 
TEAL'S WORLD

Worlds of Yifan Book 4

by J L Blenkinsop

Copyright 2017 J L Blenkinsop

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Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

To my father
Teal's World

Prologue

There wasn't any warning, but then, Shen Teal was used to that. His life since the age of five had been a continual set of challenges designed to test him, to make him strong, to get him to think for himself quickly and confidently. And to deal with danger with terminal efficiency.

He didn't hear the crack of a twig, because a twig didn't crack. A bird didn't fly away startled, and he didn't see a flash of sunlight reflecting from an unsheathed sword.

What he did get was a hard dig in the ribs from behind that made him jump almost out of his skin, until he remembered that his fiancée Qing Shur was following him through the tangled undergrowth of the forest west of Namhansanseong Castle. He waved an arm behind him, found soft flesh beneath a padded jerkin and swiftly brought his hand back again. At least he had stopped moving, and so he could concentrate on his surroundings.

There was a smell, faint in the humid air. It was tobacco smoke.

Qing Shur remained silent as Teal drew his blunt sword. He knew she was drawing hers too. He was just about to creep towards the scent when she poked him again and her arm came past his face to point in the same direction.

Honestly, thought Teal, she must think I'm some sort of an idiot. He checked the floor of the jungle ahead and moved off silently.

The enemy, when they found them, were a pair of unkempt soldiers from the garrison. Teal thought that they weren't really taking this exercise seriously; they'd pushed the points of their swords into the ground and were leaning against a tree, smoking something foul in their small clay pipes.

The Europans had introduced tobacco to Joseon, and both Teal and his father, the Regent Hansolo, were heartily sick of it. You couldn't go anywhere now without getting a face full of acrid smoke. Teal had no intention of filling his lungs up with it, particularly as he'd seen what it had done to the soldiery under his command. Of which these two were prime examples.

It was a tiny clearing beneath a huge oak tree, and easy enough for the young couple to quarter around under cover until they were behind the lax sentries. Two paces, and their swords were against the men's throats.

They sensibly decided to freeze.

"You're relieved," whispered Teal. "Stay still and make no noise. You're dead."

He got a very truncated nod in response. Beside him, Shur withdrew her sword and the pair were just about to back into the forest when a twig really did snap, very close behind them, and swords pressed gently against their necks. It was a trap.

Cursing under his breath, Teal dropped his weapon.

Teal and his father had dinner with Shur and a few close friends in the Lucky Inn below the castle that evening. It was more intimate than the draughty pile, and they'd wisely decided that the garrison should have their own evening revels to celebrate the war-game, which Teal had lost and which the garrison had won. In fact, there seemed to be some sort of karaoke going on in the castle's courtyard, because faint snatches of bawdy songs kept floating in through the open windows of the Inn. Hansolo looked concerned, and asked Shur whether the noise was annoying her.

"I can't hear the words properly," she complained. "How can I learn, when they sing so badly?"

The Regent laughed loudly, and Teal smiled. The other guests professed horror that such a young girl should be so forward, but it was only pretence, and they returned to their conversations easily.

The biggest part of the meal was kimchi, the fermented cabbage with chilli that all Joseans loved. They could no more have a meal without it than they could murder their own grandmas, although one of the guests had been rumoured to have done just that a few years ago.

Qing Shur, the youngest daughter of the Queen of Taiwan, had come to love kimchi, and was shovelling it down with eminent satisfaction. And here, and now, is the time to tell, briefly, the story of how this Chinese princess came to be resident in the Court of Joseon – although, of course, we in our World know it as Korea.

Two years before this feast Teal was travelling to Taiwan with his father and his older brother Kale, so that Kale could marry the eldest daughter of the Queen, Qing Yu. Teal fell asleep in his hammock on the good Europan ship Unicorn, but woke up in a vastly more modern World in the body of a girl, Yifan Shen. Meanwhile, Yifan had woken in his body and was getting to grips with the concept that a life on the ocean wave was the way to an early grave.

Each had adapted in their own way, and when eventually they'd returned to their rightful bodies – and one would hope they'd learned a thing or two about gender equality and love and fighting on the way – they were, in some meaningful sense, changed people.

Teal found that Yifan had betrothed him to the eleven-year-old Qing Shur, an attractive and forthright girl who had – when he met her at his brother's wedding – already killed two grown men.

Yifan found that Teal had gained her a reputation at her school for being fearless and popular, and capitalised on this unearned fame to the point where she was becoming insufferable.

While Yifan's parents already knew about her Worlds-travelling abilities, Teal hadn't revealed this mind-swapping to anyone, not even to his own father, and Shur was convinced that he loved her and wanted to marry her, in the fullness of time. At first this appalled Teal; but when she went back with him to Joseon, and he spent more time with her, he found himself relying on her, on her judgement, on her value as a fighting companion; and one day he woke up to the fact that he was in love with her.

That's fine, says Teal, looking over my shoulder as I write. They'll all be up to speed now.

I nod. And I hope you are all indeed up to speed.

Teal pats the hilt of his sheathed sword and turns away, ready to go back to the story, for which I am very much relieved.
Chapter 1

From the top of Namhansanseong Castle the lands around are every shade of green. Forests climb the steep hillsides, cleared in places for rice terraces that step down towards the deep valleys with their shaded and swift-running rivers. The town spreads down the hillside beyond the outer walls of the castle, frozen waves of green and red tiled roofs, bamboo shingles in poorer areas, straw thatch in the poorest. The clamour of people engaged in their everyday business rises to Teal and Shur, and the smell of cooking, and of animal dung used as fuel, ascends in the smoke from a thousand kitchens.

Teal is fifteen now, and Shur is thirteen. It has been two years since they worked together with Teal's father and brother to free Queen Qing Yu and restore the monarchy in Taiwan. Kale, married to the Queen's eldest daughter, wasn't an enthusiastic writer, but his wife was; and the latest letter from her – as well as including descriptions of food they had both enjoyed, and recipes for Shur to practice – told them that a baby was on the way.

"How can they tell?" Teal enquired. "She's been getting fatter since the wedding feast!"

Shur punched him on the shoulder, but she laughed while she did it.

"You don't know anything about female things! You know, you ought to spend some time as a girl. It would make you feel more sympathetic."

Teal had actually spent time as a girl, but he couldn't tell anyone about it. Instead he put his arms around Shur's slight shoulders and leaned in to mask the rising smoke with the scent of her hair.

Shur had leapt in to the militaristic Josean society with gusto. She proved herself in junior officer school, learning the long Josean sword, the more useful short sword that Hansolo had been so impressed with in Taiwan, and the short bow – as well as unarmed combat, strategy and tactical planning, riding and logistics. When she took command of her own platoon of rock-hard Josean professionals Teal had expected her to have a hard time of it, but she proved her own skills on the first day by pinning her sergeant's sleeve to a beam when he'd raised his hand to object to an order. The knife had appeared in her hand as if by magic, was tossed, caught by its tip and spun through the dusty air of the parade ground – eight metres of distance, two and a half revolutions of the silver streak.

Now, her soldiers adored her. They wouldn't hear a word against her, and those in other platoons who jeered or derided their commander were carried back to barracks on stretchers. Teal was so proud of her it hurt.

The recent exercises were intended to show how well she and he could work together, with or without their troops. If they were to marry, and ultimately to rule Joseon, they had to be as one in battle.

The end of next month would mark the last days of Shur's girlhood. She would turn fourteen and become a woman, gaining all the freedoms of Josean citizenship. Two years later Teal would marry her.

He couldn't conceive of a better plan for his life.

Now, as he nuzzled her hair, she giggled, turned around into his arms and kissed him. She sparkled like the sunlit streams that grew up in the mountains, she smelled like flowers and hay and horses and sweat, for they'd been riding that morning. Teal held her close. He wouldn't ever dare to let her go.

Below them the people of Joseon got on with their lives, protected by the strength of the Council, the Regent and the Army. It had been so for five hundred years. It would be for a thousand more.

The evening's banquet was a formal affair, attended by Ambassadors from Nippon and Europa. The Council had been discussing trade. A three-way agreement was on the cards, if the Europan Ambassador had the power to decide for his federation. He had been quite cagey about that so far, and resistant to the enormous charm that Regent Shen Hansolo could bring to bear.

He was captivated by Shur, though, and Hansolo made sure she was seated beside him at the meal.

She was dressed in Josean Court style, a five-layered gown with a sleeved jerkin in richly-embroidered silk over. Her hair was piled and set, glossy with sweet-smelling oil and plated with a black board of a hat with hanging tassels that, if she turned suddenly, were in danger of putting someone's eye out.

The Ambassador was tall by Eastern standards, but he may have been a normal height for a Europan. He dressed in black, with a white shirt beneath a long snug jacket. Lace frothed around his neck and from the cuffs of his coat. Teal privately thought he would have trouble keeping the drapery out of the food, but the man seemed to have developed a knack. He handled the slim metal chopsticks expertly and knew the names and ingredients of most of the dishes on the round table's Lazy Susan. His eyes hid behind the lenses of a small pair of spectacles that glittered in the candlelight. Sometimes he peered over the top of them; Shur wondered if he only wore them for effect.

The table accommodated twelve diners, sitting cross-legged on cushions around its circumference. Hansolo had the Nipponese Ambassador on his right and the Europan on his left, with Shur beside him. Teal sat beside the Nipponese lady, whose whitened face and unsmiling carmine lips contrasted with the perfectly tailored Europan-style frock-coat she wore. Her hair was loose and bobbed, and swept to one side in imitation of Western artists and writers. She wielded her chopsticks like weapons, stabbing in to clip out the tastiest morsels in the dishes set before them.

The remaining seven places were taken by three Council members, two wives and two Ambassadorial aides. Brian, the Europan aide, was being coached in the use of chopsticks by one of the wives, and not getting either the hang of it, or any dinner.

Teal, like the other Joseans, wore Court robes, and wished he was back in the piratical shirt and trousers he'd had on when he found himself proposing to Qing Shur at his brother's wedding in Taiwan.

It came back to his mind's eye: He was dressed in a gorgeous white silk gown, a glass of sparkling alcohol-free wine in his hand, and was talking with President Xi at the Queen's Banquet in Buckingham Palace, with his dead mother Ji Ye beside him. He was about to reply to the President's kind invitation to an Exo concert. Without any warning, he found himself uttering the words "Yes! I would love to!" to a child he'd never seen before, dressed in Taiwanese Court robes. He looked wildly around – this was an outdoor event. The sun was approaching the horizon. Close by were as piratical a group of men as you could ever wish to avoid – the crew of the Unicorn, Little Pearl resplendent in his tattooed skin, Captain de Vlieger staring intently at Teal as if he had been responsible for this sudden relocation.

He was back in his own body, and Princess Yifan was back in hers.

Someone bowed to him, and another clapped him on the shoulder. The Captain shook his hand, said "Congratulations!" – in English – and Teal, of course, understood him. He had brought all of Yifan's memories back with him.

The only thing he hadn't understood, then, was what exactly it was he had just agreed to.

Now, as he watched his fiancée charming the Ambassador, and tried his best to do the same to the Nipponese, he blessed whatever providence had brought him back home just in time.

"A huge success, boys and girls," crowed Hansolo when the last guest had gone home or back to the Ambassadorial Compound. He wasn't just talking to Teal and Shur, but to the waiting staff, most of whom were between the ages of eight and thirteen. "Now – off to bed, clear up in the morning. And no kissing and cuddling!"

The staff giggled, and Teal and Shur turned red.

At least the evening of diplomacy and stiff clothing was at an end. There would be more talks over the next few months, but the Regent thought that the Ambassadors had been softened up nicely and would be amenable to his suggestions. Joseon had a lot to trade, and was also looking to send young Joseans abroad to bring back the fruits of Western education. Clapping his hands together in satisfaction, the Regent strode out of the hall. Teal and Shur left immediately after him, but through a different door.

"Did you see the way that Nipponese aide was looking at you?" Shur complained, as they walked in darkness through the formal garden outside the hall. Teal just grunted, because he was concentrating on not tripping over one of the low hedges that bordered the almost-invisible path. "She was all but licking her lips!"

"Can't blame her," Teal replied, taking Shur's hand. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the starlight, and he adroitly avoided a low-hanging branch. "We Shen are a handsome bunch." Shur punched him on the shoulder with her free hand. "Ow! That hurt!"

And suddenly bright light blazed, and a heavy studded mace powered down towards his head.

Teal threw himself off to his right and the mace whistled through the space he had vacated. Somehow a sword was in his hand, and he brought it up to take the attacker's exposed flank. The point skidded on thick leather and failed to bite. Teal had a confused impression of his opponent, some large guy with a grudge, evidently; but more importantly there was fighting all around him. He'd better despatch this one, then, because running away wasn't an option.

The foe lifted the mace with apparent ease and swung it round towards Teal. It started slowly but would become unstoppable very quickly. Teal dived in low, beneath the weapon, and jabbed the sword up between the man's legs. The reward, a piercing howl of pain, was all Teal needed to energise him. The mace-arm passed over his head and the large body twisted uncomfortably to its left. Teal withdrew his sword and dodged away, looking for a decisive spot to strike. Something hit him hard, knocking him aside, and something else flew through the air where his head had been and struck the mace-wielder full in the face. Blood spurted. It must have been blood. But it was green.

There weren't, after all the sound and fury, many bodies lying on the dusty ground. All were staining the earth green. The winners, exhausted but cheerful, went around picking up weapons, making sure their enemies were completely dead, and ministering to their own injured. These were the ones who bled red.

"You nearly lost it there, Shen-So," boomed Teal's present companion, a big man with slicked-back grey hair. He seemed inordinately happy as he recovered his axe from the dead foe's face and wiped it on the corpse's kilt.

Out of the heat of battle, Teal had a chance to look around. There were four enemy bodies, all huge, all heavily muscled and armoured in thick leather that seemed to have been formed around them.

Teal looked closer, to the mace-bearer at his feet. It wasn't leather; it was the creature's own bare skin. Before he could think and stop himself he asked, "What are they?"

The big man looked sharply at Teal. "You know what they are. They're Awks. Gods' sakes, you've killed enough of them since we started this quest."

Teal nodded, and, stuck for words, looked out over the dusty, dry slope. They were up in a range of hills backed by frosty mountains, from which the land fell to a lush, jungly plain. On the horizon another range rose, steeper and higher, hazy with distance but definitely snow-capped.

"I need to eat," he said finally, and received a shattering clap on the back and a hearty laugh.

"We'll eat well. We've got Awk!"

Teal looked down at the hulk, and suddenly didn't feel so hungry.

In the event, either Teal was ravenous or Awk was nicer than it looked. Eating things that looked like people caused some moral discomfort, but surely these green-blooded creatures weren't human? Even if they did wear clothes and wield weapons. He slid another chunk of rare Awk from the skewer and chomped away with the rest of the band.

They were an odd lot. The huge and muscular Lin – pronounced lean – was the axeman who had brought Teal's attacker down. Fat, across the fire enjoying foraged berries and mushrooms, was as thin as a stick. He didn't look anything like a fighter. He had grey receding hair and a grey receding body. He dressed only in a tunic and mud-coloured woollen tights, bagging at the knees, with a pair of big thick boots on his feet, and he had no weapon.

The others – four of them, Pang, Jing, Shin Yi and Shin Er – were brawny and confident men. Not as fat as Lin, not as lean as Fat. Pang had a huge sword slung behind him, which stuck up above his bullet head. He didn't take it off even when he squatted down, so it rode up higher, like a flagstaff, but he seemed used to it.

Jing, who looked Nipponese to Teal, favoured his right leg, which had been injured in the fight. He wore a complex leather jerkin with numerous pockets and straps, and linen trousers stained with Awk-blood as well as his own. He had a short-sword like Teal's. As the light faded he turned to Fat and made an enquiry in a language that Teal did not understand. Fat nodded, and crabbed around the fire to squat beside him. Jing dropped his trousers.

What happened next toppled Teal's world.

Fat placed his hands on the gashed leg and closed his eyes. A golden fire grew beneath his fingers, and Jing grimaced. Fat hummed softly to himself. Sweat stood out on his brow. The light pulsed.

Teal's mouth was open, and he became uncomfortably aware that Lin was watching him closely. He closed his mouth, and resumed chewing.

The light slowed, faded. Fat stood stiffly and hobbled back to his seat on a rock next the fire. He closed his eyes. Jing tested his leg. He appeared satisfied. The wound, incredibly, had gone.

Lin's hand closed around Teal's bicep and the man said softly, "Walk with me."

They walked in the light of the brightening stars. Down on the plain below faint lights began to appear, spaced far apart. Villages along the course of a river, Teal guessed.

"What's happened?" asked Lin. Teal sighed, but made no other answer. "We're all tired, Shen-So. And there's still a long way to go. What's there to forget about Awks? Has... Well, I have to ask you; has your mind become unmoored?"

Teal had no answer, but the other's words gave him an opening. "I'm fatigued. I think I just went off, in my head. Back to a time when I wasn't surrounded by beasts trying to kill me. I... I miss my mum."

Lin put his arm around Teal's shoulders. "I understand. It's natural, every now and again. And with a mother like yours, I have to guess that the strain can be huge. But," and the big man turned to face Teal, looked down into his eyes, stern as a father, "you have to keep your wits about you. Especially in the middle of a fight. After all," he clapped Teal on the shoulder; Teal rocked. "After all, we can't have our leader going off with the faeries at a vital moment and getting his head cut off."

They went back to the pool of firelight, Teal feeling sick. The others were dissecting the battle, each exaggerating the part he had played, and pretty soon they were pointing and laughing at each other, and after that came the singing. Teal mouthed along to begin with, but it was very similar to the bawdy songs his own soldiers sang, and he caught up with the words soon enough.

Then to bed, arranged around the banked fire, two men on watch. Teal burrowed into a thin blanket on the stony ground and had his first opportunity to get to grips with the memories of the man whose mind he had taken.

It was obvious that the previous owner must now be in Teal's body, back in the garden in Joseon. Teal hoped he was a sensible sort – why not? After all, they were essentially the same person – and wouldn't rock the boat. There was no telling how long this situation would persist. Teal's previous experience of mind-swapping had lasted several months, during which he'd had to fit in as a teenage girl. Surely, this was simpler. He was a fighting man, and he could cope, even with creatures two feet taller than him who bled green.

What worried him most was that he was evidently the leader of this band, and they relied on him to achieve their goal. So, he had to find out what that goal was.

The memories were chaotic, but not as badly organised as Yifan's, when he had been in her mind. Teal prided himself on his memory. He used a Memory Palace to store everything – a comprehensive and integrated set of images, where a touch, a sight, a smell could conjure up a chain of remembrances to remind him, for instance, how to paint, or play an instrument; his appointments for the next six months; each instant of his childhood. The only memories outside of this system were so freighted with emotion that they could not possibly fit into any scheme – his mother, long dead, and the rest of his family, and now Shur, his betrothed.

Teal froze. Shur.

He had been holding her hand when he had suddenly appeared in this mind. He remembered, clearly and with awful certainty, that in her first adventure, John, Yifan's father in her own World, had been touching Yifan when she jumped, and had found himself transported into the mind of his other self in that other World.

Shur might be here. She might even be a man. Teal estimated his age in this body was around thirty-two. She would be thirty. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, he knew, but she would be disoriented and alone, and worse than that: she would not know what had happened, and she would not know how to get back.

Well, neither did Teal, except that if this body died he would return to his own, or so John had assured him. There was always that option as a last resort.

Over his head the stars wheeled, in clots and skeins of light. He tried but couldn't match any constellation to those he knew.

Disturbed, but determined, he dug into the other's memories. A fighting man, a leader of men who had assembled a band of the best he could find, to fulfil a quest so – Teal was aghast – so hare-brained and dangerous that nobody in their right mind would even contemplate it!

He dug deeper. This man, Shen-So, spoke Chinese, like his followers. He also spoke Elvis – uh huh huh, Teal thought, this is starting to get weird – and he definitely didn't speak the language that Jing had spoken to Fat when he had presumably been asking for healing.

But he now knew what Fat was, and it was disturbing. The thin man was a demon, inhuman and unfathomable, useful for his powers but ultimately a creature with his own reasons for being in this group. And the real Shen-So didn't trust him an inch.

Lin was just what he appeared – an old friend of Shen-So, a father figure of a sort, who had appeared on the scene some years before Shen-So's mother had died and her husband, distraught, went out to battle suicidally against the Awks, leaving the young Prince alone in the world. And now he was Teal's right-hand man in this crazy adventure.

Dig deeper, there's more about your mother...

Aw, no; be serious – a Sorceress?

Teal gave up, resolved to look deeper the next night and see if he could find a way out of Shen-So's lunatic search, and fell gratefully into sleep.

The darkness outside the circle of firelight became grey. Teal, woken roughly from chaotic dreams of impossible magic, had been assigned the last watch. He shivered in the cold, tossed a few branches collected from the ground beneath the stunted trees that clung to the high land onto the fire, and stretched. His blanket slipped to the ground behind him.

Dawn was coming. His watch companion was Jing, who stood over the fire warming his hands. Teal stood and nodded to the man, who nodded back, and went for a walk around.

In the east the sky was brightening. The hills they were descending were south, behind him, and the jungled plain spread out north beneath his feet. The lights he had seen in the night were gone; all was black.

Then a sliver of light appeared in the east. The sky above flared green for a second, then deep violet-blue as the silvery sun rose, bathing the world with warmth. Beneath his feet the land fell down in steps of ochre, spotted with shrubs and contorted pines, until it clothed itself in trees and joined the plains below.

Behind him Teal could hear the rest of his band muttering and rising. There was the clink of pots set on the stones around the waning fire, then men passed him to collect wood, one carrying leather buckets to the nearby stream. The smell of breakfast being prepared. Leftover Awk, he supposed. Still, it was better than nothing.

He turned, and found the demon Fat standing behind him.

Fat looked as if the night's sleep had given him no rest at all. His sallow skin shone with morning sweat. His shoulders slumped, his back hunched. Teal knew from Shen-So's memories that he should not trust the creature – for Fat was not a man, not human – but when he looked into the tired eyes he saw sadness, even compassion. Fat gestured with a long-fingered hand, and they moved back up the slope to the site of the battle. Teal noted that some small animals had fed during the night. He hadn't heard them during his watch. The bodies of the Awks were beginning to smell.

Fat stopped walking and spoke. His voice was dry and faint, but at least he was speaking Chinese.

"Remember your promise, Shen-So," he whispered. Teal stood blank for a few seconds, rummaging through Shen-So's memories until he found what he hoped was the demon's meaning.

"We're going down into Elvis country," he ventured. Fat nodded slowly. "They don't like your people. So we will protect you." Fat nodded again. But there seemed to be more to be said. The demon stood, crooked-backed in the morning light, his dark eyes fixed on Teal.

This is impossible, Teal thought, trying to follow the trail in his borrowed mind. The promise had been made long ago... and... and it had been made by his mother.

Fat didn't blink while he waited. Teal found it unnerving. He embraced his mother in his mind, this Sorceress who had charged him with an impossible quest. She had given him...

"Magic."

Fat nodded again. "And I will not be able to help you in the Elvis forests," he said. "You must take my gift now. You can no longer continue to refuse it, if you mean to keep your mother's oath."

Back at the camp Lin stood next to the fire, watching them warily. Teal felt trapped; he could not refuse. But he knew that accepting whatever this strange being offered would change his relationship with the adventurers.

"Do it," he said. Fat reached out his long-fingered hand and placed it flat over Teal's heart. Then his eyes widened in astonishment.

"You are not Shen-So!"

"I am not. But I will keep his promises."

Fat shook his head. "I can't hold you to it. You are innocent." He started to take his hand away but Teal grasped it and pressed it back to his chest.

"I may not know everything I ought," he said, "but I will do the best that I can." And a ball of warmth grew from Fat's hand, fell into his chest, grew inside him, filling him with a dreadful sense of despair. His heart became slow and heavy, and his joints flared with pain. His knees buckled and he struggled to stand as the awful energy sank into him. Looking down he saw the being's hand sink into his body, becoming insubstantial, greying, whisping into smoke.

When the fierce warmth reached his brain a vast and ancient history overlaid his mind. Thousands of years of oppression and persecution pressed down on him and he felt his mind begin to give way. Behind him Lin shouted, but he was faint and very far away; and then Teal was gone, and his body fell to the ground.
Chapter 2

The first thing Shur saw after bright light flared across the darkness of the garden was a naked male bottom.

"Have you done it yet?" whined the owner, who was a white male lying face-down on a long sheet of paper laid over a metal-framed couch. He was speaking Mandarin. Shur blinked. She looked at her hands. They were cased in thin flexible gloves, and she was holding a large wodge of cotton waste in one and a thick, sharp needle in the other. She looked at the bottom again. There was a large and angry boil on it.

"Have you pricked my boil yet?" came the whining voice again.

"Boiled your what?" But at least she had an idea of what to do in a situation like this; some medical training was required for all soldiers in Joseon, and more for officers. She placed the pad of cotton over the boil, lifted a corner and inserted the needle, covered it, and pressed.

The cotton absorbed most of the pus, but it was smelly. She looked around, pulled out the needle and dropped it into a metal dish and took up another swab. Pressing around the boil she eventually drained all of the matter until red blood, fresh and pure, flowed at last.

"Hold this against you," she told the young man. He reached behind him and pressed, and Shur looked around for bandages.

There were none. But there were flesh-coloured squares of something in a tray. Fumbling one open – it was sticky, when she peeled the shiny paper off – she told him to shift his hand, dropped the last pad into the dish and slapped the square onto the wound.

She felt strangely proud.

The young man, wincing, drew his underwear up over his buttocks, then his loose grey trousers, tying them with a drawstring. He dived for the door and left Shur alone to examine her surroundings.

The room was square and very bright. Almost everything was white. Glass-fronted cupboards held small boxes striped in different colours; there was a desk in a white smooth material, and a sink made from fine steel. She fiddled with a lever and water flowed from a metal stem. It was warm, and soon became hot.

There were no windows. A white grille high on one wall blew cool air into the room. The ceiling glowed softly, illuminating the space, and the floor was a smooth grey stone – a whole slab of it.

The couch on which the young man had lain was covered in what she first thought was leather, pale brown, but it didn't smell right, and when she stroked it she was repelled by its alien feel. It was cold and slippery.

She looked towards the door. It, too, was white. It betrayed nothing of woodenness about it; it was just a plain white slab with a steel lever for a handle.

Shur did not want to see what was on the other side. She sat up on the couch and listened to her thoughts.

It was obvious that she wasn't dreaming. She was no longer in the garden, and Teal wasn't with her. She should, therefore, start with the premise that she was here on her own. She was not in her own body. So... was there another mind for her to find? She closed her eyes and tried to feel around for someone more suited to this situation. And, although she did not connect to anyone, she found memories.

There was a hesitant knock on the door. Before she could react it opened, and a young-looking woman who might have been in her late twenties poked her head around it.

"Are you ready for mister Shen?" she enquired.

Her heart quickened. She nodded hastily, then, in case the woman hadn't seen her, yelped "Yes!" The door closed and almost immediately reopened to admit a man in his forties who didn't look anything like her beloved, and who immediately and loudly complained of a sore throat.

Shur sighed, dipped into the rather complex memories of a doctor, and started looking around for tongue-depressors.

After a few hours and many patients the woman brought a tray with a pot of green tea and a cup. Shur indicated the desk and told her to bring another cup; and then waited for an age until she appeared again.

"Sit," commanded Shur. She sat on the couch. "Now – what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," said the girl, mystified. Shur poured them both tea and handed her a cup.

"Good. I'm sick of sick people... You can drink, can't you?"

"There are people in the waiting room..."

"That's why it's called a waiting room. Drink."

The girl drank, and so did Shur. It was wonderful, even if it was just cheap green tea. She sighed and relaxed. When she looked down at her feet she saw shoes with laces in the Europan style rather than comfy slippers. She sighed again and turned to her companion.

"May I ask you some really stupid questions?"

The girl nodded. The cup was obviously too hot for her to hold.

"Put the cup down... Now: What is your name?"

"Wha..."

"Your name?"

"Jing!"

"Good. You pass the test. Now – what is MY name?"

Jing hesitated. The cup steamed on the couch beside her. She bit her lip. "Qing Shur."

"Good..."

"...But you know that! You MUST know your own name!"

"It's a test..."

"...We all know our NAMES. Gods, tell me it's not got all the way up here!" She was panicking. Shur made shushing noises and patted the air hoping to calm her down.

"Please – Jing – tell me where here is? And please," Shur pleaded as the girl began to wail, "SHUT UP!"

Silence. Then,

"How can I tell you and shut up?"

At last, something approaching sense. Shur took a deep breath and prepared herself to grill her assistant.

She finished off the last of her patients, relying on memories that rose up helpfully in her mind when the miscellany of sick people presented their symptoms. It was apparent to her that she was living in someone else's body, and evident that that person was her. She looked like her and she moved like her; she had the same name, and, it appeared, the same drive for perfection.

She wrote prescriptions for medicines she had never heard of, for conditions she had never imagined. Many of her patients were suffering from stress, and she thought she knew how to deal with that – her soldiers came to her sometimes to talk about their lives, their family problems. They trusted her, and they listened as intently to her advice as she herself listened to their stories.

But here, she wondered why there was so much stress. These people were clean, healthy in the main, well-fed and beautifully clothed. They weren't soldiers, or peasants. What could possibly cause them so much anguish?

Jing's reaction to Shur's enquiries gave her a clue. There was something besieging them, something very bad that could destroy their community. Forgetfulness was a symptom, and most of the stressed individuals she saw were anxious about their memories. Shur thought that it was a circular process, and not serious – they forgot some simple thing, as anybody could, and then they stressed about it, fearing the bad thing. And that stress made them forget more things, so they got more stressed, and then finally they came to see her. To see a doctor.

Shur explained this to the men and women who sat quivering before her. Her reassurance, her calm confidence, had a profound effect on most of them and they left her feeling much better. Some couldn't be convinced; to these she prescribed some mild sedatives and requested they come back in a week. In that interval the sedatives would make them more amenable to her advice.

She said goodbye to a blonde Western woman who had been worried about missing her period – a pregnancy test Shur administered showed negative, to the patient's relief – and waited for the next one.

No-one came.

Shur opened the door and went out into the waiting room. It was empty except for Jing, who was stuffing pens and notepads into her handbag. She started guiltily. Shur smiled.

"Were you going to just leave me in there?"

"Ah... Er... No, I was just coming in... There aren't any more. It's after nineteen hundred!"

"Nineteen hundred what?"

Jing looked confused. "Hours. It's after seven o'clock." This just confused Shur more. She shook her head to clear it and focussed on Jing.

"Where are you going now?"

"Home."

"Alright. How about having dinner with me first?"

Jing looked confused again. "Dinner?"

"Don't you eat?" Shur suddenly wondered whether she actually had any money to pay for dinner, but the memory that surfaced assured her that she did. She relaxed. "Come on, take me to a nice place. My treat." Jing shouldered her bag full of swag and smiled. She felt powerful all of a sudden. Her boss was being nice to her, and earlier in the day she had been startlingly forgetful. Jing began to consider how she might exploit the situation.

Shur, who was a shrewd judge of people, saw every thought cross her assistant's face, and smiled inwardly. All the information she needed would be got from Jing, and for only the price of a meal. She popped back into the surgery to find her own bag, then gestured to Jing that she should lead the way.

It was uneventful, the walk to the restaurant, through a corridor lined with offices whose plaques advertised medical, legal and scientific services, then joining a broader way, still no windows, still lit sourcelessly. People of all colours, but predominantly Asians, passed them. Some nodded at Shur and Jing, others ignored them. Ahead the way broadened out, there was a buzz of community, faint music. The smell of food.

And a window. A huge window. Shur followed Jing into an enormous space. Glass and steel glittered around them. The space went up up up, tens of levels above them, and down down down, tens more beneath them, a huge atrium, a well connecting every floor with moving staircases and fast glass-walled lifts. Banks of shops and restaurants confronted her on one side; and on the other...

The window. A single curved pane of glass that started way down at the bottom of this vertical city and finished out of her sight at the remote top. Jing pattered on towards a Chinese eatery, licking her lips. But Shur stood rooted to the spot.

Beyond the window was blackness. Set in the blackness was a huge jewel, a sphere of blue and white and green and brown. It filled the view, a whole world bracketed in the deep black of space, haloed with atmosphere. Faint lightnings flickered in a cloud mass. One side of the planet was edging into night, and Shur could see it move.

Shur knew it was a planet. Hansolo had bought a globe of the Earth from Europa and it was pride of place in his library. She knew it well. She had studied it. She was fascinated with it. And now she was seeing the real thing, a planet with seas and with continents.

And it was not the Earth.
Chapter 3

There was no transition; from contemplating a boil, to falling indecorously over a low bush in almost total darkness, took no time at all, and was so shocking that she just lay there, forgetting to breathe, the chirrup of crickets loud in her ears along with an inordinate amount of swearing in Chinese. Someone was crashing around very close by, and then they too tangled with the bush and fell down right on top of her, then lashed out and caught her on the shoulder. She grabbed at a wrist, found a finger and bent it backwards, hard, and was deafened by a yell right in her ear. Somewhere far away a dog barked furiously, and closer at hand a man shouted, "What the hell are you two doing?" in a language she could understand perfectly but did not know.

Lights approached, flickering torches. She forgot her bruises and a cold chill ran up her spine. She was on the ground. The attacker ripped its hand away from her slackened grip and struggled to stand up. In the faint light coming towards her she saw him look frantically around for an escape route. When he moved, she stuck out a foot and he crashed to the ground again in a spray of aromatic leaves.

And then they were the centre of interest.

Three quite competent-looking young men in studded leather armour arranged themselves around her and the mystery man. Each carried a sputtering pitch torch in one hand and a short and very sharp-looking sword in the other.

The other stirred. She kicked him, and hurt her foot. She was wearing slippers.

"All right, stand down. It's just a domestic." The soldiers pulled back and sheathed their weapons as a hard-looking man in a fancy dress made from fine silks came up. He looked down at Shur and her antagonist.

"What happened?" he enquired. Shur kept quiet, but the other struggled to its feet.

"Where am I?"

"It sounds like you've got concussion," remarked the hard-looking man. "Seojun – go get the doc. If you can't find him, get the vet." One of the guardsmen nodded and ran off. The hard man reached down and offered a hand to Shur. She took it and he lifted her easily to her feet.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" he demanded.

"You aren't holding any up," Shur complained. She hated amateur medics.

"Correct. There's nothing wrong with you, Lady Shur. Just pop back to the blue drawing room and get some tea. I'll bring lover-boy as soon as we've checked him over."

Shur stared at the other, who was looking around him with his mouth open. She took hold of a guard's arm and pulled it so that the light from his torch fell full on the man's face.

"Shen-So! Look at me, you bastard," she grated in Chinese. The young man turned to her in surprise, and she punched him in the head.

"That's fair," the hard man said, in a reasonable tone. "I'm sure you have a good reason for boxing my son's ears."

Shur gaped, looked between the youth and the man, spotted the similarities. She looked up into the fragrant sky. She looked wildly around her, seeking some way out of this impossible situation. Seojun came back with a grumpy doctor in tow.

"Which one is the patient?" he enquired.

"Both of them," replied Regent Shen Hansolo, stepping back a few paces in case of further violence. The doctor humphed.

"Well, I'm not a relationship counsellor," he grumbled. "Bring them inside and we'll take a look. There may be some bruises. I've got some nice sting-y stuff for that..."

The enemy – the young man, she corrected herself – stood shakily, supported by a guard. He wore some antique formal wear that had suffered mightily from contact with the bushes. She looked down at her own clothes – a female version of the same thing. There was a board tied to her head. And everyone was speaking the language she did not know.

The boy in front of her was very young. So, she realised, was she. He looked at her for the first time, and there was no recognition in his eyes.

She hit him again. The older man made a sucking noise. It was quite disapproving.

"What?" she flared, rounding on him.

"Well," he drawled, "How many times have we told you never to tuck your thumb into your fist?"

His eyes danced with humour. He took her hand and led her into Namhansanseong Castle, and his son was helped in behind them.

The blue drawing room was cool and quiet. Painted wooden beams in an intricate joinery supported a high ceiling, sloping down to an open eave that made the whole of that side of the room an extension into a night-scented garden thrilling with the chirrup of crickets. Shur sat gratefully and accepted a porcelain cup of green tea from Shen-So's father. Soft rain began to fall outside, and somewhere in the complicated rafters a gecko boomed like a bell.

Shen-So was on a couch being attended to by the doctor, or perhaps the vet. Shur didn't fault the man's brusque manner; she could be like that herself, when a patient was difficult.

She sipped her tea. It was very welcome. Shen-So's father – whose name she knew was Shen Hansolo, but she didn't know how she knew – went to stand at the margin between room and garden, looking out into the rain, his hands clasped behind his back. The boy winced when the doctor dabbed something vile onto his bruises.

"Baby," she accused, and Shen-So swore in Chinese. His father tutted. Without turning he asked the doctor about his son's wounds.

"He'll live," the medic said, and started packing up. When he had left the drawing room, closing the door quietly behind him, Hansolo turned to look at his charges.

"Now. Will one of you tell me what this is all about? And then the other one will also tell me. So. Who wants to start?"

Shur couldn't speak; she was trapped in a scene from a Chinese-style historical drama, it seemed, and whatever she could say would only make things unutterably complicated. But Shen-So was bursting to talk.

"It's Fat. It's that demon – I thought – mother thought he could be trusted! Now look where I am!" He waved his arm around, indicating not just the room but Shur and the whole wide world. "It's bogus! He's taken me out of the quest. Well; now I know. It was just another trap. And that demon bitch – she attacks me the instant I get here. Wherever here is."

"Would you mind letting me into the plot?" drawled Hansolo. He passed his son a cup of tea, which was refused with a glare. "First of all, your mother has been dead for many years. Also, we don't believe in demons. And, Princess Shur is your betrothed. She might have a temper, but she's not a demon. I am your father, and if I'm not to put you in restraints as a madman, I need more information.

"So, who are you? Where do you come from? And why are you talking about demons?"

Shen-So sat panting heavily, glaring at Shur. But then his eyes dropped and he slumped back against the cushions. Hansolo put the tea-cup into his hand, and the youth drank.

"You know," said Hansolo amiably, "I've long suspected that my son, Teal, has been keeping a secret from me." He turned towards Shur. "He and I and Kale went to Taiwan a few years ago, to present Kale to your mother. He was to marry her eldest daughter. But you know that – don't you?"

Shur dare not speak, but she knew that her face gave everything away.

"So. It's news to you. And yet, you know this young man. You know him by a name I have never heard. You are very unhappy with him. Very angry. He has disappointed you, failed you in some important thing.

"And you..." he turned towards his son. "You talk of a quest. You talk of demons, and of the mother I know you love, but who has been in heaven for ten years.

"When we were close to our landfall in Taiwan," he continued, now looking at Shur, "Teal – that's Teal, by the way – changed. He woke up one day and he was a different boy. In some ways it was an improvement, but in others, I'm afraid... Well, he did his best to fit in, and he was truly brave. It wasn't until your sister and Kale were married that he seemed to snap out of it. That was when he proposed to you, Shur; although he did look quite confused when he did it."

Shur sat very still. So did Shen-So. She looked towards him; he was white with fear. Shur suspected she looked much the same.

"So. We are looking, I suspect, at something strange. It seems to me – and I am no philosopher – but I do think that there may be Shurs and Teals – and Hansolos and Kales – in many other worlds. I don't know how, or why, but you know one another. You are from the same world, and that world is not this one.

"Now. Tell me about your world. I'll order up some supper, because I'm sure it's going to be a long night."

Shur looked at Shen-So. Shen-So glared back. The ointment on his bruised face shone in the light from the oil-lamps.

Hansolo had left them to, as he had said, 'find something a bit stronger than tea'. They both knew he was giving them time to work things out together, and they didn't expect him back anytime soon.

Shur sighed.

"Look; I don't know what's happened. It was a shock, finding you there right next to me. I overreacted."

"I have the feeling you do that a lot."

"What did you expect? You leave me after a blazing row and I never hear from you again. Your family don't know where you went, or wouldn't say. Three years, three years you've been gone. You might have been dead. I mourned for you. I went back through every word of that argument so many times. I relived every moment of our time together. I wept for months.

"Nobody would talk to me, about where you were, why you'd gone. For all I knew, you weren't on the Station any more, and you wouldn't have gone to the moons. There was only one other place you could be.

"And that meant you were as good as dead."

Shen-So was looking more and more confused, but his eyes also betrayed sadness. When he eventually spoke it was in a meek and conciliatory tone.

"I don't know you... I believe you; I can see the pain in your eyes, I hear it in your voice. But I was born in Un, the fair land of the south. My mother was a sorceress.

"I was a disappointment to her, until I reached my majority. I have no magic, but I can lead men. I was fighting powerful enemies and suddenly found myself here – I apologise for my reaction towards you; I thought you were an Awk. I'm just glad I didn't have my sword..."

Shur was mute in the face of his speech. She knew him. She didn't understand how he could say what he had said. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. There wasn't anything she could say. She could see that he believed what he had told her.

This boy – this man in the body of a boy – did not recognise his own wife. And there was nothing more to be said.

It was obvious, when Hansolo returned bearing a bottle of what turned out to be a vicious distillate that could have taken the paint off the beams, and followed by a pair of servants bearing dishes of snacky food, that he had spent much of his time behind the door, eavesdropping on the estranged lovers.

Shur didn't blame him; she would have done the same.

"So. Have you two got your stories straight?" He popped a tea-marbled quail's egg into his mouth and reached for a char-siu pork bun.

"Our personal situations are for us to work out," said Shur in what she hoped was a firm but reasonable voice. "But in general, I can't see a reason why we shouldn't each describe our world to you in our own way. I think," she leaned forward to pick up a bun, "that you should start. Tell us where we are, and what we are. To my mind, I'm nervous to be on the surface of a planet that's been killing our people for generations. Perhaps you can tell me how you survive."

Hansolo's eyebrows rose. "As far as I know, it's people who are dangerous, not nature. Although there are earthquakes and tsunamis."

"This isn't Mara," Shen-So said. His tone brooked no dissent. "I think we're on Urth."

Shur shook her head. "Not possible. It's dead, a cinder."

"I think you should think about what I told you earlier," Hansolo said. "You are not in your own bodies. You are in a different universe. If I hear you aright, you live on another planet. And it's not this planet, where we have always lived. In your universe the Earth is dead, and your planet is dangerous."

"I don't live on the planet. None of us do. We can't. And those who may have tried to go down there, if they survived, could never come back."

Shen-So blinked. "I live there. I've always lived there. I was born on Mara." He pointed at Shur but appealed to Hansolo. "If we came here from other places, other worlds, she could have come from one such and I from another. She believes she's met me before. I know we've never met.

"But this is only half of the problem. Your son and his fiancée are not here. I guess they are in our bodies, wherever those bodies are."

Hansolo nodded. "I'm aware of that. I don't think there's anything I can do about it. I don't know how Teal got back before, in Taiwan. But he did come back. All we can do is get on with life.

"And part of that life is that you two have duties and responsibilities. You both command platoons in our army. You're respected fighters and leaders. You'll have to go out and lead your men – do you think you can do that?"

"I'm a doctor! I'm not a fighter!" Shur was appalled.

Shen-So was more confident. "Yes, I can do that. I'd need to know something about your son... Do we have time in the morning? I'm tired – I've been fighting Awks today."

"Yes, your sergeants will look after your men for the next few days. For now, get some sleep. I'll show you your rooms."

Shur sat on the bed. It was very wide, and it had a canopy. The bed, as all were in Namhansanseong castle, was a kang, built of brick. In the bitter winter a fire would be built inside to warm it and the room. Fumes were vented outside, which led to the castle being wreathed in steam and smoke in those months when the temperature could fall to minus twenty degrees. Outside in the darkness the rain had stopped. She didn't think she would be able to sleep because of the noise of the insects. There were hardly any on the Station.

She looked at the nightdress that lay beside her. It was beautiful. An ivory silk, painted with lilies. In her world it would have made a fine wedding dress.

But she was lost, and her husband was gone. And the man who had come into this world with her was another version of him. A man who had never met her; a fighting man, who had opened old wounds she knew now had never fully healed.

She wanted to weep, but the tears wouldn't come. She closed her eyes; and when she opened them again it was morning, and she was still lost.

Hansolo was a man who liked his breakfast. When Shen-So wandered in to the dining room, following directions given him by someone who claimed to be his valet, he saw the Regent tucking in to a bowl of zhou, rice porridge, with kimchi on the side and steamed bread. Shen-So had slept as soon as his head had touched the pillow. A firm bed, in a cool and well-ventilated room, was a luxury. He'd been on his quest for eight weeks and could count the beds he'd slept in on one hand – beds full of lice, or shared with others of his band, or mere mattresses on the floor. Most of the time, certainly since leaving human territory, he'd been sleeping on the bare ground.

He ladled porridge into a bowl and sat down across the table from Hansolo.

"Good night?"

"Excellent," he replied, tasting his congee. It was lovely.

"You've got a busy day today," said his erstwhile father. "You and Shur are going to learn how to be Teal and Shur.

"First off, you're young. But competent. No swearing; they don't swear, at least, not where I can hear them. And they don't swagger, or brag, or treat their men badly.

"You and Shur compete against each other. Your men compete against one another in the same way. And they'll always be testing your discipline. You have to be lenient towards humour and mild practical jokes, but hard on anger and provocation."

"Why don't you wait till Shur's here, then you can tell us both that."

"She was here, an hour ago. We had a long chat. She's a doctor, not a fighter, but she knows she has to fit in. I've sent her off with the armourer to learn how to throw knives."

"Wah... Knives?"

"It's Shur's – our Shur's – speciality. She's very good at it. She's killed more men with a knife than most doctors..."

"Measure the distance. Your knife rotates once every three kan. So if you want the point to stick, you have to get the distance right in your head.

"And you can make it spin faster or slower, to some extent. So practice that too. But first, until you can get the knife in the target five times in a row, I'm just going to sit down against that wall and smoke a pipe."

The armourer took herself off and squatted against a shady wall, well out of the line of fire. Shur concentrated and launched a knife.

