviting them to enter. Lan Yi couldn't help but feel that they were walking into the jaws of a monster, but he ushered the other two in in front of him anyway.

"We have some progress," he said. "Hilary, will you kindly press for the command deck?"

"Yeah. Great. Oh, hang about—which button's that? I've never been up there."

"It's the top button of the column," said Strauss-Giolitto. "If the elevator came when you asked it to, maybe it'll go where you tell it."

She leaned over and scooped him up as the elevator door whished closed. Lan Yi wondered what they would do if the elevator refused to budge and the door refused to open again, but he said nothing.

"Here," said Strauss-Giolitto to the child she was holding in her arms. "Just go ahead and press that one."

"OK."

The elevator began to move towards the nose of the ship. Strauss-Giolitto put Hilary back down on the floor. Lan Yi watched the display above the door nervously. Of course, the display didn't mean much to him any more, but he was nevertheless keen to see the numbers ticking over towards the top. At the same time he was apprehensive: if they found the command deck as deserted as the lowest level, what could they do? He'd done it before so he knew it was easy enough to operate a Pocket—just stick your head in and think about what you'd like to see—but he had no idea at all what he could do once he'd seen the display. Smile for the cameras, maybe. Strauss-Giolitto probably had even less of an idea than he did. Call the Helgiolath and ask them to talk him through it? Not much of an attraction the Santa Maria would be to the Helgiolath if they were going to have to spend days or weeks telling him how to pilot this strangely altered starship. Holmberg had told him the fleet they were joining was over seven and a half thousand strong. There'd be other things on the Helgiolath's minds: educating from scratch the crew of a single extra starship was not going to have a high priority.

"We're still going up," said Strauss-Giolitto glumly. The vivacity she'd shown for a short while had leached out of her. She was able, though, to look down at Hilary and return his confident grin.

"You bet your bottom dollar on it," said Lan Yi. "We are going to make it—I feel certain."

"What's a dollar?" said Hilary.

"Lan uses some expressions that're a bit unfamiliar to the rest of us," said Strauss-Giolitto. "Just kind of forget the words and listen to what he's saying. Most of the time—almost all of the time—it makes good sense."

"A dollar is an old unit of money," explained Lan Yi.

"What's money?"

"Something you can buy things with," said Strauss-Giolitto.

"What do you mean, 'buy'?"

"We are getting to the command deck," said Lan Yi. He wished he felt a bit more confident they would actually reach it. Every moment he expected to find himself back in Strauss-Giolitto's cabin.

"Where's everyone else?" said Strauss-Giolitto.

"How do you mean?"

"We should have been stopped a few times by other people wanting to get on."

"I think something very bad has happened. I do not wish to speculate further."

"Cheery?" said Strauss-Giolitto.

"We seem still to be alive."

"'Seem'?"

"That is as much as I can say. While you were unconscious there were some very strange things happening. There still are." The indicator was one level short of the command deck. He put his arm on Hilary's shoulder, ready to stop the child from dashing out on to the deck. Lan Yi wanted to take a careful look at what they were getting into before they got into it. "Have you tried to speak to the Images yet?"

"No." Strauss-Giolitto looked puzzled. "Where are they?"

"I do not know. That is one of the very many things that are concerning me."

The elevator reached the level of the command deck.

The door opened.

#

The thing looking at them was barely recognizable as Strider. Her cheeks had fallen in on themselves. The array of darkly yellow teeth that showed between the leathery lips was an image of death. The eyes looked as if they had seen too much time evolve in front of them. She was crouched in front of one of the Pockets, but looking back towards the door through which they had just entered. Her hair was grey. But her SSIA jumpsuit was the regulation blue, as if she had put it on just a few moments ago.

"Who are you?" the thing that was still just identifiable as Strider hissed.

"Lan Yi. Maria Strauss-Giolitto. A kid. Looks like we're your crew," said the tall woman.

Strider fell to all fours. She seemed to be growing older even as they watched. Lan Yi expected knuckle-bones to start showing through the flesh of her fingers.

"Everything's illusion," Strider said.

"A philosophically interesting point perhaps, but . . ." Lan Yi began.

"I'm not talking about eternity," said Strider. "I'm talking about now." She spat a decayed molar on to the floor in front of her, looked at it, picked it up, then put it back into her mouth and chewed it as if it were a toffee. "Don't believe everything you see. Don't believe anything you see."

