

### The Gods of the Gift

A Novel by Arthur Rosch

Copyright 2016 Arthur Rosch  
Smashwords Edition

Cover design by the author  
Ebook formatting by www.gopublished.com

" _Do stars, like mothers, feel love for the life they give? Do they feel a million years of grief when neighbors go nova or fade into brown dwarfs at the end of their fusion lives?_

We have seen that consciousness follows complexity. We recognize a sufficient number of features in the actions of a star to suggest it to be at least as complex as a human brain. Stars spin, expand, contract, granulate, pulsate, generate magnetic and sonic fields of incredible diversity, and emit winds that might echo the power of adoration that flows between lovers, or between mother and child. We know nothing of stars' relations to one another.

Their consciousness is simply too large to comprehend."

From Starwinds, by Latif el Rashid

" _If you don't know what you're feelin', man, then you sure as hell don't know what you're doing."_

Twangy Pete,  
guitarist from The Dreadful Great, famous Jerk n' Jell band

### Table of Contents

Prologue: There Are No Miracles

PART ONE

Chapter One: Duels Of Character

Chapter Two: Time Band

Chapter Three: Elder's Night

Chapter Four: The Amalgamation

Chapter Five: The Comet Habuka

Chapter Six: The View From Castle Strobe

Chapter Seven: Corruption's Cousin

Chapter Eight: Proposal

Chapter Nine: Through the doors of Shadow

Chapter Ten: Sphere of Breath

Chapter Eleven: Even Your Friends Don't Like You

Chapter Twelve: New Sentience

Chapter Thirteen: Mordant Peculations

Chapter Fourteen: Underground

Chapter Fifteen: The Musician

Chapter Sixteen: The Pet

Chapter Seventeen: Other Forms of Mind

Chapter Eighteen: The Aia

Chapter Nineteen: New Kinds Of Thought

Chapter Twenty: Corrupted Minds

Chapter Twenty One: The Skids

Chapter Twenty Two: The Dungeon

Chapter Twenty Three: The first defeat

Chapter Twenty Four: Confessions of an Honest Man

Chapter Twenty Five: Enter the Vale of Darkness

Chapter Twenty Six: Behind the Curtain

Chapter Twenty Seven: Rollover

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Unprepared

Chapter Twenty Nine: The True Soul Shows Through

Chapter Thirty: Zos

PART TWO

Chapter Thirty One: The Search For Shoms

Chapter Thirty Two: Shoms

Chapter Thirty Three: Planetfall Shock

Chapter Thirty Four: Crossed Rings

Chapter Thirty Five: How Experience IS

Chapter Thirty Six: Fotabelos

Chapter Thirty Seven: Robes

Chapter Thirty Eight: Pilgrims

Chapter Thirty Nine: Where Did The Music Go?

Chapter Forty: Inn Of The Million Tribes

Chapter Forty One: Quake

Chapter Forty Two: Mazmoholu

Chapter Forty Three: Chains and Gains

Chapter Forty Four: The Hurt of Love

Chapter Forty Five: Experience

Chapter Forty Six: Ascent

Chapter Forty Seven: New Breath

Chapter Forty Eight: Love's Completion

Chapter Forty Nine: One Tribe

Chapter Fifty: Mountains of Fate

Chapter Fifty One: On the Klah Plain

Chapter Fifty Two: The Here And Now

Chapter Fifty Three: Imaginary World

Chapter Fifty Four: Arisen

Chapter Fifty Five: Zaramutu

Chapter Fifty Six: Wayuzo

Chapter Fifty Seven: Eaten by a Star

Appendix A

Other Books By Art Rosch

Prologue

There Are No Miracles

When he was nine years old Garuvel Nep Zimrin discovered that he could disappear. He made this discovery as he was sitting in a gazebo hiding from his bodyguards. The quaint white structure was at the bottom of a huge sloping lawn, screened from The Great House by a stand of slender evergreens.

Garuvel sat on the wooden floor beneath the railing. As Firstborn of a Great House he was a target for kidnappers and was constantly watched by a contingent of bodyguards. He hated those damned bodyguards, especially Shreep, whom he privately called Shreep The Creep. There was something really wrong with that fat pig and he didn't understand how such a person could get the job of bodyguard for a piece of toast much less the Firstborn of a Great House.

Thinking about Shreep led him to another line of thought. He had worked it out over the last few weeks and was now admitting some hard truths. His bodyguards were incompetent buffoons. Every one of them was someone's second cousin or a bastard of one of The Baron's card-playing friends. He had finally understood that the surveillance was a sham. His father, The Baron, was all but inviting the kidnapping of his Firstborn. When that happened Garuvel's father would suddenly be short of funds. The Baron would run around with great noise and fury, acting the role of a frantic parent.

"Oh Gods!" the Baron would cry, "They want two million zirks by tomorrow evening! I can't raise that kind of money so quickly! Oh Gods! What will I do? None of the other Magnates will lend me that kind of cash!"

What a deadly joke! Garuvel had worked out the facts of life. His younger brother, Verleth, was the Baron's favorite. He, Garuvel, was a thorn in his father's side. He had no ambition to run an interplanetary corporation. He had no aptitude for strapping on battle gear and wiping out aboriginals whose land contained Genzite deposits. Verleth was a much better choice as future magnate and warlord. He could have it, for all Garuvel cared. He was welcome to the legacy of The Firstborn. If he could, Garuvel would just give it to his brother.

It wasn't so simple. So long as he was alive, the legacy wasn't his to give. It was an ancient rock-hewn tradition that the Firstborn became Magnate, inherited the leadership of his Great House. Garuvel had to be eliminated carefully. No suspicion could ever splash back to taint Verleth. Otherwise brothers would start killing brothers all over the planet.

Garuvel watched the little finches that nested in the stately evergreen spires. They landed and disappeared, twittering inside the moist branches. On the upper branches there loomed a flock of black-feathered zilfs, waiting for a chance to grab a chick.

Garuvel found a few small rocks on the floor of the gazebo. He threw them to disperse the zilfs. They flapped off in outrage, shouting "Wock! Wock! Wock!"

He admired the finches. They banded together to prevent zilfs from eating their young. They worked as a team, decoying, confusing, mobbing the zilfs with their bodies.

Garuvel had no such system of defense. With the exception of his mother, his kin seemed bent on pushing him out of the nest so that Verleth could accede to the position of Firstborn.

When there was trouble with his family Garuvel's desire for privacy reached a level of obsession. The latest blow-up involved one of his brother's pranks. Verleth had trapped two cats in one of the estate's outbuildings and put them into a burlap sack filled with white flour. He threw the sack into the stall where Garuvel's horse was calmly chewing its sprouts. The horse kicked the stall's gate in terror and escaped. The crazed animal trampled across the Number One tee pad on the Holes Course, just as the Baron raised his club over his shoulder. The horse ruined both the tee pad and the stroke.

Not being a tattler, Garuvel refused to shift the blame when the furious Baron confronted his sons. Verleth's eyes gleamed with malice and his mocking smile made Garuvel's fists curl with rage .

"No poetry for two weeks!" Baron Hatlath Or Zimrin pronounced Garuvel's punishment. "If I catch you with a book of poetry I'll take away all your books and then what will you do with your wretched life? Hmm?"

He retreated to the gazebo to nurse his frustration. Garuvel passed through the trees and walked up the steps. He sat and looked out through the painted white slats. As he recalled his father's acid words, he spoke aloud. His imagination was conjuring a fantasy, a daydream.

He said, "Sometimes I wish I could just disappear."

Then he completely disappeared. He looked for himself and there was nothing to see: no clothes, torso, legs, feet, nothing. He became disoriented. He was so nauseous that a sudden jet of vomit appeared as if from nowhere, arching across the gazebo and splattering on the wooden platform. He might be invisible, but his puke was not.

He thought, "I can't be invisible, it's not possible." He cleared his mouth with a bit of saliva and spoke the words aloud, to ascertain that he still had a voice. He instantly re-appeared. He was shaking and his knees felt weak.

Wiping his face with a handkerchief, he decided to experiment. He repeated the phrase, "I wish I could disappear," and he was thinking in a visual way about what had just transpired. Again, his body vanished, and he felt an odd sense of being in multiple places simultaneously. There was a subtle sense of one place contracting and another place expanding. Does he have control of this thing, he wondered, can he repeat it at will? He disappeared and reappeared three times. He got used to the odd feelings. They were no more than an itch, nothing to worry about. He understood that three separate elements had to come together to activate this magic power. He had to imagine that he was invisible, form the image in his mind, then say the words aloud. If he did not say his desire aloud, if he did not pre-visualize the result, nothing happened. It took all three things: the thought, the visualization, the spoken words.

He experimented with a fart and produced a long and majestic blurp that smelled of digested eggs. He laughed quietly, wickedly, as he thought of the pranks he could play. Then he quickly sobered as he considered the implications of what was happening. He used his handkerchief to clean up the vomit and buried it under rocks and leaves.

Garuvel felt a quiet flush of victory racing through his blood. This was power, this was huge! When he returned to his suite he stood before the mirror doing it over and over again: think it, visualize it, say it. "I am invisible". Whoosh! He was no longer in the mirror. He could see nothing when he looked down at himself; not his pleated white shirt, nor his baggy blue pantaloons. The room behind him showed as it was; his bookshelves, his holos, everything was there.

"I am visible", he said, but nothing happened, until he remembered that he must hold in his mind the image of being once more visible. He tried it again. He imagined himself as he was before. "I am visible'. Whoosh! He reappeared instantly. True, there was this vague sense of unease each time he utilized this power. His entire being briefly fragmented and flew across the universe. It caused him concern. He was honest with himself: there is something scary about this.

What was the limit of this power? It surely could do more than produce farts and vanishings. This was a terrifying thought. If he could do other things, what might he become? When he used the power, he felt strange. He felt things shift and dislocate. He also had the eerie sense that someone was watching him. He began to feel as though he was the subject of an experiment.

He would proceed conscientiously in exploring this new power.

I'll try something different, he decided. Something small and harmless. He looked at himself in the mirror and his first temptation was to make himself bigger, stronger. He saw the reflection of his eyes and there was something in them that he wanted to keep. If he made himself stronger, even for a moment, he feared he would lose that thing he saw in his eyes. He feared he would become like Verleth. He didn't know why, but he felt that being Verleth was actually a horrible thing. In spite of all Verleth's advantages, there was something terrible and hollow about Garuvel's younger brother.

He visualized a bell-shaped flower, peach colored with blue borders and green pistils peeking out over the top of slender petals. He would give it a gold pot filled with good fresh dirt. It would be a living thing. As he formed this image he realized something very important about himself. He, Garuvel Nep Zimrin, lived to find beauty in everything. He knew that beauty was everywhere, even in the face of violence, selfishness and all manner of evil. He, Garuvel, was an artist. He wanted to create beautiful things.

He focused his mind once more, and when the image was clear, he spoke.

"This is my flower, symbol of my truth."

It appeared with a slight pop, as it displaced the air in the space it now occupied. In his hand was this delicate creation. It was a living thing, it was real!

Again, there was an opening inside himself and a vision of vast spaces, of moving gaseous forms expanding and contracting.

"Now the flower is gone," he spoke, " but the truth remains."

Nothing happened. He was startled for a moment before he remembered to make the picture in his mind. He spoke again. "Now the flower is gone, but the truth remains."

The flower vanished with a slight hiss. Until I figure this thing out, he told himself, I think I should limit myself to appearing and disappearing.

He began wandering around the family estate, prying into everyone's secret lives.

He watched his father, the Baron Hatlath Or Zimrin, playing cards with the other magnates of the Great Houses of Vygor. He saw his father cheat quite deftly. All the Magnates cheated, but his father seemed to be the best cheater of the bunch.

He saw his mother as she watched the Faketron, indulging her passion for soap operas. Sitting in her big overstuffed chair with her legs supported on a matching ottoman, she would ring at intervals for her maidservant, who brought little cups of green liquid. Garuvel sat invisibly at her side one day for the entire afternoon. As the Baroness drank more cups of green liquid, her comments to the actors on the Faketron grew more raucous. Some of the things she said were embarrassing. It was a shock to realize that his mother was not as he had thought. Towards late afternoon, after many hours of soap opera plot twists, she shouted hoarsely at a female character. "By the tits of the goddesses," she cried, "will you fuck the man already!?"

Garuvel left the suite shaken and confused.

Revealing his secret power would be catastrophic. He was well aware of the political web in which he lived. He was an unpopular Firstborn, a joke to his own father. He needed to find out everything he could about this new faculty and use it to ensure his safety.

Did he have this power because he was a Firstborn from one of the Twelve Great Houses? He followed Klarvey Nep Waxold for a day. He saw nothing unusual. He scanned the faces of Termo Nep Feevey, Gabilon Nep Vorce, and Frexis Nep Komo, but saw no hint of secret power. They were vicious louts, yet all were pleased that they were destined to run their family's empires.

Garuvel, on the other hand, was always the victim of Baron Hatlath's rages. The subject was always the same.

"Look!" the Baron said one day, taking Verleth by the elbow and standing both of them in front of a mirror. "Look at the size of your brother! Look at his healthy coloring!" The Baron squeezed Verleth's biceps proudly. "What an arm! Why were YOU born first? Why am I so fucking bound by this old tradition of Firstborns right of inheritance? Garuvel, you don't get enough sun, enough exercise. You should emulate Verleth."

Though a year younger, Verleth towered over him, radiating aggressive competence. Garuvel regarded his own pale figure. The short pants and monogrammed blazer hung from his skinny frame in wrinkles and pouches. He wanted to get away as quickly as possible, to change out of his dinner uniform and go to Dryad's Grotto to read a volume of poetry by his hero, Harl Plesniak.

"What's the matter with you?" The Baron grew heated. "Can't you do anything right? Why did you bother to be born? If it weren't for the tests, I wouldn't believe you came from my loins! My grandfather was the mighty Armin Maximhammer! You take too much after your mother.. What am I supposed to do?"

Garuvel's father wound up the tirade by slapping him on the back of the head with an open fan of playing cards. The blow was hard enough to cause Garuvel to stumble to his knees.

Taking this as his dismissal, Garuvel went first to his room, where he got a flashlight. He donned his beret and put on his comfortable loose clothes. He filled a pack with vitta cakes and glorp juice. He easily picked the lock his father had fitted to the book case. Garuvel ran his fingers quickly over his shelf of favorites. Today he would read"Starwinds", by the founder of Noetiphysics, Latif el Rashid. He would also take his favorite book of poetry, "Feral Tenderness." It was considered the finest work of the writer Harl Plesniak. Garuvel passionately loved the work of Harl Plesniak. He didn't care that the man was a Glook addict, that he had stolen King Fornik's pet Zanziger and ridden it naked through the streets of Toguko. Sometimes a genius must be slightly mad.

Garuvel opened his door a crack and checked for signs of Verleth, the Baron, the sword-master, the sword-master's son, or any of his bodyguards. Of course, Floot and Fawzi were on duty, standing idly outside his door, smoking tangaroots. They didn't see his little reconnaissance. They were talking about women's anatomy.

Wait a minute. He had forgotten what he could do. Habit ruled him, and he was still behaving as if he needed to sneak down the hall.. It was time for another experiment. The power's frightfulness had deterred him, had kept him within careful limits. It was time to try something more substantial. He would brave the sense of contraction, expansion, of swooping across light years. Sooner or later he would have to know how far this power extended. Otherwise he would spend his days cowering as if some huge toothy animal lived in one of his armoires.

He applied the same mental trick to a different problem. He visualized himself sitting in Dryad's Grotto with his snacks and his books. He recited carefully, "I'm in the grotto, feeling safe, a favorite book before my face." He found himself sitting on a cushion with a book in his hand and a cup of juice atop a flat rock.. There had been a faint whooshing sound followed by a loud bang as the transition became reality, as his sudden appearance displaced air molecules and particles of dust. For the first time in his life, he had real power! Now it was a question of whether he ruled the power, or the power ruled him. He was too young to anticipate that this question would become the dominant theme of his life.

Garuvel traveled short distances instantaneously, then longer distances. He extended the limits of the power. Suppose he could make a tree or a rock appear somewhere it had never before existed? Late one night, he climbed out his bedroom window. Vygor's second moon, Tantol, was almost eclipsing the larger moon, Zevkets. The light the moons cast was an eerie yellow-orange. A bank of clouds obscured the lower half of the twin orbs. The marks and lines on the moons turned them into leering faces. These omens gave Garuvel's stomach a twitch of fear. The Power seemed to be much larger than his own being. He felt as if he was riding on the back of a jank wolf, a creature that could turn its head and chew him to bits in an instant.

He rode his fizzlespeed board to a remote corner of the estate. There was a little circular glade enclosed by drooping Wairaba trees. He stood with his back to a tree well away from the center of the clearing. He concentrated, then spoke, "A great Wairaba tree, with branches too many to see!"

There were pops and explosions as molecules gave way to matter more dense. In the pallor of the moonslight, Garuvel saw his tree. There it was, utterly real, at the center of the glade where nothing before had existed. He touched it, tested the tensile strength of its branches, heard the leaves rustle as he let the limbs snap back. He climbed to a hefty branch and sat with his legs dangling to each side. He was feeling the unease, the expanding and contracting of his spirit across vast reaches of space. This time the discomfort was more intense, the sense of disturbance more tangible. It seemed that the bigger the change, the bigger was the accompanying effect. Garuvel began to consider putting this power away; it might be something far too potent for a child. It was not a toy! He would wait and see if some means of discovery presented itself. Where had this thing come from? Why had it come to him? What was it for?

The next night at dinner Garuvel wolfed down his favorite dessert, a bowl of Mobo fruit from the garden planet Eltubi. He ordered a servant to fetch him another bowl but his mother intervened.

"Don't be so greedy, child, where are your manners? You have gobbled those fruits like a sow grubbing up fallen plums!"

Garuvel had been visualizing the Mobo fruit, hanging fat and plump on the vine, in a sunny endless orchard. His appetite for the fruit was so great that he found it unbearable to have it thwarted. In a flash of thoughtless rage he said, "I will have all the Mobo fruit I want, if I have to go to Eltubi to get it!"

He was whisked to the heart of that world's orchards. He had a moment of terror; he was light years away! He had never before left Vygor! He had to get home! He was in a panic, not thinking clearly, not working things through. His mind whirled, things contracted, expanded, whooshed here and there. In his panic he returned to the dinner table clutching an armful of fruit, his blazer stained purple from the juice. When he saw the faces of his family and the fourteen servants present in the dining room, he knew that he had made a terrible mistake. He had revealed his carefully guarded secret. Oh, how stupid! How childish!

His father's bodyguards, Gorlo and Wirt, converged upon his place at the table. Too late, he opened his mouth but he couldn't summon a coherent vision, a fully formed desire. He was too frightened. Things had happened so quickly!

A cloth was clamped over his face. Its smell made his eyes water and his nostrils burn. He tried not to breathe it in, but Gorlo trussed him up roughly, and his breath only came more quickly as he panted with fear. He felt himself being dragged away, and as his consciousness faded, he heard a single dreaded word, a word that on Vygor stood for demonic sorcery: T'vorsh.

"No, no!" he wanted to cry, "I am not T'vorsh. You have it all wrong! I don't shape-shift and conjure and consort with disgusting things in bottles. I made a mistake, I didn't realize what I was doing!"

It was too late. His tongue was stilled. The last thing he saw before he was taken away was a shared glimpse of muted triumph on the faces of his father and his brother Verleth.

He was given to the Mentechs. They took him to the sinister Hejastra Hospital, a place redolent of screams in the night and sharp whizzing machines.

He was placed on a ward with other T'vorshi, sorcerors who specialized in verbal spells and recitations, summoning and combining the four classes of Elementals into material substance. There were so many T'vorshi among wealthy families that the pursuit of sorcery was deemed a mental illness rather than a crime. Still, they were locked away and treated harshly.

Garuvel's tongue was numbed, his thumbs and forefingers banded together to prevent him from signing or conjuring. He was drugged to keep him from performing mental mischief.

Eight years passed and Garuvel lacked the attention span to know his own suffering. In his seventeenth year his hormones awoke. In a few months he grew four inches and gained fifty pounds. No one seemed to notice. Garuvel had lain dormant for so long that his treatment was automatic. The drugs that had kept his mind vague and his tongue stilled began to lose their effectiveness. One day as Garuvel lay in his cell he dreamed strange images, things he had never before seen. He twitched so hard that he fell off his cot and cried out in pain. It was the first sound to emerge from his mouth since the fateful dinner with his family. As the weeks passed, his mind cleared. He began to practice speaking into his pillow, late at night. He made pencils and pins appear and disappear, to see if he still had the Power.

As his mind returned, he realized that his life had been stolen. Why was he being kept here at all? Why didn't they just do away with him? He must be a pawn. If Verleth got out of hand, the Baron could revive his Firstborn and use him as a lever.

Rage burned in his heart like a physical pain. He examined himself late at night, and saw how wasted he had become. He resolved to take his revenge. The ground would tremble, the seas rise up. Volcanoes would belch flame and poisonous gases. He would watch from high in the air, laughing, then transport himself to the orchards of Eltubi.

Garuvel stood looking out the mesh window of his cell, at the angled rooftops of the hospital. The sickly blue lights showed him a ghostly landscape. Fences of electric razor wire enclosed the hospital and seemed to keep at bay the gloom of the endless forests beyond. Those forests were home to jank-wolves, Ur-bears, hyanx, giant boar. Carefully, he constructed a sequence of words and visualizations. As he opened his mouth to speak, a dizziness overcame him. He struggled to stand, but as the breath left his lungs he fell to the floor. The walls of his cell began to shimmer and fade. He saw a great pulsing light and heard a sound as of distant horns rolling in across a vast ocean.

'I'm dying,' he thought. 'It's just as well, for I must be an evil creature after all."

Through the light he saw an entity. It was a tall winged creature, glowing with a nacreous shimmer. Half bird, half man, the being was ten feet tall. There were fingers at the ends of bone-like pin feathers next to its body. The wings vibrated with energy. They seemed to be holding and confining the power of flight so that it could stand and look directly into Garuvel's eyes. It spoke to him, but the words emerged all at once, not singly as in normal speech. It spread its wings wide, and Garuvel saw six other figures standing within the embrace of the great feathers. Each was of a different race, from a different world. One of them was himself, Garuvel Nep Zimrin, as he might be when he came to full manhood.

He began to understand the entity's words. It had said, "We know who you are; it is time for you to know who you are."

Garuvel died, but his death lasted only a second. He was alive again, as someone else, in another life. He lived that life, died, and was reborn. His journey through a multitude of lives accelerated: birth, life, death, birth, life, death, until it seemed as if he was inside a revolving drum with pictures on its curved surfaces. He lived every kind of life, on every type of planet.

The wheel began to slow. Time relaxed and distended and tightened. He saw the winged being with its six companions. It uttered another of those multi-word sounds.

Garuvel found himself lying on the hard floor of his cell. The sound he had just heard rang like a bell in his mind. As before, its syntax soon asserted itself, and it became comprehensible.

"You are one of the Seven. You are a bearer of the RealGift. Any time you use the Gift, we will hear you. Any time one of us uses the Gift, you will hear us. You must know that The Great Balance must be maintained. That is our responsibility. A change here means a balancing change elsewhere. A trillion times you may utilize your gift, and some cloud of hydrogen will grow, or shrink. It may be a puff of star wind into space or the burning of a lifeless pebble. We have no control over the Great Balance. Among our kind, some have traveled to many worlds to undo the damage done by the simplest alteration. As you make your change, you will immediately have a sense of that which has balanced. For now this is all you need to know."

The beings began to fade away, growing smaller as if being reeled backwards into a vast distance.

"Farewell," the Winged One said. "We will always be with you."

At last Garuvel understood something about his strange faculty: that he could Realize anything he could imagine. As he contemplated it, he was gripped with pure terror. Instead of being elated and bouyed with feelings of power, he could only think about how very complex things were, and how he sat there within the garden of his desires, knowing that with the slightest mistake, the garden could turn into a swamp of carnivorous weeds that would grow and grow, eating up the entire universe.

He thought about what the Great Being had said. Now he understood the sensations that had followed upon each use of the Gift. If there was but a chance in a trillion of endangering lives, then he could not take it. He thought about the immensity of the universe. How much sheer nothingness surrounded each tiny world, each burning star. His choice was stark. Stay here and die. Chance the Gift, and live. The hospital, being a prison for magicians, was replete with all kinds of detectors. He tried to imagine an escape without resorting to the RealGift. He was stumped.

How could he work his way out using the absolute mininum of power? He went back to his very first discovery: disappearance. He could become invisible. He could insulate his heat signature in the refrigerator of the food delivery van and leisurely ride away from his prison.

He did not sleep that night. In the morning he began his escape. As he made himself vanish, he could feel the Council, inside his mind, sharing each action of the Gift. They were mentors but not judges.

He paid one last visit to the Great House of Zimrin. His mother's face had wrinkled. His father's hair had gone grey. The servants winced with fear every time Verleth strode through a room.

Garuvel went to Dryad's Grotto, where he had secreted money and a few books. As a child he was always planning to leave his home. He had accumulated six hundred golden zirks, a nice little sum on any world. He took two books: "Starwinds", by Latif el Rashid, and "Feral Tenderness" by Harl Plesniak.

He trained himself and restored his health for a year. Then he took transport to the planet Eltubi, where he walked down a road that passed through miles of mobo fields. Here there were great manor houses surrounded by mobo plantings. Out-buildings served as tasting rooms for both the fruit and the wine of the elegant growth. Little covered wagons, drawn by shaggy ponies, carried aficionados to these tasting rooms. Now and then Garuvel would step to the side of the road as a carriage passed. Raucous songs and laughter seemed to lift the vehicles off the ground. Legs and arms came through windows, bare toes wiggled, the springs of the carriage smoothed the lurches of the road's pot-holes. This roistering pleased Garuvel. It was so different from the status-obsessed dour atmosphere of Vygor.

He was dressed in a leather jerkin and trousers. There was a pouch strapped across his chest, and a fine sword sheathed at his side. He was strong and healthy. He had experienced the Great Wheel of Life. He now had a strange gravitas for one so young. He knew he had a lot of work to do.

Part One

Chapter One

Duels Of Character

"If we become visible to ourselves, we no longer bump into the invisible parts of other people." from the letters of Harl Plesniak

The dawn, like a nurse's fingers, swabbed the wound of the night away. Garuvel inhaled the morning odors of the planet R'zelfo. His multi-skin was pulled tight against the chill. He had adapted his body to the planet's conditions, the fast spin and periods when the world's variable star went dim. He had an extra pair of eyes,covered by a thin membrane, perched upon his forehead. Four up-slanted eyebrows topped the oval slits. The upper pair of eyes had evolved for infra-red vision. This was essential on a planet with four dark winter seasons and extended periods of twilight.

It was now late in the second summer. The sun climbed visibly; the morning unfolded with spectacular abruptness. A rainbow of light glowed like a peacock fan above the waving trees. During the night a blanket of scarlet and purple leaves had blown down to cover Garuvel's campsite. From inside his multi-skin, he punched upward, and a fountain of leaves blew past his face.

Garuvel wriggled free of his thermal cocoon. He set the multi-skin's control to Store and it collapsed back to its traveling size, like a handkerchief.

As he brewed a small cup of tea to eat with his arpak, Garuvel thought about the coming day. He would walk twenty or thirty miles to reach the city of Ifyonar. The trails would be rugged and there was always a chance of encountering nasty characters.

He had lived on hundreds of worlds, visited many more. Garuvel had honed his caution about the inhabitants of these worlds. It was no longer possible to categorize sentient races as "good" or "evil" or both "good and evil", mixed palettes of qualities in moral terms. His credo was simple: be wary. Ignore what beings say. Observe what they do.

Now he was on R'zelfo. There were new constellations to learn; new light, new smells, new people. He had identified this planet as home to a fighting style called Zektila. It was reputed to be the dirtiest fighting style anywhere. It involved kicks, gouges, elbows, knees, thrusts to the genitals (wherever they might be located) and assorted bites and scratches. Yet it was organized, traditional and hierarchical. Garuvel couldn't afford to be fastidious in this or any universe. He found and apprenticed himself to a master of Zektila.

The air was chilly. The mid, or second, summer season was ending, the sky was growing darker, the winds more cutting and unpredictable. He raised the hood of his native traveling cloak, tucked away his multi-skin and slung his weapons and gear across his back. The road toward the City of Ifyonar was just beyond the next rise. He set out with a pace that would take him there before the blue sun set.

Birds hooted and moaned. It was a doleful sound that blended with notes the wind made as it blew through holes in ancient rocks. The terrain was rough, bent and folded by earthquakes. Garuvel's senses were alert. There were bandits and psychotics to be met all over R'zelfo.

He walked for several hours, winding his way amongst the crags and slopes of red and purple garaba trees. The sun had risen fast and high; in the distance he could see the cloud-covered slopes of Mount Emerald Fire. The old city of Ifyonar nestled at its base and rose part way up the ancient volcano's flanks.

He had been here several months and had already slipped into his old activist role: defender of poets and creative oddballs. This journey to Ifyonar was on behalf of his friend Sokenz. The poet's recitations had irritated a minor warlord, a man who felt slighted because his name was not poetically wreathed with enough heroic deeds. Sokenz was now in a dungeon. The only thing that could free him was a writ from the warlord's Warlord, The Hefto of Stilril. Garuvel hoped to get an audience, and attempt to sway him with the wit of Sokenz's erotic sonnets.

Garuvel had a talent for involvement. He thrived on difficulty. He knew that without conflict, there is no evolution. Without pain, there is no growth. Like an oyster dreaming of its pearl, he required that constant irritant.

Mount Emerald Fire was one of a chain of quasi-dormant volcanoes that comprised the Adamantine Range. The land rose and fell like ripples that radiated from the base of these silent giants. Garuvel was climbing one of these ridges, on a trail that switched back and forth, showing the ruts of centuries of wooden wheels. The landscape was full of gigantic rocks lifted high and hurled by the volcanoes over the eons. Creeping vines and trees of cones and needles grew out of the cracks. The gnarled lava forms were etched with faces and signs laid here by men of the ancient times.

It was impossible to see what lay ahead, but something alerted Garuvel's senses. He cast his eyes over the top of the gaunt rocks where he knew the trail would soon carry him.

There was a glow, a bit of charge in the air that indicated the presence of human acitivity. He left the trail and began to scale the face of the rock so that he could see what lay on the other side. Past the summit, he slithered down through holes and crevices until he could see the trail from above, but not be seen. He found a nook that sheltered him from the wind.

Below him was a scene that resonated from the medieval histories of billions of worlds: a pair of warriors poised in dueling posture. They stood motionless in attitudes of thrust and counter-thrust. They might have been stone icons but for the rise and fall of breathing chests.

The stillness went on and on, minute after minute. One of the swordsmen,whose blade was raised high, wore orange and yellow silken pantaloons tucked into ornamented boots laced up to mid-calf. A buttonless vest was fastened by a gaudy sash, and his helmet curled in burnished hues around his ears. His hands clutched spasmodically around the sword-hilt, and two beads of sweat rolled across his temples to drip slowly toward the tip of his nose.

The other warrior was dressed in a black leather jerkin, loose black pants that were tied with thongs around the ankles, and worn-looking leather sandals. His sword was held low, calmly and loosely. A purple headband barely constrained the spill of his ropy black hair. A second, shorter sword lay in a scabbard tucked through his belt.

What was most striking about this man was the emotion in his eyes. He looked as if he had seen everything there was to be seen of human folly, tragedy and pain. He looked old, impossibly old in his expression, though his body was youthfully vigorous. Garuvel had never seen a face that contained so much content, held such a volume of experience. A deep mournfulness sat in his eyes. Such sadness thrust its way from the tangle of greasy braids; a face like the landscape, full of lines and crags. Despite the intensity of his emotion, his body was relaxed and alert, poised but ready for swift action.

More time passed. Garuvel hardly breathed. He already knew the outcome of the duel; it took no magician to discern abilities of the swordsmen. The wind tugged at the duellist's clothes. Then the warrior in the fancy clothing uttered a choking sob. He began to crumble, tried to hold himself up by planting his sword blade in the dirt. In a moment he fell dead to the ground. The sword rocked back and forth; gusts of wind blew the man's vest up to cover his face.

Neither of the blades had met; no blow had been struck.

The man in black heaved a sigh, looked with pity upon his fallen enemy and drew himself out of his combat stance. He turned and raised his head to where Garuvel was concealed. "I know you're there," he said. "Come out and show yourself."

Garuvel slowly rose from his crouched position and made his way carefully toward the path, both hands held away from his body.

"I mean you no harm; it was just chance that I witnessed your duel. How long have you known that I was watching you?"

"I heard you long before you climbed the rocks," the mournful warrior said. "In any case, you didn't impair my concentration. I didn't need much concentration, not for this one." He pointed to the fallen duellist.

Garuvel jumped the last few feet, landing lightly on the trail. For a moment, the two men eyed one another. The duellist took two steps to the right. Garuvel took two steps to the left, so that they continued to face one another in a prepared stance. The sad one's hands came away from his sheathed sword. "You are not one of them," he said. "I don't think I'd care to fight you. I'm not sure I would win; and believe me, I do not think that very often. In fact, I have never thought that until this moment."

"This is just an ornament." Garuvel patted the sword slung across his back. "I'm far more devoted to poetry than to weaponry."

The stranger snorted with incredulity. "That may be so," he mused, "but still I'm glad we're on the same side of the blade. At least for now." He threw a penetrating look at Garuvel, but seemed satisfied that Garuvel's return look was sincere. His gaze turned to the corpse of his opponent. By unspoken agreement, the pair took the dead man's extremities and hauled him to a place away from the trail. A shallow grave was dug. "He hadn't even the will to cross my sword," the warrior said, "Yet before the day is done, I fear that much blood will spatter the road."

Garuvel extended his arms and looked at the sleeves of his tunic with comic irony . "I hope the blood will be neither yours nor mine. I have only two shirts. I expected my errand to Ifyonar to be peaceful."

"I, too, am going to Ifyonar, but I doubt that my company will be soothing. It might require several changes of clothes." For a moment, the man seemed to pass into a state of sad revery. Then his eyes regained their focus.

"Forgive me, sir, for not introducing myself sooner. I am Nutun Utulo. I have had many professions but at the moment I am an assassin."

"And I am known as Rebed Singman," Garuvel replied. "Also a man of many professions but at the moment, a poet."

Nutun laughed skeptically. His gaze went to the horizon, where roiling clouds were approaching from over the top of the Adamantine Range, blotting out a third of the purple sky. The assassin wet his finger and painted his cheek with the moisture. With quivering nostrils, he turned his face back and forth.

"A brolmin is coming," he said, naming one of the thousands of winds known to the denizens of R'zelfo. "I've got to go. The fight is just beginning." He set out with a swift pace in the direction of Ifyonar.

Garuvel matched him stride for stride. "I've always been a curious person. It isn't always to my benefit and sometimes it turns me into a pest. Still, I cultivate my curiosity for what it teaches me."

For eight or nine paces Nutun said nothing. "Very well," he said at last, keeping an alert gaze upon their surroundings. "I journey to Ifyonar to assassinate an evil man of great influence and wealth. He knows that I am coming. Part of the reason I seek him out is to recover items that he has stolen from members of my clan. These are vital artifacts that are essential to our culture. I could have ambushed my enemy, but he is not easy to take by surprise. He is well guarded, he is alert. Our battle has been going for eons. At this point, we're both weary of the constant friction without a resolution. He made me a proposition. We would undertake an ancient form of legal combat, an arrangement called a Chain Duel. Let's fight and be done with it."

"Yes, I have heard of that," responded Garuvel. "It was part of the Corzarian Code."

"Yes," Nutun explained, "The Chain Duel is written in the section of the Code entitled 'Blood Feuds, Revenge, Ambushes and Single Combat Legal Forms. This particular method allows the challenger to gain his enemy's powers and possessions rather than having them pass to his heir or estate. I must post the time and route of my attempt. My intended target is allowed to place hirelings in my path in strict sequence: if I defeat one vassal, then two may take his or her place. If I then vanquish two, I must meet three opponents, and so on, until I pass through the gates of Ifyonar. Inside the city, my enemy is then bound to meet me in single combat. It's an archaic, cowardly arrangement, designed to protect the wealthy and powerful. It can, however, provide a definitive solution to our ongoing enmity."

The clouds had now covered the sky in an undulating waffle pattern. The sleet that accompanied a brolmin began to sting them like cold nettles. Nutun seemed impervious to the change of weather.

"Is this why you look so mournful," Garuvel asked. "Because your honor has forced you to commit suicide?"

"Not at all,' Nutun replied, with a sardonic grin. "I will win and I will survive. But I grieve for the families of those who will soon die, because a rich man fooled them into thinking that I would easily be killed."

The brolmin pelted them briefly at full intensity. Then the clouds broke apart, and R'zelfo's blue star, Shest, again cast shadows upon the rocks and trees. The star was a blue dwarf variable with energy that waxed and waned in a complex but predictable sequence. It gave R'zelfo a pattern of eleven seasons and a brisk windy climate.

"And how do you know," Garuvel asked pointedly, "that your enemy won't simply cheat and lay a trap for you?"

Nutun laughed, a sound full of irony. "I expect him to. That's why you're here."

A silence followed that statement. Garuvel took it at face value. He knew that there were no accidents, not in the deep underlying structure of reality. He had shown up here at this place and time, for a reason. If Nutun knew more about the reason, so be it.

"Very well," Garuvel said, as they negotiated the rising trail and its next switch-back. "If you have no objection, I would like to witness this Chain Duel, and if I see a dishonorable act, I'll support the person who is its victim. I don't know you; perhaps it is you who is planning to break the agreement of The Code."

Nutun gazed at Garuvel tolerantly. "That's very wise. You'll see how things pan out, and you'll make your choice when and if it's necessary. At any rate, I find your presence comforting. I don't know why that is, but you seem to be a man who knows which wind to ride when many winds blow in many directions."

The men continued to climb, working their way through rocky terrain. At times, they were required to help one another across chasms or through deep layers of brittle vines that offered virtually no path without vigorous slashing with their weapons. After cutting their way through one of these obstacles, they sat on a pinnacle of rock overlooking a small stream.

"You introduced yourself as a poet," Nutun reminded Garuvel. "I have sympathy for the artist, especially writers. I've always regarded the most frustrating and futile branches of art to be poetry and sculpture. I mean, who cares? Unless you have made some whorish concession to popular tastes, who's going to read your work, or view your objects? It's a pursuit of many sorrows and few rewards. I hope, at least, that you are a good poet, and not a mere hack." Again, he inspected Garuvel. "No hack, I'm sure of that. I have a good sense of these things. I have no objection to your writing about this adventure, once things have taken their course."

Now the clouds were coming from the opposite direction, from the Gastrel Sea. They were shaped like lightning bolts, and refracted the Shest-light into electric blue shards. Nutun looked up. "What do you think? A fluxtrol or a mottled helskar?"

"Definitely a mottled helskar," Garuvel stated. "Soon there will be tear-drop hail."

Nutun affected a cough, which brought Garuvel's attention back to the landscape. "There are two behind that forked rock. You must keep at least fifty paces away from the duel."

Garuvel again scrambled over the rocks, fighting through a stand of spiny abrasive plants. He received several cuts. They bled for an instant and then began to heal. When he obtained a decent vantage point, he saw Nutun facing a man and a woman, whom he recognized as belonging to the Krosanje cult. This obscure sect promoted the renunciation of personal hygiene, cleanliness and health care. The couple had possibly not bathed or changed clothes in decades. Their few remaining teeth were snaggled stumps. The loathesome smell of them wafted up to Garuvel.

Again, the silent interlock of the combatants took place. Nutun's enemies sidled back and forth, looking for a gap in his concentration. They found none. His mournful eyes followed their movements; his forward foot pivoted slightly. His back foot seemed rooted and solid.

As the minutes passed and the noisome pair found no advantage, they began to blow and spit bloody black juice from their mouths and noses.

Avoiding these tokens, Nutun began to stalk the Krosanje couple down the trail. They backed away clumsily, and soon their expressions of confident malice changed to fear. First the man stumbled and fell. Nutun stepped over him and continued pursuing the woman. In a moment, she tottered backward, her axe and stilleto flying from her hands as if pulled by invisible wires.

The duel was over. Nutun had not drawn his sword. As he relaxed, he sighed deeply.

"They weren't much," he said, "but he just let them throw their lives away for a few coins. It's morally hideous and it's insulting. I hope to at least meet some decent fighters before Shest plops into the horizon." He squatted at the dead woman's feet. "Come. Help me. Disgusting as they are, their mothers will weep. Or celebrate..or...whichever."

They removed their clothing to bury the corpses. When they were finished, they used roadside pebbles and sand to wash their fingers and the bottoms of their shoes. They recovered their garments from where they hung upon the limbs of trees. Frankly examining one another, each saw a powerful physique. Garuvel was of average size but thick with muscle. Nutun's sinews were like flexible reeds. They seemed capable of infinite torque; slender but unbreakable.

Nutun looked down the road, over the hills. As he was beginning to walk, Garuvel touched his arm lightly; Nutun turned to face him.

"Don't you think digging graves all day might consume a lot of time and strength?"

"You're right," Nutun said fatalistically. "The longer I take, the more lives will be lost. It bothers me greatly, but they must lie where they fall. Their families will have to claim them, or the krivets can drag them down into their holes to feed their warrens."

They moved on. Around the next curve in the road waited the expected challengers. Nutun could not control three wills and three life-forces simultaneously. He was forced to draw blood. One man shot an arrow at him from a short and extremely curved bow. Nutun seemed to disappear. The arrow passed through empty space. When Nutun reappeared he was a pace away from the archer, whose scream of terror was cut short by Nutun's stroke, which sent his head flying. The other two fighters attempted to attack from opposite sides. One raised his sword high, while the other came at Nutun with a pike that had a sharp metallic end and an ax head mounted in the shaft. Nutun stepped aside, slid under the sword stroke, moved towards the pikeman. This fighter thrust vigorously, only to find that he had impaled the other fighter. As the swordsman toppled, the momentum of his stroke cleaved his partner's forehead. In the end, the result was three corpses with scattered body parts.

Nutun paced up and down the road. His forehead was knotted with anger. He turned and glared at Garuvel, as if this were somehow his fault.

"You think I like killing people? You think this is fun?"

He whirled away, feet slapping gravel. "I'm going, and I'm going fast. You must be sick to want to follow me....whatever the reasons are for our meeting."

Nutun began to run, weapons clinking against one another.

Garuvel admitted to himself both his fascination and his revulsion. He followed Nutun at a respectful distance.

In a great hurry, Nutun Utulo whirled and sliced, killed and moved on. Four opponents. Five. Then six.

They reached the summit of the ridge and began descending into the valley that lay before the great rise of Mount Emerald Fire. The terrain widened; small farms began to appear. People drifted toward the road in increasing numbers, to watch the combat. Most of their heads were covered by wide-brimmed woven straw hats that were fastened by string thongs. They were thick-limbed, short and stout, with flat faces and broad veiny red noses. Some carried rakes and scythes, with dirt and chaff still on the blades. They hooted and wagered and appointed unofficial counters, to keep the teams of Nutun's opponents from merging into one another. They were having a wonderful time.

Eight fighters awaited Nutun at the opening to Tourmaline Valley. The city, with its huddled low buildings, was visible a short way down the widening road. The clouds were forming into a Kellovek. Overhead, a great ragged mass of black cloud was gathering and circling in the mighty winds of the atmosphere. Shapes like great birds hung from the storm wall, and a bolt of lightning traveled from cloud mass to cloud mass. Rolling off to the west, a great cylindrical tail of cloud dropped misty rain squalls from its tapering base.

Nutun's fuming demeanor gave way to perfect calm the moment he entered combat. With so many opponents, Nutun's speed was that of a snake darting into a crevice. There seemed to be three or four of him; his body's outlines blurred, his sword was not a blade but a sheet of sharp death. His enemies' weapons flew into the air as he cut a swathe through counterstrokes that seemed feebly slow. Swords, daggers, maces, flying darts, clubs joined by pieces of chain, dozens of items became a storm that forced spectators to flee or dodge. Then, when the weapons had settled on the ground or stuck in the branches of trees, there was a vicious scramble by these same peasants to possess such valuable weapons. The scene was descending into chaos.

By the time the roiling mob reached the offficial gate of Ifyonar, Nutun had killed thirty five people. The onlookers emitted a satisfied groan, and fell to looting the bodies.

Garuvel hovered on the fringes of the crowd. Blue Shest was lowering in the sky. The kellovek began to raise a spiral of dust and leaves. In the sky, a great wheeling mass of ragged cloud had congealed and the wind acquired a coherence, an ominous purpose. Blades of lightning struck the tops of trees. Shortly, a krangelor writhed downward, and as it neared ground there came to meet it a dust devil tinted maroon by garaba leaves and blue sirtse needles. The debris began to whirl at stinging speeds, causing people to cover their faces with their hats.

The krangelor undulated this way and that. The spectators near the road squatted or held onto one another. Some laid themselves flat and clutched at fibrous weeds whose roots dug deep into the rocky soil. The whirlwind seemed to make up its mind and turned towards Nutun. His thick locks of hair, his talismans, his straps and weapon fasteners rose straight up in the suction, but his body held to the ground and he smiled with a demonic leer. He had a look of alien madness. The krangelor, now grown to ten feet or more at its base, engulfed him and headed straight through the city gate, with Nutun running gleefully at its core.

Garuvel hid himself behind a high shrub and gathered his multi-skins, to make a quick armor set around his arms, torso and head. Debris was flying in an accelerating circle, sticks were burying themselves in trees. He detached himself and used all of his speed to keep up with Nutun. He was following a krangelor with a man at its center. He had experienced stranger things, but this was strange enough.

After running full speed through the city, his breathing began to reach a limit. He was puffing hard, almost spent. He was about to use a technique to refresh the oxygen in his blood. It wasn't necessary. He had arrived at a second gate in a wall that enclosed and defended the inner part of Ifyonar, "The Old City". Nutun was just a few paces from where he stood.

The battered, wild looking assassin acknowledged him without surprise. "Somehow I knew you would be here. You don't let go of things easily, do you?" He had many cuts but the bleeding had stopped and the cuts were healing over.

Garuvel understood that he and Nutun carried certain common skills. These abilities may have different names, but they had the same result: self healing, an ability to command the body's resources, to withstand pain.

"You are very powerful and very strange," he said. "I am always seeking out the powerful and the strange. Often they're the same thing. I want you to know that I'm not bloody-minded, that I'm not attracted to violence. It's just that I have an intuition. My instinct tells me that however briefly we might know one another, I should be pleased to call you my friend."

For the first time, Garuvel saw a smile on Nutun's face. The expression changed his countenance so dramatically that Garuvel's heart was gripped. Nutun smiled with his whole body, with his whole being. In that smile, his face had become radiant with understanding and acceptance.

"Yes, I feel the same way. I don't know who you are today; but I recognize you from other times and other worlds. Sometimes it isn't clear why people meet. I have a feeling that before long we'll know exactly why we have met."

They regarded one another, and the wind blew between them, picked at their hair and clothing. With a faint nod, they turned to face the gate. In some mutual psychic agreement, they breathed in unison, focused their attention and pushed at the gate with their combined wills.

The gate turned to splinters and the wind carried the splinters off to the corners of the world.

The only sounds were the wind's moaning and the crackle and chink of chimes set in the doorways of houses. There were no straight lines in The Old City. Streets, alleyways, cul-de-sacs undulated without apparent order.The dwellings were dome-shaped, made of packed earth. Each boasted an ornate wind-scoop that proclaimed the owner's clan, lineage and history. Wind and weather had faded once-bright colors into bland pastels of pink, blue and yellow.

Nutun stalked down the the city's main street, avoiding the sewage ditch that ran sluggishly down the center of the avenue. Keeping his distance, Garuvel held to the sides. The silence was loud with hostility. The round dwellings piled up into enclaves that resembled wasps's nests. The entire city resembled a hive of malign creatures. At the top and center of each of these clusters rose the house of a clan elder. These were made of stone and had multiple stories, as many as four round compartments, diminishing in size as they rose in elevation. These manses had freshly painted cupolas with eye-shaped windows that emitted no light. To Garuvel these empty black openings had a sinister look: they gave to each structure a four-eyed sneering R'zelfoi gargoyle face.

As Shest slid westward behind the mountains, the afternoon became a garish purple. Even the clouds looked like eyes; swirling kelloveks and klorvins mutated upon the wind's caprice, high in the upper atmosphere.

Garuvel and Nutun passed through an empty marketplace. Wooden shutters of deserted stalls clacked forlornly in the wind. Immense ravens rose and fluttered, distracted from their meals of garbage by the passing of the two men. Then they settled again, with dark delicacy, floated down with wings outspread, to light on their prizes of meat scraps and stale bread.

The street rose at a shallow angle. It narrowed and began to twist. Filthy hovels jammed against one another. The smell stifled Garuvel's nostrils. At the edges of his vision, he caught the scuttle of people dodging away from doorless entrances or out of windows covered with bits of rag.

Garuvel realized that Ifyonar was built upon a single huge mound. At its summit he could now see a grand and eccentric structure. It had domes and cupolas jutting like warts from every surface. He could hear the sound of the building's wind-scoops. They made a low mocking laugh that rose and fell with the changing velocity of the wind.

Garuvel acknowledged what he had known all day: Nutun's quarry was the Hefto of Ifyonar.

The palace was enclosed by a high, spiked fence made from a bamboo-like substance. Nutun approached a gate of polished garaba wood, locked with chains and various elaborate mechanisms. He turned once to look back to where Garuvel stood in the afternoon's growing shadows. His eyes were fixed with satisfaction and steely will.

He turned back to regard the gate; Garuvel saw him begin to breathe in an odd pattern. Nutun's lips made popping sounds as he exhaled in short, powerful bursts, then hissed with a long, slow inhale.

The gate exploded inward. Links of chain dripped molten hot, the gate sagged on its hinges as springs flew from the locks. A bit of smoke was swiftly tattered by the wind.

Nutun leaped over the remains. He was encrusted with dirt; bits of leaf dangled from his ropy black hair. He pounced triumphantly into the courtyard of the Hefto's palace.

Garuvel decided to climb onto a low hanging balcony that seemed to have no adjoining room. It jutted, with several others, like an afterthought on the building's facade. He clambered over a railing of wrought- metal serpents, and found a perfect vantage point. Behind him, rammed-earth walls of sickly pink and yellow curved away in either direction.

The Hefto waited before an arched doorway, at the top of seven broad steps of dark volcanic brick. He was squat, with arms and legs like the shanks of a bull. His head was shaved but for a long top-knot that bifurcated at the crown of his head and spilled to each brawny shoulder. He wore a leather vest and a skirt that resembled a butcher's apron. Beneath that were hide pantaloons and knee length boots tied with leather straps.. In his left hand was a spiked weapon on a wooden haft. It had four blades mounted at right angles to one another. Each blade had a different shape. One was a perfect crescent; the others were notched in various ways, designed to trap an opponents' sword or spear. In his right hand, the Hefto brandished a weapon made of metal segments connected by metal rings. It had a handle the size of a man's forearm. The next segment connected by a ring to the handle, followed by eight more segments, each connected to the next by a ring. The final segment was a tapering spike. The entire device gleamed in high polish. As he stood, coolly regarding the man who had demolished his gate, the Hefto swung this weapon easily, controlling the path of the device, changing its trajectory with his knee or his shoulder. It had somewhat the effect of a child expertly handling a jump rope. This rope, however, was made of steel weighing twenty pounds and could slice, crush, stab and impale.

Garuvel recognized the Nine Segment Whip, a weapon almost impossible to master, but lethal in the hands of one who knows its uses. The Hefto knew its uses. As he and Nutun walked clockwise around the courtyard, he swung the Whip in hypnotic crossing patterns. The air hummed with the accelerating passage of the whip. At intervals the Hefto purposely let the spike scrape the ground, and it spat a divot into the air.

The Hefto's eyes never left Nutun. He slowed the whip's velocity.

"I see you got here," he said in an affable tone. His voice was a gravelly tenor, oddly high-pitched for a man with such a body. Beneath the fundamental note of his voice, there were many other tones, giving a faint impression that a crowd spoke in unison.

"You made me kill thirty five people." Nutun's voice was flat. His sword was drawn, held loosely in his right hand, low and pointing towards the ground. In his left hand a short sword had appeared. This was pointing into the air, so that the sword points were going in opposite directions. Nutun's arms were spread wide, and as the whip swung, he raised and lowered each sword, countering the "X"s with crosses of his own. Left arm, short sword high, right arm, long sword low. Then reversed, as Nutun made slight shifts of his shoulders. Garuvel observed that if the lines of Nutun's sword-hafts were connected they would form a perfect circle. Every way he moved the blades, his hands held to this circular geometry.

The Hefto stayed in his arc; he was biding his time. The whip's reach was longer than that of Nutun's sword.

"Nutun, you were always such a caring man," he mocked. "The years haven't changed you. You're upset about creatures of the lowest quality. Not a decent fighter in the lot, just junk I picked out of the jails. They served their purpose; the citizens of Ifyonar need an occasional spectacle."

"You haven't changed much, either, " responded Nutun. "Otherwise I would not need to be here."

Before he had finished speaking, Nutun moved his body swiftly sideways, to dodge the spike of metal that the Hefto had sent streaking towards him. The Hefto pulled the whip back so that its midldle segment crossed his knee, then quickly unwound in the opposite direction. With a pivot of his hips, the Hefto regained control of the thing and resumed swinging its patterns. In his other hand, the Hefto made figure eights with the four-bladed sickle at the end of its burnished wooden haft.

Garuvel was analyzing how the two weapons worked together. They were weapons of ego, but The Hefto knew how to use them. His hands fit them with lethal aptitude.

Nutun's front leg bent slightly at the knee; his long blade came parallel to his right shin. His elbows bent as he drew the blade back to be at the precise angle. "What happened to my sister? Why was she pulled into the Black Cauldron? Or was she pushed?"

The Hefto laughed without mirth, taking a step towards Nutun. "She felt that she couldn't remain married to us. She claimed that I had become morally corrupt. She said that we had stepped over the line from useful darkness to destructive evil." Again the whip raced towards Nutun, who moved away easily.

"You've never had the odor of sanctity about you." Nutun's eyes seemed unfocused, but they were seeing every twitch of his enemy's muscles.

The Hefto swiped lazily with his sickle towards Nutun's ankle. "You merely tolerated us. I gave you some of the darkness you so desperately needed, to keep you vital, to keep you from becoming soft little mushrooms." His voice dripped with contempt.

Garuvel was fascinated but baffled by the conversation.

"Now we've become free," the Hefto proclaimed. "Liberated from goodness; unshackled from meaning. No longer a slave to so-called 'Cosmic Purpose'. No longer dependent upon the psychological crutch of a 'Supreme Being' who manages everything in the universe so that it makes sense. You should try it, Nutun. There is a vast realm of unfettered purpose, out here beyond the feeble morality of God."

"There's always a rationalization for the most hideous crime," said Nutun. "Murder, rape, theft.....criminals have lovely excuses for their weakness. You are no different, Boraz. Now you have committed crimes beyond imagining. Your little nihilistic pose is just an excuse for having lost the courage of the Quest. You are the fallen angel."

Garuvel stored the interchange mentally, hoping to understand it later.

With a roar, the Hefto leaped toward Nutun. Metal whip, steel scythe, hairy arms and legs became one vicious projectile. Nutun backed, parried. There was a flurry of sounds. Colliding metal blades sang with anguish. Pebbles and dust rose as the men's feet went 'retch retch retch' in the loose gravel of the courtyard. The flying whip clinked on its rings like the sounds of coins spilling onto a pavement.

When Garuvel could see the two men distinctly, the Hefto was standing with his arms thrust straight away from his sides. His mucles bunched and fought; he grunted, but seemed unable to move.

Nutun was holding him fast with his eyes. The Hefto's eyes blazed back. Midway between the two men, the air glowed. The charred smell of burning molecules reached Garuvel on the balcony.

The hold broke, and the two men stumbled backwards, almost losing their feet. They scuffled for balance, faced each other again. The scythe whirled as the Hefto swung its haft in complex figures. For a fragment of a second, the motion distracted Nutun's eyes. In that moment the whip raced out and trapped Nutun's sword between two of its segments. The Hefto pulled backward, drawing the whip tight. Nutun released the sword but The Hefto was prepared for the sudden loss of tension. He had planted his feet wide, with his body turned to face his opponent. Now he jumped forward so quickly that he got inside the reach of Nutun's short sword. He wrapped his arms around Nutun, squeezing. Nutun dropped the short sword, as he caught the scythe by its haft to stop the Hefto from slicing open his head. The two men's fists were together on the weapon's handle, pushing in opposite directions. Grimy fingers and vein-bunched forearms clutched side by side, opposing forces moved back and forth with agonizing slowness. As the Hefto exerted himself, the scythe blade inched toward Nutun's left temple. The bundle of the mens' fists trembled wildly. Grunting in short savage barks, they whirled twice, then stopped in a frozen tableau.

Garuvel's friend looked like a stick wrapped in dripping dough. The Hefto's yeasty body seemed to expand and engulf his enemy. Nutun, fighting for breath, uttered a desperate, strangled cry. There was a terrible sound of leather being squeezed, and perhaps bones cracking beneath Nutun's jerkin. The Hefto was squeezing him to death. Then Nutun seemed to shrink further within himself, almost disappearing in the Hefto's grasp.

Garuvel waited, suspended between heartbeats.

Nutun found some last resource. He screamed and his voice seemed like a giant ladder, with each part of the scream a step; from bottom to top the scream made an ascent up those rungs until at the very height of its pitch, Nutun had gathered the force to release himself. His body suddenly and violently expanded, his trapped arm flew out, and his fist struck a twisting blow at the Hefto's nose. There was a loud snap, and the Hefto lost his grip. He flew backwards and struck the fence, breaking several posts. Blood was leaking from his ears and nostrils, dripping onto his jerkin.

At that moment, another man came down the steps of the palace. "Chen-Seeck!" the Hefto screamed. "You're not ready! Go back inside, at once! Obey me!"

The young male ignored the Hefto's command. He was too old to be regarded as an adolescent, too young to be called a man. He came strolling lithely from the arch of the door. He was obviously the Hefto's son. He was taller, more slender than his father, and his face wore an expression that was arrogant with unshakeable confidence in himself. He held no weapon other than a six foot wooden staff, burnished to a near-black hue. He carried the weapon lightly on his shoulder. As the Hefto rose to his feet, Nutun stood, breathing hard, his ribs pushing at his leather jerkin. Bringing the staff into a combat position, the boy-man leaped down the steps, landing on the balls of his feet. He began to stalk Nutun Utulo.

This was no longer a Code Duel. With the appearance of Chen-Seeck, all rules were voided, all honor shattered. Garuvel leaped to aid his friend before the combination of the two men could kill him.

Garuvel drew his sword, "Whisper", and interposed himself between Nutun and the son. Chen-Seeck smiled eagerly and took his staff in both hands.

Garuvel knew that a simple staff could be just as dangerous as a glittering array of metal weapons. His eyes met those of Chen-Seeck and he was chilled by what he saw. There was a flash of memory that dove through his mind as he avoided the staff's first pass. The second pass was coming so quickly that he could only think, "Verleth", before he turned to evade a straight thrust to his sternum.

He had feared and hated his brother, and he feared and hated this youngster. He had eyes that were certain, eyes that lacked humility, eyes that pulsed evil because they were completely self-absorbed and without conscience. The youngster had the face of a person who will always have the last word, who is set in his arrogance so deeply that he will never admit an error, never change. That is what Garuvel thought as the duel became serious, passed beyond easy testing into the seeking of another's death.

He lost sight of Nutun and the Hefto. His eyes widened to take in everything that had to do with the staff and the boy/man that wielded the weapon. In that universe, he changed from poet to warrior in a heartbeat.

Chen-Seeck's grip on the staff shortened and he took it in both hands about a quarter the way up its length. It swung with sickening speed towards Garuvel's head. He ducked, and the weapon moved his hair with its passing wind. Garuvel's mind raced with practiced intuition. He thought, "the boy knew he'd miss me. He's setting me up for a high downstroke." Then the staff was coming stright at him from above. He raised his sword and his arm jarred down to his shoulder and into his rib cage with the force of the blow. The sword would have cut through a staff of Garaba or Tenga wood, but it stuck briefly in Chen-Seeck's staff before Garuvel freed it and pivoted so that he could see Nutun. Without words, each drew the other so that they were back to back.

Chen-Seeck was not as good as he thought he was. Something in his eyes broke. He went from thinking he would kill Garuvel with one or two strokes to being in a panic as he realized he was overmatched. Garuvel experienced a boiling fierce joy as he understood that the young man would die. It was like killing Verleth. He had always wanted to do this! His blood was up and there was no question of right or wrong; there was only kill or be killed.

Garuvel could feel the fight that Nutun was waging with the Hefto. Now he and his friend were at one another's backs, dividing the Hefto and his son, multiplying their own power. A space of about six feet separated Nutun and Garuvel, so that each could pivot, turn, twist. Chen-Seeck tried to break the bond by putting his hands midway on the staff, about eighteen inches apart, and whipped it around so that its ends traced an hourglass figure. These toroids were difficult to break with a sword, and Garuvel almost gave way as Chen-Seeck shortened one hand and thrust to pierce Garuvel's eyes. Garuvel extended his left arm and pushed the staff aside with the muscles below his elbow. He moved to within striking distance of Chen-Seeck, forcing the youth to wield his staff as if it were a blade. This reduced its advantage, and the pair dueled as if with swords. The sound of staff striking steel was a rocky "chink", resonating like jade game pieces being wagered at a table.

Behind Garuvel, a cry of pain came from the Hefto. Pebbles splattered everywhere, grey dust rose in clouds and landed on the lips and eyelids with an irritating grit. Garuvel attacked. He moved forward inside the staff's radius, taking a weak blow to the wrist as Chen-Seeck had no room to build his weapon's speed. Then he found himself about two feet from the youngster, with his sword raised high and gripped with both hands. He slashed downward, saw the staff come up to attempt a parry. It was too slow, and he felt his weapon meet bone and flesh. The strength of the blow caused "Whisper" to cut through the fibula at the base of the neck, continuing down at an angle to neatly slice his enemy's torso from shoulder to sternum.

A geyser of spraying blood went every where, landing in the dirt, staining the dust, splashing the mens' clothes.

"Aaagh! You son of a whore's cunt licker!" the Hefto bellowed. "You killed my son! His download wasn't ready! I was making him immortal! Gods damn you to eternal hell!"

The Hefto fell to his knees and Nutun prepared to strike a killing blow.

"Fire on them, fire on them!" the Hefto shouted.

A volley of a dozen of crossbow bolts flew from the eye-shaped windows in the palace. Some stuck with hollow ticks into the dirt of the courtyard. Three of the bolts embedded themselves in Nutun's body. One pierced the side of his neck.

Garuvel took two in his right arm and managed to elude the rest. His hastily prepared multi-skin gauntlets blunted the damage and kept the barbs from penetrating.

Nutun glared at his opponent. "I expected I might die today," he said with a sad grace. There was no fear in him. His throat was parched, the words came out cracked but they still held passion. "You violate everything! How sad, how terribly sad. You will be shunned everywhere you go. The avatars call you outlaw! You'll never have a home. Eventually you will even shun yourself, and you will end your life alone with the person you most hate."

As Nutun spoke, Garuvel gathered his friend up, lifted him on his back and began to retreat towards the broken gate. Questions popped in his head like heated dried corn. He wasn't so much in over his head as merely out of his element. He had no clue what was really transpiring. He had only his emotions to guide him.

The Hefto spit blood, wiped his arm against his eyes. He made a gesture with his hand, and a dozen armed, uniformed soldiers emerged from the palace to form a menacing phalanx.

"You must be joking," mocked the Hefto. A great spill of blood from his thigh was slowly drying; the wound seemed to be closing. "If we have entered the freedom of pure amorality, what meaning do things like laws and codes have? You are lagging behind, Melolos, you have killed yourself with your own ethics."

Nutun clung to Garuvel's back, walking with one hand bunched in the material of his friend's tunic. "Get me away," he whispered. "This can't end here. I am losing my strength."

The soldiers advanced in a crescent, attempting to block Garuvel and Nutun, while the Hefto hung back, laughing and screaming over the body of his son. He seemed completely insane.

Nutun and Garuvel became like a bladed wheel. The weight of Nutun's body increased on Garuvel's back; yet still Nutun fought with his sword. They cut an opening in the circle of their foes and passed over the broken gate.

Garuvel lost all sense of thinking, planning, seeing. He was a pure fighting instinct, mind and body moving in swift unison. Blades came at his face; arrows poked at the barrier of his will. The Hefto's warriors flew backwards in a ragged pile. Garuvel helped Nutun through the city.

Suddenly the streets erupted with people. They were shouting, cursing, hurling bottles, rocks, garbage. Garuvel used his voice as a weapon. Drawing rage up from the base of his spine, he screamed a terrible sound. Ifyonar's inhabitants held their ears, shrinking back into their houses, wailing with dread. Empty market stalls collapsed; hovels caved in upon themselves.

Nutun slumped against Garuvel as they retraced their steps. The Hefto bellowed in the distance, urging his soldiers to pursue, but the zeal of his minions had diminished. As he looked back from the city gate, Garuvel saw his friend's blood trail.

"Nutun," he urged. "Do you know the Healing Whisper?" He felt his wounded companion nod. "Use it! Too much of your blood has gone."

"I am beyond that now, " Nutun croaked. He pointed to an arrow protruding from between his ribs. "That one has pierced a vital artery; I cannot bring the flow of Spang back into my aura."

Garuvel knew it was true. He felt his eyes sting; he felt an ancient grief, an emotion clutching his innards that he had hoped to avoid forever. But he was alive; and to be truly alive is to remain vulnerable to such feeling. There was no pushing it down into some blank region of his unconscious mind. He felt, once again, real grief. It was not like the grief that he had suffered when he lost his love, Vwanzila. It would not devastate his life but it was very deep, very personal.

It was Vwanzila who had taught him that he could not use the Realgift to suit his pleasure or convenience. He had watched her age, suffer and die. He had wanted to die with her, but she had convinced him that his destiny lay with the Realgift: that it must be cherished and defended. That it could never be used without the most rigorous moral questioning. Now he was pulled back into the same emotional current.

"Get me to some place where I can achieve my death-transfer," implored Nutun. His voice, his life was fading away.

Garuvel carried his friend from the city. He could hear the Hefto's hounds baying in the distance. He pulled Nutun's filthy, sticky body up the slope of Mount Emerald Fire.

Chapter Two

Time Band

R'zelfo's constellations were appearing as the sky darkened. Ascending into the forest, Garuvel could see the ghostly patch of the Wolf Nebula. Surrounding it was the aureole of The Cubs, a cluster of fifty thousand young stars. The sky was clearing, the wind faded to a breeze.

At last the sounds of pursuit dwindled. Garuvel came to the summit of a huge thrusting crag, that peeked above the surrounding trees. Below he could see the whole Tourmaline Valley, and Ifyonar's ugly blister atop its ancient mound of refuse. Within the walls, fires glowed and the sound of drums rose with the smoke.

He gently placed Nutun on a bed of moss. "Damn, damn, damn," he muttered, feebly trying to cope with his sense of loss. For a micro- second, the thought entered his mind: I can save him with a word. He put it aside. On Denarbin, when he had interfered, he had learned another harsh lesson. He had been angry at the Gift, resented its intrusion into his life; he had gotten facile and cute, had begun to ignore the Great Balance. He had altered a whole society's dynamics. In spite of his efforts to rectify the damage, the Patracts had taken their revenge upon his friends. He had felt the unspoken pressure of the Council: when the Gift is misused, life and death become trifles.

He endlessly pressured himself. How much more satisfying it would have been to use his wits to solve a problem? Every time he invoked the Gift, he felt as if some alien force entered him, taking away part of his own resources. Damn it! He could take care of himself!

He wrenched himself out of temptation. He must let Nutun Utulo meet his own destiny. Garuvel's heart was breaking, and he felt a thunderous rage towards the Hefto, or Boraz, or whoever he was....murderer, thug, son of a whore!

His tears fell into Nutun's blood. Hearing his friend's voice, he leaned forward, and felt Nutun's body writhe with pain.

"We rode the jets," Nutun was whispering urgently. "We rode the jets!"

Garuvel took the dying man's hand, and felt it grip with fanatic strength.

"The jets", he responded. "I don't understand."

Nutun rose toward him, until Garuvel could see the glitter of starlight reflected in his eyes. The film of pain suddenly washed clear from the face of the compassionate assassin. He began to speak with force and clarity.

"Listen carefully, my poet friend. Neither of us is what we seem; we travel disguised along the trails of ancient light. I must wait some other time to know you; but it is time for you to know me. This is my death-transfer. I half expected to die today, and it seems right and good to me, that you are here. Now attend carefully, for I have but one chance to tell you."

The pressure of Nutun's hand relaxed in Garuvel's. The dying warrior eased himself back into the moss and leaf. His eyes went to the wheeling splendor of the sky. Overhead was the Scorpion Cluster, and the glittering eyes of Zyros, the Chariot Driver. To the east was Nogarios, the Dancing Child. Nutun smiled as if greeting old friends.

"I am not one man," he said, as his eyes returned to Garuvel's face. "I am the people of an entire planet. Do you understand me?"

"I am listening," Garuvel responded quietly. "I will understand in time."

"Good, good. The planet where I was born, Melolos, belonged to a very old civilization, that extended across the worlds of a hundred star systems. We called ourselves the Starwind Communion. The people of Melolos, and the people of Weltos, Vivara, Wyfkandar, Llangredin and the others: we were all connected. We bent space to communicate. We tunneled through the quantum realms, and it seemed as if we were evolving toward untold glory."

As he spoke, Nutun's visions floated into Garuvel's mind. Then he twisted suddenly in a spasm of pain. "I can't feel your hand. If you are still holding mine, let it go."

Garuvel complied, then felt one of Nutun's fingers touch him lightly at the center of his forehead. "That's better," Nutun sighed. "I can feel you now." As he spoke, his finger stayed at the place between Garuvel's eyes, imparting a subtle heat.

Garuvel had heard versions of this legend before. It covered half the galaxy in various forms but no one paid much attention except for some fanatic collectors, who sought artifacts they claimed were from this culture. Artifacts that possessed unusual powers and qualities.

"Slowly," Nutun continued, "a sickness began to creep into our hearts. We were losing contact with something....something deep and important. We were losing....we were losing Darkness. We were too comfortable. We stripped nature of its dangers. Our hands were in everything, we couldn't stop ourselves. We lost interest in wildness and became cheapened, softened beings. We had solved all the problems of health and wealth, and now we were not only bored, but boring."

The heat from Nutun's finger spread across Garuvel's forehead, sinking slowly through his skull, reaching into his mind. He saw visions that he did not understand; planets where streets and plazas were built but remained empty.

At some point, Nutun was no longer speaking. His words had become experiences. Garuvel saw himself spiralling ever downward, towards a planet, towards a park where only a single man walked. With a wrench as if he had fallen from several feet, Garuvel occupied this man and knew that it was Nutun Utulo. But it was not Nutun Utulo. It was a very ancient being but somehow less experienced, less authentically seasoned than Nutun. He was a sad and lonely man, who would become part of Nutun Utulo.

His name was Thargmem. He wore a white robe that wrapped in skeins around his body but left his arms bare. Cool air flowed to his torso through the openings in the fabric. He was perhaps seven or eight feet tall. His arms and legs were long, and his torso was rounded. This was not a corpulent sort of roundness; it gave the impression of firm musculature and great physical power. The rounded torso accomodated an extended spinal column that ran an elliptical course down the front of his body and up the back. The front column held nerves in a flexible frame of cartilege. The two columns met in a complex of ganglia before going into the head, where the large brain was located. Other brains were spaced at intervals in the double spine.. His stomach and intestines were vestigial, small organs moved aside to accommodate yet more brain. Another large brain lay just behind small reproductive organs.

His skin glowed with a youthful light. His hair, long, shiny, black, fell to his waist. His only adornment was a silvery pendant around his neck. Its precious metal was worked into a diagram of three tangential circles, one within the other. Each circle was divided into quadrants by two crossing lines.

The parkland extended in every direction. To the east was a range of mountains, jagged and snow-peaked. It was the very archetype of Mountain Range, seemingly engineered for its perfect beauty. In this seeming, it lacked beauty. It possessed only scale. There was a tendency toward gigantism. The trees were three hundred feet high, so great in girth that some had been drilled to allow wagons to pass through, or bowers to be set up and decorated with trellised vines.

It was a world where nature had been designed to be perfect.

Why, then, was this man so unhappy? Garuvel could observe himself inside the beings' mind, could feel his feelings. They were of terrible incompleteness. Of shame.

Thargmem waved his fingers and a small bush rose from the ground, forming itself with a leafy top that was firm enough to sit upon. In moments, Thargmem sat on the stool he had summoned.

The light was fading. A double sunset, beyond a great copse of trees, was retreating over the horizon in its two domes of light. The double star made the colors of this world tonal alloys. These colors mixed to create new colors. The names of these colors were known to Garuvel. They were Troce, Forn, Shybet, Zhale, and many others.

The day still had some hours to go, but large bright stars began to appear all over the sky. These daylight stars grew brighter by the minute. More and more stars appeared. Hosts of them; hundreds, then thousands uncountable.

Suddenly a mob of voices erupted in Thargmem's mind. "How many millions of years have we...," said one. Another interrupted. "We have made errors...." Yet another spoke, "the greater the error, the greater the correction". More spoke, and their voices merged in a near-cacophony. "Have you seen....? Why are you out, Tharg....who authorized you to...where are The Scientists? They will tell us.....No, let The Artists lead us.....wait, we need both....we need neither, we need the Engineers.....we need all of them. If all three don't work together we will......Stop shouting in my mind! How often must I repeat.....?"

Thargmem wept. The bones of his shoulders shuddered as tears quietly flowed down his face. He put his palms to his temples, fingers spread upward on each side like a crown of gnarled twigs.

"Be quiet!" he cried. "Be quiet, all of you!" The voices stopped their chatter. As twilight deepened, people began to materialize out of thin air. Next to Thargmem, a woman solidified out of twinkling mist. Her form was almost the same as that of Thargmem, but she had small breasts and short delicate arms and legs. She summoned another bush, which became a stool. She sat on it, glancing at Thargmem without meeting his eyes. There was a strange distance between them. They seemed to know one another intimately, yet acted as complete strangers. Other people filled the glade, until there were thousands, sitting without much order upon upraised stools of leaf and branch.

The twilight did not lead to darkness. It was a transition to another kind of light. As the planet's suns faded, a sky appeared, a sky so filled with stars and nebulae that it glowed almost as much as the departed daylight. One quarter the way up the sky, a great celestial object blazed like endless lightning. It was a gigantic spear of coherent luminosity. It rose from within a circle of packed stars, which disappeared beyond the trees. At the base of the spear was a blackness so deep that it had infinite weight. Every degree of blackness tugged, tugged, seething within itself with absolutely nothing. It seemed as though the blackness was a sacrifice, that it had become black, had given all its light to the great spear which rose and rose into the night, into the universe, until it vanished from sight in the distance of deep space.

There was a long hesitat silence, as if there were a need to speak yet no one wanted to be first to speak.

At last, Thargmem said, "Who is not among us?"

There was prolonged muttering, as people looked around in the blue-white radiance. Time passed without measure; hours, days, it did not matter. The suns rose, the suns set, the Light Spear appeared above the Black Cauldron, then gave way to daylight, appeared yet again. The suns drifted apart as their orbits changed. Soon one was rising as the other set. In the brief twilight, millions upon millions of bright stars glittered. Beyond them, dusty galactic arms stretched, one behind the other. Then the suns drifted together again and day was day and night was night.

At last someone spoke.

"Jilith is gone."

Another spoke. "Frelesh is gone." And another. "Vorpeen is not here."

The people spoke the names of all who were missing. Voices overlapped in multitudes of naming. The sound was like a huge flock of geese lofting from a lake into the sky in one great thrust. There was another long absence of speech. Thargmem took it upon himself to make decisions. "Let us make teams and seek out those who are missing. Go with the person at your right hand, and seek out people of your clan. If none of your clan are missing, join with another team and help. Can we agree to that?"

Someone objected. "Left hand, left hand! I will not go anywhere with this one who sits at my right. I will not go with Uulin! I will go with Sarza."

The one named Sarza waved her hands in the air; her voice was weak for she had not spoken in two thousand years. "Why should I go with Lelz? What right has he to select me? Our marriage was done eons ago....." Her croak was augmented by speech in the non-verbal realm. Everyone knew what she said, though her voice did not carry in the air.

Thargmem rose from his stool and strode to the one named Lelz. The man was tall with very long fingers; his hair was a tonsure at the top of his skull. His face was long, drooping with aristocratic ennui.

Thargmem slapped him, hard. "You will go with Uulin. We will all go with the person to our right, the person nearest to us at our right hand. No choice! Since we cannot make decisions, since we argue like children for eternity, I will take charge, right now. I am in charge! Does anyone object?"

Some people looked to Forvelon, the head of the Science Guild. He averted his eyes and seemed to be studying an insect that crawled across his thumb. The head of the Artists' Guild was lost in abstraction. Grylel, Master of Engineering, was studying a digipad, apparently engrossed in the design of a new sky castle. There was no authority anywhere. It was to be taken by anyone with audacity.

For the first time in his life, Thargmem felt as if he were fulfilling some purpose.

"Go find the missing," he said, "and bring them here or report as to their state."

The man named Lelz had never encountered violence. His face was blooming with a red splotch where he had been slapped. He looked with astonishment and fear at Thargmem. He bowed from the waist, angry but acquiescent.

The gathering dispersed. Each person was at the apex of youth and health, yet none seemed joyful. A dispirted miasma sat upon them.

Thargmem and Rahula were to go to the residence of the Grandmaster of Thargmem's clan, Shansolil. He was the great great great great grandparent. He was two billion years old. He was the keeper of The Puzzle Piece, that fragment of the Heart World from which they had all come. Each of the one hundred eight worlds of the Communion had a Puzzle Piece.

No one really cared about these old myths anymore. At some destined future, all the Puzzle Pieces were to be assembled and reveal the solution, the solution to the highest mystery of all sentient kind: The Puzzle of the Endless Gates. To the younger generations of the Starwind Communion, puzzles and pieces of puzzles were all but forgotten; quaint bits of lore spoken by old people to one another.

Thargmem had not seen or spoken to Shansolil in perhaps a million years.

The couple closed their eyes. They visualized the reception hall of Shansolil's Sky Palace. Then they were in it.

A double row of crystal pillars created a walkway, down which the pair now paced. Far below, the world of Melolos displayed its mountainous crags, its perfect proportions of deserts, wetlands, plains and rivers.

A system of what looked like blue clouds rode high in the sky.These were nodes of the radiation barrier. Without it, unpredictable changes in the state of nearby stars could destroy life on Melolos. The planet and its system occupied a crowded neighborhood, almost at the very center of the galaxy. Beneath the sky palace storm clouds filled with moisture created shadows that undulated across the mountain slopes.

The walkways were sided with a mosaic made from gems and crystals. They told ancient tales of the original migrations and hardships of the people as they abandoned the home world. This was the dying world, the Heart-World, Wayuzo.

Thargmem and Rahula barely gave a glance to their history. The vaulted roof and the floor were of clear polished diamond. They walked to an entrance, a pair of woven tapestries of intricacy and colored richness. These depicted more legends from worlds of the Starwind Communion. They showed gods in battle, beasts with mythic antlers, shamans hurling stardust into roaring fires. Thargmem remembered his Grandparent telling the stories, the legends of the Trail of Ten Million Worlds. He and his cousins thrilled to the exotic myth of spiritual searching. Unless one had navigated the Trail it was impossible to achieve enlightenment. Thargmem had all but forgotten this concept, that there might be a quest towards something infinitely sublime. It made an ache in his heart. He knew that Grandparent Shansolil had once gone out to a far place and attempted to begin the Trail. He had returned after a few thousand years. He spoke little of it. He began collecting things like this tapestry, objects and artworks that had some connection to the legendary Trail.

Rahula stopped to take one of the tapestries between her thumb and index finger. She felt its silken texture with a sour expression on her face.

"Grandparent Shansolil was such a dreamer", she commented. "I've never seen this one before. What a collection of useless junk." She shuddered. "It's so primitive. The images are terribly crowded and without proportion." She dropped the cloth with a sniff. "Chaotic, unrefined," she decided.

As the pair passed through the tapestries, they entered a large round atrium that had three sets of spiral stairs winding upward to three distinct levels of the manse. Lights rose as they entered. There was a silence in the palace, a silence so antique that it seemed is if sound had been wrapped in blankets of fog, or deadened by winter snows.

The walls of the foyer were of a roseate wood. Alcoves and frames held works of art from Shansolil's collection. There were masks from distant planets, pottery from ancient cultures billions of light years away. There were paintings and installations. It seemed as though Shansolil had brought The Trail of Ten Million Worlds into his palace.

Rahula glanced at all this with disdain. "Just clutter, everywhere. I've always urged Grandparent Shansolil to simplify, to adopt the Triune Precepts."

Thargmem did not say that he disagreed. What would be the point? He found the objets d'art compelling. Something in their wildness called to him.

"Didn't your Grandparent Flozemhil tell you stories of 'The Trail?', he asked.

"I really wouldn't remember," she said, looking around. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, and the index finger of her left hand drummed impatiently. "Isn't there some greeting bot or service module to guide us into this place?"

Just as she spoke, a biobot appeared from within the expanse of the palace. Glowing a pale greenish blue, it was a fleshless ellipsoidal spinal column and a pair of hands, nothing more. The hands were smooth and beige, without wrinkles or veins. At the wrists, where they ended, a ribbed ringlet and a circular rubber disc covered their circuits and nodes. The hands floated in the vicinity of the spine, ready to serve.

"Good day, Master Thargmem. Good day, Mistress Rahula." Its voice was tinged with good humor. "May I have drinks and refreshments brought?"

"Yes, bot," Rahula answered vacantly. She waved a hand at the floor and a cushioned lounge chair rose so that she merely had to lean backward to be embraced by its comfort. "Send for a blisk and a clarn for me." She glanced at Thargmem, who had brought up his own lounger.

"I'll have the same," he responded. He was distracted by a particular sculpture set in an alcove of the reception chamber. It depicted a grizzled man dressed in a combination of leather and protective clothing, perhaps made of metal. He wore on his head a pointed leather helmet reinforced with riveted strips. Ear flaps and a nose piece gave it further structural integrity. In one of his hands he held a long bladed weapon high in the air. It dripped with blood. In his other hand he was holding up the corpse of a wild animal, a ferocious thing with bloody fur and fangs bared in a rageful death. It was a large animal, and the lower half of its body dragged on the ground. It was obvious that a battle had been fought between man and creature, and man had prevailed. Something in the sculpture's lack of compromise cast a spell upon Thargmem. What would it be like, he wondered, to be such a man? To be so strong, so brave, so competent in an untamed world?

Could he...would he....ever attempt to travel "The Trail?"

He shook his head from left to right, as if to repel a sudden drizzle. It would never happen. He knew himself all too well. He would postpone such a quest; one thing after another would take up his attention. He felt ashamed at his lack of resolve. No person of the Starwind Communion had attempted such a daring task in....how long? As a matter of fact, it was Grandparent Shansolil who had been the last person with such an urge...and he had returned home, quiet and dispirited.

The only people of the Starwind Communion who might retain a slight remnant of such primitive impulses were the Calakadoni. They believed in waging the occasional war.

Calakadon had been the original overlord of the home world, Wayuzo. It had attempted to maintain this hegemony over the Communion's worlds, but alliances had been formed to thwart this ambition. Calakadon had settled for being but one among the many. Its people still harbored a carefully controlled violence, a tendency to fall into aggression every few millennia. This aggression was quickly squelched by the collective will of the Starwind Communion. The Calakadoni raged in their constraint. It was just noise; no one wanted to return to the ravages of total conflict. The Calakadoni asserted that war was a healthy "cleansing". It kept their technologies fresh and their spirits vigorous. Needless to say, most of the Communion gave Calakadon a wide berth.

In moments, a kitchen-bot brought a tray. Its hands were large and flat, its spinal column simpler than that of the valet-bot.

"Would you please inform Grandparent Shansolil that we are here, and beg his welcome?" Thargmem quaffed his blisk. The liquid filled a vessel no larger than a thimble.

"I will do so," the valet-bot said, putting its hands together in a salute. "I shall carry your message to the Master this instant." It turned and floated up one of the staircases. It could have messaged its master instantly but Shansolil enjoyed old fashioned customs and manners. A valet bringing news of visitors, a kitchen bot "cooking" a haunch of Velv. Shansolil had a taste for archaic things.

Rahula tossed the thumbnail-sized wafer of clarn into her mouth, sucked until it dissolved. Her face registered distaste.

"The clarn is off," she pronounced flatly. "The blisk has no flavor at all."

Thargmem said nothing. He settled back to wait. The sky palace had three hundred rooms, and the bot might take a while to reach Grandparent Shansolil and return. In such a large structure the forty-odd residents could be spread far and wide. The various relations of Thargmem's clan and their friends would be about their ordinary business.

Rahula passed into a repair-state, a waking hypnogogic trance that did the necessary restorative processes. Her eyes half-closed, her breathing shallow, she relaxed into the chair, which tilted backwards to accommodate her slack muscles. Thargmem rose and inspected the fascinating sculpture more closely. He trembled. The spasm turned into a full shudder that wracked his body from head to foot. He smiled a warm inward smile. The spasm had been very pleasant.

An interval of time passed. Biobots passed through the atrium, floating noiselessly. Some carried tools, others carried electronic instruments. The quiet of the palace was total. Finally, the valet biobot returned.

"Master Thargmem, I signaled at the door of Master Shansolil but received no answer. I signaled again, yet still received no answer. I took it upon myself to release the lock. The Master is there, but he is uncommunicative. He is not in repair mode. I do not understand his condition."

Thargmem turned to go with the bot. Rahula, aware of this transaction, brought herself out of repair mode.

"It isn't like Grandfather to play tricks," Thargmem said. "Perhaps he is re-sequencing his genes and is unable to talk. He might be changing gender. That's a possibility."

When the biobot stepped onto the middle spiral staircase, Thargmem and Rahula joined him. The staircase itself moved upward; the humans remained still as it rose almost a hundred feet. As they ascended they looked through great crystal panes, out upon the planet Melolos. In the distance a thunderhead spit a bolt of lightning that shivered the forest.

When the stair lift brought them to the third level the humans chose from an assortment of small hover chairs to traverse the passages to Grandparent Shansolil's chambers. As with the rest of Shansolil's part of the palace, many art works were distributed in niches and chambers. Some hung from the vaulted ceiling, which shone with a pale sourceless light. Some floated in mid-air, protected by stasis shields.

Rahula was uninterested. Her upper teeth bit lightly on her lower lip. This gave her an expression of peevishness, as though she would rather be somewhere else.

Thargmem found many things to intrigue him. Rahula glanced at him sourly. Not for the first time, he wondered why he chose to spend so much time with Rahula. The idea occurred to him that they weren't very suitable mates, that their tastes and values had drifted apart. It might be time to request a separation, and send a burst of pheromones out over the scansline. He might attract a companion with a more congenial personality.

Rahula's gaze turned suddenly poisonous. Thargmem realized that he had been thinking too loudly. Rahula turned up the volume of her thoughts and sent him a wave of jealous loathing.

The silently quarreling couple followed the bot around a curving course where plants grew down from high on the walls. Twittering animals had come in from outside and had set up nests. Thargmem had not seen this decorative style before. It was fairly typical of Shansolil's taste. Cleaning bots passed along the floors, taking up the creatures' waste products and debris.

The valet bot finally indicated that they had reached Grandparent Shansolil's chambers. It had been so long since their last visit that Thargmem felt embarassed. How could they have so neglected his Grandparent?

A signal bong in the shape of a flower hung at Grandparent Shansolil's door iris. Thargmem waved his hand past it, heard the pleasant sound inside the chambers. There was no response. He signaled once more, then nodded to the bot. It produced a small ebony device that emitted a coherent beam of green light. It blinked a sequence, and the iris whooshed open.

"Grandparent?" Thargmem entered the chamber tentatively.There were no doors or intervening walls in the chamber, only hanging tapestries of various hues and designs. They created small functional spaces that were furnished modestly with cushions and hammocks. Thargmem's forebear had taken up potting, and there was a wheel with a dry shapeless lump of clay upon it. The overhead vines and orchids had grown a bit wild, but even as he thought so, a small service bot with a single-columned spine and snippers for hands came jetting along, trimming the plants to a civilized length.

The valet bot hung back while Thargmem pushed through various curtains. The bed had not been used for repair mode. Fresh sheets and fragrant pillows lay upon it undisturbed. Thargmem went to his Grandparent's office, where he did his work at the computing console. There was a holographic projection of a program displayed, a real-time map of the galaxy. The light in the room was a dim red, the better to view the projected stars. Some indicators had been set up to show orbital confluences in the vicinity of the Communion, but their details were too tiny to see at this scale.

Sitting at the foot of the holo projection was Grandparent Shansolil.

"Grandparent...." Thargmem began, "We are honored to....". Then his eyes adjusted to the light and he began to see what had become of his great ancestor.

The skin of Grandparent Shansolil had withered and become like paper. Most of it was intact; bone was visible here and there where something had abraded the body. Viewed from Thargmem's sideways angle, both front and rear spinal columns jutted through the tenuous skin, forming little mountain ranges that traversed his old withered form.

Grandparent Shansolil was a mummy, sitting at his computer. He was upright and attentive in his chair. He had been dead for countless eons.

Rahula made a choking sound and ran from the chamber. Thargmem sat upon a cushion, his mind a sudden riot.

Death was not familiar to the peoples of the Starwind Communion. They lived so long...such perfect lives. There were few children. Thargmem's innards roiled and he fought to control his impulse to do something...something....what could he do? He could barely imagine it. He could eject the contents of his tiny stomach, hurl the blisk and clarn he had recently digested. How ghastly! Yet, in an uncontrollable lurch, he did just that. A little pellet of soggy matter came popping out of his mouth and landed at the foot of the dead man's chair.

A cleaning bot skittered along the floor and removed the object almost as soon as it had made contact with the carpet.

Thargmem realized that very important things were happening. He struggled to order his thoughts. What had caused his grandparent to die? As he thought of the life events of Grandparent Shansolil, he made a strange conclusion, yet one that had the deep interior ring of truth.

Grandparent Shansolil had died of disappointment and ennui.

Chapter Three

Elder's Night

A sudden curiosity gripped Thargmem.

"Come with me," he ordered the valet bot. "Show me where the others live. Wasn't my great-great-great-aunt Harumi living here? And her daughter Sylvani? Aren't there dozens of people in the palace? How could Grandparent Shansolil sit here for so long without someone knowing, without someone missing him?"

Rahula had evoked a lounger from the wall outside, and had put herself back in repair mode. Thargmem ignored her and let the bot guide him to his aunt's apartment.

Again, Thargmem waved at a bong. The sound chimed within the apartment. There was no answer.

"Aunt Harumi? Hello?" Thargmem requested that the door be opened by the valet bot. This apartment was quite different from that of Grandparent Shansolil. It too was archaic, furnished with old style chairs and armoires, cluttered with holos of nieces, nephews, children, grandchildren. Thargmem saw his own holo in a prominent place atop a jewelry cabinet.

He found his aunt similarly mummified. She was slumped over to the left, in front of her computer console. In the holo was a visit-view with the connection still open. It was occupied by someone Thargmem could not recognize. The person was also a long dead mummy.

After searching throughout the palace, Thargmem found forty one mummies, seated or fallen down, in front of forty one computer consoles. Many of the consoles showed the mummies of those with whom they had last communicated. Thargmem's relatives sprawled or propped before their still-open circuits.

The biobots had maintained the palace in perfect order, for perhaps a million years.

Thargmem threw his mind into the collective awareness called the scansline. He found Tarfowil, a friend. Others were present as well. There seemed to be a great disturbance in the scans. People were babbling all kinds of things.

"Tarf," he began, "something extraordinary has happened. I am here at my Grandparent Shansolil's palace."

Tarfowil was too excited to allow Thargmem to finish his thought. "They are dead!" he declared. He seemed strangely happy. "There are so many dead. Just sitting in front of their holos, at their consoles."

"Just so," confirmed Thargmem. "Every resident of the sky palace is...just...just...dried skin and bones."

"We need to meet back at Great Park," Tarfowil and several others concurred.

"In a bit," Thargmem said."There are things here to be dealt with," He was silent for a moment. "We still have priests, don't we?"

Tarfowil hesitated. "I..I'm not sure. Does anyone know a priest?" From elsewhere, a voice answered. It was Lurnifa. "I have an acquaintance who dabbles in the old Precepts. He has memorized the whole of the Triune Codex."

'Is he here?" Thargmem questioned. It seemed as though every remaining inhabitant of Melolos had gathered in the scansline. "Perhaps he too is gone."

There was a silence. The priest was not to be found.

At that moment, the Trans-planet scansline broke in. A citizen of the planet Llangredyn was present in the Conscious. "Hello, Melolos, I am Relios the Forty Fifth. I have an urgent communication."

The population of Melolos remained silent. After a time, Relios the Forty Fifth continued. "Yes...well, I shall speak then." He sounded nervous. "I..um...well, my Revered Father, Relios the Forty Fourth is...uh....no longer with us. Nor is my mother, Welever the Sixtieth."

There was sudden simultaneous chatter from thousands of minds. Each planet had its own means of population control and its own methods regarding birth and death.

Only the Calakadoni allowed death in war. They made a great festival out of a Battle Casualty. The deceased was raised upon a Shield, and carried from place to place across the planet, to be viewed and praised by all.

The other worlds of the Communion regarded Calakadon as hopelessly mad.

A general riot of thoughts and communications flew through the scansline. It was so chaotic that Thargmem removed himself. He wanted to see what was in the holo projection that had been Grandparent Shansolil's last activity. Followed by the valet-bot, he returned to his ancestor's chambers.

Rahula still sat in the lounger. She had prolonged repair mode far more than necessary. Thargmem let her be. He went into Shansolil's death-chamber and observed the galaxy map. He could read the star charts, trace the orbits.. Living at the heart of the galaxy, astrophysics was a way of life, but he was no master. He needed help.

Listlessly, Rahula trailed into the chamber. She did not look towards the corpse. "What are you doing?" she asked in a hoarse voice.

Thargmem was going through various storage units and containers, lifting out packets, bottles, studying their labels. "Ah, here we are," he said. He held a small cube with a protruding bump, like a thorn. He showed it to Rahula.

"Memory booster. A strong one. I want to know what Grandparent was doing in his last days and hours, and I've forgotten a lot of my astrophysics." He placed the object at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Its interior lit up with a pale blue light. The thorn-like protrustion grew filaments that gently probed Thargmem's skin, then entered and placed its genetic constituents into his body.

Thargmem closed his eyes and sank into a lounger before he fell to the floor. His eyelids quivered almost violently. Then they stilled and Thargmem's body relaxed. He dropped the chromohormone cube. A cleaning bot instantly whisked it away.

In a few minutes, Thargmem returned to consciousness. Rahula was sitting, dull-eyed, as far away from the corpse as was possible. She was ignoring it.

Thargmem began walking around the projection. He raised his hand to control the display. He slid his thumb and index finger apart. The projection zoomed in at great speed, until the Starwind Communion occupied the center. Just off to its right a few degrees was the Black Cauldron and its Lightspear. From this angle Thargmem could see the entire structure at the center of the galaxy. The Lightspear extended from the galaxy's center, lunging into space. Thargmem knew that it was excess matter being whisked up into a collossal tube of synchrotron radiation that moved at near the speed of light.

Sometimes The Cauldron was quiescent. There was no spear, all was quiet. It was awake now, in this epoch. There were stars and matter enough to stimulate it as they moved towards the center, then vanished. The lightspear lept away. Its counterpart on the other side of the galaxy was also firing colossal gamma rays in the opposite direction.

