THE DERELICT

Nis shivered, unable to shake the eerie feeling Republic gave him. He knew
Republic was cold, inert steel, but he couldn’t help thinking that it was once
alive and now it was dead. Republic's functioning lights were inadequate
for civilized creatures, shining balefully as they did in the gloom.
All they really knew was that the bridge was in the upper decks.
Unfortunately, Republic was over two kilometers long. There was an
enormous amount of space to be searched.
There were cadavers. Bones lay in crumpled heaps or strewn across sloping
floors. None of them looked as though they had died peacefully.
Walker didn’t have to point out the bullet hits and deep scars on the metal of
the hexagonal door.
Walker took a closer look at the door, where its two sliding halves met. The
metal had flowed inward and formed a bond which prevented them from
opening.
“It’s welded shut,” Walker said. “The bead’s on the other side.”
The implications escaped Bartlet.
Nis felt the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end. Don’t ask, Nis
thought, then I won’t have to answer.
She did. “What does that mean?”
“They welded it shut from the inside,” Nis explained. “They sealed their
own tomb.”
“What’s out here that they didn’t want to get in there?” Walker rumbled,
running his fingers over the parallel gouges in the metal surface.
Nis felt suddenly exposed. He conjured up a dozen terrible ways to die in
the hulking ship. Somehow he knew none of those visions would seem so
terrible when they finally found out exactly what had occurred there.
 THE EYES

OF LIGHT

AND DARKNESS
A Science Fiction Thriller

by
IVAN CAT
with Darren Sarvari

DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM. FOUNDER
375 Hudson Street. New York. NY 10014
ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

SHEILA E. GILBERT
PUBLISHERS
 Copyright © 1996 by Ivan T. Cat and Darren Sarvari All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Peter Gudynas

DAW Book Collectors No. 1032.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin U.S.A.

If you should purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been
stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such a case neither
the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is
strictly coincidental.

First Printing, September 1996

123456789

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

— MARCA REG1STRADA.

HECHO EN U.S.A.

OCR, proof-reading & corrections by WFalcon, 2022

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to all the friends and family whose patience and support
enabled this book to become a reality. Particular thanks goes to the
screenwriter Earnest Sheldon, Jr. for his invaluable encouragement, advice
and butt-kicking.

NOTE

This book took me months to proof read and there were literaly hundreds of
OCR and other errors to fix, a few even in the original paper book. I bet I
have missed some, but it should still be an enjoyable read.
Dedicated to MAM, 2022.

Overture:

This is a tale of three souls caught up in events beyond their control, some
of which they knew, some of which they knew not. That part is not so
different as far as tales go, but it is not these events which are the heart of
the story. It is not so much the who and the where which are important but
rather the why and the how, for the names and the places can change, but
the story goes forever on....
Prologue
Planet JV-9
2987 AD.

Downwind, fungi stalks rustled.

The young spore-eater froze, a stain of pearlescent powder on his eating

hose. The herd mothers towered around him, ear stalks straining toward the
faint sound. Something was moving in the undergrowth. The air became
unnaturally still except for the squawking of a treeglider. Delicate cilia
extended from the mothers’ mouthless snouts, testing the air, but they
scented nothing save the pungent odors of wet-thick around them and
the parched security of the dry-open behind them. The unfamiliar sights and
smells, the closeness of the moist environment, frightened the young one.
The mothers were skittish: rounded bodies jostled one another, delicate
legs shifted uneasily on the spongy carpet of leech-tongue leaves and
fungus. Orange skins, which had always comforted the young one, seemed
somehow dangerous against the muted, waxy greens nearby.

Hunger had driven the herd here to the place where dryopen changed into
wet-thick. Food was plentiful, but so were the risks. The young spore-eater
gobbled another mouthful despite his fear, his hose whistling as it suctioned
the delectable spores. The mothers did not. Like all herbivores, they knew
instinctively that many things with sharp teeth eyed them hungrily.

A volley of hissing sounds sliced through the silence. Fletched bone needles
flashed through the air. The young one squealed as a dozen darts lodged in
his flanks. Panic swept the herd and they broke, bounding for the dry-
open. Danger followed close on their heels. The shoulder-high polyp fronds
were alive with sounds of unseen pursuit. Stealthy apparitions ran alongside
the spore-eaters, the tops of the thin, dry fronds parting as they passed.
The young one smelled the danger now: musky, like cloves with a hint of
salt.
The young spore-eater couldn’t keep up. His birth mother prodded him,
desperately urging him on as they fell further and further behind. She was
torn between selfpreservation and maternal instinct. She charged
phantoms in the polyp fronds, but they melted away before she got there.
Another volley of darts whistled by, narrowly missing the mother and
striking her young one again. It was too much for her; the young one was
doomed.

The young spore-eater bleated pathetically, eating tube held high, as his
birth mother and the herd disappeared over the rolling plains, abandoning
him to his fate.

On cue, the hunters burst into the open. Unlike the spore-eaters, they were
bipedal. Stocky bodies carried high-domed heads with wide mouths and lots
of sharp teeth. Blood lust boiled behind clear, intelligent eyes. Their
pelts came in many colors the spore-eater had never seen before and the
mottled patterns were just as varied. Hypnotic markings swirled across their
wide foreheads. Stubby hands grasped blowguns and primitive knives. They
wore nothing but thin bandoliers of braided spore-eater hide, hung with
pouches for their darts. Their breathing was heavy. Thin nostrils flared and
muscles rippled effortlessly under fur as they leaped over rocks and fallen
trees without slowing. They were not as fast as the spore-eaters, but
they were many.

The sharp pain of the darts became a spreading numbness and the young
one faltered as more bipeds rose out of the fronds on either side of it. Not
just hunters appeared, but an entire tribe: old ones, young ones, females
with staring-eyed cubs. They shrieked like banshees, flailing the brush with
long poles. Terrified, the spore-eater fled down the narrow chute of bodies
into a wide circle formed by the waiting hunters.

The ploy worked as it had so many times before. The prey lurched into the
killing ground. It turned frantically, looking for an exit, but the circle closed
behind and began its inexorable contraction.

The hunters closed in. Several leaped and missed. Then the prey stumbled.
Another hunter pounced on it, claws digging into the tender flesh. The
young one felt many teeth piercing his neck. He felt the growling sound
resonating from the hunter’s body. He flailed his hooves in desperation.
Several hunters were bloodied as they moved in to help. The tribe chanted
now, spurring the first hunter on. The spore-eater felt the jaws tightening.
He couldn’t breathe, his breath sacs filling with blood.

Soon the futile thrashing subsided.

Triumphant Hunter pulled back; rich almost-black fluid stained the fur
around his mouth. Snarling like wild beasts, the other hunters each took
their turn drinking from the steaming kill. Soon all their faces were
steeped in the spore-eater’s life blood. Eyes glittered as they looked from
one to another, revelling in the grisly rite of unity.

Triumphant Hunter breathed deeply the commingled scents of life and

death. It was good. There would be much mating tonight.

The pod of hunters bled the spore-eater’s body, so that the deadly poison
from their darts would not taint its meat. Then they cleaned and trussed the
kill onto a pole and set out across the plains under the light and heat
of Protector. The glowing proto-star filled fully a third of the purple sky
above them. Its wide bands of rings filled even more of the sky, stretching
off to either side of the huge orb. They disappeared behind Protector, whose
surface boiled like magma in a volcanic lake, only much brighter.

Protector set. Two distant suns provided no more light than a full moon.
One of the twins, a mote of infinite darkness rimmed with violet, was
visible only in contrast to its cool white brother.

The hunters found shelter in a favorite copse of trees and began the happy
task of sharing and consuming the meat. Each member of the pod was given
what he needed, even those too infirm to take part in the hunt. All
would starve before one would starve.

The rich scents of cooking meat and wood smoke were pleasant. The
Children of Protector sat around the fire, eating their fill. Dancing flames
reflected in their deep eyes. Their voices were surprisingly gentle and
melodious as they conversed with one another, finding harmony in the
simplest piece of gossip.
Triumphant Hunter sat in the position of honor, next to the elder with
streaks of gray in the swirling patterns on his rounded forehead. All
members of the pod deferred to him. A robe of small dried gourds and
bones woven together with animal sinews hung about his sagging
shoulders. At his slightest move seeds in the gourds hissed like the wind
and the bones clattered like distant thunder.

He was the Soothsinger and he was thankful. The Eyes had turned inward
and paid the people little heed in these times. Darkness consumed the light
now, but it had not always been so. Once, the Eyes of Light and
Darkness had looked upon them with equal force. Soothsinger shivered in
the warm night air. Now the Darkness was cast out, but the Power was
gone, too. The Path had become unclear...

Their hunger sated, the pod gave him their full attention. They waited
patiently for the ritual they knew would come, must come. Triumphant
Hunter removed a tasty piece of meat from his roasting stick and offered it
to Soothsinger. Soothsinger turned it down. That was expected. It was part
of the age-old ritual.

Soothsinger rocked back and forth on his haunches, a low descant

beginning in the depths of his old lungs. His voice was tremulous and weak,
but it was the content that was important, not the strength of his voice. Soon
the others joined in, adding their voices to the sacrament. Following his
lead, the sound rose and fell in a swelling movement of emotion. The voices
were discordant, but played off one another in astonishing harmonies. An
outsider would have been moved to hear it; emotions stirred, welled up by
the mournful hymn, but there could be no outsiders. The singers were the
song and the song was the singers.

It was the Rote: the racial memories, the pain, the love, and the eventual
doom of the singers. It was a universe unto itself. As each singer lived
through the changes of his life, his piece in the Rote would change too.
The Soothsinger would interpret and supply the subtle shift in harmony and
the singer would follow, his lines in the song weaving their own accents in
the preordained patterns. As each bared his heart his suffering was taken
on by the whole. “You are not alone!” the music cried. “We hurt like you.
We yearn together.” It bound them to each other. As they sang they
recorded those bonds in their memories and each generation learned its
place from the vibration of its parents’ voices as they clung together. It was
unity in the face of the unknown and oneness against the grip of loneliness
and—most of all—a plea. A plea to that which had deserted them. A plea
against unchangeable fate and for the self-determination which eluded
them, for the Power that they had lost so very long ago.

The Rote consoled them and accommodated their differences. It allowed

them to survive day to day, but because it was all encompassing, so
complete in its control of the smallest of everyday actions, it also enslaved
them to the very fate it had evolved to forestall.

Eventually the Rote faded away, as it always did. There could be no ending
and no beginning, only the sense that the now had been fulfilled and that the
singers would see another day.

Contented silence came over the people. Triumphant Hunter watched

Soothsinger crane his stiff neck up at the sky: sssssh went the rain in his
cloak, kssskshshsh went the thunder in the bones. He was looking for the
Eyes of Light and Darkness, the tiny distant sun and its dark companion.
Even though cataracts had prevented him from seeing the suns for many
years, Soothsinger knew exactly where to look.

“Help us,” Soothsinger said, so quietly only Triumphant Hunter heard. “We
cannot see which way to go with one Eye closed....”

Suddenly, as if in answer to his prayer, the Eyes were eclipsed. But the plea
was not answered with mercy, but with ordeal. The ground shuddered and
thunder pealed across the sky. A chill breeze raced along the grass
and ruffled the people’s fur as a dark shape slid out in front of the Eyes.
Like an enormous blood-feeder, it descended in wide circles centered
around the small campfire. The hunters formed a ring around the weak and
the young as the monster closed. Its leading edge burned red hot as
it wounded the sky on its way down. It pulled up at the height of the tallest
trees, then sank to the earth on legs of flame. The ground shook. The wind
kicked up twisting vortexes of dirt. Mothers clutched at crying babies,
but the pod stood its ground. Gouts of sparks and glowing coals showered
from the fire.
And as quickly as it had come upon them, the maelstrom ceased. The pillars
of flame cut out and the black shape touched down less than three hundred
paces from the camp. Sheets of smoke rose from the charred ground and the
burning fronds, shrouding the monster in a veil which glowed where the
fires inside peeped out. Unfamiliar scents filled the air, like yet not like
burning hair, swamp vapor, heated rock. Ears fanned forward as the pod
listened to the groans coming from within the beast.

A shaft of light sprang from an opening. Ears flattened again as a bipedal

figure stepped into the swirling mist. It clanked down a ramp to the naked
earth, plates of grotesque skin scuffing against themselves.

The apparition sparked the tribe’s genetic memories. Memories so ancient

that even the Rote did not remember them. Their minds had forgotten, but
their bodies remembered with every cell in every muscle. As one the
tribe reacted, crouching in a submissive position with their ears folded back
and their hands over their eyes.

The figure lumbered into the midst of the defenseless pod. They heard its
approach even though they had blinded themselves to it. It hissed from
mouths on its back and its steps were heavy.

It stooped and picked up a knife, turning it over in thick-fingered hands.

The knife had been chipped out of stone with great expertise and care. Held
by the blade, it was offered back to the rightful owner.

Triumphant Hunter shivered from the shock of the compulsion which

doubled him up. Never before had he so lost control over his body. It
shamed him. He felt the demon’s movements through the ground, smelled
its harsh scent. It didn’t smell alive. With all his strength, he forced
his hands from his face and looked up. The figure loomed over him. It was
one head taller than he. From close up it seemed powerful, but not so
menacing as he had first thought. The compulsion had been a false alarm.
The creature’s skin was like hard water. He saw his reflection in a head
rounded like Protector. Now a thick hand went to the blank face and the
skin split wide open! Hazel eyes looked out from inside. They glimmered in
a hairless, shriveled face. New scents of life filled Triumphant Hunter’s
nose, subtle and sweet. The creature was like himself, but not the same. It
was soft and pink under its night-sky shell. Its nostrils flared—just like
Triumphant Hunter’s did—as it tested the wind. Its eyes glazed over and its
expression softened. Also like we do, thought Triumphant Hunter, when we
remember pleasant things long gone. He sensed that the creature was old:
its body language spoke of wisdom and the few hairs sprouting around its
mouth were purest white.

No, Triumphant Hunter concluded, it did not mean them any harm.
Greeting sounds were coming from its mouth.

“Hello,” said Dr. Francis Bartlet in English.

The old man’s arm remained outstretched. Triumphant Hunter reached out,
touching the warm pressure suit as his hand reclaimed the knife. A smile
spread across the human’s face. Its words were foreign, but
Triumphant Hunter somehow understood the meaning: “We come
in peace.”

Their eyes met. Old eyes full of wonder and young eyes deep with ancient
secrets.
Chapter 1
Eighty years later.

The crude, steel cylinder was the man’s prison. Three meters long, with
bulging welds at the seams and a mass of tangled piping connected to its
underside, the cryogenic vault was sealed from the outside by sturdy lugs
and bolts. Hundreds of identical coffins lined the inside of the colony ship.
There was no escape. The great vessel was halfway along her path between
the uncaring stars. Another three decades would crawl by before she
reached Jayvee 9.

Inside the vault, the cryogenic process had gone wrong. It was a dark tube,
barely long enough or wide enough for the large man frozen solid there. His
eyes were closed and his hard features relaxed, but the appearance of deep
rest was far from the truth. His mind was a superconductor. An insignificant
bit of static electricity coursed through his frozen brain, arousing distant
memories and thoughts: accusing, denying, revealing, like a madman
bouncing off padded walls in a maze.

His name was Walker. That was the one thing the large man knew for sure
in the icy madness, and he clung to it. A phantom shiver ran the length of
his numb body, like the itching toes of an amputated leg. Walker did not
feel the frigid metal under his back, his nerves could not sense the icy cold
which pierced his frozen body to the core, but his mind remembered these
things in frightening, vivid detail. He should not have been able to
remember anything at all. He was supposed to be asleep, without
even dreams to distract him, a timeless, selfless, passage of time. It was all
supposed to happen in the blink of an eye—not like this. The static spark
went around and around. Memories became more exaggerated with
each repetition. Walker had many questions, but his disjointed thoughts did
not provide any easy revelations. A mad kernel of thought taunted him:
Walker should have known, but pride got in the way. He had set his own
trap, then boldly walked into it.
Walker was on a mission. He remembered that much. It was an important
mission, with great risk and great reward. The problem was he couldn’t
remember what it was. The frozen shroud over his mind blotted out the
details and no amount of concentration could pierce it. Frustration engulfed
Walker, as it had uncounted times before. He wanted to scream. He wanted
to thrash and rage, to break free, but there was no release. It was like
running in quicksand, pursued by unseen demons. He felt their hot breath
on his back. Rational thought evaded him in his madness. It was a long time
before he stitched the fragments of his mind together.

It was so cold.

There was only one way to find the truth about his identity and his mission.
Walker must dive into the repeating memories. He must not strain to focus,
but let ideas blossom out of hidden memories or wilt and die at their
whim. Fear, an unfamiliar emotion, took Walker as he let go, impaling
himself on the shards of those memories.

How wrong he had been. How proud he had been. How he had basked in
every triumph, swelled at every medal. He thought he had been smart,
successful, lucky.

He was a fool.

The image of a woman appeared. She was strong and elegant. A wife? A
young girl’s face appeared. Walker felt sorrow. He instinctively grasped for
the memory, but it wriggled away. He forced himself to let it go, and
then more images came: another face, chiselled by years of leading soldiers
to victory and death. It was pig-shaved, a military man, a bold, fearless
commander—it was him! A flood of lies washed the first name away, but
Walker held onto the face.

That revelation ignited a chain of troubling thoughts....

Two days before launch, Walker had marched with other men down a long
docking tube. He used hands as well as feet to stay erect in the low pressure
field. Windows flashed by every five paces. Outside, many other umbilicals
and gantries held the bloated colony vessel in the docking bay. The ship
was over two kilometers long, a leprous cylinder pregnant at the waist, but
it was dwarfed by its surroundings: Industrial Complex V. Metal madness
sprawled as far as his eyes could see.

Far below was a blue globe with toxic yellow clouds. Once it was home,
but not anymore. Walker recognized her continents, remembered her
boundaries. One in particular jumped out: the Australasian Protectorate.

I fought there, he thought. No, I was victorious there.

A wash of unbidden shame infuriated Walker. Shame was not the proper
emotion of a victor. He concentrated on keeping his imposing frame erect in
the low gravity. The long tube ended. As he entered the large spacecraft, its
stronger pressure field swamped him, the peculiar pressing down so unlike
natural weight. They moved along a dark, squared-off passage.
Condensation dripped, pooled on the deck, spattered his spit and polish
boots. Water.

The memory-byte danced to another path, another place.

Walker studied drying puddles at his feet. Gaping holes riddled a water
tanker beside him, its metal hot under the southern hemisphere sun. He was
deep in the Australasian Protectorate, leading his corps of crack troops. The
revolutionaries fought hard, but they were no match for him. They didn’t
have the strength of will to meet his brutality on even terms. They didn’t
know that yet. Soon, they would.

The smoking trucks were a message. Precious liquid cargo spilled onto the
cracked, dry lake bed beneath. The revolutionaries would have to search for
more. Few places offered safe drinking water now. Walker smiled.
Thirsty men made mistakes. Thirsty men were easier to kill.

But Walker had remembered this before, he suddenly realized. And before
that. Many times. Where was the rest of his life?

Geysers of steam swirled into already thick air as the scene changed. He
was back in the colony ship, deep inside, continuing the memory of his
entry. The military man felt a foreboding malignancy to these memories.
He didn’t want to remember, not this way.

High above on a catwalk, a woman desperately looked for him. It was the
woman from his memory shards, beautiful and intelligent. A young girl
clung to her legs. They were property of the System now—they always had
been, but now the man was terribly aware of that vulnerability. Scabs had
formed on numbers tattooed on their cheeks. The woman tried to maintain
her dignity in spite of the situation, in spite of the clothes she was forced to
wear.

Walker shuffled in the line below. Metal shackles clattered against metal
deck. A sluggish rhythm syncopated the ragged breathing of the other men
—the men from his corps. They moved without speaking, locked in prisons
of their own thoughts. There was nothing to say. Their fate was certain. The
air smelled of sweat and fear. They were the defeated, chained and
condemned. Tattered threads hung from Walker’s black-green uniform,
stripped of rank, badges and decoration. The right sleeve was missing.
Frayed fabric trailed across a field of angry, glistening blisters on his naked
arm, evidence of the System’s merciless methods. The pain threatened to
overcome him, but he could not let it. His warrior discipline was all he had
left.

This memory was corrupted. Walker knew that as it played across his mind,
but he did not stop the lies, not yet.

The line of military prisoners crept by the open cryogenic tanks that would
be their doom. The tops were hinged up. Tooth-like rows of lugs waited to
seal them shut. They looked like a line of hungry beasts.

Feeding time approached.

The woman desperately looked from one prisoner to the next. She spotted
the proud man and leaned over the railing calling, “Walker!”

He looked up. A guard jabbed him with an electrified prod before he could
respond. Sparks jumped where metal met sweat-soaked flesh. Blisters burst
and oozed on his arm. He met the woman’s eyes. They had been happy
together, but they always knew it couldn’t last. Nothing ever did. Not in this
world.

He saw the Representative of the System behind her. A pinched stick of a

man whose words carried less weight than the soles of his feet. The
Representative’s loathsome gaze travelled over her body. The young girl
cried.

Gloating son of a bitch, Walker thought.

“Take a look,” the Representative said to the woman. “It’s the last one
you’ll get.”

She trembled despite her best efforts. The Representative caressed her
cheek with his fingertips. His eyes lingered where vinyl chaffed flesh under
neoprene.

No. This was not true. This was a lie. A simplistic nightmare, spawning and
respawning with each repetition of an obsessive loop.

The truth was more insidious than that.

The memory changed again.

Walker was still in the ship, but it was different, more rooted in reality. He
was in a vast chamber in the center of the spacecraft, a vertical chamber
cutting through decks receding above and below. Each deck was lined with
row upon row of cryogenic vaults. The men in line weren’t chained
prisoners or his men. There were no uniforms, only sanitary white linens.
And there weren’t guards with cattle prods forcing them on. More like
escorts, or mourners maybe. He wasn’t dead yet, except in their minds,
but he might as well be.

He looked up.

His wife and daughter were not on the catwalk. They never had been.
Walker had spared them this memory. It had been his choice. It had all been
his choice.
This was the truth.

One by one the men ahead of Walker stepped into the vaults. One by one
they stepped out of the lives they knew, never to be seen again.

There was one man left in front of Walker. A kid, no more than twenty, he
hesitated as technicians guided him into his vault. Walker saw regret in the
young man’s stiffening bearing. He swayed. “Oh, God....”

Walker’s hands met the young shoulders, not allowing them to fall. “Pull
yourself together,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “We asked for this.”

The young volunteer swallowed his bile and staggered forward. The
technicians placed him carefully in the cylinder. A doctor rapidly inserted
several intravenous needles and sensors. Servos groaned. Walker and
those behind him watched as the heavy lid lowered. The young man Walker
didn’t know clenched his fists as he disappeared, all the time staring into the
military man’s eyes for support. The vault clanged shut. Technicians
tightened the lugs which sealed it and a doctor initiated the flash freezing
process.

Frigid gases rushed into the cylinder at pressures greater than three
thousand atmospheres, a procedure which inhibited ice crystals from
rupturing the volunteer’s cells. The hiss was terrific. Fear traveled down
the line of men behind Walker. It flowed through him like a current, jolting
him back into the limbo of his mind.

Walker wanted that memory to continue. He was getting closer to the real
events, nearing the truth of his mission, but he could not force the stream of
thought. Walker must take the moments he didn’t want as well as those he
did.

And there were so many moments he didn’t want to relive.

Another jumble of images pummeled him. Walker remembered summer

days in a hot LZ, men and machines of death sweltering in their own juices,
waiting for his command. There had been vicious fighting. The
revolutionaries knew they were not up against one of the System’s toady
commanders. After a few bloody losses, they had rallied and fought back
with renewed vigor. Walker’s men were tired, but morale was high. They
would not slink back to their normal lives defeated, as they had so many
times before. This time Walker fought at their side. He would lead them to
victory, or death. They wanted it that way. Life in the System was hard
enough as a returning hero. Defeat was worse than extinction.

Walker remembered winter nights razing revolutionary villages to the

ground. Scattered reports of gunfire told him his men were cleaning up. The
XXVIIth Protectorate Guard. Death from behind. The campaign was
turning. Walker felt it, but there must be no mercy now. Any sign of
weakness would galvanize the revolutionaries and castrate his men. There
was no room in a soldier’s mind for doubt.

And then it was spring, the kind of day it was great to be alive. The
revolutionaries were on the run. An M84 sang in Walker’s hands. The
powerful assault rifle cut the fleeing enemy down. They tumbled in slow
motion, like lemmings into a roaring cataract of runoff water.

A painful memory intruded.

Walker wasn’t paying attention. He had been blinded by his elation. The
napalm grenade exploded. Fiery plasma spattered across his right arm. That
was how his arm had been wounded, not by System torturers, as the false
memories tried to tell him, but by his own shortsighted lack of attention.

All of that was truth.

Now he floundered in images, the taste of revelation on his lips. A very

important remembrance flowed out of his pain.

Walker strode into a stately room off the balcony.

Thousands cheered in the arena outside. The Medal of Freedom was fresh
on Walker’s breast, the intoxication of adulation clouding his judgment. He
walked along the red carpet. Hail the conquering hero. Savior of the
System. He stopped and stood at attention before a large oval desk.
The Executive rose and shook his hand. “Marshal Walker. The System owes
you a debt of gratitude. Indeed, we might not be here right now if not for
your deft handling of the Australasian Rebellion. How can we repay you?”

“I serve the System,” Walker said, full of himself. “A soldier needs no

reward.”

There was more meaningless praise from the Executive, then empty
protestations of humility from the military man. The Executive excused
himself and left.

Now would come the meat of the encounter.

The Representative spoke. “We have a reward for you.”

Of course they did. It was expected. Walker knew exactly what he wanted:
Supreme Command of System forces. It was Walker’s by right. He waited
confidently.

“This reward is in the form of a challenge,” the Representative continued on

an unexpected tack. “The Executive realizes that a man of your caliber
needs challenges. Left without enemies he will soon create new ones.” The
Representative’s words hung heavy in the air. “You, Marshal Walker, have
neatly eradicated the last of yours.”

It was at that moment Walker knew how foolish he had been.

“There is a fine line between hero and loose cannon,” the Representative
continued. “The System defines this line with pragmatic need on one side,
and unnecessary risks to its existence on the other. Here on Earth, you
are on the wrong side of that line, I am afraid.”

The System had a problem with its colony. Walker heard explanations about
distance, time, perceived lack of control. The proper coded messages had
not arrived, the Representative emphasized. The colonists were disobeying
the will of the System. With clarity brought on by imminent loss, Walker
detected the paranoid subtext of the speech. He had been used. They had no
intention of promoting Marshal Walker to System forces command.
The untrusting System feared betrayal at the hands of its most loyal soldier.

“A colony ship is prepping for launch in three days,” the Representative

said. “You will be on it. You will bring our errant colony back in line. You
will show them what happens to revolutionaries, just as you showed
the Australasians.”

Walker was shocked. “I don’t want to go.” They did not need a warrior. A
good psychiatrist on Earth could solve such paranoid delusions. The System
was squandering his talents. “I’m needed here.”

“There you are wrong,” the Representative said lightly. “You are a military
genius. You know nothing about taxation, subjugation and propaganda. You
are not a politician, or you would not be in the predicament you are in
now.”

“It’s a rash choice.”

“Life is full of choices. Some are easier than others,” the Representative
said evenly. “You have two choices. Accept, you go and your family lives
out their lives, your wife an honored figure, widowed by a hero’s selfless
dedication to the cause. Or do not accept; you still go, but your wife and
daughter are placed in freeze here on Earth. Never to awaken. You will
condemn them to death without dying.”

“Those choices are no choice,” Walker protested.

“The System has confidence in you.”

The System was afraid for its ass. They couldn’t keep a man of Walker’s
potential around. The people loved him. He accomplished whatever he
chose. Private Walker, Colonel Walker, Marshal Walker ... Executive
Walker. The System couldn’t let him stay. They were maneuvering him out
of contention to a backwater planet, taking him out of the loop. Marshal
Walker would cause the System no problems from fifty light-years away.
“How do you know I’ll execute my orders?” Walker asked. “You can’t
control the colony. How do you expect to control me?”

“We don’t want to control you,” the Representative said smugly. “Far from
it. We just want to set you free. The System is a careful observer of human
nature. That is why you were chosen to squelch the revolution in the
first place. You are a conqueror, a tyrant. You feed on victory. You are
addicted to power. A man such as you could not restrain himself from
ultimate authority, even if he wanted to, which the record of your successes
and tactics does not indicate to be a problem. Once those poor bastards
open your tank, it’s all over. I wish 1 could see it, but I’ll be dead.”

Walker could not argue. He wanted to run, but somehow he knew it was
futile. Assassins, perhaps men he had trained, would be observing him this
very minute. Others would be watching his house, his family. A wrong
move now and their lives were lost as well as his.

Puppet Walker saluted as a cold, sinking feeling engulfed his pride.

Loss of life. Loss of love. Loss of time.

“Your methods and strategy are completely up to you. But I recommend

you hide your military identity, Marshal.”

That wasn't quite how it happened, merely an abridged version compiled by

Walker’s feverish mind. And it wasn’t completely accurate. It was mostly
truth, but there was a critical piece missing. No amount of repetition could
ferret it out. Walker wearily accepted the gap. He was too far gone to fight.

Where was the truth? Somewhere between the lines.

Walker’s memories returned to the final scene on the colony ship.

Frost coated the outside of the vault. The hissing stopped. A red light
blinked on top. The doctor consulted his instruments. A brief expression of
distaste passed over his face. “Unsuccessful. Set it up again.”
The woman on the catwalk looked down at Walker as the technicians
reopened the vault. He saw her numb horror.

Walker bore the lie of her presence without resisting.

The Representative intimated to her, “Seventeen percent die upon freezing.”

Somehow, Walker heard the words. It was his mad brain’s way of
tormenting him with facts.

Technicians removed the frozen remains of the young man and tossed it into
a bin far below. It shattered like flawed crystal.

The Representative continued. “Half the rest don’t survive, you know. They
go insane and die in transit. They’re frozen, but they don’t sleep. They
remain conscious for the entire trip.”

Technicians hosed the vault with sterilizing steam. Guards released Walker
from the chain.

The Representative breathed on the woman’s neck. “Can you imagine it?”
he whispered. “Frozen in a cold steel coffin for all those years,
excruciatingly aware of each passing second....” he laughed. “At least they
can’t feel anything!”

Thousands went out in the sleeper ships, Walker knew, but only hundreds
reached their destination alive and sane.

Humanity was seeding the stars with insanity.

The Representative persisted. “If I were you, I’d pray he dies straight off.
But Marshal Walker has such strength of will. I suspect he’ll last the entire
seven years....”

Guards prodded Walker into the vault.

“Of course, that’s his subjective time. Thanks to relativity, you’ll be long
dead before he reaches his destination.”
The doctor’s eyes sparkled. Lies turned him into an asexual vision of terror
in lab whites. The eyes touched here ... slid there ... shied away from direct
eye contact in favor of a sidelong glance at Walker’s arm. “I am sorry about
the scarring, but you were so uncooperative.” The eyes closed, nostrils
flaring, and he shivered with remembered pleasure. Lids fluttered open to
unexpectedly confront Walker’s steely glare. “Look to yourself if you
must find a villain,” the thin man whined defensively. “You betrayed them
all.”

Walker felt the eye of every prisoner upon him. He couldn’t look at them.

“They will pay for your dreams of,” he paused, searching for the right
word. He laughed. “Morality? Your daughter will be sent to the pleasure
houses. She’ll command quite a price if she survives the surgery...

Walker ignored the insane words. He looked up as the lid lowered on his
vault. The Representative motioned and guards took his daughter away. His
wife screamed, clinging to the girl. Walker didn’t care if this was a
false memory. It was all he had of them.

The lid clanged shut.

His breath echoed in the confined space. It smelled of oil and his own hot
sweat. Walker tore at his bonds. The chains rattled hollowly, but the
pneumatic wrenches drowned them out.

The freezing process started. Again the hiss of gas. A brief thumping and
moaning. Then, all was quiet.

Outside, the blinking light atop the vault was green, not red.

It was dark. He sensed his body rather than felt it. All he could feel was the
intense cold penetrating every part of his body. Licking at his very soul.

He cried for his wife and daughter.

And for himself.

“It’s all right,” said the Loneliness. “I’ll be right here with you. ’’
“And I,” said the Madness. “We have all the time in the world. Let’s play a
game....”
Chapter 2
File: BARTLET, ELAINE F.3463-67A

Origin: JV-9 primary school database.

Elaine Bartlet’s Grade 5 history report, as read by Elaine Bartlet, age 7,

with corresponding video presentation. (Note: Subject Elaine Bartlet
considered gifted. Normal age/grade restrictions waved. JV-9 Council
Edict: BAR-ELAINE-0004-65A)

Bartlet: (a sweet but serious young voice) “Grandpa said he was a

‘corpssicle’.”

Video: The bloated mass of a colony ship fills the frame.

Bartlet: (thoughtfully) “I think what he really meant to say was that he was
in cryogenic suspension. That’s how they froze the first colonists who
came here from Earth. So they wouldn’t get old while the ship took so long
to get here.”

Video: The colony ship nears a fantastically colorful binary star.

Bartlet: “These are the Eyes of Light and Darkness. One is a normal blue-
white sun, but the other is the really interesting one. It’s a black hole.
It sucks gas off the Eye of Light like a big drain in space that nothing gets
out of, not even time.”

Video: Images of the parasitic black hole feeding on its brother. Gases swirl
off the healthy star toward the collapsed one. Colors range from rich red,
through the spectrum, to almost blinding violet as the material nears the
black hole’s event horizon.

Bartlet: “The gas goes real fast and gets so hot it sends x-rays all over the
galaxy. That’s why Earth sent probes here in the first place. Nobody
expected to find a planet we could live on.”
Video: The colony ship nears Protector.

Bartlet: “The Eyes are too far away and don’t give us much light or heat.
Most of that comes from Protector. It’s a gas giant forty times bigger
than Jupiter and it gives off sixty times more energy than it gets. That’s
because it’s a proto-star. If it was just a little bigger it would turn into a
real star, (concerned) But that would be very bad for us.”

Video: Zoom in on one of Protector’s moons, a blue. green world. Fluffy

white clouds sail across her strange oceans and continents.

Bartlet: “Anyway, my grandpa was one of the first hundred colonists

unfrozen to build the colony. They expected only plants and animals
here, because the probe didn’t detect any signs of intelligent life.”

Video: The camera pans across Dr. Francis Bartlet in his black pressure
suit, surrounded by aliens. Close up: a childlike grin graces his wise face.

Bartlet: “Boy were they surprised!”

Video: Astonished colonists meet wary aliens.

Bartlet: “They’re the Fussrapth Thnaphthl Pthpth. We call them Fuzzies

because most people can’t say that.”

Video: A ferocious-looking Fuzzie bares a large toothy grin.

Bartlet: “They’re neat. They could tear us to pieces if they wanted to. Of
course they don’t. We get along great. They even helped build our
first settlement.”

Video: “Sales pitch” propaganda-style footage, prepared to send back to

Earth: humans and Fuzzies set up buildings and other structures. They
spray fibrous plastic compound over inflatable molds to form the shells of
buildings. The humans sweat in the hot climate; perspiration runs down
their backs in rivulets as they wield hand implements. It’s a strange
combination of hightech and lowtech.
Bartlet: “They thought it was neat. Fuzzies knew what buildings were, but
they hadn’t used them for longer than they could remember.
Protector makes it warm enough to live outside all year long.”

Video: Montage. The colony expands. “Ecologically friendly” industries

appear. The population increases. Nude human children run and play with
Fuzzie cubs.

Bartlet: “Over the next three years, the rest of the colonists were thawed
out as the settlement got big enough to support them. A lot of them stayed in
the big, white hospital we built. They’re zipperheads. My dad says they
were brave people who got very sick coming here and I shouldn’t call them
that. We used to visit Grandma there until she died, (pause) We started
teaching the Fuzzies. They learn fast.”

Video: Fuzzies attend a class in advanced calculus.

Bartlet: “They go to our schools and our university, and they work and play
with us.”

Video: Sports footage. Fuzzies and humans play baseball. The scoreboard
shows that the Fuzzies are winning.

Bartlet: “They pick up our customs as fast as we pick up theirs.”

Video: A Man sits in the crowded bleachers, enthusiastically eating a “hot-

dog.” The mustard covered, multi-tentacled creature in the bun is trying its
best to escape.

Bartlet: “We just like each other, 1 guess. "

Video: A sprawling, futuristic city.

Bartlet: "We share Jayvee together. ‘Jayvee’ is short for JV-9. Even I can’t
say the Fuzzie name!”

Video: Humans and Fuzzies work happily together.

Bartlet: “It’s been one hundred years since the colony started and there’s
over one hundred thousand humans. Over fifty thousand Fuzzies live with
us and there’s lots and lots more that don’t. Many Fuzzies are doctors or
teachers who go back into the wild to help more Fuzzies. My dad says we’re
building a little piece of paradise here, but he says we got to work hard so
nothing goes wrong like on Earth, (pause) Earth isn’t a very nice place. We
don’t hear from them anymore. I think something bad happened. Dad’s
scared they’ll send an army and make us do what they want, but the people
from the last ship work harder than anybody else to make it nice, (pause) I
guess that’s ’cause they know how bad it can be....”

Video: Half-buried ziggurats poke their heads out of primordial jungle.

Surveying poles topped with yellow ribbon mark the vast area of the
discoveries. Only small portions are under excavation.

Bartlet: “Oh, yeah. We discovered ruins the Fuzzies made a long time ago.
They look like pictures of Earth’s Mayan ruins. The Fuzzies that built
them disappeared just like the Mayans did. The colony doesn’t have enough
scientists to study them now, but when I grow up I’m going to be an
anthropologist and do it myself!”

End file.

The interplanetary shuttle flew silently toward the near arc of Protector’s
ring belts. Still hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, they glittered
like rainbow rivers of diamonds. Sometimes they cascaded around a
shepherd moon, other times they seemed to mix into colors of
happiness, warmth and life. It was beautiful beyond comprehension.

Dr. Elaine Bartlet stared out the only open view port and saw none of this.
Consumed by thought, she saw only the reflection of a scientist on the edge.
Her face, too lean for a woman in her early thirties, was thrown into
stark relief by the overhead reading lamp. Long dark hair was pulled back
in a French braid. Others would have seen how it softened her too sharp
features, how the practical jumpsuit she wore didn’t quite hide her lean but
womanly figure or her understated beauty. Dr. Bartlet did not. The fleshy
pads of her short-nailed fingers tapped an obsessive tattoo on the computer
node in her lap.
The interior of the shuttle was a hollow cylinder with a flattened roof and
floor. All but two of the facing rows of seats which normally filled the
space had been removed to accommodate the multitude of crates containing
scientific equipment and supplies.

Bartlet’s three colleagues occupied those seats. Dr. Ledbetter, a graying,

portly gentleman in his late fifties, slept soundly. Dr. Sylvia Carlson, a
physically unremarkable woman in her mid-forties, turned restlessly in
the gloom, unable to sleep due to Dr. Ledbetter’s sonorous snoring. Dr.
Jeremy Pournell, a man of Bartlet’s age with ample red hair, appeared
unaffected by the noise.

Bartlet focused on the view of the rings. Somewhere out there was
Hephaestus Station, their destination. Hephaestus mined Ring Belt Three,
processing the raw materials which abounded in the rock there. It
was cheaper to cart the materials half a million kilometers through space
than to search for them on Jayvee, which was abnormally low in mineral
resources—another strike against the colony’s chances of success.

Hephaestus was a very unlikely spot to send four scientists.

Bartlet caught Pournell staring at her; apparently he too had given in to

insomnia. Jeremy was recognized to be one of the top scientists in the
system, along with Bartlet, Ledbetter and Carlson. He wasn’t quite as
renowned as his colleagues, but he seemed to be okay with that. He had a
pleasant personality. Jeremy kept a boyish outlook on life and was far from
ugly, but, oddly enough, Bartlet had never seen him with a woman. Maybe
Jeremy was too smart, too nice and not quite rich enough or
exciting enough to attract a woman. Lately it was easy for Bartlet to ascribe
base attributes to her fellow humans.

Pournell sat up under Bartlet’s eye and followed her gaze out the window.
“Isn’t it exciting, Elaine?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

Bartlet flashed a feral grin.

“What do you think we’ll find out there?” Pournell continued.

“I don’t know, Jeremy,” Bartlet said with a sigh. “You know as much as I
do.”

Jeremy retrieved the photo from his lap and examined it for the umpteenth
time. “We’re lucky those lugger heads retrieved it before it was melted
down.”

The photo showed a half-melted chunk of metallic rock which was found
jammed in one of Hephaestus’ intake rams. Strange impressions covered
one side of it, but it was hard to see what they were from the photo.
Some looked vaguely mechanical. Some looked like ruins. The miners said
the artifact was highly magnetic. Rulers along the side indicated its size at
about half a meter. That was all they knew and it was damned little as far as
Bartlet was concerned. Only a detailed examination would shed more light
on the mystery. That was Jeremy’s job and he was champing at the bit to get
started.

Bartlet didn’t know how she felt about the assignment. It was both a
punishment and an attempt by sympathetic members on the Council to
bring her back into the fold after the debacle planetside.

She knew one thing: she must not fail.

Only success could restore the leverage she needed to influence the codgers
on the Council’s science committee. More pure science was needed for the
colony to thrive. They had enough nonstick coatings, self-inflating
pneumatic tires, proactive alarm clocks and genetically engineered
vegetable seeds to last them centuries.

The Council was overly pragmatic, too concerned with the needs of
survival. They remembered the early days, when half their manpower
bounced off padded walls. Each of the three colony ships had filled the
asylums with victims of cryogenic psychosis. Many of those actually sane
enough to roam free still lived shadow lives, lost in their own worlds. There
wasn’t a single family unaffected by the tragedy. It had exacted a great
physical and emotional toll on the young colony. They would not have
survived at all without the Fuzzies. Alien they were, but also sane and
trustworthy. They formed a symbiotic relationship with the human colonists
when they needed it most. Now the colony was successful. The asylums
emptied out as the original colonists died. Society had learned compassion
and no one would ever slip through the cracks in the social matrix again,
but life had been hard and no one would forget it, least of all the Council
members.

It had taken Elaine Bartlet, child prodigy, linguist, and anthropologist to

convince the Council to allocate a meager amount of resources to
fundamental research. Only her ground-breaking translation of the
ancient Fuzzie language loosened the purse strings enough to mount a
serious expedition. The problem was, it was all a sham. Not the discoveries,
those were real; but Bartlet feared she wasn’t the genius everyone thought
she was. She wasn’t an Einstein or a Hawking, who could make a great leap
forward and then just fill in the details afterwards. Bartlet was a plodder, a
thousand tiny steps adding up to a single revelation. It only seemed like
genius afterwards in a shmooze party. She needed time to be brilliant.

And it had been taken away from her.

For five years Bartlet and her team had worked on the excavation of the
Fuzzie ruins and the translation of the texts carved on the stonework there.
They were so close to another breakthrough: something big, very big.
It would make her previous success seem like child’s play. That’s when it
all fell apart. Bartlet had been translating a peculiar passage in the Fuzzie
hieroglyphs, one which didn’t fit into the whole, one which she didn’t
believe herself. She had set investigations in motion—to disprove it—when
the literal translation was leaked. The Council had a field day, crazy rumors
spread like wild fire: “recluse scientist squanders precious resources on
wild goose chase.” No amount of rational explanation could change the
weight of public opinion. Before she knew what hit her, Bartlet’s funding
was cut off and all but the key members were stripped from her team. Then
she and the survivors were packed into this shuttle and sent to identify the
strange objects ring miners were finding in their smelters. Read: the
Council wanted to know if anything would jeopardize production, and she
had no real choice but to obey.

“What was it doing floating in the ring belt?” Pournell mused, still staring
at the photograph.
Bartlet shrugged. “More to the point, what is it? Who made it? Where did it
come from?”

Sylvia Carlson gave up trying to sleep and sat up. She knew that Bartlet was
stressing big time; she had been listening. Sylvia was the closest thing
Bartlet had to a close friend.

“What are you thinking, Elaine?” Sylvia asked.

“I’m thinking that we have to discover the mystery of these artifacts in a

logical, scientific manner, impress the Council that we’re not a bunch of
zipper heads, and get back to our real work at the ruins.”

“I’d like to get my fingers around the neck of whoever set us up,” Sylvia
observed sleepily.

“You and me both.”

Pournell didn’t want to get in the way of the women’s hate-in. He changed
the subject. “I can’t help wondering if this isn’t all related to the Fuzzie
ruins planetside.”

“How’s that, Jeremy?” Sylvia asked.

Bartlet was suddenly uneasy.

“Well, what little excavation we’ve done so far indicates a culture far
surpassing Earth’s ancient Mayans. It spread worldwide—then disappeared
without a trace. Their knowledge was amazingly accurate. They knew their
world was round. They knew it orbited a gas giant. They invented a
calendar which accounted for the motions of all the cosmic bodies around
Jayvee. The Mayans never had to contend with a binary star system.”

“You’re preaching to the converted, Jeremy” said Bartlet, wishing he would

shut up.

“Well, what about the verse you were working on just after the leak? It kind
of makes sense with this.”
“What verse?” Sylvia asked, feeling left out. “You didn’t tell me about
another verse.”

Bartlet groaned inwardly. What flaw in her judgment had motivated her to
tell Jeremy about that? Probably the same flaw which hadn’t told Jeremy
his romantic advances were a waste of time until it became uncomfortable.
He just wasn’t her type. Not that she had time for a relationship, anyway.
Bartlet was glad Jeremy was taking it so well. He was a valued colleague
and there wasn’t room in Jayvee’s tiny scientific community for a
feud. Bartlet chewed on her frustration and guilt. “I can’t say anything
definite. It’s only half done and many of the words still elude me.”

“You’re holding out on me. Come on, Elaine,” Carlson coaxed. “Tell me
what you suspect.”

Bartlet wanted to stop before she made a bigger fool of herself, but Sylvia
and Jeremy had backed her into a corner. She took a deep breath. “It is
probably just legend or mythology, but ... the ancient Fuzzies didn’t think
they originated on JV-9. They think they migrated from another planet.”
There, she’d said it. Sylvia stared at her. Bartlet went on, “A planet that also
orbited Protector and which was subsequently destroyed in a great
cataclysm. I’m not sure just what. As I said, I’m not that far into
the translation.”

Sylvia made the leap. “Another planet? Where the ring belts are now?”

Jeremy jumped in. “Exactly! You see what I was getting at?”

“It’s sheer speculation at this point,” said Bartlet, her temper flaring
unexpectedly. “Just because the ancient Fuzzies wrote it in stone doesn’t
mean it’s true, which is why I don’t want this to go beyond us.” She stared
at them pointedly.

“Sheer speculation? Who can say?” commented Carlson. The taunting

sparkle in her eyes diffused Bartlet’s rising ire. Sylvia had great faith her
friend would get to the root of it.

“Folklore does tend to be rooted in fact,” added Pournell.

“Bull.”

Carlson and Pournell jumped at the comment from Dr. Ledbetter. Bartlet
realized his snoring had subsided several minutes ago. “Did you say
something, Dr. Ledbetter?”

Ledbetter looked bleary-eyed over his shoulder. “Yes, I did. I said: Bull.”

Bartlet repressed a grin. Ledbetter had been her favorite professor at

university. Cantankerous and brilliant, he never hesitated to tell anyone
exactly what he thought.

“I suppose you have a more plausible theory?” Bartlet queried.

“You know very well, young Dr. Bartlet, that as team leader, that is your
territory. I am here merely to keep a lid on any wild flights of fancy you
young people might wish to indulge in.” He shifted his bulk around to
lecture them more effectively. “But I will point out that whatever
comparisons you make between early Fussrapth Thnaphthl Pthpth culture
and the ancient Mayans—they most certainly did not have space travel!”

“Oh come now, Dr. Ledbetter,” Carlson taunted good-naturedly. “Don’t be

so closed minded.”

“I am not being closed minded. I object to being yanked from my cozy

laboratory and stuck aboard a cargo ship for nine days, with no proper
sanitary facilities and no proper bed, because of some bored miner’s idea of
a practical joke! This isn’t a scientific expedition—this is a slick snipe
chase.” He waggled an accusing finger. “I propose that as soon as we can
study it, we shall find that this ‘artifact’ is an item of recent manufacture,
some unforeseen by-product of the mining operations.”