Lan Yi took a couple of paces towards her.

"Don't come any closer." There was a lethal quality in her whisper that stopped him in his tracks. "I don't know who you are. You've told me names. I know the people whose names those are, but you don't look like them to me."

"You look like Leonie Strider to me," said Lan Yi, taking another pace forward.

"Bullshit to that," said Strider. "I no longer even look like Leonie Strider to me." She spat out another tooth, then picked it up and swallowed it as before. "What I see you as is walking mirrors, just reflections of real people. You could be anything." She pushed her hand back through her hair, and most of it came away between her fingers. "I don't know what the Helgiolath have done to us, but . . ."

"Were you in the place that was made up of mud?" said Strauss-Giolitto.

"Yes. I was there half a thousand years ago."

"And something stomped on your back."

"That was only a century later."

"Yeah," said Strauss-Giolitto. "I was there as well. Then I saw what the stars are really like—they're not just pretty bright lights in the sky at all, are they?"

"No. They hate us."

"That's taking it a bit far, Leonie."

"I don't know. I think they probably do. Mind you, my perceptions may have been altered rather radically. I've stood guard here on the command deck for a hundred and fifty years, as far as I can estimate, without having even enough time off to eat or have a crap. The hunger isn't hard to cope with any longer; the constipation is."

"You really aren't Strider, are you?" said Lan Yi. He pushed Hilary behind him.

"Of course I'm Strider."

Lan Yi looked up at the view-window. There was nothing out there. Even if they'd shifted into intergalactic space there should have been some glimmer of light, somewhere.

"Go back to the elevator," said Lan Yi softly to Strauss-Giolitto. "Take the kid with you."

"Don't talk shit," said Strauss-Giolitto. "I'm bigger and faster than you. And I'm more expendable. Remember, I was the one who got to go down to Spindrift."

"OK, we'll both stay. Hilary, go to the elevator and take yourself somewhere very distant."

"Aw, but . . ."

"Look," said Strauss-Giolitto tautly, "find yourself a black hole and fall into it. Don't pause at the event horizon."

"Yeah, but . . ." said Hilary.

"Just for fuck's sake fuck off, fucking quick," said Strauss-Giolitto.

"Oh, right, Maria. Why didn't you explain before?"

The two heard the noise of the elevator door behind them. Lan Yi reached out his right hand to touch the back of Strauss-Giolitto's left. For a split second he felt her reject the physical contact, but then she returned the gesture.

"Who or what are you?" he said to the thing that looked like an ancient Strider.

"I'm your captain."

"I do not believe you. Just now you were telling us that we should not believe anything at all that we see. Now you are asking us to take it on credit that you are Leonie Strider." He glanced sideways at Strauss-Giolitto; the woman was looking even paler than usual. "Perhaps Pinocchio could judge."

"The bot has long ago turned into a heap of rust."

The thing that might or might not be Strider was crawling towards them. The movement seemed infinitely painful. What Lan Yi wanted to do was to step forward and pick her up in his arms. At the same time he knew that this was the very last thing he should do.

"I do not think that is so," he said. "Please start telling us the truth again. You did earlier when you said that everything around us at the moment is made up of illusion, and that we should not believe anything we saw. Now you are lying to us. I would be very grateful if you could stop lying."

He touched the back of Strauss-Giolitto's hand again. Even the slight contact was enough to tell him how tensely held in place the woman's body was.

The light on the command deck began to dim. The dimming was so slow that Lan Yi hardly noticed it at first, and then he discovered that he was having to screw up his unscreened eye to see the face of the thing that he now knew was not Strider.

The thing's mouth opened, and teeth spilled from it, rattling on the command deck's floor. Behind those teeth appeared others that were much smaller but much more numerous and seemingly much sharper. The blue jumpsuit faded away from around the form of the creature, and Lan Yi wondered how he had ever been able to think of this as a human being, let alone the human being he knew as Strider. Six-legged and with what looked like feathers covering the parts of its body that the illusion of the jumpsuit had hidden, it was poised to spring at him.

Its mouth opened wider and wider—impossibly wider. There was very little he could see now but the interior of that mouth, which was darker even than the starless space he'd seen through the view-window. There was nightmare in the blackness of that maw, which had become as large as the command deck.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" said Strauss-Giolitto.