It veered out of her hand and struck the wall just feet from the armourer's head. She jumped like a scalded cat and launched a stream of swear words that Shur, to her embarrassment, understood completely. The gist, when it came, was that Shur was a danger to herself and others, but orders were orders and she had better get on with her practice or woe betide. Then the armourer set her seamed and nut-brown face in a scowl and marched off, she said, to find some armour. And bandages, just in case.

Shur sighed and picked another knife from the table beside her.

As the morning wore on, and her mind learned what her body knew of the art of knife-throwing, Shur tried to look at her situation logically.

She had been taken from her own world, and was now in the brain and body of someone who looked like her, but considerably younger. This girl was a Princess, betrothed to a Prince who looked like her husband. Her ex-husband, since he'd run away.

The armourer was smiling. Shur brought her attention back to the moment and saw three slim knives sitting next to each other in the centre of a target almost ten metres away.

She wondered whether it was due to the muscle memory of her host, or to an innate ability that the Qing Shurs all had, in all the worlds.

Because there had to be more worlds than just two. The Shen-So who was getting to grips with the fifteen-year-old Shen Teal's body wasn't her ex. He had to have come from yet another world, a world where he and she had never met.

Noise from a neighbouring courtyard impinged on her. She recognised Hansolo's voice. The armourer winked and beckoned her to a door in the shady wall and they went through to spectate on a fencing bout.

Hansolo and Shen-So, burdened with long quilted canvas jackets, were hacking at one another with gusto. As she watched one of Shen-So's sweeping strokes crashed through the Regent's elegant guard and smacked against his ribs. Hansolo lifted his free arm and they both stood down, panting.

"You fight like a blacksmith," he complained. He plunged the long sword's point into the dirt and started to massage his bruised ribs.

"It works."

"I know what works, and what doesn't. What I'm trying to do here is get you to fight like my son."

"I don't have time for fine swordsmanship."

"You do here. And you must have learned, even if it was some years ago. I can see the technique you were taught, behind all the slashing about."

Shen-So looked daggers at his mentor, but they had far less effect than Shur's would have. Hansolo laughed. "Come on, let's have a bit of finesse. You've only got another half hour till lunch."

"You're obsessed with food, old man! No wonder you're fat!"

"What? Oh, that's the last straw! Put up your sword – I'll not take insults from a lazy teenager!"

They both set to again, and Shen-So did try to remember his lessons. The armourer smiled and nodded, and after a few minutes she led Shur back to her own practice.
Chapter 4

She wanted to cringe down onto the fake marble floor. Her knees threatened to fail her, to roll her up into a quivering ball; but she was Shur. She was a Qing Princess. The overwhelming strangeness of the world around her assaulted, but did not penetrate, her core beliefs. Shur stood. She did not fall. And in the course of the next few minutes, with Jing tugging at her sleeve, the Eighteenth-Century girl came to terms with the jarring dislocation of a modern world.

In part it was the scent of food. Enticing smells wafted from the various eateries. She had put in a full day's work, relying on the skill of the body she inhabited, but fading across the hours as her blood sugars dipped. Food was an imperative; and eventually she let her receptionist lead her to a Nipponese noodle bar set between a fashion clothing shop and a nail bar.

Shur slurped noodles. She found the mass-produced pickles bland, but she loved the broth, and gobbled chicken for what seemed like months until, finally, she was full. She looked up at Jing. Broth dripped from her chin. The girl's eyes were wide; she was impressed.

"You had three portions!"

"If you aren't going to finish yours, I can go for three and a half..."

Jing pushed her bowl towards her boss.

"Dessert?" queried Shur, shovelling cooling noodles into her mouth.

"Er..."

"Go on. Order what you like. If you can't hack it, I can." She smiled, and so did Jing.

Things got a little more difficult when it came to paying.

"How do I pay?"

"Ah?"

"Pay for the food."

"You must have had a difficult day..."

"Yes. Very. So my mind's going blank. Just remind me..."

"Well. You ask for the bill and you touch your wrist to the reader."

"Good. Thank you. Jing – you don't eat much!"

Jing looked embarrassed. "I'm a Blue. We can't afford to get much to eat. I'm not used to so much... You know that." She shifted uncomfortably. "Why are you being like this?" She stood up and tossed her napkin onto the table. "Just because you can get what you want, doesn't mean that other people don't resent it!" She made to storm off but Shur grabbed her arm.

"Jing! Sit down. Please. I need to listen to you. I need your advice. Please."

Jing hesitated, and Shur took that as an opportunity to pull her back down into her seat.

"Jing. I... Something has happened. My memory has gone. I can't understand this place, nothing makes any sense. Will you be my guide? Please? Otherwise I'll have to go see a doctor, and then what will happen to me? And to you? Please; help me."

Seconds passed. Jing's eyes, squeezed shut, her mouth twisted in obvious pain, the muscles of the arm Shur still held so tight hard with tension.

And then, with a shudder, she relaxed. But it was, Shur knew, hard for the young woman to do.

"Alright. Ask. But not here. Take me to your place. Then I'll help."

Shur smiled a conciliatory smile and released her assistant's arm. "Yes. Let's do that. Thank you, Jing.

"Now – please can you tell me – where do I live?"

Behind the facade of shops and restaurants were kilometres of bland corridors. Those closest to the huge atrium bore commercial plates – doctors, lawyers, counsellors. Further away the plates petered out and letter and number combinations prevailed.

Jing took them down several levels in a moving box that terrified Shur. She hadn't experienced such claustrophobia before. It didn't last long; but Shur was weak-kneed when she tottered out of the box.

"How do you know where I live?" she asked, as she was led along yet another beige, door-lined street.

"It's in the directory," said Jing. She showed a small slab of glass that glowed. Shur peered closely. The words Qing Shur were glowing there in Chinese characters that were much simpler than those she knew, along with a green square and some Western characters and numbers. So. This was her address.

"Do I have one of these?"

"Why wouldn't you? You can have pretty much all you want."

"Jing. I don't know anything about your society. Just let's get to where I live and we'll talk about privilege." Shur was getting annoyed.

Then they arrived in front of an underwhelming beige door. It bore the code (green square) GG3294-1C. Shur, getting the hang of the place, waved her wrist over the number and the door unlocked. Jing opened it, and the doctor and her receptionist went inside.

Teal woke to find Lin standing over him, hands on hips and a huge scowl on his craggy face.

"What did I say?" fumed the big man. "What did I tell you? Never trust a demon!" He spread his arms wide. "All of us rely on you! On your judgement; on your vision. Now you've got Fat inside you. How reliable are you going to be now?"

Teal sat up. He felt – well, he felt fine. Great, even. He flexed his shoulders. He stood up. He could smell the stunted pines, the cooking Awk leg and the rot of Awk bodies nearby, even the scent of the forests below and the sharp ice from the peaks above.

He saw things that looked like buzzards high in the sky above him, waiting until the men had gone before they would come down to feast. He looked up at the deep pass the company had come through two days before, a steep cut between snow-capped mountains. He remembered the journey, the slog through drifted snow, the fear of ambush unrealised until yesterday's brush with an Awk patrol.

Teal turned his back on Lin and looked out over the wooded plain. He saw the course of the river in taller trees, in greener canopies. He saw the lazy rising smoke of settlements, and he knew how dangerous they could be.

And beyond the wide valley, the other range of mountains, hazy in the distance; some were shrouded in white veils of cloud. But a smudge of darkness hid the summit of the highest peak, and he knew without prompting that it was their destination. He had every memory from Shen-So, it was crystal in his mind. He knew what his mother was, and he knew what these men were.

He turned back to face Lin, who looked as if he was just about ready to hit his leader. Teal arched an eyebrow at him and placed his hand on the pommel of his sword.

"Do you doubt who I am?"

The big man's brows knit. "I... I never said..."

"I am Shen-So. Always have been," he lied, "always will be. There isn't any demon who could best me. I promised him safe passage through the lands below. I've fulfilled my promise. He's hidden inside me now, and there are no Elvis who can detect him." In fact, Teal couldn't detect anything odd inside himself at all. He felt more integrated into this world, and he knew things that Shen-So didn't; but he couldn't feel Fat lurking within him at all.

Suddenly he began to doubt himself. But he didn't show it.

"Come on; let's get down there. Last one to the forest's a mappering!"

And Teal, confident of being obeyed, took up his pack and a strip of twice-cooked Awk and strode down the slope towards the plain, and the Elvis.

Jing looked around Shur's apartment. So did Shur; after all, it was the first time she'd seen it.

There was a good-sized living-room, with a couch, a dining-table with four chairs, a combination home office, bookcase and cabinet. Everything was light-coloured, fresh and clean. A carpet, intricate with bright colours, covered most of the floor. Jing took off her shoes before she stood on it. The look on her face told Shur how luxurious it must feel. Jing sent off slow waves of sadness and envy that made her wonder just what the girl's own accommodation must be like.

Shur discarded her Western-style shoes with relief, found her well-worn slippers and a new pair for her guest, and then used the pretence of showing Jing around to investigate her own apartment. There was a kitchen, filled with gleaming gadgets. "Tea?" she asked, and watched carefully as Jing's eyes swung towards a shiny jug. Shur picked it up. The top opened when she found a lever; and then she was stuck.

The utter strangeness of everything around her fell on her mind like an avalanche. Her head felt hot. She opened her mouth, but she could not scream. She felt Jing take the jug away from her, and she was led to the living-room and the couch.

Everything turned dark, sinister. Shadows flickered at the edges of her vision. She sensed a trap closing around her, a pressure of things, of the enormity of this place, of the hugeness and the smallness and she understood nothing; it was all crowding against her. The sourceless light disoriented her, the faint floral scent in the air made her think of Teal and the night garden. She was going to reach her majority next month, but here it was far in her past. Jing sat beside her, folded her thin arms around her, brought Shur's head down to her breast, stroked her hair. And then Shur started to cry, silently for a little time and then, with a deep breath that hurt her chest, she howled.

"Tea," said Jing softly, proffering a cylindrical pot with a handle. It was filled with a light-brown hot liquid. Shur, still trembling, took the mug by the handle and sniffed the drink. She tasted it. It was very unfamiliar, and she almost fell back into her despair, but it was tasty. It was sweet, and appeared to have milk in it.

She sipped again. It was ambrosial. Shur smiled up at Jing and said, "Thanks." Jing smiled back.

"Budge up. Let me sit down and you can tell me what's going on."

For a while, Shur had closed down. Rocking in Jing's arms she had lost her mind, railing against the world, the world that had changed from security and her loving, adoptive family into something stark and twisted, full of incomprehensible objects and impossible ideas. With the tea, with Jing's gentle smile, she began to cohere.

This was where she was. Deal with it.

Shur sipped more tea, and took a deep breath.

"The Shur you know... She's not here any more. I don't know whether she'll be back.

"I'm a different Shur. I come from a different world. I don't know how. I was walking in the garden with my fiancé, we were laughing and happy.

"Next month I become a woman. I'll be fourteen. There will be celebrations. And I won't be there. I'll confirm my intention to marry. I love him. He loves me.

"And now? I'm here. I'm older, a lot older. I'm a doctor, it seems. A respected profession. I have a home of sorts. It's empty. Just me. Only me..."

She wept again. She couldn't help wondering how Jing was being so calm, so understanding. Hadn't she been listening? But the arms around her were firm, and the tears she felt against her neck were real. Shur reached out and hugged her new-found friend.

Teal knew he would be interrogating Shen-So's memories when he rolled into his blanket tonight. He had profound suspicions that the true owner of this body was being manipulated. Images that presented themselves as the man's life experiences were being battled by other memories, contradictory and frightening.

Lin strode beside him. The big man's face was raised towards the sun, he basked in the warmth as he kept pace with his leader. Behind them the rest of the company clinked with weaponry; the studded soles of their thick sandals cracked against the shale as they descended towards the forests of the plain.

I smell water, thought Teal. His senses, sharp, invigorated him. He heard water, too. And then, in a clearing amongst the scrubby bushes, there was a pool fed with cold, clear water from the stream they'd been following.

"Let's bathe," he crowed, lifting off his sword-belt and laying it on the ground. "Eldest three first, then the youngest!" It was, he considered as he wallowed in the pool with Lin and Pang, one of his more brilliant ideas. Jing and the two brothers kept guard. They were between Awk and Elvis territory, a sort of no-man's land, so no one was expecting an attack.

And, no attack came.

The band resumed their descent. Around them scrub grew into shrub and shrub into tree. Teal tried to fit the vegetation into his knowledge but although there were correspondences – the leaves were green, trunks grew up from the ground – there was nothing he could recognise by name.

Bark was grey, mottled with sooty black. The veins in the leaves spiralled out from a central stalk. Flowers were white with yellow bands and the insects that were interested in them were nothing like bees; they were slim, wasp-like tiny things with four long legs.

Teal fell back from the others and stopped, scanned the sky, looked at the sun through his fingers. It was smaller than it should have been, and brighter. And whiter. The sky, though bluish, wasn't a shade he'd seen before in the heavens.

He caught up with the group before Lin noticed he had gone, and looked innocent. It wouldn't do for Shen-So to wonder why they were on a planet that was obviously not the Earth.

Evening fell when they were well within the sheltering woods, down on the plain. The stream had brought them to a clearing amongst tall, straight trees whose boughs hung heavy with fruit. Lin cut some and brought them to the fire that Jing had kindled. He split them with his axe and a foul and familiar smell hit Teal – like durian, he thought, but they looked very different.

Lin waited until there was enough ash in the fire. Raking a space with a stick, he laid the fruits down and settled on his haunches while they cooked. It took a while; but when Teal was handed his share he had to agree, they were delicious.

The guard roster was agreed. Teal wrapped himself in his blanket and, not without a certain degree of fear, took himself into the mind and memories of Shen-So, the son of the sorceress.

Shur found that telling the truth brought more problems than it solved.

"You were on the surface?" Jing cried, appalled. Shur couldn't see what the fuss was about.

"It's a different world," she said, "It has a surface, it's not just some weird metal box hanging in the air..."

"No air out there," Jing countered. "It's all vacuum. Do you mean to say you live on a planet? Like Urth?"

"I live on the Earth," Shur contended, hurt somehow by the implication that living on a planet was somehow primitive. But, she guessed, perhaps these people thought that it was.

"There isn't an Urth any more," said Jing, flatly. She twisted her fingers in agitation. "We left millennia ago. We travelled through space, cold space, in a cold sleep. For thousands of years. And we arrived here, over that beautiful planet, and we couldn't live on it."

She looked around her and spotted a slim silver bar on the desk of the home office. She rose and picked it up, and pressed a button. A large rectangular patch of wall in front of the couch turned black, and cold points of light were revealed.

Jing pressed another button. The room lights dimmed. The glory of the stars grew in the darkness, and Shur, if she had not felt lost before, felt both lost and damned now.

The universe filled her eyes. Countless stars. Off to her right was a grey-silver disc half in shadow. A moon. And further right, inching into view, the planet she had seen from the atrium.

She slumped into the couch. Jing sat down beside her.

"This is what is. We can't move on – we don't have the fuel. And we can't go down there – nothing works. All our technology, and none of it worth a cent, down there."

Shur understood. She watched the huge orb creep into view, blue with seas, green with lands, banded with clouds. It was a heaven. Unobtainable. Private. Denied.

"Tell me more," she said. If she had had her knives with her, she would have thrown them at the world.
Chapter 5

"Fourteen? That's barbaric!"

"It's usual. Do you think fourteen is too young to become an adult?"

Shur paused. She had been schooled in liberal attitudes. Her teachers had instilled in her the morality that had served her through her adult life. And then there was her Hippocratic Oath. Valuing all who came to her. It didn't matter that the Station ran on lines of caste and status; her personal values were those of doctors everywhere. And fourteen was a good age for a threshold.

"I guess you may be right. But I'm actually thirty-one."

"Splendid!" said Hansolo, handing her a glass of unspecified after-dinner alcohol. She sniffed it and recoiled, then shrugged. In for a penny... Shur downed it. It wasn't quite as bad as it smelt. "You'll have to wear the full garb. It'll be in your dressing-room on the morning of the third Mogyoil in Guwol. An hour before dawn. The ceremony goes on all day. You will have opportunities for toilet breaks."

Shur caught Shen-So in the corner of her eye, sniggering. So did the Regent. He turned to beam at his cuckoo son.

"And you – you will be her fiancé. Your presence is required. You'll be on hand throughout the proceedings – helping her up and down, responding to her demands. Much as you will when you're married.

"Which will happen in two years."

"What?" Both of the old youngsters started like meerkats. Confusion began to reign.

"I have to marry that..."

"You realise I'm over thirty..."

Hansolo lifted his hands, appealing for calm. To his surprise, it worked. They truly were adults, he thought, although evidence was thin on the ground.

"It's expected, and it's been planned for ages. If you don't do it, there will be suspicions. I know the clothing is uncomfortable, and the hours are bad. Everyone else will be uncomfortable too, including me, so you won't be alone.

"And, for what it's worth, the Captain and crew of the Unicorn will be there. They docked at Incheon a few days ago, and they'll be our honoured guests."

"Who?"

"Well; now I know you're not my son. Nobody could fail to remember that voyage. The food alone was unforgettable."

Shen-So, with a lurch, rose from his chair, gasping. Hansolo started towards him but Shur got there first, clapped a hand to his brow and then grasped his wrist, feeling for a pulse. Shen-So's face blanched. White did not properly describe his lack of colour; he looked almost transparent. His knees buckled and Shur steered him to the floor. Hansolo called to a servant to get the doctor, then he knelt beside the man who was his son and looked at Shur.

"What's happening?"

Shen-So's eyes bulged. His muscles locked, his heels started drumming against the floor.

"It's a grand mal attack. Epilepsy," panted Shur. "Put a cushion under his head. Put something between his teeth..." Hansolo scrambled to comply.

"Come on, Shen," Shur urged, wishing she had her medicines here in this gods-forsaken crappy castle. She cradled his face. He looked through her, unseeing. She became conscious of heat.

Shur looked down. His body was glowing. His heart was a swollen ball of heat, waves of warmth radiating from him, searing heat, heat that could not be natural. Or survivable.

The doctor came into the dining-room and stopped in his tracks. He gaped, let the doors swing shut behind him, shutting out the goggling servants. His bag dropped to the floor.

"Have you got Carbamazepine? Phenobarbital?" Shur screamed, but the doctor was transfixed. She looked again at Shen-So and could see why. His chest bulged. The heat was furious. She backed away and pulled Hansolo along with her. On the floor the boy jittered, head on a cushion, heels rattling, his body arched, his chest glowing, the air above his heart boiling. A high-pitched sound, like an electric kettle, she thought, filled the heated air. It was coming from Shen-So.

And then the smoke began. Rich, dark palls roiled from the boy's chest, slow sluggish smoke that collected over him, scented of anise and chillies and wavering like a dream. Shur pressed Hansolo down to the floor, used all her strength to prevent him from springing to his son's aid.

The coils of smoke poured off the boy. Slowly he subsided, his tremors ceased. He lay flat on the floor beside his chair, cooling. The last wisp of vapour left him, and a hunched, thin humanoid form stood beside the body.

"Oh, bugger," it said; and collapsed in a heap beside its host.

The doctor, whose name (since we're seeing so much of him) is Kang Seul Hae, was irritated at having yet again been roused from sleep – why did the ruling classes keep such late hours, he grumbled beneath his breath – but fascinated by the strange creature and the injuries sustained by the boy, Shen Teal.

"What is it?" he enquired, not expecting a sensible answer.

"Don't know," said Hansolo airily. "It came in through the window, if anyone should ask."

"I suppose it knocked your son out and set fire to his shirt," the doctor said sourly. He cut the garment away from the boy, uncaring that it was silk and, if it hadn't been burned through, would have been worth six months of his own salary.

"Other way around," the Regent informed him airily. Shur, watching the doctor closely and ready to step in if he started anything primitive, winced at the levity. But Hansolo did seem to be coping well with what was, after all, an astonishing situation.

Doctor Kang sighed. He examined Shen-So's naked and hairless chest. Despite the burns on the shirt Teal's skin was unmarked, and he was breathing normally. Shur looked at his face. She hadn't looked much at Shen-So before, because he reminded her of her abandonment. But now, she was looking at Shen Teal. He was so young, beautiful, almost girlishly so. Shur had met Shen-So when they were in their twenties, they'd married within weeks of meeting, loved frantically and deeply until the day he broke her heart and disappeared.

The boy stirred. The doctor passed Shur a paper packet from his bag. "Make sure he drinks this, please. In warm water. Not wine."

"What is it?" demanded Shur. The doctor looked annoyed.

"Why does everybody believe they know better than me? It's a mild analgesic and an anti-emetic. It prevents nausea. Or else you might prefer him to vomit over the furniture?"

Shur took the packet.

"Now – what do you want me to do with this one?" Kang stepped over to examine the naked grey man. The Regent smiled.

"Nothing, thank you. I'll deal with him. I expect you'll see him again soon enough when you do your rounds of the prison hospital."

The doctor nodded, took up his bag and left, hoping for his bed but not expecting to reach it before some other emergency sprang up to thwart him. As the doors closed behind him, Hansolo beamed at Shur. Beside him his son's eyelids fluttered and she immediately knelt to check his eyes.

They were fine. He looked dazed, but none the worse for his immolation. "Who are you?" Shur asked, quietly.

"Shen Teal," he replied; he looked up at her with total adoration, and a great deal of relief. "We're back."

In the night Teal delved into the rudimentary memory palace he had found in his host's mind. It wasn't, he saw immediately, anywhere near as good as his own. In fact, there wasn't much stuff in it at all, and any unsorted memories that lay outside it went back only two or three years and were woefully incomplete. It was almost as if the structure of Shen-So's memories had been imposed on him, rather than experienced.

Teal had grasped the concept of a memory palace when he was barely old enough to swing a sword – which in Joseon was very young indeed. He'd taken to it with gusto, encoding all his experiences, everything he learnt, everything he felt into an intricate and totally logical construct within his brain.

He could go anywhere in it – it literally was the image of a palace, full of rooms which were each filled with different classes of things – and touch any object to bring forth a flood of memories, talents and emotions.

But the heart of his palace was not that grand Chinese-style edifice. It was a much smaller and far more intimate country house, the house of a minor Josean nobleman, the house he had been born in. You could see it from the windows of the grand palace; and if you opened the French doors and went out to where it stood, in a rolling meadow sloping down to a sparkling river, with purple mountains behind – you would find his childhood, his heart, the memories of his mother.

Asleep, wrapped in a scratchy blanket and barely warmed by the banked camp-fire, Teal rummaged in Shen-So's head. He touched, sniffed, listened to the memories that Shen-So was supposed to have experienced, and he found them to be lies.

Here, the hero was learning how to fight. Supposedly he was twelve years old. But the memory was a falsehood. The body holding the sword was much older, the instructor was looking around and barking his orders at people who were not there.

Teal looked in a different place.

Here was his mother. She had her back to him. She was robed in white, the colour of death. Her arms were raised. She was making an oath.

They stood in the mouth of a cave, and spread out before them was the whole of the land. Dark clouds scudded across the sky; the sun was hidden from view. Lightning raved in skeins and the thunder followed at once; the storm was upon them; the storm was hers, called from her magic.

She turned to her son. Her hair streamed in the gale. Her arms reached out to him and something bright, something pure, formed in the air between her hands and floated towards him, surrounding him.

She was beautiful, with the storm behind her, with the light filling him as it left her. And she loved him. And she died for him, when the lightning struck her.

And she was not Teal's mother. He had never seen her before in his life.

Jing made another mug of sweet tea, and added something from a bottle she found on a shelf in the home office. Shur, though she was not yet fourteen, drank a little wine at formal meals, and it didn't faze her. She thought that anyway this adult body would be able to cope with a shot of spirits.

"How will you get back?" asked Jing. Shur's shoulders slumped.

"I don't know. Maybe I'll just be back there as suddenly as I came here. Maybe I'm stuck. Who knows?" She sipped tea and felt a jolt from the brandy. She sat back against the cushions on the beige couch. Before her the unreachable planet filled the sky. "I'll have to learn how to live here. I seem to know more or less what I should do as a doctor."

Jing pondered this. She opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she thought some more, and finally said, "If you know what to do, then you've got her memories. So why not try to find her, in your head? Her personal memories?"

It seemed reasonable, but Shur didn't have a clue how to do that, and neither, it seemed, did Jing. Eventually the girl stood up. "I've got to go, Doctor Qing; it's late. We both need to be at work tomorrow – and believe me, my boss is really strict!"

Shur gaped at her, and then Jing laughed. And Shur laughed, and couldn't stop. Eventually she ended up gasping for air, and Jing put her arms around her, and they both laughed until Jing stopped, and Shur sobbed. But still, she felt better. Much better.

"Do you have to go back?"

"I... They'll think I've got a lover. I can let them know where I am."

"Let them wonder. I... I... I don't want to be alone, Jing. This is my first night in this place. I'm lonely, and I'm afraid. I've lost my family and my friends, my life, my love...

"I don't want to be alone tonight."

Jing nodded, and held the lonely girl a little longer.

Then she had to explain the function of a shower, and left Shur to it while she tidied up the mugs and called her roommates.

"I've got to work late," she explained. "There's an emergency. I'll be spending the night writing up for Doctor Qing. If I can get back, I will..."

"Don't disturb us!" warned Jao, at the other end of the phone. "Sleep in the surgery!"

Jing rang off. She looked towards the bathroom. She smiled, sadly. To be so far from home. And Shur, this Shur, only thirteen. No wonder she was weepy.

There was a loud cry from the bathroom, and Jing leapt up and crashed in. Shur was standing there wreathed in steam and holding a towel.

"It's SO SOFT!"

And then the giggles began.

Hansolo loved the short sword he'd liberated from a Taiwanese soldier. Shur wondered where he hid it. It was in his hand now, but she hadn't seen it in the room before.

She recognised it, of course. It came from a man who had been guarding her mother and sisters in their exile from the palace after Minister Obe had ousted them. She had killed one of the guards, Hansolo and Kale had despatched the others.

She preferred knives, and one of her favourites was in her hand right now...

Shur shook herself. She was a doctor. Why was she thinking of murder and death? She looked down at the knife. It used to belong to her elder sister. It had an ivory handle. She had killed two men with it.

She had strapped the knife, in its soft leather sheath, to her forearm as she dressed this morning. It was unconscious, usual; frightening that the habits of this little girl were so deeply ingrained that she had not noticed...

Hansolo was looking at her, and not at the strange grey creature still slumped on the floor between them. Teal had been carried off to bed by the servants and was under the care of a nurse. There was just Shur and her father-in-law to watch over the alien.

Father-in-law? Not yet.

But certain to be.

She did not want to marry Shen-So. She already had, and she regretted it every minute of every day, since he left her.

But she loved Shen Teal.

She was thirteen, and she was over thirty. She loved, she hated. She looked again at the knife, and the memories flooded her.

Her eyes filled with tears, but they were tears of joy. She was free. She wasn't confined to the Station, with its restrictions and its caste system. She had left Shen-So behind, left her grinding job behind, left that stupid sullen receptionist Jing behind.

Now she was a lady. She was a Princess. Teal was hers. She was betrothed to him. He loved her.

She could mould him. And this time he would never leave her.

She looked up at Hansolo. He was looking at her. It seemed to her right then that he knew exactly what she was thinking. Her eyes dropped, to the body on the floor. And it chose just that moment to move. Her hand twitched and Hansolo shouted "Hold!" and she held. The knife stayed between her thumb and forefinger. The creature lived.

Its eyes fluttered open. It sighed, then turned wincing onto its back and stared up at the beams.

"I guess I'm not in Heaven," it said in Chinese. Hansolo smiled, and rested his sword.

"You're in the next best place, friend. Joseon."

The thing looked at the Regent with a sceptical eye. "Never heard of it. Would you have water here?"

Hansolo looked at Shur. She slipped the beloved knife back into the sheath beneath her sleeve, picked a pitcher from the table and took it to their guest.

"Do you have cups in your land?" it enquired. Shur, with a sigh that surprised her, since she'd not heard herself do that since her teenage years, got a goblet and filled it. The creature drank.

"I'm Fat," it said, which is not a joke in either Josean or Chinese, so English readers are on their own there. He sat up.

The judgement of his gender was made by both the Regent and Shur by his voice, which although not deep sounded male, and by his breastless torso. He was naked, but he had no apparent genitalia. He looked down at himself, and seemed unsurprised but slightly embarrassed.

"Trousers, it seems, don't travel."

"I'm sure they were fine trousers," said Hansolo. He clapped his hands loudly and a servant came in. "Arn; please look at this man. Estimate his size, and bring suitable clothing." Arn nodded and left, closing the doors quietly behind her. Hansolo extended a hand and Fat, taking it, was lifted easily from the floor. He sat on the massive wood-framed couch beside the Regent and smiled slightly.

"So. Good journey?" Hansolo enquired.

"Not very. Painful. Would you mind if I ask where we are?"

"You're in Joseon. Best country in the world. You must be a very lucky man."

"Lucky, yes. Man, no. I can see that this world isn't my world. It's where Teal comes from. So I sprang from the bosom of Shen-So, who wears that young man's flesh in this place.

"I am a demon. I have no idea what that word means to you. It's what the invaders call me and my kind. I must tell you, we hope to bring an end to humans on our world.

"I have a friend, though, a human. I was guiding him towards his goal, the mountain at the centre of all things. Much good might it do him, in our opinion, but he's a driven man.

"He is Shen-So. But now Shen-So must be here, because Teal is there. You are his father – you look very like him. I hope you love him.

"Because Shen-So could never have accomplished his aim. Even if he passed through Elvis realms without being beguiled and killed, my own people would stop him at Cathras, the mountain."

The creature looked steadily into Hansolo's eyes, and the Regent started back, looking completely unconcerned. Shur admired his capacity for bluff.

"But Teal... He might just be able to do it." Fat sipped at his water.

Hansolo smiled a slightly broader smile. "I'd expect nothing else," he said. "Now – it's been a long hard day, and tomorrow – it's already tomorrow, but you know what I mean – is going to be even longer. So, we'll give you a bedroom, and we'll talk more in a few hours." He rose, and Shur, aghast at his placid acceptance of a being that had literally burst out of her fiancé's chest, just sat and gaped.

"Come on, Princess Shur. It's late." He clapped again and Arn popped her head round the door. "Arn – please deliver this man to a spare room. His name is Fat." Arn nodded and entered, and Hansolo took Shur's arm and led her out, leaving Fat speechless and open-mouthed.

Arn approached him.

"Please come with me," she said. Fat seemed to find it difficult to focus on her.

"Is he always like that?" he managed, eventually. Arn nodded.

"You'll get used to it."

Fat shook his head slowly as Arn escorted him from the room, and another servant came in to extinguish the lights.

Teal lay in his own bed, thinking. They were back, he and Shur, because of the actions of the demon Fat. He didn't know how it had happened. Fat had wanted to spare him but Teal had been adamant that he would honour Shen-So's promises. There had been a brief moment of pain, and now – he was back in his own world, back with his father and his fiancée.

He glanced towards the nurse. She was reading a collection of Josean poems. He smiled. That book was in his memory palace; he dipped into it often. She had excellent taste.

Shen Teal relaxed. He'd hold his beloved tight tomorrow, and then they would compare notes.

He had better tell her about his previous experience, too, with the Princess Shen Yifan, and his dead mother...

He fell into sleep.

Shur tossed in her bed. There would be no rest for her in the morning. She hadn't a clue what was going to happen, or what she could tell the young man who had returned.

Memories continued to bubble up inside her. Shur had a mother, and sisters. She had an adoptive family in the eccentric and fearless Hansolo and his sons Kale and Teal. She was in love. She was also fiercely competitive with Teal, and she commanded men, men who would die if she gave them the order.

How could this be? What sort of society was this?

Well; what sort of society was hers?

She turned onto her back and looked up at the dark canopy above her. Shen-So was gone, back to his world of demons and fighting. Shen Teal was back, back in his home. He thought that his beloved was too.

Tears pricked her eyes, and then fat drops rolled down onto the pillow. She was a fake. She would have to come clean, and disappoint him. And she had to do it before his father did, because he knew. He knew. And the demon – did he also know?

Hansolo, in the cool green bedroom just twenty kan from hers, slept like a baby, except for the snoring.

The demon, Fat, billeted in a wing far from theirs, guarded by men set by Arn, sat looking out of the window. He felt in bones that had not long since been merely mist and smoke the ancient pulse of this world. He shivered with the antiquity of it. Billions of years of life.

He breathed in that life, when he bothered to take a breath. His tongue tasted living things. The fluid that coated his eyes had been colonised in his first few seconds as a corporeal being, here, on this planet, this Earth.

He felt an accumulation of contamination.

Fat, reaching into himself, into what passed for a mind in such a creature as he, began to pull together a plan.

Teal dreamed.

Jing woke to suffocation. A pressure on her ribs, her mouth and nose blocked. She thrashed, heard through the muffling strictures a cry of pain, swam through sheets and fabrics and emerged, furious, heart pounding, into the artificial light of day in a strange and large bedroom.

Shur was holding her elbow, cussing. She clutched a pair of skinny jeans.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jing cried, sweeping a mound of clothes off the bed. Shur left off swearing and looked guilty. Jing saw the wardrobe doors – a wardrobe! SHE didn't have such a thing, in her Blue accommodation – the wardrobe doors, open, and most of the contents piled over the bed. She glared at Shur.

"Pride? Want to drown me in your riches?" She swung out of the bed and looked around for her own clothes, which were somewhere among the mess.

Shur, red in the face, dropped the jeans and shuffled her feet, looking all of her thirteen years.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I just don't understand these clothes."

Jing wasn't in a mood to pander to her. She pulled her blouse from the mess and cast around for her slacks.

"I'll make some tea..."

Jing glared. "Make coffee. If you know what that is."

Shur, in bra and pants, wandered into the kitchen and searched for coffee. She had heard of it – a bean from somewhere exotic – but never seen or tasted one. And there it was, a jar with the word 'Coffee' on it, a phonetic rendering in Chinese that matched Jing's word. And on the jar there were instructions on how to make it.

She made coffee, with the magic self-heating jug, while Jing swore under her breath in the bedroom.

"I did sleep well, thank you, until you started to cover me in clothes," Jing remarked, sipping coffee. She grimaced. "Do you have any sugar?"

Shur found some in the kitchen and brought it through, then had to go to find a spoon. She felt dim. This was a very different world, and her brain wasn't working at maximum efficiency. At least, she thought, Jing is still talking to me, although the girl was definitely trying to dominate her. Maybe she should make a concession.

"I apologise. It's just that I'm used to clothes that are – well, better. The ones that look like silk aren't. And others – well, they look like working clothes. Like for picking rice."

Jing's mouth drooped open. "They're designer clothes!" Shur looked confused.

"Well, everything's designed," she said, and received a cross look in return. "Anyway – I don't like them. Shall we go shopping?"

At Jing's prompting she used the unfamiliar far-speaking device – her glass slab – to call a locum service the practice sometimes used. They assured her that they would take care of everything, for a fee, and hoped she would recover from her flu soon. Then Shur and Jing went out shopping.

There was so much! And none of it was up to her standards. Dozens of shops, thousands of products. Jing cautioned her that some of the shops were really expensive, full of couture from a Paris that was ten thousand years dead, and Shur wouldn't be able to afford to buy from them – but even those were sub-par to the Princess' mind.

She did, however, buy Jing a wardrobe that no Blue would ever be able to assemble. And she bought herself a few items that were not too scratchy or offensive.

Then they ate, in a nice restaurant with the sort of service she expected. The bill, when it came, was eye-watering.

They sat together on a bench in a park. Trees stood over them, leaves fluttering in the breeze from ceiling-mounted vents. Ducks played in a pond. Shur gazed over towards the vast window. It was totally black.

"That side is looking at the sun," Jing explained. "It'll open up later."

"Who runs this place?" Shur asked.

"Well, there's a Council."

"Who's on the Council?"

"The Golds."

Shur, used to a hierarchy where wealth and status were at the top, nevertheless felt uneasy. "Who are these Golds? And where are Greens and Blues in the scheme of things?"

Jing hesitated. But, her boss had asked, and she had a bag of swag right next to her; so...

"The Golds are at the top. Then the Reds. Then Greens, Blues and Blacks. You should know this."

"Who made the Golds top? Who are the Golds?"

"Well... The Golds brought us here. We left Urth. We came on the long trek. When we got here, they woke some of us up, but then there was no way we could get to the surface. Technology doesn't work, down there. We wasted landers, and eventually we gave up.

"So, we stay here. We have nowhere else to go. No fuel, no hope. We recycle everything..."

"That's why there's so much stress," Shur remarked. Jing nodded.

"We have our place. We live as we can. I don't blame the Golds for it – it just is what it is."

Shur nodded. Much as she hated being in a lower stratum of society, she saw the need for its rigidity in the face of limited resources. But she needed to find out more, and there was one resource she might be able to access.

"I'm going back to my apartment now, Jing. You do what you like for the afternoon – I'll see you in the evening, after – what? Six hundred hours?"

"Eighteen hundred, I think you mean."

"Then. That's fine. Jing, you can live with me, if you want. We'll be back at work tomorrow. Before then I really need to think. So, if you're fine with that, I'll see you later."

Jing nodded. Shur picked up her bags and strode off, hoping she could find her way back to (green square) GG3294-1C.

The trees whispered around them. Teal's band had left the bank of the stream, which was choked with undergrowth – pale-leaved plants with vicious thorns, mostly, with a leavening of tall swaying flowering shrubs that exuded a soporific scent. Now they were making their way along a faint path that meandered around the silvery boles of the tall trees, knowing they were on an Elvis track; knowing, too, that they were probably being watched.

The sun was high, occasional beams striking down though the canopy high overhead. Small animals hustled away from their advance, heard but not seen.

Teal, using Shen-So's knowledge of the Elvis, commanded that no weapons should be in their hands, and no plants should be damaged. Sooner or later they would meet...

Ah. Sooner.

The track ahead opened out into a clearing floored with broad mounds of dark moss amidst dips of short-leaved grass. Two humanoid beings stood in the centre, bathed in the silvery noon-light. When the party halted at the edge of the clearing, Teal had his first glimpse of an Elv.

At first sight there was a certain lumpenness in their appearance. The Elvis were squat and broad-hipped, with high broad brows, long drooping noses, dark, piercing eyes. They disturbed Teal. But he unbuckled his sword-belt, dropped the weapon and stepped into the clearing. The closer he got, the more wrong the pair appeared. They were small, barely taller than ten-year-old humans. Their necks, like those of the Awks, were too short; their heads too small. Teal's eyes, fixed on them, suddenly blurred.

And then they stood before him tall. Their blond hair streamed around long mischievous faces, pointed chins held high with the confidence of their race. The clothes that Teal had thought were but rudely stitched from animal skins and broad leaves were silken, flowing robes. Their awkward joints – and he knew this, that they had at first made him think of goats, or spiders – these jointed arms and legs were fine and good, not strange at all. Not strange at all.

Teal stood back in his mind. He had that freedom; it was not his own mind, after all. He reviewed his memories of a few seconds ago, and he could see the reality behind what these Elvis minds projected.

The Elv on the left was female, but looked male. Breastless, taller than the other but still small by human standards, eyes dull and unintelligent. A fighter, he guessed, and probably deadly even without a weapon.

The one on the right – also female. Her breasts had been small and low on her chest. Her face, before it had changed, was round and sweaty, littered with pale spots. She'd worn a badly-tanned skin jerkin and a kilt of browning leaves. Now she was splendid in a long gown of grass-green, a silver girdle cinching her narrow waist with silver straps criss-crossing between high breasts that were, frankly, voluptuous.

Teal knelt in a show of respect, noting the fighter's now noble appearance, face both more and less human but still better than the lumpen reality, and 'his' green leggings, darker green tunic and silver belt.

Behind him, Teal's men also knelt.

"Rise. You are welcome in Evelwood. You are strangers, but courteous. We grant safe passage through our realm."

Yeah, thought Teal. He'd believe that, if he was Shen-So.

The Elvis led Teal and his men out of the clearing, and on towards the heart of Evelwood.

Shur lay on the bed, in the middle of the day. Part of her felt she should be at work, healing the sick, making some money, not having to pay out for a locum. But that was the remnant of the old Shur. She guessed that there had been a swap; that Haonsolo was now having to deal with a crabby old woman with fixed ideas and no idea of the society she was now immersed in.

Well, apart from the old bit, that pretty much described Shur right now. She smiled, eyes tight shut, and delved.

The first memories she met were the medical ones, purely professional. She had drawn from these the day before. She listened to her own body and identified anxiety, stress – not surprising – and an irritated bowel, which was.

Deeper, her personal interactions. Not many. A few friends in the same profession. A woman she now avoided. Jing, who was competent enough but liked to steal small items of stationery.

Who was the woman she now avoided?

Then her memory lurched into a deeper layer. Sex, coming over the young Shur in a wave of such strength that she gasped. A man now far away, a man now lost to her. In the darkness he loomed over her, his body hard and urgent against her, driving her to heights of pleasure she had never thought possible.

She was a teenager; she had kissed, she had felt Teal's obvious interest, she had dreamed, she had explored. But this was far beyond what she had imagined in the hot Josean nights. Her body arched in the bed as she responded to her phantom lover. It was dark, her memory could not put a face to the man who brought her to her climax.

But, as the glow faded into a sleepy satisfaction, in this memory of a real and desperately held event, the lover reached out his hand and a light blossomed. And it was Teal, her Teal, older, sweat beading his face, his naked chest heaving.

He looked at her with such love. And then he gently raised himself from her and padded off naked to the shower, and she, in her glow, fell asleep, and she, that Shur, both cherished and reviled this memory, because only a week later, after a furious argument, he was gone. And she never saw him ever again, her husband, her Shen-So. Her Teal.

Shur took a shower, hot at first, then cold, very cold. She pulled on a warm fluffy gown and sat down at the home office. There was a flat black plate that lit up when she pressed an illuminated circle on the front, and a plank attached with characters on it. Obviously a writing device, and her memories told her what to do. She poked around and found the Chinese input method. It used something her memory told her was Pinyin. Europan characters typed in combinations brought up Chinese characters she could select to make sentences. Pressing a big broad key sent the text somewhere, and a list of responses came back.

She realised how lucky she'd been the day before, that she'd not had to use the terminal in her surgery. It was difficult, even with access to the older Shur's memories. She wondered whether she ought to have at least written some notes about her patients. But hey – who was checking?

The search for Shen-So found nothing.

Qing Shur brought up her biography, her career, her advertising, address, likes and dislikes, a whole slew of conversations in texts with people most of whom she couldn't find in her memory. Inconsequential chats, some medical Q&A, some fashion rubbish, some relationship advice. There were holes, obvious and sad, where she knew the name of Shen-So should be.

She searched for the woman she now avoided. Found her. Because she knew her name.

Her name was Shen Ping.

(red circle) ML028-5D was twenty-seven levels above Shur's apartment. The corridors were plushly carpeted, but walking on them charged her up with static so that when Shur touched the bell-push she got a shock that startled her.

No-one came to the door. Probably Shen Ping worked. Probably she was stuck in some windowless room somewhere, poking pins in boils or writing down some legal document. Work that kept the people stuck here in a tin can perched above an unattainable paradise sane, or sort of.

Shur retreated back to the Red-level atrium and bought an overpriced pot of pu'er tea. Clocking off was early evening, if her own job was anything to go by. But in the event, she didn't have to wait that long.

"Qing Shur! What are you doing here?" Shur looked up and saw a tall Chinese woman with what must have been a very fashionable hairstyle, dressed in clothes that she suspected a Green could not afford however much she saved.

"I wanted to see you," she said. The other woman looked uncomfortable.

"Why? We haven't talked for ages. What's there to talk about?"

"Shen-So."

"Shen-So?"

"Your brother. My husband."

Shen Ping hesitated. "Aren't you going to offer me a seat?"

Shur was about to say, when I'm ready, but her sense of diplomacy kicked in just in time. "Please, sit, Shen Ping. Would you like some tea?"

"Thank you," Shen Ping replied, drawing out a chair and sitting, but looking as if she would rather be somewhere else. "Whatever you're having."

Shur signalled a waitress and pointed to the teapot. Service was fast in the Red zone – the tea and a fresh cup were on the table within ten seconds. Shur poured for them both.

"Mmm. Pu'er. My favourite – you remembered."

Shur, who had not remembered, simply smiled. It was an open smile, genuine, and calculated to make this avoided woman her friend.

It seemed to work.

"You know, I thought my brother was so happy with you," the fashionable woman said, sipping tea. "He was so relaxed around you, or so he made it seem. I felt quite envious."

Memories were surfacing in Shur's mind. Dinner parties held in expensive restaurants. Haggling for the bill. A family, of which she was a part by marriage, a family of privileged people happy that their Shen-So was content, despite his marrying a lowly Green.

Shur almost retched. She was a Princess. These were mere commoners, elevated because... Because of what? How did you gain status in this society?

"Why are you a Red? Why am I a Green?" she asked, without really thinking things through. Ping looked appalled.

"Why? Well, of course, it's a rhetorical question." She picked up her handbag and fumbled inside. "You became Red when you married my brother. Now he's gone..." she pulled out her small glass slab and pressed its surface. "Give me yours..." Shur took out her own and pressed on the screen, opening it. Shen Ping took it, pressed a few times, pressed on her own and then handed Shur's back. "Now he's gone you have control of his estate, but you are back in Green. Call this man. If all you're interested in is status, he'll put you straight." She made to get up, but the force of Shur's gaze plonked her back into her seat.

"I'm not concerned with status. I'm fine where I am. I just want to know where Shen-So went."

"He left you. Isn't that enough? You have his wealth, even if you don't have his status any more. You can live with that." Her voice was cold, but Shur plunged on. It wasn't as if she was friends with this woman.

"Where did he go? He didn't tell me. He just up and left. We were happy, and then he was gone. What did the Golds offer him?"

It was sheer conjecture on her part, but it hit home. Ping deflated, and slumped over the table.

"I couldn't say... He's my brother. I didn't want him to go...