Jeremy started to protest. “But—”

“Hrumphh.” Ledbetter rolled away from them and pulled his blanket tightly
around himself. “And now, I am going to try to get some sleep in this
torture device which is passed off as a chair. I suggest you all do the same,
as it may be the last chance you get for a very long time.”
Almost immediately, a rumbling bass emanated from his direction. The two
women laughed. Jeremy’s face screwed up with displeasure, but he turned
off his overhead light. He and Carlson followed Ledbetter’s example. Only
Bartlet stayed awake, gazing thoughtfully out the window.
Chapter 3
“It’s funny, isn’t it?’’ said the Madness. “You’d think being frozen was
painless, but it’s not. We’re creatures of sensation, defined, controlled and
limited by what we hear and see and smell—remove the senses and you
remove the definition of self. After a while you crave sensation, any
sensation. You forget what things feel like when you’ve been numb so long.
Tastes, smells, sights, textures, they all fade to gray.

“Me,” it went on, “I’d kill for a beer—don’t you wish you had a beer?”

From close up, the ring belts were a vast plane cutting the universe in half.
Over one hundred thousand kilometers across, it was too large for the mind
to grasp. It spread further across the short dimension than any
planetary horizon ever could. Colored ribbons, each ten
thousand kilometers wide, made up the long dimension, receding to become
brightly hued threads arcing out of sight behind Protector. Inside the ring,
colors faded and the ring’s patina lost its serenity. Chunks of rock from
man-sized to mountain-sized butted heads in a slow-motion avalanche in
space.

A small, ungainly spacecraft made her way amidst the chaos. Tongues of
flame sprouted from her maneuvering thrusters in choreographed sequences
as she danced in and out of harm’s way. Explosions burst around her
like fireworks, bathing cold rocks in warm light.

She was a mining pod, about thirty meters long. Her body was segmented
like a beetle. Working parts festooned her bulging underside to save interior
space and ease maintenance in the field. It gave the pod the appearance of a
gutted beast with its entrails hanging out. Yellow and black warning stripes
trimmed gunmetal blue paint chipped and cracked by thousands of tiny
asteroid impacts. Below her prow was an octopus of manipulator arms
which hung to either side of a nasty looking weapons nacelle. The launch
ports were charred from constant use. Two bubble canopies bulged from the
sides of her prow like enormous eyes which met at a thin strip of metal
arching over the cockpit. Below the canopies hand-painted letters read
Murphy’s Law.

Captain Walker piloted the pod with practiced efficiency from the left-hand
crash seat. His military jumpsuit was covered in patches and pockets.
Sturdy harnesses and his tough appearance almost made him part of
the morass of equipment around him. Those who had condemned him on
Earth would have seen the same iron countenance. Only his eyes and the
touch of silver at his temples betrayed the years which had passed.

Walker felt at home in the cockpit of Murphy’s Law. It was built military
style. Red monitors glowed against olive drab metal. Hundreds of switches
and knobs competed with analog displays for space on the consoles. When
Walker adjusted anything, he felt a distinct click. Everything here was
tough.

Nis, Walker’s weapons officer, sat in the right-hand crash seat. Nis’ fur was
gray with dark, swirling stripes. Above and between his alert, amber eyes
was a black spider marking which twisted hypnotically when Walker caught
a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye. A gold-capped canine in Nis’
quick smile and curled tufts of hair on the tips of his expressive ears gave
him quite a devilish appearance.

The unlikely pair were under the command of Hephaestus mining base.

Hephaestus was hollowed out of a shepherd moon on the edge of Ring Belt
Three, where she orbited just slightly slower than the rest of the ring
material. Ore-bearing rock just drifted up alongside her. There it was easily
hauled into the crushing plants. It was a miners dream: no prospecting,
digging, or hauling—just sit outside and wait for the ore to come to you. Of
course it wasn’t as simple as that. Most of the bodies at the edge of the ring
plane were well under the two thousand ton safety limit, but larger ones did
appear—some much larger. Even though these bodies were moving only
a few kilometers an hour relative to Hephaestus, the inertia involved was
immense. A collision with one of these masses would be catastrophic.

That’s where Walker and Nis fit in. Murphy’s Law was one of a dozen pods
patrolling ten to twenty thousand kilometers upstream of Hephaestus,
scanning and cataloging the asteroids headed in the direction of the
base. When they detected anything over forty thousand tons, its trajectory
was compared with that of Hephaestus. On rare instances when the paths
intersected, or came within the margin of safety, the base itself was moved
out of the way. Fortunately this didn’t happen a lot because the maneuver
required the expenditure of crippling amounts of fuel. Most asteroids were
between two and forty thousand tons and the pods could deal with potential
problems themselves.

Nis tapped the canopy overhead with a clawed digit. “There’s another, two
o’clock high.”

“Signature?”

Nis consulted his instruments. “Two thousand tons, high ore content. It’s
borderline, probably no danger.

“Let’s make sure.”

Nis engaged the targeting computer, but didn’t pay it much attention. With
one eye on the target rock and one eye on the heads-up display, he
calculated the vectors and trajectories in his head. Moments before the
computer locked on, Nis released the safety catch on his control stick and
fired.

“Launching Rock-buster.”

Outside a thick missile ejected from the weapons nacelle. It ignited a split
second later and streaked for its target.

Nis’ concentration was complete. The control stick became an extension of

his body as he followed the missile visually, making minor course
corrections by instinct. He wasn’t aware of the math in his head. In his
mind’s eye, Nis was the missile, darting at three thousand kilometers per
hour over and under small intervening asteroids. He didn’t have fins on his
flanks like an atmospheric rocket. They were useless in vacuum. Instead
bursts from small reactive explosives along his flanks affected his course
as he zeroed in on his prey. Closer, closer....
A bright flash brought Nis back to the mining pod. He felt the energy
dissipate as the target exploded. All the vectors and calculations in his head
had come together in one split second of perfection before entropy took
over once more.

It was almost better than mating frenzy.

“Hephaestus is saved again,” Walker remarked wryly.

Nis observed the aftereffects of his art. Several mischievous fragments of

the target spiraled off on new trajectories, leaving faint trails of metallic
dust. They incited larger pieces to collide with a really big piece. That
piece smashed into an otherwise harmless asteroid and sharp chunks
exploded in all directions.

“Oops,” said Nis.

A warning siren blared in the cockpit. The partners sprang into action.

Nis assimilated the data on his instruments in a flash. “Random impact at

thirty-seven degrees true! Major fragments inbound. Advise vertical
conversion to Z minus fifty-two.”

Walker made quick, efficient adjustments with the stick. The pod’s attitude
rockets fired and she dived, rolling her armored back to bear.

“Firing RDMs,” barked Nis.

This time a cluster of small missiles leaped from the nacelle. They darted
toward the incoming fragments with lightning speed. A wash of white
explosions obliterated most of them, but several fist-sized fragments hit the
ship. They shattered on impact, leaving a few more tiny dents in the hull.

Nis heaved a sigh of relief. Walker remained stony-faced.

“Sloppy,” he growled.

“Not my fault.”
“If you’d use the computer, that wouldn’t happen,” Walker retorted.

“I use the computer. Sometimes it misses, too.”

“Right.”

“If I used the computer, it would take twice as long. We wouldn’t be the top
mining pod anymore.”

Walker smiled faintly. “You just like to make it a competition.”

“And you don’t?”

The big man grunted grudgingly, tension easing out of his muscles. “If you
weren’t the best damn weapons officer in the system, I’d ask for a new
man.”

Nis’ ears sat cockeyed. A throaty rumble sounded in his chest: Fuzzie
laughter. “I am not a man. Besides, you can’t transfer me until you pay up
your debts.”

Before Walker could defend himself, Nis’ board emitted a series of beeps.

“Funny,” Nis frowned.

“What?”

“Instruments register a very large reading of heavy metals.”

“How large is very large?”

“Off the scale. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What’s the bearing?” asked Walker.

“One-seventy-three degrees true. Range: five thousand meters.”

Walker banked Murphy’s Law in that direction, across the ring belt. Larger
masses here, he thought. He stayed alert as he guided the pod through the
center of three mountainous, rolling asteroids.

“Four thousand meters.” Nis’s ears flattened slightly. “It’s not right.”

“Talk to me,” said Walker.

“I don’t know ... It’s the volume. It’s all wrong.” Nis adjusted the
instruments, but the readings didn’t change. “Heavy magnetic interference.
I can’t zero it out ... Twenty-three hundred meters.”

“Let’s be careful.”

Nis obligingly rearmed the nacelle. They felt the whir of servos loading
belt-fed warheads into launch tubes.

“Twelve hundred meters.”

“I don’t see it.”

“It’s close.”

Walker dipped under a large mass. There was a moment of vertigo when
they passed within a pod’s width of the craggy surface.

“Five hundred meters,” Nis counted. “There it is!”

As they cleared the first large asteroid, an even larger one loomed into view
above them: a great teardrop shape silhouetted against the roiling
background of smaller rock.

“It is big,” Walker allowed. He had never seen anything that big in Ring
Belt Three. “It must be over one hundred thousand tons. That’s a base-move
for sure.”

Nis shook his head. “Forty-four.”

“That can’t be right,” Walker objected. The thing was clearly over two
kilometers long. “It’s half the size of Hephaestus.”
“The instruments are reading correctly,” Nis insisted, “but it’s ten times too
big. I think it’s hollow.”

Walker slowed down at one hundred meters. At this range the anomaly
blotted out half the visible universe. It was nearly impossible to judge
distance.

“The instruments are screwed,” Walker declared. “Throw some light on it.”

Nis powered up a nightsun on the pod’s prow and aimed it at the mass.
They were closer than Walker thought. The beam ended less than fifteen
meters away on an ever-nearing wall of rock. Walker felt it reaching out for
them. He abruptly yanked the stick and withdrew to seventy-five meters.

“It looks melted,” Walker noted.

The surface resembled a lava flow. Black metallic rock twisted like a drug-
induced nightmare.

Walker gave Murphy’s Law some lateral thrust and they skimmed along
under the mass. The thing was daunting. It went on endlessly. He and Nis
fell into silence. Finally, Nis pointed to a glint on its horizon. “What’s
that?”

They closed. The glint became a tarnished, jagged tooth poking out from
the surrounding rock.

“Metal?” said Walker.

It was metal. The single tooth became one of many ringing in an enormous
dark hole in the belly of the mass.

“Looks like a crater,” observed Nis. “As if a large explosions went off
inside....” He shone the nightsun into the cavity. It faded into darkness.

Walker estimated the hole to be a little over one hundred meters across.
Plenty of room for a mining pod. If they wanted to go in.
What could possibly be in there? Walker wondered. It radiated an air of
inscrutable age which was more than a little forbidding. Walker felt the
pressure of the patient, unblinking Fuzzie stare. Nis was waiting for his
decision. Walker should report to base, but... the darkness beyond their light
beckoned to him, enticed him to explore a bit more, to stretch the rules a
little further.

Walker applied thrust. He heard Nis’ sharp intake of breath as they passed
the rim of teeth. Walker wasn’t breathing at all.

The nightsun began to pick out a tangle of metal and debris. Nis swept it
back and forth, building a picture in their heads: a spherical cavity, two
hundred meters in diameter, which cut through a dozen layered decks of
a long-forgotten spacecraft.

“It’s a ship!” Walker gasped.

“A human ship,” added Nis.

Nis was right. Walker spied the remnants of charred chairs, doorways, halls
and other human-sized equipment in the wreckage. It was all very familiar.

Walker applied braking rockets. Murphy’s Law drifted in the center of the
cavity.

“Do you recognize it?” asked Nis.

“No.”

Nis continued to move the nightsun beam over their discovery. “I wonder
what it’s doing here?”

“I don’t know,” said Walker, suddenly very cold. “Log its position. I’ll send
it to base in the report.”

Conflicting emotions in Walker’s body language perplexed Nis. “Can’t we

take a closer look?”
Walker shook his head. “We’re in big enough trouble with ‘Old Man’
Holland already.” Nis saw that wasn’t the whole truth, but he didn’t ask any
more questions. Walker was glad of that. This derelict craft sparked old
memories. He didn’t know how to explain to an alien why he felt feelings
buried years ago. He didn’t know himself.
Chapter 4
I am Loneliness.
I am searching, forever searching,
Longing and reaching, but never touching,
Seeing and hearing, but never knowing,
Torn apart, seeking unity,
Togetherness,
Always needing, but never finding,
Never, never finding.

“Break an arm,” Pournell said as Bartlet set off across Hephaestus’

cavernous production floor.

“Good luck,” Sylvia said.

“You’re going to need it,” added Ledbetter.

Bartlet felt unusually insignificant as she crossed the great room hollowed
out of rock. Small shapes of humans and Fuzzies scurried throughout the
madman’s tangle of industry. Motorized dollies loaded with metal
ingots crawled along beside her. Rock crushers, smelters, and machines
Bartlet had never seen before towered above.

“Hey, headache! Look out!” warned a Fuzzie in a hard hat.

Bartlet darted out of the way as an overhead crane dumped a huge

generator, or some such thing, beside her. After that she kept one eye
looking up as she marched toward the three-story tower which protruded
from the far wall. Above the rough-hewn ceiling were the service areas and
docking bays for Hephaestus’ small fleet of spacecraft.

Mining pods, for instance.

Bartlet and her team had been on the mining station two weeks to the day,
working out of the smallest rooms on the lowest level of the hellhole.
Bartlet chided herself. Actually it wasn’t so bad here. The facilities were
good, if Spartan. Some of the people were friendly—all of the Fuzzies were
friendly—and they mostly left her alone to do her work. However,
the administrative staff was singularly uncooperative and short-sighted.

Bartlet quickly discovered that artifacts had been turning up here and there
for the last two months. Only when the steadily increasing flow actually
interfered with precious production schedules had anyone seen fit to
notify the Council planetside. The miners regarded the artifacts as annoying
curiosities which they pulled off their spacecraft at the end of a day’s work.
Sylvia and Jeremy spent the first few days rounding up those taken as
souvenirs and good luck charms. They had dozens now and Bartlet was sure
there were more hidden in footlockers and storage compartments
throughout the station. She had posted a request that all such artifacts please
be turned over to her as soon as possible, but not many were coming
in. That wasn’t surprising—Hephaestus’ personnel were so strange. But it
was disappointing, because the artifacts they did have revealed precious
little under scrying scientific eyes, and what had been discovered created
more mysteries than it solved.

“This is your moment to shine, Jeremy,” Bartlet had said, striding into their
makeshift lab. Pournell’s equipment and their collection of artifacts littered
the counter tops. “Blow me away.”

The chemist smiled nervously. “I’ll try to do my best. Let’s see....” He

scanned his notes and cleared his throat. “First, the artifacts are an almost
pure iron allotrope with less than five percent nickel, chromium
and molybdenum. In other words: steel. And a damn tough one, too. Very
high-grade stuff. If there’s a large supply of these, we’ll be hard pressed to
keep the Council’s hands off them.” He gave Bartlet a knowing look.

She nodded. Steel was a precious resource and a large quantity would be
very useful to the colony. So useful that scientific investigation might be
discarded in favor of more practical applications. “A rapid transit system in
the making,” she noted sardonically.

Jeremy continued. “They exhibit little or no oxidation. Not surprising

considering they were in hard vacuum until a few weeks ago. The traces of
oxidation present likely happened since being exposed to Hephaestus’
oxygen environment. And—” Jeremy enthusiastically picked up one of the
artifacts and swept it over the counter. Every item with iron content jumped
onto its surface and clung there. “The artifacts exhibit a high degree of
ferromagnetism.” Jeremy smiled expectantly. If he was waiting for praise,
it didn’t materialize.

“We already knew that.”

“Yes,” Jeremy retorted, quickly recovering his enthusiasm, “but look at

these!” Jeremy played his trump card, removing a plastic sheet from a series
of rubbery shapes on the counter behind him.

“What are they?” asked Bartlet.

Jeremy picked up two of the rubber shapes. “Ah, I poured these directly off
the artifacts.”

Bartlet frowned at Jeremy’s theatrics, but couldn’t help stepping closer.

What a good idea.

Jeremy hovered. “I knew these would pique your interest. Notice

anything?”

Bartlet scrutinized the castings. “These don’t look like molds.”

“Nope.”

Where the artifacts had depressions, the castings had protrusions and vice
versa. But the castings looked right in three dimensions, whereas the
artifacts looked like negative impressions. “The artifacts are molds off
of something else, and these pieces are what that something else looks
like.”

Jeremy smiled. “You got it boss.”

Bartlet smiled begrudgingly; apparently Jeremy was on to something. “Not

bad, not bad.” Her face dropped a little. “These appear to be mechanisms of
some sort.”
“Yeah.”

Bartlet was beginning to wonder if Dr. Ledbetter was right. “Could these
have been made here?”

“It’s not what you think,” said Jeremy, one step ahead of her.

“Could this be some miner’s, idea of a practical joke?”

“I don’t think so. I can’t say for sure just yet, but some tests I’m running
right now indicate these artifacts were formed under very high gravity. This
is pertinent because all alloys made on Hephaestus are formed in zero
gee. The pressure fields which simulate gravity here have no effect on the
molecular level. This is actually an advantage because they can mix
elements that won’t normally combine under gravity and get some very
strong alloys. But if these artifacts were formed under high gravity,
they couldn’t possibly have been made here; and if they were formed in
more than point nine five gee, which I think they were, they couldn’t have
been made on Jayvee either.”

Jeremy brushed a shock of red hair out of his eyes. “Anyway, they keep
close tabs on all steel produced here and the artifacts we’ve got weigh in at
more than six hundred kilos. I can’t imagine Commander Holland
allowing that much steel to just disappear from his inventories.”

Bartlet chuckled. “Neither can I.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I finish my tests.”

“Do that,” said Bartlet, a gleam in her eye.

“I think we’re onto something big,” Jeremy bubbled, “real big.”

Bartlet’s stomach quivered with building excitement. At first the similarity

to machined tooling rather than cryptic carving or some other form of
handmade item was disappointing. However, if the artifacts weren’t
manufactured here ... Bartlet never actually believed in the practical joke
theory, but a good scientist investigated all options.
And Bartlet was a good scientist.

She couldn’t resist shuffling the castings around, trying to find a clue. “Do
they fit into any kind of pattern?” She shuffled them again. Still nothing,
but she had already made the switch from regarding the artifacts as
single items to parts of a large whole. “We need more pieces.”

“Yes,” Pournell agreed.

“Hey, this doesn’t look like a positive,” Bartlet said, picking up another
rubber piece. “This does look like a mold.”

Jeremy shrugged. “I can’t explain it. Yet.”

Bartlet shot him a serious look. There was just one more question: “Are
they human?”

“They don’t look human to me,” Jeremy replied with just the right degree of
scientific caution, “but there is not enough of any one piece to identify
anything. Look, I don’t know why low-alloy steel is floating around
Ring Belt Three.”

“Low alloy?”

“High grade,” Jeremy explained. Without skipping a beat, he continued his

list of question marks: “I don’t know where the kind of heat and pressure
needed to mold it around the original mechanisms could come from, and
I don’t know how old the artifacts are, which would answer a lot of
questions. I showed the castings to some techies and they couldn’t identify
them either. They did say that the mechanisms don’t look like anything
from around here. The forms are too rounded, too ... finished. Humans
could have made them, but factories in system don’t have time to waste
making things look pretty. Anything manufactured on Hephaestus tends to
be practical, without regard for how it looks.”

Bartlet knew that only too well. She picked up an artifact. She felt its
considerable weight. It was elegant, highly finished, seductive like a fetish
object. She stroked its smooth surface. “But can we rule out a human
origin?”

She wanted to. So did Jeremy.

He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know.” Jeremy’s enthusiasm played off

Bartlet’s. “But if we could, just think what this would mean. It would
support the translation the Council got its hands on....”

That remark snapped Bartlet back into the stress of the mission, but it
couldn’t dampen her enthusiasm. “Tell me what you need.”

“We need to find the source of these little mysteries.”

Bartlet elected to take the stairs up the control tower instead of the pressure-
field slide. She needed the exercise, and besides it gave her a few more
moments to perfect the line of reasoning she would try on Holland this
time around. Their last few conversations had not been very productive.

At the top Bartlet paused to straighten her best jumpsuit and stepped
forward. Doors slid open and shut as she passed, guarding the room inside
from the dust and noise of the production floor.

The interior of the control tower teemed with activity. It was lozenge
shaped with a half circle of windows overlooking the production floor at
Bartlet’s end, a long midsection which burrowed through the rocky shell of
the base, then another arc of windows framing the void at the far end. Dials,
gauges, production schematics and scores of monitors lined the walls.
Dozens of people, their consoles and desks, crowded the floor space.

Bartlet hesitated a moment. Previously she had always been greeted when
she entered. This time few noticed the scientist and those who did quickly
looked away. Furthermore, they gave her a wide berth when she gritted
her teeth and strode forward. Bartlet ignored them, and the impending
confrontation, by searching for the only member of the command staff who
had been helpful, Stubbs. He was the sergeant at arms. Bartlet spied the
grizzled old Guardsman trying to instruct a group of blank-faced
administrative trainees how to operate their consoles.
One large desk occupied the open space at the other end of the room. It was
on a platform only ten centimeters higher than the rest of the room, but it
certainly got the point across. Bartlet stepped up.

General Russ Holland was built like a brick shit house. His hair was shaved
so close it hurt to look at him—contrary to prevailing style. He wore a
military uniform with little ornamentation. The desk was an incredibly
organized overload area, every inch piled high with reports, memos and
letters queueing for his attention. Everything about Holland radiated an aura
of no-nonsense directness, which at other times Bartlet would have
admired.

Bartlet cleared her throat politely.

Without looking up from his work, Holland held up a hand requesting

another moment. Bartlet forced herself to be patient. She looked through the
windows behind him where rock-jocks plied their skills in cold vacuum.

Bartlet thought rock-jocks were nuts. Their task was to maneuver ore-
bearing rock up to fifty times their own mass into Hephaestus’ kilometer-
wide, cone-shaped maw. It was dangerous work. Zero gravity did not mean
they could get caught between two such asteroids and live. Many a rock-
jock became the “meat in the middle” or a granite sandwich. Unfortunately,
it wasn't a job a robot could do. It required a well-trained human or
Fuzzie brain—with a dash of death wish thrown in—to pull it off. They
didn’t even have the advantage of a ship to work in. On a job where what
you didn’t see would kill you, they kept their visibility at maximum by
working in pressure suits. Larger-than-average rocket packs supplied the
maneuverability and thrust necessary to handle the ore. The only people
crazier than rock-jocks were mining pod pilots.

“Dr. Bartlet,” Holland began in his booming voice, “if you’re here about the
mining pod, you are wasting your time. I wouldn’t give you a mining pod
even if I had one to spare.”

Startled, Bartlet countered more aggressively than she might have. “Why
not?” she demanded. “Every single member of my team is cleared to
operate class three craft. I know I don’t need to remind you that the Council
requested you assist me in every possible way,” she added when Holland
didn’t react. She realized how undiplomatic the words sounded even as they
slipped out of her mouth.

Holland rose out of his chair. He was not accustomed to being addressed in
that tone of voice. “I would no more give a tac-nuke to a child who can
shoot an air rifle than put a scientist in the cockpit of a mining pod,” he
bellowed. Calming down, he added, “As I have explained, although mining
pods are technically class three, there are major differences. For instance:
mining pods are armed and capable of destroying asteroids the size of small
skyscrapers! I won’t jeopardize the operations here at Hephaestus, or the
lives of the four hundred humans and Fuzzies under my command, by
putting scientists into mining pods.”

He was patronizing Bartlet and she hated it. It was an effort to stifle the
harsh reply which leaped to mind, but a shouting match would accomplish
nothing. She had tried that already. “So give me a pilot, too. We’ll be even
more effective.”

“I can’t do that,” Holland reasoned. “Hephaestus mining base is a very

complicated system that just barely works. I don’t have the luxury of a
safety margin. There are twelve mining pods. At any one time, three are
down for regular maintenance or repairs, one is in reserve for emergencies
and supply, and the remaining eight are thousands of kilometers from here
ensuring the safety of this base. If I pull a mining pod from patrol, the
effects cascade through the entire system, resulting in a loss of production
and a decrease in safety. The bottom line is I can’t take a mining pod out of
the loop.”

“Commander,” she said, mustering a softer tone,” your people process fifty
thousand kilos of ore a day. My team can maybe, maybe, scan forty percent
of it. Try to imagine the untold numbers of artifacts that go straight into
the blast furnace—if they survive being pulverized before they get here!”

“Doctor, I’m an administrator,” Holland reminded. “We have poor

imaginations. My job is to supply the colony with raw materials it
desperately needs, in the most efficient, cost-effective manner possible.”
“Then look at it this way: production is already down five percent because
your rock-jocks can’t do their job properly. It can only go down further as
the flow of artifacts increases. You’ll have to assign more manpower to deal
with the problem.”

Holland shook his head. “Why didn’t the Council send me an engineer, not
an archaeologist?”

“I’m an anthropologist,” Bartlet explained. “Archeology and ethnology are

subdivisions of Anthropology. I understand the operations of complex
social systems and, more specifically, I specialize in investigative
research. You have plenty of engineers here already and all they’ve done is
put a big band-aid on symptoms. I want to find the root cause. Engineers
look at the small picture. We look at the big picture. My team and I will
discover the source of your problem. Maybe all you have to do is move
Hephaestus out of the way.”

“What if you discover the source and we can’t just move the station? Which
is no small thing, by the way. There’s a good chance we’ll have to just live
with it and rework procedure. We’ve made gains in that direction already
and we’re going to keep at it. There’s no guarantee you can find what
you’re looking for. You see, Doctor, I’m two steps ahead of you.”

“We’ll find it,” Bartlet declared with conviction.

Holland sat down again and absently began to tease a magnetized chain of
paper clips from an artifact on his desk. “These ‘artifacts’ are a dime a
dozen. Why don’t you study the ones you’re already got. Here, you can
have this one.” He scooped off the paper clips and handed it to Bartlet.

She notice that he was using another one as a paper weight.

“Look, Commander,” Bartlet said. “We need to know more about these than
we can learn just by studying the few samples collected so far. We need to
find out where they came from, how they are dispersed, before over-zealous
pod pilots blow them to smithereens in the name of protecting this base.”
She put on her best smile. “All I want to do is get out and study a few
intriguing rocks, slowly and carefully—well out of your way."
Holland sighed. “That is the first thing you’ve said that appeals to me.” He
rubbed a hand over his stress-furrowed brow and glanced wistfully at the
picture of his wife and kids planetside.

Holland’s aide passed by. Bartlet smiled, but got an icy glare in return.
Apparently the young woman did not approve of the way the scientist was
treating her boss.

Bitch, thought Bartlet.

“Excuse me, sir,” said a voice on Bartlet’s other side, “this just came in.”
Sergeant Stubbs winked at Bartlet as he handed Holland a folded piece of
paper. “It’s from Murphy’s Law.”

“Five days late, as usual.” Now Holland rubbed his temples with both
hands. “Do you know what kind of people I get out here, Doctor?” he
asked, shaking the paper. “Misfits. Anyone that doesn’t fit into a healthy,
functioning society. The ones who write their names in doo-doo on the
walls, but only when no one is looking. And I have quotas to meet.”

Bartlet couldn’t laugh. It was a fact that Hephaestus was a haven for the
almost sane. Many sleepers in possession of most of their wits nevertheless
did not care for social contact. A job as a rock-jock or a mining pod
pilot was perfect for them because they spent most of their time alone.
Bartlet shivered. Many of them actually enjoyed their claustrophobic
working environments.

Holland’s eyes widened as he read the report: more trouble.

“What is it that you see in that man, Stubbs?”

“Captain Walker is a soldier like me, sir,” the sergeant replied vigorously.

Holland dressed him down: “He is no such thing. The ‘Captain’ in his name
is an honorary title because he commands a spacecraft bigger than a rock-
jock rig. Just like ‘General’ is my honorary title because I command
this station. You are a security officer. You’ve never seen combat in your
life.”
“I’ve served in the Guard twenty years, sir,” Stubbs answered stiffly. “One
soldier knows another.”

“Well, soldier, send a priority message to Murphy's Law.” Holland spat the
words clearly and succinctly: “Under no circumstances is Murphy’s Law to
proceed any further. Hold position pending further orders from me. Have
you got that, Stubbs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then send it.”

Stubbs saluted, stepped back and strode away in flawless military style.

Holland groaned inwardly. What had Walker found? Why did it have to be
Walker who found it? He and his peculiar Fuzzie partner were twice as
efficient as any other team, but they were also twice as troublesome.
How in blazes could he keep that man under control from ten thousand
kilometers away?

And what to do about the good doctor? She was tapping her boot most
frenetically. Any moment now she would burst into another diatribe.

Aha!

Holland’s headache began to ease immediately as he wrote the order.

“Dr. Bartlet, I believe I have found someone else for you to shout at.”
Chapter 5
“I don’t know why he persists,” mourned the Loneliness. “He can’t keep
silent forever.”

“He thinks he’s so smart,” said the Madness. “He’ll talk. He’ll talk, and
he’ll have to beg us to talk to him. ’’

“I think he’s forgotten how long it’s been.” Madness giggled. “He has! He
thinks it’s been years and years, but it’s been much less than that— much
less. Time flies when you’re having fun!”

A single glowstrip illuminated the smoke-filled living quarters of the

mining pod. Walker sat opposite Nis, across a table folded down from the
wall.

Everything in Murphy’s Law folded down from, pulled out of, or

transformed into something else. The same engineers who designed her
built submarines for exploring Jayvee’s fertile oceans, so they knew how to
save space. There was more crammed into the six-by-twelve cabin than
Walker would have believed possible if he hadn’t actually lived in it. Both
he and Nis had more personal stowage space than they needed.

Walker’s only nonessential was the antique Glock shotgun hanging on the
bulkhead over his bunk-cum-chair. He had acquired it from an old-timer
who somehow smuggled it with him on the long sleep from Earth. Walker
had owned a similar weapon many years ago. It was one or two things
linking Walker with his past—this one he could comfortably look at.

He and Nis were playing jahss, a luck-based Fuzzie strategy game turned
into a gambling game with human input. They used a variety of valuable
items for chips. The things they deemed valuable changed
considerably over the course of a six-week tour in the ring belt. Not
inconsiderable sums of money accrued in their bank accounts, but it wasn’t
really useful on the tour itself. They learned to appreciate the intrinsic value
in things; for example, potato chips were worth one to five, sausage halves
were worth ten and toothpicks, representing a day’s ration of fresh fruit,
were worth fifty.

Nis mixed the polished bone tiles as Walker refilled their glasses with
Fuzzie spore-mash whiskey (which they didn’t gamble for on the grounds
that spirits were too sacrosanct for casual wagers).

“Ante up,” said the alien as they drew tiles.

Walker anted from his own meager stockpile. Nis’ winnings made a
daunting mound in front of him.

They bet on the draw, and then again on the flop, three face-up tiles in the
center of the stock. Two red Kills and Carry Tiger to the Mountain (tiger
being the human word to describe Jayvee’s vicious Fuzzie- and man-
eating predator). Nis bet, Walker raised, Nis called. Neither gave his hand
away. Then a “turn” tile.

“Thunder in Heaven,” Walker said. “No help.”

He placed a black Bower next to the red Kills and Freedom behind it. Nix
played two tiles face down.

“Check,” said Nis.

“Checks are at the bank,” said Walker, betting.

The pace of the betting increased. The “river” tile: red Bower. Nis noticed
Walker’s concentration. They each placed two more tiles, Walker face
down, Nis face up. Nis’ Prey and Bones still didn’t show any strength. It
looked as though Walker might have a Fortress, a good hand.

Walker bet it aggressively, despite his misgivings. He considered himself a

good player, but he couldn’t figure out why Nis kept winning. Walker was
getting decent tiles, but they weren’t helping. It was as though the
furry bugger couldn’t be bluffed.

In fact, he couldn’t be. Nis’ amber eyes took in every tiny detail as they
played: Walker’s stiff lower lip, how often he went for his drink, the way he
slapped his tiles down. The only times Nis was unsure was when
Walker played a hidden power hand.

Nis raised confidently. Walker could barely match it with all he had.

“It’s late,” said the man, stretching. “I guess this is the last hand.”

“Oh ... yes,” said Nis, suddenly uneasy with the disparity between the two
piles. He waved his hand in a futile effort to clear the air. “Why must you
always dim the lights and fill the air with smoke? Neither one of
us smokes.”

“Atmosphere, Nis. This is the only way to gamble.” Walker didn’t smoke,
but he did enjoy the aroma of a good cigar and tobacco was not even
available in the colony. Conceivably there must be some seed in cold
storage but none had ever been grown. It was for Walker’s own good, but it
annoyed him. So whenever he and Nis played, Walker fiddled with the air
scrubber. Because scent was such an important element of human and
Fuzzie existence—and continued sanity—the air plant was programmed to
simulate a wide variety of odors, unpleasant as well as pleasant. The dirty
fragrance of oil made gardenias smell so sweet. Walker set the scrubber to
recreate the appropriate thick, blue smoke and rich aroma of a fine cigar. It
was accurate right down to the trace of nicotine in the air. He could almost
taste it!

“In or out?” Walker prodded.

Nis sighed theatrically and folded.

Walker flipped his tiles with a grin. “Fortress, with Freedom and Death.” A
lucky draw played well against the flop. He scooped the winnings over to
his side. It left a greasy smear on the table.

“Looks like you just about broke even,” Nis remarked casually.

“Yeah, and that’s tough when you keep eating the pot!” said Walker,
munching a reddish-colored chip. “Hey, this isn’t barbecue! This is ketchup.
Barbeques are worth five ketchups.”
“I ate the last bag yesterday,” Nis grinned sheepishly. “I’ll pay you later.”

“You’d better.”

Nis still had a stubby-fingered hand firmly over his tiles. Walker began to
smell a rat.

“By the way,” he feigned disinterest as he gathered up the tiles. “What did
you have?”

“Does it matter?” Nis replied nonchalantly, still not moving his hand.

“Yes. You kicked my butt all night long. Now you suddenly lose big at the
end?” Walker reached for Nis’ tiles. “Something doesn’t add up.”

Nis hastily pulled back, with the tiles. “It wasn’t very good. You don’t need
to see them—besides it’s against the rules!"

“Bullshit,” said Walker. “I’m exercising my authority as skipper to inspect

every inch of this ship.” He flipped the tiles over. “Four red Kills! You
bastard ...” It was one of the best hands, especially concealed next to
Carry Tiger to the Mountain. “Why did you fold?”

Nis blustered, “I thought you had a better hand. You have a very good jahss
face.” He wasn’t a very good liar.

“You know what I think?” Walker said suspiciously. “I think all of you
fuzz-balls are secretly telepathic and read our minds.”

“No. We’re just very good at reading body language. In our family pods
body language is very complex.” Fuzzie social structure was very
complicated. Members of a pod paid considerably more attention to each
other than members of a human family. A place for everyone and everyone
in his place.

There was security in ritual, but Nis knew it was a lie. Every Fuzzie did, but
it eased the smothering feeling of helpless indecision. If humans hadn’t
come along, the Fuzzie race would have spiralled back into the Stone
Age. Humans were easy to follow. They knew what they wanted. Their
body language betrayed it. It made Fuzzies feel safe, confident.

Nis shrugged. “Humans are easy to read, so jahss is easy to play.”

“So why do you always lose the last hand?” Walker demanded.

Nis was shocked. “You are the leader. It wouldn’t be right to take your
money! Not too much anyway.”

Walker sipped his drink, chuckling. “Nis, you are damned weird.”

Nis flashed a grin he didn’t feel. He knew Walker could not understand.

Nis knew more about Walker than the man would have guessed. Walker had
his bad times like anyone else. There were those times when the human’s
eyes glazed over and he fought with some unseen voice, but overall he
was confident—the way Nis wanted to feel about himself.

Nis wondered if all Fuzzies felt the same way he did.

“I hope the scientists get here soon,” he said after a while. “It’s been a long
time since we’ve had anyone but ourselves to talk to.”

Walker was not impressed with the new orders. "Holland’s revenge.”

He looked up. Nis was staring at him. All Fuzzies did that and it could be
quite unnerving: that unwavering, nonjudgmental stare which seemed to see
into your very soul, the one that said, I know your troubles ... and I like you
anyway.

Walker had to look away.

“Why are you here, Nis?” he asked. “Very few humans can stand being
alone in space for any length of time, never mind a Fuzzie.”

“I don’t have a pod.”

“I thought all you Fuzzies belonged to a pod.”

Now it was Nis’ turn to look away. “I’m an outcast,” he said flatly.

“Why?”

Nis couldn’t find the words to explain to his human friend. “It’s ... it’s not
important. You would never understand it.” He smiled sadly. “What about
you? You’re a loner, too. Don’t you have a family?”

Nis didn’t expect an answer, but Walker spoke quietly. “I had one, once. A
long time ago, back on Earth.”

Walker dug in his jumpsuit pockets and pulled out his wallet. Nis was
surprised when he opened it and handed it to him. Walker’s second link to
the past: an old picture of him with a human female and a little girl.

“My wife and daughter.”

Sunlight glistened off the girl’s locks. Walker was smiling. The woman
wrapped her arms about them both.

“Nice,” said Nis wistfully.

Walker nodded, thinking. There were still some pleasant memories.

Nis brushed a furry digit over the image. “What happened to them?”

“They died of old age. They were taken from me....”

Nis saw the strong body language falter, as if the large man was shrinking
before his eyes. Walker was trying to hide his anguish. “Why do humans do
such things to each other?”

Walker considered. The answer, when it came, confused Nis. “Choices.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We make choices every minute of every day of our lives: to do this or not
do that, to speak your mind or hold your peace, to do good or to do bad,”
Walker responded. ‘'And it’s so easy to do bad....”
Nis was astonished. Could it be true? Could one have that much control
over one’s life? It was hard to believe.

Walker leaned across the table. “Ever want to do something bad?"

Nis shook his head.

Walker persisted. “You must think bad thoughts.” He did.

“Of course,” Nis admitted innocently, “but there is no choice. We see only
with the Eyes of Light, not with the Eyes of Darkness."

“Well, we see with both.” Walker finished his drink and nodded at the
photo. “They know all about that.”

They sat in silence. Nis returned the wallet.

“Sad,” he said quietly.

Walker reached over and rubbed Nis behind the ears.

“Don’t worry about it, fur-ball. That was a long time ago....”

Nis leaned into Walker’s scratching hand, his eyes closing. Both of them
found solace in the simple comfort of touch.
Chapter 6
“No gain is not followed by loss,” Loneliness lamented. “No love is not
followed by sorrow.”

Ramfrashat spotted the opening. His instruments were going crazy; that was
his cue to proceed to the next stage of his orders. He fired braking rockets
and the supply tug slowed to a crawl beside the hulking black teardrop.

The tug was a distant cousin to Murphy’s Law, with a much larger cargo
compartment which gave her an ungainly look. Like a mining pod, the tug
sported a weapons nacelle, largely for self-defense, and an even larger
array of manipulator arms. A military-style pinup girl was painted on her
prow: a provocative Fuzzie female, with six over-large breasts and the
caption Sex Kitten.

Ramfrashat closed to his best guess of one hundred meters and applied
thrust in the direction of the opening— also as per his orders.

Ramfrashat was a Fuzzie with brown and black tortoiseshell markings. His
navigator, T’jardis, sported leopardlike patterns and was the younger of the
two.

Ramfrashat keyed his throat mike. “Murphy’s Law, this is Sex Kitten.”

The radio crackled from interference. “What do you want, Sex Kitten?” a
voice asked abruptly.

Ramfrashat was undaunted. “We have a package for you, Captain Walker,”
he chuckled. “C.O.D.”

“Fuzzie humor,” was the deadpan response. “Just what I need.”

It was the first break in three exceedingly long, boring days.

Bartlet, Pournell and Carlson crowded around the small view port, watching
their final approach. Endless twisted rock moved by the port. Bartlet
experienced the queasy illusion that they were at rest and the universe was
rushing by them, instead of the other way around. She quickly looked away
from the glass.

Dr. Ledbetter glared back at her from a seat on the other side of the hold. If
he thought the conditions on the shuttle had been bad, they were nothing
compared to the supply tug: six sentients crammed into a space designed for
three, at the most. Ledbetter’s tirades had reached new heights, but Bartlet
knew that deep down her old mentor enjoyed having something to gripe
about. It kept his mind active.

Bartlet was overjoyed with the Sex Kitten. Holland’s sudden change of
mind was a gift horse she would not look in the mouth. Their last
confrontation had made it abundantly clear how lucky she was to have
anything at all. Sex Kitten normally stayed in reserve at Hephaestus, making
runs only once every three weeks to resupply mining pods at the halfway
point of their missions. Holland didn’t even have a human pilot fly her. Her
original captain, a rock-jock and mining pod pilot, was confined to sick bay
in a full body cast. Holland had sent the tug out with two Fuzzies at her
helm—and that never happened.

Ramfrashat and T’jardis knew what they were doing. They were good pilots
who normally teamed up with humans for short missions. Unfortunately,
they suffered from the Fuzzie’s universal lack of initiative in the face of the
unknown. Holland had given them a set of orders to cover every
contingency he could think of It read like a novel. The Fuzzies could handle
the mission as long as nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Holland had taken Bartlet aside. “Dr. Bartlet, it is my reluctant task to

inform you that in the case of an emergency where Ramfrashat and T’jardis
have exhausted their means to contact base, or there isn’t time to safely do
so, you must be the guiding hand. The Fuzzies will handle the actual
operations because they have experience in the ring belts, but you will have
to guide them in dealing with the unexpected.”

“I understand,” Bartlet said without rancor, “and thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. The derelict ship is the only reason I’m sending you out.
Once the Council finds out, they’ll be jumping up my butt for information.
Sending you will keep them off my back for a while.”

Not that there was anyone else Holland could send. Inspecting an old ship
didn’t have anything to do with her mission to investigate the artifacts, but
Bartlet’s team members were the only people not directly involved
in Holland’s production crisis. He needed her to take this mission: so much
so that he agreed, without much coercion, to put Sex Kitten at Bartlet’s
disposal for a full week beyond what it took to investigate the mystery ship.

Holland still had grave doubts, but Bartlet was confident. She felt that
tingly excitement she always did before a big discovery. They would prove
Holland wrong.

Jeremy looked up from the viewport. “Do you really think we’ll find
answers in there?” he asked dubiously. He was referring to Holland’s
assertion that the artifacts must be related to the ship.

“I doubt it,” Bartlet admitted, “but we have seven days to investigate on our
own after we do this favor for Commander Holland. And this may redeem
us for the fiasco back at the Fuzzie ruins. The Council may reinstate
our program.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Jeremy sulked. The derelict ship took him away from
his real work, but he was taking it better than he might. Sylvia’s hand
reached out and touched his comfortingly. It was accompanied by a too-
long glance. Were the seeds of an unlikely romance being sown? Bartlet
hoped things wouldn’t get messier than they already were.

“Look!” exclaimed Sylvia. “There it is.”

Suddenly the blast cavity slid into view outside the port. The rocky surface
dropped away and Bartlet’s stomach floated in her abdomen as all frame of
reference disappeared: no landmark rings, stars, planets or asteroids in the
featureless void. They fell headlong into the darkness. Bartlet felt the faint
vibration of maneuvering thrusters through the metal hull. Sex Kitten
turned. Murphy’s Law came into view, moored at the far end of the hole, her
running lights making a feeble attempt to illuminate the cavernous space.

Nis waited patiently in the crew cabin. His wide, stubby feet rested on a
hatch to the cargo compartment, which doubled as Murphy’s Law’s air lock.
It was the normal point of entry or exit anywhere outside of Hephaestus’
dry dock. This encounter was different because the supply tug carried her
own extendable docking tube for quick transfer of men and material. It
would attach to the hatch above Nis’ head. Ramfrashat was extending
the tube at that very moment.

Nis heard Walker calling off distances from the cockpit: “Twenty-four ...
twenty-one ... sixteen ... ten .. five ...” The pod shuddered at the expected
clunk. The coupling snapped into place.

“Contact,” said Walker.

Pumps on Sex Kitten began filling the interior of the tube with breathable
air. Less than a minute later the indicator light beside the hatch turned
green.

Nis spoke into his mike. “We’ve got pressure.”

“Go ahead and do the honors,” Walker called. “I’ll be along.”

“Okay.”

Nis undogged the hatch in the ceiling. It swung down and he climbed up
into the transparent tube. Nis’ ears expanded in the silence outside the
omnipresent humming of the mining pod. Nis was outside its pressure field,
too. Using his hands on the ladder as guides, he pushed off and floated up.
The accordion-like segments of the tube bulged from the atmospheric
pressure and swayed gently from Sex Kitten’s residual motion. Beyond the
plastic barrier the blast cavity was visible all around Nis. He could see the
tug drifting at the top. A firm grip on the ladder slowed Nis down at the far
end of the tube.

A furry arm reached down and pulled him up.

Nis felt the queer sensation of passing into the pressure field of the cargo
tug. It swept down his body from his head to his toes. Suddenly there was a
“down” again. Nis resisted the urge to urinate.

Nis had entered through a hatch in the belly of the Sex Kitten. He stood in
her cargo compartment surrounded by boxes and crates. Three humans he
didn’t know, and two Fuzzies he did, stood around the hatch.

“Ramfrashat! T’jardis!”

“Nis!” they cried, embracing him. They nuzzled each other’s cheeks in a
custom descended from a time when vestigial glands under their ears served
to identify pod members.

“It’s good to see you,” exclaimed Ramfrashat. They separated and

Ramfrashat turned to the humans. “Nis, this is Dr. Carlson and Dr.
Pournell.”

Nis shook their hands. “Pleased to meet you.”

“And this,” Ramfrashat said with subtly more emphasis, “is Dr. Elaine
Bartlet.”

“Hello.” Bartlet surprised Nis with the traditional Fuzzie greeting gesture:
head inclined, palms over closed eyes, and thumbs on ears.

Nis grinned. It was a formal gesture he hadn’t seen in a long time. Fuzzies
living with humans didn’t use it. “Dr. Bartlet. I recognize you from the
pictures in Geographic magazine.” He thrust out his hand. After a moment
of hesitation, Bartlet shook it. “Weren’t you frightened hanging so high up
in those trees?”

Bartlet laughed. “Yes, but I was too busy photographing First Dynasty
Fuzzie temples to notice much.”

“First Dynasty Fuzzie temples? Aren’t you the one who said we didn’t build
them?”
Nis noted the whitening of Bartlet’s skin, followed by the flush of blood
back into the face: human shock and embarrassment.

“I was ... misquoted,” she explained uneasily.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Nis said truthfully. “You are a hero among us
Fuzzies.”

Bartlet warmed at the bobbing of assenting furred heads. She liked meeting
new Fuzzies. It made her feel like a kid again.

“Captain Walker will be up in just a moment.” Nis looked around. “Where’s

the last member of your team?”

Bartlet grinned a crooked grin. “Dr. Ledbetter’s hiding in the back.”

Ledbetter’s disgruntled voice sounded from the crew quarters above her.
“I’m not hiding. I’m just checking my equipment. Can’t a person have a
moment of privacy!”

Bartlet felt the need to change the subject. “You, uh, have the most beautiful
markings, Nis.”

Nis smiled, without otherwise reacting.

In fact Bartlet had never seen a social crest like Nis' before and she had
studied a lot of them. Fuzzie crest patterns continually changed from the
moment of birth onward. Somehow—humans hadn’t figured out just how—
the designs changed with age, sexual status, social standing, sickness and
probably a dozen other unknown conditions. Bartlet suspected hormonal
changes linked to the Rote. No two were alike, but there was an
underlying similarity allowing Fuzzies, and humans in the know,
to instantly place a Fuzzie’s geographic and social status. Pod elders
developed spidering white patterns across their foreheads as a badge of
seniority. Nis’ was spiderlike, denoting power or respect, but it was black.
Bartlet leaned closer, keenly interested in what it signified.
Then it hit her. “You’re one of the unheard,” Bartlet said, bursting with
scientific enthusiasm. “I’ve read about it in hieroglyphic texts, but I’ve
never met one before.”

T’jardis and Ramfrashat looked away.

“It’s ... kind of rare,” Nis said, ears flattening out.

Bartlet read Fuzzie body language enough to realize her major faux pas.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized immediately. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s
just that I’ve always been interested in your culture. I’ve dedicated my life
to studying it.”

Bartlet berated herself. She wanted to get this expedition off to a good start,
not like back on Hephaestus.

Nis was quick to recover, and quicker to forgive. “That’s all right, Doctor.”
He pointed behind her as Walker climbed out of the tube. “Here’s Captain
Walker now.”

Bartlet turned, still angry with herself, and ran smack into a broad, hard
chest.

“Pardon me,” said a voice above the chest. “Are you okay?”