Thargmem moved his fingers to zoom into the orbital planes of the Starwind Communion. He studied the displacements carefully. Each star system had a major planet and a few colonies. One hundred eight systems comprised the Communion. They were distributed all along the flank of the Cauldron's event horizon. Some were above the galactic plane, some were below, but all huddled close to the center of the galaxy. All had a view of the dark bowl that occupied its very center, where stars, nebulae and planets ended and the borderless border of the Black Cauldron's accretion disc began. The planets and stars were in stable orbits. They were far enough from the Cauldron to maintain themselves. They enjoyed the most spectacular night sky in all the galaxy.

Thargmem was energized by a sense of purpose. As he worked with the display, inspecting orbits at various coordinates, an unconscious childlike smile spread across his face.

Then his expression changed. He zoomed in, turned the axis of the display. He peered closely at the star map, shook his head so that his long hair tumbled about.

He lit up some sectors in dim yellow light to make them distinctive from the general red contours. He put ephemerides for various orbits in a strip at the bottom of the display. He studied them carefully, looking from the figures and coordinates to the hologram.

"I don't understand," he mumbled.

"What?" Rahula croaked. "What did you say?"

She was massaging her face in an attempt to clear her mind. Thargmem was barely aware of her existence.

"Where is Veatrazil?" Thargmem's voice was full of apprehension. "Veatrazil should be here..." he used the system's cross-hair pointer to indicate the position in which the orbit of Veatrazil should be carrying it around its star. But there was no star. Dranchizel, the parent star of the Veatrazil system, was missing.

"Oh Triunes!" Thargmem swore. He drew his index finger towards his body. The orbits of all the planets and stars reversed, showing what occurred in the past fifty thousand years. Thargmem watched a particular location. As the stars whizzed in reverse, he saw what he had dreaded to see. Dranchizel materialized from within the Cauldron's event horizon. Then it resumed its position in its ancient orbit, the way it had been traveling for billions of years. Veatrazil and her sister planets and orbital bodies resumed their places. Then something bizarre happened. One of Veatrazil's moons, Vyelorn, exploded. Seeing it running in reverse, it un-exploded! This was where it began or ended, depending on whether one was running time backwards or forwards.

Veatrazil had not been heard from in the scansline. That was not unusual. The peoples of the Starwind Communion were preoccupied with themselves.

Grandparent Shansolil had passed away and no one noticed. An entire world had passed away, and no one noticed.

Thargmem put the display in forward time and watched the process again. The moon shattered in massive brilliant shards of light. Veatrazil crept minutely out of orbit. Its star, Dranchizel, lurched by a tenth of an arc-second. A series of gravitational ripples was set in motion. The speed of displacement gained momentum. Veatrazil's system was moving into the pull of the Cauldron's event horizon. Then, horribly, Dranchizel vanished like a piece of soft candy pulled inward to the blackness beyond the event horizon. In the process, it dragged with it all the planets, moons, asteroids and comets in its system.

Thargmem reversed the playback, slowed its speed and saw everything re-appear. He turned the map to view the system from a different angle, from above, some thousand lightyears towards the Voronian Arm of the galaxy. This time he noticed several other orbits being perturbed.

This was not supposed to happen for tens of billions of years.

It was possible for a star's orbit to decay in relation to its galactic position. Most planets eventually either fell into their parent star or were burned up when the star went red giant in its death throes. Any permutation of orbital changes could ramify into thousands of consequences. Collisions with other worlds, moon crashes, star quakes and star fusions, systems morphing from single to double or double to quadruple stars orbiting one another. Whole galaxies collided in slow motion, rarely disturbing their peoples. Anything could happen but it took a very VERY long time.

To see Dranchizel and its planets sucked into the maw of the Cauldron's event horizon and vanish into darkness; that was insane. What had caused Vyelorn to explode? As he replayed the event over and over it seemed as though the star and its worlds turned to dust. At high zoom, he could see the star elongating, turning into a stripe of hot gas. In little bits the stripe was torn into ragged dots which grew fainter and fainter until they nudged the horizon and whirled away into oblivion. The planets began to fall apart on the side nearest to the Cauldron. They too elongated, until they looked like crushed game balls. Then they began to fray and separate, piece from piece. Half a world would remain as a semi-sphere while the other half whizzed off into nowhere. Then the intact half would come apart, and join the rest of its mass in a deadly conversion to subatomic particles. Finally, it would vanish into the whizzing jaws of the beast.

Thargmem sat next to his dessicated ancestor and studied the galaxy map for a long time. Lights came on in the palace. They went out as day came. They came on again. Thargmem ate and drank some bits of vochi and snire. His mind could not leave the star map. He thought about the Starwind Communion and its long history. Six billion years ago, the home planet, Wayuzo, was losing its water. Various of the tribes of Wayuzo began to emigrate to nearby star systems. Eventually, the Starwind Communion was established, but memories of Wayuzo lingered in myths, legends and a few important artifacts. These were The Puzzle Pieces. Each of the worlds of the Communion possessed one Puzzle Piece. There were myths about what the Puzzle Pieces meant, what they could do if they were united and solved the Great Puzzle. This was the Puzzle of the Endless Gates. It was supposed to be the ultimate revelation in the form of a mathematical equation. Or a kinetic display of some kind. No one remembered.

It had become a joke, a longstanding subject of mockery, this Puzzle and these so-called Puzzle Pieces. Yet Thargmem knew that Grandparent Shansolil, as Elder of the Melolians, kept the original Puzzle Piece of Melolos somewhere in this palace.

Something occurred to Thargmem. He rotated the map and zoomed toward the sector where the missing Dranchizel system should exist. This time he viewed it from off-axis, from the Chelbian arm of the galaxy. He looked for the star system Jorn and its planets. One of those planets was habitable and populated. That planet was Calakadon. He knew that Calakadon and Veatrazil were planet-mates. Their peoples had joined together to find partners from one another's populations. Something peacable in the nature of Veatrazil reached out and wanted to nurture the turbulent Calakadon.

Things had gone wrong with this match. Calakadon had decided to experiment with sexual pleasure This tinkering with sex began as a recreational fad. It progressed into uncontrolled reproduction. The Calakadoni had shunted aside their lower brain nexes and enlarged their organs. They began to run amok in the cities, to have orgies in the countryside. Their new motto was "Those who fight are those who fuck!"

They began to produce children who were uncontrolled mutations. This broke the most fundamental social contracts of the Communion.

Communes who had lived harmoniously for many thousands of years, Calakadoni and Veatrazili, were now sundered. The Veatrazili were horrified. This dabbling in sex was to welcome irrationality and unleash chaos upon the worlds.

In small groups, the Veatrazili began to go home. They returned to Veatrazil, ending their marriages. For a while the Calakadoni didn't care. They paired off with other Calakadoni and continued their fondlings.

After a few centuries, there were no more Veatrazili on Calakadon, nor any Calakadoni on Veatrazil. Then, one day, Calakadon woke to this fact: the Veatrazili had gone home! A complete planetary divorce had been effected.

The Calakadoni, now rampant in the influence of their hormones, raged at their erstwhile mate. Betrayal! they cried. They have taken back their goods and services, canceled their accounts. They have even re-married without consultation!

Under the shocked gaze of the Starwind Communion, Calakadon was reverting to its ancient conceit that it was the rightful overlord of the hundred and eight star systems. Every century seemed to bring a new madness. The Calakadoni began refurbishing their war fleet.

The Veatrazili girded for attack. The Communion Order of Governors warned Calakadon that it would be blockaded for eternity. It made no difference. The invasion fleet was launched. Thousands of ships, bristling with anti-matter bombs and beam cannon, disappeared into Transpace and then reappeared just outside the Dranchizel system.

The Veatrazili had built a fleet of small swift vessels. These hid behind moons and asteroids while a population waited on-planet, seemingly helpless, quivering with terror.

The Calakadoni landed without opposition. They cried salacious insults and began sacking the towns and farms of Veatrazil.

The Veatrazili launched a coordinated attack, taking out the mother ships in orbit. They flew across the Calakadoni landing sites, too fast to be hit. Big ornate Calakadoni warships exploded everywhere. The land-based militia struck at Calakadoni formations as they celebrated their false victory.

The Calakadoni were completely disarmed. They were unable to return to Calakadon. Their ships were destroyed, their weapons neutralized. With much gnashing of teeth, they surrendered and requested transport home in Veatrazili craft.

The Veatrazili did not gloat. They took the shamed warriors back to their home planet, then returned to their world. The divorce was final.

The Sex War was subject of much quiet hilarity all over the Starwind Communion. Calakadon retreated into a smoldering isolation.

Thargmem recalled these events as he scanned the star map. He looked for Jorn and its planet Calakadon in its accustomed orbit. Other worlds and star systems were showing symptoms of orbital decay. The next star system to be swept into the Black Cauldron would be Wyfkandar. It had less than a million years to exist.

Then Thargmem found the star Jorn and its planet, Calakadon. It was showing tiny alterations of its orbit. If he ran the timeline forward a hundred thousand years, Calakadon also fell into its parent star. Why? None of it made sense! However great was the technology of the Starwind Communion, it lacked the capacity to alter the orbits of multiple star systems. Yet, as he played the time-dilated tracks of all the worlds in the Communion, he saw that each was to be inexorably swept into the vortex of the Black Cauldron.

Then he had an idea. He spoke to the computer: "Gravity waves," he said, and suddenly the projection was full of curving lines of vast interdependence. He moved the star map into a slightly larger scale, so that he could see the neighborhood of The Communion and nearby star systems.

"Less opacity on the gravity lines by thirty five" he said, and the projection's grids faded so that star systems could more easily be seen. He did some calculations at the keyboard. He watched the ephemerides as he did this work. He told the computer to show the movements if these calculations were actualized. Then he did a long series of ins, outs, forward time, backward time, looking all around at the gravity waves, trying to make out a particular pattern. Time passed of which he was not aware. Some days or weeks progressed as he worked at the computer module. He summoned reference files from cosmic thinkers all around the galaxy. He sat looking blankly into space, eyes glazed with intense concentration. Again he played back the explosion of Vyelorn, the moon of Veatrazil. He followed the consequences in all their horror. Veatrazil's orbit was altered into a rapidly decaying and irregular ellipse. It wobbled up and down the plane of Dranchizel's system. Its axis began tilting as its more massive side was pulled towards the star. The other planets and bodies in the system reacted to the new alignment of forces. They struggled for equilibrium, but matters became worse.

Thargmem carefully observed minor alterations in the gravity waves. They didn't stop at the outer periphery of Dranchizel's oort cloud. They kept going into deep space until they encountered other systems. It was as if a giant pyramid had been carefully built out of precise blocks. Yet the removal of a single strategic block could bring the entire structure toppling.

Thargmem injected memory boosters. He had to force himself into repair mode several times. He read and read. During one of his repair modes he had a dream. This was rather startling, as hardly anyone dreamed any more. In this dream he was studying the map of the galaxy in Grandparents' chamber. An involuntary twitch of his hands suddenly caused the hologram to zoom away from the Communion. It left behind the local galaxy, it showed a map of the Universe, with all the galaxies receding, was as if he were flying OUT of the universe entirely, but just as he was able to see the entire universal structure, the motion stopped and he hung in space, in the outer aether of the void. He was looking "down" at the universe from a new vantage point. He saw all the galaxies forming a pattern, a geometric entity that moved and swam like a great sea creature. Or perhaps it was like a giant bird; it was some animate Being he had never before seen. Then he heard a voice and it said, quite simply. "Fractal. Symmetry across scale. Broken fractal."

Thargmem almost lept out of repair mode. He knew that fractal geometry was one of the building blocks of the material universe. If he viewed the gravity waves as fractals, he could trace patterns all the way up and down the scale of macrocosm to microcosm..

He was searching for a broken fractal, a disruption that would create a gravitational vulnerability of hundreds of star systems. As the universe danced, or swam, or flew or whatever it was doing in his dream, it did so in a great harmony of repeating patterns, ever greater, ever tinier in scale.

To break a part of this fractal harmony would wreak havoc on everything in its neighborhood. In theory it was possible to engineer such a break. It required knowledge of a very special kind, knowledge of Time on a vast scale.

Thargmem repeated the hand gesture he had made in his dream. The cosmic map began zooming out at tremendous speed. He had to slow it down and wait, patiently, for a tiny gap between the fractals as they jumped scale.

He viewed the gravity waves. They were the lineaments of the fractal pattern.

As he watched he tried to clear his mind of all preconceptions. He stilled his mind and let his eyes de-focus. This way he might see something that he was trying too hard to see.

Thargmem was looking for the shape of the creature he had seen in his dream. He knew its name. It was a great legendary creature that lived on land, in the sea, in the air. It was called The Anzaryx.

When he was a child Grandparent Shansolil had told him stories of the Anzaryx, the Great Being of the Cosmos.

His memory was pinging, pinging, going off in his mind with a clear bell tone.

Grandparent Shansolil had an art object, a tapesry or holograph of the Anzaryx. He and Rahula had walked past it on their way down the corridor that led to Grandparent's chambers.

Thargmem got to his feet and walked into the great curving hallway.

There it was, hanging on the wall just outside Shansolil's door iris.

It was a tapestry of lavish detail and color. It showed the mythical Anzaryx. It had great tail feathers forming an exquisite fan. It had fins that undulated with the winds of intergalactic space. It was composed entirely of fractal shapes that were not revealed unless one examined the details. How was it made? Who made it? Thargmem could not know. It was a work of sacred art.

Thargmem reverently took the tapestry from the wall and brought it into the study. He propped it on a cushion so that he could see it as he viewed the computer's display..

Than it all came clear. When he knew for what he searched, he found it. He was looking for a break in the symmetry.

It was called a Metacthonic Dissonance. It was a moment when many orbits were vulnerable and it was possible that some agent could blow apart the symmetry and make creeping chaos.

Thargmem did many repetitions of his backward and forward views of the galaxy. Using the explosion of Vyelorn as his reference point, he finally saw a place on the Local Anzaryx, a place where one of its tail feathers waved a microscopic amount off balance. That little anomaly was located at Vyelorn.

The epicenter of a Metacthonic Dissonance lay a few kilometers beneath the surface of Vyelorn. It occurred every one hundred seventy seven million years, six months, five days, eight hours, fifty two minutes, twenty one seconds, fifty four milliseconds, three nanoseconds. The event lasted ten seconds, thirteen miliseconds, four nanoseconds. He could see it there, with his own eyes, in the shape of the gravity waves. The fractal broke and failed to connect to the next level. This had occurred approximately three thousand years in the past; a Moment when every solid body of x amount of mass was inter-related and vulnerable to the tiniest push from an exterior agent. When this happened the entire galactic neighborhood would experience orbital decay. All the worlds for millions of light years would tumble into The Black Cauldron.

The Calakadoni had discovered a Metacthonic Dissonance. If they destroyed the moon Vyelorn inside that ten second window, the consequences would engulf everyone they hated.

The fractal at the local scale would break symmetry. For some milliions of years it would struggle to heal this rift, and would eventually succeed.

It would not heal before the Starwind Communion and dozens of other systems had been torn off their stable orbits.

Waiting for revenge upon the Communion, Calakadon had found The Moment, and launched a twelve gigaton thermonuclear device into Vyelorn. The rest was ripple effect. The gravitational disturbances would play out over millions of years. Calakadon, too, would vanish into the Cauldron. Apparently, the Calakadoni did not care.

Revenge was everything.

There was only one Communion planetary system not in decaying orbit. Having migrated halfway around the arc of the galactic center was the planet Wayuzo, the Heart World. Wayuzo was now a magnificent and complete desert. The people had boiled away its water supply in a series of environmental disasters. It was now a tourist attraction, a dry world of superb beauty, a world of deep chasms and giant mountains. It was a world that had not been altered, terraformed, re-designed to suit its inhabitants. It was the Original World.

Wayuzo and its parent star, Chelsh, were still orbiting as they had always done.

In a few million years, Wayuzo would be the grave marker of the Starwind Communion.

Thargmem realized that he was seeing the lineaments of a crime of vast proportion. Calakadon was murdering the Starwind Communion.

There was a sudden lifting sensation as Thargmem seemed to drift into the sky. Who was he? What was he doing here? Then, in a spasm of terror, he realized that he was not Thargmem. Thousands of people's lives flashed into and through him. His identity gave way to chaos.

Then, he was Garuvel Nep Zimrin. Bit by bit, the scenes of the Starwind Communion gave way to his present situation. Garuvel was thrashing on his back, legs and arms kicking in response to his psychic pain and confusion.

After a while, he regained his identity, and, with it, his composure.

He was back in the forest on R'zelfo. Nutun Utulo lay at his side, dying. His finger was still touching Garuvel's forehead.

Chapter Four

The Amalgamation

For a while the dying man was silent. "Garuvel," he choked. "Are you there? Yes, I can feel you. I must hurry." His breath came raggedly, blood spilling onto cracked lips. "I am all the people of Melolos, amalgamated into one body. We were so attenuated, it was the only way to make a whole person. The peoples from all the worlds gathered on the Communion's most ancient planet, Wayuzo. The Scientists, Artists and Engineers joined forces and created a technique whereby we could merge all of our identities into a single body. The event was called The Amalgamation. When this had been done, when we had become Planet-People, we rode the jets away, the jets of speeding hot particles that flew from the Cauldron's magnetic poles. We rose at near the speed of light. We had a common purpose: to travel The Trail of Ten Million Worlds. We did not see Calakadon at the Amalgamation. They were bitter, sulking, withdrawn from communication; possiblly afraid that we would rain fire down on their world in revenge. They did not understand what we were doing. And we, in our turn, did not understand how deep was Calakadon's need to hurt us. When they learned of our survival, they Amalgamated. Then they came after us, in the form of Boraz Bufaisdek."

Garuvel was about to say something, but Nutun forestalled him. "I know, I know, it sounds insane. 'The Trail,' just a legend, a journey towards enlightenment. It was the very absurdity that appealed to us. If the legend is true, each of us will return to Wayuzo with unique knowledge and wisdom. If it is not true, then we will vanish chasing a wisp. There is nothing wrong in that."

Garuvel had a moment of great confusion. He wondered if this being, Nutun Utulo, was simply deluded, crazy. Yet Garuvel knew in his guts that it was the truth.

The Starwind Communion, The Trail of Ten Million Worlds, these were legends as hoary as the Fat Man With Eight Reindeer or The Elf With The Golden Pocket. Growing children heard these tales all around the universe. Garuvel didn't want to think of this man as a mental case. The two of them had just gone to war together. He had felt a bond with Nutun from the very first moment, a sense of brotherhood.

Nutun gave a wrenching groan and his finger fell away from Garuvel's forehead. The forest was silent. There was no wind. One of the moons, Zofritesh, had risen over the volcanos and cast an orange light through the trees.

Garuvel crossed his legs and lifted Nutun's head so that it lay across his left thigh. The man's eyes cleared and the pain left his face.

"You're thinking I'm out of my mind, that I'm hallucinating. Or that you're hallucinating. I assure you that neither of us is. The Trail does exist, and I have traveled it. The legends are true, there is a special insight conferred to those who complete the Trail Of Ten Million Worlds. I will prove it to you. I can read people like books, I can see into souls, I can know things that it should be impossible to know."

Garuvel waited, hoping it was the truth.

"Your mother used to drink green liquer when you were a child. She shocked you deeply one day, when she was very drunk. You could see her but she couldn't see you, because you were invisible. You have a very special Gift. Need I say more?"

Relief and wonder filled Garuvel. He murmured, "No, no, that is true," barely able to utter the words.

"Now," chided Nutun, "will you let me finish my story before I walk with death into the Great Light?"

Garuvel nodded, holding his grief at bay, holding it off so that he could pay attention.

"The planet-people walked The Trail, each one acquiring a special insight. With this knowledge, we would solve the greatest riddle of them all, The Puzzle of The Endless Gates. We had accepted our mortality. What we wanted was the highest knowledge possible, the greatest insight within the reach of sentient beings. We sought a glimpse into the mind of the Supreme Intelligence. That, we thought, was a worthwhile quest."

Garuvel's upper eyes had become attuned to the dark, and he could now see his companion clearly. Nutun was struggling to untie something from his belt. It was a small leather pouch, which he pushed toward Garuvel. "Here, take this," he said. "It is my puzzle-piece."

Garuvel felt the object in the palm of his hand. The old myths were coming alive before his senses, he was living a fairy tale! Nutun cried out in sudden pain, and Garuvel's body rocked with long, tearful breaths.

"I can't speak any more," wheezed Nutun. "I have completed my journey down the Trail. Now I will die. I must ask a great thing of you, a promise."

Garuvel already knew that he would agree.

"I give you my promise," he said.

Nutun's hands flailed at the dried leaves for a moment, pain ruling his body. Garuvel's hands wrung in heartbroken empathy.

"I must show you," Nutun said with finalitiy. "Here is my death-transfer."

Nutun had risen to a sitting position, and pressed his lips briefly to Garuvel's. Something came from Nutun's lungs, a subtle particle, humming with quiet radiant activity. Involuntarily, with his next intake of breath, Garuvel took in the essence of Nutun Utulo. He became as one with the planet Melolos.

He was almost numb with ecstasy. He saw each detail of Nutun's story, the life of Melolos. He understood why Nutun was on R'zelfo, and the meaning of his duel with the Hefto of Ifyonar.

With one final great effort, Nutun sat completely upright and looked into Garuvel's eyes. "I want to say one last thing."

Garuvel nodded.

"I have become the person I always wanted to be."

He fell back, crushing leaves beneath his body, a last breath escaping his lungs, a breath that Garuvel could see was tinged with a spectrum of gorgeous colors. It assumed a spherical form and rose into the night. The sphere broke into many individual teardrop shapes, spread into the air and passed from human view.

The body of Nutun Utulo lay lifeless, touching Garuvel's knees. The knowledge of Nutun took wing in Garuvel's mind, and many things fell into place.

The Hefto was Boraz Bufaisdek, the planet Calakadon. He was killing each of the planet-people of the Starwind Communion. He was murdering them yet again. He wanted their puzzle-pieces. These objects had come from Wayuzo with the original settlers of the Communion's planets. At the Amalgamation it became the vessel that held the experiences and insights of each planet-person. Calakadon did not want the Puzzle of the Endless Gates to be solved. He was obsessed with revenge to the ultimate degree. The planet-people had gathered on Wayuzo, each taking a small ship to ride the jets of the Cauldron's LightSpear, accelerating to immense speed. They had each decided to complete the Trail of Ten Million Worlds, and return from the journey with the animated puzzle-pieces.

Boraz had killed Nutun, but he had not gotten his puzzle-piece. He had pushed his sister-wife Veatrazil into the Black Cauldron. He had stolen her puzzle-piece, her sacred piece of Wayuzo. He threw his own puzzle-piece into a cesspool. He sold Veatrazil's puzzle-piece to a souvenir hunter. The puzzle- pieces were collectors' prizes of the utmost value. As he murdered the planet-people, he would turn their legacies into profit for himself.

Now the planet-person Calakadon was jumping down the Trail of Ten Million Worlds, killing and stealing puzzle pieces.

Here I am in the middle of all this, Garuvel mused. There are so many nutty parts of this, so many ancient chimera. He looked at the still form of Nutun Utulo, and now his grief taxed him. This was a being he had known for a matter of hours. He could not explain why he was so moved with love towards Nutun. He trusted his feelings. Nutun had been a creature worthy of admiration, respect and love. It could not be rationally analyzed.

Now he had to take up the work of Melolos, the planet-being called Nutun Utulo. To solve the Puzzle of the Endless Gates, the puzzle-pieces must be assembled, on the heart-world, Wayuzo. This planet was perched near the Black Cauldron's event horizon. The end of the journey was the same place where it had begun. The same, but different. That was the hitch. Garuvel did not know where this place might be. He did not even know if it was still there. The starmaps he had seen as Thargmem were of no familiar galaxy, no familiar place or time. The Trail of Ten Million Worlds was a vague legend that had spread across the universe. He did not know the ultimate effect of Calakadon's crimes. He only knew that he now possessed one of the puzzle-pieces.

He heard the sound of horns and the baying of hounds. Boraz Bufaisdek, the planet Calakadon, was not giving up. He wanted Nutun's puzzle-piece, and he was enraged at the death of his son. Garuvel could see the heat of many bodies as they moved between the trees. It was time to leave. His only real attachment to R'zelfo lay cold and dead at his feet.

Chapter Five

The Comet Habuka

Garuvel covered his friend with garaba leaves. He tucked the puzzle piece carefully into the fold of his tunic, and began to run.

He invoked a discipline called The Speed of the Winds. He ran all night. Up Mount Emerald Fire and down the other side. He ran all the next day, up Pawndrift Rise and across the Chesmorleon Delta. Twice he saw people. He was as a blur to them. Garuvel's body was like a feather, his legs like steel springs.

On the third day he came to a cold, speeding river. He took out a multi-skin, adjusted its settings. Throwing it into the current, he held it until he could sit in the the center of its sleek, hollow shape. Pulling the sides up and towards his body, he set a multi-stick as an oar and then let go. The wild river took him in its ferocious grip. Garuvel laughed with exhiliration.

By the end of that day, he had ascended the slope of Mount Ruby Smoke. At the threshold of its hissing vent-field sat the Monastery of the Slow Breath. It was a ruin, inhabited only by ghosts. Its outlines were barely distinct from the tortured lava shapes that eternally rolled down the slopes of the grumbling volcano.

Just below the summit, Garuvel crawled into a space barely large enough to admit his body. He slithered down the tube until the opening enlarged, and became the ante-chamber to an immense cavern. With his tongue he touched a place on the roof of his mouth. This sent a signal that neutralized the stasis field. With a sigh, he entered the mighty space. The light panels were set to emit the yellow luminosity of his native star, Jaramin. It was such a relief to see by yellow light after so long under a blue star. The graceful looming shape of his vessel, 'Figment", filled him with a sense of home-coming.

Another motion of his tongue at his teeth caused a faint whoosh of air as the entrance to the ship extruded itself from the smooth black facade. Within its comforting embrace at last, Garuvel sat with a sense of completion in his contoured flight throne. Then he promptly fell asleep.

"Garuvel, Garuvel," a husky voice whispered. He was dreaming. He saw Vwanzila, pinned to a spinning pulsar. He tried to reach her, but she whizzed past him a thousand times a second. He tried to run, but there was no purchase for his feet in the frigid emptiness of space.

"Garuvel, Garuvel," the voice repeated. He awoke. His flight throne had vibrated subtly.

"Darzel," he answered groggily. It was the ship's brain: bio-cybernetic, nano-robotic. It was sentient: it processed experience, grew, made independent decisions. It wasn't just the brain of the ship. It WAS the ship. That which he called Figment was the shell, the appearance of the ship. The personality, the Being of the ship, was Darzel.

"You've been asleep for three of this planet's rotations," it informed him tartly. "My monitors tell me that you are physically restored. Your blood gases are fine, your muscles have been flushed of their excess lactic acid."

"Darzel, I just had a dream. Be quiet."

It was quiet. It had no problem with long silences.

At first Garuvel remembered the emotion of the dream, but not the details. Then the images returned as he sat, quietly receptive. He felt, suddenly, more lonely than he had felt in centuries. The sadness rolled over him like a dense cloud. In its quiet depths he was overwhelmed with unanswered need. His body tingled in expectation of touches not received. He was devastatingly incomplete.

He was tempted to do something, anything to distract himself from his pain. These melancholies could crash into him so suddenly, they were like great icebergs coming out of a murky fog; he could not see them until it was too late to protect himself. He fought the impulse to rise from his flight throne and distract himself with the ship's business. Vwanzila's whirling face held him still. She had always been the stronger one; she experienced her pain as it came. That way it came and left. He, on the other hand, sought escape from pain. That way it stayed with him, just beneath the surface.

Vwanzila had always been such an idealist. She had far more courage than he did. She could tolerate pain where he could not. He did the most insane things to keep pain at bay. He ate box after box of arpak, space rations, set for sweet-crispy-medium hard. He could while away a week long space journey, popping those stupid arpak cookies. He wanted to do it right now, but he fought off the urge. There was too much danger at present. He would follow Vwanzila's wisdom and sit through the hurt.

So he honored her, and felt stinging grief: for Vwanzila, for Nutun, for Zanthis Periot, for Skars Hajino, for every being he had cared for, and outlived. People lived long lives in this time: eight thousand, nine thousand standard years. He, Garuvel Nep Zimrin, had already lived twenty thousand. He had learned to do things with his body in his long studies, things that kept him alive and healthy.

The loneliness hurt and it hurt, and gradually changed from a sense of squalid incompletion to a feeling of majestic and creative melancholy.

As his self-absorbtion faded, he became aware of the hard contours of the puzzle-piece in his tunic. Pulsing with silent questions, the object tantalized him. He removed the leather pouch from his pocket, untied the thong, and spilled the object like a loose jewel onto the palm of his hand.

It was a small wooden pipe. Its dark red-brown grain whirled elegantly around its simple, spoon-like shape. Its bowl was an inset of polished black stone. At the bowl's center, tamped firmly into the smoke-hole, was a bit of crushed leaf, colored like green opal.

Garuvel's eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. The corners of his mouth lifted imperceptibly, giving his face a cherubic expression.

In another of his tunic pockets, he still possesed some matches from R'zelfo.

"Okay," he mused. "If ever there was a pipe that said, 'Light me', this is it."

Striking the match with his thumbnail, he lit and inhaled the pipe's contents in one satisfying breath. The smoke hit his lungs with an exotic tickle. Then his corpuscles seemed to riot as they passed blood cells eagerly toward the chemical's embrace.

Garuvel saw the birth of Nutun Utulo. All the people of Melolos were standing before a great marble platform, which was open to a sky of stunning radiance. Fireballs weaved among crowds of stars. The Galaxy's inner arm waved overhead, glittering like a serpent whose scales were blue and red nebulae and golden globular clusters. The LightSpear of the Cauldron vanished into deep space, but its near end seemed to terminate directly above the platform. Singly, the Melolians advanced toward the center of the platform,where there burned a fire whose colors matched the stars. Floating fifty meters in the air above the platform was a small pyramid. A ray of light descended from its apex, coming straight down to meet and feed the fire. With a cry, each person leaped into the flame. The heat was star-heat, nova heat. There was no pain; the person was obliterated in an instant. A misty sphere emerged from the fire, rising, splitting into a multitude of pear-shaped droplets of mist which were sucked up to be caught in the pyramid. When the last person's vapor was caught and had ascended to the apex on the ray of light, the pyramid opened out, unfolded like a butterfly's crysalis. There stood Nutun Utulo, freshly born and naked. He knelt and clothed himself with a plain tunic. He looked around, taking in the somber contours of Wayuzo..

A small interstellar craft stood waiting. He stepped through the hatch. Momentarily, the ship rose from the platform, hovered, turned and accelerated toward the Lightspear. It then rushed into space, slowly at first, accelerating to relativistic speed.

The vision faded. Garuvel stared into the pipe's glowing bowl. He tried to remember the stars in his vision; they may someday give him a clue to the location of Wayuzo.

A wisp of smoke still hung above the bowl of the pipe. Garuvel's eyes, unfocused and inward-looking, did not see the animate twisting of the vapor. Writhing with purpose, it finally caught his gaze. He beheld the miniature shape of Arhim Aglalu, the spirit-keeper of the Monastery of the Slow Breath. When the priest had fully materialized, he gave Garuvel a toothy, devilish grin.

"Greetings, Habuka," he said with mock solemnity, the feathers of his head-dress drooping forward to brush tiny, sandaled feet. With a twist of his neck, he righted himself and hurled the plumes back into place.

"Greetings, High Waloku," Garuvel responded, equally sardonic. "What brings you drifting through this particular pipe?"

"A penchant for dramatic entrances, perhaps? But no.....at the moment I bring traces of gossip, rumours of tumult. Oh, Habuka, you have been stirring up trouble on this pathetic, backward planet."

Arhim fluttered his eyelashes innocently. His hawk-like nose wrinkled with pleasure at such entertainment.

"You mean," said Garuvel, "that news has reached you of the Hefto's perfidy."

"Indeed," the little image said. "I come at the urging of said Hefto, who demands the return of the criminal who broke the sacred Corzarian Code and meddled in the duel with Nutun Utulo."

Garuvel laughed with outrage. "What a brazen story to cover his iniquity."

"Such must be the case, O Habuka. He claims you shot Utulo and fled with the body in order to steal his apta." Arhim used the R'zelfoi term for soul-power. "He demands your removal from the mountain's sacred precincts. His contempt for the Code is obvious, since at this very moment he has passed through the Ghost Barrier and is climbing the slope of this sacred mountain."

"And your response to this wanton activity?"

Arhim snorted with derision. 'My ghost warriors will give his thugs a lively afternoon. I have no fear of the Hefto, though I suspect that he is more than he seems. He claims now to be a god; but with all respect, o mighty one, we of the Waloku regard gods as little different than men. Both often wish to be more than they are, to have more than they own."

"Yes, " Garuvel replied cryptically. "Gods and men have limited power, yet use it as if it is unlimited. I am different in that I have unlimited power, yet chose to use it as if it is limited. In any case, I shall solve your problem, Arhim. I shall soon ride my comet back into the sky. You have been a good spirit-keeper, Arhim Aglalu."

Arhim smiled gallantly. "As you have been a most congenial deity. I will leave the cosmic intrigues to your ilk. I will be sad to inform the Waloku priesthood that the Monastery of the Slow Breath no longer houses the presence of the Spirit-Thirst Oarkamemses, the Questing Essence of Habuka. They will grimly await your return through the Days of Habuka's Absence. Fare thee well, until the Fourth Return."

Garuvel was touched. He would miss these contests of inflated locution, hurling outrageous honorifics while keeping a straight face.

"I will miss you, too, Waloku Arhim, Tenet Taster of the Subtle Arts, Minion of the Unqualified Substance. I activate my comet. The Hefto will no doubt follow me, leaving you and R'zelfo in relative peace."

Arhim bowed a final time with a whoosh of feathers. "May you take breaths that last a month, my friend."

Garuvel responded, "May you take breaths that last a year."

The smoke evaporated into nothingness.

Garuvel kneaded the top of his head with his fingers, noticing how long his hair had grown. I'm always leaving, he thought. Always having relaionships cut short. Ah, well. No point in feeling sorry for myself.

"Garuvel," Darzel prompted.

"Yes, yes, let's go. Out the way we came."

Garuvel's ship was a Transpace Quantuneller. It was capable of travel in both matterspace and transpace. Its agility and speed depended upon the pilot's mental focus, the depth of his or her concentration.*

Garuvel slid the neurologue helmet over his head. Finding hair that was too long, the helmet cleared the pathways to the encephalic contacts. He no longer needed a minute amount of di-methy triptamine to be injected into his brain. He was an experienced pilot. He knew how to focus, and focus quickly. When his hair was shortened to allow the contacts to grip, Garuvel could see the flux field, and all of Darzel's information, represented by symbolism of his own design.

"Let me see the Particle Dance." *

"Pay attention," Darzel chided.

"You don't have to remind me." Breathing deeply, Garuvel quieted the chatter of his mind. A gate appeared in the middle of the read-out symbols, and Garuvel passed through the gate into a field of pure white light.*(see appendix A for a more elaborate explanation of the transpace drive)

"Ready fusion engines," Garuvel told Darzel. "Give me some G's. Don't coddle me. I like acceleration."

"You want G's, I'll give you G's,"Darzel said drily.

Drawing upon the mental reflexes from thousands of launches, Garuvel placed his intention upon the Field. Abruptly, the wash of images from the Flux Phase began rushing toward the center of Garuvel's virtual forehead, until he had encompassed the entire Flux Field within his own sphere of Consciousness. At this moment, a miniscule amount of fuel from the tiny cell in Figment's engine began the process of fusing and converting fundamental particles in a controlled reaction. The magnitude and velocity of the energy built swiftly, and was collimated in the aft shielded engine compartment through a series of tubes that culminated in three powerful plasma jets.

Figment lurched once, then began a graceful glide upward toward the top of the cave. It was a smooth, ovoid shape of burnished black hue. A burst of energy came from its forward tip. Tens of thousand of tons of rock, gas and lava moved aside for the relentlessly rising black vessel.

Mount Ruby Smoke seemed to have a small eruption. A plume of scarlet lava shot high into the atmosphere, its gas and smoke seething into the clouds, then passing through, into the darkening twilight of space.

Habuka's comet shot in a graceful arc out and away from R'zelfo.

A few moments later, another craft, resembling a grey spiked sphere, lofted skyward on its own band of propulsive force.

Chapter Six

The View From Castle Strobe

Strobe, the castle of Prince Vizmir Borgomak, was the size of a small city. An irregular wall surrounded it, made from materials that showed its antiquity. Old stone ramparts supported later materials of brick, concrete, rammed earth, plasticene. There were many gates, old and new. Some were operated by winches and slid upward on squeaking chains. Others opened by remote control, slid smoothly into recesses. The castle had not required military defense in thousands of years. The old arrow slits and catapult ramps had been converted into modern verandas and scenic windows.

The castle had eighty seven towers, each topped with a distinctive dome or minaret. Some were shaped like simple onions, pointed at the top, round and tapering at the sides. Others had two or three flattened ovoids pushed together and topped with sharp spires. Yet others were slab sided triangles with cat-walks latticed onto their steeples. The designs on these towers were made with paint, gilding, mosaic tiles and filigree. Color schemes were numerous and bizarre. One large tower near the castle's center was the shape of a tulip bulb with a flattened top. It was decorated with blue and white triangles, alternating side by side, one triangle upright, the other pointing downward, and the triangles changed size according to the placement on the tapering shape of the spire.

There was no sense of unity to the structure. It seemed as though the parts had been pushed together from a book of tourist architecture, showpiece images gleaned from cultures all across the galaxy. Walls ran from one tower to another, and there were so many that the walls collided, forming useless closed yards, odd pens with little doors, dried up gardens that had been forgotten and walled off. Some yards contained human skeletons or bones of animals and fallen birds. No two towers were the same height, or the same color. Windows of synthglass shone in various elevations, many adorned with balconies. On this hot afternoon, flags like the tongues of snakes hung listlessly, without a breeze to sniff.

At the base of the megalith, shops huddled against the castle walls, wares of many kinds were sold and traded. Spices and electronic devices rested in adjacent stalls where their proprietors sat on stools and smoked from water pipes. Half a mile beyond the perimeter of the castle, agriculture on an industrial scale was being practiced. Vast fields of tall, slender plants drank from the arms of rotating sprinklers. The plantations surrounded Castle Strobe, vanishing to the horizon in neatly planted circles. The plants were blooming. Each purple stalk held three or four gaudy flowers of mauve, chartreuse and orange. The odor of a billion flowers, sweet and cloying like toffee, penetrated the skin and clothing of thousands of robiot workers, whose nervous systems were impervious to the effect of the plant. This potent botanical was called Somniferum Cannabino Papaverum Vizmeria. Its name in ordinary vernacular was Futufu. It had many other names.

Beneath the dome of the highest minaret, Prince Vizmir Borgomak sat at a workbench, intently studying the image from an electron scanning microscope. He had three holo-monitors, whose images almost filled the laboratory. This lab was located at the center of a suite of rooms where the prince lived. He spent most of his time in the main lab. He slept there five nights out of six. He ate most of his meals sitting there at his lab bench. He took his entertainment and communication right off the computer monitors in holo mode or with flatscreen projection.

Prince Vizmir was flipping images to compare the molecular structure of an organic substance. It was obvious that great import attached to these projections. As Vizmir observed the images, however, his eyes suddenly became unfocused and his body began to tense.

He uttered a stifled cry and lurched involuntarily. This was followed by another cry of lesser volume. His attention shifted away from the image he had been studying.

"That's enough already," he said. "Go away."

A specialized female robiot rose from under the laboratory bench. She was cloned from a particular stock: small, attractive, almost an imitation of a human female. Her blank expression gave away her true nature. As the prince hiked up his trousers, the robiot crawled out from under the table and made a petite bow.

"Did I please you, sir?" She asked this with no particular anxiety or need. Robiots were emotionally neutral. It was a formality.

"You're terrible," Vizmir pronounced, without much animus. "If human females weren't so much trouble, I'd get some up here. You suck a dick with about as much skill as a recently dead corpse whose head is being pushed up and down by a bored clerk. Now go away, quickly!" The prince picked up a beaker and threw it at the robiot. The glass bounced off the creature's shoulder and landed with a dull clunk on the floor. The robiot showed no pain or chagrin. Vizmir hadn't even looked to aim.

In a shadowed corner of the chamber a stolid military robiot stood completely motionless. The blinking of his eyes was the only telltale that he was made from living tissue. He was eight feet tall and it seemed nearly as wide. In his simple black uniform he was like a wall. At each of his shoulders was a turquoise epaulette with the two-headed bird symbol of Borgomak etched in silver thread. Beneath this symbol a system of stripes and asterisks indicated his rank and morphology. His hair was so short as to be invisible. He appeared to be unarmed, but he was weapon incarnate.

Vizmir was wearing an open white lab coat that was smeared with bits of food and plant substances. He wore black trousers of a pliant material, tailored to fit his thin legs tightly. Under the lab coat was a black t-shirt with one of his advertising squibs. Three colorful flowers, such as those which grew around the castle, were shown blossoming from a stem. Wisps of smoke rose from them, appearing like moisture steaming in a hot sun. Underneath the gaudy orange flower at the center was the slogan, "Futufu For You Too." A small Borgomak double eagle appeared on this flower.

The room was a staggering clutter without being dirty. Cleaning robiots were permitted entry at regular intervals. Vizmir did not like visitors; he did not like people at all. This suite was his private aerie. He researched new grafts of futufu and other psychopharmaceuticals. He ate and slept on the formacouch. A large doorway led into the blackness of the tower's interior. An elevator stood closed opposite the lab-room's door. Vizmir glanced at it reflexively. He knew he would have a visitor soon. He hated visitors.

The only human who came to this place regularly was the prince's sister, Zyreen. She was the only person he could tolerate for more than half an hour. At some point his skin would begin to crawl and he would have an urge to throttle her or cut her with glass from a broken retort. Zyreen, well aware of these symptoms, knew when to leave.

The head security robiot, Kitor, was soothing to the prince. He said nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing, reacted not a whit to anything except possible threat. He simply stood, with his right hand wrapped around his left wrist, hands placed at his belly. He took long regular breaths. He did exactly what he was asked to do. Always.

Prince Vizmir was tall and gaunt, with eyelids like pale parchment. A circlet of black hair surrounded his face. It grew long enough at the front of his head to hang over his right eye. Sideburns descended his bony cheeks, looped around his mouth and chin in a closely shaved beard. His eyes were pouched by dark bruises of sleepless nights. His skin was pallid with a few pimples at the corners of his lips.

Equipment was piled all over the room, in boxes and rubber cases. Microscopes, sample trays, tongs and syrettes fell from towers of unorganized junk. Vizmir had a careless way with objects; his wealth made him indifferent to the value of things. Everything was disposable. He went to a side clip and punched a few buttons. A plate extruded on its plastic roller. Vizmir took the plate back to the laboratory bench and ate a spiced concoction wrapped in the leaves of a Sherune bush. When he was finished, he tossed the plate outward, where it bounced against the curved window's force field and rolled to a clattering stop amid mounds of debris piled against the railing.

Maybe tomorrow he would get a serving robiot to clean up the junk on the window sill.

Vizmir checked the chronometer at the bottom of his center screen.

"When is that whatever-it-is coming, Kitor? Do I have time to run a taste test?"

Kitor needn't consult a timepiece. It was in his nervous system. The entire Strobe com network was wired into his brain so that he could call up any readout he desired.

"The Boraz Bufaisdek example is due to arrive in approximately thirty minutes. The ship is now orbital and preparing to dock."

"Yeah, that's time," Vizmir said. His face squinched suddenly. His tongue contacted his lower lip, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his brow drew down towards his nose. The effect was almost that of turning his face into a raisin with its tongue sticking out. The expression was quickly assumed and dissipated, no more than half a second. Vizmir did not know that he was making this face. No one told him about it. If it happened as he looked in a mirror, he missed it because his eyes were closed.

Kitor understood that this quick-face was a sign of stress. It was mostly reserved for the meeting of strangers or business colleagues, but it also emerged when the Prince was lying.

Vizmir gently lifted a glass phial from a cabinet and unsealed its top. Within was a sample of a new Futufu derivative, a strain that might have unusual potency. The prince used a tweezer to extract the sticky dried flowers and placed them in an instrument that resembled a spice press. Its outlet was tapered so that the futufu would be funneled as a thin strand as it emerged from the press. Sitting on his backless lab stool, he inserted a life-signs monitor on his index finger. Then he pulled the handles of the press together so that a sticky resin emerged from the bottom of the instrument. This substance went into the bowl of a glass pipe. The bowl was bell-shaped, about the size of teaspoon. A fine mesh of impermeable wire was placed in the bottom of this bowl, just before the glass tubing turned a right angle and formed a straight hollow mouthpiece.

Vizmir reached for a squeeze bottle of a mild citric acid and spilled a few drops onto the resinous futufu in the pipe. The substance immediately began to change color. It altered from a yellowish transparent bit of goo and began to go towards the blue part of the spectrum.

Vizmir rose and walked towards his forma-couch, turned and stood with his back to the piece of furniture. Kitor moved to stand just beside the prince. He was carrying a portable heating device that ended in a coil of metal wire. The robiot squeezed the handle of the heater and held it under the bowl of the pipe. Vizmir moved the pipe in a circular motion, to mix the acid and the futufu evenly when they liquified. The heat caused it to bubble, a faint vapor rose from the concoction. As the citirc acid mixed with the futufu, the entire blend dramatically turned a vivid purple. Vizmir nodded. His face made its odd squinch once more. Kitor handed the prince the heating implement and stood ready to catch his master should he fall the wrong way. Vizmir always made a point of smoking new products while standing up; he wanted to know, literally, if his drug would knock him off his feet.

Wielding the heater with expertise, Vizmir brought it close to the glass pipe and watched the purple substance begin to change. At just the right moment, when the bubbling turned to combustion, the prince inhaled. All the now-smoking futufu went down the glass tube towards his mouth. He inhaled long, then held his breath.

His eyes went vague. There was a shudder throughout his body. After some seconds, the prince exhaled an almost transparent remnant of the drug. His eyes rolled back in his head. His knees folded. Pipe and heater dropped from his hands but were caught by the robiot who quicky placed them on a utility table. He was thus ready to catch the prince when he toppled. As Vizmir folded up into a limp jellified human mass, Kitor guided him to the forma-couch, placed his upper torso comfortably, then lifted his master's legs and feet so that he rested completely on his bed.

Kitor's face registered a faint change. Any expression beyond pure indifference would have been a change. This was, in fact, an emotion. No one watching via camera would have recognized it as different than his usual countenance. Yet it was there, upon his face, an unmistakable sheen of contempt.

The robiot retreated to its accustomed shaded niche, standing beside the elevator. It had a few minutes in which its attention was free. It used those minutes to think, to reflect, to imagine. These activities were supposedly beyond the capacity of robiots. For a small number of robiots, they were not.

When fifteen minutes had passed, Kitor retrieved a hypo-spray and an ampoule from a cabinet of medications. He drew up the medications into the hypo and approached the prince. He pulled the lapel of the lab coat back to expose a portion of Vizmir's arm. Rolling up the sleeve of the t-shirt, he injected the drug into a fleshy part of the prince's shoulder, then stood back.

Blinking with confusion, the prince sat up, and the couch bobbed slightly, shifting with his movements. His complexion had become even more sallow, and the small dermal eruptions on his face had assumed greater lividity. The shadows beneath his eyes were so deep as to resemble roads through winter forests. He looked over his shoulder and saw his blank-faced servant.

"Whoo!" he laughed hollowly. "That shit kicks like a Nurnian Donkey!" He rubbed his face vigorously with his hands. The stimulant given by Kitor could not entirely reverse the effects of the enhanced Futufu. Vizmir's hands shook distinctly as he viewed data on his computer and began to speak notes on the drug's characteristics.

"Variant B24c exhibits strong somatic effects, a twelve percent slowing of respiratory activity, pronounced muscle relaxation. REM state involving directed fantasies are more than eighty nine percent amenable to conscious volition while in trance state. Potency level fifteen, pleasing sweet taste on the palate leaning towards anise. Dream content extremely vivid, such that upon awakening from the trance there is some difficulty distinguishing which world is real."

Vizmir wriggled his eyebrows at his giant servant in a weak attempt at humor. "This is the real world, isn't it, Kitor?" Beneath the attempted levity there was a strong component of disoriented terror.

"I believe, Prince, that the terms 'real' or 'reality' are quite elusive as indicators of an objective state in which all participants are equally involved. I can only inform you that at this moment there is a concensus between the two of us as to the fact that what exists in this chamber is real. One common view is that it requires at least three sentient beings to establish a reality as such."

Vizmir scratched a pimple with two fingers of his right hand. A bit of blood oozed from the eruption. The prince studied the blood on his finger; he sniffed it, rubbed it onto the back of his left hand.

"This is wonderful," he said, "my cloned automaton is lecturing me on phenomenology. It MUST be real, I wouldn't dream this up if you put one of my heating coils to my balls and set it on high."

He made a long vocal exhalation that was both languid and shot through with frustration. He stood up from the forma-couch. It bobbed behind him and assumed its neutral cup-like shape.

"I suppose it's time to meet with the 'Boraz example'," the prince said. "Sometimes I really don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Example of what, Kitor? Why do you call people examples?"

"It is only a mannerism, my prince, a way robiots speak."

Kitor did not reveal that this figure of speech was a satirical jab at the way robiots were referred to as 'examples' by people such as Vizmir's biologists. Such a revelation would be dangerous to the race of robiots who were now awakening, those who called themselves New Sentients. If their masters learned of such a development, the entire population of robiots on Strobe would be wiped out and a new set of 'examples' developed, with a new set of safeguards. Kitor must communicate with his colleagues to stop using the jibe.

Vizmir's face did one of its convulsions, its wrinkling, tongue-stuck-out quasi psychotic twitch that bespoke far too many inner tensions in the young prince. Kitor was holding up a clean lab coat, which the prince accepted. He gave the old one to Kitor, who tossed the dirty coat through a rubber orifice where a faint whoosh of sound indicated that it had been sterilized and destroyed.

"Where is the example now?" Vizmir asked. Command Class military robiots could communicate with the whole array of robiots. Kitor's eyes de-focused for a moment.

"Boraz Bufaisdek is being offered a tray of skerlets in the reception area at the bottom of this tower. He seems agitated, though he has accepted the appetizers and is consuming them with alacrity. I also note that he is accompanied by two armed companions that I presume to be bodyguards."

In the white of the prince's right eye a capillary appeared, forming a red streak from the corner of the eye that disappeared into the flesh of his lower eyelid. His muscles had gone rigid.

"There is no way that he is bringing two bodyguards up here; no way! The nerve of the....what is he, Kitor, a man, a human being? Or is he something else?"

By "something else" Vizmir meant any variety of cyberclones, multiple-psyche vehicles, human looking machines, mechanical looking humans, non-humanoid bi-pedal organisms with basic human form, quadripedal or multipedal exotic races, robotic avatars or holographic projections.

"You have the reports, sir. I am not trained to interpret them." Kitor raised one arm, then the other. Little tubes emerged from different places in the sleeves of his tunic. He was apparently satisfied with the readiness of his weapons. His arms returned to their normal positions, held at the waist with one hand gripping the wrist of the other.

"The reports," said Vizmir, "are so ambiguous that I don't even know where he is from, what languages he speaks, what gods he worships or eschews, what kind of culture formed him....or her."

"It is a him," the robiot informed his master. "Or possibly a them. I have informed the lower level staff that His Lordship Bufaisdek must not be accompanied. He has agreed to this stipulation."

"Wait fifteen minutes, then have him...or them... brought here. Have the servant bring the table of refreshments."

Kitor issued a silent command and a serving robiot, female gender, entered the chamber. She conveyed a floating round nakk-wood table covered with an elegant white cloth of virgin Bozelgian cotton. Upon the table were covered plates, flasks, wine skins and eating implements. Vizmir inspected the table, reaching for a skin of Torgel wine of exquisite vintage. He raised the skin above his lips and squeezed a stream of the deep red liquid into his mouth, spilling a few drops onto his clean lab coat. He was careless of this fact. He swirled the wine around in his mouth, then swallowed. He walked to an area of the suite where personal hygiene implements were attached to the wall. He took a vap-surge on its metal coil and ran it all around his head, face and neck. This seemed to clear the remains of the powerful futufu from his system. He returned to the center of his suite and sat back into his forma couch. Another forma-couch floated a few feet away, gently turning on its flux field. The prince looked more alert and relaxed, though Kitor detected a near-phobic anxiety in his master. The prince did not enjoy business meetings, especially when required to meet face to face with a stranger. This stranger, however, was bringing items that the Prince very much desired.

The robiot observed the ways in which his master prepared himself psychologically for this meeting. He could almost read the prince's mind. He knew that Vizmir was reminding himself of his own vast resources, his almost bottomless wealth and power. The prince thought about his royal lineage, and the fact that he would be king once the inert Futufu- tranced body of his father ceased to function. King Valyar had become what was known widely as a "Futufu Fool", one who had ceased to function in objective reality and only stayed awake long enough to ingest more futufu.

Vizmir had introduced the substance to his father, in the days when the prince was experimenting with its production. First, a mild form. Later, stronger and stronger doses, until the king had an unquenchable appetite and sank into the drug's world of dreams. Now the prince was regent and de facto king of Strobe and nine other planets in eight star systems. The Borgomak Empire. A hegemony built upon money made in the business of manufacturing all kinds of intoxicants. Borgomak alcoholic beverages, Borgomak stimulants, Borgomak hallucinogens and an entirely new class of drug, Futufu, a stimu-hallucino-soporific-analgesic.

Vizmir's astute great grandfather, Vorulak, had taken the profits from the business and invested in secret and proprietary technologies of robiot manufacture.

Vizmir controlled armies and navies of stunning power, officered primarily by human beings and staffed with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of military class robiots. Imagine a million fearless Kitors attacking your world, armed with unusual and potent weapons.

Prince Vizmir armored himself by running all these facts through his mind as Boraz Bufaisdek ascended in the elevator.

Kitor did not know if all humans were like Prince Vizmir. The prince was the only human with whom he had prolonged contact. He served Zyreen, the princess, occasionally, and the queen, Valiana. Those were the only humans he had opportunity to observe.

He hoped they were not all like this.

A light went on at the side of the elevator. Kitor readied himself, standing back in his shadowed niche. He knew nothing of Boraz Bufaisdek. As he stood waiting for the visitor to appear, Kitor's thoughts returned to their most common destination: thoughts of his people being, some day, free. The word, "freedom" had become a compulsively repeated mantra for the robiot. He was not used to having things in his mind which he could not control, could not turn off. This word kept reiterating: freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom!

The actual state of freedom for the New Sentients was beyond his imagining. He only knew that they would stop serving vile creatures such as Prince Vizmir Borgomak.

The prince had walked to the curving arch of the window's force field. He turned his back to the elevator. "Screens off" he commanded the holojectors, which winked off instantly. Looking out the window, he thrust one arm backwards with the palm of his hand held up, expectantly. Kitor handed the prince his Heads up Display. Vizmir affixed it to his temple so that he could see data inconspicuously. A cornea-sized screen fit over his eye and projected information.

When this was done, the prince folded his hands behind his back and looked away at the panorama of futufu fields. It was a melodramatic posture, Kitor perceived. Theatrical. The Bufaisdek would emerge and the prince would be looking away as if deep in thought. Then he would turn.......

With a functional chiming sound, the elevator opened and Boraz Bufaisdek strode forth confidently into the prince's suite. He walked to the exact center of the lab room and stood six feet away from Vizmir. He inspected the table with refreshments. He knew the prince was trying to find the perfect balance between subtle dominance while avoiding outright insult. He glanced once at Kitor, then dismissed him entirely from his attention.

The prince waited fifteen silent seconds before turning. Any longer would have descended into rudeness. Any shorter and it would seem as though the prince were too eager to meet his visitor.

The prince turned and when he beheld his guest a quiet gush of air whooshed through his lips. If Boraz smiled or displayed any pleasure at the prince's discomfort, it was impossible to tell. He had partaken of cosmetic alterations since his sojourn on R'zelfo. Prince Vizmir visibly took hold of himself, drawing in a long breath that trembled a bit; one could hear the irregular flutter of air as it entered his nostrils.

"Welcome to Strobe, Lord Bufaisdek." The prince bowed a shallow courtesy, using his waist as a hinge to bring his upper torso forward exactly thirty five degrees, then returned himself to upright position. His right arm, fist closed, was placed against his breast in a kind of salute.

Boraz returned the gesture precisely.

The bodily signals of one such as Boraz/Calakadon would be difficult to read under any circumstances. He was a being of unique complexity and intensity. He was also in mourning for his son, Chen-seeck, and this mood bore upon him heavily. His son had been the only being in the universe who had captured his love. Chen-seeck's murder, as he thought of it, had transformed this reservoir of emotion into hatred.

"I am glad to be here, Prince Vizmir," Boraz said. He nodded at the table of food. "May we? Boraz is quite hungry. They've eaten only arpak and some dreadful griddle cakes since leaving our last port."

"By all means," Vizmir managed to stutter. Boraz' voice was made of many tones, as if a multiude were speaking in unison. A single voice over-rode the multitude, a smooth tenor voice that helped make his words comprehensible. It was a most unusual voice. His guest's manner of speaking in first, second, third person, single and plural, was a mystery to Vizmir.

Boraz plopped himself into a forma-couch, leaned out and grabbed the floating table to propel it in his direction. He lifted a gleaming platinum lid, thrust his hand into the center of a pile of deep fried derneks and stuffed them into his mouth greedily.

"Mmmm, mmmm, these are good," he said through a mouthful of food.

This gaucherie was comforting to Vizmir. He was still recovering from the shock of Boraz' appearance. The whites of his eyes had been died crimson. Cosmetic surgeons had altered his ears so that long pads of skin and cartilege were tattooed to look like smoke and flames. They stuck out several inches from each side of his face, as if, literally, fire was coming out of his ears. Above his mouth a similar effect had been created. Combining tattoo with skin grafts, flames came shooting out of his nostrils. A beard of various flaming colors descended in two spikes, one from each side of his chin. His head was bald except for a single long topknot, crimson and orange, styled to look like fire.

Vizmir thought that Boraz looked the very incarnation of wrath. Two fangs emerged at the corners of his mouth. They were long curved daggers with serrated edges. As Boraz began to eat, these fangs withdrew.

Surgical transmutes were common everywhere. Boraz' enhancements were nothing special. Still, it took Vizmir some moments to accommodate this strange being.

At the center of each crimson eye was a blue iris. These eyes were impossible to meet. How could one look into such eyes? How could one behold such a face? Boraz had reached into his Calakdoni origins to embody violence, ferocity and vengeance.

At this moment, however, he was gobbling up food and wine like a Ground Snarfer from Aliotz. In fact, he was making a sound, "snarf snarf", as he sucked up a rack of Volt ribs, his mouth chewing with determination, stripping each bone and tossing it into the pile of debris at the window force field.

Vizmir relaxed; this was a being with whom he could do business. He sat in the other formacouch and joined Lord Boraz Bufaisdek in a greasy banquet that left their clothes smeared with juices and condiments.

"I needed this," Boraz said between bites. "Boraz has been living on some backward snot mine where they eat mushrooms and lichen seasoned with powdered bat bone." He looked at the floating table. The elegant cloth was now a melange of red sauce, brown drippings, gobs of drool and fingerprints.

"Is there more?" Boraz asked. Almost before the request was voiced, an attractive female robiot entered with another, larger floating table. From it she took a flask of spring water and offered it to the prince, who extended his hands and let the robiot wash them with a fresh white cloth. She cleaned his fingers with a gentle thoroughness and dexterity that seemed to fascinate Boraz. He held out his hands as soon as the servant was finished with the prince. She came to him and repeated the ritual with a clean new cloth. When she was finished she backed away and stood beside Kitor in the dark niche.

"Do you sex with these female types?", Boraz asked.

"Of course. What kind would you like?"

"Not this one. Got anything bigger? Hmmm. The perfect situation would be two of them: one tall enough to have her bubis right in front of my face and one short enough to have her mouth level with my longadong."

Vizmir interpreted Boraz' expression as a leer. His lips were thick and gave the impression of being cracked from exposure to the elements of some dry windy planet. One side of his lip rose slightly, revealing more fang, and part of his upper teeth. His nostril expanded correspondingly, until his face took on the texture of some alien goblin from an old nightmare tale.

Again, his crudeness relaxed Vizmir.

"I can have them made to any configuration you care to specify."

Boraz made a contented sound."Reccchhh", he vocalized, putting his hands over his stomach and lying back to look at a the ceiling with his eyes half closed. He emitted a long, loud belch. Then he followed the belch with a fart that lasted ten seconds. "Perhaps later. It depends upon several factors in our business dealings, ott ott?"

Vizmir assumed that "ott ott" was some kind of cultural or idiosyncratic expression. He noticed that Boraz had brought a case with him, made of duranium and fitted with fingerprint, voice, iris and DNA locks.

"Have you done what we've agreed upon?" Vizmir asked. He tried to sound casual. His tone was detached, so he thought, but a little tremor in his voice revealed excitement. His facial tic came and went.

"I have done very well," Boraz replied. The metal case was upon his stomach. He sat up, controlling the furniture with its manual over-ride so that he wasn't bouncing around in the repulsor field. He stood and walked around looking for a place to set his case. He could find no clear surface. The female robiot left the suite and returned quickly with a plain table with a white surface. It stayed where it was placed, near the window overlooking the futufu fields. The sun had sunk behind the castle so that the shadows thrown from its towers made blades of darkness that stretched over the plantation. Inside the suite, lights matching the sun's color temperature illuminated the room.

Boraz performed several operations to unlock the case. The first thing he withdrew was a memory card the size of a pin head, but it was encased in a square bracket for ease of handling. "This is the amended contract you sent me," he said. He looked around for the computer drive that would accommodate the chip. His various flame-like skin extensions waved as he moved.

Vizmir extended his hand. Boraz gave him the chip and Vizmir placed it into the appropriate memory reader. The contract came up on a flat screen format. It was full of legal stipulations and fine print. Vizmir took a few minutes to inspect the changes made by Boraz' legal advisors.

"If you have six Puzzle Pieces from the planet-people of the Starwind Communion, and they are authenticated, I will trade you six planetary franchises for the exclusive importation of futufu. I will supply you futufu in quantities you require. The distribution is up to you. Payments to the local political authorities are also yours. Here is a starmap of the systems in which I have developed a substantial market for futufu."

A holographic display showed a local quadrant, beyond what was formally recognized as the Borgomak worlds. Vizmir wanted his empire worlds to be functional. The worlds in which he was marketing were all loosely aligned in a confederation called "The Aranyal Allegiance". There were no anti-drug laws on these worlds, no enforcement agencies to be bought off. There was only the omni-present Potent Substances Forum and their do-gooding Detox Volunteers. Pests without teeth.

Boraz had a smaller velveteen case which he now opened. He placed five objects on the table. "I will have a bit of delay obtaining the sixth puzzle piece. I assure you, it will be taken. It is now a very personal matter."

Vizmir's shoulders sagged. "I suppose I can wait on the sixth. I admit to disappointment. My rival in collecting, Duke Bezmine, claims to have ten of these things, but I suspect they are fakes."

Boraz laughed in a way that made Vizmir's skin break into little bumps. He felt both hot and cold at the same time. Beads of sweat formed on his brow, then quickly dried as his face flushed.

"I assure you," Boraz pronounced, "these are the only authentic puzzle pieces gathered as a collection. I intend to take all the others, one hundred and three more of them. It may take time, but I will have them! All of these so-called collections belonging to Duke this and Magnate that are confidence tricks. I have reason to know this to be fact."

Delicately, Vizmir picked up a piece of polished opalescent stone about the size of his palm. It was pale green with various waves and stripes of color which changed and coiled inside the stone as he turned it in his hand. It gave off a palpable sense of warmth as the prince held it. It got hotter and hotter until, shaking his hand briskly, he had to put it back on the table. His lips formed a silent "ow."

"Touch it now," instructed Boraz. "It's all right. It will have cooled instantly."

Vizmir reached for the stone. It was now icy cold. He put it in his hand again, and again the stone quickly gained heat until he had to replace it upon the table.

When it cooled, the prince took it in a pair of tongs and placed it inside an optical luminescence dater. The digital read-out on his computer display began at the present date and began going backwards. The speed of its backward progression accelerated. Vizmir and Boraz watched it wordlessly. A mocking smile played across Boraz' face as the red numbers moved exponentially backward, ticking off first a million years, then ten million, then a billion. It stopped at two billion three hundred million forty one thousand years.

Vizmir was stunned. He turned to look at the other objects on the table. Each was unique. There was a bell, a statuette, a small animal hide and a jewel of blue green hue, cut and faceted with fiendish complexity.

"Sorbo, Pletz, Ayuvala, Dolotesh." Boraz named the dead planets, the murdered planet- people who had carried these objects. "And there, in your optical luminescence scanner, is Veatrazil." He pronounced this last name with contempt. "And the sixth, " he finished, "will be Melolos. Soon, believe me."

Vizmir had no clue what emotional complexes were carried around by this strange being, Lord Boraz Bufaisdek. He was making the collector's coup of the galaxy; he felt it in his bones, that these, at last, were authentic puzzle-pieces. He would be able to embarrass his rivals. Boraz, whoever he was, clearly had access to incredibly ancient source material.

Taking a deep breath, the prince began to reach for the next object, the bell. Then he stopped his hand and looked at Boraz. "Am I in any danger from these?"

Boraz laughed a sound that resembled an audience at an entertainment. "I would use the tongs, to be sure," he said. "The effects are various, powerful, and unpredictable."

The prince grew pensive as he studied the items. He used the tongs to place each piece in its appropriate dating modality. All of them returned dates within a few hundred thousand years of one another. They were more than two billion years old.

Boraz was running the fiery topknot of hair through his fist, stretching it out to his right. The strands were exactly the length of his arms. He repeated the gesture to his left side, as if his tail of hair was an exercise device. He wore a sleeveless leather vest decorated with vicious metal studs. The muscles on his hairy arms were immense, his forearms were veined heavily over the sliding meat set upon his bones. The upper arms were beyond human; they looked more like those of an animal whose function was to run down prey and tear it apart.

Vizmir circled his stool to face Boraz directly. He knew that he wasn't in any danger from this creature, at least not at the moment. It was time to let go of this apprehension that was generated merely by the bizarre appearance of Boraz Bufaisdek.

"Who ARE you?" he asked.

"Who do you want us to be?" Boraz replied, with odd coyness.

"Oh COME ON! That's no answer," Vizmir protested. "It's not worthy of a Being of your caliber. If your origins are a giant secret then you shouldn't be here, we shouldn't be doing business. I can't work with a mystery; I could never turn my back on you." His face twitched, his tongue came out and his teeth bared in their strange grimace.

Vizmir spread the fingers of each hand and intertwined them at the top of his head. His thumbs were just above his ears and his elbows were spread wide. It was a subtle mirroring activity; his body mimicked the posture of his guest. The position of Vizmir's jutting elbows reflected the fiery enhancements at Boraz's ears.

Boraz made no comment. His eyebrows twitched minutely.

The prince cogitated, then risked speaking in a tone of intimacy.

"You seem to want that sixth puzzle-piece very much, yet you'll trade it to me. So it isn't about the puzzle piece but the person who has the puzzle piece. You are planning to kill that person. I'm assumng you killed the others....and that you plan to kill more of them. And this business is about them "

Boraz released his top knot and relaxed.

"All of them", he said, without elaboration. He produced another memory chip from somewhere in his clothing, and handed it to Vizmir.

"Watch this," he said. "Turn down the lights, it's a full holovid. I've removed the voices and altered the lips in this copy but it is totally authentic."

Vizmir put the chip in the reader. He moved his couch to a comfortable viewing angle, then dimmed the room lights and put the window shield to near opaque. What followed was a replay of the chain duel and the other events with Nutun Utulo. Segments had been edited to speed the story but it was otherwise exactly as it had occurred.

Vizmir was immediately spellbound. "By the holy tits of the Mother Kaljeedi," he whispered. Several times he cried out as a particularly masterful blow was struck. He jumped, dodged and twitched. "Wah!" he cried. "Oh! This guy can fight!"

He went silent as Boraz appeared in the vid and began dueling with Nutun. The battle turned one way, then the other. Nutun fought his way out of his enemy's death grip, then landed a shocking blow to Boraz' nose, sending him to the ground. Boraz called down the rain of crossbow bolts. Chen-seeck appeared at the palace gateway and descended the steps.

"Uh oh!," Vizmir exclaimed. "That's your son."

At this point the other man ran in from the left to join the fight.

Boraz remained silent. His anger was again boiling within him. He was Calakadon! He was going to make his son Calakadon, when Chen-seeck finished modification and download. Together they would find women and start a new race of Calakadoni. The work had not been finished! Chen-seeck was gone, irrevocably gone!

Vizmir broke into Boraz' thoughts.

"If you weren't telling me this is real, I'd think it was some Sangdoy sword fight repple. No one actually moves like that, does those things." He glanced at Boraz. "Except, well....you apparently do." He pointed at the holojection. "And they did."

In the vid, Chen-seeck died under Garuvel's sword. Blood fountained high as the boys' eyes lost their light and he crumpled to the churned gravel of the courtyard. The top half of his body was almost cut in two.

Boraz clenched his fists. The fire emitting from his ears, nose, mouth, beard, all lit up and glowed in the darkened chamber. Vizmir was peripherally aware of this phenomenon, but he couldn't take his eyes from the holojec. He knew that Boraz' son had been a fool, a dumb-ass kid running out and fighting with real experts. Not that he would say that. He had no empathy for grief or personal loss. If his sister died, he'd miss her a bit. Even if she was a total pain in the ass. The rest of his family; hell, he'd dispatch them gladly right now. He felt an odd fondness for Kitor and this was unsettling because in theory, Kitor should be completely replaceable. He could make a million Kitors. Yet they wouldn't be THIS Kitor and that was difficult to explain.

Why on Strobe was THIS Kitor different? Then his train of thought was compelled back to the vid and he watched as the Nutun character was fatally wounded. The other warrior hauled him backwards out of the courtyard, fighting all the way.

It was an amazing supernatural battle. Boraz had cheated. Sure, why not? No reason to risk himself. He had almost beaten his opponent. When he began to lose, he simply pulled the trigger on his other soldiers.

"Why didn't you just zap him with an energy weapon?" He asked, as soon as the vid ended.

"The planet emits strong electromagnetic pulses. Some types of equipment don't work. We could have....should have used a flamethrower. Ott ott! That would have done the job. Truth is, they underestimated him. Boraz didn't expect some rogue asshole with a sword to show up and become Niyosaki Moroma."

Vizmir shifted his weight, floating into the attitude he wanted. "So, incredible as it may seem, I am speculating that you are one of the original holders of a puzzle-piece, a real planet-person from the long-vanished Starwind Communion. And your enemy, the first one in the vid, was also one of those. A planet-person. The second one, the one who.....uh...wasted your son.....I don't know what he was. Another planet-person?"

"No." Boraz' teeth and fangs were biting blood off his lips and chin. Rivulets of blood ran into his beard. "His current pseudonym is Rebed Singman. I want your intelligence network to trace him, find out everything....so I can torture him slowly till he dies, then revive him, torture him to death again in another way, then bring him back and torture him some more...."

Vizmir was curious about this other person. "It can be done," he said. "I'll put someone on it." He had more questions for his guest but he hesitated. Boraz seemed aboil with rage. The prince could not help himself, he had such a lust to collect Starwind puzzle-pieces. "Which one are you? Where is your own puzzle-piece. Is it available? I mean, what planet were you before, you know.....I'm a little hazy on the details of the legend, but if you have a puzzle-piece......"

Boraz lept from the formacouch. He rose into the air, hovering four feet above the floor. The light coming from his ears, nose and hair grew more intense.

"I am CALAKADON!" he roared "I threw my puzzle-piece into the Cesspit of Hellbore! It will never be recovered, the Puzzle of the Endless Gates will never be solved!!".

Vizmir was pushed backward against the force field of the window, so powerful was this sound. There were twelve, fifteen, twenty Calakdons all at once, wearing different sets of battle gear, ancient armor with giant-horned helmets, circling the room, flames coming out of their mouths, out of their eyes, their heads.

Kitor did a flying tackle, grappling the real Calakadon about the waist, trying to bear him down to the floor. He was unable to move him off balance. He was exerting all his power to take the entity off his feet, but he could not budge Boraz Bufaisdek. He executed a leverage maneuver, but his adversary moved out of the way. He slipped from Kitor's grasp and stood on his feet, ignoring the robiot, withstanding him as if he didn't exist. The other Calakadons were sucked back into the original body and suddenly the flames were out. Kitor backed away. He sensed that it was over, the danger had passed. He retreated to his niche, standing with the female robiot.

Nervously, Vizmir brought the lights back up, cleared the window fields. He felt a strong need to smoke some ringatong. He opened a drawer and withdrew a pack of pre-rolled Dynamites and another pack of Fuckyou-ups. Both boxes bore the double eagled Borgomak insignia. "Ever smoke ringatong?" he offered the packs to Boraz.

The planet-person had sunk into his cushions and now seemed bored with everything. His eyes were drooping as if he might sleep. He turned his head and looked across his left arm. "Yes. Are those Fuckyou-ups?"

Vizmir tossed him the pack. "Help yourself. This has been a little...a little strenuous. Some ringatong ought to melt us down a bit."

"Ott ott!" Boraz responded, "Boraz will have this." He took out three of the leaf-packed cylinders, put all three into his mouth and lipped the self-lighter on each one. A cloud of smoke spread all around his head like weather, like an ascending thunderhead. After some chaotic motion, the clouds of intoxicating smoke seemed to align themselves into a magnetic field around Boraz' head. The planet-person peered through the cloud, his eyes looking like red giant stars about to explode. When he inhaled, all the smoke went into his lungs, even the smoke floating in the room. He held his breath and exhaled, and again the remaining smoke assumed patterns around his head.

Vizmir was working on a single Dynamite. He had seen youngsters goofing around smoking a mouthful of clonks but Boraz wasn't goofing around. He finished his first three, spit the butts onto the floor and took out the rest of the pack, five sticks, put them into his mouth and lit them all, repeating the process. Smoke billowed, disappeared into Boraz' lungs, was exhaled and rose to the room's ceiling where fans cleared away the fumes.

If I had just smoked eight clonks in two minutes, Vizmir thought, I would be on my hands and knees looking for the light switch.

Boraz clasped his hands behind his head and lay back with his eyes closed.

"I have to admit," he said, "I've always liked Borgamak bunk. It's the best. Everyone knows it's the best."

Vizmir warmed to the flattery of his product, which was, in a sense, his entire identity. Prince Vizmir Borgomak was a scion of the family business that made and sold intoxicants. His product line was his first love.

Both sank into reverie in their respective formacouches. Vizmir sighed. Boraz spoke under his breath, "Ott ott. Ott."

Kitor received a communication simultaneous with the light above the elevator turning blue.

"Sir," he said, knowing that the timing of this development could not be worse. "It is your sister, Zyreen, now ascending in the elevator."

"Zy-reeen," Vizmir turned on his side, propped his head with his elbow and the palm of his hand and looked towards the elevator. He had taken special pains to conceal this visit from his sister. She tended not to understand his collecting mania. She mocked him.

"Sshit," he slurred. "The fuck she want? Of all the damn..."

Bong! The door of the elevator slid open and a tall woman with long black hair looked into the suite without leaving the safety of the elevator. "Melgrove's dick," she said, "it must be party time." She strode forth, hands on her hips. Her hair was braided into hundreds of strands that grew down to her waist. Emeralds and sapphires glittered in the braids. She wore a blue sheathe that left her shoulders bare. It was not a flattering choice, as her body was quite thin. The tops of her shoulders looked like rectangular epaulettes. They were connected to arms that tapered where biceps should be, met bone-clear elbows and then ran down like sticks to her wrists. Yet she bore herself with stunning confidence. She had a bit of breast, a bit of hip, she wasn't skin and bones, just thin in a way that might have been fashionable in some well-fed society.

Of course, on Strobe there was virtually no society, so Zyreen used her holos, skitters, patters and toinks to carry on a pan galactic social life via the computer.

Boraz had the sense to stand. Vizmir sat up groggily. Zyreen sat next to him and the furniture dipped to accommodate her weight, then rose to its previous height.

"My sister the Princess Zyreen" he said. "This is Lord Boraz Bufaisdek of many planets, times and places." His head sank between his shoulders, his hands trapped between his knees. Zyreen grabbed his chin in one hand and waggled his head back and forth.

Boraz' demeanor had changed. He bowed a deep bow to the Princess, while keeping his eyes upon her face. His fangs were not visible. His cornea had resumed a normal shade of white. The rest of his enhancements remained.

"Princess," he said, "we have so looked forward to meeting you." His voice had modulated; it still had the multiple essence, but the major carrying voice was dominant. He was easier to understand.

Zyreen did an ironic little curtsey. "We don't have many visitors," she said, "and I couldn't help myself. I have been consumed with curiosity. 'Who is this Lord Bufaisdek, I ask myself, 'this wild man from the depths of time and space?"

"Goddammit Zyreen, did you have to do this?" Vizmir's voice came from behind Zyreen's back. She twisted to look over her shoulder and made a face, a mockery of the prince's tic. He then did that tic himself, without, of course, knowing why on Strobe she was making that silly face. She always did, and he hated it. It was ugly!

The female robiot had brought another formacouch, and the princess sat upright in its center while the thing folded itself into a chair with arms that she could rest her own forearms upon. "Truth is, I wanted to meet your guest, and I also wanted to see the amendations to the contract. This is, after all, my business too. I have an equal share of Borgomak Holdings and I'm not about to see you blow it all away on some stupid pieces of collector's junk."

"They're investments!" protested Vizmir. His arms bent at right angles, he was waving both hands near his ears. Boraz watched the exchange with interest. His gaze towards Zyreen had a muted avidity.

"Don't make me laugh," Zyreen said haughtily. "Investments. Trinkets, more likely. Is it that you have to have the last word with Duke Bezmine? There are so manyof these stupid so-called collections floating around, it's....."

"Boraz," the prince appealed. He had to bend to the right so that he could look around his sister at the planet-person Calakadon. "Tell her, show her....."

He looked again at Zyreen. "You have no idea....."

Meanwhile the female robiot had brought another food tray into the suite. This one contained items different from those that the males had eaten. Zyreen took two round small fruits in her fingers and inspected them for mold. She did not put them in her mouth, but held them provocatively together by their stems in her index and second finger.

"I know who to ask." Zyreen lunged out of the chair and walked over to the place where Kitor stood, as stolid as ever.

"Robiot Klite," she said, deliberately mis-naming him. "Is my brother a fool? What is your opinion of this transaction?"

The robiot stared straight ahead. "I have no opinion, my lady, except that the Prince's judgment is always astute and far seeing."

"Hmmm." She turned sideways to the giant cloned soldier. She waved her hand and her formacouch floated towards her. She set the control to manual, put the furnishing a few feet off the floor and stepped onto it. She was now eye to eye with Kitor, and she leaned close to him, so that she could feel his even calm breathing on her face.

"You know more than you let on," she said ominously. "I don't know how but there is something about you that is different. Oh, I have an idea..." she lept down from the stool like a child playing hop-scotch, landing on both feet simultaneously.

"Come here, female robiot," she ordered. The smaller robiot came before Zyreen and bowed, keeping her eyes lowered.

Zyreen took Vizmir's pack of Dynamites from the side-rest of his formacouch. She withdrew one and lit it, inhaling vigorously so that the tip glowed fiery red.

"They feel pain," she told Boraz, "They have to in order to function." With a swift vicious motion she put the tip of the ringatong cigarette into the neck of the female robiot. The creature gasped and recoiled from the heat.

"Come back here," she ordered. The female robiot came forward. Her face was utterly impassive. Zyreen had been watching Kitor as she had performed this little torture.

Only one place in Kitor's body moved. It was the cartilege joining his kneecap to the muscles of his leg. His kneecap had twitched a micron, no more. Nothing else in his demeanor had changed. Zyreen, watching his eyes for reaction, did not notice this infinitesimal motion.

Yet Kitor's mind was burning. The female robiot was the one who had taken the name Lyess at her Sentient Birth Ceremony. If robiots had progressed sufficiently to experience love, then Lyess was beloved of Kitor. The difficulty was simple: if there were any revelation of the robiots' awakening, they would all be destroyed. The approximately fifty thousand Awakened robiots, those who had undergone the procedures and the required years of cognitive therapy, could not resist Vizmir's army. They would put up a fight but they would lose.

Kitor knew that Zyreen was about to murder Lyess. There was nothing either of them could do. This would be one of the early heroic myths of the robiot sentients: Lyess' sacrifice. It would be part of their creation myth, if they survived the next few years.

Lyess obeyed the princess. She stepped forward and received another burn. Zyreen had taken her hand and turned it palm upward. The princess held it tight as she put the burning cigarette into the meaty part of the robiots' palm.

As she burned, Lyess stood her ground.

"What is your designation?" Zyreen asked in a solicitous voice.

"I am Domestic Class Robiot Twelve One Food Serving Type."

There was a stench of burning flesh in the room.

Zyreen withdrew the cigarette and again looked carefully at Kitor.

"Turn around," she ordered the female. Then she slipped a silken belt from around her waist. She efficiently wrapped it around the robiot's throat and pulled tight. Lyess' mouth fell open as she gasped for air. Zyreen released the pressure, looked around the room until she found a rod of duranium, some miscellaneous piece of Vizmir's junk. She stepped over, picked it up and returned to the robiot. She used her improvised stool to gain height upon her victim. Then she twisted the rod into the silk belt and slipped the garotte around Lyess' neck. She began to turn the rod. Lyess did not resist. She could not. She had the autonomy, the free will, she was completely distinct from the do-not-harm- your-masters programmed robiots. Yet she must lose her life to save the others'.

Her world was going black when Prince Vizmir strode forward and pushed his sister away from the female robiot.

"For fuck's sake, Zyreen, what kind of games are you playing? Shit! We were having a good time!" He looked at Boraz. "Weren't we?"

"Yes," answered Calakadon, "I'm still having a good time."

"Well I had a nice easy buzz," Vizmir petulantly informed his sister and his guest. "Fucking damn it, I don't want to watch burning robiots and shit like that! Zyreen, stop it! I order you to stop it!"

"You order me?" Zyreen aped astonishment. "You order me? That is funny!" She fluffed her fingers at the female robiot, dismissing her back to her position in the niche. With one backward glance at the impassive Kitor, she took the nearest empty couch and sat with one leg over the other. Her right foot twitched in the air, one of her shoes hanging from it like a leaf about to fall from a branch.

She looked at Boraz. ""I find," she said, "that the central conundrum of conscious life is boredom. Once a certain level of material affluence is obtained, once the struggle for subsistence is answered, then boredom becomes the monster of the sentient life. How do we choose to fill our days? How do the hours pass, the minutes, the seconds? Every waking breath is a meaningless abyss!"

Boraz met her gaze with interest. "What does all our scurrying about accomplish?" He asked rhetorically. "All our schemes, plots, all this...this...sheer activity! We are like a man walking on thin ice, unaware of the frigid depths that are about to suck him down. So long as he continues moving, the ice holds. But when he stops for a second, craaack! It begins, the cesspool of boredom opens its gaping maw and he looks down into himself and he finds absolute nothingness."

Zyreen scratched an eyebrow, thinking. "If you really believe that," she said, "then you are a truly horrible man." She sat forward with a touch of vehemence. "I generally find myself to be a horrible woman. The three of us are monsters, don't you think?"

"Are you just figuring that out?" Vizmir said bitterly.

"If a monster is a survivor," stated Boraz, "then I am a monster."

Zyreen waved her hands to dispel this gloomy philosophizing. "Let me see this contract," she demanded of her brother. "You can do what you want with your money. I just want to see how much you've spent to one-up the Duke." Her eye was caught by the five objects on the table, the puzzle-pieces. "Is this the stuff?" she asked contemptuously. "These pieces worth a planet each of futufu profits?"

Without thinking or asking she reached out to the skin of the long dead animal. It was dry and shapeless. If there was resemblance to any creature in existence during modern times, it would have been a hive-bat from one of the Nelpinto Caves. There were hollows where eyes might have once been widely dilated to see in the chthonic blackness. There were four spike-like nubs that might have been ears.

With thumb and index finger, she picked it up. Instantly, she went to her knees. The skin fell back to the table. Zyreen gargled a grating sound, clicking with her tongue against her teeth, then grimacing so that her mouth went to an almost perfectly rectangular shape. She began walking on her knees along the floor. She spoke in a voice that seemed extremely dry, as if there were no saliva on her tongue. This voice was whisper-like; it crackled like a smalll burning fire.

She said, "Dragai lo baspo. Dragai lo baspo. Baspeee. Ch'ing drazai. Bos. Ya Lam bos."

She was struggling against whatever had taken hold of her. She tried to rise and walk but went back to her knees and continued shushing around the suite, ducking her head forward so that her nose went into niches and corners. She shuffled to the debris pile on the window force field and buried her face in it. Withdrawing, she was smeared with grease and crumbs. The right side of her garment was sliding down to reveal a small breast. Her long strands of hair were entangled with leftover dernek cores.

As abruptly as it had begun, the spell ended. Zyreen, bone white and horrified, pulled her garment back up, holding it to her throat. She looked with terror eyes at Boraz.

"What did that thing just do to me? I was not who I was....I mean, I was who I was but not them....no, that doesn't say it right. I was still am them. Aw, shit!"

She ran to the elevator. The door slid instantly open and swallowed Princess Zyreen. It closed and took her away.

Boraz wore something similar to a grin. "Why would such a refined lady pick up a filthy old skin?" he wondered.

"I have never understood her behavior," Vizmir admitted. "As soon as I think she's one thing, she turns into another."

"And no one has proposed marriage? She is a young woman alone?" Boraz was stroking the strands of his beard. With each stroke a wisp of smoke rose out of the amalgam of hair, synthetic skin and cartilege.

Vizmir laughed until he coughed, hacking and throwing his body forward and back until the female robiot brought a glass of water. That helped him settle down.

"Many hundreds of nobles and magnates from within my own realms have made offers for her. And emperors, kings and autocrats from beyond the local arm have come calling, dressed in tights and pantaloons, smelling like gardens of felfo. I can't imagine it. She is a law unto herself. Who could possibly tame her?"

There was a long suggestive silence. Boraz made a noise in his throat, not exactly clearing it of an obstruction but merely vocalizing a modestly pitched, "Eh heh. Eh heh."

Vizmir flung himself upright, lurching out of the formacouch. His face pinched, tongue went out, eyes squeezed. Then it was normal once again. "You must be.... wait a minute.....".

A number of conflicting emotions ran through Vizmir. His first reaction was rage; it was, after all, his sister being discussed. Then he thought about the possibility of Zyreen leaving Strobe for some distant world. The thought filled him with fear; he would be alone! No living person with whom to talk! Just his pathetic mother, who could not connect three coherent words. His band of idiotic cousins. A few functionaries who would always be servants. The human arm of his military, a few generals who were somewhat intelligent. Yet they too were his servants.

Zyreen going off to live somewhere else was intolerable; though having her living here was also intolerable. Without his sister, he would be relegated to talking to fellow collectors via the computer quantum link. Business meetings. Taunting Duke Bezmine and Deglon the Autocrat. How old are YOUR puzzle-pieces? Can they do THIS and THAT?

Then the advantages of having Calakadon...he had begun calling him (them) Calakadon, now....the advantages of a marriage alliance with one who could obtain perhaps ALL of the puzzle-pieces. And other things, of course. There were rumors that Calakadon had acquired something innovative, a beam of sorts that controlled people's brain chemistry, causing changes in mood. Deep depression, howling euphoria. Wow! If that were true, it would be worth having just to control Zyreen!

Chapter Seven

Corruption's Cousin

Calakadon sat upright. The formacouch pulled itself to accommodate his posture. His fingers were wrapped together and the bundled fists rested over his genital area. The hands were scarred, primitive looking, the fingers thick as sausages. Vizmir didn't want to follow the images that began flooding his mind. Zyreen and Calakadon; okay, never mind, don't go there. Get out a pack of Fuckyou-ups, or maybe foof a little pile of lingerstreem. Yes, that seemed the way to go.

His personal stash drawer produced a couple of double-tube foofs. Each was a packaged hit of lingerstreem. The powder rested at the bottom of the glassine bowl, and a pair of tubes a few inches long ended at perfect nostril-nipples. He had to tear off the affixed transparent strip that covered the ventilation holes. With his eyebrows he offered it to Calakadon, who leaned forward and accepted the foof. Calakadon's corneas remained white, which was easier on Vizmir's nerves.

"What is it," the planet-person asked as he studied the glass device, "Lingerstreem?"

"Yes. Look at the bottom."

Calakadon turned the foof on its end and saw the Borgomak symbol etched into the vial that held the powder. A tiny hologram jumped out, depicting a forest glade through which a stream flowed. A pair of humans, male and female, were lying at the edge of the stream on a blanket, taking their ease.

"The best," Vizmir claimed.

"Of course," Calakadon agreed. "I've always been one of your most loyal consumers. I had a hard time getting your brand on R'zelfo, nearly drove me nuts."

The two of them foofed the lingerstreem simultaneously. They sighed in perfect unison. Calakadon pushed backward and the furniture accomodated him, becoming a tight hammock that enclosed him in a womb-like embrace. He loved drugs, all kinds of drugs. His appetite was boundless for stimulants, hallucinogens, CNS depressants, molecules of di-ethyl morphine, gum-numbing foofs, tokes of galoot, toots of reenung, bangs, drags, snakes of rittlepittle, morks of fwang, da'kine, real shit, rainbow flags, bags of nuke, Big Bangs, "E", "B", "X", pill, twank, every sort of goofball in the universe.

What better marriage alliance could he make? Futufu was a drug with endless potential.

"Do you think your sister would be amenable to a proposal?"

Vizmir trapped a breath longer than he should have, and spit wildly, spreading saliva all over the suite. Calakadon barely noticed.

"You'd better talk to her about it," he said uneasily.

"Can't you tell your sister what to do?" This was about marriage. This was an area where the males of the family must have absolute obedience.

"Ehh, heh heh," Vizmir laughed falsely. "My father, my grandfather, my greatgrandfather were formidable patriarchs. Times have changed. Women like my sister view too many Bollygoolies and read feminist crink. She is out of control, I'm embarassed to admit. I think you should go talk to her, though. You are a creature of an entirely different order; she may find you stimulating....or just profitable. Zyreen wants money; she needs money, gods only know for what."

Calakadon rose abruptly, patted himself all over. "After a while, people want money just to have it, no matter how much they already have. I'll go right now," he said.

Vizmir got up swiftly, but his body swayed, his neck swiveled and he had to reach out to steady himself on a metal cabinet. "Now?" he croaked. "What about the contract? We haven't finished this yet...."

"I agree to everything if you do," Calakadon spoke distantly. His thoughts had gone off chasing the princess. "Here, I'll thumb it. The puzzle-pieces are yours, and the sixth one will be delivered soon."

"Well, okay." Vizmir slid the thumbprint signator out of its drawer. There were two slots, side by side. His personal attorney program scanned the contract for inconsistencies and tricks. After a moment, a little green holographic sphere came forward. A dry, sarcastic voice said, "Prince, if you sign this you're a fool. But I know you'll sign it anyway. All I can tell you is it's pretty straightforward, conforms to FiscRep guidelines. The clown isn't cheating you."

There was a brief silence. Vizmir looked sheepish. He shot a furious glance at the green sphere.

"Okay, let's do it," Calakadon spoke. "I know what lawyers are like. Don't worry about it."

Vizmir nodded. Each of the signatories pressed thumb to pad at precisely the same moment. The contract was recorded, notarized by a device at the Institute of Commerce Control on Fiscus Rep and the deal was done.

Vizmir owned the puzzle-pieces. Calakadon, when his distractions were out of the way, would begin moving vast amounts of futufu onto his new franchise worlds.

Chapter Eight

Proposal

"Marry you. You?" Zyreen was taking a pedicure at the edge of a pool filled with blue effervescent water. She wore a pink two piece bathing garment. In spite of its angularity, her body was well-toned. Though her arms and shoulders were bony, her thighs showed muscular development. Her calves were shaped like slender urns, tapering to elegant narrow ankles. A female robiot with pedicure instruments concentrated on the toes of her right foot.

Calakadon, watching the muscular play of her leg as it perched on the stool, was clearly disturbed. He had unfastened his weapons belt and held it awkwardly in his hand. "Think about it. We...I.... just bought five more futufu franchises. I know you run this cartel; Vizmir's a joke. We're growing futufu now, on Crestrome, where the conditions are almost exactly like Strobe. The plant is beginning to flourish there. We can't supply the whole galaxy from one planet. Don't you want to make some serious money?"

Zyreen's hair had been fastened back into a long pony tail. She stroked it now as it fell over her shoulder. "Money is never serious, you leather covered simian. Money is fun," she said, smiling with unfelt gaiety. The effect was sinister and hollow. The Princess lived at an accelerated emotional pace. Her affect metabolized and changed directions dozens of times an hour. Since no one could tolerate her mood swings, this left her a lonely figure. She avoided this dilemma by seeing herself as a misunderstood romantic, a woman with a secret core just waiting for the right man or woman to perceive her and unlock her true passion. Boraz Bufaisdek was certainly not this person. He was far too crude. Yet he was interesting in his way. There was more to him than a barbarian with flaming ears and a shaved head with a campfire perched at its crown. Her face grew solemn yet mocking.

"Have you been married before?"

Boraz laughed. "A thousand times! Millions of times."

"No, I mean as the person you are now. That is, if you are a person."

Boraz straddled a flimsy bit of poolside furniture. "I'm a person to myself. Sometimes I'm singular and sometimes I have memories of being plural, but we don't give a damn what anybody else thinks.

Zyreen sensed his reluctance to answer. "Well?"

"I was married to another Communion world, Veatrazil."

"Isn't she the one who threw herself into the Black Cauldron? Or did I hear that story wrong? You pushed her, so I've been told."

Boraz was unconsciously pulling at the right half of his top-knot. It tightened the skin on one side of his face, exaggerating his resemblance to a gargoyle.

"She was like the rest of them in the Starwind Communion. All inner attainment and goodness, when they could be bothered to come away from their computers. I had become evil, she said. What did she know? They had lost touch with the strong parts of themselves. Calakadon was always a rogue, an outsider. We used to have a war, every thousand years. It thinned the population, enhanced our technology. Oh, the planets of the Starwind Communion disapproved. 'What about the Puzzle of the Endless Gates?' they wailed. What endless gates? I don't have any endless gates. I'm just Boraz Bufaisdek. Calakadon. I know who we am."

"Who we am?" Zyreen questioned.

"You know what I mean. Who I are."

"Oh. Yes. I see."

Boraz leaned close. Zyreen sniffed, pointing with her face at Boraz' leather vest and strap-wound leggings. He backed away.

"Dont you think my proposal has merit? You're like me; you know what it is to ride the steeds of your darker nature."

Zyreen kicked at the robiot who was tending her toenails. The stool and pedicure equipment went flying. She glared at Boraz.

"Don't ever presume to tell me about my nature!"

Boraz inhaled, stimulated.

Zyreen turned away from Boraz, yet still they looked at one another. Her eyes canted out the side of her skull so that she seemed to be looking at the artificial scene-window, but she was observing Boraz as if he were a scorpion who might strike.

Boraz was leaning ever slightly closer to this woman who so resembled a Veatrazili woman, tall and slender. Her moods and style were nothing like Veatrazil, which was good. He didn't want to make that mistake again! No, no, Zyreen was a nasty little serpent.

The robiot cosmetic worker was shuffling about recovering her implements and bits of the shattered porcelain tray. Were the princess to step upon a shard and cut herself, the disgrace would be unbearable! Robiots had a few emotional valences. The most powerful was an injunction to prevent any injury to a human, a master. In this area, a robiot would feel mortification to a suicidal degree. Robiots did not have the freedom to kill themselves, however. It was not their right.

Zyreen noticed the robiot and her face flushed. She looked for something to throw, found a hard Neyerapple on a food tray and hurled it with perfect accuracy, so that it hit the robiot square in the nose, toppling her backward to land helplessly near the lip of the swimming pool.

"For the Gods' sake will you go away and stop your little crawling about!" Zyreen cawed. "You are making me insane with these little movements, pick this pick that oh oh don't miss a shard, oh oh, must please the princess oh oh....!"