"That is a difficult question to answer," said Lan Yi primly. "I very much hope that what you are seeing is less hideous than what I am seeing."

"Couldn't be."

The upper surface of the mouth had covered the view-window. The teeth of its lower jaw were slipping insidiously under their feet. They tried to move backwards, but the rear wall of the command deck stopped them.

The darkness inside the mouth of the Strider-thing was not absolute. There was a flipping black-yellow tongue several meters wide. Overhead, the teeth of the upper jaw were slowly lowering.

Lan Yi held his composure with great difficulty. His life had been a long one and it had been strewn with many griefs, most notably the way that Geena had so determinedly hurled herself out of it. He was not at all afraid of death, but he was certainly fearful of the pain that might attend his manner of dying. He wanted to bow down inside the mouth of the thing that had looked like Strider and beg for mercy, but he knew that he couldn't do that. He had to keep up the appearance of impassiveness for the sake of Strauss-Giolitto. Astonishingly, she was acting as calm as he was. Perhaps she was returning the compliment: keeping up appearances for his sake.

"Everything's illusion," Strauss-Giolitto said. "Just keep a hold of that. This isn't really happening."

"It feels as if it is."

She put her arm around his waist and hugged him to her. "Let's go for a walk down the Yellow Brick Road, shall we?"

"That?" he said, looking at the serpent-like tongue.

"We can't go back, so we might as well go forward. Just at the moment, it looks as if we have a choice of being eaten or allowing ourselves to be eaten. I'd prefer the latter. It has a bit more dignity. Besides, sooner or later we're going to wake up."

I woke her from a nightmare, Lan Yi thought. That's why she's so insouciant about all this. She thinks it's just another bad dream. It hasn't occurred to her that even illusions can kill you.

"Yes," he said. "Let's take that walk."

Darkness was falling as the huge mouth closed.

The most difficult part was climbing on to the tongue. Its tip was moving from side to side in unpredictable flickers of motion. Lan Yi tried to grab it to hold it still, but the oily flesh kept slipping out of his hands.

Strauss-Giolitto hit the tip of the tongue hard with the side of her hand. For a moment it stilled.

"Climb on," she said. "Dive on."

She threw herself on to the tongue, losing her balance before she could rise to her knees and, somewhat shakily, her feet. She looked the way that Lan Yi had looked the first time he had tried water-skiing, over seventy years ago. There was so little light left that he couldn't see her face. This was probably a good thing. About three minutes into his first attempt at water-skiing he had been prolifically seasick. He took her hand, and she dragged him up on to the greasy surface of the tongue. It had started moving from side to side once more. She tried to pull him erect alongside her, but instead fell almost on top of him.

"Doesn't look as if we're exactly going to be dancing along like Dorothy and the Scarecrow," she said into his ear.

"Let us keep going forward," he said, resigning himself to death. Better for her that she keeps thinking of all this as just a bad dream, something that will sooner or later be over. "Who knows what is at the end of the Yellow Brick Road?"

At the moment all that seemed to be at the end of the Yellow Brick Road was pitch blackness. The mouth of the Strider-thing had almost entirely closed. Lan Yi glanced behind him and saw just a strip of jagged-edged greenish light.

"Who goes first?" said Strauss-Giolitto.

"Whichever you prefer."

"All right, I'll lead you. Take hold of my ankle and follow me."

She crawled ahead of him. There was just enough light left for him to catch a glimpse of her foot, and he caught it in his hand. She gave a grunt of acknowledgement.

The jaws clenched tightly shut. There was nothing to see. The slippery tongue on which they were perched still moved erratically underneath them, so that even crawling was a delicate test of the ability to keep balance.

Lan Yi wondered how long he could keep going. Strauss-Giolitto had the fantasy that this wasn't really happening. He knew that it was. It might be an illusion, but so was the person on the other side of the mirror from yourself. If you ran to throw your arms around that mirror-person you could kill yourself just as easily as if you'd jumped off a tall building. He felt as if he were falling into Strauss-Giolitto's fantasy. Any minute now there would be the sound of breaking glass.