Bartlet looked up. Walker’s head was like the rest of his body: powerful and
hard, as if chiselled out of the weathered rock he worked around. Piercing
eyes looked out from below deep brows. He stepped back, bowing his head
politely.

It only increased her ire.

“I’m fine,” she retorted too vigorously.

“This is Dr. Bartlet,” Nis said, trying to smooth the meeting.

She removed a sealed packet from her breast pocket and offered it to the big
man. “I have orders for you,” she managed in a more controlled voice.
Walker eyed the official packet askance, then took it and warily broke the
seal.

“They’re from General Holland,” Bartlet went on, trying to soften her
previous words, “explaining the importance of this mission.” She did not
notice Walker bristle at the word “general.”

Walker scowled as he read.

“I’m very excited about this assignment,” Bartlet said more tentatively than
she meant to. Walker had a gritty sex appeal that she found unsettling. “I’ve
heard nothing but good things about you and Nis. We’ve got a really great
team too, so I think we’re all going to work well together.”

He grunted, still reading.

The Fuzzies watched the two humans with intense curiosity, their ears
unfolded and angled forward.

«She likes him,» T’jardis’ sidelong glance and body language

communicated nonverbally to Nis.

Nis blinked concurrence. Bartlet waited uneasily while Walker finished

reading the orders. Noticing a long, private glance between Carlson and
Pournell, she unconsciously brushed a stray lock of hair from her face.
Social preening, Nis thought. Look at me, she’s saying. I'm desirable, too.
See how I keep myself clean ?

Bartlet’s eyes stayed away from Walker.

«Lonely,» Nis posed, subtly inclining his head toward her and making the
ancient shoulder-hunched gesture.

“Many humans are lonely,” Ramfrashat whispered in the Fuzzie tongue. “It
is their way....”

“Does she have a mate?" Nis asked thoughtfully.

Ramfrashat tapped the third finger on his left hand. indicating her lack of a
ring, and shrugged in human fashion.

Walker folded the orders and placed them back in the packet. “You can
transfer some of your equipment to Murphy’s Law, Doctor. We’ve been on
tour for thirtyseven days, so there’s room in our cargo hold. That will give
you some extra space in here.”

“Thank you. Captain,” said Bartlet. “We’ll get on it right away.”

“Nis, help them with the gear. We also have an extra bunk if you need it,
Doctor,” Walker added.

“Hallelujah,” Ledbetter called from above. “I’m too grumpy and too old to
sleep in a chair.”

Walker continued: “That should take you the rest of the afternoon. We can
start your investigation first thing next cycle.”

“I’d like to get started right away,” Bartlet said eagerly. “We don’t have that
much equipment. Moving it won’t take all day.”

“One step at a time, Doctor. I don’t want to rush into any mistakes.”

Bartlet bristled at his tone. “Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding,

Captain Walker, but this is a scientific mission. It’s my call.”

Walker placed the packet in her hand.

“Read this,” he said, trying to avoid the issue. “I’m responsible for the
safety of your team. Believe me, I’m not happy about it. I took this
commission because I don’t like politics, but I don’t have any choice.
Neither do you: we do things my way.”

Walker climbed back into the tube.

Bartlet fumed. Holland had shafted her. After implying that she was in
command of this mission, he put her under the orders of a mining pod pilot!
She should have known Holland would do something like this. Damn it!
“Captain,” Bartlet called down the tube as Walker floated away. “We work
very quickly and very accurately. If all preparations are ready to your
satisfaction, can we start earlier?”

Walker braked, considering. After a moment he reluctantly addressed her.

“I’ll come up with a plan. You can sign off on it or make changes that you
know you’re going to fight for. And all bets are off if there’s any question of
undue risk.”

Bartlet crumpled the envelope. That was the last time she wanted to
swallow her pride for a long time.

"She’s very smart,” Ramfrashat whispered to Nis, “but if you want any
peace, you’d better keep her away from Walker.”

T’jardis grinned from ear to ear. “Breeders. Can’t live with them—can’t
roast them on a spit.”
Chapter 7
"Don’t snivel,” Madness belittled. "Count your blessings while you have
them....”

Bartlet had won. Dwarfed by the blast cavity, three figures in space suits
floated along a cable mooring Murphy’s Law and Sex Kitten in position.
Spotlights on their helmets swept across endless debris as the bipeds
pulled toward the innermost section of curving wall.

Walker led the way. It was eerily quiet. His breath echoed hollowly inside
the suit and the material scrunched and unscrunched as he gripped and
released his line cleats, but otherwise it was totally silent. He was in a world
of his own. Just like in the vaults. No noise came to him that he didn’t
make. There was no medium to carry sound waves in the vacuum of space.
It gave him a dark feeling of security.

Walker did, however, feel the vibrations the others made as they followed
him along the cable. He looked back. Bartlet and Nis were right on his
heels. He noted that Bartlet was doing very well, considering she had never
done this before. It took a special rhythm to use line cleats in zero gravity:
pull, lock, push, release, pull, lock, push, release. One cleat had to be locked
at all times. Walker could move weightlessly without the cleats or even a
line. It was part of his assault training. Nis had a fair amount of zero gee
experience as well. Walker was being cautious. It was easy for a novice to
develop too much speed and shatter bones or helmet because they couldn’t
stop when they had to.

But Bartlet didn’t behave like a novice; neither did any of her scientist pals.
They dealt with all of Walker’s concerns with such zeal and efficiency that
he found himself crossing to the derelict only three hours after Sex
Kitten docked with Murphy’s Law. Bartlet had made it impossible for
Walker to say no. It was irritating.

More irritating was Walker’s pressure suit. Made in one-size-fits-all

generic, they fit no one particularly well. The fishbowl helmet
accommodated both human and Fuzzie heads. The suits were made to fit by
adjusting bellows-like joints, but extreme changes in size made
them difficult to move around in. Walker was tall. Nis was short. Only
Bartlet was just the right size.

That must be why the scientist could keep up. She didn’t have the handicap
Walker and Nis had. That’s why her movements were so graceful. It must
also explain why she looked so good in the suit.

Walker looked forward. They were thirty paces from the wreckage, which
became more defined as they neared. Their lights threw it into sharp relief.
They moved through support beams and under pipes, through rooms with
walls and floors torn away, contents exposed to the ravages of the void.
What had taken place in those rooms moments before the ship’s innards
were blown out?

“What could have caused this sort of devastation?” Bartlet thought aloud.
Walker heard the background noises in her suit as the voice-activated
microphone kicked in. The hiss of her air system, her breathing— which
wasn’t labored at all.

Walker increased the pace.

Nis’ searchlight swung across Walker’s path and around the cavity. “A one
kiloton warhead ought to do it,” Nis said after considering Bartlet’s query.
“Not a very large amount when used on an asteroid, but on a ship....”

Bartlet shot Nis a disbelieving look.

“We use them all the time,” Nis added, missing the point of the stare. “I’m
quite familiar with their effect.”

The end of the line was directly ahead. The mooring cable was held in place
by a magnetic grapple. Walker brought himself to a stop and looked around.
The destruction was impressive close up. Jumbled wreckage blocked his
view in all directions.
“T’jardis, where’s the entry point? I can’t see it from here,” Walker said.
They had selected a passageway heading straight into the center of the
vessel while still in Murphy ’s Law, but from there he needed help to locate
it.

A light flared from Sex Kitten's prow. The beam of brilliant white washed
over them, blinding the three, then darted off over the debris, moving in
smaller and smaller circles until it stopped ten meters away.

“There it is,” T’jardis pronounced on the radio.

“Thanks,” said Walker. “We’re heading for it now.”

Walker unhooked from the cable and floated free. Slowly he pulled from
one piece of jagged metal to the next. “Careful,” he cautioned. “There are
sharp edges here.”

The others followed in his path, over, around and through twisted, charred
landscape. The spotlight bathed them from above, making the scene look
like an overexposed photograph.

There was the entry point. A shaft descended into the derelict vessel.
Walker peered over the edge. The nightsun penetrated about twelve meters
and then there was blackness.

“Turn on your camera, will you Nis?” Pournell asked over the radio.

Nis obligingly activated a small digi-cam on his left shoulder. It would relay
what he heard and saw to the others on board Sex Kitten. “How’s that?”

“A little to the left,” said Pournell.

Nis made an adjustment.

“Yeah, that’s it.” The camera moved on its own: Pournell was playing with
the remote. “Nis, are you familiar with the expression ‘a monkey on your
back’?”
“I have had contact with such primates in the medical breeding facility at
Jayvee U,” Nis responded. “They were delicious.”

The radio was silent.

“Hey, Elaine; you look real sexy in that outfit,” Carlson’s voice taunted.
“Maybe if you’re especially nice they’ll let you keep it.”

“Remember, Sylvia, you’re next.”

Their headsets filled with Sylvia’s horsy laughter.

Bartlet flinched when Walker stepped over the edge and “fell” out of view.
She and Nis looked over the edge. Walker was working his way down the
side of the shaft away from them. Bartlet followed. As she stepped over the
edge, the “shaft” became a corridor. She looked back as Nis flipped “up” to
join her. Murphy’s Law and Sex Kitten were now “behind” them instead of
“above” them. Bartlet’s brain stem struggled to believe “down” was in the
direction of her feet, but that orientation meant little in the weightless
environment. She tried not to focus on it.

“Shall we go, Doctor?” Nis asked.

Walker was at the limit of the nightsun light ahead of them. His helmet light
stabbed into the darkness. He took out a hand-held torch as they caught up
with him, but all their lights combined still did a considerably poorer
job than the nightsun.

The effects of the original blast diminished rapidly as they advanced. Forty
meters in the charring and twisting of the metal transitioned into a more
normal look. Oval doorways lined the narrow passage. It felt as though
they were in a space ship now.

Walker disappeared into one of the doorways. Nis’ camera panned to follow
him.

“See anything?” Pournell asked.

“Not a whole lot,” said Walker, reappearing.

Nis looked in as they passed. It was a small room filled with drifting
wreckage.

They floated on into the cold gloom. The ship was a shambles. Bits of
debris drifted throughout eerie rooms and passages: storage containers,
parts of bulkheads, low-gravity cups, reusable magnus paper and writing
styluses, bits of platinum fuel bladders and more.

Walker stopped ahead of Bartlet. She leaned to one side to get a look—at
nothing. The debris was much thicker just ahead of Walker, obscuring
vision after a couple of paces. The deck dropped about a meter as the
passage widened out. Dark shapes hung down from the ceiling. Bartlet tried
to identify them, but her illumination faded quickly in the sea of particles.

Walker pushed off the lip and drifted ahead.

Bartlet tried to stay right behind him, copying his movement as best she
could, but Walker’s passage churned up the wreckage. Her aim was off and
she rapidly lost sight of him. Darkness wrapped its clammy arms around
her. Waves of junk clattered against her helmet. She instinctively flailed out,
but there was nothing to grab hold of and all she succeeded in doing was
adding unwanted spin to her already wrong trajectory. Stay calm, she
thought, you’ll reach the other side eventually. She stretched out her arms.
Maybe she could grab hold of something.

“Oof!” Bartlet gasped as an unseen structural beam knocked the wind out of
her. Bartlet heard voices on her radio.

“Who was that?” Walker demanded.

“Not me,” said Nis.

“Dr. Bartlet, what’s your status? Doctor?”

Bartlet could only wheeze as her solar plexus spasmed painfully. She felt
like she was suffocating in the black soup.

“Nis, can you see her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Doctor, do you know where you are?”

Bartlet was spinning wildly from the impact and even if she could answer,
she had no idea where she was.

“Nis, stay where you are. I’m turning around.”

The pain let up a little. Bartlet gulped just enough air to stay conscious. Her
pulse was pounding in her head, her adrenaline racing.

That’s when the corpse slammed against her.

A cadaver’s leering mouth pressed against the glass of her helmet, its
desiccated flesh stretched taut over its skull.

Another breath of air. Bartlet screamed.

Worried voices sounded in her helmet. “Elaine! What’s going on?”

“Stay off the radio!” Walker barked.

Bartlet tried to push the corpse away, but the more she thrashed the more
she spun helplessly. Her lights strobed around and around like an insane
lighthouse in fog.

An almost painful grip caught her leg. She screamed again.

Walker pulled down on her leg and extricated her from the embarrassing
waltz.

“I’m all right,” she panted as he reoriented her. “I'm fine.”

Walker spun her erstwhile dance partner by the foot. It was marvelously
preserved, but brittle. It crumbled under Walker’s grip.

The remote camera scanned its length. “The vacuum has leached all of its
moisture,” came Ledbetter’s voice. “It’s mummified.”
Bartlet examined it, still edgy.

“He can’t hurt you,” Walker observed, pushing the body out of the way.
“He’s dead.”

“I know he’s dead!” snapped Bartlet. “I’ve seen hundreds of dead bodies
before. Dead bodies don’t bother me. It’s this ship. It gives me the creeps.”

“I know what you mean,” Nis agreed.

Walker resumed exploring, then suddenly stopped and, craning back,

directed his lights above their heads. There were more corpses above them,
just barely visible in the debris. Some of them floated, some of them sat in
chairs anchored to the ceiling, like a forest of huge bats.

“We’re upside down,” he observed, pushing off and changing orientation

once more.

Bartlet managed to right herself without Walker’s help. Soon the three of
them were standing right side up in relation to the decks of the ship. The
bodies appeared much less menacing that way.

“They’re definitely human.” Bartlet said, taking a closer look.

“I don’t recognize the uniforms,” said Walker. They were queer orange
things.

“If we’re lucky the designer died before he could sew any more,” quipped
Sylvia.

“I don’t know,” Pournell remarked as the three suited figures threaded their
way through the dead. “It kind of goes with their skin tones. That one on the
left, would you say he’s a ‘winter’ or ‘fall’?”

“Jeremy,” said Bartlet.

“Yes?”

“Hush.”
Walker led them to the far end of the room. A reinforced steel door blocked
their way.

“Airlock,” Walker pronounced. He ran his finger along the joint where it
met the wall. “Looks like the seals are still good.”

“What’s an airlock doing inside a ship?” asked Bartlet.

“In case of emergency,” Walker answered. “All big vessels have them in
case of catastrophic decompression. If the hull is breached, you only lose
environmental integrity between bulkheads.”

There were faintly visible letters stencilled under the dirt and grease.
Walker wiped it with the back of his glove. The words read: Lock 12, Deck
17.

“Big ship,” said Nis.

Walker searched the area around the airlock.

“Can we get in?” Bartlet asked.

Walker found what he was looking for: a small panel recessed into the wall
beside the airlock. “There should be a release mechanism behind this.” He
tried to pry it open. “It’s stuck, and I can’t get any leverage.” When
he pushed, his whole body floated in the opposite direction.

“Let me.” Nis shouldered Walker out of the way and sprayed the seams
with penetrating lubricant. “Now let’s try.” .

It was a curious sight. Nis stood with feet braced on the wall, holding
Walker’s legs, shoulders shoving against the man’s butt. They grunted and
groaned, then something gave. The panel slid aside, revealing manual
controls.

Walker cranked on a wheel and the airlock door ground open. There was a
small compartment and then another door like the first. He entered and
found another recessed panel. This one opened easily, but he didn’t activate
the mechanism. In fact, Walker stood for quite a while without taking
action.

“What’s the matter?” Bartlet prodded.

“The gauge says there’s atmosphere on the other side.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, but it’s strange.” Walker said. “1 think we should stop.”

“Why?” said Bartlet. “Are we in danger?”

It was a rhetorical question. Walker took it seriously. Looking around he

said, “Not at the moment.”

Bartlet was impatient. “Then why stop?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Forgive me, but that’s not a very scientific reason,” Bartlet countered.
“Look, this place creeps me out too. I just did the minuet with a mummy,
but if there’s no danger we should press on. We’ve hardly gathered any
useful data.” Walker’s face drew into a stony frown. “We should at least test
the atmosphere on the other side.”

Finally, Walker stepped into the airlock. He looked back when Nis and
Bartlet didn’t follow immediately. “The inner door won’t open unless the
outer door is closed,” he reminded them.

Of course, Bartlet thought. Standard airlock design: we have to be sealed in

before we can get out. It went against her basic instincts, but she wouldn’t
tell Walker that. He was just looking for an excuse to shut them down.

She stepped in and Nis followed.

Walker hit a release latch and the outer door grumbled shut. The inner space
was uncomfortably tight.
“I wonder what’s on the other side?” Pournell said from the safety of the
Sex Kitten.

Nis laughed nervously. “Creepy space aliens, I bet.”

“Be serious, Nis,” Walker chided. “You are a creepy space alien.”

Nis flicked his ears toward Walker, a gesture Bartlet recognized: «Look
who’s talking.»

Walker cranked the inner door open a crack. Air rushed in when the seal
broke and the three bipeds fell against each other as a pressure field kicked
in. It was more of a surprise than a problem. They couldn’t fall down.
There wasn’t enough room.

Nis stuck several detector tubes into the opening. Wisps of steam rose from
the cold metal. “Nitrogen, oxygen. Trace CO2. Trace nobles. It’s air,” he
said after a moment. “Twenty-three degrees: room temperature. No
obvious toxins. My guess is it’s breathable.”

“Guesses aren’t good enough,” said Walker. “Collect your samples, then we
go back.”

“But he said it’s breathable,” Bartlet protested.

“Those instruments are tailored to detect what they expect to find. Who
knows why this ship is abandoned here. Maybe it’s a plague ship. Maybe
some unknown super virus killed everyone. Nis’ instruments wouldn’t
detect that.”

“He’s right,” said Nis, responding to Bartlet’s questioning glance. “These

things only go so far.”

“We don’t have to take our suits off,” Bartlet argued.

“No, but this is damned strange: atmosphere, gravity— apparently there’s

power, because there’s heat. Nis should take samples and your team should
do a complete analysis. I’m not going to screw up,” Walker rationalized.
“I don’t want to have to explain my mistakes to Holland.”

Bartlet sensed another unspoken reason why Walker didn’t want to enter the
derelict proper, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. And anyway, he had
pressed one of her buttons. If Elaine Bartlet never had to go before another
committee and apologize for her actions, it would be too soon.
Chapter 8
When confronted with Bad Song, closed ears are proper.

—translation of Rote phrase by Dr. E. F. Bartlet.

Bartlet fretted over the waste of time. She would have paced except there
wasn’t enough room in Sex Kitten's crew compartment to do so. Worse, the
others needed her computer node so she couldn’t even do any work.
She leaned out of her seat and looked into the cargo hold-cum-lab below
her.

Ledbetter, Carlson, and Pournell huddled amidst a morass of scientific

equipment. There was significantly more room in the hold than when they
first arrived at the derelict. Some of the unused equipment had been
transferred into Murphy’s Law, but it was still tight quarters. Another reason
for Bartlet to stay out.

Jeremy was in his element. The chemicals, molecular microscopes, gas

chromatographs and other devices Bartlet didn’t recognize were his true
world. At first he didn’t want the others to touch them, but Ledbetter
indignantly told Jeremy that he and Carlson were quite capable of operating
the equipment, thank you. And besides, the young man was a chemist and
knew nothing about biology, please step aside. In the end they worked on
everything together.

Walker wanted them to perform every test they conceivably could on the air
samples, so they did: oxygen content, CO and CO2 levels, a full
toxicological screen from hydrogen sulfide to volatile inorganic
compounds. Then came the more unusual tests: mold spores,
bacterial counts, and checks for organic vapors. Test tubes of Sabouraud’s
medium contaminated with swabs from Nis’ samples incubated in
accelerators. They tested for staphylococcus, cryptococcocus bacillispora,
Clostridium botulinum, bacillus anthracis, and a dozen other
bizarre microbes. They tested hot. They tested cold. They tested at room
temperature and body temperature—human and Fuzzies. They tested for
nerve gas! The trio were engrossed and had lost track of time, but Bartlet
was painfully aware of how long they were taking: ten hours so far and
counting. Bartlet wanted to be thorough, but there were limits. At this point
they had checked the derelict’s air properly and further tests just fed
whatever reason Walker had to stall.

Unable to sit still any longer, Bartlet climbed down the ladder into the hold.
“Folks, have we found a cure for cancer yet?”

“Ho, ho,” said Ledbetter.

“Listen everybody,” Bartlet said. “I appreciate your scientific fervor, but

you guys could go on like this almost indefinitely. What’s the bottom line? I
want to get this show on the road.”

“Depends what you mean by bottom line,” Jeremy said evasively.

“Is it dangerous? Is it breathable?” Bartlet asked pointedly.

“Well ...” Jeremy began.

Ledbetter cut him off. “Breathable? Yes. Oxygen is a little low, but still
within acceptable limits.” He grabbed Jeremy’s printout and handed it to
Bartlet.

The sheet was covered in a mixture of abbreviations and numbers. It looked

as though the polarizer had blown a fuse and spewed random characters on
the sheet of magnus paper. Some Bartlet recognized, others were just
specialized scientific jargon. “What does this all mean?” she asked.

“Here,” Jeremy said, retrieving his paper, and not hiding his annoyance
very well. “I detected no dangerous gases, such as ammonia. Carbon
monoxide, dioxide and nitrogen are within tolerances. There are no
explosive concentrations of any volatile gases such as hydrogen, and I
detected no poisonous chemical compounds, yet.”

“Are you likely to?” Bartlet asked testily, looking at her friends’ faces in an
effort to feel them out.
“I don’t think so, Elaine,” Sylvia said, trying to play peacemaker. “The
thing is, chemically, Jeremy has ruled out every reasonable risk, but Dr.
Ledbetter and I have sort of dropped the ball.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, we did all the easy stuff first, like viruses,” Sylvia started.

“I was more concerned with molds and fungi, of course,” Dr. Ledbetter
interjected, “because they are more sophisticated and rugged than viruses,
their spores being more strongly shielded and harder to purge from an
infected body.”

Sylvia sighed, but continued: “Yeasts, fungus, and mildew counts are low,
which is not surprising since there has been minimal air movement to
spread them, and we’ve done all sorts of tests for dangerous organic and
inorganic substances. It all comes out clean.”

“So the problem is ... what?” Bartlet gestured for Sylvia to get to the point.

“The problem is we can’t identify this one trace substance,” Sylvia

admitted.

“What trace substance?”

“That’s what we don’t know,” Sylvia said. “The percentage is minuscule,

but it’s puzzling. We can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“It’s a very complex compound,” Ledbetter elaborated. “It’s definitely

organic, but I have no idea what it is. We don’t have enough to really test it,
but I must admit, it fascinates me.”

“I have to show Walker something tangible. ‘Fascinating’ won’t get us back

to work.”

“We are working, young lady,” Ledbetter chastised.

“I’m sorry,” Bartlet apologized. “But you know what I mean.”

Ledbetter harumphed. “It appears to be a non-poiso-nous, non-carcinogenic
organic compound. The compound itself is not contaminated with air-born
parasites, worms, flukes, macroconidia or any other danger we can detect. I
cannot definitively say to you that it is safe, but I believe it to be.”

“If Walker wants to drag his feet, let him,” Jeremy suggested
uncooperatively. “Let him explain to the Council why you haven’t made
any progress. Or you could send a message yourself telling them that we
can’t work under these conditions.”

“That’s not an option, Jeremy,” said Bartlet. “We have to work with Captain
Walker, not against him.” And she certainly would not send a message to
the Council which could be misread as failure.

“So what is the bottom line, Dr. Bartlet?” a large figure asked from the open
hatch.

Bartlet cursed to herself. How long had Walker been there? Jeremy’s
comments were most undiplomatic. She shot a look at Sylvia, who shook
her head, confused. They had never seen Jeremy behave like this before. Oh
well, best to forge ahead.

She looked at her colleagues. “Is it safe, or not?”

“Safe,” said Sylvia immediately.

Dr. Ledbetter sucked his teeth. “Safe.”

Jeremy sulked. “Probably safe.” Then he changed his verdict: “Most likely
safe. To within ninety-five percent, but I don’t think we should go in, yet.”

They all waited for Walker’s reaction. Bartlet had a hard time reading his
stern countenance. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Jeremy. She prayed he
understood that scientific minds rarely spoke in absolutes.

“Everyone gets six hours sleep, without exception,” he ordered. “Then we

go back in.”
Walker left. Bartlet was so pleasantly surprised that she didn’t even take
offense at his tone.

Walker opened his face plate a tiny crack, ready to snap it down instantly.
He breathed lightly.

Bartlet and Nis watched carefully. Walker didn’t keel over. He appeared
unharmed.

“How does it smell?” asked Nis.

“It’s kind of sterile, but it doesn’t smell bad,” Walker replied. Opening his
helmet all the way he took a few deeper breaths. “Well, I’m not dead. Go
ahead if you want to.”

Bartlet and Nis opened their own helmets as Walker cranked the inner
airlock door open. They stepped out into another corridor.

“It looks pretty normal,” Bartlet remarked. The ship was in much better
condition here.

Walker led them a few paces in, then stopped. “You call that normal?” He
shone his torch on a spray of small holes in a bulkhead.

“Bullet holes,” he said in answer to their unspoken questions and then to

Bartlet’s apparent shock, “Well, what did you expect? A welcoming
committee? Bad stuff went down on this ship. That’s why it’s here.”

Below the holes, dark brown stains were puddled all over the deck. Bartlet
bent down to examine them.

“Dried blood,” said Walker.

“Dried human blood,” Bartlet agreed. “So what’s this?”

There was a metallic, crimson smear mixed in with the others. Bartlet
rubbed it. A fine iridescent powder rose into the air.

Almost immediately Nis hunched over, ears flattened and hands over eyes.
“What’s going on?” radio voices asked. Nis’ shoulder cam was showing
them an extreme close-up of the deck.

Bartlet put her hand on the Fuzzie’s suit. “Nis, are you okay?”

“What are you doing?” Walker demanded.

Nis was as confused as they were. Without thinking, he found himself

crouched on the deck. He felt strangely defenseless. His nostrils quivered as
he filled his lungs with air. “It’s the smell. Do you smell it?”

Walker sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”

Bartlet wanted to close her visor. Maybe Walker had been right to be
cautious. She resisted the urge. She certainly couldn’t close hers while
Walker had his open.

“I can’t place it,” said Nis. “I feel like I should be able to, but I can’t.”

“It must be the stagnant air,” Bartlet reassured him. “You know how odors
can trigger old memories.”

“Yes,” Nis tried to convince himself. “That must be it.” He straightened

with an effort.

Bartlet took samples of the dried materials and hurried after Walker, who
was already moving on. The dark passageway zigged and zagged. They
reached a fork in the way, and Walker went left. Bartlet was confused
by Walker’s behavior. For a man who fought so hard against even entering
the derelict, he was moving along at a rapid pace.

“Why that way?” Bartlet asked him.

“Don’t know. Just seems right,” was his answer. He turned again and
opened a man-shaped hatch. Inside was an archaic pressure suit. An
inscription below the helmet read: E.S.S. Republic.

“Earth System Ship Republic?” Walker was puzzled. “I should know that
name...
Bartlet and Nis were equally puzzled. She looked into Nis’ camera.
“Anyone know anything about an E.S.S. Republic?”

No one spoke up.

Walker closed the hatch and they moved on. They walked for a while,
looking into the rooms and cross passages. Large pipes and conduits ran
alongside or overhead. Bartlet felt as though they were lost in an
underground maze.

“Does anyone have a headache besides me?” Bartlet queried. Staring down
the dim corridors had an unsettling effect on her stomach, and thus her
brain.

“I feel seasick,” said Walker. “Maybe the pressure fields aren’t working
right.”

“I’m fine,” Nis commented, “but we need more light.”

Bartlet rubbed her head, suddenly remembering a missed opportunity:

“Sylvia, would you check the node for references to E.S.S. Republic?”

“I’m working on it right now,” buzzed Carlson’s response.

They turned a corner and the passage widened out. Walker abruptly froze.
Bartlet almost bumped into him. She noticed all the blood draining from the
big man’s face and followed his gaze.

They stood at the edge of a catwalk which crossed a yawning chasm. It

faded into the darkness above and below them. Their own lights were
woefully inadequate but hundreds of blinking bulbs—most of them red, a
pitiful few of them green—were visible mounted atop man-sized metal
cylinders.

“Elaine,” the radio buzzed, “I’ve got something on E.S.S. Republic. A ship
of that name disappeared over one hundred and fifty years ago.”

A flood of terrible memories assaulted Walker. For a moment he was

chained to a long line of men beside him. No, he shook his head, that hadn’t
really happened.

Stay in control.

“Oh my God,” Bartlet whispered. “It’s a sleeper ship!” Carlson continued,

“Yes. How do you know that?” “We found the vaults.”

“Oh. Listen, Elaine, that ship was headed for the other side of the galaxy—
it’s a hundred and seventy light years off course.”

Nis sucked air through his sharp teeth. “And there’s still power.”

Walker didn’t hear their voices. Loneliness clutched at his heart. He looked
up, searching for a catwalk high above. There it was, but it was empty—no,
that wasn’t true. What was true? He stepped up to a vault.

“Can you do a systems check, Nis?” Pournell asked.

“Let me see,” said Nis. He searched around and, finding a socket, jacked his
recorder into Republic's system. He marvelled at the data flooding across
his tiny screen. “Main engines out, main power reactors on standby,
auxiliary units on reduced output. Forty percent of the ship has lost
environmental integrity. Life support on auxiliary power in engineering and
forward of bulkhead number five ...” Then his ears lay down and his voice
dropped to an awed whisper: “Approximately ten percent of all cryo tanks
remain viable.”

Nis stole a look at Walker. The man stood before a vault like a worshipper
at an altar to a dark god. Nis read the fear and tension in the human body.
He couldn’t see Walker’s eyes, but he knew the expression which
must accompany such a pose: the eyes focused on distant pain, the brows
drawn together with internal struggle.

Walker removed his gloves and pressed a hand onto the cold metal. Here
was the truth. This vault had a green light. Someone was imprisoned within:
frozen, with a brain become a superconductor. Electrical impulses ran
in Mobius strips of thought. Consciousness doomed to rehash the same
thoughts over and over, conclusions getting further and further from reality
with each repetition of an obsessive-compulsive loop. Walker felt it
reaching out to him.

“Here we are," said Madness. “After all this time.” “We miss you,” said
Loneliness. “So very much.” Walker heard Nis’ concerned voice as if from
a great distance. “Almost one hundred are still alive after a century and a
half.”

“No one could survive that long as a corpsicle!” he heard Bartlet protest.
“They would have lost their minds decades ago.”

Walker was in turmoil. He had thought the voices were put to rest. His
loathed companions of so many years. But they had been waiting for him
and they were patient. Many times he had fled to the empty comfort of their
embrace. It was so inviting. Just do what they said, and everything would
be all right.

Claws pricked into his arm, without puncturing his suit. They pulled him
away.

“Stay in touch,” Madness called after him. “We’re never very far away....”

Walker found Nis leading him away from the vault. “No time to rest. We
have work to do.” He turned. Bartlet was staring at him, shock and
recognition playing across her face.

“You’re a sleeper!” she suddenly realized. She shuddered.

“Fuzzies dancing on your grave, Doctor?” Walker asked. He gestured at the

expanse of vaults around them. “They stepped into their graves voluntarily.
Nine hundred of the finest minds of their time.” He paused to straighten his
pressure suit. “The dead ones are the lucky ones. We’ll have to take care of
the others.”

Bartlet paled at the implication. “I’ve never agreed with that law,” she
objected. “They aren’t dead. To euthanize one hundred people borders on
cruel and unusual.”
“What’s cruel and unusual is that they are alive, aware, and vegetating.
They have no hope,” Walker retorted.

Bartlet remained unswayed. “There’s always the possibility that one might
survive.”

“You don’t understand,” Walker said, terrible emotion tingeing his words.
“I’ve been there: for seven years. This is not a coma. There is no
miraculous come back after a century and a half. They are mad, certifiably
insane, and they are suffering. Colonial law is clear. What are you going to
do about it?”

He had backed her neatly into a corner. However much she disagreed with
it, the law was the law. As a responsible member of the colony, she must
abide by its letter and spirit.

Walker waited for her to falter, but she would not. “I want the rest of my
team in here.” Her posture stiffened and her eyes flashed, expecting
confrontation.

Walker gave her none. “I agree.” He turned to the camera. “Ramfrashat?”

“Yes?”

“You and T’jardis run a docking tube from the pods to the functioning
airlock. Nis and I will try to get more power on.”

“No problem. We’ll start right away.”

“What about us, Captain?” asked Pournell. “What should we do?”

Bartlet bristled again, expecting Walker to violate the chain of command.

“Talk to Dr. Bartlet. Commander Holland made me responsible for the

safety of this mission, but I’m not going to tell you how to do your jobs.”
He continued to speak to Pournell, but his words were for Bartlet. “I’m not
a scientist. I didn’t ask for or want to be a part of this assignment. This is
Dr. Bartlet’s mission. She’s in for way more than she bargained for, but as
long as her decisions don’t jeopardize our continued safety, she’s calling the
shots.”

Nis’ camera panned over to Bartlet. The others wanted to see her reaction.
Walker had thrown the ball squarely into her court. Bartlet knew it was a
test to see if she had enough guts to give the orders she must.

Walker’s stare was unwavering. “Doctor?”

Swallowing the revulsion she felt, Bartlet began: “Colonial Law requires
that we open the vaults immediately.”
Chapter 9
“There is nothing beyond the confines of his mind,” said Madness. “I told
you that already.”

“Then we are all?” asked Loneliness. “Alone forever?”

“Nothing else matters,” said Madness. “We see what we want to see and
we hear what we want to hear. We create reality.”

“Then, if this is all that exists,” Loneliness considered. “If there is nothing
beyond the darkness, then ... we must be very important.”

“Yes," Madness affirmed. “Everything else is just perception.”

Tempers ran high. Even Nis had a headache now. From the human’s
behavior he surmised their own headaches had become much worse. They
had removed their pressure suits, but it didn’t help. They were all tense, and
the mummified remains they found at every turn didn’t help matters much,
either.

Walker’s demeanor was rigid, defensive. He was dead against Dr. Bartlet’s
search for Republic's bridge, but Nis didn’t need to be an expert at reading
body language to know that.

“They’re dead,” Walker declared as they climbed their way to the forward
end of the ship. “I don’t need to know why they died. Mission
accomplished.”

“The mission is not accomplished,” Bartlet said testily. “There are far too
many unanswered hows and whys. The bridge will have logs and records
that might answer those questions. That’s my job and I’m going to do it.”

“It’s already done,” argued Walker. “We know what this is. It’s a lost
sleeper ship. We know the name: Republic. We’re tending to the vaults—
and that’s all that’s required.”
Nis stayed out of the line of fire. He shook his head. If Walker thought he
could beat Dr. Bartlet in a debate, he was sadly mistaken. As expected, she
counterattacked: “What’s really bugging you? You don’t really believe what
you just said, do you? It’s like lines from a melodrama.”

Walker turned on her with an intensity no one expected. “As far as I’m
concerned, this is hallowed ground. A cemetery. I don’t want it desecrated.”

“And you think I do?” Bartlet was offended. “I do not. A thousand brave
men and women volunteered for a cause they believed in. Jayvee wouldn’t
be here—I wouldn’t be here—today, except for that kind of sacrifice.”

Both humans were sincere, Nis decided. It was too bad they couldn’t see
that. Oh well, they had to get it out of their systems.

“What do you know about sacrifice?” Walker growled, climbing a ladder to

the deck above. They followed, Bartlet quicker than she had to. She
confronted Walker.

“My grandfather founded this colony and he was a sleeper,” she said
indignantly. “My grandmother came on the second ship. She held it together
until my dad was nearly grown, but she spent most of her later life in
a sanitarium. I remember visiting her when I was four years old. Sometimes
we’d find her in her room, with her clothes all over the floor because she
couldn’t bear the feel of cloth touching her body. My grandfather and
my father would hustle me out of the ward, saying everything was okay, but
it wasn’t. It was far from okay.”

“Never mind,” said Walker, embarrassed by her private revelations. “You

can’t understand.”

Bartlet raged: “You think you have the moral high ground just because you
were a sleeper?” Her posture spoke volumes about frustration, of repression
longing for catharsis. “That’s just typical. I thought you were a soldier, but
you’re just like all the rest.”

Walker flushed red and pushed by her. “I’m not a soldier.” Nis had never
seen him like this. So readable, so real.
“No, don’t walk away!” Bartlet grabbed his arm. “I’ve got something to say
and you’re going to listen.”

Here comes the flood, thought Nis. The Eyes couldn’t stop it now. It must
run its course.

“Nothing can ever compare with how you suffered in the vaults and I’m not
trying to take that away or make light of it, but those early years were tough
for us too. There wasn’t a family unaffected by sleepers. I lived through
those times. I don’t know how we survived, but I can tell you Jayvee means
more to me than you’ll ever know. I’ve dedicated my life to a search for
knowledge that will help the colony survive. Hell, I just gave orders to
euthanize a hundred people, because it’s for the good of the colony—I don’t
believe in killing!”

Bartlet took a breath. Nis observed. She wanted to get through to Walker, so
badly. Why couldn’t the other human see that? Without thinking, he
postured reconciliation and encouragement to them, but of course they
didn’t catch on. If it wasn’t verbal, humans didn’t get it. Nis bit his tongue:
more language could only get in the way.

“These people had lives that meant something," Bartlet said, desperately
searching for a hook. “If we don't find out why they died, it’s a disgrace to
their memory. They’re like veterans, but they didn’t get to fight. You, above
all, should understand that!”

Aha! She got through that time. Nis saw Walker’s familiar pained posture.
He also noted that Bartlet was sorry for her harsh words. Had she read the
man’s body language? Amazing. He hoped she wouldn’t stop. She was on
the right track.

“If we don’t search for the whys and hows, it all means nothing. Only
answers can vindicate their deaths.” She let go of his arm.

They weren’t moving. After a few pregnant moments, the humans realized
that.

“I’m sorry,” Bartlet said. “I have no right to lecture you.”

Nis didn’t recognize Walker’s next nonverbal cue, but he knew it was
important.

“You called it the way you saw it, Doctor,” he said, nodding, “and I respect
you for it.”

Their eyes locked for a while. Nis didn’t notice who looked away first.

Bartlet actually laughed, a soft, poetic sound. “That’s good, because you’re
big and strong and I need your help.”

“Please,” Walker said with mock gravity. Then, with all seriousness, “I’ve
got a brigade marching up and down my skull.”

“Me, too,” Bartlet said.

“I don’t think it’s the pressure fields,” Nis said, sensing the right moment to
interject.

“What?” said Walker.

“I don’t think the pressure fields are the cause of our headaches,” Nis
explained. “Look.”

Nis took the square edge of his field kit and stuck it into the corner where
deck met bulkhead. Instead of an even fissure where two straight edges met,
the bulkhead undulated like a wriggle-worm. Nis used the kit in
several other spots to illustrate his point. “Nothing’s square. There isn’t a
parallel line in this whole ship.”

“You’re right,” Walker wondered, looking down the passage. “This whole
place is distorted. I can see it now.”

“It’s been getting worse, the farther we move forward,” Nis continued.

“Our brains are struggling to see what we expect to see,” Bartlet concluded
with her head pounding, “but it isn’t there. Hopefully, the anxiety will
lessen now that we’re aware of the problem.”
In fact there was some relief from the pain, but only because the strange
warping became much worse the farther they went. Walls sagged. Decks
rippled. The entire ship looked like it was morphing into something creepy,
but had frozen half way.

“You humans need to drug test your engineers,” Nis said.

“It’s like a fun house,” Walker admitted. “I don’t want to know what did
this.”

“I do,” Bartlet quipped directly.

“Big surprise.”

Nis shivered, unable to shake the eerie feeling Republic gave him. The
human bonding behavior had taken his mind off it for a while, but now the
lingering malignancy was back in full force. He knew Republic was cold,
inert steel, but he couldn’t help thinking that it was once alive and now it
was dead. He and Walker had restarted the emergency power, but that was
just a band-aid on an open sore. Republic's functioning lights were
inadequate for civilized creatures, shining balefully as they did in
the gloom.

The distortion kept getting worse, way worse. Hours slipped by.

“Wow,” Walker said at the worst point. They were very far forward. Ahead
of them the corridor stretched into infinity—and not in the normal way
perspective pulled parallel lines into a vanishing point. This corridor
was stretched, as if a giant had grabbed the prow of the colony ship and
pulled with all his might. The distortion narrowed it so much that further
progress forward was impossible, even on hands and knees. All the fore-
aft passages were like that. The side-to-side passages were stretched wide
and short. Everything looked more melted than ever.

“It’s like Salvador Dali’s idea of a space ship,” Walker muttered.

Bartlet didn’t get it.

No further progress forward was possible. Fortunately, though, they had
gone too far. Backtracking brought them to a section of Republic where the
walls were vaguely upright. One of these walls had a large, hexagonal
door inset.

It took a long time to find it. Walker had learned nothing about the interior
of a sleeper ship during his imprisonment, and the simple schematic pulled
out of Dr. Bartlet’s node was not much help. All they really knew was that
the bridge was in the upper decks. Unfortunately, Republic was over two
kilometers long. There was an enormous amount of space to be searched. In
places, jumbles of wrecked steel blocked their path and they were forced to
make long detours to find a way up. At one point they crawled through a
serpentine service duct to bypass a deck which was completely sealed off
by impassable doors.

There were more cadavers. Bones lay in crumpled heaps or strewn across
sloping floors. None of them looked as though they had died peacefully.
There were no exceptions.

Walker didn’t have to point out the bullet hits and deep scars on the metal of
the hexagonal door.

He pushed a button on the wall beside it. Nothing happened. He motioned

to Nis, who pried off a plate below the button and crossed wires underneath.
A motor whined behind the wall, but nothing happened.

“Maybe it’s too distorted to open,” Nis said.

Walker took a closer look at the door, where its two sliding halves met. The
metal had flowed inward and formed a bond which prevented them from
opening.

“It’s welded shut,” Walker said.

“Are you sure?” Bartlet asked.

Nis took a closer look, not wanting to believe Walker either. He pulled
back. “This is weird.”
Bartlet jumped to the logical conclusion. “What’s in there that they didn’t
want to get out?”

Walker didn’t take his eyes off the door. “The bead’s on the other side.”

The implication escaped Bartlet.

Nis felt the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end. Don’t ask, Nis thought,
then I won’t have to answer.

She did. “What does that mean?”

“They welded it shut from the inside,” Nis explained. “They sealed their
own tomb.”

“What’s out here that they didn’t want to get in there?” Walker rumbled,
running his fingers over the parallel gouges in the metal surface.

Nis felt suddenly exposed. He conjured up a dozen terrible ways to die in

the hulking ship. Somehow he knew none of those visions would seem so
terrible when they finally found out exactly what had occurred there.

The molten path of the cutting torch closed upon itself. Walker turned it off
and threw his weight against the door. Again. The piece fell inward with a
heavy clang. He took off his goggles and peered into the hole. Bartlet
and Nis crowded in behind him.

The bridge was unexpectedly large. Positions for the caretaker crew lined a
cross-shaped room, compressed by the morphing so that all rectangles
became flattened lozenges. Dead consoles stared over the backs of
unoccupied chairs. There was another boron-carbon arc welding rig inside
just to the right of the door.

The three stepped through the smoking aperture. Their boots left prints in
the fine layer of dust on the deck.

Walker inhaled. It smelled of ozone from the arc welder.

Nis inhaled: ozone, of course, also scents of dust and stale air—and no
more. He realized for the first time that the entire ship smelled faintly of the
odor he had encountered by the airlock and blood stains. The odor
he couldn’t place. The odor which had impelled him to cower on the deck
in front of his friends, and which brought feelings of unease he couldn’t
justify, yet seemed so familiar. The level of saturation was so low in the
rest of the derelict that Nis only detected it now by its absence. Why was it
absent here on the bridge? Nis was quick to answer his own question: the
bridge would have its own redundant life-support systems. If it was
welded shut, airborne particles from the rest of Republic wouldn’t penetrate
here.

“Feels like a tomb,” he remarked aloud.

“A tomb without bodies,” Walker commented. “It doesn’t make sense. Too
many bodies outside. None in here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bartlet.

“Colony ships are run by small caretaker crews,” Walker replied. “A dozen
at the most. The fewer people growing old in transit the better. I counted at
least fifteen bodies in the rest of the ship—”

“Sixteen,” Bartlet corrected.

“Sixteen,” Walker said, without much annoyance. “That’s a lot. And none
in here? This should be the only place to find bodies.”

There were two high-backed chairs on a raised platform in the center of the
cross. Walker stepped up. It was a well-designed bridge. From here a
commander could survey all operations as they happened. It reminded
Walker of command centers he had presided over. It felt right—too right.
He squelched the emotion. It reminded Walker of the old days. He
concentrated on the task at hand. “Whatever happened, it didn’t take them
by surprise,” he noted. Everything was neatly arranged. No spilled
coffee cups or papers cluttering the consoles. “Whoever sealed the bridge
wanted it in perfect order.”
Walker spun the left-hand chair. It was empty.

Bartlet spun the other. “Shit!” she said with a start.

The rags of a uniform still clung to the corpse. White hair flowed over its
shoulders. Bartlet recovered quickly. She was getting used to cadavers
around every corner. “Here’s your caretaker.”

“I see.”

Bartlet rubbed a finger across the uniform. The synthetic fiber was still
vibrant orange and green under the dust. The man had been an officer. His
shoulder boards boasted four gold braids.

“The captain?” Bartlet guessed.

Walker nodded, reaching for the skull.

“Careful,” said Bartlet, stopping him.

Walker backed off as Bartlet examined the skull. It was only loosely
attached to the neck. From the front it appeared normal, but when she
turned it, they saw that large portions of the cranium were missing.

“Crushed?” asked Walker.

“No, no I don’t think so,” replied the archeologist, peeling back some of the
mummified hair. She pointed at the top of the skull. “Look, the parietal
plates are completely missing and there aren’t any shards in the brain case.
The brain looks like it suffered major trauma, but I don’t think it was a
crushing blow.”

“Looks like scrambled eggs,” Walker commented. “Do you thinks it’s all
there?”

Bartlet frowned. “Hard to tell. It’s shrunken so much due to the natural
mummification process. We should have Dr. Ledbetter take a look.” She
carefully laid the skull back in place. The scientist in her was becoming
increasingly curious about their finds. Something quite irregular had
occurred on this ship and it certainly happened long enough ago to warrant
the attentions of an archeologist.

Bartlet was already building a mental picture of the captain in life, how tall
he was, what he must have looked like. He was handsome, but emotionally
pinched from years devoted to delivering his precious cargo. He would be
only average intelligence, so the attention he craved could only be won by a
radical, and selfless, career choice. It was a method Bartlet used
instinctively, part of what made her a good archeologist. The ability to
imagine her subjects in life and sympathize with their probable desires and
motives allowed her to understand them better. Some of the assumptions
could be wrong and the model would still be useful. “What killed him if he
was sealed in here alone?”

“Good question,” said Walker, looking around. There were no other

occupants in the room except Nis, who was wandering around the ends of
the area recording it on digi-cam. A yellow gleam caught Walker’s eye. He
bent down and picked up a brass shell which he dusted off and turned over
in his thick fingers. The aligning flange around the base was sunken into the
body of the casing. There was a tiny mark where the firing pin had hit
the primer cap. He held it to his nose, but any smell of gunpowder had long
since dissipated.

“Forty-five caliber, semiautomatic, ancient,” he declared confidently. “But

where’s the weapon that fired it?” It was conspicuously absent. The were no
signs of it on or around the dead captain.

Walker called to Nis. “See anything?”

“No bodies and definitely no guns.”

Bartlet suspected where it might be. Reminding herself that this was the
next best thing to an archeological site, she swallowed her misgivings and
parted the tattered uniform. Reaching inside the collapsed chest cavity she
felt the dry, hairy inside. The internal organs were shrivelled lumps, like
dried fruit. Her searching hand touched cold metal, with flat sides and
square edges. She grasped it and pulled out a tarnished pistol.
Bartlet didn’t like guns, however old. Holding it gingerly between thumb
and forefinger, she handed it to Walker.

Walker wiped it on his sleeve. Handguns hadn’t changed much in the last
few centuries. This one had a Doppler radar sight and a rather thick
magazine.

“It’s a fully automatic .45 caliber Heckler & Koch,” he said, hefting it in his
right hand. It was heavy, but the balance was excellent. “I’d say it was
manufactured between 2,400 and 2,650 AD.

With rapid military efficiency, Walker removed the clip, ejected and caught
the round from the chamber, looked down the sight and dry fired it. The
Doppler radar sight didn’t respond when he turned it on. He unscrewed the
butt end. The tiny batteries had leaked. He dumped them and wiped the
sockets; there wasn’t much corrosion. The old batteries were standard size.
A thin red line lanced from the tip when he replaced them with two from his
extra torch. A laser light pulsed when he swept it across a moving target—
like Bartlet or Nis.