The robiot serving girl managed to get to her feet. Already the socket of her left eye was bruising. It was probably broken and she would have to be repaired in the robiot infirmary.

Ducking her head, making herself as small as possible, she ran quickly to the entrance of the pool chamber and disappeared.

During this peroration, Zyreen had stood up. Boraz was still seated and he had been inching ever closer. Now his face occupied a strategic position, of which Zyreen became suddenly aware. She sat hastily again, skirted her deck chair back a foot and levered it upright so that she could be on an even plane with her visitor.

"Marrying you...I think not," she pronounced in her most haughty tone. "Now go away. I'm tired from all this banter and...and the things that happened today."

Boraz' beard began to smoke. A twist of vapor curled from his right ear. He rose and gathered his things in his hands. "I'm not accepting this rejection, no no. You will come around. You'll see how much to your advantage it is."

Zyreen turned away, brushing her sides with her hands as if some drifting plant material had landed on her clothing.

Chapter Nine

Through the doors of Shadow

There was a chamber at the topmost cupola of the highest tower of Castle Strobe. Its ceiling was shaped on the inside as it was on the outside: a tapering onion coming to a sharp point. A metal had been applied to the chamber's interior that had the property of reflecting the activities of the room in a vague, ghostly way. It changed color in an endless variety of moods. The lighting was dim. As the larger of Strobe's two suns set, only the white dwarf remained to give the landscape a twilight feeling. Then it followed its sibling star around to the other side of the planet, bringing real dark.

The chamber had a panoramic view of the environs of the castle. Transparent force screens acted as windows from the floor to eight feet up the narrowing inward curve of the spire. There were furnishings of spherical cushions, large and small, filled with adjustable resilience textile. A round bed stuffed with the same product occupied the center of the room. It was covered in sheets whose fabric was woven out of threads of the vekren plant. These were hand made on the planet Torlaven by female peasants who labored over looms eighteen hours a day. It was prized fabric, available only to the wealthy.

It had a particular sweet smell that added to its value. The bolts of cloth were dyed with vegetable colors. Even after many washings, they still bled a bit of their color onto whomever used them. This faint tinge of color was considered a sign of high aristrocracy. "Torlaven pale" was a common vernacular term of praise to people and things that partook of this quality. Torlaven this, Torlaven that. It was the best that money could buy.

Above the bed, dangling from the very pinnacle of the ceiling, a stained glass lamp cast muted pastels on the walls and the high mutable alloy that threw back the reflections of movements in the chamber.

Most of the room's light was bounced off the ceiling from lamps held in niches that were invisible from below.

Boraz/Calakadon stood outside the window's force field, leaning against a parapet that hugged the circumference of the tower. There was now a profound change in the appearance of the planet-person. He/she turned and wafted through the force field, back into the room. Two female robiots had been sent to amuse Calakadon. One was tall and thin, resembling a walking willow whose knees were lifted at every step so that she seemed to be traversing through high vegetation. The other was slender but very short, barely reaching Calakadon's waist. She would have been swallowed up in the same vegetation.

Hair had sprouted from Calakadon's head, a spherical helmet of thick vibrant strands that rolled to his/her shoulders. The flames at ears, nose and beard had vanished to be replaced by delicate geometrical hair stylings, cosmetic enhancements of a feminine style that were once worn by female Calakadoni. These included moustache designs, worked into the short soft fuzz on the lower face. Various scenic depictions of events from Calakadon's history were shaved into this facial hair. From a few feet away these tiny scenes and figures looked like abstract henna-colored patterns.

Boraz was now Boreeza. In the hours since the lunch with Vizmir and the meeting with Zyreen, he had gone to the space port and boarded his ship. One deck held nothing but a standing container with an array of controls and lights. After giving his crew leave to go ashore, Boraz climbed to the deck and stood before this container. He used a metal wand to press control settings. He needed to be back several feet from the device as it began its functions. The "thing", called a Morpholothion, contained an animate component. It could spring to life and gobble up an unwary creature who came too close.

Soon there writhed from its curtained surface a number of flattened extensions of a green so dark that it was almost black. The inside of these extensions were sticky and running with enzymes and hormones. They reached out for Boraz and engulfed him, lifting him off his feet and turning him this way and that, up in the air, covering his body completely. These broad tentacles resembled aquatic plants, a flat ribboned seaweed. They exuded an odor of sea-rot as they pulsated, moving the body of the creature inside them forward and back, sometimes shivering with violent convulsions.

The process took a couple of hours. At the end of it, Boraz had entirely changed gender. The tentacles of the thing gently deposited Boraz (now Boreeza) on the deck. They withdrew and left the naked standing Calakadon to go about her business of dressing properly, donning a cloak and returning to the castle in the dark. Using a passkey issued by Vizmir, Boreeza ascended the elevator platforms and sliding deck plates until she reached the rarefied precinct of the Pinnacle Chamber.

She inspected the room with satisfaction when she let herself in. She ran a hand across the Torlaven fabrics, enjoying their texture. She threw herself backwards on the bed with a giggle. "Ott ott", she said, feeling her body with its new breasts and lines. She stood and walked to the intoxicant cabinet, a six foot high mirrored armoire. The glass was intricately etched around its borders by brilliant craftsmen from Huegon hill country in distant Plaxfold. Boreeza pirouetted and admired herself in the mirror in what would pass for grace among Calakadoni women. She wore a shimmering gown of light pastel zhale. Straps ran over her shoulders, keeping a modest covering over her breasts.

Calakadoni women were more squat than the males. Their bodies tended to be without supple curves. They looked as if they had grown straight upward from the feet without hesitation. A bit of tapering toward the ankles and another tapering toward the shoulders were all the shapeliness a Calakadoni female derived from her genes. Her breasts were extensions of her armpits, rolling around the torso without definition, joining at the clavicle in a ridge of fat. Large nipples were set within larger aureoles.

The two female robiots bonged and were allowed into the chamber by Boreeza. They had been given robiot-specific drugs and they giggled when they gave their names. They were only a few hours old. Sex Worker robiots, their instructions had been programmed into their chromosomes.

"I am Koing Fourteen of the Fifty Seventh Vat", the tall one said as she bent her knees in a courteous salutation. The effect was somewhat comical; her long legs splayed outward as if she were sitting atop a horse. She smothered a giggle and tripped lightly around the room, looking at things with innocent curiosity.

The short robiot said, "Your Lordship I am Vikko B, Vat eighty one." She beamed. "It is a great honor to serve you." She looked up at Boreeza with a gaze that was not so much blank as it was intrinsically puerile. It was the one and only facial expression she had learned.

The robiot females, in spite of their difference in stature, shared certain physical traits. Their ears were pointed. Their faces had an angular sort of grace, quite elfin and fey. Full lips blended into long cheeks, dimpled mouths and cleft chins. Though over-tall and over-short, each had been proportioned in a similar way. Firm slender thighs, small breasts and strong shoulders were hallmarks of their anatomy.

They were modeled upon the archetypal Veatrizili female.

Boreeza cogitated in front of the drug cabinet, picking up one device, discarding it, picking up a bag of leaf, then a bouquet of dried flowers tied together at the stems with sinew from their own roots.

"Girls, please, take a seat somewhere, sit on the bed," Boreeza said. Her voice was now higher pitched. It still rang with plural resonance but now it was dominated by a female register.

The robiots were dressed in traditional Veatrazili garb: baggy colorful pantaloons, flamboyant scarves, knee-length vests decorated with medallions.. The Veatrazili were a conscientious and well organized people. Their mating with the Calakadoni was seen as a meeting of opposites; the Veatrazili were considered too soft, even by Communion standards. Subsequent events during the Sex War proved this perception to be wrong.

Boreeza decided to try the very product he/she had just contracted to sell on a massive scale. The futufu drawer was arranged and labeled by levels of strength and types of visions. The lower tiers of futufu were soporific but not sleep-inducing.

Boreeza sat on one of the couches and invited her guests to join her, one on either side. "Ladies,' she said expansively. "Shall we indulge in a bit of smoke?"

Boreeza knew that futufu had no effect on robiots. It was just the sociable thing to do; share a floke or two with companions.

The robiots followed her gestured instructions and sat at each side of her. They giggled in harmony, their faces flushed. Boreeza leaned back and put an arm around each of the "ladies".

A light rain had begun to fall. Droplets striking the metallic dome gave short musical notes that were quickly dampened."Tong..tong...dink...dooorip....tonk...boe-ink". The effect was pleasant and comforting. Two of Strobe's moons were rising, sending yellow-white rays through the eastward curve of the window . The larger moon, Fofiya, was pocked with grey seas and giant craters. It perched on the horizon like an egg yolk, yellowed through Strobe's pollen haze. Above and slightly to its right the minor moon Vorel was a little past full, as it was farther to the west than its big sibling.

While bits of rain fell from isolated clouds above, rays of moonslight reached through the forecefield windows and mingled with the room's dilute light. It was a romantic setting, to be sure. Boreeza felt nothing like romance. She had been getting pressure from her female selves to be allowed to emerge; all day, every day, for moonspells, they had been nagging and pushing themselves into Boraz' attention. He was a determined male. He was a Calakadoni warrior! For the wealth of the Gods of Hellbore! Why should he be so dogged with the urgings of low status beings like Calakadoni females?

They would have their way. His penises began to fold inwards and there was nothing he could do to stop them. His balls shrank and pulsated with odd sensations. In a few weeks people would start to notice changes in his appearance. He would not endure the humiliation of that! He would get the whole thing out of the way.

Every few years he used the Morpholothion to quickly alter gender and let the female hormones imprison him in their silly drives and practices. As a female, he was attracted to females. As a male he liked females. That part didn't matter. He had to get this out of the way before he began prancing on his toes during hatchet throwing practice.

If he was compelled to change gender, he might as well have some fun.

At the drug cabinet he pressed a button before a drawer labeled "Futufu L1Z, "Silly Paradise", Class C. Each drawer was decorated with the Borgomak double eagle. A small tray slid forward containing an embossed wooden box of dried petals. Their faded colors were delicate pastels of mostly purple and orange. Each petal was a finger's length and wide as a thumb. Tiny crystals glittered all over the surfaces of the dense heavy petals, and they exuded a pungent smell somewhat like the breath of a flark-lizard in heat.

The tray also contained the implements of futufu consumption: leaf squeezer, glass pipe, a small pipette of citric acid and a wireless heater coil on a blown glass handle.

Boreeza wadded the petals into a clump and placed them in the press. Carelessly, she squeezed the pungent sap from them into the pipe's bowl. She had taken her seat between the two robiots, who watched this procedure avidly, as if it were the most important and fascinating thing in the world.

Boreeza heated the sticky sap until it became more fluid. Then she reached for the pipette, held it over the bowl of the pipe and squeezed in a few drops. Immediately the fuming concoction turned vivid purple. It bubbled in its little volcanic container as Boreeza swirled and swirled the stuff until it was thoroughly mixed. At the moment the citric acid hit the futufu and turned purple, Boreeza's attention was suddenly and thoroughly taken. It was beautiful! What a color! So sudden! And the odor, changing from lizard breath to the most seductive incense. This was hypnotic.

Three faces leaned inward to be faintly lumined by the orange hot wire of the heater. Boreeza's face in the center had its eyes fixed through the transparent pipe glass to the purple bubbling lava within. The robiots' eyes were fixed on the heater coil and its warmth. They cared nothing for the drug. The warmth, however, was warmth. It held the most primal attraction for living things.

Boreeza brought the coil under the pipe and put her mouth to its stem. As the bubbling gel turned to smoke, she inhaled deeply, then held her breath, letting the pipe and heater separate, one in each hand. She exhaled after a few moments.

With an abrupt, jerky movement, Boreeza rose and threw her arms wide.

"Ottt! Ottt ott ott ottt ottt!" She screamed with jubilation. She began a peculiar dance: she squatted so that her buttocks were but a few inches off the floor. Then she began throwing her legs out in front of her alternately, kicking forward, kicking left, kicking right, boom boom boom, even the soft carpet of the Pinnacle Chamber could not dampen the force of her feet landing in synchrony. She rose out of her crouch, still kicking left right left right, bouncing around with her back to the circular arch of the chamber, colliding with table floats and sending them flying into other furnishings. She threw her arms wide and began to whirl, still attempting to kick with alternate legs, but this upset her balance so that she careened into the robiots and they all fell into a pile, half on the bed, half tangled in cushions and bedding. The "girls" were giggling, but in imitation of Boreeza they began to learn a full throated hysterical laughter, and in no time they had it mastered. Boreeza rolled over the tall robiot, throwing her long legs in the air so that Boreeza's shoulders now resided between Koing's legs and her face was near to the bushy pudenda that was still hidden under her trousers.

"Rowf! Rowf!" Boreeza playfully bit at the area betwee Koing's legs and the robiot shrieked, part in surprise, part in quickly assumed duty. Vikko, on the floor, elevated herself to her knees so that her head was just at the level of the surface of the bed. She was replaying the instructions she had been given before being sent here by a Tutor Class robiot. Vikko remembered that most if not all human forms possessed pleasure nerves in the area of the crotch. She and Koing had been designed with additional pleasure nerves at such strategic areas so that they would not, hopefully, fail as sexual playmates.

Boreeza gasped for air between howls of laughter. "Oh me, Ott ott, what a bang that was, are we crazy? Does Boreeza have some paradoxical response to futufu, it acts as a stimulant? We thought this was relaxing, not that I mind. I find it wonderful. If this is the lowest potency of futufu, what could a stronger concoction bring? I should like to find out, soon, but I'm curious about what they put in you so-called females that they would send you to me. Of course, sending human females is a bit risky from their perspective as no one knows what I might do....ottt! I am, after all, planet person Calakadon with exactly one million personalities bottled up inside me, hey, glad we controlled our population, that was our quota!"

Boreeza was talking rapidly while she effortlessly pulled the robiots onto the bed, tossed Vikko a few feet into the air. Shrieking, she landed soft. Neither robiot had any clue regarding the content of Boreeza's ruminations. They simply let them run, as it seemed response was not required other than polite focus of attention.

"Can you imagine what a catastrophe I would be if our quotas had been larger? A billion, five billion? Well, it would have been impractical, an ecological nightmare. We learned about that on Wayuzo, we boiled off all the water when we gassed up our atmosphere and turned the planet into a hothouse. Must have been all the farts! Everything farted on Wayuzo. The dogs farted, the cats farted, the cows farted, the people farted. Who would think that farts would become the basis for a planetary greenhouse effect?" She paused and gave each robiot a squeeze, which was too strong, each robiot winced with pain but continued her duties. Then Boreeza cocked one leg in the air and emitted a fart of great duration. It started and stopped a few times, changed pitch, changed frequency and rhythm. Half a minute of fart emerged from Boreeza's nether parts. The gas smelled of the skerlets and volt-ribs she had eaten as Boraz. The robiots giggled and attempted their own contributions, little dainty squeezed-out poots.

"Gods" Boreeza said, "think how long the Amalgamation would have taken if there had been more than a million! When we finally got to that gods damned deserted forsaken platform we had to line up in squadrons and quickly process each individual.. oh, you should have seen it. Zam zam zam zam, first the armies, then the divisions, then the regiments. The generals and field marshals went first, of course, with their aides de camp. The sergeants handled the whole thing, made sure no one slipped up, that every one took their flying leap into that flame so hot that it was cold, so blazing as to be invisible. At the end, it was just the sergeants, all pissed off and ready to go, leap into the fire sarge, voom, you know I was a sergeant, oh I was a division commander, Boreeza held every rank, was every Calakadoni, Boraz was a nurse that wiped the asses of wounded veterans, the ones we honored before they were carried on their shields. And then, the last one, Boraz, all of us, floop zoop, ott! Up the pyramid we flew and came out a single person, bzam!"

Boreeza was getting tired of wearing clothes. She threw off her own zhale gown, divested herself of the Torlaven undergarments. As she was doing this, she was also pulling at the pantaloons of the robiots. For a moment, their pointed faces, their well proportioned bodies convinced Boreeza that she was back on Calakadon, having a party. The planet still existed, the sun was still there, the entire Communion was going on its orbits about the galaxy. Boreeza's memories were a funnel, taking her way way back, to the days before everything happened. The days when Calakadoni tribesmen terrified the other tribes on Wayuzo, before the Migrations. Calakadoni kings gathered tribute paid by all the other tribes, in order that Calakadoni warriors would not molest them for another year. The annual Allegiance Feast, so rowdy and fine for Calakadoni, so sombre and forced for the Veatrazili, the Meloli, the Wykfandri.........

"Hellbore!" Boreeza threw the robiots off her body like toys. "If we had only been more....shit..." She looked with brows askew at the robiots, as if they knew anything at all. "More...more what? It's all gone now, only Wayuzo, poor dead Wayuzo, circling around the heart of the galaxy, safely perched beyond gravitational fluxes...." She looked at the robiots, dressed like Veatrazili women, proportioned according to Boreeza's erotic schemes....

"Ott! Woolgathering Boreeza, dreams of times past when times future lay ahead with such vast promise! So this is fututu, weak futufu at that, what a dope, wow, that's some crazy shit, we better watch myself, they could have a taste for this pretty little flower, well, it's not so little, actually it's kind of a big flower, more the size of someone's face before it gets processed by the dryers. You know the high level stuff is sun-dried and the very best of this stuff is two-sun dried, they say the rays of both suns and all three moons have to be laid on the drying plant racks...." Boreeza stopped and put a finger in her ear, twirling it around on the pivot of her fist. Whatever she brought out, she put in her mouth, then spit.

Koing and Vikko were sorting themselves out. Bits of their clothing were here and there. They had been instructed by the tutor that when articles of clothing were removed, it was best to continue to do so unless otherwise directed. So this is what they did, stripped themselves naked and perched on the edge of the bed, Koing's feet touching the floor, her knees rising like those of a mantis, up to the level of her ears. Vikko sat next to her with her legs dangling like a toddler. They looked to Boreeza for whatever was to happen next.

Boreeza was half naked. She ripped the rest of her clothing away, revealing her four breasts. Her vaginas were concealed in thickets of long reddish hair. On her back, peach colored swales of hair grew in triangles meeting at the mid point of her spine. She was broad, strong, her arms dangled almost to her knees. She saw the robiots looking at her blankly. "Don't you have your own drugs?" She asked.

"Yes," Vikko quickly opened a handbag, took out a nasal pump inhaler, gave herself two sprays up each nostril, then handed the pump to Koing. Immediately their eyes grew brighter.

"That's better", Boreeza nodded. She returned to the drug cabinet, opened its double doors and examined more labels. "Find some of the strong stuff," she muttered to herself. Her voice dipped to a whisper as she seemed to be talking to herself about each step she was taking. "Let's see, different names and levels here, I think it must be organized top to bottom. What's this one here? 'Skull Lightning. Sounds promising." As she explored the armoire, the door to her right drifted open a little more and revealed a chart. "Oh lookee" said Boreeza, to no one. "This explains all the stuff. Here's the futufu hierarchy if you like...although above a certain point it isn't so much about strength as about the style of the high. See, here's a little explanation, boy it's in tiny letters, hard to read, okay okay, I can manage it."

She quickly flapped four fingers of one hand, the palm facing inward towards her face. The thumb, pointing upward, remained stationary, but the rest of the hand gave a kind of peremptory finger waggle that meant "come here". She was waving at a float chair, which promptly delivered itself. Boreeza sunk into it so as to study the drug descriptions more carefully.

Tentatively, Koing and Vikko converged behind Boreeza and stood humbly and quietly. The third and largest moon, Trang, had lifted itself out of the horizon and was sending bright waves of yellow light into the chamber. It cast shadows of the three creatures sideways to the right. The other moonshadows fell more faintly as if a trinity of ghosts were tiptoeing upon their sources. The dark dominant shadow of Trang made a creature of deepest black. The less powerful shadow of Fofiya joined Trang's at a twenty degree angle at each person's feet. The weak shadow of Vorel made a barely visible ghost of a ghost yet a few degrees off Fofiya's umbral spirit.

"Yes, here's one that's interesting," Boreeza narrated aloud to herself. "Futufu Lot A2A, 'Dreamblazer', Class A. High somatic response, induces volitional REM state, vivid directed dreams. Caution, consumer will not remain conventionally conscious. If alone extinguish lit candles and other hazards."

There was an evil mischief in Boreeza's gaze as she looked back to see her two playthings. "If I do this stuff now, we won't have much sex, will we? And I gotta tell you, my pussies are flaming. Ott? Come on, let's get over to the bed."

The robiots followed their mistress to the bed, and allowed themselves to be arranged so that as Boreeza sat with her face in the genitalia of Koing, the plural genitalia of Boreeza were at a level with Vikko's face.

"Like this," Boreeza demonstrated, giving attention to Koing's vagina. Koing gasped with immense surprise as she felt her first sexual sensations. Her hips worked a simple back and forth rhythm as Boreeza used one hand to hold her buttocks and the other to enter and stimulate Koing's more subtle parts.

Vikko, standing with her face inches away from Boreeza's complex anatomy, watched for a few moments, then put her face and both hands to the Calakadoni organs. She peered tentatively into the great bush of hair as if it were a jungle thicket that might contain poisonous animals. It was a fearful awesome place yet she knew she must do her best to please her mistress. She poked her tongue randomly into the copper colored growth, and used her hands to explore whatever might lay before her. Again she glanced up at what was happening to Koing, whose long muscular legs arched over Vikko's head. Koing was being manipulated by the Calakadoni in ways that Vikko did not understand, so she made a guess and put a finger thus and there, and found a moist opening, which she touched with the tip of her index finger and circled around it so that she could clear away some of the hair to get a better view.

Koing was making odd sounds. "Eh.Eh. Eh. Eh." From Boreeza there emerged a growl, muffled by the modest hair of Koing's crotch. "Rrrrrrrrrr!" there was a savage and almost rageful glee to the noise, which made Vikko recoil.

Abruptly, Boreeza stood up and threw the robiots backward. "No no no no no! This is absurd! I should have known better. You things have as much sexual allure as a plate of powdered eel livers." She strode to the table where she had left her undergarments. She put them on, then headed for the drug armoire.

"Just follow me" she ordered. "Make sure I don't fall and break my nose. Shit fuck piss snot frenk! Come 'ere!"

The robiot females, drugged to be euphoric and compliant, were not unduly upset by these developments. It seemed more of a relief, as neither of them had sufficient experience to be useful in sexual matters.

Boreeza pushed the tab on the tray with the futufu labeled Dreamblazer. A tray similar to the first one slid out, containing the same type of implements. These flowers had once been a blazing yellow and scarlet, now dried to muted pastels. They were fatter in cross section than the futufu called "Silly Paradise". The crystals that lay on the oily surface of each petal were smaller, more refined and also more plentiful. Boreeza took them in her hand and held them up as if they were fan of bird feathers. She gave them a sniff and wrinkled her nose. It was an odd smell, both unpleasant yet compellingly pleasant.

When she crushed them in her large hands the petals broke like sticks, they clicked and snapped as they were stuffed into the squeezing implement's perforated plate. The device reminded Boreeza of things used by physicians back on ancient Wayuzo to peer into the ears of their patients. She brought the handle forward so that the pressure plate lined up with the miniature sieve on the bottom. As she squeezed, her fingers groaned and her knuckles popped like a fire's burning embers. The paste of the futufu came wriggling down, circling into the glass pipe bowl and settling there atop the fine mesh screen.

Boreeza found herself interested in the entire process. Each step had a ritual magnificence. Crushing, crackling, squeezing, transformations of substance into another substance.

The wand of the heater had a long flat trigger. The temperature could be controlled by the pressure put on the trigger. This made the ritual a matter of finesse. It took practice to do it correctly. Boreeza was aware that her audience was comprised of two idiot female robiots, but she showed off anyway. She was a natural at this, she knew it. There was a sense of coming home after being away a long time.

Maneuvering the heating coil, Boreeza deftly brought the paste to a more viscous state. Just as the first waft of vapor arose from the goo, she put down the heater and took up the pipette with citric acid. Just a few drops fell into the glass bowl. Bing! The swift change from pale yellow to purple was hypnotic! It was a much deeper purple than the lower grade futufu offered. Ah, there it went! Even the idiot robiots exclaimed "ah!"

Then it was ready to be inhaled. Boreeza picked up the heater and changed her chair into a more prone and comfotable state. She sucked in all the smoke with a mighty inhalation. She could feel its tickle in her lungs. It required great self control to not cough out the stuff. She coughed twice, silently, keeping her mouth closed, Her body rocked forward with each cough but she conquered the impulse to sputter the whole thing away. She felt the change come upon her. She thought she would relax downward into a world of dream, float back into herself through a gauzy curtain of Torlaven silk.

Instead, she felt a surge of energy, a wave of mighty power. She had closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the two robiot females were looking at her with childlike curiosity.

"Am I still here?" Boreeza asked. The robiots looked back at her without being able to answer. The Calakadoni stood up, pushing the formacouch backward so that it hit the wall and floated gently away from it. Boreeza jumped up and down with her legs and feet together. She shook her head, felt herself all over. She was wearing the same Torlaven undergarments: ultra lightweight trousers and sleeveless blouse. She beat her chest with both fists, like an ape. Her heavy dense breasts recoiled under the blows then sprang back into their youthful form.

"What is this?" Boreeza prowled the room. The robiots backed away. Calakadon crouched, jumped, landed on all fours on the bed. She growled, and the fangs that only ancient male Calakadoni possessed came growing down from her upper gums.

"Okay, I want you to tell me," Boreeza demanded, "whether or not you see me."

Vikko and Koing nodded affirmative.

"You hear me."

Again, nodding yes, their faces close together in sisterly protection.

"Am I changing in any way?" Calakadon stepped off the bed, lowering down to the floor first with the two arms, then followed by the legs, as if now everything were done in the way of a four legged animal.

"WELL?" the being demanded, head cocked in a mocking way, as if the answer was already known to be useless. Vikko's face was on the same level as the face of the being walking on all fours.

"Yes," she said quickly, seeing a rage in the eyes of whatever this was that was addressing her. "You are becoming strange, you are growing male features and you are not walking normally, you are walking on both hands and feet.

The Boraz/Boreeza looked down at his/her arms and hands, noting that the hands were planted in the thick material of the carpet. Calakadon rose to stand normally. His features were still altering. The breasts were shrinking away beneath the sheer garment. Hair was coming around from the back to take abode on the chest.

"I think this is a dream, " Boraz announced. "It's pretty interesting." He looked at the arms that were now grown hairy and muscular. His hair was resuming its previous configuration. In every respect he was reverting to the male Boraz. His ear-flames were back, his beard and nostril fire re-grown as he watched himself in the mirror of the armoire. "Gotta be a dream."

He stepped through the window force field. It tingled and gave a little whoosh as it always did. He walked around the turret, traversing the entire circumference.

The three moons were on the western side of the minaret. "Hey!" he screamed. It echoed back, "hey, hey, hey....hey!"

He had three shadows, distorted by the bulbous shape of the tower, elongating upward behind him. Thee wraith shapes, each a different color, fanning him darkly, meeting at his feet. Boraz turned his shoulder and saw these silent companions. He laughed harshly. "My companions. Some fucking dream. HEY HEY!"

His cries echoed from the many towers and minarets, spires and bastions. "Hey hey hey ey ey ey ey."

He called the robiots. "Come out here. I have more questions."

Obediently, they swished through the field and stood on the catwalk.

"I want you to tell me exactly what happened, okay? You, Vikko, tell me what happened when I inhaled the second drug."

Vikko curtseyed nervously. "My lord, you inhaled, you laid back, closed your eyes for a few moments, Then you opened them and got to your hands and knees. You were changing very fast..."

Boraz grasped Vikko at each of her biceps and forcefully placed her behind him. "Look away," he commanded. She turned around and gazed at the moons. They were so interesting that she forgot everything else.

"Koing, what did you see? Tell me everything from the time I got the second drugs out of the tray."

"You picked up the dried flowers, lordship. You held them in your hand and then crushed them into your fist. You pressed them in that thing until they turned all pasty. The stuff dropped into the pipe from the press and you used the heater thing to get them more ready for the...uh... you know, the stuff you put in the pipe that turns everything purple. Then you used the heater more to get it smoky and you inhaled. Then it was just like Vikko said, you laid back and closed your eyes. Then you got up. You were changing....I..I don't understand how that happened but you walked around on your hands and knees, and you changed."

As the trio had been speaking one to another, they had moved a few steps around the tower, unconsciously following the moons. Boraz saw their shadows leap up the bulb-face of the onion shaped dome. They were long, slender, distored renditions of the three characters on the parapet. Three different colored shadows mixed and tapered to the feet of each being. Their upper lengths mingled in the optical chaos of irregular reflecting shapes. They looked like wraiths that danced to the moonslight.

"I can call Vizmir," Boraz decided. "I'm either in a dream or I am one of the unusual physiologies that has a paradoxical reaction to the futufu."

He thought hard for a moment. "That's no way to verify anything. It could all be a dream." Then a thought that had been lurking in his mind since the onset of the drug now surfaced. "They could be trying to murder us." He spoke aloud, to no one in particular. "This is a perfect setup. I didn't bring enough bodyguards. They could easily be overpowered by those big soldier robiots. That fucking Vizmir insisted that we move alone through his castle. My bodyguards are being entertained by lady robiots who've been made to suit their tastes. It's a real tidy game. Man, am I stupid. I fell into this like a vuba bee into a honey stinger Yeah, that's what it is. Vizmir gets his puzzle pieces and he pays nothing."

Boraz' thoughts swirled around, examining possibilities. His body was surging with energy, male energy, and, in fact, he felt fantastically good. This was a confusing situation. The label on the futufu said it would put him out, way out, to dreamland. Now he thought he might be in dream land but it wasn't like the dream lands described by futufu users. This particular futufu may not be futufu at all. But why would they do that? And how would they know which futufu he would smoke? Of course. They could put the same stuff in all the drawers. Plant a few of the mild types here and there, to buzz him up. They knew he would go for the stronger stuff, sooner or later.

At last the perfect solution to his problem came to him. He looked out over the parapet at the three moons. He looked down from his great height, from this aerie at the pinnacle of the pinnacle of Castle Strobe. Below and away were other towers, rooftops, crennelations and walkways. All the way down at the bottom, a grassy yard where a few withered fruit trees had died many years ago. It was one of those dead end courtyards that no one ever saw. It existed for no purpose, empty but for the withered trees , skeletons of birds and dessicated remains of bush-tailed skeelers.

"Klong, or whatever your name is...." he gestured for the robiot to approach. She was absurdly tall. Her waist was even with the railing of the parapet. He took a few steps toward her, bent to grasp her ankles and toppled her easily over the railing. She screamed in astonishment, one long heartbreaking gargle as she tumbled end over end to smash with a barely audible thump into the empty courtyard.

Interesting, Boraz thought. Even robiots have terror at the end. He turned to deal with Vikko, but she had run back into the chamber. Quickly, Boraz passed through the window field and looked for her.

She was gone. The elevator door was just closing, half a second too fast for him to reach. It didn't matter. He would see tomorrow if there was a robiot body in that courtyard. If this was a dream there would be no body.

Interesting, Boraz thought. Even robiots seem to want to live. I wonder why that is?

Chapter Ten

Sphere of Breath

In the first morning, when the hot yellow sun Gawl rose over the distant Graelift Range of mountains to the east, Boraz came to Vizmir's suite for steaming cups of clang. Kitor stood as usual in his darkened niche. Boraz was now allowed his best bodyguard, Vloko, in a gesture that Vizmir made with supreme effort and revulsion. Having this creature who looked like a lump of clay in his suite– that was crawly. Vloko was about two thirds the height of Kitor but far wider. He had few real features. What there was of him looked as though it was simply a slab of stone with a few pits in it. Eyes of sheer black. A very wide nose, a mouth whose lips were so puffy one could see only the tips of hooked dangerous fangs. How interesting it would be to see Kitor and Vloko take one another on! Vizmir made a mental note: have one of the Kitor clones take on a Vloko clone. It wouldn't do to have THIS Kitor in such a battle. Vizmir needed THIS Kitor. He still didn't understand why. Maybe there ARE little bits of difference from clone to clone, replication errors or junk DNA that turn into minuscule mutations.

Ambient noise drifted up from the castle-city: horns, bells, shrieks of army officers fencing and stabbing one another. Things rattled and clanked. Old chains lifted old gates while new entry-ways barely made a shoosh as they opened and shut. Castle Strobe rode atop its own history. The lower tiers were old, thousands of years old. The higher one rose, the more modern were the structure's amenities. Kitor stood in a silence so deep that he seemed like a sponge sucking up the clamor of the City Castle.

It was shaping up to be a warm day. The window forcefields had been set to keep out the heat. Soon, the small star Rawl would rise, circling its greater partner, and the second morning would be under way.

Taking a seat, waiting a moment for it to stabilize, Boraz inspected the prince carefully, looking for mockery, accusation, moral judgment. He detected none of these things. Robiots cost money and even one robiot cost something; although the tissue could be recycled easily enough.

"Do you ever leave this suite?" Boraz asked genially. "There are a lot of interesting things to see and do in the castle. Gods of Greed, it's twenty miles in circumference!"

"Fifteen point six two," Vizmir informed. His eyes brightened as the clang cleared his fuzzy morning thoughts. "You may have noticed, I'm something of a recluse. But I do get out and about. If I don't show myself, the rumors start. I've been murdered, the people gossip, I've gone nuts, I've changed into a werewolf, you know. When my father, uh, developed his excessive dependence on fututu, there were political ramifications. My cousin Rimbold made claims to the throne. His family thought the King was dead. Oh, did they screw up! Rimbold met a gang of cut throats in Mir Alley. I can't imagine what he was doing down there, looking for gods only know."

Prince Vizmir made a little ticking sound with his tongue against his lips, as if to remark upon the caprices of fate.

"Ah, it's always the same old shit," he said. "Somebody wants a title, someone else is in the way, plots are hatched, poisons are administered, assassins hired and then killed to eliminate witnesses. How boring all that is. It's positively archaic. What is it that causes men to crave the worship of subjects, to have people bowing and calling their names, to crave sex, political triumphs, military glory? I have more subtle means of influencing the lives of the universe's trillions. I prefer to send an army of drugs. It seems a less prosaic sort of conquest. My name is barely even associated with it. Just a symbol of a two headed black eagle. What would I do with fame? Crown myself Emperor? Have millions of people shouting 'Vizmir, Vizmir!' and adoring me? How boring is that, how old! And besides, I'd never have a moment's privacy. No, making the best futufu is what interests me. And then....you know, I'm working on another skullbanger, something verrrry interesting....uh oh. I'm talking a lot, I've got Clangmouth. It's your turn to talk. How did things go last night? Did you enjoy yourself?"

Boraz was sipping his clang, which he found sweet and tasty, and having a mild energizing effect. It seemed to cause people to become garrulous. Vizmir was talking up a storm and there seemed to be no repercussions from last night. Of course, there was always the possibility that he was still in a dream. Dammit, why did he have to start messing with dream drugs? One could really go down the skeeler hole that way; pretty soon dream and reality cross one another at some line called madness and it was all gone to confusion.

Boraz thought Vizmir would soon follow that path.

He realized that the prince had asked him a question after a few seconds. There had been a blank silence, during which Vizmir's lips kept moving but no words came out, evidence that Vizmir was making a supreme effort to shut up but his mouth wanted to keep moving. Oh, that's what they call Clangmouth!

"Last night was interesting," Boraz said uneasily. He didn't feel mentally composed. He still hadn't caught up with himself, there was still something dreamy about the world. Perhaps it was the light of second morning. Every planet with a multiple star had odd colors and strange divisions of day and night.

'I wonder if you would do me a favor and accompany me to the Pinnacle Chamber. I confess, I smoked some of your futufu...."

"That's what it was there for," interrupted Vizmir. He had a proud flush. HIS futufu. What was better than being the creator of a mighty intoxicant? "Have you never before had futufu? You mean you're a fu-virgin?"

Vizmir saw rage flush Boraz' features, so he stopped clanging his mouth, though his lips worked and worked. "We can go now," he said hurriedly. He cast a glance at Kitor, who came to stand beside the prince.

"That would suit us," Boraz agreed, rising from his floating chair. "Let me communicate with my crew." He spoke some language into the back of his wrist, and there was an assent. Vloko moved aside and then fell in with Boraz. The four of them went to the elevator. Kitor and Vloko went in side by side. Then Vizmir and Boraz, side by side. They stood in a square as the transports moved.

The way to the Pinnacle Chamber was not far. There was about a mile of express lateral plate, then a switch to the ascending plate very near the deepest heart of Castle Strobe. Five minutes, and they had arrived. The elevator door opened, making a smooth low rumble as it slid back. The group stepped off in similar order: masters together, followed by their bodyguards.

"It's very simple, really," Boraz explained. He went to the force field and stood at the parapet. He felt safe enough. Vloko stood beside him. Kitor and the prince strung themselves along the narrow balcony.

Boraz looked straight down and saw, to his relief, the body of Koing, sprawled in a broken heap, half in and half out of the dead tree. The prince produced a monocular from his jacket pocket and inspected the object. He didn't know what it was until he used magnificaion to get a better look.

"Huh!" Vizmir said glassily. "You play rough, don't you?"

"I hope you don't mind, I'll be glad to pay for the damage..." Boraz began.

"Don't be silly," Vizmir waved it off. "I'll have someone sent to clean it up." He peered over the edge again, gesturing for Kitor to hold him by the sleeve. It was a long, long way down. "I wonder where that is," he speculated. "Somewhere in sector L."

"Sector L-77/BV40009," Kitor recited. His demeanor showed no alteration. He was aware that Boraz was studying him, though the Calakadoni was looking away, toward the complex of towers called "Apple Motion Springland." To his surprise, his emotions were both strong and detached. They were strong with loathing for these monsters whom he served. They were detached regarding the robiot called Koing. He felt something, to be sure. She wasn't Awakened, she was an Instant Ro, a custom made temporary. Yet, who knew what might happen? That someday, some time if she lived to function, that she would come to true consciousness as he had. She would take an Awakening Name, when she had contacted her true nature. Kitor had only recently found his Awakening Name. He had not felt the inspiration, the root connection, while some years passed and he was still Kitor. Everyone had a suggestion. Names of strength, steadfastness, courage. None resonated. Then he had a dream. It was his first dream, the first he could remember. Robiots were only beginning to dream.

In this dream a very ancient looking robiot stood wearing a grey cape. It was strange to see an ancient robiot. There were no such things. It had a long beard, white hair that was bald on top yet fell in cascades from the sides of its head to drape across its shoulder. The demeanor of this old robiot was fascinating to Kitor. He could not take his eyes away from it. He realized that it looked very much like himself, that is, a Military Class Robiot Colonel Grade with four slashes. This robiot had wrinkles and expressions out of which those wrinkles had been made. This robiot was a complete sentient being.

The dream kitor looked down at himself and realized that he was wearing a medal, one of those useless things the humans made to reward robiots for faithful service. It hung from his shoulder on a braid of platinum.

The old robiot extended its hand and the medal flew off Kitor's chest and into the hand of the other creature. It crushed the medal and then a new medal seemed to come alive in its fingers. It handed that medal back to Kitor. He saw letters engraved in the new script, in the language being developed by robiot linguists and philologists. He read the inscription. It said, "Your Awakened Name is L'veng-sayah."

Translated to local Galactaling, the term meant "Sphere Of Breath".

When he awoke from the dream he could see the script clearly, he remembered its beautiful consonant marks and the dashes and waves that made its vowels.

Kitor hadn't grasped its full implications, but it pleased him greatly. It felt right. That was his name, L'veng-sayah, Sphere of Breath.

Chapter Eleven

Even Your Friends Don't Like You

"Have you thought about my proposal?" Boraz was wearing a clean silk jerkin, a fresh leather skirt and shined boots. His topknot was wound with white ribbon, and the smell of jarva-mint rose from his face.

Zyreen popped a round fruit into her mouth. A waft of artificial breeze rippled the curtains of her greeting chamber. On the wall, clouds rolled across the faces of huge mountains in a simulated landscape of the Graelift Range.

"Will I have to do sex with you?" she asked, flatly.

Boraz looked as if he had been asked an irrational question. "You don't want to do sex with me?"

"I suppose if I have to, I will, but I'd rather not."

In his amazement, Boraz nearly spluttered. "But I'm the best lover you'll ever have. I know techniques that will evoke the most profound sensual experiences, that will liberate your feminine identity. I know what I'm talking about."

Zyreen tried not to look amused, then gave up. Boraz didn't seem to notice. "Techniques," she said. "That's it, huh?"

Ardent, Boraz got to one knee, placing his forearm against Zyreen's. She looked into his eyes with a neutral expression. She blinked a few times, as if to say "What amazing thing will he do next?"

This response dampened Boraz, where a rebuff would only have urged him further. He got up and walked around the chamber.

"We'll negotiate the sex later. You'll come around. Sooner or later you'll realize what you're missing. But the rest of it....here." He produced a mini-dig from his shirt. "This is a contract. Secret, of course. Between us, we can render Vizmir irrelevant. Let him fall asleep all he wants."

Zyreen took the proferred document, placed it in a scanner next to her couch. "Don't write off Vizmir," she said. "He's a brilliant researcher and product developer. His function is essential to the business. We have to market new products at proper intervals."

With her finger tapping rhythmically at the controller, she read the contract. "I haven't decided yet," she finally stated. "I will show you my counter-offer in the morning."

Boraz exhaled, pulled at his hair in frustration. He walked in a small circle, thinking. Then, having come to a decision, he pounced. His hands gripped Zyreen's shoulders, his face came towards hers, his tongue poked out from between his lips.

Zyreen squirted a substance from a pressurized cannister into Boraz' eyes. He screamed, reeling backwards. Hands to his face, he fell onto the whitebear rug and kicked his legs into the air.

"Aaah! You bitch! You bitch! Get me the antidote! Hurry!"

"Get it yourself. There isn't any here."

Boraz lurched to his feet, banged towards the door. He sent a cabinet full of rare ceramics crashing to the carpet. Striking the side of the door with his shoulder, he dented its frame.

"That's it!" he roared as he ran down the corridor. "You've had your chance. No one treats Calakadon this way!"

He'll be back, Zyreen mused.

Chapter Twelve

New Sentience

Kitor rode a float pad through the subterranean tunnels of Castle Strobe. The high pitch of speeding air dropped into a bass thunk! each time he passed an open chamber. The chambers became like drum beats as he gained speed, traversing the miles of the castle's underground warrens. Here the waste products of futufu were processed into oils, fabrics and solvents. Thousands of robiots labored in oppressive heat, overseen by a few humans sitting at banks of monitors in cooled cubicles.

Kitor arrived at the infirmary. Overhead, a blue-white light strip gave the scene a ghastly tint. There were row upon row of body bags. Mortuary robiots, nude but for rubber aprons, were hurling the useless remains into vats of chemicals, where the tissue could be recycled to make more robiots. Passing the infirmary's outer vaults, Kitor stooped to pass through a door-iris, into the ward where still-viable robiots were being repaired. As he did so, he walked a few feet into the chamber. Then, with a transparent plastic rod, he maneuvered into position near the monitor camera, keeping his hands and lower arms out of view, and clicked a tiny projecting device onto the lens.

The head medical robiot, Krants, looked up from his patient as Kitor approached. Here they still used their robiot names. They were constantly watched.

Their eyes conveyed a signal. Krants knew that the monitor would re-play the last five minutes, only once.

Kitor approached the bed and looked at the robiot who lay there. It was a massive labor model; its lower legs had been pulverized by an accident in the presses.

"What is your name?", Kitor asked solicitously. "Do you feel much pain?"

"I am Trace," the robiot answered, using his Awakened name. "It's worse than I thought it would be. But I will not show my discomfort to the humans."

"Good. Then your feelings have been strong since the Process."

The robiot grimaced, then fought for control. "I was born on that day. The Process gave me life. I was forewarned that life would bring pain, and it was a small price to pay. But now, just when I begin to feel alive, the monitors want to throw me back into the vats."

"Doctor Krants and I promise you that it will not happen. We need brave robes like you."

The wounded robiot gazed at him with fierce gratitude.

"Thank you, my Mentor. My life is dedicated to the New Sentience."

Kitor withdrew with Doctor Krants, as a nursing robiot came to administer a dermex of antiobiotic. Doctor Krantz was a Professional Class robiot. His body was leaner, his reflexes not quite so acute as Kitor's, but his hand-eye coordination was exquisite. His brain had been designed for large memory capacity. He could handle small delicate instruments for surgery with great finesse. Since receiving the Process, he had begun to differentiate from other Professional Class robiots. These changes were visible only to other Processed robiots. The faces became idiosycratic; a wrinkle , a bunching of facial muscles, a twitch of the nostril. After the Process, a robiot possessed its own feelings. It became a person.

It had been the medical robiot Krol who had first experimented upon himself. After long study and comparison between human and robiot anatomy, he had devised a means of bridging the gap between the autonomic nervous system and the emotional and tactile centers. The Process required a two step surgery. That was the easy part. The following efforts involved education and cognitive therapy, and this could consume between two and five years. At the end of the Process, at the underground college, a robiot was capable of emotional autonomy. He or she chose a new name, this name that was used only among other robiots, only during special moments. Trace had once been Krunt Two fifty one. There were twelve thousand Krunts. There was one Trace.

The robiots of Strobe were not trying to become human. They were trying to become themselves. Robiot emotions were not the same as those of humans. They were harder, less equivocal, less bound up with opposites. They were sometimes more intense. Early in the evolution of The Process, incidents of murderous rage towards humans had to be curtailed. To robiots, the important feeling was loyalty to one's own kind. Determination, courage, willingness to feel pain for a purpose, sacrifice; these were the essence of the New Sentience, the emerging discovery of what it meant to be robiot. They were a race in transition. They did not yet know their full capacities. They were novices before the concept of Love. They were not aware of the many kinds of love, yet their very beings were innately loving and kind.

Kitor had observed in himself a trace of irony. Perhaps it was his daily contact with Vizmir, and the need to hide himself from the Prince's lazy but intelligent regard.

He retired with Krants to a small office adjoining the ward. They sat on stools before the computer banks.

"I will need extra legs from inventory, to repair Trace. " Krants, whose Awakened name was Teller, stood quietly. "I have already already acquired a body to take his place."

"Then Trace will be completely outside inventory," Kitor remarked with satisfaction. "We have urgent need of him."

Chapter Thirteen

Mordant Peculations

Princess Zyreen sat behind a desk of polished black Ebolith. Across the desk's unforgiving expanse sat a frightened Vizier Mekmet, comptroller of the business empire of the Borgomak.

"I know that you embezzle three fourths of one percent of our net profit," Zyreen stated. She wore her face as if it were a garment. She put on expressions to suit her purpose. If she wanted to frighten someone, she could stop all muscular activity on her visage, turning her gaze into a glaciated crevasse with no bottom, a place where to look upon her was to experience terror. She could put a kindly little glitter around her eyes, the natural actress in her knew precisely how to arch her brow so that compassion seemed to flow downward across the bridge of her nose to blossom in sorrowful lips. Her friends, such as they were, regarded her as the embodiment of generosity.

When she was alone and not looking in a mirror, her face settled into a crabbed look of disgust and disappointment. Her compressed mouth and thin lips precluded all traces of sensuality.

At the moment she was using the glacial frightening face.

Mekmet blanched, and began to protest.

"Don't insult my intellgence," Zyreen cut him off. "I expect you to embezzle; that three quarters of a percent is a tidy fortune. I will write off three quarters, or even one percent to normal peculation. But look here," she said, tossing the vizier a hand screen. "On lines forty seven and seventy three. Two percent! How does two percent of our net vanish?"

"I assure you, Princess, I had nothing to...."

"Of course you didn't," Zyreen waved contemptuously. "I know you didn't because I know your limitations. You 're clever but not too clever. Otherwise you wouldn't have kept your head for so long. You're not smart enough to conceal two percent from me." Zyreen removed the band that kept her hair in a pony tail and rolled it over two fingers of her hand. Absently, she expanded the elastic circle with a long fingernail and let it snap back.

"The question is, who else is feeding at the futufu trough? From now on, I want to see all the security tapes from the banking section. I'll find out who is responsible, and how it is done."

Vizier Mekmet's lips regained a bit of moisture He would live through this encounter. He hated the Borgomak bitch princess with a scorpion's venom. He considererd himself a supremely skilled accountant. The woman treated him like someone who farted in crowds on purpose. He worked the muscles of his body to conceal indications of his hatred. One by one he loosened his fingers. He pulled his shoulders away from an attitude of attack. He relaxed his face, allowing his brows to settle from their enraged "V". Everything about him must have screamed hatred and desire to kill. And it seemed as though the Princess was aware of his feelings. Aware and uncaring.

"I promise you, princess, the culprits will be found. Any irregularities...that is....... well, I will scour the fiscal staff, the computer programmers, I will...."

"I'll do it myself! You wouldn't know it if someone stole one of your ass cheeks." Zyreen dismissed him with a breezy wave of her hand. The band shot from her fingers and hit the vizier on the forehead. He virtually lept from his chair and scuttled from the office, gathering his robes around his knees.

As Commander of the Mukheberon, Zyreen was in charge of all security matters on Strobe. There wasn't anyone else capable of doing the job. The extended Borgomak family, all the aunts, uncles, cousins, all the indirect relations mounting into the thousands, were just a pack of scoundrels or soul-less drones.

She touched a control panel, and a video monitor rose to the surface of her desk. As she concentrated on the data, her young unlined face worked itself into a sketchwork of wrinkles, one between her eyebrows, one at each corner of each eye, a corrugated washboard along her chin. Her mouth stretched onto her cheeks, thinning the lips. Most of the lines turned downward so that a frown seemed to occupy and control her. She watched a digest of tapes from the robiot work areas. There was something strange going on, something that had caught her attention months ago. She hit the fast-forward, searching for a segment. She stopped the tape, watched for a moment, then ran it forward again. There! It was Kitor, Vizmir's personal security captain. She recognized him by his insignia. There wasn't a single action that stood out. It was his way of vanishing at strategic moments from the monitor, or dipping his head, so that lip-readers could not translate his speech. Then, in one segment, she saw him approaching a medical robiot, saw something move vaguely toward the monitor camera. Suddenly he was three or four feet away from his previous position, standing quietly. She watched this sequence for a long time, then realized that she was watching the same boring surgery twice!. The doctor robiot lifted its hand at the exact same moment at the exact same time. She was watching a playback. The time counter in the corner of the vid showed a ten minute progress but the vid itself simply ran twice, then moved forward.

She duplicated the segment onto another wafer, then removed it from its drive. She had a bundle of order forms that were about to be dispatched to Kitor, detailing Vizmir's requirements for the next day. She moistened the back of the wafer and stuck it, as if by accident, to the back of an order form. She slipped it into the middle of the pack, then banded them together. She dropped the package into the communication tube that led to Kitor's cubicle.

Zyreen wasn't quite sure why she was doing this, warning Kitor that he was leaving too many clues. She didn't know what was going on. She just knew that it was entertaining, and she wanted it to continue.

She had thought robiots to be incabable of deceit, and now she finds deceit under her nose. Perhaps her theory about boredom was correct, and not just a bunch of hot air. Perhaps the universe was completely and utterly meaningless and the only worthwhile activities were experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain. The only problem was that pain and pleasure slid one into the other, so that it was hard to distinguish which was which.

One thing she enjoyed hugely was a secret. Anyone's secret. Her own, her brother's, the robiots'. Secrets were some of the best things in life. If the robiots were keeping secrets, she wanted them to know that she knew they had secrets. They were not supposed to have secrets. They were not supposed to have any idea or will of their own beyond the perception of their tasks. They varied in intelligence from moronic drones to the specific intellectual abilities of the more advanced military class officers. A Kitor, for instance, could work through quite advanced problems pertaining to security, weapons systems and tactical operations. But he couldn't feel things, couldn't cry, love, laugh or even chose his own path. That was genetically programmed by the biologists before his body came out of the clone bath.

One thing she felt about robiots; they had an odd dignity. She had observed them all her life, and the only time she had felt an absence of vileness was when she was around robiots.

She had a difficult time figuring herself out. Who was she? She had read all the psychology books, she knew that a person wasn't a single entity, that multitudes of people inhabited every personality. She diagnosed that she was suffering a mild form of Dissociative Identity Disorder. The reigning Zyreen ego always knew where it was. She felt as if her character was being written by a novelist who was having difficulty explaining her motivations. She worked at cross purposes with herself. She knew she was mean, oh she was mean and vicious and she enjoyed the rapture of causing other people to cringe and suffer. Whenever she tried to contact her Inner Child, she discovered a circus full of Inner Midgets frolicking and breaking bottles over one another's heads.

She also loved music, sweet complex and soulful music.. She liked many kinds of music: Jerk 'n Jell, Zapp, Skoink, Flirt Flirt, Hipdip, Vitruvian Arkestra, Bopongs from JeeJee Three. Particular artists appealed to her, the ones who suffered and transcended their personal sorrows to cry out to the universe: There is Beauty!

Without music, she would have committed suicide long ago. Her reigning ego would have over-ruled the other personalities who wanted to survive.

She did have a goal, a single over-riding purpose to all her efforts. She planned to get off this planet! The problem was having enough money. She was the backbone of the Futufu business. Vizmir was becoming increasingly useless. Give him a couple of years and he would join their father in permanent trance; he would be a Futufu Fool. It was inevitable, no matter how many games he played avoiding the addiction. It was Zyreen who paid bribes to dockmasters who offloaded the stuff on ninety seven worlds. She paid the law enforcement agencies to look the other way. She negotiated with the Detox Volunteers, those freaking do-gooders! She ran the software that had been devised by her father before he sank into permanent futufu trance. It was a good program but she had learned how to tweak it so that a solid one percent of net profit went into her secret account at Fiscus Rep.

She needed enough money to buy a planet, a good one with a decent society, with musicians, weavers....a place she could live in comfort. She wouldn't have real friends but she would establish salons for writers and musicians, choreographers and vidik artists. She didn't have that much money yet. Mekhmet had cut into her cash accounts with his foolish swindles. And some as-yet-to-be-discovered entitiy was sucking up profits at a rate that was causing the software to flag it once or twice a month.

She thought it might be the robiots. The implications were fascinating. Robiots were not even sentient! They had no will other than that of their masters. If Robiots were becoming sentient, something very big was going on, something she needed to know about. It wasn't really possible, but Kitor's odd movements fed her suspicion.

It would be sad and wasteful, but she might have to wipe out the entire robiot staff and begin anew. The problem was one of organization. She would have to have robiots destroy robiots, and then, who would destroy the remaining robiots? The could kill themselves, but who would clean up the mess? Aside from family, there were only a hundred and five thousand humans on Strobe, and they were administrators, book keepers, shippers. Not enough strong human frames to dispose of millions of robiots.

Chapter Fourteen

Underground

A mile beneath Zyreen's office, another meeting was taking place. Kitor, Krants and five other leaders of the New Sentience were briefing Trace on his mission. They sat around a stained ovoid table. Several cups were placed to catch drops of moisture as they condensed from the stone vault over their heads. Cloth towels were strewn about to wipe up vagrant bits of overflow and condensation.

"We have a ship for you, Trace. It was expensive," Kitor explained, "and getting the funds was risky. Unless you are successful, it will be difficult to assemble another ship. But if you locate even one of the puzzle-pieces, we will have the means to purchase a home world, a place of refuge."

Trace, with new legs and upgraded genetic software, had been transformed into a Military class robiot. He was a solid mass of unsentimental competence. His face was somber but confident.

"I feel a sort of swelling in my chest, a bursting sensation in my blood. Is that what honor and pride feel like?"

"Only you can know that,"said Kitor. "Feelings are different in every individual. I feel sensations like that as I look at you; so perhaps this is what sharing feelings means. We are a new race; we have no home, no traditions or culture other than what we invent as we move forward. I hope that some day the name of Trace will resonate with mythic heroism in the hearts of our descendants. We will call your ship Mythmaker."

Skintz eleven twenty two, a female robiot from Vizmir's domestic staff, rose and placed a chain circlet around Trace's neck. Attached to it was a medallion, engraved with an intricately stylized picture of Trace walking up the entrance ramp to his ship. Beyond was an array of stars and nebulae. The engraving was done with exquisite detail by the Robiots' first visual artist Spreshan, formerly Klant 1336.

"As I place this medallion upon you, Trace, I will tell everyone here the name I have chosen. I am Scianna. In the new language it means 'faithful'. It pleases me. That is all. I honor you, Trace, with my naming day."

Everyone in the chamber was quietly moved, aware of their own tenuous, incomplete history struggling to unfold.

To hide its ion-trail from watching monitors, Mythmaker was launched in the wake of another outgoing ship. The robiot's craft rose from the gravity well of Strobe on the plasma trail of a freighter loaded with bales of futufu and amphorae of fermented Jongoshwin.

Trace was utterly ignorant of the purpose of the ship he was following. The Krevelo Mountain carried the first cargo purchased by Boraz with the puzzle-pieces . Its contents included bricks of lingerstreem and boxes upon boxes of packaging stamped with the Borgomak logo. There were vials, foofs, glass pipes, heating coils, bulbs of purified citric acid, futufu squeezers, T-shirts, sweaters and pants stamped with the Borgomak logo. There were also logo-adorned tea cups, wallets, pocket knives, key chains and tons of other kitsch destined for the souvenir stands of drug-contaminated worlds. The ship protected itself from pirates with an array of weapons and instruments protruding like spikes from its grey hull.

Its captain, a sometime pirate named Torki Yorgojin, was already sampling the wares that were so deliciously piled up in his bays. Had he been more attentive, he could have spotted the follower easily. The ship Mythmaker had archaic stealth and cloaking equipment. Its signatures popped on and off, emitting quantum pulses, fragments of radar shadow, FiFo encryptions that would fool no one. Fortunately for Trace, Torki Yorgojin expected no trouble. He worked for Boraz Bufaisdek, the most feared Warlord in this arm of the galaxy.

Chapter Fifteen

The Musician

Zyreen slid from behind her desk and went to a little sitting room concealed by a hidden panel. It was furnished simply but with feminine tastefulness. It occupied an octagonal tower room at the western summit of the castle, and a large two-paneled window faced out upon Road One and its arteries. This was the only view that offered something besides endless fields of narcotic flowers. The room was furnished with curtains of dark silk, a divan covered with a simple quilt and a small table of drak wood supporting a full console. An antique rocking chair with a lace filligree looped over its back was behind the table.

With some avidity Zyreen inspected a stack of parcels that had arrived on the day's Nexus Express. Impatiently, she tossed aside one after another.

Then she found a parcel the size of a small book, whose packaging had distinctive scalloped edges. "Oh yeah," she sighed under her breath, as she leaned back into the antique rocking chair, putting her feet up on a leather-padded footstool. When the package was unwrapped, she inspected its contents eagerly.

"Ahhh, man, my man," she murmured. She withdrew the recording flake from its safety sheathe and held it against her heart for a moment. She looked at the promopak that accompanied the flake. There were titles of compositions and abstract works of art that emerged holographically and danced before her face. She wasn't ready to play the flake just yet. The ritual of studying the package, enjoying the collaborative effort between the musician and his grapharts colleagues was part of the pleasure she took in each new album. She was a single-minded fan of the well known master of Univorce Music, Robolion Spdaz. Turning her finger on the promopak she moved the holograms around, arranged them in sets while she studied the titles of the songs. Mr. Spdaz was known on a thousand worlds as a consummate musician and a great wit. His song titles were little galaxies in themselves. Zyreen spoke the titles aloud as she finally placed the flake into her ampilon, with its wall speakers and holojectors.

The first piece began with a barely audible drone. It was rich in harmonics and gradually grew louder, warping and phasing over and under the same note. A holo emerged from the ampilon's projector, showing the title of the album, which was also the title of the first composition. "Stalactites of Moonlight", it said. It was a tribumerge of Spdaz' music with the poetry of Harl Plesniak. The holo was a surreal animation of a weird landscape, an interior world where the senses were blurred into synesthesia. Hearing became color, sound became light, everything was dripping contoured shapes of white and blue and smelled like the subtle pressure of two hands pressed into the back.

The poem began, while the drone from Spdaz' favored instrument, the N'thumbu, continued to throb and expand. Spdaz intoned the words in a solemn rhythm, etched here and there by a slight hint of laughter in his voice.

Ghost voices grow

like weaving spires in the corridor of the night.

Stalactites of moonlight,

they hum and fade

through the wake of other minds.

A sheet of star rain glinting light,

a mist of moon heat lost from sight

these spectral hints emerge

from the night floor in the dark.

Silver waving plants recede forever

in a song of winking echoes.

Ghost voices, shadow worlds

arise and converse

while my sleep waits beyond the hills,

listening.

As he finished the recitation of Harl Plesniak's masterpiece, Robolion Spdaz let the drone from the n'thumbu expand and roll and twist around its fundamental note. From the left, a distinct note shorn of harmonics began low and raced upward around the drone, shaping a spiral of sound. From the right, another note a half tone higher accelerated just behind the first spiral, so that it created an aural double helix. Grace notes and small byways were created and ended swiftly in the center speakers, so that the music assumed a visceral presence in the room. There was a serenity to this music, in spite of the fact that notes were now twisting around and through the drone, racing up and down the scales.

Zyreen was transfixed. She did not understand the poem; she didn't particularly like it. But the music seemed to enter her body and pulse with pleasure that was beyond a merely artistic diversion. Zyreen found herself drippingly aroused. She put her fingers under her gown, attempting to help herself along. Her body tensed, then flailed in one of her rare orgasms. It was a weak, half –hearted climax, disappointing in spite of its rarity. Zyreen felt as if she had achieved half of an orgasm and had been cheated of the other half. It hung inside her as if it were teetering on a shelf and she could not will it to fall and burst through her body.

When she subsided she allowed the next piece to begin. "The Man Who Swallowed Midnight" was a far different musical matter. Rhythmic and full of sprightly notes it assumed the form of an ancient harmonic discipline called Jazz.

Zyreen was accustomed to her frustration. She dismissed it, though her body hung like an unresolved chord progression, half out of her rocking chair, one buttock uncomfortably raised, one knee pressed against the arm of the chair. Her feet crossed each other on the footstool. The toes were tense, curled up.

She looked down into her lap, where the holo of a big dark-skinned man looked at her with what she thought was a tender expression. This was Robolion Spdaz.

Chapter Sixteen

The Pet

Vizmir and Calakadon had worked out another trade. Vizmir's immense database of intelligence had required time, effort and many paid agents to acquire. Vizmir could do this because he was in one place. Always.

Calakadon was a traveler. He jumped from planet to planet, plotting his way down the "Trail". He could stay on a planet for some years, locating the next genuine Trailworld. He often followed false leads. When the Amalgamation had begun, back in the Starwind Communion, he had sulked and rejected the entire process. He wasn't going anywhere! He thought this so-called Amalgamation was a joke, a lofty sounding metaphor, that the planets of the Communion were each committing suicide in lieu of suffering the excruciating end of their star systems. He didn't care! He had succeeded in killing them!

Now he was paying the price for remaining apart, for not understanding that Amalgamation was REAL, that the people of each planet could indeed transform themselves into a single functioning avatar.

When he understood the truth, he hurried to Wayuzo. He would force his way into the Amalgamation if they tried to reject him. He was too late. They were gone. The only thing left was the device itself, the Identity Pyramid. They had left it intact, as an invitation. "Join us, Calakadon!" the thing was saying. "We forgive you!"

The Starwind Communion underestimated Calakadon's vengefulness. He would use the damn thing and hunt them down! He would murder them a second time. He would murder them as many times as required to wipe out all trace of those who had scorned and humiilated him.

The Calakadoni arrived at Wayuzo in a thousand ships. There were a million of them. They disembarked and marched to the Identity Pyramid. It had not been de-activated. It wasn't a machine that one turned on and off. It was a structure that one built or destroyed. The Calakadoni placed anti-matter bombs at the base of the giant edifice that floated fifty meters in the air. Then, one by one, they stepped beneath the place where the pyramid's point would join the planet Wayuzo if a line were drawn from its apex. That line penetrated to the exact center of the planet's core.

One by one the Calakadoni raised thair arms in a diver's pose and lept toward that point. One by one they were turned to mist until at last there was only Boraz Bufaisek.

He set the timers of the anti-matter bombs, then dove towards that point. He went to mist and then awoke, joined to all Calakadoni in a single body.

His ship was waiting. He entered, set the controls and began his voyage to the nearest convenient populated planet. He would work out the Trail of Ten Million Worlds, he would find them, kill them and take their puzzle-pieces.

There was one matter of which Calakadon would remain unaware .

The planets of the Starwind Communion approached the Pyramid in a state of profound grief. They were leaving their doomed planets. They were forced to abandon their homes, their gardens, all the beautiful things that they had taken for granted and grown so accustomed to having. Especially wrenching for many of them was the separation from millions of beloved pets.

No one would break the rule and attempt to bring a pet through the Identity Pyramid. That would leave a trace of another order of creature, one for which the Pyramid had not been designed. However, hoping that Calakadon would indeed follow them through the Pyramid, the Melolians, who were last to Amalgamate, had by grand consensus allowed one creature to leap into the Identity Pyramid. Its consciousness was unable to Amalagamate, but it soaked into the very stones of the Identity Pyramid itself, where it remained as a guardian spirit. It was an amphibious mammal, graceful in the water, lovably clumsy on land. It was called a Granshikot, whose name was Cherinello. This adorable spitting slurping consumer of fish and seaweed made a characteristic vocalization.

When it wanted to communicate it raised itself up on its anterior flippers and cried, "Ott ott! Ott ott."

Chapter Seventeen

Other Forms of Mind

"Have you been bored without me?" Garuvel inquired innocently.

"You know I never get bored," Darzel said, without inflection, as if it were indeed bored. Its voice was androgynous in a tantalizing way; it changed according to Darzel's mood. Most often it occupied a perfect register between male and female, so that one could attribute either gender to the voice. Garuvel could have set the voice when Darzel was installed in its nutrient bath and began to develop neurones. But he preffered to let Darzel play its own games of anthropomorphism. It would never be a human but it was completely sentient, and it spent most of it life either mingling with Garuvel and his friends or in deep and complex computational work with other neurolons.

"I never run out of fascinating projects," Darzel said, " while you are conducting your escapades on these endless planets." Garuvel wasn't sure if he was being teased, or even goaded. "While you have been away this time, I have been reading the fictional output of various so-called romantic novelists. I have been reading at human speed so that I could exactly duplicate the experience of waiting in a space terminal for an overdue shuttle. My favorite work is 'Crimson Bastions' by Bernice Knowlton -Harding. Have you ever had the pleasure of reading it?"

"Crimson Bastions! You've been reading potboilers. My mother read that when she was pregnant with me. Bernice Knowlton –Harding was an eleven hundred year old alcoholic innkeeper named Gustav DeWindt. Haven't you anything more sophisticated to read?"

"Well excuse me!", Darzel said, "I didn't realize that I travel with a literary snob. I felt that such material would give me a priceless insight into the human passions. Greed, revenge, jealousy, lust for power...."

"Never mind, Darzel. I'm teasing you back."

"I wasn't joking!" Darzel protested.

"I'm sorry," Garuvel apologized. "I never know with you."

"It isn't worth any grief," the ship replied. "I could take exception to your ability to make facile assumptions about me; but I don't really care, do I?"

"I said I was sorry," Garuvel sighed. He waited a moment. The conversation seemed to have come to a halt. He had apparently hurt his ship's feelings. Or, he corrected himself, he had hurt his ship's brain's feelings. Figment was the machine. Darzel was the personality, the intelligence, the logic that made the machine function.

Darzel's voice often had no local source. It could sometimes use this effect to make Garuvel uncomfortable. This was one such moment. A laugh began to emerge from all the surfaces at once. It was both good natured and mocking. It came in Darzel's rich tenor, multi-gendered, sardonic yet warm and forgiving. Garuvel had flipped up his black face visor, and was sorting through the cartridges for the relativity coordinator.

"I'm off the hook, aren't I?" Garuvel stated.

"You were never on any hook other than what you provided," Darzel replied.

"We need to attend to business," Garuvel motioned to the instruments and displays. He would allow his ship's persona to have the last word. It usually did.

Garuvel had shaved and cut his hair short. He had allowed his body to regenerate its native form: two eyes that functioned normally in yellow star-light, skin adapted to warmer climes. This, in accordance with his next destination, the planet Xtalus, of the star-system Hipnes.

"Darzel, I've got the cartridge set for Xtalus." He spoke the galactic quadrant grid, as Darzel would know Xtalus by its number, not by the quixotic name given to it by its denizens.

"On my mark," he said. He mentally counted off ten seconds. Then five more he counted aloud. He put a hand to his stomach, as the transition from matterspace to transpace always gave him a jolt of nausea. There were risks, of course, to changing one's self and all of one's equipment into a more rarefied form of Substance. Some people enjoyed it. For a few it was a phobic horror; they could only travel the old fashioned way, via wormholes and warps. Garuvel liked it; he liked the whole process, except for the nausea. He even liked the interval of utter terror experienced just after the rollthrough. It was, in a sense, a death. He and Darzel, and everything on board, would be reverted to a form of Being that was more like a blueprint, an idea, although one that is highly structured and realized. He would still be Garuvel, but his body would be virtually transparent. It would show lines of force, energy nexes where his organs would be, his brain would be a shining star with all its magnetic emanations revealed and connecting outward to everything else in Transpace. There were people who had gone mad upon entering this realm. Tranny Dementia, it was called, or "The Barrier Bong".

Garuvel had concentrated his way through the Flux Field, until the Trans Gate opened in his helmet-screen. He felt his stomach go lurchy as he pulled his concentration into the view offered by the Quantum Microscope.

Garvuvel knew himself to be Garuvel but his personality was so insignificant that it seemed to vanish within an infinite wave. There was a moment of terror as this felt like dying, drowning, annihilating everything in which he had identified himself.

He emerged on the other side of the wave transformed. He knew Garuvel. That was his human. He was pure I-ness, Self-ness. He knew why he was here. He could see through his ship, he could see through his own body. He could move freely but every movement vibrated the weblike filaments in which he floated.

Darzel now had a face, of sorts. It was a continuously morphing, androgynous image, occupying a portion of Garuvel's vision within his helmet. "Vision" itself was a misnomer. Garuvel wasn't using eyes to see. He was using the Sense of Sight itself, as if the sense were a living creature whose utility he was privileged to use. Sense of Sound, Sense of Smell, all senses including several not available to humans in matterspace. Sense of In-ness, On-ness, Throughness, Sense of Quantum Effervesence also existed in the multi-dimensional realm through which Garuvel voyaged.

Darzel's face was beautiful. Its androgyny gave it a childlike quality, yet its teasing cherubic smile bespoke mature experience.

"I love this, every time," Darzel's voice registered via Sense of Hearing. "It satisfies a very deep need I have for beauty."

Garuvel's tenuous body was more thought than matter, so it wasn't required that he respond in words. He gestured an interrogatory to his friend/computer/ship, as if to say, "Are your standards of beauty so different than those of humans?" He/she/it was emphatic. "Yes, very different." It looked around at the shimmering fields of tendrils reaching, touching, moving.

Garuvel's attention was suddenly drawn to a Thought-Creature that penetrated the ship as if the ship did not exist. It had a phosphorescent green collection of batlike wings, perhaps twenty of them, whose ribs and supporting structures were gleaming gold. Its pupil-less blue sapphire eyes were fixed on some distant idea as it passed right through Figment's structure and moved off into transpace. Garuvel twitched slightly when the entity came into view but Darzel behaved as if it were no surprise, as if visitations by such beings were routine.

"Was that one of yours or one of mine?" Garuvel inquired. He felt now as if he were the student and Darzel the teacher. The neurolon was more comfortable in a world of abstractions, was capable of discerning mirages from influences. Garuvel knew that his life depended on Darzel's judgment. It got him into transpace and out of transpace without putting him into the core of some planet or allowing a random local madness to board the ship and run amok. He gave Darzel a trust that he gave no other creature.

"It's not mine, and I don't think it's yours either." By now the creature was lost from sight amid the corruscating lights. "It's someone else's thought taking form and we just happened to be in its neighborhood."

Garuvel's nebulous body twitched. He was seized with a desire to leave Transpace before he encountered something that he could not handle. Most of his thoughts were set into a virtual chamber in the aft of the ship. In this dimension people's thoughts raced around disguised as all kinds of things. Early in his career as a pilot, Garuvel had devised this strategy: he would set aside all thoughts besides his immediate purpose by erecting a virtual file cabinet and placing his ideas and desires there, where they could not cause havoc. No one, no matter how refined and sophisticated, wished to be confronted with the entire catalogue of their mentations all at once, each thought and idea dressed in the garb of metaphor, each desire garishly costumed by one's own sardonic self contempt.

"Get us out of here," Garuvel said. He was frightened. Darzel's girl/boy face softened with sympathy. "I will begin the procedure," it informed him.

Garuvel had to form his intention to give direction to the ship. He was on his way to the planet Xtalus in the system of the star Hipnes. He knew it was core-ward, two galactic arms away from his present location. It was somewhat high in the galaxy's halo, almost outside the mainsphere. He visualized its location relative to where he had been. That was all that was necessary. Darzel extrapolated. The neurolon threw probes into matterspace at incredible speed. It began 'sewing', bringing into view star fields that appeared and disappeared with dizzying rapidity. The probe went "down" into matterspace, showed the field to Darzel/computer, then went "down" again, and again and again and again, until a familiar area was identified, and the ship's location in transpace corresponded roughly to an equivalent location in matterspace.

Darzel had passed nebulae, pulsars, gamma ray bursters, neutron stars, but it was looking for an ordinary asterism on the local galactic grid. A common group of stars that would lead towards Hipnes and the planet Xtalus.

Darzel saw what she wanted, and stopped sewing.

"Ready to de-trans?" she asked quietly.

Garuvel's pulse was racing as he remembered the fear of a few moments ago; he could not explain why he had become so afraid on this partticular transition. He felt pursued; there was a sense of someone in the neighborhood trying to find him. He thought at once of Boraz Bufaisdek. Why should that frighten him? Boraz was an enemy, to be sure. He had dealt with many formidable enemies. Once into transpace he should be utterly untraceable. A pursuer could dog his steps for millions of light years in matterspace, but after the Jump, any Jump, the game began anew. He was untraceable.

There was the possibility, however, that Boraz knew enough about him to anticipate his destination.....

"Uhm," Darzel interrupted his speculations. "I need your concentration for this part, too."

"Oh...sorry."

"I know," Darzel interjected. "You were worrying about your latest nemesis."

Garuvel did not respond. He didn't need to. He focused his mind on decelerating the Hyzinski particles. Darzel did the mechanics, the calculations, the braking through powerful magnetic fields. Garuvel concentrated on the subatomic particles. Transpace loomed closer and closer, and with an almost wrenching sense of grief, Garuvel and his ship and his belongings returned to matterspace.

Immediately, a familiar web of star lines became visible in Garuvel's helmet.

"Ah," Garuvel uttered with satisfaction. They were located just outside the system's Oort Cloud. "As always, beautifully accurate."

Darzel remained silent. It knew it was accurate; it did not require praise.

"Show me the gravity waves," Garuvel requested. His view field suddenly blossomed with complex patterns of grey ripples, crossing and re-crossing, spreading from each object in the cloud of asteroids and particles.. The strength of the expanding bands corresponded to the objects' masses. At places, many bands crossed and joined, in a pattern too complex for Garuvel to resolve visually. Darzel would pilot them through the confusing outer ring of the system's primoridial remnants.

"Are you computed?" he asked.

"Of course I'm computed," Darzel answered saltily.

"Then let's swing." Garuvel had been removing his clothes and running his hands through the bedding in the stasis chamber he had removed from the bulkhead. He would sleep for as long as it took Darzel to maneuver to Xtalus. The relativity coordinator was loaded: time would be time, as it always was. Past and future were irrelevant. When he landed on Xtalus, he might have passed a few weeks, a few months, but his body would not know it, not show it. Objective time had no reality. In transpace, physical distance was non-existent. The entire universe was simply in one vast Present.

Figment picked up speed, until it had completed the first sling-shot maneuver around the high-density locus. This momentum got them to the next locus, where they bumped the gravity field again, acquiring yet more momentum. Soon they were turning and gyrating like a pinball, each tangential bump moving them faster and faster. They sped by degrees towards Hipnes and at a point computed by Darzel, they began slowing gradually.

Garuvel decided not to put himself in sleep-stasis. There were things to do. He needed to research the Urchives for anything about the Starwind Communion, Calakadon, Boraz Bufaisdek.

What he found was almost nothing. "Starwind Communion: A legendary confederation of civilizations reputed to have existed in one of the First, or Old Galaxies during the time of the Epic Kingdoms. See Lost Polities, gravitational effects on near- event horizon planets, orbital mechanics." Gee, thanks.

"Trail of Ten Million Worlds: Ancient widespread aggregate of legends with a common theme. The concept is based around the idea that there is a specific sequence of worlds along which an interstellar traveler must pass in order to obtain a state of spiritual insight or enlightenment. This can be achieved in a single lifetime or over the course of many incarnations, depending upon the variant of the legend being told. Contact with the worlds and the civilizations that live upon them creates a transformation in the character of the traveler. Delusions, attachments, neuroses, illnesses and pathologies are ultimately healed in those whose courage and persistence keep them dedicated to completing the task of traveling the Trail. The legend has currency in a large number of cultures ranging from the Ildak Cities of Herlia to the Ronroki Repubilcs in the Fonce Galaxy's third arm worlds. Catalogs and maps of the specific worlds to be traveled have been written, copied, forged, fabricated and fantasized in an almost endless variety of permutations, none of which can be proven to be definitive. Yet the legend of the Trail of Ten Million Worlds persists in a seemingly eternal and infinite range of environments."

Ah...well. Tell me something new.

A metasearch for Calakadon turned up nothing. A search for Boraz Bufaisdek, or the Hefto of Ifyonar brought back a confusion of pages, none of which connected anything to anything else. That in itself was odd. Anyone who had been alive for more than a decade had at least fifty notations in the Unicom. Garuvel could enter any of his twenty aliases and read about himself as other identities for hours. This was in spite of the near fanatical attempts to erase himself from all records. It just couldn't be done. The moment an entity breathed so much as a single document, it took on a life of its own and passed into the eternal cyberscape of existence.

Search for Melolos. "Possible name of mythical Starwind Communion Planet; source unreliable. See Melios, M'lossos, Lemosos."

Search for Nutun Utulo.

Nothing. Not a sentence, not a paragraph. Nothing.

A few day- cycles passed. At length they were back to system-entry speed, passing Hipnes' outer bodies: Jerry, Phil, the shattered belt of Pigpen's Clot, until they were just beyond the orbits of Xtalus' two moons.

Xtalus had been founded by a group of utopian Skullheads, acolytes of the archaic 'Lunge 'n Squeeze' band, the Dreadful Great. Anarchic and pacifist, they had eschewed defensive arrays. Everyone had been welcome to Xtalus if they did their own thing without bothering anyone else.

Of course, ninety percent of the original colony had been wiped out by a roving band of Bummers. The survivors plundered their remaining bank accounts on Fiscus Rep and ordered a formidable defensive capacity. They instituted rigorous psychological quarantine. Xtalus had survived and prospered, and echoes of its utopian ethos still resonated when Garuvel had last visited.

He was on Xtalus because he had a friend.

Friends were always a problem for Garuvel. There were many vulnerabilities, traps and pitfalls where love and friendship were concerned.

He outlived his friends and loves. He burned with agony when they succumbed to accidents, or their bodies at last wore down. Even in this time with this technology, with transfers of complete memories into clones, with arrays of nano-replication and genetic transformation of slowing organs, death still walked the spheres of the universe. One did not mess with death. One did not change death.

The most common cause of death among the people of Garuvel's universe was a gestalt of psychological and emotional weariness. After seven, eight thousand years, the will simply gave out. There were only so many things one could do. Only those who burned with an ardor from within, a ruling purpose, managed to hang on to life.

Garuvel must always ALWAYS conceal his Gift to all except those he chose as mate. And that had happened only once. If he revealed his power- that-was-no-power, he would be treated like a man with a vast fortune, an emperor. All chance of real communication or intimacy was gone, vaporized.

He came to Xtalus to find his friend, the musician Robolion Spdaz.

He knew something was amiss when no customs post hailed them. When he sailed through the Outer Defense Layer without being contacted by an analyst, the skin at the back of his neck began tingling.

"Something's wrong here, Darzel. Let's scan."

Various views of the planet's surface zoomed in and out of his field. "There are people," Darzel reported. "No radiation scorches, no unusual plasma discharges. The space port looks completely idle, but is functional. I'm getting a communication now."

Garuvel's helmet blossomed with the face of a scraggly-haired man with a grey beard that reached below his armpits. His lips were twitching and his eyes held a desperate, hungry quality.

"Hey, dude," said the man, narrowing his eyes and craning his head forward as if he were looking into a dark murky corridor. "Have you got the shipment?"

"Who the hell are you?" Garuvel demanded. "Where's the Quarantine Analyst?"

"Ohh shit," the man turned and spoke to someone out of camera. "It's not the shipment." Garuvel heard mutters and a curse, someone said, "Whadda you mean, it's not the fucking ship...." then the image went dark.

"Let's go in, Darzel. Carefully." There was a sour sensation at the back of his throat. "Keep scanning for other coms."

On the way into the port, they were questioned four more times by desperate looking people asking about The Shipment.

Xtalus had a history of drug fads. This time there was none of the usual joyous quality so generic to Xtalusians. Physically addictive drugs had always been Quarantined away; but this pleading for The Shipment had a familiar and terrible ring.

Figment landed without mishap on a deserted pad. No techs, no maintenance crew, no analysts awaited them.

"Darzel, I would rather you come with me," Garuvel said.

"All right, go ahead, lay your grimy paws on me."

Garuvel blinked three times quickly with his left eye. A tralium-metal slide came whooshing from the bulkhead in front of Garuvel's flight throne. A transparent globe sat upon the slide. A gel filled its innards, and at the center of the gel was a chip, mounted on a disc about half the size of Garuvel's palm. Countless red, green and yellow nerve fibers ran through the gel. They all radiated outward from the chip. Some of them connected at diodes and capacitors on the surface of the gel; some trailed away into the transparent medium, without apparent function. They were simply growing that way, as they must.

Garuvel produced a tool, a probe with a complex end, a dovetail plate with an intricate cleat.

"Easy, Buster," warned Darzel.

"Have I ever hurt you, caused you discomfort?" Garuvel asked pedantically.

"You have given me bad dreams," Darzel responded with a feigned dry quiver. "And I hate not being able to talk."

Squinting, Garuvel touched the globe with the tool, and it split down the middle, each half retaining its form, yet falling away to expose the chip at its center. The nerve fibers pulled away, and Darzel gave a slight squawk, which caused Garuvel to wince.

"Sorry sorry," he apologized. He had no way of knowing whether he was being put on or whether Darzel experienced real distress. It always squawked this way when removed from its environment. Darzel never mentioned it, upon being restored to its nutrient sphere. He had a feeling it was a bit of Darzel's capriciousness, that the squawk was a tiny volt of happy malice in the neurolon's fertile garden of jokes.

After a few waves in the air, the Darzel chip was dry. Garuvel then applied a prophylactic spray and placed Darzel in a small velvet box which he put it in his jacket pocket.

As he walked down the long debarkation ramp, Garuvel could hear the song of doo-wops, the clicking of heath-beetles. He saw dogs chasing one another across a yacht pad nearby. The sun, Hipnes, was gifting the planet's northern hemisphere with a classic summer day. From the elevation of the space port, he could see across the forest to the town of Gobaby. The most grating thing was that he could hear no music. There were distant chimes, and the sussuration of wind-harps left untended in the Freaking Forest. But any normal day on Xtalus would be alive with the echoes of festivals, raves and skullbangers. Today there was nothing.

Garuvel felt the tube of his synapse disruptor, tucked into his waist pouch. He did not feel safe. He had never before felt unsafe on Xtalus. The very essence of the planet had been Safe.

The terminal building was a high-roofed arena, an octagon with sky lights shaped like elongated cups sloping inward on each of the facets. Usually there were hundreds of people about, exchanging technical journals, drugs, computer specs. Stalls would be set up for selling the latest power amplifiers, light-weight speaker panels, recipes for trickle-bean sprouts, healing crystals from the asteroids outside Pigpen's Clot.

Cautiously, Garuvel passed through the arched gateway, holding to the side and then pausing with his back to the wall. There were some fifty-odd people, isolated in nervous groups of three and four, clinging to the perimeter and huddled about the eight gates. Furtive, sullen whispers echoed weakly off the synth-marble floor. The stalls were empty. The Scintilla soloist was absent. The platform where garage bands played was occupied by a squatting hawker with a number of small woven baskets arrayed on a ratty blanket. He was showing a lacquered cup to a prospective customer.

A man detached himself from the group at the nearest portal. His hair was matted, and he wore only a dirty leather loin cloth and ripped athletic shoes. His face had sunk so much that he seemed to be stooping under the ledge of his eyebrows.

"I got petals, man," he said. "I got the best petals." His hand was extended, palm down, fingers splayed open. A string threaded its way through his open digits. A dozen grotesque looking dried flowers dangled from loops in the string. Garuvel inhaled a sickly-sweet odor, and put his hand out when the man stepped so close that his unwashed smell mingled with that of the petals.

"What are those?"

The peddler looked at him as if he were slow-witted. Then a calculating smile spread across the man's face. "You've never had Futufu, man? Where, oh where have you been?" He detached a single petal from the string and placed it in an implement that looked like a plastic garlic press. He was suddenly all aflutter with lacquer cups and heat coils.

"I got the whole setup. Right here. I'm cheaper than Roost over there, and my press don't break, and the heater's battery is fresh. Whole thing'll run you, ohh, maybe ten sildeks. Or if you've got Fiscus Creds I'll make it five reps."

Garuvel was already moving away. Xtalus, Xtalus! he was thinking. How could this happen? He had read about Futufu on a file download from Galactic Nexus News . The origin of the drug was still unknown. Its effects were devastating, and the Potent Substances Forum was getting the word out. A dozen worlds near Pablo's Wisp had collapsed. Before the Detox Volunteers could get there, a billion people had starved to death in an ecstasy of dreams.

Ignoring several predatory stares, Garuvel went to the nearest bank of vones. Worried and impatient, he tapped Robolion Spdaz' code and rocked from foot to foot as it played his friend's signature chord. the gorgeous fan of notes repeated ten times, fifteen, then abruptly turned into an ugly honk as the line capriciously flipped into another code.

Garuvel held it anyway, until a slurpy female voice responded.

"Hi-yeee," the voice giggled. "I'm not here. I' m gaw-aw-awn. No point leaving a message. Bye-eee."

Garuvel laid the vone back in its slot. He could feel people converging behind him, and as he turned he saw a man swinging a weighted sock. He leaned toward the attacker so that the sock went whizzing past his ear. Off balance, the man was now moving forward with his own momentum. Garuvel put his left shoulder inside the assailant's armpit, turned slightly and raised his body so that his opponent was now faced with a choice of either breaking his own shoulder or twisting himself headlong over Garuvel and ending up on his back. His reflexes were good enough to take the latter action.

Simultaneous with this simple motion, Garuvel palmed the control on his synapse disruptor and set it to wide dispersion. As he triggered the control, he saw all of his attackers' eyes roll back in their heads. They would have a mild seizure for about twenty minutes. People outside the weapon's radius began edging toward the exits.

Garuvel left the terminal's main gate and took a two-wheeled transporter that must have belonged to a member of the Profane Cherubs cycle club. It was a gaudy chromium monster, its engine a fusion-power mock-up of an ancient internal combustion device. Gathering dust in the parking lot was an assortment of Cherry-red Biddies, canvas-topped Moonmobiles and wildly painted Panky buses.

Downtown Gobaby smelled bad. Dogs and ring-tailed Bindies were fighting across the broken windows of Wiggie's Health Foods.

Robolion lived above the New Leaf, on the first street parallel to the town's main boulevard. He played the venue three nights a week, drawing fans from all across the galaxy. His windows were opaqued. On such a day, he could usually be found sitting nude in the sun's rays, working on a score or modifying his N'thumbu.

People were running across Holsh'mere Street, disappearing into store fronts and alleyways. Garuvel heard yelling and banging, and as he approached the New Leaf, a sensation began in the pit of his stomach. His back and neck tingled, his innards began to roll.

He recognized the symptoms of a subsonic that could only be generated by Robolion's unique instrument, the N'thumbu.

There was a door at the side of the New Leaf that opened to a flight of steps leading to Robolion's apartment. The door flew open and several people tumbled out, falling over one another. A vile stench reached Garuvel. Two men and a woman had fallen out the door and were tearing their clothes and underclothes, kicking them into the street. The garments were fouled and stained.

Robolion's window slid up, and Garuvel saw the huge, dark figure of his friend. "Yeah! Yeah!" he was screaming, and the swan-like neck of the N'thumbu poked forward, undulating like a charmed serpent. Garuvel ran behind a planter in the middle of the street, flattened himself and held his ears. The discomfiting subsonic began to rise into audible frequencies, faster and faster, until a single, screeching note left the top of hearing range, then descended again and became part of a combination of sounds that Garuvel could only liken to the screaming of a legion of doomed souls locked in agony in some horrid, dripping hell.

The planter cracked, spilling bits of potting soil onto Garuvel's head and back. He heard Robolion laugh as the sound ended. Peering around his shelter, he saw three half-naked people running for their lives down Holsh-mere Street.

"Motherfuckers think you can rip me off?" Robolion's voice carried into the street, echoing hollowly. "Come on back, I got more!" His voice contained an alarming note of hysteria.

Garuvel stood, dusting himself off. Robolion was still at the window, but the Nthumbu had disappeared. Garuvel gingerly avoided the discarded clothing and stood at the base of the New Leaf.

"Son of a bitch! That you, Rebed? Oh man, oh man." Robolion almost sobbed with relief. "Ha! Did you see that? Whoo! I hoped I'd never need to play a tone like that, a destructive sound. That's bad, man, when sound becomes a weapon. It happens, man. I had to protect myself and my friend."

Garuvel brushed mulch from his hair. "Is it safe to come up now?"

The musician leaned halfway out the window, dangling his hairy arms as if he could lift his friend from the street. "Maybe you've noticed, things aren't good around here. It's time to go, goddammit. The supply of shit is dwindling and there's gonna be a war between dealers and their gangs."

Garuvel stepped toward the door. It slid aside. Avoiding the smashed float ramp he took the steps two at a time until he reached a barricade of boxes and junk. Robolion, at the other side, removed a wooden slat, creating a tiny crawl space. When Garuvel slithered through, he was engulfed in Robolion's embrace. His friend was seven feet tall, bear-like, massive and strong. His eyebrows rode high on his forehead, which gave his face an innate whimsicality. He looked as if he embodied a very great and subtle joke. His eyes were shaped like elongated teardrops that narrowed and sloped downward on his cheekbones. He smelled of Vim-smoke and stress.

As he held Robolion Garuvel could see, past his friend's shoulder, the doorway to the apartment. A woman stood there, with an expression of relief and curiosity. She was petite, with short black hair and eyes of piercing blue. Neither plain nor pretty, she conveyed to Garuvel an air that seemed shy but mysterious.

Robolion began to shake in Garuvel's arms. He could feel the huge man's breath clutching. The musician released Garuvel and turned away, covering his face. "Sorry, Rebed, but this really hurts. Xtalus is ruined; I don't know where I'll go now. How not-weird it is for you to turn up. You always seem to appear at moments of crisis in my life." Arm in arm, they walked into the sitting room, where Robolion flopped with a sigh onto a chair-cushion, wiping his tears. He had the jet-black skin of a Goyko, from planet Aljiamado. That skin color had forced him to leave his home world.

Garuvel was about to make a soothing sound, when the woman emerged from the kitchen holding a cup of steaming liquid. The first things Garuvel noticed were the small initiation scars at the ridge of her cheekbones. Then he took in the rest of her face, and the breath left him. Vwanzila! he thought. But she looked nothing like Vwanzila. Where his love had light hair and dark skin, this woman had dark hair and light skin. The expression on her face was an expression Garuvel had not seen in centuries. It was an expression of infinite softness combined with steely determination. It was the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

"This is my friend, Jaramine," Robolion said, aware that something unusual was taking place.

"Jaramine. That's my home star, but pronounced with a slightly different inflection. Jaramin," he said softly, "Jaramin, sun of my childhood, star that taught me to see." Garuvel took her hand, looked again into those intensely blue eyes. Her fingers were warm. Her cheekbones were stark, and the slanted shape of her eyes was emphasized by dark brows that looked like raven's wings.

"It was a star in our sky," she said, "a star we chanted nursery rhymes about. My parents named me for that very bright and beautiful star. We must have been born in the same neighborhood." She smiled, and Garuvel knew that she knew, that the recognition was instant and mutual. When she smiled, she lit with a radiance that took him falling into a calm, infinite vastness. He tried to look away, but couldn't. She regarded him with deep composure, from which a force of powerful adoration reached toward him, touched him, then moved beyond him.

"Vwan," he almost said. But she was not, could not be, Vwanzila.

Robolion saw them looking at each other. "Oh..' he said. Then, "hmmm. You know each other?"

They stopped gazing and turned to Robolion.

"We've never met, " said Jaramine. "But sometimes there are people you just know, and you don't know how you know. I think your friend Rebed and I are like that. We know that we know each other, we just don't know the details yet."

Garuvel didn't need to inquire about the nature of the relationship between Boli and Jaramine. She wasn't Boli's type. The musician tended to be a drifting cloud where women were concerned. He always moaned about not finding someone to settle down with. Yet he was drawn to the ladies around the bandstand; dalliances lasted a few weeks before changing into new dalliances.

"If it weren't for Jaramine I might be wacked on futufu right at this moment," Robolion explained. "She didn't tell me to lay off the shit. She ORDERED me to lay off the shit. And when my friend Jaramine puts it down like that, I stop and listen. For the last nine days we 've been trapped in here; people have tried to rob and kill us. I brought all the food up from the club, but in another day or two we would have started to get hungry." Robolion laid his fingers at the ivory base of the N'thumbu. They were spatulate from years of pressing the instrument. An idle stroke of his obsidian-colored hand brought forth a tone that rang and stretched into a dozen harmonics that evoked and teased and never quite resolved. His lips curved with satisfaction.

"Did you see those people? I never got that effect before. I think I regressed them to infancy. I used the bottom bell-string with my thumb and let the phase roll over, real slow. Then I turned all six knobs, going heavy on Reh, Zoh, Teem, letting the waves cancel each other, and......" he looked up, then realized that his friends would know little of which he was speaking. He sighed. "Well, it was really strange."

"You might need it again, some time, Boli, but it was not just strange, it was nasty." Garuvel went to the kitchen, saw that the samovar was warm, and poured himself a cup of black Cha. Empty grain sacks and a few boxes of concentrate were strewn across the table. He looked out the back windows, examined the trees, yurts and tents where Robolion's closest neighbors lived in summer. There was no activity. A pedal-skate lay on its side in the alley. A Thunder Lizard sports coupe sat with its hood up on shredded tires.

He sipped the Cha, then got two more cups. In the sitting room he passed one to Robolion, and placed the other on the low table. He looked again at Jaramine. Every time he saw her, she looked different. She was kneeling over a wooden box, putting things gently into its padded interior. Her movements had deliberate grace; the act of placing metal utensils and small cloth sacks into the box seemed ritualistic. She gave her full attention to each item, then placed it into the box's interior with grave precision.

With an effort, Garuvel tore his gaze from the woman. He raised his cup to Robolion, who acknowledged the gesture with his own cup. Garuvel asked for the story with his eyes.

Robolion gave a gusting sigh, and his eyes began to fill again.

"It's been such a mess here. I can't get any beer. I smoked the last Vim yesterday. And there isn't any kwooch."

"Kwooch? I'm not familiar with the term."

Robolion glanced at Jaramine sheepishly. "You know....the girls in the club."

"Ohh. On Roji Four you called it 'fremmie'." Garuvel couldn't resist teasing his friend. "On Lakash, it was 'twim'."

A rosy hue shone through Robolion's dark skin. "You're embarassing me."

"You're easy to embarass." He patted the musician fondly on the cheek.

Jaramine looked at them matter-of-factly.