She was crawling ahead at such a speed that he found it difficult to keep up. Sometimes he found himself falling face-first into the accumulated mucus at the center of the tongue. Still he clung on to her ankle. It seemed the one safe reference point in a universe that was currently nothing but darkness.

"We'll get there soon," she said.

"Where?"

"At the end of the Yellow Brick Road there's always the Emerald City."

There was a slight glimmer of light. It was dark red—not emerald green—and unreliable, but at least it was there. Strauss-Giolitto's boot, in Lan Yi's hand, looked black.

Then a new ripple was added to the tongue's movement.

"I think we've reached the back of the throat," said Lan Yi, struggling for breath.

They were the last words he said before they found themselves sliding unstoppably downwards. The redness grew a little brighter.

Human stomachs are filled with acid. As he fell, releasing Strauss-Giolitto's foot at last, Lan Yi wondered what the stomach of the Strider-thing might be filled with. It seemed odd to be concerned about which particular fluid might be about to dissolve you, but Lan Yi couldn't help the curiosity.

But they weren't inside a stomach, he suddenly discovered: they were floating in free space, with the stars stretching out on every side as far as he could see. He stopped himself from screaming and looked at the figure of Strauss-Giolitto, tumbling out of control alongside him. Still she seemed unfazed by what they were going through—it was just another dream to her, maybe a dream she had already had. She was relaxing in the vacuum, stretching her arms out behind her as if she were luxuriating in a hot bath.

Lan Yi narrowed his eyes. The faintest points of light around them were swiftly winking out. He wondered why he was able to continue breathing in the vacuum: perhaps Strauss-Giolitto was right, and it really was some kind of dream. But it wasn't—he knew that. He'd experienced lucid dreams before, and this was identifiably not one of them. More of the stars were blinking into nonexistence. The whole of space around him and Strauss-Giolitto was beginning to glow softly. He reached out to take her hand. She smiled at him.

Almost all of the stars had gone now, and the glow of space was becoming dazzling. His body and Strauss-Giolitto's floated towards each other. He found himself wrapped tightly against her, so tightly that it was almost as if he might be absorbed into her. She had always been much larger than him; now she seemed to be twice his size. He wondered if she would next try to swallow him, in a recapitulation of what the Strider-thing had done to them.

Gravity returned suddenly, forcing them apart. They were lying on a hard surface of some kind which gleamed greenly.

"Ah, there you are," said a huge voice.

#

Strider finally narrowed the focus of the Pocket so that she could see Lan Yi and Strauss-Giolitto. They were the last of her personnel that she and Ten Per Cent Extra Free had been able to identify.

"Ah, there you are," she said, and reached into the Pocket to scoop them up. She held them carefully by the collars of their jumpsuits as she withdrew them from the Pocket's field. The first time she'd pulled someone out of the Pocket she'd held him on her upturned hand and then, when he was suddenly restored to his full size and mass, had been lucky to escape without broken bones.

"What an amazing imagination I have," said Strauss-Giolitto, recovering her balance. "Not that long ago I was being swallowed by you."

"Really?" said Strider drily.

"This is actually happening to us, isn't it?" said Lan Yi.

"It has been," said Strider. "The worst of it seems to be over now." She pointed upwards at the view-window. "Unless reality has become a lot looser than anything we've all been through we're back in the middle of the Helgiolath fleet."

"Have you any idea what happened?" said Lan Yi, obviously exerting considerable control over his body as he lowered himself into one of the command seats. He looked as if he were on the point of collapse. Strauss-Giolitto, by contrast, was pacing around the deck as if it were some new part of her dream, something that might reveal an interesting extra detail about her subconscious.

"The Helgiolath commander dictated to me how I was to shift the Santa Maria while still remaining a part of his fleet," said Strider. "Whatever's left of the Main Computer obeyed his orders. It's not something I'll let it do again." She grinned without any humor. "In future we'll just stick to the cozy old tachyonic drive, right? I don't think I could go through all that again."

Lan Yi was breathing with great deliberation and his face was paler than she had ever seen it. "One of these days we must compare nightmares," he said heavily, "but I would rather it were not soon. There is a lot I would like to forget. How, though, did Strauss-Giolitto and myself come to arrive in the Pocket?"