"He was approached. They said he had everything they needed, they promised him adventure. I tried to talk him out of it, but no, he wanted to go." She wiped her eyes. She was crying, real tears. This wasn't an act. Shur reached out a hand, and the other woman didn't shake it off. "He said you used to argue. He loved you but he couldn't stand the times you and he just... just barked at each other. I know he was a playboy; I know he had a past, he had lots of girlfriends, you know that. We hoped you'd forgiven him. After all, you'd been given permission for a child."

Shur froze.

"He took their offer. He went up to Gold." The woman hadn't noticed. "He didn't even say goodbye to his family."

Shur stood. Ping looked up, her eyes streaming, and she stood too. Shur took the few steps around the table and embraced the woman she had been ignoring, and held on tightly until the sobs died away. When she finally left the tea-house, presenting her wrist to the waitress in payment, she went down to the surgery, now dark and empty, and used a packet from one of the cupboards.

She was pregnant.
Chapter 6

Shen-So knew Elvis, so Teal did too. He explained to his men as they followed the two Elvis women that they were going to an Elvis town, that no weapons should be bared, and that if anyone wanted a poo the band must stop and take the advice of an Elv over which bush to go behind.

His men were quite impressed. He was being a good leader, obviously.

The lead Elv thought so too. She let her companion carry on ahead and fell back to walk with Teal.

"Our customs are simple, but humans so often ignore them," she remarked. "You, it must be said, not only have bothered to learn our language, but you bring your men to respect our beliefs.

"This forest – it lives because we tend it. We do not take its riches without giving back to it. We live because it lives. It is a balance."

"You and the forest tend one another," said Teal. "We respect that, and we do not want to upset that balance."

"And yet there have been so many before you who did not. Are you humans learning to flatter us?"

"Oh," said Teal, smiling. "I'm sure we are. But although I know some of your language, I don't know you. And I don't know the forest.

"Teaching me everything would take a long time, time neither you nor I have. But while we walk, tell me what you consider to be necessary.

"I am not an enemy; and I am not yet quite a friend. Make me – make my band of hardened human men – make us friends with you."

It would be impossible, Teal would have thought, to bow while walking, but the Elv managed it beautifully. And then she began to talk; her melodious voice carrying to Teal's men, she spoke in the human tongue, in Chinese, and with the words of a poet; all the way until they found, towards the day's end, another clearing, and they could camp.

Her name was Aramiel, she said, and her companion was Glior. The band could build a small fire to cook their food. There were trees whose fruit they could eat, fungi that would taste like meat to human tongues. They helped the band to collect them.

Teal knew from Shen-So that humans had to heat all the food they took from the land, otherwise it would poison them. It was one of the things that convinced him that the Elvis, the Awks and the demons were native, but humankind was not. That, and the constellations, and the sky and the sun.

But he didn't think that the rest of his men knew this. He was the only human here, he suspected the only one on the surface of this world, who knew the truth.

Because he had broken Shen-So's memories. They were fake. His own had been erased and there was instead this mish-mash of edited material, only just hanging together. It was all that the original Shen-So had, and so he clung to it. But Teal had all his own memories with him, and he could see the holes in the story Shen-So had been given.

He began to wonder whether he could find the real Shen-So, and resolved to try.

Breakfast was difficult for Shur. Teal sat beside her, babbling about huge creatures with green blood, and being the son of a sorceress. Across the low table his father looked steadily at her while he slurped his porridge. Some time soon Teal would run out of story and turn to her, and ask her what she'd experienced.

She turned her face away from Hansolo's level gaze.

The demon, Fat, was being given breakfast in his room. Arn, who was a factotum to the Regent, was up there with him, gently interrogating the creature. Hansolo didn't appear to be worried about his extra guest, but then he was a hard man to read, unless he wanted you to know how much he despised you.

Shur put her spoon down. She wasn't hungry.

And then Teal sat back. He had finished his tale. His eyes glittered; he was happy, so happy to be back in the bosom of his family. And he turned to her, expectantly, and she told him.

She was not the Shur he knew, nor the Shur he loved. She was a thirty-something doctor in a child's body. She considered shedding a tear while she told him the brutal truth – she felt like crying, to be honest; but she did not. He deserved the truth unvarnished. She must not act like a girl while she stripped away his happiness. From the corner of her eye she watched Hansolo. The man sat impassive, no help at all, and when – all too soon – she finished her destruction, and bowed to the boy and the man, and walked from the room, she went into the garden in which she had entered this world, and threw up the little breakfast she had eaten.

They held a council over breakfast, while the Elvis guides stood apart, politely out of earshot. But still, they conversed in whispers; the powers of the Elvis were the stuff of legend.

Teal asked his men what they saw, and all had only seen the tall, well-dressed Elvis. None saw what he had seen, the dwarfish aliens dressed in leather and leaves. He didn't contradict them because he didn't want them acting suspiciously around their hosts.

The consensus was that the Elvis were being cautious and honest enough. All they had to do was guarantee safe passage through their lands so that the band could gain the heights of Cathras and confront the demons. Jing thought that the Elvis might even join them, to demolish their enemies. Teal, privy to his host's memories, though frustrated that he still hadn't got down to any reality, didn't think that would happen. The Elvis hated the humans almost as much as the demons apparently did; he expected not just no help, but outright betrayal.

They rose, stretched the kinks out of their backs, and followed the Elvis out of the glade, back into the mazy pathways of the forest.

Shin Yi complained incessantly, about the insects, the thorns that tugged at their clothing, the heat, the damp, the creepers that tripped them up on the path. Lin cast doubt on the young man's stamina and commitment, which provoked an angry outburst that drew Shin Er in, in defence of his brother. Jing loudly declaimed that he, at least, was happy to follow Shen-So whatever the hardships of the quest; and Teal stayed quiet, because he didn't want to shout at his men the way he really, really wanted to.

Shin Yi was right, though. The way was hard, and the constant trickle of sweat down their backs, the bites of the four-legged flies and the ripping thorns brought them close to breaking-point. Only Teal, hardened by Josean life, suffered with dignity. Even Lin, his strong right hand, eventually ended up stringing curses together in a constant and musical stream that lasted until the next clearing, and a cool brook, gave them all a chance to rest.

The two Elvis made no noise, gliding through the forest untouched. They neither spoke nor looked back, and in the new clearing they simply pointed towards trees and bushes bearing fruits suitable for the men, and indicated a patch of ground where a fire could be laid.

The Josean Prince let his men eat first, noisily, and approached their guides.

"May I ask – is it much further to your town? My men," – he indicated the sweaty group behind him, gorging themselves on fruits and fungus – "are getting restless." He smiled. The Elvis didn't. But the taller one spoke.

"Another two days. Are your men so weak?"

"No," Teal replied, with a wry smile. "Just argumentative. It's been like this since we left Stormhold. Humans like to complain."

Aramiel looked dubious, but eventually she shrugged, and with a nod towards Glior the Elvis moved off, and the squabbling band of humans followed.

It was not so bad during the afternoon. Hot, yes, and humid, but there was a cooling breeze through the forest, rustling the strange leaves. Trees changed, silver trunks replaced by ochre. Creepers wound around boles and branches, and bromeliads nestled in the crooks. A gentle rain of moisture, bird poo and insect parts fell onto the adventurers.

The Elvis, as usual, appeared to be unaffected. Teal noticed that their heads passed through low-hanging branches without any apparent contact; and when the lighting changed he caught fleeting glimpses of their true, smaller forms.

Before the sun set they reached a broad river, sluggish and shallow. A camp-ground was found, a fire lit, food collected. Aramiel and Glior melted into the forest. The band was alone for the night.

"So far, so good," said Lin, picking at a charred purple fruit. His stomach rumbled. "I just wish we'd brought some Awk."

Teal smiled. "True. Or some good old zha ji."

"Right. Keeps you going..." A look of confusion creased the older man's face. "What's zha ji?"

"It's a delicacy in... er, in Snowmount," Teal hazarded. Zha ji – fried chicken – was in his mind, delicious, universal. It was buried in Shen-So's mind too. He had eaten a lot of chicken. But not on this planet.

"Well; must have tried it once then. Never heard of Snowmount, though."

"My – er, my father brought some. He got it from a trader."

"A bit of a traveller in his youth, your dad, I heard. I didn't know him for long, the old King, before he went out and got himself cut down at G'nath. Sad."

None of this had ever happened. Lin knew, deep in his memory, what zha ji was. But the locks and the false memories stressed him, and his mind wove around to make some sense of the things that rose up in his brain. Teal relented, and didn't make any more anomalous statements. He dug into his own fruit, and into his false memories, and believed, for an hour or two, that Lin was his old, wise friend, his companion, one of the heroes of Stormhold.

Stormhold was a human city on the edge of the Eean Sea. There were so few human cities. It was there, it seemed, that Shen-So had come, the son of King Shen Hun and his Sorceress wife Xi Ma, brought from the fair city of Un.

Mara had once been paradise, but a hundred or so years before Shen-So's birth the Awks, previously just a nuisance, had found a leader, and became belligerent and organised. Peace treaties were destroyed in massacres, and pacts that the humans had made with Awks and the Elvis were suddenly broken; tokens of good faith crumbled in their shrines. Wars began, cities fell. Men, Awks and Elvis died.

The demons were discovered, hiding in plain sight, in the bodies of men. They looked unassuming. Grey, pathetic wretches – there were many such about, it was an obvious disguise. But they had powers, and they had until then been unknown on Mara, and unsuspected.

The focus of Humanity's wars shifted. They still defended their cities, but spent thousands of men looking for the demon strongholds, sneaking through Awk and Elvis territories, sometimes able to convince elements of the other races of the danger, but more often disappearing never to be heard from again.

Gradually proof of the demon menace was uncovered, and intelligence crept through the lands for the Awks and the Elvis to hear and to investigate.

Shen-So grew up in the palace of Stormhold. He pleased his father with his proficiency at arms, with his level voice, his diplomacy. He learned the language of the Elvis, and negotiated safe passage for their caravans through human lands, and their ships through human waters. But he never exhibited any of the magical powers that many assumed he would have inherited from his mother. She seemed not to mind; she loved him as any mother loves her son, and she hugged him as she healed the minor scrapes of boyhood, and then the more serious wounds of war. The people of Stormhold knew they had a special, and loving, family ruling them, and responded with devotion and with service.

The palace rose above the city, its Keep a stone finger jutting into the grey sky. Beyond its walls the citizens did their business, marked their deeds, lived their lives. And further, beyond the city walls on three sides, fields and forests full of grain and vegetables, fruits and mapperings – small animals with succulent flesh.

On the fourth side there was the sea. A harbour hugged the ships that plied to other human strongholds. Some shelled, some tentacled creatures were brought to the markets by brave men who rode out in tiny boats through calm and through storm.

Everything had to be cooked. The fruits, the fish, the grain, the mapperings. Raw was death. If you saw a farmer's lad pluck a blade of grass to suck you dashed it from his hand, and clouted the idiot.

Xi Ma explained it thusly to her son: That Mara was a cold place, and men were hot. If we eat cold, she said, wiping blood from his latest scrape, we have to spend our human energy to make it warm for us. That's too much energy, even for the least of our grains, and we will die.

How did we discover this, her son asked, and she ruffled his black hair, smiling.

We watched as men died, she said, all those many years ago, and noted that cooking saved us.

This satisfied the young Prince. But it didn't satisfy Teal.

The young Prince grew. He led raids into the lands of the Awks, into the hills that rose steeply up to the mountains north of Stormhold. His Captains reported back to the King that Shen-So acquitted himself well, very well, slaughtering the Awks ahead of his men, wielding the sword with gusto. Many fell beneath his blade. They called him, Biter of Awks.

Still, he returned often with wounds, and his mother tended him. She used her power to heal, knitting shattered bone, smoothing ripped flesh. Her son did not bear scars – convenient, thought Teal, hanging over the unfolding biography much as he had over the television in Yifan's World.

But the demons, also, could heal. And they made themselves useful. Slowly, imperceptibly, the war returned to being a war against the obvious foes, the Awks, and the demons were accepted.

Shen-So continued to slash and to raze. The fierce grin on his face as he carved a path through the Awkish armies inspired his men, fuelled a crazed and horrific terror against the Awkish population. Towns and villages were burned, Awk babies were dashed against rocks, Awk women were nailed down and raped. Shen Hun approved his army's actions, and his son's leadership.

Xi Ma was more ambiguous.

"You know," she said as she laid her hands on a festering wound, "the demons are at the back of all of this." Shen-So shrugged, and winced. She continued, loving him, healing him. The golden glow took pain and infection away.

"Come with me, Shen-So. You are ready. The agony of all the Awks is killing you. It's time you found out the truth. Come with me, darling son."

It took a while. Shen-So was full of hatred for the Awks. At one point he looked up at his mother and she saw contempt. But she persisted, and when, as often happened, the sea brought forth a storm, she sought out her son and she took him to the stables. There the ostlers saddled a pair of grelf, and Shen-So rode out to the event that would change his life.

Long they rode, first into the city that spread its skirts around the Keep, then beneath Northgate and out into the farmlands. They rode up into the hills and into the mountains, hidden from the Awks by the storm. Mother and son wore hooded pelskin capes that shed the drenching rain, the grelf moaning all the way, wet, hunched, their eyelids fluttering with rage. But Xi Ma compelled them and they moved stolidly onward, upward, until cresting a pass the humans saw the downward slopes that led to the Elvis Rift, the green valley that ran east to west. It was sheeted with lightning, flashing forks juddering from the dark skies, thunder crashing continuously. Far below the riders great trees burned, dim glows far off in the night.

Below the pass there was a cave, and Xi Ma led her son into it. The animals grunted approval and settled down to kiss and commune; the Sorceress and the hero stood, massaging their aching buttocks.

"I can build a fire," said Shen-So. He was cold. His mother demurred.

"There'll be fire soon enough," she said, without explaining. She shed the pelskin cape and hunkered down beside a pile of fallen rock. A minute of digging brought her to a parcel wrapped in the shed skin of a demon. It looked like a sheet of dried blood. It crackled as she unrolled it. Inside were some dried things, and a dull stone.

"Eat this," she told her son, offering a nugget of dried stuff. She had another in her hand, and she popped it, cold, into her mouth and began to chew.

"No! Ma!" He rushed forward, hoping to save her, but she stood and her hand was firm as iron as she fended him off.

"It's magic, dear son. I am not harmed. Eat."

He studied her. She didn't fall. Her limbs didn't sag. Her eyes remained bright and enigmatic, and she held out the dried thing to her only son.

"I have no idea what you're doing," he said, but he took it. It was wrinkled and had a musty odour. It made him gag, just the smell of it. Maybe it was Awk-balls, or Elvis-dung – he had nothing to compare it to. He grimaced, and ate it.

It was at first horrible. But then it grew on his tongue. It was fiery and sweet, tingled his mouth. It made him salivate for more.

Cold food was death to all humans. But here, in this place, with his mother chewing contentedly beside him, he survived.

In Stormhold his father returned with his exhausted men, drenched, spattered with the blood of Awks, and finding no wife nor son to greet him he scattered servants in search of his family. They were not in their usual places.

The storm inflamed him. Shen Hun dashed plates from tables and pulled priceless hangings from the walls. His rage rang through the Keep, and his most trusted factotums collated the news from others to present to him in his distress.

The Queen and the Prince were not in the Keep. They had mounted up and gone out into the storm together.

They had headed towards the hills, towards the Awk lands.

Shen Hun ordered his weary men to mount.

They sat on their capes on the floor of the cave, lightning flickering constantly outside, sheets of rain roaring across the entrance. They and their grelf were dry and warm. The cold food had cheered them, and they talked together, more like friends than family.

Xi Ma told her son about the demons. They were, she said, the oldest beings on Mara. Older than Awks or Elvis, far older than humans and Krike, the sea-changers.

"Just because we only discovered them in recent times, it doesn't mean they are invaders. They are the keepers of Mara. We destroy them at our peril." Xi Ma put the dull stone on the ground between them. It did nothing; just looked grey. "Shen Hun has demon advisors. They wear paint to make them look more alive, and deep hoods..."

Shen-So knew these men. "They have a smell about them," he observed.

"That they do. And so should I. For I am the daughter of a demon and a human, and you are my son sired of Shen Hun. This night you'll learn the truth of Mara, and of the demons, and then you will find those who will quest with you for the source of demon power."

"And then?" He should have been appalled by her revelation, but really, her demon blood had been rumoured since he was a lad, and it came as no surprise to have her origins confirmed, as it were, from the grelf's mouth.

"And then, darling, you will destroy it."

Shen-So's father gathered his men and rode back into the Awk lands, hacking male and female, old and young, until the Awks made a stand and destroyed him. They'd suffered mightily from his predations over the previous weeks. War-Awks ran from afar to help, but were frustrated when the humans withdrew. So now they gathered in their strength; and now their foe, exhausted Generals, men in ragged columns, weary and wet, were back for more.

The Awks gave their human enemies what they so evidently desired. The foot-soldiers were cut down, the grelf cavalry routed. Some Generals hung back from the charge, leaving their King exposed on the steep hillside before the Awk city of G'nath, and even as Shen Hun's body was being carved into pieces, those Generals urged their men back down towards Stormhold.

The air boiled with light and roared with noise. The hairs stood up on Shen-So's head, even on his arms and legs. The storm was at its height. Xi Ma rose, picking up the small grey stone, and offering her hand she lifted her son to his feet. Her long hair stood out around her head like a ball, gently rippling. Sparks crept between them, tickling Shen-So. She led him almost to the entrance of the cave, but not quite.

The rain sleeted down.

Shen-So stood.

His mother turned from him and strode out into the maelstrom of wind and rain, of fire and tumult.

He was suddenly afraid for her, but he could not move.

Xi Ma raised her arms to the bellowing sky. Her hands, fingers spread, were empty. She cried out in a language he did not know, and the sky replied in crackling arpeggios of electricity. Forks of lightning struck just downslope of the cave mouth; the grelf whimpered.

Shen-So had never thought of his mother in this way before: That she was so beautiful, her slim waist, her long legs, her bottom...

She turned. Her gown was soaked, plastered to her breasts, to her belly, to her thighs. He had dallied with girls, with women; he had not taken his men's encouragements to rape. He despised that. But now his mind was lost, his heart left behind by the waves of desire, of lust for – for his own mother

and

he

didn't

care.

Her eyes were locked on his, his eyes ranged over her. He knew she could see his thoughts; they were physically very evident.

He tried to take a step towards her. His head was full of images, his fingers felt what he desired to touch. He still couldn't move.

And she raised her hands towards him, cupped around something, and she leant towards him, outlined in constant light, her beautiful face in shadow, her hair limned in the lightning like a dandelion head, and between her hands the pebble glowed, and grew, and she tossed it towards him, covered in her love, the marching forks behind her and then it hit him, in his chest, burned into him, opened up all the lore of the lands, the heart of Mara, the heart, the soul of his mother, and he orgasmed as the bolt that blinded him, the thunder that made the grelf scream, struck her, concussed him, flattened him to the ground; left him for dead, left her dead.

There was no more lightning. The storm fell away. The grelf nuzzled the unconscious man, sniffed at the charred body in the mouth of the cave.

Three days after the storm Shen-So came down from the hills, changed in very unsubtle ways, the body of his mother strapped to a grelf, and discovered he was an orphan, King of a shattered city. Days of mourning had been arranged. A military government was on the verge of being declared, but the citizens doffed their hats to their new King as he rode in through Northgate, and his personal guard surrounded him as he approached the Keep. His reign was safe.

Shen-So called together his father's four remaining Generals. They stood before him in the courtyard of the inner palace, the heart of the Storm Hold. Their men were outside the gates. His mother's body lay on a bier behind him, and the crown of Stormhold dangled in his hand.

He looked down at the Generals. Not all had survived, but those that did looked him in the eye. They had said that they were happy that he had succeeded, but fearful that he was the son of a Sorceress. They were eager to take the few men that remained to go and slaughter Awks in his name.

Behind each man stood a knight of the King's personal guard: Shen-So's guard. Each held a tray bearing a goblet of warm wine and a napkin. The Generals were impressed.

"You honour me with your attendance," Shen-So began. His factotum stood just behind him with a tray and a goblet. The Generals smiled tightly. They knew they did. This young man was barely King. Untried. Malleable. And his Sorceress mother was dead.

"Some of you followed my father into battle against the Awks.

"It was a futile gesture. He was enraged, he flew into the fight because my mother had gone, taking me into the Awk lands. He knew her ways, but he did not think.

"And because of that, hundreds were slain. Humans and Awks. Men, women, children."

They were beginning to think that this new King was a weakling. He could see it in their eyes. Outside the gates their men stood silent. The courtyard was a perfect sounding-board, and the men could hear him just as well as their Generals.

Shen-So paused. He looked back at his mother's body, waiting a flame that could not burn her more.

"My mother lies here. She gave me her wisdom in the moment of her death. Knowledge she drew from the storm that killed her, knowledge from Mara itself. The location of Demons' Holm, and the method for its destruction."

This was unexpected. Eyes previously wandering snapped towards their King. Outside, the soldiers held their breath.

"We have known for so many years that the demons are the source of our woes. They pitted human against Awk, against Elv. They destroyed our peace, and we have, in the main, rooted them out from among us. Yet they still live, and they have a source.

"But only a few may approach it. It is not for an army. We will travel through Awkish and Elvis lands, and we will travel in peace.

"And so; I give you this decree." Shen-So looked each of his Generals in the eye. "The army is disbanded. Each man may go back to his craft, support his family, live his life. I will take those who volunteer to be a border force to defend us. After all, the Awks have suffered from my father's folly, and they will test us.

"So, my Generals. Tell me – are you agreed on my course?"

They were astonished. His father had never asked, he had only commanded. He told them to move and they moved. He took advice, true, but never showed any sign that his decisions were not his own.

Shen-So looked at General Wu. The General met his eye.

"Your Majesty, we face a menace from the Awks which we must meet. We've rooted out the grey ones in our midst – they are no longer a threat in Stormhold. But we cannot disband our army."

General Hun was much of the same mind, as were Generals Xu and Deng. A united front against the Awkish menace.

"I think," said Shen-So, "that almost concludes our business. All that remains is to reward those Generals who left my father's body in the field. Those who were so busy prosecuting war against civilians that they failed to support their King."

Two trays dropped towards the ground. Before they hit the hard-packed soil long knives had cut through skin, muscle, tendon, cartilage, sawing into the bones of the neck. Blood sprayed in fans from severed arteries. Hun and Deng, eventually, died.

"Disband the army. Send them home to their families. Keep a volunteer force. And never leave your King unsupported in battle."

Wu and Xu nodded. Shen-So took the goblet that was proffered.

"Drink with me."

They drank. They expected that they might die, but they did not. And when they left the palace, they addressed their men, and the men of the Generals who had died.

Shen-So ended up with three thousand men to guard the Kingdom. The rest went home, bolstered by a pension that was, if not generous, at least noticeable. The body of his mother rested on its pyre until Generals Wu and Xu went out, alone, into Awk territory and brought back the remains of the King. Then the new King's father and mother burned together, and there was a hell of a party for five days in honour of Shen-So, and to mourn his parents.

The revels inside the palace were, of course, somewhat subdued. Certainly on the first evening, when the place smelled of burning meat. But there were pockets of irreverence here and there, and earnest conversations that flared into arguments and fisticuffs. One of those that Shen-So watched as it developed was between two brothers, Shin Yi – the first brother – and Shin Er – the second.

It revolved around an assertion by Shin Er that demons must be native to Mara. Otherwise, he said, in the face of his elder brother's increasingly loud refutations, the Awks and the Elvis would have been more concerned. And they weren't. Shin Ye shot back that the Awks were stupid and the Elvis were self-absorbed – which Shen-So knew, from his mother's gift, to be untrue – and when Shin Er told his brother to put up or shut up – to go out into the world and see for himself – Shen-So stepped in and asked them both if they would care to find out, with him, in a few months' time.

Well, that shut them up. But after the mourning period they were reintroduced to him in an audience, and reminded their King (who had not forgotten); and he sent them to a barracks in the woods behind the town of Grace to meet Lin Si Ping, who terrified them, but made them into the adventurers they desperately wanted to be.

Pang Mao was not a man who was particularly interested in politics. He vaguely knew that a King had died. When he struck up a conversation with a fellow arms enthusiast at a fair, he was oblivious that this was in fact his new ruler.

Pang happily demonstrated the use of the huge sword that stuck up over his head. How could he draw it? Easy! He demonstrated, and fell back from his new friend by almost two metres. The point of his weapon made the skin of Shen-So's throat creep. It had taken but an eye-blink.

Shen-So gulped, carefully, and packed Pang off to Grace.

Fat, the demon, appeared at the door of Shen-So's suite of rooms in the heart of Storm Hold. It shouldn't have been possible. There were traps, and guards. But then, the new King mused, there were still demons everywhere despite the purges; and his own father had kept them close. This grey hunched creature, the cowl of his robe flung back, displaying his gaunt face, might well be one of those.

"May I help you?" the King enquired, arching an eyebrow. He lifted himself on an elbow; he'd been lolling on a divan, reading reports from Grace on the progress of his team.

"You may," said Fat, not introducing himself. "I'd like to join you on your quest."

Shen-So didn't ask how the demon knew about it. He just looked at Fat. Eventually, when Fat remained silent, he nodded. "I can accept that. Would you tell me why you think you're qualified? Have you battle experience?"

Fat smiled, mirthlessly. His lips were thin. It was a disconcerting look. "Sire, I am a healer. Not a fighter. And I may be able to help you at the end of your journey.

"Your mother was one of us, as your father knew, as you now know..."

"Half-demon, I think she said."

"True. And half-human. A bridge. And you are therefore a quarter demon. You have... skills. Talents. And your mother gave you this mission. She fed you cold food. She gave you a new life at the expense of her own...

"Do you still have the stone?"

Shen-So began to feel out of his depth. This being knew things it should not. He and his mother alone in the cave, the stone, the strange food, the lightning strike.

The urgent beauty of her, outlined against the rolling storm, drew an ache from him. Sadness and the knowledge of an encounter that he so much desired to have consummated flamed in him, tears and lust. And he could see that the demon knew all about it.

"You might have me executed," Fat said, reasonably. "Or you might send me to Grace."

The King, subsiding onto his cushions, waved the demon off to the training-camp.

Grace was an inland town, a hundred li from Stormhold – around 50 kilometres, thirty miles, or 30,000 Smoots, proving that you can learn things from books. Shen-So rode there with an escort of soldiers who irritated him immeasurably. His own loyal men were back at the Keep, looking over the shoulder of the committee of Lords and Generals he had appointed to rule the realm in his absence. He hoped his guard made them nervous.

His argument with the detachment of cavalry that rode with him was their total lack of humour. They sat stiffly on their grelf, looked straight ahead, didn't talk with him. Even the Captain kept his distance. He felt that either they didn't like him, or that they were so overawed by escorting their King that they'd all stiffened up.

Well, all but one. At a rest stop a table was set for him to eat at, alone, seated while the Captain and his men stood easing their thighs and bottoms. A Sergeant brought him a pitcher of warmed ale and a tankard. When Shen-So looked up to thank him, the man winked, gave a brief smile and stood back.

Shen-So looked around. No-one else met his eye. He looked back at the Sergeant, who grimaced and shrugged. The new King smiled in response, and when they eventually arrived at the barracks outside Grace he found the man again and asked him his name.

"Jing Ang," the Sergeant said. "Sir."

"Would you like to join my quest?"

"Ah, well; you're asking a soldier to volunteer, sir. That's not what we do – not us sensible ones, anyway, the ones who want to come back."

"I do intend to come back."

"Well then. I'd better stay close to you, sir."

And so Sergeant Jing Ang was the last recruit to the quest.
Chapter 7

Fat had a degree of freedom. He was able to walk around Namhansanseong and its grounds, which were extensive. There were always armed men just out of sight, but he expected that. And to a demon, they were never truly beyond vision. The auras of the humans flickered above their heads like rainbow flames from sentient candles. Fat could tell a lot from them – their state of health, emotional balance, confidence and intelligence.

Hansolo had assigned some very intelligent people to watch his unexpected guest.

The demon saw something else in the human auras, too. Something he had not seen before. Shur's aura was twisted. It held conflicting colours, sometimes. It confused Fat; he thought it might be to do with the mind-swap, but Teal was back from his adventure and his aura was twisted too.

Then he saw another. A servant, rushing from one outbuilding to another with a pail. Her aura, too, was twisted.

Could it be that he was seeing people swapped between Worlds?

He sat down on a stone bench, padded with cushions, by a carp pond, and thought about it.

Shur was swapped, Teal was back. The common factor was that there were people in Fat's World who were the same people.

So.

There were few humans on Mara. Fat had attended the tiny human colony on the edge of the Eean sea, a delegate on the demon ambassadorial team. He had enquired how many there really were, but received evasive and contradictory answers. All that was known for sure was that humans lived in the sky.

One day a streak of fire and smoke punching through the clouds announced the arrival of another human shipment. Long minutes later it floated down into the sea beneath its spread canopies, and was winched to shore like all the others. When it was opened, there were two living men inside and six who slept as if they were dead. Of those, one was Shen-So. Fat had by this time been given his role to play, to guide the group to Cathras through Awk and Elvis territory. Hiding inside Shen-So while they traversed the Elvis Rift was part of the drama, and harmless enough – except that it had gone spectacularly wrong, and now Fat was here.

His guards' auras flickered at the edges of his vision. None of these men and women had counterparts in his World, if his theory was correct.

He looked at the carp swimming in the shaded pool, and at the dragonflies that hovered above. They had six legs, four wings. The fish had no tentacles. He needed to get more information from Shur and Teal. Because he thought he could see a way to get back to Mara. And a way to pull the two Worlds together.

And, of course, when he realised this, he smiled.

Villains always do that.

"I don't like that Fat guy," Shur complained to Hansolo. They were taking tea together in a pavilion in a small garden above the southern gate. Teal was absent, coming to terms with the knowledge that his beloved was still away in another World.

"I think he will be trouble," Hansolo responded, sipping tea. He nodded to Shur, who had made it according to the Chinese tradition. Shur bowed from the waist and continued.

"Then why not put him in the dungeon?"

"I don't know whether it will hold him. I'd rather observe him. Know your enemy, and all that," he said. "He's being watched, and he knows he's being watched. We might get some clues by how he reacts to different people.

"After all, he's from some other world, or so he says. And so you are too. If he is able to spot those who may have duplicates in his world, then we gain information."

"What good would it do? You can't travel there. I don't know how Shur did it. And Teal, who's done it before, can't tell us how he did it either." Shur drained her cup and placed it down on the low table.

"Fat might. He is a different being. Not human... Oh! Look! They're here!" He nodded down at the road beyond the gate. A procession of riders and wagons was winding up towards the castle.

"Who?"

"The crew of the Unicorn, and Captain de Vlieger. We owe him much. Come with me – we'll greet them at the gate." Hansolo slurped his tea, banged down the cup and rose. He was off down the path while Shur, sighing, struggled up from the mat. She wasn't used to sitting on the floor.

By the time she caught up with the Regent he was embracing a stout man in a flat black hat and frock-coat. Behind them a band of ill-assorted ruffians was climbing down from the wagons. They were all colours – including beige – and most had tattoos. One, a huge black man with the sweetest smile she had ever seen, was just a mass of body art. Tribal marks vied with every conceivable animal. Birds flew between lions and whales. Shur had the feeling that each tattoo represented some meeting in that man's life; a real animal, or a human with those characteristics.

She found herself wondering who the rather sullen-looking cat represented.

Hansolo broke off his embrace and introduced Shur as 'the girl who snared Teal'. She resented that, but the Captain doffed his hat and bowed to her, and all of his crew did the same. She felt very honoured, and presented her hand. De Vlieger shook it warmly.

"We met at your sister's wedding," he declared, pumping away. "Is she well?"

"With child now, I believe," said Shur, who had been brought up to speed on the family situation the previous day. She felt the Captain's pressure on her hand increase briefly, then he dropped it. The look on his face was apprehensive.

"That's wonderful! Please give them my regards when you next write to them... Now, you remember my crew..."

She shook each man's hand and resolved to wash in carbolic, if this benighted world had heard of such a thing, just as soon as she could get back to her rooms. It didn't help that Hansolo stood watching her, making his handshakes and greetings after hers. And at the end he told them that Shur must go back to rest. "She's got so much to do before the coming of age," he explained, smarmily. Shur glowered. "I think it's best to let her take a nap before dinner... Trot along, Shur!"

She trotted, planning vile deaths for her future father-in-law, and bumped into Fat when she turned a corner.

"Oh! Sorry!"

"No! My..."

She tried to look at him professionally. Average height for an Asian. Slightly protruding eyes. Straggling, sparse hair. Slight frame, and a suggestion that maybe his legs could bend in a way that would not be normal for a human.

His clothes were standard for this place. Pyjama-style trousers, padded sandals with wooden soles, a silk shirt with a richly-embroidered jacket over, courtesy of Arn.

He could be taken for human in any gathering; just not a very attractive example of the species. Shur circled around it – him – and headed towards her rooms. Perhaps she should have a nap after all. It looked as though there might be a long night in the offing.

The demon stood, not looking after her as she scurried away. He had touched her. Her hand had stroked against his. It had been a revelation.

He had seen, a flash in his brain, the entire structure of her thoughts revealed. Her revulsion towards him, of course – that was a given. Her shame at the situation she found herself in, having to disappoint the Teal being. Well; tough.

But she was unaware of the complex, colourful mandala that blazed inside her, a twisted, beautiful open knot of power, a context that connected her back to her own World. Fat thought in rather more than the standard four dimensions, and this pattern was familiar to him. But he'd never thought, before, that it might provide a gateway between realities. He saw, in every point in the matrix of mathematics, how her mind connected with the lost little girl. He understood that the World he now inhabited was linked to the World he had left. It was a simple connection, mind to mind. And it meant that he now had a plan.

He smiled, and continued on towards the arriving guests.

Their auras were amazing – full of bright colours, complexity, adventure. Only one was twisted in the way he recognised from Shur and Teal. It was the biggest man, the one they called Little Pearl.

Oh, but the rest – Fat could see that they were all adept at travel between Worlds. What a trove for study! Hansolo seemed to take his appearance on the scene in his stride, and even introduced him to the sailors as a guest. The demon preened. To be included in this human gathering gave him status. From status, there might spring influence.

Hansolo watched Fat as he smiled and greeted the travellers. Fat still, it seemed, hadn't realised just how intricate the Regent's mind was; nor how far a mere human could see into an alien brain.

The banquet was huge. Seven tables, with twelve to each, and all the diners speaking at once. The Great Hall of the castle rang with laughter and reminiscence. Teal, whose memories of being carried on the good ship Unicorn were incomplete, tried desperately to mine the chaotic mind of Princess Yifan, who had completed his voyage, wearied herself in the tsunami that had devastated the port of Toucheng, and fought against the usurper of the Queen of Taiwan.

He found himself grinning a lot and being slapped on the back by people he rightly suspected knew the truth of the situation, and who were acting up to expectations orchestrated by the Machiavellian de Vlieger.

The Captain sat beside his father, talking and snapping up delicacies with his chopsticks. On Hansolo's other side was the Europan Ambassador, equally adroit; it looked as if the Regent was going to go hungry, for once.

Shur was happy to be dressed informally for this occasion. She didn't eat much, didn't talk much. Memories kept surfacing in her head of a young girl working hard to save her mother and her sisters, being annoyed at these men for getting in her way. And her first meeting with Teal – well, she had not been particularly impressed.

Teal watched her as she interacted with the guests. Shur – traitor Shur, the woman in the body of a girl – held herself aloof. She spoke only when someone spoke to her, and he was sure that her conversation was anodyne, borrowing from his love's memories, cloaked in his love's skin. He felt himself becoming dark, and held up his cup for more soju. His father looked over at him, frowning slightly.

As the evening drew on Little Pearl and Mad Jack brought out their instruments and played, fife and squeezebox, and the Joseans were drawn into learning sailors' jigs. It was fun, after the first few minutes of falling over their own feet, and even the Nipponese Ambassador joined in once she'd taken off her severe tailored jacket.

Hansolo and Captain de Vlieger used the dancing as an opportunity to withdraw, with the excuse that they didn't want to cramp anyone's style, and went outside to talk more seriously together.

In the Magnolia Garden, which overlooked a deep valley now shaded into night, the Regent let the Captain light his foul pipe before he broached the subject of Teal. The Dutchman didn't seem to be surprised.

"So he told you. And you suspect that I might have had something to do with bringing him back."

"He has Yifan's memories. You talked with her on the eve of the wedding, and the next day she was back in her own body, we assume, and Teal was very definitely back in his."

De Vlieger nodded. A cloud of blue smoke wreathed his head; Hansolo successfully hid his disgust. "You have me there. I and my crew all know how to travel between Worlds. One of my men from hers took her back. She's lucky – there are so many Worlds, she might never have returned, and you would have been stuck with her."

"Thank you, and your man."

De Vlieger nodded in acknowledgement. "So what has happened now? We find that those who Travel accidentally tend to do it again."

"That's what Teal did. And he took Shur with him. He's back, but she is still there – the Shur you met tonight is a thirty-something doctor from some strange flying city."

"And? You would like us to do something about that?"

"If you can. And there's another thing..." Hansolo recounted the return of Teal with the demon Fat, and had the satisfaction of watching the Captain's eyebrows climb and his mouth fall open. The small pipe went out, which was a bonus.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. The demon came though as smoke and condensed into what is obviously a real body. You saw him when you arrived."

"I thought he was a guest."

"An unwanted one. We are still investigating the extent of his powers, and we're very suspicious of him." Hansolo strode to a wooden bench and sat down. De Vlieger, squinting at his cold pipe, followed and sat beside him. The branches of the Magnolias shivered in a soft breeze, and petals fluttered around them.

"In all my Travels, I've never seen anything come back with a Traveller. We can't bring objects, but... Well, we can bring people if they are returning to their own Worlds, or travelling with us to another. Like Shur, Travelling because she was touching Shen Teal when he Travelled."

"Fat was, it seems, inside Teal when Teal returned. His return was triggered by Fat's actions."

"Even so. It's – well, Travel is done by images. If your son didn't know the image to Travel, it could still bubble up in his mind, which would have taken him and Shur to that place. But the return image is different. I can't imagine that he would have brought it up by some accident."

"Well, someone did. Somehow he returned. If an image is the only way, then that image was brought up by the interaction between Fat and Teal."

"What do you want us to do?"

"I want Shur back, and I want Fat gone."

The Captain brought out a small clasp-knife and began to ream out the bowl of his pipe. "I will do what I can. Teach this Shur the images, and she can go back. Teach Teal the same, which will give him control in the future.

"And, we will investigate your demon. See what we can find inside him. Maybe you should invite him to meet with me. All I need is skin contact."

Hansolo, seeing that there was light at the end of the tunnel, sat wreathed in new blue smoke and didn't scowl once.

Fat wasn't a being who liked to make assumptions. Although he could see the human auras, that didn't prove that he could still work magic. So, kneeling at the edge of the carp pond, he slid his hands into the water and waited for a fat, alien fish to investigate. So easy - the golden koi swam lazily over his long fingers, and he plucked it out into the bright morning air, depositing it onto the grass, where, as it lay flopping, he held it down with one hand and with the other picked up a sharp stone and bashed it in the eye.

He felt its pain. He could feel the fractures in its small skull, the leaking of blood around the wound, the demolished eye slowly dying, the fish panting for breath.

The demon drew on his power. Beneath his hand golden light grew. Shattered bone knit, nerves repaired, the eye rebuilt. When he was satisfied, and the fish, though healed, was close to suffocation, he picked it up and slid it back into the pool. With a kick of its tail it sped away.

Fat sat back on his heels. Perfect. Even if he had been closely observed by his guards he could simply say that he had been testing his healing powers. But the fact was that if he could heal by magic in this world, he could also destroy, and everything in-between.

He stood, wiped his wet hands on his trousers, and went for a stroll before lunch. The food here was quite tasty, and safe for him to eat, although he had an aversion to eggs and meat. The vegetables, nuts and fruits, even fish, were nourishing and, except for rice, which bloated him, perfectly acceptable.

He was looking forward especially to the kimchi.

"How is Fat?" Teal enquired, cross-legged at the lunch table. His father finished chewing a juicy piece of meat before replying.

"As well as may be expected," he said. "Up in his room, with a monk's meal. He seems quite happy." Hansolo popped some kimchi into his mouth and smiled as he ate. "He gets the run of the gardens and the library... You should know – he did something at the carp-pond a few hours ago. Smashed a fish with a rock, then healed it. D'you have any idea what that might be about?"

"He can heal," said Teal, and he described what he had seen when Fat had healed Pang after the fight with the Awks. The Regent nodded.

"Testing his powers, I suppose. Which worries me somewhat, because if he can heal, he might also harm.

"You know I don't believe in magic. But Fat is a being with powers that work. So whatever I believe, I have to take notice. It might become necessary to confine him."

His son stripped some creamy white flesh from a steamed bass. It was very delicious. "Where's Shur?"

"In her room, I think. She might be avoiding us."

Teal bowed his head. He was in two minds. On the one hand she was not his Shur, and never would be. On the other, she was out of place and out of time, and she had his grudging sympathy.

"When the crew of the Unicorn finally get up," his father said, breaking into Teal's thoughts, "De Vlieger will have a chat with her about getting back to her own World. And then he'll talk with you about how you do it, and how to control it." Teal nodded. It was good.

"So he admitted that he got me back here."

"Yes. And he's confident that we'll get our own Shur back. So – cheer up, and try some of the chicken."
Chapter 8

Shur looked at the 'card' on her device. She was confused. She didn't have full, controlled access to her host's personal memories. She didn't know how she could be pregnant – biologically, of course, she did; but she'd found no memory of any encounters, and her husband was three years gone.

She pressed the screen. The slab purred for a few seconds, and then a voice came out of it, businesslike and female.

"Ahunga Associates. May I help you?"

Shur held the slab close to her lips and stammered, "I would like to meet with... er... Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua, please."

"Who may I say is calling?"

"Ah, Qing Shur."

"Your address, please."

"Oh... Just a second... GG3294-1C, I think."

There was a pause. "You think?"

"I'm in a bit of distress right now. Please, may I see him?"

"If you can come today, I can give you some time at 13:30."

"Wonderful! Thank you! I'll be there!" The connection ended, and Shur collapsed on the sofa, panting. Talking to people who were so far away was a scary thing.

Then she pulled herself together, and, shedding clothes, headed for a shower and fluffy towels.

The office was well up in the Red levels, almost touching Gold. The carpeted corridors were plush and didn't make her hair stand on end. Original paintings, some of which were actually quite good, hung on the walls. When she reached the correct door it opened silently and she entered to find a receptionist, somewhat like Jing but far better dressed, seated behind a desk that looked as if it had been made from real wood.

"Ms. Qing. Please, go straight in." She indicated a door to her right, and Shur nodded and entered.

The man behind the huge desk was enormous. He was mid-fifties, black, bald or shaven-headed, dressed in a white wrap-around jacket and high-collared shirt. He stood and indicated a pair of comfy chairs with a low table already stocked with bottles of water, glasses and a lacquered tray bearing a pot of tea and tiny cups.

"Ms. Qing. Please, sit. I guess you're here in connection with the estate of Shen-So."

Shur bowed her head briefly and sat. Ahunga took the other chair and poured tea. When he passed her a cup, she remembered where she'd seen him before.

"Little Pearl!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sorry – you remind me of someone I used to know..."

"Er... Well. We have met before, when your husband's will was read."

"Oh." Shur sipped the tea. It was Baihao Yinzhen, a very expensive white tea, originally from Fujian. She sipped gratefully, and resolved not to speak her mind.

"May I ask why you've come to me? Do you have a problem with the settlement?"

"No, I think it's very fair," said Shur. She had found her bank account on her slab after the shower, and it appeared that she was extremely rich. "I just want to know what happened to Shen-So. Where is he?"

"Shen Ping said that you were worried about your status."

"And I told her I was not. So she told you I would come?"

"Yes, of course. So that I was able to prepare for our meeting..."

"You were, therefore, misinformed."

The lawyer's eyes flickered over towards his slab, on his desk. "Apparently so." He took a sip of tea. "I can't talk about what happened to your husband."

"Why not? Because he was enticed by the Golds?"

"In part. As you know, the Golds don't tell us what they're planning..."

"And in the other part?"

"It's just conjecture."

"Please – conject away."

He leaned forward, suddenly earnest. "Why now? It's been three years."

"Because I find I'm pregnant."

Ahunga sat back, his eyes wide. "He's back? Impossible!"

Shur was open-mouthed. "What do you mean?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. Shur made herself relax with an effort, sipped tea, outwardly calming, the tension building inside. Finally Ahunga shook his head and spoke.

"Shen-So and you obtained permission for a child. You became pregnant just before he left you. You applied for a retardation, and you were granted it. Your pregnancy went into abeyance until either he should return, or you should desire to restart it.

"Since it's apparently restarted, then either your husband is back from Mara, or you have triggered it to continue..."

"Mara."

She could see the man mentally kicking himself. She smiled inwardly, but kept her face blank. "Mara is the planet."

"Of course."

"And no-one ever comes back."

"I spoke unwisely. Of course, you've restarted your pregnancy. Of course, you're worried about your status. Given the situation, I will recommend that you're reinstated to Red. It will take a few days..."

"You've been most informative, Mister Ahunga. May I ask you – who may I talk to in Gold, to get more information about my husband?"

"I... Why would you want to do that?"

"I want to know."

The man sat back in his seat, puffed out his cheeks. He'd become more off-balance throughout the meeting, and wasn't about to get back in control. All he wanted now was for Qing Shur to leave.

She drained her cup. Delicious.

"I'll make some calls. When you're Red, I'll make sure you get a hearing. Please, leave it with me."

"Will you tell Shen Ping?"

"It's not my place. If you find out anything, I'd appreciate your talking to me again. And to Shen Ping, if you feel you should. In the meantime," he stood, and Shur stood too, "Goodbye. Good luck. Being a single parent is hard. I know; my father also disappeared, almost forty years ago. I hope you get more answers than my mother did."

He shook her hand and escorted her out into the reception area. Shur presented her wrist to the receptionist, who waved a reader over it and looked at the screen. She raised her eyebrows. "It appears that there's no charge, Ms. Qing. Please have a good day."