“Hey!” the alien protested, seeing the glowing dot over his heart. “Point
that thing somewhere else!”

Walker whistled. This was sophisticated equipment. The internal Pulse-

Doppler radar detected movement in the line of sight by variation in the
speed of returning radar pulses. It knew where your enemies were even
if you couldn’t see them. The laser light flashed to let you know you were
on target. Walker had only seen the likes of it once before, in the hands of
the E.S. secret service. He turned off the sight.

“Seems to be in working order,” he said, “no way to know what condition

these rounds are in.” He snapped the single shell back into the clip and
reinserted it into the hand grip, then shoved the pistol into his belt.

Walker looked at the corpse. He had a hunch. “Hold the head.”

“You could say please.”

Walker’s eyes narrowed. “Please.”

“All right,” said Bartlet. Walker leaned in as she did so. “What are you
doing?” She was afraid he might damage the evidence.

“Trust me.” Walker shone his torch into the hole in the cranium.

Bartlet shook her head. “There’s nothing in there,” she said before noticing
the glow behind the yellowed teeth.

“Lift it up,” said Walker.

Bartlet lifted while Walker held the light in the skull. Then she gently pulled
the mandible open. A shaft of light emanated from a tiny hole in the palate.

“The maxilla’s perforated. It must be the entry wound,” she determined.

“But, in there?”

Walker’s mouth drew into a thin line. “Let’s look for that log you wanted,”
was all he said.

Bartlet didn’t push the issue. She was forming an emotional bond with the
deceased and she did not like the implications of the evidence before her.

The vault’s cryo indicator flashed green. Ramfrashat used a pneumatic

wrench to undo the lugs holding it shut. He and Pournell had been at the
task of opening the cylinders for what felt like days, although he knew it
could only have been hours. They had barely put a dent in the number of
vaults left to open.

Ramfrashat didn’t like this ship. He hadn’t liked it from the moment he and
Jeremy boarded with the others.

The airlock had ground open under its own power when they entered the
pressurized area of Republic. Newly lit emergency lights provided
illumination, but they didn’t take away the malevolence in the air. T’jardis
and Drs. Ledbetter and Carlson were waiting for them around the bullet
holes and blood stains.
Pournell joined them. “So that’s the stuff you two couldn’t identify.”

“Don’t touch it!” Ledbetter grumbled. They had all been warned to leave
the metallic smear alone.

“Don’t worry,” said Jeremy. “I wasn’t going to. I’m a scientist too, you
know.”

“Sometimes I wonder, young man.”

Ramfrashat closed the inner door of the airlock. He was being cautious. As
per Walker’s orders, he and T’jardis had run over sixty meters of docking
tube from the mining pods to this airlock. Now they didn’t have to
wear cumbersome space suits to travel between ships.

“So, what do you think of Elaine’s orders, anyway?” Pournell asked.

“What do you mean?” Sylvia asked, not sure how to take the remark.

“Yes, what do you mean,” grilled Ledbetter.

Pournell back-pedaled. “Only that, well, don’t you think she’s jumping the
gun here, opening these vaults so soon?”

“She has no choice,” Ledbetter said sternly.

“Yes, but—”

“It’s the law.”

Jeremy let it drop. Looking around, he said: “This is incredible. I’m

standing in a living piece of history. I'm breathing air older than our colony
on Jayvee. You can almost see how the Republic must have looked when
she set out on her doomed voyage all those years ago. Still think this is all
an elaborate practical joke, Professor?”

“Just imagine how much papier-mache it took those miners to build it,” was
the cantankerous reply.
T’jardis snickered. Ramfrashat kicked him.

Without meaning to, Bartlet startled the other humans by stepping out of a
side passage. “If you weren’t such an old stick in the mud, Dr. Ledbetter,
you’d be no fun at all.” The Fuzzies, of course, had heard her coming.

“Young lady!” the old man exclaimed. “You will certainly be the death of
me. This is a serious situation,” he added after catching his breath.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, remembering the task at hand. “I know it is.
I’m afraid I’ve been trying to keep it out of my mind.”

“I think we all have,” Ledbetter said, his voice softening. “Shall we get on
with it then?”

“Yes,” Bartlet began, her voice taking on a tone of rehearsed authority.

“According to Colonial Law, opening the cryogenic vaults takes precedence
over our primary mission. I know this is an unpleasant task, so let’s just
get it over with. Jeremy, I want you and Ramfrashat to start opening the
individual vaults. Begin on the ones with life signs. Dr. Ledbetter, Sylvia,
we need autopsies on the, uh, failed revivals. For the official record.”

“You want autopsies on all of them?” Sylvia questioned.

“No, just enough to establish a plausible pattern of death.”

“How many is that?”

“No more than five percent.”

Sylvia protested: “Elaine, that’s fifty autopsies!”

“Well then you’d better get started.” Bartlet led them toward the vaults. “I
think you’ll find the sick bay in working order. Captain Walker and Nis are
restoring power now.”

Concern furrowed Pournell’s youthful face. “Shouldn’t we take the sleepers

back to Hephaestus?” he asked, reopening his initial line of thought. “Won’t
they all ‘fail’ if we try to revive them here?”
Ledbetter patted him on the shoulder. It was an uncharacteristically warm
gesture from the old professor, but not without reason. Ledbetter had
travelled to Jayvee on the second ship. His wife had died in transit.

“My dear fellow,” he said gently, “that is the idea. Don’t you think they’ve
suffered enough already?”

The suffering was at an end for the occupant of vault 98-A. Pournell had
started the thawing process. He and Ramfrashat waited with grim
resignation as the pipes creaked and groaned.

The lid lifted slightly. Pournell blinked as steam blasted out of the crack.

Ramfrashat’s reaction was quite different. His eyes clenched and he

hunched down, hands over face—paralyzed with fear.

“Are you hurt?” asked Pournell.

“No,” said Ramfrashat. He stood as the feeling passed. “I don’t know what
came over me.”

Pournell’s monitoring equipment chirped. The light atop the cylinder

changed from green to red. Jeremy shook the lid, but it wouldn’t open any
further. The vault was twisted, like the rest of the ship. It would take a lot
of work to pry it open. There was no need to look inside anyway. The
occupant was dead. Ledbetter and Carlson had enough bodies for now.

Ramfrashat helped him gather up the equipment. It didn’t give them any
satisfaction knowing they had released a sleeper from endless madness.

Jeremy felt like an executioner. “I didn’t come here for this. I should have
kept my mouth shut.”

“What?” asked Ramfrashat, picking up on the human’s guilt feelings from

his body language.

“Never mind.”

They moved on to the next vault with a green light.

Light shone out a door onto the lowest of twenty decks lined with vaults.
There was a reason Republic's sick bay was located there. It was designed
more for examining the dead than healing the living. Any crew member
needing serious medical attention during the voyage would simply be
frozen until the ship reached its destination.

A nude female cadaver lay on a stainless steel table. The hard surface
sloped gently down toward one corner and a blood groove ran around the
edge to prevent any spillage. Additional bodies, recently brought in by
Pour-nell and Ramfrashat, waited upon identical tables along the length of
the room. The room itself was an antiseptic white, like a million other
human operatories.

Dr. Carlson prepared an array of scalpels, bone files, rib cutters and the like.
She had found them in the supply cabinets nearby, still sealed in their sterile
wrappings. She wondered what unlucky soul they were last used upon
as she placed them on a tray and set it beside Ledbetter.

T’jardis sat off to one side with Dr. Bartlet’s node, ready to record the notes
the two doctors would make during the autopsy.

Ledbetter yanked on the overhead lamp.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this. The cause of death is clear. Why desecrate
the bodies of these men and women who gave their lives so selflessly? It’s
wrong. Colonial Law be damned.”

“You are not making this any easier, my dear Dr. Carlson.” Ledbetter pulled
a pair of latex gloves over his wrinkled hands. He spoke louder. “Official
autopsy on occupant 86-B, Earth System Ship Republic. Revival status:
failed.” Ledbetter heard T’jardis typing whenever the node made mistakes
in translating his speech to text.

He examined the body visually. “The cadaver is a Pan-Caucasian female,

fifty-six kilograms.” He hooked a tape measure over her big toe and ran it
to the top of her head. “One hundred and sixty-seven centimeters. Apparent
age ... early thirties.”
The skin felt rubbery under Ledbetter’s fingertips and there was the smell of
freezer-burned meat in the sick bay’s antiseptic air. He picked up a scalpel.

“Now then, let’s see why you died.”

Carlson wrinkled her nose. “She died from being frozen solid for a hundred
and seventy years.”

Ledbetter scolded her with an appropriately disgruntled look, then sliced the
body open from sternum to pelvis.

Carlson’s chest tightened sympathetically as Ledbetter peeled the skin back.

She noticed that T’jardis kept his eyes averted from the table.
Chapter 10
“Circles, never ending circles,” whispered Loneliness. “Will it ever end?”

“He cannot become who he is until he accepts what he is,” Madness

sneered. “Everything repeats. Each time a chance to accept. Each time
redemption is missed. Then the circles start again, different but not so
different.”

“Look at this,” Nis announced. Walker and Bartlet gathered around the
console he was working on.

Although there was auxiliary power, much of the hardware under the
control panels was dead. Whether it was due to the morphing or age, Nis
was unsure. He had removed a cover plate and wired his recorder into the
circuitry beneath in an attempt to bypass a group of dead power boards.
Now he was tapped into Republic's logs; however, much of the digital
information was garbled. He did his best to clean it up, but his recorder
wasn’t really designed to do that. Dr. Bartlet’s node would have done
a much better job, but Dr. Ledbetter was using it. Nis hoped he would get a
chance to use it. There were fewer than a hundred in the system.

“I think these must be the log entries,” he told the humans, “but I’m not
sure about the quality of the records.”

“Let’s see what you got,” Walker suggested.

“Just so you know,” Nis warned, “a lot of the files were damaged and I had
to piece them together. What you see is what you get. I’m no computer
geek.”

Nis ran the files. A screen on the console flickered to life. He brushed a
thick layer of dust from its surface. The image was dull and laced with
static, but it was readable. They saw a close-up of a middle-aged human,
sitting in one of the two command chairs behind them. His uniform was
orange and green with four gold stripes on his shoulder boards. Behind him,
other crew members went about their duties, some at the very console Nis,
Walker and Bartlet hunched over. A dark skinned junior officer sat where
Nis sat going about some unknown task. The bridge was not bloated or
distorted in any way, but it was a somber place, regardless of whether it
functioned or not.

Bartlet looked furtively at the corpse behind her; the uniform matched the
one worn by the man in the log. “It’s him.”

Nis said, “He didn’t look very good even when he was alive.”

Walker nodded. The man was pinched, with a certain pallor about him. Still,
Walker didn’t have a lot of sympathy. Walker would have traded decades of
boredom on a caretaker crew for the time he spent in deep freeze in
an instant.

The older man’s lips moved. Nis tweaked a couple of likely looking knobs
and was rewarded with sound.

“—ip’s log, E.S.S.Republic, Second Captain Draven reporting,” said the

officer, his voice edged with tension. “Twenty-eight subjective years since
launch. Earth date unknown ... Something’s gone terribly wrong ...
We've come out of cryo sleep in deep space, and the ship is off course.
Automated systems revived us. The primary crew is dead. We found their
bodies.” Draven grimaced. “They were butchered. They must have gone
mad and killed each other ... We don’t know what happened. I'm trying to
make sense of....”

“What does he mean ‘Second Captain’?” Bartlet asked.

“Sleeper ships carry complete backup crews in suspension. It’s pretty

common to revive one or two to replace a primary crew member who got
sick or died accidentally,” said Walker, “but I’ve never heard of a whole
crew being replaced. That’s the last resort.” Many of those revived had
psychological flaws which prevented them from being much help anyway,
but Walker kept that to himself.

The recording jumped at one of Nis’ splices.

“Severe damage to our ... equipment,” said Draven. “No idea where we are.
We’ve missed the last two tankers ... can’t even detect the navigation
beacons.”

Walker shook his head. That was bad news. Colony ships didn’t carry
enough fuel for their entire voyage. They refuelled from tanker ships sent
out years ahead of them along a preprogrammed route which all the
ships followed. Every six months of subjective time—seven or eight years
of objective time—the colony ship would replenish the fuel supply from
one of the self-propelled fuel tanks, which was at just the right spot and
velocity to make the transfer. This allowed the colony ship to maintain
constant acceleration all the way to the halfway point and then constant
deceleration to the destination: maximum speed, minimum time. No ship
could carry enough fuel otherwise. The tankers themselves were discarded
to become navigation beacons. As long as the stream of tanker signals came
in from one point, the colony ship was on the right track. It was kind of a
high-tech low-tech approach to colonizing the stars. A clever captain
might recover from the loss of one rendezvous, but two?

Draven continued: “Astro-navigation reports some very unusual

observations ... In spite of the risks, I’ve made the decision to revive more
sleepers ... physicists to study these phenomena.” The picture faded.

“That’s the end of that one,” said Nis.

“Something must have gone terribly wrong for Draven to wake non-crew
sleepers,” observed Bartlet. “Anyone revived would have to chance the
vaults again or face years of travel until Republic reached her destination.”

“Few would return by choice,” said Walker.

Nis called up a second file. “This one is about two weeks after the last.”

Draven’s face reappeared. “—worse than we feared ... Physicists report the
phenomena caused by an uncharted black hole of immense proportions ...
We’re trapped in its gravitational field ... not enough fuel to break
away.” The log was laced with static at this point. “Long-range scans
indicate several dark planets ... surface temperatures exceed two hundred
degrees below zero ... but ... picking up strange radio signals.”

The picture broke up altogether. Only two more words could be picked out
of the audio track: “unidentified ... spacecraft....”

The words hung in the air.

“Unidentified spacecraft?” Bartlet repeated nervously. “What could he have

meant? They must have been light decades from the next-nearest colony
ship and maybe light centuries from us.”

Walker and Nis understood her subtext. As far as anyone knew, Jayvee was
the only successful human colony world. There were no others.

Pournell and Ramfrashat were lost. Hallways lined with vaults

honeycombed the deck around them. Emergency lighting was almost
nonexistent and their torches paled against the maze which sprawled into
the gloom.

They had entered unfamiliar territory in pursuit of a noise: a faint scraping,

as if someone were crawling, dragging fingernails against the metal
cylinders. At first they thought it must be one of the others, injured and lost
— or perhaps a practical joke—but they couldn't close in on the sound. The
farther they went, the more distant the sound became. Now the sound had
died away as mysteriously as it began, leaving Pournell and the Fuzzie quite
disoriented.

Jeremy stepped into an intersection and looked both ways, hoping to spot a
landmark, but all he saw was more of the unending rows of cylinders.

“Do you remember which way we came?” Pournell asked.

“I don’t know,” Ramfrashat sniffed tentatively. “Maybe that way ... ?”

“Maybe that way?” Pournell shifted apprehensively. “I thought all you

Fuzzies had an innate sense of direction.”
Ramfrashat bobbed his head apologetically. “I was raised in the city. I don’t
know anything about that tracking stuff.”

Pournell wished he could laugh. It was foolish to assume Ramfrashat would

have any more directional sense than himself. After all, they had been
raised in the same environment—even playing in the same baseball
leagues. Pournell’s Cro-Magnon forebears might have known exactly where
they were—just as Ramfrashat’s forefathers would have—but that didn’t
help them any. There was little comfort knowing that the Fuzzie was just as
confused as he.

Pournell sighed. “Maybe this way, huh?” he repeated and turned to his left.

An odd rasping from the opposite direction stopped him in his tracks. It was
the same sound they had followed before, but very near. At this distance it
wasn’t very much like a sound a human or Fuzzie could make.

Pournell called out: “Dr. Ledbetter? Sylvia? Anyone?”

He and Ramfrashat exchanged frightened glances. They were both scared

beyond reason, Jeremy realized. After all, aside from the rest of their team,
they were the only living beings on board—weren’t they? Five
humans, three Fuzzies, and a thousand dead people.

Pournell was not a brave man, he had never had to be, but he noted that
Ramfrashat was waiting for his reaction. The Fuzzie wouldn’t make a move
until Pournell led the way. Pournell felt saddled with a responsibility he
didn’t want.

He twisted about and crept around the corner in the direction of the noise.
What was out there?

Ramfrashat sniffed again, eyes widening in alarm.

“Wait!” he cried, but Jeremy was already out of sight.

Involuntarily, Ramfrashat crouched, falling to the deck and covering his

eyes.
“I don’t know how much time elapsed between this entry and the last,” Nis
admitted. “I can’t recover the dates on it.”

The monitor cleared again. There was panic on the bridge. Armed crew
members ran helter-skelter behind a haggard Captain Draven.

“Nightmare creatures,” he panted. “Killing machines ... saw their ships ...
toward us!”

Draven adjusted out of frame controls and the image on the log shifted to an
external view. Alien craft, sleek, gunmetal terror shapes with serrated edges,
approached out of a black-on-black vista, a dark planet against the void.

“Our first extraterrestrial contact ... thought we were saved ... welcomed
them with open arms ...” Draven said. Walker noted the beginning of
hysteria in his voice. “Lost control of the lower decks ... Massive
explosion ruptured the hull. Don’t know if it was us or them .. Can’t hold
them off....”

The view changed again. A gangly lieutenant fired a flamethrower down a

cramped corridor. He was covering the retreat of several wounded
comrades. His bursts were indiscriminate. He was obviously untrained.
Low and slow, thought Walker. Don’t lose your cool.

A hideous shape rushed the men.

The picture cut before Walker or Bartlet got a clear view, but Nis saw
something. The motion was ever so slight—over almost before it started—
but Bartlet noticed Nis resisting it: the ears down, shoulders hunching
forward, and hands moving to cover his eyes. It was the same reaction Nis
had to the alien blood near the airlock. She noticed something else, too.

“Back it up, please,” she asked.

Nis did, but he looked away as it replayed.

“There, stop it,” Bartlet said.

Nis paused the log on an image of the officer operating the flamethrower.
“What is it?” Walker asked.

“Never mind,” Bartlet said after taking a closer look. “That guy looks like a
cousin of mine, that’s all. It’s not important.”

“He looks like a cousin of yours?” Walker repeated, incredulously. “This

ship is a century and a half old.”

“I know, I know,” Bartlet parried. “It’s silly. Can we just go on, please?”

The screen cleared. Draven was welding the bridge door shut, his uniform
in tatters. He shut off the rig, staggered up to the camera and pulled off the
welding goggles. His features bulged in the wide-angle lens. Sweat dripped
off his nose and chin as he spoke. His voice was feverish.

“Everyone else is dead. I sealed the bridge to prevent them from getting in
... flooded the ship with poison gas—it didn’t even slow them down!”
Draven glanced at the door. “Some of my men were still alive out there.
I heard them screaming ...” Draven sobbed. “They’ve done something to the
sleepers.”

The picture got steadily worse. Nis struggled to hold the interference down,
but they could barely make out a shape which must have been Draven in the
command chair.

“Accelerating E.S.S. Republic on collision course with the black hole,” the
garbled voice said. The silhouette hand pointed into Draven’s mouth. “This
will be my last entry—BWUMP!” The voice terminated. The screen went
blank.

Nis turned off the recorder.

Dead silence.

Bartlet looked at the repugnant weapon in Walker’s belt. “He killed

himself,” she whispered.

“And his men,” said Walker. What could cause a captain to gas his own
men? Draven was on the edge, but was he insane? Were the backup crew
members cryogenic psychotics? Had Republic been invaded? There was
certainly enough evidence of combat, but why weren’t there any nonhuman
remains in the ship? Was this a madman’s fantasy? These questions
frightened Walker. He had lived part of Draven’s nightmare, and others. If it
was true, Walker feared the part of himself which would inevitably come
out.

“Good call dragging us here, doctor,” Walker grimly acknowledged. “I was

wrong. You were right.”

What was it Draven said at the end?

Nis was watching Walker. Without prompting he repeated: “They’ve done

something to the sleepers.”

Walker’s danger sense, so long asleep, woke in cold sweat. “I don’t want
your people opening any more vaults,” he said to Bartlet.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Walker strode out the breach in the bridge door without even looking to see
if the others followed, but they were close on his heels. Republic suddenly
seemed like a very dangerous place to be.

The sick bay was quiet, except for the hum of lifesupport systems and the
clicking of T’jardis typing in the background.

Dr. Carlson and Dr. Ledbetter were hands deep in their subject’s abdominal
cavity. Ledbetter stared into the distance as he felt his way around inside.
He had done many autopsies before and, although he was far from
considering himself an expert coroner, he was certainly more at ease with
the job than Carlson. Sylvia wore a look of resigned concentration. She was
an MD like Ledbetter, but she had gone on to specialize in reconstruction of
archeological remains. It was a long time since she had found herself so
intimate with a fresh cadaver. Sylvia found it nauseating and verging on the
obscene.
Ledbetter frowned. “I can feel an irregularity ... near the peritoneum.” He
explored it with the tips of his fingers. “It’s large. I’m going to try to pull it
out.” It was also smooth. He had a hard time getting a grip.
Ledbetter leaned over the corpse to get better leverage, his face just a hair’s
breadth from the cold skin.

Carlson saw the sides of the cavity bulging.

“I think I’ve got it,” Ledbetter declared. He pulled back. There were
slurping noises as his hands reappeared.

“Good God!” Carlson exclaimed.

Ledbetter pulled out a long, convoluted organ. It did not belong in a human
body. He held it up, still attached to the corpse. It billowed and glistened, a
chain of disgusting grey sacs, striated with blood and swaying with the
slightest movement. It smelled vile.

Carlson held her arm to her face. “Oh my God!” she gasped.

Even Ledbetter’s unchanging expression registered revulsion. “God had

nothing to do with this. Hand me a scalpel!”

Carlson obliged. Ledbetter cut into the fetid flesh. It was rubbery and
resisted the blade. When he finally severed it from the body, it burst,
spraying both of them with pulpy, pink ooze. The smell was even worse.

Carlson stepped back and wiped her forehead. Bile rose in the back of her
mouth as she fought to regain her composure.

“Steady on,” Ledbetter said firmly.

“I—I need some air.” Carlson stepped into the doorway.

Ledbetter placed the organ on a kidney tray and returned to the work at
hand. His scientific curiosity overrode the complaints his stomach made.
Again his hands disappeared into the bloody opening.
“The epithelium is mutated,” he said, probing the unseen recesses. “And the
hepatic ducts are inflamed.”

As Carlson took several deep breaths of the cooler air outside, she heard a
faint rasping sound coming from the vaults. Her head snapped erect. “What
was that?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Ledbetter said absently.

Carlson looked around. She didn’t see anything outside. She could almost
believe she imagined it, but T’jardis was staring fixedly by her with his ears
extended fully forward.

The sound came again.

“You heard that,” she said to the Fuzzie.

He nodded.

She called: “Jeremy? Ramfrashat?”

No response.

“I’m going to check it out,” she announced, mostly for Ledbetter’s benefit.

The old scientist didn’t looked up from his task. “Very well,” he muttered,
unshakable, “but don’t be long. We have a lot of work to do. And keep
typing,” he admonished T’jardis as Carlson disappeared out the door.

Ledbetter peeled back more of the skin and let his fingers roam over the
newly-exposed territory. It was fascinating. He had never seen anything like
it in all his years.

“The subject has apparently undergone some sort of transformation. She has
no sexual organs at all. They seem to have shrivelled up.” The reproductive
tract was missing altogether. Further up, near the kidneys, there were more
anomalies. “There are three cyst-like organs, about seven centimeters in
diameter ... tied into the circulatory system through the renal artery.”
Ledbetter’s mind was weaving the information before him into an amazing
tapestry. Any moment now he felt he would see the whole. So intense was
his concentration that he did not hear the small thump behind him or
notice that the persistent typing had stopped.

Ledbetter made the leap. “I think they’re some sort of secondary hearts!” he
pronounced. Then, noticing the silence, “T’jardis, are you getting all this?
I’m not fond of repeating myself.”

Annoyed at the lack of response, he looked over his shoulder. T’jardis lay
on the floor in fetal position, trembling, hands firmly over his face. The
node lay askew on the deck beside him.

“T’jardis?”

The prone Fuzzie did not reply. Ledbetter removed his gloves and went to
him. T’jardis was breathing in small, rapid breaths and his eyes had rolled
up into his head. He convulsed when Ledbetter touched him. The man was
immediately concerned. He knew nothing about Fuzzie physiognomy.

“Dr. Carlson,” he cried out the door. “Get in here and help me with T’jardis!
I think he’s having a seizure!”

No answer, only the rasping noise; rising now, closer, and then falling to
silence once more.

Ledbetter began to sweat. He was unaccustomed to the fear rising along the
fine hairs on his back. It perturbed him.

And T’jardis was getting worse.

“Dr. Carlson!” Ledbetter called again, moving to the open door. How far
had she gone? “Dr. Carlson?”

Ledbetter froze. Two eyes full of hate and hunger smoldered in the
shadowed recess outside the door. Below the eyes was a mouth with far too
many teeth.
Faster than seemed believable, the unseen menace lashed out, ripping
Ledbetter’s neck to the bone. Fresh blood spewed everywhere, mingling
with the duskier stains upon his apron. Ledbetter fell back, choking on
his own blood, grasping at his throat.

A hideous shadow fell across his trembling form. It lashed out again and
again. The last thing the old man heard was the sloppy sound of his
intestines falling to the floor.
Chapter 11
“If he clings to the coddled, little boy,” Loneliness warned, “He will lose
the abandoned, strong man.”

“That’s right,” Madness agreed. “Passion and reason cannot exist side by
side.”

The service duct ended below Walker. An open grate looked down on
corrugated decking two meters below. He let go of the ladder and dropped
into the passage underneath, landing in a crouched position. He
looked around him. The morphine-dream corridor looked like another
dimension, but it was empty.

“Come on,” Walker said.

Bartlet hung from the end of the ladder, then dropped the last meter to the
deck. Nis followed. Few words were spoken. Edgy, darting glances said it
all.

Walker led off again, retracing their footsteps back from the bridge.
Condensation from the poorly functioning air system beaded up on the
bulging surfaces around them. It made the deck slippery. They rounded a
corner. The decking there was metal grating. They could see the levels
above and below them through it.

Something was dripping from the ceiling in the distance. Nis dropped to the
floor and covered his eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Walker hissed.

“I-I don’t know,” Nis stammered. He smelled the odor again. He had tried
to resist the compulsion, but failed before he even began. It was as if a
demon hand threw an override switch in his head and Nis couldn’t control
it. He felt violated and dirty.

“Cut it out,” Walker ordered. “You’re giving me the willies.”

Nis struggled erect and they cautiously advanced. Walker drew the pistol,
hoping more than ever that the shells would fire.

For Bartlet the long walk across the grating was a bad dream, hazy and
indistinct, with all her attention focused on the far end. Walker flashed his
torch at the ceiling. There was a large, wet mass ahead. Walker touched
it with the laser. Solid beam—no movement. No life either. It glistened as
they neared. Bartlet heard a moan coming from her mouth and turned away.

It was the remains of Sylvia Carlson, pressed through the metal grating like
so many raw french fries.

Bartlet couldn’t accept it. The scene was too horrible to be real. A pit
formed in the center of her chest, as though she would implode at any
moment. Sylvia was Bartlet’s best friend, one of the few people she’d ever
bonded with. Sylvia played the role of older sister, confidant,
sounding board—and now she was gone. Bartlet’s tongue was suddenly
thick in the back of her throat, toying with her gag reflex. She put her hand
to her mouth.

Nis’ amber eyes skirted the remains, looking but not looking. Many times
he had seen hunters gored in the chase, bodies broken beyond repair, or
prey in their last harrowed heartbeats, wide-eyed and
uncomprehending. Sylvia had that look now.

“What could have done that?” Nis asked. The force required to press a
human through the decking must have been tremendous.

“Unknown,” Walker replied, craning his neck around. Walker couldn’t

afford the luxury of distress. His combat instincts took over. He was certain
their lives depended on his self-control. He swept the Doppler beam
through the grating above and below them. It remained stable. “Whatever it
was, it’s gone now.” He grabbed Bartlet’s shoulder, not ungently, and pulled
her along. “Let’s keep moving.”

Bartlet stole another glimpse at the body, and instantly regretted it. “What
about Sylvia?” she managed.
“We’ll come back for her when we’re better armed and better prepared,”
Walker said. “This ship has been here a long time. It isn’t going anywhere.”

That seemed to satisfy her. Walker thought she was taking it pretty well.
Bartlet was shaking, but he had seen many tough men fall apart at sights
less grisly than this.

“You’re doing fine, Doctor,” he encouraged.

They rapidly left the dead woman behind them. The groanings of long-
slumbering systems echoed away into the decks around them. The grating
overhead and underfoot made them feel vulnerable.

They reentered the spiral stairwell they’d used to reach the bridge in the
first place. It was narrow and steep, almost more a ladder than a stair. The
weight of the ship pressed in on them. Their boots clattered noisily on
the steps. They descended quickly, hands gripping the center post, shoulders
brushing the outer wall. As each deck passed, the visual effects of the
morphing decreased, from full-blown drug trip to crooked T square.

It was such a tight spiral that Walker could see only a couple of meters in
front of them at any time. It was the perfect place for an ambush, and
Walker noticed he wasn’t the only one expecting trouble at every
doorway they passed. Nis descended sideways to keep an eye on the
openings behind them.

The laser pulsed briefly. Walker froze, but Bartlet couldn’t stop her
headlong descent. She slammed into his back. He lurched against the outer
wall, searching for a target.

“Who’s there?” Walker shouted.

He moved the Doppler sight across the stairwell below while trying to keep
Bartlet from falling. Nothing. Then, a noise behind them, like claws against
metal. Walker turned and saw motion in the corner of his vision,
shadow against shadow in the opening behind Nis.
“Look out!” Walker yelled. He couldn’t bring his gun to bear. Bartlet’s
weight pinned his arm against the wall. Nis ducked, throwing his arms over
his head. Walker heaved Bartlet off and fired over the Fuzzie. The
badly aimed shot ricocheted off the outer door jamb. The sound was
deafening in the cramped quarters.

They waited breathlessly as their ears stopped ringing. There was no attack.

“What is it?” Bartlet whispered.

“I don’t know,” Walker said honestly. He had glimpsed the enemy now. He
didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was there. His mind kept returning
to the fleeting images on Draven’s logs.

“What were you shooting at?”

There was no sign of the motion Walker had seen.

“Nothing, now,” he said, staying alert.

“Nothing?” Bartlet exclaimed incredulously. “You were shooting at

nothing?”

“I saw it behind Nis, but it’s gone now.”

Bartlet exhaled. “Damn.” She freed herself from the tangle of their bodies.

Walker saw that she didn’t believe him. She thought he had gone off half-
cocked. Holland had probably filled her full of crap about him. Well, let her
think he had been shooting at phantoms if it comforted her. He was
no green recruit, fresh out of boot camp. He had seen something. The shot
must have frightened it off.

Bartlet did believe they were being stalked—hunted in

fact, all the signs were there—she just couldn’t deal with the fear that went
along with that belief.

Nis straightened up. His eyes were wide. He must have glimpsed it, too.
“The smell," Nis said cryptically.

Had he been ducking Walker’s shot—or cowering and covering his eyes?

“Can we just go?” Bartlet said tensely.

“We’re moving,” Walker replied without further comment. Let her vent. He
started down again, only to be stopped after another turn.

“What now?” Bartlet’s quip died in her throat. The stairwell was sealed, its
steel walls crushed in from outside. “That wasn’t there before,” she said.
“This is the same way we came up, isn’t it?” Her uncertainty stripped her
normally frosty expression. For a fleeting instant she looked vulnerable.

“Yes it is,” Walker said evenly. “We got a major problem.” He tested the
bent metal with his foot. It didn’t give an inch. “A human couldn’t do this.”

“Neither could a Fuzzie,” added Nis.

“The blur on the tape,” Bartlet offered.

“Draven’s killing creatures?" Walker scoffed. “How could that be?”

“What did this then, if it’s not a human or a Fuzzie?” Bartlet retorted
impatiently.

“But what’s it doing?” Nis wondered. “First Sylvia, now this?”

“Why doesn’t it attack?” Walker said.

“It’s a warning,” the anthropologist said, “like a ring of skulls outside a

village. It’s channeling us in a certain direction....”

“Away from the vaults,” Walker said, completing her thought.

“That’s what the behavior seems to indicate.”

A grim grin spread across Walker’s jaw. He had been

hunted before. This was different. They were helpless where they were, but
no attack had followed. The enemy was not strong enough. Their only hope
was that it stayed weak until they got to the others.

What was in those vaults?

The stair had been the quickest way down. Now they would have to leave it
and head for Republic’s central shaft. Perhaps they would find another way
down there. Precious time was slipping away.

Walker pushed past the others and led them through the opening behind
Nis.

The alien took note of their surroundings. “Walker, isn’t this deck
seventeen? The deck we came in on?”

It was.

“You see,” said Bartlet. “It’s telling us to go home.”

“Message received loud and clear,” said Walker, “but we’re not leaving the
others. Whatever it is, it’s scared. Otherwise why not kill us right off?”

Nis was thinking along another tack. “Walker, you missed it, right?”

“I missed,” Walker grumbled. “What’s your point?”

“Where did it go? What about Murphy's Law? It’s unprotected.”

“Damn! You’re right.” It was chilling to think of the damage a creature

strong enough to bend the metal stairwell could inflict on a mining pod.

“Wouldn’t it be wise to set up a guard?” Nis asked.

“No,” Walker said instantly. “We stick together.”

“But she’s our only way out of here,” Nis persisted.

“Who’s going to do it?” Walker argued. The Fuzzie looked at him with big
eyes. “You? No. Splitting up is too dangerous.”

“If we separated, I could be back there in five minutes. I would be headed

away from the vaults and any danger, and we would know the ship was
safe.”

Walker cursed Nis’ soft Fuzzie resistance. He was right. Walker had no
alternative. Nis would go, but it sat uneasily with the man. Nis was
unarmed, and there were all those strange reactions that left him
defenseless....

“All right,” Walker reluctantly agreed, “but no more of that curling up shit.
Go back to Murphy’s Law and prepare for immediate launch. Dr. Bartlet and
I will find the others and meet you there in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be ready,” the alien said with resolve.

Walker looked at the ancient pistol. He was especially fond of it now that he
knew the old rounds still worked. He thrust it at Nis. “Take it.”

Nis pushed it back. “No,” he said, baring his teeth and claws. “I’ll be okay.”

They looked vicious. Walker hoped he would use them.

“Go. Go fast,” Walker ordered.

Nis turned and padded away.

Five minutes later, Walker and Bartlet were looking down the vertical shaft
which divided Republic in half. Walker leaned over the rail. The shaft
descended seventeen decks to the bottom. Below hundreds of
vaults, Walker saw a rectangle of light on the lowermost deck which must
be coming from the sick bay door.

“Dr. Ledbetter!” he shouted. “Dr. Pournell! Anybody? This is Captain

Walker!” His voice reverberated throughout the ship and returned without
interruption.
“Maybe they can’t hear you. It’s a long way down,” Bartlet said
optimistically.

“I hope you’re right,” Walker said, then shouted again, “You are in danger.
Stop opening vaults. If you can hear this, lock yourselves in the sick bay
and wait for us to get to you!”

Bartlet looked over the edge. “How do we get down there?”

“I’m thinking,” Walker admitted. When he and Nis restored the power, they
hadn’t gotten any of the slide shafts on line. The spiral stair had been their
only means of travel between decks. There must be other ways, though. The
Republic was too big to depend on one small stairwell.

They crossed a catwalk to the other side of the ship. If Republic was like the
other ships Walker had been in, she would be bilaterally symmetrical.
Hence, the other side of the shaft should be a mirror image with a spiral
stair of its own. Walker’s guess proved correct; however they were stopped
long before they could reach the stairs. An emergency bulkhead had slid
across the corridor, blocking further progress..

“Everything is working against us,” Bartlet remarked, “even human design

tendencies.”

Walker agreed. “And I don’t think we should waste any time trying to get
around it.” From what Nis had told them, several large areas inside
Republic had no environmental integrity. Some of them encompassed
multiple decks. “We need a creative way down.”

“Creative, huh?” said Bartlet, not liking the sound of it.

Walker headed back the way they came. “Look for service hatches,
anything labelled ‘access’.”

It didn’t take long to find one. Bartlet grabbed Walker’s shoulder. “What
about that?”
It was a meter-square hatch, hinged at the bottom. Small butterfly clips held
it in place at each corner. Walker twisted them. They turned easily, and
more importantly, they were weak enough to kick out from the inside. He
swung the hatch open and looked inside. A duct paralleled the floor for a
meter, then connected to a vertical shaft scarcely wider than Walker’s
shoulders. He leaned in. It continued up and down as far as his torch could
reach. The Doppler sight was no help. It detected no targets and provided
no light. Walker dropped a coin over the edge. It scraped the side of the
shaft several times, but the sound faded before it could hit the bottom.

“It’s going to be a long way down,” Walker said, pulling out of the opening.

Bartlet had a sinking feeling. “That’s pretty darn creative. How about a less
suicidal option?”

“No time. Listen,” Walker explained, “we go down feet first, pressing our
boots and shoulders against the side to control our speed. I’ll go first, so I
can stop you if you slip.”

She looked inside. “It’s at least seventeen floors to the bottom! What if we
both slip?”

“We both die,” Walker said flatly. “But I’ve done this sort of thing before. I
won’t slip.”

Bartlet chewed over his words. “You’ve done this sort of thing before? I
don’t think this is a very good idea, Mr. Safety Guy. Why don’t we go back
to the central shaft and lower ourselves over the railing? One deck at a
time. Then we can see if the stairs are blocked there too.”

“We might have to do that, but it will take a long time, and there’s no
guarantee the stairs aren’t blocked at several points. Besides, whatever’s
down there won’t expect us this way.” Walker looked Bartlet in the eye.
“Your people are in danger. I’m willing to take some risks to get them out
quick.”

Bartlet’s mind replayed the unwanted visual of Sylvia hanging from the
grating. It was a convincing argument.
“All right,” she said reluctantly, “but if you think I’ve got a temper now,
wait until my Fthrass Sshrr comes back to get you.”

“Fthrass Sshrr? What’s that?”

“A group of Fuzzie female spirits who keen in the night, driving males in
the pod to atone for wrong doings—like you getting me killed here.”

“I’ll sleep with garlic around my neck,” said Walker, grabbing the lip of the
hatchway and swinging his legs into the opening.

“Won’t work,” Bartlet warned, making sure her gear was secure. “And you
can forget about silver bullets, too.”

With his legs in the vertical part of the shaft, Walker squirmed around to
face out. Now his body could bend the right way to negotiate the sharp
drop. “So how do I atone?”

“Suicide is always acceptable, or you could just tie a length of stout cord
around your testicles for a week.”

“Lovely.” Walker dropped. His body disappeared up to his shoulders, which

barely fit. He tried to smile. “You see, I can’t fall even if I want to. I’ll drop
down, then you get in.” .

Walker vanished. Bartlet followed him in. She wasn’t as graceful as he had
been, but she managed to get into the horizontal section and flip onto her
stomach. She stopped with her lower body dangling over the edge.

“Just a little more,” Walker coaxed from below. His voice sounded tinny in
the confined space.

Bartlet let herself slip back, trying to press her boots against the sides, but
there was nothing to grip onto. The duct seemed featureless. Only her
fingers on the lip held her back now, her upper body muscles straining at
the unaccustomed load. Bartlet was acutely aware that she was poised over
a fall of more then a hundred meters. What was she doing here? She was a
scientist. Scientists didn’t do this kind of thing. This was scary!
Walker knew she would become paralyzed with fear if she paused too long.
“Let yourself down onto my shoulders,” he commanded. “I’ll hold you up
until you get into position.”

Bartlet took a deep breath and let go her fingers. She descended slowly at
first, but still couldn’t get any pressure on the walls of the shaft. She was
smaller than Walker and her shoulders didn’t span the space. She hit him
hard. A muffled groan sounded as her heels dug into his head. They both
began to slip down the slick shaft.

The light of the open hatch slid away above Bartlet. Adrenaline shot into
her bloodstream. Her breathing became rapid and shallow. She was
panicking.

She had to get out, but she couldn’t!

Bartlet became aware of a voice calling to her over the pounding in her
ears. A red light flashed before her eyes. A laser beam? She looked down.
Walker was pushing her boots off his head onto his shoulders. The fancy
gun sight pulsed as it detected her movement. Laser light played in the
space between the shaft and her face. Walker’s torch was stuffed inside his
shirt. It shone up through the fabric, casting a creepy light onto his face.

“Freeze!” he was shouting. “Just freeze!”

Bartlet tensed up, but they were no longer sliding down. Walker’s sheer
muscle power kept them from falling.

“Take slow, deep breaths,” he said.

She did. The panic ebbed slightly. “I can’t get a grip.” she managed to say.

“Don’t press side to side,” he instructed. “Press your shoulder blades into
the wall behind you. Use your forearms so you don’t skin you hands. Press
your knees forward with your feet and your butt.”

Bartlet did what Walker said. She tensed as he slid out from under her, but
she didn’t slip this time.
“Now let the pressure off your knees and slide down a little. Good. Now
press with your knees again and let your upper body down.”

It was working.

“I’m inventing a new fear,” Bartlet stated. “Claustrago-raphobia: the fear of

falling from a great height while trapped in a very small space.”

“Just keep moving.”

Bartlet tried to think about the flower garden she kept planetside. It was
going to be a long way to the bottom.

***

Nis’ bravado was short lived. It had required all of his strength of will to
make Walker see that someone should return to Murphy’s Law. Nis knew
the pod was in danger and he was the one who should guard her. Still, he
needed the human’s consent before he could take action. And it was no use
hiding behind military protocol, as so many Fuzzies did. It wasn’t just
because Walker outranked him. It was because he just couldn’t take things
into his own hands, no matter how much he tried or wanted to. That fact
constantly shook his confidence.

He headed for the airlock. His ears swiveled continuously, straining for the
slightest sign of pursuit. A loud crack resounded behind him. He whirled
around. It was nothing. A light strip had blown out in the ceiling.
Glass fragments tinkled to the deck.

Nis chided himself for his cowardice. For courage, he began to sing quietly.
It was a tune human children had taught him when he was young:

“Nobody likes me,

Everybody hates me,
I’m gonna eat some worms,
... Juicy worms.
“Long, thin, slimy ones,
Short, fat, juicy ones,
Oh, how the little ones squirm,
... Juicy worms.”

It was a peculiar song, considering that Nis had never heard of a human
eating worms. In fact, he knew that most humans regarded worms as quite
unappetizing.

There was a blur of motion behind his back. He turned again. Still nothing.
Was there something there or not? He wasn’t sure, but he was glad Jeremy
had turned off the recorder hooked to his digi-cam. Nis didn’t want a
permanent record of himself jumping at every small noise. Walker might
see it, and what Walker thought about him was very important to Nis.

Turning, he saw the airlock in the distance. He increased his pace.

“First you bite the heads off,

Then you suck the guts out,
Then you throw the tails away....”
Chapter 12
I am Madness.
Forsworn, condemned,
But you want me, you need me
I am the curse in the back of your throat,
I am denial, anger,
Humility and disgrace, sex and parenthood,
Supreme Command,
Get them before they get us, and bigger is better,
And hidden agendas and the truth you
Will not face, your face without truth, and your
Life in the toilet, go on flush
It, you dumped it there.
I am survival.

The laser lanced into the dark room. Walker and Bartlet followed it into the
sick bay. The operatory was a shambles. Most of the overhead lighting was
smashed. The few remaining shafts of light illuminated overturned
tables, cadavers, and scattered equipment.

Bartlet gasped, another nightmare before her. The floor was awash in blood.

“We’re too late,” she said. A massacre had already taken place. Bartlet
knew the cadavers could not be the source of the blood: cadavers didn’t
bleed. The blood had to come from a recent victim. Which one of her
friends?

Tiny bits of flesh floated in vast red pools. Walker spotted a trail of crimson
winding its way into the darkness. Someone had been dragged out the far
door. He bent down and picked up a cracked pair of
spectacles. “Ledbetter’s?”

Bartlet nodded, nauseated.

Walker advanced further into the room. The laser beam cut the shadows,
pulsing. It picked out a quivering form, still in fetal position. Blood-soaked
fur glistened in the half light.

“T’jardis!” Bartlet exclaimed, rushing to his side. Her heart leaped—at least
the Fuzzie was still alive—but that hope quickly soured. T’jardis did not
respond to her presence.

“What’s his condition?” Walker asked, not letting his guard down.

“There are no obvious wounds,” she said. “I don’t think any of this blood is
his. It doesn’t even look like Fuzzie blood.”

Bartlet’s casual remark sent a chill up Walker’s spine. What kind of blood
was T’jardis covered in? The ichor under Walker’s feet wasn’t metallic, like
the earlier stains; it was bright red. If it wasn’t Fuzzie blood, there was only
one other kind of bright red blood Walker knew of.

He wheeled as another form emerged from the shadows. It was Ramfrashat.

He too was dripping with blood. He shook eerily, a dazed expression in his
eyes. Walker’s danger sense screamed at him. He would have entrusted his
life to any Fuzzie without hesitation—until this moment. His weapon
remained aimed at the wet alien.

“Ramfrashat,” he said slowly and forcefully. “What happened here?

Where’s Dr. Ledbetter and Dr. Pournell?”

Ramfrashat hardly seemed to hear Walker. “They’re back,” he said blankly.

“Back where?” Walker grilled. “What do you mean? Did they return to the
Sex Kitten?”

“They’re back,” Ramfrashat repeated more passionately.

“Who’s back?”

“The ones that brought us here....”

“What are you talking about?” Walker asked. “Help me out here, Doctor.”
Bartlet spoke rapidly and quietly, keeping the quaver out of her voice. “I’ve
never seen this sort of behavior exhibited by a Fuzzie before, but I don’t
think they took part in what occurred here. I suspect they were curled
into balls with their hands over their eyes.”

“Right." Walker remembered Nis’ recent actions.

Ramfrashat looked along the trail of blood leading out the door. The fur on
the back of his neck bristled. A rising howl resonated from the vaults
outside. Several more joined in as the first faded away. It was horribly
musical, like slow motion screams of crying babies. If Walker had had any
hopes that they were up against a single thing, they were shattered now.

“Time to get the fuck out of here,” he barked.

“Help me with T’jardis,” said Bartlet. She moved to pick up the Fuzzie, but
Ramfrashat stumbled over to her, grabbing her arm painfully tightly. “Go!”
he said, eyes clearing momentarily.

“No!” She turned to the big man for help, her eyes looking for support.
“Walker?”

It wasn’t necessary. Whatever part the Fuzzies had played in the events
there, Walker had his mind made up. “We’re not leaving you,” he said
forcefully to Ramfrashat. In view of the howling outside, anything else
was a death sentence. He lowered the gun and grabbed T’jardis, but when
he took hold a dreadful moan escaped the Fuzzie’s clenched teeth. T’jardis
convulsed wildly, gnashing the air. Frothy white foam dripped from
his mouth. Walker lost his grip on the slick fur. He and T’jardis fell into the
congealing pool on the floor. Blood and flesh coated Walker’s back.

Ramfrashat lifted Walker by his uniform. “Leave us.”

His face contorted, as if it was agony to speak the words. “Please!" The
intensity of the emotion left Walker tongue-tied.

“If you stay, you will die!” Bartlet argued.

Ramfrashat turned on her. She jerked back involuntarily.

His twitching increased. “Please go!" he begged, the utterance sapping his
spirit. This time Bartlet felt it, too. She recognized the body language: the
helpless crouch of a Fuzzie waiting for death. The plea was primal. It
made her want to cry.

The howling resumed again—much closer.

All Bartlet’s experience studying Fuzzies told her that they must do what
Ramfrashat wanted. “Come on,” she said before she could loose her
resolve. She retrieved her node, grabbed Walker and half-pulled him out the
door. Walker did not resist; he felt the terrible truth of it in his gut.

Ramfrashat retreated into the shadows, tears escaping clenched eyes. The
humans were his friends and he would never see them again. He held his
aching gut and rocked back and forth.

“Good-bye ... good-bye.”

The sliding door ground open. Nis stepped out of the airlock and pushed off
down the docking tube. Glow strips ran its length at three points around the
circumference. Lines of light converged either way in the
distance, exaggerating perspective. He saw Republic's depressurized rooms
and hallways through the milky plastic of the tube’s accordion segments.
The cylindrical shape made for bizarre echoes.

“Big, fat, juicy ones,

Little, slinky, slimy ones,
Itsy-bitsy fuzzy-wuzzy worms,
... Juicy worms."