"As far as I can work it out," said Strider, "the Helgiolath make their ftl skips by thrusting themselves through different levels of reality—or different realities—before they reconstitute themselves somewhere else. Maybe they enjoy the experiences they undergo along the way. I didn't."

"I echo your opinions entirely," said Lan Yi.

"The Pockets seem to operate along the same principle," said Strider. She sat down near him. "I've spent the past four hours fishing people out of that damned Pocket. Two of them had been driven completely out of their minds by whatever it was they'd been through." She flexed the knuckles of her right hand at him so that he could see the bruises. "I had to hit both of them very hard to . . . sedate them. They're under the control of medbots now."

Strauss-Giolitto wandered towards them. Her eyes were bright.

"Has the nightmare ended?" she said.

"Yes," said Strider wearily. "At least, as far as I can tell it has."

Strauss-Giolitto looked disappointed.

"Are you all right?" said Lan Yi listlessly.

"Oh, I'm fine. Fine," said Strauss-Giolitto.

To Strider it was obvious that the woman was a very long way from fine. She wished that she cared a little bit more.

"Could you look after her?" she said to Lan Yi.

"I seem to have been doing that ever since we came on board the Santa Maria," he said with an air of resignation. "Yes, of course I shall." He hauled himself to his feet. "We must take the elevator back to our cabins," he said to Strauss-Giolitto.

She gave him a confident smile. "Want to screw me, is that it?"

"Not at this particular moment in time," said Lan Yi. "Please, just do what I ask."

"Fancy your chances, do you?"

Strider had had enough. She applied the Strider Sedative with all the force she could muster, damaging her hand yet further. "I'll get a bot to clear her away," she said, looking down at the form of Strauss-Giolitto in front of her. "I suppose I'm likely to be indicted because of this sort of stuff." She looked at her hand, wondering if she had fractured her knuckles. "I think I need a medbot pretty urgently."

Then she saw the command deck twisting itself into curious patterns of bright colors, and fainted.

#

Lan Yi looked at the two unconscious women on the floor of the deck. His first instinct was to attend to them himself, but he knew that soon a medbot would arrive which would do the job much better than he could. Poor Strauss-Giolitto, in one sense. Poor Strider, in another. Both of them carried almost unbearable burdens.

"Where are you?" he said to the Images.

WE'RE HERE, said one of them.

"Who's speaking?"

Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

"Is the Santa Maria safe?"

It is at the moment.

"What do you suggest we do?"

There are Images in Kortland's flagship. We have established contact with them. We have explained to them that human beings are not suited to transferring themselves between realities. They will pass this information to Kortland.

"What would you advise?"

We would advise that you distance yourself from the Helgiolath fleet.

"But is it not our best defense?"

It is your worst enemy, and probably you are the worst enemy of the Helgiolath.

"I don't understand."

THE FLEET IS LARGE ENOUGH THAT THE AUTARCHY SHOULD HAVE DETECTED IT, DESPITE THE COMMUNICATIONS-DETECTION SHIELD IT HAS ERECTED AROUND ITSELF. WHY THE FLEET HAS NOT YET BEEN DESTROYED IS SOMETHING THAT WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND. AT THE SAME TIME, THE FORCES OF THE AUTARCHY SEEM ABLE TO DISCOVER THE SANTA MARIA WHEREVER IT IS.

"Polyaggle said there was a way we could perhaps get back to the Solar System."

THERE IS A CHANCE OF DOING THAT, YES.

"Why has Strider not instituted this?"

Her thoughts told us that she had decided to be "philanthropic."

Lan Yi thought about this for a few moments. He had no particular desire to return to the Solar System, where Geena had killed herself. When asked his opinions by Holmberg he had opted to stay in The Wondervale. But others—a majority of others—among the personnel had had different views. Why had Strider decided to ignore what they thought?

"Where's Pinocchio?" he said at last.

THE BOT IS APPROACHING THE COMMAND DECK. HE WILL BE WITH YOU IN TWENTY-TWO POINT ONE SIX SECONDS.

"And Polyaggle?"

SHE HAS YET TO RETURN FROM THE FRACTAL REALITIES.

The information made Lan Yi's face twist with pain. He and Strauss-Giolitto had experienced the nightmare of what Ten Per Cent Extra Free called the fractal realities.

"Will she return?" he said.

WE BELIEVE SO.