Shur left, to go back to the Green atrium and a late and very welcome lunch.

Jing turned up at GG3294-1C in the evening, carrying cartons of Szechuan food. "Can you sub me for this?" she asked, eyes bright. "I can't really afford it!" Shur nodded, then held off asking how she could transfer money to Jing's account until they'd both eaten their fill. It was delicious, and very spicy. Once the payment had been taken care of (with an extra dollop of money, since Shur was so very rich), the girls settled down to an evening of video dramas. Shur didn't want to discuss any of her business with her receptionist, and she valued the detachment of mind the entertainment brought her. But Jing, snuggled against her on the sofa, shivered sometimes.

"Are you all right?" Shur asked. Jing shrugged.

"These are all old. They come from Urth. I like them, but sometimes seeing people on the ground with sky all over them... It scares me."

"I come from Urth. I live on the ground. It's more scary to me to be up here."

Jing, dubious, paused the film and went to make tea. And, later, after watching a rather histrionic drama that – to Shur's delight – was in a variety of Josean called Korean – the two women went to bed.

The river looked smooth enough. Around the band the land had been rising during the morning until now there were cliffs, overhung with vegetation. They'd come down a steep path to this gorge and the Elvis indicated two boats set upside-down on the river bank.

"The current will take us to the town," Aramiel explained. She watched the party launch the boats then stepped into one while Glior took the other. Teal stayed with Aramiel and took Pang and Jing, leaving Lin to take the Shin brothers and Glior, and they pushed off, using paddles to steer.

The midday sun gave them light for an hour, till the gorge deepened and gloom ascended. The walls of rock on either side came closer and the channel deepened, the water rushing faster. Teal and his companions sweated, wrestling the frail craft around rocks and hanging on as it bumped down rapids and over small falls. Occasionally, when he was able, he looked back to Lin's boat, but the man seemed to be competent and the Shins worked well together. Glior sat in the stern, looking calm, just like Aramiel.

The Elvis were beginning to annoy him.

He smelt the Elvis town before he saw it. Rotten fruit, decay, excrement. The river was broadening out, slowing. They drifted around a bend and Teal's men gasped in wonder as they beheld the Elvis metropolis.

Before the charm kicked in Teal saw a riot of swaybacked dwellings, packed together on the muddy banks and climbing up into the huge trees. Overhead rope bridges connected both sides of the river. The town was much more vertical than it was horizontal, and the tall trunks of the trees were bored with tunnels, their boughs burdened with houses built from badly-dressed planks or woven from withies.

And then the glamour took hold of his mind. The Elvis city rose into the trees, an inverted pyramid of polished wood and glossy leaf thatch, connected by ladders, rope lifts and broad walkways. Sunlight gleamed on its upper reaches; below, lights in globes of delicate glass illuminated the cobbled streets. A pier jutted out, and their boats glided to a halt for cheerful Elvis to catch the ropes and moor the craft. Tall, beautiful Elvis smiled at them and bowed towards Teal. Aramiel led the band to a set of ladders where they climbed into the lower branches of a tree, to an accommodation fitting for guests.

It was a spacious hall, alternating wall panels, hung with fine tapestries, with open spaces looking out over the broad gorge and its bustling Elvis inhabitants. It nestled in the crook between wide trunk and broad branch. The floor was planked and spread with fresh green rushes, and a flat stone by one of the apertures served as a fireplace. The band dropped their packs with relief and Jing immediately started to set a fire with the materials that were conveniently available. There was a basket with fruit and a covered tub filled with water. Aramiel promised Teal a meeting later with the Elders and left them to settle in.

"It's rather swish," Shin Er observed, fingering a tapestry depicting a group of Elvis, gorgeously robed, worshipping the spirit of the forest (depicted as a rather voluptuous Elv). His brother was poking around the fruit basket.

Teal changed his mental gear to see what was really there, and succeeded for a few seconds. The floor was warped planks covered with musty old rushes. The fruit in the scruffy basket was on the verge of spoiling, and the water stagnant in its mould-stained tub. The tapestries on the grey-planked half-walls were crude daubs on sacking, and the sagging beams over their heads supported broad, browning leaves rustling with wildlife. The place smelt damp and mouldy.

Outside, the town squatted in the branches, grey and old, most of the dwellings and halls propped up with rough-hewn brackets. As Teal struggled to keep his eyes on reality an Elv across the glade stepped on a rotten rung and plummeted from her ladder with a scream when it broke beneath her foot.

"I can hear them singing," Lin remarked. "I like this place. Shen-So – did you expect the Elvis to be so welcoming?"

Teal, back under the glamour, smiled sourly. "I don't know what I expected. So long as they give us safe passage to the northern hills, I'll be happy."

Jing sat back on his heels, triumph on his face as smoke rose from the glowing punk and his kindling caught. He began to stack dry wood around it. "Dinner coming soon," he announced, then coughed as the smoke blew back into the room. "Woops! Windy day!"

Teal, gassy from warmed spoiled fruit, followed Aramiel up through the maze of boughs, careful to test each rung on the rope and plank ladders. If the Elv noticed she said nothing; and eventually they came to a grand hall up in the top of a huge tree whose saucer-shaped, spiral-veined leaves were up to a metre across.

The Elvis elders ranged before him, splendidly arrayed in shining robes, girdled in silver, their long hair caught up in silver clasps. He bowed to them, and each in turn introduced herself and bowed to him. There were no chairs; Aramiel and Teal stood before the Elvis Council, and the Council stood in an arc before them.

"Welcome, Shen-So, to the capital town of our region," the central elder opened. "We grant you and your men passage through our land, and Aramiel will guide you to the next district where you will be met by their representatives." Teal bowed again, and the leader inclined her head. "Do you have any questions for us? We will be pleased to answer you."

"I am happy to be so welcomed, and your hospitality is beyond what we could conceivably have expected. You are truly magnanimous.

"We are human, and you are Elvis. You are true denizens of the land. We are interlopers, earning our position with violence and with fear..."

The elders, Teal was happy to see, gaped. This was not what they'd expected to hear. If there had been a script that all should have followed, Teal was veering far away from it.

"But we, humankind, are learning our lessons.

"I was the Biter of Awks. I have killed many. But there will ever be more Awks; and there are few humans.

"And there are many Elvis; and there are few humans.

"So I wonder – why do you leave us to travel through your lands? Why do you grant us a hospitality far beyond what we deserve?

"You fear the demons, it seems. And yet the demons, too, are indigenous to Mara.

"What have they done, that you want them to be destroyed? What have humans got, that you choose us to destroy them? Why can't YOU destroy them?"

His words didn't ring around the hall; it was wood and tapestry, not stone. His words fell dead in the still air. But all the elders heard him, and were silent in response. Teal felt Aramiel's shock beside him, and he was glad that he'd unsettled her.

He waited for the elders to speak, noting the poor quality of the hangings, the smell of damp and mould, the creak of rotten boards underfoot. They were so off balance from his words that they were unable to maintain their glamour.

It tightened back up. The tapestries became fine and detailed, the tarnished silver glowed. Equilibrium was restored. The small, goat-legged elder grew tall and slim and almost-human again, her hair fine and blonde and caught up with a silver filigree.

She smiled.

She spoke.

"We make no statement regarding the humans in the land. Nor do we condemn the demons outright. All are here, all do what they do. But we must have balance.

"The Awks, misunderstood, are the target of human aggression. We Elvis, merely tolerated by humans. You, Shen-So, claim you were instrumental in protecting our trade routes, for which we suppose we ought to thank you.

"There is, in the demons, as you know, a menace. They have power. You have seen their power to heal; we see their power to destroy.

"We give you leave to travel through our lands so that you might quench the demon thirst to oppress. No one race on Mara should rule over any other.

"The demons must stop their campaign of disruption. We rely on you, you humans, to do what we cannot do, and bring them to heel."

"Why can't you do that?" Teal challenged.

"They are... They hold the reality of Mara. I cannot say more."

"You mean they have the magic."

"More than that; they determine how far we may progress. I can see your soul. I see – we all of us see – that the reality of our lives is laid bare to you."

"That's perceptive of you. And honest, too, to broach the subject."

The elder paused. Other heads bent towards hers. It was, Teal thought, a communion. They were silent for quite some time. Aramiel, who evidently wasn't included in the conversation, grew agitated. She twisted her long fingers together. Teal remained impassive. Finally the silence was broken by an elder off to the left. She took a short staff from her silver belt and raised it up.

"You, who call yourself Shen-So, are void of demon-taint. There is no harm in you."

Then the elder on the far right brandished her staff and said the same, and alternately each elder repeated it, all the way back to the senior, who stood, still, unspeaking, her staff tucked tight in her belt.

Aramiel trembled; but Teal stood firm.

"You. You who call yourself Shen-So. We had heard that you allied yourself with demon-spawn. You, Shen-So, the child of a union between demon and human, or so you believe.

"We find no taint of demon in you.

"Whether there is harm in you is yet to be revealed." The elder slowly drew her staff. "I will not stand against your quest."

"How did it go?" asked Lin, when Teal returned from a hair-raising journey back down some quite frankly dangerous ladders.

"Well enough," he said, accepting a charred piece of the durian-fruit. It was very overripe. "We have safe passage to the edge of this district, and I think the other Elvis regions all the way to the foothills will let us pass without hindrance."

"Good news indeed! You're quite the diplomat, Shen-So!"

"You have no idea," said the false Shen-So, tossing the fruit-rind into a corner of the room. A six-legged lizard-like creature about twenty centimetres long darted out from behind a post and dragged it away. "Now I need to sleep. I suspect we'll be on our way again tomorrow." His companions, hoping for a day's rest, hung their heads. "Ah, right... I'll talk with Aramiel. She'll sort it out for us." He farted, because of the fruit, and headed for a sip of brackish water and his bed-roll, wishing he was back in Namhansanseong Castle.

The next few days were tiring. Shur bullied Jing into showing her how the medical records computer worked, and then spent hours swearing at it when it still wouldn't do what she wanted, to the alarm of her patients. One of them tried to tell her to calm down, and she threw a packet of tranquilisers at him.

Commanding a bunch of semi-literate soldiers was so much easier than this.

Jing looked in on her boss hourly, even bringing her tea. Whether this was from her new-found affection or simply to stem the profanity Shur didn't know, nor did she particularly care. Regular refreshment was good. It helped. Not with the stupid computer, but hey; you can't have everything.

She wished she was back in Namhansanseong Castle.

At one point there were two no-shows in a row. Jing and Shur sat in the reception, drinking tea and talking together. Shur, trying to be casual, asked, "Why can't I find my medical records?"

Jing paused, her tea steaming just beneath her nose. "Why would you want to?"

"I was just curious. After all, I'm not the Shur who should be here; of course I'm interested. What if I've only got a month to live?"

"Oh!" Jing blanched. "Are you ill?"

"No! Or at least, I don't know. That's why I want to see my records."

"Well; your doctor would have those."

Shur hadn't thought of that. "So who is my doctor?"

"It'll be on your slab. Under 'Doctor'."

"Doctor who?"

"No – just 'Doctor'."

"I can't ever find anything on this thing..." Shur struggled with the glass block; it lit up in interesting ways, but didn't make much sense. Besides, she didn't want to go to see some other doctor in case she found out she was an imposter. Or even worse – in case she was a he. Pregnancy was a wholly female thing, for any Josean, born or adopted.

"Well, I can find your record from the medical hub, if you lend me your authority," Jing volunteered, and was rewarded with a beaming smile.

"You can? Can you show me?"

"Yes..."

"...and can you not look over my shoulder?"

"Oh! Ah, of course... Why would I?" The disappointment in Jing's face was evident. Tough coconuts, thought Shur, then resolved to give Jing a raise in pay. For her help, and for wear and tear.

The record was bland. Most of the inhabitants of this floating city were healthy and Shur was no exception. She found that four years previously she and another had had counselling together, but the other's name was blanked out.

And a year after that she had requested a retardation of pregnancy. She was with child, and an implant was installed to suspend the development of the foetus until such time as she decided to continue it.

Was her erotic dream the other night the trigger? Dreaming of Teal, of...

Shur blushed, but a corner of her mind tutted at her. If a mere dream could restart a pregnancy, the procedure couldn't be considered effective. It was more likely the shock of Shur's mind transferring into this brain, this body, that set it off. Her love for Teal, her betrothed, firm in her mind, fresh in her heart. That's what brought it all back to life.

Shur turned to Jing, and the girl's blouse became wet again with tears.

Two days later, Shur's slab chimed. She didn't know what it was, at first, making the noise. But it came from her bag, and when she opened it she saw the glass rectangle glowing, and it chimed again at her. When she picked it up a cool, tinny voice said, "You've got a message".

She pressed on a white square, which opened into a piece of text. It was from the lawyer, Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua. Little Pearl, as she preferred to think of him. It told her that, given that she had decided to continue with her pregnancy, and that the father of her yet-to-be-born child was a Red, the Gold Council of Temporary Powers had been minded to raise Qing Shur to the level of Red, to be effective on receipt of the message.

She'd been assigned an apartment in the Red zone, RM1208-2A, and a moving team would attend her at her old apartment to take up anything she would like to keep. This was interesting, and welcome – of course a rise in status was just what she deserved – but the remainder of the message was disturbing. It showed a level of surveillance she had not been aware of.

"Your Surgery is at present situated in the Red Zone / Green Zone borders. We would like to invite you to move it to the Gold / Red borders. Please notify the moving crew supervisor if you wish to move your offices.

"A receptionist from Green can be provided for you, but we note that you may want to keep the Blue receptionist who is currently living with you. If this is the case, please advise the moving crew supervisor.

"Since the Blue receptionist's accommodation has now been reallocated, be aware that she may be moved to Black if she does not move with you.

"Sincerely, Gold Council of Temporary Powers."

Shur didn't know how bad Blue was, but Jing was so happy to be away from it. How much more awful must Black be?

She popped her head around the door and peered into the waiting-room. There was one patient there, and Jing, who saw Shur and looked guilty out of habit.

"Any more after Mister..."

"Cartwright."

"...Cartwright, Jing?"

"No," said the girl. "It's eighteen hundred."

"Yeah, it would be," said Shur, still no wiser about the twenty-four hour clock. She beckoned Mister Cartwright into her lair, and despatched him five minutes later with a box of laxatives. He seemed pleased.

"We need to go back to my place," Shur opened. Jing' expression showed she thought that was obvious. "But before then, I want you to see this." And she showed the girl her slab.

Jing initially smiled, happy for Shur's new-found status, and her impending motherhood. But her face drained of colour as she read on. It was all Shur needed to see.

"What's Black?"

Jing couldn't speak for a while, but when she found her voice she squeaked, "Would you?"

"Would I what?"

"Would you let me go? Would you take up a Green instead of me? I know she'd be better! I know I've not been good enough..." Jing's face was streaming with tears. She started to hiccup. "I didn't mean to steal things! I like to draw. I... I can't get paper and pens down there... I... I can't pay you back..."

"I want you to come with me!" Shur insisted, holding the girl tight, "Really, I do! You're my friend.

"How often – listen, Jing – how often has my slab chimed since you've known me? How many friends have called me? I was alone in that place every night, until I discovered I had a friend right here, a friend I'd ignored and taken for granted all these... all this time."

"But you're not YOU. You're someone else. If you were still YOU, you wouldn't treat me like this, would you? You'd send me back to Blue, or down to Black, and you wouldn't even think about it..."

"Maybe, when I wasn't me. But I am me, and you're my best friend."

Jing snuffled for a while longer, but, after a few long blasts into some handkerchiefs made from soft paper, she smiled up at Shur with red-rimmed eyes, and they hugged.

"Now. Tell me about Black."

The move supervisor, a short black girl with a dandelion burst of hair, congratulated Jing on her elevation. Not many Blues had the opportunity to work up at the top of the Red zone. Jing blushed, and barged past to pick up her toothbrush. The supervisor paused, slightly rattled, then turned to Shur. "I was Blue, once. I'm Green now. She can be too, if she works hard and pleases you."

Shur's turn to blush. She came from a world of royalty and privilege, where the few were sustained at the top by the many, the peasants, the farmers, the merchants, the lords. There was, had always been, movement between the categories. But it was slow, and depended, as here, on individual patronage. She felt small. But she smiled at the supervisor, and dove into her apartment to get her own necessities together, grab Jing, and leave the crew to their devices.

Jing seemed quite angry when she saw the new apartment.

It was beautiful. And big. There were two bedrooms, both large and well furnished, and a sitting room, and a study. There was a large kitchen. There was a dining-room and an enormous bathroom.

Shur wondered what the Golds had.

"Everyone complains about how small the Station is," railed Jing, throwing her bag onto the sofa. "We're all SO cramped! SO few resources! Look! Look at that bathroom! You could sleep three in there, down in Blue!"

"They'd get wet," said Shur, which seemed to calm Jing down to the point where she actually laughed.

"I don't want a bedroom," Jing said with a finality in her voice. Shur lifted an eyebrow. "I want to sleep with you, Shur... I'm used to sleeping with people. We're three in a bed in Blue. If I slept by myself, I'd feel weird. I'd have nightmares."

"I wouldn't want you to have nightmares," Shur remarked. She didn't want to sleep by herself either. Although, she thought, I'm not by myself now anyway. She stroked her tummy, and wished she'd come by this new companion the usual way, with Teal, her absent love.

When the moving crew arrived with the possessions the girls had pointed out to them – few enough; Shur hadn't been there long enough to become attached to anything save the gorgeous carpet – she and Jing left them to it and went for lunch together at a place called a Tex-Mex. It was, thought Shur, somewhere you could eat spicy food if you didn't like spicy food. And the beans made her windy. But the BBQ ribs were delicious. She wondered where they got ribs from, on the Station.

"Is there anything you need to get from your place in the Blue zone?"

Jing gaped. "What? What would I have to get from there? I brought it all up days ago."

At least she didn't sound angry, and didn't yell. She was just incredulous.

"Jing... I want to know what Blue is like. I'm a stranger here. I'm not asking for a tour; I'm not a tourist. I just want to know.

"And I want to know what Black is." Jing had not replied when Shur had asked her before. The girl stood, a smear of sauce at the corner of her mouth. She licked it away, then shrugged.

"There's a couple of things I could pick up. If you want to come with me, I don't mind."

So in the evening, they went.

The lift took quite a while, Shur nervous all the way. "How many levels ARE there on this Station?" she asked.

"Seven hundred and fourteen up to Gold. I don't know how many above the border – I'm not authorised to those schematics. There are lots of ag floors – forests, farms, hydroponics. And then there're factories. And fish tanks. And organ banks. And engineering and life support, astronomy, gravity engines, EVA, science labs, ground services..."

"You know such a lot. You're very clued-up about this place..." Shur immediately wished she'd bitten her tongue. Jing glowered.

"You really are lucky, being a stranger here. Being lost.

"Because if you weren't I'd hit you, and damn the consequences. Because there are prisons here, too, and worse. There's everything you need for a civilisation, and that includes a hierarchy to support the elite. We Blues do most of the work. We maintain the machines. We keep things going. We know more about how this Station works than the bloody GOLDS do." She leaned towards Shur, who stepped back a pace. There was fury, narrow, focussed, in her friend's eyes. "Everyone who was picked for this flight, was picked for their brains. They, and their children – like me – are all intelligent. We all know which way is up.

"I don't know what it's like where YOU come from. But here, we survive by our brains. Some of us more than others, and the Blues better than most. We HAVE to survive, against the odds. Penned into cages like chickens...

"Oh, what's the point. You're going to see it for yourself. Maybe you'll understand. I hope so."

Shur stayed quiet as Jing simmered, and the descent continued.

Fat smelled the smoke before he saw de Vlieger, the complex Captain, sitting on the stone bench in the carp-pond garden. At first the demon was annoyed – this was his retreat, after all, though ringed with guards all convinced they were invisible to him. But then he realised it was an opportunity. De Vlieger was a Traveller. Fat could gain a huge amount of information from a mere and unnoticed touch.

He cleared his throat to alert the Captain to his arrival, nodded to him, indicated the seat beside the man and, receiving a nod, sat. He stared towards the pond, unable to find anything to say.

"I hear you're a demon," the Dutchman opened. A cloud of smoke drifted across Fat's face.

"I am. At least, I'm not a human."

"How do you speak Dutch?"

Fat paused. Was he speaking Dutch? What was Dutch? How many languages did these people have? "I assume I've got the memories of Shen-So. Or Shen Teal. Anyway – I understand you."

"I don't know about Shen-So. Teal has no knowledge of Dutch. So I guess you are listening to my mind."

Fat shrugged. "That's not impossible. We demons can do that back on Mara."

"Mara is your World."

Seeing the meaning the Captain gave to the word, Fat felt impelled to correct him. "It's my world. In my World."

De Vlieger nodded, puffed at his pipe. "I apologise; I understand the distinction."

Fat revised his opinion of human intelligence and subtlety. He'd have to be more careful, especially around people like the Captain and the Regent. If he was to succeed in his new-thought plan, he didn't want to find himself revealing it through his language or expression. He hunched slightly on the seat, then hastily decided he was presenting himself as servile and uncertain, so he leaned back, stretching out his legs and exuding confidence.

He felt, possibly rightly, that de Vlieger was in no way fooled.

"You'll have noticed that I and my men have Travelled extensively, to many Worlds."

Fat caught himself mid-nod. The alert Captain, of course, saw. The demon's mind started to spin with anger against himself. The Elvis were easy to manipulate, being immersed in their own cartoon version of reality all the time; and the Awks were simple, peaceful beings who just liked a drink and a bowl of mappering-scratchings. It was easy to rule from the shadows, on Mara. Far more difficult to contemplate a coup in this ancient, complicated world where everyone seemed to have a political brain and a mind that could see directly into his.

"I'd be able to see something of those Worlds, if I might be allowed to touch you," he hazarded, not expecting any satisfaction. He would have to grab contact and suffer the consequences.

"By all means," said de Vlieger, stretching out his hand towards Fat; and now the demon was uncertain. What would it do to him? The Dutchman obviously knew what would happen, and was confident that he couldn't be harmed.

De Vlieger wiggled his fingers. "Come on – what are you frightened of? It's harmless."

Fat tentatively touched the Captain's wrist.

He felt nothing, at first. Then, confusion. A void grew in his mind, an absence, wildly unexpected. Surely there should be something? After all, he was speaking the man's language; he was in the man's mind even before the touch. He should at least be able to do the usual things – see through his eyes, listen through his ears, find the centres of control and ride the bastard like a pony...

Nothing.

"Are you getting all that?" De Vlieger's voice was honey-smooth. Fat tried to stay impassive, but his body quivered.

"Oh, yes," he lied. "You've been around all right. Worlds upon Worlds..."

Theo stood, and the connection dropped. Fat gasped. "Well, I'm glad to have been of help," the Captain said, stuffing his cold pipe into a pocket. "Nice to talk. We'll do it again. And if you want to speak with any of my men, I'm sure they'll be as happy as I've been to meet an interesting character such as yourself." He strode off, and Fat, blinking, slumped on the bench, drained.

"She's my boss," Jing explained to her one-time apartment-mates, standing at the door of her old place, not being invited in. Jao was incredulous.

"Why's she here? Doesn't she get invited to any parties?" Behind her three other females stretched their necks to see the freaky Red. Shur remained composed.

"I just came to get my cosmetics," Jing said. She'd already mentioned that, but the girls were more interested in why she'd brought her employer. "Let me in, I won't take a moment."

"Well," Jao drawled, "If you come in, what about her? Going to leave her out on the step?"

Jing, with a visible effort, smiled. "May she come in? Just while I get my things."

One of the girls behind Jao piped up. "I got your mascara. You left it – we didn't think you'd be back!"

"Oh, bugger the mascara! Look – take what you want. Whatever I left behind. I...

"I just came down because, because Sh... Doctor Qing wanted to meet you all. Because she appreciated we all look after one another.

"She wanted to invite you all for a meal, up in Green. To say goodbye. To me.

"Jing.

"Your flatmate?"

In the event, the promise of a free meal was stronger than the urge to taunt and carp. All of Jing's old buddies traipsed up in the lift to a medium-level Green atrium and, in the light of the unattainable planet, gorged on Chinese food.

They had invited Shur and Jing into the apartment. It was, Shur thought, dire. There was a living-room with a small flat-screen TV, a sofa cramped into the space before it. A shelf held a battered computer, and a stool beneath showed its stuffing. The bathroom was a nightmare. Nobody seemed to be concerned to clean it, and every flat surface was covered with tiny bottles, tubes, tweezers, sanitary products and little plastic sheets of double-eyelid fillets, curling in the damp.

There were two bedrooms, which were shared by six women. It was explained to Shur by Aixinjueluo Chenguang, one of the eight inhabitants, who worked on a spaceport handling cargo carriers between the Station and the moon factories, that shift patterns meant it was usual for only two to sleep together at any one time; and sometimes – luxury – a girl could get the bed to herself, and invite her boyfriend. Of course, the sofa was also a bed.

Shur, on learning the girl's family name, was gobsmacked. This woman was a Qing! A Manchu! And here she was, directing traffic at a port and sleeping three to a bed in the lower levels of a tin bucket.

She fumed on her new friend's behalf, and insisted on ordering the best from the menu even though she could see Jing becoming uncomfortable at the largesse.

And she bought beer and wine, too.

And desserts.

At the end of the evening – and it had been long; they were well into zero-something hours by the time the girls rolled, happy, burping and singing, into the lift back to Blue – Jing hesitated, alone now with Shur.

Then she put her arms around her, and kissed her cheek; and they made their way back to their new apartment in Red.

In the morning Shur was woken by a pleasant but insistent chiming.

"Someone at the door," Jing muttered sleepily. Shur rose, slipped on a worn pink dressing-gown and padded out into the living-room. When she opened the door the move supervisor, Temi, looked her up and down and gave her a dazzling smile.

"Good night last night?"

Shur grunted, and Temi smiled even wider. She followed her host's slow progress into the gleaming kitchen. "Just go get dressed," she suggested. "I'll do it. Tea? Coffee?"

"Coffee!" Jing shouted from the bedroom. "Black, sweet, hot!"

"That's cool," Temi shot back, "and how do you like your coffee?"

The three women sat sipping, two of them bleary-eyed but beginning to feel more human. Temi explained that the new surgery was ready and she wanted to make certain it was acceptable before her team signed it over.

"I'm sure it'll be okay," Shur muttered. "As long as it's got plenty of pens for Jing to pinch."

The surgery was on the same level, just two corridors out from the atrium. Slightly bigger, certainly better equipped, with a luxurious waiting-room and a reception desk in what appeared to be trendy black oak. Shur left Jing cooing over the computer and the stationery to get pastries and drinks for the moving team. The café packed the cups and goodies into two bags for her. When she turned back towards the surgery she felt a prickle of fear. She looked around and saw a youngish woman staring at her.

She was vaguely familiar. She was Asian, well-dressed, an ordinary Red on an ordinary day. But her back was hunched, her mouth was hanging open slackly, her eyes...

Her eyes were fixed on Shur. They were large, black, unblinking. She smiled a horrible, triumphant smile, twisting the muscles of her face in ways they should not normally move. Then she collapsed, crumpling suddenly to the ground. Shur put the bags on the counter and hurried over, her automatic response to a medical emergency. Before she reached her the woman stirred, rolled onto her back, panting, staring up at nothing. Shur knelt, felt her forehead, took her pulse.

"What happened?"

"I don't know... I was going out to work and everything went black." She was shivering. "Where am I? What's the time?" Shur fumbled for her slab and told her the time. "Oh, gods! I've been out for hours!" She tried to sit up, needed a hand from Shur and a young white man who helped her to stand and led her over to a table outside the cafe. A waitress put a glass of water in front of her. Shur asked some questions but the woman had no answers; she'd been about to go out to work, and then found herself lying on the floor five levels away from her home.

"Go get a check-up from your doctor," Shur advised. She picked up her bags, nodded at the cafe staff, the woman, and the young man who was still hovering around solicitously, and went back to the surgery. She did not know what had just happened, but she was convinced that it was to do with her presence here in this world.

Fat's powers were prodigious. That they worked in this very different World was an enormous relief to him, and confirmed his belief that Earth would make a very comfortable home for his kind.

He extracted himself from the mind of the servant-girl and stood once more in his own body. He looked down at her unconscious form – no scorch marks. Good.

He had left an image of himself behind at the carp-pond, sitting on the bench. If it was disturbed then everything would be lost; and the young woman would have been missed quite soon after he'd caught her in the storeroom and carried her off, asleep in his strong arms, to a secluded niche between two squat stone towers. He must get back; but he had to cover his tracks. With great distaste the demon knelt down beside his victim and started to disarrange her clothing, pulling on the fiddly strings and sashes to reveal her breasts, tugging up the hem of her dress, scratching her thighs until they bled, bruising her face. When he was satisfied that it looked like a rape scene he left, fading into invisibility, and headed back to the pond garden.

His entry into the woman's mind had triggered his transfer back to his own World, just as he had expected, just as his entry into Teal had catapulted them both to Joseon. He'd been worried that he wouldn't be able to get back, but the transfer left a rather startling and mind-bending image in the brain, the same shape he had seen in Shur's mind, and some little experimentation showed him how he could use it to return to Teal's World.

He found himself in a boxy, clean room filled with monstrously ugly furniture. A door in front of him was open, his new host clutching the handle. So he went out, into a maze of corridors all identical, red-coloured tabs with numbers beside them next to the bland, evenly-spaced doors. He padded along, mystified. This was not his World. It couldn't be – there was nothing like this on Mara. He passed people. Some nodded, some smiled, most ignored him, one or two looked alarmed. He tried to arrange the face into some sort of bland, pleasing expression. After a while it seemed to work, and passers-by stopped jumping when they saw him.

Then he came out of the maze and into the atrium. He stopped dead, stared up at his world, at Mara, right in front of his eyes. He knew it. Its power washed over him. He could see the Eean Sea, the mountains, the Elvis Rift, just a small part of the huge planet but so familiar to him.

How close were the adventurers now, to Cathras? Or had the Elvis destroyed them?

He tore his eyes away with a wrench. Started walking again. Saw the levels of the Station climb above him and fall below him. An enormous object; a city in space. Fat wandered up and down, into shops, fingering the goods, watched people present their wrists in what must be payment. He bought food, paying that way. Wandered again. His body needed a toilet but he didn't know how to find one.

And then he saw Shur. Older, of course, but definitely the Qing Princess. She was picking up some bags at a food shop. She hesitated, looked around, saw him.

He gazed at her, triumph in his heart. Then he switched back, and rose from the servant's mind jubilant.
Chapter 9

None of the adventurers except Teal seemed to notice the decay in the Elvis town. They walked on what to them were clean wood-cobbled streets at ground level, but had to scrape mud and poo off their boots when they got back to their dormitory – how can you not see? Teal wondered, with the stink of the place in his nose.

Still, today was their farewell. After a warm fruity breakfast Aramiel and Glior stood ready to guide them to the next region. The route lay through forest for the first half of the day, to cut out a loop of the river, then by boat all the way to the base of the hills. A three-day journey, if things went according to plan. The Shin brothers grumbled about leaving, and when the party set off they reminisced immediately about the town, its elegant grandeur, the grace of its Elvis population, the songs that lulled them in the long evenings, the wonderful food...

Shin Er stopped walking. His face had gone very pale. "Excuse..." he got out, and dived behind a bush.

"Hoy! Not that one!" Aramiel yelled crossly, pointing to another further along the path. "That's for food. Use THAT one!" Shin Er dashed from cover clutching his trousers and found the indicated shrub, disappearing behind it. A fusillade of revolting sounds erupted.

"Is that plant safe?" Teal enquired. He was sure they'd been warned about it before.

"So long as he doesn't use the leaves to wipe himself," Aramiel replied. Teal went to warn Shin Er, but by the time he got there it sounded rather as if he was too late. Still, he pitched his voice to carry over the wails, and hurried back upwind.

They were barely three hundred metres from the town. It looked like it was going to be a long trip.

"She was abused, but she certainly wasn't raped," Doctor Kang reported. "She made no defence. I suspect she was unconscious when the wounds were inflicted."

"And she has no memory of the assault?"

"None. She was in the kimchi cool-store. She heard the door open behind her, then woke up after a guard found her in a patch of dead ground between the North Gate and the Drum tower during the search."

Hansolo mused. "Thanks, Doctor Kang. I've heard the guard's report. I need to think about this."

The doctor left. Teal looked at his father. "Do you think it was Fat?"

"I'm certain of it. But I don't know how or why. His guards report he was sitting by the carp pond all during the excitement. He never moved."

"So why do you..."

"Because I know it was him. I'm going to pull him in and lock him up..." There was a knock at the door. Shur poked her head round.

"Was that Doctor Kang?"

"It was indeed. How did your own examination go?"

Shur sat down, not looking at Teal. Her hands twisted together awkwardly. "Well, she wasn't raped. The wounds were probably made while she was unconscious. I think the attacker knocked her out in the storeroom and took her to that spot.

"She was missed about ten minutes after she'd gone to get kimchi. The search was casual at first, then escalated. She was found almost three hours after the alarm was raised, and she'd been out all that time. When Sergeant Kim found her she was still asleep, but breathing normally.

"I could find no evidence to suggest she'd been hit on the head, although her face was bruised. Not enough to knock her out. I don't think she was drugged, and if she'd been given an inhalable soporific she would have remembered, and I or Kang would have either smelt it or noticed the rash."

"Who do you..."

"Fat. It has to have been him. The length of time she slept is the key. Nothing could put her out for so long without leaving evidence, unless it was something we've not seen before. It was Fat."

Teal piped up. Shur glanced briefly at him, unhappily. "We agree it was him. We don't know the extent of his powers. How he fooled his guards – well, we don't know. But he was stock-still at that pond for three hours; all during the incident. Then he perked up and went to his room.

"But what we need to know is, why did he do it? What was special about that maid?"

"I'm sure he's not interested in sex, at least with humans," said Shur. Hansolo nodded. "So she had something he wanted, and he took a risk to get it. We just don't know what it was."

Hansolo leaned forward and picked up a tankard of Josean ale. He paused before he drank. "Want some, Shur?"

"No, thanks."

The Regent drank. "Have you seen the Captain?"

"He was just starting to explain this travelling thing to me when the search began. We went out to help."

"Did he touch you?"

"He was going to. He didn't have time."

Teal had better news. "Little Pearl told me all about it. He held my hand and was able to tell me I'm here."

"I think we know that. What about where you were?"

"That information is gone, apparently. But now I know what the images are, to detect a World, to determine whether its time-flow is the same as ours, and to travel if I want to. Of course, if there's no 'me' at the other end, I won't travel."

Hansolo turned to Shur. "De Vlieger's not available right now. Would you like to go see Little Pearl?"

"Right-o," said Shur, rising. "Where can I find him?"

"In the music room. He's playing on Teal's piano. I got it at great cost from Europa, so I'd like you to make sure he doesn't break it..."

Fat was surprised, but not unduly so, when he was arrested in his room and marched down to the dungeons beneath the castle. His cell was sparsely furnished, but the bed was a bed, and the squat toilet was clean, with a bucket of clear water beside. The smell that rose told him that it must end in a septic tank, and would offer no way out.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. Light came in through a pair of slit windows high up on the wall. The floor was bare earth, so he supposed he could dig his way out, given a few years. The walls were remarkably clean of graffiti, which only went to show how little the dungeons were used. Hansolo must be an enlightened ruler; but then, Fat knew that already.

The problem with the walls was that he could draw a pattern to focus his magic and bust himself out. But it took a lot of time to get it right, and any scratches he made would be obvious. He'd just end up being manacled to the bed. He sighed, and it sounded very human. Then he lay down on the bed. Not as comfortable as the one he'd had an hour ago, but adequate. He closed his eyes, and slept.

Shur hesitated outside the door. She listened to the music, the clear, precise Minuet in F Major from Bach's gift to his wife Anna Magdelena. Only when the last note died away did she enter the room.

"That was beautiful."

Little Pearl sat at the piano, a fine white shirt covering most of his tattoos. Shur saw there was no score on the music-rest; he had been playing from memory. "Thank you." His voice was cultured. She hadn't expected this, and she blushed. Making assumptions. At the dinner the night of their arrival Shur hadn't mixed much with the crew; she was too worried about Teal. But now, here, she felt silly. Why shouldn't the crew of an exceptional Captain be just as exceptional as him.

"How did you get on with the Captain?" Little Pearl enquired, rising from the piano. He was huge. The tattoos on his neck and face, she saw, were not inked, but were scars. They must have been made by sharp knives; perhaps even by sharp stones.

He reminded her of someone, but she couldn't concentrate on remembering right now.

"We were interrupted," she explained. "When the search for the maid started."

"Is she alright?"

"Bruised. Shocked. But she has no memory of what happened to her, and she'll recover, physically, within a week. We'll have to keep an eye on her for any mental consequences. Arn has appointed a pair of girls to stay close to her and support her...

"I came to ask whether you could continue what the Captain started."

The big man thought. Then he waved a hand towards a couch. "Please sit, Princess Shur. I would be honoured to help you."

She sat, and he sat at the other end of the couch. His Chinese was excellent, she thought.

"May I take your hand?"

"Oh... Certainly," said Shur, extending her arm. He took her hand in his, and the difference in size was startling. He closed his eyes for a minute, smiled briefly, released her.

"You are out of your place," he started, "but you're not out of time. I mean, I can see that time runs the same in your World as it does in this. That will make it easier to recover your life, when you go back."

"That's a relief," Shur said, and it was. It had only been eight days so far. With luck, she should be able to return before the coming-of-age ceremony, and the real Shur would have her big day.

"Now, Pri... Doctor Shur; I'll explain to you how Travel works, and what you must do to initiate it."

"Her birthday is in three weeks," Teal complained, "and she's not here." His father was distracted.

"I've a meeting in five minutes," he said, lifting his arms so that his valet could wind a sash around his middle. "Shur is getting help right now. It should all be over by the end of today, gods willing. So why don't you make yourself useful and come with me? You can distract that Europan aide, the one who's got a crush on you." Teal snorted.

"Which one? Ann? Or Bri-an? Both of them keep making eyes at me."

"Whom do you prefer?"

"Neither! All I want is my betrothed... Look, I really hope that Shur will be back soon. I'm sure that de Vlieger and his people know what they're doing.

"But when I tried with de Vlieger the other day, I couldn't swap back. He said it was because I couldn't recognise the pattern. I admit that – it's something I never saw, so how would I recognise it again? And while all the Unicorn's crew can remember their Travels, that's because they know how it works."

"You can get the pattern from Doctor Qing. You only have to touch her to see it."

Teal was silent for a while. Hansolo finished dressing.

"I can ask her if I might. Then I could go back and find her."

"She'll be alright, Teal. Little Pearl's dealing with her now. The Captain is busy with the maid who was attacked. He'll have a report before dinner... You are joining us for that?"

"I guess Shur will be there?"

"Of course. It will be interesting to see which one."

"Can you amuse yourself for a while, Jing?"

"Of course. Yeah. I'll go shopping – someone gave me a pay rise." Jing arched her eyebrow at her employer, who just arched one back. Shur smiled and set off towards Ahunga Associates.

When she got there the receptionist apologised, but Mister Ahunga was not in the office today. He'd been invited to a meeting in Gold, and would be tied up all day.

"Perhaps you might call, next time, Ms Qing. Then I can arrange an appointment."

"I will; thank you." Shur smiled a dazzling smile and left, headed back to her swish apartment, already damning the smug Green from her own exalted position in Red – how dare the little...

Wow, she thought – this hierarchy was compelling! She never felt like this in Joseon. So slow up, Shur; don't be drawn in. She had some tea in the atrium, felt herself calming down. After all, she could be here for the rest of her life. She had to adapt, fit in, but she hadn't to lose her core values.

Shur began to wonder whether the Shur who should be here might be influencing her in more ways than in skills and dreams. Jing had seemed to expect her employer to be suspicious and elitist. Perhaps, if that Shur was now in Joseon, she'd have found her true level. A young body, a loving Teal, a society where she was the exact equivalent of a Gold.

Why would she ever want to come back here?

"It's not simple, I grant you..."

"It's impossible. How can I visualise something in five dimensions?"

"The image is there. You can see it, if you try. It should jump out at you. I can see it when I touch you..."

"Well, I can't."

Shur sat with her hand still engulfed in Little Pearl's, his fingers black, long, slim around hers, her wrist appearing chalk-white by contrast. She fixed her eyes on that image, and not on the chaotic swirl inside her head.

She was happy here. What did she have if she went back? A lost love, a tiring job, no status, no friends.

She would survive without Teal's love. Even though he was her love. She could go back to Taiwan. She could join the crew of the Unicorn – they could do with a competent doctor, this world was in the Middle Ages, she knew how to grow penicillin...

She would get by. She was a Princess, here.

"I can see something, but it's not clear. I'm getting a headache..."

Little Pearl was a compelling man. He was big, but he was lean. She'd not taken up a partner since Shen-So left; he'd been her only love. But he was gone, and Shur felt heat.

A brand-new World. A new start. An articulate and intelligent and very attractive man.

Little Pearl let go of his pupil's hand. He stood.

"Perhaps we can try again tomorrow," he suggested. He bowed to her, a sort of nod but very precise and formal, and strode to the door of the music room. He was through it before she could even gape.

After a few minutes she followed, but to go to her room.

There would be, she was determined, no going back.

The Elvis Rift sloped down south to north, its basin draining into a wide fast river that separated Evelwood from the foothills of the northern range. Along the length of the valley many streams, starting from snow-melt in the Awkish hills, fortified by springs, flowed north, combining and strengthening until the final east-flowing river had, over eons, carved a fantastic gorge.

Teal saw it coming; he and his men caught glimpses of its pastel strata through the trees, along lines of sight provided by dips in the land. A huge sheer cliff of layered rock towards which, zigging and zagging along the roiling waterways, their ever more fragile-seeming craft drove.

Aramiel sat beside Teal in the lead boat as it bounced and jigged in the current. Teal appreciated the Elv's negotiations over the past two days with other Elvis settlements, but he had to try hard not to gag at her body odour. She was riper than the fruits she bought from the traders at the towns they passed through; and still his men didn't notice.

Each evening they drew up the boats onto the bank, close to a village or town, and cooked their meals. In the morning they broke fast and boarded again, heading on ever speedier waters to their destiny with the demons of Mara.

On the first evening Teal delved into his back-pack and brought out the stone his mother had dug up in the cave. It was bigger than his suspect memory had shown him, and far heavier than any mere stone should be. He wondered what it really was. If it was made by humans, it wasn't, he decided, magic. But if it was Maran it could be anything.

He looked very closely at it, and fancied that there was a faint line around its circumference. There were, he thought, scratch marks on it – one on each side of the line, but a quarter-turn away from each other. When he settled down to sleep he tried to find out more, but the mess that had been made of Shen-So's memories made it impossible to catch anything sensible. And since the day had been exhausting, he slept.

He dreamt of Shur, her long black hair, her pale Chinese skin, her red and beautiful lips. She smiled, she embraced him, her body was warm, was hot against his. He buried his face into the angle between her shoulder and her neck, nuzzled her like her favourite horse, and he knew that she felt how hardly he desired her.

Her hands took his head either side, held him, her face tilted up towards his, she kissed him deep and full and his tongue slid slowly between her lips, touched hers. He ached for her. His hands slid down her back, down to her narrow waist, to her bottom; lifted her on her tip-toes; she exhaled into his mouth, sweet breath, warm love; she sucked the air back from him and he let her, loving her, brought one hand sliding up her hip, her waist, her flank, her small and perfect breast. He opened his eyes, looked deep into hers, saw unquenchable love, saw his urgency returned, saw his mother who had never been his mother, a woman made to bind him to a quest that had no sensible or survivable ending; and he surged, in his dream, in his built and directed fate, into her, and forgot the Shur he loved.

The crew of the Unicorn – twenty-two men – was distributed among guest houses in the town that tumbled down the hill around the castle. This evening, with no banquet in the offing, most of the men hit the taverns, to the delight of the publicans and the bemusement of the citizens. A posse from the crew had somehow picked up the Ambassadorial aides from Europa and Nippon from their compound, and were taking them on a pub-crawl which did not bode well for international relations.

Captain de Vlieger and his First Mate, Little Pearl, were lodging in the castle itself. After a pleasant meal with the Regent, they went their separate ways. De Vlieger settled himself on the bench in the carp garden with a favourite book. Little Pearl closed the door of his room and made himself comfortable on the bed. He had Shur's destination image in his head. He knew that time there ran at the same rate as time in Joseon; taking a peek, if there was an analogue of himself over there, wouldn't put him in a coma of unknown length. He didn't intend to swap minds, but in case it might happen he wrote a note to his other self, explaining the circumstances in English, Chinese, Dutch and a roman-lettered phonetic transliteration of Polynesian, and settled his head on the bolster. He brought up the image, and meshed it together with the icon for Travel.

The room was familiar only because Little Pearl had Travelled so many times, to so many Worlds. He recognised it as the office of some high-ranking executive or wannabe World Despot, all leather and steel with a Mercator map of the world behind the expensive black chair, behind the expensive black desk. The world wasn't the Earth, but Little Pearl had seen that sort of thing before too. In many of the Worlds humans had gone out into space, developed colony ships or star-drives, had been pushed out from the cradle of Sol by disaster or by curiosity. They went in peace, often, but more frequently armed for invasion. Generally the people they ended up hurting the most were themselves.

An Asian man sat in the expensive chair. He was speaking to an Asian woman, very well-dressed, who leaned over the man's right shoulder, nodding at every whispered word. Little Pearl looked slowly around. There were others here, on his side of the desk, the side of the minions. A nervous Asian lady wearing a colourful sari and laden with gold, a patrician Europan male, and an African in the same style of suit: fine cloth, round collar, wrap-around with no visible buttons or fasteners. This was one of those cultures where women were the fashion leaders and men tended to dress uniformly, with nuances like cut and quality as tokens of rank. He felt comfortable in his own suit, so he assumed he ranked fairly high in this society.

The woman withdrew from her boss's side and sat down a few metres away, but still behind the huge desk. She had a tablet device and referred to it as the meeting either began or restarted; Little Pearl was not sure which.