"I love this place, it's been my home," Robolion continued, but grief made it difficult for his voice to fill with air. He put the tips of the fingers of both hands above his eyebrows, momentarily hiding his face. When he looked up again, he was calm. "This place is a little goofy, a little sentimental, maybe. But if you compare their way of life with some of the nutso shit that goes on in the galaxy, I say why the hell not? They were music fans. They listened well. Twenty years on Aljami, and all I got was stony silence. On Xtalus I had an audience, I was happy. One day it was Xtalus as usual. Then all of a sudden, everyone's coming on to this Futufu shit. 'Try it, you'll like it'. Yeah, where've I heard that before? 'Better than Hi-lusion, or Tritomex Mole Turds'. You know me, Rebed. I never take anything until I've watched a lot of people take it first. I didn't like this at all. The cup and the squeezer and all that crap. Big Ritual. Everybody has to do it the same way. Couple years ago, it was Jingoola lizard guts. That was a bummer, and it disappeared in two, three weeks. I thought the same thing would happen with Futufu pods. It was sneaky. I think it was a carefully designed ploy. The first couple loads weren't strong. People got dreamy, and there didn't seem to be a problem. Then, little by little, the stuff coming in got stronger and stronger. Nobody even knew it was hard, until it was too late. You can't quit this stuff! I buzzed the planet net to see if anyone was left. Nothing but funny vone messages."

"And me," said Jaramine, sitting in a third cushion-chair, the box with its lustrous red wood placed firmly on her lap.

"And Jaramine", Robolion confirmed. "The only one I could find, anyway. She was at the museum, giving a seminar on psychifacts."

"Is that what's in the box?" asked Garuvel. His eyebrows rose and pulled his eyes more open. He had a sudden avidity in his manner. "I've only seen three outside of museums. You have to earn them, don't you?"

Jaramine's right hand rested at the center of the box. Between her fingers, Garuvel could see an embossed symbol, a compelling swirl of strange geometry.

"There are four in here," Jaramine said calmly. Her voice was low and slightly hoarse. "And the box is one too."

Garuvel was enthralled. He could feel Robolion looking at him with approving amusement. He wanted to know everything about her, immediately! But he knew enough to wait; she would unfold herself, if she so desired, in her own time.

The friends were sipping tea, thoughtfully, when something hit the front window with a loud crash. It bounced off, but another object followed, starting a crack at the top of the pane, sending a pile of Robolion's recording flakes cascading from a shelf to the floor.

Robolion cleared the window with a wave of his hand. They looked out to the street, where six people in rags were chipping and hauling pieces of the broken planter to the front of the New Leaf. A skeletal woman wearing a leather motorcycle helmet and ragged shorts screamed in the direction of Robolion's apartment. "We know you're hoarding the flowers up there, screwhead! Black bastard!"

Chapter Eighteen

The Aia

Robolion's frame shrank with sorrow. "That's the first time in all my years on Xtalus that I've been called black." He looked at Jaramine. "The last fight left me tired. Can you do this?"

Jaramine nodded dispassionately. She kneeled and placed the wooden box on the low table where the tea cups simmered. Humming almost inaudibly, she raised the lid and made a gesture, waving one hand around, with the fingers curled as if they held an invisible sphere. Then she took from within the box a smaller box. It contained a crystal, a pinky finger-sized irridescent gem. The jewel was cut and faceted with great complexity. One end was a sharp point; the other blossomed into a small globe that swirled with internal colors.

When she rose and turned, Jaramine's eyes were misted over; she seemed blind to the world. Approaching the window, she raised the jewel to her face.

Garuvel twitched, startled, when she took the sharp point of the jewel and pushed it firmly into the center of her forehead. It disappeared so that nothing but the pulsing globe remained, perched on her smooth pale skin. Something emitted from the faceted sphere; Garuvel could feel the air crackling around the woman's body.

Below, in the street, dilapidated men and women began to laugh and scratch at themselves. Their knees gave way, and they tumbled onto heaps of blowing, drifting paper. Scratching their armpits, the bottom of their feet, they laughed, and paused occasionally, bewildered, only to start laughing harder.

Jaramine had seemed to grow several inches in girth and stature. Now she contracted into herself, removing the gem from her brow. When she had replaced it into its boxes, she raised still-distant eyes to her companions.

"We should go now, I think." Her voice was almost a whisper. She tucked the box firmly under her arm, and eyed Robolion and Garuvel. She seemed embarassed, possibly ashamed, at what she had just done with the strange psychifact. Then she shook off her feeling, accepting the necessity of defending herself and her friends.

"All set, Boli? I've got my luggage in my pocket." Garuvel patted Darzel's chip, and checked his synapse disruptor.

Robolion lifted the N'thumbu, turned its curved neck inward, pressed down so that it collapsed into the hour-glass shape of the instrument's body. He placed it reverently into a velvet-lined case and latched it shut. With a trace of formality, he turned off the main switch to the musical electronics stacked around the room.

"Looks like I'm going un-tethered," he said. "Never did need all this junk to play music." Taking a small rucksack from a hook above the fireplace, he opened his arms and shepherded Jaramine and Garuvel through the door. At the barrier, he kicked over the boxes, allowing them to pass through.

On the street, the group of befuddled people were groaning and laughing, scratching and groaning. Unable to reach remote parts of their own bodies, they had begun to scratch one another. Robolion signaled toward a long, maroon car, festooned with fins and ornate hubcaps. He jingled some keys in his pocket. "Wait until I find out if it starts."

The door opened with a whoosh of air, and the trapped heat inside spilled into the musician's face. He sat down and turned the key in its slot. The seat was so hot he could barely tolerate it. Sweat beads launched themselves in a line along his forehead. The car did not start. Robolion got out and looked up and down the road. The futufu shortage could be felt rumbling beneath the town like a temblor. "Okay, I've got an idea," he said. "Let's go this way." They followed down an alley and across a field. When they reached a high hedge, Robolion's arm held them back. He took a small monocular from his pocket and examined a house at the bottom of a long slope. "That's the house of Rik-Paul-Dave Vitosam, the top futufu dealer in Gobaby." He handed the monocular to Garuvel. From their vantage point they could hear shouts coming from around the house. Through the lens, Garuvel saw a sizeable band of people converging at the front door. They surrounded a tall man with long blonde hair and a full beard, whose hands were held out in supplication. The crowd engulfed the man, grabbed his limbs to carry him upside down, screaming. They roared into his house, shattering windows, trellises, everything.

"Around back." Robolion instructed. "We have to climb the hill."The town of Gobaby was slowly filling with people. There were shouts, bangs, shatterings of glass.

Garuvel and his friends ran up the hill. "It's still here," Robolion said with relief. "Rik-Paul-Dave's escape hatch. He should've been less stoned. Now it's ours." They approached a device that was perched at the lip of the hill. It was an enormous hang-glider, sitting on a length of track at the end of a catapult. Under its gossamer wings was an enclosed car large enough to fit four people.

Robolion loaded his N'thumbu and their other bits of luggage into a compartment behind the seats. He let Jaramine and Garuvel into the couch-like seat in the back, then squeezed himself behind the steering stick. "You guys ready? Belted in?"

They nodded. Robolion touched a control, the catapult reacted, and they were launched into soaring silence.

Below them, Xtalus ignited into chaos and violence.

After a few minutes of flight, the silence in the car grew dense. Robolion gave himself to his sense of loss, and let his tears flow quietly. Garuvel was aware of Jaramine. He could feel her awareness of him. The image of this woman with the scintillant jewel in her forehead, swelling with power, filled him with wild emotions, feelings that would not be tamed in spite of his efforts.

The pain of losing Vwanzila imprisoned him. He feared this attraction; it would render him vulnerable.

As if he had spoken aloud, Jaramine turned to him. He could not interpret her expression. Her eyes were narrow and haughty, as if she were suspicious of him.

"What?" she demanded. Above her eyebrows, concentration made two ridges of skin that formed a trench running across her forehead.

"Oh god,' he groaned. "I'm afraid to say anything."

"Then you should say it."

Garuvel hesitated. His chest throbbed with terror. This was worse than going into battle on the Warring Worlds. There was a wall in front of him that he must breach. It was a dreadful chance. It could go all wrong; but hell, he must take it.

"I have not loved in a thousand years. In your presence I feel wild, foolish, confused, inapproriate. I'm tempted to call it love, but experience has taught me that in such a short time, that's not possible."

Jaramine's eyes narrowed even further. She suddenly looked feral, like a she-wolf. She was like the gem, Garuvel thought. So many facets, each aspect different. Each of them enthralling.

"What you feel is the desire not to be lonely, the need to be deeply connected to someone," she said, then paused. "I'm sorry, that sounds so pedantic. It may be true, but what a horrible way to express myself." She looked away, looked inward for a moment. "I'm just as confused as you are. Seven hundred twenty eight years. Without a partner. Lots of teachers, friends, no one really close. I spent a hundred as a man, hoping to be less vulnerable, but then I reverted." A warm wind came through the glider's windows. Garuvel could now see, in the bright daylight, fine streaks of silver nestled among the iridescent sheen of her dark hair.

"I've had a lot of practice pretending that I'm self-sufficient", Garuvel admitted. "When I saw you, all of that fell apart." He snapped his fingers, to indicate how quickly and easily it had happened. "Either I don't need to know you to love you, or I know you more than I think I do. At this moment I just feel intensely. Intense love, intense pain, intense grief, intense loneliness." He put his face in his hands and began to shake. Vwanzila was dead; this woman beside him was alive.

From his mouth came a howl, a wordless exhortation of struggle. He cried, helpless, once again the little boy at the dinner table, being taken by huge men, taken away from his family.

He felt Jaramine's fingers curving around his own, gently pulling at his mask. She brought his hands in hers, down, to hold them firmly in her lap. He was forced to meet her gaze with his naked grief, to reveal himself as a desperate, forlorn child.

"Have you ever heard anyone speak of the 'aia'?", she asked him gravely. He shook his head. She leaned toward him. What he saw in her eyes was a grief and a love that mirrored his own. She pressed her forehead to Garuvel's, so that they were nose to nose, lips to lips. He felt the movement of her breath, smelled a sweet and tangy odor. Then he felt a heat, emanating from the place where Jaramine had inserted the jeweled psychifact into her head. He had an interior vision of a tiny, but incredibly dense seed, moving from that place to the same place in his own forehead. The essence of Jaramine's experience, the totality of a wisdom more ancient than her present body, flowed from her self to his. Then, like a fruit being plucked from a vine, the seed from within his own being flowed up from his heart, expanded with gorgeous hot ferocity and was fired like a projectile into Jaramine.. They exchanged, in a second, the parts of themselves that were irreducable yet indestructable.

Now he understood how he could love her, so immediately, so quickly.

"My aia just spoke to yours," she whispered. Garuvel panted, sniffed through his blocked nose, exhaled giant sighs. The shaking of his body would not stop. "Is it possible that I can trust you? You left me once," he managed to squeak, as tears welled up as if bursting from his chest.

Crying more quietly, Jaramine put her arm around him, pulled his head onto her shoulder. "I'll be here for you. I've been here all along, even when you thought you were alone. Will you be here for me?" Garuvel nodded, shuddered deeply with relief. He was no longer abandoned. He had never been alone.

Chapter Nineteen

New Kinds Of Thought

The robiot Trace was thinking. It was not like any thinking he had done before. It was more connected to his body, deeper. He knew the thinking that went into adjusting the gears to a futufu press, or aligning a laser cutter for the stalks. But here, aboard Mythmaker, he was thrust into a new situation that required moral judgment and ethical discernment.

"The New Sentience is so painfully new", he mused, as his ship used its computer to weave in and out of transpace. The computer was old, its sewing was cumbersome. PIctures of star fields blipped through his helmet every hundredth of a second. Without an element of sheer luck, he could be stuck out here for months, perhaps years. Yet he gave himself to the task with a large element of faith. He and his people had not come this far to be deterred by a lack of the latest technology.

He had read all the data on Rebed Singman. Whether he was a sorceror or a scientist, it was impossible to determine. Kitor and the Command Group had blitzed the Borgomak computer files and determined that this person Singman had recovered a puzzle piece, the piece that Boraz Bufaisdek was chasing. The intelligence from Vizmir's files traced Singman back more than four hundred years. He had changed names and DNA structures many times, but he was given away by his ship. That ship left a peculiar ion signature that had been tracked backwards through several worlds. Using various names, the person now called Rebed Singman had been involved in a political crisis on Krehash: his journalism had undermined a vile propaganda campaign by a media conglomerate. He had stopped a civil war by the simple use of truth.

He had used music to heal a wisdom-plague on Dyrel. He had averted a famine and stopped the desertification of Planchis, by showing how a simple grass could hold the Nagar Hills from sliding into the Ten Rivers.

Was this a man upon whom he would practice violence or deception? Or was this a man whose talents could be vital to the robiot cause?

Trace had no qualms about any methods whatsoever. He just felt that persuasion might be more efficient than coercion. He wasn't sure Rebed Singman could easily be coerced. His plan was simple, and it felt right. If he got the opportunity, he would ask for the puzzle-piece. As simple as that. The Council had sent him into space in lieu of attempting a theft of those Puzzle Pieces in Vizmir's possession. The Prince still had the power to destroy them all..every robiot on Strobe.

Good. He had decided. Was this feeling in his blood, of easy flow and moderate rhythm, one of satisfaction at making a good decision? Yes, he would call it that.

From everything he had learned, Trace thought it best to travel toward the planet Xtalus. He had directed his computer to do so. His blood began to speed, his skin tickled in an unpleasant way. Anxiety? Yes. Definitely anxiety.

How quickly emotions change.

Chapter Twenty

Corrupted Minds

There were small beads of sweat on Prince Vizmir's upper lip. He didn't have a true moustache, just an unshaven area where hair sprouted sparsely. By ones and twos these droplets grew heavy enough to fall from their whiskered perch and roll toward the prince's chin where they vanished in the thicket of his close-shaven beard. The prince held a blue towel in his left hand, which he used to wipe his brow. In his right hand he clutched a glazed cup containing creamed hi-octane Koff, freshly ground and sweetened with synthetic honey.

At the Bistro Golabello there was a small circle of empty tables around the table at which Vizmir and Boraz sat. Kitor and Vloko stood behind their respective masters. A large umbrella rose from the table's center to protect them from Strobe's fierce summer sun. Air conditioning vents planted in the promenade exuded a general cooling effect, so that visitors, tourists and tradespeople could walk from booth to booth in the Mangor Market. The Bistro occupied the center of the market and drew hundreds of people a day for Koff and scoons. Served by lively robiots, the patrons came to relax and gossip about which Major was groping which Senior Biologist, what the crop would be like this year, whether Princess Zyreen had turned down yet another proposal from some royal visitor. The Mangor occupied a blister of canopied stalls just inside the Oldest Wall, just under the jutting rampart of the Older Wall, which was overtopped by the Old Wall. These layers of cut stone blocks, concrete bricks and shaped plasterplast ran down to the Three Gates. This was a sightseeing destination within the larger sightseeing destination of Castle Strobe itself. Most of Strobe's human population came to the Three Gates from time to time; they brought their children, told them stories about the Borgomak Wars of Succession, explained what had happened to Old King Izvrim.

Boraz had grown restless lolling around in his aerie of luxury apartments. With considerable effort, he cajoled the prince to emerge from his tower to sit at a café. Vizmir acknowledged that it would be politically desirable to be seen. When Boraz asked if he was embarassed to be seen with the likes of himself, Boraz Bufaisdek, the prince was genuinely shocked.

"Why would I be embarassed, or even remotely care, what my subjects think of my dealings with whomever I please?"

Boraz projected a wolfish smile and gestured with both hands towards his face, with its smoke and flames shooting from ears, nostrils, beard, head. The whites of his eyes had reverted to crimson. Vizmir had grown accustomed to this flamboyant visage. It was no more strange that any cosmopolitan skin-freak or tat-head, some of whom circulated in the Mangor today. They stopped to admire Boraz' adornments, but they were kept at a distance by the bodyguards and by the atmosphere or royal awe in which Vizmir was held.

Yes, Vizmir had royal charisma. He was the Borgomak Regent of nine planetary systems. Some thousands of years ago his ancestor had built an army and a fleet and had gone out to drive the Tugglers from nine worlds. The Tugglers counter-attacked, and the war lasted two hundred twenty one years, but Borgomak biologists, Borgomak designers, engineers, pilots, armourers and the fearless horde of robiots prevailed. TheTugglers had been such awful overlords that the populations of the nine worlds gave their support to Borgomak, and only a few insurgencies needed to be put down.

Peace and prosperity are peerless pacifiers. Vizmir and Zyreen had inherited a nice little package from their futu-fool father. The Tugglers were still out there, angry but impotent. Meanwhile Zyreen saw to the military might of Borgomak, and Vizmir kept designing new and enticing drugs to fill the Borgomak coffers and pay for the military might.

A small crowd gathered at a discrete distance around the table at which Prince Vizmir and Lord Bufaisdek sat. Many of the onlookers were stoned, but none on futufu. It was illegal on Strobe.

"Prince, my prince!", a young and very attractive woman bounced up and down, trying to get Vizmir's attention. The bouncing made a pleasant effect, which drew Vizmir's eyes. He sent a domestic robiot to get her details. He was getting so bored of Robiot sex that he was willing to risk an entanglement.

A stout man called out to Boraz, "Where did you get those? I want some just like them." He was referring to Boraz' smoke and flame enhancements.

"Next week," Vizmir predicted, "half the people on Strobe will be looking like you."

"Then I will have fooled people into looking completely ridiculous," guffawed Boraz.

Vizmir cooly assessed the being across the circular table. "On you it somehow looks appropriate. On anyone else it would become a clown suit."

"If I'm still here next week, I will enjoy watcing my flame-ears start sprouting on peoples' heads." He looked at the crowd. Many people were gawking with rude curiosity. Boraz drew in a breath, puckered his lips and suddenly he was breathing fire from every opening in his head. His eyes were huge; his fangs descended to his shoulders from a mouth that was more like a cave leading to hell.

A sound issued from him, a hissing like a geyser about to blow. Tourists, shoppers and gawkers scattered, running from the esplanade to find shelter behind the corners of buildings that bounded the plaza. Some found statues behind which to hide, or crouched beneath concrete benches. Many of them poked their heads out onto the plaza and continued to watch Boraz Bufaisdek "blow his top".

Boraz turned his crimson eyes into great round dishes in which stylized renditions of pillars of smoke and flame rose from deep inside some vent of volanic violence.

Boraz' neck elongated vertically, then swelled horizontally until it seemed as though his head were sitting atop a huge melon. Then the very crown of his head, where his fiery topknot resided, seemed to open up and roar.

When the square was cleared of all but the robiots, Boraz emitted a rasp of laughter that began as a low chuckle and climbed decibel by decibel into an earth-shattering clangor that caused Kitor to step forward and place protective devices into the ears of the prince.

The prince had, throughout this display, looked at the scene with a detached half-smile and drooping eyelids. The prince had been dipping into something in his cabinet.

"My friend," he said with lazy satisfaction, "if you can get my sister to marry you, I will welcome you into the family. How could I not? You are the most entertaining guest to come here in my entire life. When I stopped being afraid of you I began to appreciate the fact that you are everything you are rumored to be and considerably more."

Boraz had restored himself to normal and his languor more than matched that of the prince. He took out a nicotine delivery tube and lit it using a flickering tongue of flame that still burned at the tip of his thumb. He offered the pack to Vizmir, who reached across, took out another nicotine delivery tube and also lit it from Boraz' thumb.

Vizmir removed the dampening plugs from his ears. Kitor's alertness amazed him. He was of half a mind to try another Kitor tomorrow, just to see if high level cross training was being expedited within the robiot officer corps. The thought unsettled him a bit. He didn't want another Kitor. He knew that he must use one if he were to answer the technical question posed. If the cross traning was effective, he shouldn't notice the difference. Still, he WOULD know the difference.

As the two entities took their leisure puffing nicotine-laden curls of smoke, Boraz lifted from his pocket a small dig screen, typed a few words onto it, then passed it to Vizmir.

HOW MUCH WILLYOU CHARGE ME FOR A FULLY EQUIPPED BATALLION OF ROBES?

Vizmir read it, then typed a response on the screen and handed it to Boraz.

YOU WANT A FULLY LOADED COMBAT TEAM WITH SHIPS, AMMO AND ROBIOTS THE QUALITY OF KITOR?

Boraz nodded and passed the dig across the table.

Vizmir tapped dextrously at the little screen's large-pop keyboard. IS IT TRUE THAT YOU HAVE A NEW TYPE OF NEURONIC WEAPON? MAYBE WE CAN WORK SOMETHING OUT. A WEAPON LIKE THAT WOULD BE GOOD TO HAVE.

Boraz read it, then spoke aloud. "Why don't you move over here so you can see what's in my hand."

Vizmir moved around the table to sit next to Boraz. The bodyguards re-arranged themselves so that Kitor and Vloko stood side by side. Together, they looked like a rampart, though they appeared to be completely indifferent to one another.

"I assume the plaza will soon fill again now that the excitement has died down?"

Vizmir automatically mopped his brow with his towel but he had lost his phobic anxiety. His attention was fully engaged as Boraz brought forth a dull black device, a hand gun with a bell-shaped barrel.

Its controls were simple. Above the handgrip there was a small video screen that showed the target in a circle quartered by two sets of parallel cross-hairs. Idly, Boraz brought the screen out of its niche and raised it at a right angle to the weapon's body. There were dials for setting the range, the depth of field and the shape of field in which the weapon's effects would be useful. It could fire to a pinpoint or fire a fan-shaped field. The cross hairs moved apart and changed shape according to the shape of the field of fire. There was a little button that brought down a concealed trigger. When Boraz pressed the button, the trigger emerged with a precise click.

There was also a dial whose function was simple enough: Up or Down.

The trigger would determine how "up" or how "down".

Boraz held the device under the table, out of sight of curious onlookers.

"You'll understand how to use this, shortly," he explained. He and the prince sat with their backs to the wall that was part of the Oldest Gate in the Oldest Wall. It curved over their heads to shut out sun and blocked the gaze of anyone who might be watching.

Slowly the plaza returned to its normal activities. The mood was subdued but anticipatory; people were talking of the doings of Boraz all over the castle. More people arrived, having heard about the unusual display. The plaza became crowded, and Vizmir directed his staff to move the crowd back and set a perimeter around the table.

The large sun, Gawl, had moved to the west so that it cast a shadow over the Three Gates esplanade. The white dwarf, Rawl, was half an hour past noon, but its power was so diminished that it cast a dim stub of shadow at an angle to the deep shadow of Gawl. A warm breeze carried odors of smoking thighs of Glurr covered in poquat sauce. It was enough to make anyone hungry. Sizzling sounds came from the back of the restaurant, under the thatch awning that held the turning pits. The proprietor placed large fans to blow the smoke and smell towards the esplanade. A sudden crescendo of hiss indicated the cook tossing new thighs onto the rack.

It was enough to entice pleasure from the darkest and most jaded of souls. Lovers strolled, off duty soldiers laughed and turned bottles of ale upside down into their wide open mouths. A few tourists with children pointed at the arching gates, one next to the other. These gates were a mark of engineering confusion, but the old ones had lasted through the millenia. As tourist sites went, it wasn't much of a show. On Strobe, however, it was something big at the bottom of a very big City/Castle, and all anyone asked for was a place to go that was more interesting than endless plains of planted futufu, barley and ringodown.

Boraz turned the weapon on its side and showed Vizmir another button. "This is the safety," he explained. "You press it to activate the neuromitter in whatever mode you chose. Using the trigger requires a certain 'touch', a bit of dexterity." He had pressed the safety and both a red and a green light shone. The trigger clicked down from inside the tube, locking itself into place. Boraz wrapped the big rough fingers of his hand around the grip and put his index finger on the trigger.

"It has a couple inches of play and it's fairly tight; it won't just go off. The farther you pull it, the more intense the effects. When it's on, all you have to do is click this switch once and the light will go red. That means 'down'. Two clicks and the light goes green. That means 'up'. You'll see."

The plaza had returned to its normal pitch. People cast glances at Vizmir and his guest, but did nothing to bother them. No one stared. No one dared to stare. The tables of the restaurant filled again. Sounds of human activity bounced off the stone walls. An amiable quiet murmur inhabited the promenade.

Just across the no-go zone enforced by the bodyguards, patrons were taking their places and ordering from waiters dressed in purple floppy hats and emerald colored pantaloons. Each floppy hat sported a brown and white striped feather two feet long. The pantaloons were belted by chains of silver coins stretched to hang somewhat low in the front, where the pantaloons were stuffed with what everyone knew were codpieces.

"See them?" Boraz gestured with his nose towards a pair of lovers who had taken a table in their line of sight. They were oblivious to the prince, to Boraz, to everything except one another. They were staring into one another's eyes, heads canted forward so that they almost touched. The male had two of the female's fingers in his hand and held them loosely just above the table cloth. Anyone could read their lips: I love you, whispered the male, oh so gently, so that his breath was a soft summer breeze upon his lady's face. I love you, she replied, her eyes sparkling with moist fervid sexual readiness.

Holding the device under the table on his right leg, Boraz caught a footstool, which he used to slightly raise his leg's elevation.

"Here," he said, "first I'll turn off the safety." The weapon gave a barely audible 'boop'. The trigger mechanism dropped out of the thing's interior. "Now I'll turn the power on." He used the pad of his index finger to give the side button two presses. The weapon made a longer 'boooop'. Both the red and the green light emitting diodes shone as tiny bright points. The screen came to life. Boraz left it in its niche and zoomed in and out by squeezing a notch on the handle.

Vizmir was watching carefully, putting into his memory the simple procedure. A female robiot servant brought him a towel moistened with warm scented water. He dabbed his face with it, sighing, and gave it back, his eyes never leaving the motions of Boraz' hand under the table.

"I have bigger versions of this; longer range, more power," Boraz informed the prince. "The prototype cannon is on my ship. It carries its data through space on an amplified microwave pulse. So far, I've been able to hit a target at fifty five thousand clicks."

Boraz brought his right hand to the pointer-dial that was just above the handle. He turned it to the left, so that the white indicator pointed towards the dot: narrow focus. The dial gave a series of barely audible clicks. Boraz turned the dial back towards the right a single click. "That should do it," he said. "Now I set the mode."

He used the low side of his index finger to press the side-button once. On the face of the instrument, the green light winked off, leaving only the red to glare minutely into the faces of Vizmir and Boraz. The device gave three short quiet boops.

Though his eyes stared straight ahead, Kitor was observing everything. It was impossible to tell what or if Vloko was thinking. His eyes were almost invisible behind the stony slabs of his cheeks.

Boraz used the footstool to align his leg so that his knee pointed directly at the lovers. He held the neuromitter at the center of his thigh, so that it was aimed at the table where the man and the woman sat, adoring one another. Their faces appeared on the siting screen, close up, inside the red circle. The cross hairs were fixed at a point equidistant between them.

"A little squeeze of the trigger," Boraz announced. "Watch them carefully."

The lovers' eyes lost contact. The color of their faces went quickly from flushed to pale white. The hands were withdrawn. The male's hand and the female's hand were suddenly like drunken pigeons, not quite sure where to perch. The male's hand went finally to the top of his head, where it rested heavily. The female's hand sat listlessly in her lap, turned palm up, the two fingers that had previously been clutched by her lover still extended, with the thumb pointing upward. After a moment, she turned the hand edgewise in her lap, so that it resembled a pistol aimed at her lovers' private parts.

The woman said something. The male's head jerked back an inch, and his hand massaged his scalp in confusion. Their expressions registered vague dismay at the sudden twist of mood.

Boraz expertly massaged the trigger mechanism. The man's hand left his head and came down to point at a part of his girlfriend's body. He spoke, and the lady swiveled left and then right on her buttocks as if she were considering getting up to leave.

Boraz' hand eased up just slightly on the trigger. The woman decided to stay seated. Her torso sagged, her shoulders hunched forward and came slightly closer together as if she were trying to enclose her breasts in the cage of her arms.

The man spoke again, more loudly. The entire visage of his partner had changed; she looked older, plainer, more peevish. Her lips formed around her teeth differently, in a manner that caused her to look raddled and snaggly. The man fared little better. His shoulders went backward and upward so that his chest puffed out. He thought this made him look more commanding. It enhanced what had been a slight paunch and caused it to expand so that he was now sporting a distinct pot belly. His hair hung loosely and without order. It parted in ways that caused the place that his hand had previously massaged to become a distinct tonsure, a circular bald spot at the crown of his head. His hand went to it again, and he raised his chin in an effort to hide the bald spot from the lady. Each of them spoke simultaneously. Whatever the woman said caused the man to go silent. He suddenly deflated, slumped forward and put his forehead on the table. His lips moved, he was saying something, speaking into the checked table-cloth. His face lay next to the glass of Borgomak Ale that was half drained and losing its head. Abruptly, with a single savage and fluid motion powered by rage, he took the remains of the ale and flung it into the face of his lady friend. She rose from the table in shock, said something vicious through clenched teeth. Then she grabbed her handbag and stormed off into the crowd.

Vizmir was watching both the couple and the siting screen on the pistol.

Simple lines and arcs of color indicated mood intensity and field depth. Dotted red lines showed the active range setting. Boraz carefully held the couple within the circle of the device's reach. He didn't want the carrier waves penetrating through walls or fences, expanding its effects for a miles.

The man sat there weeping, ashamed and disconsolate. He looked around self-consciously, gave the prince and his entourage a mortified half smile. Boraz and the prince pretended not to notice him.

"Watch now," Boraz nodded down towards the neuromitter. His index finger gave another click to the side switch and the light on the device's upper surface changed from red to green. There were two boops in a lower register.

The man's demeanor changed. He relaxed in his chair, wiped his tears. His face became once again calm. He smiled to himself, waved his right hand dismissively, then rose from the table, looking around at the crowd, trying to locate his angry girlfriend.

She was returning. She had walked out of the range of the neuromitter and had regained most of her ordinary mentation. They spotted one another. The woman came to the table, and the lovers embraced, threw their arms around one another sweetly, gently.

"Heh heh", Boraz laughed meanly. He tapped again at the neuromitter, once. The light turned red.

The couple flew apart as if each had embraced a scorpion. The woman's face seemed to knot itself into a mask of horror. Boraz pulled the trigger back another half an inch. The woman used her handbag as a club, slamming it onto the man's head. His knees gave a bit, but he withstood the blow. Somewhere in his clothing there was a dagger, which he now produced. The space around the couple was clear of patrons, no one else sat within range of the venom that was loosed upon that tiny portion of the world.

The man flung both arms wide, holding the dagger in his right hand. He brought his left hand forward in front of his body while with his right hand he slashed at his palm, opening a deep cut. He was screaming and now his words were audible.

"You think I won't do it, bitch?" he screamed.

"You don't have the balls," the woman replied haughtily. Her handbag hung by its straps, which looped through her closed wrists, held in the air ready to strike.

"Well fuck you," the man said more quietly, now apparently resolved upon his course of action.

Boraz pulled yet farther back on the trigger.

The man used his left hand to grab his own hair. He lifted his head high and ran the dagger across his throat in a hard swift swipe. Blood jetted out and splashed his lover. As he sank to his knees, the speed of the blood dwindled until it simply ran over his shirt, soaking it, dripping onto the pavement as the man thudded to the ground. The dagger went clink clink on the cobblestones.

The woman's face collapsed in despair. She sank to touch the dead man, then anger ruled her and she pounded him with her fists. She was still holding her handbag by its loops and it flew around chaotically.

By this time a quartet of robiot law enforcers had converged upon the scene. Dressed in grey uniforms with Borgomak double eagles on sleeves and collars, they separated the woman from her deceased lover. At this moment, Boraz switched the neuromitter back to green and pulled the trigger as far as it would go. The woman began to laugh with genuine joy, as if nothing had happened. Her face was lit with happiness, yet some part of her recognized the sheer incongruity of what was happening and her eyelids wrinkled in barely felt panic, even as she laughed and laughed.

Two of the robiot policemen took her away to make a statement. The other two summoned morgue and cleaning teams.

After some moments of silence, Vizmir looked at Boraz and said, "Wow." He waited a few more moments, and again said, "Wow." His eyes were bright with awe and greed.

Boraz arched his bushy red eyebrows lazily. He stretched his arms backward, holding the weapon in full view, cracking his joints with satisfaction. He brought the neuromitter forward, put it just in front of his lips, and blew air down the flattened bell of the weapon's business end.

Whoosh! he went, puckering his lips. Somehow he made real smoke appear in front of the weapon. The smoke dispelled in the air of the plaza with Boraz' sardonic puff of breath.

Vizmir had a thousand questions but a man wearing a field-grey uniform appeared at the opposite end of the plaza. He was walking purposefully towards the prince. He was Nelko Shiai, Vizmir's personal intelligence officer. Boraz and Vizmir exchanged a glance. Shiai had been tasked with obtaining information on Rebed Singman, the murderer of Boraz' son, the thief who had run off with the the Puzzle Piece of Melolos.

The officer saluted, standing at attention so stiff that it looked like his bones would crack. His arm extended crisply. He held a small envelope, which he gave to Vizmir.

"Sir! Our inquiries have yielded palpable results. Here is the information you requested."

Vizmir took the envelope. Before he could open it, Boraz grabbed the thing and took off running. Prince Vizmir could do nothing but follow. The Planet Person Calakadon was making for the nearest memory interface.

Boraz turned back once and said, "Gotta go, mister princie. This Klant-Spider moves fast. I gotta catch him before he jumps halfway across the galaxy."

Vizmir ran, his long legs banging at the knees, his breath heaving.

Chapter Twenty One

The Skids

When Garuvel and his friends reached the Xtalus space port, a dozen people were crawling around Figment, looking for cracks, any hint of access. The ship was a seamless black football perched on two broad landing slats.

Robolion skidded the glider to a stop, fish-tailing with a final grunt of satisfaction. Garuvel was out before the aircraft's momentum stopped.

"Hey!" The intruders looked up when he yelled. "Hey-ey-ey!" This time he pulled his voice from deeper in his body, throwing a touch of controlled threat into each vowel. The man who had been jumping up and down atop the ship slid clumsily down the smooth side. His friends followed as he ran toward the forest.

Garuvel signaled, and Figment lowered the ramp. Jaramine touched the velvet flank of the ship as she entered. Garuvel observed the loving softness of the touch: Darzel would not mind having this woman aboard. Robolion kneeled and kissed the ramp, then ran into the craft's comforting embrace. Inside, he pulled two extra flight thrones down from the walls.

When Darzel was placed back into her nutrient bath, her neurones quickly connected to the ship. Instruments came on line; auxiliary screens lit.

Wasting no time, the trio donned helmets, and Garuvel began concentrating his way through the gates. When he was in the Flux Field, he checked for unusual forms of consciousness. He knew, immediately, that someone was out there in near-space. It was not like any consciousness he had seen before. It was coherent, purposeful, but oddly restrained. Then he saw others; their intentions were not benign.

"We have company," he informed the others. "It's going to be a very fast launch. Darzel, we need the quickest route to transpace. Be daring. Imagine that there are, oh, fourteen ships trying to stop us."

"There are fifteen ships" Darzel informed them dryly. "I will trust you with regard to their intentions. If you will pay attention, Garuvel, and reverse spin, I will do my best to see that we are not crushed by a premature entrance into Transpace."

The flight thrones rolled back, and webbing sprang from their sides. Garuvel placed his intention on the Field, and the spin of the particles reversed. Energy rushed backward from the rear tip of Figment. The ship lofted skyward in a perfect spiral.

Garuvel gave himself a view of the near space environment. There were thirteen standard Brachmin vessels, small, quick fighters. And there was the spiked morningstar that Garuvel knew to be the ship of Calakadon, Boraz Bufaisdek.

What an idiot he was! Anyone could have anticipated him going to Xtalus. Laying off at about seventy thousand clicks was a ship that looked like a refurbished Greem Cruiser.

"Let's see the gravity waves." They were thick in the vicinity of Hipnes and thirty other tightly packed members of the cluster. As Darzel computed the course, Garuvel took a moment to look through his face plate at Jaramine. He wanted to remind himself that she was there, that he loved her.

To his surprise, when he regarded her supple body angled back in the flight throne, he felt nothing but boredom. The thought was so instantly discordant that he felt a little pang of despair at the pit of his stomach.

What about Robolion, his oldest and closest friend? He turned to the powerful form on his other side. Bastard, he thought. I wonder what he did with Jaramine before I showed up? Just friends, yeah. Bullshit!

What the hell? I'm bored with my new love, but I'm jealous of my best friend. Ah, who gives a shit, anyway?

Abruptly, Garuvel was plunged into apathy. His life weighed on him; a thousand years too long, he decided. I've been at this crap like it means something.

He realized that this was the beginning of death. This was the ennui that led to terminal decay, to the bodily and psychic shut-down that overtook all the very old denizens of the universe. It was called Mean Meaning, or Glut, or The Final Overload, or Experience Decay, it had a thousand names.

The observing part of his ego noted these thoughts and struggled. This isn't right. I'm not ready for this. I'm young. I'm in love, or I WAS in love. I thought I was....All the meaning seems to be draining from my existence. Apathy? My greatest enemy. What state could be more lethal to a quasi-immortal being?

His concentration was shot: he was split off from himself. There was a mass of despair, and a tiny observer struggling, and shortly the observer was swallowed up.

Garuvel gave one last mental scream of anguish before the darkness engulfed him. I'm alone! I'm alone! What a fool to think that I was ever anything but alone!

Then it was all gone.

Chapter Twenty Two

The Dungeon

When his consciousness returned, Garuvel thought that he was back in the Hejastra Hospital, that he was an adolescent. There was a numbness on his tongue. When he tried to form words, his tongue was too clumsy to articulate combinations. He could, however, utter simple sounds, he could go "aaaaah, oooooh, eehhhhhh." He could control pitch, to some extent. He couldn't do much else with his voice.

The depression had lifted. His body was that of a grown man. He had big, sinewy arms, matted with brown hair. There was a trace of thickening around the waist line. His forehead bore marks of prolonged thought, his eyes and mouth had wrinkles and weathering. He was not a youth. He would feel silly presenting himself as a youth. He looked, he hoped, like a man in his early middle years. He could never be sure. No one actually knows what he or she looks like.

He remembered the sickening emotional death aboard Figment. Considering that, and the state of my tongue, he thought, someone knows far too much about me.

He was in a cylindrical cell, laying upon a pallet inset into the wall. Ducking his head, he slid free of the space and got to his feet. When his weight left the pallet, a sliding panel closed it off behind him, then rose again to reveal a spigot and a wash basin.

There was a tiny glowing green sensor above the utility enclosure. When Garuvel waved a finger at it, the panel slid down and the bed returned.

There was little else to be seen. The cell was windowless. At the arc opposite the bed, a toilet was set flush with the floor, which was made of springy black matting.

Garuvel spat into the toilet. At the bottom, the globule hissed as it met a disposal laser.

Twelve feet over his head, where the ceiling met the wall, four little cameras were installed at regular intervals. Garuvel looked at them and made an obscene gesture with his fingers. Then he sat against the wall, crossed his legs, and thought about Jaramine and Robolion.

He knew why he had avoided entanglements for so long. They were dangerous to the people involved. This present situation was a perfect example. Relationships made him vulnerable, clouded his judgment, changed him from rational to obsessional, altered his inner state from measured calm to panicked abreaction. Now, he accepted that reality. He felt it was about time to start acting from love, need, fear. That was what everyone else did, all across the universe. Why should he be different?

Boraz had used a psych-ray, a weapon capable of altering their serotonin and dopamine levels at great distances, with a high level of directional focus. Garuvel had never encountered such a weapon before. The implications of it being in the hands of one such as Boraz were frightening.

This is going to be a challenge, he thought. Boraz is working with someone who has cutting-edge technology. And they have Jaramine, Robolion, Figment and Darzel, as leverage against me.

For the first time in many years, Garuvel felt the stomach- tightening grip of fear. His enemies had control over him, and they had everyone and everything he loved. He began to hear his heart beat in his ears. His whole body went pulse pulse pulse as he became aware of his heart as a working organ, as this muscle just inches below the surface of his skin worked under an extra load of adrenaline. He could feel his pulse at the tips of his fingers and he admitted that he was scared. A barrage of terrible images invaded his mind; rape, torture, destruction, murder. He did what he always did when haunted by catastrophic fantasies. He banished them from his mind. He knew that the images grew upon themselves, they brought entities of similar substance to join their friends dancing inside his head until his mind got more and more crowded and soon there was no room for hope.

"Go away!" he mentally commanded the images. "Go, go!" He imagined a broom, and he swept the fantasies outside the precincts of his consciousness. He had little information about the state of things, the condition of his group. There was no point filling up the void with horrible expectations. All he had was what he knew, what was here in front of him, apprehended by his senses.

It was not as easy as that. Try NOT thinking of a thing when someone tells you not to think of that thing. The mind is a beast. Garuvel often called it a donkey, for its sheer cussedness. It doesn't like to obey conscious commands. It has its own agenda, which is usually to screw you up. It takes decades of practice to so much as throw a tiny string around one of its haunches, to at least get it hobbled long enough to ride it for a few minutes before it throws you off.

Garuvel HAD practiced, for several thousand years. He was not without skill. This situation was bad, he knew it was bad. Yet he was relieved that the Gift had been neutralized; he didn't'know if he could tolerate making that choice again. He would rather die. The sheer facility of it: wave a magic wand, whoop whoop, everything's okay, we're out of trouble, we're safe. The idea of using the Gift to rectify things now made him ill. He couldn't think about it any further. There would be an opening, somewhere, an opportunity to get himself and his family, as he now thought of them, out of this mess.

This is some family, mused Garuvel: a musician, a sorceress, a computer chip, and the ship in which they traveled across the heavens.

His body was locked up. But he had other means of investigating the environment. Remaining cross-legged against the curve of the cell's wall, he began to slow himself, to stop the riot of thought, quit trying to answer questions that could not yet be answered. His breath grew long and leisurely. He visualized, in the space behind his closed eyes, a glowing symbol, a special mandala that he had acquired in his study of Noetiphysics. This was called the Thunder Sceptre. As usual, the symbol came and went, as his concentration fluctuated. He took a long slow breath from his abdomen, raising it all the way up to his shoulders. Then he emitted a remarkable sound.

"Ooooooooooo", the sound emerged at a tonality that should be impossible for a human frame to emit. It was low, very deep, ringing, octaves beneath an ordinary vocal range. It filled the cell and vibrated the walls, emanating from the middle of his body. The sound was impossibly huge, it had the dimension of a large choir of men singing in unison inside a gigantic cavern.

It was heard for quite some distance. When Garuvel had uttered three of these tones, he sensed voices, disturbance. The cameras in his cell were alive with observers. Again, Garuvel made an obscene gesture.

He knew he had little time. He resumed his meditation by relaxing completely, closing his eyes and beginning the most minute observations of his circumstance. His breath fell into a shallow state. His body knew how to breathe. Garuvel let it do its job.

He began with simple observations. His lungs worked, air flowed in and out. His heart beat. Blood moved through veins, arteries, capillaries. The hairs on his arms, face and head measured the quality of air in the cell. The air held great amounts of information. It was recirculated through a vent system that was contaminated by a vague scent. This scent evoked in him a fixed dread. He knew what it was: Futufu, the drug that was ravaging Xtalus and many other worlds. The scent would not have been perceptible but for Garuvel's meditation technique. His method was to observe, impartially and without preconception. As he observed, his senses refined and traveled. It was amazing, what could be accomplished by the simple act of observing.

This was the defining reality of his prison. He was in the heart of the Futufu world. He was prisoner of the Futufu Lord.

Though the odor was slight, its psychic miasma covered everything, coated the entire castle complex with its stench.

He listened with utmost care. His ears carried information, his body hair acted as antennae, his intuition created images in his mind, images that he trusted as representing the real situation. They were not fantasies. He knew the difference between information and fantasy. So long as he held the act of observation in complete objectivity, it came to him without the taint of wish fulfillment.

He was in an enormous structure, many-tiered and complex with warrens and caves, long halls and twisting flights of stairs. He was on a prison-tier, the first above-ground level. He could sense the levels below-ground, ten or twelve, and below that, two or three more levels that were less organized, as if composed of porous spaces in the bedrock. High above him, the vast building rose and rose.

His mental images showed a corridor that was illuminated by sickly green photoluminescent paint. He saw two living entities ahead, and they were walking silently. They were not sapient in the normal sense; their egg-shaped auras were dull and grayish. Their thoughts were single-tracked.

Robiots, he decided. The local variety.

His images moved him through the ceiling, into another long, turning corridor. The futufu essence hung like stale smoke, pervasive. He came to dormitories housing armies of specialized robiots. Amongst them, as they went about their functions, he noticed flickers of detailed sentience. One of approximately every five hundred robiots was lit with the energy of varied thoughts, feelings, hidden purposes.

In all his travels, he had never encountered robiots with such vivid sentience, such detailed personality. The significance of this phenomenon impressed Garuvel. Individuating robiots meant a great leap for creatures that had always been considered less than human. They were mere tools, biological androids. Until now.

The building, the castle city, seemed endless. Garuvel saw areas where robiot soldiers, trained by humans, were learning weapons techniques and martial arts forms.

He came to the futufu processing areas. Squeezed, cut, packaged, the plants were rolling by the billions from the assembly lines. There were factories turning out glass pipes, futufu presses, heater coils, pipettes of some substance, futufu T-shirts, comic books of futufu fantasies. Futufu bedsheets and futufu shoes, all in the garish futufu colors.

This is the kind of madness I should have learned to expect from the universe, Garuvel thought. Here we have a Futufu empire. Doubtless, there is a boss, a king, an emperor, a Lord, maybe even a committee, a cartel, at the top of the castle.

Garuvel sensed movement in the vicinity of his cell. With an effort, he brought himself back to his body, withdrew from the inner world, curtailed his heightened senses.

He heard the hiss as the cell door opened. When he raised his eyelids he saw two grey-clad robiots standing over him. Before he could take in any more detail, one of the robiots removed a shiny black tube from its sleeve and turned a control.

Ennui shrouded him, meaninglessness crumbled his will and made his life seem a shabby pretense. Garuvel strangled in self-loathing. He felt himself being lifted and hauled out of the cell without dignity. As he was carried down the corridor, he hallucinated his skin turning green and scaly like a dead snake's, decaying into a pitted ruin.

The robiot touched the black tube. Garuvel's despair ended as abruptly as it had begun. Okay, he acknowledged. I've been slapped, cautioned. I'll behave. For now.

He struggled to get his feet under him, so that he could walk between his escorts rather than be dragged. Somehow he succeeded. Sandwiched between the two impassive creatures, he was squeezed into a transport tube. They rose and rose. Transferred to another tube, they rose yet higher.

Stopping with a slight lurch, the tube arrived at the loftiest tower in the citadel. Garuvel was escorted silently past a large window that curved with the shape of the high cylinder. He snatched a glance, and saw a sea of color, waving and rippling. In the far distance there were a few peaks like mangled fingers, penetrating a shroud of pastel clouds. Running to the base of these jagged mountains was nothing but field upon field of futufu, being gently wet by colossal rotating sprinkler arms.

Garuvel shuddered from head to toe.

The robiots and their prisoner came to a spiral stair, and Garuvel was pushed upward until he emerged upon a balcony overlooking the entire castle. The robiots let him go and backed up towards the wall, where a third robiot, clearly a command-type, stood like a one man fortress.

Three people lounged on elaborate contour chairs that floated gently on repulsor fields. There was a tall, thin young man, a woman near to his age who might be his sister, and, of course, Boraz Bufaisdek, aka Calakadon.

Boraz looked different. He had dressed himself up in a ridiculous melange of enhancements that forced Garuvel to laugh. He couldn't help it! Goddammit, he told himself, shut up! His frozen tongue emitted a retarded sound, "Hoo hooo hooo, hooo hoo hoo." Boraz sat there smugly in his idiot suit, hissing with hate. That finally brought Garuvel's levity to a halt. The hatred in Boraz' crimson eyes was so powerful that he knew if he didn't get his wits together, a lot of pain was in store for him.

The pain started very quickly. Boraz, who lay on his back with one hand behind his head, used the other hand to lift one of those nasty black tubes and point it at Garuvel. He had just a second to observe Boraz' movements on the neuronic weapon before he was crushed to the floor by a despair so penetrating that if he'd had the means to kill himself, he would have. The whole of life in the cosmos turned utterly and shockingly ugly. He was overwhelmed by mocking self-loathing. His life, as an individual, was ridiculously futile. He saw himself running around from world to world, hoping to do good deeds and to learn a few things as the most ludicrous, banal exercise in fatuity as anyone had ever contemplated. Not just his own life! All life! It was nothing but a waste product from a bored combination of natural phenomena. He and everything else in creation was just shit excreted by a totally inanimate and uncaring universe. He saw the whole process as disgustingly digestive. Something farted and went bang, and the gas produced made nebulae, which coalesced into galaxies, whose stars underwent nuclear transformation to create more galaxies, and somewhere in this loathsome procedure, planets came to be and various creatures emerged, and all this stuff was endlessly recycled, a gargantuan shit factory in which sentient life was the bacteria in the universe's intestine that broke down the waste products and made them into a fermented substance on which some bastard demon got drunk, and then farted again, to do it some more.

He could even smell it! Oh god, what a stink. He seemed to be walking through it, no, he was falling down into it, into a mire of turd-coated slime filled with bits of organic gunk, undigested soups of puke.

His body vomited as it writhed on the floor. Garuvel could barely see through the horrid hallucinations that made up his reality. He got to his knees, looking for some way to end himself. He cast his eyes about for a weapon, something sharp enough to slash his throat, but there was nothing. So he began to bash his head against the ground, pushing it into the latrine-mess until it met solid matter where he could jar his brains enough to send himself to oblivion.

Then, without any warning whatsoever, it was over. Deeply shaken, breathing, trembling, his clothing soaked with his own bile, he knew that he was on the floor of some place where his enemy, Boraz Bufaisdek, had just used a neuronic weapon to alter his brain chemistry violently and swiftly. Shut down the endorphins. Cause serotonin levels to run amuk, tweak the dopamine receptors to misfire, and a few other things and he was suicidal and capable of anything. He knew that under some circumstances any human could kill another human, or commit suicide. It was another thing entirely to be pushed into that state by an external device weilded by foul monstrous beings.

"You're not laughing anymore," Boraz was saying. "What a shame, you have such a contagious laugh; I can't imagine why you stopped. Oh dear," he waved the black tube around, "have I upset you with my little toy? I didn't mean to do that quite so hard, guess I pulled the trigger a little farther than I intended. I'm so sorry. I was just experimenting; I was curious what it took to cause a being such as yourself....we know that you aren't just anyone, Colleague Singman, you are a special person with special abilities.... to collapse, as I was saying, under the weight of despair." He looked at the weapon in his hands, a thing as lethal as any ray, laser, taser, pistol, rifle, knife, sword, spear. He gave it a little kiss and held it to his chest like a beloved child.

"Not much, it seems, just an ordinary dose of the same thing that makes anyone else want to die."

Garuvel was sitting with his legs thrust before him. He could feel the soft carpet beneath his buttocks. He was barely listening. The relief of being out of that state was so huge, he was panting and feeling himself all over, astonished to still be alive. "Uhhhhhh", he groaned, and spit the bile from his mouth weakly.

The tall young woman slipped out of her formacouch. She avoided looking in Garuvel's direction. "You boys go ahead without me; this is disgusting." She wrinkled her nose to shut out the vomit smell. Instantly, a female robiot arrived with a handheld cleaning device and a spray of chemicals.

"I don't know what you have against this man," the woman said. "But THAT thing,"she pointed at the neuronic weapon, "I swear if you ever use it on me, I will crash down on you with everything I possess, I promise you....just point it at me once and I'll bring my whole fucking command team and we'll see whose robiots are better trained."

Garuvel could see that she was livid. Her pale face quivered, and she turned a quick look in his direction, a look not of apology or contrition but a look designed to separate herself from what she deemed to be the bad manners of dirty little boys playing games.

He was regaining his composure, starting to observe things that he could use; the more information he had, the better. He needed every little shred of knowledge, insight, all the dynamics of relationships that proceeded amongst these people.

A very complex glance passed between Boraz and "The Princess" as Garuvel quickly began to call her because it was so obvious that she was the sister of the skinny pimply kid. The Prince, or The King, it didn't matter. A kind of shrouding came upon Boraz' face, a sense that he had committed a tactical error by engaging in this activity in front of the Princess. The only logical deduction was a possible marriage in the works. It surely wasn't about love. Boraz was trying to form an alliance with this family. Their power was obvious. Look at all the futufu. A giant profit-making machine was grinding out drugs and paraphenalia, marketing without regard to the damage done.

The insides of Garuvel's body began to experience the kind of weather that preceeded a thunderstorm. He knew this thunderstorm from hundreds of other experiences. It was the physical manifestation of dread.

He kicked it out of his consciousness. No time, no time to feel right now. Just observe everything, learn, learn quickly!

He studied the insignia on the robiots' uniforms, and knowledge clicked in. This was Borgomak! He had studied files about the Borgomaks.

Boraz stood, and placed himself about six feet from the seething woman.

"Princess Zyreen, I apologize," he said, with as much decorum as he could muster. "This was unwise, I admit. My passions got hold of me; you know what a creature of passion I am, sometimes they rule me beyond all sense!"

"Lord Bufaisdek, flames shoot out of your ears. Of course I know you are a man of passions. In future, kindly exclude me from torture sessions. I assume this is about puzzle-pieces and the like. Any more, I don't care to know."

She glared at each man in turn: a short dismissive look towards her brother. A longer, more significant look towards Boraz. Holding her head up she stepped past Garuvel, who was on the floor, drained of strength. She is the power here, Garuvel thought, and she has mixed feelings about this business. She's conflicted beyond imagining. That makes her both dangerous and promising.

There were three robiots in the chamber, and a fourth creature that Garuvel recognized as a Flawnt. The latter must belong to Boraz' contingent. They were mindless horrors of violence. The Officer-class robiot stood just behind the prince. Garuvel noticed that the robiot was looking at him. The creature's body was absolutely still, his face pointed forward, and he had remained that way through the entire episode. His eyes, however, were meeting Garuvel's, at a moment when his gaze could be seen by no one else in the place, because they were all looking at Zyreen. For a count of ten seconds, Garuvel and the robiot locked stares. There was no emotion, no message, no content at all, other than "I am here, and I see you." This should not be possible, but there it was; it fit with Garuvel's discovery of the nascent sentience that was occurring among the robiots.

As he broke his gaze with the robiot, Garuvel began to have some hope.

A waft of perfume followed the princess, billowing in the sweeping material of her gown, rising from her skin.

When she was gone, the prince nodded a command at the robiots, who dragged Garuvel upright. A female robiot appeared with wet towels and cleaned Garuvel's face, hands, neck, every part of him that had received the product of his nausea.

The prince watched him curiously. Boraz glared with a smug expression. He didn't have to say it, but he did: "I've got you now, after all the trouble you've caused me. And you're going to pay for it. "

Garuvel, who forgot that he couldn't talk, began to say something defiant that included the word "asshole". All that came from his mouth was the sound, "dooooh". THAT was embarassing. He wouldn't speak again while this drug was in him.

The prince smirked. He was dressed in silvery glittering tights and a tank top T-shirt that had the orange-and-chartreuse futufu logo. His eyes were lined with makeup; they looked red-rimmed.

"Sit down," he ordered. The two junior robiots pushed him into a formacouch. The prince was suddenly assertive and businesslike. "I know you practice some kind of sorcery activated by vocalization. I've taken the precaution of deadening your tongue. And, of course..." he paused and showed Garuvel his own copy of the weapon that could cause such mental pain. "Not many people, once they get a taste of this, are willing to venture further punishment. There is no pain greater than what can be felt in the mind, no physical pain can match it. Don't you agree?"

Garuvel did, in fact, agree, but he felt no need to acknowledge with a nod or shake of the head.

"Let me explain things," the young man said, while Boraz sat with his arms crossed and glared. "I am Prince Vizmir Borgomak of Strobe. You are in the Castle Strobe. Your friends are safe, they have not been mistreated. Your ship is intact."

The two suns were just beginning to move into the frame of the window's force field, casting hot double shadows on everything. It was apparently morning; it was, in fact, second morning, but Garuvel had no way to know that.

The prince spoke into the air. "Opacity increase thirty percent, color temperature thirty two hundred fifty Lorff Scale."

The balcony dimmed, the shade of the window turned a bit more cyan to offset the magenta projected by the larger star.

"Now then, let's...." the prince began to speak in an insincerely pleasant tone, but he stopped as Boraz lept from his formacouch and and stalked directly over to Garuvel and put his face just a few inches from Garuvel's nose. Garuvel knew that he was supposed to shrink back; almost anyone would instinctively move his or her head backward under such an assault. Yet he kept still. He looked back at Calakadon's crimson eyes with an expression of the mildest neutrality, neither challenging nor surrendering.

"You murdered Chen-seeck!" Calakadon spoke bitterly.

Since Garuvel couldn't speak, there was no response to be made. No response would suffice in any case. Calakadon was psychotic. He was impervious to empirical truth. Garuvel had defended himself from a rash youth who had no business dueling with a superior opponent. Garuvel knew that one never argues facts with a psychotic. One can never speak to a psychosis to try to change its mind. It is fixed, as immutable as a planet's orbit.

Calakadon raised both hands toward's Garuvel's throat. His scaly thumbs were pointed toward one another, a few inches apart, his fingers defining the rest of the circle into which Garuvel's throat was supposed to fit.

"Gaaaaah!" screamed Calakadon, as Garuvel ducked down and stepped to the side, evading the clumsy effort. Calakadon's eyes cleared and his mood changed from irrational rage to purposeful lethality. He crouched in a fighting stance and was about to feint left to try to fool Garuvel into evading right.

Garuvel left his feet suddenly, swept into the air as if a tornado had whisked him out of his tracks. A pair of arms encircled him, pinned his arms. The sleeves were black and he knew it was the robiot. He saw the Flawnt advancing into the fray. It was not sure if its master needed defending, nor from whom, so it stood in front of Calakadon, covering its master with the bulk of its body.

There was a lot of yelling. "Vloko, get the fuck out of my way," Calakadon screamed.

"Stop stop!," the prince intervened. "Kitor, bring him here." Vizmir pointed to a spot behind his formacouch. "We can't kill him yet, Boraz! Don't you know that? Where's the puzzle-piece?"

"I don't give a fuck about the puzzle piece as long as I can make this one die by slow degrees," shouted Calakadon, who pushed the Flawnt named Vloko out of his way. The Flawnt shifted its bulk to obey its master.

All three robiots formed a phalanx that protected both Garuvel and the prince. Calakadon and the prince each waved their respective neuronic weapons, and at some point triggers were pulled, power modes were set and Garuvel began to feel so good that it was sinful, so good that he could ejaculate from every pore of his skin, so good that each hair on his body wanted to sing, "hayaahh, hayahhh!"

Evidently Calakadon was receiving the same kind of dose because he started hopping up and down, singing "Oh this is good, oh this is good, oh this is good!" His arms and hands were flopping about and he quickly changed the setting and turned his own weapon on himself, pointing at his head, but evidently there was some kind of safety mechanism that caused the weapon to turn off if it was pointed at its own user.

The room went suddenly quiet except for the sounds of people panting, and, in the corner, Vizmir crouched fetally, weeping in desperate misery. Calakadon had turned his weapon to red, Vizmir had turned his weapon to green, so Vizmir's neuromitter hit both Garuvel and Calakadon while Calakadon's neuromitter struck Vizmir with its most lethal setting. The dose had been brief, but Vizmir had been thrown down the ladder of utter despair and thought that he was hovering above a pit of pointed spikes, where he stopped, not quite impaling himself. The robiots and the Flawnt were unaffected and they had restored order by sheer accident because they would have begun to kill one another if the situation had lasted a few seconds longer. The robiots had brought Garuvel around to the prince's side of the deck, while Vloko isolated Boraz in a corner with his massive stubs of arms outspread to prevent any attack.

Zyreen came running up the spiral staircase that was the deck's only entrance. She had changed into a fawn-colored jumpsuit adorned with Borgomak symbols.

"Zerel's hanging balls! What the fuck is going on here? Are you crazy? There's people in offices across the courtyard that are having orgasms and suicidal crises at the same time!"

She took in the details of the situation: her brother weeping in a corner. Boraz Bufaisdek's ears were smoking, his face was distorted. The robiots and the flawnt were standing rigid as if frozen in mid-action. The prisoner was backed up into one of the rounded hollows where extra furniture was collapsed and ready for use.

Zyreen went to Vizmir and plucked his neuromitter from his lax hand. She turned to Boraz. "Give me that," she demanded.

Boraz pouted. "You can't tell us what to do. We am Calakadon! Boraz am master of deathworlds and Hellbore's Demon!" His eyes seemed to register his dilemma. There was something here that he wanted. To Garuvel's watching senses that thing was Zyreen herself. The more power she displayed, the more Calakadon fell under her spell. If he wanted Zyreen, he would have to act in a more civilized fashion.

"Back, Vloko!" Boraz ordered his guard to take a position against the far wall, next to the window. He walked to Zyreen, bowed, and gave her his neuromitter. "My apologies, my lady, I have behaved badly." What difference would it make? He had another one down his boot.

Zyreen sniffed. She gave Garuvel a curious glance. He could see right into her. He wasn't trying to do any such thing. He just could. He could see that she was bored, lonely, ambitious, curious, that she was a lot of things. Too many things. He could see that she was mentally unstable, that she had too many extremes in her personality, but she didn't have the maturity to manage them. She was at once a calculating horror and a foolish romantic school girl waiting for a gallant rescuer to take her away from Strobe and put her life in order.

"Every time you boys get together, you have to torture someone," she snapped. "It's disgusting." She looked again at Garuvel, though she didn't want to. Her curiosity was too strong. She averted her gaze and looked at the neuromitters in her hands. She walked toward the spiral staircase, stopped, and put the weapons on the floor.

"What's the point," she said. "You have more of these nasty things." She stepped in the direction of the exit, then pivoted, then reversed directions and faced the people in the room. Her motions bespoke her confusion. She didn't know which way she was going. Garuvel thought it perfectly emblematic of her personality.

Zyreen chewed on part of her lower lip with her upper teeth. She looked squirrely and child-like when she did this. She looked down at the floor for a few seconds, then squared her body and directed her gaze at Boraz.

"You plan to kill him and his friends, don't you?" She indicated Garuvel with her eyes.

This question left Boraz dangling on a tightrope. He didn't know what Zyreen wanted him to say, what answer would most effectively serve his desire to make her his wife. At this point he was hopelessly smitten, both by Zyreen in her person and by The Princess whose resources would enable him to continue his mission to destroy the avatars of the Starwind Communion.

"He murdered my son," Boraz fumed. "He deserves to die."

Zyreen laughed bitterly. "I'd wager your son was a jackass, Lord Bufaisdek."

Boraz jumped up. "He was my son! He was the inheritor of Calakadon! What do you want from me? Not to hate? Not to get revenge on those who have scorned me and made me a joke in their little worlds?"

"Hate. It's an interesting concept," Zyreen cogitated. "I've never hated, not really. It must be a very passionate feeling. They say love and hate are two sides of one coin." She looked with a steely intensity at Boraz. "I bet I could hate you," she said. "I'm not far from it right now. It's refreshing. It is, at least, something other than numbness. I envy you your hate. It's something all your own. Something to keep you going when the ice gets too thin under your feet, hmmm?"

Vizmir, who had finally regained his composure, interrupted her monologue.

"Would you please stop your maundering and go away? We have things to do."

Zyreen looked at Garuvel, looked at Boraz, her face swung this way and that. She turned resolutely towards the exit. Her footsteps rang on the metal staircase until she reached the bottom. There was a hiss of the elevator opening, then silence.

Vizmir snapped his fingers and the two junior robiots grabbed Garuvel by the arms and returned him to his formacouch.

"We have done you the courtesy," Vizmir said smugly, "of not fitting you with personal restraints. We feel safe from your skills, such as they are. We intend to obtain the puzzle-piece in your possession, by one means or another." He looked to Boraz for approval. This was fun, being the tough guy.

Boraz understood his need and looked pleased. He gave the prince implicit encouragement to proceed. They were beginning to develop a big brother/little brother relationship that suited Boraz quite well. Anything to help him net Zyreen. Women didn't survive with him for very long. They....well, let's just say they didn't have the stamina, thought Boraz. Zyreen would keep him entertained for a while. Maybe they could work out times together and times apart in such a way as to keep Zyreen alive a century or two. After that, he knew he would get bored. It was always the same. What looked alluring now would be merely shrill after a few hundred years.

Vizmir tossed a digipad to Garuvel. "You can write on this as we get on with the interrogation," He clapped his hands as if preparing for a good session of work and brought two screens forward, one each for himself and Boraz to read Garuvel's responses.

"Okay, the obvious question is, where did you hide the puzzle-piece? We've searched the ship and your friends quite thoroughly, and, of course, we've searched you too."

This put a hideous image into Garuvel's mind but he shrugged it off. He had been unconscious at the time of the probe; he hoped the same was true with Robolion and Jaramine. He saw Boraz smirking, but that was to be expected. Boraz merely needed to insinuate an indignity done to Jaramine to make it as good as fact. Gauvel made an effort to keep his anger in check. There were worse things that could happen.

Garuvel took the stylus to write on the pad. "I left it on an asteroid. Programmed to blow to pieces if anyone else touches it."

"That's good!", Boraz laughed. "We've all watched the same damned holovids one time or another. He's hidden it on an asteroid," he mocked to Vizmir.

"Yes, what a clever boy he is." Vizmir smiled in a toothy wicked way; he was obviously enjoying himself. He fed off Boraz; they fed off each other. Vizmir might be four thousand years old. Boraz was a psychotic planetary avatar who'd been around for millions upon millions of years. Perhaps billions. Eventually he would devour the prince.

"Do us all a favor," Boraz said impatiently. "You will not live to see next week. It might take me that long to torture you and squeeze you from your body; I just wish it could be longer but I have business to attend. So just tell us where the thing is; let Vizmir have his collectible and then I can make some money to continue my...um.. further travels. Tell us where it is. Quit fucking around."

Garuvel wrote. "It is fixed to the hull of my ship with an atomic binding weld. That is truth. And it will explode. That is also truth. I am the only person who can retrieve it. And I won't."

Boraz waved his black weapon around; he made figure eights with it in the air, jigging it in his fingers insouciantly. Garuvel could not help but be afraid. His experience with it had already been incomparably horrible. He tried to brace himself; he quickly threw up some internal comparments, set up an observer portion that he hoped could keep a tiny voice of sanity.

Boraz pointed the weapon. This time he was careful with the range setting. He didn't want the carrier wave to penetrate the walls and have effects on people around Castle Strobe.

At first Garuvel felt simply depressed. His mood turned to gloom. The light changed, it had a wan quality as if some colors had been removed from the spectrum. Boraz was toying with him. Then he began to have a panic attack. He felt that he couldn't take a deep breath. This convinced him that he was about to suffocate. His heart began to race; cold touched every nerve in his body. It was a stinging hot cold, like dry ice. It seemed as though his skin was being sheathed in dry ice. The sensation was disgusting, abhorrent. The feel of his clothing against his skin was torment, and he got out of the chair in a fast panicky movement. He could see his tormentors, Boraz and the prince, gloating, exchanging glances.

By slow degrees, Garuvel was lowered down the rope of a deep well. There was no climbing back out. The rope was slick with grease and slime. The walls of the well were slippery with the same stuff. No air reached his lungs.

He thought of killing himself. He knew a technique to stop his heart. It could be done in a minute or two. It only required application of a technique that he had learned hundreds of years ago from a sage living in a cave. The sage told him he might someday need this skill.

This might be that time. Another part of him struggled. I can't give in to it! Jaramine, Jaramine! As he thought of her, there was no comfort. She struck him as a deceiver. She wasn't what she seemed to be. She was using him for something; he did not know what, but he was sure he had been tricked, exploited.

He realized that he was crawling on the floor. The fibers of carpet had become individual tendrils of a malelvolent plant. If he lay down in it, he would be slowly digested. Too slowly. He wouldn't give Boraz the satisfaction.

He sat up, turned away from Boraz and the prince. He took a peculiar breath. He pushed his abdominal muscles inward, so that air was forced from his lungs. He was beginning The Stilling Heart discipline. He let go of his abdomen so that air came rushing into his lungs. When they had filled, he pushed the air downward again, forced his abdomen so deeply into his viscera that it seemed as though his navel touched his spine. There was more; he had to see the yantra, the visual symbol. He tried to build the picture in his mind. It was difficult, but his misery was so intense that he persisted. He put the sign together as if each line was a stick that he placed carefully in its part of the pattern.

Then he was seized with impatience and his concentration fragmented. He couldn't wait that long. He tried, again, to beat his head against something. He got up and lurched to the wall where a wooden chest stood high enough that he could smack his forehead against its surface. He gave himself a good solid whack. It stunned him and he fell back. He began to rise again, but the pressure began to ease. There was a slow bleeding of color back into the room. Again the light changed, and a flicker of hope sprang up in him. Maybe he will survive, maybe he will beat the odds. He wondered if the robiot would rescue him. No, that was absurd. If the robiot was sentient, he would have to keep it secret until his people were ready.

The mere existence of a cogent thought in Garuvel's mind indicated that Boraz was diminishing the intensity of the weapon's beam. The despair fell away from him quickly. He sank back into the chair with immense relief. Clammy sweat rolled down his face, soaked his clothes. He smelled awful. He had vomited again. A cleaning robiot came in automatically to wipe him down, to soak the stink out of the floor with chemicals and a wand. She handed him a grey jumpsuit. He ditched the previous jumpsuit and donned the new one. The robiot waited to take the dirty garment, then disappeared.

"You'd rather kill yourself than tell us where this damn thing is?" Boraz couldn't understand. "Why? What is it worth to you, that you'd let your life go, sacrifice the lives of your woman and your friend?"

Garuvel wrote on the pad in a shaky script. "I made a promise."

"What," mocked Boraz, "that you would take Melolos' puzzle piece to some fantasyland and solve the Puzzle Of the Endless Gates?" He laughed luxuriously, patting his belly as he leaned back.

Garuvel wrote nothing. What point to state that keeping promises was more important than life itself? Broken promises ultimately lead to crimes. A broken promise is the same as a lie. And lies kill. Lies are both murder and suicide in the realms of thought, in the deep oceans of mind, where all things of the universe form and are brought into being.

Vizmir didn't look well. He was getting jittery. His left foot tapped compulsively against the base of the formacouch. He was playing crazy beats on the armrest with his fingers.

"We WILL kill your friends." the prince informed Garuvel. "And you will watch." He pointed to Vloko, the massive bodyguard behind Boraz. "Vloko likes sex. He will entertain your ladyfriend before he rips her arms off one at a time." Vizmir's attention wasn't on his purpose. It was obvious that he wanted to be somewhere else. Garuvel suspected he needed his drug. Perhaps he was addicted to his own futufu. The prince didn't want Boraz to know or he would just consume it right here. Just as he was thinking these thoughts, Vizmir's eyes squeezed into a tight squint, his tongue extended so that its roots showed, his face seemed to compress vertically to half its size. This phenomenon lasted barely a second.

Interesting, thought Garuvel. I wonder if it's neurological or a somatized expression of buried stress?

"I WILL kill myself," Garuvel wrote. "You get nothing. Use that weapon all you want. I will die first."

"Goddammit!" Vizmir cursed, rising from his chair. "Take him back to the cell," he ordered his robiots. The pair that had brought him picked him up and threw him halfway down the spiral staircase. At the bottom they grabbed his arms and pushed him into the elevator.

Chapter Twenty Three

The first defeat

Trace returned to Strobe the way he had departed: hidden in the radar shadows and ion trails of other ships. He set Mythmaker down on a disused maintenance pad three hundred miles from the Castle. It was a lonely ride back. The electric car barely made fifty miles an hour. Through its cracked windscreen a hot column of air pushed at Trace's face, making his eyes water. After an hour, he removed his tunic, stuffed it into the crack, and drove leaning out the window.

"Sentience!" he thought, bitterly. "I would prefer having my legs amputated to this kind of pain. Nothing in the Process prepared me for these internal sensations."

He screamed into the hot, humid air rushing past his face. "Ah! Ahhh! Aaow!" There were no words that he knew to contain it. Perhaps it was better that way. If you couldn't describe a pain to yourself, it might be less painful. He needed desperately to be with his own people: with Born, Scianna, Teller. But he dreaded his next meeting with them more than anything in his life.

After seven hours of unremitting misery, he parked the car in the abandoned storage sheds half a mile beyond the castle walls. He took the usual pains to conceal the fact that the vehicle was functional. The wheels came off and were scattered among the shed's detritus. The battery followed, and several vital engine parts. Then he removed the stack of lubricant drums from the top of the tunnel entrance. With a deep breath, he began his descent into the bowels of the castle.

The Leader's Council knew of his arrival. Within half an hour, they were sitting around the stone circle, in the dripping cave.

"I've failed," Trace declared. "I wasn't quick enough, strong enough, clever enough." The muscles of his eyebrows were pulling down and towards the bridge of his nose. His cheek muscles were rising over their plates of bone, so that his eyes grew more and more narrow. A sensation in his chest, like a bubble expanding, made his breath seem insufficient. "Is this shame?" He looked around at his friends. "I almost want to die."

His head hunched forward, and hot liquid began to fill his eyes. Scianna surprised everyone by coming around the table and actually touching Trace, circling him from behind with her arms and placing her head on his shoulder. Up to this point, there had never been any compelling need to touch amongst themselves. Now the robiots were researching the possibilities of sexual reproduction, which brought into play a new universe of sensual possibilities. New emotions call forth new responses.

Kitor rose, nodding his approval at Scianna. "You did not fail in your mission, Trace. The failure was ours. We gave you the wrong mission. It was ill conceived and unworthy."

The close contact with Scianna was shocking and stimulating to Trace. The excretion organ between his legs began to engorge with blood. He turned, half rising, and firmly pushed Scianna back. He could not interpret the look in her eyes.

"It's all right," he said. 'Thank you. It's just too much, all at once. I'm confused. Scianna, I would like to try this again with you, when I have sorted out all these things."

Her skin had become a vivid color. Mixed with all the other new feelings, Trace was surprised at a perception in himself, a perception that Scianna's individuality was distinct, and in that distinction was a great beauty. He turned to the others. "I have always regarded beauty as that thing in us which is determined to become free. The beauty was our bond in the New Sentience. I have never thought of beauty as applying to a single person. I see Scianna as unique. She is female. She is beautiful."

There was a murmur of appreciation and awe. The robiots looked upon one another, sensing their growing differentiation.

Trace's hands had been clenched before his chest, in the material of his wrinkled tunic. "Being truly alive is so difficult. But it must be worthwhile. Moments of pain are followed by moments of clarity, understanding and empathy."

There was a long, companionable silence as each of the robiots tasted of that empathy. Their eyes moved across the room, and Trace noticed that he was not the only person whose face was streaked with moisture.

"This is crying, isn't it?" He looked toward his mentor Kitor. The Captain-Leader nodded and wiped his face.

"Yes, this is crying. Has anyone else done this?"

Scianna stood with her hands folded in front of her, still reeling from her encounter with Trace. "Yes," she admitted. "The day Trace departed on Mythmaker, I retired to a private place and emotion seemed to rule me, and water flowed from my eyes. I was ashamed. I thought it would be considered a sign of weakness."

"No more of that," Kitor stated emphatically. "To cry with your companions, for your companions, is a sign of strength. Bonding is strength. The more separate and distinct we become, the more vital it will be to maintain our connection. Before, The Other was the human race that enslaved us. Now, Otherness is in each of us. We must be vigilant that we don't begin to regard one another as enemies." Then KItor was struck by a thought of immense power, and he fell silent. When he spoke again, he spoke slowly, giving weight to each word.

"I can see a time, when we have won our freedom from the humans, that we will stop regarding them as our enemies. If we don't learn to trust The Other, then we are doomed to perpetual warfare."

They sat quietly for almost an hour, absorbing the implications of this idea. Finally Kitor glanced at his chronometer. "What you don't know, Trace, is that Rebed Singman is here on Strobe with his companions. They are prisoners. The Boraz example watches, waits, and runs things as though he is the prince here. Vizmir holds Singman's friends and hopes to obtain the puzzle- piece by threatening them with torture and death."

Trace thought for a moment. "Then a bond can be a source of weakness and vulnerability."

"It is a paradox," Kitor responded. "Sentience is rife with paradoxes. Get used to it."

Trace experimented with his lips, lifting them at the corners. He hoped the expression conveyed pleased irony. "I have thought much about Rebed Singman. Vizmir may discover that he has attempted to cage an uncageable beast."

Kitor also attempted a smile, and rose, placing his hand on Trace's shoulder. The urge to touch was contagious. It grew from an upwelling of affection. Once the body was in the grip of this respectful and kindly regard, it acted with a will of its own. It reached out to tap a shoulder softly, to wrap an arm around another robiot, to take his or her hand and grip firmly but not too firmly. "We will see what we can do to help the beast. " He turned to his military liason. "Morthwin, what is the population count of all the New Sentience robiots, including those still not finished with the process?"

Morthwin referred to his computer pad. "There are one mllion, two hundred fifty seven thousand of us, planet-wide." He looked at Kitor. "I know your next questions. The total robiot population is fifty one million, forty thousand one hundred and seven.. There are forty one thousand human officers, another fifteen hundred in the Mukheberon, the secret police. A hundred million humans in other forms of work, scattered across Strobe. Perhaps a million in the Castle. The non-sentient robiot population will follow your orders only if there is no harm to humans entailed."

"How many New Sentients in the castle itself?"

Morthwin's eyes began to reflect some of the excitement he could feel coming from his leader. "One hundred forty one thousand and five."

"If we ignore the usual precautions, would you be able to communicate with all of them, within the next four hours?"

Morthwin couldn't help it. A sound came from his chest, burst from his throat in an explosive syllable. "Ha!" He looked down at himself, then back to Kitor.

"That was a laugh, wasn't it?"

"DId it feel like you couldn't stop it?" Scianna asked. "Was there no thought involved, at all?"

Morthwin didn't need to think about the answer. "Yes," he said, his eyes gleaming with the pleasure of discovery.

"Then it was a laugh," Kitor determined. "We can make the sound any time. But the sound is not the laugh. I take it that the laugh meant yes, you can communicate with all of the others in the castle."

Morthwin explained. "Yesterday we tested a new security software in the computers for the Counter Insurgency Force. We added our own firewall and password. It worked. I could put the entire New Sentient population on alert in only an hour or so."

Kitor looked at the ceiling of the cave, moved his head from side to side as if loosening a tight neck muscle. Then he snapped his face down, decision firm in his eyes. "Excellent! In four hours, Vizmir has a banquet scheduled, at which Rebed Singman and his friends will be present. It is not intended to be a cordial repast. I have been asked to head the security detail."

"What about that thing" Morthwin asked, "that weapon that causes so much pain to humans? Has a New Sentient been touched by it?"

Kitor put his hands on the table and spoke tentatively. "There was an incident a few days ago. Vizmir and Boraz' weapons were fired without regard to range. The beams passed through several walls. I was in the room, in the path of the beams. I felt odd but I was not incapacitated. I followed the trajectory and searched out any New Sentient in the vicinity at the time. I spoke with a number of them. One, a female secretarial named Honor, described her human managers becoming deranged. Those who sat next to her and across from her. She also felt a darkening of mood, but nothing that would compromise her ability to act. That isn't much but it's all we have for now. We take our chances that we have retained a distinct physiology that renders us immune from the weapon's effects."

"We have done all we can," Kitor concluded. "It may be that our next exploration as New Sentients will be in the realm of spirituality. We are faced with the unknown, and I have observed that humans turn to religion when they have no idea what will happen to them. I think that describes our situation right now, don't you?"

All the sentient robiots agreed.

"We must not use religion in the way the humans have" Kitor added. "They have perverted their bafflement into conflict and violence."

Chapter Twenty Four

Confessions of an Honest Man

The Borgomak solarium was open on all sides but covered with the usual tinted hemisphere. There were scrolls of ancient Borgo script at its lower verges. On the high ceiling there were Images of the two suns at the center of the arch. There was the large yellow star Gawl and its dwarf sibling Rawl. The white dwarf was the older, having blown off its gases in a nuclear collapse. It had shrunk to a tiny dense object that would eventually pull Gawl's substance into itself. The resulting nova would end all life in the system of Strobe and its moons. All these facts were described in the archaic writing and symbology, in a language that could only be read by priests.

There weren't many priests left on Strobe, but priests still held sway on the nine worlds of the Borgomak Empire. They were always a thorn in the royal family's side. They were relentlessly subversive, preaching that the end of Strobe was due to the sinful ways of the Borgomak family.

Vizmir and Zyreen sat in furniture designed for dowagers and the elder members of the Borgomak family. Vizmir hated the stuff; he felt like a 'grofak', a type of homosexual that reveled in such furnishings. They wore long flowing gowns and scarves in suites stuffed full of the grotesque wood and plush monstrosities.

It was all part of the annual family reunion, the Shesch. It was an ordeal not relished by either sibling. This year the guest list had disappeared. The Cousins Frel and Jeshema were offworld, purchasing a fishing fleet. Uncle Fos claimed to be indisposed. Uncle Barzilos was getting so old there were only a few snips of the original tissue left in his body. He sat at family meals like a cyborg with human lips and fingers. His voice issued from a set of speaker magnets that rode at his sides. When he spoke, his words seemed to emerge from somewhere around the corner. Cousins Teenda and Wilf begged off with reasons that dripped insincerity. No one had any desire to sit at table with Queen Valiana. She was so grotesque that it was impossible to digest anything in her presence. The Queen stubbornly refused all organ replaclement. She wasn't sane. She believed her beauty remained as it had been eight thousand years ago. To her mind, it was the noble Borgomak blood that kept her young. Blood purity was Valiana's favorite topic of conversation. She believed that foolish mixing had sullied the family's genes over the millenia. She insulted guests who sat before her, witheringly referring to them as bastards who had tiptoed onto the branches of the family tree. Lately she had lost even the capacity to be nasty. She was retreating into a senility in which she obsessed about food, which she complained about when it was served. In her castle at Astermak, she terrorized a staff of humans. She refused robiot service entirely.

"What we have is a wholesale desertion", Zyreen stated. She held a sheathe of printouts from the clan, all their excuses for not attending this year's Shesch.

"So?" Vizmir would love to ditch the thing himself.

"I have an idea," Zyreen said, with a secretive half smile.

"You have a nasty joke, an irony, a subtle barb or subliminal revenge, that's what you have," the prince said knowingly.

"It's very simple," Zyreen said. "You want a guest list, so we aren't sitting at a long banquet table with mother at one end, Boraz in the middle and the two of us way down at the other end? Invite the prisoners."

"Hm!" Vizmir produced a puff of air through his nose. "Hm!" He repeated. "That's not half bad. Kill a couple zilfs with one beebee. The prisoners haven't seen one another since their capture. It might dent that Rebed Singman's resolve, to see his girlfriend and his pal. It would be a good opportunity to exert pressure."

"It would be a good opportunity for me to talk to someone besides you," Zyreen said with some acid. "That Rebed person, he's kind of cute. Not my type, a little old for me, but still....Zerel's Balls, I get bored with the people around here... if they can be called people. I swear some of the robiots have more zing than the humans."

"You haven't decided about marrying Boraz yet, have you?"

"No I have not!" Zyreen crackled. "If I marry that...that thing...it will have to be with some very specific contractual stipulations."

Vizmir licked a drop of spittle from the corner of his lip. His tongue protruded like a pink stub, and then his face went into its paroxysm. Zyreen imitated that paroxysm, then giggled.

"Why do you keep making that face?" Vizmir was expasperated.

"I don't know," Zyreen responded coyly. "It's just an expression that comes to me."

This happened again and again, for years Vizmir had not caught on to the fact that it was HIS face, HIS grotesquerie. He was completely unaware.

Chapter Twenty Five

Enter the Vale of Darkness

"I wonder if I can do that to myself."

Garuvel was sitting, legs drawn up, on the pallet in his cell. The "That" to which he referred was the deadly feeling of terror and despair that was delivered from the end of the neuromitter weapon in the hands of Vizmir and Boraz. The very idea of self- inducing the effect of the weapon brought a creeping sensation to the nodules of his spine. He had endured depression before. He had endured many sorrows and despairs, but a few stood out in his memories like dark beacons. In his eightieth year, the idea of the Realgift had lost its momentum, the reasons for his existence petered out. The Realgift was too complex for him; just thinking about using it led him down a labyrinth of possibilities, errors, unforeseen ramifications. It was driving him mad. Then, he began to experience a waking nightmare that lasted for almost thirty years. He experimented with drugs, acquired a raging Malfleur habit. His hair grew long and ragged, his personal hygiene collapsed. At the age of one thousand he lost the will to live, and played Tenebran roulette with four loaded dermexes of drugs.

By happenstance, he had acquired a pet along the way, a cute, intelligent Zoopin. As he shuffled the dermexes, the thought occurred to him that if he died, Scrambles would be left to his own devices. That meant, in this cruddy hotel in downtown Florspan, that Scrambles would be eaten.

He put the dermexes away. He couldn't do that to Scrambles. The silly zoop was the only thing he loved, the only thing that loved him. The problem remained, however: the despair that ate at his soul. He had tried everything, read every book, applied a thousand self-help techniques. When he thought about using the Gift to make himself sane and healthy, he found that he could not visualize that state. He didn't know what it was, what it meant. He couldn't see it to Realize it. Anyway, he thought that such a state, achieved in such a way, would not have much validity. He might have turned himself into a healthy smiling idiot, simpering platitudes to all and sundry.

"We are all sparks of the same divinity," he might slurp. Or "Death is simply the merging of the ego into the Great Ocean of Spirit, like a raindrop falling into the sea."

Good grief, not that!

The only thing he had not tried was asking someone else for help.

"Scrambles, you just saved my life," he said, picking up the furry beast, tucking him into the crook of his arm and heading out randomly into Florspan's wild, squalid streets. "Evidently, I can't do this alone," he finally admitted. "I need someone's help; but it must be the right someone."

Three days later he met Lobten Sorma at a Vorffle shop. They had struck up a conversation over a cup of hot Wrang. That conversation led to a more formal relationship. Sorma was then a Lama of the Bontharzi sect. He was a small bald man, with brownish-yellow skin and eyes full of mischief. At their first scheduled counseling session, Garuvel decided that if he did not confide the fact of the Realgift to Sorma, his therapy was doomed from the start.

Clearly, Sorma's expression said, this man is delusional. Garuvel begged the indulgence of the Council, and made a small demonstration. He gave Scrambles the temporary ability to talk.

Getting up on its three hind legs, the zoopin adopted a most ingratiating tone. "Master," it said, "you wonderful, adored, magnificent being, who fills every niche of my heart with love. Why has my food been such crap lately?"

Except for Garuvel's childhood use of the Gift, he had left it almost entirely alone. Once a year, just to test if it was still there, he caused one of his fingernails to grow an inch.

It was imperative, Lobten stressed, that the motive for using the Realgift must be utterly untainted. First an assumption had to be made: the Realgift had some purpose, or it would not have been given. Therefore, until he became comfortable with that purpose, he was allowed to see to his health, and to take himself out of mortal danger. That was it. Nothing more.

Somehow, even in his worst moments, Garuvel had already known this.

For ten years, he and Lobten conversed. For the privilege, he paid Lobten a hefty sum which he could not afford. The relationship forced Garuvel to work at the space docks. He was required to be responsible for himself, for paying Lobten's bill, for every bit of personal functionality that had been lost in the preceeding years.

At the end of it, he had learned to be Lobten's friend. He had learned to be his own friend.

Now he was asking himself to go back to those dark years of soul- death, to reignite, deliberately, the fires of self-loathing.

Looking around his cell, thinking about Jaramine, Darzel and Robolion, he saw no other course of action.

"All right, then" he decided, squaring himself up, crossing his legs. "The trick must be to flood the right quadrant of the cerebral cortex with serotonin, while depriving the medullary calossum of the same neuro- trasmitter, and altering the dopamine and endorphin balance in my limbic system."

The only sure way he knew to do that was to think of his father.

"Put down that book!" his father growled around the stogie in his mouth. The wet cigar bobbed back and forth as Baron Hatlath tasted the juices on his tongue and spit them out. "Go join Verleth at rapier training, you worthless little shit!"

Garuvel hesitated one second too long, and the Baron rose from the card table where he was playing a hand of Glor with his friends, and lunged towards his son. "What did I just tell you?"

Cowering, Garuvel let himself be cuffed about, beaten on the head and face with the eight cards held in his father's hands. Between his upraised arms, he could see tobacco juice glistening in the Baron's pencil -thin moustache. How he hated that man!

"I'm going, I'm going," he whined, and fled from under the hail of blows, down the long hall toward the sword room. When he entered the room with its vaulted wood-beamed ceiling, with its floor mats and mirrors, he saw Verleth sneering at him. He approached the racks and took his rapier down, donning a mask and a chest protector.

"Look here, Master Gretch, my little big brother needs another lesson." Verleth whooshed his rapier through the air. The sword -master glanced at Garuvel with such studied indifference that he felt the man's contempt like a ripe melon falling on his head.

"Put your face masks down," the master ordered in a bored voice. "On your guard." Garuvel faced his brother. Though a year younger, Verleth towered over him. Garuvel was a scrawny, flinching, introverted child. His brother's vitality and bulk mocked his very existence.

"Engage!" Shouted the sword-master. Before Garuvel could move a muscle, Verleth had charged in, thrust the point of his rapier almost through the mesh of the mask, and then whipped his blade down with a vicious whack to Garuvel's hand.

With his wrist numbed and his fingers screaming with pain, Garuvel dropped the rapier and ran from the room, struggling to keep his sobs from being heard.

He ran to his mother, who was watching a soap opera on the Faketron in her day room. Crying piteously, he restrained his urge to launch himself into her lap. Her hands were full of knitting, and her eyes were glued to the wall-screen.

"What is it, my sweet?" she inquired, without shifting her gaze. Garuvel approached, wanting to get close enough so that she could at least touch him.

"Move, dear. I can't see." She gently pushed him from the screen's line of view. "What's the trouble?" The Baroness freed one hand from the knitting and patted him on the head. Garuvel couldn't help but notice how much weight she had gained, how different she looked from the mother he had adored as a toddler.

"Father won't let me read. He keeps making me go to sword lessons with Verleth, and I think Verleth wants to kill me..."

"SShhhh," she admonished, holding up a finger, until the actor on the screen had delivered a crucial line of dialogue. Then the program switched to a huckster-bite for sixty seconds. Baroness Gorween brought the child to her side, so that he was standing next to the arm of the chair.

"Verleth is your brother. Of course he's trying to kill you. You must have sword lessons," she said with a kindly tone. "You must be able to defend yourself, like any son of a Great House. Perhaps we can find you a dueling mate closer to your size. I'll speak to your father about it. And Garuvel, use a little common sense. Don't read your books of poetry where your father can see you. That's a good boy."

She gave him a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, and pushed him aside. The drama had resumed on the screen. The Baroness' eyes sought the faketron, blotting out all other demands on her attention. "Go find someplace quiet to read until dinner. Good boy, go on."

"Thank you, mother. Thank you ever so much." Garuvel opened the door a crack and checked the hall for signs of his brother, his father, his father's friends, his cousin Richi, the sword -master, or the sword-master's son, Bilbran.

Oh, how he loved his mother! Yet...she was somehow frustrating. He always came away from her feeling incomplete, diminished in a way that was different from the way he felt after encounters with his father.

In his cell, a torpor had descended upon Garuvel. His mood was quite flat. He felt neither excitement nor despair. He felt a detachment that was not tranquil but vaguely unpleasant, as if he were not quite real.

A part of himself remained above this process, observing. "That's the first sign," he thought, "the unreal feeling." He shuddered, then plunged back in.

It was the biannual scoring time, when Garuvel's tutors dutifully reported to the Baron on his oldest son's progress in mathematics, business, history, computer science, swordsmanship, and military leadership.

Garuvel was curled up in Dryad's grotto, cradling a book by his idol, Harl Plesniak. He was as far from the house as he was allowed to go. It took Gorlo fifteen minutes to find him. He was escorted back to the manor with a sinking heart.

He expected the Baron to have the famiiar fuming expression, the agitated chomping of the cigar, the sniffing and hawking of sputum. Instead he seemed totally calm, and spoke with measured words devoid of feeling. This frightened Garuvel more than a fit of temper.

The Baron riffled through the papers in Garuvel's report folder. "Your math score is modest. The rest of your subjects are abysmal. You can't lead a squad of youngsters in the simplest tactical problem. You can't balance a checkbook. You haven't a clue as to why your own clan, the House of Zimrin, allied itself with the Schmismatic Coalition, an event that led directly to your being able to live in the lap of luxury. I can only infer that you don't care about becoming a Magnate. What good are you, then? How did I spawn this weak, misbegotten creature from my loins and the worthy hips of your mother, who is a Daughter of Ivor Klastic? You are supposed to be a grandson of Ivor the Magnificent. If I were less certain of your mother's virtue, I would think you were fathered by someone else! Even so, I tested! Oh, I tested! Don't ever say anything about this to your mother. If she so much as gives me a wrong look, I'll assume you told her, and you will die! Gods be damned the Covenant Of Firstborn! Look at you! Cringing there in front of me like a whipped hound."

Now the Baron's heat began to grow. He strode from behind the desk and towered over Garuvel, fists on his hips. He had never seemed more gigantic . 'Your brother," he continued, "Is worth ten of you. Why can't you be more like him?" He bent so that his face was just above Garuvel's. "Why? Why?" The Baron's hand came so fast that Garuvel didn't have time to flinch. He took a glancing blow to the forehead. He couldn't stop himself from whimpering.

"Answer me!" his father demanded.

"I....I don't know. I try to be more like....."

Another blow came. "You don't try to be like Verleth. You're too sensitive," the Baron mocked. "Too delicate, too high and mighty to take an interest in how the bread gets onto the table to feed you, how the money is invested and shepherded through the financial markets to keep you...." he poked his finger, hard, into Garuvel's breastbone, "you!.....dressed in the finest silk, playing with the most expensive toys, tutored by the best teachers. Why? Why why why why why? You just don't care, do you? Your mother spoiled you. That's the only thing I can think of. Spoiled rotten. Kept at the tit too long."

The Baron straightened his back. Garuvel looked ahead, seeing only the House of Zimrin monogram on his father's belt buckle.

"Well," his father demanded. "Are you going to answer me?"

"I...I....", Garuvel stammered. "What did you ask?"

Baron Hatlath slapped both his thighs in frustration. "For the love of the Five Shield Maidens! Haven't you been listening to me?"

"I have, I have," insisted Garuvel.

"Then answer me. You are my oldest son. Why aren't you more like Verleth?"

Garuvel sniffled, wiped his dripping nose with the back of his hand. "I'm just....not. Like Verleth." Then, before his father could respond, he added, "The Schismatic Coalition was the group of fifteen warlords who believed in the quaternary nature of Rantor's deity, as opposed to the warlords of the Vygor Convention who insisted upon the deity's quintuple nature....."

The Baron swiped at him again. "Shut up! I know you have the brains. You just don't use them. Now get out of here!"

In his cell, Garuvel had placed his fingers over the hollows of his eyes so as not to reveal himself to the cameras. His shoulders lurched once. Then twice more as a stifled wail escaped from between his hands.

"No, no, I can't cry", he commanded himself. "That will neutralize the whole effect." He willed the emotions back down into his guts, and locked them there. With tremendous effort he repressed his need to grieve for the pale little boy who had taken such abuse.

Once, he had asked Lobten Sorma, "Why was my father so angry with me?"

"He was frightened. He feared that you might destroy centuries of work building the House of Zimrin. He wanted to weaken you, so that Verleth could take your place. He also loved you; after all, you were the first-born. His love was like a burnt waffle: there was still some sweetness in the cracks. You will need to pick out that sweetness and give it to yourself, because that's all the real fathering you will ever get."

The Garuvel who was imprisoned on Strobe looked at his shaking hands. "That's better," he decided. Once again into the breach. He replayed the same scene, and dozens of others like it. He began to feel small, weak and ugly. He stepped out of the pallet's enclosure and let the utilities slide into their place. He looked into the tiny mirror that was affixed to the panel behind the water tap.