He was into the blast cavity now. The pods were only a few meters away.
Ramfrashat had moved them closer to the opening to cut down on the
length of docking tube needed.

“Nobody knows how I survive,

On worms three times a day ..
The tube split, going down into Murphy’s Law and up into Sex Kitten.
Queer light and sounds were coming out of the open hatch above.

“T’jardis?” Nis called. “Is that you? Ramfrashat?”

The sounds ceased. Nis decided to investigate. Sex Kitten's hatch should not
have been left open. He climbed the tube. What was that smell? It was like
the odor pervading Republic, but different. Like the way a natural odor was
different from a synthetic scent. Stronger, subtler.

Nis’ eyes widened. “Oh, my ...”

Before he knew it, Nis was floating in a fetal position, helpless as a kitten.

Walker and Bartlet ran for their lives. The marrowchilling howls echoed
throughout the dead ship around them. Their ascent had been unimpeded so
far. As Walker suspected, the staircase from the bridge was indeed blocked
in other places lower down, but the stairs on the other side of Republic took
them all the way to deck fifteen without obstacle. Above that it was blocked
by an emergency door.

They ran out onto the walkway which skirted the edge of the central shaft.
There was no catwalk at this level.

Those occurred only every third or fourth deck. The one the humans needed
to cross was two levels up. Somehow, they had to get up there.

Sounds of unseen activity welled up from below.

“They’re making a lot of noise,” Bartlet commented nervously.

Walker eyed the chasm and the railing holding them back. “Can you
climb?”

Bartlet wondered what sort of mind-numbing feat he would ask her to

attempt this time.

Walker read her expression. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m still worried about
your Fthrass Sshrr .. . Look at the other side. You see how these uprights
line up from deck to deck?” He waited for her to nod. “I’ll stand on
the highest railing and boost you up. You reach up, grab the upright and pull
yourself up. You can do it, right?”

“I guess so,” Bartlet said. “It doesn’t sound as hard as going down was. I’m
pretty tired, though.” She was exhausted mentally as well as physically. She
just wanted the ordeal to be over. “This is tougher than climbing Fuzzie
pyramids.”

“I’ll hold onto your legs until you get a good grip. It’ll be a breeze.”

“Right.”

Walker helped her mount the railing. She kept her arms wrapped firmly
around the upright as she turned to face him.

“Step onto my shoulders,” he said.

She did so, her knuckles white from her death grip on the beam. Walker
climbed the rails like a ladder. Each step he took pushed her farther up.
Soon her neck was crooked to keep from hitting her head on the deck
above. Bartlet knew she would have to let go, but she hadn’t realized she
would also have to lean back so far to get her arms around the edge of the
deck. She released one hand and reached over. Her fingertips brushed the
upright, but she couldn’t grab it while still holding on with her other hand.

Walker held her calves in an iron grip. It was almost painful, but she wasn’t
complaining. “Don’t let go,” she said, letting go with her other hand. There
was a brief sensation of falling backwards into the fifteen story pit behind
her, but then her fingers closed around the metal above her. Quickly, she
brought up her other hand.

“I’ve got it!” she gasped.

“One more step,” Walker warned.

Bartlet surged up again. It was enough for her to grab the first crossbar.
“I’m going to pull myself up,” she announced. Her muscles contracted. She
felt her legs strain against Walker’s grip, then he let go. She swung free, her
entire body weight supported by her arms. Her feet scrambled for a foot
hold, but there was only empty space. It was like doing a monster chin-up.
Her biceps burned as she rose. The upper edge of deck sixteen pressed
painfully into her breasts. Hooking her arms around the rail, she swung a
leg up. The first try failed, but her toe caught on the second try. With one
last heave, she got her hips up and rolled under the rail to safety.

She did it! Bartlet felt both exhausted and relieved.

A single hand appeared from below and gripped the edge of the deck.
Another followed, straining for the pipe, but not able to reach it. Bartlet
crouched with one arm on either side of the upright and grabbed a wrist.
She pulled. Walker was heavy, but not dead weight. His thighs continued to
grip the upright below and, with Bartlet’s help, he grabbed a crossbar and
heaved himself onto the deck beside her.

“Thanks,” he panted.

“You’re welcome,” she said, without even the energy to be indifferent.

A renewed chorus of howling spurred them on. The climb to the next deck
was quicker, if not easier, and they rushed across the catwalk, heading for
the airlock. The familiar passageway enveloped them. Bartlet experienced
a feeling verging on safety.

Walker stopped to check a dim intersection. “Almost home,” he said.

Bartlet was anxious to press on. Walker held her back.

“Wait,” he said. “Listen.”

Bartlet’s false sense of security evaporated. A forlorn voice yowled from a

side passage. It was too faint to make out, but it sounded like English.
Walker made a quick decision and they turned toward it, jogging along
the cramped passage. Menacing tunnels opened to either side.
It was dark here.

“What’s up with your light?” Bartlet asked.

Walker held his torch at arm’s length straight out from his side. “Anything
attacking from the front, goes for the light. Works good against ranged
weapons.”

“What about closer attacks?”

“Usually only suckers the first strike, but that might be all it takes.”

Bartlet was skeptical, but she held her torch the same way.

The cries got louder as they advanced. “Help me ... Oh God, oh God ... help
me, please.” It was male, in pain and sobbing. The suffering distorted the
voice. With a chill, Bartlet thought she recognized it. Walker hoped
it wasn’t Nis.

The laser pulsed ahead of them. Walker swept the Doppler sight back and
forth until it pulsed continuously. He waited, ready for the worst. A bipedal
shape stumbled into view. Walker aimed his light in its face. It was Pournell
—-just as Bartlet guessed—bawling like a baby, holding his intestines in his
hands.

“They made me do it!” Jeremy cried pathetically. “They made me call

you!"

It was only a split-second warning, but it was all Walker needed. He shoved
Bartlet against the wall as the corridor became alive with fast, confusing
movement. The sight pulsed no matter where he pointed it. The strobing
light picked out vicious shapes, lashing at them from dark openings. Walker
shot wildly, using up lots of ammunition, but making the shots count.

A shape lunged at Bartlet and the torch trick saved her life. The blow
slashed her arm open instead of her throat. Her scream was lost in the din as
she fell to the deck, the light spinning out of her grasp.
The assault pressed Walker backward. He stumbled over Bartlet’s body as
an attack sledgehammered him into the wall. His torch shattered. Bartlet’s
had stopped spinning, but it was pointed in the wrong direction. It was
almost pitch black where he stood. His chest burned. He heard his gasping
breaths and knew he had only a moment of grace before a killing blow
found him in the dark. With only the slightest draft of air on his cheek as
warning, Walker let himself fall and peppered rounds up where he had been.
A howl of pain and a splash of steaming hot fluid on his face were his
reward. He rubbed his burning eyes with the back of his hands.

Howling resonated from all around them.

There was a lull in the attack. Walker lurched to his hands and knees,
ignoring the pain in his chest, and felt around for Bartlet. He tried to grab
her shoulder, but his hand slipped away covered with sticky, warm fluid.
After retrieving her torch, Walker saw that Bartlet was as bad as she felt.
Her arm was torn open from elbow to armpit and she was losing blood fast.
It must hurt like hell. Her eyes were glazing over. She was going into shock.

With his right hand still firmly gripping the gun, Walker pulled a metal
canister labeled with a red cross from his belt.

“Hold out your arm,” he barked, biting the tip off. White foam gushed out
of it, which he smoothed onto Bartlet’s wound. Within seconds, it dried into
a rubbery battle dressing. It would stop the bleeding, and it contained
anesthetic and heavy stimulants to prevent her from going any further into
shock.

He helped her stand. “Let’s move!”

“What about Jeremy?” she protested weakly.

Walker located the whimpering mass of flesh which had been Dr. Pournell.
He was much worse. The creatures had shredded the scientist during the
ambush.

“I’m sorry, Elaine,” he blubbered. “Tell them I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ... I
couldn’t help it. It was my chance. I’m sorry ... I’m ... so sorry.”
“It’s all right, Jeremy,” Bartlet managed, lost in the fog of her own pain.
“It’s all right.”

It was hopeless. Walker never particularly liked the man, he knew his kind,
but he didn’t want the man to suffer, either. He charged the pistol and put
him out of his misery.

Frantic sounds were closing in on them from the bowels of the ship. Walker
half led, half dragged Bartlet back the way they had come. They burst into
the main corridor just as a large, glistening form disappeared into the
shadows. Its escape was not to be that easy, however. The Doppler detected
it even though the human eye could not. Walker fired along the pulsing
beam. Howls of pain and rage evidenced his success. Two more figures
leaped out ahead of them. Walker dropped the first, but his gun jammed as
he pulled the trigger on the other.

For a split second Walker stood toe to toe with the creature: two and a half
meters of Fuzzie From Hell. Its body was massive and terrifying. Thick,
hairless hide rippled over powerful muscles and tendons. This was no
mindless killing machine. Walker sensed its malevolent intellect. Before
Walker’s eyes, bony plates of armor formed wherever the laser touched its
body.

Walker ejected the jammed round, but the creature leaped away before he
could fire.

The humans ran, Walker firing at any hint of motion.

The airlock was just ahead. They heard the creatures paralleling them,
trying to beat them to it. Walker pulled Bartlet along as fast as she could
bear. He didn’t know how many rounds he had left, but it couldn’t be many.

They entered the airlock at a dead run, hitting the opposite door hard.
Walker spun and hit the button which initiated the cycle. The inner door
started to slide shut. Walker fired out the narrowing aperture as long as
he could, but the door was cutting off his angle of attack. One of the
creatures bore down on them. Walker fired once, twice, three times, but it
did not fall. He was hitting it hard, but it just kept coming. The door was
almost sealed. Walker could no longer fire into the hall.

The damn door was closing so slowly!

Walker didn’t doubt that the creature would rip the door out of its track if
the beast got there before it sealed. Bartlet turned away from her view out
the slit.

It sealed a heartbeat before disaster. The creature was cut off. It began
pounding against the metal. Boom! Boom! The airlock mechanism moaned
as it cycled the atmosphere. It would take about ninety seconds.

Boom! Boom!

“Apparently it is not content to wait its turn,” Bartlet observed dreamily.

“Will it hold?” she asked, referring to the door.

“We’ll find out,” Walker said wiping his brow. His hand came away coated
with metallic crimson stain: the blood of the creature he had killed in the
dark.

Indicator buttons pulsed on the airlock’s control panel one by one, holding
on the last.

“It pressed the call button!” Walker exclaimed.

Bartlet nodded. “Intelligent trial and error.” She clutched her arm. The
painkillers and stimulants in the battle dressing were ameliorating the
tremendous pain. The fog was lifting. She still hurt. She just didn't care. She
had been aware of the dash to the airlocks as if observing from a place
separate from her body. She couldn’t handle the pain in her arm or the
bursting fire in her lungs.

Boom! Boom! Ninety seconds seemed like forever.

Bartlet stared at Walker. Was that concern on his face? Usually people
wanted something when they gave her that look: usually sex. Yes, she
decided, he was genuinely concerned about her. Good. He ought to be.
Perhaps it was the drugs, but knowing that made her feel warm inside. The
blood-soaked man had risked his life for her several times recently. It was
only his unexpected skill and bravery that had gotten them this far alive. He
certainly wasn’t a white knight, but was he a hero? Bartlet’s disoriented,
drug-distorted mind analyzed: his courage wasn’t what you expected from a
hero. It snuck up on you. He was bold only when necessary. He never did
anything for effect. He did what he had to. Maybe he was a hero ... but he
was far too dirty. Sweat rolled across his stained brow. Yes, she concluded,
too dirty to be a hero. They were pressed together in the confines of the
airlock. Her jumpsuit was wet wherever they touched. His muscles were
rock hard under his uniform. He felt good.

Boom! Boom! The inner door wouldn’t hold much longer.

All at once, gravity ceased. Bartlet choked back bile erupting from her
stomach. A blob escaped her lips, drawing out a long tendril as it floated
away. The tendril snapped and the glob flexed as surface tension drew it
inexorably into a sphere.

The outer door opened.

“You okay?” Walker asked her.

“I’m alive,” she replied with an inappropriate smile. “Can we go.”

He grabbed her around the waist. “Jump on three. One, two, three!”

They sailed down the center of the docking tube. Walker adjusted their
course with practiced ease, pushing off the wall with his free hand.

Bartlet felt joyous and lightheaded, as though they were flying. She almost
giggled. God, Walker was handsome! In a weathered sort of way. The drugs
were affecting her mind. They definitely were. She didn’t care.

The airlock’s outer door closed behind them. The banging ceased. They had
a little over three minutes before it opened again.
Walker spun them around and absorbed their inertia with his legs as they
reached the fork at the end of the tube. He frowned. The hatch on Murphy’s
Law was ajar. Not open or shut—ajar. No self-respecting spacer
would leave a hatch like that. Too many dangerous mistakes could occur.

Walker readied the forty-five as they floated down. Releasing Bartlet, he

moved to the side and pushed the hatch open. It was deathly silent in the
pod.

“Nis?”
Chapter 13
Alone. Powerless. The chill in his heart despite the suffocating warmth of
denial which he wrapped about himself. Darkness. Not life or death, but
a bastion of overpowering indifference. Limbo. Death would be too easy.
The pain. Silent screams fell on deaf ears. And vulnerability ... above all,
the vulnerability. He imagined he could feel his body tensing, waiting for
the mortal wound which must lay his soul bare. But, where was his body?
His mind was adrift in the infinite black prison. He must have a body, but he
couldn’t remember how to get back to it. It felt as though he had been lost
for a very long time....

How long had he been this way? He didn’t know—suspected he couldn’t

know.

And then the light. Far off in the forgotten hiding places of his mind.
Perhaps it was not light after all. Perhaps “light” was what his grasping
mind hoped it might be. It clung to its belief because to relinquish
preconception was to relinquish too many other things....

He wanted it. He felt its torrid, callous power. Creating and destroying with
omnipotent disinterest.

“Have pity on me,” his heart cried without a voice.

He fell toward the light, into its embrace. Its kiss was sweet, living agony.
Its fiery purity caressed his soul. The power flowed into him, liberating his
shackles for one tantalizing instant. He was the light. He was the power. He
wanted to scream from the knowing of it and the horror of having
not known it. There was an ease to it. An elegance. They were one. A song
welled up in his heart—

And then it was gone. Darkness. Loneliness. Helplessness. But he was not
the same. Soundless tears nurtured a seed sown deep within.

There was no one in the crew quarters below.

Walker stuck his head into the pod. “Nis!” he called again. “We’re back!”

Walker and Bartlet entered. He dogged the hatch behind them.

“Nis, let’s go!”

No reply. The pod was very quiet, none of the systems were powered up.

“Where is he?” Bartlet whispered too seriously.

Walker found himself whispering too. “I don’t know. He should be here.”

“Maybe he didn’t hear us.”

“With those ears? Are you kidding?”

Walker crept forward. Pressing against the hull, he tried to peer up the crawl
tube into the cockpit. He heard movement up there. Something was in the
cockpit. Motioning for Bartlet to stay put, Walker started up. The ridged
rubber matting dug into his knees, but it also helped him move silently. He
stopped before the end. If he advanced any more, he would be visible.
Better to jump out and take it by surprise.

Walker sprang, landing in a crouch, his gun pointed right at the nose of one
very surprised Nis. The alien blinked, a faraway look on his face.

Walker lowered the pistol, relieved and annoyed at the same time. “Why
didn’t you answer?

“I—I didn’t hear you come in,” Nis mumbled. “I had a bit of trouble....”

“Well, help me power up!” Walker snapped, jumping into the pilot’s seat.
“We haven’t got a second to lose!” He flipped switches furiously. Nis
moved more slowly. Walker called out, “Get up here and strap in,
Doctor. We’re getting the hell out!”

He kept an eye on a rearview mirror which looked over the back of

Murphy’s Law. He was concerned about the doctor, but they had to ready
the pod before the monsters got out of the airlock.
Bartlet crawled into the cockpit as the pod’s systems whined to life. She
took the unoccupied seat behind Walker. It had never been used in the years
he commanded the pod. It was for a long-range navigator. Bartlet carefully
snapped her belts and hoses into position and looked around. Walker
recognized her expression from years of battle experience. She was
recovering from the initial disorienting effects of the stimulants. Her eyes
focused out the starboard-side canopy.

“They’re in the tube,” she said, quite unconcerned. Several large shapes
moved down the docking tube, obscured by the milky plastic. The
scrambling insect gait was not human. “About halfway, and moving fast.”

Walker needed ten more seconds before he could apply power. The pod was
doing her final systems check: all engines at full power, CPI pressure on....

“Come on, come on,” he grumbled. It was maddeningly slow. Walker never
shut the pod down except when docked. He wasn’t used to the wait.

“They’re at the hatch,” Bartlet warned, detached.

Boom! Boom!

A green light flashed on the dash. All systems were on line. Walker jammed
the throttle forward and shoved the stick hard over.

Murphy’s Law spun to face outward. The docking tube wound about her as
she twisted, its bellows-like segments expanding to the limit of their
endurance. Sex Kitten strained at her own moorings as Murphy’s Law
fought with their common docking tube. Finally the tube gave up the fight.
It sprang free, safety catches disengaged from the struggling pod. The loose
end closed up like a sphincter, but not before two of the creatures were
sucked out and fried in the blast of the pod’s main engines.

“Crispy critters!” Walker said with relish.

Nis shuddered at the comment—or was it something else?

Murphy’s Law accelerated through the blast cavity. In moments they would
be free of the derelict and out in the ring plane. Sanctuary was just a few
hundred meters away and nearing with every passing second. They flew out
of the cavity into the color and motion of the ring belts. The relief which all
of them felt, however, was short lived.

Bartlet craned around for a last look at Republic. The blast cavity was a
diminishing pit in a field of rock which reminded her of black magma flows
back on Jayvee. Motion drew her attention back to the cavity. Sex Kitten
was breaking free of her moorings and turning to give chase!

“They’re following us,” Bartlet said, trying to get back into the urgency of
the moment. The drugs resisted.

As one, Walker and Nis looked into rearview mirrors.

“How in hell?” Walker blurted. “Who’s flying her?”

Nis switched a monitor to show an aft view. A faint orange glow blossomed
around the cargo tug’s nose.

“She’s firing her weapons!” he exclaimed.

The blast cavity lit up like a stadium viewed from above as missiles raced
after them.

“Hang on!” Walker warned, banking hard to port and diving. The pod
rocked violently as the incoming missiles brushed by on the starboard side
and shot off into space.

Walker glanced back. The Kitten was hard on their tail, another volley
spewing from her nacelle. He shoved the stick in the opposite direction.
Murphy’s Law rolled through three hundred and sixty degrees. The ring
plane, which the mind tended to identify as a horizon, spun. G-forces from
the acceleration overwhelmed the pressure fields and tried to pull all the
blood in their bodies to a point just above their heads. Rockets streaked by
on all sides, leaving columns of fire like the bars of a jail cell in hell.
Bartlet struggled with her heaving stomach. “Why don’t you shoot back?”
Had she actually said that? Damn those painkillers. She didn’t believe in
shooting back.

Walker couldn’t spare the concentration. One slipup now and they would
become so much space junk.

Nis answered, “RDMs only fire in the forward arc. Mining pods aren’t
designed to defend against each other.”

They might not have been designed to fight, but many of their basic
features were admirably suited to dogfighting. Walker applied hard right
rudder and fired braking rockets. Murphy’s Law spun on her center of
gravity. She was still headed away from Republic, but now she faced to the
rear and was slowing in relation to Sex Kitten. The cargo tug overshot them.

For a fleeting moment a Fuzzie was visible in the pilot’s seat. Several
creatures crouched over and around him.

“It’s Ramfrashat!” Bartlet observed. “And a bunch of... them.”

“Has he gone mad?” said Walker.

Nis shivered. He had seen the conflicting agonies of compulsion and

loyalty. Ramfrashat’s body language was all too clear. “They’re making him
do it,” he said quietly.

Ramfrashat’s reactions were slow, perhaps because he was resisting,

perhaps because Walker was just a better pilot. Walker used the initiative
gained to put Republic's bulk between them. As soon as they were out of
sight, he brought Murphy’s Law to a halt.

“I’m going to reverse course and take them by surprise,” he announced to

both his companions. Then, to Nis: “They’re trying to kill us. It’s us or
them.”

“I know,” said Nis. His heart pained him. Ramfrashat was a good friend.
Kill or be killed: it was so animalistic. It went against everything he strove
for in life. Nis wanted to be free of his bestial constraints, or at least be in
control of them. Humans seemed able to reconcile these divergent impulses.
Maybe the power of self-determination allowed them to. Perhaps it was
easier to live with choices if you made them yourself.

“Loading and arming,” was all he said.

They arched back, all eyes scanning the horizon for the mass above them
for the expected pursuit, but the tug did not come.

“Where are they? Where are they?” Walker asked.

A bouquet of flame at the extreme edge of Nis’ vision answered the human.
“Incoming, two o’clock low!”

“Damn! They were waiting for us.”

Sex Kitten had curved around to their starboard side in anticipation of

Walker’s maneuver. The missiles closed fast. No time for evasive action.

“I need an arc for a firing solution,” Nis said.

Walker spun the pod to face the incoming volley. “Let them have it!”

“Firing,” the alien declared as RDMs spewed from their own weapons
nacelle. Opposing pillars of flame converged with blinding speed. Nis was
good. All of the incoming missiles were hit, all but one destroyed.
The surviving missile tumbled and exploded scant meters from Murphy's
Law. The pod shook as the resulting fireball ripped across her underbelly.
Bartlet yelped. Loose items flew in all directions as the pressure field
popped. The pod spun wildly out of control, careening into the ring plane.

“Hang on!” Walker yelled, struggling to right her as she passed dangerously
close to several large asteroids. Bartlet felt sure they were going to die, but
the wounded pod slowly responded to her helm.

“What happened?” she asked.

“They got us,” Nis answered without sarcasm.

“How bad is it?” Walker demanded.

Nis read from his instruments. “Bad ... Transmitter out, flight radar is only
showing aft sectors, and we lost our air reserves.”

“Shit. Where’s the Kitten?”

“There,” pointed Bartlet. The explosion had impelled Murphy’s Law far
enough away from her opponent to allow a few seconds of breathing space.
The tug was swinging around to make another pass.

Walker turned the pod five degrees clockwise. Sex Kitten was a sitting duck.

“Fire,” Walker barked.

Nis pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. He pressed several more times,
but still nothing.

“Fire!”

Nis leaned over the edge of his seat to get a look at the underside of the
pod. The view was far more sobering than the numbers on the dials and
gauges had been. Blackened and twisted metal was everywhere. Jagged
bits of debris were stuck in the nacelle, blocking the mechanism from filling
the empty barrels.

“The breech is jammed,” Nis said. “I can’t fire.”

Walker switched from offensive posture to evasive action. He felt like a dog
with its tail between its legs.

“What can you do?”

“I can go outside and fix it,” Nis replied.

“That’s nuts,” Bartlet objected. Even in her current state she knew that.

“I guess it doesn’t sound very sane, but it’s just a bit of metal blocking the
mechanism from turning,” Nis said, taking a better look at the damage. “I
can see it from here.”

“How long will it take?” asked Walker.

Bartlet couldn’t believe Walker was actually considering it. She shook her
head, trying to clear the residual drug fog. “Think about how crazy this is.
Don’t let him do it.”

“They’ll blow us to pieces if it’s not fixed,” Nis argued.

Walker liked the idea less than Bartlet. He knew better than she did what a
dangerous maneuver it was, but he had no other option. “Go. Make it quick.
I’ll play a little hide and seek.”

Nis unstrapped and climbed out of his seat. Bartlet grabbed his arm as he
passed.

“Be careful,” she said.

“I will.”

“I’ll take us deeper into the ring plane to cover you,” said Walker. “Watch
out for small asteroids.”

“Check.”

Nis exited down the crawl tube.

Walker dove Murphy’s Law into the dense inner ring plane, a blue-gray sea
of particles no bigger than peas. Sex Kitten plunged in only seconds later.

Visibility was poor. Walker couldn’t see more than twenty meters in front of
them—a perilously short distance. Flying under those conditions without
flight radar was unnerving.

“Take Nis’ position, doctor,” he said, “and help me watch for big ones.”
The inner ring plane wasn’t just small particles. Boulders frequently
appeared just in front of them and it took all of Walker’s skill to avoid a
fatal collision.
Bartlet strapped into the right-hand seat and looked down through her
canopy. Nis was already exiting the airlock on the belly of the pod. She
barely made him out in the increasing hail of rock clattering against the
hull. Chips appeared in the canopy.

I should be afraid for my life, she thought. I think I am. Good, the drugs
must be fading. “How dangerous is this?” she asked, suddenly aware of the
fragility of their environment.

“Only medium high,” said Walker. “We don’t stand a chance if a big one
gets us, but I’ve done this before.”

“You’re sweating,” she accused.

“Usually, nobody’s trying to kill me.”

Bartlet looked around. No Sex Kitten in sight. “What can I do?”

“Keep your eyes peeled. Call out anything scary. Don’t touch anything.”

That remark ruffled Bartlet’s feathers, but she bit her tongue.

Nis commonly undertook minor repairs in the field, so he was familiar with
the procedure. It didn’t take him long to don his suit and get outside the
pod. Under normal circumstances, he enjoyed getting out of the
cramped spacecraft. This was different, though. The blast shield on his
helmet had to stay closed to protect the fishbowl, so he could only look out
through the tiniest of slits. It was like being inside a fuel drum in a hail
storm. It was hard to find his way around. The bottom of Murphy’s Law was
a mess and he had to take care not to tear his pressure suit. Counter to that
desire, and making the task harder, Nis had to stay as close to the hull as
possible because of the hail of rocks. He moved hand over hand as the
torrent grew heavy enough to press against him like stiff wind. His grip
slipped and he fell back, clutching for a new hold. He must be careful. He
hadn’t taken the time to rig a line. If he fell off, Walker would never be able
to find him again.
Nis crawled up through the robot arms beneath the cockpit. The weapons
nacelle was just ahead. It protruded from the pod’s underside on a small
column. He had to “stand up” in order to reach the problem. Holding
onto the metal belt which fed the nacelle from stores in the cargo hold, Nis
edged into an erect position. He was actually upside down in relation to the
cockpit, of course.

He saw Bartlet following his progress. Stiff body language betrayed her
trepidation. She was a good human. Nis sacrificed one of his handholds to
wave. Her tension increased rapidly until he stopped waving.

Nis determined that the nacelle wasn’t damaged in any other way and
pulled at the metal fragments. They were wedged in really tightly. The
pressure of the loading mecha-nism was pinching them with considerable
force. One hand wasn’t going to do it. Carefully, Nis clipped onto a service
hold with a short safety cord; then he grabbed the blockage with both
hands. It budged a little. He removed a pair of vice-grips from his tool kit
and locked them onto the debris. He threw his weight against it. Again.
They came free—and so did Nis. The residual force applied by his legs
propelled him into space. He reached the end of the tether abruptly, every
vertebra in his back feeling the shock.

Nis saw the nacelle reloading as he spun under the full force of the rock
storm. Next to Murphy’s Law there had been some protection, but two
meters out there was none. The force of the hail would critically damage his
suit if he was exposed too long. He twisted and fumbled, then finally got a
grip on the tether. It took all of his strength to pull himself back into the
limited shelter of the pod.

Because the radio was out, Nis jacked into a receptacle. “Walker, it’s fixed,”
he panted.

“About time! Get your furry butt in here.”

Nis felt the pod change course, even as they spoke. “Consider me inside
already.” Nis unplugged.
Bartlet had watched Nis dangling with her heart in her mouth. He tumbled
like a rag doll under the force of a garden hose, but she had kept her mouth
shut. She didn’t want to distract Walker. Now she followed the
alien’s course back under the pod.

Walker stole a glance at Bartlet looking below. She looked up too late.

“Big one!” she yelled.

Murphy’s Law rocked violently.

Walker scanned for damage.

“We’re hit?” asked Bartlet.

“Yeah. It got us,” Walker frowned. “Nothing looks damaged.”

“Walker?” came a voice over the intercom.

“You back inside yet, Nis?”

“No. The airlock’s smashed. I’m trapped outside.”

Bartlet switched her monitor to the view from Nis’ shoulder cam. She
gulped. Fragments of a meter-wide asteroid resided where the airlock had
been.

“It’s gone right through to the inner door, so it won’t even open any more,”
Nis added.

“What about the top hatch?” Bartlet asked hopefully.

Walker shook his head. “No good. It’s not an airlock, just a single hatch for
use in dry-dock or with a docking tube. We’d have to depressurize the
cabin.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“We lost the air reserves, remember? If we vent the cabin, we won’t be able
to fill it back up. Plus we only have one suit left, unless you moved yours
from Sex Kitten."

“I didn’t,” Bartlet said, shocked.

“It’s kind of funny,” Nis commented mordantly. “A perfectly good hatch

and we can’t use it.”

Walker tried to think through a rising feeling of dread. It was his fault Nis
was trapped outside. How had he missed that rock? It was a miracle that the
pod wasn’t torn wide open. Nis’ life depended on Walker coming up with a
solution.

“Can you strap on?” he asked.

“Yes,” came the answer. “I see a service rung.”

“Hang on tight,” Walker warned. “The Kitten's still out there.”

“Okay.”

Stealing glimpses from his view of oncoming particles, Walker attempted to

size Bartlet up. She didn’t seem heavily affected by the drugs anymore, but
could she think straight?

“Doctor, what’s the cube root of twenty-seven?”

Bartlet considered. “Three ... ?”

“Yeah. Now, I’ve got fifty Singing Nuts on a singing nut vine. If half the
nuts go rotten how many good nuts do I have left?”

Bartlet pursed her lips. “Singing Nuts don’t grow on vines. Is there a point
to this?”

Walker took a deep breath. “Congratulations, you just made weapons

officer.”
“I don’t want to be weapons anything,” she objected.

“Tough. I don’t want to die.”

He leaned in front of her and flipped safety catches off the firing buttons.
“Don’t touch those until I tell you to,” he said sternly. “It’s us or them.”

Walker continued dodging asteroids and trying to spot their prey.

Outside, Nis climbed onto the armored back of the pod, far away from all
the sharp metal edges, and clipped on. Walker’s maneuvering tossed him
about. The pod’s attitude rockets spun and jolted Nis mercilessly as large
boulders passed perilously close. He felt like a yo-yo on a very short string.
This was definitely one of those experiences that was better to read about,
he decided.

They were banking around a singularly large asteroid when Nis spotted Sex
Kitten moving slowly away from them in the hail.

“I see her, Walker!” he said rapidly. “Five o’clock low, with their backs to
us.”

“There it is,” Nis heard Bartlet say. “They don’t even know we’re here.”

“Wait for lock-on,” Walker cautioned forcefully.

Nis felt Murphy’s Law roll starboard as Walker brought the weapons to bear.
He hoped the computer could target Sex Kitten in this mess. He should be
the one at the trigger, not Dr. Bartlet.

Inside, Walker’s hand was steady on the stick. Bartlet’s thumb poised over
the firing buttons. She tensed as the pod swung in line with her target. The
crosshairs weren’t lining up.

“Wait for it,” said Walker. The computer was having trouble targeting, even
though they were within fifty meters.

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to do this at all,” Bartlet said, an intense look on
her face.
“I can’t fly the pod and aim the missiles at the same time,” Walker stated
firmly.

“I understand that. I also understand that my thumb is going to kill

Ramfrashat—and don’t give me any more of that ‘get them before they get
us’ argument,” Bartlet snapped, “because I’m going to do it.” The computer
continued to struggle with the targeting solutions. “But I don’t buy it. I’ve
never been an ‘ends justify the means’ kind of person.”

“Well, I am,” said Walker, knowing that Bartlet’s temper was a sure sign
she was thinking straight and able to handle the job.

The dash beeped and the heads-up display read “locked-on.”

“Now!” Walker ordered. “Shoot!”

Bartlet jammed her thumb on the button. A pack of ordnance streaked

toward the unsuspecting Sex Kitten. The tug saw her doom at the last
moment and tried to evade, but it was futile. A fireball engulfed her as three
missiles slammed their way home.

“Yes!” Walker cried in the exhilaration of the moment, triumph sweetened

all the more by the fact that their lives were the stakes of this contest.
Walker remembered the heady glow of previous victories. “Good shot.”

Bartlet rubbed her eyes on her sleeve, without meeting Walker’s gaze.

Walker quickly brought himself down. His military experience had taught
him that emotions like worry or elation would get you stone cold dead in
combat.

“There was no choice. There seldom is,” he said, only partly for Bartlet’s
comfort. “Now it’s Republic's turn.”

There was eerie silence. The ever present clatter of rock against the hull had
ceased as Murphy’s Law passed through a shrinking sphere of space cleared
by the Sex Kitten's explosive demise.

“You okay, Nis?” Walker checked.

“Yes.” The blizzard of small rocks returned in full force. Nis put his arms
over his helmet. “Just get me out of this stuff.”

“Why blow up Republic?" Bartlet protested.

“You have a better suggestion?” Walker retorted. “Those things were

controlling Ramfrashat against his will. We all saw it. All of that bowing
and scraping that Nis couldn’t stop doing? I think it’s related.”

Bartlet nodded reluctantly. “So do I.” A theory along just those lines had
been fermenting in her head for some time now. “But can we take
responsibility for destroying the scientific evidence before we’ve had a
chance to study it?”

“I won’t take responsibility for those things getting out.”

“Out, how? With Sex Kitten destroyed, they’re trapped on Republic.

They’ve got nowhere to go. There’s no immediate jeopardy. Why not study
them from a distance? This is an incredible opportunity to observe an
extraterrestrial life form we haven’t seen before.”

“That incredible opportunity just killed Carlson, Ledbetter, Pournell,

Ramfrashat and probably T’jardis—or are you forgetting that?”

“I’m not forgetting anything! Sylvia was my best friend. They wouldn’t
want it any other way. If we don’t fully investigate, their deaths are
meaningless. We can’t bring them back, but if we’re not in danger why not
learn as much as we can, and then destroy them?”

“I don’t know ...” Walker mused. Bartlet was getting through to him. Her
approach appealed to his mind: a series of unalterable facts which led to a
best-case scenario.

The hail of rock decreased to a drizzle as Murphy’s Law cleared the inner
ring plane. Protector’s glowing bulk was a welcome sight.

“Oh, shit,” said Bartlet looking to port. “What I just said? Forget it.”
Eight pillars of fire were erupting from a tear-drop shaped asteroid in front
of them: the one containing Republic. Gouts of flame blasted away her
rocky armor. She was moving and picking up speed.

“They learn too damn fast,” growled Walker.

The Republic was out of range. Walker opened the throttles full bore. The
mining pod surged forward, pressing them into their seats or pulling them to
the end of their ropes. It was an enormous expenditure of fuel, but it was the
only chance to catch up to Republic. Murphy’s Law could beat her out of the
gates, but once the sleeper ship got up to speed, there was no way the pod
could catch her. Even now, the intense acceleration of the colony
ship’s engines was loosening her coating of rock. Chunks of all sizes fell
free and streamed out behind the ship like a dark comet tail—directly
toward Murphy’s Law.

A chirp from the targeting radar indicated maximum range.

“Fire!” said Walker.

Bartlet didn’t argue. It was more apparent than ever that the creatures were
a severe menace. She unleashed six missiles. They reached for Republic,
but all of them exploded prematurely in the intervening tail of rock.

“Fire again.”

Bartlet’s heads-up display was going nuts. “Too many targets! The
computer can’t get a lock.”

Walker gritted his teeth. “Can’t let them get away.” He gave up trying to
avoid the trailing rock. It was costing them precious ground and they must
get closer to have any chance of hitting Republic. He pointed the nose of
the pod at the sleeper ship and flew straight into the rock cloud. The debris
was thick, and it wasn’t pea sized like the inner ring plane. There was no
room to maneuver. Large boulders smashed into Murphy’s Law, but
Walker did not let up.
“We can’t take it!” Bartlet shouted over the din, seeing Walker’s manic
expression. “It’s a losing battle. The targeting computer is even more
confused than before!”

Republic, free of her excess weight, began accelerating away from them as
if they were standing still. Bartlet looked over her shoulder. Nis swung back
and forth on his tether, rock impacting all around him.

“You’re killing Nis!” Bartlet yelled.

Walker’s face got red. Bartlet didn’t think he would stop. However, Walker
relented, rolling the pod between Nis and the avalanche as he broke off the
chase. The pod was slow to respond.

They must have taken more damage, Walker surmised. Again, his fault.

Republic was a diminishing silhouette, headed back along Ring Belt Three
—and she was a weird silhouette.

“What the hell?” Walker wondered.

Republic did not look like a colony ship, or rather part of her did not. Her
fore half looked as though it were made of soft candy and it had been pulled
into a long thin point. The asteroid which covered Republic had
been teardrop shaped because Republic was teardrop shaped.

As they watched, the impossibly thin prow suddenly broke off and tumbled
down Republic's flank, breaking in half again. One of those portions
stabbed straight at them and it was more than big enough to punch right
through the mining pod. Walker pulled the stick over, but the pod responded
even more slowly. What should have been more than enough time to avoid
the projectile was barely enough.

They got a good view of the stretched piece of Republic as it passed within
five meters. Not only was the surface stretched, but it was inside out. Some
of Republic's innards had somehow transposed themselves to her outer hull.

“Holy shit,” Walker said in awe. Incredible forces had been at work there.
Bartlet soaked it all in, but made no immediate comment. Instead she asked:
“Where are they going?”

Walker didn’t even need to check the trajectory. He had flown it so many
times he knew it by heart. “Hephaestus.” He immediately launched them on
the same course.

“Can we catch them?” Bartlet asked hopefully.

“No,” Walker said, “and we can’t even warn Holland!” He pounded the
dead radio in frustration. He had failed miserably and lots of people would
die because of it.

Just like before.

“Walker?” said a voice on the intercom. At least that was still working.

“Nis. Did I kill you?”

“Not quite,” he said bravely. “I can see the tech’s hatch. Maybe I can fix the
radio.”

They watched Nis through the canopy behind them as he removed a

battered piece of the pod’s hull. After a short examination, he reached
inside and tugged. His hand came out clutching a small circuit board.

“It’s a no go,” Nis said. “The chip board is shattered. The bright side is I
think we can receive, just not transmit.”

“That’s useful,” Walker said sarcastically.

“I could replace it if I could get to the spare inside.”

The humans exchanged worried glances. They had almost forgotten about
that problem.

Nis replaced the hatch.

“I think I’ve solved the mystery of the artifacts you’ve been studying, Dr.
Bartlet.” Nis floated to his left and grabbed something stuck to the hull.
There were a lot of similar items clinging to the pod’s surface. Using his
feet and elbows to brace himself, Nis pulled the piece free. It was a chunk
of Republic's rock coating. Nis held it up. Its strong magnetic properties
glued it to the metal portions of his pressure suit.

“Yes,” Bartlet confirmed glumly. It was identical to the paperweight on

Holland’s desk: flowing black ore with sinuous impressions on one side.
The impressions were presumably molds of Republic's distorted hull and
external machinery. Who knew how long these pieces had been breaking
free and slowly floating into the ring plane before Hephaestus picked one
up? As far as she knew, the mining station had not yet made a complete
circuit of the ring belt in its seventy-year history, and Republic might have
been there a lot longer than that. One question was answered. The castings
Jeremy made looked highly finished because they had been stretched and
mutated so badly. Bartlet remembered vividly the image of the passing
prow section. The bits which were inside out accounted for the fact that
some of Jeremy’s castings looked like positives and some looked like
negatives. The mysterious, arcane artifacts were mysterious and arcane, but
not for the reasons Bartlet had hoped. They were probably castings of zero-
gravity toilets. No, that was wrong. Republic had gravity. Well, whatever.

It was disappointing, but there were plenty of new, much more interesting
mysteries to solve. For instance, how the Republic got coated in magnetic
ore in the first place and what were the forces that mutilated her.

Bartlet speculated: “When Draven dove Republic into that uncharted black
hole and reached its event horizon, a large body of steel must have become
moulded to the ship’s surface.”

“Maybe the creatures’ fleet of attacking ships,” said Walker.

“But that doesn’t explain why Republic wasn’t crushed as Draven

intended,” Nis commented.

“It doesn’t explain how she could have survived,” said Walker. “How could
a forty thousand ton ship make it through a black hole. I’m no scientist, but
isn’t all this impossible?”

“I think so,” said Bartlet. “And why did it come out here?” She looked at
the distant Eye of Darkness. The answer involved the black hole, she was
certain. “I’m way out of my league here. The implications are incredible.”

Republic was a fast-disappearing point of light.

“I suspect we’ll be studying these phenomena for a long time,” Bartlet went
on.

“If we get the chance,” said Walker.

“How long will it take Republic to get to Hephaestus?” Bartlet asked.

Walker went to consult the computer, but Nis beat him to it. “Seventy-two
hours,” the Fuzzie said, “plus or minus fifteen minutes.”

Bartlet raised an eyebrow. Walker nodded.

“How do you know?” she asked Nis.

“He’s good with trajectories and math,” Walker interjected.

“What about us?” Bartlet tested. “When do we get to Hephaestus?”

“We should arrive in eighty-one hours,” Nis responded without pause.

“Oh.”

A lot could happen in the nine hours between Republic's arrival at

Hephaestus and the arrival Qi Murphy’s Law.

Eighty-one hours was also a long time to be trapped outside the pod in a
pressure suit. Walker knew they weren’t designed to be lived in. He had
been trapped in one for a day and a half once, and that was
damned unpleasant.

“Can you hold out that long?” he asked Nis.

“Air should be no problem, but I’m almost out of water.”

As if to emphasize their predicament, several consoles on the dash chose

that moment to flicker and die.

Walker appraised the remaining gauges. “We’re losing systems all over the
place. We must’ve taken quite a beating.”

Nis surveyed the destruction around him. “Take my word for it.”

Walker noticed that Bartlet was clutching her wounded arm.

“Hang in there, bud,” he said to Nis. “I’ve got to see to the good doctor’s
arm.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Nis watched the humans crawl out of sight, then pulled over to another
access plate. He undid the latches and removed the panel, revealing a mass
of wiring. Most of it was fiber optic, but the hot wires were still old-
fashioned copper wire. That was fortunate. Nis would be able to steal power
for his suit. Because many of the pod’s systems were redundant (a design
feature of the spacecraft owing to the hard-earned knowledge that they
ended up in life-and-death situations frequently during their commissions),
Nis could do it without jeopardizing the humans inside.
Chapter 14
It’s so sad,” said the Loneliness. "They were all against you, but I can make
it right. I’ll never let you go if you just let me in.”

It’s ironic,” Madness countered. "The way you deal with Loneliness is the
way you will deal with everyone else in your life. You’ll get so used to
shutting it out that you’ll shut out those who want to get close to you. The
very defenses built to hold Loneliness at a distance will keep the love you
need to defeat it at bay.”

“What do you know?” wailed Loneliness.

“What does Madness know of Loneliness?”

“Fool!” cried Madness. “I am your child.”

Walker sat Bartlet on his bunk and got the first aid kit from its bracket on
the wall. She moved slowly. She was feeling the effects of her wound again.
Walker had experienced the effects of battle dressings first hand. Once they
cycled through your system, the pain returned, not quite at agony levels but
certainly above discomfort. If you showed up at a field hospital completely
numb, the doctors and nurses could not make a proper diagnosis. Walker’s
own scarred arm twinged sympathetically under his clothes.

Nis was clunking around on top of the hull. Bartlet looked at where she
imagined he must be. “He’s a real trooper,” she said a bit enviously. “You’re
lucky to have him.”

Nis was a brave little sucker. Pride swelled in Walker’s chest.

He sterilized his hands with cleansing cream, then opened the kit and
removed a pair of scissors with blunt tips. With these he cut off the
remaining shreds of Bartlet’s sleeve. She winced as he removed the old
battle dressing. She steadfastly averted her eyes from the wound and her
healer.
“I’ve dedicated my life to studying Fuzzies,” she said, obviously trying to
keep her mind on other things. “And I’ve never even heard of one doing
something dishonest.”

Walker used cold metal forceps to pick out bits of dirt which had lodged in
the wound. It stung.

“Everybody knows Fuzzies aren’t command material,” he half-joked.

Bartlet managed an edgy laugh, not just at the witticism. She liked being
around the big man and that made her uneasy, because he pissed her off so
much. But the fact was, he had a reserved strength, a wry wit, and the hint
of something a little dangerous buried just under the surface, all of which
Bartlet found appealing. While under the influence of the painkillers Bartlet
first realized these things in a very tactile way, but it wasn’t just a drug-
induced fantasy. The drug haze was gone but the attraction, and the
unfamiliar vulnerability, were still there. It was music she hadn’t danced to
for a while.

“Yes ...” she went on, “but have you ever wondered why? They are just as
smart as we are, they go to our universities, they learn how to fly our
spaceships and fire our weapons, but they can’t make decisions. In their
family pods they make small decisions, nonverbally—sort of a body
language committee—but it’s never anything drastic.”

Walker swabbed disinfectant on her arm. It flowed down the lacerations,

effervescing all the way, and dripped on the bunk. She bit her lips and they
flushed an attractive red.

“They regressed from an incredibly complex culture into small bands of

wandering hunter-gatherers, living by the Rote, with traditions and
superstitions governing every aspect of day-to-day life. They were dying
out because coping with the unexpected meant someone had to make a
choice—and no one could.”

Walker put the top back on the bottle of disinfectant and removed another
implement from the kit.
“What’s that?” she asked, shifting her long legs timorously.

“Surgical stapler,” Walker warned. “It’s going to scar.”

"Great.”

“Scars can be sexy.”

Now Bartlet suddenly looked Walker’s way. She gave him a searching look
that he didn’t understand. She didn’t look away even as he pinched the
edges of the laceration together and positioned the stapler. She had that
enviable fortitude to pain which some women had. Waker repositioned the
stapler.

“It’s a strange thing—” she started.

Cha-chunk!

“Ow—tell a Fuzzie what to do and they will do it very well—ouch—ask

them what to do, to do something under their own initiative, and they are
stymied. It’s like some vital part of their makeup is missing—ouch! Are you
enjoying this?”

“Just one more.”

Cha-chunk!

Bartlet wiped her eyes with her good hand. “They lack a sense of
leadership. Who knows how much farther they would have regressed in
another thousand years.”

Walker sprayed more thick foam over her arm. Its odor was penetrating,
like menthol. Bartlet tensed, expecting pain which didn’t come.

Walker raised an eyebrow, prodding, “And then we came along?”

“Yes, with all our burning desires and dreams. We fill the motivation gap.”

Walker spread the foam around; she relaxed at his touch.

“This should kill the pain, again.”

“Mmmm. It feels good.”

The foam dried into a durable porous bandage which looked like the battle
dressing, but which also radiated heat into Bartlet’s wounded tissues. Her
eyes began to close and her head lolled to one side as the pain abated again.
Her body wanted to relax and heal after her recent stress, but she snapped
erect.

Walker received another strong look, this one almost accusing. He briskly
wiped his hands on a towel. Now she was flushing pink. What was up with
her? He checked the wrapper to make sure he had applied the right
dressing.

“How’s that?” he asked, unsure.

“Much better, thank you,” she said quickly. “Uh, as I was mentioning,
Fuzzies and humans interact in a perfect symbiotic relationship.

Walker picked dried foam from between his fingers. “With us making all of
the decisions?”

“None of them become generals, but some become heroes following our
orders.” She nodded in Nis’ direction.

Walker fell silent.

Bartlet smiled at him sleepily. “Your face is dirty.”

His frown glittered with rich metallic streaks. He wiped it with the towel.

“The creature’s blood,” he said looking at the soiled cloth. “I got it on me

when they ambushed us.”

“Don’t—” she started before he could throw it in the recycler, “please. I

want that cloth.” Walker gave it to her. “These stains look like the ones we
found near the airlock. I want to analyze them.”
Now it was Walker’s turn to stare at her. Bartlet looked up from the cloth
and caught him battling some unknown puzzle.

“So what’s the missing link?” he asked eventually. “What motivated

Fuzzies ten thousand years ago?”

“I don’t know,” she lied. Bartlet had suspected an answer for a while. Her
work deciphering the Fuzzie hieroglyphs had hinted at it and their shared
experiences of the last twelve hours added to that. A theory was
coalescing in her mind, but it was a dangerous theory, one she wasn’t ready
to tell to anybody just yet.
Chapter 15
Hephaestus base.
Seventy-one hours later.

The interplanetary shuttles were too large to berth inside any of

Hephaestus’ docking bays. Only their bows were enclosed. The rest of their
mass jutted out from the ragged exterior of the base.