In his head he could feel the true owner. The guy hadn't noticed the intrusion, and Little Pearl was quite happy to keep it that way. He settled back, wished he had some popcorn, watched and listened as the drama unfolded.

"We're close to the end now," the glorious leader began, in Mandarin. "Shen-So's group must be more than halfway across the Rift. He is being given aid by the chameleon people..."

His secretary stood, moved her chair closer, sat and whispered into his ear.

"Ah – we appear to have been calling them the Elvis." He looked sharply at the secretary. "Was this someone's idea of a joke?" She shrugged. He grimaced, and continued. "In a few days, they could be in the... Joy – what are we calling them? Demons? Incredible... In the demons' territory. If they can find the blocker, they may be able to destroy it.

"This project has been running for years. Everything else has failed. If Shen-So and his group crash and burn we have nothing else to try."

He paused. His name floated up from Little Pearl's host and the First Mate grabbed it. Peng Aun. Originally from Malaysia, when there had been an Earth. A communications specialist in the crew of the Jiu Sheng Chuan. The Station. A Gold, as all the flight crew had become, and in charge of propaganda. Handling this problem now, and only just finding out what other Golds had been doing with the Mara situation. No wonder he looked so frustrated.

"We will have to manage the coming events properly. If Mara becomes available, it will take maybe ten years to drop our cables and establish a skylift. Expectation will be high.

"That's in part why I've invited you to this meeting. Our top legal mind –" he indicated Little Pearl "– our top psychologist, media star and police chief."

The nervous Hindu, the Europan and the African, in that order. Little Pearl was underwhelmed. A situation where a large number of people could suddenly become hopeful after suffering many years of strain could, he knew, flip into anarchy very quickly. Especially if results were not immediate.

He decided to intervene, since his host appeared to have nothing between his ears but a cool breeze.

"People who remain in their present situation but are told they must wait," he began, "grow restless. Do we have a change of role in mind, to refocus their energies towards the new goal?"

The psychologist looked sharply towards him, but he didn't care. He'd already written her off as useless. Peng's interest, however, was piqued.

"Why? Do you think our people will revolt?"

"They are their own people. They're yours right now, because of the status quo. Things have been the same for many years. But when hope appears, as you said, expectations will run high. They will become restless, eager. Either you give them what they want, or you oppress them, or you give them useful roles to play in the new situation."

"I invited you for your legal opinion. But you have quite successfully made our Mrs. Vaidyanathan redundant. Unless you have a different opinion?"

The psychologist glowered, replying grudgingly. "He has a point. If change is advertised, people expect change to occur. If it does not, they will revolt. It's obvious. I was about to say so myself. The problem is in the new roles we could offer to our people."

"Mister Jones?" Peng addressed the police chief.

"We do not want to have to work hard," he said, his mouth broadening into a wide smile. He leaned back in his chair. "If people can adjust, we can rest and have a cup of tea."

Peng Aun smiled. He didn't bother to get the opinion of the media star. Beside him Joy scribbled on her pad.

The meeting went on. And, as meetings often do, on.

Shur was watching a documentary of the flight from Urth when Jing finally came home. Jiu Sheng Chuan had been built in 2267 CE, one of seventeen ships that had managed to flee the planet before it finally descended into a second Stone Age, rising sea levels, tidal waves and chain eruptions of volcanoes helped along by an inevitable and catastrophic nuclear war.

The Jiu Sheng Chuan had, of course, been built by the Chinese, the world's dominant superpower at the time. Positions had been fought for, most going to Chinese academics and technicians, some to Japanese, Korean and other Far East citizens, a mere tint offered to Westerners. Shur wondered what her first patient, the young man with the boil on his bum, had done for either him or his ancestors to be offered a ride.

For thousands of years the ship had ploughed through space, snatching fuel by the molecule as it accelerated. At turnaround it started braking from twelve percent of the speed of light, aiming for this system, for the planet they knew was there, that had oxygen, that might be habitable. Such a gamble, she thought; and yet, it paid off. Mara was a jewel. It was almost exactly right for the refugees. When the ship woke the flight crew, eight years from arrival, they looked at it and they were proud. They'd made it. Their cargo of human souls could, within their lifetime, descend down slim carbon cables to their new Urth.

But once in orbit the truth, ugly and implacable, emerged. When they sent atmospheric shuttles down, the craft tumbled from the sky. They would orbit, insert, travel down their programmed path – then contact was lost. The telescopes showed every one of them wobble, veer, burn, crash. There would have been no survivors.

Since that time, less than a hundred years ago, the documentary informed her – with Jing now looking over her shoulder – no more expeditions had been authorised. Investigation from orbit showed that there was something on Mara, something in her atmosphere, perhaps, or in her core, that destroyed the digital technology in the shuttles. Without their computers, nothing could land there.

Humanity was confined.

"We built factories on the moons," Jing remarked. "We remodelled the interior of Jiu Sheng Chuan. We – we Blues – created the spaces you see around you. The atrium. The window. A feat of engineering you couldn't imagine. Sheet diamond, curved exactly, grown in space. Welding it on to the Station was a wonder.

"My father and my mother were engineers, from Changchun. They were revived from Black to do the work. They punched through the baffles – this whole space used to be fuel tanks – to build the atrium. And during that time, thirty years ago, I was born. I grew up through those work years, I saw the amazing feats of engineering, the creation of an economic system, the rise of the hierarchy. I was schooled, and my parents taught me physics and mathematics. But I had no skills besides my brain. So, I had to take one of the jobs that were left. A job I could do. A job I hate. But it was, by then, all that there was."

Shur reached behind and grasped her friend's arm. "It says that nobody's ever landed on Mara. That all the landers failed."

"It lies," said Jing, pointed at the screen, made a pistol motion with her hand; the screen blinked off.

"To other business, and you will have an opinion more relevant to your qualifications, Mister Ahunga. Security reported a disturbance on Red Four yesterday. A woman collapsed in the Mall. When her movements were tracked back she appeared to have been moving around randomly, as if she was a stranger to the Station. She started from her home on Red Nine and ended up on Red Four, where she stared at a woman and then collapsed. The woman she stared at was a doctor. With the help of a young Green technician the stricken lady was helped to her feet. She is now recuperating in a guest house on Agricultural deck 155. Lambs and bunnies, I expect.

"Anyway – the video of her collapse shows some disturbing things. If I was a religious man I would consider her to have been possessed.

"And the look she gave the doctor, when she saw her – that was, to my mind, purely evil. A triumphant expression. 'I have found you'. So what was she at that moment, and what did she think she had found?"

"Do you suspect an incursion from the planet?" Jones asked. Little Pearl could see fear in the eyes of his companions.

"It may be. It probably is. There's no reason to suppose that the woman and the doctor had any prior connection."

Mrs. Vaidyanathan chipped in. "There is a lot of psychosis on the Station right now. She may simply have flipped. It does happen – I see it in my practice all the time."

"Sadly true. But the doctor herself, even before this curious event, had become a person of interest. She contacted the sister of her ex-partner, despite having dropped back down to Green and not keeping contact these last three years. She has taken her Blue receptionist into her own home. Is living with her." Peng was agitated. "She went down to Blue, took that servant's housemates out for a meal in Green. They got drunk together. And she has resumed her pregnancy."

"Who is this doctor?" the very suave media star enquired languidly. He smiled a pale smile. Little Pearl felt like smacking him. He already suspected he knew who the doctor would turn out to be; and he was right.

"She is Qing Shur, Green, then Red, then Green again when her husband left her, now Red by the intervention of her sister-in-law and our very own Mister Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua."

Little Pearl, who was now riding that very Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua like a loa, began frantically to dig into the man's memories, pressing his host down deep, trying to stop him surfacing to blurt out something incriminating about possession, but that made it hard to find what he wanted...

"Mister Ahunga?"

"I recall her," he said glibly, still searching.

"And?"

"She... suffered a loss when her partner left... She and he had conceived a child... She – it – the child was rebooted recently. I don't know the circumstances..." The memories were coming. "She came to me to find out what happened to her husband."

"And her husband is..."

Little Pearl knew this too, even before the name bubbled up. "Shen-So."

Chairs had been brought into the cell. Captain de Vlieger sat on the truckle bed with Fat, holding the demon's thin wrist. Hansolo sat beside Mad Jack, likewise. The contact of the two seasoned Travellers would, they hoped, nullify any influence Fat might be able to exert. It seemed to be working. Fat looked very uncomfortable.

"Why did you attack the maid?" Hansolo started.

"I didn't."

"He's lying," de Vlieger said. There was no magic involved; he just knew. But Fat believed the Captain had some sort of insight, and sighed.

"She was useful to me."

"She allowed you to go back to your World." Hansolo had been briefed by de Vlieger, who'd found the Travel image of the same World Shur was from in the maid's mind. Fat, defeated and disoriented, just nodded.

"Talk to us. Tell us about Mara. About what you found, about the humans there. We would like to know about Shen-So, too."

De Vlieger's touch depressed the demon. His brain roiled on the edge of a void. The sooner this hell was over, the better. So he began to talk.

Mara is a big planet, he began; but poor in metals. Its plants evolved to use whatever was available, mostly silicates, copper, silver and sodium. Its mobile populations – the Awks, the grelf, mapperings – evolved, their biochemistry optimised to the environment. There was stability for millions of years.

Then the invaders came. Survivors from a doomed planet, journeying for aeons on a huge generation ship, they arrived over this green and fruitful place. Demons and Elvis. Male, and female.

The ship was segregated, the result of a bureaucratic decision made well before it had been built. Uncontrolled breeding on board would, it was feared, have resulted in disaster. Better to make two separate environments, running cloning chambers that would only work when warm dead hearts were placed in them – one dies, a new one is born. So by the time they arrived at Mara the populations were stable, and the sexes were settled in their ways, neither having any knowledge that the other was aboard.

The transition to the planet was awkward. When the males and females finally met, they despised one another; when they descended to the surface they kept themselves apart.

But after a few centuries of rising frustration the demons – the males – who had control of the ship's deeper technology, used it to suppress all digital activity across Mara. Breeding chambers no longer worked. The Elvis were then forced to mate with the demons, if they were to survive. Breeding-bridges sprang up along the border, between the Elvis and demon lands, where perfunctory and heavily ritualised conjugation took place. The Elvis made their menfolk pay a heavy price – any males born from their enforced union were cast into the tumbling, rushing river for the demons to fish out, while female babies were accepted into Elvis society. This had been the situation for the last four thousand years.

Fat, along with some of the other demons, was unhappy. Mara was stagnant. When reports came to them of new invaders from the sky they sent a delegation. Their own origin was now myth; their matings with the Elvis were ritualised and unsatisfactory. Many on both sides wanted change, and, perhaps, the newcomers could provide it.

The boats moored up at a dock that, like most Elvis constructions, barely hung together. By this time the river was a tossing, white-capped surge, and the best the band could manage was a more or less controlled collision with the rotting wooden structure. Elvis threw them lines and, once tied up, helped Aramiel and Glior first to disembark, then, grudgingly, the humans.

There was quite a sizable settlement close by here, where the river that had brought the party most of the way from the south added its unruly waters to the roaring torrent that swept from west to east. The river cascaded into a deep, mist-shrouded gorge, and it wasn't until they had been led almost a kilometre away from the confluence that they could talk without bellowing.

Teal wondered how they would be able to cross to demon territory. The gorge was itself a good eight hundred metres wide. Aramiel reassured him.

"This is one of the places where we exchange fluids with the demonkind. If they accept your passage, you will pass from our lands into theirs. If you complete your quest... Well. We don't quite know what might happen. But our elders don't want the present state of affairs to continue; and a sizeable fraction of the demons likewise want things to change."

"Do you want things to change, Aramiel?"

She hesitated. "You can see us for what we are. We fool ourselves as well as you with our glamour. The beauty we see in our bodies and in our works is not the same as that you see – it's all determined by your own brain, your own preferences." She sighed. "We see the glory we owned when we arrived here, full of power and strength, assured, mistresses of our own destiny. We were determined to cosset the land, to build from its nature, adapt to its ways, its bounty. And for a while, helped by our machines, we learned Mara, and we changed ourselves to suit it.

"But then the males brought down their device. They loaded it into a shuttle and landed it in Cathras.

"And when they triggered it, it wiped out every tool we had, every breeding chamber, every medical device, every memory brought from our world. Even our pictures of home were gone. And since that time, to breed, we need to lie with them...

"There, now, you see where we must meet."

Aramiel swung her arm wide, indicating the settlement on the bank of the gorge, and the fantastical spider-web of bridges, clotted with halls, squares, gardens and even spires that spun across the roaring waters, connecting the alien sexes for the continuation of their species.

The accommodation was luxurious by Elvis standards, in reality, and not through glamour. None of the Elvis dared let this critical city fall. The demons, too, maintained the fantastical structures using metal bracing and cables at the most critical points. Teal saw that the place was safe, and for the first time since meeting Aramiel he relaxed.

His men were euphoric. They had thick bed-rolls on a clean floor strewn with fresh rushes. The water was sweet and clear, and the fruits and fungi both smelled and tasted delicious. After dinner Teal went for a stroll with Lin Si Ping to discuss the crossing. The big man was looking a bit frayed around the edges.

"The last week, it's been like a dream," he said, when Teal asked him if he was alright. "Worse, a nightmare. My head feels bent. Here, it's clearer. More real, somehow. And I wonder – not just right now, I've been wondering this for quite a while – whether I'm being lied to."

"You are," said Teal, looking surreptitiously at his friend's profile as they walked. He didn't want to break him. "The Elvis have... well... 'improved' themselves for our benefit. They've been in our minds, tweaking things. Making themselves and their surroundings appear beautiful."

"Well, I wish they hadn't. At least now the cobwebs are beginning to be blown away... Look – there are some Elvis. They look ugly! Is that what they really look like?"

"Yes," said Teal, pretty sure that in this breeding-ground both the demons and the Elvis would look attractive to one another and not waste energy charming humans. "They really do look like that."

"Their legs are like goats."

"True."

Then Teal did a double-take. Lin – if he had truly been born on Mara – wouldn't know what a goat was. He'd used the Chinese – Yang, which could mean sheep or goat. He decided to stretch Lin a bit.

"They're Yangnan," he stated. Goat-men. To his infinite relief, Lin nodded.

"And I remember fried chicken, too," he said, and looked at Teal. They stopped walking. "You know what's going on."

They were close enough to the gorge to see the tangle of the breeding-bridge, but far enough that they didn't have to shout to one another. The Elvis were giving them a wide berth, knowing, perhaps, that their human guests could finally see them as they really were. Lin and Teal looked at one another. Teal, eventually, spoke. "We have to go back to the others. They need to hear this too."

"You can't send a citizen down to Black just because you think something's 'going on'," Little Pearl barked, again. The others were staring at him. Peng Aun's eyes were narrowed to slits; Mister Jones was lying back in his chair with an expression of amusement, and the psychologist was red in the face with anger. "She's done nothing wrong. You brought me here as a lawyer, and as a lawyer I say you have to have due process..."

"We ARE due process, Mister Ahunga." Peng straightened in his oversize chair. His secretary was typing furiously beside him. "Qing Shur has become an object of interest from some entity, we don't know what. That planet –" he swept his arm towards a wall "– is evil. It resists us, it frustrates us. Its denizens are cruel and malevolent. We don't know what powers they have.

"We've been here, up here, for years. A hundred years, give or take. We are sickening and we are dying because we have no ground beneath our feet. Now we find that even here in this place we are under attack..."

"Why, then, persecute those who are being attacked? Surely, we should find out WHY she became a target? Let me talk with her. Let me find out if there's anything special about her..."

"She has changed, in the space of only a few days." Mrs Vaidyanathan interrupted. "She is different than what she was. Something has already happened to her. She is an infection. She's spread her disease to her receptionist, a Blue. How much damage could those two do if they are allowed to move freely around the Station? If they infect others?"

"People, please!" Mister Jones, the Police Chief, raised his hands. "There is no harm in her lawyer talking with her. We can monitor the conversation. If my learned friend here becomes infected with this supposed disease, we will stun them both and they will both end up Black." His black face shone with mischief, and Little Pearl, blacker than him, smiled broadly.

"Please; I would like privileged access to my client. No monitors. No eavesdropping. I will report back to this council, and you may decide on what I advise."

"Unacceptable."

"Mister Peng, I insist. We may have more than one conversation, the Pri... Ms Qing and I. But the first must be private. After that – do what you will."

"Then take her down to Black. Show her what awaits her if she will not conform."

"I will," said Little Pearl, wrestling to keep control of the body and the mind. He smiled, innocently, and Mister Jones smiled in return, a crooked but accepting smile.

So the meeting ended, and Little Pearl went in search of Shur.
Chapter 10

The servant who found Little Pearl unconscious on his bed called Arn, who reported to Hansolo and the doctor. The Captain was found and brought. Altogether the First Mate's room was getting quite crowded. Shur slipped in behind de Vlieger and stood at the back. Thankfully Teal wasn't part of the scrum.

Little Pearl lay atop a thick mattress, dressed and breathing. The papers on the table beside the kang were read. One was addressed to de Vlieger, and he read knowing pretty much what he would find.

"He's over in Shur's World," he said. "Wants us to leave him be. He'll be back. Just keep an eye on him. If the other comes here, treat him or her well but reveal nothing about Fat unless it's necessary."

"Why?" asked Shur, almost putting her hand up at the back. "Surely we ought to warn them."

"It's our rule," the Captain said, putting the letter into his pocket; Hansolo wondered whether there was more written in it than the Captain had revealed. "We would need to know what they know, before we could offer any further information. Because if we ended up confusing them, it could make any situation much worse, over there." He stood. "Just keep an eye on him. He knows what he's doing."

The troupe left Little Pearl to his coma, reluctantly. Shur collared Hansolo at the door.

"I can look after him," she said. The Regent nodded.

"So you could. You'll be spelled by a pair of nurses. Eight hours on, each of you. If you get tired of it I'll assign another nurse."

"I think I'll be able to stand my turn," she replied, trying hard not to reveal anything to this so perceptive man. She thought she succeeded.

Teal was having breakfast with his Sergeant in a smoky little inn down the hill from the castle's south gate. The porridge was thin, the morning-beer was even thinner, but there was some delicious spicy sausage to slice into the bowl and a big helping of kimchi for them to share. The Sergeant nodded his head as he ate.

"You do understand?" Teal asked again, looking across the small table at the bald spot on top of the man's bowed and bobbing head. Slurping noises were interrupted by a brief grunt and more nods. "We've got too much to do, Shur and I, and we're sorry we haven't been able to keep our beady eyes on our men. With luck, the situation will be back to normal before her age-day. Whatever happens, my platoon and hers will both be at the head of the procession, so we need you and Sergeant Hoon to keep them all practising. We want to be proud of you."

"Mm... We're doing alright." Sergeant Lim looked up from his spoon. Porridge dripped from his chin. "Can't say what Hoon's up to. Bastard never talks to me."

"Well, he should," Teal complained. "We're not their enemies, for gods' sake! I'll be having a chat with him later. Just so long as you're up to date; and if anything comes up in the platoon come straight to me." He stood and went to pay, leaving the Sergeant to collar his share of the sausage.

There'd been a lot of banging around outside Fat's cell, which had at first mystified the demon, then when it went on irritated him. He supposed he'd find out what was happening soon enough; and when, hours later after the noise and swearing had subsided, the door swung open, he did indeed find out, and it was ingenious.

The corridor outside had been blocked off with thick baulks of timber. There was a sturdy door, closed. Essentially they'd built a box rather like an airlock. Hansolo and the Captain were squeezed into it and nodded to their captive.

"May we come in?"

"I'm very busy," Fat drawled, "but I think I can give you a few moments. Please..." He indicated the bed. They sat, leaving Fat with a stool.

"What's the carpentry for?" Although he knew.

"Well. If you can leave an image of yourself in the bed and wander around invisible, we wouldn't want you to just breeze past a guard when he brings your dinner. There's only room for two in the box, and there will always be two visitors."

"So no room for me. Unless I can just become smoke and float though the keyhole."

"If you can, then nothing will stop you, and you'd have been out of here already."

Fat conceded that the humans were really very good. But there was more than one way out of here, and he was close to working it out. He smiled guilelessly. "Are you here to gloat? Or is there something else?"

De Vlieger leaned forward, the bed creaking beneath him. "We would like to know what you found when you used the maidservant. According to you, she was not on the surface of your world."

"I know every human on our planet. I know their names and their faces. There are precisely fifteen. Six are the adventurers who are working towards Cathras, led by Shen-So.

"Nine are at Stormhold. There are linguists, engineers, scientists, stripped of all the technology they were used to using on their Station. They're doing fine, with their chemistry sets and analogue radio.

"Every four or five years a shuttle drops out of the sky, floats down on its canopies, splashes into the Eean sea. They drag it ashore with a winch..."

"You told us. What about the Station?"

Fat ran through his journey in his head. There was nothing he felt he needed to conceal, so he told them. Neither seemed impressed – de Vlieger because he had experienced high-technology Worlds before, and Hansolo because he would only look impressed if that would help his agenda. The demon sighed. The humans got up to go.

"What will happen to me?" Fat enquired. The Regent looked at him incuriously.

"We keep you here," he said. "If we can find a way to trust you, you may be given your freedom. But if we can send you back to your home, we would prefer to do that. Just sit tight and give us no reason to do otherwise."

They entered the box. It was a tight fit. Even the ceiling was low. The Captain swung himself behind the cell door and Hansolo squeezed around and closed it. It looked very undignified; but it was, Fat thought sadly, very effective.

The door shut. The lock turned.

Fat went back to the equations in his head.

Shur slept through the afternoon, hoping to be fresh for the night shift with Little Pearl. At jajeong, midnight, she turned up at his door and relieved the little nurse who had been first on watch. She brought with her water, more oil for the lamps, a blanket, and a book from the Regent's library, a collection of Chinese fairy stories.

The nurse left. Shur checked the patient, wetted his lips with water on a sponge, sat beside the kang and watched the slow rise and fall of his chest.

She fingered the pages of the book, but she did not read.

The Lucky Dragon was noisy most evenings, but it had many rooms; and some were quieter than others. While their platoons cavorted in the public bars Hoon and Lim huddled together with their pots of evening-beer in a corner of the NCO-only snug, perched over the carriage-gate.

"It's that creature that did it to Jae-eun, the bastard. It's got them all in a state. Shen Teal come to me this morning an' 's much as admitted it." Lim took a pull from his pot. Hoon nodded.

"Same here. He come an' give us some gob about how busy they all was. 'S if we don't know what's goin' on." He pulled out a clay pipe and a soft leather pouch. "Wanna smoke?"

Lim nodded, and groped for his own pipe.

"Funny 'ow Qing Shur didn't come an' tell me 'erself." Hoon stuffed a loose pea of tobacco into the miniscule bowl and passed the pouch on to his friend, who pulled out a monster pipe with a flourish. Hoon scowled, but continued. "You know about that frack-arse larst week? In the box garden? You know, when..."

"I know, I know. Ev'ryone knows. They 'ad a nargument. She 'it 'im. Young love, eh?" He finished stuffing his pipe and passed the much-depleted pouch back to Sergeant Hoon. "Gorra light?" Hoon nodded to the fireplace where a fitful and smoky fire burned. Lim got up and brought back a smouldering twig. For a while they puffed and coughed.

"Where's it now?"

"In the dungeon. Kim went an' fed it wif one o' them sailors..."

"It eats sailors?" Lim was incredulous.

"Naw! They all 'as to 'ave a sailor wif 'em when they goes in the cell. Stops it gettin' uppity."

"If I 'ad a sailor be'ind me, I'd be a bit appre'ensive me'self..."

They smoked some more, and ordered refills for their pots.

"It's the cause 'f all the problems, for sure."

"Dunno why ol' Solo don't just get rid of it."

They thought a while. Hoon scraped out and refilled his pipe; Lim's was still, unsurprisingly, going strong.

"If it was gone, we'd be back as we was."

"Too soft, ol' Solo."

They mused.

An hour passed. Then another. There was a soft knock on the door that Shur had been expecting, and it instantly opened. Shen Hansolo, the interfering ruler of Joseon, poked his head around. Didn't he ever sleep?

"Everything alright, Shur?"

"Yes." She sat with the book in her lap. Little Pearl still breathed. Hansolo smiled. "You're doing well, Princess."

"I'm not your Princess," she said flatly. He smiled again.

"See you in the morning." He closed the door quietly.

Shur glowered. Then she put the book on the bed, stood and checked her patient for the tenth time, and moistened his lips.

"Listen to me, all of you..."

"All of me IS listening to you," said Jing, and the others laughed. Evening was well advanced, lights shone in the trees around them. The buzz of insects was loud, but there seemed to be plenty of six-legged geckoes to hoover them up. Teal stood in front of his men, with Lin beside him. Jing was buffing the blade of his sword on a piece of grelf-leather. Pang sat on his rolled-up mattress, tending the fire. The Shin brothers were sprawled on theirs, happy just to be cool and well-fed on fruit that didn't make them fart, or worse. Shin Er had his forefinger up one nostril.

Teal sighed. While he and Lin had seen the Elvis in their real bodies, this crew of idiots had decided just to loll around in their dormitory scoffing fruit and swapping jokes.

"Come on, you lot. We're going for a walk."

It took a while before they were all ready – toilet breaks, rummaging in their packs for cloaks in case it was chilly, arguing about the no-weapons policy. But eventually they all clambered down from the tree and made their way towards a well-lit area about half a kilometre from the lip of the gorge.

It was a shopping-street. In the golden light from the glass globes – and they were real, not just the half-wish of a collective mind – the companions saw not just Elvis, short, goat-legged, clothed in forest leaves and cured skins, but also demons. Their grey faces peered from the depths of hoods, their bodies cloaked in dark cloth, wandering around the squares and lanes, stirring their long fingers through items on the myriad of stalls that constituted this Elvis mall. Some had already found their amours, walked with them, stooped by the enormity of what they were about to commit. The Elvis traders smiled and pushed trinkets towards the demons, who paid with small copper and silver coins and handed their purchases to their intended mates or stashed them in satchels ready for when they found an Elv who would appreciate them.

To Teal, it was unutterably sad. To the others it was a revelation.

"What are they?" Shin Yi asked, his eyes wide. Teal enlightened him.

"These are the Elvis as they really are. Those are the demons who are their mates. This is real, Shin Yi. What do you say?"

"I say I'd like to get that bracelet," Shin Yi replied, pointing to a stall. "It'd look lovely on my Liu's arm..." he faltered. "Liu."

The breaking of the glamour was also breaking them out of their forgetfulness. Teal, remembering how angry Lin had got when he discovered the treachery wrought on him by humankind, glanced at the big man. Lin looked back, nodded. He and Teal were prepared for trouble.

"We'll go back now," Lin suggested, and the others silently agreed. They trudged to the ladders and ascended to their platform. Shin Yi was weeping.

Little Pearl had cracked his host's memories, but before he went to find Princess Shur he strode to the lawyer's apartment and found it empty. Which was no surprise, since Ahunga had been divorced two years previously after his wife had left him for a Green farm manager.

He made a drink in the kitchen and brought it into the large and well-appointed living room. He put the mug on a coaster and sat in the comfy chair. Half the size of the one he'd had in the conference room, but much nicer on the back and the bum. He smiled, and carefully released his prisoner.

\-- What the hell do you think you're doing? You know you'll never get away with this?

\-- Hello to you too. I am Little Pearl and I am you. I'm from...

\-- You will leave this instant, or I'm calling the police.

\-- Go on then.

The rightful inhabitant of the body struggled, but could find no way of asserting physical control. His efforts made Little Pearl smile.

\-- What – how – why have you done this? I demand you free me!

\-- No way. But don't worry, you'll get your body back when I'm finished. Just be calm. Talk to me. I can get information without you but it's easier when you cooperate – when you and I are friends.

\-- Friends! Ha!

Little Pearl hesitated. He let his host see just a fraction of the power he had over the body and the mind, then dumped the conference into Ahunga. He'd kept it all from him, but now was the time to share.

Ahunga was silent, for a long time.

A long time.

Then,

\-- My father disappeared.

\-- I know...

\-- He went down there. I'm sure of it. Why wouldn't they? The Golds? A man with such strength, such talent...

There was silence, for a while. Little Pearl didn't intrude.

\-- What may I do to help you?

Little Pearl didn't smile. He was sad. He did not respond straight away, but when he did his 'voice' showed the honesty of his feelings.

\-- Just let me do what I have to do. Make your mind available to me. When I leave, blame your behaviour on Mara, like they did with the woman who was possessed.

\-- How do I know you really are me, not whatever that was?

He hesitated; but he had done this before. It was just so overwhelming, opening your mind to another you. But, he opened. And the two men melted into one another.

Ahunga-Pearl strode down to the surgery and found it closed. So he navigated the corridors to her apartment, and it opened to admit him. The receptionist, Jing, looked up at him with her mouth open and he interpreted that as an invitation. He swept in and sat on a couch. Nice place. Someone was singing a Chinese song, and there was a whiff of steam and perfume in the air.

"You'd better tell her she has a visitor," he said, and Jing started. She scurried into the bedroom and closed the door. He waited, smiling with himself, and after what was definitely much longer than he thought he should have had to wait the woman herself came in, slightly damp but respectably dressed and smelling of jasmine.

She stood over him. He smiled.

"Mister Ahunga. What brings you here?"

"A little pearl," he replied. She stood stock-still for a second, then turned to Jing.

"Jing, would you please go get us some food? Szechuan would be nice, for three."

Jing sniffed. She knew she was being sidelined. She picked up her bag and sniffed again, then left. The door was incapable of slamming, but it tried its best.

Ahunga looked at Shur.

"Please, Princess Qing Shur. Sit. We need to talk."

She nodded once and sat beside him, and he talked, fast, clear, urgent; and she listened, and saw what was always in her mind since the incident in the box garden; and she held back her tears until he, at last, finished.

Jing did not come back for an hour. Shur was very grateful.

Little Pearl had not been surprised by the concept of Black. Shur, though, was shocked.

"How could they do that?"

"It's necessary, I'm afraid. The Station can only accommodate a certain number of living people." This was Ahunga speaking, and he looked uncomfortable.

\-- How do you know your father is not in Black? Little Pearl asked.

\-- Because there are records. I'm in a position, as a top lawyer, to be able to view them. He did not go to Black. I found that out about fifteen years after he left us; my mother never knew. She withdrew, didn't try to look for him. Maybe she hoped he would come back; or maybe she hoped she would see him one day, in a coffee-shop. He loved coffee. She didn't listen to me. And then she died.

"You're very quiet," said Shur.

"Ahunga and I are talking."

"He seems like a nice man."

"He is. He suffered much as your host did. His father disappeared."

Shur's eyes dipped down. Then flicked up. "How do you know they're not listening to us right now?"

"I don't. But they're not monsters, the Golds. They're just trying to do the best they can in a difficult situation. All I want is for them to manage the coming crisis properly. Otherwise there'll be pandemonium. The Station may not survive."

\-- It's not your problem. I can deal with it, now I know what's going on.

"Ahunga can handle things," Little Pearl said. "Let's go back." He extended his hand to Shur, and she did not respond. "What's the matter?"

"I want to see Black."

"What good would that do?"

"I just do. I've heard so much about it. I want to see what's worse than Blue... My... Jing is so scared. What will they do to her if the other Shur comes back? She – well; at the least she's indifferent to Jing. She would want a Green instead. And Jing would be sent to Black."

"Alright, we'll go down there. I'm as curious as you, actually. And then we go back?"

"I want to take Jing with me."

Ahunga, who had grasped the Worlds concept quite quickly once he'd got up to speed with his other, gaped. She didn't know what she was saying.

Little Pearl closed their mouth. He made it smile. But he had no answer to the problem she had sprung on him.

And it was then that Jing arrived with the food, and the problem got a whole lot worse.

There was a bit of a scuffle outside the box, and unfortunately a seaman from the Unicorn, Bentham by name and a seasoned Traveller in space and time, was accidentally knocked unconscious.

Hoon pocketed his blackjack and together he and Lim lugged the body into a nearby cell. Hoon dusted his hands. "Right. Now for the thing." He smiled, which in anybody's book was not an improvement, and the pair headed for the wooden pre-cell.

When they opened the door to Fat's cell proper they saw it lying on its bed. It appeared to be asleep. They approached the bed. Lim looked at Hoon. Hoon took the sword he was holding and prodded the alien with it.

There was a slight pop, and the body disappeared. At the same time the cell door swung shut, and the two Sergeants had plenty of time to fear for their future.

Shur rose from the bed, wanting to stay beside her new love but fearful of discovery. She smoothed the mattress, checked his pulse, laid her hand on his forehead, swabbed his lips with water. She crossed to the window and stared out at the darkness. Dawn was maybe half an hour away.

Behind her a soft knock came at the door and she sighed momentarily. When Hansolo looked around it she was fatigued but smiling.

"Everything fine?"

Shur nodded, tiredly. His disingenuous face withdrew. She scowled, and dumped herself down into the hated chair. Then she slumped back and began to think about a life with Little Pearl.

They pooled their memories. Even Shin Er contributed. In the corner of the room a lizardy thing snapped an insect from the air. The men were still drinking in the enormity of the lies they had been told.

"I remember... What... Well. My wife, her name's Kim Chung-Cha. And our baby boy. Pang Beom Seok..."

"Haeun. My love."

"Baozhai. My treasure-chest."

"I haven't got a girlfriend..."

"That's understandable, Shin Er."

The sadness in the room was palpable. Teal watched each man droop as they found their lives again. Lives snatched from them. He tried to connect to Shen-So, to any memories from before the quest, but there was nothing. It was as if Shen-So had never existed. All he could see in his mind's eye was himself and Shur.

"What do you remember?" he asked the others, because only the false history, his sorceress mother, his impulsive father, remained in him. They looked sadly at one another. Lin began.

"I first met you all on agricultural deck eighteen. All of us had been recruited by Gold, were eager to fight, to take Mara at last. They told us what they suspected, about a machine on the surface that was suppressing digital electronics.

"Well, I'm an engineer. A Blue, at that, so down among machines most of my life. I was sceptical. But they convinced me."

"We had to get there the hard way. Couldn't land in mountains or forest. It would have been fatal. So we would be sent to Stormhold after we'd been trained." Jing said, and the others nodded, Teal included, though none of this was in his mind.

"It was a hard three years," Pang chipped in. "Especially since I had to learn how to use this sodding great thing!" He pointed at his huge sword.

Jing, scowling at the interruption, continued. "Then they put me in a machine and drugged me. After all the survival training, the swords – they said they were going to fix our stories in our minds..."

"And the next thing we knew we were being pulled out of boxes on the shore of a bay, like cabbages," Shin Yi complained, his brother nodding beside him, "by some people dressed very unlike we are now. There was no Keep, no city. No farms, no people save those few, and us."

"There were landers, dragged up on the beach. They lived in metal sheds. And we didn't see!"

"No, Shin Er – we didn't. Because their drugs and their machines blinded us to the truth. We all believed we were on a great quest, Shen-So our royal leader and Fat our guide. We were led to the foothills, shown the way up to the pass by a pair of Elvis. Then they just left us there. And because we were convinced we were on a quest, we went on."

In the morning Aramiel ascended to their eyrie to tell them they would have to wait a day, maybe two, before they could cross into Demon's Holm. The bridge was in use for a great festival, which would probably involve intoxicants – Shin Er brightened – that would be poison to humans – he subsided with a grump – and would end up with lots of mating. Invitation only, humans definitely not on the list. But she'd make sure they had beer they could warm up to drink tonight, and plenty of meat and fungi for grilling. They could watch from the Elvis town, but mustn't set foot on the bridge.

Teal was happy with that, and his men too. They had a lot to talk about, piecing together their former lives, recalling their families, their friends. Their betrayal.

But then, he thought, maybe it had been the only way. Perhaps previous attempts to get through to Cathras had failed because they were conducted by people who thought in a different way to the natives around them. The glamours of the Elvis could have driven them mad; the strong and obvious magic of the demons was sufficient to topple any unprepared mind. And the ferocity of the Awks... How much previous groups of humans must have hurt them, that they should have attacked his little band, Teal thought. And he had slain them.

The day was spent eating and walking around the town. Snoozing was popular with Pang and the Shins. An argument broke out between Lin and Teal, when Teal held back on his own story to the point where the big man became suspicious. Teal didn't know whether he had a girlfriend, a wife, anything. He guessed he would have had someone, so he started talking about his woman. He based her on the image of his fictitious Sorceress-mother.

"You told me about her, I remember, when we were training. She's a doctor, isn't she?"

"Yes," Teal agreed, not knowing. But it sounded about right for someone he would fall for. Either a fighter or a doctor would suit his temperament. He smiled. Then Lin dropped his bombshell.

"You treated her like shit."

Being invisible took strength, and Fat couldn't keep it up for too long, or he wouldn't have the energy to Travel.

He needed to be close to the maid. He'd used her before, so he could remake the connection without touching her. If he'd gone for Shur, or Little Pearl, he would have had to have physical contact for at least five or six seconds, and he judged that he would be in deep trouble long before that.

But he couldn't find the cursed creature. He wandered around Namhansanseong, sniffing as he went, trying to get her aura. The place was big.

Eventually he went to the carp pool, and fished out a big one. He crept into the shelter of shrubbery to become visible and to eat. Then, energised, he faded again and continued his search.

When the sailor from the Unicorn woke up, with a splitting headache, he vomited. After a few minutes, head spinning, he bounced slowly and painfully along the walls of the dank dungeon and up the slippery steps into the open air, where a kitchen-hand saw him and dashed off for help.

Doctor Kang tutted and had the hapless matelot stretchered to the infirmary, and the Regent and de Vlieger hot-footed down to the cell. They found the two non-coms sitting morosely on the bed, and no trace of Fat. The volume and intensity of the swearing was, it must be said, impressive, and all of it from Hansolo. The Captain, silent, stood with his arms folded, looking grim and learning a few new words.

Eventually Hansolo pulled de Vlieger out of the cell and slammed the door, leaving the sinners inside. Teal and Doctor Kang were summoned to the blue drawing-room. Shur was asleep, exhausted, dreaming about lovers and Chinese dramas.

"Where's the maidservant?" Hansolo asked. The doctor told him she was down in the lower reaches of the town, with her family. The Regent looked satisfied. "Well, she's safer there than here, that's a fact. We must assume that Fat will be trying to get back to his World. If he could have done that himself he wouldn't have suffered imprisonment. So he needs someone who exists in both Worlds. Captain – one of your men and one of mine, guarding Shur, Little Pearl and Teal. In sight at all times." De Vlieger nodded and left the room to tell Arn where to find his men, and which of them she should bring to the Castle. Teal was right behind him, to get his own men up to Shur's room and Little Pearl's. He went with them, first to explain and reassure the nurse tending the First Mate, and then, with some apprehension, to Shur.

She sat up in the bed, chinks of light from the shuttered window striping her, clutching the blanket to her chest. She looked so young, so fragile. Teal's heart yearned for her. He could not speak for a few seconds, and when he did there was tenderness in his voice.

He explained the situation. Two men would be in her sight at all times. Her maid would also attend her, for propriety. She interrupted him as he stammered his apologies for the disruption.

"I can stay with Little Pearl. You would need fewer guards. I'm a doctor, I'm used to keeping vigil with the..." she was about to say sick and dying; instead she just shut up. Teal nodded.

"I'll suggest that to my father. In the meantime, we go ahead as planned." He waited then, silently, with the two embarrassed young guards, until her maid bustled in and started organising everyone.

Being free wasn't all it was cracked up to be. At least in the cell he had regular food and plenty of time to think. Out here he was wasting energy staying out of sight, couldn't find the servant, and couldn't work on forging his own gateway back to Mara. Fat seriously thought of handing himself in, or just letting them find him.

Eventually he went back to the dungeons, which were unlocked, and hunkered down in a dark corner of the first empty cell he found. He relaxed, becoming visible; nobody would be looking for him here. Later he would go fishing again. Now, exhausted, he slept.

They explained the situation to Jing as they ate. Ahunga, Little Pearl and Shur, being as gentle as they could be, talking about the Worlds, about Travel. About Shur going back home.

Jing, an intelligent young woman, an engineer trapped in the role of receptionist, didn't need to be told anything twice. She understood the concept, knew about Riemann space, the zeta function; multiple-universe theory was something she'd read about, prompted by her parents' interests.

And she saw the problem immediately.

"The other Shur – Doctor Shur – will come back here."

Ahunga nodded.

"And she'll have no need for me. If I can't find a job..."

"I can find you a job," Ahunga said. "A much better job than the one you have right now." He smiled and reached to pat her hand, but she withdrew it.

"That would be a help, thank you. I feel much better. But I'll miss you, Shur." She looked at her friend with tears in her eyes. Shur, heart-torn, said what she had agreed with the others she should not say.

"I want you to come with me."

"That can't happen. This is my world. I know it. If I even had a 'me' in your World, what would happen to her? Either she would be here, not understanding anything, unable to function, or I would be sharing her mind there.

"And where would I be? If I'm there, I could be anywhere in your World. Continents apart from you. We would never meet. It's wishful thinking. Impractical."

"I love you, Jing. I've never know a friend like you."

"And I love you too, Princess Qing Shur. I'm so glad I met you. I'll never forget you.

"Mister Ahunga, yes, please find me a job."

Little Pearl butted in. "Jing, would you like me to teach you Travel? You may never come to our World, but you might enjoy the experience in others."

"No! Why would I do that? I can see what trouble it causes. Shur got here by accident, and look what's happened. And you – you do it for fun. What practical use is it, to anyone?" She stood up from the table and started clearing away the bowls, her hands shaking, her body trembling. Shur got up and held her, and Ahunga took the bowls from her hands before she could drop them. Jing sobbed on Shur's shoulder; the men went into the kitchen, to wash the dishes.

Jing came with them to Black. It was not somewhere anyone could go on a whim. Ahunga got the authorisations by calling the office of the Propaganda Director, speaking directly to Joy, the assistant. All he had to do then was copy the pass to Shur's and Jing's slabs, and they were on their way.

Shur thought she had got used to the elevators, but this ride just went on and on. Air screamed around the box as it sped down its shaft, and each slight judder frightened her half to death. Jing held her hand. Shur squeezed far too tightly, but her friend didn't protest. And eventually the long descent slowed, and finally the doors slid open, and there was Black.

They stood on a smooth black floor that spread into distance on all sides, sparingly lit by lamps that flickered on far overhead. The ceiling and floor were connected at intervals by square lift trunks like the one they had emerged from, making the place a sparse forest. The mouths of a hundred huge circular wells, railed off, covered the floor. Shur crossed to the nearest, her footsteps echoing. She looked down into a bottomless pit twenty metres in diameter. Tiny lights, thousands of them, fell down into the dizzying darkness.

Jing strode to the well and consulted a panel attached to the railing. She scrolled through, looking for something, then sighed and beckoned Ahunga. She gently touched Shur's arm, and led her and the lawyer to a platform jutting out into a well a hundred metres away. She tapped some controls and it began to fall. Lights attached to its guardrails illuminated the wall as they descended.

Each little spark they saw was on an oblong black panel, set in the centre of a square black door. Each panel had a name glowing dully next to its bulb. Chinese names, Korean, Western, Japanese names. Jing studied the control screen as the platform descended, scrolled and searched, finally nodded, sadly. The platform rotated around the well, picked up speed as it fell.

Eventually it slowed and stopped. The lamps in the ceiling were now far, far away, at the top of a long shaft. Shur looked at the square black door they had stopped at. It would open, and something could be slid out onto the platform. She looked at the panel. A blue light glowed.

She read the name. It was in the simplified Chinese characters she had been getting used to, and the same was beneath it in Pinyin.

Wu Chen.

"My father. Born on Urth, died in a factory accident on Espere. It's only a coincidence that it's blue. Blue just means it's empty," said Jing. "Eventually this module will be reused. Maybe for me. My inheritance."

Ahunga-Pearl was awestruck. So many. He gripped the rail around the platform and gazed out, up, down.

"The colours..."

"Green is occupied. Red means module failure. They're cleared out regularly. The bodies are composted."

Most of the lights were green. Some were blue. A few red lights were scattered around the wall, sometimes in a clot where a bank of machinery had failed. Jing started the platform rising, and the trio of humans left Black without another word spoken.

There was a welcoming committee sitting in Shur's apartment when they got back. Peng Aun and his assistant Joy sat together on the smaller sofa. The Europan media star sat in the armchair. They rose as the girls and Ahunga entered and waved them to the big couch, where the girls sat but the lawyer stood.

"You have seen Black. You see how difficult our situation is." Peng began. He and his companions sat back down. Shur nodded.

"No room for everyone to be alive at once."

"And failing systems," Little Pearl added. "You have to get down to Mara as soon as you can; and with as little disruption as possible." The Propaganda Director nodded.

The Europan smiled, which made him look like a well-groomed shark. "As you so eloquently said in our meeting this morning, we have to manage expectations..."

"That's not what I said. Managing expectations is doublespeak. You can use that phrase to justify all manner of tyrannies. I said, you either give people what they want, or oppress them, or find them a new role that leads them to the goal. All of those are 'managing expectations'. So which have you chosen?"

"We must choose the third option," Peng said. "and Mister Barclay here has come up with a plan that, while not a complete solution, still leads towards the goal; and in addition, it removes some problems we have."

"You mean us." Jing's voice was flat and cold. Barclay beamed.

"Such an intelligent young woman."

"So we all go back to Black."

"It would be a solution, but only for the present situation," said Peng. "We do not understand why you have changed, Ms Qing, but you are stable. Not causing trouble, just different. And Mister Ahunga has become much more forthright than he has been in the past. Things are happening and we do not have answers. But we are not monsters..."

"You'll be stars," the Europan interjected, his arms sweeping open to encompass them all. "Watched by hundreds of thousands. Not drama, but fact. Truth. The opening of the frontier... Everyone will be glued to their slabs, their screens. You'll be streamed over to the moons. Teachers will use you to show their pupils what life will be like on Mara."

"You can't get cameras down to the surface," Ahunga pointed out.

"We will, when Shen-So destroys the alien device," said Peng. "We may even have some that could work for you, right now, I've heard."