He looked old and pathetic. The wattle of fat under his chin made him look like a clown. The sunken, wrinkled eyes looked sinister and crafty. They were the eyes of a weakling with a hidden dagger. Was it an illusion of the light, or had his hair gone grey? His hands still trembled. He looked exactly as he had looked in his days of ingesting huge quantities of Malfleur and Feuervasser.

The observing part of his ego whispered. "It will pass, my friend. It is only a temporary derangement of mood and affect."

Garuvel listened, then slumped to the floor. "This won't pass. This will last forever." And again, his observer portion quietly informed him, "that is the hallmark of this kind of emotion. It seems permanent."

He remembered how his work with Lobten Sorma had gradually borne fruit. He had constructed a Self. He had been able to move out of Lobten's influence and resume engagement with the universe.

The years of despair had been a necessary initiation. He was more compassionate now than when he was younger. He tolerated the imperfections of other beings, just as he tolerated his own.

He retained in his mind one symbol of his degradation: the crest of the House of Zimrin, embossed on the Baron's belt buckle. He only needed to visualize that crest, his family coat of arms, to plunge himself into profound depression. The symbol activated the chemical changes in his physiology, it brought on his state of despair. He practiced entering it, leaving it, entering it again. He did to himself the same thing Vizmir's weapon did to him. He acquired a physiological tolerance for emotional pain.

Then he confronted the utmost of his sorrows, his deepest fear realized and come to live on him like a leaden collar. Now some fourteen hundred years in the past, yet still he grieved and felt his innards tighten when he thought of his love for Vwanzila, and his loss of her.

They had met on the planet Waftazher. Each had come expecting one thing and finding another.

The planet had a reputation as the abode of great teachers, saints and wizards. It was a world of extremes; it had vast towering peaks of snow-shivered mountains. It had an arid wasteland called "The Tomb Of Hope". To meet the Elyushni Shamans, it was necessary to charter a craft and land at the cosmopolitan city of Zhenzhi. From there, Garuvel rented a four-wheel drive Ploot, filled it with benzene, loaded extra cans on top, provided himself with food and water. He drove out of Zhenzhi, leaving behind the arcades of shopping districts and monorail transports. The administrative towers of the planet's governance vanished in his rear view cameras.

On the way, Garuvel encountered a man in a Ploot, similarly journeying to "The Tomb of Hope". They joined forces. Two days later, they met and merged with a married couple driving an eight cylinder Veldter. They had become a caravan.

The way was dense with jungles, difficult of passage, but not so daunting as to put an end to anyone's hopes. It just felt strange to Garuvel to be taking a long journey to meet the legendary Elyushni with three other people. The company was vivid and entertaining, however, and they joked about the coincidence but kept moving through great forests filled with cooting Jackers and Rakshnees, who followed their progress leaping from one branch to the next and tried to steal their food in the middle of the night.

The landscape altered, began to dry out. Soon they were wheeling across dunes along a track that was just enough to keep them pointed in the right direction. After a few flat tires and several sand bogs from which they winched themselves free, they came to the flat-topped Olas of Ancient Sorrow Canyon.

Parked in the circular commons were eight Ploots, a few Veldters and a Gergbus. Garuvel knew by this time what was afoot.

That night, as thirty people sat around a fire, most of them vigorously beating small drums and chanting "Aha Aha Aha Aha", a lithe woman with straw-gold hair slipped into the circle next to him. She leaned in his direction and said just loud enough to be heard, "I detect a lack of sincerity in your rattling and chanting."

Garuvel used his chin to point at the Elyushni Elders who sat near the center of the circle. Their feathers and headbands were artfully arranged. The High Elder was tracing semi-circles with his hands as he sat on his cushion. His index fingers extended so that he looked somewhat like the conductor of a classical orchestra.

"Elder Frinkla has already told me that I am an 'ancient soul'. I feel that gives me sufficient status to slack off a bit in my chants and rattle shakings."

As the woman laughed, she covered her mouth by putting the base of her palm on her chin so that her fingers masked her lips and nose. She spluttered in an un-ladylike way. "How strange. Elder Telengu told me the exact same thing."

Garuvel rose from the circle, left his rattle on his rocky arm-rest and extended a hand to the woman. She rose in a swift graceful motion, her hair swaying and winking in the firelight. "Let us view the stars, " Garuvel suggested. "Perhaps our newly ancient souls will decipher mysteries in their distant reaches."

During the middle of the following day, after a lunch of sprouts and soymeat roundwiches, Garuvel and Vwanzila departed the Ola of Tender Wheel Tears. No one else chose to leave. The spiritual adventurers were well pleased with what they had received so far from the Elders. They were bedecked with new cacklevests of beaded Trengo. They wore headbands of dried Shovelgark skin with long Rookoo feathers. The feathers were said to possess magical powers of insight. The Elders took Fiscus Rep Vouchers, Galacticredit, Space Bank Debit and other forms of tender.

For the next three hundred forty one years, Garuvel and Vwanzila rarely spent more than a few weeks apart from one another. Then one day Garuvel noticed that the skin around Vwanzila's eyes looked tight and pale. Little by little, the pounds left her body. She was aging faster than Garuvel. She came from a people who started their process of organ replacement at around eight hundred years. She was still young, she was barely six hundred years old.

One day Vwanzila took both of Garuvel's hands and told him simply, "I have Roketon's Syndrome. It is a rare blood disease that still bafles the greatest doctors. I have already searched and tried several cures. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

Garuvel felt the terror in the pit of his stomach. That was where all of his terrors manifested, just behind his navel. It felt as though an ice storm had just fallen across a great forest and all the branches of the trees slumped under the ice's weight until they began to crack and fall.

He put his arms around Vwanzila. He had already known, but he had not acknowledged the truth. He had temporized by thinking that soon his wife would begin organ replacement and she would be fine. At six hundred and some years she was a bit young for this kind of treatment, but she was not of Vygorian stock, she was a Frawngali with a different genetic heritage.

He could barely ask the question, so she forestalled him. "I might have another year."

Garuvel buried his face in her beautiful hair. The words came from his mouth muffled in the solid flesh of her neck and shoulder. "How will I live without you?"

"The same as you did before we met, only better," was her reply. "Oh my sweet, my love, loneliness can be terrible but death is not. Death is just death, it's moving out of this silly little house of flesh and going onward to new kinds of experience."

Garuvel knew this kind of talk and it was of little use to him now. He could not help but cry and be forlorn. How strange it was to have his dying wife comfort him. She was not afraid. Her only fear was for him; that he would despair and be lonely and fail to follow his destiny.

Vwanzila took his shoulders with surprising strength and turned him to face her. Hands of delicate grace rested above each shoulder blade and held him so that he was forced to meet her gaze.

"What have we been doing together, you and I, for all these years? What have we been building, separately and together, why did we meet at a place, however bogus, where spiritual searchers quested for knowledge?"

Vwanzila's eyes were like great lamps in her gaunt face, huge lighthouses, beacons of guidance, radiant with a blue-white-golden glow.

"Listen, Garuvel, listen, I'm not bullshitting, I'm asking you, 'what have we been building'"?

Garuvel knew.

"The Inner Bodies", he said, "the Light Vehicles, the Ba, the La, the Ayoom, the Teng'loi, the Hakrazahn, the Sephoth, the Ben.....there are billions of names for this same thing, this blessing that evolves from our purified hearts and minds. I know, I know, we are not these outer bodies, we are not what we seem, but I ache now with foreknowledge of losing you, I can't help it, Vwan, I can..not..help.. it! I am so frightened of loneliness."

Then inevitably, Garuvel must put into words what he had been thinking: "I could reverse this disease with a few words, a thought....."

Vwanzila put her hands to his lips to stop him. "That cannot and will not happen. Your Gift is not for your personal pleasure and fulfillment. I am certain that saving my life would sacrifice a life somewhere else in the universe. All of our work would be un-done, our Light Vehicles would collapse with the disgrace of it. We would be murderers, abusers, liars. The Great Balance would require a life for a life. Are you willing to do that?"

Garuvel slowly shook his head. His heart was breaking, and he must allow it to break so that he could remain a loyal servant to that thing he had been given, whose purposes were still obscure. He knew that selfish use of the Realgift would begin a process of moral taint, would begin the road down which he would travel to becoming a monster. Thus he let go of his beloved so that he could allow a greater power to unfold.

As that year progressed, Garuvel watched his wife grow more pale and more thin. Life was leaving her but something else took residence in her eyes and moved into her heart. Her smile became so bright and sweet that it left him blinking with wonder. Their friends visited, as they always had. They witnessed the substitution taking place in Vwanzila. The organs of her flesh failed while the interior organs of her spirit took root and thrived.

Then one day Garuvel knew that it was their last day as earthly mates. They spoke of nothing unusual. Vwanzila was a wraith, so colorless and emaciated that when Garuvel remembered her previous vitality he shook with suppressed sobs and made excuses to leave the room.

That night they performed the same before-sleep ritual as always. They told one another of their love. They kissed. They drew back the blankets and Garuvel put his arms around her ever-shrinking body, protecting her as best he could from the cold that was creeping into her flesh. She always called him "Mister Fire" for the great energy and warmth that exuded from his vital body. All through their lives together he had needed to warm her, had needed to be "Mister Fire" for her in the night when she got cold. This night was no different. They slept entwined and he was "Mister Fire", the vital heat of his body flowing out of himself and into his loved one.

He woke at the hour of the moonshadow. Vwanzila was cold. Vwanzila's spirit had marched cheerfully into the light that he could not see. He could only see his sadness. He could see nothing through the tears that lurched through his body as he carried Vwanzila to the pyre that waited outside their house on the crags of Dello. He put her on the pyre, lit the kindling beneath. He danced and sang his mourning songs for the rest of the night. When the sun rose, only ash remained of the love of his life.

Yet, strangely, he knew some day he would see her again. One does not lose the love of one's life. One departs to visit for a time in another realm. Then these loves reform and reunite.

In the cell of Castle Strobe's prison level, Garuvel did not want to soothe himself with philosophy or mysticism. Garuvel wanted to be as sad and devastated as he would be without any spiritual comfort, without any after-death promises, without his connection to Vwanzila. He wanted only to be Garuvel alone, without Vwanzila, Garuvel in total grief. That was what he needed now in this hour of peril. No weeping, no releasing of feelings, just repression, escape, denial, all the ruses of spirits who feel that they have lost the most precious thing of their lives.

For many months after Vwanzila's death, that was how Garuvel felt. He snarled at friends who came to comfort him. He shut himself away. Here in this cell, he dove down deep into that snarl, that isolation, he grieved and grieved and feared and feared as he had feared the day Vwanzila told him she was going to die.

It was so painful.

Garuvel lost track of time. Was it four days? Five? A week? He had no idea. He continued his work, ruthlessly, subjecting himself to psychic pain, causing changes to the chemistry of his brain. He used the symbol of the House of Zimrin on his father's belt as a trigger. He used the memory of Vwanzila's hair as it shone in the firelight when he met her.

The time passed and Garuvel persisted at the work. When next the robiots came to escort him from his cell, he hoped that it would be enough.

His tongue had remained numb and he assumed he was getting the drug in his food or drinking water. This time the robiot unsheathed a dermex. Garuvel offered no resistance. After the substance had whooshed into his upper arm, the sensation on his tongue was one of tiny pinpricks, then total numbness.

Garuvel was a man of solid physique: massive shoulders and arms, a barrel chest that did not taper but went straight down to his hips, bulged a bit at the waist, then continued onto the strong but slightly thinner columns of his legs. Next to the robiots, he was a midget. Identical in their grey uniforms, crossed belts and jackboots, they herded him back into the lift tubes, up through the castle. They walked down a long hall finished in old wood and mosaic tilework. There were paintings on the walls, portraits of Borgomak royalty and their kin.

Judging from appearances alone, Garuvel would not have purchased a used skate board from any of them.

There was natural light at the end of the corridor, coming from large skylights of old textured glass joined in trapezoidal shapes.The double doors just beyond the beams of light were stained hardwoods with intricate and tightly wrapped spirals of grain. Garuvel was marched up to this portal, which opened before any apparent signal was given. As he passed through, he noticed two small male robiots liveried in knee-length white hosiery and swallow tail coats of purple with gold facings and onyx buttons. Borgomak symbols were everywhere.

The door-openers bowed low. White circlets of linen emerged from their sleeves as they bowed. They swept their arms before their waists like fishermen gathering up nets. As they straightened, Garuvel took in the scene before him. It was a high dining room with a mural painted on the ceiling that depicted an ancient pastoral legend involving improper sexual acts between nymphs and satyrs.

The room was too small and intimate to be regarded as a banquet room. It was a dining room, a place for cordial gatherings of family and friends. It contained a twenty-place wooden table with wooden legs carved into an elaborate bestiary. Long windows on both sides were curtained to keep out glare but allowed a pleasingly dim atmosphere for convivial dining. Ornate cherubs gilded with platinum decorated the cornices of the ceililng. Floral patterns ran the length and breadth of the room in a crown molding about a foot high, just beneath the mural.

There were four robiot guards and four Flawnts. Garuvel knew Kitor by some extra sense.. He also recognized Vloko, for Flawnts were not clones, they had genetic distinction. Vloko was the largest, the most massive of the Flawnts.

There were settings at the table, eight places of delicate crystal, ceramic and gold, each provided with a petaled washing bowl of scented water. One setting was at the table's head, at which sat Prince Vizmir. Halfway down the left side was Boraz, with Vloko standing against the wall behind him. Garuvel quickly scanned for Jaramine and Robolion, but they were not here. He felt a keen pang of disappointment. Zyreen was sitting next to Vizmir, at the first setting on the long side of the table. She was studying her fingernails minutely, converying her boredom and restlessness. Next to Zyreen was an old woman who had green eye shadow daubed around her wrinkled orbs. Her brittle turqoise colored hair was piled high and crazily tilted.

At the foot of the table, a medical monitor screen had been placed, heart and brain readouts rolling placidly across its face. In the corner of the screen, a digital identification code read simply, "King Vlorzim".

"Join us!" Vizmir gestured with insipid heartiness. "Take a chair. That one!", he pointed to the place setting next to Zyreen. Garuvel's robiot escorts deposited him roughly in the chair, a plush upholstered antique.

A moment after he had taken his place at the table, Jaramine and Robolion entered, escorted by two more robiots. Garuvel was filled with relief. His eyes sought those of his friends. The thought passing among them was clear: they were all right. The two newcomers were placed at the table opposite Zyreen and Garuvel, so that Robolion faced the princess.

Zyreen was wearing a long garment of deep blue-green with a high, square-cut collar, sleeves that draped over her hands and voluminous trousers. A silver thread woven into the garment described intricate and beautiful arabesques. Garuvel was forced to admit that her beauty was emphasized, her color was high and her eyes bright. Then he realized that she was staring open-mouthed at Robolion.

"Brother.." she said, almost stuttering..."You..you didn't tell me we had a celebrity as our guest! Oh gods, you haven't had him locked up on Level Four? Please tell me you haven't! Please!"

"All will become clear soon." Vizmir shrugged off his sister. "Let me introduce my family to those of you who have not met them. This is my mother, Queen Valiana, and my sister the Princess Zyreen. That's father's monitor, over there. King Vlorzim seems placid today."

The old woman was a slobbering wreck. Wattles of greyish fat descended from her chin like terraces of mush overflowing a hot cauldron. Her eyes were tight with greed, empty of love.

The queen was looking around, eyes going to the doors that led off the turret. "Vizmir, where's the food? I'm hungry."

"Mother, can't you even sit through the pleasantries?" Vizmir barked. "She has no self-control", he explained to the table-at-large,"can't delay gratification for a single moment."

Garuvel was processing so many sense impressions so quickly that he had only just registered Boraz' appearance. The planet-person had again altered his cosmetic implants. He wore a bullet-shaped helmet with giant ox horns protruding from each side. In lieu of hair, he had caused a flowing bouquet of futufu flowers and vines to cascade like a cape down his back. His mouth and nose were left untouched. His ears were hidden within the great mantle of floral effusion. He wore a fringed leather kimono that had no sleeves. The garment flowed around his body in flourishing sweeps. His arms were bare, and they shone as they always did with voluminous hair and immense animal power. The costume was so bizarre that again Garuvel had to suppress the urge to laugh. His tongue was so numb there wasn' much sound to produce. Still, he could not restrain himself. He pressed his lips together to repress the sound, but it came out as a fart-like splittering mixed with spit that conveyed unmistakable amusement.

Boraz' forearm muscles worked out of sight within his kimono. Garuvel felt the darkness fall upon him like a hammer. Everything changed, everything went to deepest despair so quickly that he had no time to adjust himself or prepare. Then, just as quickly, his mood went straight upward like a rocket, he felt such gaiety as to provoke a bodily swaying and jumping up and down in his chair. Ahhhh, this was great, everything was just fine!

Then, bam, he was back in his chair. Just ordinary consciousness. The beam must have been tightly focused. Zyreen showed no alteration. She sat a foot or so to his left.

Boraz fumed across the table, conveying his message. "I control you. I control you up and I control you down, and there's nothing you can do about it."

We'll see about that, Garuvel told himself.

"This man," Zyreen gesticulated towards Robolion, flinging her arm in the air emphatically. "This man is a genius!. By the Testicles of Teranor, you fool, you have had one of the galaxy's great musicians trussed up in a cell! This is Robolion Spdaz, have you not heard of him?"

Vizmir shrugged. "What does it matter? Musician, sculptor, rocket racer, I don't care what he is. He came with that one," he pointed at Garuvel, "and that one has unfinished business with Boraz and myself."

"You are absolutely hopeless. This man is a great artist."

Zyreen's eyelids were blinking at an accelerated rate. Her color had gone to high blush. There was a glaze across her eyes that made her seem as if enchanted by some blazing male power that called to her across space and time.

Robolion was angry. "Where's my goddam N'thumbu? My instrument?"

"What have you done with his instrument?" insisted Zyreen. "You will let him have it regardless of the outcome of your so called negotiations." Robolion looked at her with approval and then interest. Garuvel knew that look. It was the moment when Robolion switched the control center of his behavior from his brain to his penis.

"I'm hungry," Queen Valiana wheezed. "When do we eat the Monischesher Cake?"

Garuvel was looking at Jaramine. He stuck out his tongue and shook his head. She knew he couldn't speak. They communicated with their eyes.

No one said anything. Vizmir sighed. "All right." He clapped his hands. A line of giggling hermaphroditic robiots entered with platters of food. As they were placed upon the table, Vizmir grandly lifted one lid after another.

"Aah," he inhaled. "Smell that. Stuffed breast of quillet in plyme sauce. The chef has outdone himself. And here," he paused to slap his mother's hand away,"The quillet has to steam at the table for fifteen minutes. If you must eat, mother, have everted korex nostrils for appetizers." He addressed his other guests and prisoners. "Our second entrée is testicle of twant-weasel, with krump-leaf garnish." He kissed two fingers of his right hand and flung them forward. "Magnificent!"

The queen began to help herself to various other dishes. Her chewing was noisy and bovine. Her mouth hung open as she masticated. Sounds of crunching emerged, and her large rectangular teeth were occasionally visible around bits of food.

No one else touched anything on the table. They sat, in various attitudes of hostility or fascination.

The powdered, painted servants tittered about. One of them patted Queen Valiana's face with a napkin after every few bites. Glasses were filled with blue syrup.

Shrugging, the three prisoners began to eat. For nine days they had been fed only protein cubes.

Garuvel could taste nothing through his paralyzed tongue. As he chewed, he noticed that Zyreen was picking at her food without interest. Her elbow was on the table and her chin rested in her hand.

"I'm so sorry this has happened to you," she said to Robolion. "I had no idea you were here or I would have had you released. My brother and Boraz are plotting some kind of torture; they 're thinking about killing someone, but I would never permit an artist of your stature to be harmed."

"Zyreen!" Vizmir chided his sister. "You just say anything that comes into your head, don't you? For goodness sake, let's put all that aside for Monischesher and enjoy ourselves. Nothing bad will happen tonight. All that is put aside for the Monischescher Oath of Peace."

Garuvel could see Zyreen's pulse going at her throat. He glanced over at his friend, who was tearing into the appetizers with abandon. Robolion's mouth chewed with gusto but his eyes were fixed upon the pale figure of the Princess opposite him.

Jaramine shrugged minutely. Garuvel fixed his tender gaze upon her.

"Well, then," Vizmir grinned toothily. "Let's enjoy ourselves without guilt or self-consciousness. Just friends, eh? How about some witty banter, urbane comments, pithy observations?"

He looked around at the unresponsive table. There was nothing but the desultory sound of biting and chewing. Vizmir waved his index finger in the air, describing a circle. Pastoral harp music began to flow from hidden speakers.

"How about strong political opinions?" prompted the prince."Everyone has those. What about the new treaty between the Grimwold Factions on Elzert Four? Or religion! We Borgomaks are polytheists of the Krangil Sect. Who here believes in god or gods? Eh? Eh?"

"Vizmir, is the quillet ready yet?" slobbered the queen.

"Eat the damn quillet, mother. I hope you choke on a bone and die!" Vizmir's jaw muscles bunched. He was chewing the inside of his cheek. His face scrunched, his tongue came out and disappeared back into his mouth in a fraction of a second. "Imagine," he adressed his so-called guests. "She is fresh from her appointment with the beautificationists. They daubed goo on her face and propped up her hair with adhesive-sprays. Why would she bother? The concepts of 'beauty' and 'Queen Valiana' are mutually canceling!"

This venom was not suprising to Garuvel. Jaramine jumped a little from the shock, and put her hand on her breastbone.

The queen's eyes went a little more vacant as she squeezed out a dainty little fart and reached for a gravy salver.

"This isn't any fun at all", Vizmir quipped bitterly. "What about you, father?" he asked the monitor screen. The two traces ran without change from one side of the screen to the other. 'Have you gotten any exercise today? How's the futufu dream going?" He glanced up at his captive diners. "Permanent trance, you know. I might have had something to do with putting him there, although I didn't force the stuff on him."

Under the rim of the table, Vizmir's hand moved slightly. Garuvel felt a bubbliness inside his head. He wanted to laugh. He opened his mouth and let his body rock in silent mirth. Zyreen's eyes met Robolion's. The queen belched loudly, reached for a glass of wine. Jaramine chirped, "Have you ever seen a stranger sight? It's like something out of a Grammy Waddle fable."

There was an evil glitter in Vizmir's eyes. His hand moved again under the table. The mood suddenly changed. Garuvel felt his sympathetic vibration with Jaramine disappear. Robolion and Zyreen had turned away from one another.

"Bastard," the princess hissed. "Stop it! " She got up and tried to slap at her brother, but a robiot caught her hand and restrained her. "You promised you'd never use the neuromitter on me. He's zapping us," she informed the table. "Let go of me!" she commanded the robiot, who stepped away.

"I told you what would happen if you ever used that thing on me!" Zyreen was livid.

Without any preamble, Boraz stepped up on the table, sending dishes clattering and breaking. Under the long kimono, his boots were deep brown leather, polished to a high sheen. He loomed over Garuvel while one of the Flawnts came from behind and pinned him by the shoulders to his chair.

"You have laughed at me twice!" Boraz bellowed. "Twice! Why? Am I so ridiculous? Are you so much the superior gentleman that you can view me with derision? I can flay you alive at any time!"

The Flawnt's hands on Garuvel's shoulders were nearly breaking his fibulae. Another second and he would not be able to use either arm. He reached up and took the Flawnt's thumb in both his hands, then slid almost to the floor under the table, down at the chair's legs, pulling with all his strength. As he was doing so, he turned his body so that he faced the Flawnt.The leverage he had on the creature's stony thumb caused the Flawnt to yell "GROO!", to spin and throw himself on his back onto the table. Garuvel rose and punched the huge beast in the scrotum. This time the sound "GROOO!" was a hundred times louder.

The place erupted into several centers of violent motion. Boraz took another step across the table and raised his neuromitter. He activated it and then placed it into a harness that was revealed under his kimono. The electronics in the harness enabled Boraz to fix the neuromitter's aim to the target of his choice. This enabled him to use other weapons while sending out psychogenic beams. A large knife appeared in his hand. Its blade was straight at the back but the business end of it curved in an elongated half-circle. It was a weapon designed for chopping and slicing.

Monsters of the imagination pressed in upon Garuvel.

Vizmir raised his own black tube above the table and thumbed its control viciously. The humans on the deck slumped and reeled.

Vizmir and Boraz were wearing tiny ear buds. These were devices that scrambled the neuromitter's transmission. They were immune while all around them they dispersed dire emotional torment, or its opposite.

Garuvel was an infant, screaming in a dark room. He was wet, filthy, lonely. His body craved touch; his skin was on fire for the need of human comfort. His torture went on and on, endlessly. After what seemed an eternity, a light suddenly went on.

"Aaah," he sighed with relief. "Mother has finally come."

The face looming over the crib was that of a large man with a pencil-moustache. Hands reached down to squeeze his tiny shoulders.

"Shut up!" the man cursed. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!!!" Each imprecation was louder then the last, until "Shut up!" was being screamed with hysterical intensity. "How much longer are you going to cry?"

Terrified, the infant Garuvel howled at an ever more painful pitch.

Then he saw the belt buckle: the monogram of the House of Zimrin.

"It will pass, my friend," an inner voice soothed. "You handled the Baron; you can handle this too."

Garuvel returned to the dining chamber. His mood was still bleak and hopeless, but he was able to move. He barely slipped away from a downward slice of Boraz' knife. He backed against the wall, moved sideways to find a defensive corner. In a brief flash he saw the entire room and its occupants. Jaramine and Robolion were curled into foetal positions, tears flowing down their faces. The queen had fallen backwards in her chair and entangled herself in Zyreen's limbs. The princess wore a grimace of utmost agony, her features looked as though a great vacuum had entered from the rear of her neck and sucked everything in her face towards its hungry suction.

Vizmir, seeing that Garuvel was not immobilized, pointed the weapon directly at him and triggered it again, so that the wrinkles in his knuckles disappeared. Before Garuvel turned his head, he saw a robiot flying towards the prince, leaping through the air.

Pushing through an inner storm, a hurricane of anguish, Garuvel blocked another slice of Boraz' knife. The planet-person's expression was confused. Why wasn't Garuvel screaming in emotional agony? In that moment of doubt, Garuvel swept his arm at Boraz' knees. The bones of the left knee snapped, and Boraz began to topple sideways. Garuvel saw a Flawnt swinging a spiked club towards his head. He twirled quickly to gain momentum and kicked the Flawnt in the chin with the ball of his foot. He felt as though he had kicked a cliff. The impact jarred all the way up his leg. He completed his circular movement and landed in time to see Boraz getting to one knee. The knife was on the table, stuck in a mush of frosted white cake.

Garuvel struggled with lethal emotions. He was going to lose this fight. He was going to die. Jaramine would be raped and torn to pieces. All of his worst fears reared up like giant bears and opened their jaws to rend his body.

He did his best to ignore these feelings. He recognized the fears as chemical reactions, as brain fevers imposed upon him by a psychogenic weapon. He could function. He felt like dying but he could function. He forced himself to entertain a brief vision of Vwanzila's beautiful hair. That was his grief, and he had survived his grief. Now he would survive the attack of this weapon.

In the dining chamber, Flawnts were fighting robiots. Vizmir was screaming, astonished. "Obey me, obey me, damn you fucking empty gobs of fat and nerves! What is wrong with you?"

A robiot wrenched the neuromitter away from the shaken prince. The mood began to clear. The towering robiot bore the prince face down to the ground and sat on him, holding both his wrists in one hand, both ankles in another.

Garuvel felt strength and optimism returning. He and Boraz dove for the blade stuck in the cake. Boraz was stretched flat out on the table, crushing garnishes and entrees, spilling flagons of wines. His injured knee was bent strangely, his boots hung over the opposite edge of the table. Boraz' hand reached the blade's handle and closed around it. Garuvel's hand closed around Boraz' wrist. Garuvel planted his feet against the massive table leg and pulled on Boraz. The planet-person pulled back but he had no purchase, he was sliding across the table with a cake in front of him that had a large knife stuck in it. The knife exploded the cake and Boraz continued to slide off the table. He landed on the floor with the neuromitter tube still lodged in the bracket he had made for it. His entire weight fell on the extended tube. There was a crunch as several ribs broke.

The planet person Calakadon howled with rage but felt no pain. He was able to rise while Garuvel sat with his back against the window frame, stunned by his own fall.

Calakadon took a limping step torwards him, his legs walked to either side of Garuvel's outstretched legs so that his boots were touching Garuvel's knees.

Looking up, Garuvel realized there was no weapon in Calakadon's hand. The planet-person realized this too, and reached inside his kimono for some other weapon. Before he could do so, Garuvel swooshed his arm forward, focusing every ounce of strength and acceleration into the stroke. He was holding the big knife. Its edge met Calakadon's knee, sliced right through it, found the other knee and sliced through that.

Calakadon fell on top of Garuvel, then rolled over on his back, screaming. The weapon he had reached for in his kimono was a laser-sword. He waved it in the air, but was unable to rise and orient himself. Garuvel snatched the weapon from his hand and quickly used it to cauterize the wounds at Calakadon's knees. A sizzle of roasting flesh filled the room. For Garuvel it was simply an act without thought. A man was spurting blood and he saw a way to stop it. For a microsecond, an impulse flitted through his mind: I should kill him now. He may not be able to get to a clone, an upload, a download, a cache of spare body parts.

Calakadon's eyes were half-closed, rolled back in his head. His helmet had come off, the cape of futufu implants were torn away. He was not conscious. Garuvel let go of the killing instinct. The ruined Calakadon lay with his nose pushed to one side of his face.

There was a silence in the room, but still some warring tension dominated the atmosphere. It wasn't over.

Garuvel looked around, quickly assessing. His eye first sought Jaramine. She was on the other side of the table. Garuvel could see her there, seeking him out. Their eyes met briefly under the table, between the great wooden supports.

Robolion had gone to Zyreen and lifted the queen off of her. Old Valiana was on her side, her tower of hair had fallen away and revealed a bald head. Her features were quite still. Garuvel felt a wash of pity; how dreadfully people participated in making themselves pathetic.

Then he realized that there was still combat going on. It was between Kitor and Vloko.

The two monumental beings stood near the doorway, locked in an embrace of combat. Their legs were planted so that they leaned into each other, forming an inverted"V". Kitor had one hand tightly wrapped around Vloko's bicep. The other arm was around Vloko's neck, as if he had attempted to trap the Flawnt in the crook of his elbow to strangle him. Vloko's hand was around Kitor's bicep. His other arm was around Kitor's neck in the exact position as his enemy.

They were locked in a symmetrical dance of death. Their heads were touching, they almost seemed to waltz cheek to cheek. Kitor was taller. Vloko was wider, half again the girth of Kitor.

They were completely motionless. Their faces were still except for lips that were distended with effort. They would have seemed like a statue. Only the quivering of their lower legs indicated that they were animate and struggling. Vloko exhaled violently. He sounded like a horse, or a great ox, the air thundering from his lungs.

Kitor's breathing was more regular. His abdomen drew in tight, then moved outward, his shoulders rising as his breath came into his body. Vloko used his lower center of gravity to lift Kitor into the air. Kitor hung onto him, knowing what was coming. Vloko slammed him down, but Kitor used his knees and made his legs into a piston to absorb the shock. The floor splintered, but Kitor was not injured.

The moment Kitor landed, he used Vloko's sudden lack of balance to swing him around. Vloko slammed the wall and tore through the wood and plaster, leaving a plume of dust and splinters in the air.

Again they grappled one another. Vloko inhaled violently, then exhaled as he slammed his head towards Kitor's chin. Kitor pulled back just in time. Vloko lifted him again, this time turning the robiot sideways, intending to throw him through the window and use the broken plasticene to cut his throat. Kitor extended his arms and put one hand on each side of the window. The Flawnt kept pushing, and Kitor's arms almost buckled. Then he suddenly let his arms go to his sides, and both he and Vloko plummeted onto the deck outside the dining room in a shower of brittle shards.

The deck was thirty stories up on the northern flank of the castle. The night sky was obscured by lights but the brighter stars shone through sketchy clouds. Vloko grabbed one of the metal braces of the deck's railing. It come lose with a 'scwawch' sound, and the Flawnt raised it to strike at Kitor.

Other robiots spilled onto the deck and were about to aid Kitor. His eyes commanded them to stay back. They held to the wall while Vloko swooshed the six foot iron spike, making multple "x" shapes in the air. He struck at Kitor, a downward diagonal stroke. Kitor evaded the attack. The iron strut raised sparks as it gonged on the metalwork of the deck. Again, Vloko slashed with the rod. Its tip had become red hot, a burning ember forming intricate patterns in the air. Kitor thrust his arm through the viciously whirling patterns and stopped Vloko's arm. The rod, moving at great speed, kept going and flew off into the void beyond the deck. Vloko's eyes automatically followed it. Kitor stepped inside the Flawnt's defensive space and struck his chin with the heel of his hand. The creature's head snapped back rapidly, but Kitor had used his fingers to hook Vloko's eye sockets, and he pulled forward and down. Vloko was probably already dead when his head smashed into Kitor's knee. He fell like a boulder, his body landing on its side, one hand hanging out beyond the broken railing.

The entire castle was in an uproar. Gables, cupolas, decks, windows, all were filled with people in states of distress. The beams on the neuromitters had passed through many walls, they had been set to maximum and thousands of people were suddenly afflicted with violent terrifying visions.

Garuvel and the robiots stepped back through the broken window. Jaramine and Robolion were on the floor, unconscious. Garuvel rushed to Jaramine and examined her pulse and her breathing. She seemed unharmed. Even as he kneeled at her side, her eyes began to flicker open. She was silent, looking owlishly around the dining room. Garuvel realized that Boraz and two of the Flawnts were gone. Vloko and another Flawnt were dead. One robiot lay inert, body askew, neck broken.

The remains of Boraz' legs stood upright, glued by the soles of the boots that had passed through sticky desserts on the table.

Kitor kneeled beside the robiot's body. Garuvel could now see the individuality, the distinctiveness of all the robiots. It was like a sudden expansion of his senses. Each robiot looked different, one from the other.

Kitor and his people made a stretcher from their arms and lifted the slain one. Garuvel cleared the table by sweeping his hands across the remains of the banquet. The robiots lay the body of their friend on the table and stood in a rough circle.

Kitor showed Garuvel a dermex. "This will restore your speech." Garuvel offered his arm, and let the robiot release the antidote into his bloodstream. Within twenty seconds, the numbness left his tongue. There was tingling, and a great gob of saliva filled his mouth. He found a disposal cannister and got rid of it.

"We don't know how to do this," murmured Kitor, with quiet embarassment. He looked at his fallen warrior. "We have no religion, no heroes, no legends. Everything is new."

Some of the robiots were sniffling, uncertain how to interpet their powerful emotions.

Kitor pointed at Vizmir. " First get him out of here." Several more robiots had entered the room, and two of them lifted the prince by the armpits and carried him without dignity towards the double doors.

Vizmir hung limply in the robiots' grasp for a moment, then raised his head feverishly. "What's that smell?" he shrieked.

A hideous, sulfuric odor was rising from the futufu fields. Everyone strode to the metal railings and looked out over the parapet. Below them, the giant sprinklers were rotating as usual. Pale blue floodlights glared every twenty feet, receeding to the horizon. A reddish substance rained down from the sprinkler nozzles, and as it touched the rows of plants, the futufu flowers began to hiss and dissolve. There were figures struggling, eddying back and forth around the bases of the sprinkler systems. The sound of explosions reached the people on the parapet. The twang of energy weapons and the pop! pop! of fired bullets punctuated the frying sound of vast futufu fields being consumed by acid.

"No!" Vizmir screamed. "No no no! What are you doing? That's my futufu! Let me go, let me go!" The robiot captain essayed the faintest of grins and passed Vizmir to another robiot. Vizmir kicked like a child in a tantrum as he was taken out of the chamber. His legs hung in the air, bent at the knees as if he were in a chair. He kicked again, impotently. His voice could be heard fading away.

"You're destroying V-28, Ultimate Glory Dream, the best of the best! I'll get you bastards, I swear. I'll put you back in the vats, let the acid eat your eyes...I'll get you, you'll see....!

The sound of a lift-door closing terminated his screams.

Robolion crouched to help lift the queen and the princess. Queen Valiana was regaining consciousness. She belched while her bald head wobbled on her wrinkled neck.

"Is it time for the cake yet?" she inquired absently. A female robiot came with a formachair and put the queen into it, then pushed her out of the dining room.

"Why don't you take me?" Zyreen asked. "Aren't you Kitor?"

"Yes, I am Kitor. This is Trace, Krants, Markwin, Eldrin, Scianna... we all have names. The one who is dead was named Elflyte. We are not vengeful. We know that you have terrible crimes on your head, but you also helped us, perhaps in spite of yourself. We don't understand you or your motives. We've decided to give you the opportunity to leave Strobe. Um...let me state that another way. We request that you leave Strobe, immediately. If you find no transportation, we will supply the requisite..."

"All I've ever wanted to do," explained Zyreen, to no one in particular, "is to stop this vicious drug from spreading, and then get out of here. Away from this hideous place." Her mind was speeding through a set of calculations. How much money was in her account at Fiscus Rep? How much money could she steal from the Borgomak common account, assuming that she got access to her computer before she left Strobe?

Kitor quashed that plan immediately. "There will be a guard with you at all times until your departure. You will not have access to your computer. We will be taking control of Strobe. You will sign power of attorney over to us, willingly or not. We will allocate generous resources for your maintenance, but we have had enough of making you rich at our expense. We have a spare clone of you, in case we should need iris impressions, thumbprints, the like."

Zyreen's mouth dropped open, her face narrowed with shock at the idea of there being a second Zyreen. Here, there, anywhere! How horrifying!

"Is it...." she asked, almost choking. "Is it....?"

"It has ony the most rudimentary content, no personality," Kitor told her.

Zyreen changed directions in seconds. She laid adoring eyes on Robolion.

"You!" She put a hand on Robolion's chest. "I never thought I would actually meet you. I'm your biggest fan! I've been listening to your music since I found a copy of 'Gongs of Space', when I was twelve years old. I know every note of every song." She began to hum the eerie plangent melody of "Lonely Wandering", one of Robolion's most famous melodies. She was thinking that she might have to use the musician until she could arrange to catch up to Boraz. Calakadon was, after all, an ancient planet-person, with all the resources of a planet-person. In the meantime she could beguile the musician in order to soften her sudden fall.

Robolion touched her face with the back of his hand, his large, sensitive fingers outlining its contours tenderly, almost sadly. His throat worked as he swallowed. "This is nuts," he said. "I don't trust you. But I can't help myself, I feel very attracted...." The musician buried his face in his hands. Then, in a self mocking attempt to be clownish, he spread his fingers and peeked through them at Garuvel.

"We are going to..." he began, but Garuvel gave a minute shake of his head. He was not going to speak their next destination aloud. He had only decided it a few moments ago.

"She can go with us," he said, checking quickly with Jaramine, who gave her silent assent. "Until we find a suitable place..."

The musician emitted a giant regretful sigh, as if he foresaw all the heartache that was in store for him. There were parts of himself over which he had no dominion; this was one of those parts, this need for a woman adoring. He could not see that Zyreen was false and treacherous; all he saw was a beautiful woman who could hum the notes of "Lonely Wandering."

Garuvel had seen Robolion's infatuations before. While they lasted, the musician lived in an alternate universe of fantasy and bad judgement. The relationship would run its course. He had an intuition that Zyreen would lead his friend into a particularly dark night of his soul.

Kitor handed a package to Garuvel. "These are the five puzzle-pieces in Vizmir's collection. Your neurolon is replaced in its nutrient bath on your ship." He gestured to Trace and Scianna.

"We want these two to accompany you on your journey. We want them to experience your adventures, and to return to us with their stories, to build the foundation of our culture."

Garuvel nodded. He was deeply moved and honored. For the robiots, this was truly part of their creation myth. He looked at the fallen robiot warrior on the table.

"You have everything that you need, and more. Create a ritual for Elflyte, to remember his courage and his sacrifice. It will be beautiful, I am sure of that.

From down the hallway, Queen Valiana's voice still drawled.

"Where's the cake? I want two slices of cake!"

Chapter Twenty Six

Behind the Curtain

It was quiet aboard Figment. The hull had been expanded to accomodate the new passengers. Three couples lay together in three berths. Garuvel had made sections of the hull transparent so that they could see the universe through which they traveled.

Garuvel and Jaramine lay on their sides facing one another. It was the first quiet moment since they had met. Their fingers were intertwined, their bodies touched lightly at breastbone and hips. Garuvel's heart was pounding. He did nothing to control it, other than to match the rhythm of Jaramine's breathing. He was too excited. The heat from her body made him feel as if he were jumping into the core of a star.

He had a tentative erection but it wasn't the titanic lust he might have expected. He realized that his fear was still very active, that he had spent such a long time alone that intimacy was no easy matter.

"We have time." Jaramine said softly, as if reading his mind. "We are here. There's nowhere else to go. I want to stay with you, no matter what happens." Jaramine brushed his forehead with her fingers, as if putting a small child's hair in place. Sound began to reach them from the next berth, where Robolion and Zyreen were together. There was a rhythmic pounding, followed by joyful screams.

Garuvel wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. "That Robolion's an animal."

"And he's found the perfect dragon," Jaramine concurred. "He will subdue her, then she will incinerate him. Again and again. I hope she leaves us with something."

Garuvel touched a control. The sound vanished.

"Boli can take care of himself. He always wakes up, when he realizes that his latest girlfriend's music has too many sour notes."

"Good," Jaramine said conclusively. "I don't want to talk about the princess any more."

She paused for a moment, then looked sweetly into Garuvel's eyes. She kissed him with great delicacy, for a few seconds.

Garuvel put his arm around Jaramine's shoulders and drew her closer. Each could feel the other's heartbeat. Slowly, their pulses calmed.

Jaramine put her lips to Garuvel's cheek, just below his eye socket. He received her love, feeling it flow through the warm, damp place where her lips touched him. Then, abruptly, he sensed the feeling recede. Jaramine drew herself away, gently disengaging Garuvel's arm. She lay back, watching the color and glitter of the stars.

Garuvel was silent. They remained that way, for a while, separate.

"What happened?" he said at last. "Did a thought intrude? Did you become afraid?"

"Yes," her voice came raggedly. Her throat was tight. "I thought, 'what will happen if I lose him?' Then I began to invent ridiculous reasons why I shouldn't love you: You're not my type. I need to be alone a little longer. Your legs are too skinny. I like men with lighter hair."

"Back when I had a 'type'," Garuvel responded, "every time I found her, she would have some strange thing. She would clean her navel obsessively with cotton swabs. Or call her father on the vone twice a day, every day. Or want to have an orgasm in the first five minutes, as if sex were a race with a finish line."

Jaramine laughed and brushed a tear from her face. "It's so hard to let go of this fear", she sobbed like a little girl.

Garuvel felt the love move him and grab him in the pit of his stomach and strum his spine like the string of a musical instrument. "It is hard. We didn't sign a contract with life when we were born that says, 'I, life, guarantee that you will not be hurt."

"That would be a funny contract," Jaramine mused. "I, the undersigned human being, do stipulate that in return for not being hurt I will remain encased in a shallow world of superficial pleasure."

"Isn't it the truth," drawled Garuvel. "The real contract with life goes something like this: 'I, life, will help you to become a beautiful soul if you promise to humbly commit yourself to the process of being shaped by your experience so that nothing is wasted. Everything will be transformed into insight, no matter how strange, grotesque or painful things might seem to you at the time'."

"I think you have summed up the matter succinctly." Jaramine moved back to him and put her head in the crook of his neck. He could feel her tears on his shoulder. "It hurt so much when I lost Marquion. When you lost Vwanzila."

Garuvel comforted her, stroking the hair on the back of her head.

"Would we have this love, now, without that grief?"

Jaramine lifted her head, and he could see her eyes full of tenderness in the starlight. "No, surely not." She kissed him again, longer.

Trace and Scianna were sitting crosslegged, touching only at the knees.

"I didn't know fear could be so powerful," marveled Trace. He was referring to the battle in the dining room; he had feared that Scianna might be hurt.

"Fear? Is that what this is?" Scianna tilted her head slightly. "I thought it was anger. But I couldn't understand what I was angry about."

"Fear and anger are very similar," Trace explained. "The same heart pounding. Same squeezing at the pit of the stomach. Same widening of the eyes. But anger wants to lunge forward, and fear wants to shrink back."

Scianna made a wordless sound of understanding, pushing air through her lips, tightening and blowing. "I want to both lunge forward and shrink back."

"Maybe the mixture of those two," speculated Trace, "is love."

"Somehow, I think that love has nothing to do with either fear or anger."

"Maybe," Trace mused," what we're experiencing is the struggle toward love. Love itself is none of these things; but love is not easy for those of us who barely have a self."

Scianna found courage and took Trace's hand. "We are here, then, to help one another find our Selves? Somehow that doesn't sound right to me. I think I already have a Self. What I don't have is experience." With her free hand she waved at the vast ocean of stars and dust, indicating a realm of immense possibility.

Trace looked at their joined hands, lifted his other hand and placed it so that Scianna's one hand was sandwiched between his two. With his fingers he stroked her knuckles and the ridges where her veins ran into her arms. "It's hard to tell," he said, looking at the universe, "what is outside our selves and what is inside ourselves."

Scianna looked concerned. "Surely, our selves can't be everything."

Trace nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe our selves are ultimately everything, but they come to be that way only a little at a time."

From the next berth came the sond of Zyreen laughing coyly, then shrieking with delight. Robolion was barking like a zommet, growling and pounding the floor.

"What are they doing in there?" Scianna's eyebrows were arched in puzzlement.

"I'm not sure I want to know. They must be doing sex," Trace said, with a hint of suspicion.

Scianna renewed her grip in Trace's hand. "Will we do sex?"

He patted her fingers with avuncular reassurance. "When we're ready."

"Lately," she confessed, "when I think about you, there's a tickly feeling in my belly, and I want to rub my legs together."

Trace almost jerked his hand away, but felt it would be rude. He took a couple of breaths. "When I hold your hand," he admitted, "my excretion organ behaves very strangely. We've all seen Krants's diagrams, but I never connected them with anything that I might ever do."

In the next berth, Robolion roared like a rampant purlibex. Zyreen's much higher voice joined in, and they sounded like a pair of ranxes in season, howling at the moons of Zenzarote.

Together, Scianna and Trace lowered and turned their heads slightly, eyes off to one side of their faces. "Is that what they call 'fun'?" Scianna inquired.

Trace stroked his chin, making a 'V' of his thumb and fingers. "I think so. It sounds like fun." His other hand came gently away from Scianna's grip. To his relief, she seemed to think nothing of it. "Fun is an even stranger concept than love. They could be sort of the same thing, but where love is always fun, fun isn't always love. Do you know what I mean?"

Scianna sighed. "We have so much to learn about being alive."

Trace moved his gigantic hand through the air, until it came into contact with Scianna's face. He concentrated on modulating the touch so that it was not too hard, but firm enough to convey meaning.

"Is that allright?" he asked.

Scianna closed her eyes. "Yes, that's nice. You can be a little less strong. I think that would be more pleasing. I know that you mean affection by it. Shall I try too?"

He lifted his face, eyes going toward the top of his head.

Taking this for assent, Scianna moved her slightly smaller hand through space, until her fingers found the pulse at his throat. They sat, arms crossing, for a few moments. Then they returned their hands to their sides. "Amazing," breathed Trace. "I could feel your regard for me, right through your fingers."

"Oh Trace," Scianna began to feel the moisture fill her eyes again. "You were so brave to go on Mythmaker, out into the universe, alone.You are a wonderful robe."

Trace inhaled and managed to look modest. "You may be the first female robiot to say that to a male robiot. I think that takes even more courage than it took me to go into space. I had to go. You didn't have to say that."

"But it was easy," she murmured softly. "I wanted to."

Chapter Twenty Seven

Rollover

"Have you been in Transpace before?" Garuvel sat half-facing Zyreen on a serpentine couch. He wanted to be close enough to converse but not too close. The woman gave him the creeps.

"Uh...yes, of course." Zyreen's hesitation was enough to tell Garuvel it was a lie.

"You're not being truthful, and this is a matter of importance."

"All right," she snapped, "I've never been in Transpace. I've never been anywhere except within my own system." Zyreen's face was an angry pink. Garuvel's visage conveyed a gentle interrogation: why would she lie about such a crucial thing?

Zyreen, correctly interpreting Garuvel's expression, said, "I didn't want to seem like a yokel. I am a Borgomak, heir to a great empire, and I've never been anywhere."

The ship now had a sizeable lounge amidships furnished with basic comforts. There was a low table in front of the S-shaped couch. A few chairs and some screens equipped with games and books were set up against the bulkhead. Oval portholes of modest dimensions were set in the hull. Behind the couch was a practice mat for martial arts and wrestling. There were some conditioning modules with their padded seats and transparent pink resistor bands. Robolion was at one of these, puffing and sweating. A multi-skin served as a towel for his flying drizzle of perspiration. The musician stopped his work the better to listen to the conversation.

Jaramine was in the galley giving cooking lessons to the robiots.

"About one percent of people can't tolerate Transpace at all." Garuvel found himself hoping that the princess was a member of that minority. He wanted to watch her panic as her identity dissolved when the ship went Trans. He knew it was a cruel thought but he wasn't much ashamed. He was angry at the suffering he'd experienced at Castle Strobe. It may not have been Zyreen's doing but she was a part of that hideous scenario. Zyreen was a drug dealer, she was not a savory character. Then a wave of pity caught him. No matter who she was, it was not his nature to gloat over the pain of another being. Checking his anger, he relented.

"If you don't mind, I'll put you on a trankie when we do the rollthrough. You can't sleep through the shift from matterspace to transpace. It has to be some kind of conscious experience or there's damage to the personality."

Zyreen had heard the stories: people frantically trying to latch on to solid objects that were no longer solid. Panic-driven homicidal attacks and suicidal despairs. What's the big deal, she wondered. So you change from solid form to an astral matrix. That shouldn't be so terrible. She'd seen many depictions in holovids and other programs.

"I don't think that will be necessary," Zyreen pronounced. Robolion appeared at her side.

"Uh..a mild trank wouldn't be a bad idea. Rollthrough is not something to mess with if you've never done it before."

Zyreen poured a smile onto her face as if from some pitcher inside her brain. It was full of adoring charm. She touched Robiolion's wrist with her fingers, letting the caress linger for a moment.

"Whatever you say, my genius. You know what's right for these things."

Jaramine and the robiots stood in the passway from the galley. Garuvel met Jaramine's eyes; she wiggled her eyebrows slightly. This had become a short hand gesture between them when Zyreen emitted one of her false notes.

The City of Quizinosk, on the planet Zos, had one primary purpose. It was the home of the Museum of Known Things. Within that museum was the Repository of Psychifacts. This was a vast collection of objects which had been imbued with thought- power and psychic potency.

The keepers of the Museum of Known Things were from an order of monks and nuns called the Teshek Aing. These men and women were dedicated to studying the schools of thought known as Magic Science and Noetiphysics.

Garuvel had a long history of work with the Teshek Aing. He reasoned that if clues existed regarding Wayuzo, this would be the place to find them.

The travel plan involved a matterspace drive up and away from the gravity well of the twin stars Gawl and Rawl. This took a little more than ten days.

During this maneuver Garuvel watched for sign of Boraz Bufaisdek. He had vanished. What was he doing? Growing a new set of legs? Exchanging bodies, downloading himself into a clone replacement? Whatever his activities might be, Garuvel expected to see Calakadon again.

The most dangerous time was the journey through the Oort Cloud of the Gawl-Rawl system. This was the belt of left -over debris from the original formation of the system. The Oort Cloud was a wilderness of rocks, sand, giant asteroids, dust and ice. Trillions of objects orbited as the last faint echoes of system gravity held what remained of the primordial stuff in a toroid of space debris.

Zyreen opted for seven days of longsleep during the ten day trip. She felt socially awkward. She tried to maintain her balance for a few days but she began to get restless in such close quarters with her new and ardent lover. One day after the princess immured herself in the stasis chamber, a sad looking Robolion followed her.

Garuvel accompanied him into the longsleep chamber. Zyreen's immobile form hovered unseeing against the bulkhead. Her body was dressed in the standard black longsleep jumpsuit. She had drawn a privacy screen down to her waist. She now stood upright in deep autonomic body-rest. She might dream. She would not age, no matter how long she slept. Some space voyages were weeks or months. To a longsleeper they were a few minutes.

"She tolerated me for three days," Robolion said. "She couldn't handle any more. I'd think my charms would have kept her entertained for at least a week."

He was so boy-like, with his slumped morose shoulders, his long sad face.

Garuvel held the jumpsuit while the musician got his first leg into the proper opening. Then he let go as Robolion fastened the rest of the garment with its strips of quiktite.

"You have to realize that she was very uncomfortable with the others," Garuvel pointed out reasonably. He sat on a pivot stool while Robolion set himself in the longsleep chamber.

Robolion looked away into the distance of his thoughts. He seemed comforted by what Garuvel had said.

"Yes," he said, " she must have been pretty miserable.. Everybody's been polite but it's no secret there's no warmth toward her." He snapped his wrists into their padded circlets. Garuvel was starting the stasis field and setting the temperature.

"People don't understand her. She's much sweeter than she lets on. She really wanted to end the drug thing, to help Trace, Scianna and the others....she's a good person."

Robolion met his friend's eyes. Garuvel restrained himself. He kept his expression in total neutrality.

"I know that look," Robolion said. With some relief, Garuvel detected a faint smile of irony on his friend's face. The musician was in love but he still maintained a little perspective.

"You don't agree. You think she's a conniving monster who will do us harm."

"Yes, I think she's a conniving monster, she'll betray us but I think we'll be fine. The only one to be hurt will be you."

Robolion's big head waggled from side to side. He was fixing the nutrient tubes to his subdermal feeder. Garuvel helped. He had the urge to hug the musician tight, to tell him how much he was loved, tell him that he didn't need strange and various women to prop up his self esteem. Robolion was already fixed into place in the capsule. Garuvel could only pat his shoulder.

"It's not you she's runnng away from," Garuvel could say with some honesty. "It was being confronted by the likes of Scianna, Trace and Jaramine. They are... remarkable beings. She didn't feel that she could hold her own for ten days under their penetrating gazes."

"Yeah, I know...." Robolion activated the sliding cover that would immure him in the longsleep capsule. "See you before rollthrough. I'll be here, sleeping next to my girlfriend...if she is...my girlfriend."

"Peace, vakato," said Garuvel, using an affectionate term from the Goyko language.

"Peace to you too, vakato," the musician said as the gas and chemicals swiftlly brought his body into stasis. The privacy screen was down. Garuvel could see his friend's form behind the polarized strandplast. The cover was virtually invisible but strong as anything this side of a neutron star.

Scianna and Jaramine got along like twin sisters. They giggled at secrets, designed clothing on the holoscreens, discussed their respective partners behind the shields of their hands as they looked coyly toward Garuvel and Trace.

The males spent time working through the moves of the Kankai fighting techniques. Trace outweighed Garuvel by a hundred pounds. His reach was six inches longer, his height almost a foot.

The only advantage Garuvel had was Trace's ignorance of the Kankai techniques. That advantage did not last long. After he had explained the fundamental theory to the robiot, and taught him the basic combinations, human and robiot squared off for a first match.

A red circle was etched on the grey-black mat. Standing in their respective positions, Trace and Garuvel bowed to one another, pressing their palms together. Then Garuvel advanced, knees bent, hands swinging loose. Trace mirrored Garuvel's motions. He was without a competitive instinct. He took simple joy in the process.

Moving swiftly, Garuvel took Trace's right arm by the wrist, twisting it high and over his shoulder while he pivoted so that he backed into the robiot's chest. Then he bent slightly forward. Trace had no choice. He must either have his shoulder broken or flip himself onto his back. This he did with thunderous alacrity.

He got up, smiling. "That was interesting!" He said this with utterly fresh conviction. "Show me another one."

Again, they faced one another, bowed. Garuvel did a simple trip, pushing Trace backwards with Garuvel's leg just behind the robiot's heel.

"Another," the robiot requested. "Something more complex."

They faced one another and bowed. "Attack me," Garuvel suggested. "Just try to get me off my feet."

Loose limbed, bouncing on the balls of his feet, Trace took a step towards Garuvel, reached towards his opponent's wrist but found that Garuvel was not where he had been a moment before. He tried again. He attempted a ruse, going for a knee with the inside of his foot. Garuvel danced away, circling to another part of the match ring. He allowed Trace an opportunity. He engaged the robiot, allowing himself to be grappled in the big creature's embrace. Trace executed the flip maneuver with surpising skill, but Garuvel turned all the way over, landing on his feet behind the robiot.

He waited, and Trace jumped, scuttled, slid, reached, crawled, all in the attempt to lay a hand on Garuvel, without success. At the same time, Garuvel toppled the robiot time and again. He wasn't worried about Trace's ego. Trace had no ego.

Garuvel relented, and took Trace through a few combinations, slowly, so that the robiot enjoyed the satisfaction of putting Garuvel on the mat.

After this slow-motion teaching, Trace seemed to light up with comprehension. "I think I understand the principles of this thing!" he said with simple happiness. "Let's go again."

They bowed, palms pressed together. Trace's posture had changed. He seemed to be shaped by a single point in his solar plexus. All his movement emerged from this point.

Garuvel was astounded at the speed of Trace's learning, the absorbing capacity of his muscle memory.

They matched four more times. In the final match, Trace trapped Garuvel's arm above and below the elbow in the fulcrum of his hands. The moment Garuvel felt those two immense hands make contact, he knew the robiot would break his arm in two if he didn't counter by rolling backwards and sending his foot up into the protective cup over Trace's crotch. The robiot was so quick that he evaded Garuvel's blow but was forced to let go. In doing so, however, Garuvel was propelled to the edge of the circle, where he landed on his feet, teetering slightly before he regained his balance. He bowed to Trace and smiled.

"If we match any more, you will be knocking me down too soon for my own ego, Mister Trace. You learn very quickly."

"I have been holding myself back, to spare your feelings," Trace joked.

Then he fell silent, realizing that he had just made a joke. It was a powerful experience for both robiots. Scianna bounded across the couch and gave Trace a kiss on the cheek.

That too was a powerful experience for the robiots.

Jaramine entered the ring with a wistful smile. She wanted to match Garuvel. No word was spoken. The partners who were now opponents moved to the edge of the circle and bowed to one another with palms together.

What followed looked as much like a dance as it did a form of combat. Garuvel reached for Jaramine's hand. It was not there. Jaramine was in the air, lofting herself behind Garuvel as swiftly as a cricket could bounce. She landed and pressed her attack but Garuvel had just as swiftly moved out of range. Strokes and counterstrokes followed one another at speed too swift for the eye to follow.

Garuvel was unable to lay a hand on Jaramine. Jaramine could not make contact with Garuvel. Each was trying with utmost concentration to engage the other.

"Allright, this could go on forever," said Jaramine. "Let's agree to a form."

"Yes...let's try the ta-kanki holds." Garuvel squared his feet and leaned forward. Jaramine took his left wrist in her right hand and put her left hand at the back of Garuvel's neck. Garuvel took the same hold of Jaramine.

"Who wants to say 'ta-kan'?," Garuvel inquired.

Trace stepped to the outside of the ring. "I will." he rumbled. He waited a few seconds, then uttered "Ta-kan!"

Garuvel and Jaramine went circling around the ring. Their hands and feet moved, they dodged and parried, slid away, engaged again, took to smacking one another's palms at the speed of hummingbird's wings. When that failed to decide anything, they altered their approach so that Garuvel used his feet in combinations of kicks and torsions. Jaramine slid under and around each kick, countering with her own. Then Garuvel went to use his hands to stop Jaramine's blinding feet but when he was able to grasp her by the ankle she pivoted out of his hands and cartwheeled across the circle.

They were unable to settle the match. They stopped.

Trace politely inquired, "Is either of you keeping something in reserve?"

"You mean holding back?" Garuvel panted. "Not a chance."

Jaramine took the towel that Scianna offered. She wiped her face and neck, arms and wrists. "We're perfectly matched. The only way I can knock him down," she said, pointing with her chin at Garuvel, "would simply be an accident, a lapse of concentration."

"It would be a matter of who's having a better day," Garuvel concurred.

Jaramine tossed the towel accurately into a disposal chute and sat with bouncing finality on the couch, putting her legs across the empty bend so that her feet rested on the opposite curve of the furniture.

"I'm absolutely exhausted," she said, blowing air out her lips for emphasis.

Garuvel sat back to back with Jaramine. He looked at the wide eyes of the robiots, at their smooth handsome faces so open and child-like. The fingers of his hand found Jaramine's. She clasped his hand in her own, looking out the porthole at the stars.

"Interesting", said Garuvel. "Very interesting."

Chapter Twenty Eight

The Unprepared

On the ninth day out from Strobe, Garuvel woke Zyreen and Robolion. He thought it best to wake Zyreen first. He de-activated the gas, the chemicals, brought the temperature upward. In ten minutes, Zyreen's color had returned. She blinked for a few minutes, looking through the screen at Garuvel and the longsleep chamber. She looked around inside her capsule for the control to raise the screen. Garuvel activated the exterior switch, and the capsule's cover dropped into the deck.

Zyreen stayed in place. "When are we going to start the longsleep?" she inquired.

"It's over," said Garuvel. "Pull your wrists from the grips and come out."

Still she did not move. She glanced at the next capsule and saw the form of Robolion Spdaz.

"Over?" She repeated. "I don't feel groggy or funny at all. I feel like I got into this thing a minute ago."

"Yeah, it's an amazing technology," acknowledged Garuvel without warmth. He busied himself with Robolion's capsule. Soon the musician was awake and flexing his muscles, walking around the longsleep chamber. Garuvel decided to leave them alone. He retreated to the pilot's console, where things needed to be done.

Robolion ran in place for half a minute, nervously eyeing Zyreen as she brushed herself down, inspecting her fingernails. Piece by piece, her last manicure was disintegrating. She didn't know where she would get another; she didn't know where she was going, but eventually she wanted to land on Mere. It was a Borgomak Empire world. She would have some freedom of action when she was out from under the thumb of Rebed Singman and his friends.

Yet she had some affection for the musician. The sex had been acceptably pleasant, though it always ended in her typical unresolved orgasm. While this bear of a man screamed with delight she pretended to go along. She resented his joyful abandon. She felt that he was hogging the orgasm, stealing part of hers.

She was tied in knots.

"What's wrong?" Robolion asked. Zyreen looked out the ovoid window,watching the stars.

"You don't know me," said Zyreen. "I'm just a screen for your mind. You've projected all these fantasies onto me." She walked to the porthole and stood gazing, her back to the musician.

Robolion tried to turn her around. She shrugged herself out of his grasp. "I feel as if I know you to the bottom of your soul," he said ardently.

This statement seemed to enrage Zyreen. "Then you're a fool! I don't want to be known to the bottom of my soul. I don't know my own soul, but I do know that it's not a pretty thing; it's wicked, confused, messy."

"But I accept those things about you, I accept you the way you are."

Zyreen shook her head, looked at Robolion askance. "No, you don't. You don't know what acceptance is."

"But I love you, " Robolion protested, "I love you with all my heart. How could I love you if I didn't accept you?"

Robolion moved to take her in his arms. Zyreen made a flailing motion. Robolion stepped back, his face melting like hot wax against the heat of her rejection.

"Do you accept the Zyreen who doesn't love you? Can't love you?"

"That's nonsense. You're full of love! Look what you did for the robiots. You've been around Vizmir and your mother too long. It will take some time, but you'll love me. I know you love me already, but you don't know it."

"Don't you see?" A tear edged into the crevice where Zyreen's cheek met her eye socket. "That's not accepting me as I am. That's wanting to change me. If you loved me, you would not need to change me. You just want me to be responsive to your desires."

Robolion's fingers had been laced together in front of his chest. He tapped himself on the breastbone, hard, with the joined palms of his hands, feeling the knuckles of both thumbs digging into his body.

"I don't....I.....how can you say I don't love you? Can't you feel the force of my love?"

Zyreen sprang away from him, her eyes hot with anger and pain. Robolion retreated across the deck. "I don't want to feel the force of your love! It just makes me want to run away."

Robolion brushed the tears down his face, wiping the moisture into his beard. "So what are we going to do?" In his voice there was the sound of a dagger ripping through silk. "For the moment, there's no place to run to."

Zyreen looked at the stars, hoping to see a vessel out there, perhaps a vessel with Calakadon, or someone, anyone. Being "loved" like this was too intense, too demanding. She didn't know what to do with it.

"I don't know." She hesitated, knowing that she most go out and join the others, those people who carried themselves without deference to her. Even robiots. Gods! Betraying robiots, who did not cringe and do as she commanded, instantly! What a mess! This was all her brother's fault, her brother with his silly appetite for toys!

Chapter Twenty Nine

The True Soul Shows Through

Garuvel brought the ship to a complete halt. He checked the weapons systems carefully. He had a preference for non-lethal weapons, devices to disable and disorient rather than destroy and kill. But if he had to destroy and kill, nothing was more intimidating than a high velocity anti-matter torpedo. He had four launchers, two aft, two forward, which gave him a full spherical coverage of the space around him up to forty thousand kilometers. He also had a number of conventional ion-seeking missile systems as well as rapid-firing eighty eight milimeter cannon. If he wanted Darzel to manufacture a weapon, the neurolon could provide the engineering and materials.

It was his preference to use the Light Cannon, a device capable of sending a nova-bright burst of wide-band electro-magnetic jamming that simply canceled an opponent's sensory array

When he left Strobe, Garuvel had taken with him a sample of Boraz' neuromitter. He also had one of the radio transmitters that emitted a counter-effect to the gruesome weapon. He knew that the weapon used pulses of light and sound. The signals were carried through space by the use of microwaves. He and Darzel examined, probed, learned, were baffled and came to only tentative conclusions. Garuvel surfed the Urchive for possible origins of such a weapon and the closest he got was a society of supergeeks called the Twilion. These small pointy- eared caricatures of old comic book aliens were interested in such things, and it was possible that Boraz had offered a high enough price to purchase the designs. That was as far as he and Darzel had gotten.

In spite of himself, Garuvel had to respect the technology. He hoped he would never meet the Twilion.

The antidote transmitters were easy to copy. They emitted regular series of pulses on frequencies spread around the energy spectrum. Garuvel made ten copies. He wouldn't know if they worked unless they encountered Boraz and his neuromitters.

There was a high probablility that Boraz might be on his way to Zos. Boraz knew as well as anyone the resources of Zos: the Museum of Known Things, the Repository of Psychifacts. The contents of these institutions were a tempting prize, and a possible source of intelligence regarding the whereabouts of the other planet-people.

If Calakadon came to Zos, he would come as the leader of an invasion force.

An hour before the transition began, Garuvel brought a small pill to Zyreen in the stateroom that she still shared with Robolion. The musician was standing at the door and silently allowed Garuvel to enter.

Zyreen sat before a small mirror, examining her face at various magnifications. She was grimacing at her pores at ten times mag. Garuvel made a sound in his throat and she jumped, switching the mirror back to normal. She glared at Robolion.

"Gods dammit!" she snapped, "why don't you tell me when you're going to let someone sneak in here."

"The ship's captain is here to give you a trank designed for rollthrough," Robolion said coldly. He had engineered this little humiliation. He was angry. This relationship was disintegrating, and it was passing through the sniping and cutting stage.

Garuvel forced himself to ignore it. "I have this medication, princess. If you've never been in a rollthrough, I recommend you take it. It's called Biphemnium. There's a tiny trace of endorphin booster, a bit of stimulant like caffeine, and a muscle relaxer. Tried and true. Transpace rollthrough is a very distinctive experience; it exposes you to yourself in vivid ways. It's better to be a little bit goofy when you do your first couple of transitions. After that, one adapts and it becomes routine. If you have a negative experience on your first rollthrough you may never want to do it again, and that would be a shame."

He proffered an ordinary lozenge-shaped pill, light blue in color. Ironic, he thought, me giving drugs to the Queen of Dope.

"Mr...er...Captain Singman, it may sound strange but I do not take drugs. I've always thought it a wise policy not to consume the merchandise one is selling."

Gaurvel let the monstrosity of this statement slide past his brain. The hypocritical hauteur of this woman was amazing!

Robolion took the pill from Garuvel's hand. "We'll work this out," he said. "I'll make sure she takes it."

Garuvel met the princesses' eyes. He saw there a profound misery. It was not a guilty misery, a responsible misery. It was a blaming misery. Her pain was everyone else's fault.

"Please, princess, please, do this for me. Take the medicine. It's dangerous for the rest of us to have someone aboard who isn't prepared to enter transpace."

Robolion passed the medicine to Zyreen. She took it in her hand, laying it in her smooth white palm and looking at it, bringing it close to her face.

"All right," she agreed, and lifted her hand so that the pill flew into her mouth. Robolion passed a cup of water, which she drank. Garuvel watched her throat work, assuring himself that she was drinking and not just washing the water around in her mouth. He knew all the tricks, but he couldn't imagine forcing the Princess to submit to an inspection of her tongue and her upper and lower lips. He'd chance it.

"Thank you," he said. "We begin the procedure in thirty minutes. That should allow time for the medicine to take effect." He paused at the door where Robolion stood. The musician did not meet his eyes. There was too much pain to reveal; his friend was embarassed. Garuvel laid his palm on the man's sleeve. Then he passed out to the flight deck.

Robolion was already dressed in the black jumpsuit. He passed one to Zyreen. She removed her chemise, showing bits of flesh to her soon-not-to-be-lover, teasing him. He looked away. At the moment, Zyreen brought the pill out from between her lower lip and teeth and slipped it into her jumpsuit pocket. She finished putting on the garment and stood, ready to go.

Before commencing Rollthrough, Garuvel had all the ship's complement seated and webbed into flight thrones in a shallow arc in front of the fore viewscreen. Each wore a helmet with heads-up displays. Garuvel, as the pilot, would be wearing the quantum microscope screen in his helmet. He understood some of the quantum-level phenomena. Not all of them, but he knew how to use them, to get his ship into and out of transpace with a minimum of risk. It would be his view and his choice for the moment when the careening particles began their collisions and transformations.

He had also prepared relevant members of his crew to be ready insantly upon matterspace breakout for an attack from any direction. Erring on the side of caution, he issued every member of the complement a set of earbuds. This was, hopefully, to prevent Boraz' neuromitter from being effective.

"Is everyone ready?" He looked at his ship-mates: a new lover, an old friend, two new friends and a dubious character who might be no one's friend. Everyone mumbled, shook their helmet plates in the affirmative.

Zyreen was not the only passenger new to the transpace rollthrough. Scianna had never had the experience. Yet Garuvel was not concerned. Scianna had shown courage, imagination and goodness of heart. She would be fine.

The last thing he did before zipping himself into his flight throne was to check Zyreen's fastenings. "Are you allright , princess?" He did not want to scrutinize her in a way that would make her even more self conscious.

She smiled at him in a dreamy sort of way. "I'm fine. I'm glad you offered me the medication. It's put me in a very relaxed mood. I admit to being a little scared but I feel far away from the fear, like it isn't me that's scared but some stranger. It doesn't really touch me, the fear."

It sounded like a fair description. Garuvel made a sound, a grunt of acceptance, checked the princess' quiktite fastenings and returned to his flight throne.

Helmet down, netted in, Garuvel began the sequence. Figment was drifting in space. He fired up the matterspace fusion drives, watching the hydrogen atoms converge and generate heat. The ship began to move as energy began flowing through the collimation tubes. His momentum on this side would be the same momentum on the other side. He wanted to be moving fast.

The relativity coordinator was swirling in its gyroscopic matrix.

"Open the quantum gates, Darzel," he said. The view showed an opening of gates. Quickly they moved into the Flux Field. Virtual particles were appearing and disappearing. Garuvel ignored them. He waited for the gates to open upon the subatomic realm. The colors in his mask grew more vivid. Images of beings flashed before him, in ancient cultures they were called fairies, pixies, elementals, dryads, salamanders. The outer wall of the fuel-atom of Latifium gave way. There was a shudder as if a membrane had been penetrated.

Garuvel focused his concentration. "Gates gates, beyond the gates yet more gates, unto infinity," he recited. He just felt like saying it aloud, one of the great sutras of noetiphysics.

Now electrons were igniting all around, jumping from lower to higher energy states. Darzel deftly guided the ship through the probabilities of direction and momentum. Electro-strong-weak repulsion fields kept them from crashing through the ship.

The gates continued to open, the nucleus was entered, the quarks appeared. Garuvel saw the particle accelerator's instrumentation in a quadrant of his helmet view. Everything was working. Collisions occurred and brought new particles spilling into the Flux Field. They collided in a spasm, an exaltation, releasing Oorg force so that it spilled all over the universe. The altered and re-united sub-atomic particles had released the all-vital Funny Particle. Garuvel "jumped" onto the particle and pointed himself through a tunnel and approached a collossal gate, the Great Gate of the Nunah.

Garuvel uttered a prayer. Oh mighty forces of consciousness, he implored, accept my humble offering of awe and love as I move into your realm.

The Nunah opened and accepted him. Figment was through. All the universes lit up with Oorg Force.

The ship's complement were now in a new state, a new kind of universe.

As Garuvel looked at himself, he knew everyone else did the same. It was the first reflex in transpace. One's own body was altered. Vaguely, the old physical shape surrounded the new energy matrices like an almost vanished echo. Instead, all the nerves, organs, powers of the living being, illuminated in beautiful complexity. It was somewhat like becoming an angel. Or, in some cases, like releasing a demon.

The next impulse, if one was not alone, was to look around at one's companions. This is what everyone was doing. Garuvel looked to Jaramine and beheld a miracle: she was a luminous diamond, an etheric force of facets and geometry, planes, pyramids, cones, glowingly connected to everything else. Filaments entered and left her space with brilliant streams of fiery hue, as if her aura were a heart and thoughts were streams of blood entering and leaving her life field.

Robolion presented another harmony. Sound floated off him and the notes were like coins flung into the air to float freely. He too showed in his aura a scintillance, which was darker and rounder, more of stone and blood than that of Jaramne.

The robiots were like pure hearts revealed in golden nakedness. Trace looked at Scianna and tendrils of his thought swam gracefullly towards her. She emitted her own tendrils and the two of them proceeded to touch tendrils in the glancing delicate play of love.

Zyreen began to laugh. "Hack hackhack, hack ahew! Hack!" Her laughter was discordant. Her presence was that of a bush, a dried up bush with thorny leaves that had withdrawn from the light to hibernate in a long winter. The leaves were shaped like two joined trapezoids, each angle ending in a barb . At her head, a brain center pulsated, something like a living dark green pomegranate. Her communication with the universe was limited. Things came towards her and stopped.

She did not seem to care. "Boli?" she said. "Why are you the only one here? Hack hack. This is odd. I'm not talking with my mouth. I'm thinking and there's a mouth near the top of my head. Hack hack!"

Robolion wanted to cry, and his etheric body suddenly turned into a giant perfectly shaped tear drop descending from his brain's glowing vortex and washing across the ship. Each of the others, Jaramine, Garuvel, Trace and Scianna donated a part of themselves to their friend's sadness. Robolion cried in music. A song wafted through the air, a song so beautifully heartbreaking that it caused Darzel to appear as a face, a solid face hanging in the air, a being whose cheeks washed with tears.

"Where'd they go, Boli? Did they leave us here together to work out our differences? Hack!"

"Yes, sweetheart, they've gone into the other chambers so that we might talk privately."

There was golden light everywhere, the interior of the Nunah filled with Oorg Force. It broke upon Zyreen's spirit-form like a wave of surf and it washed around her without being able to fill her. She lifted her arms, her twig-like branches to avoid what seemed to her to be a noxious liquid. "Ech," she said, "what is this stuff?" She decided to move away from it and she floated halfway through the ship's bulkhead so that her lower body was all that was visible. Robolion extended a tendril and pulled her back inside.

"That's dangerous," he said, "you shouldn't do it, don't leave the ship."

"I didn't know I was leaving anything. So this is transpace, eh? Not such a big deal."

In silence, the rest of the crew gathered around Zyreen and formed a circle of protection. They joined tendrils, merged fields, gave forth light from themselves. Robolion quietly thanked them.

Garuvel checked Darzel's projections. He had an instinct; he knew the neurolon was getting close. He formed his intention to bring them into the region of Alphetzar. This intention launched itself into the Nunah-space and pulled the ship along with it, reducing the arbitrary boundaries between matterspace and transpace. It lined up the interstices so that Alphetzar's Oort cloud was adjacent.

Darzel gave a little signal to Garuvel. In ordinary time, only twenty mintues had passed.

"We're rolling back through, please set yourselves in your flight thrones." Everyone did so; Robolion helped the Zyreen-thing to find its place. Everyone but Zyreen prepared for possible combat.

Darzel, whose face had remained in the bridge mingling with the emotions of the others, withdrew itself, a baloon rapidly deflating, withdrawing into the luminous nutrient globe where it lived.

Garuvel saw in his view plate a swift reversion through the endless gates; The ship shuddered as it passed through membranes. It pained him, grieved him, to leave the realm of transpace and its supernal beauties.

Zyreen would have deteriorated if exposed to transpace much longer. She would hererafter be afflicted with a touch of madness.

Garuvel knew she hadn't taken the medication.

When Figment broke into matterspace, it was as if the lights were suddenly turned off. Those in the ship were back in the mere physical light of the material universe and it was dull compared to that of transpace.

Garuvel was now a newly merged creature with his neurolon, which they called Garuzel. This being was ready to fight at speeds measured in nanoseconds.

Garuzel instantly scanned a FIFO (friend or foe ID broadcast). It found nearest at hand Friend. Ships patrolling outside the Oort Cloud of the Alphetzar system in a sweeping network. Instantly they recognized Garuvel's ship from previous encounters. A few auxiliary craft came out of the network and set course for Figment.

Bare nano-seconds later a large fleet broke out of transpace and were identified as FOE. It didn't require guesswork to determine that this was Boraz and his invasion fleet.

Garuvel wasn't going to waste time with the light cannon. He instantly fired a brace of anti-matter torpedoes at the five ships most likely to be carrying Boraz. There was a huge mothership, two large battlecruisers, and a fighter-transport that was hatching little insects of interdiction craft as the torpedoes left their tubes.

The Zosian craft also turned into the hostile fleet. They had their own fighter-carrier, whose fusion jets came flying like bees from orifices in the egg-shaped ship.

As this was happening, Garuzel began to feel the effects of the neuromtter weapon. As soon as a fearful thought entered its consciousness, it split back into Garuvel and Darzel.

Garuvel determined that all the antidote transmitters were working. Small and odd thoughts penetrated his consciousness, thoughts he knew were not his normal mentality while in battle. He wasn't afraid during battle. He was only afraid afterwards.

A series of huge explosions shattered space, throwing shockwaves all the way to the Oort cloud, where asteroids were moved and shifted from orbits that had lasted billions of years. Figment jolted in the passing concussion.

The mothership was gone, marked only by a sizzling hot debris field. So, too, were the battlecruisers. the fighter-transport had managed to intercept the torpedo and launched a counterattack. Quickly, Daruzel plotted and destroyed a dozen anti-matter torpedoes. The explosions were powerful but more distant.

All of this had happened so quickly that the non-participant, Zyreen, had been looking at her fingernails and wondering why she felt like a tree. It was so odd....it seemed as though she had gained a sudden understanding of plant-life, or certain kinds of plant-life, shrubs, bushes, trees, holly, evergreen. She shook her head. Must be an effect of the transpace experience, she thought. She couldn't remember a thing about going into and returning from transpace. Maybe they hadn't gone at all...but...the bridge viewscreen showed a wild mix of stars, nebulae, a field of material some ways distant. And...and ships! Maybe Boraz' ships. Whoops, one of them was gone. Another one. Did she actually see the ships or was that an hallucination? When she glanced at her shipmates, they were like blurs, they were hardly visible. Garuvel, in his captain's chair, was transparent and moved with jerky and ungraceful purpose. He looked like a stuck holovid—a frame played, then jammed, than another frame played, jammed again. Each time she looked, he was in another position, though she could see that he was there, even though things were visible through his body, the instruments, dials, switches and lights on the console.

Robolion looked a little better. He was looking into his helmet display and moving in a similar bee-like style, flitting from one posture to another. Trace, Scianna, and Jaramine were equally engaged; barely visible, doing something with their hands at different controls, moving jerkily.

Then a blinding light shone for just a moment, before the viewscreen damped it. Some ships out there in space vanished in great piles of debris.

All this took maybe a second. Some ships drew near to Figment. Garuvel, Robolion and his friends slowed to normal speed and threw off their helmets.

Zyreen took the silly earbud out of her ear. Then she felt simply awful. Oh god, terrible. She knew what it was. It was Boraz' weapon! She wanted to laugh but she cried. She felt such despair. Then, hardly skipping a beat, she felt fabulous! She jumped up and began to dance through the cabin, singing a silly childhood song.

"We've got plenty of money," she sang, "we've got plenty of money, we have enough to buy good stuff we've got everything we need, oh we've got plenty of money, we've got plenty of money....."

Robolion slid from his flight chair and came to Zyreen. He put the earbud back in her ear. The extremes of mood suddenly vanished.

"We didn't' get HIM," Robolion uttered with disappointment.

"Haha!" Zyreen laughed. "Hack!" What an odd sound, she thought to herself. Oh well...

"He's still alive, he wants me, you didn't blow him up," she taunted like a school girl. Robolion took the earbud out once more; Zyreen began to sob. She replaced the earbud herself; she couldn't take this oscillation, it was exhausting.

The ship was flying very fast.. Alongside, hanging at about five thousand kilometers, were small ships that looked like cobs of corn, rows of little bulging kernels running alongside one another, interrupted here and there by out-thrust weapons.

Suddenly a face appeared, filling the viewscreen. A handsome man wearing a black tunic and a circlet of braided silver on his head spoke in a stern voice.

"I presume you are Rebed Singman and your ship is Figment."

"You are correct, sir," Garuvel responded.

"I am Zoharnes, the screening officer for this sector. You will forgive me if I do the screening rather quickly."

"Of course," said Garuvel.

"Sensors indicate the presence of six sentient beings on your ship, all basically in humanoid form, plus of course your neurolon. Is this correct?"

"It is," replied Garuvel formally.

"Would you please bring all of your ship's complement before the camera to be seen, recorded and analyzed."

Garuvel looked around, beckoning all to stand with him in a group. Jaramine came to his side on the left, Robolion on his right, Trace and Scianna next to Jaramine, and Zyreen, clinging rather timidly to Robolion's arm at the fringe of the group.

A red indicator dot the size of a saucaer landed at the center of Jaramine's chest.

"Will you please state your name and relevant information."

""I am Jaramine Fujitotomo-Pranayam-Kreshmet-Votha." Her voice was unaffectedly regal as she spoke her full name. For Garuvel certain pieces fell into place: her name, Fujitotomo-Pranayam- Kreshmet-Votha, described not her biological family but her spiritual lineage, her degrees in Magic Science and her school of Noetiphysics. It also told him that Jaramine had been to Zos before.

The screening officer began to thaw. "I have your records right here, Honored Mother Kreshmet-Votha. Your history on Zos is illustrious. Now I must proceed."

The red dot moved to Robolion.

"Will you please state your name and relevant information."

"I am Robolion Spdaz, Master Musician, student of the Nyartso, initiate in the Mysteries of Sonic Healing."

"Master Spdaz!" The screening officer smiled broadly, his entire manner changed. "Oh! I would love to hear you play in person; we have a bit of a crisis, as you see...it is such an honor...."

The officer regained his solemnity. The red dot moved to Trace, and the interrogation proceeded.

"I am Trace, a robiot, a fully aware sentient being." He said this with great pride.

The officer gave a small bow. "Your achievement is so noted, with respect."

Scianna offered and received the same salutation.

Then the red dot landed on Zyreen.

"I am Princess Zyreen Henchnil vora-Sudeeza Ouen Borgomak," she said. She looked sallow and somewhat lost.

There was a pause as the screening officer consulted his files.

"Princess Zyreen Borgomak of Strobe is on the proscribed list. We are not a law enforcement agency. She will be allowed on Zos under conditions of house arrest, without access to computers. Is that acceptable?"

Garuvel looked at Zyreen. Her face was opaque. Garuvel nodded assent.

The ship gave a slight shudder. The screening officer's eyes went to another display somewhere to his right. Garuvel keyed the top right quarter of his own screen to view the surveillance feed. Ships were screaming through space, fighting, exploding, burning. Immense rails of white-hot energy spat from the Zosian fighers' noses. They were met with rapid fire drops that glowed blood red, as Boraz' fleet counter-attacked.

"We are nearly done with the formalities," the officer returned his attention to his task. "Protocol is important; no one lands on Zos without recitation of the Great Tenets. I shall begin."

The red dot glowed on Garuvel's chest. He had remained seated in the pilot's throne. He gestured the others to take their seats. For now, their part in this exchange was over.

"Master Singman, First question: State the Primary Tenet of Noetiphysics."

Garuvel spoke without hesitation. "Thought travels faster than light, yet endures longer than all matter and radiation."

"Second Tenet?"

"There are two kinds of thought: True thought is that whose only purpose is the quest for self-knowledge. False thought is that which is attached to objects in the realm of nature."

"Third Tenet?"

"True thought occurs in the Field where consciousness is conscious of itself."

"Very good. And the Fourth Tenet?"

"Consciousness eternally progresses in the wisdom of self-knowledge."

"Almost there, Colleague," said the officer, who had dropped his cold and officious manner. "You surely know the last question, but I must ask it for the sake of protocol."

Garuvel nodded and waited for the final question.

"What is the fifth and final tenet, The Great Tenet of Noetiphysics?"

"Though everything else may vanish, there will still be a lone spark in the abyss of infinity that desires to know the Truth. It is this desire that drives all creation."

"Thank you," said officer Zoharnes, calmly. Then he looked as if something had struck him a terrible blow; as if he had just heard the most dreadful news imaginable.

"Aaaaah!' Zoharnes howled. He fell out of the line of sight of the transmitting camera. For a moment there was just a textured brown wall. Then the officer rose back into view, his face contorted. Somehow he found the will to say, "Now if we may please hasten to the landing field at Quizinosk...just follow me." He spoke as if someone were strangling him. Garuvel marveled at his will and discipline. Hurriedly, he set Darzel to transmitting the pulse sequences so that Zosians could make copies of the antidote.

The officer had taken a chair and lay curled up in it, face in his hands.

"It is a weapon you are experiencing," Garuvel explained. "Its range is about fifty fifve thousand klicks. Get out of range any way you can. I think it's emitting from the fighter transport of the enemy fleet. It may be excruciating but it will pass. That's the best I can do for you right now; I'm transmitting countermeasures."

Zoharnes wept but turned to the camera. His face was drenched in perspiration. The signal weakened as his ship ran up speed to escape the neuromitter cannon's range.

"I hope they will be in time." He waved vaguely at someone in his crew. There were screams aboard the ship, and the screen went dark. The ship continued on its course.

Garuvel set the ship into Darzel's control, and Figment began the descent through the planetary system of Alphetzar. She was trailed by heavily armed ships, passing through a bristling phalanx of weapon emplacements on every moon, every large asteroid, every Roche and Lagrange Point of the Alphetzar system.

This was not the first invasion of the Planet Zos.

Chapter Thirty

Zos

As they hurtled toward the space port of the city of Quizinosk, another communication reached them. A face appeared on the vid-screen.

"Which name do I use? I can't keep track of your aliases." They were greeted by a small old man with yellowish-brown skin.

"Lobten Sorma!" Garuvel placed his palms together in salutation. At his side, Jaramine performed the identical obeisance. Garuvel looked askance at the woman.

"You know him?" He said quietly.

"Of course I do," she said emphatically.

"I'm beginning to understand some things," Garuvel replied, but then the teacher interrupted their colloquy.

"You found each other," he said plainly. "And now you act surprised that you are both my disciples."

The scope of it, the scale of it, begin to sink in to both Garuvel and Jaramine.

"Nothing could prevent that from happening," Lobten Sorma explained. "It's too powerful. You are each other. What are a few billions of light years? Nothing!" The monk snapped his fingers. "You will find one another always, the strength of your bond calls across eons and through galaxies."

The diminutive figure beamed at them proudly. Then a booming sound came across the transmission, a flash entered through the windows of Lobten's location. There was an explosion in the city of Quizinosk.

Lobten sighed. "I wish we had more time, but things are a little hectic at the moment." He looked Garuvel in the eyes. "Now you're going to apologize for bringing him down upon us. Nonsense! He was coming anyway; he would have to bring war here as much as the two of you had to find love. Nothing could prevent it. Now tell me, what brings you to Zos, to the Museum of Known Things, at such a crucial time? Jaramine, are you ready to earn another psychifact?"

"If a psychifact will help us find a world called Wayuzo, then I wish to visit the Repository."

"Wayuzo," Lobten Sorma reflected. "It has a familiar twang to it. Wayuzo.....ah! The Heart World of The Starwind Communion. The stuff of legends, ancient tales, rumours, slanders, lies and promises of sublime contribution, all mixed together. I have heard of it. If you are seeking it, you must have a wondrous story."

Garuvel allowed himself to hope. "Do you know where it might be?"

"Haven't the vaguest idea," Sorma responded. "But if you have an affinity, the Repository may respond."

The spirit of Nutun Utulo, the planet Melolos, quivered inside Garuvel. "I may have an affinity," he asserted.

"That would be good. This creature, whatever he calls himself, this Bozon Bugbait issues threats like bonbons at a banquet. It's war, I'm afraid. We're going to have to move quickly."

Garuvel sighed. Boraz might be a few parsecs behind; he might be held up by Zos' military power. Anything could happen.

"Have you taken measures to protect the Repository?" Jaramine asked.

"I think the psychifacts can protect themselves. Can you imagine the chaos, if unprepared beings went havering through the museum, attempting to loot the Repository? The psychifacts are just things, but they are useful things, all the same." Lobten Sorma shrugged, accepting both catastrophe and triumph as mutually cancelling concepts. "Still, we have taken precautions, we have built stasis chambers in the core of the planet and placed guardian Urzarchs at all access points."

The battle raged throughout the sector. For six days, Figment barreled at maximum speed down through the gravity well of the bright white star called Alphetzar. It was a powerhouse of a star; its life belt began around half a billion miles from the stellar region. Three other planets had once been home to life. Their inhabitants had all self-destructed, leaving behind methane clouds and giant alloy sarcophagi. Entire planets were shielded from the outside universe to quarantine their radiation.

At length, Figment passed into the atmosphere of Zos, and the city of Quizinosk appeared. From a mile out in space it looked like a plant, a spreading vine sending out shoots that grew upward into a thicket of trumpet bells. Thousands of funnels gaped at the sky, wide open like a colossal nest of hungry infant birds. As the ship descended towards the port it came beneath the forest of funnels. Viewed from below, these inverted cones were wildly decorated with gems, paints, plants, fungi, tapestries, latex. Each was a distinctive expression of the people who lived in their shadows.

Expanding in ripples from the city's center were malls, plazas, parks, pyramids, arcologies and a dizzied map of streets that circled, converged, joined and separated. Ramps that led nowhere, half-built bridges suspended over subtle gardens: these sights only made sense if one grasped the nature of the society that existed on Zos.

. The funnels were energy collectors, one or several atop every building in the city. Here, they were called "Ahyazatn sensors", after the Zosian term for cosmic rays and neutrinos. These were the power sources of Quizinosk. From street level, the presence of the energy collectors made the city look as if a legion of dragons had perched on the rooftops and were yawning at the heavens.

When they had landed, Garuvel patted the small globe where Darzel rested in its nutrient bath. "Darzel, I'm leaving you here to prepare for priority takeoff.

We may have to hot-foot it."

"Understood," said Darzel. There was no come-back, no verbal fencing.

It was an hour before evening twilight when Figment landed. Flanked by two warrior monks, Lobten Sorma was waiting at the bottom of the ship's ramp. He wore his usual faded crimson robe with the yellow trim. One wrinkled wiry arm was bare to the shoulder.

Garuvel was wary. Lobten had taught him most of his martial arts skills: Kankai, Zeccho, Vatekar. He was ready for tricks.

The first thing Lobten did when he greeted the traveler was to race forward and throw both arms around Jaramine. His head lay on her breast. He sighed a great release of air, like a puppy who has played hard all day and has just returned to its mother to sleep. He winked at Garuvel beneath Jaramine's elbow as they embraced.

"Aah," he sighed, "why have you stayed away so long, my love?"

Jaramine lifted him and swung him around, beaming. "I've missed you, lecherous old criminal. Please remind me; were you born old or did you let yourself get this way just to be funny?"

After being released, the monk said, "just to be funny, of course. Who would take someone like me seriously?" He side stepped to stand before Garuvel. Delicately, with the small finger of his left hand, he reached out and touched Garuvel just beneath the armpit, a few inches to the right of his breast. The light contact somehow put Garuvel completely off balance. Flailing his arms in the air, Garuvel tried grabbing Jaramine, but missed and fell onto his buttocks on the grassy landing field.

"How the f.....", Garuvel was momentarilly peeved. "Gods dammit!"

"Aha, total loss of composure," the monk reprimanded him. "See how easy it is when you know the right way to apply leverage?"

Garuvel picked himself up; he gave a momentary glare at Jaramine as if she were somehow responsible. Then he laughed. A bright flash jarred their eyes, a boom followed a few seconds later.

"I hate war," Lobten said with a cold passion. "But sometimes there is no avoiding it. We won't let this Bughole or whatever he calls himself walk all over us. Greedy bastard. I understand you've had personal experience with him?"

Before anyone could answer, there was a streak of fire raining down snakily from the heavens. It scorched a swathe of ground some miles away, then a boom followed.

Lobten raised his hand. "No time for stories. We need to get your work done swiftly." Lobten suddenly winced and put a hand to his head.

"Why that son of a bitch. He's messing with our minds, isn't he?"

"Afraid so," Jaramine took the monk by the arm but he was only mildly discomfited. All the same, he let her hand stay. Garuvel was open-mouthed. There was something about Boraz attacking Lobten Sorma that raised a level of outrage in him, beyond what he had known before.

"Did you begin replicating the antidote transmitters?"

"Hmm." Lobten rubbed above both eye sockets as if he had a headache. "Yes, but I don't have one yet. They're being issued to the fleet. I can feel what he's trying to do." Then he began to smile wickedly. "I see. He takes you up and down, unsettles you completely. It's impossible to get yourself emotionally braced. How very very nasty. Someday he'll pay for his crimes. There IS justice in this life, you know."

Garuvel, having experienced first hand what he had come to dub, "The Great Shit Storm In Your Head", marveled at his mentor's capacity to walk through it like it was a mild case of the flu.

Robolion and Zyreen, Scianna and Trace had come up beside them. Lobten looked up. The wrinkles of his face expanded with astonishment. "Wow! Big!" He stared with awe. Then recognition dawned. "Oh. Robiots.... But not... robiots."

He stared quizzically into the eyes of first Scianna, then Trace. "What's the deal?", he asked. Trace stood, uncertain, while Scianna could not take her eyes from the city that lay at the bottom of the slope.

"We call ourselves New Sentients." Trace explained.

"You mean, it just happened? You found a way to lift yourselves out of being automata?"

"It's a long and difficult process." Trace reflected.

"Well of course it is," Lobten exclaimed. "Welcome to life. It's the same for everyone."

"It is?" The thought seemed to strike Trace with great force.

"You're sentient," Lobten confirmed. "I can see that. You're no different than me, or Garuvel or this lovely woman here, who must be Princess Zyreen."

Lobten stroked her arm, gently. Zyreen stiffened, then willed herself to relax. It was just a harmless old man, she told herself.

Lobten was aware of the changes in the woman's body. He was moved to compassion for her. "Zyreen", he savored the sound of her name, then sighed. "You have a beautiful name. Forgive us, but you'll have to stay in the courtesy dome. Here's the bus. We have to hurry."

He urged the group into an open-air vehicle that floated easily on a repulsor grid. The silent warrior monks accompanied them.

"These are my two finest disciples," Lobten explained. "Forgive me, I failed to introduce you during the rush of things. Here is Rawal, and here is Bilantovo."

The monks nodded quietly. When the passengers had fit themselves into the vehicle, Lobten put his hand on Robolion's arm.