There was a mental silence. Lan Yi sensed that, whatever the Images had told them about Polyaggle, it was less than the full truth. But there was nothing he could do about it. Rubbing his hand tiredly across his forehead, he thought he saw one of the Images—presumably Ten Per Cent Extra Free—in the side of his vision.

The left-hand communications Pocket sprang into life. There was a hideous double visage there. This must be Kortland. Holmberg had told him that the Helgiolath were far from pretty. At the time he had assumed that he was above any preconceptions as to what constituted prettiness: what counted were intelligence and motivations; they were the true beauties, rather than physical appearance. Now he knew what Holmberg had been talking about.

"Where is your captain?" said Kortland curtly.

"She is . . . unwell."

Lan Yi heard Pinocchio entering the command deck behind him.

"There has been very great difficulty aboard this spaceship," said Lan Yi. "The shift you asked our Main Computer to perform caused much distress among our personnel."

"I apologize for this," said the two-headed leech-like thing. "Had I realized I would have—"

Lan Yi cut across him. "We do not attach guilt to you, but at the same time I think it unwise that we remain a part of your fleet."

"We wish to destroy the tyrant," said Kortland. "Is this not something you would wish to see? I had the impression from your captain that she wanted to experience the destruction of the Autarchy."

"The Images aboard this vessel say that we would be better off without you, and that you would be better off without us." Lan Yi peered at the alien. Biology was not his specialization, but he was beginning to perceive the elegances of Kortland's form. Where human beings had prehensile hands, the Helgiolath must use their mouths.

The Helgiolath appeared to be thinking; it was difficult to know.

"Are you our allies," said Kortland eventually, "or are you going to desert from our fleet?"

Ten Per Cent Extra Free managed to convey a sense of threat in the translation. Lan Yi knew that he would have to speak very carefully in response.

Prompted by Ten Per Cent Extra Free, he said: "We would like to assist you, but not as part of your fleet."

"There is something you could do for us."

"Tell me what it is. I am not the commander of this vessel, and so I cannot promise that we will obey your request."

One of Kortland's heads turned away, but the other continued to look at Lan Yi. The seeming eyelessness of the alien's face was one of its most repulsive aspects, and yet at a different level Lan Yi found himself appreciating it. Visible eyes are weaknesses, he thought, because if you can destroy a creature's sensory organs you can almost certainly, soon afterwards, move in for the kill. Sometime in the distant past the Helgiolath must have evolved away from having overt sensory organs in order better to protect themselves from predators. We human beings, on the other hand, not only have sensory organs plastered all over our faces but have even accentuated their obviousness by putting on secondary retinal screens. Before Strauss-Giolitto went through the Spindrifters' decontamination you could have blown every synapse in her brain by simply coughing loudly at her.

"There is a planet that the Autarchy values above any other except Qitanefermeartha itself," the Helgiolath said.

"'Qitanefermeartha'?"

"Qitanefermeartha is the planet at the very core of the Autarchy. It is not of current concern. It is so well defended that even this fleet might have no chance of succeeding against it. Perhaps in the future . . ."

The Helgiolath's second face turned back blindly towards Lan Yi. Did the aliens have two brains, one for each head? He was becoming much more interested in their physiology than he was in thoughts of fighting the Autarchy. The Santa Maria had been sent into space with the primary purpose of discovering a new world for humanity to colonize but with the secondary aim of studying alien lifeforms—not as lifeforms, exactly, but as representatives of other modes of evolution. Lan Yi had not been deeply involved in this part of the overall project, but it had interested him nevertheless. If he were ever given the chance he wanted to investigate Polyaggle: she was clearly put together in some way that human biology had yet to encounter. Dissecting a Helgiolath could likewise add more to humanity's understanding of the workings of biology than all the thousands of years of research that had gone before . . .

"Please tell me what you would like us to do," said Pinocchio.

Lan Yi started. He had almost forgotten that the bot was there on the command deck with him.

"I will give you the co-ordinates of this planet, which is called F-14," said Kortland. There was a note of relief in the alien's translated voice, as if at last he were dealing with someone rational.

"Please do not do so as you did before," said Pinocchio. "We have lost several of our personnel to your mode of moving vessels through space."