Barclay continued. "As we heard in the meeting, Mister Ahunga, for years there's been a team down there, on the surface, gathering intelligence, learning the languages. We know the Elvis and the demons are the same race. They've been stagnating for thousands of years, because of the machine the demons installed. It suppressed their technology. It's guarded by a hard core of demons who don't want change. But change is coming despite them.

"Your father, Ahunga – he was one of those who made this possible. He was down on the surface building the analogue transmitter, then building trust between us and the Awks and Elvis. Before my time – I've been out of Black for just ten years, but I can see how his story would inspire you to follow in his footsteps."

Ahunga scowled.

"And Qing Shur. She rises to Red, she loses her husband. For years she languishes back in Green, then a chance encounter with her sister-in-law brings it all back, fierce and uncompromising love, a love so strong that it breaks the bonds on the child she conceived with him. She and Ahunga discover the secret of the Golds, the planetary programme; they plot together to take a drop-ship to find the ones they lost."

"What about me?" Jing asked.

"What about you?"

"Where do I fit into this mad scheme?"

"You don't. You'll be back in Black, forgotten but not gone."

"You're missing something, Barclay," said Shur, appalled inside but smiling sweetly outside. "You want to create an inspirational drama to acclimatise people to the coming colonisation. It's a great aim, and I think that it would work.

"But you've not watched any of the old Urth dramas, have you? You're so full of your own ideas, but they're far too simple. What did you do on Urth, Mister Barclay?"

The man looked uncomfortable. "What I used to do is not relevant. What I do now..."

"He was an actor in commercials in Beijing," said Joy, referring to her tablet. "When they needed a white face. To sell cars, or soap." She had a vicious little smile on her face as she said this, and Barclay hunched down in the armchair, reddening. "And now, Mister Barclay is a news-reader. He is very popular among the older ladies, I understand. As such, he was invited to our panel for his thoughts on manipulating – as he said – expectations."

"Managing. I said managing expectations." He was livid. "And you need this, people need drama in their lives..."

"I agree," said Ahunga. "But if you are going to do it, you have to do it properly. Otherwise it will not inspire, but only depress."

"In the Asian dramas there are roles for the high and the low," Shur explained. "When you have something like this – two people interacting, each looking for their lost love – it's very simple. Boring." She had watched precisely five dramas on the screen in her apartment, with Jing, but they didn't know that. And drama was, in the end, both simple and complex. Any fool could see that, with the exception, it seemed, of Barclay.

Peng Aun half-raised his hand. "Given that we are more or less in agreement that such a drama is a good thing – for you, as it keeps you out of Black, and for the Station since it brings the whole of the population into the project to claim the surface – what should we do to improve on Mister Barclay's idea?"

"Jing comes with us. She's Blue. She's a technician and she knows how to sail that lander. We need her."

"The drop-ships are programmed already. On launch they orbit and insert. When the alien device scrambles their computers they're already on course to splash down in the bay at Stormhold. You don't need her."

"And," said Shur as if Barclay had not interrupted, "She is my lover."

Joy broke the silence by laughing. It was not a dismissive laugh. "Oh, wow – that's good! I had not expected that. And she loves you so much she will go with you to that world, even though you seek your lost husband. Wonderful!"

"Alright, then do that," said Barclay, still angry. "It changes nothing. Take her. Take a dog, too, if you want – it'll please the animal-lovers in the audience."

"I think that will be acceptable," said Peng Aun. "We will start right away with basic training on survival on Mara, and you'll be going down in two days' time."

"So soon?"

"We think Shen-So must by now be close to Demon's Holm. He may succeed at any moment. We need you there, preferably before he and his men die."

Shen-So didn't exist any more, but he was making a lot of trouble for Shen Teal. Lin, astonished when Teal admitted he couldn't remember anything but the quest – he didn't admit that he was not the great Shen-So – sat him down and began to remind the King of Stormhold of his past, real life.

"The Golds chose us for our strength, intelligence and frustration," Lin began. Teal didn't know what Golds were, but it wasn't important, so he kept quiet.

"We were frustrated, impatient with the Station. Kept bending the rules, going places we shouldn't, starting fights. The Shin brothers would have gone to jail, if they hadn't been just what the Golds were looking for.

"And I, I'm a big man, an engineer. I saved a mining team on Espere, the second moon, keeping up the roof while they escaped. And I managed to save myself too, which impressed them.

"So they talked to me while I was lying in a hospital bed. Offered me an adventure. A chance to save humanity by opening up Mara."

They were sitting at a table outside an Elvis tavern. The Elvis were giving them plenty of space, pretending to ignore them. Teal thought he saw Aramiel standing in the shade of an awning, her round face and sharp black eyes... but she turned away when he met her gaze. A few minutes later two pots of warmed beer were brought to the humans.

Lin had finished his own story and started now on Shen-So, after a pull on the beer.

"You were a Red. Privileged. A bit of a playboy, by your own account. What work you did, I don't know. But you heard someplace about the project, and you determined to join it.

"Problem was, you had a wife who adored you, and you knew she wouldn't let you go easily. Oh, you loved her, I listened to you going on about her for hours in the evenings, after training. Qing Shur this, Qing Shur that..." Teal froze with the pot halfway to his lips. "...but in the end the lure of adventure, the power of the tale; they snared you. And you began to detach yourself from her, creating arguments, blaming her for little things. You remember any of this yet?"

Teal, dumb, shook his head.

"You had permission for a child. Do you know whether that was acted upon? Do you even care if you now have a son or a daughter?

"When you told me how you left her I wanted to punch you. You thought you'd given her sufficient reasons to be happy to be rid of you. Win-win, you said, and you smiled when you said it."

Lin looked into his tankard, then raised his head. "Aramiel! Would you get them to bring more, please? I feel like getting drunk."

Teal didn't, but he knew he would prefer to, rather than bear to be blamed for what that stupid, hateful Shen-So had done to secure his place on a suicide mission.

He drained his beer as another couple of lightly-steaming pots were plonked down on the end of the bench.

Little Pearl's eyes opened, and the nurse sent one of the guards to get the doctor. She moistened his lips again, and ran a cool damp cloth over his face. He twitched a smile in thanks. Then she dug her fingers and thumbs into the muscles of his shoulders and massaged him, going down his arms, finishing with his fingers just as the A-Team arrived – Hansolo, de Vlieger and Doctor Kang, with Qing Shur following behind. Teal was out on the parade ground, demoting the two Sergeants and replacing them from the small pool of eager Corporals.

The nurse stood back while Little Pearl flexed his fingers, then struggled to sit up. The Captain and Hansolo helped him, Shur hanging back, the nurse putting pillows behind the huge man. Eventually all was settled. The nurse bowed to her patient and left the room just as Arn came in with a tray of food and a jug of morning-beer. He fell on the meat as soon as she plonked it on his lap, and washed it down with the beer. Shur realised just then who he was, in her World.

"Ahunga. The lawyer."

Little Pearl nodded, wiped his mouth and fingers on the napkin and lay back, sated. His eyes sparkled.

"Yes, Doctor Shur. Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua. High-ranking Red and your husband's lawyer, and now my good friend. He's looking after the Princess and Wu Jing right now."

"Wu Jing? Who's that?"

"Your receptionist."

"Oh – that Jing. Why? What's she done that she needs a lawyer?" Shur was cross. "Is she making trouble?"

"Quite the contrary. She's been a good and constant friend to our Qing Shur. Doctor Kang; Doctor Shur, would you please leave me alone with my Captain and the Regent? We have some matters to discuss. Then, Shur, when I'm fit and ready I'll talk with you alone."

Shur bridled. She was on the verge of objecting, but the look in Little Pearl's eyes told her she would be better off just getting out before he said something that might incriminate her. She wondered whether he'd felt her beside him the night before; she blushed, and swept from the room behind Doctor Kang.

The Captain beamed at Little Pearl. "Now, First Mate – what have you to tell us you can't also tell her?"

He told de Vlieger and Hansolo everything.
Chapter 11

Fat sneaked another fish and mooched around the various gardens looking for a lone soul to plunder for information. Everyone, it seemed, was going around in pairs now. Bugger.

He slipped out of the Castle behind a cart with a huge barrel on the back that smelt as if it must be carrying urine down to the fullers', and started down the hill. He avoided the more crowded streets since, though invisible, he could still be felt. Then he saw two familiar faces. The erstwhile Sergeants, sitting gloomily together at a table in the sun, outside a seedy bar.

He sat gently on the bench opposite them. The way they looked, no-one was going to come and join them. He listened. It was all he wanted to hear.

"That bloody thing. It's the last time I listen to you, Hoon." Lim picked up his tankard. The other took offence.

"Not my fault – you were the one wif the plan. 'Let's go get the bugger' you said. I 'eard yer."

"Le'ss not go pointin' fingers. Anyway, Jae-eun's safe enough wif 'er sister an' 'er lot."

"Like to see any demon gettin' past that wom'n. Face like a fright, she got. Scare the bugger right away..."

Fat gently laid a long finger on Lim's wrist, and after a few seconds was able to tease into the Sergeant's mind, finding a lot of unused space between the big ears. The maid's sister did, at least in Lim's imagination, look like something to haunt men's dreams.

Fat stood in a kitchen. The maid wasn't there; just the ugly sister and a small grubby child who looked up at him and smiled. He peered around in the gloom, went to the window. It was glazed with oiled paper, and he couldn't see out of it. Useless. Fat left the cottage, back into the creature's brain, and planted a suggestion.

"I tell yer what; let's go down there now."

"Why?" queried Hoon, putting down his empty.

"Just... Just see 'ow she is. Mebbe they'll 'ave a kettle on."

Hoon looked dubious, but Lim, now the thought was in his head, had the bit between his teeth. He didn't know that it was the demon pulling on the reins. "We'll say we come from Solo. Come to see she's alright." He stood, and with Hoon beside and Fat behind him plodded unsteadily down the hill.

Shur went into the library to return the unread book and found Teal. She'd already shut the door behind her, so there was no way she could politely leave. Teal nodded at her, and she nodded back, padding over to the shelf she'd got the Chinese fairy tales from.

"If you don't want to go back," Teal opened, "I wouldn't blame you."

She thought of ignoring him, but that also was not an option, especially if she stayed in Joseon, so she turned to look at him, a quizzical half-smile on her face. It conveyed the impression that she didn't know what he was talking about; but he wasn't fooled.

"You're an intelligent person, Qing Shur. You have the power to return. The images aren't something you have to work at, once they've been suggested to you. Little Pearl showed me, and he's a good teacher."

"Some people have the knack, I think; others not." She composed her face into a simulation of regret, let moisture glint in the corner of her eye. Teal just smiled. He was sitting in a Europan wing chair, next to the globe of the Earth, which is why she hadn't seen him immediately. Bloody irritating family, Shur thought, and it must have shown on her face.

"I didn't want to come back either," he said, surprising her. "I don't mean Mara – there, I was scared I'd never see my love again. When I found myself back, I was relieved. Everything returned to normal, whatever normal is. But of course, it hasn't.

"I mean the first time. I travelled accidentally, just the same. I found myself in the body of a girl – myself, in a World more advanced in some ways than mine, less advanced than yours. She was the same age as me. Thirteen, then.

"I had to dress like her. Like a girl. Panties, little socks, a bra. Skirts. Skinny jeans – do you have skinny jeans there?"

Shur nodded. A real tear was beginning to form, and she didn't want it to. It would, whatever she said or did, appear false.

"My mother was alive, there. She's dead, here. She's been dead for ten years. I miss her, every day. But there, she was alive. I saw her, every day. We hugged, we played together – she's a very playful woman, with a wonderful laugh, very loud and free.

"I had to go to school. An all-girl school. They were all such..." he searched for the words, used English, "Wusses. And the boys they swooned over were such pussies. Not an ounce of brains or bravery among the lot of them. I was king of the hill, there. Well, queen."

Shur found a seat and sank into it. Her eyesight was blurred. She found it was getting difficult to breathe without her breath catching in her throat.

"I love my father. I even love my brother. Over there, Kale never existed. I don't think I missed him. But that's just brothers for you.

"I wanted to stay. I didn't know how to get back. Neither did Yifan, the girl whose body I wore, whose mind I used. Her memories were scattered all over the place; not like mine. I think I left her brain a bit tidier than I found it...

"We went to a banquet. We were honoured guests. My mother was the Queen of China, and I was her Princess.

"I wore a beautiful gown, white, clingy; it showed off what curves I had. I was so beautiful."

Shur was blind. All there was, was that young voice in her ears. Her eyes were curtained with tears. She made no move to wipe them away.

He paused; and that was agony to her. She needed to hear this. Her mouth twisted, but he started again, and she hung her head and listened.

"We met the Queen of England. We met the Royal Princes. We met the President of China, Xi Jin Ping. John – my step-father – he met Sandi Toksvig. He was very happy. And he stood behind us, so proud of me, and my mum.

"My mum."

Teal's face, if she could have seen it, was streaming with tears. She didn't see them; but she heard them in his voice.

"And President Xi asked me a question, and I answered him. But it wasn't him, it was Qing Shur. I'd never seen her before in my life! And there I was, at my brother's wedding. Back. Back in my own World. Saying 'yes' to a proposal of marriage..."

Some minutes later a servant entered the library to light the lamps. The evening gloom was descending. But she paused, then left the room unlit and closed the door quietly so as not to disturb the silence.

"He's gone back, to eat and replenish his body's resources, and to tell your people what's happening here." Ahunga, talking while he made chicken rice. He did it well. "My wife – my ex-wife is Chinese. She taught me to cook. I hope you like chillies?"

They both did, Shur and Jing. They were all three sharing Shur's apartment, at her insistence. If they would be training together, and working on their 'true-life' drama together, they should live as closely together as possible. There was, after all, not a lot of time. They had to get their roles right.

"From what Little Pearl told us," said Jing, "You should have already gone back." Shur had to agree. He'd been able to show her how to Travel, and he'd shown the other Shur. But she'd said she couldn't do it. Shur didn't believe that for one second. Anyway, now she had the secret she could go back any time, despite her other's mulish behaviour. And serve her right.

Although there was always the possibility that some game of Travel-tennis might ensue; Doctor Shur moving back in, Princess Shur ousting her. It would confuse the life out of Teal.

Her Teal. She loved him, with every fibre of her being. Although, according to Little Pearl, she'd fallen in love with him when he was a girl in Teal's body. What a mixed-up set of Universes!

She turned towards Jing, but she wasn't there. There were voices in the kitchen, so she stood and went to the doorway. Jing, talking with Ahunga, quietly, telling him she wanted Little Pearl to teach her how to Travel.

They finished the meal – it was delicious – and Shur did the washing-up while Ahunga got Jing up to speed on the Travel situation from his shared memories of the absent Little Pearl. That she could share minds or swap; that she should avoid places where the time loop was twisted. It would be Jing's choice to make, if she decided to Travel.

Shur hoped that she would. Hoped they would meet again, in her World. She turned her face against what would happen to that other Jing, the one who would find herself here, living as a Blue, down on the surface of an inhospitable planet where all food (Joy had briefed them) had to be heated, even beer and wine.

When the washing-up was done she interrupted the conversation in the living-room and carefully drew her chop – her personal Chinese ideogram – on a paper notepad. "This is my chop, Jing. Remember it. If you go to my World, get a scribe to engrave it on a tablet – an ivory tablet, not a tablet computer; we don't have those. Make sure he colours it red... Oh, and it's illegal, so you'll have to find a crooked scribe, and be able to pay him well.

"Show it to officials when you want to take passage, on boats, or shared palanquins on official roads; show it at toll booths and city gates. It will let you move freely, and most times you won't have to pay.

"You're heading to Joseon, to the Regent, wherever he happens to be. I will be there."

She fervently hoped she would be.

The operative word for their mission, they all knew from the beginning, was 'suicide'. This fact had been conveniently hidden by the memory-changing process that convinced them Stormhold was a kingdom, and that humans had lived on Mara for thousands of years.

Teal now understood the stone he carried in his pack. Although he still didn't have the memories of the real and treacherous Shen-So, Lin had explained everything. After all, if Shen-So had fallen, any of the others should have been able to complete the mission.

So long as they had the stone, of course.

The others, eventually, had drunk and cried themselves to sleep. Lin was doing his snoring act, which must have kept Elvis awake for half a kilometre around. Teal snuck down the ladder in the dark and bumped into Aramiel.

"Don't you ever sleep?" he gasped.

"Don't you?"

"Fair point. Come on, then. Take me to your leader..."

The leader, when they met him, was a demon. He was laden with trinkets, and looked like a display stand in a cheap shop. He had the grace to look sheepish. Well, goatish.

"They're for my mate," he confessed, not looking at Aramiel, so Teal could guess immediately who his mate must be.

"Congratulations," he said, and had the satisfaction of feeling Aramiel wither slightly beside him. "Is tonight the night?"

"I guess so," said the demon, diffidently. "Where are your men?"

Aramiel coughed. "He's going alone," she explained. Her boyfriend turned a slightly paler shade of grey. At least it made him easier to see in the darkness.

"We mightn't survive this, if we all go together. They're my friends. Aramiel has agreed to lead them back to Stormhold. Do you have any objections to that?"

"No," said the demon. "It'll be easier getting just one of you through to Cathras. It's not any sort of tourist destination." He shrugged, setting his trinkets a-jingle. "Come on; let's get you kitted out."

With a simpering smile towards Aramiel, reciprocated by a twee little wave and a puckered lip, the demon led the adventurer away towards the bridge. They stopped at a stall and Teal donned a long grey hooded cloak and several pounds of shoddy merchandise.

"Now you look like a mated one returning to his sept," his companion muttered, paying what looked like a small fortune in loose change. He led Teal out of the commercial zone and onto the bridge.

Teal just felt like a twit.

The bridge spun up towards the far high cliff, a maze of cleated walkways, ladders, thick ropes and platforms, buildings – mating-houses, dormitories, restaurants spiralling up and down, guyed with miles of cordage, braced with bronze brackets, lit with thousands of globes and torches, alive with scurrying figures. The moans of Elvis heated beyond endurance unsettled both Teal and his guide, and they avoided the mating-houses when they could. But the whole place stank of sex.

They came upon a group of demons in a courtyard overhung with night-flowering plants. They were naked, whipping each other with long bundles of flower-stalks, in total silence. Teal's demon put his finger to his lips; they walked silently round the perimeter of the courtyard, getting a few disapproving glances but no active obstruction. When they were well past the demon said, "They're hard-core. If they knew what you were, you'd have been torn to bits." Teal gulped.

"They're the ones who don't want things to change."

"Correct."

"How much further?"

"A few hours at least... Go over there." Teal went in the indicated direction. There was a balustrade. Far beneath him the waters rushed. He realised that his throat was sore from shouting over the noise of the torrent. He turned. The demon smiled sadly.

"They used to put our children into the river. We had to try to fish them out. Most of the time we didn't succeed. They were swept away.

"We've hated our own kind, our women, for so many centuries... Dawn will come before you and I are off this bridge. There will, some of us hope, be another dawn, soon. Please don't disappoint us."

He turned, and led Teal further into the maze.

"It's quite complex enough, thank you, without me falling in love with Shur!" Ahunga was embarrassed, which made him loud. Jing smiled widely, and Shur collapsed with laughter on the sofa. "Yes, go on – make me out to be some sort of Casanova, why don't you? I'm sure Barclay's blue-rinse brigade would go wild for that..."

"Oh, come on, Ahunga! If I'm supposed to be a raging lesbian, you can at least balance things out!"

Ahunga grumped. Truth be told, he was powerfully attracted to Shur, which made him feel dirty, because although her body was in its thirties the girl herself was not even fourteen. He wished she would go back. However awful the other Shur might be, she would at least be of legal age, in mind as well as body.

He suspected that Jing also knew this.

Shur wiped tears of laughter from her eyes and looked suddenly serious.

"Ahunga."

"That's my name; don't wear it out."

She frowned. "I've been thinking about the woman in the atrium. The one who looked at me. The one possessed by that demon, Fat."

"What about her?"

"What happened to her? Did she see her doctor? How does she fit into the story?"

Ahunga, wishing that Little Pearl was back, dug into the memories of the meeting the other had dumped into him. They both had excellent organisational skills with their memories, he and the Unicorn's First Mate; but their schemas were slightly different, and it made it difficult to find...

"They said she was sent to an Ag deck, to recover."

"Can we find out which? I'd really like to talk with her. She might have remembered something."

"Let me see if Joy is still up. I'll send a message." He pulled out his slab and thumbed a text. He'd begun to slide it back into his pocket when it chimed. "Well; she's definitely still up." Ahunga lifted the slab and stared at the screen. He couldn't believe what Gold had done.

"What is it?" asked Jing.

He looked up, the glow from the slab lighting his face for a few long seconds, then winking out.

"She's been sent to Black."

Doctor Kang wanted the hunt for the demon to be called off.

"I'm treating people for bruises, sprains and gashes –"

"That's good. It's what we pay you for, after all." Hansolo was sanguine. He pointed to a carafe of Europan wine; the doctor shook his head irritably.

"It's serious. Do you realise just how many of the people in this castle enjoy... how may I put this? A modicum of solitude?"

"That's reasonable. I think you put it very well. What has this got to do with finding Fat?"

"Well... Solitude may be achieved in some of the empty rooms in the castle, or in the more secluded parts of the gardens. The places where a demon may be found, if he is still IN the castle." The doctor took a pace forward and poured himself some wine, then sat down in a chair beside the couch where the Regent sat grinning. "It's not a laughing matter."

"When you say solitude, you mean two people being solitary together."

"Yes."

"There's no need to look so sour. Nobody's been seriously hurt."

"Yet. Guards poking around with swords drawn, it's only a matter of time. And it's embarrassing, for the guards and for the victims." He sipped; his eyebrows rose with delight. "This is very nice."

Hansolo dialled down his hilarity. He did take the doctor's concerns seriously. "As of now, I'm calling the search off. I think Fat is no longer in Namhansanseong. If he surfaces, we'll get him. But until then he's not the most important issue we have to tackle."

"Good. Thank you."

The Regent smiled. One decision could solve several problems.

Meanwhile, the demon in question was lurking beneath the eaves of a tiny cottage at the bottom of the hill. He could feel the maidservant inside; her mind was bright with the pattern, although Fat suspected she herself couldn't see it.

The two disgraced former Sergeants had led him straight to her. From having to fence with the brilliance of the human minds up at the castle, finding such stupidity was a breath of fresh air to him. He was metaphorically rubbing his hands with glee at what he would soon be able to accomplish.

When he got back to the Station he would extend his mind into the humans around him. He'd need only about five others, and then he'd be able to reach down to the more sensitive of his fellows in Demon's Holm. He would dump all the information he had gathered, and the mandala would be dissected by the finest minds amongst his kind.

The humans he took over on the Station would then be taken by his peers. They would infect others. Within a day, the whole Station would be inhabited by demons riding their human proxies.

He leaned against the rough wall of the cottage. The feelings that stirred through him were orgasmic. Jae-eun's brain glowed, his gateway to fame.

Once the Station was theirs they would use the Travel icons to come here, to Earth. Open a gateway, let everyone in, escape the stifling rule of the guardians of the device.

The best thing about his plan was that it would work for the Elvis, too. He could bring them here. His race would have a whole new world of freedom, and human slaves to work for them.

Fat imagined the day. Tens of thousands of humans, jerking and burning, vomiting out the smoke of demonkind, of Elviskind; the purity of their love, the joy of their reconciliation bright in this new and wonderful World.

Jae-eun's Travel icon burned in him. There was a strange twist in the centre of it he hadn't noticed before, but it didn't bother him.

He took hold of it, and poured his essence into her brain. His earthly body dissolved away.

He Travelled.

Into blackness.

Into Black.
Chapter 12

\-- I'm back.

\-- What kept you? Ahunga, half asleep, fumbled the covers away from his body and fell out of bed. It took longer than he expected to disentangle himself from the sheet, which he'd pulled down on top of himself, and then he tripped on it when he set off for the bathroom.

Little Pearl, wisely, didn't laugh; but Ahunga knew he was holding it in with difficulty.

\-- So how are things back home? Ahunga enquired.

\-- We don't know where the demon is, Little Pearl admitted, but the Regent isn't worried. He'll reveal himself sometime, then we'll get him. How is the plan going?

\-- Much as you would expect, we're going down to the surface tomorrow and nobody's ready. We refused the mind-mapping, so we won't have more than a basic vocabulary in Elvis. Your Shur is still here. We've been trying to get her to swap back, but she says she wants to stand on a different planet, at least for a short time. I can't say I blame her – it's a fascinating adventure.

\-- What about Jing?

Ahunga washed his hands and dried them on a fluffy towel. -- I checked with Joy. She said I could find Jing a job in the Station, or she would, no questions asked. But Jing's just as excited as Shur. They WANT to go down there! At least she asked me to explain Travelling to her. I used the information you gave me. Maybe you can check with her that I got it right.

\-- What time is it?

Ahunga went back into the dim living-room and found his slab. -- Zero-five-thirty, round about.

\-- Right. Let's use that computer.

One brain, two minds. It didn't take Ahunga-Pearl long to hack into Gold.

They decided to share their headspace, and Little Pearl showed the lawyer how to build a virtual environment they could both exist in as separate people.

They sat together on a bench in the light of a sun long gone. The greensward dipped and folded, soft grass caressed by careless zephyrs. Beyond a screen of trees the spires of a city rose into the blue sky, white clouds processing behind them, aircraft and drones buzzing busily by over and around them.

In front of the two men was a mash-up computer, a big screen and a couple of laptops, connected in real life to the cores of Jiu Sheng Chuan.

"Is this what Urth was like?" Ahunga asked, looking around, feeling the warmth of the sun, the cool of the breeze, and loving it, yearning to stay in it.

"An Earth," Little Pearl admitted. "One I was on for a while. I thought it would be most like yours, before the event." He reached down and picked up a glass bottle of root beer. "I love this stuff." He drank, and sneezed. "Just a pity I'm allergic."

The Station's systems were complex, but compartmentalised. There wasn't anything silly, such as the life support being connected to the entertainment channels, which Little Pearl assured Ahunga had happened more than once in Worlds he'd visited. But the security, he opined, was absolutely atrocious.

"A child could get in," he said, rattling away at the keys of his laptop. Data scrolled over the big screen, windows popped open and snapped closed. He hesitated, then typed a few more words and hit the enter key. One window remained on the screen.

"Water?" said Ahunga, amazed.

"Water. Which you can't get from the moons, and this system doesn't have many comets. It's not a renewable resource. The Station has been recycling it for a hundred years, but there's always wastage." Little Pearl pointed at the graph on the screen. It showed a steady decline.

Ahunga scratched his head. "Why is that important? We've still got plenty."

"Water is the best barrier against radiation. It's what jackets the Black decks, and the whole station. Your big window is a sandwich made of two panes of diamond, filled with water. Water is the insulation around the Station. But it gets radioactive, and it's expensive in energy to filter that out. So the Station relies on its internal tanks for human use. Everyone uses water – for drinking, food preparation, agriculture, industry, washing. The propulsion systems on the landers and moon shuttles use it, the Station uses water to create oxygen for industry and hydrogen to power its fuel cells.

"Every molecule of water was brought here from Earth. You have no way to replace it. And once it falls below a certain volume, you'll have to shut the Station down. Put most of the people into Black. Keep a skeleton crew – Golds, of course, but mostly the Blues, the engineers who know how the Station works."

Ahunga sat back on his bench, dizzy. "How long do we have?"

Little Pearl pressed some more keys on his laptop. A red line appeared on the graph. "Around twenty years, at the present rate of loss. Long enough to get your cables down to Mara and start moving people to the surface. So long as you start now."

Shur luxuriated in the shower. The en-suite bathroom was full of steam, and there was the promise of fluffy towels at the end of her marathon session of cleanliness. She'd seen Ahunga on the couch when she'd eventually got up, leaving Jing snoring softly in the big bed. He was staring at the laptop on his knees, blinking occasionally, sometimes rattling the keys but oblivious to her presence. She worried until she read the note that he'd left beside him.

So Little Pearl was back. Good. She needed news of her real life; but it wouldn't change her mind about going down to the surface. An actual, wonderful adventure! Her thirteen-year-old self bubbled with excitement. There were at least two weeks till her age-day; Teal would just have to make do with the vampy doctor until she was good and ready.

She turned off the shower and reached for the towels.

Jing was awake when Shur stepped into the cool of the bedroom, dragging a fog of steam behind her. A mug of coffee was waiting for her by the bed.

"I see your friend Little Pearl is back," Jing said, sipping hers. Shur nodded and sat down at the dressing-table. She picked up the dryer and started on her damp hair. "Look," Jing started, "you really need to go back. All sorts of things could be happening there. What if your Teal decides he loves my Shur? She's a bitch! Don't you think she'd love to be a Queen?"

"I know, Jing. I bet she's working on him right now. But Teal loves me." Shur brushed her hair and pinned it up, then looked around at the clutter of cosmetics. "He's not going to be distracted by her."

"Says you. Use the astringent first."

"The what?"

"The white bottle. Not that white bottle – the other one. That one."

Shur dabbed it on and winced. Jing tutted, swung herself out of the bed and took over.

It only took an hour, give or take, and Shur examined herself in the mirror.

"What do you think?" Jing asked, breathless.

"Is that it?"

"What the – what d'you mean, 'is that it'? You look gorgeous! Look – look at those lips!"

Shur looked. She admitted, they were very glossy. Very red.

"And your eyes!"

Wide, long-lashed. She had to hand it to Jing. "I do look different."

"Of course you do! That's what make-up's for. Shur, you look twenty years younger!"

"I AM twenty years younger!"

"And now you look it. Well, more or less. I mean, you look twenty. Ish."

"Thank you." Frosty. "You know; in Taiwan and Joseon I wore far more makeup than this."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It was caked on. A thick white undercoat, rouged cheeks, painted eyebrows..."

"Oh, you have LOVELY eyebrows!"

Shur paused. She looked in the mirror again. "I wish I could take these cosmetics home with me."

"Just work with what you have back there. I'm sure you'll find substitutes, and you can start a trend."

"Are you two going to take all day?" Ahunga shouted from the living-room.

"Just a sec!" Jing shouted back, pushing Shur off the stool and sliding into her place. "I've got to put my face on!"

Teal found the climb up to Demon's Holm quite a chore. All around him demons struggled up the ladders and nets, burdened with trinkets from their Elvis lovers, exhausted but cheerful. He was laden with tat himself, and felt a bit silly; but at least he hadn't been detected as a fraud.

He raised this with his guide at a rest stop, while they ate some unidentifiable grilled meat – at least the demons liked their food hot.

"I don't look like you. I'm taller, for a start. How can they not see me for what I am?"

"Well, for one thing, they're all knackered. They don't have the energy to look at you," said the demon, whose name was Ram. He gnawed on a bone and tossed it into the torrent below. "And for another, you don't have an aura."

"A what?"

"Humans glow. There's an energy field, it springs from their heads like the flame of a candle. Bright colours. All your men have it. You don't. So we don't detect you."

Teal considered this. He threw his clean bones over the side. Delicious; he should ask for the recipe. "What does that mean, I don't have an aura?"

"Beats me," said Ram, fishing another piece of hot animal from the wrapping of glossy leaves and offering it to Teal, who took it with thanks. "Maybe you're dead."

"I've never felt more alive," Teal said sardonically. "Behind enemy lines, in danger of detection, an impossible mission to fulfil."

"You forgot to mention 'suicide'," Ram reminded him. It quite put Teal off his drumstick.

The final thirty metres was vertical, Teal climbing the ladders with the prospect of a two hundred metre drop down into the foaming waters uppermost in his mind. Ram seemed to be quite relaxed about it, treating it as exercise. Aramiel had loaded the poor demon down with enough cheap silver to sink a ship, but he scooted up the net beside Teal like a monkey.

"Ladders are for wimps," he cawed. Teal just blew a raspberry. He was too tired to think of any more cutting response. Truth to tell, he was feeling very fatigued. This shouldn't have been so bad. He'd done training exercises that had lasted longer, had greater challenges than this.

He paused, panting. Looked down into the maelstrom far below. He felt an attack of vertigo, something he'd never experienced before. Ram grabbed his wrist and Teal realised he'd been just about to fall.

"Keep it together, Shen Teal. You have to finish what you started."

Teal, almost at the end of his endurance, took a few seconds to process this. Then, "How do you know my name?"

Ram looked into his eyes. There was wisdom and sadness in them, Teal saw, and he felt that the demon saw weariness, and pain, in his own. "We are demons. We know. Fat deceived you. He's over in your World, because for sure he's nowhere in this one. We would know.

"Fulfil your destiny, human. Make a place in Mara for your own kind, and help us to break the bonds we put upon ourselves.

"I love her – Aramiel. I want to live together with her. I want our children to live in a house with us, playing beside us. I want to create schools to teach them our lore, I want to build for them, for our future."

Teal blinked, squeezed his eyes shut then opened them, looked toward the top of the cliff, shrouded in nets and ladders.

He resumed his climb, Ram beside him.

When they reached the top, and Ram had hauled him over the lip of the cliff, Teal lay panting on his back. Spots swam before his eyes. The dawning sun was giving him a headache. He felt weary in his bones, and lonely beyond any power he had to express.

"You haven't got long," Ram observed. He handed Teal a chaggle of water. Teal drank. It was cold, refreshing. After so long on warm rations it made him smile.

"Lovely. Water is water... Why is everything so hot around here?" He pushed himself up, then struggled to rise.

Ram had disappeared. Teal, unsteady on his feet, felt fearful of the edge, took a pace back, away from the cliff. Bumped into a demon.

There were eight of them.

None of them were burdened with trinkets. None of them were smiling. Teal had the impression they'd been waiting for him.

"Come with us," said one. Teal gave a twisted smile and shrugged. They turned away and started to plod up a path that wound between the trees, leading up to Cathras.

Stumbling sometimes, blood singing in his head, Teal, in the failing body of Shen-So, followed them, as they knew he would.

Little Pearl was conducting what would have been called, in some other Worlds, shuttle diplomacy. Shifting between Ahunga and his own body he relayed to Teal and Hansolo the wish of Princess Qing Shur to be allowed to go down to an astonishing and different world, and he took back to her the concerns of her love and her father-in-law-to-be.

\-- I do wish you could give me some warning before you come back, Ahunga grumbled.

\-- We all go to the toilet, Little Pearl pointed out. Anyway – I thought you'd have the girls up and about by now. How long have they spent in that bedroom?

\-- Far too long. Ahunga washed and dried his hands and went into the living-room. Of course, I'm out of practice. I had a wife, once. I went through all the 'I'll be ready soon' stuff. So many times we were late...

The bedroom door opened and the girls emerged, both made up fit for a meeting with an Emperor.

"Grand! Great! Wonderful! You look superb, Shur, Jing! I have never seen two more beautiful women! You do realise, we're over an hour late for our meeting with Joy and Peng?"

"I'm sure you must have called them," Jing said, smiling evilly.

"Of course. I suggested they went off for a game of chess or two while they waited. Let me call them now and interrupt –"

"We haven't had breakfast yet," Shur complained. "I can't meet them on an empty stomach."

"But it's almost lunchtime!"

\-- I think I'll just go back, said Little Pearl, and winked out of Ahunga's mind.

Ahunga smiled a sweet and sickly smile, and took the girls to brunch.

The meeting started. Joy and Peng Aun might have been playing chess while they waited; certainly, whatever they'd been doing to pass the time had left them rosy-cheeked and glowing. Peng waved the trio to sit, and started his spiel.

"We gave Shen-So and his team an antimatter bomb. It uses a point-membrane magnetic field to contain the substance – it's good for a few decades, I understand, before slow scintillation drains the antimatter. There's a clockwork inside the device that smashes a steel spike into the casing around the field. That detonates the bomb."

"What's the blast radius?" Little Pearl asked this, but Joy and Peng thought it was Ahunga.

"About half a mile. They might be able to get away, if they move really fast. The timer is set for ten minutes." Peng shrugged. "If their false memories hold, they believe it's a magical item given to Shen-So by his mother, to be used when they are inside Cathras and find the 'dark magic of the demons'. The suppression device."

"If they believe it's magic, they probably won't try to get away," said Shur.

"They knew what sort of mission this would be when they signed up," Peng replied. "I didn't set this up. If I had, I might have been more concerned about their survival."

"Will we know when it goes off?"

"Oh, yes," said Peng. "We'll know about it up here, and we hope you'll be in time to see it. When you arrive at Stormhold you'll be escorted up into the mountains, following the route they took. From the other side you can see across the Elvis Rift, all the way to the northern mountains. Cathras is in that range. The detonation would probably blow the top off it."

"We've managed to..." Joy looked at Jing. "Our Blue technicians have been working for the last few years to recreate some analogue television cameras. They'll transmit to the analogue transceiver at Stormhold, and it will send the images to us. For the rest of this morning –"

"What remains of it," Peng commented, earning a sour look from Joy.

"You will," she continued, "be trained in their use. Then you'll rehearse the theft of a lander; and tonight you'll actually do it. It's all programmed. We have CCTV covering lander deck twelve, and the drama will start with a news item about the theft."

"I guess it'll be Mister Barclay who reads the news."

"So right. Then Gold will release information about the Shen-So mission, and Stormhold. When you arrive you'll have the cameras to take with you on your quest to find the team."

Shur was impressed. The bare bones of the drama had been laid out, and Gold trusted the trio to carry it through ad-lib. A true adventure. She was looking forward to it.

Shur was in the box garden when Little Pearl came to see her.

"Please accept my apologies, Doctor Shur. I've been very busy over the last few days." He sat down on a bench at right-angles to her own. The whole garden was composed of right-angles. Shur was staring at a patch of damaged hedge. It was where she and Shen-So had come into this World, not so long ago. But it seemed to her like an age. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then looked at the big man.

"We're alone here," she said. "so you can tell me just what you think of me. Everyone else has."

Little Pearl smiled. "I think you've adapted very well, Qing Shur. Just as the Princess has in your World. Ahunga is proud of you, and I'm proud of her." This was a lie. Ahunga wasn't very concerned about the Doctor. Nevertheless, Shur seemed fairly happy with that.

"I'm surprised he remembered me."

"You were an unusual client."

She tossed her head. The smell of Little Pearl, his maleness, stimulated her. "He's you, over there?"

"Back in your World. Yes. Rather more refined. Richer. A bit more doomed, unless your ex-husband manages to blow up the demon's machinery."

"Shen-So?"

"Of course." Little Pearl got up, stretched, strolled around the garden. "What he told you was true. He is on the surface of Mara. He loved you; but he loved adventure more. He engineered the split, the divorce."

"He was an idiot. Romantic, in just the wrong way." She was angry. "He did it to save the Station."

"Yes. And he's probably going to succeed. A very driven young man."

Shur sat back on her bench and re-evaluated her ambitions. If Shen-So freed humanity to live on Mara, the sacrifices he had made would be the stuff of legend. Those he left behind when he set out on his quest would share in his glory.

And there was Ahunga, for whom it appeared Little Pearl was acting as a go-between. "I'll go back," she began.

"Not yet. The Princess will initiate the return. The situation there is more volatile than it is here. Timing is everything." Little Pearl was deliberately withholding information, but Shur was so busy revising her own plans that she didn't notice. He bowed to her and strode out of the garden, leaving her sitting, planning, smiling slightly in a world of her own.
Chapter 13

The roar of the great river faded as the demons led their captive north. After the first hump of hills were valleys, green and purple with crops, fed by streams from the mountains. Demons worked in the fields, harvesting the bounties of Mara. Orchards stood in the middle of meadows grazed by mapperings; stone-built farmhouses dotted the landscape, flanked by wooden barns and dormitories. Workers close to the path stood and watched the procession, the grim faces of the leaders, the stumbling foreign captive, the alert guards following behind. Teal saw all of this, could in some sense admire the view, but most of the time he had his head down, trying to spot ruts and stones, trying to avoid a fall. His head throbbed with vague pains and his ears buzzed.

By the time the land started to rise into the mountains his vision was affected. Dark shadows moved around at the edges of his sight while whatever he concentrated on glowed and twisted. Several times he shut his eyes, and several times he fell. The pain was dull and remote.

They stopped at the last farm before the path rose too steep and borrowed a small cart. Teal was loaded into it on top of a generous pile of sweet-smelling hay, and they set off again after some meat, bread and water. Teal no longer knew nor cared whether the food was warm; he simply ate what he was given, drank whatever was put to his lips.

They hadn't searched him. There was nothing he could be carrying that could possibly be a threat to them. The pack on his back beneath his cloak was uncomfortable; he rolled onto his side, and slept.

When he woke he was in darkness, inside some stone structure, a glassless window letting in starlight. His captors lay around him, wrapped in their cloaks, all asleep. He rose after the third attempt, after crawling to the wall and using it for support, and looked around. There was a doorway, no door in it, unguarded. He scraped along the wall and stumbled out into the night air. An animal lowed far away; the trees rustled. In the southern sky a star looked like a scratch in the firmament. The Station.

He urinated against the wall, and made his unsteady way back inside.

"The News At Nine. Reginald Barclay reading it." Barclay's Mandarin was excellent, precise; his manner was smooth. Dressed in a formal wrap-around jacket and a white buttoned-up shirt he sat at the newsdesk with the busy newsroom behind him. His makeup was impeccable. He read the top story without once glancing down at his tablet, and the only emotion he displayed was the raising of one perfect eyebrow.

"A group of disaffected citizens has stolen a lander and are on their way to Mara." His reassuring face was replaced by very clear CCTV footage showing the incident. "Three citizens broke into vehicle deck twelve and overrode the protocols on a lander." The door to the lander opened. Ahunga waved the women inside, looked furtively around, and followed after them. The door rolled closed and bright lights started flashing.

The viewpoint changed. Cameras on the hull of the Station showed a lander blister detach. It nosed out, clearing the Station a few hundred metres, then its thrusters winked and it fell swiftly astern.

"The perpetrators are two Reds, Doctor Qing Shur and top lawyer Mister Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua, and Blue Wu Jing. At this time, authorities have no information as to why they executed this desperate and suicidal act, but sources say that they were following a rumour that there have been plots by Gold over the years to destroy a speculated machine on the surface of the planet that has so far prevented our colonisation efforts."

Barclay, back on camera, looked surprised. "We will bring you more news as soon as we have it. Regardless of Gold supervision, this news channel will continue to report events as they unfold. Our journalists are investigating; and whatever the outcome, News Channel will bring you the truth."

He looked to his left, and the camera switched to his anchor buddy, who raised her eyebrows and read out the usual Ag deck statistics, minor crimes and babies born.

Barclay leaned back, puffing out his cheeks. The voice in his earpiece congratulated him. He smiled. Whatever happened now, his own name was made.

When they'd reached the lander deck there was Joy, tablet in hand, behind the very obvious CCTV camera that had been set up on a tripod. She pointed unnecessarily towards the lander hatch, one of twelve in the corridor, and the trio headed towards it. Ahunga stooped down to peck at the keypad which had been installed just for this purpose. Some nerve-jangling moments ensued; he pressed clear, started again, started again... Eventually the circular door rolled back and he ushered the girls inside. With a last look around that Joy thought was a very nice touch he ducked through the hatch, and after a few seconds it closed. Joy made red lights flash, and a puff of talcum powder seemed to show that the lander had detached.

In reality, they weren't moving.

"It's all controlled from Gold," Ahunga explained as they contemplated the couches. There were eight of them on two levels. Five were crammed with nylon bags of gear and supplies. There were no controls they could see, and no windows. Gold had installed a screen inside and a camera on the outside in a protected sensor blister, but the sense of claustrophobia was intense; Shur felt sick. Jing took her by the arm and led her to a couch, got her comfortable, strapped her in beneath an acceleration web. Ahunga helped Jing, and then settled himself between them. A few minutes later the intercom crackled.

"Are you all set?"

"Yes," Ahunga replied. "All strapped in."

"Detaching in five minutes. Your insertion will be in forty-two minutes, and splashdown will be in one hundred and thirty-eight minutes. Good luck."

"Thanks!"

The intercom clicked off. Five minutes felt like fifty, but then there was a bump and a crunching sound, the sensation of movement. Another minute went by, and then the craft spun dizzily and they were crushed savagely against their couches, the webs contracted around them, and their ride down to the surface of the planet began. The screen clicked on and through blurred eyes they saw metal rushing by outside. Eventually they left it behind and the stars came out. The craft rotated slowly, Mara came swimming into view, and the vomit seals descended over their mouths.

Teal, Hansolo, de Vlieger and Little Pearl were in conference in the blue room. Rain fell softly outside, and the gecko still boomed in the rafters. The doctor was enjoying an evening off, down in the town at a sedate tavern with a bowl of chicken rice and a side of kimchi; his locum, a gangly man who was not in on the secret, sat in the surgery waiting for business, nibbling nuts and leafing through an anatomy book.

"I've tried, but I can't get back there," Teal said.

De Vlieger nodded.

"It does look as if Shen-So is dead," he said. "Perhaps his companions will make it. If they don't – if they're all gone – the Station doesn't have much of a chance."

"They could use kinetic weapons," Little Pearl, who had been to high technology Worlds many times, expanded on the theme. "They could use fragments of rock, or metal pellets, a railgun, or a gravity engine. Fire loads of bullets towards Cathras. Hope to hit the machine."

"The velocities they'd need would be huge," de Vlieger countered. "And the accuracy is not good. If they didn't care how many they killed they could just drop a big rock."

"I can't pretend to know what you're talking about," Hansolo intervened, "but it does seem to me that a society that would be prepared to kill unknown numbers of people is probably not a society worth living in."

"They've not done it so far," said Little Pearl. "I'm sure they must have thought about it. And they do have the means to do it. So, I think they won't do it. They still have around twenty years before their water situation becomes critical."

"Maybe less," de Vlieger interrupted, "They can't scrub the radioactivity out of their water jacket."

There was silence for a while. The Captain and his First Mate pondered the physics, and the Regent and his son had nothing to contribute. Eventually Little Pearl rose, and stretched. The tattoos on his arms rippled. "I'm going back," he announced. "I'd like to be there when they land."

"Good luck," said the Captain, pulling out his pipe. Hansolo frowned. "Hey – I'm going in the garden!"

"Give my love to the mosquitoes," said the Regent, dryly.