Shuttle Shangri-la had just arrived, bringing the manpower and expendable
supplies the base needed to keep operating for another week. Shuttle
Ragnarok prepared to make the nine-day return trip to Jayvee, her holds
filled with raw materials for use by the colony planetside and in orbit. There
were four shuttles. Their schedules were set up in a ten-day rotation: there
was always one at Hephaestus, one in transit each way and one in dry-dock
planetside for any maintenance that needed to be done.

Captain Staples of Ragnarok was impatient to get going. The next shuttle
wouldn’t be dispatched from Jayvee until they were confirmed on the way
back from Hephaestus. He certainly didn’t want Holland’s wrath
descending upon him because the schedule got fucked up.

“Hephaestus control,” the young pilot called. “This is Ragnarok requesting

clearance for launch.”

“Stand by, Ragnarok,” was the same response he had received to his last
four requests for clearance.

“What’s the problem, Hephaestus?” the pilot complained. “You’ve been

holding me for the last fifty minutes.”

“Stand by, Ragnarok,” repeated the space traffic controller. “We have an
anomalous radar contact in the departure area.”

A nervous hush had fallen on the normally noisy control room. Holland
stared out his arc of windows at a pinpoint of light coming at them from just
above the ring plane. It was a ship decelerating; he didn’t need to look at the
telescopic view on the wall screen behind him to know that. Holland had
seen uncounted spacecraft make the same approach during the span of his
command. What was different this time was the fact that they could see
the vessel at all at this distance. A returning mining pod wouldn’t even be
visible to the naked eye yet. The plume of the vessel’s braking rockets was
already large enough to blot out the Eyes. The approaching ship was very
large.

A shiver raced up Holland’s back.

Stubbs stood beside him, every inch of his wrinkly face pinched into an
expression of concern. He suspects too, thought Holland.

Holland turned to face the long room. Not much work was getting done.
Everyone was looking at the telescopic view. Holland finally gave it his
attention. The plume was larger, ten times the size to the naked eye, but it
still didn’t reveal much about the ship.

“Increase magnification,” Holland barked.

Holland’s aide quickly complied. The image wavered, then expanded

tenfold again. “Maximum optical magnification,” she announced.

The hush in the control room took on a chill as the personnel saw the
anomaly clearly for the first time. Holland’s own fears were confirmed.

The object in question was clearly a colony ship decelerating under its own
power.

“Where in blazes did that come from?” Holland muttered.

There were no colony ships left in the Jayvee system. There was no use for
the gargantuan vessels. They had been cannibalized to construct
Hephaestus, the shuttle fleet and many other things in the system. There
was only one place a colony ship could come from: Earth.

What in blazes had happened to it? Holland wondered at Republic's

distortion, apparent even at that distance. Was this some sort of military
sleeper ship?

“Shall I call up the guards and arm them, sir?” Stubbs asked pointedly.

“No,” Holland said. “We don’t know for sure what’s on that ship, yet,
Stubbs. I don’t want a panic.”

“But sir, colonial procedures—”

“Stubbs, please."

The staff was watching them now, waiting for a reaction. It was a telling
tableau. The majority of faces were young, curious, a few were excited. A
few gomers bumbled about, or made inappropriate jokes, but it was the
older staff officers whose anxiety was painted on aging faces. They were
the ones old enough to remember the fear....

Holland’s fear.

Jayvee was a paradise. The Earth System had no need of a paradise almost
fifty light-years away. The System wanted an outpost in lockstep with its
philosophy, spreading man and its political gospel throughout the
galaxy. That’s why the enormous task of colonizing interstellar space had
begun in the first place. It could not have happened under other
circumstances or governments. Only a totalitarian regime could marshal the
forces for such a program and sustain it over the decades—no, centuries
— needed for success.

Holland marvelled at the accomplishment, even as he worried about the

incoming vessel.

But things didn’t go the way the System planned. The colonists who
survived the long sleep sane had no wish to set up a goose-stepping bastion
for an unfeeling power. Led by Dr. Francis Bartlet, Jayvee was founded on
principals of free thought, tolerance and peace. It was assumed that the
hidden enforcers of the Earth System’s will had gone mad, because there
was no significant opposition. It was lucky.
It was also lucky that the second colony ship arrived on schedule five years
after the first. It had been launched before the first humans set foot on
Jayvee, when the Earth System knew nothing of the revolution taking place
on her colony. This time there was some resistance from a few thawed
sleepers, but again the colony absorbed its opposition.

Holland remembered the arrival of the third planned ship seven years ago. It
had been late—over a hundred years after the second. In the interim the
colony had time to establish a firm footing, but it also was time enough
for the first messages to make the fifty-year journey back to Earth.
Doubtless, whatever coded messages the System expected to receive were
not forthcoming (because their agents were dead or insane). So when the
third ship arrived, the Council expected trouble. Sleepers were thawed at
gun point. It was a shocking wake-up call. The minds of many sleepers
were traumatized, but there were no enforcers, no occupying army sent to
bring the colony back into the fold. It was a mystery. No one
governing Jayvee believed the System had just given up, least of
all Holland. The Council kept a close eye on the new sleepers, but it was
now seven years and not a hint of trouble. Whether the enforcers had died,
suffered cryogenic psychosis or miraculous changes of heart, the colony
survived again.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Holland didn’t like luck: you couldn’t count on it.

After the apparently unjustified scare, the new generation of Jayvee natives
were not so concerned with the risk from Earth. No more sleeper ships were
expected and more to the point, they were too young to doubt their
own immortality.

They made up most of Holland’s staff.

There were only a few old-timers and fewer still sleepers sane enough to
have a command posting, but all of those few present felt the same clammy
foreboding that Holland felt. This was a colony ship from Earth. It
was unplanned, but to those who thought like Holland, not unexpected.
It looked like the other shoe had fallen. His lifelong fear was materializing.

The traffic-control officer spoke up: “Whatever she is, sir, she’s
transmitting.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Dr. Ledbetter’s face appeared on the screen.

“It’s one of those damned scientists,” Holland exclaimed, with more

emotion than he intended. What did this mean?

“He doesn’t look very good, sir,” Stubbs remarked.

Holland agreed. Ledbetter’s face was a deathly shade of white. How did he
get on that unknown ship?

“Mayday ... mayday ... mayday,” Ledbetter’s voice was weak and rough.
“This is the colony ship Republic. Hephaestus, do you read? Mayday,
mayday.”

“This is Hephaestus, Republic,” answered the controller. “What is your

condition?”

“Hephaestus, there’s been a terrible accident. We require emergency

medical attention.”

“What kind of accident?” Holland broke in. “Where’s the captain of that
ship? Where’s the rest of the crew?” And why won’t they show their faces?

“There are no survivors,” Ledbetter answered slowly. “Crew or ... sleeping

ones.”

Holland felt a rush of relief. No sleepers, no enforcers, no occupying army.

“Where’re Captain Walker and Dr. Bartlet?”

“Dead,” Ledbetter said flatly. “Hephaestus, our situation is critical.”

A new hush spread across the control room. Out of the conflicting emotions
Holland felt, guilt jostled to the forefront. He hadn’t liked Walker or Bartlet
very much, but he didn’t want them dead.

“What happened?” Holland asked. “Where did that ship come from?”

Ledbetter paused before answering. “Walker found it. There was an

explosion after we boarded. The mining pods collided. It ripped a large hole
in the hull.”

Holland scrutinized the image of the approaching ship. “Anybody see signs
of an explosion?” he asked, off mike.

“There, sir,” said the controller.

Holland’s aide adjusted the view of Republic again. “Extrapolating digital

magnification,” she announced.

The image became enlarged pixels. A dark blotch of squares appeared on

the side of the mystery ship.

Holland chewed his cheek. It was hard to tell exactly what the digital image
showed, but it could be the crater left by a large explosion. Why did the
prow look so funny?

“What happened to the other members of the team, Doctor?”

“Wounded,” said Ledbetter.

Holland noticed that the scientist’s eyes weren’t showing any recognition,
any focus. And Ledbetter’s voice was slurred. Holland was suspicious.
Ledbetter was the kind of man who spat out each word with unerring
precision. Besides that, there was something subtly wrong about the way
the muscles on the old man’s face moved.

“I’d like to speak with one of them.”

“They ... aren’t physically able,” Ledbetter said. “They need to get medical
attention, urgently.”
Ledbetter’s answers just didn’t feel right. “I’m sorry. You can dock. I will
send medical supplies and equipment, but regulations require that I place
you under quarantine.” That wasn’t strictly true. It was
Holland’s prerogative to let them in. He was choosing not to. “No direct
contact for twenty-four hours.”

“Please, our situation is desperate.”

Ledbetter’s emotionless delivery belied his words.

“I trust you won’t force me to post guards, doctor,” Holland threatened.

“No ...” Ledbetter hesitated. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Doctor,” said Holland, coming to a realization, “if everyone else is dead or

wounded, how are you piloting that ship?”

The screen went abruptly blank.

“Dispatch tugs to guide that ship to the mooring tower,” Holland told the
traffic controller.

“Right away, sir.”

Holland turned to Stubbs. “I want a guard at the docking tower at all times.”

Stubbs’ cratered face broke into a smile. “Yes, sir. A wise move. The doc’s
story didn’t ring true to me either.”

“And no sleepers,” Holland whispered. “Fuzzies or sanes only. And keep it

to a minimum.”

“I suggest we seal all the airlocks.”

Holland shook his head. “That won’t be necessary, sergeant. I don’t think
Ledbetter will be hard to contain.” Holland saw that Stubbs didn’t like it,
but Holland was feeling more confident now that he believed all the
sleepers on Republic were dead, and sealing all airlocks would necessitate
shutting down external operations. The cost would be tremendous.
“Then, respectfully, sir, won’t you let me mobilize the entire Guard.”

“Calm down, Stubbs. You have my decision. No need to overstress the

population just because you want to play soldier.”

“Sir, Ragnarok is requesting clearance again,” said the controller.

“Tell that pilot to cool his jets!” Holland barked impatiently. “I’m delaying
his flight until I know what’s going on.”

There were surprised quips from the paper-pushers on Holland’s staff.

Holding Ragnarok was an expensive decision. With two shuttles at
Hephaestus, another shuttle could not be dispatched from Jayvee orbit as
per schedule. That meant that there would be a gap in transportation of raw
materials. Storage space would fill up and production quotas would have to
be lowered until the orderly rotation of shuttles was reinstated—and that
was just the effect on Hephaestus. The repercussions planetside could be
mind-boggling. Production of needed goods and equipment would slow,
exploration and construction would cease, planetary cash control would
tighten. Few people realized how fragile the colony’s support systems were.
Holland had to get things under control before any of those eventualities
came into being.
Chapter 16
Intelligence rules.
Animals submit.

—Regnant maxim.

The Plantagenet observed the deception from the blanket of shadows at the
edge of Republic's bridge. The Old One played its puppetry masterfully.
The Plantagenet's hearts seethed with jealousy.

The Old One's mass filled the center of the crossshaped room. Even to the
Plantagenet, the other one defied description: corpulent, fetid flesh shifting
constantly, pink and black skin iridescent where rivulets of ejecta seeped
from throbbing pustules. Embryonic anthropoid appendages and screaming
mouths formed and dissolved across its surface as a side effect of the
Probing.

The anthropoid body dangled before the communication device. An

appendage, grown to order from the Old One's central mass, held it in
place. Tentacles sprouting from the appendage had burrowed under the
fleshbag’s skin. The Plantagenet saw them writhe like maggots attacking a
cadaver. The thought of it was almost more than it could stand. Blood raced
in its loins at the sight of such sensuality. The tentacles constricted and
expanded the thrall’s diaphragm, moved facial muscles like a monstrous
marionette. One sinuous worm was attached to the thrall’s spinal cord. The
Old One was probing, reading the chemical residues of the dead fleshbag’s
memories to aid in the deception.

The anthropoid’s eyes rolled as the Old One withdrew its tentacles. The
great one reveled in the act, but the body did not. It jerked grotesquely, dead
nerves firing final bursts of agony.

The Old One's pleasure soured: the deception had failed.

The Old One's mouth ululated frustration in five part harmony and it flung
the limp carcass against the wall. The parasitic appendages resorbed into the
Old One's body.

Other brethren advanced from the shadows. Many of them were progeny of
the furry thralls, whom the anthropoids had subjugated. That puzzled the
Plantagenet, for it meant that the Kind had been here before. The proof
was that the furry thralls responded to power. Just as puzzling was the fact
that the anthropoids did not. They had not yet been subjugated. That meant
the Kind were no longer in control here, perhaps wiped out.

The thought was inconceivable.

The Kind had expanded from time immemorial. Fleets of black ships sailed
from one star to the next at just under light speed, subjugating any thralls
they found and moving on in search of new fodder. Migrations could
take eons, but the brethren were undying, their patience unlimited. The
Plantagenet had seen more campaigns than years lived before the
Becoming. And the Plantagenet was young in comparison to the Old Ones.
The Kind were so ancient that they must store their important memories as
genetic code, or forget the lessons of millennia upon millennia. Nowhere in
the Plantagenet's memories was there mention of these furry ones, or the
fleshbags.

And the fleshbags deserved the brethren’s attention. They built ships and
spread among the stars as the Kind did, conquering as they went. It was
inevitable, then, that they meet—destiny that they be drawn to the same
dark star which trapped the brethren’s black fleet. The attack which
followed had been seductively easy. The anthropoid ship was totally
unprepared for aggression. The fleshbags themselves had been eager to
make contact! Once inside the anthropoid ship, however, it was a different
story. The anthropoids were unexpectedly resistant to control. The
Plantagenet had exuded power into the unfamiliar atmosphere until its
hrunes burned. The air had been so thick with power as to cloud the
brethren’s judgment: power was a narcotic, even to the Kind. Many of the
brethren without self-control squandered their reserves of power, becoming
thralls themselves. Those unworthy creatures were dispatched by the
Righteous without a second thought.
The anthropoids had burned and blasted and decompressed many of the
brethren and, when they finally showed signs of submission, one of their
number sealed itself inside the heart of the ship and set it on a
collision course with the dark star. The Plantagenet admired that fleshbag.
It would have enjoyed pressing it into submission. It would have prolonged
the penetration.... But there had been no time. They were trapped on the
vessel, beyond rescue by the black fleet, and they were headed for the
Everlasting Unfulfillment. The unrelenting Old Ones took steps. The Kind
never gave up. Perhaps the vessel would survive. They would hide and
count on a reprieve, because to entertain other possibilities was to be
a thrall. It was an easy matter to enter the anthropoid hibernation cells: the
Kind could enter torpor without such devices. They would wait for
discovery.

The Old Ones had been correct. The ship survived and a second group of
anthropoids had set them free. To the Plantagenet, any consideration of
how much time had passed was irrelevant. There were herds to
enslave, empires to be won. Best of all, the anthropoid-thralls cohabited
with, and depended upon, the furred-thralls. They would not suspect that
the furred-thralls were conditioned to power already. It would be the
anthropoids’ downfall.

The Kind around the Plantagenet stirred. They were anxious to subjugate
herds of their own. It was a time of decision: the Old One's puppetry was
impotent. The old arts had failed. The anthropoids were resistant to the
deceits, just as they were resistant to the power. The Plantagenet gloated at
the vindication. It would now begin cowing the Kind to its own designs.
The strongest must rule. The Plantagenet must rise to preeminence
before another black fleet entered this system, as it surely must. That was
just a matter of time. The fleets spread inexorably throughout the galaxy
like decay through the body of a dead thrall. Pockets might be missed, but
eventually they must collapse under the weight of surrounding pestilence.

The Plantagenet had already set its scheme in motion. It had taken all the
power in its body, except its reserves, but its ferocious intellect deemed it a
good gamble. It could hide that fact from the rest of the brethren while they
maneuvered among themselves. The anthropoids would never suspect the
becoming thralls in their midst.
Chapter 17
Nis dreamed. Dreams of song and dreams of magic:

Humans didn’t know what the Rote was. They didn’t understand what
happened at the congregations around the fires every night. They would
say, “How do you make that sound?’’ when they heard the soulful wailing.
It must have scared them. It must have touched inner wounds, for those few
who heard the Rote wept. They didn’t understand, but it wasn’t because they
couldn’t understand. Those who heard it never returned. It was too painful
to listen and not have a Song to sing. Humans had their own tragedies in
those first few years after the Meeting, when their bodies outnumbered their
souls and the excess were locked in the big, white temples.

But humans had the power.

When you were little, your parents would sit you around the fire at night
and you would hear their Songs. Their wails would echo in your head and
your heart and you knew the great Longing.

The Rote was the confessional. The Rote was the blues. It might have been
called the Real. It was your real feeling and your real thoughts, that
you somehow choked down to make it from one day into another. When you
really had confessed. When you met with your faults and they were you.
When there was great feasting from a good hunt, and your belly was full,
you would hear the Song. You would hear it and you would know that you
didn’t have anything, that you were missing something vital, but you
couldn’t quite see what that was.

But if you had your Song, if you could wail a melody of the sorrow in your
heart.... Well, if you could sing like that, it somehow didn’t seem so
overpowering. The more you sang, the more real you got, until you reached
that sheltered inner core, vulnerable and pure. When you got there you
could sing the Longing out of your mind. As a child you would feel all of
this, and sometimes you would join in your parents’ Song, for you were part
of their Song as surely as they would be a part of yours.
Connectedness.

When you were done you went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that your
fears wouldn’t return until tomorrow....

Nis sucked weakly at the water nipple inside his helmet, trying to get the
last drops of moisture from the collapsed sack behind it. The inside of his
suit was like a sauna. Protector blazed relentlessly above him and the suit’s
environmental systems couldn’t cope with the heat. Walker had put a spin
on Murphy’s Law, so that Nis was in shade about half the time. It helped a
little. Nis hadn’t roasted yet. He felt groggy. His brain couldn’t focus
after three days of temperatures hotter than thirty degrees Celsius. The air
circulation fan whirred constantly in his ear. It had developed a scraping
whine. The bearing was going. Nis considered, at least if it gave out he
would have a few hours of peace before he boiled in his own juices.

There was no other distraction. Neither of the humans was in the cockpit or
wearing a headset.

Nis pressed his head against the hull of the mining pod so sound waves
could travel into the helmet. A human wouldn’t have heard anything over
the white noise in the suit, but Nis extended his ears and positioned them
just right to maximize reception of the faint noises coming through:

“What are you doing?” he heard Walker ask sleepily.

Bartlet’s voice replied, evasively, “Um, I’ve been studying the various
samples we took from Republic.”

Walker rubbed his eyes. He just couldn’t sleep. He wanted to, sleep meant
the demons were in retreat, but no rest came. He kept reliving recent
actions, trying to be objective, searching for the least sign of guilt. He
didn’t think there was any. If he hadn’t reacted, they would all be dead.
That’s what he kept telling himself. The problem was, it wasn’t Walker the
sleeper who saved them. It was the old Walker. The events on Republic
forced him to let his guard down and it all came flooding back. The
easy thrill of command. The rush of combat. The glory of victory. Wanting
more. The past was alive and well and Walker feared it.
“No fears,” said the Madness. “You and me, we’ll keep it bottled up, like
we always do. Just don’t forget who your real friends are....”

Walker had to get out of his head, but there wasn’t anything to do—just
wait as Murphy’s Law raced along her trajectory. And waiting was no good
for a man trapped inside his head. He sat up.

Dr. Bartlet sat cross-legged on her bunk with her node on her knees. She
typed. Tick tick tick ticka tick. It was the exact same position she had been
in two hours ago. Walker sensed it was her way of dealing with the
deaths of her friends. Whatever worked. Denial could be an effective
weapon.

During the last day cycle, Walker had helped her unpack one of the
scientific devices stowed in Murphy’s Law earlier. She had put some of the
creature’s blood (which came off the towel) into it. Later, she put some
of their blood into it. The results of those tests spurred another round of
work at the powerful node. Walker was curious, but so far he had given her
uninterrupted space to work. His lack of questions was partly courtesy,
partly the hunch that she wouldn’t answer even if he did ask. Dr. Bartlet at
the node had a demeanor like that of a general hiding his reinforcements.

Time for a little recon.

Walker rolled out of his bunk, crossed the small aisle and sat a discreet
distance from Bartlet. She wore one of his undershirts. It was much too big
for her. The neckline hung low.

“What’s the big secret?” he asked.

Bartlet eyed Walker up and down, wheels turning behind keen eyes. He
expected a rebuff, but Bartlet relented and turned the node so he could look.
She moved her hand through the cursor radar and colorful graphs
appeared. “This is some of the raw data we collected from Republic before
entry. Obviously, I can’t do much research here, but I’ve been going over
what we’ve got. These are cross sections of air samples.” With the wave of
a finger several more graphs flashed across the small display. She pointed to
a red line which peaked in exactly the same spot on all the images. “It’s
laced with traces of an unknown ectohormone.”

“Say again?” Walker asked, picking sand out of his eyes.

“Also known as a sociohormone. A pheromone,” she explained.

“Substances secreted by certain animals to elicit specific responses from
members of the same species. They’re common in Earth mammals, insects
and fish, and not so common among their counterparts in this system.
Pheromones can be found in body products, such as urine, or may be
secreted from specialized glands.”

“Like what they put in the erotic perfumes.”

Bartlet shifted uncomfortably on the bunk. “Human pheromones largely

relate to sex,” she admitted.

“And you found a new one?”

“It’s the organic substance Dr. Ledbetter couldn’t identify earlier.”

“The creature’s blood.”

“Yes. Of course he would have identified it, given more time,” Bartlet
apologized. She didn’t want to sound as though she were criticizing Dr.
Ledbetter. “But I’ve had the time to make a prolonged analysis, the
knowledge that it was blood from an alien species, and another
advantage besides. As an anthropologist, I’m familiar with pheromones
because of their usage in social interaction. This one is pretty interesting.”

“Why?” Walker asked.

“Its molecular makeup is peculiar. It is definitely a pheromone, but the

molecular structure resembles a narcotic more than any pheromone I’ve
ever seen.” Bartlet called up an image of a complex molecule. “This
baby puts opiates to shame—and all you have to do is breathe it. Breathe
enough and you’re addicted.” She pointed to the display. “See these sub-
molecular groupings? They appear to be an organic gene-splicing apparatus.
My guess is they attach to and permanently alter the victim’s DNA.”

“Gene splicers? What do they splice in?”

“Addiction,” said Bartlet. “Self-replicating. The code becomes a part of the

target cells. As those cells replicate, so does the addiction. Once you’re
hooked, there is no withdrawal.”

“And we were breathing that shit?” Walker did not ask the obvious
question.

Bartlet answered it anyway. “Our blood came out positive, but our genes
are unaffected.” She shivered. “I don’t think we were exposed long
enough.”

“That’s comforting,” Walker said facetiously.

Bartlet grimaced. “There’s more. I analyzed some Fuzzie blood from the
emergency supplies.” Her face lit up with scientific fervor. “Walker, I think
I’ve discovered why Fuzzies don’t have a sense of self-determination. Their
cells are infected. They’re born addicted. Lack of self motivation, inability
to cope with new situations— they are suffering the effects of drug
withdrawal, but they can never get clean because the addiction’s in
their genes!”

“Let me get this straight,” Walker Said, pieces of an ugly mystery coming
together. “Once you’re exposed to enough of this pheromone, you’re
addicted forever and you lose your willpower because you need a fix so
bad?”

“Our evidence and Fuzzie behavior would seem to indicate that.”

Walker decided that was the scientific way of saying yes. “So, whoever
controls the supply of the pheromone has complete control over the addicts
—could make them do anything?”
“That would make sense,” Bartlet agreed. “Just the smell of this substance
might trigger strange behavior.”

“Like how Nis kept crouching and covering his eyes?”

“Exactly! And that can only happen because he’s preconditioned to it.”

Walker whistled. “Where does this pheromone come from? Is there a source
planetside?”

“Not as far as I know. Nothing of this nature has ever been detected in
Jayvee’s atmosphere, and there was extensive testing when the first
colonists arrived. Even the robot probes which first checked out our system
were programmed to look for this sort of stuff. If they had detected it,
Jayvee would never have been colonized.”

“Could it be made artificially?”

“Maybe,” Bartlet said dubiously, “but it’s very complex. It would be almost
impossible to recreate this synthetically in the lab.”

Walker knew several power blocks back on Earth that would stop at nothing
to get their hands on such a chemical. “You could enslave an entire planet
with a big enough stockpile,” he mused. “That’s a scary thought. Earth
doesn’t have a monopoly on power-hungry bastards.”

Bartlet gave him a disturbed look, but it passed and she elaborated. “All the
addict’s descendants would be addicted too. So after the first generation,
you wouldn’t need such massive amounts. Just enough to trigger
the addicts’ motivation response when you want them to do something. But
I really don’t think it could be synthesized on a large scale, and besides,
you’d have to be immune in some way or you would succumb yourself.”

“Good point,” said Walker, “but that still doesn’t tell us what we need to
know: how the Fuzzies got addicted in the first place.”

“I don’t have a definitive answer.”

“But the creature’s blood is saturated with the pheromone, right? They don’t
behave like addicts.”

“No, they don’t,” Bartlet allowed. “In fact they evidence strong proactive
behavioral patterns.”

“They kicked our ass,” Walker translated. Bartlet wasn’t staring him down
as she usually did, but avoiding connection. Walker was familiar with that
behavioral pattern. He had seen it many times on the faces of junior
officers. “You know something I don’t.”

“I can’t say for sure,” Bartlet hedged.

“This is no time for secrets,” Walker pressed. “Spill your guts. I know you
don’t like me, but you have to trust me. Otherwise we don’t stand a
chance.”

Another look from the woman, this one dismayed with a tinge of fire. She
started to say something, but had second thoughts and instead said: “Look,
the last time one of my secrets slipped out, I got my fingers burned—no
I got my whole body burned, right up to my neck. My archeological dig
was shut down and I’m the laughing stock of the Council. I’m trying to
rebuild my reputation.”

“You won’t need a reputation if we’re all dead.”

Bartlet was defiant. “I don’t subscribe to your kill or be killed philosophy.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll still be dead,” Walker matter-of-factly pointed out.

“You’re a woman with power. You’ve got to pick your friends carefully.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“All it means is I’ve got a lot of scars where people stabbed me in the back
for personal gain.”

“Damn you!” Bartlet fumed. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Walker countered, “What got you in trouble planetside?”

“I was doing my job,” Bartlet said indignantly. Infuriating man.

“The Council didn’t think so.”

“The Council was wrong,” Bartlet said strongly. “Here’s the context: we
were excavating the largest Fuzzie ruin on Jayvee. There are thirteen
stepped pyramids there, every millimeter of which are covered with ancient
Fussrapth Thnaphthl Pthpth hieroglyphs, which we were cataloging and
translating. It’s a written record of the Rote. That’s how I figured out how to
translate the hieroglyphs in the first place, because the Fuzzies
don’t remember how to read them. Anyway, the inscriptions are a written
history of the ancient Rote, possibly in its earliest form. Most of the major
verse-concepts which are still sung today are carved on the stone, some of
today’s new verses are missing and there are a few verses which exist only
in the old text and are not part of the Rote as it is sung today, but I won’t
bore you with the details. We reached a point where the hieroglyphs end.
There’s plenty of space for the carvings to continue and the Rote
isn’t finished, but they just stop in mid-phrase, in a small chamber deep in
the center of the largest pyramid.

Bartlet’s voice took on a faraway, foreboding timbre, as if she were reliving

the moment of discovery, in the heart of that pyramid. “There was another
set of hieroglyphs there, different from the rest. The Rote carvings have a
high degree of craftsmanship. These are crude, like they were scraped
rapidly with a sharp object. The tone of the passage is different too. The
Rote hieroglyphs are composed in a comforting, instructive voice. This
was harsh. It read like a warning.”

“Go on,” Walker said, picking up on Bartlet’s sense of unease.

“There is no future Within, there is no past Underneath,” she intoned.

“Beyond here there is no Beginning and no End. The Eye of Darkness loses
its Song. It sees pure Regnant power. Abandon this Eye! What did
that mean? The Fuzzie word for ‘underneath’ also means ‘history.’ Did it
mean there was no history earlier than that point?”

“How could it mean that?” Walker asked skeptically.

“I don’t know,” Bartlet admitted. “Was it literal? I wasn’t inclined to believe
in a literal translation. A poetic or metaphoric translation seemed more
likely, but if it was literal, then it affected the original translations of
the much larger record of the Rote. Perhaps it was religious. We needed to
find out.”

“Maybe it was graffiti,” Walker suggested.

“Maybe,” said Bartlet. “I did think of that, but the problem is there isn't any
history beyond that point.”

Walker gave her a blank look.

“To an archeologist, history goes down into the strata, getting older and
older the deeper you dig,” Bartlet explained, “There’s no archaeological
record under that ruined city. And that’s peculiar. Ancient cities on Earth
are built one on top of another, sometimes for thousands of years. Dig a
little further down and you find another. A good site for a city is rare. Once
you find one, you don’t abandon it.”

“Makes sense,” Walker allowed.

“Right. So there should be more ancient cities under the large Fuzzie cities
we see today, each level down getting more and more primitive, but there
aren’t. I didn’t believe the warning, so I started digging around, but I didn’t
find anything under the foundations. Then I sent out small excavating teams
to dig at other sites on Jayvee and they found the same thing. Below a
certain stratum, there are no primitive Fuzzie settlements of any kind. In
fact there’s no Fuzzie fossil record at all. No one has ever found any
evidence of prehistoric Fuzzie evolution.”

“But you’re the only one doing this kind of research, right?” Walker said.
“You haven’t had much time to find evidence yet.”

“That was my position,” Bartlet said, “and I argued it before the Council.
The problem was, to the Council it looked like I believed the crazy
translation, that I was wasting vital resources chasing a Fuzzie myth. And
it didn’t help that whoever leaked the translation played up the nuttier
aspects to make me look bad. I was trying to disprove it. I didn’t believe it
myself.” Bartlet sighed.

Walker saw conflict written all over her face. “You do now. Your head says
one thing, but your gut says another.”

“Yes,” Bartlet said with conviction. “Yes, I believe it now.” She turned on
Walker with some intensity. “Fuzzie legends tell of a race of beings that
descended from the Eye of Darkness to rule their world. The closest
translation for the word they called them is Regnant, just like in the
hieroglyphic warning. It means reigning, prevailing or predominant; in this
case ‘the predominant.’ Slaver is a possible translation too, for they were
enslavers, but it lacks the other implications of Regnant. But I think
Regnant is closer to the real meaning. Their reign of terror lasted tens of
thousands of years. The Regnant maintained power and their own numbers
by inflicting a horrible physical transformation on selected members of
the Fuzzie population.”

Just like what Ledbetter’s autopsy note described. The dead sleepers
appeared to have been partway through just such a transformation when
they died. Apparently not all the “chosen” survived it. And these victims
were human. Bartlet didn’t want deal with that nasty thought yet.

“You saw how some of the Regnant looked like Fuzzies,” she said instead.

“Fuzzies from hell,” Walker agreed, recalling his initial reaction to the
beasts.

“The legends say this reign of terror went on until the Eye of Light visited a
terrible wrath upon these Regnant which wiped them out. It wiped out most
of the Fuzzies too, and after that their power of self-determination
was gone.”

Walker frowned. “Ever find any Regnant fossils?”

“No, I haven’t. And I don’t expect to. If the texts are right, I won’t, because
the legends also say the Fuzzies come from another planet.”
“Another planet?” Walker asked skeptically. “This is all in these
hieroglyphs?”

“I know it’s just a legend,” Bartlet said defensively. “But legends can be
rooted in fact. And besides, it fits. At least part of it does. Look, I know this
sounds nutty. A week ago I denied that these legends might have even the
slightest basis in reality, but it’s no coincidence that the very substance
Fuzzies are addicted to is found in the blood of those creatures. There’s no
use avoiding the obvious. Only one explanation can reconcile the
Regnant pheromone and the fact that Fuzzies are genetically addicted.
Those things were here before....”

“I think you’re right, Doctor," Walker’s voice buzzed through the hull. He
and Bartlet were speaking softly now. Nis barely heard them, but it
didn’t bother him.

Time flowed strangely for Nis. In his heat delirium he was unaware, or
perhaps uncaring, of its objective passage about him. Rather, he was caught
up in the subjective currents and eddies of the moments of his life....

When Nis was young, his pod wandered along the edge of the great
Forbidden Jungle. The jungle of dreams and power, where the people lived
before they forsook the Eye of Darkness and it closed its lid to them forever.

A time came when Nis’ mother grew old and his father was just a memory.
It was the time when Protector was gone from the sky and the Eyes of Light
and Darkness rode alone against a sea of stars. It was the time in
the cooling season when large numbers of spore-eaters migrated through the
pod’s hunting ground and there was food on the spit. It was the time of New
Song. It was the happy time.

The pod was gathered around a roaring fire which sent soul-sparks rising
into the sky on their journey to the Eyes. Nis and the other young adults of
the pod sat in a ring facing the flames, with their backs to the
Soothsinger and the other members of the tribe. It was the time for them to
receive their own Song to sing in the Rote.
Nis, like the other young adults, was supposed to stare into the fire until the
Soothsinger gave each of them a melody, but few could resist a shared
glance with some special person. Nis was no exception. For him it was
a flowering female named Br’gitte. She smiled gaily at him. Her body
language puzzled him, even though they had grown up together. Br’gitte
had received her Song in the warming season, and it had changed her. She
looked at Nis differently now, in a way that befuddled him, but which he
liked quite a bit. And there was the unaccountable fact that she had not yet
begun the nurturing, even though she had plenty of opportunity to do so.

The Rote began. Soothsinger stood behind each of the young adults in turn.
He would place his paw on the new singer’s social crest. The Soothsinger
could read them. From the markings would come the new Song. The
new place in the pod. The two would sing together, Soothsinger leading,
young adult following. Chorus and verse winged their way out of the Song
of the initiate’s parents and into related, but individual harmony. A spiritual
jam session, prodigy asserting self, master binding to the whole. This was
the overture of the young adults’ lives. When it was complete, the
Soothsinger would turn the new adult to face and join the pod. Families and
friends nuzzled the new singers, savoring the emotions.

One by one the ranks of the pod swelled. The Rote rose in majesty, the
singers trancelike in their exhilaration, their body language rhythmic,
languid.

Now it was Nis’ turn and it was going to be special. He knew it: the best
was always held for last. Everyone felt it. The air was electric as the
Soothsinger’s claws grasped the fur of Nis’ crest.

The old Fuzzie took his time. Nis’ markings were different from all the
others, from any in his long and wizened memory. He toyed with the Song
in the patterns, teased it as one played a fish on a line. He drew it in, then let
it out a little, drew it in and let it run again, lest the melody crescendo too
soon and break free.

Scattered melodies in the Rote of the tribe wondered if Nis would be the
next Soothsinger. One beautiful coloratura, Br’gitte’s, sang a song of
expectancy which made Nis’ heart beat even faster. The hairs on his back
tingled as he waited. Soon would come the answers. Soon would come the
revelation.

Soothsinger sang to Nis: songs of desperate hope and songs of longing,

songs of security and power remembered only as the faintest melody in the
cacophony of existence. As he sang his voice lowered and filled
with emotion.

This was it.

“Nis,” the aging Soothsinger sang, not knowing the notes coming from his
mouth until he heard them for the very first time.

“No Song.”

The Rote stopped. Shock jarred the pod back to reality.

Soothsinger clutched Nis’ crest, praying to the Eyes for a flaw in his
reading. It was too horrible. He felt Nis tremble under his claws. Where was
the mistake? His lone voice searched the silence for melody, but there was
none. No mercy.

“No Song,” he repeated, saddened beyond all previous sorrow.

The pod was speechless. They had heard melodies of the songless in the
Rote, but no one had ever known or loved one such. It was a shock after the
feeling of undefined hope which had built up to the anticlimactic crescendo.

Soothsinger wanted to coo soft words to ease the anguish, but they died on
his tongue. “Nis,” he instead pronounced, again not knowing the words
until he spoke, but knowing that they were right. “You are the One.
You must find the power."

The pod didn’t know why it was Nis, but they unconsciously knew it was
right, too. Cruel, but necessary. The desperate act of a dying race to save
itself. The hope that Nis would survive this trial by ordeal and save those
who had to shun him.
Nis was not supposed to look at the others, but he couldn’t keep from
seeking them out. He couldn’t bear to be deprived of their reactions. None
would have denied him. Nis read their faces: their hopes rode on him
now. He could not be one with them. To find the power he must be cast out.

It was irrevocable, Nis knew. The Rote was the Rote. Severed harmonies
died the death of discordant winds which howled across the Lonely Wastes.
And, despite the sinking feeling in his gut, Nis knew it was just. He
had known it for a long time, but he too had hoped. His sorrow meant
nothing in the face of the Longing and the final death that must come
because of it.

The pod turned from him. Soothsinger was last to avert his gaze. They
would speak with him again. The people were not cruel. Nis could hunt and
live with the pod. Everything would be the same, except that he could
not bear a part in the Rote.

But that was not a small thing.

His mother’s shoulders shook with grief. Wet fur glistened under Br’gitte’s
eyes.

His world was shattered. He would not stay.

“Forgive me,” he choked and turning, walked off into the Forbidden Jungle.

The jungle canopy above gave way to night sky as Nis stepped into a wide
valley with a river meandering through it. The plant life thinned and scents
of jasmine and decay filled the air. Here were the towering stone ziggurats
that his ancestors had built, rising out of leafy blankets toward the stars.
Even the jungle’s restless vines and creepers could not bring them down.
Instead, they cloaked the ruins in shrouds of green mystery. The ruins
were testament to a time when Fuzzies had possessed the power, when they
had built and lived in these places.

The jungle was forbidden because of these places, but it was forbidden only
to those with Song.
There were many more such sites scattered throughout the jungle, but this
was the largest. Nis marvelled and was daunted by its presence. He walked
to the nearest structure. A squat pyramid at the base, it thinned to become a
slender tower overlooking the surrounding lost city.

Nis had come looking for some clue to the power, but the stone blocks
spoke only of past power and glory.

We built this, he thought, but how? Why?

The stones knew, but they kept their secrets well. He tore away the
overgrowth, but Nis could not read the song signs carved on the blocks. He
raked his claws across reliefs of Fuzzies and demons which crawled and
danced along the rock.

He was devastated. Everything his old life had led up to was gone.
Everything was different. How could he live without the Rote? How would
he know what to do?

Where was the power?

Nis didn’t have it. He didn’t know where to find it any more than the rest of
the pod did. Damn the mark on his forehead! He was no different from
them. He didn’t want to be different. All he wanted was to belong. Now
that could never be.

The sounds of the jungle ceased around him. In the unnatural silence, he
heard movement in the foliage behind him. He turned, reading the sound
with focussing ears. Leaves quivered, then parted. Br’gitte stepped out into
the light.

Nis’ heart leaped. Under the Eyes, her beauty was striking. Her fur was not
as sleek as some of the other females’. Her patterns were plain and her form
too lean, but ... Br’gitte glowed with an inner presence accentuated by
the cool light of the Eyes.

“Nis,” she said simply.

She had come to see him, one last time. Her face betrayed the loss she
already felt.

Words stuck in his throat as she approached. She ran her hand over his
forearms. Her partially extended claws penetrated his fur, sending tingles
into his skin.

“Br’gitte,” he managed, his inner drum beating in his ears. She was so
close. “You must go. I have no Song.”

“My Song is to love you,” she said sadly. “I want to know that melody
before it changes.”

It was wrong, but she was his for the taking. He had dreamed about such an
encounter for a long time. Every cell in his body wanted it and the fact that
she was forbidden to him only made it worse.

She nuzzled his ear, grabbing him.

With trembling muscles, he ran his hands over the velveteen fur on her
breasts. Nipples swelled with blood, hardening. Her ear membranes flushed.
Her breath was coming hard. It was pungent in his sinuses, depleted
of oxygen. It made him light-headed.

He must have her.

She pulled back.

“Just this once,” she whispered in warning, “to remember....”

He drew her close, his grip forcing more breath from her lungs. He would
not live his life without knowing this special mystery. A mattress of rotting
leaves was their bower. There was no clothing to remove. Each had
seen every hair of the other many times before, but there was a special
intimacy now, an unexplainable urgency. She was impatient for him and
showed her desire.

His phalluses were engorged, her wet embrace firm and hot. He penetrated
her with only one. She mewled at the loss of her maidenhood. Blood bound
their flesh at first, but dissolved quickly as he thrust. He felt himself
both within and without her. The contrasting sensations were stimulating.
He had never experienced such pleasure before. He fought for control.
What it must be like to be completely enveloped by her femininity! But
then she would conceive, and that was not in her Song any more.

They moved together now, faster. Overhanging fronds brushed the raised
hairs of his pelt. Her erect nipples rubbed against his chest. Her claws tore
at his back. Losing control, she bit his shoulder hard....

They lay intertwined for a time.

“I love you,” he whispered, knowing that her answer must break his heart.
She pulled free, brushing her belly. It was wet with his seed. She drank the
odor. Her nostrils flared as she fixed the aromas in her memory. She
would never forget them, and neither would Nis.

A final glance, then without a word, she walked away. Nis watched her
through swimming eyes as she disappeared into the undergrowth.

“Br’gitte!” he called, too softly for her to hear, “don’t go.”

She was gone. He was alone. He crouched in a dark alcove a long time, out
of the light of the Eyes. He shivered and he wept and eventually it came to
him what he must do: he must go to the humans.

The humans had the power. Many of the people abandoned the Rote to live
with the humans and bask in the shadow of their glory. But they weren’t
looking for the power, so they didn’t find it. They traded one solace
for another.

They dreamed of freedom, but they did not wake.

Yes. He would go to the humans and, maybe, he would find the power with
them. As he started for the fertile plain where the humans lived, the last
bars of the Rote cried in his head and left him forever.
Visions of power filled Nis’ mind. Flowed into his body. Played with the
fabric of his tissues and cells. Genetic memories told him their secrets,
but he couldn’t put them all together, yet. There were distractions.

A thread of reality wove its way into the stream of his consciousness....

“You are so pig-headed,” the voice on the intercom fumed.

“It’s my ship,” argued the other.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

From his vantage on the back of the pod, Nis saw Bartlet storm out of the
cockpit. He didn’t catch the body language, but he was sure there was an
unspoken dialog which the humans were avoiding.

“Damn that woman,” he heard Walker mutter.

Human behavior continually puzzled Nis. Clearing his throat, he mustered

the energy to speak. “All you do is argue,” he said lightly. “Why don’t you
just sleep with her?”

“What!” Walker sputtered. “Why should I do that?”

Nis sighed. What was wrong with Walker anyway? He was such an
intelligent person most of the time. “She is your mate. I can tell.” Humans
could be so selective in what they chose to be blind to. “You like her, she
likes you. You two sleep together, then get married. Isn’t that how it
works?”

“It’s not like that at all,” Walker protested. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Right. Sometimes you sleep together and don’t get married,” Nis
remembered. “Funny how your culture works.”

“I don’t even like her,” Walker grumbled.

Nis couldn’t swallow that. This was obviously one of those instances where
humans told themselves small lies to avoid facing the truth. He grunted
disbelievingly.

Walker heard him. “I don’t,” he said defensively. Why should he suddenly

feel like he was the guilty party. The infuriating thing was that Nis was
almost always right about his observations.

A group of lights flickered on the dash, then died.

“Oh brother.”

“What’s wrong?” Nis asked.

“Just lost the heat sinks,” Walker answered.

“Backup?”

“There are no backup heat sinks, but we should be okay.” Walker made a
few adjustments to life support. He chanced a look down at the crawl tube
into the crew quarters. Bartlet was working at her node again.
Unbraided hair cascaded over her shoulders in waves which lapped down to
the small of her back. Walker suspected Nis would draw some deep
conclusions about her state of mind by the way she sat stiffly with her back
to the cockpit. All Walker could tell was that she was pissed.

His curiosity fermented. Damned nosy hair-ball, anyway.

“What makes you think she likes me?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“The way she positions her body,” Nis replied. Walker imagined Nis’
characteristic shrug as the alien went on. “The way she touches you and
pretends not to like it—”

Stifled choking sounds came over the intercom.

Walker was concerned. “What’s up?”

“Thirsty ...” came the reply. “And ... and this suit reeks of its previous
occupant.” Walker heard Nis smack his lips. “I have been wondering if you
humans taste as good as you smell....”
Walker couldn’t laugh. He was very aware of Nis’ plight. Three days was a
long time to spend in a pressure suit. He heard of men surviving a week or
more while waiting for rescue, but that meant drinking the bladder bag.
Furthermore, there was no mechanism for dealing with other waste.

“Walker?”

“Yes?”

“Play some music?”

“You got it.” Walker unstrapped and headed aft.

Bartlet kept up the pretense of working at her node as Walker crawled out
of the cockpit. Actually, she was bored and feeling very alone. She had
spent the last three days poring over the data gathered aboard Republic
and she couldn’t go farther than what she had already told Walker without
any more hard evidence. With nothing to occupy her mind, the loss of her
friends weighed heavily on her. Three dear friends and colleagues and two
trusting Fuzzies. The universe was the less for their loss. She included
Jeremy in her grief. It was pretty obvious now that he had played at least
some part in Bartlet’s debacle with the Council. Whether he was
responsible for the leak directly or he just-conveniently looked the other
way as someone else did the dirty work, he was responsible. Did he hate
her? Was this revenge for his spurned attentions and bruised ego? Or did he
simply want a chance to prove he wasn’t just the fourth-sharpest scientist in
the system. She couldn’t fool herself: hindsight clearly showed that he was
setting her up for another fall. But Bartlet surprised herself with the
realization that she was not angry at Jeremy. With her ambition, there
weren’t enough pieces of the pie to go around. She knew that a man
like Jeremy could spend his whole life in her shadow and not get a chance.
It didn’t make what he did right, but Bartlet understood those feelings.
Concepts like personal success didn’t seem so important next to the tragedy
of the last few days. Jeremy had paid horribly for his sins. Bartlet witnessed
the terrible judgment. She remembered his last words. They made sense
now: confession and repentance. Bartlet didn’t have much to give to a dead
man.
Except forgiveness.

Dr. Elaine Bartlet would struggle for the rest of her life to remember the
brilliant young man with a red-hot shock of hair, a disarming smile and
unlimited, boyish enthusiasm.

Walker fiddled with something behind her. Over her shoulder, she watched
him remove a quarter-sized recording from a small case belonging to Nis.
He inserted it into a player which resembled nothing quite so much as an
antique, table-side jukebox. The face of the stereo lit up with pink and
yellow lights as a love song filled the ship.

“Can you hear that?” Walker said into his headset.

“Yes,” said Nis. “Thanks, Walker.”

Walker shied away from her unsettling gaze. “It’s kind of sentimental,”
Walker apologized, embarrassed by the music. “Nis likes them that way.”

Bartlet smiled wistfully. “It’s romantic.”

She wasn’t surprised by Nis’ choice of music. Fuzzies in human society

listened to a lot of music. She suspected it was related to their loss of the
Rote. If it tugged at the heartstrings, Fuzzies listened. Strangely enough,
none of them ever listened to recordings of the Rote itself. Bartlet recorded
a session herself on an excursion outside of the Forbidden Jungle. It was an
experience she never forgot, but even she was reluctant to listen to the
recording. It was like violating the sanctity of the moment. Bartlet, whose
duty it was as an anthropologist to record all aspects of Fuzzie culture
whenever possible, and whose primary task for the last five years was the
translation of the Rote texts, had never attended another live Rote. She
got around it by enlisting other scientists to make new recordings when she
needed them, ostensibly to give everyone the opportunity to experience the
special event. But that was only half true. Because Bartlet could understand
the language, it was too much like reading somebody’s innermost thoughts
in a diary.

Perhaps Fuzzies felt the same way.

There was an awkward pause.

“I’m too tired to fight anymore,” Bartlet offered.

“I should change that dressing,” Walker accepted.

“All right.” Bartlet put the node aside.

Walker averted his eyes as she pulled off her over-sized shirt.

“Ready,” she said with her good arm deftly covering her chest.

Walker tried to focus on his objective. He didn’t want to antagonize Bartlet

any more. He didn’t want to antagonize her at all. Nis was correct: he did
like her. He couldn’t help it. She was strong willed and intelligent, her
lean beauty accentuated by high moral standards and a strong sense of
justice. Walker didn’t have the ability to deal with fluff-heads. The doctor
was exactly the kind of woman he was attracted to. Unfortunately, he
always ended up at odds with them.

He wondered if Nis was correct about her liking him....