"You take this over," said Lan Yi to the bot. He had become too intrigued by the Helgiolath to remember Strauss-Giolitto and Strider. A couple of medbots should have been here by now. Was his order of priorities Strauss-Giolitto and Strider or Strider and Strauss-Giolitto? This worried him as he turned away from the communications Pocket to look at the two women. Strauss-Giolitto was motionless except for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. It looked as if Strider had broken the woman's jaw, but this was nothing that a medbot couldn't deal with quickly. Strider, although her eyes were still closed, was mumbling some sort of gibberish. Spittle was leaking out of the side of her mouth.

"Translation?" Lan Yi said to Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

There isn't any.

"Is she all right?"

She will soon recover.

He knelt down beside Strider and took her head on to his knees, stroking her face.

"I have recorded those co-ordinates," said Pinocchio behind him. "You must tell us more about this planet."

Strider was beginning to recover full consciousness. Her eyes opened, staring into Lan Yi's, and then closed firmly again. "The hill of unbelief is never the sight of seeing," she said, very quietly.

"I do not understand you," said Lan Yi.

Her eyes opened once more. This time she recognized him and put her arms up towards him, pulling his face down towards hers. He kissed her politely on the cheek. She responded by kissing him eagerly on the mouth. He was appalled. His mouth was Geena's territory, not Strider's.

"Stop, please," he said, as her face moved briefly away from his.

He could see her eyes moving into focus.

She squirmed away from him across the floor of the command deck.

"It is undoubtedly very well protected," Pinocchio said in the background.

The Images were no longer interacting with Lan Yi, so he had no idea what Kortland was saying from the communications Pocket; it sounded like an explosion of flatulence that he was pleased to discover was not coming from himself.

Strider was lugging herself to her feet. She seemed shaky, but the craziness had gone out of her eyes. Lan Yi saw her look towards Strauss-Giolitto, who was still unconscious, and then towards the back of Pinocchio, who was talking earnestly with the Helgiolath.

"I have now stored a back-up of the co-ordinates within myself," the bot said, "but until I have received human instructions I am unable to take further action."

"Let me take over," said Strider.

Her brusque brushing of Lan Yi out of the way as she moved towards the Pocket might have been offensive, but somehow it was not. The out-of-Taiwanese didn't even start to think about what Pinocchio felt as he was thrown aside as well. Instead he went to Strauss-Giolitto. Still no goddam medbots.

"Stop pissing about and give me some more fucking information," said Strider into the communications Pocket.

Lan Yi hoped that Ten Per Cent Extra Free was performing adequate expurgation.

#

The flintreader in the eye of.

She.

Sun bright in the very high sky, then growing too much smaller. Feel of distance above ground. Wings flexing.

Dark sky now.

Thousands of children nudging uncertainly inside her. This is not what we want, mother. Most of them would die within moments of their birth, but enough of them would live.

The shape of creation was a rhombus. This had been known since time was very young.

Wings move, and then are torn from the back. Pain would be better than the sense of loss. The flintreader sees all, because he has become the too-small sun and the very dark sky. He is her magical incarnate lover and the one who surrounds her. She bites into him, feeling the warm succor of his fluids easing themselves as they should do into her mouth. The flintreader lets her take her fill and then releases her—thrusts her away from him.

This is not supposed to happen. The flintreader comes for a queen only in the moment of her death. It is not his role to mate with her through the feeding ritual, as he has just done.

Wingbrush. The flintreader once more?

No. Instead the Human-thing named Strauss-Giolitto. Hurtling towards the ground together with the human-thing, pulling her flesh away from her body in little pieces. No pain, but knowledge that the flesh would not return for a very long while.

Copulation with the Human-thing. Interesting but not greatly pleasurable. Try to make the bite, but this time pushed away even before the skin can be pierced.

Utter darkness, then brilliance.

The flintreader with her again as they fly, her wings restored, down topologically impossible corridors. Almost all of her dead, but almost all of her regrowing inside her.

Sharp blade descending. Flintreader gone from her side. Darkness brighter than the brilliance. Species-death descending with a loud shine. Descending towards her. Descending.

Blade, discovered from the Human-things, averted. She wings in emptiness. Where the flintreader? Gone, as always is in life. First real hope she is alive. Thousand of lives inside her. Must be protected.

Fly on through emptiness.

No flintreader.