Arn summoned a guard when Little Pearl appeared, and got him to collect a sailor and a nurse. Then she led the big Polynesian to his room. By the time they got there the personnel were in place. They trooped in, finding Shur, who was sitting on a chair by the window, looking out into the rain.

"Apologies," said Arn. "I didn't know you were here."

Shur, who'd had time to abate her embarrassment, having heard their approach, turned a smooth face to the party. "My apologies, Arn, Little Pearl – I couldn't sleep. I just wandered around and ended up here. The rain, it's so soft here. On my side of the wing it's like bullets." She rose, closed the book she was holding and walked past the group, through the door, was gone.

Arn looked at Little Pearl. He looked at her, and smiled. "It won't be for much longer," he assured her. She responded with a twist of her lips and left him with his guards and the little nurse. Little Pearl stripped to his drawers and arranged himself on the bed, pulling up a thin sheet against the cool of the night. He snuggled his head against the pillow and was gone.

The lander was juddering violently. The screen had gone black, the external camera burnt out. Shur didn't know what the temperature must be outside the small craft, but here inside it was fierce. There was a smell of scorched iron in the heated air. Beside her Jing whimpered.

Ahunga felt Little Pearl's return and greeted him.

\-- Fine time to turn up! Now four of us will be killed!

\-- Not me. I'll just go back. I hadn't pegged you for a scaredy-cat...

\-- Shut up.

Little Pearl grinned, inside.

Wu Jing was excited, but also very scared. She knew the landers were designed to land – of course – but under control, guided by computers moving sturdy control surfaces, spreading detectors to watch the air around, the ground below, responding, reacting faster than any human pilot could. But in here, there couldn't even be a human hand on the controls. They, such as they were, were all electronic, all tied into digital systems that were now dead.

She wished she hadn't thought that word.

The craft bucked, jinked sideways, then dropped a thousand feet like a stone. Her stomach appeared to have left her body. One of the other two, she could hear, had just used their vomit mask.

The fall continued. How many minutes to go? She couldn't remember. It seemed this had been going on for hours.

The lander bucked again. She heaved, pressed the lever beneath her left hand; a burst of suction carried her vomit away, but the smell filled her nose, and the taste burned her throat.

Shur's eyes were tight shut. She had never in her short life imagined anything so awful could happen to her. They'd been briefed about the ride, about the sudden drops and bangs and sideslips; about the heat, about motion sickness and the mechanical vomit-mask system. They hadn't been told about the fear, how it rose from her feet, cold, and down from the crown of her head, cold; these two cold, cold creeping ghosts meeting in the middle, in her stomach, one cold, big, hard stone that froze her on the edge of flight. Her brain was insisting she rip open the crash web and leap up and run...

There was a bang, it came from inside, she wet herself, the lander jerked, hard, she was driven down into the couch, felt her spine touch metal beneath the padding. Black spots blossomed in her eyes, her head swam and she felt she might have lost consciousness for a few seconds.

The scream of the wind was gone. The lander swayed, creaked, the motion even more nauseating than the uncontrolled plummet. She'd emptied her stomach, and now, it seemed, her bladder.

Shur hoped there were no more shocks to come.

Back on Urth Jing's parents had been Christians, just as their mothers and fathers had been. In the building of the Station's society after its arrival at Mara no-one had thought to include churches. Without that reinforcement and support she'd almost forgotten the faith her family brought her up in; but it was fully reawakened now, and her heart pounded thanks, relief, praise – and joy that it was still able to beat at all. She was smiling and crying together.

The scientists at Stormhold watched the lander descend, swaying beneath a froth of huge parachutes. A boat was keeping station in the bay, ready to putter up to the craft when it splashed down – and there; it did, and the canopies drifted over it. More work for Alphonse, the linguist who was piloting the boat.

Eventually the chutes were detached, a line was attached, and a winch dragged the lander to the shore, where it joined the others in the parking lot.

Alphonse recovered the parachutes and beached the boat while Muriel Ye, a biologist, put on thick gloves and started turning the manual hatch release; it was still hot. A few minutes later she entered the craft, gagging on the cloying scent of vomit and urine, and unhooked the crash webbing from around the three passengers. Alphonse helped her get them out. They staggered in his arms to a low hump of rock and weed, sat down; they breathed in the air of an alien planet.

The two scientists watched, as they had watched before, their new companions lifting reddened eyes, taking in the more violet-than-blue sky, the small, hot sun. Their noses wrinkled to the smell of the beach, its rotting, drying almost-kelp, the smell of the air itself. The big man and one of the women were shaking in shock from the terror of their headlong plunge; but the third smiled beautifully, glad to be still alive, glad to be with her friends.

Alphonse approached the new arrivals with a litre jug of fresh water and some mugs. When they'd washed their mouths out, he and Muriel led them to the huts.

One journey was over. The next was about to begin.

Teal tried hard to keep himself together. He could feel the fraying of his mind, the gradual disconnection between himself and the body he inhabited. If he fell, if he swam away into the warm, beckoning darkness, who would animate it? Would it still move? Could Shen-So come back?

It was so tempting to believe that he would.

The cart, now pulled by a reluctant grelf commandeered from an even more reluctant farmer, jerked and bounced ever up, towards Cathras. Teal clung on.

"We'll storm the bridge!" Lin shouted, brandishing his huge axe in Aramiel's unattractive face. The Elv did not flinch.

"He has decided," she said. Her tone brooked no dissent, but there was more than enough to go around. The Shin brothers stood together, looking ugly. Aramiel sighed, and her eyes flickered up towards the bridge. She'd tried to get the humans away from it for the last twenty minutes, but they did seem determined to share the fate of their leader. "Look; it's a suicide mission. If you all went up together you'd be spotted straight away, and killed before you reached the other side. Shen-So did the sensible thing. Now, please – do what he wants you to do, and get away from here!"

Pang, his sword sticking up over his head, frowned. "He really said that?"

"Yes. Now you all know what's going on, how much you have to live for..." Aramiel's eyes were constantly flickering towards the bridge. She saw a cloaked figure rattling with cheap talismans leaping down the last few metres onto firm ground, and sighed with relief. Ram was on his way. "There's something you don't know. Humans are very easy for demons to detect. You've got auras – like big coloured flags waving over your heads –" Ram arrived, panting, by her side. He bent over, spots floating in front of his eyes, mouth dry, muscles quivering. He coughed, spat, finally turned his face to gaze up at Aramiel, and then swivelled towards the questors. They stood mute, mouths agape. Ram smiled wryly, gave a quavering shrug. He knew he looked more than faintly ridiculous in front of these big, fit men.

"And...?" urged his girlfriend. He swallowed, and addressed them.

"Well," – he coughed – "I took Tea– er, Shen-So, over the bridge. We were ambushed by Snuggers – that's the nearest I can translate; demons who are comfortable with things as they are. They're also violently uncomfortable with things changing. Anyway, they took him. I escaped. They weren't interested in me."

"I'm not surprised," Jing murmured, and the others sniggered. Aramiel bridled, but the men didn't notice, which annoyed her even more.

"T – Shen-So is invisible to us," Ram revealed. "He has no aura. I can see yours –" he swept his arm around in a half-circle, standing up straighter now he'd got his breath back. "You flame, you flare. The Elvis can't see them, but we – demons – we can. It's really rather beautiful. We demons don't have them, but our Elvis do. Aramiel's is very beautiful." He simpered, earning a sweet smile in return. "So you see; he had to go alone."

Lin leaned toward the demon. "But he got captured." He looked very dark. The demon gulped.

"Yes. Because it was necessary. We don't know where the device is. We don't know what Shen-So has that can destroy it. So we tipped them off."

"WHAT?"

"They're confused! They can't see his aura. They don't know what he is! If you'd gone with him they'd know you were humans, they'd just kill you all. But him – he's an anomaly. They want to study him."

"They are quite curious about new things," Aramiel said. "I guess they'll take him into the heart of Cathras. Once he's there, he can use the magic he's been carrying. Now, come on – he's fulfilling the quest. Come with us, back to Stormhold. Let your leader finish the job he was sent to do."

They grumbled, but they left the Elvis town with Aramiel and Ram, though they looked back often over their shoulders until both the bridge and the roar of the river were gone from their senses.

Ahunga had the last shower, and it was just lukewarm, but he turned his big face up towards the water and luxuriated in it. He lathered slowly, rinsed, turned his body beneath the spray, washed the stink and the fear of the journey into the drain. Then he towelled, dressed in new underwear and an ochre jumpsuit in the small room next to the bathroom, and strode out into the common area of the hut that served the residents of Stormhold as mess-hall, community centre and games court. Jing and Shur, glowing with cleanliness, sat with the whole complement of the tiny township, enjoying respectively an Aloe Vera drink and a pot of green tea. They waved to him; Chin Jenny, the diplomat who had come down with Shen-So's party only a few weeks before, whistled appreciatively. So he bowed, and he joined them, accepting a warm, ground-brewed beer, then wishing he hadn't.

"What's the plan?"

"The sooner we get you through the pass, the better. It's two days by foot. Jenny and Patrick will guide you and coach you in Elvis and demon languages. Patrick is our Awk liason, and you'll need him." Alphonse was uncomfortable. "Apparently the questors killed an Awk hunting party. The Awks have sent some members of their Council to review the treaty. We'll be seeing them tomorrow. It's going to be a difficult meeting."

"The cameras you brought are great," a young-looking man with greying hair butted in. "I've tested them with our systems and they work fine. Later we'll do some establishing shots, Stormhold, the team, the landers. All of it's been scripted by Gold upstairs – you've heard of Joy?"

"We know Joy. A very effective lady."

"Then you know we'll give her just what she wants. It's all written down until you get through the pass. After that you'll be getting updates by radio.

"Really, we don't know what's happening with Shen-So and his team. We lost contact very early – they couldn't carry radios, they thought they were on a mission from the Kingdom of Stormhold..." he looked around. "This is it. It's not what they were carrying in their heads."

"They could all be dead," Muriel interjected. "We have no idea. But if they're not, they're close to Cathras. Maybe they'll succeed."

"Joy wants that on-screen for everyone on Jiu Sheng Chuan to see." Patrick, heating up some beer, frowned at the company. "I really hope this works."

"So do I," said Ahunga, accepting a refill. "If it doesn't, everyone is stuck up there until Gold strafes or nukes Cathras, which is unacceptable. And if Shen-So succeeds, we're Humanity's representatives while the first Tower gets planted. Inspiring the colonists." He drank. It was better, the second glass, but not much. He would have to try a third.

Some time later three of the Stormhold personnel manhandled the drunken lawyer onto a palliasse in a corner of the mess-hall. Then they and the two women retired to their dormitories. Shur and Jing, chilled in the night air, looked up into the sky as they crossed to their hut. Some wispy cloud mooched about, but the clear and unfamiliar stars gazed down incurious, and the scratch that was the last home of Humanity stood out like a spike aimed towards their aching hearts.

They found sleep difficult, that first night on the alien world.

Teal recovered somewhat as the air thinned and cooled. His head cleared, as if he'd shaken off a cold. He even sat up in the jouncing cart, looked around.

It was night. The stars overhead twinkled innocently. A crescent moon thinned their glory. It was small, and there were no features on it that he could see. The cart came to a stop and a hooded figure clambered on, was surprised to see the captive alert, proffered a cup of warm ale. Food followed. Teal ate hungrily, drank deeply. The mists were still around the edges of his eyes. Ruin was coming, he knew, and perhaps a kind of victory, but he had forgotten just what he was supposed to do to achieve it.

He drank. He ate. Soon after, he slept, wondering if he would wake again.

The shock of the theft of a lander had reawakened the citizens of the Station – those who were not in Black, of course – to the fact of their situation.

They'd thought, most of them, that they were living in paradise. The end of the road, a place where they had jobs, lives, shopping opportunities. The huge globe they saw passing by the enormous diamond window every day was no more to them than a view, a beautiful piece of decoration. There were even some who claimed it was all an illusion, spun by Gold to make them think that there really was a world out there, that they'd really arrived at a destination.

But now the news was confirmed. A spokesman from Gold sat opposite Reginald Barclay and answered tough questions, gave real information.

"Yes," said Peng Aun, in answer to the searching question he, Joy and Barclay had scripted a few days before, "a lander was stolen. We have been sending landers down to Mara regularly. Over the last forty years, we've had a presence on the planet. Scientists, trying to find a solution to the field around Mara that disrupts our systems.

"I can reveal that Mara is inhabited. That the suppression field is an alien device. And that we have had a team down there for the last several weeks whose sole objective is to find and destroy it."

Barclay looked aghast, seemingly taken aback by this monumental admission. When he finally regained his voice he probed, as was written in his script.

"Why did you – why did Gold not tell us this was going on? Why have we had to find out because a small group of disaffected citizens revolted?"

Peng Aun looked hurt. "How could we tell you? How could we bring such hope to the people of Jiu Sheng Chuan, and then, if we failed, dash it?" He half-stood, his hands gripping the arms of the studio chair, his knuckles white. "What would you have thought of us? Our mission has always, ever been, to keep you safe, to deliver you to a place we could all call home." He subsided back into his seat and swept his arm around behind him, where Mara, full, lush, sunlit, swam a thousand miles away beyond the great window on the other side of the atrium. "There, there is where we belong. We built the society we all now inhabit, on this Station, to give people a life, work, play, some semblance of happiness and normality. While all the time we – Gold – have been working to overcome the shield that keeps us from Mara.

"And now you know." He paused, and Barclay did not jump in. It was one of the habits that endeared him to his audience: he let people speak.

"The citizens who stole the lander did not revolt. They lost loved ones on the surface. They found out, they worked it out. Then they acted, from love. They are what our society should be – people who love. And I for one wish them luck."

Barclay turned to his camera. His face expressed amazement, nobility, understanding. There was even the suggestion of a tear in the corner of his eye. "An amazing admission from Gold, to all of us. After this short break – pictures from the surface of Mara! And the latest on the citizens who against all the odds managed to take that frail craft down onto the world outside our window."

The floor manager signalled, the on-air lamp blinked out, and both Peng and Barclay flopped exhausted in their seats. Peng caught the presenter's eye, and they both smiled. The broadcast would continue for another ninety minutes, with revelation piled on revelation. Outside the glass-walled studio the Station was quiet, stunned. Everyone was glued to their slabs, or watching the public screens on every inhabited deck.

What Gold really needed now was for Shen-So to succeed.

"As you can see," Ahunga said, swinging the camera around slowly, "there's a small and thriving community down here on the surface. We'll introduce you to the scientists who've been living on Mara for years. The oldest came here forty-two years ago in the first wave of exploration, after Blue technicians proposed a flight path for landers that didn't rely on computers." He finished the slow pan with his camera pointing at Shur and Jing. "My companions. We came to find our loved ones. My father came here years ago. This morning I visited his grave.

"Qing Shur's husband came here a couple of weeks ago with a group of like-minded adventurers. They are now deep in alien territory, trying to find and destroy the device that prevents any large-scale descent to Mara.

"And Wu Jing is a Blue, our good friend, threatened with being sent to Black for what she found out about Mara and the Gold conspiracy of silence."

He held the camera steady while Muriel took it, and went to stand beside the women. "Here we are; all three. We can breathe the air. We can drink the water. We have to heat the native foods before we eat them, but that's no hardship. Humans can live here – WILL live here. And we will live in peace, in co-operation with the species already here." Muriel panned the camera, and there was a small group of Elvis, demons and Awks, with the two oldest members of the human community. It was not a pretty sight; the Elvis glamour didn't affect cameras, the Awks were supremely threatening, and the demons were ideal stand-ins for Gollum. Even the humans were lined and leathery. Still, the party smiled at the imagined audience, and gave little waves.

"We'll talk with them later," Ahunga announced. "For now, thank you for your attention – it's time for breakfast, and I think it's also time for Gold to come clean with the citizens."

The camera clicked off. Everyone breathed out, smiled sheepishly, and, human or alien, went into the big hut for breakfast.

The broadcast went on. Other programmes were postponed, including the most popular Chinese drama from Old Urth. The studio was flooded with messages demanding that Gold reveal everything, or that Blue should take their place. Many moaned that they should have been left in Black until the menace on Mara had been neutralised. Barclay tried to answer the broad concerns from the script – Joy, it appeared, had anticipated most of the responses from the Station's citizens.

"When we arrived here, every indication was that Mara was suitable for us," he read. "Gold began to wake us, to open up the spaces inside the Station, to unfold the economic models that had been decided thousands of years ago on Urth.

"Fabricators were brought online, to provide the raw materials of commerce. Probes were sent to the moons and the other planets in the system, looking for raw materials. Satellites were seeded around Mara to map the surface.

"And then the first probes were sent down. And they disappeared."

Barclay turned to his new guest, a Blue computer scientist. "Ji Ze – can you tell us what happened?"

Ji Ze wriggled in his seat, placed his hands flat on the table; he was nervous being on display. "The probes disappeared. Communications were lost, we lost control, they fell, burned up." He looked scared, and the camera switched to Barclay, who was nodding sympathetically.

"So what did you do?"

"It wasn't me, then. My grandfather. He suggested we use some Tower cable and dangle an instrument package down towards the planet.

"It... it showed a cut-off point where digital signals stopped working. Well, they got scrambled, is what happened. And it was a fairly consistent distance from the surface.

"We – he said that this must be a field effect. It took a number of years, but they spotted the centre of strength of the signal. By this time we had the colour system here on Jiu Sheng Chuan – the Golds, Reds, Greens, Blues and Blacks. And Professor Aleksander Lotoczko – a BLUE – worked out how we could land, the insertion points, the vectors, the velocities. We could place a lander on the surface and set humans down for the first time on an alien planet." He was shaking, with emotion, with a certain amount of anger. "The first three landers failed. The fourth succeeded. And now you all know – my father died in the first attempt to land, and my mother lived. She was on the fourth lander."

"We're going to a break now," Barclay smoothed, "and coming up next – the colony on Mara, seen through experimental cameras that were in the lander taken by our three newest heroes. Don't switch off!"

The mountain rose before them, its lofty peak painted white with snow and ice, scarred with black crags, creased with gullies, draped with cols, spreading down towards the tiny group, darkening as it came, like some leaning, confident monster. Clouds hid its heights sporadically, waters rushed in narrow races down its flanks. Its cold breath swept over them, freezing-sweet, and Teal was awed.

How long, to get here? He did not remember. How much farther, to whatever his goal was? He did not know. The pressure in his head was lessening as the altitude increased, but he still felt wooly, woozy. The stone in his backpack pressed against him as he leaned against a corner of the cart. In his mind it had assumed a talismanic quality, intimate with his survival. The faces of women flickered in his mind, young, older, dead.

When he turned his head, his neck clicking, gritty, stiff, he saw the cloaked demons around him. Their eyes were on the mountain. Their temple was close.

One saw him looking, looked back. There was a fire in the dark eyes, but it wasn't carried through to the hunched body. "Cathras. Where we take you. Everything you know, we will know."

Well, good luck, Teal thought. That's not going to be a lot.

Someone struck the grelf with a wilted clump of souvenir flower-stalks. The beast grunted and started plodding up the slope. When the demon who struck it walked forward towards its head, it spat accurately into his face. Only Teal laughed.

Their last warm meal had been a thousand metres downslope, at an isolated farmhouse. A new kind of fish, slow-cooked for tenderness, in a rich gravy with root vegetables and mouth-watering herbs. But now whatever was left was cold, like the bread. Nevertheless, Teal ate, mopping up the gelid gravy, licking his fingers. Above him his death, he felt, approached steadily, pace by slow grelf pace.

He sniggered again, laid himself down in the itchy straw, and went back to his fragmented and chaotic dreams.

They made towards a bluff that rose, steep-sided, from the forest floor, peeking above the tall trees. It might, Lin thought, have been a glacial moraine. There were easy ways up to the top, and the troop followed Aramiel and her beau, scrambling up gullies and ridges. Shin Er, taking up the rear as usual, complained about the dust and small stones dislodged by his companions. He coughed, pointedly. Everyone, even Shin Yi, ignored him.

When they reached the top they dropped their packs, stretched and looked around. The canopy of trees bubbled around them, beneath them, spreading far to the east and the west, bounded northwards by the demon range, to the south by the smaller Awkish range beyond which the lie of Stormhold lay.

"I don't know how long it will take for Shen-So to get to Cathras," Ram admitted. "And even then, how long it will be until he's certain of his target. We have supplies for three days. Just let's make ourselves comfortable. If something happens on Cathras, there are sheltered caves and scoops on the south side. If you'd like to investigate, please go in pairs."

"We'd hate to lose you," Aramiel added, but to Jing's mind she did not sound very concerned. He started looking for a sheltered place to build a fire.

Lin strode dramatically to the northern edge of the bluff. He stood, bits of soil and loose rock crumbling away down a sheer drop. He knew he looked good, true leadership material. "Which one is Cathras?" he called.

Aramiel called back, "The big one." She looked towards Ram, and lifted her eyes briefly. He smiled. She turned back to Lin. "It's got snow on top. Like you."

Lin laughed. "And a fire down below, like me?"

"We hope," the Elv replied. "Soon."

Shur couldn't fathom why her best friend was so happy. Jing was smiling all the time; she wandered around Stormhold, poking into everything, learning, fascinated. She looked at the sky, the sea, the strange vegetation. She talked to the aliens, those that knew Mandarin. They seemed as surprised by her as Shur.

Perhaps the near-death experience of the descent in the lander had given her a new outlook on life. It had certainly scared the kimchi out of Shur.

She had her own job to do, interviewing the scientists. There were fewer of them than she'd expected, considering how long the base had been established, and how many now-useless landers were lined up on the beach. She learned – and therefore the Station's citizens learned – that most of the landers had arrived in the first twenty years. The radio dish had been set up then, along with the buildings, and at first the science complement had been mostly geoscientists, biologists and chemists. Once the Awks and Elvis had discovered them there was a need for xenoethnologists and linguists.

It sounded like a lot of people, but Gold reckoned they only needed one of each, and in some cases they could double up. One geologist who was also a chemist; one linguist who was also an ethnologist. She met them both. The first was almost seventy years old, and had been in the first successful landing. The second had been on Mara only twelve years.

The team led by Shen-So had come down sealed in life-support crates, unconscious, with two minders – a psychologist, and a Gold diplomat, Chin Jenny, who'd been taught Awk, Elvis and demontongue. When the questors had eventually been woken, they were glamoured by an Elv so that they saw Stormhold – the fictitious, busy town, the solid, soaring Keep. The psychologist helped them to acclimatise until he deemed them to be as ready as they ever would be, particularly regarding the imperative to heat all food and drink. Then, shouldering their packs, they were led towards the hills, the mountains, and the pass that led them to Evelwood.

"I and my sister led them, along with Fat," one Elv, tall and graceful, told Shur as the camera showed her true appearance. Her sister nodded beside her. They spoke Mandarin, accentless and precise. Shur's head swam with the glamour, she kept looking towards the low-quality analogue screen and back to the speaker. Amazing. "We heard about eight days ago that when they crossed the pass they came across a hunting-party of Awks – just looking for cotta and grelf, minding their own business."

"They fell on them," the other Elv said. "Killed them all. It's taken a lot of diplomacy to calm down the Awks. That's why there's a delegation here from G'nath."

Ahunga, with Jing, Alphonse and two of the Stormhold staff beside him, stood before a tall and rough-hewn stone spotted with lichen and crusted with dark moss, surrounded by Awks. The monolith was deeply carved with Awkish symbols, and marked the border between Awk land and the small region ceded to the humans. Ahunga was a big man; but he had to look way up to Gr'gan, the leader of the Awk team. He was getting a crick in his neck.

Gr'gan had been speaking for a while, and the Stormhold translator kept murmuring to the humans, keeping his eyes cast down as he talked, as an accommodation to Awkish culture – it being very bad manners, usually, to speak while another was talking.

The slaughter of the hunting-party had horrified the Awks. They knew, of course, about the quest, and agreed with its aims. Freeing Mara from the demon device would benefit everyone. But the dead had families.

"We're not demanding reparations," Gr'gan explained. "You've got nothing we want anyway. But there's a lot of bad feeling about what your people did. When the bodies were discovered... They'd been eaten. Eaten!

"Seriously – some of our leaders think we should just tear up the treaty and kill the lot of you. I, however, and the majority of the Councillors, believe that the history we have had together for the last forty years counts for something. Your questors were deluded, glamoured just as much by your machines up there as they had been by the Elvis down here." He paused, the translator whispered on, finished the sentence. Gr'gan put his hand on top of the stone pillar. Alphonse placed his hand flat against the side.

"Our agreement is now to be..."

"Our agreement is now to be," Alphonse repeated in Mandarin, after the translation. A gust of cold wind off the sea ruffled his sparse hair. Jing hugged herself in the sudden chill.

"We stand with you until we know whether the human enterprise has failed. Twenty days. If after that time there has been no success, our pact is terminated."

"We accept the agreement," said Alphonse. Gr'gan made to lift his hand, but Alphonse shook his head. Then he began his own speech.

"We ask you, as representative of the Councils of the Awks, to allow the passage of a human group through your lands, beyond the pass at L'Krith, down to Evelwood, and back to Stormhold.

"They will be unarmed."

"What? Don't you know how inflammatory that will be?" Gr'gan was astonished. His companions were open-mouthed. He took his hand away from the stone, to negotiate without binding his words.

"To fulfil your own requirements," said Alphonse, removing his hand too. "They are observers, on behalf of humanity. If Shen-So succeeds it should be obvious from anywhere on the northern slopes and in Evelwood. But we are not likely to see anything from here."

Gr'gan nodded, held his hand up to signal a pause and then turned to talk with his fellows. It started to rain, thin drizzly drops. The sky was greying, clouds fell slowly over the mountains. The humans shivered. The translator put a finger to his lips when Ahunga opened his mouth. Silence was required of them.

The conversation didn't take long, but it did get quite heated. One of the group talked fast and furiously, indicating the stack of weapons they'd left a short distance away. The others looked faintly disgusted, and he backed down. Finally Gr'gan harvested a nod from each Awk. He turned back to the humans.

"Agreed. With this in addition, and as a change to what we have only just agreed: we will not interfere with your group either going or coming back, if Shen-So succeeds.

"If he fails, they will represent your race, and we will kill them. But we will leave Stormhold in peace.

"They stand for you." He put his hand on top of the pillar. Alphonse looked at Jing and Ahunga. He didn't wait for them to comment. He stretched out his arm and placed his hand flat on the stone.

It was now forty-eight hours since the theft of the lander and the bombshell revelations that followed, and the residents of Jiu Sheng Chuan were still stunned by the enormity of the secrets the Golds had been keeping from them. Some advocated revolt, which made Mister Jones cock an eye; but he did nothing, because nothing would come of such talk. The television campaign was working well. Most thought that Gold were right to conduct their explorations without advertising every step. So long as something came of this mad and compelling adventure, of course.

A lot was riding on Shen-So and his band.

The band was still on the bluff. They'd spent an uncomfortable night, huddled around an inadequate fire in the open air. The usual grumbling started when they rose with the dawn and started casting around for wood and water.

"We'll have to go down to the forest," said Lin to Pang, buckling his belt.

Aramiel said she'd lead them. "Ram can stay here. Demons are useless in Evelwood. They don't know anything about the forest."

Ram concurred. He'd rather warm himself by the embers.

"He can squash some of these stupid bugs," Shin Er exclaimed, stamping on a multi-legged creature that was heading towards his pack.

"Fair enough. And you and your brother can come down with us to collect firewood."

Jing and Ram, left alone together, stared into the waning fire.

"Shouldn't we stomp some bugs?"

"They're harmless," Ram replied. "Ow! The bugger just bit me!" He got up and started stomping. Jing joined in enthusiastically. It warmed them both up marvellously. Afterwards, panting, they shared a cup of bark tea.

"You speak very good Mandarin," Jing opened.

"I learned at Stormhold. I was there five years ago. That's where I met Aramiel." He smiled shyly. "She was so lovely." He sipped tea, then passed the cup to Jing. "We've been together ever since."

"That's why you want the suppression field destroyed."

Ram nodded.

"But if it comes down, won't the Elvis just go back to their incubator technology?"

Ram shook his head. "It's been too long. The machines wouldn't work anymore. What's brought this all to a head now is you. If you hadn't come along – humans, I mean, not your comedy troupe that Aramiel's been leading around Evelwood these last few days – then we'd have stayed reasonably content. But we're looking at a whole new world, now. Metals from the moons and the other planets – you know we're anaemic? We need more iron, for a start. And medical technology. Communications. Transport.

"We want to get back together, the Elvis and demonkind, and we now have an opportunity. But the hard-liners are adamant – humans get no foothold on Mara. Stormhold is an affront to them. They'd move against it, but the Awks protect you." He accepted the cup back, looked into it. He added more bark and water and set it on the edge of the fire to warm. "If you'd come here a thousand years ago they would have been able to shoot your Station out of the sky. And they would have done it.

"We are dying. We exist only in Evelwood and the northern mountains. The Awks and the Sea-Krike are the only native sentients we know on Mara. There may be others, but we never explored. There was only our feud, between male and female. Nothing else mattered."

Jing thought for a while. "I don't think our people – the Golds – did a very bad job, all things considered. We are an integrated enough society. We have things to do. There's always a threat, of course – being sent to Black – and the Blues are very badly treated. That's the problem when you have any sort of caste system.

"But I think, on the whole, it's kept us alive. We've been poised over this planet for a century, just miles away from paradise, and we're still thriving, more or less."

Ram blew on the tea, sipped, passed it to Jing. "Aren't sentient species weird," he said; and Jing nodded.

The cart stopped at the foot of a steep and icy stretch. Teal was urged off, and stood, swaying slightly. The demon who had talked with him before examined him carefully.

"Are you alright?"

Teal brought the being into focus. It took an effort. "You speak Mandarin?" He had forgotten.

"Of course. You don't speak our tongue. There has to be someone here who knows the enemy." He nodded towards a pair of demons and barked an order. They took hold of Teal and spun him around. "What's that?"

"My cloak," said Teal. "And it's really cold. So please..."

"Under that, idiot." The demon gave orders. Teal's cloak was removed, gently enough. Beneath it he wore his jerkin, shirt, trousers, socks and boots. And of course, his backpack.

"What's in that?"

"My lunch."

"Please don't try to be cute."

"A change of clothes. Maybe a dagger. A cape for the rain. I've not been well. I doubt I could even undo the straps right now." Teal started to wonder what really was in the backpack; he'd forgotten he had it.

More orders. They slid the pack from him and the leader fumbled with the buckles. Eventually he got it open and started rummaging through it, pulling things out and throwing them on the ground.

"Clothing – stinks... Oh, those socks! Oh, you humans are disgusting! Is this underwear?" The pile grew. Teal shivered. He needed his demon cloak.

"I guess this is to strike sparks for building a fire... This thing – it's a book. We have books. Can't read this one..." It was added to the pile. "A rock. Stupid. You'll never get back to Stormhold – why bother picking up a souvenir?" He dropped the stone onto the pile. It bounced off the book onto the clothing. It dribbled down the dirty linen and on to the icy ground. Teal watched it as it fell down the path, vaguely aware that it was important. Each bounce cracked in the still air. It passed beyond sight, then beyond hearing, down, down to the very foot of Cathras. Gone forever.

They set off after breakfast, in a pair of open-backed all-terrain vehicles. The small sun provided little warmth as it rose. They were dressed in aggressively modern gear: thermal underwear, sweat-wicking cotton shirt and trousers, hollow-fibre jackets. They wore hiking boots over thick socks, their packs were light, carbon-framed and filled with goodies – diamond-battery torches and igniters, repeaters for the video, camping stoves, nylon bivouacs. Nothing had been missed. All had come down in the lander with them.

Jing hadn't managed to catch Patrick's full name. O-Hooligan she thought it was. She would compare notes with Shur later.

They were flanked by a pair of Awks from Gr'gan's diplomatic team, loping along easily beside the vehicles. Jing found them to be amiable, now that the new treaty had been struck, and one of them was keen to practice his Mandarin on her. It wasn't very good; she'd had a boyfriend whose first language had been Cantonese, and who'd never got the hang of Mandarin – it hadn't lasted long – but this alien giant was much more eager to learn. She liked that. And she liked the way he looked directly at whoever was speaking. His eyes, she thought, were as expressive as human eyes, and in just precisely the same ways.

Aliens, she was coming to learn, were not quite as alien as all that.

When the hills steepened into the mountains they dismounted. At first the walk in the cold air invigorated Shur, but as the afternoon wore on she got warmer and less comfortable. She took off the puffy jacket and stuffed it under the straps on her pack. The ground rose steadily. She realised just how little exercise this body did. In Joseon she and Teal walked miles, trained with their platoons, fought together with blunted weapons; this Shur, the doctor, must have only walked maybe half a mile a day, and gorged on cakes and noodles. Shur had never felt so unhealthy. After only a few thousand metres she was exhausted, but she soldiered on.

Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua left the walking to Little Pearl, who didn't mind. He chatted to the other Awk, who also spoke Mandarin, gently correcting her pronunciation, adding to her vocabulary. The Awks looked very similar, male and female. Their bodies, uncovered except by kilts made from some cloth whose origin was unclear, were fundamentally similar to humans, but without nipples. Ahunga wondered how they fed their young, but he was too frightened of alien taboos to ask.

The land rose. There was snow underfoot, then ice. It was a shame that the script devised up in the Station for Shen-So had been drawn from some Swords and Sorcery enthusiast's wet dreams, Ahunga thought, because now if the quest failed this hike would be his last, as well as his first.

Barclay hadn't slept for two days. He came out of the shower stumbling, steaming, and fumbled for a towel. His co-presenter was holding the fort, feeding the masses. He knew he'd have a lot to catch up before he got back in his plush studio chair, but right now all he wanted was sleep. Bed beckoned. Still moist, he threw back the thin duvet and fell onto the mattress. "Lights off." The lights obeyed.

Yet he couldn't sleep. Images from the crackly analogue video kept running through his head: the weird Elvis, the weirder demons – how could they be the same species? And the Awks... Horrendously ugly, intimidating monsters; but noble, ethical, capable of great compassion; shabbily treated by the quest.

What a can of worms had been opened up. From it, Barclay would become the greatest celebrity the Universe had ever seen.

Looked at that way, it was acceptable. Calming. He smiled, and descended into his long-deserved sleep.

Chin Jenny made a piece to camera at the mouth of the pass that led through the southern mountains. It was snowing. She was the only dark thing in the picture, clad in a blue puffy jacket, red trousers, brown boots. She had walking-poles in her mitted hands. She was smiling; Ahunga, holding the camera, felt that was going beyond the call of duty. He was freezing. The wind was scoring across his hooded face, taking off strips of skin, or so it seemed. He had never experienced wind before, or cold. But the camera, cuddled in its gyroscopic mount, took his shivers in its stride.

They had just planted a repeater, to relay the signal back to the first repeater, then back to Stormhold and up to Jiu Sheng Chuan. Ahunga hoped it was all worthwhile.

Finally – finally! – the diplomat finished. Ahunga turned off the camera and the party started the slog through the pass, fierce wind funnelled into their faces, each step an agony. Patrick, from time to time, wiped the snow from his signal-strength meter, deciding whether to plant another repeater. Eventually, when they reached the other end and the land was spread out before and beneath them, he had planted three. The signal was good, though every new link added its own noise.

Shur, Jing and Ahunga looked down on the jungly forest that filled the gap between the southern and the northern ranges. The two Awks, stolid and comfortable, snorted. Once they made contact with the Elvis their baby-sitting duties should have been over; they should have returned to their clans, and grumbled about the humans. But their brief was to accompany the little terrorists until some proof came to light that the demon device was destroyed.

Together, the seven made their way down towards Evelwood in the light of the westering sun.

Little Pearl lay in the warmth of his bed, leaving the cold and snow to his alter-ego on Mara. Why should they both suffer? He'd been here a while, running Rachmaninov's Second Symphony through his head, loving the music. It was sublime.

There was a scent. It reminded him of Doctor Shur. It impinged on his senses during the dark centre of the first movement. In the striding chords and insistent brass it felt right. He sighed inwardly and opened his eyes. Shur was sitting beside him, a book, closed, on her lap, her eyes on his face. She coloured, and looked away.

"Soon," Little Pearl said, and closed his eyes again.

"How soon?" She sounded hurt. He bit back the retort he wanted to make and instead replied civilly, eyes still closed.

"We are on the surface."

He guessed, from her silence, that she had paled. But he still didn't open his eyes.

"Why? How?" Her hand gripped his arm. He heard the book hit the floor, a dull thump. He told her the situation, the whole Cinemascope sweep of their fame, the impending death and triumph of Shen-So and his band, if they were not all dead already. He didn't tell her of the new treaty with the Awks, of her own fate if nothing happened to the demons' device. He longed for the music; but it wasn't going to come back soon.

"I want to be there."

"You know how to get there."

"If I don't like it, I can still come back. She's not safe. I can still come back."

Little Pearl nodded, knowing that there were things he or Captain de Vlieger could teach the true Princess that would make that impossible. There were Worlds where it was necessary to block Travel. He was sure that Mara would be one of them. Although he would like to meet Ahunga again from time to time.

In the end, she didn't go. She sat beside him, silent, thrumming with resentment and disapproval until a nurse relieved her. After completing the interrupted symphony Little Pearl pretended to wake back to Joseon, to report to his Captain, to Regent Hansolo and his son Shen Teal.

The demon group had negotiated a tricky pass and were now heading down into a sheltered valley, bathed in the afternoon sunshine. Ahead, the path skirted a substantial complex of farm buildings and resumed its climb up the brooding bulk of the mountain. The grelf, spotting pasture and others of her kind, speeded up, bouncing Teal around in the cart while his escorts shouted and tried to haul the animal back. By the time they drew up in the yard it seemed the whole of the valley had turned out to greet them, drawn by the noise and the comic spectacle.

The frisky grelf was led off to a corral, and Teal to a warm kitchen. Demons bustled around, brought hot fried fish-arms, bark tea, warm damp towels for the party to clean the sweat and grime from their hands and faces. They'd stay the night, the leader of the escort told Teal, and then he'd be delivered to the Council at the heart of Cathras.

After dinner Teal went outside. Nobody seemed concerned to guard him; there was nowhere for him to escape to. He looked around incuriously, seeing fields of alien cereals and vegetables, paddocks of grelf and mappering, a pond plopping with tentacle fish, patrolled by long-legged wading birds with serrated, spearing beaks. The sun would set soon behind the mountains, while far below in Evelwood it would still be a bright late afternoon.

A chill flowed down from Cathras. He shivered. He felt woolly, still, but now the shaking, jerking journey had halted, and he was able to stand on his own feet, he was starting to get his act back together.

Where was Shen-So? The more he looked inside his borrowed mind the less there was to find. Very little of its original occupant remained. Teal began to think that the man had been so badly treated, his true memories removed, new and awful ones planted, that the stress of Teal's arrival had driven Shen-So into vanishment. The man who had betrayed the love of his life for a few years of adventure had died; and now all that remained was a body animated by a foreign brain, Teal.

And he, he knew, was losing his grip. What had happened a while ago? He'd lost something vital, but he didn't remember what. He didn't know where he was being taken, or for what reason. But Shen-So had known. It had been a quest; there was a goal. Something that had to be done, to bring the demons and their Elvis partners together? To bring Urth down to Heaven?

There were fragments. He had to try to tie them together, before they disappeared completely. He didn't think he had much time left.

The adventurers sat around a blazing fire on the top of the bluff. The tops of the trees below them bent in a blustery squall, a cold draught from the north, from Cathras. In a few hours the sun would set, and Aramiel was jittery.

"What if he kills the machine during the night?"

"We'd hear it," said Ram, gnawing at a fruit-rind. "Jing was telling me. The device Shen-So's carrying – it's like thunder and lightning, pressed into a little ball. When Shen-So finds the demon machine, he'll release all the thunder and lightning. Lots of noise, lots of fire."

Jing, his face red in the firelight, nodded and grinned. Sparks whirled around him. Aramiel felt suddenly uneasy. What they were doing would bring these aliens down to Mara. How many were there, up there? She raised her eyes, but the glow from the flames hid the stars.

Lin started dumping handfuls of dirt onto the fire to damp down the flames. The wind was making it dangerous.

Can we do that to humanity? Aramiel thought. If we can't, they may burn us all up. She looked toward Ram, who met her eyes. Of course, he knew what she was thinking. And he had no answer to her question.

There had been a camp, here. The remains of a fire were evident. Further up the slope they'd passed a wide flat patch of disturbed ground, stained dark in places. The Awks had stopped for a few minutes, bowed their heads. Jing, too, stood with her head down, her eyes closed. Ahunga realised, then, what it was. The madness of the quest, a script prepared by enthusiasts to drive a group of men towards a goal. Here was one of the results. God knows what they might have done down in Evelwood, he thought. Shen-So and his party might all be dead down there, if they'd treated the Elvis with the same brutal disregard.

They left the cursed place behind, following the grim-faced Awks until a spot was found by a pool of sweet cold water, filled from the stream of snow-melt. They made their camp as the sky darkened into night. The sun disappeared in silver-pink glory while the two Awks sang a slow, sad song together.

Dinner was food from pouches and packets. A'hsh and Kurk, the Awks, ate dried meat and berries from their sporrans. Nobody spoke. There were no words to say. Eventually, they slept.

Teal woke from splintered dreams of women. His mother – the real one, come back to him from the dead in Yifan's World; the Sorceress, tall, slim, erotic, her beauty like the glamour of the Elvis; and Aramiel. In his dream they vied to offer him their gifts – unconditional love, the stone ball, the silver-tipped wooden staff.

It was Shur, though, who broke his sleep, who made him wake bathed in tears and sweat. She came to him an adult, her body sheathed in a simple, short red dress. She wore her hair up, clipped with a gold filigree. A wedding-ring was on her finger, Western-style. The heels of her red shoes were so high he feared for her balance, but she didn't seem to be having any difficulty. She giggled, looked at him with such love, slightly tipsy. She leaned forward to look into his eyes – he must have been sitting down – he saw the small pillows of her breasts in the low cut of the dress, desired her, wanted to reach out to her, to draw her down to him.

He heard his own accusing voice in his mouth. She was drunk, shameful. She'd embarrassed him, again, in front of his friends. "It's not working out, and you know it. Vamping me isn't going to work any more."

Teal saw the tears in her eyes, saw the bewilderment in her face. This was not him, these were not his words. This was Shen-So, justifying his escape. Putting a guillotine in place to sever the last bond that held him to his old life, that kept him from his new, exciting mission. He'd puffed himself up with humanitarian principle, if that's what you could call the love and respect of a million grateful citizens due to him when he delivered Mara into their outstretched hands.

Teal and Shen-So watched as tears and despair made their wife's face ugly, her makeup smudging beneath her tears as she sobbed. Her words, broken and far away, unintelligible, angry, beseeching, never resigned – though that was what he'd hoped for – and then she howled, and didn't stop, even when he was out of there, striding down the corridor, heading for Gold, for the new life free of encumbrance, ashes in his mouth, her keening bringing people to their doorways to watch him pass. He didn't look at their faces. He knew what he would see.

Teal, face wet with tears, opened his eyes on his last day alive. Inside him, the final spark of Shen-So died. And Teal was glad.

The breakfast – heated fruit, grilled grelf-cheese, hot bark tea – revived his tired body somewhat; but when he rose from the table with his captors they had to support him out to the cart. Clear mountain air sparkled in the morning sunshine. A new grelf peered suspiciously at him as he was gently placed on new straw. They covered him with his cloak. The leader of the band clicked his tongue to start the animal moving along the track that led up out of the valley and back to the snow and ice.

Peng and Joy, taking tea and dim sum together in the atrium, watched the sun light up the northern and southern mountaintops, saw dawn flow east to west along the forested vale between. The video feeds from Stormhold and the team would be streaming in soon. The heartbreaking narration added by Barclay to the previous evening's battle-site scenes had shaken viewers. Already lawyers were beginning to investigate the legality of the Shen-So project; some high-up Golds would be in deep trouble in the weeks to come, whatever the outcome.

Peng could see knots of citizens pointing at the planet, identifying the scoop of the bay at Stormhold, the route to the col, guessing where Ahunga, Jing and Shur might be now. Somewhere on the other side of Evelwood Shen-So and his men might be close to fulfilling their mission. There was no way of knowing. Although there were powerful telescopes trained on the surface, which could see the new group making their way down to the valley, without some clue where to point, finding the original questors was impossible.

The demon bridge, of course, was well-known. Aerial pictures showed its webwork clearly, and the sprawl of the Elvis town to the south. It was the most likely place for the humans to cross, but nothing unusual had been seen in the last few days.

"They'll meet the Elvis today," said Joy, sipping at her pu'er tea.

"Stupid name."

"They have to be called something," Joy said, reasonably. "The Elvis Ambassador at Stormhold said Shen-So's band was well received in Evelwood. Our group won't have any problems. They'll have been tracked since they got down below the snow-line." She neatly snipped some prawn cheung-fun in half with her chopsticks and put a piece in her mouth. Delicious.

"The Awks aren't happy."

"They have come to terms with the situation. There's a new treaty; and the Awks don't break their word."

"More honourable than we are, that's for sure." Peng looked sour. Around the atrium screens lit with the early-morning news from Mara, Reginald Barclay presenting. The background was the campsite by the pool. Ahunga and Patrick were helping the male Awk, Kurk, build up the fire with brushwood. A'hsh and Chin Jenny were showing Jing and Shur how to find edible berries and fungus in and beneath the bushes. A'hsh suddenly whipped out a slim knife and flung it into a thicket; there was a squeal, and the Awk went to pick up the breakfast-meat.

Peng put down his half-eaten pork bun. Joy smiled broadly.

The sunlight was abruptly blocked out by a shelf of rock, and the rumble of the cartwheels echoed loudly. The grelf nickered, nervous. After a minute lights appeared on the walls of the tunnel: electric lights, cables looping between each bluish bulb. Teal, watching the ceiling, flat on his back, was too nauseous to care. The cart stopped, there was conversation in demontongue, heavy doors opened, the cart started again with a jerk, pulled by his captors as the grelf was led back down the tunnel to the open air.