The dressing showed a purple tinge of age, a built-in feature to tell you
when to change it. Bacteria in the wound reacted with the material to
release a sterile dye. Walker took a medical laser from the first aid kit
and turned it on. He ran it from her shoulder to her wrist. The foam parted
easily, coming off in one big piece. There was a lot of scarring underneath,
but the gashes were all closed and uninfected.

“It’s healing nicely,” Walker said. “Time for a clean one.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Walker applied more foam to the arm.

Her skin was so soft under his fingers.

Bartlet looked at him, as if to speak, but didn’t. Instead she stiffened,

looking away. Finally she relaxed again, at which point she looked up at
Walker with her head canted to one side for a better unsettling stare.

I must be doing something wrong, Walker concluded.

It was at that moment that the pod’s pressure fields gave up the ghost. Cabin
lights quavered. Their bellies filled with butterflies and loose objects in the
pod drifted up with them. Walker let it happen, but Bartlet clutched for a
solid grip with her good hand.

Everything floated, flesh included. Like spheres of oil in water. But Bartlet
resisted her first impulse to cover up. She saw the hunger and desire etched
on Walker’s unguarded face.

He did want her.

She grasped Walker’s neck and drew them into a zero gravity kiss. He
responded at first, but his lips soon ceased moving against hers.

“Don’t leave us,” cried the Loneliness.

Bartlet let their lips part just enough for speech.

“I’m sorry,” Walker whispered, choking on his words. His gray eyes
fogged. Tears built up without the force of gravity to pull them free. “I’m a
basket case, but I can’t let go. It’s what I am.”

Bartlet’s heart opened to him: he was afraid. She was afraid, too. She had
been hurt before. Each time the fear grew, feeding upon itself. Sex became
more and more frightening. She wanted to retreat from it now, to take
the easy way out, but even as that thought formed, she knew it was a lie. It
wasn’t sex which frightened her, it was intimacy. She was afraid of intimacy
and the vulnerability that went along with it.

But she wanted it too, very much.

This was the moment between her and a man, and her and her man. It
would flower now or die. Walker could not make the move. It was her
decision. Her choice would lead to uneasy platonic tolerance, or to ... what?
She had to be the strong one if she wanted to know the answer.
Reaching up tenderly, she drew her hands down over Walker’s eyelids. His
tears expanded along the wet tracks.

“No sacrifices,” she whispered in his ear. “You can be whatever you have to
be.”

And she kissed him again and again. And he was moved, with more tears
and then gentle passion. And in time, their intertwining bodies and
discarded clothing drifted magically in the center of the compartment.

***

Nis pressed his helmet against the hull of the pod, eyes closed. Soft cries of
passion wafted above the music which played on. It was good; it gave him a
sense of belonging he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He smiled weakly as a string of convulsions wracked his body.

Chapter 18
That which does not kill us is meat.

—Regnant maxim

It was still. Artificial night bathed Hephaestus’ lower decks in dull orange
light. An imposing airlock sealed the end of an out-of-the-way corridor.
Upon the airlock a sign: DANGER! QUARANTINE. AUTHORIZED
PERSONNEL ONLY. An open doorway to the right shed flickering blue
light on its burnished surface.

That doorway opened onto a small guard post, barely larger than the
average toilet stall. The flickering blue light was stronger inside, its source
a single monitor flashing views from various security cameras. A
Fuzzie with black and white markings was stationed here. A loaded rifle
leaned against the wall within easy reach.

The guard desperately tried to stay awake, but it was difficult. The copy of
War and Peace in his lap was just as interminable as his human friends had
warned, and the schedule of the station itself fought against his
wakefulness. Time didn’t mean as much inside the winding tunnels of
Hephaestus. It was easy for a Fuzzie or human internal clock to get out of
sync. With no Protector to set the day by, they could work sixteen hours out
of twenty-five, day in, day out, but the accident rate became appalling.
Strange things happened to Fuzzies and sane humans who lost track of time
for long periods, not to mention ex-sleepers who had a predisposition to
queer tendencies in the first place. Under such conditions sanity and peak
efficiency could not be maintained. Thus, on the production floors far
above, men and Fuzzies worked continuous shifts under the glare of bright
lights to meet Commander Holland’s quotas. Down where the work force
slept and spent its meager off hours, a strict schedule of day and night was
adhered to. It mimicked Jayvee’s daily cycle as closely as possible, being in
sync with Oorinda, the capital city. Shift workers returned from
the unceasing bright light of the upper decks to the cycle of light and dark
below. Sanity was preserved.
But that didn’t mean the Fuzzie guard couldn’t bitch and moan when they
assigned him graveyard shift. This was a shit assignment. He should have
stayed on Jayvee, but the pay was too good to pass up.

His chair could have been more uncomfortable, he reflected, but then it
would actually fend off the fatigue which nagged every stiff muscle in his
body. The post was a sensory deprivation chamber. There were no
sounds and with everyone else bowered down for the night, there was
nobody to talk to. A hypnotic progression of predictable images flashed on
the security monitor: views of the hallway, outside the airlock, latticed-steel
tower protruding from the bottom of Hephaestus, and Republic moored to
the end of that. The guard had seen them so many times that he was unable
to pay attention. On and off they flashed. On and off. On and off....

The guard’s head nodded. It was so heavy. He jerked it back up, cursing the
thoughtless design of a post which guaranteed he would fall asleep on duty,
but his curses were in vain.

His head nodded again.

The monitor flashed a view of a dark shape crawling up the docking tower,
but the guard’s head was slumped against his chest. Tolstoy’s epic novel
slipped from his lap, thudding to the floor unheard.

When the views on the monitor cycled back to the tower, the shape had
grown large enough to be identifiable as a figure in a pressure suit. It moved
at a measured, unfaltering pace. Soon it appeared on the external view
of the airlock. Retrieving tools from a kit on its belt, the figure proceeded to
undo the fastenings on a panel beside the lock. It removed the cover plate,
which it carelessly sent spinning off into space. After a moment studying
the wires inside the exposed compartment, it pulled out two twisted pairs.
To one pair the figure attached bypass clips leading to a small electronic
device. The other, it cut.

In the guard post a red light blinked beside the security monitor, but quickly
died and, despite the fact that indicators on the airlock switched from
“pressurized” to “cycling,” indicators on the guard’s panel still read
“locked.” The guard stirred, but did not wake as the airlock display blinked
“WARNING: Outer door breached.” The monitor showed the outer door
opening. The intruder stepped inside and the door closed behind it.

The airlock cycled again.

Still the guard’s panel showed nothing.

A shrill warning beep sounded as the inner door broke open. Air hissed out
through the crack.

The guard snapped erect and took a deep breath. Immediately he hunched
over with his hands covering his eyes. After a moment of confusion, he
struggled to straighten up.

“What the hell?” he puzzled.

A noise in the hallway caught his attention. Picking up his rifle, he stepped
out of the booth.

A Fuzzie in a pressure suit, helmet in the crook of one arm, stood at the
closed airlock with his back to the guard. His other arm was poised over the
airlock’s controls.

“Hey!” the guard challenged. He lowered his weapon. “What are you
doing? You can’t go out there,” he said, drawing the wrong conclusion.

The suited Fuzzie did not turn or speak.

“Can’t you read?” the guard asked. “It’s quarantined."

Again, the Fuzzie did not respond. The guard couldn’t place him. His fur
looked familiar, but he smelled funny. The muscles on his neck twitched too
much....

“Who are you?” The guard stepped to the side, trying to get a better look at
the unidentified Fuzzie. The stranger quickly shifted to keep his back to the
guard—but not before the guard read the name tag on the shoulder of
the suit.
“T’jardis?”

It did not smell like T’jardis, but suits were known to smell funny.

“Say,” the guard remembered. “Didn’t you go with Dr. Bartlet on that
scientific trip?”

“Not me.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

T’jardis gestured at the airlock. “Want to help.”

The tight-lipped answers puzzled the guard. T’jardis was known to have a
mouth.

“Have you been drinking?” the guard asked suspiciously. “That’s against
the rules.”

“Leave me alone,” said T’jardis.

“You’re lucky I caught you,” the guard said, annoyed. “Holland would skin
you alive if he knew you tried to get out there.” He would skin us both alive
if he knew I fell asleep at my post, he thought. “This isn’t a good
idea. Better go back and sleep it off.”

T’jardis turned away from the airlock—carefully keeping his back to the
guard—and walked stiffly down the hall.

“What’s your problem?” the guard asked. He was getting concerned:

T’jardis was acting very strangely. His body language lacked all the
appropriate nonverbal etiquette. “Are you okay?”

T’jardis paused. “I said, leave me alone,” he growled.

The guard was shocked and offended. This behavior was completely
uncalled for. If it weren’t for the fact that he would have to explain sleeping
at his post, he would have taken T’jardis to the brig on the spot. Instead, he
made a clumsy human gesture with clenched fist and middle finger pointing
upwards at T’jardis’s receding back.

“Asshole.”
Chapter 19
"Are we God?” asked the Loneliness.

“God is the weakness inside that makes you great,” said Madness. "God is
the love that wounds. God is the fear that comforts that which it
destroys, and torments that which it creates.”

"Oh. I don’t think we have that much control. No, I don’t think so. J don’t
see how we could.”

"God is born in the hearts of those who need it. Only a sinner has enough
imagination to experience God.”

Loneliness sighed. "We are only the longings of a defenseless heart.”

"No,” said Madness. "We are the visions of conquering soul.”

Hephaestus was a brighter mote on the edge of the twinkling sea of rock
fragments which was Ring Belt Three. Bartlet was relieved to see it again.

She knew the base had begun life untold eons ago as one of the shepherd
moons which divided and maintained the many separate bands in
Protector’s ring plane. On the whole, it still performed that function, but it
wasn’t in the station’s best interest to collide with large asteroids in her
path, so its orbit was changed from time to time by her human parasites.
These changes affected the ring. At the moment, Bartlet saw Hephaestus
plowing through the edge of Ring Belt Three. Its mass created a void in
its wake and, further outward from the edge of the belt, a thin stream of ring
material which arced out behind the base for several thousand kilometers.
At that point the gravitational fields of the rest of the belt twisted
and braided and diffused the stream until the material rejoined the main ring
belt, ten thousand kilometers farther around the arc.

It comforted Bartlet to know that the best efforts of humans couldn’t disrupt
the beauty of the rings for more than an instant of geological time.
Bartlet looked across the cockpit at Walker, who was fighting with the pod’s
bucking controls. The impact which trapped Nis outside had done much
more damage than Walker’s original estimate. The attitude controls
responded sluggishly to his inputs. He had to anticipate well in advance of
any maneuvers he wished to make, but Bartlet was confident he could
handle anything the belt threw at them. The dogfight in the inner ring plane
had convinced her of that.

He caught her eye and a smile broke through his leathery expression. His
gentle lovemaking had caught her off guard, but it couldn’t have been more
right. Bartlet got scared and angry when she lost control, so she wanted
to take the lead as much as he needed her to. She reflected in the afterglow
that she was a bit anal retentive that way. Too much thinking could be a
trap. Many times Bartlet needed to put her doubts aside and just do.

There was an immediate, pleasant change in their relationship. The

intimacy barrier was broken. He was as taciturn as ever and there was still a
high degree of tension in the air, but it wasn’t between the two of them. The
last nine hours had elapsed in a comfortable silence which drew them
together instead of keeping them apart. And Bartlet felt no dismay at her
purely carnal appreciation of his physique. How did he maintain his lean,
corded power in the confines of the mining pod? An appetite surfaced in her
mind. Later, when this was all over, she would give it free reign, but not
now.

In view of all this, Bartlet should have been more at ease than she was, but
she could not shake a nagging feeling of worry. It wasn’t just concern for
Nis or what they would find at Hephaestus that made her feel that way
— and she was very concerned about both of these things— but the ironic
fact that breaching most of the barriers between her and Walker had called
acute attention to one which remained. Bartlet had gently probed at the
edges of this barrier, and she had even skirted its perimeter, but she could
not get through it or even see into it. She guessed it was at the core of his
troubles, his sometimes erratic behavior. At the moment Walker had it in
check, but it was there none the less, big and dark and threatening. It
both intrigued and frightened her. Bartlet had experienced a nightmare last
sleep cycle. In it she was floating over a remote Jayvee landscape, inside a
somehow-transparent cryo vault, unable to move, both trapped and exposed
at the same time. The uncaring Eyes of Light and Darkness shone down
from above while the dark secrets of Walker’s past swirled around her in the
icy tank. They taunted and terrorized her, but she was unable to
confront them. Bartlet had awakened with a start in Walker’s arms and
convinced herself it was just a dream, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of
dread, the sense that the nightmare had been a glimpse of the trauma Walker
had lived through. Bartlet knew Walker’s past was dangerous, but it was
also an enigma, and Bartlet was fascinated by enigmas, however
frightening. Walker was a very competent individual and a natural leader. If
he could just dispel his sleeper demons, there were no limits to what he
could achieve. And no lingering baggage which could pull the two of them
apart.

“Hephaestus base, one o’clock,” Walker said, pointing at the light which
Bartlet had already spotted.

“We’re so far away, I can’t even tell if Republic is there.”

“It’s there.”

Walker flew the pod around a group of small asteroids: he saw the obstacles
coming, made the correct moves with the stick, and waited for the pod to
carry out the maneuvers. It was an agonizing process for a pilot used
to flying by the seat of his pants.

“How do you know?” Bartlet asked. “Maybe the Regnant had trouble
navigating. Maybe they missed. A very small error would make them miss
by a lot over the distance we travelled, wouldn’t it?”

Walker answered her by calling up a telescopic view on their monitors. At

that magnification Hephaestus was an enlarged ball of reflected light with
three protrusions around its edge.

“These two triangular lumps on top are shuttles. One guess what that is,” he
said pointing to the unusually large bump on the underside of the base.

Bartlet tensed. “Can you zoom in?”

Walker adjusted a knob. The screen blurred, then sharpened again, showing
an enlarged view of the base. The resolution was poor because a computer
was enhancing the incoming data, but they could just perceive the outline of
Republic docked to a tower.

To Bartlet’s surprise, Walker was visibly soothed. “For once Holland did
something right.”

“What?” she asked apprehensively.

“That’s where quarantined vessels are moored. Holland’s keeping Republic

isolated. If he’s following regulations, there won’t even be a docking tube.”

Bartlet grinned: “Let’s analyze that: if Holland is following regulations....”

Walker smiled from ear to ear. “Yeah, right.” It was actually Walker’s
military instinct that the quarantine tower was in a bad location. It
connected directly to the living quarters, but it hadn’t been designed for
quarantine. It was the original docking tower which the colonists used while
they created the station. Now that Hephaestus had internal docking bays,
the tower was basically useless, so it was used, for quarantine. The problem
was that it was really only set up to contain people who would follow
orders and stay quarantined—not hostile creatures who would stop at
nothing to get out. Still, it could be worse.

He keyed the intercom. “Nis, we have visual contact. They haven’t let them
in yet. Holland’s got Republic in quarantine.”

Nis clung to the outside of Murphy’s Law. His eyes were puffy, his fur
matted with sweat, and his mouth gaped open, nicely displaying all of his
sharp teeth. It was an effort to summon the energy to reply.

“Good,” he said groggily.

“Hang in there, bud. I’m going to get you a medal for this.”

“I’d rather have a glass of water.”

“It won’t be long now,” Walker said. “By the way, what’s your password for
loading the ten-kiloton warheads?”

Nis shook his head. He couldn’t think straight in the heat. He was slipping
back and forth between dream and reality. Which was this? He knew he
wasn’t supposed to tell ... something about restricted access. The
computer required two passwords to launch a large warhead. Well, that was
a silly rule. Too many silly rules. Walker was his friend. He liked Walker.
“Outcast.”

“What are you up to?” Bartlet asked as Walker leaned over and punched the
passwords into the weapons computer in front of her.

“I need an ace in the hole.”

“Oh,” she said, then, “good.”

Ninety-five minutes later, Hephaestus and Republic were both visible to the
naked eye, but behind them. Walker had spun Murphy's Law one hundred
and eighty degrees to decelerate. Normally he would have begun braking
hours earlier, but the sooner they began to slow, the later they would arrive
at the mining station. And the longer the Regnant would have to do their
dirty work.

Walker turned the external telescope around to keep a view of Republic on

their monitors. He frowned. “I can’t focus on the tower. It’s like it’s
moving.”

“Enhance it,” Bartlet suggested.

“Shouldn’t have to at this range,” he muttered, making further adjustments.

“Shit.”

“What?” Bartlet asked.

Walker didn’t have to explain. The coalescing image of the colony ship on
the screen said it all. Bartlet’s stomach leapt into the back of her throat. The
docking tower was alive with a Regnant horde swarming from Republic
to Hephaestus—without space suits.

“My God,” she whispered. “They can survive hard vacuum.”

“No,” Walker said. “Watch around the entry lock.”

The stream of Regnant was backing up at the base of the tower. The airlock
couldn’t handle the volume and the creatures were jockeying to get in.
Some struggled harder than others. As Bartlet watched several became
frantic, then spasmed. Fluid exploded from their orifices. The others
ruthlessly flung these weak Regnant into space, where their thrashing
ceased.

“What are those monsters made of?” Walker voice was tinged with awe and
dread.

Several dozen dead Regnant floated around the tower. Many more had
made it inside and the stream seemed to have no end.

“What are we going to do?” Bartlet worried.

Walker said: “It’s time to play that ace.”

***

Holland liked the control center at night. He liked the laid-back pace and
the fewer people who demanded his attention. Fewer problems cropped up.
This was power time. He got massive amounts of work done in the evening,
which allowed him to sleep confident that the station would run more or
less smoothly for another day. Nobody really understood him. His job
wasn’t merely shouting at the top of his lungs for a shift and punching out
at five o’clock. He couldn’t be an effective bad-ass tyrant without spending
hours pouring over the mountains of paperwork generated each day. They
thought he liked hanging around the control center eighteen hours at
a stretch and getting less than four hours sleep each night. How wrong they
were. Holland longed for a time when the colony wasn’t so desperately
reliant on Hephaestus’ output and he could feel safe passing the torch to an
underling. Then he would retire to his small homestead on Jayvee and
spend some quality time with his much neglected wife and grandchildren.
Until then, however, he must drive himself and everyone else toward
perfection.

Tonight things were not going Holland’s way. The unexpected arrival of a
long-lost sleeper ship had set the base a stir. It had caused quite a
commotion planetside as well, if the conflicting radio messages were any
indication, and they usually were. He would use a tried and
true bureaucratic principal; he would ignore them until they started showing
a consensus. He was far more concerned about the fact that seven good
people had been lost needlessly—and just because he wanted to get an
infuriating scientist out of his hair. Holland knew he couldn’t
have prevented the events, but taking the blame when things went wrong
was his job.

And now, to top it all off, this new unidentified radar contact.

Most of the night watch were staring out the windows.

A point of light was rapidly approaching, growing in size and brightness. It

was the exact same approach Republic had used, but this vessel was much
smaller than the colony ship.

It was mining pod size.

Stubbs, who hadn’t left the command center for more than fifteen minutes
since Republic's arrival, piped up, “I think it’s Murphy’s Law, sir!”

Holland hid his sudden hope. “Have they reported in?” he asked the space-
traffic controller.

“No, sir.”

A crooked grin distorted Stubb’s face. “That’s why it has to be Murphy’s

Law, sir.”

The vessel grew rapidly. The pilot was coming in hot.

“Why can’t anybody follow proper procedures?” Holland groused. He knew
it was Murphy’s Law, too. All other vessels were present and accounted for.
The elation he felt because several people, who were once thought dead,
might be alive was quickly replaced by annoyance that Walker hadn’t seen
fit to notify the rest of the universe of that fact.

“Dr. Ledbetter said there was an accident,” Stubbs reminded Holland.

“Maybe they’re damaged, sir.”

“Ledbetter said they were dead,” Holland grumbled. “I don’t like this at
all.” He moved closer to the controller. “Are you still trying to get
Ledbetter?”

“Yes sir, but there’s been no response since the initial message—sir!” The
controller’s eyes grew wide.

Holland looked out the windows. It was definitely Murphy’s Law. The
mining pod had spun on its axis and assumed a new heading which
obviously didn’t line up with the docking bays.

Holland complained, “What the hell is Walker up to?”

Two puffs of fire flashed from the pod’s underbelly, well to the rear of her
weapons nacelle.

“What’s wrong?” Holland asked. “Are they hurt?”

There were two more flashes as the mining pod zoomed out of sight
overhead.

“She’s firing mortars!” Stubbs exclaimed.

“Those are prohibited!” said Holland.

Four studded metal spheres the size of a child’s beach ball raced at them
with unbelievable speed.

“Atomic mines! Brace for impact!” Stubbs warned.

Most of the night watch, Holland included, ducked as muffled explosions
sounded through Hephaestus’ rocky core. Shock waves washed over and
through their bodies. Only Stubbs had the presence of mind to switch the
main screen to a view of Republic.

The mines impacted against the ancient vessel, and billowing explosions
ripped her open. Terrible flashes of white blotted out the frame as chunks of
ship and twisted steel docking tower flew in all directions. Rock pulverized
by the shock waves misted the view. The main screen went blank as a
camera near Republic was incinerated. Stubbs switched to a wider view just
in time to see a final fireball engulf the colony ship. When it subsided,
there was nothing left but vapor.

“Wow,” said Stubbs.

Walker had nuked the sleeper ship.

Klaxons wailed inside the station. Displays showed all industrial systems
going into emergency shutdown.

“Sound general quarters!” Holland barked. “Emergency stations! I want a

status report!” He turned his wrath upon the controller. "Where’s Walker?"

“On final approach, sir,” the young officer stammered. “He’ll be docking
any minute now.”

“His sorry ass is mine!”

Huge sliding doors parted as Walker lined Murphy’s Law up for entry.
Docking was going to be tricky with maneuvering thrusters responding so
slowly and the bay looked pitifully small compared to Hephaestus’ bulk.
The closer they got, the more the massive base filled their field of view and
the more they felt like they were falling into rather than flying level toward
the bay.

Walker carefully applied vectored braking thrust. He wasn’t sure if they

could make it inside without brushing one of the walls. If he couldn’t
prevent that from happening, he wanted to give Nis the largest possible
margin of safety. Better to crush the bottom of the pod than to scrape Nis
off the top.

“Almost there, Nis,” Walker said as they neared the opening. He made a last
adjustment to their course. It was out of his control now. All he could do
was keep his hands off the stick and hope the grappling bars caught.

From his perspective, Nis felt very much like a bug on a windshield, with
the edge of the bay coming up fast. He closed his eyes, expecting to be
crushed at any moment, but it didn’t happen. Instead, there was a wrenching
jerk and he was flung forward to the end of his tether as the arresting
apparatus caught hold of the pod and brought it to a halt. He felt the
vibration of the heavy bay doors groaning shut and heard the hiss of
atmosphere being pumped in. As the pressure increased, the fabric of
his suit collapsed against his wet fur and greatly increased his discomfort.

In a blurry sort of way, the noise and sensations reminded him of a time
when he was little. He had been hurt in a fall, and the members of his
family pod had taken him to a cool cave. In his heat-deluded state,
this memory of the past blended with what actually occurred around him.

Shortly a gangway was lowered onto the top of the pod and two emergency
medics, one human and one Fuzzie, ran down to him.

Nis didn’t recognize them. What are they doing in my cave?

They checked his suit for external signs of damage. When they didn’t find
any, they removed his helmet. They stuck a medical probe into his mouth
and another needle tipped one through his fur into his neck.

“Water,” Nis gasped.

“Keep your mouth closed,” the human medic ordered. “The sooner we get
our readings, the sooner you get your water.”

They lifted Nis onto a stretcher and undid the front of his suit.

“Should we take it off?”

“No, if he cools down too quickly he might get pneumonia.”

“How do you feel?”

It took Nis a moment to realize that they were asking him.

“How do you feel?” the Fuzzie medic coaxed.

What a stupid question. “Hot.”

“And your legs? How do they feel?”

“I got cramps ... I fell off the cliff.”

“You fell off the cliff?" repeated the human.

“Yes. It wasn’t very high, but I hit my head.”

“Oh.”

There was a slight pause before they spoke to him again.

“What’s your name?”

“Uh, Nis.”

“Nis, do you know where you are?”

“In a cave.”

“Nis,” said the Fuzzie medic, “do you know who I am? Am I your father?”

Nis smiled. “Hi, Dad ... I got trapped outside. It was awful. I dreamed about
monsters and I couldn’t get away.”

“Well, you’re safe now.” The Fuzzie turned to the human. “He’s delirious.”

Three flight technicians joined the medics and opened the hatch on top of
Murphy’s Law.
The human medic wrapped a blood-pressure band around Nis’ arm and
pressed his finger through Nis’ fur to find a pulse point. The band expanded
painfully. “His fur is soaked, but his skin is hot and dry. His blood
pressure is way up.”

“Respiration is rapid and shallow,” the Fuzzie medic murmured. “And his
other vital signs are off, too. Look, plasma salts are high and so are urea
levels in his blood.”

“Standard symptoms.”

“Yes, but look at these." The Fuzzie pointed to his diagnostic readouts,
which Nis couldn’t see.

“That’s bizarre.”

Walker and Bartlet climbed out of the hatch and scrambled over to Nis.

“General Holland wants to see you, Captain Walker,” said one of the
technicians. “And he’s in a foul mood.”

“What else is new?” Walker said, pushing by the tech to his friend. “Is he
okay?”

“That’s what we’re attempting to find out,” replied the human bruskly.
Then, seeing how concerned Walker was, he added, “He’ll be fine.”

“Captain Walker, sir,” the tech persisted, “The general’s message wasn’t a
request.”

Bartlet saw the big man falter. She read it as concern for his friend. “I’ll
stay here with Nis. You’ve got to warn Holland about the Regnant."

Finally, Walker said, “Yeah, you’re right,” and marched off with the techs,
but Bartlet saw that he still didn’t want to go.

The medics in the meanwhile determined it wouldn’t aggravate Nis’

condition, so they stuck a squeeze bottle of water in his mouth. He sucked
greedily on the straw.
“Easy, easy,” warned the human. “Or we’ll take it away.”

“Too much water all at once isn’t good for you,” the Fuzzie explained.

The human addressed Bartlet. “He’s going to be fine. He’s dehydrated and
he’s suffering from heat exhaustion, but we can take care of that.”

“Can I talk to him?” Bartlet asked.

“Sure, but keep it short.”

“How do you feel?” she asked Nis.

“I’m fine,” he croaked. “Where’s Walker?”

“He went to warn Holland about the Regnant.”

“Oh, okay.” Nis turned to the other Fuzzie. “Dad ... Dad, I want you to meet
my friend, Dr. Bartlet.”

“Pleased to meet you, Doctor,” the medic said, playing along. Seeing
Bartlet’s distress, he smiled reassuringly. “He’s just disoriented. That’s a
normal symptom of his condition.”

Nis suddenly grabbed the Fuzzie’s arm, a vulnerable look on his face. “Dad,
you were wrong. There was no answer.”

Bartlet saw that he was crying. She stroked his head. “It’s all right,” she
said. “Everything is all right.”

Nis let go of the medic. “I’m sorry. I thought you were my father.”

“No problem,” said the Fuzzie. “I wish I could tell my old man a few
things, myself.”

Bartlet leaned over Nis. “Listen,” she said gently, “I’ve got to talk to
Holland too, but I’ll be right back.”

Nis strained to get up. “I’m coming with you.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” said the human medic. In his weakened
condition, the medics had little trouble holding Nis down, but he struggled
anyway.

“I told you,” he protested, “I’m fine.”

“Well, you look like you need rest,” Bartlet said firmly. “Remember, I’m a
doctor. I know these things.”

“You’re not a doctor, Doctor. You’re an anthropologist.” Bartlet grinned.

Nis might be delirious, but he wasn't stupid. She rephrased the command to
appeal to his Fuzzie nature. “Walker left me in charge,” she stretched the
truth a little, “so I’m ordering you to stay with the medics.”

Nis gave in. “Very well.”

“I’ll be right back. That’s a promise,” she said and headed up the gangway.

“He’ll be in sick bay,” the Fuzzie medic called after her. He poked an
intravenous drip into Nis’ arm. “Stop squirming, Nis. This is good for your
electrolyte levels.”

“Okay, Dad.”

Walker forced his way through the press of people at the door. The
command center was in chaos. Warning lights flashed, sirens blared,
humans and Fuzzies ran every which way. Their faces were unnaturally pale
in the emergency lighting, which accentuated emotions their expressions
betrayed. Walker saw foreheads lined with worry, eyes wide with
confusion, a few mouths set in grim determination. Holland stood at the
locus of the activity, trying to maintain some semblance of order,
while nearby computer terminals flashed important but unnoticed
information.

The closer Walker got to Holland the more he felt his grip on reality slip.
He felt as though he were stumbling down a slope into the darkness, a
darkness which was his past and which he had fought tooth and nail to
scrabble out of. Faster and faster he went as events became more and more
serious. He didn’t know if he could stop it now, but he didn’t want to go
there. Walker prayed Holland would rise above his bureaucratic limitations
and give him a way out.

Holland spotted him.

“Walker!” he yelled angrily. “You’re grounded. If you step one foot within
fifty meters of a mining pod before there’s a complete investigation, you’ll
be cashiered so fast it’ll make your head spin. Look what you’ve done!”

“I didn’t do this,” Walker said evenly, arriving at Holland’s desk. In a

lowered voice he said, “Sir, you are under attack. I respectfully recommend
you arm your men.”

Holland speared Walker with a look that made him want to crawl under a
rock. “You lunatic. Don’t tell me what to do. Do you realize what you’ve
done? You destroyed a sleeper ship full of frozen colonists and killed Dr.
Ledbetter. I ought to lock you up.”

Walker’s outs were disappearing fast. The dark past beckoned. He tried to
make Holland see.

“Sir, I didn’t kill anybody—”

A staff officer interrupted the confrontation. “General, we’ve lost contact

with the lower decks!”

“What?” Holland snapped.

She pointed to a wall schematic of Hephaestus in cross section. Walker was

quite familiar with it. The upper half was all industrial. From the top down:
docking bays, double high production floor, seven supporting
industrial decks, then life support. Life support occupied a selfcontained
deck which divided the mining station into upper and lower halves. Below
life support were ten decks dedicated to quartering, feeding and entertaining
the station’s four hundred odd occupants. At the bottom of the schematic
was the quarantine tower (which, of course, wasn’t there anymore). Most of
the upper and lower levels showed green status lights, but a wash of red
lights spread out from the tower, completely encompassing decks one and
two. Glowing yellow bars showed that emergency bulkheads had sealed
those levels off from the rest of the base.

“We can’t make heads or tails of the reports coming in, sir,” the staff officer
said, pressing her headset harder against her ear. “They’re screaming. I
can’t make it out. Something about... creatures?”

Enter Stubbs. He didn’t dare salute next to Holland, so he gave Walker a

brief but respectful nod. Walker liked the old sergeant. He had a good head
on his shoulders. Maybe he could talk some sense into the General.

“There’s a fight going on, sir,” Stubbs said grimly. “I’d like to check it out.”

Holland didn’t want to hear it. “Creatures? Preposterous.”

Don’t react. Let it go. Just don’t say a word and it will all go away.

A howl like an air raid siren wound up. Indicator lights for the lower decks
which had been green changed to amber and strobed in time with the red
lights.

“Someone pulled the lower deck evacuation alarm,” said Stubbs. “We’re
going to have hundreds of people trying to get through the life-support
bottleneck.”

Holland looked at the spreading wash of red lights. Walker saw doubt
sprouting in his commander’s mind.

Walker tried to hold his tongue. He was dangerously close to the darkness.
The moment of truth approached.

Holland waffled. “All right Stubbs, this is your chance to play soldier.
Gather up a squad and break open the weapons locker. I’m going down to
see if there are any creatures for myself.”

Didn't Holland see the mistake he was making?

The number of Regnant Walker saw crossing from Republic would make
mincemeat out of sixteen men.

Holland was so weak, but he—Walker—was weak, too.

Bartlet jumped out of the pressure-field slide and was surprised to meet
Walker outside of the control-room door. He was leaning on the rail around
the edge of the stairs. If she didn’t know better, Bartlet would have
said Walker was sick.

“You talked to Holland already?” she asked, confused.

Walker nodded.

“What did he say?”

“Not much.”

Why wasn’t Walker looking at her? His voice was remote.

“Not much? You told Holland the base was under attack by bug-eyed
monsters and that’s all you got? I don’t think so! Holland’s a wind bag—he
would have at least chewed your ear off.”

“He did,” Walker said weakly. “He already knew, sort of.” He still did not
turn.

Bartlet was getting really anxious; something was very wrong here. “Did
you tell Holland about the Regnant or not? You didn’t, did you?”

Bartlet shoved him around, so he had to look at her. “Did you?”

“No,” Walker admitted.

“Why not!” Bartlet exclaimed furiously.

Walker started to answer, but Bartlet cut him off.

“Never mind,” Bartlet spat. Things were too serious to pry an answer out of
Walker. She grabbed him, shoved him back through the double doors into
the control room and strong-armed him through the panic back to
Holland. He was still talking to Stubbs.

“I just don’t buy it,” Holland argued. “There are no monsters on this base.”

“But, sir—” Stubbs began, his frustration there for all to see.

“No buts,” Holland said. “Gather a recon team. I want to see what’s going
on with my own eyes.”

Walker and Bartlet arrived as he finished his speech. He looked at them

both askance. Walker did not speak.

“Tell him,” Bartlet said. “Tell him.”

Holland frowned. “Tell me what, Walker?”

Trapped. He was trapped. And they were making him fail. They wanted him
to fail.

“The reports are right, sir,” Walker said, unable to stop himself. “These
things are from the Republic. They were in the cryo vaults we opened.
They’re as smart as hell and they control Fuzzies with some kind of
pheromone they emit. They just about wiped us out. They were
crawling along the quarantine tower into the lower decks when I blew
Republic up and they’re loose on this base.”

Walker could see Holland did not believe him. It was a crazy story from a
zipper-head sleeper.

“I’m going down there to find out,” Holland explained without losing his
cool. “With armed men.”

Battle lines were drawn. All he had to do was engage.

“How many men are you taking, sir?” Walker interrogated. “One squad
won’t do it. There are too many. You can’t take them head on. You need a
plan to hold them off while we get our people out of the lower decks.
Once you’ve done that, we can make a stand in life support. They have to
go through there. You can lie in wait and ambush them.”

Walker knew life support deck was the key to the defense of Hephaestus.
Two completely separate systems provided light, heat, water, air
purification and all other environmental needs, one for the upper decks and
one for the lower decks. If there was a major industrial accident and the
upper decks were unable to support life, the lower deck system would be
untouched. Furthermore, travel between the upper and lower halves of
Hephaestus was restricted to two spiralling ramps running through the
life support deck, which could be sealed at any time.

Stubbs hesitated. He met Walker’s eye. The sergeant was inclined to agree
with Walker, even if Holland was not. Holland’s refusal to acknowledge the
severity of the situation was indicative of his total lack of combat
experience. His bureaucratic “wait and see” posture was inappropriate
under the circumstances, and both the soldiers in the room knew that.

“Move it, mister!” Holland snapped. How dare Walker question his
authority in front of the men!

“Yes, sir,” Stubbs saluted and jogged off.

Striding over to his desk, Holland picked up a head-set radio. “Lieutenant!”

“Yes, sir!”

Holland jumped. She was right behind him. “I’ll be with Sergeant Stubbs.
You can reach me by com-link if you need me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tendrils of the past wormed into the present. Walker knew he was losing the
battle.

In desperation, he grabbed Holland by the arm. “Send me with Stubbs. I can

help. You shouldn’t go. Your place is here.”
Holland shook off Walker’s grip. “Captain Walker, get your insubordinate
hands off of me,” he said, more angry than ever. “I’m in command here and
I won’t send a sleeper with delusions of military glory to make
things worse! No matter what my sergeant at arms thinks, I know that
neither of you are soldiers. I haven’t got time for fantasies, so get over it
and get out of my way.”

Bartlet saw that things were out of control. She opened her mouth to speak,
but Holland jumped on her. “I don’t know what part you played in this,
Doctor, but frankly I’m disappointed. Don’t dig yourself in any deeper.”

Bartlet wasn’t about to take any of his crap. “You’d better listen to what I
have to say, Holland.”

“Doctor, you are dangerously near the limit of my patience. You just watch
your mouth.”

“What are you going to do—take away my birthday? I’m not part of your
command structure. I’m an independent agent of the Council and I’m
telling you you better listen to what this man has to say.”

Holland stared derisively at his subordinate. “Well, captain, do you have

anything useful to say?”

The old Walker burned at Holland’s rebuke. He would make the petty
bureaucrat pay for those remarks. He had no idea who he was speaking to.
Walker the sleeper was losing control. Another second and it would be all
over. With his back to the wall, he called for the only allies he knew:

“Don’t worry,” said Loneliness. “We’re right here.”

“Just do what we tell you to," said Madness. “We’ve never let you down
before.”

Sensing victory, Holland pressed: “Well? After all that, nothing to say?”

“No, sir,” Walker said weakly. “You’re right. I’m not a soldier at all.”

“Good. You’ve finally come to your senses. Now step aside.”

Holland left to catch up with Stubbs.

Walker gazed steadfastly into the distance. The searing heat of Bartlet’s
outrage branded the back of his neck with the shameful sign of cowardice.
Chapter 20
Sometimes the Madness was not so mad. Sometimes the Truth was enough
to drive a man insane:

“The darkest moment in your life is when you realize you’re not the man
you thought you were. That you’re not the White Knight, charging off
to defend the right. That the universe isn’t black and white at all, but
limitless shades of gray. Like when you first stand beside your father’s
hospital bed, looking down on his gaunt, helpless body, with tubes violating
his orifices, and you realize your own mortality. That one day you too will
die. But the words you so dearly need to tell him stick in your throat, forever
unsaid. Like the first time you can’t get it up and you lie beside an
unfulfilled woman, alone in your head with your sticky, limp manhood and
fears of eternal impotence, which fester and breed upon themselves. Like
years later when you have an affair because you’re a man with gray
blemishes in his white armor and you’re trapped in an uncompromising
system which goes against your basic human needs. You love her and you
can’t bear to leave her. You don’t want to hurt her, but your distant
silence robs the flower of her life. The man of action stands by as his world
falls apart. You strive to see yourself as just and fair and loving and
compassionate and you are, but not all of the time—the greatest men have
the darkest moments. Your self image fades in the bright light of reality.

“The more you cling to your initial perception of yourself, the more you
cling to me,” Madness warned. “To deal with reality is to deal with
pain, and if you are a great man you have a great deal of pain. Don’t think
you can shove it away into some dark recess of your mind—oh no, it’s not
as easy as that! You must dive into it. You must let all the feelings wash over
you, absorb and appreciate the agonizing intricacies of each one as they
flay your soul raw. And you may come out the other side greater than you
were, stronger than you were, because of your pain, because of your gray,
but few get through and many are Mad....”

Bartlet chased Walker across the immensity of the production floor.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Bartlet raged at his unturning
back.

Humans and Fuzzies stared at the two of them, but no one had time to stop
and ask questions in the rush to general quarters. Important material on
forklifts and motorized robot dollies congested the passages. Personnel
on foot wove in and out of the slow-moving vehicles as best they could in
the dull emergency lighting.

Furious, Bartlet jogged up to Walker and grabbed his arm. He shrugged her
off and kept walking.

“I just went to the line for you and you blew it! That was your chance.
Holland was going to listen. What were you thinking?”

“You have no idea,” Walker snarled “If you did, you’d be gone.”

“Gone?” Where the hell did that come from? Bartlet wondered. Were they
having the same conversation? Apparently not. “Bullshit,” she said. “I
know you. I respect you. You are the only one here who can contain the
Regnant before they spread any farther. You have the ability and the will.
Why aren’t you using them to save the colony?”

Walker kept walking. “The colony is not at risk.”

“It will be,” Bartlet said, getting more and more angry, “If you don’t stop
the Regnant here.”

“I am not the one. The colony can find another savior.”

“Well, excuse me for asking.” Bartlet skipped ahead of him. “I’ll just call
up ‘dial-a-hero’ and get a replacement. Oh, and one with a spine this time,
please. Thank you."

Walker stopped, flushing blood red with anger. It frightened her, but at least
she had his attention.

“How about some gratitude?” Bartlet accused. “How about some thanks for
a government that doesn’t decree every detail of your life. How about some
respect for every human and Fuzzie who dedicated their lives to a cause so
you could nurse your wounds in peace? I’m not going to let you just walk
away when you’re the only thing that stands between survival and
Armageddon. I love my colony, even if you don’t!”

Walker raged at her, “I love Jayvee! Don’t tell me I don’t, because I know
what it’s like on both sides of the vault.”

“Then fight for her.”

“I can’t fight for her. I’m not a soldier.”

People were starting to take an interest in their dialog. Bartlet pulled them
to the side between some large containers.

“You are a soldier. Fuck what Holland said. I’ve seen you in action. You’re
not just a good soldier, but a great soldier and a great leader. Command
oozes off you. People follow you without question. People look up to you.”

“Yeah? That just shows how stupid they really are,” Walker said derisively.

“You self-centered son of a bitch,” Bartlet spat. “If you’d open your eyes
you’d see how much Nis looks up to you. And what about Stubbs? He has
great respect for you, and he’s not a fool. Neither is Nis. Neither am
I. What’s going to happen to us if you run away with your tail between your
legs?”

“I’m not running.”

“Then fight.”

“I can’t!” Walker said. “You don’t understand. You don’t know who I am.”

“I know who you are.”

“Yeah? Who am I?"

Walker’s unexpected aggression abruptly forced her to examine that

question in a way she hadn’t had to before. For some reason she felt a chill.
There were demons in Walker’s eyes. Demons guarding a terrible secret.
But the barrier was down and for the first time Bartlet saw the hidden parts
of Walker, who he really was. Strangely enough, most of the parts she
remembered from her own life: all of her grandfather’s fears, all of the
bogeyman stories of her childhood, all of the collected nightmares of every
rebel colonist waiting for retribution from an evil government fifty light
years away. And then there was what she knew about Walker firsthand and
from what people had told her. They all came together in the deadly man
before her. It made sense. Horrible, terrible sense. All the pieces fit.

“You are the Enforcer,” she whispered, with rising dread. “The System sent
an iron fist—and you’re it.”

“That’s right,” Walker hissed. A feral grin spread across his face. “That’s
why I can’t fight.”

Bartlet leaned against a metal container, floundering. Had she been so

wrong about this man? Had she so blinded herself to so much evil in him?

“I do know how you feel about the colony,” Walker said, tearing the words
out of himself, “because I gave up everything I had to let it live. I gave up
me. I don’t even know my own first name. I lost it somewhere in the vaults
—somewhere in three thousand days of freeze— and there are no records,
because the System neatly erased all the histories of all the sleepers on my
ship so that I could slip through. And I did. What do you think of that?”

Bartlet saw two Walkers, one accusing, one pleading. Both looked to her for
judgment.

“I don’t know,” she said trying to gather her wits. “Why haven’t you carried
out your mission?”

“I changed my mind,” Walker said. “I like it here. This place deserves a

chance. I like Jayvee so much that I can’t live there. I might revert to my
old ways and if I fight, I will revert to my old ways.” Walker held himself
ramrod stiff, as if merely talking about his past might bring it back. “Now
you see what kind of man I am.”
“Yes.” Bartlet said, untangling her feelings. She had to separate her
childhood fears from the man before her, from what he really was. Too
much depended on her finding the truth. “I see a man who changed his
mind,” she said tentatively.

Walker shook his head vigorously. “I changed my mind, but I didn’t change
my soul. I am Marshal Walker. Tyrant. Murderer. Slaughterer. It took seven
years of unrelenting punishment to show me the light and I deserved every
moment of it. Do you want to undo that? Because if you do maybe I’ll save
you from the Regnant, but who will save you from me?”

“Nis told me about your wife and daughter,” Bartlet said, grasping for an
argument, “How they were taken away from you and how you were forced
to come here.”

“Don’t kid yourself. Nobody forced me to come here. Nobody took my

family away from me.” Walker’s threatening presence grew as he filled
with rage and shame. He exploded. “I abandoned them! I wanted to come
here. I demanded to come here. It was my right, my just reward for years of
faithful service. An entire world to conquer. And I could have done it. I
would have conquered Earth. The System let me go because it couldn’t kill
me and it was afraid to let me stay.”

“Are you proud of that?” Bartlet accused.

“No,” Walker said, deflating. “No.” He sat on a stack of pallets, defeated.

“Believe me ... I just don’t know what to do. I used to follow my gut, but I
can’t anymore.” He clenched his fists in front of him, as if to show what
he would do to his past if he could get his hands on it. “You’re right; I am a
son of a bitch.”

Walker was swamped by the shame of who he was. People hurried around
him, reacting to the emergency, but he had shut himself out of the process.
More shame. The insidious safety of the vaults called to him from
the depths of that shame. It would be so easy to slip back into the half-life
he lived in the years after his unfreezing, even though that half-life might
not be very long. Events had conspired to lure him out of his shell before,
but always there had been the fear of who he was and he had retreated. He
would have done so again, but for the light touch on his arm.

Bartlet saw his inner torment. She sat beside him.

“Well, you’re my son of a bitch,” she said, not unkindly. “You’ve admitted
your guilt. No one can say you haven’t paid your penance for your crimes.”

Walker nodded.

Bartlet took a deep breath. She didn’t know if what she was about to say
was true, but she felt that it was. “You are not Marshal Walker anymore.
You are Captain Walker. And I don’t care if you can’t remember
your name.”

Walker considered. His hard features moved with his thoughts. Now it was
his turn to accuse her. “You said you didn’t believe in killing.”

“I don’t, but you do,” she said, resolved. “And that’s what’s important.”

Walker grunted.

Bartlet grabbed his face and made him look at her. “I believe in you.”

Cold fire returned to Walker’s eyes. They raked hers for any sign of deceit.
There was none to find.

The die was cast. He stood up.

“Well...” Bartlet asked when he didn’t speak.

“We need weapons.”

Holland and Stubbs—mostly Stubbs—led the makeshift band of armed men

down a dim access corridor on Deck Four. Flashing red lights were
everywhere and forests of pipes and ducts hung down from the ceiling.
A tangle of shadows played on the walls and floors. They had followed the
spiralling ramps which started at the production floor far above and
descended down toward the station’s lowest level. However, when they
reached this deck, sealed bulkheads blocked further progress and they were
forced to leave the ramps to find another way down.

Sergeant Stubbs was on edge. He was only a Guardsman, a weekend

warrior, but it was obvious from the very beginning that General Holland
didn’t know what he was doing. Furthermore, Stubbs had rounded up
sixteen men, but they weren’t even Guardsmen. The regular Guardsmen
were desperately needed where they were to deal with other related crises.
All these men were regular workers. Most of them really didn’t want to be
there and the rest of them didn’t know the danger they were getting into.
They were too green to fear. Only four had any military training at all, and
that was mostly police related. They held their assault weapons uneasily.
Stubbs didn’t know how they, or Holland, would react under pressure.

It was a sorry state of affairs.

Stubbs overheard a fellow named Mills, one of those with a smattering of

training, talking behind him.

“Here,” Mills was saying to Romero, a green recruit. “Hold it like this. It’s
easy, just point and pull the trigger.”

“Shit,” said Romero. “They told you how to pull the trigger?”

“Quiet back there,” Stubbs barked. He knew how to command men. They
were just blowing off steam now, but if the joking got out of hand, they
would lose their nerve.

In addition to all his other problems, Stubbs had the distinct sensation that
they were being followed. He had good ears, even for his age, and he
fancied there were footsteps behind them, slightly out of cadence with
the clatter of his troops’ boots on the decking. It began just after they passed
through life support and had continued ever since. Earlier he convinced
himself that it was just the unnerving effect of dozens of panicked
colonists streaming by. Here in the side passage, however, they had not seen
any colonists for some time and Stubbs still sensed the trailing presence.

He held up one hand, both for silence and to stop the men.
“What is it?” Holland questioned.

“Quiet, sir,” Stubbs hissed.

Disheartening sounds emanated from further down the hall—moans and

faint cries which sent shivers down their spines.

Holland gasped. Stubbs followed his gaze and understood his commander’s
shock. The remains of two bodies were spread across the floor and wall of a
service room to their right. There wasn’t enough left to fill a bucket.
The only reason Stubbs knew it had been two humans was because of the
two left hands.

“What kind of fiend would do that?” Holland choked.

Stubbs gave Holland a dirty look to shut him up. The men were turning a
sickly gray. The sergeant wondered if any of them had fouled their trousers
yet.

Farther ahead the passage widened onto an intersection lined with stairwells
and elevators.