Human-things least bad option. Raise small ones until take back to Spindrift. Much flesh on Human-things. Birthing can be achieved.

Exchange flesh.

Blinding lights and once more the sensation of falling.

Exchange flesh, or feel the species slip away. The male and the female mate after the female is engorged with a litter and then the female sucks the flesh out of the male and plants her already sentient offspring into his shard. This is the way it has always been. This is rightness.

She is underwater, the worst of all places to be. The coldest of all water. Required: the warmth of the flintreader.

Now light again, and she can see bubbles of air drifting up swiftly from mouth. Wings start from back but are heavy with moisture. Dying here.

Back in air, but somewhere unknown—not Spindrift. Move wings, and now can fly. Air too thick for breathing. Gag as if trying to breathe water.

More pain.

But soon to reach the Human-things once more. Then to the birthing give and if only that forevermore the eleventh was the next number.

She.

Wanted to be.

Herself.

Again.

Flintreader holding her back.

Hitting him away.

Human-things excellent hosts for the brood. Better even than flintreader. More flesh.

#

In the end, Polyaggle spent a very long winter on a planet called Xr—where she was hunted through the snows by creatures that looked like low walls but had gaping mouths in their centers—before she was able to fight her way back through her nightmares to one of the Pockets on the command deck of the Santa Maria.

"You're the last to get here," said Lan Yi, holding her in his arms, although it was obvious to her that her bristles were cutting painfully into him.

Did he have enough flesh?

#

There was a time when there had been a world called Preeat, which had been inhabited by a pre-space people called the Preeae, who looked rather like something you discovered splattered on the windshield of a cabble. Now no one called the planet Preeat any more, because it was much more conveniently referred to by the Autarchy as F-14. Of course, no one called the dominant aboriginal species Preeae any more because no one had seen any of them for a very long time. Two thousand years ago the cleansing operation had taken the Autarch Nalla about two seconds to conceive and about two hours to watch being executed.

The Preeae had looked remarkably funny as they'd fried in the Autarchy's beams: the spectacle had been well worth watching.

The Autarch never did anything without reason, unless he felt like it. The reason in this instance was that he needed an unpopulated but hospitable planet so that his technicians could develop and manufacture extra weaponry. The various species of The Wondervale showed a remarkable amount of ingratitude towards the Autarch, who spent much of his time—when he remembered—keeping the galaxy in order. So it was necessary to keep the forces of the Autarchy properly equipped with weapons just so that they could enforce law and order whenever they had to for the benefit of the people.

The Preeae, for example, were no longer unlawful or disorderly.

The techs on the world that was now called F-14 had not entirely been volunteers. To call them conscripts would have been unfair, because most of them had been rather more unwilling than that. Nonetheless they worked away faithfully producing the hardware for density rays, maxbeams, fudgeblasters and all the rest. Once every few planetary orbits a small armada of Autarchy warcruisers would descend to hoist skyward the products of the techs' endeavors. In the early days a few of the techs had passed loose comment about how they were less than totally happy with this business of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. After those few had gone the way of the Preeae there was substantially less chit-chat in the canteen of an evening.

F-14 was, naturally, well defended. For example, even a fleet of seven thousand six hundred and ninety-two warcruisers would have difficulty getting close enough to slide a missile through F-14's defensive shields. A single vessel that used cobbled-together technology that mixed the primitive with the best that the Images could produce . . .

"Is it really necessary?" said Strider.

"If this tyranny is to be ended," said Kortland, "we have to wreck its manufactory."

"But what about all those people?"

"They are of not great importance. There are only a few hundred thousand of them. There are billions on billions of people in The Wondervale whose lives will be saved if the factories of the planet F-14 are destroyed." Kortland paused. "I once felt exactly as you do now. But do you kill a poisonous parasite before or after it kills a host of people?"

"I still don't like it," said Strider.

"If it is something we can do and no one else can," said Lan Yi, holding Polyaggle's claw, "I think we should do it."

Strider nodded to him. "Yeah, better to kill people than to let billions of others be killed. Easy enough as a mathematical calculation. A bit more difficult in real life."

"This is my reasoning," said Lan Yi. "I am pleased that the final decision will be yours."

"Listen to your advisors," said the translated voice of Kortland.

"I am. Pinocchio, cue in those co-ordinates."