Eventually he was carried into a stone-walled room, well lit, where a hot bath was waiting in a pool set in the floor. They stripped and bathed him, gently dried him, checked him over for wounds, found only a few bruises.

A musky-scented fragrance was sprayed on his chest and neck before they dressed him. However they knew, they'd got his size right. Loose drawers, trousers that cinched with a wide grelf-leather belt, a white long-sleeved shirt that reminded him of pirates, soft leather slippers. When they led him out he felt better than he had for several days.

The broad passageways were busy with demons. Most scuttled around on errands, carrying papers or trays of food and drink. They passed a work team replacing a light in the ceiling, an old demon up the ladder, a gormless-looking youngster steadying the foot. He gave Teal a little wave; Teal smiled.

Then through a large cavern warm and noisy with argument, buyers sitting at solid tables piled with coins waving their hands at farmers come to sell. Cages of huddled birds, mapperings on handcarts, bundled sheaves of cereals and baskets of vegetables changed hands in return for copper and silver. High up on one wall oblong holes let in sunlight and air. Great fans in the ceiling swept slow circles. Traders gazed incuriously at the party as they passed through. Teal sneezed in the haze of dust and droppings.

Past the hall the corridors narrowed and quietened. The way steepened upwards, his demon escort helping Teal to negotiate shallow stairs. There were guards, but they looked more ceremonial than determined. Doors opened as they approached until finally they stopped in a high-ceilinged room lit by an array of small electric lamps around the walls. A demon sat at a desk, behind a pile of paper. Another stood beside him, pointing at figures. Both looked very tired, and the arrival of the prisoner detail didn't thrill them enough to change their sour attitudes. The seated demon jerked his head, and Teal's escort took him through the indicated door, and into the heart of Cathras.
Chapter 14

"Tell her to come back," Teal urged Little Pearl. The big man smiled wrily.

"It's up to her, I'm afraid. She's on an alien world, a fascinating place to be, believe me. She's safe. Safer than she was on the Station. Once she's seen the climax she'll be back and Doctor Shur will have gone for good."

"We'll show Princess Shur a way to block that World. The doctor won't be able to come here again," Captain de Vlieger added. Teal, frustrated, his stomach hollow with worry, had to be satisfied with that. He nodded curtly and left the room.

"He's angry because he can't get there himself," Little Pearl commented. He settled down on the bed, preparing to go back. "Please don't let Shur look after me again. It's unsettling to think of her sitting next to me while I'm so vulnerable."

"Consider it done," said Hansolo. "I could put her in a dungeon?"

"Just leave the key in this side of the door, and the nurses and guards can lock themselves in here with me. Now, if you'd excuse me..." And without any transition, he was gone. His body lay relaxed, breathing, but he – his mind? His spirit? – was now far, far away.

"You had your adventure," Hansolo said, when he caught up with his son. "Let Shur have hers. You heard Little Pearl – she's safe. She has four other humans to protect her, and two hulking great Awks."

"I don't trust the Awks," Teal glowered. "They tried to kill me."

"Little Pearl was there when they renegotiated the treaty. Shen-So's group attacked the Awks. It's not your fault you got tangled up in it. When you got there you had to defend yourself. But you have to let things take their course..."

"I can't get back. Shen-So must be dead. So who is going to destroy the demon machine?"

"There were six of them. They all know what to do, where to go. So long as they have their firework it'll happen. And eventually she'll be back. She'll get bored, or Doctor Shur will. One of them will do it." Hansolo put his arm around Teal, who shook it off.

"What about Fat?" Teal said, looking at his father. "We can't find him. What if he's back on the Station? You know... He could do anything there. He could make it fall."

"One thing at a time. And if Fat's there, he's not our problem. I do think the Station can deal with him."

The boy snorted, but made no other comment. Teenagers, Hansolo thought, remembering his own youth. His father would have whipped him by now, if he'd behaved as Teal just had.

Then Teal caught his eye, seemed to read his mind. Smiled. He reached out, and hugged his dad.

The Awks stopped before the forest encompassed them. There was a clear path ahead, and on it a group of Elvis, leavened with a sprinkling of hunched grey demons.

"Our treaty with the Elvis forbids us to go further," A'hsh explained. "But, a word – they don't look good to me."

"Wait with us," Kurk added. "We'll make camp. Wait a day. Elvis and demons together are not a good sign."

"We can go talk to them," said Chin Jenny, starting towards the gloom of the trees. Kurk grabbed her arm.

"No. Stay. Five more steps and we could not save you."

The alien group beneath the trees remained silent, but their frowns were eloquent. Patrick called out in Elvis, "What do you want?"

"We are here to escort your band," came the reply. The glamour cut in, and the Elvis grew in stature, in beauty, and the demons with them. Their faces were wreathed in smiles, their arms outstretched in welcome.

"We will camp this night in Awk-lands. In the morning, you'll have the pleasure of our guests' company," called A'hsh, even though it was not yet afternoon. She led her charges back up towards a shaded piece of level ground. "Damned demons. Nobody trusts them. Stay one more night with us, learn a song or two. Then tomorrow we might find a more trustworthy band of Elvis."

"And no demons," growled Kurk.

"It's hot," Shin Er complained, lying back in a crevice on the shaded side of the bluff, just below the sweltering top.

"There's a pool down on the south side," Aramiel said, fanning herself with a broad leaf. "You saw it this morning. Go down and have a dip. You can bring back water."

"Too hot," the idle human moaned. He contemplated the rising, shimmering waves of heat from the jungle below, the black smokelike clouds of insects rising with it. "Anyway, I don't fancy being bitten alive."

"Sensible," said Ram, from Aramiel's side. The adventurers were bored, hot, itching, sweating. Even Lin, who was usually fairly cheerful, was sunk into gloom.

"How much longer? When's that idiot going to set off the bomb?"

Nobody had an answer. Shin Er glugged water from a grelf-skin. "It's empty," he announced.

"Well; that was the last of it," Pang grumbled.

"Your great opportunity," crowed Shin Er's brother maliciously. "You can go get water and have a bath too!"

While Shin Er, muttering under his breath, slipped and slid down a gully, the shadow of the bluff lengthened over the forest. Time was slipping away.

The space was huge. The afternoon sunlight flooded through tall west-facing slots that stretched from floor to high ceiling, illuminating a great rough pit in the centre of the smoothed stone floor. Thick cables emerged from it, snaking out to the shadowed walls of the room. Above the pit a broad shaft, a natural rupture in the twisted, tortured rock, rose to the violet-blue sky. Teal's guard led him towards a collection of desks and long tables by the windows, skirting the pit at a respectful distance. Teal couldn't see down to the bottom of it.

Around the furniture was a group of well-fed, well-clothed demons. Almost all were old, perhaps by centuries. Their eyes, sharp and intelligent, followed Teal as he was delivered before them. The demons who had been with him since he'd crossed the bridge bowed, then marched back to the faraway doors, their bootsteps echoing in the void. Teal stood alone, swaying slightly.

There was a whispered discussion in demontongue. Two of the demons approached him and looked him up and down. They didn't seem impressed. More discussion followed. Teal's mind began to wander.

"You are human," a younger demon addressed him. Teal nodded. He was too dizzy to speak. He felt sick.

"Give him water," another said, beaming at Teal, wanting, Teal supposed, to be patted on the head for knowing Mandarin.

"Water would be nice," Teal said, in Josean, playing with them. The translator looked confused, shocked that here was a tongue he did not know. "Water would be good," Teal repeated in the English he had been gifted by Princess Yifan, and then in the Mandarin the demons understood. The translator smiled, relieved. Water was brought, along with some cold fish tentacles. Teal ate, not caring. He didn't think he was long for this world. All he yearned for now was peace.

And then he felt something tickling the back of his head.

From the inside.

"They're not doing the romance thing," Barclay complained, putting down his drink. Peng and Joy had bearded him in the makeup room during a break in the broadcast. "People are getting bored. It's just aliens looking weird. Tell them to get their act together." He leaned forward to look in the mirror. "Get rid of the bags, please, Allie – you know the drill." The makeup artist sniffed and loaded her palette with yellow concealer.

"There's not time," Peng said. "We're expecting Shen-So to make his move soon. Promoting the romance angle is just a distraction."

"But what if it doesn't happen?" Barclay complained. He was wedded to his ideas, Joy thought. She put in her own two pennies' worth.

"Then we either give up or we strafe Cathras with inertial weaponry. Either is unacceptable. Promoting a romantic drama on Mara might distract the citizens for a while, but it's not going to satisfy our people now they've been given hope."

"You took advantage," the broadcaster accused. "You're using me..."

"We were under the impression that you were taking the opportunity of your inclusion on our panel to use us," Peng interrupted. "We were tasked with mitigating a potential disaster: a faction in Gold using public resources to infiltrate potentially murderous, brainwashed men to destroy the status quo on a world owned by other sentient species. Wu Jing, Doctor Shen and Mister Ahunga provided us with a means, through your eagerness, to manage the situation."

Reginald Barclay sat still while Allie applied her brushes. "Whatever. I'm bound to this and I'll keep going. It was such a good story...

"But I'm not happy, and I don't think your puppets are going to blow Cathras. When it all goes ovoid, I'll be first in line to push for the nukes."

"There's no need to do that," Peng said, rising. "Chin, the Gold on the ground down there, has another antimatter bomb. There's a whole new script for you to write, about how the fugitives from the Station save the world."

He left, followed by Joy. Barclay saw her wink at him in the mirror.

He hated smart people.

"You should go back," Ahunga whispered to Shur, but she knew it was Little Pearl talking. "We can't afford to go into Evelwood. Once we're there, we're at the mercy of the Elvis, and it looks rather as if the wrong group are waiting for us."

Chin Jenny and Jing were making a piece to camera with A'hsh and Kurk. Shur kept her voice down as she replied. "We have to go. That's what we're here to do!"

"Teal is desperate," Little Pearl told her. "He can't get back here. That means Shen-So's dead. If the others can't get to Cathras the whole mission is busted. The closer we get to Demon's Holm, the closer we are when Gold starts to attack it from orbit; it's the only option they'd have left." He moved away, came back with water and some grilled rodent. "Here; eat. You're fatigued."

"This body does no exercise," she complained, and took the food. Ahunga and Little Pearl smiled.

Jing bounced over. "Finished! I told them we're on a great adventure, and I helped you steal the lander because I believe in what you're doing and I wanted to come down to Mara with you." She grinned. It was a pretty childish reason, but it was in Barclay's script, more or less. Shur passed the water canteen to Jing, then one of the rodent skewers.

"It makes you sound simple," she remarked.

"Who cares? I'm off the Station, I'm not in Black, and I'm with people who appreciate me. I'd tell my granny she was a fish if it would have got me here." She ate, then went to the fire to find more.

"She's taken the water," Ahunga complained.

"Go get some more. I'm fine here."

He got up stiffly and headed for the others. Shur sat brooding. Should she go back? Better now, rather than when they were really in peril. Knowing she'd return if this body died was no help to the other Shur. She sighed, got up and walked towards the party. The Awks were clearing their throats to sing. The sun was still well above the horizon, and the demon-Elvis delegation had disappeared back into the forest.

Now was the time, if she could bring herself to do it.

Shur was in the box garden. The damage to the low hedge had at last been repaired; it looked as if she and Shen-So had never arrived here, never argued.

She knew he must be dead. Teal would have gone back to Mara, if he'd been able to, leaving her here with her loved, hated ex-husband. Maybe they would have found a way to get back together, if he had been able somehow to remember what they once had been. A team. A couple. Loving, funny together, privileged in the hierarchy of Jiu Sheng Chuan.

Little Pearl had told her how Shen-So had engineered the destruction of their marriage. At first it had reignited her hatred for him: she'd broken some quite expensive-looking items in Shur's room in her fit of anger. Later she felt only embarrassment. How could he have been so scared to reveal his plans to her? Had she been such a bitch?

Yes, she decided. Maybe not then, but certainly after. Just look at the way I've behaved here. Scheming to replace a thirteen-year-old in the affections of a boy. Then when that didn't work, making eyes at Little Pearl.

She felt a soft flush of longing. Back in her World he was Ahunga O Te Ika Whenua, her husband's lawyer. And, according to his doppelganger here in Joseon, he liked her.

The complex pattern shimmered into her brain. The shapes folded around themselves, drawing space in, breathing out possibilities.

She could go anywhere. This was what the Universes looked like. She took a deep breath, sought to bring up the constant, the trigger shape, and felt the prick of a sword-point in her back.

"Humanity is not welcome here. We travelled ten times further than you to get to Mara. We suffered. We weren't asleep during OUR journey." The translator spoke softly and clearly to Teal as an old demon paced slowly around the end of one of the long, paper-strewn tables, attended by a train of grey minions. He faced Teal, who blinked. The demons who trailed behind this one... They were dressed in ragged shifts. They were chained together, copper shackles around their necks, thick tubes springing from them, feeding their master. When he moved, they moved, their eyes dull, pain etched on their faces. The collar around the old one's neck was chased with fine engravings. Teal thought that he must be very, very old. "We worked for this planet. We deserve it. Our treaties with the Awks, the Sea-Krike, the Elvis..."

"The Elvis are also you," Teal said softly. The lowering sun shone in his eyes. He squinted, took faltering steps to get away from its beams. "They are your wives, your daughters. You are their husbands, their sons.

"There are many on both sides who want to live together. To right the wrong that was done when your ship was designed. How can a species live like this, denying all of its advantages for the sake of a few bitter, twisted men?"

"And women," the translator said, but he was not translating. The elder demons glared at him.

The old one spoke again. "You have no idea of the sacrifices we made. We are the guardians of our people."

"Were they then as you are now?"

"THAT is not the issue. We are what we are." The demon swept his arm around, indicated his people, Cathras, Mara. "This will not alter. We suffered change, so much change in our long flight from calamity. And now we are at peace."

Teal felt a tickle again, in the back of his head. The old man was looking at him, his eyes piercing. No, not a man. A demon, like Fat.

He felt himself falling, but he was not falling. Could some demons do this? And what, what was 'this'?

He realised, foggily, that the elder demon was inside his head. And Teal, then, deep down, smiled. He knew all about being inside someone else's head.

He was not Shen-So. Shen-So was dead.

The elder rocked on his heels. An aide steadied him. "There's nothing there."

"Nothing? What do you mean?" the aide asked. This was in demontongue, but now Teal understood. He searched for the tendril in his mind. It wasn't hard to find: the demons, unused to opposition, were not subtle.

"Nothing. That's what I mean. Feng – you have the data on humans. Why is this?"

Feng hastened to the table and shuffled through notes. "I recall the Stormhold Ambassadors... They said the humans were easy. They didn't notice... They have huge auras, you could spot them a mile away..." He found what he was looking for. "Their minds are not unlike ours. Infiltration is simple..."

"You think I'm not doing it right?" the elder snapped. "And where's the aura? That being has none."

"Well..."

"Oh, you're useless! Emp, Lim – hold him!"

Teal struck, easily, silently, unnoticed, into the elder's mind. He saw well-sorted memories, a demon's lifetime; his childhood aboard the vast spaceship, cloned from his father's cells, a copy of a great man, a leader. But the child never knew him. The breeding-chamber grew him from his father's still-warm heart.

The son grew up obsessed with the Ship, with flight, spent his time in the simulators; learned to pilot every moving thing on board, from work droids to the very Ship itself.

He saw planetfall, participating in the weary joy after the passage of ten thousand years. And then there were decades of investigation and cautious landings. Then there was the shock when they found their females were doing the same – they hadn't even known they were on board the Ship.

Then war, fought in space between small, fleet craft; in the air of the luscious planet; on the ground in the mountains, the jungles, the deserts. The damage they did, to themselves, to sentient species whose home this really was.

A century of warfare, and no clear result. Exhausted truces were made. The Ship's resources had been depleted. There was barely enough energy left to transfer their remaining populations.

The Awks had no use for the long rift valley or the mountains to its north. They gifted it, with the consent of the other nations of Mara. And so the people of the Dispersion came down, and brought with them their remaining technologies.

They brought their artificial wombs, their medical machinery, their marvellous transports. Their food, their customs, their computers and their satellite-based networks.

And then, Teal saw, the demon lords, led by this man, this – not man, this demon – this demon, the...

Teal was confused. They were coming to pin him down. He saw demons in slow motion, striding around the long table, weaving between the desks and cabinets towards him. He glanced around, his head swimming with the elder's viciousness, saw the pit. Ran towards it, his steps glacial, wading through thick honey, pursued.

"You lost me me job," Lim said softly. Shur stiffened. The crickets were out tonight. They creaked all around her. The ex-Sergeant could have talked normally; no-one would have heard.

"You lost your own job," she said, loud enough for him to hear her, quiet enough so he knew she wasn't trying to summon help. "You did something stupid, and you paid the price." The sword dug deeper into her back. She felt he'd pierced her skin. "Come around. Face me. Don't be the sort of coward who'd stab a woman in the back."

The point was hesitantly withdrawn. He edged around her, looked at her impassive face. A gust of sour breath flavoured with alcohol enveloped her when he breathed; she tried successfully not to gag. She'd had patients like him before.

"Sit," she said, pointing to the bench she was occupying. "Beside me." She shuffled slightly, giving him plenty of space. He looked narrowly at her, saw she was unarmed, sat. He twisted to face her, and the sword pressed into her side.

"I knows about you, and that thing. You come 'ere together. That's why we 'ad to drill on our own. That's why Teal was absent wi'out leave." The sword, heavy, wavered. He rested the hilt on the bench between them, but his fingers were still curled around it. "As bad a one as 'im. A demon. We 'eard them talkin'. Word gets round, you know what I mean.

"An' you got in our 'eads, you an' that Fat creature. Made us do what you wanted. Got us busted." Lim was crying. Tears threaded down his cheeks. "I 'ad a pension, all set. I 'ad a decent wage. All me an' the wife could want, all taken care of. All gone. Me an' the wife an' kids."

"You don't have any kids," said Shur, who knew.

"Not for want o' tryin', miss!" he grinned, then realised he was supposed to be teaching this demon-girl a lesson she'd not forget. "Don' try to get round me!"

Shur slowly brought her hand up, wiped a tear from his cheek. He was greasy with sweat and fear. His mouth hinged open, stayed open.

"I'm not a demon," she said. "I'm not like Fat. Lim, I'm just a different Shur.

"Fat came from the body of Teal, brought here by accident. I'm just a different Shur. And if you'll let me, I can bring her back, your Shur. Then things will be just the way they were." The favourite knife was hidden in her hand now, pulled from the soft sheath beneath her long sleeve. "Put down your sword." She smiled sadly, and he let the sword rest on the bench, lifted his big hands in a sketch of surrender.

"You got me," he smiled. He had a few teeth missing. Shur almost wished to stay here, to institute some sort of dental programme. But she'd made up her mind.

"Stand up," she said, reasonable but commanding. "Go back to your wife. Your pension will not be lost, and your pay won't be cut, nor Hoon's. I'll send your sword back to you in the morning." She thought for a second. "Better, actually, if you come and ask Arn for it."

Because she wouldn't be here.

The demons wanted to keep him from the pit. He tried to speed up, but time still seemed to be strolling rather than running. He dug as gently as he could, deeper into the demon's mind, and saw through its eyes.

The human was almost there. But it could be no threat. Ling and Emp were close behind but they mightn't reach it in time...

Teal dropped over the edge of the pit, hit rock, rolled down a dozen metres to the bottom. His breath rasped, and pain blossomed. Broken ribs, he guessed. He flexed his arms and swam his legs – no problem. Still alive, still capable of movement.

At the bottom of the pit was an ancient, blocky spaceship. It was pitifully tiny, just a pair of big propulsion units bracketing a lifting-body fuselage. The door on this side was open, cables snaking out of it, and inside was a faint light. Teal looked up to the demons looking down. The leader's mind was racing: he was panicking.

Teal smiled and lurched upright, gasped with the pain. The lander swam in front of him, spots bloomed across his eyes. But he made it to the doorway and inside.

It was silent in the lander. A cool dim blue light glowed from the ceiling. To his left there was a flat bench littered with controls behind a pair of seats, in front of a thick slit of a window. To the right, eight more seats and a bulkhead. Above him the elder was calling the few younger demons around him to drop down into the pit. But a taboo is hard to break. For centuries this had been a shrine for the hardliners. Sacred ground. Arguments were breaking out above him.

And then it was clear. He could see it, all laid out in the demon's mind. Fear and the loss of control spun ancient information up to where Teal could grasp it.

Long, long ago this elder – then young, excited and honoured by the importance of his mission – flew his craft down, left the cratered metal of home behind, fell down through thickening, heating air to the promised land beneath. The craft bucked, its occupants cursing the pilot as he jinked and scrambled out of the way of bolts from the females' blockading ships.

His teeth, then white and sharp, now dull and yellow with the passage of centuries, were bared; his shoulders ached fighting the veering, vibrating craft. The heat seeped in, sweat ran down his face and stung his eyes. Greasy grey clouds pressed against the window, blinding him, but his instruments insisted he was on-course. I am the best, he remembered thinking then as the cloud outside lit up orange from an exploding proximity warhead. The engineers cried out; but he was ecstatic.

And then they broke through, and the mountain was beneath them, too close, the little wrinkle of the fissure indistinguishable among the black and white folds of the peak. He slammed on the airbrakes, brought his tiny boat around and a blue frame pulsed urgently on the screen, marking the target. It was tight.

The engineers told him later that he had laughed like a maniac; that they'd feared for their lives, especially when he fired the retros in long asymmetrical bursts to side-slip them towards the fissure. Huge slabs of burning metal from an Elv ship that had tried to follow them into atmosphere roared past and slammed into the mountain; and then darkness, the scream of burning grids and the chatter of force-fields trying to delay the inevitable collision...

Fire wrapped the craft. It settled gently into the bottom of the fissure. He had delivered what he had promised – and he was determined in that moment to continue to deliver, for all of demonkind.

In the hours during which the craft cooled the engineers pushed out robot drones to look for the reception party. There were several factions even within the demon community. He thought, regretfully, about who might come, who might oppose his mission. From time to time the suicide option ran through his mind, and his eyes strayed.

Teal looked about him, saw the panel opposite the door. He scrabbled at it, couldn't work it out. Ah – there was a dimple near the top. So... He pushed into it with his thumb. The panel moved slightly. Nothing else happened.

He took his thumb away and the panel hinged down with a faint hiss. Behind it were two banks of plastic tabs, black and blue against a pale red background.

They were switches, circuit breakers. He'd seen such things when he'd been a girl, in Yifan's World. The fear of what Teal might do to destroy the craft blazed in the old demon's mind, and so it blazed in Teal's. He sent a thought jarring into the alien brain, where he knew his nemesis could see it.

So long, sucker.

The ancient being shrieked. Waves of power surged through him, stronger than Fat could have generated in his whole lifetime, but Teal just shunted them off to the non-existent Shen-So. He reached up and put his hands on the switches, wincing at the tearing pain in his side, and pushed them all up together. The lights in the craft went off. A flat voice came from the air around him, in demontongue, warning of power failure. The device was off. But anyone could come here and turn it back on again. There was a more certain end, seen in the elder mind. Teal flicked down the two switches at the opposite ends of the board, then the next two, working in toward the centre. A sudden flash of memory – the Elvis elders, confirming him with their short staffs. The voice became more strident. Demons were shouting at the pit edge. He smiled, gently. Shur would be proud of him. He pressed down the last, central switch, and died.

The flash from the north silenced Shin Er, who was grumbling about spiders. The others came scrambling up to the top of the bluff in the waning heat of the afternoon sun, saw the black cloud shoot high and fast above Cathras, twined with white and blue flame, drawing lightning down to meet it. The shock wave, when it came a minute later, nearly knocked them off their eyrie.

Shur had the image Little Pearl had shown her in her mind. It was beautiful. She felt like weeping, for herself, for Jing, for the stupid Shen-So, who had so completely failed to deliver and who had screwed his family up in the process.

She was bringing the constant up when Jing grabbed her arm.

"Look!"

The top of the mountain, miles away across the wide valley, disappeared, a black cloud blasting into the air, flame and violence in its heart. There was no sound, but it would come.

Shen-So, or his men. Someone had got through.

She turned to Jing and embraced her, and then she was sitting down, and her arms were empty. She was alone. The chirp of crickets sounded around her in the darkness. Behind her a gecko boomed. Moths and mosquitos zoomed around her. She was disoriented, scared. Shur raised her head, saw familiar stars that suddenly blurred as tears started.

She didn't hear the soft tread behind her. The Regent of Joseon skirted the bench seat and appeared in front of her.

"Welcome back," he said softly. He took her hands in his, lifted her from her seat and led her into Namhansanseong castle.

Arn and the maids had cleaned up her room by the time she'd drunk some tea and eaten a sweet sticky-rice cake. She hadn't seen Teal, and she missed him terribly, and she missed Jing, and Ahunga.

Hansolo didn't tell her anything. He only fed her, then escorted her to her familiar bedroom and left her at the door. "Tomorrow," he said, and walked softly away.

Teal, her beloved, was in her room, sitting on the bed. He stood as she came in, awkward, teenage, pink in the face. She ached with love for him.

"Why didn't you tell me you could do that?" she yelled, casting around for something to throw; but the other Shur had already destroyed most of the convenient little pieces. She had to resort to hitting him on the chest while he tried in vain to hold her back, until finally she sagged against him, sobbing, and he folded her in his arms.

Hansolo, smiling, retired to the Blue Room, where the Captain was standing at the margin between indoors and out, smoking his abominable pipe.

"Young love," de Vlieger commented as soon as he saw the Regent, which wiped the smile off Hansolo's face – it was the line he wanted to use.

Shur found herself embracing a small and rather smelly woman. She recoiled, not caring to keep the look of disgust from her face.

"You're back, then," said Jing, calmly, and walked away toward a group sitting around a fitful wood fire. The scent of burning meat and warm fruit assaulted Shur's nose. She was on the planet. She knew she would be; it had been quite obvious from Little Pearl's curt conversations back in Joseon. Still. The man here would be more amenable.

A stiff breeze blew around her, bringing nutmeg and cedar smells from the forest nearby. Beyond it and far away a plume of smoke rose. In the level rays of the westering sun the party around the fire were silhouettes. She squinted and walked towards them, aiming for the biggest figure. "I'm Doctor Qing Shur," she said, almost batting her eyelids. "And you must be..."

"A'hsh," said the Awk, rising to her full two metres twenty and proffering a smoking stick of meaty lumps. "Pleased to meet you. Grilled rat?"

"Head count," Aramiel ordered, picking herself up gingerly. A shower of dust fell from her clothes. Over the other side of the bluff Ram, cautiously disentangling himself from a thorn bush, left off swearing in demontongue to goggle at the Elv's legs, which were outrageously exposed by the destruction of her sewn-leaf skirt. "Ram – put your eyes back in and find the humans!"

Lin limped up to her, blood trickling down his face from a small gash on his temple. "Pang's over there," he pointed. "He's fine. I'll go look down the gully." He made off, favouring his right leg.

Eventually all the humans had been found and brought together. Ram used his healing power, but apart from a broken wrist there was nothing much to fix. He ruffled Shin Er's hair and stood, stretching his aching back. "What now?"

"We can go back to the bridge, see if they need help, or on to Stormhold and drop off this bunch," said his fiancée. Ram shrugged. Either was fine with him.

They decided, prompted by Aramiel, to forge on to Stormhold. Packs were found. Weapons were discarded. Pang was so relieved to be leaving his big sword behind that he broke into a song that had been popular on the Station three years before, and the whole party, Elv and demon included, joined in the chorus as they made their way down to the jungle floor.

When they came to an Elvis settlement by the river they were greeted as heroes.

The video of the explosion on Cathras was shown again and again around the atrium, in the coffee-houses and bars, on the huge public screens. The destruction of the device had been confirmed using a probe lowered from a moon-shuttle in an orbit that came perilously close to the known shield limit – the computers worked. Mara was open for business.

When it happened the Station had been around the other side of the planet, but there were spectacular satellite images of the blast: A faint expanding circle of pressure scoured snow from the surrounding mountains, darkened the forest southwards. In the centre a black blot grew, laced with blue and red fire, netted with lightning.

The pictures from the ground hadn't caught the first moments because no-one had been pointing a camera at it, but when they'd got their act together their voices on the soundtrack, and the rumble of the blast when it arrived, were eloquent and convincing. Then the pieces to camera – Ahunga, Shur, A'hsh and Chin Jenny all giving their impressions while the wind whipped their hair, blowing leaves and birds from the forest past them. Ahunga had no hair, but did get struck in the face by a four-winged bird the size of a sparrow, and had to be attended to.

The delegation of Elvis and demons, looking quite dishevelled, came trudging up the slope from Evelwood and sheepishly offered to help. Citizens on Jiu Sheng Chuan looked on astonished as a demon laid his hands on the big man and the golden glow healed his broken nose – and then the demon knelt, picked up the broken but still-living bird and healed it too, releasing it whole into the sky.

Reginald, basking in the ratings, beamed with love for all his fellow men. He was mobbed when he went out into the atrium for lunch, and signed autographs until his fingers shook. Peng Aun and Joy were nowhere to be seen for several hours, but when they did appear they looked remarkably refreshed and ready for anything.

"Time to manage expectations," Joy remarked to Barclay, who looked sour for a second, but then gave a wry grin.

"Quite right. I've got some changes to the script, now Shen-So has succeeded."

"So do we," said Peng. "Let's go to my office."

Ahunga walked with Doctor Shur. The stars littered the sky, sparks floated up from the fire behind them. The bulk of the southern mountains shuttered their view to their right, the trees to their left rustled. Small animals meeped and cried, insects hummed and clicked.

Shur shuddered, leant closer to the lawyer. Warmth flowed from him, but it was purely physical.

"The Princess arrived here by accident," he began, "and she made a good fist of it, by all accounts."

"Jing told you."

"And my own observations. I didn't notice any difference between her and you, when she came to see me. Just as strong, just as forthright. If none of this–" he opened his long arms to encompass the world "–had happened, she could have replaced you and nobody would have been any the wiser."

"So you're saying I'm irrelevant?"

"Not at all. What I'm saying is that you are just as strong as she. And more experienced in life. What she started, you can finish. You're famous; you're in on the ground floor, so to speak, part of the biggest thing that has happened to humanity since we left Urth.

"And you can make the most of it. Build your brand. Be the spokesperson for your generation."

"That's just butter. I was better off in Joseon. Here, I'm a doctor in a place where demons can heal with a touch. I'm an actress whose role it is to chase after my dead ex-husband. I thought you'd be better inclined toward me, Ahunga. I thought you liked this body. That Little Pearl – he convinced me I had a future here with you. All soft soap, all lies to get his precious Princess back."

"I do like you."

"You like a thirteen-year-old. You don't know me."

Ahunga was silent, for a little while. They had walked quite a way; the fire was far behind them. The sky blazed with stars.

"Your pregnancy has restarted," he said.

After a few steps he realised she was no longer beside him. He turned, saw her silhouette, trembling. He went to her, held her, and she clutched him and wept.
Chapter 15

"Ten days is enough, if you start now," said Hansolo, reasonably.

"It will have to be," Shur sighed. "Anyway, it's only one day. And if I don't get everything right, who'll know?"

"The priests," the Regent responded, "and who cares about them?"

Shur giggled. She put down the dress, which weighed a ton, and went to refill her teacup.

"I've got to be with you, all day," Teal observed.

"It's a privilege," Shur smiled. "Just think – it could have been the doctor."

Teal grimaced, and slurped his tea. Arn came into the drawing-room.

"Captain de Vlieger," she announced. Hansolo nodded, and Arn ushered her charge in and closed the door behind her.

"All set?" the Regent enquired. The Captain nodded.

"We can spin the net any time. Mara will be severed from our World; no one will be able to travel between."

Shur spilt her tea. "No!"

They looked at her. She was shaking.

"If you do that... Jing won't be able to get here," Shur stammered. "She... I..."

"And the demons?" de Vlieger said, softly.

Shur started to cry. She'd been through the personal process by which a World could be closed off, so that Doctor Shur couldn't get back. But this general embargo was, for her, monstrous. "She said she would come. She promised." Jing hadn't promised any such thing. But to deny her the chance...

"Darling, it's necessary. We don't know what Fat might be capable of. You weren't here – you didn't see the chaos, the power he had...

"If he gives the secret of Travel to other demons, we wouldn't be safe. We HAVE to do this."

"Don't!"

Hansolo took the Captain aside and had a quiet conversation. Teal stood, held his love, stroked her hair, but she mewed and shook her head.

Eventually the whispered conversation ended.

"For you," the Captain began, "we will hold fire. For a couple of years, for you and for Jing.

"You have to realise – when you knew her there, she was an adult. But here – if she is here in our World – she's the same age as you. Thirteen, maybe younger. How would your Jing behave? If she crossed to this girl here, saw how young she is? Would she take over her mind, force a little girl to live her life on a strange planet, in the body of a woman?

"It's not sensible. What you have told us about Jing – she wouldn't condemn a girl to that."

Shur's tears flowed, bitter with the truth. Jing wouldn't do that. They'd all forgotten the age difference. She, Jing, Ahunga; even Little Pearl, who should have known.

Jing was not coming. She never could.

"We will suspend our net for three years," de Vlieger repeated. "But if we hear of any incursions, demon or Elvis, we will spin it." He put his hand on her shoulder, squeezed once, and left the room.

Arn called Shur to her office, which was a cluttered room in the North Gatehouse. Shur thought that the woman looked exhausted; dark shadows bagged beneath her eyes, wrinkles creased her face. The stress of the last few weeks, and the ongoing firefighting of consequences, as well as the impending age-day, were taking a heavy toll.

In the office, sitting on a bench, were Hoon and Lim.

Lim looked defiant, his companion rather less so. Shur raised an eyebrow to Arn, who motioned the Princess to sit in the only other seat. Shur stood, and Arn, gratefully, lowered herself into it.

"Ex-Sergeant Lim claims that you pardoned him and his comrade, in the box garden a few nights ago. He says that you reinstated their rank, their pay and their pensions. May I ask, Princess Qing Shur – is this correct?"

Arn was in on the whole multiple-World thing. She knew what was what. Shur, therefore, knew that honesty was, if not achievable, certainly something to conserve. She riffled through the memories her older self had laid down while she was away. The scene in the garden unfolded. Shur took a few moments to consider, then spoke.

"Ex-Sergeant Lim held me at sword-point for a few minutes in the garden, accusing me of being a demon, like Fat. He extracted promises from me, after which he laid down his sword and left."

Lim gaped. He hadn't expected this. Hoon looked accusingly at him, but Lim didn't see. He half-rose, then subsided back down. What could he say?

Arn wrote in a scroll. She put down her pen. "And what do you say now, Princess?"

Shur looked at the men. She knew them. The other Shur had not. She knew they were unreliable, foul-mouthed, pig-headed.

She knew too that they were brave men, career soldiers who had fought against huge odds. She knew their wives, their families. She knew what Hoon liked to eat, what games Lim enjoyed playing with his nieces and nephews, how he wished for children of his own. Lim glared at her, but she held his gaze, and his eyes faltered, and dropped.

"The demon was a powerful being. It beguiled those who came close to it. Hoon and Lim were driven, to begin with, by the normal motives of Sergeants – to protect their officers.

"They decided to eliminate the threat. That this did not work, they now, I believe, acknowledge. I do not believe that ex-Sergeant Lim came to me meaning to kill me; but that he was tainted by the demon. He was bent from his normal paths."

"I always said you was bent," Hoon whispered. Lim snarled silently.

"You realise, we could not reinstate these men to their previous positions," Arn said, laying down her brush.

"I understand. But could they not be placed with some other platoons? We could say it's to spread good practice through the Army."

Arn considered. The two men shivered in their seats. When the factotum decided enough time had passed, she nodded and picked up her brush, dipped it in ink, stroked it against the edge of the ink-dish. "I concur. We'll reassign them." Hoon and Lim breathed out. "And let me say – there is a very fine line here between execution for threatening the life of a member of the royal household, and mercy. Be aware. Now, go. Your documents will be delivered to you within the next few days."

When the men had scuttled off, Arn stood and smiled at Shur. "Welcome back, Princess." There was a tear in her eye.

Shur lurched forward and embraced her.

"I'll give her leave after the ceremony," Hansolo said, responding to Shur's plea on Arn's behalf. "She's invested so much in your age-day, it would annoy her if I took it away from her. But," he beamed, "after that she'll be given six months' holiday. Or a year. As long as she wants. You know she has family in China?"

Shur did know, and she was happy that Hansolo had considered them. She was wearing the very heavy five-layer dress, rehearsing for her big day. Teal was in his togs too, along with the Regent. She was glad it was a cool morning. "How do you always end up doing the right thing?" she asked. Hansolo pretended to consider.

"I guess I just think, 'what if it was me?'" he replied. Shur smiled. That was the key, she thought; and hoped the Gold Council of Temporary Powers had the same philosophy.

Lin and his band were passed from community to community, ever south towards the mountains and Stormhold. They were moving ahead of a wave of eager demons from the north, who picked their way over the bridge and down into the forest, then found they were completely unable to fend for themselves in the depths of Evelwood. The demon and Elvis engineers trying to repair the structure set up barricades, but the lure of love free of the disapproval of the elite was compelling. Populations in farmsteads and towns in Demons' Holm were decimated by the exodus.

Hardly any of the hard-liners remained. The ancient shuttle's destruction had blown the top off Cathras. Debris fell across a wide area, but caused very little loss of life outside the mountain itself. There was a sense of freedom, demons and Elvis pointed towards the smoke still rising, embraced, cried with relief. A new age had arrived.

For Lin, it was old age that was the problem.

"Do we really have to move so fast?" he grumbled, hacking at a creeper with a blunt blade. Shin Er sniggered.

"I'd like to reach Eoan before it gets dark," Aramiel replied, wiping sweat from her spotty brow. "Otherwise we'll be spending the night under a bush."

Lim grunted, and soldiered on. They couldn't use the rivers, since they all flowed toward the north. Unless they found a trail, soon, it was very likely the band would end up under a bush.

About an hour later they stumbled onto a track, fetching up soon after at Eoan, the town Aramiel had taken them to when they'd entered the forest, an age ago. It was alarming how the place looked, and smelt without the glamour.

"We stayed here?" Jing gaped, looking around at the rotting ladders and muddy lanes. Shin Ye looked ill.

"Yes. Do you want me to make it look better?" Aramiel said, crossly. She was filthy, and desperately wanted a bath.

"Yes," said Shin Er, firmly. The others nodded. The Elv called to a group gossiping beneath a broadleaf tree, and persuaded them to weave their glamour; then she headed off to the riverside bath-house.

"That's better!" said Shin Er, looking up into the evening sky as the glass globes bloomed with light around him, and the songs of the Elvis began.

They didn't enter the forest. Instructions had come down the radio link to stay where they were. Their Awk companions remained with them, claiming that their instructions had been to accompany the party until they left Awk territory. Whatever; they were congenial company, now that the mission Shen-So had begun so disastrously was now so spectacularly ended.

The Elvis and demons were quite as bright as the Awks, bringing fruits, fungus and forest-mapperings to the table. Songs were sung in the evenings; the fire burned bright with dry wood gathered ever further afield. Maybe next day they would move camp, east a few kilometres, or west. Wherever there was a stream.

Jing sat apart. She missed Princess Shur. The doctor's abrupt entrance had gone more or less unnoticed by the others, who in any case had more to think about than someone else's strange behaviour. But Jing felt lonely, abandoned. She wished she'd never come here.

She almost wished she'd gone to Black.

Ahunga came up to her. She was sitting on her jacket on a flat piece of rock, looking out over the forest. "Mind if I...?"

"Be my guest." She budged up, and he sat. They stared at Evelwood together. They were high enough up the slope that they could see the faraway sparks of settlements.

The lawyer stated the obvious. "You miss her."

"I do."

He hesitated; anyone would, faced with such misery. "Have you..."

"Yes," said Jing.

The silence stretched on, then they found themselves talking together.

"What happened..."

"She's so young!"

He hadn't thought about it. Jing spoke again.

"She's twelve. She lives in a town in China with her family. They're middle-class; they own some bakeries, some apartment buildings. She has a brother who's won a scholarship. He'll get a button on his hat.

"She goes to school. She's really bright. She wants to come here, see what it's like on a different world. I know how to go to her, but I can't work out how to bring her here without swapping. And I won't do that. What if I can't get back?"

Ahunga sought and held her hand. She squeezed his appreciatively. "Anyway. If you see Little Pearl, please ask him. Just a few minutes here, she'd like that."

"But you can't swap with her."

"It wouldn't be fair."

The big man bowed his head. "I can try to make things easier for you. I can try to change Doctor Shur's mind. She's just prejudiced."

"Prejudice is irrational. There's no logic can change that."

"She..."

"She believes that Blues are servants, less than scum. She believes that Red is her natural level; she hated, always hated being Green. I know. She's more of a Princess – in her own mind – than MY Shur. My Shur has no airs, no side to her.

"SHE accepts people for who they are, not what they are. Your Shur just looks at their colour."

"She's not MY Shur!" But he knew she was. He wanted her and he hated her in equal measure. He felt dirty. He let go of Jing's hand. "There are lots of people like her on the Station. I like to think that things will change, when we're all down here. The system was just for the duration."

"It will never change. Only move around. Maybe the Blues will be the new Reds for a while, maybe the Golds will be sent to Black. Who knows? But there'll always be people looking up enviously to others, and down on the ones they think of as scum. Even in Blue, there are people who are proud they're engineers, and sniff at people like me, because we have easy jobs, we don't get our hands dirty."

"So what will you do?"

"I'll go back to Stormhold, learn systems. Become indispensible. I am not a receptionist!"

Ahunga smiled.

"You certainly weren't." Ahunga's head swivelled. Shur was standing behind them. The bitch was really quiet on her feet. "Always stealing. Lazy. Inattentive."

Jing seemed unperturbed. "Why didn't you report me, for stealing pens? Get me sent to Black?"

Ahunga stayed silent, and Shur did too, for a little while.

"Why should I bother? You meant nothing to me. A mouse, stealing crumbs."

"You put up with me because you wanted someone more miserable than yourself," said Jing, clearly. "Someone you could look down on. You lost all your Green friends when you went Red. Then all your Red friends when you fell back to Green.

"You could have hired a Green receptionist, but someone at the same level as you would have irked you. You had to have a whipping-girl. Just my misfortune to be the one."

Jing turned to face Shur.

"I'm not responsible for your woes, Qing Shur. I didn't love you and leave you. You – she – Princess Shur – she is, she was, just what you could have been, if you'd not been chasing status. Why couldn't you just be content? You had enough. Why persecute others?"

"I loved him. I wasn't concerned with being elevated to Red –"

"You were. Otherwise you'd still have had friends in Green."

Ahunga started to edge away.

"My friends have nothing to do with you!"

When the lawyer got back to the fire most of the band were asleep. He nodded to Kurk, unrolled his sleeping-bag and curled up gratefully.

In the morning he rose and made for the toilet thicket. His mouth felt like the bottom of a birdcage. On the way he bumped into Jing, who was ducking out of the small copse of trees and bushes.

"Oops! Sorry, Jing!"

"No problem... Thanks for leaving me alone with her last night."

Ahunga was sheepish. "I'm no good in those situations."

"Fine lawyer you are, I'm sure."

"What happened?"

Jing smiled. Her teeth gleamed, her hair was glossy and kempt. Ahunga wondered what the girls had on their side of the bushes – a salon?

"We're the best of friends," she announced. "All it took was a furious argument. And her admitting she was completely in the wrong."

"And no black eyes," Ahunga grinned. "Now, if you will excuse me...?"

Jing jaunted up the slope to breakfast, while he went in search of the salon.

The first thing the adventurers saw when they struggled out of Evelwood was an Awk.

It was huge. It carried a long-handled mace. A sling dangled from its belt, and pouches of small rocks. Its kilt was chequered with earth colours, its sporran big and low-hanging. Aramiel hung back, with Ram, and the humans, weaponless, hesitated. But they picked up their courage and moved on, through the scrubby bushes, onto the slopes of the southern range, into range of the Awk's weapons.

Lin looked the creature in the eye, then knelt and bowed his head. Behind him the others did the same. They heard a loud crack as the mace-head struck the stony ground.

"At last!" cried the Awk, in passable Mandarin. "I've been waiting here bloody ages!"

Lin looked up sharply. The Awk was grinning, leaning on the shaft of its mace.

"You're supposed to say, 'take me to your leader'," the Awk urged, and winked.

So they came back to human society, and to the new world that Shen Teal had brought for them all.

The day arrived, and it was not quite as dreadful as Qing Shur had expected. Rising at five to be bathed, powdered, made up, dressed and tutted at by maids she'd never seen before – well, that wasn't so bad. Arn came in with a huge breakfast tray at six, and slipped Shur a paper packet. "Sugar sweets," she whispered. "They'll keep your energy up during the day."

Shur needed them. At seven precisely the drums and gongs began, and fireworks crackled. Hansolo met her at the door of her rooms and took her to a palanquin in the carp garden. She thought about what her usurper had heard about Fat, injuring and healing a fish. Then the day took hold as she was borne out onto the central lawn, thronged with Castle staff all cheering, and then on to the Heavenly Gates and the temple where Shen Teal waited, weighed down as much as she with miles of cloth, but with his smile, his proud, dark eyes, his arms outstretched, waiting to take her to her throne, and to hours of boring duty.

She smiled. She would cope.

Locked into the cold-sleeping mind of the once-Red, now Black Jae-eun, Fat endured. He studied the mandalas of Travel, sent himself out, ranged the Universes, saw much, learned little. His prejudices blinded him to all the things that had broadened Little Pearl's mind. His anger knotted him into twists of hatred and revenge. One day he would be free. One day he would use this new, this tremendous power, to get back at those who had tricked him.

On a thousand, ten thousand Worlds, he salivated, he soothed his victims, he raped, he murdered. He swung about him wildly, uncaring who he hurt.

Unknowingly he took Jae-eun with him. She woke within her own mind, in the dark cold prisoning box, with the blazing sigil in her brain; and shot off into the complex dimensions of manifold space-time like a rocket. Then, pausing, looking toward the havoc the demon was wreaking, she changed her direction, put forth her mind, healing victims, mending worlds; frustrating the vicious being wherever she could.

The End