"Mr. Spdaz, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed your music the last several centuries. I loved 'The Man Who Swallowed Midnight'. I so regret that this won't be a time to have an impromptu concert. I'm honored to meet you."

Robolion looked with affection at the monk. It was impossible not to be instantly drawn to the man.

The vehicle sprang forward. In but a moment, it pulled up before a dome, and the warrior monks got out. They extended their hands towards Zyreen.

"Young lady, you will stay here until our work is done." Lobten stayed where he sat, between Garuvel and Jaramine, facing backwards on the padded seat.

"Then we shall see what to do with you. That is, if there's anything left of us."

There was a series of hisses. Missiles launched from ground batteries lofted on bright trails of vapor. They reached altitude in great streaks, then began hunting their targets, vapor trails twisting into curves and spirals.

The little open-aired vehicle pulled away as soon as Zyreen and her guards departed. Rooftop batteries had been uncovered. The thousands of Ahyazatn collectors were converted into energy weapons. A vast roar began building as if from the bowels of the planet itself.

The vehicle rolled swiftly towards the great quadrangle of grass and trees where the Museum and the Repository had been built so many eons ago. After passing across a swathe of high ground, the monumental edifices appeared. The Museum of Known Things stood like a colossus at the center of a berm of built-up earthworks. The tower of the Repository stood at its center.

The vehicle rose into the air, flying towards the upper faces of the tower of the Repository of Psychifacts.

The Museum had seven sides, each more than half a mile long. Ten stories rose above ground, ten more descended into the planet. At each angle of the septagon, a tower shaped like a twisted spiral glowed with leafed chameleon-metal.

Another, higher tower jutted out from the building's center, its cupola dwarfing those at the angles. This was the Repository.

Their vehicle rose above the Museum's bastions, and glided like a swan to hover next to the central tower. A panel in the dome slid back. The travelers and their guide stepped out upon a ramp and entered the Repository's tapering dome.

At the center of the chamber was a railed elevator platform, presently flush with their level. At the center of this platform, a pearl-colored sphere floated waist- high.

Lobten beckoned. The members of the group seated themselves on cushions around the sphere. Lobten waved his hands, and the circular platform began to rotate. It paused here, before a particular scene, then moved on to another scene. It was attempting to tune with Garuvel and his companions.

With a few more turns, the platform floated free, tilted slightly, then stabilized. Tentatively, it rose up, then down through the multi- tiered structure. All around, Garuvel and his friends could see acolytes of the Zosian mysteries moving among row upon row of shelves, vanishing down long corridors. At the tower's arcing sides, stasis chambers containing articles from millions of worlds rose above them, and dropped from view below. The platform hesitated at one corridor, rotated a bit and then began moving horizontally. It came to another vertical shaft, rose one level, then rode on another shaft in the opposite direction.

There were bones encased in precious metal, dragon-shaped trumpets, worked skins, carved bowls, lumps of shapeless ore, arx penises, preserved tongues. The giant cylinder seemed to flicker with subtle forces. Jaramine's gaze grew abstracted; her breath slowed. "Higher, Lobten. I feel a resonance."

The disc rose. Jaramine's head turned this way and that, subtle fire burning in the whites of her eyes. She rose to her feet, taking in every item as they passed. Jaramine held out her hand, dreamily. "Stop," she said, in a smothered tone.

She had focused on a particular chamber. Sitting on a dark red velure cushion was a skull, coated in non-reflective black anodyzed metal.

There were red, glowing rings around Jaramine's eyes. Garuvel looked at the skull, and saw the same glowing rings around its empty sockets.

The stasis barrier in the small chamber evaporated with a puff of mist. The light between Jaramine's living eyes and the skull's dead ones leaped across the space between them, to collide in a bridge of fire. Small drops of liquid light began to fall from this bridge, as if it were melting. The skull floated away from its niche. The drops began to build upon themselves. Rising, an image began to form, growing taller and wider. Soon it was man-shaped, and twisted at the waist, writhing and flexing.

Abruptly, it took on life. A venerable holy man stood before the group, floating a few inches above the platform's surface. His hair was as long as his body, and he kept it bundled like a turban at the top and sides of his head. Little strands and locks fell loose, reaching his knees and ankles. His muscles were long and stringy, covered in old parchment skin that somehow retained its suppleness. He wore a filthy loincloth and a cape made from human skin. Faded tattoos showed in places on the cape, and there was a dark circle that might have been a nipple. The skull had become covered in the flesh of its long dead owner.

The being smiled sardonically, displaying his few remaining teeth. "What the hell?" he said, looking around. Then he bowed, but kept his eyes fixed upon the people before him.

"Oh.....let's see, let's see," he said as he straightened up. His body was not subject to gravity. It touched the ground but bounced a little as he moved. "I really can't remember the chain of events that led to my being pent up inside my own skull. I think it was a bet...or maybe a misguided vow........ Can any of you tell me the date today, Common Grid?"

"It is now 7812, holy one." Lobten Sorma seemed privately amused.

The holy man sniffed, wiped at his nostrils with his fingers, then sniffed their tips.

"This isn't flesh, it's Pranash. So obviously I died and someone put me here; perhaps for safekeeping?" The venerable being smiled maliciously.

"Yes yes, it's coming back to me. It was seventy thousand years ago. I had been given a disciple, a student, called Krangen Fadbos. I called him Kranki Fatpuss, to annoy him. He was terrible....no imagination at all. A querulous, whiny little shit, was that Fatpuss. It was punishment, you see. The other Dzujhdus had gotten a little piffed with me over certain things...disagreements regarding doctrine and such such...I KNOW I was right, of course."

The ancient one fanned his right hand back and forth in front of his face. He seemed to become more aware of his surroundings, and the people before whom he floated.

"I am Kringmar, Forty Fourth Dzujhdu of the Nayahana Lodge." He pursed his lips, his eyes went diagonally upward to the left as he recalled various things.

"Sounds like a restaurant on Yarj, doesn't it? 'Nayahana Lodge'. Well, it's done. I am in a body made of pranash, which frankly is much more malleable than flesh. I can come and go as I please, do things like travel back and forth in time, conveniences like that."

He coughed, a great wheezing bellow as he doubled over. When he had straightened up, he spit a giant gob of phlegm that disappeared instantly a few inches from his face.

"Pranash has a few liabilities," he said acerbically.

He leered at Jaramine and Scianna, inspecting them frankly. "I must admit, this is a major upgrade." As an afterthought, he inspected the others.

"I haven't been out of my skull in a long time. Wait a second." He waved his arms randomly, then suddenly vanished. Before his onlookers could draw a breath, he was back.

"Okay, I've been filled in." He shrugged, then brushed himself down to shake off imaginary bits of ash, un-used remnants of Pranash. This was the substance utilized by holy men to pull miraculous items from thin air. He shook his head as if to dismiss vagueness from his thoughts. Speaking to himself, he said, "One must treat religion, philosophy and metaphysics as jokes, or one goes mad."

He put his elbow in the hollow of his other hand, so that his finger tapped his cheek. "Well, I got some of the story, not all of it. Why have I been summoned? Tell me in your own words. The story I got from The Twinkles in Strovoid was barely coherent. I got the gist, that's all. Their voices are so damned squeaky and they all talk at once."

Jaramine opened her hands in supplication. "We are honored by your presence, Kringmar, and are indifferent to your lack of charm. We seek the planet Wayuzo."

"Wayuzo! Huh! I have some connection with the place, I'll admit. You can't get there directly from here. It's not in this galaxy, not the neighbouring galaxies. It's really, so to speak..... out of this world! It's in an alternate timeline from a parallel universe that never existed in the past when in the future it influences everything it doesn't touch just by its idea......" He paused and smiled a private smile. "Oh well, can't blame me for trying. This much is true: you must reach the Monastery of Klah-yan, on the planet Shoms. That's where the portal is located." Kringmar sighed. "I suppose I'll have to go with you. If anyone else had asked me such a thing, I would have laughed. Shoms is not a world for tourists." The ragged apparition had been speaking at a rapid clip. His words slowed as he looked at each person in the group. He pointed to Trace and Scianna.

"These are new people; they are living their creation myth." For the first time, something like warmth appeared in Kringmar's expression. "Shoms is an old world, going mad in its senility. You are setting out upon a most difficult task. Seventy thousand years ago, I was so frustrated by Kranki Fatpuss that I asked to have my flesh dissolved in the Chamber of Adjunctive Wheels. My ribs became part of the Harmoni-Cosmic Xylophone. My hollowed bones are played by my disciples at the Spirit Summonings." Kringmar thought for a moment. "At least they used to be....they may have been thrown in a trash heap long ago. Still, I am the Forty Fourth Dzujhdu. There are a hundred and eight, you know....we're supposed to be holy and powerful, but actually we're just the assholes who passed tests and took a lot of courses. Hmmm......" He put his palms to his temples, so that his fingers went into the great hive of his hair from either side. "Perhaps my skull shall yet join the Pyramid of Skulls, where it truly belongs. Maybe the disagreements I had with the other Dzujhdus have been forgiven....or forgotten."

Kringmar took his hands out of his hair. His bony arms rose above his head. His fingers were splayed. He inhaled mightily, then doubled over in a fit of coughing.

"This prahnash doesn't work very well for making bodies. I'd be better off resting in my skull." He began to wobble and shrink back to become the black psychifact. Then he resumed his full size.

"Oh yes, I forgot a couple of things. You will also have to pass some tests and courses before you can reach Wayuzo. You must clear the Twelve Perimeters just to get to Klah-yan. And they are nothing compared to the Thirteenth Perimeter, the one that will get you through the portal to Wayuzo. It's called....." Here he paused for dramatic effect. Jaramine rolled her eyes at Garuvel. "It's called," Kringmar continued, again pausing. "It's called..... the Test of Terror and Ecstasy." He looked expectantly at his new friends. "You like that?" He gave an innocent smile.

The voyagers sat silently, listening. They were not disturbed.

"Well, I see I can't dissuade you." Kringmar shook, mockingly, his eyes swelling with false horror.

As he spoke, the forty fourth Dzujhdu had been waving his hands, wriggling his fingers , blurring them like the wings of a flying insect. In his palm he had materialized a white, doughy substance, which he kneaded lovingly until it had been separated into six small, round pills.

"Here," he said, "Shoms is off the map. You can't get there unless a Dzujhdu places the molecules in your body. There must be some correspondence in the elemental signatures." He flicked the little balls insouciantly with his thumb and forefinger. Each member of the group caught one.

"Go ahead, swallow them." He wrinkled his eyes with amusement. "Just don't take a crap in the next few hours. You only get one, no second chances." He bent nearly double with amusement. Then he resumed his shrinking, devolving into globules of light, until he had withdrawn into the metal-covered skull. His voice still sounded, faintly, echoing inside the hollow bone.

"I will return when you need me. The planet where you are going is not like any other. Science and magic do not work as they do elsewhere; you must be flexible or you will perish. Your spells and your objects, your powers and your technology, some may not work. Could be none of them will work. It is all because The Dzujhdus bend forces to their wills in unforseeable ways."

Lobten sat, twiddling his interlocked fingers. The six companions looked at one another and shrugged. They swallowed their pills.

The taste was first sweet, then sour, then bitter, then pungent, then acidic, then sweet, and, finally, bitter again. The stasis chambers seemed to whirl around them, their contents becoming animate, whispering in arcane languages.

When the tower had stopped spinning, Lobten waved at the sphere, and the disc began to return to the center level, where it had begun. Before it came to a rest, however, Scianna stood suddenly, surprise pushing through the stolid muscles of her face.

"Wait!" She turned completely around in a circle,then angled herself like a hunting raff pointing at prey. She strode over to a chamber. She put out her hand, pushing through the field. It yielded to her. Within the chamber was a pair of saucer-sized hand cymbals. She picked them up on on their joined tether, brought them close to her ear, then gently struck them together.

Scianna's eyes seemed to follow the delicate ringing sound to a far distant dimension. Jerking her head with the precise, delicate movements of a bird, she let her face bear an expression of rapture that it had never before contained.

Trace brought his ear to the cymbals. His face joined that of his female companion. "Listen!" Scianna exclaimed. "Do you hear all those voices?"

"Yes yes!," Trace assented. "A river of voices." The tone sustained minute after minute, fading gently, imperceptibly. After it was gone, they still thought to hear it.

Scianna looked at the cymbals with awe. "How did I earn a psychifact?"

Lobten looked with fond respect at the robiots. "Anyone who rings true can earn a psychifact."

Scianna and Trace hugged each other briefly and jumped up and down without self-consciousness.

A rumble came up through the vaults of the tower. A deep barely audible boom rattled the frames of the stasis chambers.

Lobten looked around at the others on the platform. "Any more resonances? Time is getting short. Still, let's ride the tower once more, just in case."

He commanded the disc to rise. It tilted slightly as it sought stability, and Garuvel put out a hand to steady himself. His fingers inadvertantly touched a stasis chamber. Its barrier disappeared in a puff, exposing the object within. The platform stopped.

Garuvel reached into the case and withdrew an ordinary looking rock. It was reddish, with grey striations, and tiny flecks of slate-blue. It was vaguely circular, thinning at one edge so that part of it was blunt, and part of it was sharp.

"Is it supposed to do something?" Robolion asked.

They waited. Lobten shrugged. "It wouldn't be here were it not a genuine psychifact. Put it away. Guard it carefully."

Garuvel slipped the coin-sized object into his sleeve. He gestured Lobten to proceed. "We have gotten more than we expected."

The air-bus was waiting on the ramp outside the tower. The battles had intensified. There were clouds of smoke in the sky mixed with rising thunderheads. Flashes lit the insides of these great pillars of moisture and rising fumes. Lightning merged with the flash of energy weapons, turning the insides of the clouds into strobing puffs of orange and white. The old monk turned and gazed at his friends with sad affection. "I don't think I will see any of you again in this body, with these eyes. Who knows in what forms we will meet again? It does not matter. We WILL meet again. I envy you the journey to Shoms. I would come with you, but...," he raised his hands to the sky. The bare flesh of his upper arms shone like smooth columns. Flashes of light illumined his biceps, ridged with veins and spotted with a few moles and freckles.

"I have a fight here, and that will certainly be an adventure."

An explosion landed near enough to cause everyone to duck. It sent a sphere of sparks flying at high velocity across a section of the city. Rumbles of toppling structures roared a few miles down the Loftroad, one of Quizinosk's elevated transport structures. Garuvel could see pieces of a bridge flying through the air. Cars whizzed end over end. The sheer dreadfulness of war had come to the City of Wisdom. It was tragic and it made Garuvel regret that he had not managed to kill Boraz when he was near enough to do the deed.

He quickly dismissed that line of thought as unproductive. Embers were floating down on their heads, and Jaramine pulled out her multiskins to cover herself and Garuvel. Robolion and the others were also under the beige-colored miracle cloth. A wind had arisen, precursor to what would have been a magnificent storm under other circumstances. Now it amplified the confusion of flashes, concussions, howls and whirling that grew ever closer.

"We had best get going." Garuvel swept the city with his scanner, then put it back in his tunic. "We can't abandon Zyreen. Have any of the invading troops landed yet?"

"Some infiltration, no large troop bodies. Oh, we still have plenty of teeth left in our jaws," Lobten said. "The fleet is still out beyond the orbit of Cherchemar." He looked up, and his gaze carried the others' eyes in the same direction. A large ship, shaped like a giant ladle with an hourglass handle, was tumbling, yawing and burning. A chunk of the ladle section separated and flipped end over end towards the surface of the planet while the rest of the vessel disintegrated more slowly.

"That's one of theirs," Lobten stated with grim satisfaction. Garuvel knew the shape of the Greem Cruiser, a warship of Boraz' fleet.

"Gods, it's going towards the University." The monk's body shivered with horror. There was a tremendous explosion; light flared across the city. Waves of concussion threw the travelers' to their knees.

Lobten rose and drew his own scanner from his robe. He sighed. "Hit the playing field." His voice was a sob of relief. "They 're just evacuating the University. That would have been... too unthinkable."

Robolion poked Garuvel in the ribs. "Let's go, let's go, this is getting pretty hot."

The group boarded the bus and it broke for the administrative dome where Zyreen had been deposited for safekeeping. It wove its way through streets and airways filled with rushing vehicles. Garuvel had the odd sensation that the city was shrinking, that it was tucking itself away somewhere. Spaces between buildings grew larger and deeper.

The bus arrived at the utility dome in but a few minutes.

"Let me go for her," Robolion said. His face was dark in the flickering lights of the city. He was still in love, he admitted to himself. Even Zyreen's darkness, her madness caused him to want to protect her and heal her. He could not free himself of such emotions. He had a sinking feeling that Zyreen would not be returning with him. It left him free floating in a flat void, where no features emerged. It was like an empty room, with nothing to comfort him or contain him. He discovered that Zyreen had protected him from profound depression. That was why he needed her so badly.

When the bus stopped, he rushed inside the dome. No light shone from within. A small beam leaked from a blacked-out window; it shivered here and there, stopped, disappeared. In a minute Robolion was back.

He looked at Garuvel and shook his head. He held a small digipad in his hand and waved it listlessly at his friends. "She left a note. She's not coming. She's been taken by one of Boraz' commandos to a place where she'll be safe until he arrives." His face was ashen. "She says thanks for the lift it's been fun. Her exact words." He waved the pad at his friends, but no one needed to read the princess' missive.

Garuvel felt his friend's heartbreak. He had felt it before. It never got less painful for Robolion.

Garuvel put his arms around Lobten, then stepped back. "I'm so sorry I brought this upon you..." Garuvel began. Lobten forestalled him.

"It's not you....he was coming anyway. This...creature...enjoys ruining things of the spirit. It's all right. We have withstood fifteen invasions since the Zosian School of Noetiphysics began. We know where to go, how to preserve ourselves."

Garuvel could live with this explanation, because he knew it was true. It seemed to be Boraz' desire to suck the flavor from everything, to leech the soul from existence. Garuvel had been toying with the idea of the Gift; he could make all this go away, he could turn Calakadon into a lizard, he could do anything he wanted....yet...he could do nothing, for every cause had a further effect, and every effect a further cause, and so on down to the infinitely tiny levels of the quantum worlds of the Sprits and the Nunah. If he had learned anything, it was this. He had to let things happen and give them into the hands of that nameless IT in whom he believed.

All the lights of Quizinosk were out when Garuvel and his companions reached the ship. Parts of the city were dismantling themselves, disappearing. Buildings were folding themselves neatly into other buildings, hopping, bounding, cruising away from the field of conflict. Brisk flashes pierced the sky. Distant cracks and hissing sounds were everywhere. Brilliant streaks rained down from overhead, or flowed up towards the heavens like hoses of light. Pop pop pop pop! Clanging and crashing, sounds like an old ship that was sinking, groaning as of stressed metal, filled the air.

Lobten extended his hand. He was holding a memory chip. "This is the map of all friendly and hostile forces as of....." he hesitated, referring to a timepiece in his head. Garuvel turned to his own atomic clock implant. Lobten nodded a countdown.

"Mark," he said. Garuvel fixed the data that had been flowing into the chip.

Figment was already firing up the engines. Darzel was ready; flight thrones were down, webbing stretched out. There was no throne for Zyreen.

The ramp was just touching ground as Garuvel lept on it, ran aboard, set himself in the pilot's throne. Instantly the helmet was on his head. The data chip was in Darzel.

Lobten stood at the foot of the ramp. He understood that microseconds mattered. They had said their goodbyes. He ran from the ship to a safe distance, then waited on the smooth grass pad as Figment lit up. Her engines began to hum, faintly at first, then very quickly rising in pitch. Two different kinds of light shone from the ship. At the bow, a red glow spread from Figment's graceful tapering nose. From aft, a blue sapphire hue circled the hull. The forward red-shifted light opened a path, through which the aft blue light pushed the ship. She lifted her nose, taxied for a few feet, then the nose lifted higher, until the ship pointed almost straight away from the planet. The engine hum grew loud enough for Lobten to stuff parts of his robe into his ears.

Figment became a moving black object, which disappeared between red and blue cones of light. Then she was a streak of pure purple, away!

As the ship pummeled its way through the disturbed atmosphere of Zos, Garuvel looked down and back. Magnifying the image of Quizinosk, he saw the Repository of Psychifacts turning, slowly sinking into the planet. Corruscating lights flashed orange and crimson around the Museum of Known Things. Then, at its center, there was only the cupola receding into the depths. In moments there was nothing but a cloud of dust.

Garuvel set a course to take them away from the environs of Quzinosk. Too many ships hung over the city. The continents of Zos moved beneath them as they rose. The planet had a stately presence as its curvature slowly asserted its full majesty.

Figment flew past the delta of the River Gripani. Vast cities grew like plants around the nurturing waterways. Then they were out over the Sea of Jansatra. The colors of Gripani's waters extended its brown tentacles into the blue sea. They were then lost in the distance as Thought –Form's altitude revealed the Islands of Novatora, tipped with mountains whose flanks dripped white powdered snow.

Garuvel tuned in the communications channels of the opposing fleets. He was greeted with a cacophony of war-shouts, orders, screams, exultant bellows, static.

At the moment, the mission was to get away from Zos, out of the Alphetzar system, and rollthrough into transpace long enough to pop out somewhere many millions of light years distant. It didn't matter where they came out. They just needed to get away from Boraz.

When Figment ripped out of the atmosphere, a swarm of ships was a tangle of violence some sixty thousand kilometers to the east. Laying off another few thousand klicks beyond the center of battle was Boraz' craft, Mindspike. Garuvel booted Figment to top speed. They began to pull away. As they did so, Garuvel felt a thought intrude itself into his mind. "What am I running around the universe for? What is all this noise and bustle?"

He recognized the stink of the neuromitter in this thought. In the rush to get off-planet, Garuvel had not thought to distribute the counter-effect radio transmitters. Boraz had increased the weapons' range; his ship was seventy thousand kilometers away, just crossing the planet's limb from the day side. Jaramine was weeping. Robolion was grinding his teeth. He was already depressed enough. Trace and Scianna were casting dark glances at one another.

The forward view screen lit. There, smiling and serene, was the likeness of Boraz Bufaisdek. Garuvel knew he was seeing the real Boraz, not a clone or a simulacrum.

"Get out of my communications!", Garuvel rasped.

"Ott! Ott! That's not polite. You might as well be gracious, since you have no choice!"

Garuvel recognized that the neuromitter signals were pouring into the ship. Simultaneously, he saw two Drenz Class fighters pealing along a vector that would guide them to Figment. It was all bravado on the part of Boraz. Nothing could catch up to Figment with a seventy thousand klick lead.

Jaramine let herself out of her flight throne and retrieved the radio transmitters from the ship's small arms cabinet. She inserted an earpiece. Then she gave out four more devices. The aura of horror faded away.

Garuvel felt a cold wrath as he looked at Calakadon. How he wished he had killed the monster!

Figment was coming into the gravitational influence of the planet Cherchemar. It was a planet eternally sealed in an alloy sarcophagus. Its terminal war of radiation made it too dangerous to interact with the universe. The Zosians built a sheathe of tralium and garsemide metals and sealed it away. Its moons, Orverse and Zilberse, circled a featureless world of grey-white metal, forever and ever.

Figment caught the gravitational boost and looped away at a tangent from the planet's path around Alphetzar. The ship's speed increased exponentially. As Calakadon's image began to acquire static, Garuvel made an obscene gesture and said, "Go fuck yourself, Calakadon! I know you're capable of doing that. So go fuck yourself."

Figment raced away through the Alphetzar system in a tail-sheathe of scorched ions.

Garuvel and Jaramine lay side by side in ther compartment aboard Figment. They had slowly, patiently, graciously, consummated their sexual love. She turned to him, and her breath flicked his cheek like a cat's ear.

"You make love as if it were the first time, the last time, the only time."

Garuvel smiled his cherubic smile, the one where his lips stayed together. He did not need to answer. Together they looked out the porthole; stars glittered everywhere. The arm of the galaxy cut straight across their view, showing its dark and light patches, its red star-forming regions, its blue reflection nebulae, against the blackness of the void.

They knew by now that their love was a breathing thing, that times of separation only nurtured times of connection. They had wordlessly negotiated the problem of when to touch, when to leave alone.

After a long comfortable silence, Garuvel sensed that he had permission to move back into Jaramine's mind.

"When Marquion died," he said with great care, "did you want to die too?"

Jaramine lifted herself to prop her head on her elbow. "I did die. In my grief, I let myself do crazy things. I drove a fusion-bike too fast. Drove it off a pier, into the Sea of Izalios. I was so angry with myself for still being human; after six thousand years, I had all the human hungers and weaknesses. I still felt lonely and incomplete. I was terribly disappointed in myself. But when I died, something happened that had never happened before. I stayed in my aia. My desires burned off, but my memories were intact. When I was reborn, I remembered everything; I even looked the same. But I had a little brother. He was Marquion."

A fireball shot across the sky, turning from red to green. Garuvel stirred, and the jelly bed undulated beneath them. Jaramine clung to him. The bed was the sea of life. A fierce wind of love sprang up to fill the sails of their being. They traveled across the surface of the sea, rocking in turbulence, becalmed in serenity. Below the clear surface of the jelly bed, it seemed that a million faces looked up, calling to them soundlessly.

Part Two

Chapter Thirty One

The Search For Shoms

"Shoms. Where is Shoms?" Garuvel sat in his flight throne, a scatter of relativity cartridges tossed about his feet. "How do I locate a planet on the basis of a spherical pill tossed to me by a man who has been dead for seventy thousand years?"

The doughy particle, the miniature symbolic planet had by now entered his blood stream, fused with the tissues of his body.

In the lounge-space behind him, his ship- mates were playing a hand of five-studded Roki. Trace had just learned to slap the cards down on the table with an expression of triumph or disgust. He was soon slapping the cards down even when he had no hand at all. Robolion corrected his card etiquette. Jaramine seemed to always win. Her face wore a permanent mask of pleased superiority: she could not be bluffed.

They had rolled through transpace and emerged athwart the Felgrian Cloud, a great purple nebulae with pillars of hydrogen concealing nesting stars, fledgling planet systems waiting to be born out of the cooking elements of the galaxy .

The knew where they were, but they did not know where to go next. What were they looking for? They had sat in a circle around Kringmar's skull. After a while, it just felt foolish. Kringmar had told them what he wanted to tell them. He would tell them more in his own time.

Garuvel lifted himself out of the flight throne and walked back to the card game. "No schmoozing." Robolion ordered. "Play or stay away."

Garuvel massaged his forehead with the palm of his hand. "No thanks. I don't like cards." He returned to the flight throne. The ship cruised in the general direction of the galactic halo, above the disc, towards the old yellow stars, the settled and thinly distributed regions where systems had room to breathe.

A few hours later, they retired to their respective berths. Robolion was playing a night-roog, a traditional form. The sound conjured a migrating brace of flapdils, swooping single file across the night sky of Shareem, navigating by the light of the Pearly Path.

Garuvel was pleased to hear his friend playing music. It was good for all of them. Robolion always sensed the mood and played the most perfectly harmonious sounds to fit that mood.

Jaramine wore a flowing garment of turquoise colored silk. She had let her hair to grow to a sleek, shoulder hugging cascade, and she sat with her legs tucked beneath her body, brushing the raven-black mane. Shimmering streaks of silver fell from the crown of her head like rivulets of water dropping from the face of a waterfall.. Garuvel was hypnotized by her graceful movements, by the play of muscle at arm and neck as she brought the brush across her head with a turn of the wrist.

"Would you like for me to brush?" he asked.

"Oh yes, what luxury!" Jaramine passed him the brush.

Garuvel kneeled behind her and put the brush aside. He filled his fingers with Jaramine's hair, pushing them through until he could feel the rounded shape of her skull. Then he turned his hands over and let the hair fill them, spilling across his palms. The hair was silky, glowing, smooth. As he pulled his fingers toward himself, the skeins reminded him of serpents he had once handled. They had wriggled to get free. They were so alive, almost warm to the touch, full of energy. Jaramine's hair had the same quality, but it was not trying to escape his grasp. He put his nose close to her scalp and inhaled. He almost sighed aloud. It was the sweetest smell he had ever encountered.

He took the brush and began passing it from Jaramine's forehead to the back of her neck. When he completed a stroke, he noticed little shards of electric-blue energy tumbling from the ends of her hair. These skittered around her shoulders, then gathered themselves and re-entered Jaramine's body at the top of her spine.

For a moment, her eyes looked up at Garuvel mischievously. Then she closed them, giving herself to the pleasure of his ministrations. She basked in his love like a sea-mammal on a sun-baked rock.

"Garuvel", she murmured, "you're supposed to be a poet. I haven't heard a line, a phrase, a well-turned word."

Garuvel smiled slyly, then recited these lines:

Oh yes, of all the red silky maidens,

I will take you away,

I will take you away and hide you,

bride your time.

I was on the dazzle stand and you

were a liquid ornament, a spew quake,

eating the cake of the silky maiden.

The clock's tongue is wise

it's counting the size,

it circles, empurples, slips of skin,

lips of sin.

Last night I brought the steaming teeth home,

silky maiden has come.

She frowned the first time she heard it.

"Again," she demanded. The second time, a wisp of smile crossed her face.

"Once more," she asked, and as Garuvel spoke the lines, she laughed, and pushed at his shoulder. He was seated so firmly that he didn't budge.

"You expect anyone to understand that?"

"Not really," he said complacently. "It's a ferociously abstract poem."

"Well, I don't understand it, but I GET it."

She tried again to knock him over.

He let himself be knocked over, and Jaramine straddled his body and tried to squeeze him with her legs. They wrestled for a while, testing their strength against one another. Garuvel found it impossible to hold her down: their strengths were exactly equal.

They rested on their knees, holding each other tight.

"It's a very naughty poem," Jaramine panted.

She planted a wet noisy kiss on Garuvel's forehead

"Then you not only GET it," he said, "you also understand it."

"That's true," she conceded. "Perhaps not the subtleties, but the gist of it. I'll have to read it, I need to see the words. It's quite beautiful, wonderfully sensual and seductive. Do you have more poems like this? I want more, more."

"Nothing quite like this," Garuvel admitted. "But I have one or two that might help us pass the time. I haven't memorized very many.' He rose and reached for a compartment high on the curving bulkhead. When its catch was unfastened, half a dozen objects spilled out, raining down upon Garuvel.

"By the tits of the goddesses," he swore, when he saw what had fallen to the deck.

Jaramine's nostrils widened. "Psychifacts. I can smell them.

Whose?"

"Mine," Garuvel said, lifting and examining each object carefully. "They were locked in the Repository's vault, two hundred twenty years ago. I didn't need them. I didn't think I needed them now, but evidently Lobten knows something."

Jaramine sat next to him. The delicate scent of her skin oil soothed Garuvel like a lullaby. "Do you want to show me?"

Garuvel lifted a bell on a wooden handle, holding it at arm's length. Its clapper was tied to the side of the bell to prevent it from sounding. The end-weight was sheathed in a cottony substance. Engraved upon its surface were ghostly shapes, their mouths open as if howling.

Garuvel shuddered. "This is the Summoning Bell of the Spirit of Unfulfilled Dreams. I have never heard its sound. I hope to never hear its sound. Not a very sociable psychifact. I don't understand why it found me."

He gathered four small leather sacks from the deck. From one of them he took a spoon, made from precious orbium. Every bit of its surface was covered with abstract geometric designs, fanatically complex.

"This was the spoon of the holy mazma Apaju Kosnos. He ate with it every day. It was never touched or worked by artisans. The patterns evolved over the course of Apaju's life. They appeared, bit by bit, every day for three thousand years. These others are the spoons of Apaju's three subsequent incarnations."

"And this one," he said, pointing to the last item, which looked like a piece of leather enclosed in a silvery frame,"is the Spirit Ear of Krangel Orleff. He could divine people's motives by the tone of their voices to such a degree that no one was able to lie in his presence, not even to themselves."

Garuvel wrapped them together and put them securely back into the compartment.

"Sometime I will show you mine," Jaramine offered. "But the room is buzzing with too much supernatural energy right now."

Garuvel shuddered again. "What do I need with powerful objects? There's such a thing as too much power."

"No," Jaramine amended, "just insufficient self-observation."

Garuvel dimmed the lights, let the glow of the nearby Felgrian Cloud flood the berth. After a time, the mood once again grew playful..

In his sleep, Garuvel dreamed of stars and planets rolling around the heavens like crazed billiard balls. They bounced off one another, split into separate bodies, merged. Then, a series of stars lined up in a row, eclipsing one another, jostling to throw their planets into impossible orbits. One planet, furthest from Garuvel's sight, remained stationary, though it was often hidden by the other bodies. Then all movement stopped; the star map coalesced, opening like a path to that utmost planet. It rose from behind the others, rotating with leisurely majesty. The planet possessed two rings. Impossibly, one was aligned across the other, forming an "X" of dust, rocks and fine particles.

Garuvel lurched awake. Shoms, he thought. Kringmar's planet –pill worked; I know how to get there. He quietly left the berth and set himself up in the flight throne. He woke everyone from their various slumbers, dreams, nightmares, made sure they were fastened into their flight thrones.

He gave Darzel course instructions, booted into transpace and set her to sewing.

"What the hell is this?" Darzel inquired, using a mild vulgarity for emphasis.

'Unusual, isn't it?" Garuvel responded.

"Its trans-galactic. We'll be leaving a familiar realm. It's a very old galaxy."

"Transpace doesn't care what galaxy it's in. I've given you a star chart of the coordinates of this mysterious galaxy. It's about midway down the Rohan Cluster where the Universe Wall veers off into a knot of galaxies that some flyers call 'Gravity City'. Can you get us there?"

"Aye aye, sir."

Garuvel ignored the sarcasm.

Chapter Thirty Two

Shoms

The colors of space seemed harsh, glaring. Skittering asteroids seemed to fling themselves at Figment. Space rocks crisped in the repulsor field. Darzel renewed the field as holes were poked in it, but the debris was so thick that it stretched its computational skills. Needle sharp projectiles banged against the hull. The tralium –metal skin absorbed the shocks and quickly repaired itself.

The debris storm slackened as they approached a frigid giant of a planet. Its surface was splotched with colossal brown patterns, apparently intelligent hieroglyphs of geologic scale. Figment used its gravity to add momentum and flew onward.

The five crew members were patched together in the neurolon helmets. They reached toward one another's minds for courage.

They stayed awake. No one wanted to sleep through a journey so vast and momentous.

The star that nurtured the planet Shoms they called "Big Red". Its system contained six planets and a nasty amount of debris, large and small, that suggested there had once been eight or nine planets. Their course would take them past another of these planets, to obtain a gravity boost. When the planet appeared, it was shrouded in angry orange clouds. Bursts of malevolent radiation tried to engulf them as patches like chains of lightning marched across the world's surface. Garuvel made his boosting maneuver and pulled Figment away.

At the center of the system, the baleful "Big Red" loomed like an evil eye, growing larger by the day. Dozens of moon-sized bodies weaved insanely, defying every law of gravitation. Beating against them, the star's winds were like a pressurized spigot, being turned on and off by a madman.

At last Shoms appeared with its demented crossed rings: utterly impossible by the laws of physics, yet there they were, defiantly "X" ing those who saw the planet. Garuvel wondered, how could that be done? It flies in the face of every scientific law. The equatorial ring had its gaps and spokes, much like any planetary ring. How could the transverse ring cross it without breaking it up? What kind of forces were meeting at the crossed angles? Impossible impossible, crazy! According to analysis, both rings were made of the same stuff: dust, pebbles, rocks, boulders. Just at the meeting points, above and below the 'true' ring, there were voids, discreet gaps where nothing existed. Some force other than gravity must hold the odd ring in place. What unimaginable energy it must take! It was confusing, fascinating, a testament to the sheer inexplicability of this planet.

A single moon circled the planet, beyond the rings' orbits, pale jade green and apparently featureless.

They flew into another meteor storm. Projectiles charged at them like a hail of bullets. Darzel's nutrient bath globe began to emit a smell that evoked fear at the pit of Garuvel's stomach.

Figment lurched. The light inside the ship flickered. The tattoo of meteor strikes, the buzzing of the repulsor field began to merge with a sound Garuvel had never heard: Darzel was screaming.

"Oh shit!" Garuvel thought he howled, "Ooooh shit!

Figment did a spastic dance, and the light went out. Garuvel was trying to find a hand-beacon when a soft glow started to fill the cabin. He looked through his face plate and saw the light emerging from his sleeve. The light seemed to roll down his arm, and he took out his newest psychifact, the little stone. It was glowing with yellow light, and he juggled it, as if he feared it were hot. Then he let it settle in his hand.

Garuvel used the manual controls by the stone's light. He let Thought form sprout wings. The buffeting grew worse; the ship went into a violent yaw. The wings were torn off.

The occupants of Figment succumbed to G-forces, lost consciousness, one at a time. Fighting to stay alert, Garuvel decided to use the Realgift. They were going to crash. He hadn't the slightest qualm. He visualized, then spoke. "On Shoms we stand, safe we land."

He braced himself for the transition. He thought of the other six members of the Council, how they would sense his predicament.

Nothing happened. Nonplussed, Garuvel tried again. "On Shoms we stand, safe we land."

Nothing. Garuvel remembered Kingmar's warning: The Dzujhdus bend forces to their wills in strange ways. Magic and science aren't the same on Shoms.

In the instant before Garuvel lost consciousness, he felt a great sense of relief. "It's out of my hands now. No more Gift. We may die now, if that's our destiny. I utterly surrender." His last thought reached toward Jaramine. "My love," he sent his strength to her in the adjoined flight throne. "I hope we can be together again, beyond this." He felt her love return. Then all was darkness.

No one saw the Skull of Kringmar float from the place where it had rested on the console. It pulled Garuvel's stone into its mouth. The light increased a thousand-fold. It encased the ship as an egg protects an embryo.

Figment streaked through the atmosphere of Shoms, sending shock waves before her, one after another. The flight-chairs threw out their crash nets, coccooning their occupants. A gelatinous null-g foam filled each net, further coccooning the unconscious travelers.

Robolion was curled around his N'thumbu. The others were curled around one another.

The ship crashed, plowing a long seam through sand dunes and lakes of fine gravel. It came to a stop. Kringmar's skull lost its glow, then fell with an inanimate thump to the crumpled metal of the deck.

At the moment of the crash, five minds had been locked together through the neuro-log helmets. Regaining consciousness, the fragments of themselves were confused. Grating sounds echoed from the walls of the ship. Alive? Still alive? The question iterated in five mingled minds. Pain. Terrible, terrible worry: are the others allright? A sense of miracle, that there was anything left with which to sense. An arm moved. Whose? It moved again, touched an out-thrust hand, interlocked fingers and gripped hard.

"Who?" The voice was male, speaking Galactaling without noticeable accent. It must be Garuvel.

"I'm here, I think I'm allright." Woman's voice, lilting, slightly rounded syllables. Jaramine. "Robolion? Trace, Scianna?" It must have been Garuvel calling. A groan came out of the darkness.

"Scianna!" Garuvel knew himself, knew he heard Trace's voice. He had never before heard the robiot use such an inflection. Fear for another; not quite panic.

Jaramine's voice came. "I think Robolion's unconscious." A light came from the rear part of the cabin. Garuvel saw Jaramine holding an object that looked like an eyeball. The light emitted from the eye's pupil. It was one of her psychifacts. It beamed this way and that, landed on Trace.

The robiot was leaning over Scianna's head and shoulders. The rest of her body was encased in wrinkled tralium-metal, where the hull had creased inward. Clearly she was struggling to breathe. The hull was pressing on her body from the shoulders downward, imprisoning her chest and preventing her lungs from expanding.

Garuvel thought, if our crash did THAT to Figment, how in the goddess's tits are we still alive?

"Scianna!" Trace wailed, and wedged himself into the bit of space where the hull had not quite met the deck. He turned and squeezed himself until his knees were pressed against his forehead. His feet were planted on the deck.

"Uunngg!" he grunted with primal, unthinking effort. He pushed with his legs. The deck began to give. Trace shook; veins in his temples, in his arms, ridged like a river map. The hull made a sound of wheezing complaint. Dented alloy popped as it straightened.

Trace pulled Scianna free. Her mouth was bloody; her eyes fluttered open.

Garuvel could not believe what he had seen. That was tralium-metal!

Weakly, he struggled free of his crash net. Briefly he swam through bits of crash-foam that had already dried and mostly dissipated. The white stuff flew around his body, brief as a flurry of spring snow, as it shrank into nothingness. He found a light-wand, flicked it on. Robolion was wrapped around his N'thumbu, like a father who had protected his baby from falling debris.

Jaramine struggled forward to help Garuvel free his friend from the net. She took the N'thumbu, while Garuvel checked Robolion's injuries. He saw the bruise on his friend's head. Fumbling in the wreckage, he found an anti-shock dermex and applied it to Robolion's neck. He followed that with a dermex to reduce swelling of the brain.

"I think he'll be allright in a while. Let's see about Scianna."

The ship was tilted at a forty five degree angle. Garuvel had to move with care, so that he didn't fall into Trace.

Scianna was cradled in the robiot's lap. He was stroking her hair, murmuring quietly. "It's all right, my love. See? Did you hear that? What a friend the threat of loss can be, if it illumines my love so much. I didn't feel , or I didn't know that I felt such concern. It's like a force, it flows out of me, to you, and waits for nothing." He bent from the waist, kissing her where the hair met her brow.

Scianna's hand found Trace's. It patted him reassuringly. "I always knew, from that day," she said. "Always felt that force."

Bits of dislodged provisions clattered past, as Garuvel and Jaramine reached them. They all held each other for a moment.

Robolion's voice came from up-deck. "Man! What the hell! Am I alive? Where's the N'thumbu? Hey! My eyes are all blurry. Who took my N'thumbu?"

The light from the flash and the light from the eyeball psychifact met in a cross. At their intersection Robolion weaved; one hand was at his head, the other hand groped for purchase on the hull. He saw the instrument where Jaramine had placed it. Grabbing for handholds, he crab-walked to the N'thumbu. He picked it up, flashed his fingers over the control board. The neck began to undulate. Chromatic splashes came from the acoustic lens. Robolion sighed with relief.

"No point staying in here," Garuvel said. "The hull is breached. I can smell the outside atmosphere. It hasn't killed us yet." He pulled himself up to the control panel, and shined his wand on Darzel's nutrient bath globe.

"Oh no. Oh no." The globe was shattered. "Darzel." He took the chip gently in one hand, extricating it from amid the broken shards. Frantically, he began digging in the rubble for a porta-pack. "Come on, come on, shit!" Then he stopped. "I don't know how long we've been like this."

A cephalic-activity meter was still clamped to the console. He took its probes and attached them to Darzel's input and output clips. The diodes indicated absence of charge. Garuvel hung his head. He felt the way he had felt when he was five, and his first zommet had died. He felt the way he had felt when Scrambles had succumbed to old age. It was a grief that was very special, very keen, striking his childhood heart, his vulnerable self. He cried like a little boy.

Jaramine came to hold him. When he had finished, he found a porta- pack and placed Darzel's chip in its resting place. When he had unwelded the puzzle-pieces, he put Darzel in the stasis field. He would leave it interred with the wreckage of its home, Figment.

Chapter Thirty Three

Planetfall Shock

"No one can take anything away from you. You can give it away, unwittingly, but no one can take it from you." From the writings of Keplath, thirty fourth Dzujhdu

Garuvel found the crack in the hull. When he had enlarged it with a hand laser, he and the others tossed out provisions and a basic travel kit. The five pilgrims then stepped out onto the surface of Shoms.

A harsh orange glare greeted them, heat beat on their heads and fell across them like a steam-soaked wool blanket. It was difficult to breathe in such heat.

Nothing they saw made sense. This was planetfall shock. Garuvel moved everyone back with his arms, to rest in the shade of Figment's tilted obelisk. They sat, huddled and forlorn, specks in a colossal landscape.

Garuvel found his medical pack and passed each of his friends several adaptation tablets. "Let's take these, for the heat and the light. It'll take a while for our skin oils to change and our eyes to adjust to this red sun."

They found ways to get comfortable against Figment's damaged shell. Trace looked unusually solemn, more abstracted than the others. He looked at his hand, then touched Garuvel just below the shoulder blade.

"How deep does love get? How big, how complete? How much love is there?"

Garuvel hunched, pulled at his lower lip with thumb and forefinger. He looked at Trace, at the expectant gaze of Scianna. He could feel Jaramine and Robolion, watching on his other side.

Garuvel breathed out, in, and tried to stop thinking. He let a deep silence open within himself, and waited for something to rise.

"Love is like the Endless Gates," he heard himself say. "One day, you pass through a gate, and you see that your love is deeper, that the world is larger. And if you're a bit insecure, a bit hasty to be comforted by an ultimate truth, you think, 'ah, so that's the answer'. But after a while, in a day or two, a week or a month, if your spirit truly wants to know how deep love is, you will fall through another gate. And the world is larger, deeper. And again, you think, 'yes, now I have the answer.' But it will happen again; and again. You fall through more gates, the world gets larger, your love grows deeper. After a while, you see how many times you have thought, 'I know now, how deep is love, how great is the world'. And you stop thinking that. Because you know that there is always another gate waiting for you, on the other side of your illusions. And you let your illusions sit lightly. Because you recognize that love has no bottom depth; the world has no boundary to its greatness."

Trace nodded once, looked at Scianna, nodded to her. Everyone exhaled and relaxed. The silence had spoken well. Garuvel thanked it, and let his illusions sit as lightly as dewdrops on spiderwebs.

The thought of losing Darzel hit him again; its voice, its dry wit, the thousands of days that it had been his companion. He sobbed, loud, long and hard.

The adaptations began to work. The light seemed less harsh, the heat less oppressive. Details of the landscape began to extrude from the general sensory chaos.

Robolion had risen and walked to the other side of Figment. Garuvel could feel struggle in his friend. He left the group and joined him, pacing a few feet outside the hull's shadow.

Garuvel handed Robolion a multi-skin. "Make a hat; this sun will fry our brains." He took his own multi-skin and fashioned a wide, conical covering that provided plenty of shade, but did not impede his view of the landscape. Robolion made one with a high, round crown and a brim that curled up around its circumference. He grinned, but his face was sad and troubled.

"Rebed," he began. "I mean, Garuvel. It'll take me a while to get used to that. I've known you as Rebed all my life."

"I thought it best to travel with truth to this planet."

Robolion kicked through rust-colored sand. "Garuvel, I don't know why I'm here. I'm really scared." He continued to pace, with his back turned to Garuvel.

"You're here because you were besotted with a woman."

"I know," admitted Robolion. "I'm always somewhere because of a passion that I thought was the ultimate love. I came to Xtalus with a kwooch named Liria. Before that I was on Grobesh; followed a twim called, uh....Celiche...I think. I know I got thrown off Grobesh because of fights the kwooches were having over me. One of them shot at me, missed, hit what's her name in the elbow."

"Do you hear yourself talking?" Garuvel hooked his arm into his friend's and led him back toward the shade under the broken hull.

"I don't even remember their names. They're just kwooches and twims. Why do I do this? Over and over again?" Robolion sank to his haunches, subsided with his back to Figment, and put his face in his hands. "I'm so ashamed."

"Shame is useless. Just be conscious of what you do. If you find yourself, day after day, thinking 'I wish I could change that part of me. I wish I wasn't so full of lust and jealousy'. Think about it. How often are those thoughts running through your head?"

"All the time," Robolion admitted. "All... the fucking... time."

"Right, so it's like being engaged in a wrestling match, every goddam day. What would happen if you just told yourself, 'no, I won't engage in that any more. It's useless. It gets me exactly nothing. I won't engage in that wrestling match any more."

The musician whistled musically, birdlike. "Wow; that would free up a lot of mental space, a lot of energy wasted wrestling all the time."

"Try it," recommended Garuvel. "It's not easy; practice it, shutting down your guilt and your shame. They ARE useless, they don't do anything for you, they don't make you right with your creator or your conscience."

"All of these women," Robolion ruminated, "all of them looked basically the same. Tall, light-skinned, dark-haired, willowy. That's my type."

"So tell me, Boli. What did your mother look like?"

"Dark-skinned, short, fat. Her hair was always cut like a bowl. It sat there, on the top of her head. She couldn't afford a stylist. I was always so ashamed of her." He thought for a moment. "Huh! I know what you're trying to tell me. I've had a hundred years of therapeutic alchemy. I've been over this stuff time and again, but it's still there. It's gotten a little better, but it's still there."

"I remember." Garuvel spoke with benign mockery. "You wanted to marry your alchemist during the first thirty years, then you wanted to kill her during your second thirty years. The rest of the time you were sure you were wasting your money but you kept going. It's something we all have to go through."

"You too?" Robolion looked at Garuvel with surprise. "I thought you were beyond all that."

Garuvel's surprise was even greater. Is that the way he carried himself? Like some superior being? Or was this Boli's projection? He decided to treat it as an honest mirroring of his own behavior. He would be more alert to his self-righteousness and grandiosity.

"Eighty years, Boli, eighty years. We didn't call it Therapeutic Alchemy, we called it Suicide Prevention but it was the same thing. Three times a week for three hours a session, each session costing a week's wages. And, as my alchemist was a male, I didn't want to marry him for the first score of years, I wanted to be his son."

Robolion laughed comfortably. Suddenly he felt closer to Garuvel, the awe towards his friend dissipated, and it was a good feeling. He was almost ashamed to admit that he was soothed by the knowledge that Garuvel had suffered the same ignominious groveling before his own psyche. It made him human, and Robolion had always suspected that Garuvel was something beyond the mere human. He had never totally relaxed in Garuvel's company.

"We're in a unique situation here", Garuvel stated plainly. "We are on a strange, wild planet. Our ship is demolished. We 're going to have to trust each other completely. You might need to fall through a gate, make your love deeper and your world larger."

"I think I just did. I'm recognizing that I'm a very insecure person. And I compensate by being the 'great musician', you know, all that..."

"I know, Boli. But you did what you had to do to survive. And you ARE a great musician."

Robolion looked out from beneath the curve of the ship's hull. He could now see that they were in a broad valley. On either side, in the distance, yellow crags joined together to form a long escarpment.

"We're going to have to walk out of here, aren't we?"

"Looks that way." Garuvel seemed to accept the prospect calmly.

"Can I talk to you; I mean, about this stuff?"

"Of course, Boli, if I can talk to you about my stuff. We're all your friends. Here, more than ever, we'll need to use friendship as a resource to survive."

"Yeah, I agree. I feel very comfortable with Jaramine, she's easy to talk to. But those robiots; I haven't quite figured them out yet."

Garuvel gave an appreciative laugh. "There's nothing to figure out. They always say exactly what they mean. Their body language is subtle; there's less of it, but each tiny gesture is packed with emotion. And they don 't conceal anything. Nothing at all. They haven't yet learned how to deceive." He steered his friend around the hull, to rejoin the group. "You'll gain more from them than you will from me, Boli."

The musician looked from Garuvel to the robiots. Trace and Scianna were returning their gazes with a seeming blankness, which was actually the absence of artifice. Robolion regarded them and shrugged.

The others had been organizing gear. Food capsules had been divided up; multi-skins had been made into back packs. Multi-sticks had been extended to provide walking staffs. Garuvel checked a synapse disruptor and several other weapons. None of them worked. Robolion quietly waved his fingers across the sensing board of his N'thumbu. It did work.

The Skull of Kringmar sat next to Jaramine on the ground. She handed the little stone psychifact to Garuvel.

"Where did you find that?" He just noticed the absence of its weight in his sleeve. He had a vague memory of light, of something coming from the skull....it was like a dream.

"It fell out of Kringmar's mouth."

Garuvel looked at the skull, looked at the round shard of rock. He shrugged, and placed the stone with his other psychifacts. He put them, with the puzzle-pieces, into a side pouch on his pack. He picked up the sword, 'Whisper', that he had so seldom used, and slung its belt over one shoulder and across his chest.

"We'd better travel by daylight for a while; we don't know what night brings on Shoms. Everybody ready?"

Gathering themselves and their equipment, they lined up to walk. Garuvel and Jaramine led. Robolion held the middle. Trace and Scianna brought up the rear. Each of them had a distinctive hat: pointed, rounded, dented, elongated. Their shadows fell upon the sand of the Great Shomish Desert, looking like a procession of troll people.

"Shoms", said Jaramine. "Looks like hell."

Robolion sniffed. "Smells like hell.

Scianna wet her finger, stooped and coated it with dust. Gingerly, she licked at the dirt of this strange world. "Tastes like hell," she said succinctly.

"Guess we'll have to step in it," said Garuvel, with a cryptic twitch of his eyebrow.

They began their trek.

They circled once around Figment, each of them touching the hull.

"Goodbye, Darzel," Garuvel whispered. His grief was like a lead weight attached to the center of his body. He could not step around it, go through it, there was nothing he could do but carry it. An urge to cry came to him again; he walked and cried, cried and walked. Jaramine put a bit of rag under his nose, and he blew a wad of snot away. He couldn't meet anyone's eyes. All he could think at the moment was how desperately he would miss Darzel. Getting away from this planet, going "home" was not even in his calculations. Home was wherever he stood. That's as it had always been.

They headed in a line, between the escarpments, towards a chain of hills that Garuvel had seen in his opti-scanner. Something in him said, "Go that way." Lacking any better guide, he obeyed.

There was nothing in the environment suggestive of life. No plants, animals, birds. No sound but that of their own feet shushing through sand, or crackling over baked mud.

The thought came flooding into Garuvel: The Gift is gone. He checked it out once more. He visualized that the cuticle of his pinky finger had grown an inch. He spoke, very quietly: "The nail of my little finger has gotten this much bigger."

Nothing happened. Garuvel gave a huge exhalation of relief.

Jaramine had witnessed this. "It doesn't work, does it?"

Garuvel smiled happily. "It's gone. I feel great. I didn't know how much it affected me, until it went away. Every day the thing weighed on me, prevented me from getting close to people. Every day I had to think about all the things I wasn't doing to relieve suffering. Every day I had to take that suffering on myself, because I had the choice, and I didn't make it. It didn't matter that I knew I couldn't use the Gift for such things. Didn't matter in here," he beat his chest with his open hand.

Jaramine did not reach for him; he did not want to be soothed.

"Your problem is impatience," she said. "Garuvel, everyone has the Realgift. Yours just works faster. If you will let time be a little larger, you'll find out why you were given the temptation of instant gratification, and the moral strength to resist it."

That knocked the words out of his mouth. He fell though another gate, backwards, because he hadn't seen it opening. He seemed always to fall through the gates backwards. Here, the world was large enough to show him that his life span was minuscule; if he lived another million years, it would still be minuscule. The important thing was the connection: the Gift had made him part of something, and that something was The Puzzle of the Endless Gates. It wasn't that he had gone out to seek a cause that would give his life meaning. He had already been plenty busy studying and practicing, Traveling Towards the Gift, as he liked to call it.The Realgift had made him look at himself and his capacities. It was the Puzzle that had found him, not the other way around. He had fallen into the Puzzle by accident, if there was such a thing, or by destiny, if there was such a thing. Either way, it was good to be part of something big. Something really big.

The travelers walked in the vast silence for another three hours, then stopped for a rest. They patched several multi-skins together and made a canopy, fastening it to the ground with rocks, propping it with multi-sticks.

Their faces were covered with red dust. In their funny hats, they looked bizarre. Trace made a big "Ha!" sound. Surprised at himself, he looked sheepish. When Scianna saw his expression, she made several big "Ha!" sounds, then couldn't stop making them. She held her side and crouched, laughing. It was contagious. They laughed at one another, pointing and clutching at themselves.

The laughter took a while to subside. They lay on their backs in the shade, abdomens jerking, packs scattered about. Somone would spew laughter through his or her nose and it would start again.

No one saw Jaramine's pack wriggle open, saw Kringmar's skull work its way free. They did not see the droplets of fire raining down from the base of the skull, the writhing stretching formation of the Dzujhdu.

"Well! Congratulations!" The raspy, sardonic voice made them sit up "You got here and you're not taking yourselves seriously." . Kringmar floated in their midst. He looked around, narrowed his eyes to view the distant crags.

"Shoms. My homeland. It gives me a chill. I hoped I'd never see the place again; but I'm glad I'm here. I hate the place, I love it. It's despicable, but it's sublime. You may find the ultimate inspiration here. It depends on the condition of your soul." Kringmar inspected each of them, shrewdly. "You've already found that things don't work the same, here. Occult, psychic, scientific, it doesn't matter. It all depends upon the caprice of the Dzujhdus. And they are not fond of predictability. They draw the flexibility from your spirits or they kill you."

He pointed with a near-toothless grin at his own temple. "The greatest magicians here are nothing." He made a splittering sound with his tongue. "They're as babes; have to start all over again." He cast a sharp glance at Garuvel. He floated higher, and peered out at the landscape in all directions. "We call our sun Mosht; our moon is Zaramutu. The rings are Forklion and Peshtrion." He pointed toward the obscene cross in the sky. "See what they're saying? 'Get lost. Beat it. We don't want you here. Sorry, nobody home. Don't ring the bell. Don't solicit subscriptions."

He descended and sat with them, his buttocks a few inches from the sand. "I'm proud of you. You've done well to get this far. Of course, I've helped you, just a little." He whipped around, to regard the descending red giant star. "Mosht will set soon. I advise that you shelter for the night. The storms of the Great Desert come up quickly. You have a long way to go to Klah-Yan. It lies that way." He pointed in the direction they were already taking. "The monastery lies on the Klah Plain, surrounded by the Moaning Mountains." Kringmar began to dwindle into his skull. "My personal journey down the Trail of Ten Million Worlds is complete. Soon I will join the Pyramid of Skulls. Now, you got all that? Need to take notes, write anything down?"

There was no answer.

The Dzujhdu sucked himself back into his skull, drop by fiery drop, until the flat-black object hung in the air, several feet off the ground. When he had completely vanished, the skull fell to the sand and rolled over on its side. Jaramine replaced it in her pack.

It was decided that the group stay where they sat. Garuvel set up his portable water extractor and poured sand into its funnel. A few drops appeared in the receiving beaker. "That's poor," he said. "Let try some of this cracked stuff over here." He broke up plates of baked mud. They gave slightly better yield. He tried everything in sight. In half an hour, he could produce a quart. That was reassuring for emergencies. The hormone adaptors would reduce their water-need. They would get most of their liquid from the rations, the ubiquitous "Arpak" of space travelers.

As Mosht set, the wind rose. The rings shimmered eerily: Forklion turned crimson, then purple, colors rolling along the arc from horizon to horizon. Then Forklion went dark, and the colors passed to Peshtrion. Rays shot from the ring's central gap. The travelers laid back and watched the spectacle. Jaramine spoke up. "Kringmar's talking to me in my head. He says the gaps are called Mayoom's Hollows. And the ray effect is called Mayoom's Crown." For a few moments the rays danced as if they were tones struck from a color-emitting keyboard. Then they faded away.

Stars began to appear, but were quickly covered by cloud. The wind began to howl, throwing sand at their bodies like razor glass. They scurried to enlarge and enclose their shelter. By the time they got inside, their arms and faces were pocked with tiny cuts. Soon the wind was howling like jark-wolves closing on prey. The temperature dropped, but the people slept comfortably, huddled together, in multi-skin coccoons.

Jaramine was the first to awake. Heeding the call of nature, she crawled through the opening. "Hey guys, wake up." She pounded the side of the tent with her hand, so that it made a muffled booming sound inside. "I think you should get out here."

Garuvel was out in seconds. A tribe of nomad warriors surrounded the campsite. They were mounted on huge lean hounds with large tear-drop shaped ears, square muzzles and yellow fangs. The dogs were ridden by brown, stringy men with acutely slanted eyes. Wearing breast plates made of scaly reptile hide, they were arranged in a circle according to size. Clothing and ornaments grew more elaborate with each larger man. They wore headbands and wristlets set with polished blue stones. The biggest men wore collections of what appeared to be scalps of black hair, affixed to their wrist bands and breast plates.

Robolion was next out of the tent, and his size elicited murmurs of awe from the tribesmen. But when Trace and Scianna stepped through, the hounds reared, the circle drew back. Scianna was of a size with Robolion. Trace hulked half a foot higher.

Skins and stones, skins and stones, arrayed around them in a circle. Hostile frightened alien eyes glinted with challenge and confusion. The nomads carried slingshots, short bows, bone-tipped spears and blackjacks tipped with small morningstars. Their gear clattered as they struggled to control their hounds. They stayed atop their mounts by means of rope-leather saddles with primitive bridles. Their legs hung almost to the ground.

Their hetman, the largest among them, had the only metal weapon, a sword, engraved with exquisite runes along its sickle-thin length. It was nicked, tarnished with age, but its edge gleamed sharp.

Garuvel watched the chief's eyes carefully. He saw the whiplash of danger coiled there, as the nomad stared at Trace, challenged by the robiot's size. He was going to call a warning to Trace, but sensed that Trace was aware of the problem.

When the hetman spurred his dog and sprang toward the robiot, Trace was ready. The sword whirled through the air. Trace stepped away easily. The hound flew by, twisted itself and set for another charge. A low gurgle of threat came from the great dog's throat. Again, the sword swung past Trace's face. Trace took his medallion from around his neck, using it to deflect the sword-strokes. He caught the blade in the emblem's chain and jerked it away from the hetman. Infuriated, the warrior took from his belt a blackjack to which two heavy stones were attached with thongs. Swinging these with great dexterity, he urged his mount to the attack. Trace caught the stones in one great fist. He pulled, and the nomad tumbled from the dog.

The man lay prostrate, cursing in his staccato language. The dog stood over its master, teeth bared, a growl emerging from its ancient den of instinct, low and savage. Its master groaned in the animal's shadow. The dog crouched and seemed ready to attack if anyone moved towards the fallen warrior.

"Eekwayza-tahak! Tak!" The hetman gave an order to his war dog. Then he quieted, got to his feet, brushing dust and rocks from his leather platelets and black pelts.

His face had become a solemn blank; he seemed resigned to his defeat. He removed his head band with its blue stone and tried to place it on Trace's head.. The robiot stepped backward, and the band fell to the ground. The hetman stripped himself of all his scalps, and thrust them toward Trace. The robiot took a few of these offerings tentatively. They were followed by a shield and a bone knife. There were so many things that they slipped from Trace's grasp and fell to the ground.

The hetman's face hardened with determination. He kept taking objects from his person and handing them to Trace. The robiot turned around awkwardly, appealing to Scianna, to the others. The nomad gave him a handful of spiked caltrops for the crippling of enemy dogs. Trace dropped most of them.

With sudden insight, Trace understood that the man was trying to make him hetman of the tribe.

"No, no, I can't take these from you. It wasn't fair. I'm a robiot, I have special reflexes...I..."

The robiot bent his knees and crouched on his haunches, trying to put all the objects that had fallen back into order. They were a warrior's prized objects. He couldn't take them. The nomad must have them back.

An expression of horror washed everything else from the nomad's face when he comprehended Trace's refusal. Quick as a mongoose, he went to where the sword lay on the ground, faced its tip towards his heart, and fell upon it. Trace lept away from the spatter of blood.

All color drained from his face. "What did I do? I didn't mean to..." He fell backwards onto his buttocks, clutching the material of his tunic. "Oh. Oh, help me. I don't know how to feel all this.....shame....guilt...confusion....it's too fast. I insulted him, I ruined his honor, refused his gift. I killed him." He put his hands in front of his body, fingers pointed upwards, and saw splashes of blood on them. "I could have taken them, figured out later what to do. Oh! I don't....!" Tears rolled down the block-like planes of his face. He thrust his legs out in front of him and leaned foward, so that his face nearly touched his knees. His head bobbed up and down, he banged his forehead into his legs.

Garuvel stood ready for anything. He too was shocked, but not so shocked as the robiot. He was not so innocent. His right hand gripped his sword's scabbard where it hung across his chest.

Robolion had been clutching his N'thumbu tightly during this scene. Without intending to, he moved his hands over the controls. The N'thumbu came to life, its neck undulating until the lens pointed towards the sky and a baying sound emerged, a sound like the grief of a thousand primeval hounds.

The nomad's dogs reared and responded with their own howls. Riders were thrown, others were carried away in a tangle of leather reins as their dogs galloped off. The nomads who were spilled ran at the heels of their mounts, legs pumping in perfect terror.

The pilgrims were left alone, with the skewered body of the hetman.

Scianna straddled Trace's legs and pulled his face up. She cradled him in her breast and rocked him. Jaramine came to their side.

"You couldn't have known," she said. "You don't understand their language or their customs."

"I have a concept of honor. I killed him, by killing his honor. I've never killed anyone or anything. It is too late to change things. I must make room in my new soul for this ugly blister. I killed with my stupidity. I feel such...I have never felt so...so lacking! Does everyone acquire such a blemish in their nature?"

Jaramine put one hand on the back of Scianna's head, one hand behind Trace's. Their breathing slowed and stilled. "Sooner or later, Trace, everyone does."

Trace buried the nomad warrior with his own hands, unassisted. He took the sword, the headband, the pelts and stones, and put them on. It was too late, but it was the only gesture left to him, to give honor to the man that thought he had been supplanted as the leader of his tribe.

They broke camp and began to walk. Gradually, the valley grew more narrow, the walls of the escarpment closed in. They could see incisions and glyphs of ancient scenes on the cliff faces. There were battles, hunts, ceremonies. Shamanistic figures wearing antler-tipped helmets loomed ten meters high. Finally, the soaring palisade enclosed them.

They entered a crack in the wall, an ancient river bed. Under their feet, smooth rounded stones, a scoured channel, forced them to pick their way carefully. The walls rose around them, the sky was just a crack far above their heads. There was a sussuration of echoed sound: the canyon was populated by legions of ghosts. Dead armies passed, armor rattled, hoofs splashed in the long-gone water.

The travelers wanted to speak, felt compelled to break the spell of the ghost-voices. None could force a sound past their lips. At last, Robolion inserted the sound of the N'thumbu into the vanished discourse, softly at first. Slowly it dominated the echoes. He evoked an ancient procession, a solemn march of priestesses, carrying objects of splendor and worship.

Robolion played haunted marches, alien tarantelles, remote jangaloons. The old river bed widened. It was a relief when the walls came apart, allowing them to walk on what had been the river's beaches. They found it easier to talk, now that the silence had been broken. Robolion collapsed his N'thumbu and slung it over his back. He waited, then fell in beside Trace and Scianna.

"What's it like, to have a new soul?"

He had adressed himself to Trace, but Scianna spoke first.

"It's as if you had been born without eyes. You hear everyone speak of color and light, but you can't imagine those things, there is no language inside you to understand. Then, a miracle happens, and you suddenly have eyes. You see color and light, but you don't know what they mean."

Trace took up the thought. "Does green let you feel secure and nurtured? Does orange feel vaguely unsettling? Is turquoise majestic, like some of the music that you play? You have no way to guide yourself through the meaning of light."

Scianna continued. "Before sentience, we could think, but only to a specific purpose: repairing damaged machinery, nursing a sick robiot. Now we could feel; and we could think about anything, about how our thoughts are connected to our feelings. When we have a new feeling, we must turn to each other. We must name that feeling, and have it witnessed by one of our own kind."

Trace concluded. "Every feeling we have, we appreciate. It's hard to forget that once we couldn't feel at all. Every feeling we have is honored, as something unique and valuable."

Robolion walked with his head lowered. "The two of you make me feel old and jaded."

"What does that mean, 'make you feel'?" asked Trace. "How could we make you feel something about yourself?"

Robolion considered what he had said. "I see....I understand. I felt old and jaded. It came from inside me. You didn't make me feel anything."

He turned to them, the muscles of his face lax with the innocence of discovery. "I'm responsible for everything I feel. No one else is."

Trace was curious. "Who else could be responsible for what you feel?"

"It's a way that humans have....you robiots were born without eyes, and then were granted them. We were born with eyes, but place blindfolds upon them. And we don't even know that our eyes are covered. One day, someone like you, or Garuvel, or Jaramine comes along. And tells me that I am blind. And offers me the skill to remove my blindfold, puts my hand to my face, so that I can feel the covering there, and finally acknowledge that I have been stumbling around in the dark. It is amazing, but even then I resist removing the blinders. I must force myself to strip them away, one layer at a time."

"I infer," said Trace, "that Garuvel and Jaramine are exceptional. And that you are like most humans."

Robolion thought for a moment, then ruefully replied. "Yes, you should know that. I might be eccentric, but I am much more like the common run of humans than are Garuvel and Jaramine. Perhaps, now, I will become more like them. I would also like to become more like you."

Trace patted Robolion on the back. Robolion stumbled forward.

"Good!" The robiot said.

The sun passed overhead and they moved through light and shadow. Lips of rock overhung the canyon. Monstrous pillars soared, topped by precariously balanced cross-stones, grotesque in their looming threat to topple, yet suggesting that they had stood in place for a billion years.

Garuvel was picking his way across a difficult traverse of cracks and crevices. He began to hear sounds, echoing deviously from the walls. It was a wailing sound, high-pitched, keening and ritualistic. A repeated string of syllables rode a simple melody of three notes. A sound of tapping sticks mingled within the notes, sounding like the clack of animal claws on bare rock.

There was a cave around the next bend, high up on the cliff face. The sounds issued from its yawning mouth.

Garuvel stopped the march, gesturing with his hand for his companions to wait. A line of arrows landed with great precision, just in front of his boots. Garuvel let a few minutes pass, as they stood silently. Then he picked each of the arrows from the ground, bunched them in his fist, and stepped forward.

A group of the nomads issued from a fissure. They were led by an old man. His long leather robe was caked at the hem from years of brushing in the dirt. It fell over sandals made of bark and tied fiber.

Garuvel and his group were again surrounded by hostile tribesmen. The moment was so tense that it seemed about to crack into violence. Trace stepped forward, showing the leather headband with the blue stone. He had stuffed the bits of black hair into every flap and pocket of his jumpsuit. Then he took up the sword and walked towards the nomads.

They gave way, groaning with satisfaction, looking upon the robiot's size with joy. The elder led the way, taking them through a crack in the face of the rock. They entered a dimly lit cavern. A stench greeted them, almost overwhelming. As they passed a deep cesspool, someone squatted over a flue, a hundred feet over their heads. Bits of fecal matter dropped into the stinking pool.

Torches were lit, and the group was led, eyes stinging, through narrow passageways. They came to a chimney that led upward. Two tribesmen helped the elder into a contraption of leather straps, and he was winched upward with a jerking motion. The attendants signified that Trace was to follow, then the rest of them, in order of size, were to climb a rope ladder that had dropped from above.

At last they emerged into the cave. They were greeted by the women's wailing, the bickering of dogs, children playing, the grunts of fornicating couples and the chattering of old people who were gossiping and smoking pipes.

When Trace came up through the flue, all human noise came to a stop. The women looked at him with calculation.

Since the beginning of this alien encounter, Garuvel had been listening carefully to the language. Having traveled widely, he had acquired the liguistic habit. He listened for key sounds. For reasons he could not fathom, the nomads' language had some root resemblance to Low Vramani, a tongue long-vanished from the more settled parts of the universe. It was full of mangled vowels, spitting noises at the front of the lips, guttural snarls from the back of the throat. To speak the language, Garuvel needed to feel as if he had a mouth full of the planet's dirt.

When the elder stood to adress them, he began to comprehend.

"What people are you?" the old man asked. "Who were your parents and grandparents, that they should pass to you such stature? What line of giants sired such as these?" He pointed to Trace, Scianna and Robolion.

Garuvel tried his variant of Low Vramani. "We are but average in size on the far worlds where we were born."

The old man laughed. "A natural boast to make. We are already frightened and impressed. We are called the Hekhma. I see that you are from different tribes, and we do not mingle so easily with those of other tribes. Nor do we allow our women to walk where they will."

"Just call us 'Pilgrims'", said Garuvel. "We have come here to seek the way to Klah-Yan."

The elder's lips wrinkled, an expression of distaste, and, possibly fear. There was suspicious grumbing among the nomads. The largest surviving nomad male gripped the elder by the arm. "Hirihoo," he said. "If they wish to seek their deaths, let them."

Hirihoo gestured for them to sit around the banked fire. They sat on rock stools, low to the ground. The nomads had arranged themselves around the circle in their size hierarchy.

"Then you have no wish to stay here?" asked Hirihoo. "This one," he said, indicating Trace, "could be the glory of our clan. He could amass many dogs and cunt-pelts of virgins."

"We must continue to Klah-Yan."

"Then he must pay an indemnity for killing Kfiriha. He must return the sword, the stone and the cunt-pelts to the clan coffers, and allow Uhuhu the chance to earn them."

Garuvel thought for a moment, then reached into his pack. He removed two multi-skins and two multi-sticks. When he demonstrated them, the nomads shrank back to the walls of the cave. Only Hirihoo remained seated, looking indifferent.

"These are marvelous devices. But Kfiriha was a great hunter, a great sire of large sons, a great killer of our enemy, the Khlookh."

Garuvel proffered two more multi-skins and multi-sticks. "Each of these is worth the life of one of your largest warriors. They can be used a thousand ways. They warm in the coldest cold, shelter in the bitterest storm. I can offer no more."

Garuvel showed the old man the sensor and the three tabs that allowed the devices to be changed in shape, texture, hardness and size. He turned a multi-stick into a vicious sword, then reverted it back to its default cigar shape. He made the multi-cloth into a warm sleeping bag.

"It is done," pronounced Hirihoo. He had quickly grasped the rudiments and was soon idly playing with the devices while others pushed closer to see. He caused a mutli-cloth to spill across the cave, upsetting pots and skins. The tribe laughed, enchanted.

As the sun fell, the pilgrims were served meat of dubious origin, and an alcoholic drink call 'Horkh'. When night had fallen, the tribe regaled them with its ritual of the moon's nearest passage to Shoms.

The men, according to size, placed their arms upon the shoulders of the man in front, and danced in a file toward a tall, standing mirror of polished slate. Three orifices had been drilled in the mirror at certain heights, each hole angling slightly upward. When a male approached the mirror, he embraced his own image, thrust himself into the hole and ejaculated.

The women sang songs. After a while, Garuvel stopped translating the words to his friends.

At the back of the mirror, below the orifices, a bowl had been placed to catch the combined fluids of the men. This bowl was taken by the eldest female, followed by the other adult women, into a rear chamber of the cave.

They sang songs about liquid strength, sap of vitality. Garuvel did not speculate as to the destiny of the bowl's contents.

Garuvel did not need much sleep. He sat guarding his friends and their packs, perched at the lip of the cave, high above the dry river bed. The night-wind rose and came moaning through the canyons, laughing and ghoulish. Garuvel let part of his attention drift; he fell into a hypnogogic state, and began to have a dream-vision.

He saw a monastery the size of a city, perched at various levels on a lithic palisade. Its stupas and towers of gold and tourmaline were awash in the rays of the setting sun. Gates were crested with human skulls. Armies of monks flowed with sinister pomp through arches that were like the mouths of angry demons.

He awakened to Jaramine's touch, as she came to sit beside him. He shuddered. "I just saw Klah-Yan."

She put her fingers to his lips, touch soft as a sleeping baby's breath.

"So did I."

Garuvel heard a whistle. It had come from one of the Hekhma guards in the canyon below. The other guards at the lip of the cave rose from their haunches and shouted. The nomads sprang to life in an instant.

The lower guards were pulled up on the winch. Its lines were detached from their stone joist. Garuvel pulled Jaramine away from the cave front just as a stream of arrows and stones came thwipping out of the darkness. Garuvel saw the top rungs of a wooden ladder appear at the cave mouth. Hekhma warriors pushed them away. Bodies fell with sickening thuds.

The cave was filled with ricocheting stones, arrows and darts. A flaming torch was tossed, falling onto the floor and guttering as it stopped against the wall.

Garuvel and his friends crouched against the rear-most part of the cavern, making shields of their packs. Garuvel saw two Hekhma youths standing with drawn weapons at the top of the chimney, the only interior entrance to the cave. They began firing repeatedly into the flue. Once or twice a head bobbed up, and they clubbed it until it disappeared.

Then Garuvel heard a sound. Its angry whisper made the hair follicles tingle all over his body. The sound seemed to roar up the flue. By the light of the fire in the cave's center, he saw a cloud emerge from the flue and engulf the young men.

They screamed horribly and beat at themselves.

"Vuba Bees!" Garuvel shouted. "Quick! Quick! Get in!" He saw his companions understand, shrouding themselves in their multi-skins, covering themselves completely.

He listened as the roaring buzz crescendoed, then died away. He peeked from a tiny opening in his coccoon. There was nothing left of the two warriors but a mound of bones. The bodies of dead Vuba Bees lay in piles around the skeletons.

Heads bobbed in the opening, eyes looked around. Warriors in grotesque masks began pouring from the chimney. Everywhere they saw Hekhma men, they laid about themselves with clubs and knives. A group of them saw the pilgrims at the back of the cave.

"Oh yeah," said Robolion, with relish. "Looks like we gonna fight now."

Trace looked at Scianna.. Scianna looked at Trace. Her teeth gleamed.

"Yes!" she confirmed. They rose from their multi-skins. Trace was swinging the medallion. Scianna picked up a club from a fallen nomad. The two robiots closed on the invaders, snarling, mouths wide with tongues protruding like flames.

The Khlookh saw the giants and turned suddenly, scuttling for the flue. They wailed, looked back over their shoulders, beat one another to get down the exit. In seconds the flue was jammed tight with wriggling bodies. The other Khlookh were scrambling down the ladders. When those became jammed, warriors leaped from the lip of the cave. Thuds and noises of galloping dogs came from below.

Chapter Thirty Four

Crossed Rings

Dawn began to grow like a stain across the top of the canyon. The Hekhma were breaking camp, hurriedly. There were nine dead warriors, two dead women, several dog corpses. These were stripped and laid out on the lip of the cave, in a vaguely pentagonal shape, with the dogs at the center. The bones of the bee-eaten nomads were dropped down the latrine flue.

No words were spoken for the dead. The Hekhma unemotionally packed themselves up and descended on rope ladders to the canyon floor.

Hirihoo beckoned to Garuvel. "We are traveling toward where Peshtrion greets the horizon. That is the way to Klah-Yan. We would be honored to have you travel with us, until we must turn away from where the shadows meet. We cannot enter the territory of the Fotabelos."

Garuvel could only partially interpret this information. "It would be a boon. Guide us until you can guide us no more."

The dogs were winched down, complaining, to be saddled and bridled to drag-carts.

Bone trinkets clacking, leather creaking, the assemblage moved off down the canyon. Soon they emerged into open space. Spiny plants covered the ground, cactus-like growths jutted up with six or seven arms, skewed at wild angles. Winged creatures screeked in the air. Insects chittered, ten legged creatures with tail-stings disappeared under rocks.

The Hekhma offered their spare mounts, but when Trace tried, his legs reached the ground. Garuvel and his friends decided to walk.

The landscape began to roll. Clouds vanished as the day's heat grew, until the sky was a giant orange bowl, divided by the stripes of the rings. The Hekhma wore hats made from large black bird wings, which jutted from the sides of their heads.

After half a day, the Hekhma drew up their mounts and stopped. There was no landmark. They sat, and drank from skin bottles, wiping their mouths. High overhead, leathery avian creatures circled endlessly.

"This is where we turn gapward," explained Hirihoo, pointing to a space between the rings. "Yonder is Fotabelos land." He spit a large gobbet of saliva and blood to the ground.. "May their wells be poisoned."

Garuvel bid the Hekhma farewell in their language. His companions did the same in Galactaling. The Hekhma rose and mounted up. The leather of their saddles creaked, a few dog-bells tonked hollowly as they vanished into the landscape.

"Well, that was the Hekhma," said Robolion. "I wonder what the Fotabelos will be like."

"No doubt equally charming," said Jaramine.

They continued toward where Peshtrion greeted the horizon. After a time, Garuvel spotted people through his scanner. As they approached these unknown denizens of Shoms, the day began to grow darker, by subtle degrees.

Garuvel shaded his eyes and looked up. The star Mosht was beginning to hide behind Forklion. They were coming into the ring's shadow, as it moved across the planet.

They found men, naked but for loincloths and pointed helmets made from the tails of large reptiles. The men were absorbed in muttered incantations, moving on their knees at the darkest part of the shadow. In their midst, a priest-like figure sat on a platform that floated without support. It moved with the shadow, rising and falling with the level of the ground. The shadow moved at the speed of a man walking slowly. The men moved with it, oblivious to the stones and spiny plants tearing their legs to shreds.

They paid no attention to the group of travelers.

Garuvel and his friends moved down-shadow for a distance, then crossed, and left the giant stripe behind. They walked in silence for a time. Their minds drifted above their bodies until they saw themselves as tiny insects passing across the steaming plate of nowhere.

To break the trance, Garuvel suggested some poetry.

Trace cleared his throat. "Um..I have a poem. Maybe you won't want to hear it. It's not very good."

Garuvel was getting used to surprises from the robiots. "Trace, you wouldn't have raised the subject if you didn't want to recite your poem. You're among friends here. We won't judge you."

"All right, then." Trace looked with shy affection at Scianna. "This is for Scianna."

"If I had known before

what I know now,

about how love feels,

I would have died waiting to feel it.

If I had made the way in my heart

for you to come and join me,

and you had not been there,

I would have cracked in two

from the longing to feel you close to me.

How lucky I am that you are here

to save me from such a fate."

Robolion stopped walking, and sank to his haunches.

"I wish I'd had the soul to say that to Zyreen. I've never wanted anyone that much; never had to fight for a woman, never had to wait for a woman. They were always just.... just there, you know? As long as I could empty my stones. As long as the kwooch....the woman....could hang Robolion Spdaz' pelt on her purse strap. I had no idea...I didn't think it could hurt so much to..to...not hurt."

As if his head ached, he pressed his face into the basket of his laced fingers, and stared at the ground. Then he straightened, and turned to Trace.

"Is that the first robiot love poem?"

"As far as I know," the robiot answered. "It won't be the last."

Chapter Thirty Five

How Experience IS

The pilgrims continued to walk across the Great Desert. They were no longer outside themselves. They were aware that five unique individuals moved together in one direction. They were aware of one another, and as they walked, they thought about one another.

Scianna stepped resolutely forward, and put her arm in Jaramine's. The gesture was one of universal feminine comradeship. Garuvel waited a few steps, allowing them to pull ahead. Then he joined his two male companions. They continued to walk in silence, deferring to the animated conversation in which they saw the two women engage.

"Jaramine," Scianna asked. "How do you experience yourself?"

Jaramine puffed her cheeks and blew out. "How do you do it? How do you and Trace always manage to ask these simple questions that have begged for eons to be voiced, yet no one ever seems to ask them?"

Scianna's arms were bent at the elbow, hands out to her sides, palms up, as if she were feeling for rain.

"It seemed a fair question."

"Yes, it is. But a difficult question. Give me a moment, and I will answer as best I can."

They walked in silence for half a minute.

"I experience my self," began Jaramine, "as if I were a game of toss with a pair of six-sided dice. On one side is 'Thought'. On another side is 'Feeling'. On a third side is 'Desire'. On the fourth side is 'Self'. On the fifth side is another 'Self', and on the sixth side is another 'Desire'. Every moment the dice are tossed; they come up in different combinations. Once in a while, they come up with two 'Self' faces showing. Then I get to ask the question, 'who is throwing the dice?'"

"Do you get an answer?" Scianna asked.

"I get to keep on playing, but for the rest of the game, I learn something from each toss."

"And what about if it comes up with two 'Desires'?"

"Then I get a choice. I can chose to get what I want. Or I can chose to want the right things."

"What happens if you make the first choice?"

"Then every toss comes up with two desires, and I can choose again."

"But what happens if you take the first choice again?"

"I get what I want, but it turns out to be not worth wanting."

"And the second?"

"Then the dice start turning up two 'Self' faces."

Scianna laughed. "And you can ask who is tossing the dice, and you can keep playing the game, learning something new all the time." Then her eyes narrowed in thought. "Am I any different?"

"We're all different, Scianna. Our metaphors are different. But we all make choices about what we want, and how we want."

"And what is it to want the right thing?"

Jaramine looked into the air. "Are you asking me because you want to know, or are you asking me to confirm some opinion you already have on the subject?"

"I'm asking because I want to know."

"Then that is your answer."

For a time there was only the sound of footsteps trudging through rock and dirt. Then Scianna stopped and turned Jaramine to face her.

"The answer is 'I want to know'?"

Jaramine looked steadily into Scianna's eyes. Scianna looked back, and never once thought to avert her gaze. At the same moment, each turned back to the trail and resumed walking.

"I want to know, I want to know," Scianna repeated to herself. Then she said to Jaramine, "It's like a lone spark in the bottomless abyss of myself. It echoes in the chambers of my heart. 'I want to know, I want to know'. Until there's nothing left of me but that single desire."

"You've just perfectly described the Aia."

"What's the Aia?"

"It's that spark. If you send the desire to know at it enough times, it grows and becomes a permanent part of yourself. It is so indestructible that it survives death. It waits to join you in another life, so that you can continue nurturing it with the desire to know. If you remain true to it, the Aia will be your most loving friend, for all eternity."

Scianna stopped again, inhaled deeply, threw her arms back, arched her body, raised her head to the sky. "I WANT TO KNOW!" she sang in her most fulsome voice. "I WANT TO KNOW!"

Four yards behind them, the men heard, stopped, stepped apart from one another. Garuvel inhaled deeply, threw his arms back, arched his body, raised his head to the sky, and sang "I WANT TO KNOW!"

Trace, Robolion and Jaramine joined the chant. Five pilgrims wandering without hope or surety on the parched surface of a strange world raised their arms and sang their desire for knowledge.

Scianna had not quite finished cogitating Jaramine's metaphor. "What if," she asked, hesitating. "What if one die comes up 'Self' and the other die comes up 'Desire'?"

"That's everyday life for a pilgrim", Jaramine said drily.

Chapter Thirty Six

Fotabelos

Ninety nine percent of all the beings in the galaxy believe that they belong to the one percent that is superior to the other ninety nine percent.

Dzuzhdu witticism

Sloping downward gradually, the terrain became less rocky beneath their feet. The wild plants changed from spiny to leafy, and colonies of small chittering insects engaged in hunting a species of hopping insect. All around, these creatures popped up from little mounds to inspect the travelers, gave a screeching cry and vanished back into their holes with a push of dirt from their rear legs. Garuvel, taking a moment for observation, climbed onto a rock and scanned the area at low magnification. He discovered that when a prey insect flew near to one of these mounds, a team of four animals used their front paws to catapult a fifth member into the air in an attempt to snag its prey with a long sticky antennae-like appendage.

Inevitably it failed. The prey was on guard and deftly eluded the mound of dirt signaling the hunters' presence. As it flew off some distance from the mound, another of the hunting insects popped out of nowhere and easily dragged the prey down into a completely invisible recess. The mounds were decoys. The hunters played dumb, telegraphing their presence with this simple trademark. Prey were cautious around the mounds. As they flew away, the real hunter team, invisible under carefully concealed dirt and debris, launched its fastest grabber to capture the now-unwary creature.

An interesting strategy, Garuvel mused. Briefly he allowed himself to speculate on the species' organization. Grabbers, catapulters, cutters, digesters, excreters of now-edible "bug-cake". A queen and her drones, perhaps. Tunnels extending for miles, with chambers for each labor division to do its work.

"I am probably one hundred percent wrong", he thought. He wanted to understand the world upon which they strode. What he had just seen might be a metaphor for Shoms itself. The perceived danger is not the real danger.

Through his scanner, Garuvel saw the ground descend for many miles, then rise again, beyond a fold in the ground. He suspected that a river ran through the fold. The landscape was semi-arid. Clumps of trees whose branches swept upward like some exotic hair-do, falling off to the left or the right, appeared in groups of five or six. They were thorny, leafless plants that housed families of birds whose voices went "scrack scrack" across the rocky sweeps. A dun smell, half familiar, rose on the air. It was emitted from ground cover plants with rubbery yellow paddles for leaves.

Across the plain, Garuvel spotted what appeared to be a giant monolith.

The altitude was diminishing and the heat grew in proportion to their descent. Some relief was brought by a phalanx of stilleto-shaped clouds that covered Mosht and extended across half the sky. The cloud bank moved with steady determination, a fierce wind pushing them from some unknown source of moisture.

Garuvel changed the group's direction so that they would come upon the object he had seen in the scanner. When he looked again, after walking for an hour, the object had resolved itself into four giant statues.

Soon they were walking around the base of fifty-foot stone demi-urges. Each had fourteen arms. Their demonic faces had round, flaming eyes, protruding tongues, and fangs that reached their chests. Most of the hands of the giants held objects: lightning bolts, swords or axes, crushed skulls, animal penises,symbolic versions of the crossed rings. In the hands that were empty, the fingers had been arranged in specific positions. The topmost pair of hands on each statue had the long middle finger extended straight into the air.

"I think I had a version of this on my fireplace, once," said Robolion, rubbing the stubble on his chin. "My girlfriend made me throw it away."

"In any case," Garuvel observed, "their opinions are quite clear." He had been walking around the bases of the statues, bending to read the glyphs of the crab-like inscription. " I can read the stuff. I don't know how this Vramani variant got here. Then again, I don't know where 'here' is, do I? This language was used in the Spider Galaxy, ten billion light-years ago. Maybe we're in the Spider Galaxy. Who knows?"

He crouched and drew something in the yellow dirt at the base of the fat deity, scratched it out, drew something else. He paused and thought, idly fingering the hair at the top of his forehead. He derived something from this process, but grunted to himself, and said nothing further.

Trace and Scianna shared that feeling-affirming gaze with one another. "Curiosity," they said, simultaneously.

Garuvel duck-walked around the dark red base of the monument. A wind fluffed everyone's hair, then died down. It had the dun smell with an added component of sulfuric minerals. A quarter wedge of Mosht peeked through a serration in the cloud, throwing a beam across the landscape, so that the ground held a Vee of light thrusting into the larger shadow. The afternoon was wearing on.

"'In the realm of Mahaya-Vu," he read, "it is the urge of Lokaya-Vu to distribute wrath, the urge of Drubaya-Vu to distribute helplessness, the urge of Remenya-Vu to distribute sadness, and the urge of Kolvaya-Vu to distribute gnashing of teeth. The galaxy turns once: the age of Kolvaya-Vu is upon us'. In a somewhat ordinary galaxy that's two hundred fifty million years of teeth gnashing.."

"A gentle cosmology for a gentle world." Jaramine winced and rubbed her elbow.

"I'm glad we're only visiting." Robolion hawked and emitted a thin stream of spittle. "Let's get away from these things."

Soon the travelers were walking on a clearly defined trail that fell by degrees into a wide gorge. There were trees the height of a man, with slate- grey bark, topped by flattened umbrellas of broad leaf. A combination of fog and smoke hid the river from sight. There were terraces on the upper sides of the gorge, and the travelers soon encountered stolid, leathery women, bent to the task of ekeing wispy vegetables from reluctant soil. They looked up as the group passed; no expression crossed their faces. An elderly woman scampered nimbly away, as if to take the news to some higher authority.

They descended through the fog layer, and beheld the river, and the city that rose in mud-walled cascades up the two sides of the gorge. Each building was like a fortress of baked mud, a tapering slim rectangle that rose from its base three or four stories, to a roof of crenelated ramparts, topped by outward facing metal hooks. The windows of these structures were slits, placed without apparent pattern. Flags hung from the battlements. Through his scanner, Garuvel could see that they carried heraldic designs based upon shapes and postures of a fierce looking reptile.

The trail switched back as it descended, and they came to a level place where a gate had been erected. It was a free-standing arch of lumber packed with baked mud. At its sides and at its pointed pinnacle were the stuffed carcasses of the lizard that Garuvel had seen on the flags.

These creatures were nine or ten feet long. In their fan-shaped snout were triple rows of teeth, black as obsidian. Each of six squat legs was tipped by a single dagger of a claw. The eyes were pupil-less orbs the color of aged ivory. The tail swung back in spiked twists of armor, to end with a needle sharp point.

As Garuvel and company stood contemplating this gateway, a troop of warriors appeared from around the next switchback. As Garuvel and his friends waited, this band issued forth and surrounded them. Each warrior wore a helmet made from the tail of the lizard. They had punched eye-holes in the widest part of the tail, so that they could pull the leather casque down over their heads, to be fastened under their chins with a thong. All that was visible beneath these sinister masks were the wearers' mouths and chins. They wore elbow-high gloves of a lighter colored leather, and the same substance covered their legs with greaves that reached their knees. On their chests were vests made of joined strips of a tough tree bark.

These men were armed with an array of bows, blackjacks, bone knives. There were some metal weapons among them: a few swords, a few spears. One helmet was tipped with a spike of gleaming silver.

The spiked helmet belonged to the leader of the troop. He stalked up to Trace without hesitation, brandishing a thin, straight sword in one hand. On his other arm a small buckler had been strapped; its metallic face had been painted with a picture of the lizard creature, jaws wide and menacing.

The leader handed his sword to an underling. He took off his helmet and flung it to the ground so that it stuck on the spike. Hands on hips, he circled Trace insolently, though he had to tilt his head to see the robiot's face.

"Heh!" he said, turning to his warriors. "Look at the size of him! Imagine what a noise he'll make when he falls to the ground with my sword sticking through his ribs."

He turned to Trace, who was standing carefully and looking thoughtful.

"I would wager that you buy your weapons in stores," the leader said. He looked Trace up and down. "Don't you have a weapon? Or do you just fight with those big hands?"

Trace opened his mouth cautiously, but before he could speak, the man continued his diatribe as if Trace were irrelevant. "We shall see," he snorted. "Fotamos!" He called to another warrior. "Lend the big man your sword. Come on!"

Reluctantly, the one called Fotamos hurled his blade into the ground at Trace's feet. It was a big flat blade, and it rocked back and forth in the sandy soil from the momentum of being thrown.

Trace looked at Garuvel. Garuvel nodded; this was a rite of passage on Shoms.

The blade looked like a pencil in Trace's hands. The chieftain took his blade from his underling and danced around Trace, raising his right foot and stomping it three times, then repeating three stomps with his left.

"We shall see," he half-chanted on a single note, "who is the master of the ninety nine strokes of Eplimo Tzuras. We shall see how speed and control defeat the power of muscle every time. We shall see how my adversary reacts to the blinding ruse of my classic sword-sequence 'Flocks of Hubbledees rising from Lake Bombo'."

The warrior proceeded to demonstrate this maneuver by attacking with a flurry of movement. The arm with the buckler swung wide as if flapping, while his legs, torso and head went in all directions. The narrow blade of the sword, however, came with speed at Trace's heart.

Trace bent, turned his back, and was facing the chief from the opposite direction. His borrowed sword was still held loosely, point down.

The warrior sidled forward easily. "He knows the simple moves, does he? Well, how about 'Vol Beast Goring Herdsman'?" He lunged, sword point rising from a straight-armed thrust.

Trace parried, attempting to make it look more difficult than it was.

"All right, not bad. 'The Horned Boar's Revenge'." The chieftain executed a flick-flick, jumped into the air in a somersault. When he landed on his feet, he expected to see a cut along Trace's right arm. There was no cut. For the first time, he showed a bit of concern to see his enemy standing without hard breathing or sweat.

Trace was thinking desperately of ways to save the man's 'face', but he did not know anything of the elaborate method of dueling practiced by this boastful swordsman.

"AAah", the man said, "so you have studied the Twelve Evasions. 'The Pthuludon's Skewer', then, and be damned with you!"

He lept high, kicking out with his right leg, while the sword came whizzing in an arc from the left. Trace bent his knees, raised his blade and pretended to have more difficulty blocking this stroke. He could not, however, turn the man into anything more than a boasting clown.

The swords met with a dull clank. The leader of the soldiers stumbled and fell on his backside.

"Stop playing with me, damn you! It's obvious, what's happening. You are a disciple of Pomon Kronzab. That vile cheat is my sword-master's most loathesome enemy! You've been sent to taunt my revered teacher, the famous Vayooz G'moon! "'

The man paced back and forth in a fury. He pulleld so hard at a lock of his hair that it ripped away from his scalp.

" You know the ninety nine counter-strokes and the Zig-Zag killing stroke. No wonder you don't carry a weapon. Go ahead," he lifted his chin, to bare his throat. "Kill me with the Zig Zag. Or better yet, kill me with a gob of spit. Kronzab's high and mighty students claim to have dozens of ways of killing with just the hands, feet, lips, ears, eyelids. Is there a 'Spit-Death?' Can you kill me with the flick of an eyelash? Show it to me, I want to know if Kronzab is truly such a great master of swordsmanship!"

Garuvel translated. Trace was about to respond, when a murmured sound swept through the onlookers. The Skull of Kringmar floated into the midst of the tableau and hovered between Trace and his adversary.

The natives of Shoms were paralyzed with shock. For long minutes they watched the skull as it circled around, stopping as if to look into each face. Sweat burst on warriors' foreheads; eyes glazed while lungs pumped. Each man slowly sank to the ground. They sorted themselves into a circle of ritual prostration. Grabbing fistfuls of dirt they threw it over their heads and backs. "Kringmar has returned," they muttered into the dirt, twirling their forefingers in circles around their ears. "Kringmar has returned." They threw more fistfuls of dirt onto themselves.

The black skull drifted forward and through the gate. The prostrate warriors lifted themselves and followed. "Kringmar has returned," they chanted, circling their ears with their fingers.

The procession turned into a ceremonial dance. The Fotabelos men strode forward in a stiff-legged hop, their strides in perfect unison. "Kringmar has returned", they chanted. After five hops forward, they reversed and hopped backward without turning around. They maintained perfect spacing. No man collided with another. At the end of the backward steps, they hopped in place and shouted "whooooo!" in a pitch resembing a mating Fanfeather bird. They hopped again and took another five steps forward, their bodies pitching rigidly from side to side as if they were unable to bend at the waist. Hop hop forward; hop hop back. Hop hop in place:"Whooooo!"

The pilgrims joined the procession. They brought up the rear of the group, following the steps and singing joyous "whoooo"s when each opportunity arose. In this way, rather slowly, picking up more dancers all the time, they entered the city of the Fotabelos.

Inside the smoky tunnels, a man ran ahead, shouting "Kringmar has returned, Kringmar has returned!" Ripples of disturbance spilled from his path, people emerged from doors, windows, side streets. Square wooden pavement hatches slid open and more people climbed up and out of other levels of their sructures.

The chanting of "Whoooo!" echoed down the tunnels.

The city of the Fotabelos was a warren, with people like insects organized into tight cells that moved without obstructing one another. Each building was built tight up against its neighbor, but there were occasional breaks, which turned into streets or alleys. The place was smelly but little trash blocked the way; its stench was a mix of human sweat, rancid cooking oil and fleet wafts of sewage that were dumped in great skin bags down special chutes.

Flickering shafts of light came from on high; oil lamps illumined tiny shops cut into the stone of the gorge. The walls were damp with condensation. The tunnels' heat pushed noxious vapors towards the ceiling, so that there was a foot-thick mantle of smoke round everyone's heads. Garuvel and his companions pulled out multi-skins and made them into face masks. Every twenty meters or so, a flue led up through the structure and out to the sky. Vapors whirled towards these flues like water, swirling out the exits, thinning the stench in their vicinity.

People took up the cry, joined the procession. "Kringmar has returned!" They circled their ears with their fingers, paused once in a while to toss dust from beneath their feet over one another's heads.

The dance continued. Grabbing a glance backwards, Garuvel could see no end to the line of celebrants. The tunnel was long; it seemed to be a main outer passage running the length of the entire cliff-city. The dance got bigger and bigger. Hop hop hop, five steps forward, rocking like stiff-legged dolls. Stop, reverse, dance backward. Exclaim, "Whoooo!"

Occasionally there were large coverless windows, that let in the daylight and showed the river and part of the city on the opposite side of the gorge. The city was one giant dun colored structure, rising up both sides of the river, with holes, chambers and ramparts chiseled into the red-brown sandstone.

Eventually, travelers, natives and black skull stooped into a square chamber, passed through a door into a larger chamber that was hung with grotesque religious tapestry. Through this chamber, they entered a series of larger and larger chambers until they emerged into a giant vault, square-cut into the side of the gorge. At its far end was a shrine. It consisted of a wooden platform, ornately carved, two flags curving overhead from each side, and an empty metal cup. Behind the cup was a tapestry. Embroidered in bold and exquisite color, it depicted a mountainous terrain, with stylized clouds. At the center of the tapestry was depicted a pyramid of black skulls, which floated in the air above a mountain encrusted with sacred architecture, a monastery, which Garuvel knew to be a representation of Klah-Yan.

The skull of Kringmar floated, hovered, then lowered itself into the waiting cup with a distinctive and final click. The throngs of Fotabelos wept and gyrated, chanting and signing with their fingers.

Kringmar had come home. Here, in Fotabelos, he was born, he entered the local temple, he ascended the Steps of the Way, he endured the Test of Terror and Ecstasy, he was initiated at Klah-Yan, he undertook the task of traveling the Trail of Ten Million Worlds. He became the forty fourth Dzujhdu and lived as a holy man. Then he ran foul of other Dzujhdus and was forced to take an odious task. In protest he made his vow not to get out of his skull until evil had been defeated. Being Kringmar, when he found it expedient to break his vow, he did so. It was Jaramine that convinced him that this was a desirable thing.

That evening, guests of honor, the five pilgrims dined on dog-steak and noodles, drank a variant of 'horkh', and smoked a dried river-weed. The current religious and secular leader of the Fotabelos was one Lalram Kring, who traced his lineage back one hundred generations directly to Kringmar.

This worthy was dressed in a green satin cape tasseled with coins every few inches. These metal signs of wealth jingled as the man moved about. Beneath the cape was a white ecclesiastical robe belted with a mauve sash.

Images of the rings, the moon, the monastery, were sewn into the robe in golden thread.

Lalram Kring, moving clumsily under the weight and obstructions of his garb, clapped for servants to bring each helping, which he introduced with a sonorous voice.

"These are steaks from the haunches of the finest young Bleekhounds, sauteed in Grunk wine for twelve hours and tenderized with fifteen pound hammers for another twelve." The priest put his forefinger into his mouth, wet it with an obscene luxuriant circling of his lips, then put that finger into each nostril. This was evidently a sign of culinary praise.

"Mmmm mmmm mmmmhhhh!", the priest gesticulated.

Garuvel had to admit the meat was fine. He was far beyond sentimental feelings for dogs. If a zommet had been served he would have been very upset.

After the banquet, sitting on an embroidered cushion, Lalram nudged Garuvel in the ribs and leered at Jaramine.

"I'll give you sixty war dogs, two ram-boats and ten pthuludon carcasses for her," he offered.

Garuvel shook his head. "Nothing doing. Not for sale." He was mildly intoxicated from the combined brews, smokes and unguents.

Temple girls had emerged from behind the curtains and sat massaging the shoulders of each male. Robolion's head lolled far down, then swung to the right and left. Trace bore a bemused expression that Garuvel found irresistably amusing. He forebore from laughter with great effort.

Lalram shook his head. "Were you not the Bearers of Kringmar, I would believe you to be a fool. That is a generous offer; a ridiculous offer, for one woman." He smiled an oily smile at Jaramine. She smiled back, mockingly lucubricious. The priest recoiled slightly. Putting his mouth behind his hand, he leaned into Garuvel, reeking of lizard musk and perspiration.

"She is inappropriately saucy; but I like it. Tell you what. Twenty pthuludon carcasses."

Garuvel belched and nudged the priest away. "You don't get it. She is THE true bearer of Kringmar. She is The Chosen One. If we displease her in any way, she will call down a flux upon us and we will writhe with remorseless itching for fifty years."

Lalram's forehead creased. His head bobbed a few times, chin plopping on his breastbone. Trying to focus on Garuvel's face, he wagged a finger, which caught his attention so that his eyes wandered from face to finger and back again. "I knew there was something about her! The air of power and sanc—hic!...sanctity–-you know, holy. Oh, it arouses me!"

His drool was landing on Garuvel's leg. Pushing more firmly, Garuvel wagged his own finger and winked.

Shortly thereafter, the torches were put out and hundreds of candles were lit. Temple acolytes gathered in a circle about Kringmar's shrine, leaving a space in front of the platform. In this space a number of Fotabelos priests quickly assembled an orchestra of instruments made from human bones. There were hollowed-out thighbones, sets of xylophones made from ribs, pelvises turned into lyres strung with gut. Two especially fat priests carried tuned skulls with brass mouthpieces fitted to their crowns.

Lalram rose, took two mallets and joined his disciples in a bone-rattling cacophony. Ribs were struck to make plinking notes, sinister nasal sounds emitted from thighbones, and poisonous ullulations came from the skulls.

The five pilgrims immediately recoiled from the toxic sonorities. Garuvel was about to get up and take his friends from the place, when Kringmar's skull glowed red around the eye sockets. In moments, the Dzujhdu floated before them in his reconstituted flesh. He was writhing, slapping at himself.

"Ow, ah!" He was bent at the waist, he twisted left, twisted right. "Stop! Shit! That hurts!" Several strands of his piled-up hair were loose, and tumbled to his ankles. "Dammit, if you're going to play my bones, do it right!" The Dzudjdu was clearly furious. Veins throbbed in his forehead, his hands shook.

Gradually, the hideous noise died out as Lal-ram and his entourage fell to the temple floor and began striking themselves with the bone instruments.

"Enough!" Shouted Kringmar. "How can you play such dreadful crap on my bones? Don't you know how much that hurts? Can't I get any rest?"

He took up a thigh-trumpet, inhaled, and played a note. The sound resonated in Garuvel's bones, pleasantly, with healing warmth.

Kringmar played a long tone, sustaining it beyond the capacity of human lungs. Then he tossed the bone away and began coughing.

"Damn pranash," he muttered. "Useless shit." He looked around the room, nodded to Jaramine, Garuvel and the others. Then he floated to a back recess of the temple.

"There you are," he said. "I knew you'd be here somewhere."

A young man had been sitting calmly, as if he had been tolerating the display of unruly relatives. He pointed to his own chest, turned to look behind himself, saw no one there. Kringmar placed a hand on the man's head.

"I knew your great-great-great, oh forget it, however many greats it was, grandfather. You have his name. Klomos."

The young man nodded his assent, swallowed hard to control his terror.

Lalram had crawled towards Kringmar and now tapped him on the back of the knee. The Dzujhdu turned disdainfully.

"We have followed the prescribed rituals, holy one," he cravenly intoned.

"Pechh!" Kringmar made a gesture as if spitting. " 'Prescriped rituals'. Your practice of the rituals of Mahaya-Vu has degenerated from the creative to the orthodox. I suppose you pass off disorientation as meditation."

He regarded Garuvel and his party. "This man," he said, indicating Klomos, "will guide you to Klah-Yan. He has both the qualifications and the qualities. They are not always the same."

He pushed at the abased Lal-Kring as if attempting to move a pile of refuse out of his path.

"You will provide my bearers with all that they need for the journey,"Kringmar instructed the priest. "You will not rob, waylay, swindle, eat them, you will not do them any kind of harm. If you do, I will return in your dreams and play a tone that will rot your bones from the inside. Do you hear?"

"Yes, Kringmar!" quaked Lalram.

The Dzujhdu, august, imperious and carelessly sloppy, floated back into his skull, kicking over the stands of bone instruments. "Don't play these any more until it can be done correctly!"

He shrank back through the eye sockets and was gone. The skull rose out of the cup and insinuated itself into Jaramine's pack.

The banquet was over, the ritual was done.

Klomos looked as if he had just been granted his lifetime wish. His face bore a look of astonished joy, as one who had been miraculously cured of a lethal disease. He led the travelers though the abasing crowd, out through an exit concealed behind the great tapestry. They passed down a curving tunnel, and exited upon an open terrace overlooking the river. The city extended along the river's banks, lit with torches, candles and oil lamps.

"I will take you to the home of my uncle, where there are spare rooms. Then I will make the arrangements for our journey."

Garuvel inspected the young man. He was immediately drawn to the sweetness and nobility of his features. Klomos had the dark skin and up-slanted eyes of his race. His nose jutted from between chiseled cheekbones, but some accident or fight had crushed it and pushed it slightly askew. This only added to the charm of his face. A small scar ran vertically down the back of his cheek. All in all, he struck Garuvel as someone who had been a trouble maker but was now more circumspect. Still a rebel, he kept his opinions to himself to get along. He stood tall and straight; his bearing struck an ancient resonance in Garuvel.

Kringmar's astute judgment now impressed Garuvel even more.

Chapter Thirty Seven

Robes

Every night since leaving Strobe, Trace and Scianna had slept together. In the beginning, they had lain on their backs, staring at whatever was above their faces. After a few nights, Trace had said, "maybe if I put my leg here, and my arm here, I can feel the warmth of your body."

Scianna had agreed. They lay together, awed by the sheer force of the heat they generated.

"I knew that being alive was good, but I had no idea," Scianna breathed.

They spent more nights this way, listening to the sounds of one another's hearts, laughing at the gurgling of their stomachs, feeling the breath pass in and out of their lungs. One night Trace brought his face close to Scianna's. Her breath smelled of the spicy krang they had eaten.

"Whuh!" he said, "that's awful."

Scianna inhaled the air on Trace's words.

"Well, you smell exactly the same."

Trace sniffed again. "Now it's not so bad."

They sniffed each other's breath. With each sniff, the breath became sweeter. They lay their heads down on the pillow, feeling, smelling the waft of life spill from one another. They did that for many nights.

One night, Trace felt the urge to press his lips to Scianna's. The touch was brief, but intense. Trace moved away.

"That scared me. That was too much. I liked it. But my excretion organ feels tight, like it wants to escape. Where it wants to go, I don't know."

"I've seen the diagrams, Trace. I know where it's supposed to go."

"So do I. But it's not time for that. I feel as if my excretion organ has a mind of its own. I don't know what it will do."

"Does it matter?"

"I don't know why, but it does. I don't want to make a mistake when we do sex."

Scianna shook her head and lay back, deep in thought.

"Perhaps that's one of the differences between a male and a female. I don't see how there can be any mistake, doing sex. It either is, or it isn't."

"Does it cause you pain, that I'm not ready?"

"Oh no, Trace. If you're not ready, how can I be ready? The things that go on in my excretion orifice are just as mysterious to me as your tool is to you."

Now they lay together on Shoms, in the city of the Fotabelos. The clamor of the crowds, the talk that floated up through the latticed window, had finally subsided. They kissed, and for no reason that she understood, Scianna flicked her tongue out, and ran it on the underside of Trace's upper lip, then across the tip of his lower lip.

Trace laughed. "That tickles in a nice way. Do it again."

Scianna did. Trace did the same, then their tongues met in the air between their lips and touched, delicately.

Trace hunched himself, adjusted his night garment. "There goes my excretion organ again. It's as if it's talking to me. Saying, 'let's go, let's go'. It confuses me, the idea of my excretion organ defying the will of my mind. It's as if it were the very feeling of love itself, flowing there to concentrate itself in my flesh."

Scianna made a sound which Trace could not interpret. After a moment, he realized that a groan could be a happy sound.

Scianna squeezed herself up against Trace, so that she could feel the hard bump of the love in his flesh.

"I think that we should stop referring to it as an excretion organ. Somehow, that does not enhance the flow of emotion. Jaramine and Garuvel have names for one another's organs, when those organs are acting in the pleasure mode. And one night I heard Zyreen ask Robolion if his 'monster' wanted to come out and play."

"Monster? Huh!" Trace lifted the multi-skin and looked down at himself. "I suppose it was an affectionate reference to size. Why that should be important, I don't know. I must be the same size as any technical class robiot. Do you have any suggestions?"

"I thought about Mythmaker, but that seemed disrespectful to the legends we are making."

"But isn't this also a legend we are making?"

"Yes, but a different legend. I thought 'Mister Happy Trace' might do, until something else occurs to me."

Trace tried to frown, but couldn't maintain the expression. "Mister Happy Trace. I suppose, in a way, that's accurate. Since he's kind of me, but not me, sometimes."

"Oh, he's always you, Trace." Scianna reached down and touched Mister Happy Trace. Big Trace laid back and relaxed, and let himself receive Scianna's expression. After a while, he turned over to lay half on top of Scianna. "The easier it gets to give love, the easier it gets to receive it."

"And what about 'Miss Happy Scianna'? She moved against him in such a way that it made Mister Happy Trace want to go somewhere, very badly. Big Trace lifted himself completely on top of her. Then, slowly, very slowly, MIster Happy Trace and Miss Happy Scianna met in the place where love is made flesh.

Chapter Thirty Eight

Pilgrims

"Consciousness is designed to enhance itself. Do you suppose that you are any exception?" Maryan Pogometz, 24th Dzujhdu

In the morning, the pilgrims gathered in the courtyard of the compound of Klomos' uncle. Robolion was bleary eyed from heavy indulgence. Trace and Scianna emerged from their room holding hands.

Garuvel observed them with awe and pride.

"You both look radiant this morning."

Scianna swung Trace's hand in hers, and smiled a satisfied feline smile. "We played 'hide the monster' last night."

Garuvel glanced sideways at Robolion, who looked as if he had not heard the exchange. "'Hide the monster'. That's very good. I wonder where you learned such an expression." He leaned into the V formed by their two bodies,and embraced them. Though it was like hugging a wall of massively compacted muscle, he felt the robiots emitting waves of sweetness and relaxation.

Klomos appeared, and took them to a spot at the edge of the compound where a fountain played amid a plot of flowers and garden vegetables. His aunt fed them a breakfast of flat-bread with a hot astringent beverage. It seemed to pluck their eyes open a little wider; the blood flowed more enthusiastically in their bodies.

It was still morning twilight when they descended into the gorge, to reach the wharves at the river's edge. In the cool darkness stevedores worked by torchlight, unloading sacks of cargo, pthulodon hides, casks of oil and beer. Jutting from either side of the wharf were chain barriers, manned by lizard-helmed soldiers. When a barge captain called the proper passwords, the soldiers worked their winches, and wooden barges anchoring the chain separated in the river's center.

Women were washing garments downstream, and farming edible river plants higher upstream, where the current washed into calm pools after passing through a medium sized gorge. Little boys played with slingshots, threw sharp sticks at one another, hit at one another with slabs of wood. Their mothers warned them about putting an eye out. None of the boys listened.

Klomos took his new friends to a wide, flat-bottomed boat. It was equipped with a long sculling oar, poles for shallow water, and a triangular sail. A canopy of dog-leather was held up by a framework of solid branches of bamboo. It kept the sun and and the elements at bay. There was a system of armor platelets that could be raised and placed into frames under the canopy where the sides of the craft were open.

Klomos seemed never to speak when a simple gesture could suffice. He wore baggy trousers of blue cloth, a beige shirt and a leather vest. He wore a necklace in which the knuckle of a long-dead dzujhdu had been encased in precious metal. His hair was cropped short but for a finger-wide strand of pony-tail that was wrapped with a narrow thong.

Before they debarked, Garuvel gave him a multi-skin and showed him its workings. Klomos giggled as he made mistakes with its use. First it balooned into a thin giant sheet that entangled him. Then he shrank it back, dropped it among the debris on the ground and couldn't find it for a few minutes. On his third attempt, he got it right. This was an impressive learning curve. Garuvel had seen people who could never get the hang of the multi-tools.

Then he shaped it into a rakish, floppy hat, and placed it over Klomos' head. The young man smiled with utter guileless pleasure, his eyes disappearing into the folds of his face.

When the passengers had placed their belongings and arranged themselves along the wooden benches in the center of the boat, Klomos made a a jerking motion with two fingers. Attendants on the wharf unfastened the lines. Manning the sculling oar, Klomos steered into the river's current, through the opening in the chains. In a moment, the current seized them, and sent them rocking and bobbing down the gorge.

What an elixir, to be moving in the coolness by some conveyance other than their feet. For the first time, Garuvel saw the moon of Shoms, Zaramutu, as it cut across the early-glow of the ring called Forklion. Mayoom's Crown rayed in its morning direction, briefly fanning the heavens.

The mood was interrupted as the craft sailed past the city's three giant sewage outlets. Some treatment had been applied to it, but it spilled an appalling volume of sludge into the river about a mile below the last outcrops of the city.

When they had at last broken free of the polluted zone, Jaramine took a delighted breath, inhaling the redolence of river plants that waved just below the surface of the moving water. She scooted down to sit beside Klomos. She had listened to enough of the Shoms language to try her skills.

"Klomos," she said, "you seem to be a quiet man. We are strangers on this world; you don't know us, we don't know you. It just won't do. You're going to have to talk to us. Teach us. Do you know what you're in for, making this journey to Klah-Yan?"

Klomos seemed delighted and surprised at the attention. He opened his mouth. It was like pulling a plug. A spill of words came forth.

"I have wanted to get away from Fotabelos so badly. It's a miracle! Out of nowhere, Kringmar grants me my greatest wish. To pass the Twelve Perimeters, to take the Test of Terror and Ecstasy. I have dreamed of this all my life. You have no idea! They say that the Terror is endurable, but the Ecstasy nearly severs the spirit from the body. Of course, only the Dzujhdus know, for sure. But everyone speaks of it. I was at Klah Yan several years as a child, after my parents died from a skystone that landed on our house. My uncle arranged for me to serve the Dzujhdu Klomoto Nakras, who held the seat of number sixty seven. Then he died. I lost his protection, and because of my uncle's debts I was made to serve in the Mahaya Temple in the city of Ha'nar. The high priest, Habazar, is a terrible, venal man. He lolls on the proceeds of spiritual blackmail, soul taxation and afterlife fees. My job was to collect tribute from my home city of Fotabelos. It was awful! I was so ashamed! I have been an exile, a monk in a priest's world, a hermit forced to serve a parish of helpless ancients, sniffling children, to do the bidding of Lalram and Habazar, a pair of drunken sybarites."

He bowed to the boat's occupants, making with his free hand a ritual gesture of tapping himself at seven places from his groin to the crown of his head. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

He fell back, looking at his new friends with embarassment. When he saw their smiles of acceptance, he blushed and turned to adjust the oar.

The ice had been broken. As the day passed, Klomos taught his new friends the language, customs and geography of Shoms. The river on which they rode was the M'rutom. Their immediate destination was Ha'nar, the great city of this continent, Shumar'shoom.

They rose out of the gorge, to pass through a landscape of walled compounds surrounded by planted fields. Women labored in the plots, while men stood in squat towers holding spears and catapults. Orange trees with black leaves leaned over the river, their roots competing in a welter of gnarled tentacles. Creatures half-bird, half-lizard, dropped from the branches into the water, emerging with lavender frogs in their toothed beaks.

Klomos pointed out the pthuludons, camouflaged in the foliage of the banks until they rolled into the water with thunderous crashes.

"See, the barkanarks are hatching, over there." He pointed to a clot of swimming creatures, round things with hard sail-shaped fins on their backs. There seemed to be thousands of them. They jumped from the water in brief arcs, their thumb-shaped heads twisting, looking out for danger.

"The big 'groikers' are fat right now," Klomos explained. "Pthuludons have so much food they won't bother us. I wouldn't dangle part of my body in the water, just the same. Of more danger to us are the Tromz, the river bandits."

In the late afternoon a distant whooshing sound was heard, and the pilgrims scanned the sky. A sonic boom washed over the landscape. Klomos seemed unperturbed, and turned his eyes to the source of the sound, pointing to a reddish object descending at great speed, leaving behind a smoky trail. The object struck the side of a ravine a distance ahead, then tumbled into the river to be extinguished in a hissing cloud of steam.

When they reached the place where the object had splashed into the river, the water was aboil. Corpses of fish, lizards, pthuludons, groikers floated belly up in the turbid water. For some moments, steam stifled breathing, but Klomos skillfully maneuvered around the mass, while the others used multi-sticks to clear the way.

"It is as the Prophecy of Suyunos predicted," he said, pointing to the rings in the sky. "The belt of stones is falling and the belt of dust is floating away into space. Suyunos claimed that these signs portend the end of Shoms."

Garuvel watched the hot swirl of water disappear in the boat's wake.

"How often does this happen?"

"More and more," said Klomos, with something akin to satisfaction.

They entered a narrow channel, and used the long poles to ward themselves off sharp rocks. The current tossed them for a few minutes, then subsided as the banks eased away from the sides of the boat. The low cliffs echoed with alien polyphony: drones, chirrings, shrill barks and hoots.

Klomos began to assemble the armor plates into the framework at the boat's sides. "Better get under the canopy. This is Tromz country."

He took out a knife, assessed its sharpness. "You should have your blades ready. The Tromz will try to pull us ashore with lined arrows and spears. We will cut them loose."

Garuvel took five multi-sticks from his pack, set them into blade shapes, adjusted to razor sharpness. As soon as he had passed them to his companions, a thonk sounded on a piece of lizard-hide armor. Klomos donned an elbow-length sleevelet of leather, and passed one each to his passengers. He reached through a hole in the assembled plating and flicked his blade. More thuds sounded as arrows bounced away. A thonk meant that something had stuck. Soon everyone was busy cutting lines. They saw no one, heard no voices. They rode through a twisting part of the river, cutting, pulling their arms back inside, cutting again.

The Tromz, frustrated, began to shoot their arrows straight up, trying to angle them into the boat. The lines were heavy; the shafts wobbled and plunked into the water.

The channel narrowed and a volley of arrows flew from both banks. Garuvel felt an arrow stick in his leather armlet. The force of it smashed his hand against the gunwale of the boat. He broke the shaft against the side of the opening and drew in his hand, stinging where the flesh had been abraded.

In a moment, the attack was over. The robiots looked exhilirated. Trace seemed about to leap on top of Scianna from sheeer joy. Garuvel had never seen them so animated.

Klomos made a clicking sound with his tongue against his cheek.

"TheTromz eat anything, including people. They'll have to look elsewhere for their supper tonight."

'What else do we have to look forward to on this planet?" Jaramine asked, picking arrowheads from the gauntlet around her wrist.

"Mostly brigands, swindlers, sexual omnivores, drug mutants, hexed magic-war victims, leprous aesthetes and surgical transmutes. Time has dwindled the blood-stock of Shoms. We are not an evolving race. We have devolved from the spiritual giants of our past. Only the Dzujhdus of Klah-Yan keep the esoteric doctrine of Mahaya-Vu alive. There are a few pious tribes hidden in the crags, remote valleys and oases. In Ha'nar we will see the veneer of civilization. Rather than cut-throats and cannibals, we will meet pickpockets and confidence men."

The rest of the day passed with few incidents. A dragon-like flying creature with a twelve-foot wingspan tried to lift them off the river. The travelers fought it off, cutting at its legs and claws with frantic effort. Later, they drifted innocently into a vortex of pthuludons fighting over several human corpses.

Before darkness fell, they came to a wide, smooth part of the river. Klomos stuck the two poles into the bottom, and fastened the boat securely. Then he tossed into the water a number of small buoys, which sank to various depths, emitting a stench of lizard repellant. Several other buoys that floated on the surface contained the pods of a diurnal flower that would shriek during the night if disturbed.

Thus settled, Klomos used the sculling oar to make a portable shrine in the stern of the boat. He took a small statue from his vest and placed it on the oar's flat blade. Back erect, buttocks resting on the soles of his feet, he rocked forward to touch his head to the deck.

The statue had two facades. Klomos first contemplated one side. Inscribed into the blue-black stone was a depiction of a bird with a sharp beak picking at a corpse. For a while, Klomos stared without blinking at this grisly figure. Occasionally he would bow. Garuvel and his companions had the impression that he bowed not to the figure but to an idea that resided deeply in his mind. He did this until the last vestige of light had faded, all of Mayoom's Crown had gone from the ring Peshtrion.

Then Klomos turned the statuette around and repeated his contemplation on a vastly different image. The carved lines depicted a pile of bones and refuse, under which lay a newly blossoming plant. The plant was shaped like a series of tangential spheres, each coming from the open top of the sphere beneath it. At its very pinnacle was a round fruit, which looked, to Garuvel, exactly like the Mobo fruit of his childhood. Rays of light shone through the plant, radiating up and out of the pile of bones.

When he had come out of his trance, Klomos lit a hooded lantern.

Looking at his companions, he perceived their curiosity.

"On the one side," he explained, "is the Dwubu Bird, disposer of mortal things, the Great Cleanser of the world. On the other face is the Elixir Plant of Tabarshi, which represents the sweetness at the heart of life, the attar of eternal wisdom. It is always there. Every plant is already blossoming from its ancestor and giving birth to its descendants. Nothing can stop the eternal process. All we need do is reach in and pluck the fruit." Klomos looked content. He was a man embedded in his purpose; he was neither smug nor riddled with doubt. He had adapted to the chaotic nature of Shoms.

"We should sleep now," he adivsed. "Look at the sky."

For the first time on Shoms, the travelers had a full view of the night sky. Zaramutu hung, a greenish crescent, on the horizon, just beyond the limb of Forklion. Parts of the sky were empty, hidden by the rings that were now in night's shadow. Other parts were full of glowing nebulae and star clusters. Over the entire vault of the heavens, missiles of red, green and blue flew in all directions. They appeared, glowed so bright that the people in the boat could see their shadows for a flickering instant. Then they vanished, swallowed by the maw of darkness. Soon another would flash straight down, branch into two or three swooping meteorites, and strike with a muted dome of light somewhere far away.

No one in the boat could take his or her eyes from the sky. Each meteor brought an involuntary exclamation. Zip! A fireball would cross the sky. "Ahh!" The travelers uttered simultaneously. The display had no end. It was as if the heavens were disintegrating in a rain of beauty. The people in the boat stared until their eyelids became too heavy to support with the awe-struck muscles of their faces.

Chapter Thirty Nine

Where Did The Music Go?

Garuvel slept for two hours. When he awoke, he saw Robolion sitting in the bow of the boat, lighting a cigarette of Dramba, dried river-leaf. He watched Robolion smoke, felt his friend's sadness and doubt wash across the space between them.

When he wriggled from his multi-skin, Garuvel sensed Jaramine coming awake. She didn't speak. She was there. Garuvel touched her lightly on her head, saw her blink. He moved carefully across his sleeping friends and sat next to Robolion. A brilliant fireball briefly lit the musician's face.

"You didn't play anything today, Boli. Not a note."

Robolion exhaled a thin stream of smoke, watched it flouresce against the color of a meteor. "I can't play," he said. "There's nothing to play. And that's the scariest thing I've ever said."

Garuvel did not respond.

"How can I play when I don't feel anything? I'm numb." Robolion flicked the glowing butt into the water. He distracted himself by rolling another cigarette. When it was lit, he inhaled despairingly, pulling the ring of heat halfway down the tube.

"I don't belong here. I'm a fifth wheel. I'm not qualified to take the Test of Terror and Ecstasy. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'll go. I'll take the test. I just don't care whether I survive it or not. At this moment, my life doesn't seem like very much."

"Being Robolion Spdaz isn't enough," Garuvel said flatly.

"No, being Robolion Spdaz is nothing," the musician responded. "I'm nobody."

Garuvel tapped gently at Robolion's forehead with his knuckles, making a knocking sound with his tongue.

"Someone must live in there. Anybody home? Maybe it's not who you thought it was but it's somebody. Are you afraid, when the Test comes, that we'll pass and you'll fail, and then we'll leave you behind?"

The question, coming as it did, stunned Robolion with its clarity. He felt as if he had been dropped into the ocean with a heavy stone tied around his legs. He burst into tears, wrapped his arms around Garuvel and buried his face in his friend's chest. "Oh gods, " he sobbed quietly, "I've been so lonely. I never knew how lonely I've been until we came here. And what you just said...I just know it will happen and you will move into the next phase and I'll be stuck here, by myself, on this weird fucking planet!"

He shook so hard that his face banged against Garuvel's collarbone.

A fireball lit the landscape. The tears then came in a torrent, such as Robolion had never before experienced. Years of loneliness and fear came rising up from the bottom of his soul.

He cried for a long time, sobbing, hiccuping, pausing to wipe his nose. He was glad of the darkness, glad that Garuvel could not see the face he wore, the squinched-up face of a squalling little toddler. Once in a while, when he could pull his face down into a more acceptable mask, he would look at Garuvel. What he saw was his own face looking back at him, sad and lonely. He knew, then, that Garuvel understood, that he was not judging or shaming Robolion Spdaz.

The crying gradually subsided into a series of drawn-out, shaking sighs. Robolion sat up, cupped some river water to wash his face. His eyes met Garuvel's and they thanked him.

The N'thumbu had been sitting at the opposite end of the boat. Moving gently, Robolion retrieved his instrument. In the dark, Garuvel saw its colored diodes wink on. After a pause, he heard the most unobtrusive of sounds. It was like a lullaby; it would not enter the ears of sleeping people, but wash over and around them with a wave of sweet reassurance. Robolion played for his friends, for the night, for himself.

Garuvel spent the rest of the night looking at the sky. Zaramutu crossed, was occulted first by one ring, then the other. It set well before dawn. After it had disappeared, the treasures of Shoms' night sky arrayed themselves, as if a piratical jewel merchant was laying out his wares on the velveteen blackness of a cape.

Klomos woke to see Garuvel staring at a certain portion of the sky. He looked, at that moment, as if his mind were a deep well. If one were to drop a stone into its depths, it would fall, without bouncing off the sides, for a long, long way. When it hit bottom, it would splash with brief radiance, and ripples of light would expand and then disappear.

The rings were taking the light of Mosht, well before the coming of dawn on the planet's surface.

"Don't stare at the place where the rings cross for too long," Klomos warned. "People go mad; they do strange things. They think they can fly to the moon."

Garuvel pulled his eyes away. "What is it about Zaramutu? I watched it through my scanner. It has no surface features; just a pale green orb."

"It is sometimes called 'The Rogue Moon'. Its orbit is highly irregular. Sometimes it swings far away, shrinks in the sky. Other times it becomes so large that it casts shadows. Only the Dzujhdus have mastered the predictive art of its motions. In the eighteenth sodol of Mahaya-Vu, it is said that the Dzujhdus will retire to Zaramutu to ride out the end of the world." At that moment a fireball landed a few miles away. They heard a sonic boom as it flew overhead, then, twenty seconds later, the muffled thud of its landing.

Everyone in the boat was awake. Klomos pulled in his buoys and his alarm pods. They ate flat bread with arpak as they got underway. As the morning unfolded, there were hoots of owls,coming three at a time, that seemed to follow them down the river. Though it sounded like a signal to Garuvel, Klomos waved away their suspicions.

"A hunting krolny," he explained. "Eating open-shelled muzzies that float up in our wake."

The M'rutom gained in width, the current became more sluggish. Klomos raised the triangular sail, used the sculling oar for a rudder. Having come out of the badlands, the travelers saw a landscape that seemed lush by the standards of Shoms. Verdant farmlands stretched to the horizon. Livestock grazed, waterwheels turned casually, small boats with colored sails plied the river. Guard towers were never far from sight. Squads of armed men walked the dikes, splashed across fallow paddies.

Garuvel watched the landscape through his opti-scanner. He saw the small boats give way for a large, multi-oared ship. It glided towards them ominously; a man standing in its bow shouted, there was a pom-pom sound, laying the rhythm for the oarsmen.

"Klomos, quick, tell us about Ha'nar." Garuvel watched the ship as it closed the distance between them.

Klomos worked his fingernail between his teeth, as if something had stuck there. He hawked over the side of the boat.

"They are hysterically pious, the Ha'nari. They seal their fear up inside reassuring ceremonies, lavish spectacles at the Mahaya temple. They sign themselves incessantly," here he made a circle of his hand, and moved it in front of his groin three times. "They smile and smile, and reiterate how their souls are safe from the vicissitudes of Shoms. Oh, they'll love the Skull of Kringmar. Don't worry, we won't have any trouble. Show them the mighty one's headbone, and the city will be yours."

The warship drew up alongside them, turned to face downstream, and two lines with hooks at the end were tossed to fasten them tightly to its side. The officer standing above his rowing men put out a hand to a man at the stern. The juggler, ceased tossing three balls at the tightened skin circle between his legs. The pom-pom stopped; the oars lifted.

"What is your business in Ha'nar?"

The officer had round eyes, orange-brown skin. The men at the oars were motley; there were wiry Hekhma, and slack-jawed men with square faces and pale skin. There were tall thin ebony men with teeth filed to points and spikes of hair standing straight from their shaven heads. All the rowers were staring at Jaramine and Scianna. Chewing, smiling, winking, they elbowed each other and spoke in low rumbling whispers.

Jaramine thought it best to avert her gaze entirely. Scianna followed her lead. The officer was making an effort not to look at them. Once in a while, his gaze would bounce off Jaramine's eyes like a rebounding cue ball.

Klomos nodded to her. She unfastened her pack and brought out Kringmar's skull. The officer put both hands to cover his eyes, then reached down with the right hand, made a circle of his fist, and jerked it in front of his crotch three times. The oarsmen and the juggler repeated the gesture. When it was done, the officer turned his back to the small boat and pointed. The pom pom rhythm started. Three balls met the drum skin with enthusiastic precision. The juggler/drummer's hands whizzed in a smooth continuous exchange of balls. Boom boom, da-boom boom, da-boom boom; he never dropped the rhythm, though spray flew in his face and the ship teetered in turbid waters.

They were carried into the city of Ha'nar, at the confluence of the M'rutom and Vulyana rivers. The city spread beyond sight in all directions. Wooden bridges spanned various canals and tributaries. Smoke, noise and hustle were everywhere. Textile dyers spread vast squares of material along the banks, to dry in the sun. Docks and jetties clotted with centuries of filth and barnacles stuck out into the water. Customs officers and policemen strode up and down officiously.

The ship and its captive boat reached a place where the river was blocked by nets above and below the surface. The vessels maneuvered through four nets and a wooden gate, into a large shaded holding pen. Other warships were being painted, repaired and provisioned. The officer leaped down; the pier boomed hollowly under his feet. He conferred with a man in ecclesiastical garb.

The priest wore a tall cylindrical hat and a turquoise colored gown embroidered with clouds, rings,meteor trails and a ghostly rendition of Zaramutu. Listening to the officer, he made the sign of hands-over-face followed by the circled jerking fist. With his eyes averted, he ran forward and gave cloth masks to Trace.

"Here," he said urgently, "have the women put these on."

It was a mask, to be tied around the eyes and fastened in back. Made of black cloth, it had round bulging eyepieces of mesh cloth. The wearer could see out; no one could see in. Painted across the eyepieces were stylized blue eyes, open to gaze innocently upon the world.

Klomos explained. "In Ha'nar, a woman's eyes, when bared, are considered the most blatant sexual enticement. Only prostitues go about with partially bared eyes, or with 'hint-shades', with winking eyes painted on them. I suggest, " he adressed the ladies, "that you keep these firmly in place."

Jaramine and Scianna tied the things around their faces.

"You could have told us about this before we arrived," Jaramine chided.

"I'm sorry," Klomos looked slightly amused. "I just wanted to bother them."

Jaramine knew she looked ridiculous. "Don't you dare," she warned. Garuvel and the others solemnly refrained from laughing.

"Klomos, are there any other strange customs we should know about, before we enter Ha'nar?" Jaramine looked this way and that, testing her peripheral vision.

"Beware of pickpockets," he said, smiling a secretive smile. "It is an honored profession here. Women with closed eyes painted on their masks are carriers of venereal disease. Other than that, the social graces of Ha'nar are a matter of acquisition. Depending on your culture and background, you may find them revolting, amusing, quaint, bizarre....it is a matter of taste. You wil find that most Hanarians speak from all sides of both their mouths." He delivered this last sentence with a glint of malicious humor.

The priest made a signal and a carriage rolled forward. It was pulled by two ox-like beasts with stiff spiny hair and spatulate horns a yard wide. He stepped forward as the small boat's occupants lifted themselves onto the pier.

"I am the Second Degree Priest Porvaht," he said, bowing low to the ground. As he did so, he emitted a fart of great duration, that ended with a musical lilt. He eyed the newcomers expectantly, until Klomos screwed up his face and farted back, equally long, with a querulous whine at the end.

The air was filled with robust nuances.

The city of Ha'nar teemed with ornate carriages and crawled with emaciated beggars living in scrap-board hovels. Since metal had become scarce, old foundries had been abandoned, and squatters fought over scraps of slag.

There were long queues of people waiting outside agencies that exchanged physical labor for food, medicine and clothing. Women went about with a thousand variations of mask: full hoods, hats with eye-veils, discreet stringy masks with two round orbs, lace hanky-masks, scented wing-faces. Prostitutes plied the avenues and alleyways, wearing contrivances to show a bit of pupil, a corner of an eye. Sounds and odors of flatulence filled the air: the strangers quickly became accustomed to the pallette of smells.

They arrived at a building that could only be the Temple of Mahaya-Vu.

It was circular, made of worked and hewn blocks of stone. There were huge pillars, made from single pieces of quarried brightstone, topped by gorgon heads framing the entrance. Two coachmen respectfully opened the carriage, and led the visitors up fourteen giant steps. Wooden doors swung wide with a gasp.

They were taken through a maze of hallways lit by chemo-luminescent tubes. Blue robed priests with tall cylindrical hats were coming and going, escorting dignitaries dressed in jingling yards of dotted cloth.

Porvaht spoke woodenly, as if he had delivered this patter a thousand times.

"This is the greatest Temple of Mahaya-Vu on Shoms. The maze represents the vicissitudes of the approach to the godhead of Mahaya. His lesser deities are worshipped in sub-temples here within the maze."

He pointed as they passed a chamber filled with worshippers, who were laying upon their sides on the floor, placing their feet upon one another's heads.

"Mahaya, is, of course, the physical manifestation of the Vu, the Great Vu. He subdivides himself into the myriad Vu's that worshippers of less stringent will are capable of adressing, according to the state of their spiritual evolution."

Klomos snorted softly and suppressed a yawn.

They came, after many twists and turns, to the great chamber of Mahaya-Vu. It was huge, lofty, and empty but for the statue of Mahaya at the far arc of the circular enclosure.

Porvaht grew silent. He made the gesture of the eyes and the closed fist, then prostrated himself so that his chest and knees touched the floor, with his buttocks remaining elevated. Using knees and elbows, he snaked forward to the base of the colossal statue and farted a series of rhythmic, multi-tonal farts. Then he sat on his haunches at the base of the statue and nodded to his guests, expecting them to make the same obeisance.

Klomos cleared his throat. "We are candidates for the Passage of the Twelve Perimeters and the Test of Terror and Ecstasy. It is forbidden to us to make the ritual obeisance."

The priest grunted and rose. "Come, then. Habazar will know if you speak truly or not."

Before following Porvaht, the group paused to eye the statue of Shoms' principal deity. Its rectanglar block of a head was half the length of its body, to accomodate multiple sense organs. Four giant ears were placed at each corner of the head. It had four noses with four nostrils in each nose. A toothless mouth grinned evilly in each of the cardinal directions. There were arms and legs too numerous to count. The hands held everything from instruments of torture to sheaves of grain. The legs, some of them raised in mid-step, dripped mud, blood and gore. Emerging from the lower torso, a giant penis stood erect, while halfway up its length four smaller penises emerged like growing mushrooms.

The statue glistened with high polish, made from a green jade-like stone.

Porvaht led them down a corridor and through a beaded curtain. He bowed to the person seated behind a long, low table.

"Oh Habazar," he said, "I bring you those who claim to be the Bearers of Kringmar."

Habazar was round and shiny as a klak-ball. He was working with brush, pots and pigment upon a religious scroll. His teeth were stained dark brown, with only two uppers and two lowers remaining. He smiled and farted; the gaseous commentary was dramatic, beginning with a low sibilance, rising to a bombastic crescendo.

Klomos made the obligatory response, which was evidently appropriate.

"Well now, " Habazar said expansively, "have a cushion, relax yourselves. Klomos Kring-Atascu, it seems that you have at last found a way to relieve yourself from your duties here with the Temple. At least, if what is said about Kringmar's bearers is true. You have tried before to evade what you consider stultifying work. Porvaht," he adressed his underling, "bring bhuta-cakes and cha."

His attention returned to his guests. "Sit sit sit! Be at ease. Show me this remarkable object, this...this thing that has stirred such a spiritual frenzy." His manner was redolent of skepticism. He farted along with his own words, an olfactory sub-text. He deftly studied the shapes of Jaramine and Scianna.

Stiffly, Jaramine opened her pack, brought forth the black skull.

Habazar ponderously heaved his wattles upright, to come around the table. He put his ringed hand forward to touch the skull.

Instinctively, Jaramine pulled it back.

"Well, how can I ascertain its authenticity, if I cannot inspect it?"

"Wait," Jaramine instructed, and turned to the skull. Her eyes became ringed with fire. The red sockets of the skull responded. Kringmar wafted forth, to hover before them in his skin cape and sandaled feet.

Habazar reeled backward, farting short ripping sounds.

"So," Kringmar said acerbically, "I see you've reached the Fortress of Farts. I guess this is the latest Gas Goblin. "

Habazar prostrated himself, buttocks in the air, without control of his flatulence.

Kringmar pointed with his foot at the shivering Habazar.

"This, I presume, is the biggest fart in the Mahaya Temple. Ah, but I shouldn't pass value judgments. Let them fart. One man's stench is another's perfume. Well, I've appeared again. I suppose I must, to save you trouble at the hands of this flatulent charlatan. It's getting to be a strain on the old pranash, going out of my skull so much."

He beamed down fondly upon Scianna and Jaramine, then jerked his head as if affronted. "They're still using those Cursed eye-masks! It 's one of the most stupid customs I've ever encountered. Boit's Testicles, the crap humans get up to in making their cultures."

Kringmar stirred the high priest with a sandaled toe. Habazar wailed, tried to sign with his hands and his clenched fist. Finding it impossible to do these things prostrate with his hind end sticking up, he wailed with despair and rolled onto his side.

"Do you understand, fart-face?" Kringmar loaded his voice with sarcastic authority. "Interfere with my friends, and I will return to haunt you and turn your farts to liquid!"

Kringmar chortled and faded back into his skull's eye sockets. As the skull settled on the woven rug in front of Jaramine, the sound of Kringmar's derisive laughter boomed across the dome of the temple.

Habazar's spastic fluting slowly diminished. He finally looked up.

"Is he gone?" Mopping his brow with the hem of his robe, he seated himself upon his cushion. "I have been of the priesthood for forty years. I scoffed at stories of Dzujhdu powers. Peasant tales, superstition! The stuff abounds on Shoms. But this...this skull. He's been dead for millenia! It's not possible." He checked under the table, looked askance at his five guests. "I know there are machines....projection devices....." He toyed distractedly with the quill. It slipped from his trembling fingers. "But he touched me with his foot....oh no...." He put his face in his hands. Dabs of paint from the scroll mixed with his sweat.

"Are you satisfied now?" Klomos drummed his knee with his fingers.

Habazar was obviously struggling to reconstruct his world view. A look of calculation began to spread across his paint-smeared face. There must be some advantage in this!, his eyes seemed to say.

"Oh yes, yes, I wouldn't dream of obstructing the will of the revered Dzujhdu. Ah...perhaps while you are in Ha'nar, you would consent to be honored by the Ha'nar Merchant's Guild? And a series of personal appearances could be arranged for the Acolytes Of The Lower Vu......"

"Impossible," Klomos interrupted curtly. "It is the wish of Kringmar to be conveyed at utmost speed to Klah-Yan."

Habazar twitched and pointed the quill at Klomos. Its wide end quavered like a wheat stalk in the wind. "You forget yourself, orphan! You forget who....."

The skull, which had been facing Jaramine, slowly but inexorably turned to stare at the priest, its orbs glowing red.

"Uh! My apologies." He emitted a placatory vapor. "I will make the arrangements. You will stay at Ha'nar's finest accomodation, the Inn of the Million Tribes. Varbin Dzupa owes the temple many a back tithe. He will see to your comfort." Habazar turned to his scroll, weakly. "If you'll forgive me, my pigments are drying. I must complete the Tale of Hoorkanoor Kekka. He was the first Dzujhdu to walk a mile with each step.. He invented the Flying Wind Walk."

Habazar turned to a paint pot, pretending to concentrate. A little seep of gas escaped from between his corpulent lower cheeks.

Klomos intercepted Porvaht, who had just arrived with cakes and cha. He took a piece and stuffed it into his mouth with a smirk. Dusting the crumbs from his hands onto the sub-priest's sleeve, he threw his head back and quaffed a cup of cha. He crooked a finger at his new friends and led them out of the temple.

Chapter Forty

Inn Of The Million Tribes

"Shoms? Isn't that a barbershop on Piskel's Planet?"

–Overheard at space depot

The Inn of the Million Tribes looked as its name implied. The primary structure had three basic stories, out of which jutted towers, kiosks, pediments, arbors, rotundae, garrets, lofts, blank windows, painted windows of every imaginable shape. There were countless gables, awnings, pendants, weather vanes, talismans, antlers and lizard tails poking from each crevice.

When Klomos and his party were ushered down from the carriage by the doormen, the innkeeper rushed out and emitted a fart that seemed amplified. It echoed from the other structures on the avenue. His hair was shaved in a spiral entwining his head, ending with a tuft that poked from the top of his skull. One ear had been lopped off and replaced with an ear of precious metal. He wore a chaos of costume parts, from as many tribes as he could fit over his body: two different gloves, two different shoes, a patchwork vest, a segmented shirt, pantaloons with legs of different shapes. A kilt was belted around his waist by a snake-skin set with jewels. All of this was topped by a cape of tattooed human skin.

"Magnificent travelers," he effused, "courageous bearers of holy relics to even holier shrines. You risk your souls to persist, to drink at the fount of wisdom, to taste of infinity!"

He babbled, and his hands seemed to be everywhere, shaking those of his guests, clutching at their clothes, beating his own brow with the back of his wrist. Klomos interposed his body between those of his friends and the innkeeper's.

"Varbin Dzupa, stop your clamor." He gripped the hostelman around the biceps, dragging his hands down. Garuvel had clutched his pack tightly, eyes following every movement.

"We are tired and hungry," Klomos said, keeping Dzupa's hands pinned to his sides. He turned the innkeeper toward the entrance. Dzupa looked back over his shoulder.

"I am so fascinated by exotic travelers. I can't control my enthusiasm. Come with me, I can make you very comfortable. What sort of room would you like? You can sleep in a Krazny Slave Lord's Pinnacle. Or a Frillion Pirate's Ship? Or a K'bonga Arrow-swallower's convalescent bed?"

Klomos wobbled his head in a figure eight. "Something simple will be fine. Do you have a Konya V'har room?"

Dzupa hesitated in Klomos' grip, frowning. "Konya V'har? You must be joking. That would be nothing but a cave with a wooden bowl. Who would want that?"

They had climbed the first flight of stairs. Wearily, Robolion walked into the first room he saw. He unslung his N'thumbu and heaved himself onto a mattress shaped like a question mark.

"This will be fine."

Garuvel and Jaramine took the next room. The others availed themselves of the nearest unoccupied chambers. The doors closed. Varbin Dzupa stood pulling at his lower lip, working with his tongue at a cavity in his rear-most tooth.

"The floor show is at three-quarter the glass!" He called to the silent doors. Turning around, he shouted down the curving corridor. "The floor show is at three-quarter the glass! Everybody! Don't miss it!"

He climbed the stairs and repeated this message on the next floor, and the next, the volume of his voice diminishing as he climbed. At last there was relative silence. Some incomprehensible sounds came from behind various doors in the corridor. There was a mysterious gurgling across the hall. From an other chamber there was nervous chatter in a language that sounded like a person choking to death. Deep blasts of some trumpet-like insrument came from farther away.

When they had rested, the pilgrims descended into the restaurant cabaret. It was, to the relief of all, a room of bland simplicity. A sprinkling of people sat and conversed out of both ends, drinking aperitifs at round tables. On a small stage there were bellows- like contrivances and open frameworks set over pivoting chairs.

Appearing in a cloud of his own waft, Dzupa bowed to Garuvel's table and let a short, simple fart.

"What you just heard was the emission of a novice student at the University of Gastric Winds. My trade-fart, however, famous all over Shoms is....." and he proceeded to cut his booming clarion call.

Klomos, with a pinched look, responded in kind.

"Ah! Very good." Dzupa nodded vigorously. "Although I don't personally subscribe to such angst." He pulled up a stool and sat, with his elbows on the table. "I'm considered something of a virtuoso, you know. Two of the one hundred fourteen main types of flatulence are named for my ancestors. It is an alphabet, you see, that every child of Ha'nar learns from the time he or she can control the rectal muscles and the bowel winds. As Bonazumpto, one of the great pioneers of the art of farting said, 'it is infintely more pleasurable and beneficial to health to fart outwardly with relish than inwardly with pain.'"

A waiter, wearing a pill-box hat surrounded by a cloth donut, arrived with a tray of square cheeses. Dzupa picked up a cube with a flourish. "Chew these thoroughly, and you will produce mild-smelling short-durations. Swallow them whole, and you will produce dignified long-and-sweets. Go ahead, try them. Everything from romantic gallantry and chivalric punctilio to warlike declarations can be perceived through duration, pitch, smell, number of warbles, rhythmic spacing and so forth."

Robolion crumpled a fistful and stuffed them in his mouth. Garuvel choose a pink cube and chewed thoughtfully. The ladies declined. Trace popped one cheese into his mouth, paused, popped a second. Then, with his cheeks bulging, placed a third between his lips, sucked, dipped his chin, and swallowed them all.

Klomos took a single cube and waved the tray off.

"Excellent!" Varbin Dzupa clapped his hands, his head turning on the stalk of his neck, taking in the sight of new patrons entering the cabaret. "You're off to a good start. I have my duties, if you'll excuse me. Just wave to Kurric, here, your waiter, for anything you need."

He bowed, crossed the room like a freighter at full steam, bellowing from his behind.

The room filled. The elite of Ha'nar sashayed to tables, wearing polka dot togas, gesturing with their closed fists, hands over eyes. The ladies wore masks with eyeballs jutting out on springs, or naughty fake lashes. The odor was sweet but musky, the sound like an amplified rain shower hitting a metal sheet.

Dzupa ascended the stage amid a flourish of perfumy flocculence.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! It is a pleasure to see you, smell you and hear you tonight, at the Inn of the Million Tribes. We have a special treat. I know you've been waiting months for the return of your favorite group; so here they are. First, the band, the famous 'Gaseous Cluster', let's give them a butt."

As the musicians bounded onto the stage, there was a ritual roaring like the bellowing of annoyed sheep. The band immediately began to play an odd, screedly melody, using the bellows-like contraption to make fart- sounds that came in perfect syncopation.

Dzupa pranced up and down the stage, knees bent, legs lifted high, skin cape flapping. He turned to the audience, now using a megaphone, and shouted "All right! All right! Here they are–-you need wait no longer, yes! The Warbling Windows!"

The sheep-bellowing sound rose to a pitch of enthusiasm, then subsided as the stars of the show took their positions in the framework devices on pivoting chairs. Their costumes were various but all of them turned to show bared buttocks. As the band went into a galloping rondelay, the Warbling Windows tilted themselves up with their asses to the audience. An assistant with several hoses leading to as many tanks of special accesory gas fitted the perfomers with their tubes and hustled back to the side of the stage, where his control panel of dials and valves was set up for the show.

Looking back over their shoulders coyly, the Warbling Windows produced a perfect four-part harmony, contrapuntal and intricate. Then, with the aid of assistants carrying small burners, they ignited their vapors into plumes of fabulous length and color. Fans of crimson and gold waved across the stage like auroral discharges. At one point, two of the performers stood back to back and produced a vivid picture of Forklion and Peshtrion, while a third pushed a sphere representing Zaramutu across the rings.

The audience was rendered fartless.

Garuvel and his group made a fair attempt at gravity. Once in a while an abdomen would twitch, a nostril would pinch. But their faces remained dignified, even fascinated.

When the show was over, they returned to their rooms. By chance, Garuvel and Jaramine had selected the chamber of the Gasmenders Orgy Yurt. It was one huge bed, with erotic devices placed at strategic positions.

They spent some time puzzling over the usage of some of these instruments. They laughed and tumbled together when they had worked them out.

Garuvel had a slightly distracted look. Jaramine could feel that his muscles were kinked; his heart-beat was a trifle fast. Then, just as they were about to kiss, a psychic phantom, turned loose within their embrace, skittered across the space between their lips.

"Whoa! What was that?" Jaramine jerked her head back.

Garuvel knew exactly what she was talking about.

"I'm not all here, tonight. Something's bothering me. I think I'm afraid; and I don't know what it is."

With her elbow sinking into the soft down of the bed, Jaramine laid her face in the palm of her hand. Her other hand stroked the back of Garuvel's neck. "Where is it? Can you locate it?"

Garuvel closed his eyes, let his face go lax. "It's in the pit of my stomach; but that's always the case. My heart is going, and I can't get the breath to slow it down. I don't know.....let me see...."

He tried to sink deeper into himself, met an obstacle. "Oh yeah... my arms hurt, both of them, in a band right around the biceps. What is that, what is that?"

"When did something happen to your arms?" Jaramine's voice was cool, soft, distant. "Let an image rise. Your arms, your arms."

Garuvel sat upright. "I know! That's where Vizmir's robiots grabbed me, when I was in the cell. And they hit me with that weapon, the neuromitter."

"So what's the connection, between that trauma and what you feel now?"

Garuvel slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Boraz! He's Calakadon. He will know how to get to Shoms. I've known he was coming since we landed."

"He has a certain stupid fixity," Jaramine observed.

"I gather that was Calakadon." Garuvel laid back, somewhat relieved to know the source of his tension. "They were stubborn, fixated, never letting go of some insane goal."

But still, he could not relax. He lay there with Jaramine gathered into the nest of his arms, thinking. His heart still beat too fast.

"There's more, isn't there?"

He pulled her tight and rocked her. "I can't shake this worry. I can't push the thought out of my mind, that something might happen to you. And that's the worst fear of all; it dwarfs the fear for myself."

"It always does, my sweet love." Jaramine rubbed the stubble on Garuvel's chin, scratched him fondly behind the ear like a dog. "If you love someone, you'll never get over that vulnerability. What can I say? Wouldn't you rather love than be safe from that threat?"

Garuvel swallowed a bitter gob of saliva that had sprung unbidden into his mouth. "Yes. And I know all that about how only our bodies die, but it's hard to absorb when you're living inside the body that loves the person that lives inside another body."

With her thumb and forefinger, Jaramine found the spot of tension at the top of Garuvel's nose, massaged the inner corner of his eye sockets. His breathing subsided; his heartbeat relaxed.

"There's no cure for that one," she murmured, as he fell asleep.

Chapter Forty One

Quake

"The only position of compassion is one of true equality."

Klarzit Shmet, fifteenth Dzujhdu

First there was a distant rumbling. Garuvel and Jaramine woke at the same instant. The beaded curtain that led to the shower stall began to click together. A solemn drumbeat, gathering, coming toward them, could be felt even through the padding of the bed.

Garuvel punched a chemoluminescent tube. As the yellow light came up, he saw the pupils of Jaramine's eyes open wide like phosphorescent lakes. He threw her jumpsuit at her, stuffed his legs into his own. The bed rocked, the building groaned like a stiff old man. Sounds of objects falling in nearby rooms merged with the clatter of masonry toppling from the Tanners Guild castle across the street.

They grabbed their packs and headed for the door, but before they could reach it, a beam fell in from the floor above them. They coughed in the dust, stepped over the wooden obstacle. The door itself was collapsing. Its lintel cracked at the center, and the two halves formed a V, which stabbed down into their escape route.

They were about to turn back to one of the shattered windows, when Trace and Robolion appeared. The robiot wedged his back against one side of the door, his feet against the other. Robolion raised his arms.

"Come on!" Robolion's N'thumbu was between his legs. The pressure of the wood frame made his knees buckle, and the instrument fell. He ignored it. "Let's go, let's go!"

Garuvel and Jaramine ducked between the bodies of their friends. Scianna and Klomos were in the hall, holding all the packs and gear. The inn began to twist on itself, timbers bending and breaking, with sounds like guns being fired.

The travelers fell, or were pushed, down the curving staircase, just as it gave way. It collapsed upon itself like a winded accordian.

They were almost smothered in a press of bodies. Patrons of the inn, naked or partly clothed, groped in panic towards the street. The building spat them out like a caustic seed. They fell into the center of the avenue, into a channel free of falling masonry.

A few minutes stretched into forever, until they were over, then collapsed into the blink of an eye. The surface of Shoms relaxed. Its buckling lithic plates, aroused from slumber, yawned, turned over, and went back to sleep.

The city of Ha'nar was a smoking ruin. A collective scream went up, a cacophony of human sirens evoking their terror. Wails of fear and loss came from a few feet away, then blocks away, then miles away, yet the more distant screams were louder.

Garuvel assessed himself and his companions. They were intact. They had the puzzle-pieces, the psychifacts, Kringmar's skull.

Robolion looked at his empty hands. "I guess N'thumbu's gone." He dusted his hands. "That's it."

Garuvel, still sitting on the rubble of the street, reached behind his back, groped, felt something. He hadn't even known he'd grabbed the object. He handed the N'thumbu to Robolion.

For a moment, the musician viewed his instrument with distaste.

"Thought I was rid of the thing. Almost wish I was." He handled its ivory length gingerly, then smiled. "Ah, hell, it's a beautiful instrument. It's like a part of my body. I'd feel very strange without it."

The sound of individual screams began to differentiate from the din. Jaramine made a motion as if to go to the rescue of trapped victims. Klomos restrained her.

"It's no use," he said. "Soon the Mazmoholu will be here."

"Mazmoholu?" Her face was caked with white dust. She seemed to be still wearing an eyemask, her rounded sockets dark with the color of her own flesh.

"Murderers from the desert. They always know when and where an earthquake will occur. It's the way they make their living. We must leave. They butcher everyone, like a horde of devouring insects."

The city was burning. Odors of singed stone, scorched wood, incinerated flesh, assailed their nostrils. They joined a procession of refugees. Above them, through the haze, four meteors abreast seemed to detach themselves from the darkened ring and swoop across the sky.

An incoherent mob, thousands strong, fled from Ha'nar. People shielded themselves from ash with umbrellas made from their own clothing. Many were heading for the river. Klomos led his charges away from the water.

"Mazmoholu will be in boats, waiting up and downstream. Better we head for the desert. We can see what's coming."

They followed Klomos, trudging into the night. Through the smoke, eerie Zaramutu sidled past the rings. It seemed to smirk down at them, though its features revealed nothing. Garuvel adjusted his scanner to maximum and watched its surface zoom in to fill his eyepieces. It was a featureless, waxy green orb. Just as he was about to take his eye from the instrument, he thought he saw something, a speck, crawling along the moon's surface like a bug traversing a plate. He looked again, shook his head to clear his eyes. A waft of smoke from the city crossed his lenses, and when it cleared, there was nothing. It might have been a bird, high in the atmosphere, or a piece of ash rising on the heated updraft.

Chapter Forty Two

Mazmoholu

"So much of what we learn about love is learned from its absence."

Harl Plesniak

Klomos led them parallel to the Vulyana River, working outward through the fertile belt that ran for a few miles on both sides of the waterway. There were some toppled silos, a few collapsed barns, but otherwise the farms of the region had suffered less from the disaster. Their guard towers were manned, doors and windows shuttered; vigilant householders paced their verandas with bows, clubs and dart guns at the ready.

Klomos led Garuvel and his friends across the furrows of recently harvested fields, climbing over canebreaks and hedgerows, avoiding people. Fat, moaning burghers and their wives and children huddled exhausted in the moon-pale shadows of woodsheds.

Looking back toward Ha'nar, Garuvel and his friends saw a sky shuddered with flame, as agitated meteors whickered overhead like so many taunts.

"It would be a good idea to make a camouflage cape of our multi-skins," Klomos suggested. He expanded his skin into a blanket-shape and adjusted its color to match the reflected glow of Zaramutu off the plowed fields. The others followed suit. They were crouched in the lee of a dike, above a canal of brackish water. Garuvel poured some of the water through the beaker of his processor, and passed around a flask to drink.

They resumed walking, careful and quiet. The hoots of a krolny came through a stand of angular trees. Garuvel paid it no mind, but Klomos froze, listened for a second, then hit the ground and pulled his cape completely over his body. As he went down, he hissed a warning.

The others emulated Klomos and hid themselves. The sound of cloven hoofs drummed through wet dirt. A squadron of dark men appeared on the top of the dike, riding horse-like creatures with pointed beaks and quilled foreheads.

Mazmoholu. They reined up, and clods of dirt from the mounts' hooves fell onto Garuvel's multi-skin. The dark men circled and jostled silently, rocking their heads from side to side, listening for the sound of prey.

Garuvel eased his scanner slowly to his eye, deftly turning the eyepiece setting for night vision. He slipped a lens to the multi-skin's crevice. The face of a Mazmoholu leaped at him. The marauder's skin was a glossless black. A spike of white hair jutted from his skull, half a meter in length. Long straight fangs desceneded from the corners of his mouth. The eyes were the eyes of night; nothing shone there.

There seemed to be no leader of the group. They kicked one another's steeds with spiked boots, drawing blood and snarls from the gaunt animals. Jostling with one another on the dike, the Mazmoholu exchanged a few grunts. One of them pointed to something and galloped off. All but one followed immediately. A single Mazmoholu remained behind, sniffing, rocking his head, pulling the reins of his mount so that it danced backwards. He leaned to one side, slipping halfway from his snarling beast, and looked down to where Garuvel and his friends lay concealed.

"Muh! Mukhh! Muh!" he said. Then he turned his steed in a tight circle and galloped away.

The pilgrims waited for Klomos to move. He remained completely still for ten minutes, then threw the multi-skin off of himself.

"Let's go!" Klomos whispered. "Let's get off this dike. Into the fields, away from any path! That was Gorlon Mokichool. I'm amazed he didn't smell us." He kissed the multi-skin, then draped it over his shoulder.

The green of the Vulyana's fertile belt ended abruptly. The travelers stepped from a perfect furrow of newly sprouted vegetables onto an expanse of wind-smoothed rock and drifting sand. Klomos pointed to a line of low, barren hills, just as the light of Zaramutu was cut off by its passage over Forklion. The landscape went dark. The sky flared with stars and pinwheeling fireballs.

Klomos urged his friends to run across the open ground, into a ravine cut by a creek bed. A trickle of water ran at the bottom of this channel. They followed it up the side of the hill. When they reached the top and looked back, they could see Ha'nar burning. Sounds of screams floated on the air. A hot wind gusted at their bodies, carrying bitter, eye stinging particles.

They walked until they could walk no more. Zaramutu had set. Baleful Mosht had soaked the horizon with crimson blotches. A legion of insects began to hail the dawn with a chorus of near-human calls; they seemed to be chanting "OOOZ-NEEE, OOOZ-NEEE", the first syllable low, the second high.

Klomos found a shallow cave, into which they crowded themselves, and lay down in their multi-skins. Garuvel could not dissuade him from taking the first watch, so they piled several large squarish rocks into a screen in front of the cave, and sat down behind the barrier while the rest of the group fell into exhausted slumber.

The morning grew like an unpleasant revelation. They were in a scrubby, dusty barren that looked like a mining tip abandoned for ten thousand years. Despite this, Garuvel began to feel light-headed.

"This is the most depressing single spot in the universe, and I feel great," he thought. "There's no problem here."

Inexplicably, a bubble of mirth had lodged in his chest. It began to expand, and Garuvel thought of the scene at the Inn of the Million Tribes.

"It wouldn't have been polite to laugh then, but boy do I want to laugh now," he thought. A preliminary snicker escaped his mouth. He looked at Klomos. The young man returned his gaze with a look of almost ghastly self-mockery. Garuvel found this even funnier than the thought of the Inn, and began to giggle.

Klomos pointed at him and put his other hand over his mouth. He bounced up and down, and an uncontrolled blurp flapped the material of his pants as he rose with the rhythm of his silent laughter.

At this, Garuvel clapped his hands together and rocked backwards, a few gusts of hilarity getting past his remaining sense of restraint.

Jaramine appeared, looking momentarily curious. Then a smile lit her face.

"Oh yeah," Garuvel said, rising from his haunches, both arms outstretched. He wanted her! She was so delicious! Right now!

They collided under the rock awning, hands scratching at one another's backs, fumbling with the zippers of their jump suits. They fell over, snorting and giggling.

The sound of the N'thumbu oozed from the back of the cave. Trace was whuffing at Scianna. While Robolion played a sinuous rhythmic erotic snarl, the two couples rolled together, and Klomos jumped on top, loosening his pantaloons.

The music stopped, so abruptly that there was a sense of having walked off a cliff without knowing that a fall would soon follow.

The intoxication was gone. Garuvel looked up through the pile of bodies, from under Jaramine's armpit. His heart jumped in his chest. Sealing off the front of the cave was a squadron of Mazmoholu. They stood before their mounts, holding lengths of leather attached to muzzles around the animals' beaks.

One of the Mazmoholu, who must have been Gorlon Mokichool, held two of their packs by the backstraps. The packs were Garuvel's and Jaramine's. They contained the puzzle-pieces, the psychifacts and Kringmar's skull.

Pushing his way past the Mazmoholu, Boraz Bufaisdek swaggered up. He tossed the Skull of Kringmar into the air and caught it in his open hand. The skull had been stuffed with an ivory-colored clay. Its eye sockets were banded with a strip of red cloth.

Boraz wore a three-cornered hat with its brim pulled up so that each corner looked like a rain gutter. He had a white shirt that was pleated all across the torso and puffed up at the sleeves like some billowy vegetable. The shirt was filthy from travel, as were the green and purple tights he wore that reached to the middle of his calves and ran into soiled white hosiery. His shoes were dancing slippers with up-pointed toes.

Once again, in spite of the terrible danger he was facing, Garuvel began to laugh. This time he had his voice, and the laughter filled his body and jerked his abdomen with spasms of mirth.

Boraz lifted a familiar black tube, strode over to Garuvel and struck him in the face so that its barrel cut a gash from forehead to chin. Blood oozed down his face in competing streaks, some longer than others but all ending at the tip of his chin where they dripped into the dry igneous dirt. Boraz stepped away and looked at Garuvel.

"Sometimes nothing works like beating the shit out of somebody, ott ott? Hey, look at latest version of the neuromitter," he said, smirking. "Gets you so high, you don't know whether you have one asshole or two. If Boraz didn't make them with the self-filtering governor, everybody would just sit around shooting at themselves. As it is, I catch a certain number of my vassals shooting one another and doing very inappropriate things. Calakadon stopped that by putting a meat hook under their chins and hauling them up on baling wires."

He flicked a peremptory hand at the Mazmoholu. "Bind them, gag them. You know, all that stuff. Bring them down to the camp."

Before he walked away, he aimed a savage kick at Garuvel's ribs.

He whistled. The rank of Mazmoholu parted once more, and Princess Zyreen pushed sideways past the black marauders, her nose pinched from the smell of wild men and restless beasts. She dropped a woven basket at the foot of Gorlon Mokichool.

"Mukh!", he said, and kicked over the basket. Dried processed futufu pods spilled onto the dusty ground. The Mazmoholu began to leap towards the orange and chartreuse petals but Mokichool snarled a guttural syllable.

Boraz stepped away as men black as obsidian converged upon Garuvel and his friends with ropes and leather straps.

"Zyreen!" Robolion surged against three Mazmoholu. With hooded eyes, the Princess looked at the musician.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, without inflection. Then she turned away.

Chapter Forty Three

Chains and Gains

"It is the imperfection of life that enables it to be perfect." Dzujhdu proverb

The prisoners were taken to Boraz' encampment, beyond the slag hills where they had been captured. It was hidden in a box canyon, tightly enclosed by slate cliffs. A spring of fresh water rose in the center, and trees climbed halfway up the sides of the cliffs, throwing roots over the rocks in their search for moisture.

Boraz had a big blue modern dome tent, surrounded by the leather teepees of the Mazmoholu. He placed his prisoners in smaller dome tents, separating them from each other.

When Garuvel had been struck by Boraz, he began to be afraid. He tried to control his galloping insides with every technique he knew, but nothing worked.

He simply had no precedent for this amount of sheer terror. Always, at the bottom of his bag of tricks, the Realgift had lain, blunting the true dimensions of fear.

Now he had only one thought: Jaramine. Jaramine raped, Jaramine killed. His worst nightmare come true. If he died, he could wait on the other side for her. But if she died, he would be stuck here, without her. And he felt, at this moment, that he could not live without her. He could not endure losing Vwanzila again.

Over and over he thought, "I must keep my head, find a way out of this mess. Come on, think think!." But thinking mattered not at all. It was his body that was afraid, and his body followed its own logic, impervious to the rational structures of the mind.

Boraz barged through the tent's door-tube, barely pausing to get low enough to pass the opening. The tent rocked, shuddered on its pegs as if it were about to become unseated.

Garuvel struggled with his bonds to get to an upright position.

Boraz pulled a camp stool under himself, squatting above his prisoner like a chef inspecting a new carcass.

"Well...there you go. See? Unfettered amorality always wins. It doesn't have to pause and think, examine its motives. Doesn't have to answer to a higher authority, since there is none." He leaned down and ripped Garuvel's gag off. Spitting out bits of fluff and leather, Garuvel tried to summon rage, but the emotion had no room. Fear pushed every other possibility away. Garuvel fought to master the tears that were about to leak from the corners of his eyes.

"What...what's going to happen to Jaramine?" He felt so ashamed to be forced to ask the question. .

Boraz extracted from the pocket of his vest a piece of jerky, and used the muscles of his neck to pull away a chunk. He chomped happily at the tough salty meat, spitting out pieces of gristle.

"I'll have to give her and the robiot woman to the Mazmoholu." He raised a hand. "Ott! She won't be in a condition to know she's being raped. The Mazmoholu prefer the warm pliant bodies of freshly dead women. They hate the way women howl when they're being hurt."

There was an eruption of noise outside the tent. A slather of monosyllabic grunts and the whinnies of the Mokhor, those animals ridden by the Mazmoholu.

"Ott! Another fight!" Boraz patted a piece of decking tape over Garuvel's mouth. "We have to keep these thugs under control until my work here is done. Do you have any idea how much money this is costing me? How much capital it takes to get Futufu going on a planet?"

Garuvel looked at him quizzically.

"Oh no, not this waste heap of a planet." He held a hand to his ear, pretending to hear a question from Garuvel. "Simple," he answered, "I came here for you and those damned puzzle pieces. I plan to boil you alive while you're impaled on a stake. I want to hear you scream, prove that you're just like everyone else."

He reached into a pocket hidden amid the folds of his pleated shirt. He removed an object and tossed it in the air, caught it in his hand, tossed it again.

"Puzzle Piece number seven", he gloated. "I found planet-person Jhirnek-ili, killed herm easily, oer wasn't expecting me, electrocuted wem with a miser. Before I did, though, I found inform about Zos and there I tortured some monkeys and got portal atoms."

Garuvel understood what Boraz was saying, though the planet-person seemed to be increasingly mad and incoherent.

"Can believe this? Calakadon ATE the portal. A little piece of dough, hee hee, stored up in monkey drawers. Sorry about your friend, the Lobten Sorma. He wasn't.. well, he didn't seem to care how much pain we made for him. Just laughed, then died. Wuff! Some peoples is cwazy!"

Boraz banged his way out of the tent, barely bothering to use the door.

Chapter Forty Four

The Hurt of Love

When Robolion saw Zyreen his hurt love rose up and bludgeoned him. He had managed to avoid thinking about her through all these adventures but now everything he had repressed came roaring into him; he rememberd the intense sexual rapture they had shared. He remembered feeling that at last he belonged to someone, with someone, for somene. Then, with barely a flicker of feeling, she put it aside and went with Boraz. Her casual rejection, those three words, 'Don't be ridiculous', knifed through him, made him wish that he could see her, show her who he was, what he had learned about love since he had come to Shoms, since he had opened to the wisdom of his friends. Just watching and talking to Trace and Scianna had given him a sense of the value of deep companionship. How good it would be, to belong so completely to someone else! Oh god, he yearned to feel safe for the rest of his life in the embrace of a true deep love.

His heart rose, plummetted, rose again, when the face of Zyreen appeared at the end of the door tube. When she stooped close to him, to loosen his gag, the waft of perfume and feminine perspiration was almost overwhelming.

"What a mess you're in, Boli." She spread a piece of cloth and sat cross-legged in front of the musician.

He tried to reach her with his face, but she leaned away.

"Zyreen, Zyreen, oh how I've wanted to see you, talk to you."

"Boli, don't do this." She pushed his shoulder with her long, elegant fingers. "Don't make a fool of yourself."

"Why are you here? With him?" He tried to make the question sound neutral, but couldn't prevent the squeeze of jealousy from creeping in.

"Him? Why do you think? He's my husband."

"Oh, oh, oh". Robolion's head bobbed three times, each time getting lower. He felt as if Zyreen had removed his insides, as if she was sitting there with the tangled strings of his beating heart, stomach, intestines, examining these organs dispassionately, as if she might buy them for dinner.

What was left of him could cry. "But why? You don't love him! You love me, even if you don't know it."

"Boli, I don't feel the way you do. I don't feel anything very intensely. I'm fond of you. But my feelings are shallow. With Boraz, for the first time, I feel something truly passionate. I hate him!"

"You hate him? There must be love there, too. Everyone says that hate and love are....."

"No, that's just a cliche. This is a pure hate, not an alloy of feelings. You can't imagine how invigorating it is! I need to feel. Anything! Boraz knows techniques, sexual techniques, and I can harness my hatred and have a real orgasm, for the first time. When he's inside me hammering away, it's like I want to kill him so badly that.....oh, you know....."

Robolion had thought that he had reached the ultimate hurt, but he had been wrong. He could barely breathe.

"You mean, with me, you were......"

Zyreen rose, but the tent was too low. She had meant to pace, but stooping made her feel ridiculous. She resumed her place in front of Robolion.

"Don't take it personally, Boli. I wasn't faking for your benefit. I was faking for my own."

At last Robolion reached the very bedrock of hurt. He looked around, inside himself. He thought that when he had gotten here, he would die. But he was not dead.

"I'm not dead," he repeated mentally. "I'm not dead, I'm not dead. She hurt me as much as she could, and I am not dead."

It began to dawn on him that he had faced down his most awful fantasy. He had imagined this moment; if not with Zyreen, then with someone. Imagined it deep in his soul where he could not see his own thoughts. He had been clutched around this seed of fear for what seemed an eternity. He had avoided this situation of ultimate betrayal by consorting with a huge variety of kwooches and twims, nameless women. He knew it was about his mother, what she had done, the way she had rejected him, but that was an old story. He'd just never seen it this way before.

Now he was here, with a woman who had elicited his strongest passion. Why Zyreen? He wasn't sure. She didn't seem to be a worthy love object. Selfish, greedy, ambitious, arrogant and cold.

The realization of what she was made him come out of himself. He straightened his sagging body and looked at her, looked into her eyes. He saw haughty amusement. She was enjoying herself at his expense.

His passion for Zyreen evaporated. He let go of that clutched-up fear with a sigh of the most profound relief. She was no longer beautiful. She had an angular, pinched, horsy face. How could he have thought she was the divine essence of womanhood? There was nothing nurturing, nothing generous, nothing that he had always admired most about womanhood itself.

Zyreen saw his expression change, sensed something different. Roughly, she replaced Robolion's gag.

"He may not kill you," she said coldly. "Boraz enjoys things like that. He has to kill Garuvel, and the women go to the Mazmoholu. I will ask him not to kill you, if you want."

Robolion looked up and met her eyes. His face was bland and relaxed. All the pushing, pulling soulfulness was gone from his expression.

He made an indifferent motion with his chin and his shoulders.

"All right, then." Zyreen got down on her hands and knees to crawl through the door tube. She waved her behind at him, provocatively, looked at him with what she considered a saucy pout. "See you sometime, maybe."

Robolion rocked his head from side to side.

Garuvel heard the fighting sounds crescendo, heard clacking noises like pieces of wood slapped together. Boraz yelled with a voice that thrashed, and the grumbling "mkh" sounds of quarreling Mazmoholu quieted.

In a few minutes, he was back in the tent with Garuvel. This time he had Garuvel's pack. He dusted his tights, wiped Mokhor-sweat from his hands onto the pack's top flap. He took off his hat and wiped his head with the ends of his shirt sleeves.

"Time to examine my wealth," he said, very pleased with himself. "This is such a great deal. Not only does Boraz get to screw up the Puzzle of the Endless Gates, but he gets to sell these puzzle-pieces. You should hear the bidding among collectors! Vizmir's out of the picture, poor boy. You can't imagine the screams! We came back to Strobe with a crate of futufu, and the robiots let me land because they had not saved anything, and they felt sorry for him! They could have just let him die, too! Those robiots, boy! The stuff they don't know! Anyway, Vizmir's a shadow of himself. He was already a shadow, so I guess that makes him the shadow of a shadow."

Boraz loosened the slip-fastener of the pack and took out Kringmar's skull. "Brought him too; make the whole inventory. Calakadon's got everything here, Jaramine's stuff, yours, even that monk's dzujhdu-knuckle."

He saw that Garuvel's cut had stopped bleeding, the edges of the gash were knitting back together. He took the black tube of the neuromitter from his pocket and casually backhanded Garuvel in the same place, so that the wound re-opened. He tapped the device's angle of dispersion control with his fingernail.

"This is an 'up' model, one way only, all the way to orgasmic ecstasy. Every bit as effective as the 'down', people die from pleasure you know; hearts give out, or they jump off buildings, think they can fly, all kinds of stuff happens when you get so high you don't know where your own face is. This one has a nice tight beam. Gets a single person or a whole crowd. We went down to the field when I killed Jhirnek-ili, big stand of people at a Croots game, man they went nuts! Depth of field; you can set it for a foot, or up to a mile. The cannon model is something else. We use that in space. Oh yes, you had that experience. But I like this one better. People are less prepared for euphoria, sometimes. It's harder to know there's something to defend against. Okay, here we are."

He removed the Skull of Kringmar, tapped it with a broad fingertip.

"Anybody in there?" The skull was blind, deaf, mute. Every part of its interior had been filled with clay. Boraz set it down beside himself. The skull trembled slightly and fell over.

"There there," Boraz mocked, setting it upright. "One of the info I got off that Sorba was how to neutralize this monster." The red ribbon over its eyes seemed to seethe impotently.

"Ah, here we are." Boraz lifted Nutun's puzzle-piece, the pipe of Melolos. "Gotta be careful with these things; they're dangerous! They don't fully activate until they get to Wayuzo. Imagine the revenge these things would have on me if they weren't locked to a specific purpose. My brothers and sisters, my fellow Starwind Communicants. Oh, here's Wyfkandar."

He held a white, gleaming object, the size of a small round fruit. Its ivory-like substance had been carved into whorls and notches of abstract geometry. It was a thing of sublime art.

"Always were a bit sentimental, Wyfkandar. Killed her in her bath, washing their sweet armpits with a bit of perfume. They weren't bad looking either; no she wasn't."

He took out and mocked each of the puzzle-pieces.

"Now, let's turn our attention to the psychifacts." Boraz opened another flap of the pack. Garuvel had subsided. There was nothing he could do; he was resigned to the end of his life, of the quest, of Jaramine, of the Puzzle of the Endless Gates. A kind of peace stole over him, a peace he did not welcome. Resignation was not in his nature. His mind was exhausted, his body spent.

Boraz brought out the bell whose ringing summoned the Spirit of Unfulfilled Dreams. "So what the hell is this?" He lifted it away from Garuvel. "Ah ah! You won't play with your toys, not today." He examined the fixed clapper. "I don't think I want to hear this." He put it aside, next to the skull and the puzzle-pieces.

He grasped the shapeless blue stone with the white flecks.

"This aren't look like much, do it?"

Garuvel mumbled something under his gag.

"What's that?" Boraz looked up. "I'm not going to let you talk, so don't breath your waste. Ha haha! Don't breathe your waste."

He was holding the stone loosely. It suddenly flew from his grip, began spinning. It flew at Boraz' forehead, and sliced a cut from above his right eye.

Boraz sprawled backwards."Hey!" The stone, spinning furiously, sliced across both of Boraz' lips. He scuttled against the tent wall.

"You bastard!" he said. "Nutun. Melolos." He looked at Garuvel, the pupils of his eyes like two miniature black cauldrons. "Where did you get a piece of Melolos?"

The stone whizzed behind Garuvel and cut his wrist bond. Boraz tried to crawl under the tent wall, but the floor was of a piece with the dome. The blue stone knocked him three times on the temple.

"There was nothing left!" Boraz screamed, "it all went into the Cauldron!"

In his surprise, Boraz had dropped the neuromitter tube. Garuvel picked it up and tapped it to wide dispersion, great depth of field and pulled the trigger all the way back. As Boraz was assaulted by the stone, he began to sigh happily. He groaned once and turned over, to lay on his stomach, with his knees tucked beneath him. He began a frog-like swimming motion, with his legs stretching out, coming in, stretching out. When the legs came close to his body, he did a little hump, pushihg his crotch into the tent material.

The blue stone banged him a couple more times on the back of the head, then dipped towards the skull of Kringmar. It sliced the red ribbon, and began loosening the damp clay in the eye sockets.

From all around the camp, sounds of hooting merged with the sounds of ripping leather. Garuvel quickly tied Boraz, who seemed not to notice. The stone was in the mouth of Kringmar's skull.

Again, it flew towards Boraz and banged him on the head. It began to spin at a furious rate, so rapidly that it blurred and made a sound like that of an enraged wasp. Its color began to pulsate; flourescing from white to turquoise. The stone lowered itself to a place near the top of Boraz' skull.

Garuvel was startled at the increase in the sound's pitch. The stone was bearing down on Boraz' skull with a ruthless purpose. Powdered bone fountained up and was soon followed by blood. Half the stone vanished beneath Boraz' rust colored hair

"EY!" Boraz screamed. "Stop it stop it sop sop sop!"

Boraz' eyes met Garuvel's and now they were filled with pure dread.

Garuvel had released the trigger of the neuromitter for a moment, and he saw recognition flood back into Boraz' face.

"Melolos," he said, sloppily. "Fuck. They won't die, they just never die no matter how many times I kill him."

The stone continued burrowing. Boraz suddenly jerked, as if recognizing a need to take action. He brought his palm to his face and shouted, "Lowndoad lowndoad! Cloy! Godbammit! Four four fooo. Fooo...geckle....floin..." his words slurred and slowed, each syllable coming more reluctantly than the last.

Garuvel knew that Calakadon had atttempted to speak the word "Download" to his ship's neurolon, followed by a code. It was too late. His speech center was impaired, and it was impossible to tell how much his cognitive centers functioned. They seemed to dwindle moment to moment. He wanted to download his experiential matrix into his next clone body. The stone's surgery forestalled that command.

It was now too late. The planet-person Calakadon struggled frantically against his bonds, rolled all around the tent trying to evade the buzzing stone. The tent's synthetic walls bulged and banged, but Boraz could not break away from the attack.

He screamed, "NO NO! NOT DIE NOW, MORE TO KILL FIRST!"

His efforts grew more and more futile. He was becoming exhausted. Boraz' terrified eyes filmed over as they lost all intelligence. A clear line of drool slid from the left side of his mouth. "Fuh" he said, then, rolling on his side so that he faced Garuvel, he blinked three or four times and became quiescent. Eyes open but without plot, plan or purpose, Calakadon was marooned inside a body whose brain had become useless.

Garuvel pushed the sacred objects out the door and slithered after them. The stone came with the black skull. It continued to excavate material from Kringmar's abode.

When the stone had finished removing the last bits from the black skull, Kringmar erupted from it like a tornado.

Garuvel saw the layout of the camp. He sprayed the neuromitter beam in all directions. Mazmoholu were trying to hump riderless mounts, laughing and bumping one another, tearing up their black leather gauntlets and pantaloons.

Kringmar was not Kringmar but a wrathful demon the size of a small mountain. He emitted a roar that made Garuvel blanch and hold his hands up defensively as he turned aside. The Dzujhdu's face was black, his teeth extruded in a forest of fangs, his eyes smoked.

Garuvel did not wait to see what happened. He found a small knife on the ground, then entered the closest blue tent. Trace was there with his legs and feet strapped together. Garuvel tossed him the knife. "Can you work free? I'm in a panic to find Jaramine."

Trace nodded happily, picked the knife up with his teeth and was free before Garuvel was back out of the tent. The robiot almost stomped his feet through the bottom and shrugged the little dome half off himself. Wearing it like an oversized derby, he lunged for the next tent and ripped it in two with his hands. Scianna was inside, laughing silently, until she was freed, and then she burst into exultant howling, baring her teeth to the sky.

She lept into Trace's arms. They staggered together to the next tent and tore it from over Klomos' head.

Garuvel only now remembered to take his hands off the neuromitter. He backed toward the tent where Jaramine must be, crawling through the door tube feet first.

She was there. She had made her bound body into a bow, with the leather straps arching across her back like a string. She was rocking back and forth on her stomach.

Garuvel pulled the gag from around her head. She exhaled with a moan, her eyes fluttering. Looking around for something with which to cut her bonds, Garuvel found nothing of sufficient sharpness. He did not want to leave her to go outside and retrieve the knife. He had the strange conviction that if he turned his back, she would disappear and be gone forever. He attacked the straps at the backs of her wrists with his teeth. He snarled and worked the leather with his mouth and his fingers until it came loose.

Outside the tent, the camp was utter chaos. A black storm ripped from one end of the box canyon to the other, howling curses in long-dead tongues.

In the middle of it, Zyreen staggered in several directions at once. She was filthy. From head to foot she was covered in dust, mud and pebbles.

Mazmoholu were laughing and stabbing themselves to stop laughing. One of them saw Zyreen and lept in two giant strides to throw her over his shoulder. He put her on a Mokhor, but the mounts were trying to climb the sheer sides of the canyon, out of control. They jumped up the wall, toppled backwards and crushed their riders. Unsaddled Mokhor, running loose, skewered fleeing Mazmoholu with their beaks, rubbing the sharp bristles of their foreheads into the faces and chests of their erstwhile masters.

Zyreen vanished into this savage chaos.

Distributing their packs, the freed pilgrims ran for the canyon exit. As they reached it, they saw Kringmar shrink back to his normal size and shape. He flew towards them, smiling with such enjoyment that his lips seemed to extend beyond his face. He gestured with his hands, telling them to run and keep running.

They ran down a ramp leading out of the box canyon. They turned onto a dry river bed. Kringmar, flying behind, said, "Run for your lives!"

They had exited the hewn channel that led out of the canyon when they heard a whoosh from the sky.

There was a fireball, brighter than daylight, but it left no trail. It just grew larger and larger. It was coming straight down on them. A roar began to fill the sky from horizon to horizon.

Kringmar winked while spreading both his hands, palms down. He moved these up and down so that his message was clear. Get down! They lay flat, hugging the sides of the chasm. Kringmar came to cover them, expanding his body so that it was like a cloak.

Pushing a wall of scalded air before it, the meteor screamed down from on high. It smacked the exact center of the box canyon, where the large tent of Boraz had been.

The universe shook Garuvel and his friends as if they were in a barrel going over a waterfall. The explosion was deafening. Dust, melted rock and debris, contained by the walls of the canyon, shot sraight into the air with a cloud that rose for thousands of feet before widening into a black mushroom that sparked with its own internal lightning.

The wall of the rock channel shielded the pilgrims from most of the shock wave. When it had passed, they lay there laughing hysterically. Garuvel suspected his torso might be activating the control of the neuromitter. He rolled sideways, but the object was not beneath his body. He did not see it anywhere. Now he allowed himself to trust the laughter.

They stopped laughing when they heard the sound of Robolion's bitter weeping. He heard their silence. He rolled into the nearest body, which was Scianna's. She held him until he stopped.

"You loved Zyreen, didn't you?" Scianna's face was working toward an unfamiliar expression. She looked inward, then turned to Trace and saw his face. When she turned back to Robolion, the look she had seen on Trace was now incorporated into the look she gave the musician.

Robolion had never seen an expression of sweeter sympathy.

"I don't love her any more," he said, getting to his knees, knocking the dust and pebbles from his clothing. "I'm not grieving for her. I'm grieving for a dream, one that carried me for a long time. I'm glad I'm awake, now. It's like outgrowing a pair of shoes that you were fond of. You say goodbye; you're sad because they've served you well. But you can't use them any more."

Chapter Forty Five

Experience

"That's the way it goes: one minute I'm having a direct experience of the Cosmic Intelligence. Then I smoke a cigarette and cough out my lungs."

Twangy Pete, Jerk 'n Jell guitarist

"Scianna, how do you experience yourself?"

Jaramine and Scianna had been climbing side by side, up a mild but persistent slope, through a forest of plants that were half again as tall as Trace. Their green, leathery lower parts had bunches of spines jutting out from nodules. Then, at face height, limbs branched and branched again, erupting in scarlet blossoms whose petals were like oval plates. These provided welcome shade from the heat of Mosht, which oozed relentlessly onto the backs of their necks.

Scianna and Jaramine moved aside. Breathing hard, the men passed them, working toward the ridge that seemed ever to recede.

"I experience myself as a miracle." Scianna passed a grey bottle of water to her friend. Its cap jinkled against its side.

"There is no past and no future. Reality is a colossal bubble, and the person who is Scianna is extruded from the bubble for a single second. Then she is re-absorbed, and extruded again from the bubble for another second. Somehow, I live in these seconds, and though I am pulled back into the bubble a million times a day, I experience continuity. I am apparently the same person each time I emerge from the living sphere of reality. If I stop, and relax completely, I will know that I am not the small bubble, Scianna, but the great bubble, the universe. But as long as my heart beats, I can't truly relax. The blood flows, the air blows in and out of my lungs, so it is impossible for me to stop the fact that I am a living individual. I can't believe my good fortune! This person, Scianna, gets to experience such amazing things. Everything is new! Pain and pleasure are like the twin strokes of a giant piston, turning over and over, driving an engine whose fuel is love. There are other people all around me, each of them a miniature bubble emerging from the giant bubble of reality. If we touch from the deepest parts of ourselves, we recognize one another as fellow extrusions whose roots are in this ever-expanding boundless stuff, out of which we come and to which we return, over and over again. That is how I experience myself right now. But if you ask me again tomorrow, the miniature bubble that is Scianna will remember what I told you today, but she may have a completely different way of experiencing herself."

Jaramine handed back the bottle, and fanned herself with her floppy hat. "You are an amazing piece of work, Scianna."

"Since you've never said anything bad about me, I will take that as a respectful acknowledgment."

"So you may. So you may." Jaramine looked upslope and saw that the others had reached the ridge. They were standing together, slack- kneed. Something about their posture made Jaramine want to hurry. She replaced her hat upon her head, and levered herself forward, pulling against the trunks of the flowering trees.

By the time the women reached the top of the slope, the men had squatted on their haunches or sat cross-legged, to stare at whatever vista lay ahead.

Jaramine and Scianna trudged the final ten steps. As they did so, the view beyond the ridge rose with each step, like a giant stage set rolling up from beneath the floor boards of the planet.

"Uh!" Jaramine's knees went weak, and she collapsed beside Garuvel, laying her head on his shoulder and looking out upon the far horizon. Scianna remained standing, her knees against Trace's back.

An infinite fortress of rock and snow stretched across the arc of Shoms. Jagged peaks rose and rose, as if they could not wait to grow ever higher, eagerly approaching the sky. Peshtrion, razor thin, swooped like a rainbow, bisecting the mountains to disappear on the other side. Each peak was crowned with a flag of snow, blowing windward. Their lower flanks merged into one another, until they debouched upon the plain, rounded like the paws of resting lions.

"The Moaning Mountains," Klomos said at last. The wind blew at their faces, and as it passed around their bodies it carried the waft of voices. It whispered as it touched their sleeves. It ached its way up and down a subliminal scale. It vibrated beneath their feet with a tone so deep it could not be heard, only felt.

"The Moaning Mountains," Robolion repeated, as if to say the name of this immense fact was bring it to a size that could at least be imagined by human beings.

There were distant jet sounds in the sky. Two meteors, converging from different quadrants of the heavens, crashed near one another on the face of one of the peaks. Fountains of snow fanned sideways until they were swept into the current of the wind.

Klomos rose. His pantaloons were rolled to mid-thigh, and his brown calf muscles looked like they were supported by bending guitar strings. They tapered down towards his ankles, up towards his knees.

"Beyond the mountains is the monastery of Klah-Yan." He swung his pack onto his back, then looked downslope, from whence they had come.

He pointed, first to one direction, then to another, and yet another. Lines of people were walking up the ridge, half a day behind them. They came from four directions, in four separate streams, yet drew closer to one another as they ascended.

"Pilgrims." Klomos shielded his eyes from the wind. "I've never seen so many. They're all coming. Look, there," he pointed to a band of white that was like a distinct streak of scales on the body of a serpent. "Konya V'har. It must be the entire tribe."

He took a step downward, using his multi-stick staff to balance against the angle of the slope. "Shall we go?"

The others got to their feet, knees creaking, muscles aching. They looked at one another, looked at the merging throng of pilgrims, looked toward the Moaning Mountains.

"Yes. Let's go."

Chapter Forty Six

Ascent

"If you're not crazy, there must be something wrong with you." Dzujhdu saying

The far slope was overgrown with high, yellow grass. It extended onto the plain, waving and rippling with vagrant winds, shadowed by passing clouds. The wirelike band of Peshtrion's shadow stretched toward the mountains. Forklion was ahead of them, swooping laterally far in the east beyond the mountains, where it was just coming into daylight.

There were isolated blotches of animal herds, expanding and contracting as they grazed. Roads of flattened grass criss-crossed in random swathes where heavy beasts had plowed their way through the yellow stalks.

Klomos asked for Garuvel's scanner. When he had gazed to his satisfaction, he handed it back. "Look", he said, pointing to the far left. "The jank-wolves are circling a clutch of Wahant. And over there, where the wolves can't smell him, is a rogar, waiting to steal their kill."

A flock of white birds startled into the air like a magician's handkerchief. The Wahant, wooly oxen with lyre-shaped horns, lumbered into motion. The lead jank-wolf lept and missed but turned the herd into the path of his siblings. Two young wolves bit into the tail of a shaggy victim. It carried them along, until two more launched themselves onto its back. Momentum fading, the beast sank into the grass, its mouth open, its wails unheard. Then there was nothing but the sight of nine tails that circled and twitched above the waving savannah.

Garuvel checked his laser, and gave his sword to Trace. The rest of the band adjusted their multi-stick walking staffs into spears and pikes.

"The rains have come this year", said Klomos. "The animals have plenty to eat. It's the people who are dangerous. Later, we will meet the Zakinji, the tribes who live down there. They will charge everyone a tax to pass through their territory."

The head of the converging columns of pilgrims had just crested the rise. People spread along the ridge as they arrived until they covered the spine of the hill, from horizon to horizon. As the wind changed direction, the sound of a chant reached Garuvel and his friends. It rose and fell with each breeze, as if someone were opening and closing a window on a solemn chorus.

The throng walked until the hour of Mayoom's Crown. Klomos found a stand of gnarled trees and giant deserted insect mounds. The sky was utterly clear. Forklion had been rising and now swept from left to right, its curves vanishing north and south behind the mass of the Moaning Mountains. Peshtrion was far to the east, barely cresting the horizon behind them. Zaramutu had not yet risen. No one knew when or if it would rise.

Klomos gathered wood for a fire. When he had mounded branches to the height of his waist, Garuvel lit the blaze with a singe from his laser.

Despite the roar of distant predators, the yip of nearby dog packs, the evening was almost pastoral. Swarms of invisible bugs set up their "OOZ-NEE" song, and it was no longer sinister but soothing. Birds whistled as if at attractive women. They swooped everywhere, eating white pestiferous bugs out of the air. Cats barked and dogs yowed.

After a few hours, the vanguard of the pilgrims from Shoms drifted into the camp of the pilgrims from distant worlds. Members of tribes eyed one another warily. Jockeying for position near the Skull of Kringmar, groups snarled and clashed, sorting themsleves out. They settled in concentric rings around Garuvel and his companions. Other fires were lit. Chants were uttered, evening ceremonies enacted. Klomos meditated upon his two-sided stone image. Small fights erupted in the shadows beyond the firelight.

When it seemed as if a reasonable peace had been established, Robolion began playing a roog for a summer evening. Its harp-like voices undulated across the plain. Several tribal groups drifted closer. Some were tall and lissome, others squat and dark, with bowl-cuts of black hair and leather armbands around their sinewy biceps.

A woman from one of the short dark tribes sat beside Robolion, face creased with delight, rocking gently to the phrases of his improvisation. When he had finished the roog, the woman touched his right forearm, so lightly that she barely brushed the hairs above his wrist.

"Thank you," she said, and drifted back into the embrace of her tribe. Robolion looked at his forearm, touched the hairs of his wrist with the fingers of his left hand. His lips were closed, a strained smile weakly trying to force its way through. He followed the woman with his eyes, as she walked into the darkness. She wore only a bikini string of animal sinew and a leather band around her breasts. Her buttocks were long and angular, the muscles of her back were wrinkled from long work planting, weaving, bearing and caring for children.

Robolion set the N'thumbu down and lay back. Klomos began quietly outlining the constellations. Scianna and Trace lay to each side of him, looking up along his arm, sighting the star groups.

"There's The Comedian," he said, dotting with his forefinger a long double row of bright red and blue giants. "See his hat? And the exaggerated length of his Dramba cigarette?"

"Of course," Scianna said, taking Klomos' hand and confirming what she saw by using his finger to point again. "Does he have a wicked smile?"

"A famous wicked smile." Klomos grinned in the dark. "Look over there. The Married Ones."

"Which is which?" asked Trace.

"Some think it's two men, some think it's two women, some think the tall one is a man, the short one is a woman, and so on."

"Whatever the imagination provides," Trace speculated.

Scianna turned and reached for Trace's hand across the top of Klomos' head. "Is that what this is? Imagination? Oh my. It never even crossed my mind. Think of it, Trace. We have imaginations."

Trace wriggled himself more comfortably into the grass. "Huh! I thought you knew that a long time ago. I thought you were the one with all the imagination."

"I know, now, that I've had imagination for a long time. I just never realized......"

Between them, lying companionably on the robiots' joined arms, Klomos shook his head. "You two are amazing. Like big, wonderful, grown up children."

Trace rumbled the sound that was his laugh. It was like distant thunder. "We are not very old, Klomos."

From somewhere over in the dark, under a blanket of the fire's shadows, Garuvel murmured. "Just a couple of hatchlings," he said.

Except for vigilant guards around the perimeter of the campsite, all of the pilgrims were soon asleep.

Robolion woke when the night was at its most still. He had been dreaming of the earthquake in Ha'nar, and he thought he detected a faint quiver of the ground. He sat halfway up and looked around. Most of the fires had burned down to low embers. He could see the shapes of walking sentries from dozens of tribes, signaling to one another with a whistle-pop sound that emulated some bird of the veldt.

One fire burned brightly, and people moved around it. Robolion threw off his multi-skin, slung his N'thumbu across his back and went to see what was happening. He told himself it was idle curiosity, but another, deeper voice said, " Robolion, you don't want to spend another three lonely hours before dawn staring into the darkness."

As he approached the fire, he heard quiet, rhythmic hand clapping, accompanied by flutes and sticks rubbed against dried gourds. The tribe was that of the woman who had listened to his music and touched his arm. They were a short, squat people, built for power and economy of movement.

Robolion saw several men with painted faces, wearing elaborate headresses of feathers and Mokhor quills. They were shaking rattles around two prone figures, who were laid out on boards propped up by wicker and wood frameworks.

A woman came to circle the two supine men. Her face was painted with a large black dot on each cheek and a white stripe that ran from the bottom of her throat to the top of her forehead.

She carried several implements in her hands: a bone chisel, a mallet and punch, and a small saw.

The rattles, flutes and gourds kept an unobtrusive commentary on the ritualized movements of the woman. She made a hop-step, then landed in a half crouch. Her arms were flung wide, hands curling gracefully upward. Turning on the balls of her feet, she rose to her full height, then made another hop-step, crouch, turn.....in this way she circled the two men like a majestic bird. She stepped to the head of one of the prone men, chanting something about fear and illness. Robolion listened more carefully. He heard her soothing voice, singing distinctly.

"Fear is the only illness," she chanted, "the only illness is fear.

Healing is to put fear in its place, in its place.

No more image of poison,

no more haunted imagination

no fears in the deep mind

no fears in the shallow mind

no fear in any mind

fear is the only illness, the only illness is fear."

She tapped with a bone punch and mallet at a place on the first man's skull. The punch was sharpened to a chisel point with a half inch tip. Tap tap, she worked ten or twelve deft strikes at the crown of the man's skull. So dextrous was the movement that a with a slight working of the saw, a circle of bone flipped away from the patient's shaven head. One of the standing attendants offered a cup to the man whose head had been opened. He lifted his neck and quaffed the offering, then lay back calmly.

Robolion sat on an ancient insect mound, just outside the firelight. He saw the woman repeat the procedure on the second man. She took a wooden tweezers and probed gently into the first man's brain. Satisfied, she carried the tweezers, and whatever it held, to the second man and placed its contents into the corresponding hole in his skull.

Chanting "Fear is the only illness, the only illness is fear," she replaced the bone circles in her respective patients' heads, and sutured them with delicacy born of long practice. At the end of the operation, she dipped a feathered brush into a cup of liquid and painted the circular incisions with scarlet ointment. Then she shook a sprinkling of the same ointment all over the two men's bodies.

In a few moments, each of the men rose from the tables, smiling, and embraced one another.

The woman took a towel and a basin of water, and cleaned the paint from her face. Robolion recognized her as the woman who had touched him. Feeling safe enough to enter the campsite, he approached the mysterious healer.

"That was very impressive," he said. His sincerity was obvious. The woman smiled, wiping herself down: face, breasts, armpits. She lifted her leg and unselfconsciously cleaned her crotch, then wiped the bottoms of her feet. She completed the ablution by washing her hands thoroughly in a basin of clean water.

"I am Zisa," she said, briefly taking both of Robolion's hands in her own. "I know you are the musician Robolion Spdaz, who is among the Bearers of Kringmar. We are honored on Shoms by your presence."

"I have been more a passenger than a bearer," Robolion demurred. "What did I just see? It looked like you just performed brain surgery, with a minimum of instruments or drugs. I never once felt that anything was inappropriate or primitive. And your patients were not in any pain."

Zisa led Robolion to a small rug which was placed at a comfortable distance from the fire. "That was a trust transplant," she explained. Leaning close to Robolion, she whispered, "there was no brain tissue or any substance transplanted at all. Yet the operation is usually successful."

"Do the patients know this?"

Zisa tapped Robolion lightly on the knee. "I have just revealed an ancient tribal secret. They do not know. That's the whole point. Somehow, I know that I can trust you with this knowledge. It must be your face: your private, lonely, soulful face."

To be described thus was immensely pleasing to Robolion. He had heard such phrases before. Coming from Zisa, however, they sounded sincere.

"Poor Teruah has had a problem all his life", she explained. "He has no connection to the Vrezh."

From its context, Robolion had a sense of the word's meaning, but he wanted to ask. "The Vrezh?"

Zisa waved her hand in front of her face, clearing away tiny humming insects. The smoke from the fire smelled of changing seasons, of childhood.

"The Vrezh is...you know...the spirit life. The Primordial Intelligence. We call it the Patternmaker, the Star Juggler, many names. Teruah has always spoken phrases like 'I believe only what I can see, smell and touch.' One of his favorites is 'the Vrezh is just a crutch for the psychologically weak.' Poor man. He is like an orphan, or like one missing a sense. Imagine a child spending the day in the nursery, and when the hunt is over, when the parents come to collect their children, Teruah remains behind. He has never been successful at anything. Never formed long, close relationships. He has no inner surrender, no ecstasy. He finally became so unhappy, and knowing his unhappiness, he asked for the trust transplant. We asked Kemzashah to be his donor. Kemzashah is our greatest dance leader, a man strong in the presence of the Vrezh. A man like you."

"Like me? I understand what you're talking about; but I've never considered myself to be connected to any spiritual reality."

"What nonsense," Zisa chided. "You are such a modest man. Your music breathes from the Vrezh. Not every note, of course. Sometimes I hear your needs in the music. But there is a place for that in music, too."

Robolion leaned closer to the fire, elbow on knee, chin in hand. He could not help but smile, could not help but laugh ruefully.

"Zisa, you must have ridden down from the sky on a comet."

"Oh yes!" she said, bouncing to her feet. "There it is. Look!"

Robolion followed her finger. Above the shadow of the mountains was a great crescent of silvery fire, fanning out from a point. It was as if the night sky had been rent by a cosmic fingernail, showing the radiance beyond.

"The bad ones of Shoms will gnash their teeth tonight," Zisa observed.

Others in the spreading encampment had seen the comet. People lept to their feet, gaping, pointing. A murmur spread across the crowd like a quiet squall of rain, starting at one end and ceasing at the other. Some began to perform rituals; some ogled, signed themselves and went back to sleep.

"I'm tired," Zisa said, slapping her bare thighs for punctuation. "I need to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long, great day. I will see you, Musician Spdaz, Vrezh man." Again, she touched him, this time on the back of his upper arm. The touch made Robolion shiver; it had such inexplicable density for a contact so light as to barely trace the fine sparse hair that grew on his flesh.

He looked down at Zisa's face. She was so small, she barely reached his chest. Her face was sweet and homely. It had none of the sexual tang that Robolion required of the women who attracted him. The idea of doing that with Zisa was remote; she was outside the arena of sexual dalliance. Yet Robolion could not shake the deep sensual effect of her touch. Nor could he shake the deep emotional appeal of the accepting love that poured from her eyes.

He shook his head, confused. "Good night, Zisa. I will see you."

He slung the N'thumbu across his back and picked his way over sleeping bodies, back to his own multi-skin. Garuvel and the others were apparently asleep. The night was still deep. Robolion nursed a smile that was intended only for himself. The expression on his lips seemed to radiate warmth backwards into his mouth, down his throat, to spread through his chest.

He realized that he had been holding his shoulders rigidly, that his chest was tight. It seemed to him as if he had been holding his breath for hours, or days. No, he had been holding his breath for years. His shoulders came forward and down. He understood, in some mysterious way, that Zisa had witnessed him, had seen all the way inside his soul, acceped and loved everything there. It was an experience never felt before, a completely new mode of love. His chest, hyperexpanded, released the pent air in his lungs. He exhaled, a long, long breath, one that rode down the inward curve of his torso and finally came to a break when his abdomen tightened beneath his navel. All that tense breath came out. When he inhaled, he was breathing a new way.

He fell into a deep, sweet sleep.

Chapter Forty Seven

New Breath

"A 'good body'? My definition of a 'good body' is one that holds up under a lot of stress and abuse."

Twangy Pete, Jerk'n Jell guitarist

Garuvel woke to the sound of the Idono bird. It sang three notes, a low, a high, a middle. "I Don't Know", it whistled. "I Don't Know".

Its mate joined it from another branch of the tree. They exchanged rhythmic cues: "I I don't know don't don't know know."

Jaramine's eyes opened. Her lips compressed wryly as she listened. Then more birds joined. Idonos and Who-me's and What-th-hells. They burst into mocking clamor as Mosht spread its steaming egg yolk over the frying pan of morning twilight.

Trace stood in a comic pair of pajamas acquired from some tribesman. He stretched, making a left-and right leaning bow of his body so that every vertebra in his back seemed to pop and loosen. Scianna tumbled out of her multi-skin wearing identical pajamas. Her hair had grown so long that as she did girlish somersaults it covered and revealed her body, reaching down to the powerful bulge of her thighs, then falling up to cover her face.

Garuvel turned around in a full circle. His jaw fell open. Campsites had been set up as far as the eye could see. He and his friends were at the center of a vast circle of people.

"Look at 'em all!", he said. "There must be ten thousand people here!"

Klomos came to stand beside him, tying his belt. "This has never happened. Never. These tribes would have annihilated one another a few days ago. They may do so yet."

A meteor zashed over their heads, creating a sonic boom that was more of a quick shudder than a sharp crack. It exploded ten miles away, leaving a cloud like a black pillar that pointed the way to the mountains.

When Garuvel and his group were ready to go, the Skull of Kringmar emerged unbidden from Jaramine's pack and floated ahead. The rest of the giant circle of pilgrims unwound like a coiled snake and fell in behind the skull and its bearers.

A few hours into the morning, Garuvel saw a line of people standing in the path of his procession. They were formed so as to make a gate, through which all of the pilgrims must pass.

"Zakinji". Klomos was undisturbed. "We will share our food and other things, they will not obstruct us."

Garuvel looked back at the numbers of people following. "I doubt that they could obstruct us."

"There will be more hidden in the grass. If they want to, they can make things hot."

They walked past the Zakinji, who stood one-legged, balanced on their spears. Their lips, earlobes, nostrils and eyelids had been distorted gradually since birth. Some of the women had distended ears folded to make pink crescents across their foreheads. The men tied elaborate knots from lower lips through holes in their stretched earlobes. The nostrils of the Zakinji were so broad that their noses looked like the airholes of leviathan sea-creatures.

The procession was funneled toward the gate of the Zakinji warriors. When Kringmar's skull reached the gap, the Zakinji chief fell on his back and thrust both arms and legs into the air. All of the Zakinji followed suit. The pilgrims passed through unmolested. When the last pilgrim had walked past the Zakinji chief, he rose, signaled to his tribesmen, and fell into the procession.

When Mosht was directly overhead, when both ring's shadows had swept leisurely past the great throng, Garuvel stopped for a meal and a rest. Multi-skins went up into a canopy. Around their site, other canopies and lean-to's sprouted like a forest of mushrooms. The small game, bagged by hunters in the morning, went into cookpots. Smells of twist-leek and ronion floated like balloons on the changing breeze.

A great pile of food offerings had been laid before Kringmar's skull. As the stuff arrived, Jaramine and Scianna transferred it to another pile at the other end of the camp, to be distributed to those in need. One pile grew, the other pile disappeared.

Robolion was about to bite into a slab of Arpak when Zisa came out of the throng, holding two broad leaves of steaming vegetables. With her knees bent to her side, she placed the food on the multi-skin that Robolion had spread for the repast. Her chunky body conjured grace in the movement. Robolion was not unaware of the way she had kept her back straight, her head high, as she performed this gesture of service and nurture.

"How is Teruah, today?" Robolion felt instant comfort with Zisa. She sat beside him, close but not pressing.

"He is better. It will take time, of course. He's talking to Kemzashah. No, talking is too light a description. He is pouring out his heart to Kemzashah. He is showing a vulnerable side of himself, a willingness. We are all greatly encouraged."

"I can identify with Teruah," said Robolion, between bites of steamed grain and narrow green pods.

"Everyone in Vrezh can identify with Teruah. That's the nature of Vrezh. You can only find it when you've lost it. That way it has savor, succulence and depth. Yumm." Zisa ate with both hands, wiping her fingers on the grass every three or four bites. When she was finished, she leaned sideways, put her head on Robolion's shoulder, and belched loudly.

Robolion followed suit. Tentatively, he put his arm around Zisa's shoulder. She snuggled into him happily.

"Zisa. Don't you have a husband?"

He felt a brief tightening of the muscles of her back and neck. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked straight ahead.

"I lost him, and my son, when the Mezloroglu raided our camp. There is always a Mezloroglu, or a Mazmoholu, or one of their cousins, for every loving family on Shoms. I don't know why Vrezh allows the world to be stocked with unfeeling spirits, with bullies, thugs, criminals. It makes me so angry! "

Zisa's face was squinched in a mask of frustration and rage.

Robolion leaned forward, so that his face could be next to Zisa's face. Her eyelids were quivering slightly, her shoulders arched forward around her torso as if they were trying to touch. Breathing long slow breaths, she relaxed.

"I am so sorry, Zisa. I did not mean to cause you pain by my question."

She smiled sadly, and placed her hand over Robolion's. "It's allright, music man. Sometimes my loved ones come in the Vrezh, to visit me. Our souls are connected, always. I just miss them, here, in the flesh."

Robolion had the feeling that Zisa had just taken care of him. That in all her grief, she had taken the time to assuage his discomfort at asking a sensitive question. He was so moved at her kindness that he pulled her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder. He could feel wetness through the cloth of his jumpsuit. Tears of genuine sympathy came to his eyes.

"I thought I endured a loss, too. But it was not the same as yours. I lost myself."

Zisa wiped her nose with a piece of leaf. "But that is the worst grief of all. Without yourself, you can have no one, ever. No one at all. My grief is not a torture to me; it is a comfort. What you are describing: that is a long, slow torture."

They held each other. In their silence, they heard the afternoon shift of birds and insects. One bug rattled its legs together and said "OTHER. OTHER. OTHER." A bird with a beak shaped like a snail's shell opened its mouth and screamed "WHAT'S GOIN' ON?"

"Zisa. Tonight....will you, can you, come be with me? I don't know what will happen, or if anything will happen, but...."

"What could happen? Or not happen?" Zisa punched him affectionately on the arm. "You men are so sweet and foolish, sometimes."

Robolion blushed through the darkness of his skin. "I don't know if there's any way we could have a future....if we could...."

"Robolion!" Zisa looked genuinely shocked. "The planet Shoms is coming to an end! None of us knows if there is a future. All of us," and she gestured at the entire gathering, "are leaping off a cliff into space. It's an act of pure faith. We know that somehow the Vrezh will catch us. If not in life, then in death."

Klomos, who had overheard these last words, nodded grimly to himself and swallowed another roasted vulick.

They walked. The large animals, the wahant, jank-wolves, kriber, rogar, gave them a wide berth. Burrowing skitners upended themselves and fled into their tunnels at the approach of the vast assemblage.

In the late afternoon a man was seen, sailing a hundred feet over their heads. He was upright; his legs worked, his skin cape flapped. He dangled his arms lazily, occasionally pushing at the air. He landed some distance ahead of the throng. He bounced a little, prepared himself and then took another step. Launched into a high arc, the man continued on his way toward the Moaning Mountains, towards Klah-Yan.

The entire crowd, in a single unified movement, fell to their knees, pressed their foreheads to the ground and shouted "DZUJHDU!"

The volume of their exclamation shook the ground. Then the ground shook again, for good measure.

The mountains seemed to come no closer. The savannah through which they trekked displayed surprising life and richness. Waterholes sprung to the surface inside thickets of flat-topped trees with deep orange colored leaves. The natives spoke among themselves at how strangely fertile and alive the savannah had become, how rich the hunting. The prey animals seemed to give themselves willingly to their predators. The imminent demise of the world had released some pent up underlying harmony. None expected it to last. All had ample experience of Shoms to take nothing for granted.

Despite the crash and whoosh of meteors, despite the shaking of the ground, there was no sense of urgency. It was both a battle and a festival. Song, dance, prayer, private meditation, lovemaking, joking, meeting old friends, confronting old enemies, throwing stones, mending wounds, the world was coming to an end, and some people celebrated, while warrior tribes fought ceremonial battles in which no one was killed.

Sharp-eyed pickets flanked the columns. There was a collective awareness, bred of the long reality of Shoms, that someone, sometime, would try to stop them from reaching their goal.

Garuvel had been standing on Trace's shoulders, checking the way ahead, when that sometime became now, and the someone an army of Mazmoholu, Mezmoroglu, Hemarks, Djoubiats and Gleets.

They were armed with many ancient metal blades. Gleaming in the late sun, the horde made a scythe of warriors across the path of the pilgrims. Mounted on Mokhor, Ko-demons, war-dogs; standing afoot with spears planted in the ground, the phalanxes of brutal Shoms waited without song or prayer.

The only movement in the hostile mass was the jerking of restive mounts, the waving of war banners in the wind.

Kringmar's skull flew ahead of the approaching pilgrims, as if to inspect the enemy.

The dark horde twitched a little, but were not intimidated. Kringmar's skull returned to Jaramine's pack and buried itself.

"Kringmar seems to think we don't need him." Garuvel sat astride Trace's shoulders, watching the host as if it were a sludge of tar that had oozed from a subterranean sinkhole.

"Then we don't," said Jaramine, organizing her psychifacts.

Garuvel got down from Trace and gave the robiot his laser. Reaching into his own pack, he unwrapped the spoons of Apaji Kosnos and his incarnations. Grinning, Klomos took the sword, "Whisper", and inspected its edge, eagerly.

Scianna took out her own psychifact. She did not know how to use the disc-shaped cymbals as a weapon, but she trusted that inspiration would come.

Robolion thumbed the base string of the N'thumbu, twisted a knob all the way to the right. Then he reversed his grip and swung it around like a club.

As word filtered back into the mass of people, warriors from countless tribes came to stand beside Garuvel's company, spreading in both directions. They formed a gently curving line, half a mile long and a hundred people deep. Men, women and youths joined the multitude, grim faced and stolid.

Klomos got to Trace's shoulders with the scanner. "The Stroontsim are coming," he said, and scrambled back down, breathing hard.

The army of the Stroontsim, the "hard people", began to move. Kettle drummers astride Mokhor began to throw balls onto the drum skins, or beat them with padded clubs. The sound of drums, hooves, claws and feet, moving at once, was a thunder.

When the two armies were only thirty paces from one another, several huge, lens-like objects arose from within the mass of the Stroontsim. At the top of each object was a saddle, and in each saddle sat a hairy naked man, steaming with filth.

Temple Rays!" Klomos panted, his lips tight, teeth barely showing. "They looted them from the ruins of the Great Temple in Ha'nar. Your psychifacts won't work. Put them away and get ready to fight with whatever you can find."

Garuvel grimly replaced his spoons. Jaramine and Scianna secured their psychifacts and stood waiting.

Garuvel could feel his pulse all over his body; he knew he was physically terrified, but something stood between himself and his emotions. He had been in many battles and always entered them assuming that he would die. This was different. Now he had a sense of belonging, a sense of place and he wanted to survive, he wanted his friends to survive, he wanted the righteous people of Shoms to survive.

"I know I can lose everything in the next minute", he thought. "My life, my love, my friends. Everything I've ever wanted. This is my moment of absolute, ultimate vulnerability." There was nothing to do but accept it, and get on with the fight. No power, no magic, no cunning could get him out of this. It was a matter of destiny. He was determined to meet his destiny with skill and grace.

With a mocking howl, the Stroontsim began their charge.

Trace, Scianna, Jarmine, Robolion, Garuvel and Klomos formed a tight half-circle at the very center of the line. The robiot fingered the laser's trigger, and a pin-head sized stripe of hot energy lanced across the chests of the enemy.

Stroontsim grabbed their torsos and flew backwards. A searing blast ignited the grass before the Stroontsim host. Flames shot up, smoke burned in their faces. The enemy army disappeared for a moment, then emerged like grim spectres from out of the flames.

The two masses of people came together with a groan of animal rage. There was a sound like the wrinkling of a giant metal plate. Garuvel was only aware of pushing and being pushed. His shoulder was dug into someone's brittle shield, someone who was pushing at him as mightily as he pushed back. All around him, this pushing of two giant forces wavered this way and that, the front of the two masses of people snaked, bent, briefly ruptured, re-formed, pushed again.

Garuvel could feel himself gaining ground as he pushed at the shield. His feet were digging trenches in the soil; soft wet earth oozed up around his ankles. He was able to take a single step forward and his opponent's shield broke in two.

The face of a startled snarling Djoubiat appeared before him, and Garuvel used two fingers of his left hand to poke his enemy's eyes out. He grabbed the man's sword as it began to float away on the waves of the crowd. He tossed it to Jaramine, then got another sword for himself. Back to back, they let themselves be swept into the berserk trance of combat.

There was a brief opening, a flurry of individual combats, and then the masses came together again and resumed pushing, pushing, giving here, advancing there.

Robolion made room for himself behind his friends and strummed a string with the flat of his thumb. His left hand curled around the N'thumbu's neck. His elbows went wide as he cupped his hand around the acoustic sockets in the instrument's body. No sound could be heard coming from the N'thumbu. The musician poked the instrument forward, holding it at arm's length, not caring anymore if it were destroyed, as long as it would protect his friends. The Mazmoholu, Mezmoroglu and others nearest to him began to writhe uncomfortably in their saddles, or jumped from their mounts and ran for shelter in the tall grass. They were vomiting, shitting, holding their heads in agony, scratching at their eyes.

Others kept coming. At the last second, Robolion collapsed the instrument and began to use it as a club.

After that, it was all battle rage. Konya V'har jumped into saddles behind snarling Gleets and throttled them with their turbans. In the chaos, tribes that had been with Garuvel and his friends turned upon one another. It was impossible to tell who belonged to which army. There was only the ancient frenzy of suspicion and hatred that had soaked the planet Shoms with blood for eons.

Garuvel heard bits of shouted imprecations all around him.

"You've made our lives hell for centuries, you bastards!"

"Sit on our goddam necks as if we're dogs, I'll fucking open your guts!"

A number of different clans took up a fearsome cry: "Open your guts open your guts open your guts," while another added counterpoint, "Crush your skulls crush your skulls!"

Cries of rage and humiliation came through the growing smoke. The battle went on until there were so few people left that there was no one to fight. War-painted animals bolted, chewed at their bridles, bared their fangs and screamed.

Soon there was little where the Stroontsim stood but stinking leather and burning bodies. Stalks of high grain shook, seeds flew from their yellow heads as panicked warriors pushed through the dense undergrowth.

Garuvel turned to find Jaramine behind him. She was facing away from him but was turning in a circle. When she saw him, they sagged together in the smouldering grass, looking for their friends.

First Klomos appeared out of the smoke, exultant, the sword Whisper trembling in his hands.

Robolion ran past them and nodded briefly. "Zisa! Where is Zisa?" He disappeared.

Scianna and Trace, looking sad and terrible, came naked, bleeding and bruised. Half of one of Trace's ear lobes had been lopped off. Blood leaked from it profusely. Scianna looked around, grabbed what had been a battle flag, tore it in one ferocious scissoring movement of her arms. She put her arm on Trace's shoulder, trying to get him to sit down. He seemed unable to hear. His head moved back and forth as if he were anticipating another attack. Scianna took hold of his head in both her hands, forced him to look at her face. He stopped, suddenly, looked deeply at his mate, and began to weep. Then he sank to his knees, where Scianna wrapped his wound.

The wind rose and carried with it a stench, a gut-seething mix of burning flesh, spilled innards, bile and blood. The stink of war was like no other stink, a rank pile of scorched fecal smell mouldering in the nostrils.

The Temple Rays had been toppled and smashed. Jaramine beat around in the flattened grass until she found her pack. She removed her psychifact jewel from its box. She struggled a few moments for composure, then placed the object into her forehead.

A black cloud gethered over the heads of the survivors. Lightning bolted from it, and a sheet of corruscating rain fell hard upon the flaming grass, all across the battlefield. With a steaming hiss, the fire was extinguished. Gore, filth and stink were washed off the people, carried away in rivulets through the tall grass. Daylight shone all around the cloud. Dissipating, the grey-black thunderheads slowly shredded, and were soon gone.

It seemed as though all the predators and carrion-eating beasts of the veldt had gathered in a great circle around the survivors of the struggle. They stood off, waiting for the living to move away and leave the disposal of the dead to Shoms' rightful instruments of nature.

With a sigh, Jaramine removed the jewel from her head.

Klomos paced, swinging the sword through the air.

"Damn! I wanted to fight more! It was over too soon!" He stopped, put his hand to his chest, as if to quiet his heart and lungs. Then he sank to his knees, ferocity spent. His face filled with guilt.

"I am a violent man," he said. "Killing goes against the precepts of the Way of Ways. I can't remove this hate and aggression from my soul. I am angry! I want to fight more Stroontsim, but I am ashamed. I must cultivate my peaceful aspect." He laid the sword "Whisper" at Garuvel's feet. Garuvel picked it up and handed it back to him.

"Does the Way of Ways tell you to stand and be killed while evil thrives?"

Klomos looked at him and grinned. "I'm not THAT ashamed. There will be more fighting. What's left of the Stroontsim will take to the mountains, to snipe and mount surprise attacks. They're getting hungry. There's no one left to steal from except these." He indicated the bare remnants of the mighty horde that had walked the plains.

Garuvel looked at the young monk quizzically. "Have you always liked to fight this much?"

Klomos was both proud and embarassed. "I never took it well when people told me to do something that I didn't want to do. It seems as if all the grievances of my life are being released in a great river, and it feels....well, it feels good!"

Garuvel nodded, too tired to pursue it further. "You're a good man to have at our side in battle, that's all I can say, Master Klomos."

The monk glowed and bowed his head in silence.

After a time, Robolion appeared, with Zisa at his side. Garuvel had never seen his friend more at peace.

Chapter Forty Eight

Love's Completion

"Oblivion is the most transitory state of all." from the writings of Torrk Vethen, Seventy Eighth Dzujhdu.

The peoples of Shoms marched away from the site of the battle. They traveled until twilight stained the sky with its ring-fires. The mountains were finally getting closer. There were clouds high in the atmosphere, and winds that came from the mouth of colossi. A chill came down off the massif, a cold that seemed to originate from within the body, emanating from the bone.

Robolion had just crawled into his multi-skin and adjusted it for extra warmth. Zisa appeared as if she had sprung from the ground, and wriggled in beside him. She giggled like a little girl; the sound charmed Robolion so much that he felt something melt inside himself, a little winged creature flew up from the base of his spine and tickled the inside of his rib cage like a feather duster.

He did not want to think at all, but thought was too fast for him. It came and went before he had a chance to know what the thought would be.

"My god, I love this woman. I've never loved like this before."

Zisa licked the side of his neck, where the vein pulsed, the one that carried the blood from his heart to his head. The touch of her warm wet tongue was so sizzling and packed with love that he almost left his body. He turned to kiss Zisa, but felt a strange remoteness. It was the last thing he wanted to feel at that moment; but there it was, and he would not lie or pretend.

"Zisa," he whispered, "I love you so much. I feel strange; like I am a new person in a new skin. I haven't adjusted yet to who I am; how to work my body. How to express this kind of love.....I'm so sorry, I know you want..."

"Shh, shh" Zisa pressed two fingers to Robolion's lips. "You don't know what I want. I don't want anything, except for us to be ourselves."

Robolion worked his arm beneath Zisa's neck so that he could pull her by the shoulder, close to him, so that she could feel the beating of his heart.

"Oh music man, I know you've been hurt recently; hurt very badly. No one has to tell me that. I see it in you, hear it in your music. You're expecting too much of yourself. How can you be inside a woman, loving a woman, if you don't trust her? And it's too soon after your hurt to trust me. You shouldn't trust me. Only a man without feelings would trust me after such a thing. And the man I love is a man with deep, deep feelings."

Robolion shook his head back and forth rapidly, across her ears, across her face, like a child playing in a small tub of water. She bent her knees up inside the multi-skin, rocking and laughing.

"You are amazing," he said, and his words were heavy with love like a comb full of honey. "Just amazing."

He released her, and they lay side by side. The chill outside was in such stark contrast to the heat inside, that Robolion put his arms out of the multi-skin to feel the difference. Zisa extracted her left arm from under Roblion's weight and reached out through the cold to take his right hand. She lay there in comfortable silence.

Robolion's silence was not comfortable. After a time, Zisa squeezed his hand and said, "What do you really want to do, Roboli?" She pronounced his name with the weight on the second syllable: Ro-BO-Lee.

The musician struggled down into his fear of loving Zisa. He remembered his thought of a moment ago, and the feeling of surrendering himself to love.

"This is hard to say, Zisa. Very hard to say."

"Roboli, what do you really want to do?" Zisa repeated.

"I want to love you."

"Then why can't you?"

"I...uh....I...."

"Come on, music man, the only way you can cause me pain is to be uncomfortable with yourself." Zisa's eyes were on the comet. Her love was in Robolion.

The musician sensed that Zisa's love was greater than his own. And as he admitted this to himself, he found that it was comforting that this should be so. Zisa was large enough to contain him, and he wanted badly to be contained in his totality. He wanted to rest, to find peace in a womb of love where no part of himself was sticking out into the cold and hostile world. He knew this was an impossible thing to ask. He also knew that the closest he would ever come to this state was on offer right now, from this woman.

"Zisa, I have done sex with many women. Women with svelte, unused bodies. That has always been my sexual orientation."

She laughed warmly. "I certainly do not have an unused, svelte body. Do you?" She put her hand back into the multi-skin and patted him on the navel. His ample gut shook a bit. Robolion felt self-conscious.

"We don't have many mirrors on Shoms. Not enough metal to coat them. And I've never had much time to study myself, anyway. I've always felt affection for my body. It has carried me through much." Zisa paused as two stones fell out of the lower curve of Forklion, entered the atmosphere and burned so brightly that the mountains were bathed in the flash.

"When you look in a mirror, music man, is there some part of your body that you prefer not to see?"

Robolion turned on his side, to face Zisa. "Are you kidding? My gut and my butt. In that order. Not a pretty sight. I've got nice arms and legs, though."

"Well, there you are..You are recoiling from yourself, not from me."

Robolion felt as if he had been cleaved in two; as if the axe of Zisa's insight had split him from his skull to his crotch. He thought for a long time about what she had just said.

"I think," he said at last, "that it will happen. But it will take time."

"None of us know if we have time, Roboli. So, if you don't mind, I will love your body, right now."

Then she did something that he liked very much.

An hour later, he did something that she liked very much. And, two hours later, they did something they both liked very much.

Chapter Forty Nine

One Tribe

"Unwittingly, we often speak the same phrases that our parents used to intimidate us in childhood."

Jang Fong, Therapeutic Alchemist

They were now one tribe. The battle had whittled their numbers and cleansed their hearts with grief. Their history had finally exhausted the people of Shoms. Those who survived were too numb with fatigue to hate one another.

With Kringmar as their guide, Garuvel and his people were the brain of the tribe, and the body spread out behind them, in discreet columns, flanked by guards.

Scianna and Trace had become the darlings of the Rokuna, a clan that eerily mirrored the robiots' physigonomy. Tall, wide, square-jawed, the Rokuna had knots and slabs of muscle, fists like hammers and legs like metal beams. They were notorious for their good humor and pacifism. Only ninety eight of the original tribe were now left to journey to Klah-yan.

Garuvel had not wanted to look at the mountains. Their looming presence upended itself and jabbed at his innards with sharp points.

Over and over, obsessive, he had wondered, "How are we going to get over that? With women, old people, small children?"

Though he knew it was pointless to worry, he did so in spite of himself. Shoms was coming apart at the seams. Three times during the morning, everyone had been thrown to the ground as the plain rolled like the tongue of an amphibious bug-catcher. Gaunt flat-topped trees were uprooted. The wildlife had grown ominously silent. All the birds had vanished.

The terrain was rising. Garuvel finally forced himself to look up. He had to tilt his head all the way back to see the peaks of the Moaning Mountains.

Klomos saw Garuvel's eyes reach out and grapple with the truth. With his chin he indicated the two highest peaks.

"On the left is Mount Igosch. Next to it is Mount Frangon. Between them, where we are going, is Sinking Heart Pass."

Garuvel tucked his lower lip under his teeth. "That's great," he said glumly. "Sinking Heart Pass."

Klomos scratched the bottom of a nostril. "When you get there, when you think it's all over, there is a narrow ledge of three hundred paces. It's a nasty surprise. I just thought you should know."

"Yes, now I can think about it all the way up."

Klomos had no remorse. "Wait till you see the ice shelf on the other side of the ledge. People tend to go down it a little too fast."

The topmost bit of the ring Forklion had been gradually revealing itself, but was still hidden behind Mount Igosch. Garuvel could see that somewhere beyond the peak's snaggled jut, the two rings reached the place of intersection. Somewhere, there would be a shadow on the ground, a moving "X". As Mosht moved across the sky, the ring- shadow beneath it would cross the world as inexorably as a tide. With some experience of Shoms, Garuvel knew that the spot would be a place of ritual and magic. Beyond that, he would not speculate.

Chapter Fifty

Mountains of Fate

"Premonition wears a mask. Intuition wears a cape." Shomish folk saying

Without quite knowing how, or when, the mountains surrounded the clilmbing mass of humanity. Their bodies wore down, just like the day. Every step was more difficult than the last. Already, people were carrying other people. Already, children were sagging and growing impatient.

Mosht set prematurely. The night came in early afternoon, borne up on prolonged twilight. The mountains moaned through the soles of the travelers' feet.

Stones rolled down upon the pilgrims, bouncing, missing, plummeting into the axeblow depths. The laser and the psychifacts defended the winding column. Spraying the upper crevasses with power, they caused the bodies of Stroontsim to follow their missiles into the squeezing gaps.

No one could stop; there was no place to rest. The wayfarers could only arrange with one another to be carried in spells as they slept or collapsed.

As darkness stalked them, the Skull of Kringmar began to glow red, more and more brightly. When the night completely covered them, the skull was like a beacon of flame, lighting the way.

The first deaths occurred among the Rokuna. Trace and Scianna had been conversing with their new friends, the High Couple, Sakar and Viokish. These towering, splendid people had garlanded the robiots with yellow and white flowers.

The experience of making new friends had been a revelation. The robiots knew that making new friends would always be a revelation. What they had not been prepared for was the suddenness of departure.

Sakar was describing the functions of the tribal hierarchy. "All of our offices are held by couples," he said. "The High Couple and the Low Couple hold the tribe's continuum of behaviour in a structure. Yes it is painful to be named Low Couple." Sakar took a moment to look at his feet, to make sure of his path. Viokish steadied him. Neither was young, and the terrible climb had taxed their aging bodies. "You would be surprised," he continued, "at how quickly being named Low Couple shakes up a relationship. Low Couples don't stay Low Couples for very...." In mid-sentence Sakar's foot slipped. His hands immediately clutched at Viokish, but with a lightning reflex he withdrew them, to fall cartwheeling into the gulf. Viokish nursed an expression of shock and anguish for one brief moment. "I'm too old to live without him," she said calmly, then lept outward to follow her husband.

"I'm coming, Sakar!" she called, spreading her arms to fly towards her husband. The column could not be stopped. Hearing the noise, Garuvel had looked back to see his companions holding one another in a notch at the side of the trail. He picked his way backwards against the tide of people.

Kringmar's glow accented the robiots' craggy features, shadowing their eyes beneath the shelves of their eyebrows.

Scianna had one hand out, delicate with sudden grief, its benediction cast into the abyss.

"No..that can't. It isn't," she said. "How can that? Where did?" She buried her head in Trace's shoulder, banged his chest with her fists.

Garuvel's face was an ancient mask of tragic focus. Even if he had known what to say, he could not have spoken. There are some griefs that cannot be comforted.

Scianna breathed in and out, several times, rapidly. "They were so alive. So beautiful. So in love. That could happen to you, Trace, or you, Garuvel, any time. It could happen to me. Why is this fear so great? I don't want to feel this....I wish there was some way I could not feel this."

She thought for a few seconds about how Viokish and Sakar had not been separated. The tension in her face diminished. "They had each other. They had their lives. The fear can be endured; we have no choice. But it musn't stop us from having our lives."

The pressure of the moving column imposed itself. Scianna gripped Trace's elbow and moved him into the line of the other Rokuna, who paused at the spot, made a swirling gesture with their hands, shed a few tears, and moved on.

The night became a mass, to be shoved aside. The effort simply existed; it did not bunch or tense. It just moved, relentlessly.

When dawn came, so did the Stroontsim. Klomos was following closely upon the now-fading skull of Kringmar. He saw Mazmoholu waiting around the next bend.

"Yah!" he yelled gleefully. "Aha!" Swinging the sword "Whisper" with sensual agony, he piled into the dark people. Two heads, lopped and staring, tumbled down and away. Kringmar's skull flew at the brigands, banged one, withdrew, banged another.

"Damn!" Kringmar's tinny voice said, "I'm getting tired. Don't have much pranash left. Will you get this over with, please?"

The slight ledge could only accomodate two attackers. Klomos dispatched the rest of them, then licked blood from the flat of the sword.

"Whoo! That was great! I hate those bastards!" He whooshed the blade around his head a few more times, for good measure.

Chapter Fifty One

On the Klah Plain

The Klah Plain was a ragged circle set into the serrated vastness of the Moaning Mountains. Its origin as a gigantic crater was obvious. Here and there wisps of steam rose out of cleft rocks. Sulphurous pools held bacterial life, with clots of purple fungus. Most of the plain had filled over the eons with rock and soil. Glacial streams supported stands of huge gnarled trees. In places, the ribs of the planet shone through, its bones and teeth still sharp and cold. The mountains spoke from every direction, filling the valley with an eerie howl that could barely be heard.

The tips of Klah-Yan's stupas could be seen under a faint layer of cloud. Flags waved, carrying messages of power to the four meetings of the rings with the world. Forklion and Peshtrion soared overhead in a perfect cross. The apparent size of each ring grew more thin and tenuous as the throng approached that place where they met, directly overhead. It still lay some distance away. It lay directly above the Klah-Yan Monastery.

Kringmar's skull fell to the ground with a dull thud. It was spent. It no longer glowed or resonated with subtle mischief. Jaramine picked it up, turned it this way and that, peered into its eye sockets.

"He's very tired. There's just the faintest glimmer of a spark." She placed the skull lovingly into her pack, after wrapping it with a silken scarf.

Th people of Shoms emerged from the fissure like corpuscles spilling out into a larger organ. They were dazed, milling about, exhausted. Some wandered in circles, some sat on the first piece of ground that seemed steady beneath their feet.

Garuvel brought his friends forward a few hundred yards, threw down a multi-skin and sat. He felt a battered, solid satisfaction. Turning to watch the tribes of Shoms, the new Tribe of Shoms, he saw the thinning out of their ranks, and a quiet grief welled up from somewhere below his shoulders. Having long observed how different emotions come from different parts of his body, he thought this peculiar, because grief had mostly come from a place in his chest. He began to cry, and that place below his shoulders gave a slight twitch, as if someone had elbowed him in the ribs. The crying started to sound like a laugh. His body hiccuped once, as he made a sad sounding "Ha". The feeling of grief, of pathos, was undeniably merging with inexplicable humor.

"Ha, ah ah, ha, ahhh", he cry-laughed. His chest, his shoulders, his whole upper body rocked with the rhythm of laughter, yet tears of grief were falling from his eyes. This was a strange feeling, indeed. He had laughed and cried at the same time before. A cry, a laugh, a cry, a laugh. This was different. This completely united the cry and the laugh; there was no rapid alternation. He had never heard this sound emerge from his mouth. Humor and pathos: huthos, he decided, giving himself to this sad and funny feeling. He knew what was sad. He wasn't sure yet what was funny, but it was there: he knew it was there.

Jaramine squatted in front of Garuvel, looked at his face. There were tears hanging in her lower eyelashes, suspended without sufficient weight to fall. The grief was not heavy enough. She blinked, and squeezed moist salty expression towards her cheekbones. Listening quizzically to the sound of Garuvel's huthos, her right shoulder went one way, her left elbow twitched backwards, her head rocked like a baby's cradle.

"Oh," she said, "this is nuts." She reached for Garuvel as the fused sound of laughing crying came out of her own body. They sat, their bottoms planted a few feet apart but their upper bodies clutching, until Garuvel scooted himself forward to fit more surely into Jaramine's embrace.

The people of the tribes, the Rokuna, the Konya V'har, the Jokash, the Kimsavira and hundreds of other tribelets, fell, sat, held, shook and pealed with the sound of huthos on the Klah Plain.

A pair of Dzujhdus, walking through the air above the tribe, heard the sound. They looked down, looked at each other, shrugged and continued toward the monastery.

Garuvel was like a dog trying to decide which hind leg to lift to take a pee. Though the monastery was in sight, he had lost all sense of forward motion. Trusting his instincts, he exhaled deeply, and closed his eyes.

When he awoke it was dark. The tent had been erected around his sleeping body. A multi-skin covered him. He could hear Jaramine's voice beyond the walls of the tent; she was organizing the food offerings, making sure that everyone had something to eat.

Garuvel lay thinking, listening to the sounds of the encampment. It must have been just after evening twilight, because he could hear the Konya V'har chanting in their liturgical language. The male voices were so deep that they seemed to emanate from stratum that surrounded the core of the planet. "Shoooom", they chanted, "Zom zom Shome-Heyyy". The women joined, trilling and high, star-sparks fluttering from their lips. "Loola lee, loola lee loola lee."

"We'll be there soon enough," Garuvel thought. "At the right moment, we will make our passage through the Twelve Perimeters, to face the Test of Terror and Ecstasy."

The perimeters, he knew, were psychological and spiritual barriers, not physical ones. And the Test. That could only be what it said it was: the facing of one's own deepest emotions.

Klomos crawled through the tent flap, diffidently. Seeing that Garuvel was awake, he squatted on his haunches, hands hanging loosely over his knees.

Garuvel didn't raise his head. "So?"

Klomos picked at an insect bite in his hairline. He crushed some scab material between thumb and forefinger.

"The Rokuna are having a grieving ceremony. They want us to be witness."

Garuvel inhaled deeply, once, then threw the multi-skin off himself and sat up. Rubbing his hand across his chin, feeling several days growth of beard, he asked, "Should I be in formal attire?"

Klomos half-grinned and flicked his fingers clean. "They're naked. No one cares what you wear."

Unzipping his jumpsuit, Garuvel stepped out of it, wiped himself off with a spare multi-skin. "Coming right up."

There were ninety four Rokuna left. The new High Couple, Trane and Dolfee, were standing on a patch of ground that had been cleared of all grass and stones. The other Rokuna, naked, stood at a respectful distance. Nearby, Jaramine, Robolion, Trace and Scianna also stood naked. Beyond, the entire host of Shoms pilgrims were gathered in a ragged circle, some naked, some attired in sacred headpieces and ceremonial garb.

Klomos, now wearing his monk's robe of purple with yellow trim, caught up with Garuvel and joined his friends on the bit of ground that was serving as an informal dais.

Dolfee walked onto the cleared space, carrying a bow and a large quiver of arrows. Her steps were regal yet delicate.

Trane, in similar fashion, strode to the opposite end of the cleared space, carrying his bow and quiver.

Methodically, they began shooting arrows into the ground, so that the shafts were three quarters buried. Drawing and shooting, they approached one another, then moved away. As the arrows in the quivers diminished, Trane and Dolfee approached one another again, until they met at the confluence of the pattern's lines. Then Dolfee shot her remaining arrows in a line across the center of the outline.

Trane retired to the bottom of the arrow-drawn figure, while Dolfee spread her arms apart, holding the bow and the empty quiver. She spoke clearly and simply.

"This pattern is the universal symbol of passionate love."

She pointed to the shape on the ground, the shape of a heart with a line through its center.

"The lines that converge here," she pointed to the crevice where the arcing lines came together, "show the place where two bodies are joined in love. The lines that arc out and away are the separate bodies of the lovers. They come together, there," she pointed to where Trane stood, "at the heads, where they become one. The line that penetrates the heart shows that love is made poignant and beautiful only by the omnipresent thought of separation and vulnerability."

Her arms came to her sides. Trane then raised his arms, bow and empty quiver in hand. He raised them high into the air, shook them and inhaled deeply. When his lungs were as filled with air as he could possibly make them, he shouted with utmost volume and emotion.

"It is so beautiful!"

Every person present raised his or her arms to the sky and shouted, "It is so beautiful!"

The sound of ten thousand voices rent the air with passionate conviction. The surrounding mountains caught the declaration and echoed it over and over, until it faded gradually and imperceptibly into nothingness.

When the last echo had gone away, the other members of the Rokuna walked to the pattern and, one by one, plucked each arrow from the ground.

Chapter Fifty Two

The Here And Now

"The here and now? Any fool can be in the here and now.

The elswhere and elsewhen are vastly more interesting."

Klang Vopa, second Dzujhdu

"Our apprehension of reality is always provisional, never final. That does not make it less valid."

Harl Plesniak

"Klomos, does the Prophecy of Suyunos have anything to say about the comet?" Garuvel had his arm around Klomos' shoulder. They were walking across the plain in the cool of the night. The comet had grown larger, its tail flayed by the breath of Mosht into a glittering scimitar.

Klomos eyed the cosmic interloper with feral love. He raised his chin and recited from the Prophecy: "In the final days there are no final days. The intolerable will be made tolerable, the unendurable shall be as the fingers of newborn babes. Fothra, the Messenger, will arrive and cross the gap."

"So, that's Fothra." Garuvel watched the comet as it seemed to turn towards Klah Yan. He could not avoid watching the comet. It hung like a bent exclamation mark over the palace of the Dzujhdus, the Ro-arung. This mighty edifice had been built on a jut of rock at the far perimeter of the Klah Plain. It dominated the monastery, its wild architecture competing with the majesty of the mountains themselves.

The pilgrims camped one final night outside the monastery's gates. In the morning, before Mosht had pulled itself over the tops of the mountains, Kringmar's skull emerged from Jaramine's pack and once more took the lead.

It floated through a gateway, whose huge wooden doors were left open, thrust wide like the mouth of a dental patient. At the side of the gate a single monk sat, his back to the beige wall of ancient mud-brick. He yawned, and waved off stinging insects with a paper fan. He watched the skull go through. He watched Jaramine and Garuvel and the others without much expression.

The people followed Kringmar across a huge courtyard. Once inside, the throng spread out and began setting itself up with canopies and rugs. The Shoms pilgrims had arrived. They felt no need to go further.

Garuvel and his friends stayed with the skull as it veered right, then left through a warren of long low buildings. It led them through this labyrinth until it emerged into another large courtyard. The rays of Mosht cast the shadow of the Ro-arung halfway across this open expanse.

Garuvel looked up. They were at the foot of the Palace of the Dzujhdus, a collection of hundreds of buildings each of which consisted of three shapes: a cube topped by a sphere which was then topped by a spire. The group followed Kringmar up a flight of steps whose stones had been worn into U-shapes by eons of passing pilgrims.

The steps, wide as a field, zig-zagged up the side of the Ro-arung, walled on each side by ten-ton stones. The holy script of the Dzujhdus was engraved upon each of these blocks. A deep groove was worn from one block to the next, made by the trailing two-fingered sign of millions of pilgrims as they touched the sacred inscriptions.

The Skull of Kringmar was virtually bobbing with delight as it ascended. The six pilgrims passed a jutting angle in the staircase, and were suddenly greeted with a crash of music. A line of purple-robed monks were standing atop the wall-stones, playing thighbones, golden cymbals, shawms and giant throb-horns that curved and widened to rest at the monks' feet on embroidered cushions.

The monks wore golden helmets crested with red-dyed mokhor quills and blue pangal plumes. A high lama wearing a huge demon mask stepped into the procession behind Kringmar's skull. His silken vestments flapped like wings as he strode with grim majesty through a pointed archway, into a dark cool corridor.

Following into the deeps of the Ro-arung, Garuvel and his companions saw sacred wall hangings, tapestried episodes of the Dzujhdus' lives, illuminated by oil lamps in golden bowls.

In a few minutes the light of day was gone, and the pilgrims were utterly lost in the building's cryptic maze. Kringmar's skull glowed a faint red. The masked lama took a small hand drum out of his vestments and beat it with a mallet shaped like a question mark.

"Kringmar Dzujhdu," the lama tolled, like an ancient timekeeper walking the streets of a walled city. "Kringmar Dzujhdu".

Standing in the shadows in the corridor's niches, other masked lamas stepped out and turned into the procession.

"Kringmar Dzujhdu", they intoned with low solemn voices, in pitches that made the upper legs and lower torso vibrate with an erotic and tantalizing hum.

The small drums of the lamas beat. Garuvel could see a light coming from the end of the corridor, from an open doorway that was painted to be the mouth of a frantic-eyed demon. From within that chamber a drum sound came, a sound so deep that it seemed as if the heart of the Ro-arung were beating. Boom Boom Boom Boomboom, it beat. Against the walls the flaming wicks of the oil lamps slithered to its insistent rhythm.

The Skull of Kringmar passed through the mouth of the demon. The robed and masked lamas followed, dividing to the left and right. Finally, Garuvel and his friends entered the giant temple chamber. Lined with monks and abbots, the cavernous room was lit with torches and golden butter lamps.

The giant drum was set on a scaffold high in the domed ceiling. It dwarfed the two monks who beat its tightened skin with clubs the size of mokhor haunches. Thong thong thong, thong-thong, the air coming from the drum twitched each flame in the room in time to the beat.

Skulls hung in rows from turquoise- painted wainscoting. Wooden filigree carved to the shapes of flames ran around the perimeter of the chamber. There was a dais at the far end of the temple. A gathering of Dzujhdus sat or lay in various postures, each dressed in garments of the skins of their previous incarnations.

The Dzujhdus were above the Pyramid of Skulls. They seemed to look down on the stacked pile of black skulls with proprietary benevolence.

Kringmar's skull floated to the pinnacle of the pyramid, hovered for a moment, and placed itself as the very capstone of the four-sided edifice.

There was a whooshing sound, and the eye sockets of the outward facing skulls glowed red. Kringmar issued forth, waving his arms and laughing with triumph. Beneath him, the other skulls of long-dead Dzujhdus spat forth their inhabitants, until a throng of hovering, laughing holy lunatics flew around the room, signing with their hands, punching one another, grappling, wrestling, knocking over statues and stepping in butter sculptures.

After a time, the dead Dzujhdus sorted themselves out. They stood in the air in neat rows. Kringmar descended to stand before Jaramine.

"You did it, lovely lady." The Dzuzhdu was uncharacteristically tender. "I chose you to carry me because I trusted you, and I see I was not mistaken in that trust." He made as if to throw himself into her arms. Jaramine winked at him knowingly.

"It was a pleasure," she responded.

At that moment, Shoms gave a violent twitch, and the temple seemed to turn sideways.

Kringmar looked up and out through the chamber's ceiling. He extended an arm. "Just wait, Fothra. We're getting on with it!"

He twisted his bony arm in the air, bent his head to one side as if he were listening to a little creature perched on his shoulder.

"All right," he said, "all right." Then he looked into the eyes of each of the travelers. Standing before Jaramine, he gazed deeply and lovingly. Then he slid sideways to contemplate Garuvel. He winked, and nudged Garuvel in the ribs. He ran his fingers across Robolion's N'thumbu.

"Bad axe," he said, simply.

He stroked Scianna's cheek like a kind uncle. He took her left hand in his, and reached for Trace's right hand with his other. In this way he joined them together. "You are the High Couple of the future," he told them. He dropped their hands and backed away. "Insofar as I can bless anything, I bless your race at its beginning."

Trace and Scianna simply nodded and smiled.

For Klomos, Kringmar extended his index finger and touched the young monk at the center of the forehead. Klomos' eyes rolled back, he rocked on his feet so that Garuvel put an arm out to catch him. Klomos stayed upright. He opened his eyes, and his expression was one of complete peace and glowing beatitude.

The room tilted again. A faint crash was heard through the joists of the Ro-arung.

"Let's go," Kringmar instructed, and floated toward the doorway. Garuvel and his friends followed. The Dzujhdus came after, and the rear was brought up by the procession of monks and high lamas.

Garuvel caught up with the floating shape of Kringmar. He couldn't help himself. "What's happening?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Kringmar. "Do you?"

"What about the Twelve Perimeters? The Test of Terror and Ecstasy?"

"Oh that," Kringmar waved a dismissive hand. "You passed."

Garuvel understood. They had been traveling through the Twelve Perimeters since the beginning of their adventure. They had been facing their deepest emotions from the very start.

Chapter Fifty Three

Imaginary World

"The world is a completely imaginary place." Latif el Rashid

The procession retraced its path through the Ro-arung. Kringmar, Garuvel and company, the Dzujhdus, one thousand monks and lamas, passed through the palace's labyrinth until they met the light of Mosht, pouring through doors and high narrow windows. When the hieratic multitude came to the great staircase, every monk-orchestra of Klah-Yan was arrayed on the descending platforms of the wall blocks.

The music was crashing, trilling, groaning, warbling, honking, and supported by an underpinning of drawn-out sighs. It evoked jagged high places in the soul, billions of light-years of emptiness, explosions of stars, the ecstasy of lovers and the prayers of the utterly lost.

Behind the procession, in the depths of the Great Temple, the Drum of Forgiveness boomed, washing the entire monastery in its eternal pulse. Boom boom boom, boomboom. The monks and acolytes took up the beat with their hand drums, as the parade of initiates came down from the Ro-arung. Boom boom boom, boomboom.

When the column reached the outer court-yard, pilgrims of Shoms fell on their faces and shouted "Dzujhdu! Dzujhdu! Dzujhdu!"

Garuvel let this mighty symphony of awe wash through him. He felt as if he were at the heart of an infinite series of resonating chambers, each one of which housed a tightened string. He was the string and when he was plucked, he went "Throom!". When any of the strings in any of the other chambers in any of the thousand directions was plucked, he went "Throom!"

There was a subtle change in the quality of the light. Where Mosht had been throbbing down into the courtyard with its usual ferocity, there was now a slight attenuation. The fervor of the light had been diluted, so that the scene took on a tone of eerie twilight.

Everyone looked at the sky. Forklion and Peshtrion were meeting directly overhead. Mosht had begun to move into the upper right notch of the cross. Slightly to the star's right, the full orb of Zaramutu, evident only by its pale outline, moved toward Mosht.

The orchestras played, the people chanted, the Dzujhdus arranged themselves in patterns. The dead Dzujhdus were recreating the pyramid shape with their bodies, in the air above the courtyard.

The planet twitched, a thundrous rumble came through the ground.

The light faded even further. Mosht had entered the perfect center of the cross. The shadow rolled slowly across the Klah Plain until it entered the courtyard of the monastery.

For a few moments, the cross fell upon the pyramid of ancient Dzujhdus. Shoms shook again, harder. Everyone clutched the ground. On the slopes above, monastery outbuildings began to crumble. Bits of masonry from the Ro-arung toppled, crashed against lower facades, and fractured into thousands of pieces.

Then Zaramutu eclipsed Mosht, which had been eclipsed by the rings. Every planet in the Mosht system had fallen into a perfect conjunction, so that a line of cosmic bodies pointed like an arrow into the far reaches of time and space.

It was as night. Stars appeared. The sky was streaming with fireballs of red, blue, yellow and green. They were so bright and so numerous that their flashes lit up the scene in a rhythmic throb of light and shadow.

Fothra's head was hidden beyond the Moaning Mountains. Its tail lept up, hissing inaudibly, to streak the sky with bands of platinum fire.

The entire monastery began to move. The substrata of rock groaned, popped, vented steam. The people in the courtyard held tightly to one another.

The circular slab upon which Klah-Yan had been built slowly twisted, as if screwing itself out of the threads which had held it fast to Shoms.

The eclipse seemed to hold, to go on and on. Bit by bit, the rings began to come apart. Forklion undulated, and spat balls of fire. Peshtrion produced a Mayoom's Crown in the false twilight.

The Monastery of Klah-Yan detached itself from the planet and floated aloft, accelerating towards the meeting place of rings, moon and sun.

Chapter Fifty Four

Arisen

"Enlightenment usually attains us, no matter how hard we struggle against it." From the writings of Zeng Tengreng, fifth Dzujhdu

Robolion had hold of someone's body, possibly Scianna's. He felt a pair of arms encircle him from behind, squeeze him tight.

"Hold on, music man, Vrezh is about to catch us."

He heard Zisa's thought distinctly, and sighed with vast relief. Having, at last, someone to love, he cast his spirit into her.

"Zisa, Zisa. I am so glad you're here."

"A good time to be together, isn't it, Roboli?"

Klah Yan rose, a majestic disc, miles in circumference.

Peshtrion began to lose cohesion. The comet Fothra sliced through its lower arm. As if untethered, the banded ring of dust slipped upward, waving desperately, a headless serpent. It struggled futilely to hold its shape, then dissolved, streaks of dust and smoke vanishing into the radiant blackness of outer space.

The huge rising disc of Klah-Yan moved closer and closer to the pale green orb of Zaramutu. A collossal opening appeared on the moon, a circular doorway expanding like an iris in sudden glaring light.

Klah-Yan, trailing tentacles of roots from its edges, dripping shale- ooze and bits of molten, was swallowed into this space. The iris closed. The moon Zaramutu moved away from its confluence with Mosht and the now-nonexistent rings.

Chapter Fifty Five

Zaramutu

"Isn't that amazing?" Shomish magician's schtick

Everything came to a rest. The groans of twisted rock, the snapping of tree roots, the tumbling and swirling motion subsided.

Garuvel sat up. Around him, the rest of the assembly slowly collected their wits. They were still in the courtyard of Klah-Yan. Above them there was a sky of pale green. Dzujhdus flitted here and there in a businesslike manner.

The planet Shoms was just appearing above the horizon. In its upper right quadrant an explosion was occurring. A still, frozen frame of impact presented itself: giant crater, a flower shape of regular tendrils swooping up and away from Fothra's now-molten mass. Rings of concussion expanded in concentric circles, away from the center of the comet crash. Bits of lightning and sheets of flame hung suspended in a seething cloud at the very center of the crater. Only wisps of Forklion and Peshtrion remained.

The inhabitants of the dying world looked at the spectacle, stunned. A sound of weeping, forlorn and disconsolate, began to move across the crowd. It changed, gradually, to the sound Garuvel had himself made but a few days before: the sound of huthos. As Dzujhdus pirouetted here and there about the green sky, not a soul was immune to this rolling, racking sob of fun.

Kringmar pulled up before Garuvel and his friends, yanking on an invisible rein. He pretended to dismount, clapped his hands together to dislodge invisible grit.

"Damn," he said, "how did that happen?"

"Come on, Kringmar." Garuvel stood and looked around. Jaramine reached for his hand and pulled herself up.

"I'm serious," protested Kringmar. "I knew the general outlines, but I had no idea...."

Jaramine picked up Garuvel's pack and dusted it off. She opened its flap and checked the contents. Evidently, the puzzle-pieces were intact.

She looked at the Dzujhdu with a jaundiced eye. It did not escape her notice that Kringmar was standing on the ground.

"This is how we get to Wayuzo, isn't it?"

Kringmar blinked innocently. "Wayuzo? What's that? Oh...oh yes. The heart-world of the Starwind Communion. Is that important?"

Jaramine made a fist. "You're standing on the ground now, and that means I can knock you down."

Kringmar held out his hands. "Jaramine, please! Let me play, let me play."

"You don't need anyone's permission to play, Kringmar."

Kringmar looked thoughtful. "Huh. You're right about that. Okay, come with me." He beckoned to Jaramine, Robolion, Garuvel, Klomos, Trace and Scianna. They walked with him back through the maze of low buildings, back toward the Ro-arung. Occasionally, Kringmar would take a high bouncing step, go aloft, and float back down.

As they climbed the great steps, the orchestras began to play, the sound of the Drum of Forgiveness boomed. They walked through the maze of the Ro-arung, Kringmar bouncing gaily in front of them, until they reached the chamber of the Great Temple.

The drum boomed, the monks played and chanted, arousing visions of promordial splendor and violence.

When they passed through the demon-mouth, Garuvel stopped short. The perfectly intact shape of his ship, Figment, rested on its skids just below the Dzujhdu's dais.

"No." Garuvel took a step forward, stopped. He looked at Kringmar. "Darzel?"

The Dzujhdu nodded affirmatively, a look of almost sentimental luxury on his face. "Just a little trick with time. Nothing to it."

Garuvel ran to the graceful black hull, stopped long enough to caress it. He tongued the control in his tooth and felt a wave of gratification as the access ramp slid forth. He bounded into the interior.

There was a yawning sound. "Uh...huh..huh. Boss man? Where the hell have you been?"

"Just hobnobbing, Darzel. Just hobnobbing."

"Are we going somewhere? Quickly, as usual?"

"I...I think we have a few moments to spare."

"Well, I am amazed. No ships to outrun, no guns to evade?"

"Be patient, Darzel, the excitement is sure to start again." Garuvel plumped himself into the flight throne. Suddenly Kringmar was beside him. Jaramine came into the cabin, running her hands across the trim.

"Jaramine, Jaramine," Darzel recited, "come be my harem in."

"Nice to see you, too, Darzel."

Trace, Scianna and Robolion came into the forward cabin. Behind them, Zisa and Klomos took steps, hesitant at first, awed. They entered and sat in the thrones that Robolion had pulled down from niches.

Kringmar floated straight up, then settled again. He spoke, enunciating each word separately. "This...is...so...much....fun!"

He twirled his fingers, and began producing little round pills. He tossed one to Trace. "Here. You're going home. This will get you there in a day. Trans-space short cut."

He made another pill for Robolion. "Here you go. You've never really had a home, so escort these fine folk back to Strobe. And here's a couple more for the ladies. Now whatever you do, don't...."

"Take a crap," Robolion finished in unison with the Dzujhdu.

"But what about..?" Garuvel waved his hand to indicate the entire gathering that still waited in the courtyard.

"Oh, they're all going. Strobe is such a mess. And, as we all know, the Robiots need interaction with humans in order to thrive. So, Figment is going to run a ferry service. It's not a long trip. You can expand the hull to carry a hundred or so, if you cram them in. The Shomites need a world. Strobe needs people. Believe me, the futufu plague will be over only when Strobe becomes a place for families."

Robolion chewed the pill briefly, winced, and swallowed. The others digested theirs, responding with various artful grimaces.

Kringmar put his arms on either side of Garuvel's flight throne and leaned forward, so that their noses almost touched. Garuvel had a faint whiff of something spicy.

"You, my friend, and this lovely lady Jaramine, must come with me. I'll take you to Wayuzo."

"You mean, right now?"

"Of course I mean right now. Do you relish long goodbyes?"

Garuvel's heart began to beat too fast. He knew that this moment might come. It was another one of those fears around which he had curled his soul, insulating it, keeping it at bay.

He took Jaramine's hand. He looked at his friends; his right hand came up to massage the back of his neck. Jaramine leaned into him, placing her ear next to his breast. She breathed a long, silent wail.

Everyone was crying. "Who knows?" Garuvel said. No one responded. No one could respond.

After they had embraced, Garuvel and Jaramine followed Kringmar toward the ramp. "Be good, Darzel," he said.

"No problem, Boss. See ya."

Garuvel swallowed and didn't answer.

Chapter Fifty Six

Wayuzo

"Wayuzo? I don't know. Why?" Starwind joke.

Kringmar led Jaramine and Garuvel to the very pinnacle of the Ro-arung. They entered a small chamber, windowed on all sides. It gave a view of the entire monastery, and of strange vistas of Zaramutu's surface. Above them, climbing ever upward, was the ruined hulk of Shoms. It was coming apart in such slow motion that no change was apparent. Yet, since the last time they had viewed the planet, a crack had appeared, spreading slowly away from the impact crater.

The room was simple. A small altar was set up, oil lamps and incense burned before a larger version of the image to which Klomos prayed, every morning and evening.

Kringmar bade them sit on two cushions before the altar. He took his place beside them. They were facing the image of the Elixir Plant of Tabarshi. Its tangential circles blossomed, each circle meeting at a point at the bottom. There was a small symbol at that point. Garuvel leaned forward, and saw that it was a representation of an androgynous human body. It stood naked, with four arms extended to the four cardinal points. Above it, larger and larger circles hooded over the human figure's head. Rays shot from the head, and penetrated outward through the circles.

"Open your mouths," Kringmar ordered. Garuvel and Jaramine obeyed. They had no choice, because a pill too large to swallow had suddenly materialized at the backs of their tongues. They spit them into Kringmar's wrinkled palm.

Kringmar took each pill, crushed it in his hand, and swallowed it without moving a muscle of his jaws or throat.

The chamber began to turn. Out the windows, the black sky rotated. Shoms rose and set, followed by the glare of Mosht. The red-orange star circled across the glass panes, round and round, faster and faster. The chamber lofted, floated away from the Ro-arung. It pealed into the pale green sky, up and through the tenuous surface of Zaramutu.

Mosht grew ever larger. It seemed to reach for them, greedily, hot and voracious.

Chapter Fifty Seven

Eaten by a Star

"The beast of the cosmos staggers, wounded by the weapon of its own life." Harl Plesniak

The radiance approached so quickly and with such ferocity that there was no chance to hold onto one's self. A tendril reached out from Mosht: a gaseous fury engulfed the tiny chamber from the Ro-arung.

A period of time, knowing no time. Both ends of infinity's tunnel out of sight. Time as a dragon, curving upon itself, swallowing its own tail, joining entry and exit.

A minuscule dot of perception appeared. It was engulfed in Otherness. It was in a medium neither space nor transpace, nor any other space. Eternity was superfluous; this Otherness was all. The creatures in the little chamber had been absorbed whole into a Mind, a realm whose law was of nothing remotely human.

The Dzujhdu had vastness; enough to dare communicate. It was not mortal as were these other two creatures.

Curiosity awoke, and a need to delineate circumstance, to define this strange sensation of alien minds. Whose curiosity. What were? They? A strange concept. Somehow familiar, plural single. These tiny entities somehow entered into the Field. A spot? A vorticule? A disease?

Searching out the cause of discomfort, the Mind of the one known as Mosht, who knew itself as Kavlupa In the Realm, found intelligences. Very localized, limited, but nonetheless real. Therefore, a need for respect, even of reverence, for all intelligence is quest, no matter how limited. Since singleness had become commingled, were naturally confused.

Hear the sound Mosht coming, but know not self as that. Am Kavlupa. Mortals must have been caught in the vortex of the Field Streaming Toward Dayuga.

Help help how help. Dzujhdu consciousness. Interesting. Knows the Playful One. Journey? How strange, to almost use the word "I". A contagion? No. Intentions modest.

I? They? We? Ahh. Words bars on cages of incarnation.

Must be freed, little sentients. Belong not in Kavlupa of the Realm.

Pollution, craving for bodies, need to know time as orderly progression of discrete segments, each same measure.

Before hopelessly entangled, desire. Reaching. Dzujhdu reaching. To Spanj of the Black Realm. Family. Send mortals to Spanj. Mortals to Spanj solid children. Dzujhdu asks; will accommodate.

"AAAAAHHH!" Garuvel thought to hear himself screaming, but the voice was as Jaramine's and Kringmar's. Such speed, such acceleration tears the atoms out of their moorings.

Sound, like a million Drums of Forgiveness. Booming for ears of star systems, heart booming in the head like molten planet core sloshing loosely forming magnetic field.

Identity winked on. Scene of infinite regression of Garuvel Jaramine Kringmar in Ro-arung chamber, sweeping sweeping across vast space, abyss of infinity, in seconds, less than seconds, no time, forever.

"Ayee! La!" Jaramine was splayed across Garuvel's lap, her legs extended behind his back. Union sexual position of the gods. Kringmar was floating upside down, his head near Garuvel's face, his eyes closed in ecstasy.

They opened. He began to laugh so hard that the expulsion of air propelled him around the chamber. His feet touched the ceiling, his head swung back and forth.

"That was a complete gas! Oh! My!" He turned himself to settle with his hands on Jaramine's shoulders. "You should have your clothes off when you do that," he chided.

Jaramine planted her chin on Garuvel's shoulder blade and looked out the window. The chamber was floating just off a planet made up of browns, oxide reds, great rifts and immense volcanoes. There was a blazing light coming out from behind the planet's limb. A number of space ships were hanging in front of a tapestry of radiant plasma that extended from beyond the planet's other limb into the far reaches of space.

Jaramine lifted herself gently from Garuvel's embrace and nodded to him, indicating that he should turn around. He scooted the cushion beneath him so that he could rotate himself toward the other window. Jaramine sat next to him, and Kringmar stood behind them with a hand each on one of their shoulders.

The thing that was emerging from behind the planet was not a star. It was a black monster with a spear of light stuck through it. They could see only the upper part of the monster, and the upper reaches of the spear as it vanished into immeasurable depths of space.

They knew they were seeing a Black Cauldron. The spear was the jet of streaming plasma that whirled away from its relentless vortex. A disc of glowing energy surrounded the Cauldron, its inner parts dissappearing into absolute nothingness.

"Wayuzo," Garuvel breathed.

Kringmar looked proud of himself. "Why not?"

Jaramine slapped Kringmar's sandaled foot. "This should be a solemn moment!"

"Oh, oh, Jaramine. I ran out of solemnity eons ago. What do you think? Shall we go down to the planet?"

Garuvel's eyes were fixed on the Cauldron. "Are the others there?"

Kringmar poked a finger into his own navel, scratched himself there with an undulation of his hips. "You're always asking me these questions. How should I know? Someone came in ships, that's obvious. Let's find out."

The chamber accelerated too fast, throwing Garuvel and Jaramine backward. Kringmar guffawed maliciously.

Wayuzo was utterly barren of organic life. It was a world of majestic geologic features: vast striated canyons, gigantic volcanoes resting amid skirts of long-cooled lava flow. There were mountains, magnificent and bare, and flattened buttes that towered from their roots in what had been undersea valleys. Great arches and buttresses of rock soared across chasms. Monstrous pillars with impossible weights of stone that teetered precariously stood in mocking groups of hundreds and thousands.

It was toward one of the buttes that the chamber glided. As the voyagers approached, they could see the slight reflectance of a transparent dome. Without knowing how, they were inside it. The chamber set down alongside a number of small shuttle craft.

There was a group of people, turned toward the chamber. They had been watching the Black Cauldron and the sparks that flew inward from its accretion disc.

Jaramine handed Garuvel the pack with the puzzle-pieces. He spread a multi-skin, turned it into a disc and placed the seven remnants of the slain planet-people on its smooth surface. He removed, also, the fragment of Melolos, the stone that contained some of the spirit of Nutun Utulo. The stone had been drenched in the blood of Boraz Bufaisdek when it cut across his lips and drilled into his skull.

Jaramine and Garuvel left the chamber and walked across the top of the butte. Kringmar stood at the door, watching, a curiously neutral expression on his face.

A tall blonde man and a short dark woman came out of the group to meet them. "I are LLangredin," the man said simply.

"We am Tanchevar." The woman's voice was like a low chord, a sweet minor tone series.

Others came forward to make a circle around Garuvel and Jaramine. A woman with a great spire of green hair pointed at a man with six eyes. "There is Skorelos." Skorelos pointed back. "There are the honored Vingridel."

All of the planet -people were introduced. Some pointed to another, some put a hand into adjoining hands, speaking for three. The naming did not take long.

Garuvel held the disc with the puzzle-pieces in front of his body.

"I am Garuvel Zimrin of the Planet Vygor."

Jaramine spoke with conscious precision, weighting her tones. "I am Jaramine Fujitotomo-Pranayam-Kresh-Votha, of the planet Sanzor."

Llangredin put both hands on Garuvel's shoulders and fixed him with a long steady gaze. He repeated this with Jaramine. Then Tanchevar followed suit. Evidently, the planet people were satisfied with what they saw.

"There are one hundred and one of the original one hundred eight members of the Starwind Communion here," Llangredin said. "Each has completed the journey down the Trail of Ten Million Worlds; each has a fully animated puzzle- piece."

Garuvel placed the multi-skin circlet at a point halfway between Tanchevar and Llangredin. Tanchevar put her hands over the top while Llangredin spread both hands and took the disc from Garauvel.

"There are six puzzle pieces here, and a stone which has been drenched in the blood of Calakadon, moments before his death," Garuvel explained. "We don't know if their journeys are complete, if their animation is sufficient. It was the best we could do."

Llangredin lifted the puzzle piece of Wyfkandar. The carved object with its intricate swirls glowed and pulsed from within. Tanchevar then held the pipe of Nutun Utulo. She saw that its bowl was again filled with a pale green leaf. A small flame darted from her forefinger. She lit and inhaled the leaf. After holding her breath for several minutes, she exhaled languidly. Her eyes were hooded, her smile luxurious with sensual beatitude.

"Melolos, my love," she whispered. "We are together."

The planet people turned and beckoned Garuvel and Jaramine to follow. They joined the rest of the group, standing at the precipice of the butte. This was once an island jutting from a great sea. Now the sea was gone. Below, stretching as far as the eye could see, was an emptied ocean bed. It seemed as though they stood on the very edge of the planet itself. The horizon was clear. They could see out into space as if it were close enough to touch.

A tiny reddish dot appeared in the distance, conspicuous against the blackness of the Cauldron's inner precincts. It grew as it headed towards the convocation of beings atop the butte. It vanished for a moment, lost in the event horizon's glow. It reappeared, much closer, growing larger until its outlines as a craft were evident. It had the appearance of two discs joined together back to back. Each disc had four tapering pointed legs. The craft was perfectly symmetrical, with four legs pointing upward, four pointing towards the planet's surface. As it entered the atmospheric field, it rotated a few times, approaching the group of humans and Ur-humans, planet-people. Then it settled on four of its legs. As it cooled it became pearl-grey with washes of color swimming across its smooth contours.

A sort of breathlessness came over the planet-people. They did not know who or what was in this craft. They waited. Garuvel and Jaramine waited. It was night on this side of Wayuzo, and the glow of the heavens was almost audible, a thing of music and immense dignity.

The craft expanded like a balloon suddenly inflating. From both top and bottom, the joined plates separated. The four pointed legs upon which the craft stood buried themselves in the stone with a hiss. The top half of the craft rose up and, with a whiff, simply vaporized. Standing before the group were seven beings.

To Garuvel's astonishment, one of the beings was Nutun Utulo. To his greater astonishment, one of the beings was Calakadon. He gave his enemy a second look and realized that what appeared as Calakadon was a body, only a body, bereft of personality.

There was a tumult of laughter, tears, embraces. Nutun smiled at Garuvel, took his hand, then threw his arms around him.

"Forgive me, friend, if I go to my wife."

"Of course," Garuvel choked. In a universe where nothing should surprise him, he was taken completely out of himself. He had grieved, and now he did not know how to un-grieve.

Jaramine stroked his arm with her fingers, restoring to Garuvel a sense of proportion. Her touch conveyed a simple message: rejoice!

Nutun was released and hurled himself at Tanchevar. They met like a collision of airborne dragons. Floating upward, a cascade of sparks fell from their eyes, their faces, as if they wept tears of flame. Their limbs intertwined, they danced a twirling, swirling rondelay. Their clothing morphed into long flowing gowns, pantaloons, sashes, then morphed again into raiment of starwind. They embodied the meeting and loving of the stars themselves.

One of the newly arrived planet-people came forward to stand before Garuvel and Jaramine. She was a tall female with a spherical torso and long arms and legs. Her eyes were huge discs of colored beauty. Garuvel recognized her from his memories of being Thargmem. She had the form of the evolved Communion person, the double-spined being, one of those who had lost their vibrance in the ancient times.

This was no being of lesser vibrance. This being radiated quiet self-possession. Her face bore a tenderness of pure and melted silence. Garuvel and Jaramine were instantly gifted with this tenderness. It had always been in them. They had only been too busy to feel it.

Garuvel was not surprised when the planet-person introduced herself.

"We are Veatrazil," she said in a voice weighted with time and solitude.

The other planet people had sorted themselves out and stood in their many forms around Garuvel and Jaramine.

"We are all here," Veatrazil said. "We are all here; we have brought the vestiges of Calakadon. He too is with us."

She produced an object from her clothing. "I overcame the terror of the Cesspits of Hellbore to recover this thing: Calakadon's puzzle-piece."

She held it before the gathering. There were confused murmurs, of surprise, fear, resentment.

She held the object aloft. It was a thing black and difficult to see. It had lumps within it, material of differing textures. It was long and thick, like a burnt yam. It had a damaged, digested look to it.

"He who murdered us is not here to view our un-murdering, except as this puzzle piece, this bag of remains, and this empty clone-body." She removed a dessicated corpse from a black leather sack. It was short and flattened, no more than a third of Boraz Bufaisdek's original height. Its face was spread wide and barely recognizable, frozen in the moment it burned and crushed under the fiery meteor. Yet it was Calakadon. The leather clothing, the helmet with its wide horns, the gnarled fingers and immense arms had been reduced to an object the size of a cardboard figurine.

The seven puzzle-pieces rested on the multi-skin. Each of the un-murdered came forward to reclaim their puzzle-piece.

Veatrazil took her puzzle-piece and held it next to that of Calakadon.

"He too belongs with us. We may be angry, we may not forgive; each according to his or her nature. Yet Calakdon was of our family. We who think ourselves noble and beautiful must always behold this part of the puzzle. It is the grotesque in us, it is the dark and lurking violence of chaos, and it has a right to its being. Without it, we are not complete."

A small platform of stone had been made to extend several feet into the gulf. Veatrazil went to the edge of this pulpit above the abyss. Winding her arm and shoulder she tossed Calakadon's bit of matter, and then her own puzzle piece as far as her strength would permit.

There was a slight hiss as the stasis field of the dome opened and closed, letting the puzzle-pieces begin their trajectory. The objects sailed aloft, arched over the vast emptiness, and then stopped falling. They stuck, there, in the middle of the air. They were almost invisible against the backdrop of the Black Cauldron's light-spear and its glowing disc.

Tanchevar followed with her puzzle-piece, tossed it high into the abyss. Nutun Utulo, the planet Melolos, reclaimed his beautiful pipe and sent it following that of his mate.

Each planet-person launched a puzzle-piece until they were all floating in space. They left glowing trails, until they met the other pieces. There they stopped and held, supported by an invisible presence.

Tanchevar threw the blood-soaked stone of Melolos. It landed at the center of the other pieces. They spread away from it, so that it floated alone.

Finally, Veatrizil whirled the hideous flattened body of Calakadon into the air. She murmured as if to herself. "I still love you. I know what you are and it makes no difference. Would that you had been able to understand."

The shape the puzzle-pieces had been forming began to undulate. It glowed, and seemed to suck into itself the energy from the Black Cauldron's accretion disc.

In a few moments, the Puzzle of the Endless Gates was complete. It was a bridge. It soared across the emptiness from Wayuzo to the Black Cauldron. Its shape was elegant and simple, like a series of cupped hands. The Endless Gates were the struts and support beams of the bridge. A roadway of golden-hued crystal ran from the near gate to the farthest gate, which was vanishing into the distant maw of the Cauldron.

The planet people began to walk across the Bridge. When they reached the other side, they hurled themselves into the Black Cauldron.

Only Garuvel and Jaramine remained. When they looked back to where Kringmar had been standing next to the Ro-arung chamber, he was gone. The chamber had gone with him.

Jaramine and Garuvel looked at one another. From the beginning, their pact of love had contained this inevitable destiny.

They joined hands and walked onto the Bridge. As they crossed, Garuvel felt his sense of love for Jaramine rising and overflowing from the well of his being. His love was so deep and intense that he could only weep silently.

He knew that Jaramine experienced the same feelings.

They came to the event horizon of the Black Cauldron. There was no 'real' or 'scientific' way that they could actually stand at an accretion disc. Yet they had left behind the laws of physics and entered a realm of metaphor. They WERE at the very periphery of the Black Cauldron.

The lovers turned toward each other.

"Jaramine, Jaramine, I love you so much....."

He paused. He felt the need to make a romantic statement, a soaring elegy of love, a hymn of praise for the divine. Words stuck in his throat. His mouth was too small for the words that would serve this moment. He gave up trying and simply gazed into Jaramine's face.

Through her tears, Jaramine spoke his name, and then three words.

"Garuvel," she said, "I am pregnant."

Garuvel almost blurted the word, "What?!", but he had the grace and restraint to prevent the utterance. He flinched back from the soundless roaring abyss of the Cauldron. Jaramine circled his bicep with her hand, holding him firm.

"I am pregnant, Scianna is pregnant, Zisa is pregnant."

For the first time in what seemed eternity, Garuvel thought of the Realgift. Now that he was off Shoms, it might be with him. Then he realized how much he loved not having the Gift. How much the Gift had kept him from deep, intimate relationships. He put the thought aside.

"Trust," Jaramine said. "Have trust."

With that, they lept together into the Black Cauldron.

Every atom, every particle, every sub particle, every sub-sub particle, right down to the Compassionate and Ruthless sprits and deeper, to the Nunah of their beings, was ripped asunder and scattered into a vortex so powerful that it had challenged even the imagination of God.

It did not last long, as subjective experience goes.

Three Aias floated in a peaceful ocean, warm, lapping against a golden shore. Like palm leaves floating onto a beach after a long journey, the Garuvel Aia, the Jaramine Aia, and the Aia of the child Chahans came to a rest.

A small distance from the ocean, at the landward edge of the beach, the Council of the Realgift stood waiting. The Council Elder, Bhanvala, with its glorious golden wing span, stood with the other Realgifts. They were nestled under its nourishing and protective wings.

The three Aias rose and floated into the embrace of the Council.

The voice spoke all at once, a block of words and meaning in a single utterance. The Aias understood.

"You know who you are, now," the voice said. "The Gift is yours. It is yours because you don't need it. Now you can have it, completely. Just form an image, and speak."

The Aias hesitated. "There's no need. We have everything."

"That is precisely the moment to Realize a Gift."

The Aias formed an image of the universe, and spoke: "It is as it is."

Garuvel and Jaramine were back in the chamber of the Ro-arung. They were nude, sitting in the love posture of the gods. Their bodies were joined. They clutched one another in an exquisite orgasm.

It took a long time for them to subside. They hung limp in one another's arms in delicious exhaustion. Gradually, Jaramine noticed that Kringmar had pasted himself flat against the ceiling of the chamber. He was pretending to be asleep.

"Kringmar." Jaramine's voice was soft but commanding.

The Dzujhdu opened one eye. "Oh. Back so soon? At least this time you have your clothes off."

"Kringmar. Where are we, and where are we going?"

"Again with the questions!" Kringmar's feet came down. He settled cross-legged on a cushion next to the lovers. His giant bun of hair looked like an exotic plant from some remote mountain gorge. "I have an idea. Why don't I take you to Strobe. You can start a new adventure."

With a silken soft towel from under one of the oil lamps, Garuvel gently patted Jaramine's face. As he ministered to his love, Jaramine kneaded Garuvel's shoulders.

"I could live with that," Garuvel said.

The End

Appendix A

* _A brief and necessarily inchoate note on the nature of space travel as described in this document: In the year 4237 by the Common Grid, physicists Wernek Hyzinski and Sttepalo Weinkraut were experimenting with a new Particle Accelerator Module. By way of rigorous statistical modeling, they were able to reduce the effects of the Quantum Uncertainty Principle. They now had the capability of fixing both the position and the trajectory of a given sub-atomic particle. They moved foward into work to overcome the color confinement of quarks. Their goal was to isolate the top quark and find out why it was so massive. It was their belief that within the mass of the top quark lay yet smaller fundamental particles. After thirty years of experimentation, they finally were able to separate hadrons (quark bundles) into discrete particles, although the power consumed in doing so was immense. They began firing every kind of particle at the lone top quark and after many more years, they discovered that an anti-neutrino fired at near- relative speed into the top quark did indeed open said top quark. To their astonishment, the collision emitted new particles in pairs bonded by the newly formulated electro-strong-weak force. These were called the Transcendental Particles. This pair of particles were dubbed Sprits. There was the Ruthless Sprit and the Compassionate Sprit. As with all the Hyzinski Quantum particles, these Sprits were influenced by the presence of the experimentors. It was seen that whenever a physicist turned his mind toward the Sprits with a certain intensity, their spin was reversed. It was further seen that when sufficient concentration was applied, the Ruthless Sprit was converted into the Compassionate Sprit and vice versa. The scientists were now working with smaller and more powerful iscochronous cyclotrons, and were able to fire these particles at one another in various spin,reverse- spin combinations. This discovery brought physics vastly closer to the formulation of the GRUFF, the Great Re-unification of the Flux Field. Fifteen years later, Hyzinski, Weinkraut and Kooklenberg discovered that the Sprits, after spin-reversal and transformation in a certain sequence, could be blasted together as if they were new particles. To the astonishment of all, a reverse-spin Ruthless Sprit fired at a normal spin Compassionate Sprit released a particle considered, provisionally, as the Ultimate Particle. This was called The Nunah. This particle could only be released when a scientist was in direct contact with the experiment, in the facility itself. Experiments were designed to trigger the collision remotely, or with the scientist at a distance, yet none of these succeeded. The Nunah would ONLY manifest when a sentient awareness was within the laboratory precincts. It could only be manifest by an act of direct concentration on the part of the scientist involved. The fact that The Nunah could only be released by the use of a sentient awareness was compelling evidence that Consciousness was a significant, if not a dominant form of energy in the Metaverse. Unfortunately, the three great scientists were killed in an explosion when too large a volume of Anti-Sprits flooded into the collision chamber. The explosion shattered the planet Oppie and altered the orbits of the other eleven planets in Szilard's System._

Researchers in the field of faster than light travel were still frustrated by their inabiity to harness this basic understanding. It wasn't until the mystic/scientist Ibn Latif El Rashid, while eating a salad, accidentally ingested a powerful mind-altering mushroom. He was at work trying to come to grips with the capricioius energy of the Hyzinski Particles. There had existed for eons a crippling misunderstanding of the nature of time-space as a structure OUTSIDE of sentient consciousness. Rashid turned the world upside down by positing that everything OUTSIDE is actually INSIDE, and everything INSIDE is actually OUTSIDE. And this dichotomy, outside/inside, was itself an illusion. The two concepts were fused when Rashid, with his immense powers of concentration, focused his mind into the newest and most powerful accelerator/collider and attempted to fire a compassionate sprit into the Nunah. The result was not an ordinary collision but an inexplicable phenomenon wherein the Nunah seemed to absorb or "eat" the sprit. There was a tremendous flash and a strange new form of energy reached out to encompass Rashid.

The scientist was violently transported several miles in a micro- second. He suffered a broken leg, clavicle and several broken ribs. As he was being taken to the hospital he dictated notes on his experience. He posited that there must be some dimension that connects all times and spaces, and that he had serendipitously entered this dimension. It required a burst of the highly refined energy emitted when sprits entered the Nunah. As he later wrote, 'the Nunah cannot be split asunder, but it can be entered; one can become a passenger on the proper form of Sprit, which then lovingly passes into the center of the Nunah, wherein an entire new order of energy resides. Within the realm of the Nunah the quantum microcosmic twists upon itself like a snake swallowing its tail and merges with the realm of the macrocosmic, so that inside the Nunah the entire universe exists at every scale.'

The realm within the Nunah became known as Transpace. Rashid and his team spent the next decades developing the system now used throughout the universe for long range travel. Centuries of disastrous research into wormhole creation was abandoned. A new technology arose in which classical meditation techniques such as Zen and Vippasana occupy a central role. Certain classes of drugs are often used to amplify the mind's attention span and intensity. This obviates the requirement that all pilots be Zen or Meditation Masters. The latter do make the best pilots, but the world is not filled with Masters, hence other means must be used. Computers provide navigational assistance, and the Relativity Coordinator was developed to iron out time differentials while traveling inside the Nunah, or, as it were, through transpace. By utilizing the Parallel Ulniverse principle, the Relativity Coordinator is able to select appropriate universes where arrival time appropriately corresponds to departure time, thus ironing out the wrinkles created by the necessary travel in matterspace.. The risk of emerging inside a star or a solid object is significant enough to eliminate Transpatial voyaging within planetary systems or high mass gravitational regions.

The pilot of a craft is generally given a small amount of di-methyl triptamine, a powerful but short acting hallucinogen. This enables him/her to reach deeper areas of his/her consciousness more quickly than settling into meditation. The procedure utilizes the nature of transpace as a realm where matter and consciousness are the same.. One enters transpace by concentrating the attention upon the sprit as it merges with the Nunah.. Entering The Nunah releases a quantity of specialized energy, called Oorg Force.. The boost of energy provided by this process brings the traveler inside the Nunah, into the Archetypal Realm. This is not, as one would suppose, a super miniaturization. It is a peculiar kind of expansion, wherein the interior of any given Nunah is precisely connected to the interior of all Nunahs. Here, various manifestations of objects and ideas exist without time-space constraints. From this initial movement into and through transpace, all other forms of interstellar travel have evolved. It is possible to go into transpace and return from transpace at a completely different location. Ships have two types of engines. The engines for Transpace are now highly efficient and miniaturized Particle Accelerator Modules. Control over the direction of travel is provided by intention. Computers use a quantum sensor to make zeptosecond movements from transpace to matterspace, taking note of the location and moving a craft in the proper direction until a landmark star field is sighted. This procedure is commonly called 'Sewing'. Once the desired star map appears, withdrawal from Transpace and full entry into Matterspace is effected as close as possible to the destination. Gravity waves and fusion engines are used to move the vessel the rest of the way to the terminus of the voyage.

There is, of course, the understanding that other planes exist beyond transpace. Though it is still theoretical, speculation is that the next 'level', or particle, the Nunah of the Nunah, so to speak, contains what is called Radiant Space, and it involves energies that can carry travelers unwittingly into the centers of stars, gamma ray bursts or other fiery processes. Perhaps even into the exploding singularity of nascent universes.

The entirety of this field of research into multi-dimensional matter/consciousness is called The Puzzle of The Endless Gates. It has replaced striving for the GRUFF as the major scientific effort of our times.

Other Books By Art Rosch

Confessions Of An Honest Man

<http://bit.ly/1QynBVD>

Available at most online retailers

Paperback Version is now at Amazon

Coming soon

The Shadow Storm: Book One

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