“There they are, Sergeant Stubbs,” Holland proclaimed rather loudly. He

realized the men were losing their morale and was trying to show them that
their leader wasn’t afraid. It was a hollow performance. “Now we can get to
the bottom of this. Sergeant, when we get there, I want you to set a perim
—”

Holland never finished that command. A pack of Regnant dropped from

hiding places in the low overhead piping into the midst of the unsuspecting
humans and began shredding. The men panicked at the monstrosities
within their ranks and opened fire with their automatic weapons. The noise
was deafening. Muzzles flashed blindingly in the low light. Some of the
volleys were true, but most were not and three men were splattered by a hail
of friendly fire before any Regnant went down. Most of the Regnant were
unaffected by the minor wounds they received. They howled in anger and
intensified their ferocious assault.
Holland was completely out of his element. “Hold your fire!” he screamed.
“You’re hitting our men!”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Stubbs bellowed at him. The sergeant fired surgically,
trying to channel the attack away from his inexperienced men. The torrent
of lead from his weapon vaporized the head of a creature lunging at
Romero. Then his clip was empty. As he reloaded, a Regnant arm exploded
through the back of another young man in front of him. The arm rotated; the
young man shuddered.

Shock waves rippled in Stubb’s skull as bullets flew over his shoulder,
killing the Regnant and putting the young man out of his misery. Stubb’s
left ear was ringing and his cheek was covered with powder burns. Who
the hell had fired so close to his head? Stubbs turned and was shocked to
see Holland reloading his own weapon directly behind him.

“Look out!” Stubbs yelled, barely hearing his own voice.

The evil shape behind Holland was fast, faster then a man could react. It
raised its claws and struck Holland just below the ear. His head lurched on
the thick neck.

Holland tried to lift his hands and staunch the flow of blood, but they
wouldn’t respond. Time slowed. He realized that his legs were not keeping
him upright. He willed them to move, but his feet were fixed to the
floor, which was coming up at him. The fall was strangely languorous. Had
the pressure fields died? He was drifting down, past his upright body. Why
wasn’t it falling, too?

“No,” he tried to say, but he had no breath. There was something wet and
warm on his neck.

“There you go. A nice red scarf to keep your neck warm in the cold.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll be home soon, ’’ Holland said, closing the door to his
childhood home.
Stubbs filled the Regnant full of holes before Holland’s decapitated corpse
hit the deck.

“Fall back on me, now!” he yelled to the remaining men.

Four of them fled down a side corridor. They were out of sight by the time
Stubbs reached it. The Regnant were too close. He didn’t have time to chase
them.

Only Mills and Romero joined him as he retreated through the dead. The
deck was slick with blood and it was hard to stay on their feet. Romero
killed the last of the attacking Regnant, but Stubbs saw another wave
coming at them from the end of the hall. He fired, but they jumped into
doorways where Stubbs couldn’t see them, or worse, up into the pipes
where they advanced under cover. Romero fired madly into the piping.
Sparks flew in the dark where metal hit metal.

“Conserve your ammo,” Stubbs ordered.

The three of them watched the low pipes as they crept backward. Stinging
sweat ran off Stubb’s forehead and into his old, yellow eyes, but he didn’t
take them off the ceiling for one instant.

“Hear anything?” Stubbs asked Mills. His ears were still ringing from the
shots Holland had fired close behind him.

“They’re all around us,” Mills worried.

Stubbs stole a glance behind them. The nearer of the two central ramps was
less than fifteen meters away, but their progress in reverse was too slow.
They weren’t going to make it.

“Run!” he shouted.

They turned and ran. Stubbs fired wild bursts behind them just to keep the
creatures in the pipes. They moved more slowly up there than down on the
deck. Romero fell. Stubbs noticed that the man’s right leg was a bloody
mess.
“Grab him,” he said to Mills. Each one took an arm and they dashed for the
ramp. Romero dropped his rifle. He stumbled for it.

“Forget it,” Stubbs ordered the struggling Romero. They didn’t have the
time.

Romero let out a pathetic moan as they rounded the intersection of ramp
and corridor. Their escape route rose gently only two meters before ending.
“It’s blocked!”

Stubbs looked: it was blocked. A newly-closed bulkhead had sealed off that
avenue of escape.

“Watch the hall,” he said, running to the control panel. He punched in his
pass-codes, but the bulkhead stayed closed. They would have to find a
different way up. “It’s no use. Let’s move—”

Muffled grunts behind Stubbs cut him short. He whirled to see three meters
and two hundred kilos of Regnant standing on the prone forms of Mills and
Romero.

Stubbs knew he couldn’t raise his weapon before the taloned arm slashed
down on him.

***

The loaded assault rifle lay at its feet.

A clawed hand closed around the weapon. The Plantagenet held it up to get
a better look. This had destroyed many of the brethren.

A howl of rage and frustration echoed down the passage.

Without thinking, the Plantagenet levelled the gun and squeezed off a burst.

Holland’s lifeless form jerked loosely as rounds tore through it.

How interesting.
The Plantagenet inhaled the pungent smoke which hung heavy in the still
air.

Its hearts beat faster; this was useful....

In defiance of Holland’s orders, Walker retrieved the forty-five, his shotgun,

and a bandolier of shells from Murphy’s Law. The weapons felt good in his
hands as they strode through the base.

Sensations of cool metal sparked memories of events where he had been in

control. He remembered that time of power: thousands died at his hands or
following him, but it had been glorious. A part of him still craved that
glory, but another part of him knew the suffering that had followed. That
same part remembered how his own flaws had led to his downfall. In a
society based on manipulations and subterfuge, Marshal Walker had been a
master, but his perceived control of events had blinded him to the weakness
in and around him. Walker the sleeper loved those flaws and weaknesses.
They had saved him. He no longer wanted to control events. The more he
grasped, the more they would slip through his fingers, but maybe he could
control himself. That was the key, to prevent his quirks and flaws and
strong points from becoming his worst enemies, to use them instead of them
using him. If he could do that, maybe he could redeem himself and
vindicate Bartlet’s belief in him. If he could do all that, he could take what
was thrown at them and influence the outcome.

Along that path lay victory. Walker was determined to take it.

Bartlet fiddled with frequencies on a mobile radio headset acquired from

Murphy’s Law. Bartlet had come up with the idea of intercepting the base’s
com-link network.

“I’m picking up Holland’s transmissions,” she said.

“Good girl.”

“Good woman.”

Walker grinned. “That too.”

“They’re just passed life support,” she said listening to Holland’s running
dialog with the command center. “They haven’t met any trouble yet.”

“They will—and so will we. Here, take this,” he said, giving her the
shotgun.

“I don’t want it,” she protested.

“Take it,” Walker ordered. “It’s part of the bargain.”

Bartlet took the weapon, but she balked at the its unaccustomed feel in her
hands. “Great, I get the antique.”

“That antique is a Glock Law 10, fully automatic shotgun capable of firing
twenty rounds in under five seconds.” Without missing a step, Walker
looped the bandolier across her chest. “I load these ten-gauge shells myself,
and I use double powder, so they’re hot. They blast the crap out of anything
they hit. It’s got a kick, so hold on tight.”

“I don’t know how to use this,” Bartlet objected.

“Not much to know.” Walker pointed out a small catch. “That’s the safety.
It’s on now. Flip it off, point the barrel in the direction of your target—
torsos are a good aim point—and shoot. The target will fall. Guaranteed.”

“Guaranteed? You shot the Regnant on Republic a couple times before they
went down, and that was with your pistol. What good are pellets going to
do?”

“Those pellets are depleted boron; they’ll tear through anything foolish
enough to stand in the way,” said Walker. “Besides, every third shell is a
case-hardened slug that will crack the block of an internal
combustion engine at twenty meters.”

“Right,” said Bartlet, relenting. Maybe the old shotgun was useful after all.
“What about you? Aren’t you out of bullets?”

“I’ve three left. Have to get more.”

They rounded a corner into a tall, wide corridor which was almost deserted.

“Where are you going to find bullets for that thing?” Bartlet asked. “It’s a
relic.”

“It’s old, but it’s not out of date,” Walker replied. “Forty-five has been a
standard caliber for over a thousand years. Hephaestus stocks them in the
munitions cage.”

“Really?”

“The projectiles are big and slow—slower than sound. When the soft metal
impacts, it transfers all of its energy to the target. It causes a lot of damage
without piercing walls, unlike the small, fast calibers do. Forty-fives
are popular on ships or bases with man-made life support.

“Ah,” said the peace lover in Bartlet. “So why does Hephaestus need big,
slow projectiles which transfer energy into their targets?”

Of course, Walker knew there was little need for weaponry of any kind on
the base. Those guns present were leftovers from the early days. Much
more of the work force were sleepers in those days, when the colony didn’t
have enough manpower to weed out all the dangerous ones. Emotional
deficiencies could, and did erupt violently at times. Nowadays the really
dangerous sleepers weren’t posted and there was no need for pistols and
assault rifles in general, but the base still had them.

Walker was deeply thankful that someone’s paranoid vision of the future
had prevented them from being scrapped.

He pulled Bartlet aside as they neared a large, double door on their left.

“That’s the munitions cage,” he said quietly. “Stay here and hold this.” He
gave her the forty-five. “I can’t show I’m armed.”

“Okay,” Bartlet whispered back. “Don’t be long.”

Walker stepped across the threshold and found himself in a small metal
cage that separated him from a vast room on the other side. Here all the
dangerous material and equipment necessary to keep Hephaestus operating
was stored. Walker saw everything from flammable liquids to corrosive
chemicals; to blasting explosives and vaults containing atomic mines like
the ones he used on Republic. The smorgasbord before him was loaded on
warehouse racks which filled the room from top to bottom.

It was Walker’s kind of place.

If Holland refused to listen to experience, then he would get what he needed

and take action himself. A quick look through the wire mesh to his left
revealed that Stubbs had taken all twelve of the assault rifles and two of the
forty-fives from the weapons locker.

Walker groaned inwardly when an overweight, older Fuzzie sauntered up to

the counter on the other side of the cage.

“Hello, Walker.”

“Hi, Gresh.”

“What’s up?”

Walker steeled himself for the coming battle. “I need two forty-fives with a
hundred rounds of ammo each.”

“Sorry.”

Walker had not expected to win that easily. He tried again: “Gresh, as a
commissioned captain, I’m ordering you to give me two forty-fives and two
hundred rounds of ammo.”

“Uh-uh.” Gresh shook his head. “That’s against the rules.”

“Gresh, as a mining pod commander, I’m authorized to requisition missiles

and nuclear warheads. Right now all I want is a couple of handguns.”

“Nope,” the Fuzzie said obstinately. “Missiles I can give you—if you have
the proper requisition codes—but only Commander Holland or Sergeant
Stubbs can authorize pistols.”
Gresh had learned to deal with humans by imitating Stubbs. In other words,
Gresh was a curmudgeon. Normally that was a good thing, because that was
his job. When Stubbs was not around, Gresh made sure no unauthorized
personnel got their hands on any part of the arsenal locked in the cage.
Right now, however, Walker didn’t have the time.

“All right,” he said. “Just give me the rounds.”

“Excuse me?”

“Any reason why you can’t give me rounds?” Walker asked innocently.

“No,” Gresh admitted, “but no one ever asks for bullets without a gun to
shoot them with.”

“Well, I’m asking. I want two hundred forty-five caliber rounds.”

“I don’t know....”

“I’m ordering you to give me two hundred forty-five caliber rounds.”

Walker was being bad. He was coercing the alien based on what he knew of
its thought processes. Any human would flatly refuse Walker’s request, but
Gresh was a Fuzzie. If Stubbs, or whoever had given Gresh his orders, had
been at all ambiguous about whether ammunition was off limits to Walker,
then Gresh would have a very hard time defying Walker’s authority.

Gresh thought for a second. Doubtless, he was trying to think if there was
any way he could refuse.

“Very well,” he said finally and went over to the locker. Opening the lower
cabinet drawers, he removed four boxes of shells, brought them back to the
counter and pushed them through the small opening in the wire.

“Anything else?” he asked reluctantly.

Walker was ready. “Two bricks of chain-polymer explosive and ten

electronic fuses with timers.”
“Now what do you need those for?” the Fuzzie asked with lowered eyelids
and ears, annoyed. “Those are normally only used by rock-jocks.”

Walker lied. “Asteroid demolition. Look in the book, I’m entitled to

requisition explosives.”

Gresh didn’t have to check it out. He knew the regulations inside and out.
“So you are,” he said grumpily, “but this is highly unusual.” Gresh didn’t
like being manipulated. Giving Walker a magnus paper form to fill out,
he wandered off into the depths of the cage.

Walker gritted his teeth at the wasted time, but made sure to fill out the
form correctly. Any deviation from procedure would slow things down even
further.

Gresh returned, plopping two oblong bricks of explosive and the detonators
on the counter. Walker flinched unnecessarily. There was no danger the
bricks would blow up. The explosive could not go off without the
detonators attached and armed, but he still preferred to treat the stuff with a
bit more respect.

Scooping up the items, he stowed them in his pockets while the Fuzzie
double checked the information Walker had entered.

Gresh made an ‘x’ on the bottom of the form. “Sign here.”

Walker complied. “Thanks, Gresh,” he said as he left.

“No thanks are necessary, Captain,” was the cool response. “I just do what
I’m told.”

Walker didn’t enjoy bullying the Fuzzie, but the situation was far too urgent
to let guilt get in the way.

Bartlet was listening to her radio when he stepped into the hall again.
Retrieving his gun, he led her back the way they came.

“Command center is trying to raise Holland,” she told Walker in a

concerned tone of voice. “He took Stubbs and a fire team down to Deck
Four.”

Walker pressed bullets in the forty-five’s large clip as they walked.

“There was yelling, and firing,” Bartlet continued, “and then the
transmission went dead....”

Walker ripped the wrapper from a brick of explosive and tore off hunks of
the putty-like compound. These he rolled into plum-sized spheres.

“Here,” he said, handing some to Bartlet. “Stick these detonators into these
balls, like this.”

The gurney rattled along the noisy corridor. Nis was vaguely aware of the
medics taking him to sick bay and of the agitated people rushing about. He
felt the gurney tip down. They must be in the central shaft.

He leaned his head to the left. The central shaft was thirty meters in
diameter with two gently sloping spiral ramps descending in
counterclockwise rotation along its edge. Looking up or down the shaft, Nis
thought the ramps resembled the rifling inside the barrel of a very big gun.
It opened on the production floor above and ended at life support below.
Catwalks spanned the shaft at each deck, like the crossbars which held
DNA together. Because the medics were in a hurry, they pushed Nis
across one of these bridges and entered one of the pressure-field slides
which ran in the center of the shaft, paralleled by pipelines, power conduits,
communications optics and other vital arteries of the base.

Nis had seen all of this many times before. He would have ignored it even if
his brain didn’t feel so mushy. He felt a little better since they docked and
the medics gave him water. He no longer believed that he was in a cave,
or that one of the medics was his father, but he still had a hard time thinking
straight. Time didn’t much matter to him. It passed at a tempo which slowed
or speeded up depending upon how much he concentrated on the individual
moments. The trip from the docking bay to the shaft was boring, he
decided. Therefore, he condensed it into only a minute or two of subjective
time. However, when the lower deck evacuation sirens went off and the
moving field jerked to a stop, things became interesting again and he
slowed each second down so as not to miss a thing.

“The slide shaft is sealed,” remarked the Fuzzie medic, looking below.
“We’ll have to get off.”

“We can’t take him to sick bay now,” the human said in reference to the
evacuation siren. “Let’s take him to the infirmary instead.”

“Right.”

They stepped onto Deck Twelve, the bottom of the central shaft. Nis saw
where the spiral ramps disappeared into the level below: life support.
Humans and Fuzzies streamed up both ramps at an alarming rate.
Something was wrong. Nis smelled their fear. It was thick, as if he were in a
giant kitchen and the chefs were concocting a terror stew. There were a
subtler odor about the evacuees as well, strong enough to smell, but too
weak to identify.

The medics pushed Nis out of the shaft, down another generic corridor and
into the infirmary. It was well equipped and differed only in scale from the
sickbay two decks below. It was smaller by half and intended only for the
most urgent industrial emergencies, or as a backup.

“What’s wrong with him?” the doctor on duty asked.

“Dehydration and heat shock,” said the Fuzzie medic. “We think he’s stable,
but he’s got some strange symptoms.”

The doctor nodded, after a quick check to confirm Nis’ condition for
himself. “I see what you mean ... but I don’t think it’s life threatening. He
just needs to cool down and stabilize.”

More patients were pouring in all the time.

“We’ll take him from here,” the doctor said to the medics. “Go help
evacuate sickbay.”

“Yes, sir,” the medics chimed and left.

With confusion growing by the second, Nis and his relatively minor
condition were soon forgotten.

“Stable patients go in the cafeteria for now,” the doctor announced to the
nurses and orderlies. “We don’t have enough beds to take everyone.” The
designers of the station had mistakenly assumed that if any part of
Hephaestus needed to be evacuated, it would be the upper industrial half
into the lower quarters, not the other way around.

Patients began arriving with serious injuries, like burns and gashes.

“Is there a war going on down there?” the doctor wondered aloud while
injecting morphine into a man with a bloody pulp where his leg used to be.

It was awful. If Nis thought he was used to the smell of human fear, he was
wrong. These wounded humans smelled of burnt flesh, blood, sweat, urine,
and feces. He could almost smell their pain. Bile rose in the back of
his throat.

And there was that other smell, too. It intensified as the number of lower-
level evacuees grew, until it was tangible, indentifiable. It was power. It
smelled of Regnant, but it was weak enough that Nis successfully resisted
the urge to cower. He looked around to see if any other Fuzzies had reacted
the same way. It was then that he noticed there were no other Fuzzies in the
infirmary. Either Fuzzies were not getting wounded, or they were not
being evacuated.

And the humans from the lower levels smelled of power.

Even in his delirious condition, Nis knew that spelled trouble. Something
must be done. These humans didn’t know what was really happening and
wouldn’t until it was too late.

Dr. Bartlet said she would be right back to get him. Where was she?

Nis sat up. His head spun, but it wasn’t bad. Pulling out the intravenous
feed, he hopped onto the floor. The medical personnel were so
overwhelmed that they didn’t even notice him padding out the door.
The hallway outside was even more crowded than the infirmary. Here and
there were humans and Fuzzies, but these Fuzzies didn’t smell of power.
They must be from decks the Regnant hadn’t reached yet.

Nis wanted to find Walker and Bartlet. They knew about the Regnant.
Walker would know what to do. But where was he? Nis tried to think where
Walker would go at a time like this.

Down.

Walker was brave. He would go down. That’s where the danger was. And if
Walker would go down, then Nis must go that way, too.

Nis returned to the central shaft just in time to see Holland, Stubbs and a
troop of men jog down the ramp. The mass of evacuees coming up parted to
let them pass, reassured by the sight of their leader and armed men.

Nis followed the troops as the ramp was enclosed by walls and became a
spiralling tunnel. He stayed just far enough back to be out of sight around
the curve of the passage, keeping his distance by listening to the
troop’s footfalls. A human would have had a hard time tracking in the din of
the panicked colonists, but Nis simply folded his ears to focus on the
sounds ahead of him. What was difficult in the press of people was
movement, even for the soldiers. Nis could tell they were slowing down.
He was thankful, for he still felt weak and couldn’t maintain a fast pace
indefinitely.

The tunnel went a long way around before any other decks opened on it.
Life support deck was thicker than most. Nis finally passed the small,
locked doors which entered that critical level. He had never been through
them. Life support was a restricted environment. He wondered why he had
never snuck in, just to see what was in there.

What a strange thought that was: of course he had never been in there—it
was against the rules. It surprised Nis to even think about breaking the
rules.
A further one hundred and eighty degrees down the spiral and a wide
corridor intersected the ramp. This was the main trunk corridor of Deck
Ten. All other hallways and passages branched off it. Nis peered around the
corner to his left. The light was dim red interspersed with lighter pools of
emergency lighting. Forty paces down, the other ramp crossed the trunk
corridor and continued down into the gloom. To Nis’ right colonists in
white clothing rushed about sterile white-and-steel rooms: sick bay.
Nis noticed the human medic who had taken him to the infirmary pushing a
man in a wheelchair his way.

Nis darted across the corridor. He hoped the medic didn’t see him, but
suspected the harried human couldn’t do much even if he had.

The press of people thinned quickly after that. By the time Nis passed Deck
Six there were no people on the ramp at all, although he heard far-off voices
above the pulsing sirens whenever he crossed a trunk corridor. They were
too garbled to make out clearly, but they sent shivers through his fur. The
sound of boots was faint now, too. Even though the soldiers weren’t going
very fast, they were outpacing Nis. His head spun from the exertion and the
hallucinations returned. He fought the feeling that he was lost on a twisted
path to the underworld. The smell of power was getting thick. He felt a
tightening expectation in his genitals.

Nis contracted time for a while. It was bizarre, this playing with time. The
medics must have given him drugs or something.

Suddenly, Nis was at Deck Four and the way down was blocked. A
bulkhead had slid across the ramp, blocking travel to the decks below. From
his right Nis heard a sound last heard on Republic. That terrible, rising howl
in four-part harmony. A song of death punctuated by screams of dying
humans. If the Regnant had a voice of their own, that was it.

Nis moved a few steps closer to the conflict. Muzzle flashes illuminated the
combatants. Their silhouettes danced erratically in the strobing light. Nis
smelled the power, stronger now, but not thick enough to make him submit.
The Regnant weren’t using power against the humans, just unstoppable
brute force. They must know the humans weren’t affected by it.
Nis stepped into an alcove, lest the Regnant notice him. If they started using
power, as they surely would if they saw him, he would be helpless to assist
the humans. There must be something he could do from here. If he could
just think straight, he knew he could come up with an idea.

Then, it washed over him from behind—pure, undiluted power—and Nis

was submitting before he knew it. He quivered, his fight or flight response
screaming in his animal hindbrain, but he couldn’t move. The sensation
of submission was terrifying and humiliating as well as intensely sexual.

Peeking through his fingers. Nis saw it standing beside him, majestic in its
total control of the situation. And it ignored Nis. Under the influence of
power, Nis longed for its attention and burned in his own worthlessness,
like a mistress confronted by her lover and his wife. To the Regnant, a
submitting thrall was no threat, and thus a nonentity.

It stalked back, out of Nis’s view. He heard the sound of a bulkhead

grinding shut.

Down the hall the battle was over, and three humans had actually survived.
They backed toward Nis while firing at the ceiling. For good reason: sounds
were traveling amongst the pipes overhead. Regnant were up there.

Still cowering, Nis watched the humans turn and run. He recognized one of
them as Sergeant Stubbs. He and a second man carried a third, who dropped
his weapon. It spun against the wall less than two paces from Nis.

“Forget it,” Stubbs said sharply.

They didn’t notice Nis, curled up as he was in the dark. They ran past him
toward the ramp. Nis expected to hear gunfire when they came upon the
Regnant, but none came. It was hiding.

They reached the ramp. “It’s blocked!” the wounded one moaned.

Nis wanted to scream at them, to warn them, but the power was too strong
in his blood. He could barely move. There was the weapon, so close. With
an effort, he could grab it and shoot the Regnant—the object of his
adoration—no! That was unthinkable.

Nis knew what to do, but he couldn’t do it. If only Walker were there. Nis
needed someone to tell him what to do.

“It’s no use,” Stubbs shouted. “Let’s move—”

Two muffled grunts cut him short. The Regnant stood in all its glory upon
the other prone human bodies.

Nis slowed time.

The Regnant raised its arm. Stubbs was almost hidden by the corner of the
intersection, but Nis saw him swinging his weapon around to bear. It wasn’t
moving fast enough. What could Nis do? The rifle was no use. Even if he
could grab it fast enough, he couldn’t point it at the Regnant. Stubbs was
going to die and Nis couldn’t so much as lift a finger to save him.

It wasn’t right.

A howl exploded out of Nis’ throat. A primal scream that fed upon all the
frustration and helplessness of his entire life. It ripped through the air like a
cannon shot and it was just enough to distract the Regnant for one
precious second.

Stubbs aimed his rifle and emptied his clip. The Regnant's torso erupted in
an explosion of metal and tissue.

As the scream left Nis, uncontrollable heartbreak washed over him. That
Regnant had given him his last fix, and now it was gone.

I’m a junkie, Nis berated himself as he trembled unrestrainably.

Time resumed its normal pace.

Stubbs grabbed one of the prone men, who was apparently still alive, hefted
him into a fireman’s carry and ran down the corridor. Moments later, the
Regnant advancing in the pipes dropped to the floor and gave chase.
Nis rode out the invasive emotions. They were lies. What he should feel,
but which he in no way felt, was victory. Although he hadn’t been able to
kill the Regnant, he had given Stubbs the time he needed. Nis hoped the
men would get away.
Chapter 21
“ You can never be lost,” said the Loneliness.

“No matter which way you go—there you are.”

“And,” said the Madness, “so are we.”

Walker and Bartlet had to push their way down the ramp, even though they
carried weapons. The lower industrial decks were crowded with evacuees.

The faces around them were confused and frightened. Most were shift
workers, wakened from sleep by the sirens. Many were sleepers. They
didn’t like the changing environment. Unstable conditions reminded them
of the madness which dogged the edges of their sanity. They needed a
constant environment to keep their bogeymen at bay. That’s why they had
chosen to live and work in Hephaestus in the first place. Rock-jocks and
mining-pod pilots who worked outside the safety of the thick rock
walls were exceptions to the rule—having a weird set of rules of their own
—but on the whole, this was a mass of people who felt secure in a grid of
tunnels, who liked a timed switch from fluorescent-white day to red-
glowing night. Not for them the vagaries of weather or the dynamic
of dealing with someone whose name they didn’t know.

None of these people had a clear idea of what was happening, but many of
them had heard or glimpsed horrible events, which no authority would
confirm or deny. The veneer of their safe society was much thinner than
they had suspected. Tension was high.

Bartlet listened to the com-link chatter.

“There’s a quarrel in command center,” she said to Walker. “They’re

disputing whether Holland’s still alive or not, and what to do about it...
They can’t find Major Jacobi. They think maybe she’s still down below.
Seems to be some question who’s in command in her absence.” Bartlet
heard several voices arguing in the background as a communications officer
tried to collect any information relating to Holland or the missing second in
command.

“They haven’t got a clue,” she concluded.

“They’re not trained for this,” Walker said without rancor. “They’re
bureaucrats and managers, not soldiers. The colony never needed soldiers
before. Policemen, yes. Soldiers, no.”

Bartlet scanned the crowd around them. “Have you noticed something?”

“What?”

“I don’t see many Fuzzies,” Bartlet observed. “There are nearly two
hundred Fuzzies on Hephaestus and I haven’t seen more than a handful.”

Walker looked for himself. “You’re right.”

There were only a couple of furred faces in the press of humanity around
them. It wasn’t a good sign.

The crowd thinned out at the bottom of the shaft. A voice called to them as
they passed the infirmary deck.

“Captain Walker! Dr. Bartlet!” It was the human medic. He ran over to
them. “Have you seen Nis?”

“No,” said Walker, his face becoming hard. “Don’t you know where he is?”

The medic was apologetic: “We were ordered to help evacuate sick bay, so
we left him in the infirmary under the care of the staff there, but I guess
they got overloaded with all the injuries coming in from below and they
put him in a corner, out of the way—”

“Spit it out,” Walker cut in. “What’s wrong?”

The medic paled. “It must’ve happened when nobody was looking. We
came back and found his gurney empty and the IVs pulled out,” he said
meekly. “I guess he wandered off.”
“He wandered off?” Walker spat. “You let him wander off!”

“How could he wander at all?” Bartlet asked incredulously. “I thought you

said he had heat exhaustion?”

“He does,” the medic quickly agreed. Sweat beaded on his brow. “The
doctor confirmed it. He shouldn’t have been able to get off the gurney at all.
I can’t explain it, but the long and short of it is Nis is gone and we can’t
find him.”

“He’s delirious. He couldn’t get far. Right?” Walker grilled. “Are you sure
he’s not on this deck?”

The medic shook his head. “No, we’ve looked everywhere, and,” he
hesitated, “one of the techs said she might have seen him following Holland
and the men down the ramp.”

Bartlet became shrill. “For crying out loud! Do you realize they’ve all been
massacred?” she yelled, stepping close to the man. “Do you realize Nis
might be dead right now?”

“I don’t know what’s going on! I’m just a medic,” the man said, stepping
back from Bartlet and the intimidating muzzle of her shotgun.

“Easy,” warned Walker, grabbing her arm before things got out of hand.
Bartlet had quite a temper, as he well knew, and he wanted to keep it
focused on the enemy. “He’s probably okay. He probably went down a few
hundred meters before he collapsed. I bet we’ll find him lying in the middle
of the ramp, too tired to get up and wondering how he got there.”

“Okay, okay,” said Bartlet, calming. “Let’s go.”

“Keep looking up here,” Walker ordered as they left.

“If he’s here, we’ll find him,” the medic promised.

The ramp burrowed into life support deck. Walls hemmed them in on all
sides. Visibility was normally only six or seven meters in the spiralling
passage and the red lighting made it even harder to see ahead. Weapons
at the ready, they hugged the outside wall to focus as far ahead as possible.

“Do you really think we’ll find Nis?” Bartlet worried. “I promised him I’d
be right back. Hephaestus is a big place.”

“I’ll find him if it’s the last thing I do,” Walker swore. “I’m not leaving him
to those things.”

They made a complete three hundred and sixty degree loop, passed the
locked life-support doors and were starting another loop, when Walker
brought them to a halt.

He held his finger to his lips. There were noises coming from just around
the curve of the tunnel ahead. Cocking his gun, and reaching over to flip the
safety release on Bartlet’s shotgun, he crept forward. It was a false
alarm. Three unarmed Guards came into view: two men—boys really,
Walker doubted their combined ages equaled his own—and a woman with
her back to him and Bartlet.

Bartlet flipped her safety back on, still uncomfortable with the shotgun.

The yeomen were guarding this deck’s bulkhead controls. The men listened
as the woman conversed on a com-link. Their eyes bugged out when they
spotted the armed humans coming out of the gloom. The woman
spun around.

“Captain Walker,” she said with a start.

“Lieutenant.” Walker vaguely recognized her. She was stocky, but cute, and
she had a good head on her shoulders. What was her name? Ah, yes:
“Franks, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir!” Franks lit up. It was always a good sign when a higher ranking
officer remembered your name. Besides, Walker had an air of command,
and with the confusing orders coming from the com-link, he was a welcome
sight. “Are we ever glad to see you, sir.”
“Have you seen a gray-striped Fuzzie in a pressure suit pass this way?”
Bartlet asked urgently.

“If you mean Nis, no, but we only got here ten minutes ago,” Franks
admitted, seeing Bartlet’s disappointment.

“How many are still below?” Walker asked.

“We can’t tell,” said Franks. “We think Decks Ten through Eight are clear,
but we don’t know about the lower levels. It’s a mess. We haven’t had time
to do a head count.”

“Under the circumstances, that’s impossible,” Walker pointed out.

“I know,” Franks fretted, “but command center wants me to shut the

bulkhead here, and I don’t know if anybody’s still down there. I’m stalling,
but I can’t keep it up much longer.”

Walker saw that Franks believed there were people below, even if she
wouldn’t swear to it. “What’s your gut feeling, Franks? How many haven’t
made it out?”

Franks considered. Under Holland’s command, nobody ever asked for a gut
feeling. If you didn’t have the figures, you shut up. “I’d say over two
hundred, most of them Fuzzies. Not many Fuzzies passed this way and I
know only a few were on shift, so most are probably on Deck Six.”

Deck Six: Hephaestus’ Fuzzie population quartered there. Walker wondered

why they hadn’t obeyed the evacuation alarm like they were trained to.

Reading his thought, Bartlet said, “Regnant must have stopped them from
escaping.”

“Yes,” Walker agreed, “but the alarms started when Deck Three was
breached. How did they control Fuzzies on Deck Six?”

The thinner of the two men spoke up. “What’s going on, sir? We’ve seen
some bad casualties.”
Franks said, “What are Regnant? Are we under attack?”

Walker nodded grimly. “We’re under attack. I can’t explain it now, but there
are some kind of alien creatures assaulting the base. Dr. Bartlet had dubbed
them ‘Regnant’.”

A voice buzzed in Franks’ ear. She focused on the distance, listening to the
com-link. “It’s command center,” she said with dismay when the message
ended. “I have direct orders to seal these bulkheads, ASAP.”

“Franks,” Walker said with as much conviction and authority as he could

muster, which was a fair amount, “there’s no one in command, just a bunch
of pencil-heads that’re out of their element. You three have to think
for yourselves now, and decide what’s right. Dr. Bartlet and I are going
down to rescue as many of our people as we can and search for our friend.
We need your help to keep the bulkheads open. Can you do that?”

Franks exchanged worried looks with her comrades, then, “We’ll do it,
Captain. The bulkheads will stay open as long as we can, but we’ll execute
our orders at the first sign of danger. If you aren’t back, you’ll be trapped.”

Walker grinned. “Don’t worry about us. If we don’t get back before the
Regnant get here, seal the bulkheads. Then cut all life support to the lower
decks.”

Franks didn’t hide her shock well, but she tried.

It was a drastic solution. Walker knew he couldn’t hold his breath forever,
but he knew the Regnant couldn’t either.

He started down the ramp again.

Bartlet paused as she passed Franks. “He’s right, Lieutenant. The whole
colony depends on you now.”

The last effects of power were gone from Nis now, but it had left him with
unexpected vigor. Although he was still groggy, the fatigue from his heat
exhaustion was gone.
The coast was clear. He got up and checked the body Stubbs left behind.
The man was dead. That ascertained, he crept down the hall to the site of
the original combat. The carnage sickened him, but at least none of the
bodies were Walker or Bartlet. That was a relief, even though Nis had been
pretty sure Walker wouldn’t be so stupid as to march boldly into a
dangerous area like this.

Bodies and shell casings littered the deck. Something was wrong with the
picture, something was missing, but Nis’ foggy mind couldn’t think what
that was right now.

Suddenly there was a noise behind him.

He whirled to see a Fuzzie dart across the passage.

“Hey,” Nis hissed, but the Fuzzie did not stop. Nis took off in pursuit. The
other Fuzzie led him in a merry chase along a cramped side passage which
wound back and forth between air circulation fans. Nis was overtaking him,
but not fast enough. Who knew what kind of trouble they would stumble
upon before Nis could catch him.

“Hey, wait!” Nis called again.

The other looked back, but kept on going. Nis was pretty sure, from the
black and white markings, that it was a fellow names Stol’ss.

“Stol’ss! Stop!” Nis said louder than he wanted to.

Stol’ss hesitated. “I can’t—they wouldn’t like it.” But he slowed just

enough for Nis to catch up and grab him. “Let me go,” he objected weakly.

His body language spoke of fear and he smelled faintly of power.

“Where are you going?”

“To close the bulkheads.”

Nis was shocked. “You’ve been closing the bulkheads?”

“Yes,” answered Stol’ss. “I’m a security guard. I have the pass codes.”

“But why are you closing the bulkheads?”

“So the humans can’t get away,” Stol’ss said, trying to pull free.

Nis kept his grip. “You shouldn’t be doing that.”

“They made me,” he choked. Stol’ss was shaking. He knew it was wrong to
close the bulkheads, but he couldn’t disobey. The conflict was too much for
him. He lowered his head and wept. “I want... I can’t....”

Nis consoled him. “It’s not your fault.”

“I let them in,” Stol’ss blubbered. “T’jardis confused me.

The mention of that familiar name surprised Nis. “You saw T’jardis? He’s
still alive?”

“Yes, but I thought he wanted to get out.... Then the airlock was opening
and I couldn’t stop it. The controls weren’t working.” Stol’ss shuddered.
“They made me do things and I couldn’t stop.”

Nis relaxed his grip. Stol’ss wasn’t trying to get away anymore. Apparently,
Regnant commands could be resisted if the power was wearing off and
someone else contradicted them.

Stol’ss tried hard to regain his composure. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t
know what to do.”

“Have you seen any humans?” Nis asked.

“Only dead ones,” Stol’ss whimpered. “The humans are all dead.”

“They’re not all dead,” said Nis, forcing his lazy brain to concentrate.
“They’re in the upper decks. They can’t get down because the bulkheads
are closed. We’ve just got to go up and we’ll find some.”
“O-okay,” Stol’ss stammered. “Find some humans. But they’ve probably
already taken the decks above us. They’re moving fast.”

In other words, it was dangerous to wander the halls.

“You’re a security guard,” said Nis. “How do we get out of here without
getting caught?”

Stol’ss thought. “There’s a ladder-way not too far from here. It only goes up
two decks, though.”

“Two decks up is two decks closer to help,” said Nis.

Decks Ten and Nine were empty, as Franks had said. Annoying pulsing
lights and even more annoying sirens were all Walker and Bartlet detected
when they passed those darkened levels. They moved slowly now,
acutely aware of the risk which could be just around the next bend.

“Deck Eight,” Bartlet read from a sign as another trunk corridor crossed
their spiralling path.

Walker peered around the corner.

“Anything?” Bartlet asked.

Walker shook his head. It was deserted either way.

“We should have seen Nis by now,” Bartlet said. “If he was going to
collapse from exhaustion, he shouldn’t have made it this far.”

Walker led them across the intersection. “He’s stronger than you think.”

“Yes, of course,” Bartlet said, without really believing it. She had watched
the medics check Nis. She wasn’t an MD, but she knew when someone was
in rough shape. How could Nis recover rapidly enough to come this far
on his own?

An acrid smell was in the air. Walker breathed deeply and felt a tingling in
his sinuses. Faint as it was, the odor was unmistakable, the combination of a
dozen intermingled scents: smoke and chemicals and blood and
urine, among others. It was the smell of combat. Imminent combat.
Walker’s body reacted without his conscious thought. It remembered the
proper “feel” which went along with that odor: the sweat, the adrenaline,
the heightened senses which ferreted out important information from the
background of irrelevant input, the increased blood flow, the half-crouched
stance and the tension of muscles ready to surge into action. All those, and
many other things, which had kept Walker alive in the past, his body did
now.

The smell grew thicker as they descended. By the time they reached Deck
Seven, the smoke had thickened, softening the visibility in the already dim
environs.

To either side of them, Deck Seven was peaceful.

“Where is everybody?” Bartlet whispered. Whispering seemed appropriate.

Walker wondered if she meant Fuzzies or Regnant. Not that it mattered. The
answer was the same both ways: “Not here.”

Where was the danger the lights and sirens warned of? Scores of
passageways branched off the trunk corridor and dozens of doors and
passages branched off each of those in turn. They didn’t have time to search
each deck room by room.

Walker was searching for a clue that would lead them to the action. He
glanced around again. Rays of light descending from ceiling fixtures
betrayed that the smoke was coming up from further down the ramp. They
kept going.

They went a quarter of a revolution down the spiral, then Walker held up
his hand for Bartlet to stop. “This is too easy,” he hissed. “I don’t like it. I
expected to see something by now—bodies at least.”

“Let’s check—” Bartlet began, but Walker abruptly held a finger to his lips,
listening. Bartlet froze, trying to listen above the noise of the alarms.
Nothing. Wait, there was a noise. A crunching, as of two rough surfaces
grinding together.

Keeping to the outside of the spiral passage, Walker edged downward.

There was a rapidly revolving red light just beyond the curve below them. It
swept over the outer arc of wall and down across the floor before the inner
wall clipped it off. Each time the beam came around, a grotesque shadow
on the floor changed a little bit. Something was just out of sight, ignorant of
the fact that the light gave its presence away.

Walker methodically cocked his gun. Bartlet’s finger trembled on the

trigger of the Glock. Around and around went the light. The shadow
remained, always changing, but never moving far. Walker moved very
slowly. It was agonizing when every muscle in Bartlet’s body wanted
to scream and leap—or run.

A hand came into view on the floor, unmoving and human, with palm up
and fingers in a relaxed curve. The further they edged, the more arm, and
then torso, came into view, until they saw the whole body. The revolving
light threw it into harsh relief several times a second and silhouetted the
hideous bulk of a Regnant crouched on top of it. The body shook limply as
the monster’s head descended and tore off a mouthful of flesh. Tendons
stretched and snapped as it chewed. Blood spattered. The creature glistened
sickeningly where light shone on ropy hide.

The smell of torn bowel was overpowering.

And then Walker’s gun barked. The Regnant howled in agony. Muzzle
flashes illuminated the effects of the rounds in vivid, strobing detail. The
Regnant fell. Bartlet realized she hadn’t fired a shot. She hadn’t even
released the safety.

“Good move,” said Walker. “Conserve ammo.”

But that wasn’t why Bartlet hadn’t fired.

A second Regnant rounded the bend. It dove back when it saw Walker. His
shots ricocheted uselessly off the curving outer wall. Before Bartlet realized
what was up, Walker was in pursuit, slipping at first on the slope made slick
with entrails and fluid, then running at full speed. She took off after the two
of them. All she saw was Walker. The Regnant was too far ahead.

Even Walker couldn’t see it clearly, just the flurry of running limbs and
shadows on the outside wall whenever it passed a light. He couldn’t out-
sprint it. He had to kill it before it could summon help. When they crossed
the Deck Six trunk corridor, Walker would get one chance to shoot. If the
Regnant kept on down the ramp, he would have to break pursuit. He and
Bartlet must search that deck for Fuzzies. Walker smelled their rich,
pungent odors already. The Fuzzie deck smelled like an expensive spice
shop.

The trunk corridor was coming up fast. Walker heard the sound of his own
breath. The outside wall rushed by his right shoulder. He turned the
targetting laser on. It had been off so that the lancing beam would not give
their position away, but that didn’t matter any more.

Then, there was an opening to either side ahead. Walker fired, but the
Regnant leaped into the corridor to the right. Walker missed, but he heard
the creature slam into the wall just out of sight. He hoped that would slow
it down enough for him to catch it.

Walker dashed into the hallway and hit the far wall himself, but he was
expecting it. He relaxed his body to absorb the energy of impact and fell
into a crouch in the middle of the hall.

There it was, ten meters ahead.

Walked squeezed off two three-round bursts and dropped the Regnant.
Further down, six more turned at the commotion and promptly charged.
They were less than twenty meters away. Bam-bam-bam! One
dropped. Fifteen meters away. Bam-bam-bam! Another fell with a shredded
kneecap. Ten meters. Walker wasn’t going to make it.

He glanced back. Bartlet appeared in the intersection behind him. Behind

her more terror shapes appeared from doorways and charged.
“It’s a trap!” Walker yelled. He had underestimated the Regnant again. The
first one had lured them into a hive of its brethren. With his left hand,
Walker grabbed a homemade grenade from a loop on his belt and punched
the timer with his thumb. One-one-thousand. He fired wildly with his right
hand. Bam-bam-bam! All misses. No sound of firing behind him. He lobbed
the explosive underhand. Two-one-thousand. He turned his head to save his
night vision.

Bartlet was not firing!

“Shoot!” he screamed as her opponents closed. Three-one-thousand.

The charge went off with a blinding blast. The passage contained and
funneled the shock wave throughout the group of Regnant.

Walker looked back. Flashes of light behind him sent his shadow streaming
down the hallway, over the writhing remains of his targets.

Flashes of light.

Bartlet was firing. The Glock was a sobering weapon in her hands. The
blasts which were pellets shredded and maimed, while those which were
slugs tore large pieces from their targets. There were at least five prone
forms already. Bartlet was holding her own, but she was firing full-auto and
the weapon rode up with each successive shot. She hit less and less the
longer she held the trigger.

“Take your time!” Walker yelled, but the shotgun drowned him out.

Bartlet was on an adrenaline rush. She couldn’t stop firing. It took three or
four squeezes on the trigger for her to realize the gun wasn’t responding. It
was out of ammo.

Three Regnant had survived her onslaught by ducking into cover. When she
stopped firing, they charged again. These were smaller and thinner than
most of the others and they closed with horrible speed.

“Fall back!” Walker yelled, shooting past her.

She did—fall that is. She dropped the Glock, items falling from her belt.

The three small Regnant hit the deck as Walker shot at them. He winged
one before they could use the bodies of their fallen comrades for cover. It
wasn’t much, but Walker couldn’t shoot accurately and back up
without tripping on his kills.

Bartlet grabbed the shotgun and scrambled to her feet.

Out of one eye, he noticed that some of the Regnant hit by the explosives
were not actually dead. The force had meted out what should have been
mortal wounds, but they were healing before his very eyes!

Bartlet drew even with Walker.

“Duck into a room,” he commanded. “I’m almost out.”

“Here,” Bartlet yelled, yanking him out of the killing zone.

Walker dispatched the healing Regnant with head shots. He kept his eyes on
the action outside, backing in and letting Bartlet determine if the room was
safe. He swung the door across the opening, but left it ajar so that he could
see the pinned Regnant. They would not stay pinned long if he ceased
firing.

“I got eight,” he panted. “How ’bout you?”

“I don’t know,” Bartlet mumbled in a tone that raised the hairs on Walker’s
neck.

He stole a look to confirm his fears: Bartlet was not moving, a blank, numb
look on her face like looks Walker had seen on so many other green troops
before her. This was different from launching a missile at Sex Kitten
and seeing no visible evidence of what it did to the living bodies inside. She
had killed these Regnant hand to hand. He must not let her freeze up.

“Reload,” he ordered.

She started to move.

Bartlet compelled herself to load the shells. Firing the weapon was ugly.
The thud in her chest which made her flinch, the way the stock slammed
into her wounded shoulder, the noise which hurt her ears, and most of
all, the terrible effects of the rounds: she didn’t like it. Walker’s pistol shots
killed the Regnant, her volleys from the ten-gauge cannon shredded them.
The weapon was a bloody, messy, life-stealing abortion, and she didn’t
care if it was Regnant life that it stole. She hated it.

“I think you got five,” Walker said with satisfaction. “With my eight, that
makes thirteen—and we’re both still alive. That’s a pretty good kill ratio.”

“You sound like you enjoy this,” she said, pulling off her com-link. A vital
wire had been cut when she tripped. She had also lost her light and her
grenades.

Walked popped off another pinning shot. “Of course I do,” he said. And
then, at her accusing look, “What did you expect? Remember who I am: I
love this.”

What had she unleashed on her world? Bartlet fumbled a couple shells into
the shotgun.

“Give me that,” he demanded. Taking it from her, he fired into the corpses
which the live Regnant used for cover. A mist of vaporized flesh and blood
rose into the air. “That’ll give them something to think about. Reload this,”
he said, thrusting his pistol at her.

Walker felt her tug a box of ammo from his belt as he fired again. The
forty-five rounds were tiny compared to the shotgun shells and some
slipped. He heard the metallic rattle of shells dropping and rolling into the
dark.

“Take it easy,” he said. “You did good back there. Take a breath and do it
right.”

“Right, right,” Bartlet snapped breathlessly, but she slowed and loaded the
gun without any more mistakes.
They switched arms again. Walker continued his pinning fire as she fully
loaded the Glock.

“We can’t stay here long,” he warned. “This is the Fuzzie deck. Where are
the Fuzzies?”

To Walker’s surprise, Bartlet gave an edgy chuckle.

“Let me in on the joke, will you?” he asked, afraid the combat had
unhinged her. “I could use a good laugh.”

“Look behind you.”

Walker looked. The room was a lounge no longer than ten paces on its long
dimension. In the shadows, behind chairs and under desks, huddled in
groups, pairs or separately, were furry forms with eyes that glistened
back at him.
Chapter 22
Take not gain or loss to heart,
What fills the Longing empties Song.

—translation of Rote phrase by Dr. E.F. Bartlet.

It would never do. The Regnant weren’t staying pinned. They advanced by
pushing the bodies of their fallen brethren ahead of them along the floor.
Walker was wasting too much ammunition trying to stop them.

He tossed a grenade into their midst.

“That stopped their asses,” he said with gratification after the smoke
cleared.

“Good,” said Bartlet, trying not to let her misgivings about Walker show.
After all, she had convinced him to do this. Walker was doing what he
always had. These same actions had seemed heroic to her during their
escape from the derelict sleeper ship, but now ... Now she knew who he was
—who he had been, rather—and that knowledge colored everything he did.
Had she let the genie out of the bottle? She hoped not. She must trust her
first instinct. She must not overanalyze, or allow the horror of her own
killing experience to affect her judgment, but it was hard. Especially when
he was so brutally efficient.

She turned her attention to the Fuzzies. They hadn’t moved since the two
humans entered. Now, one of them straightened and took a couple of
halting steps closer.

“Dr. Bartlet?” the Fuzzie asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “and this is Captain Walker.”

The alien visibly relaxed. “We know Captain Walker. I’m Fao’sg. Have you
come to get us out?”
“Yes,” said Bartlet.

“Are any of you wounded?” Walker asked, still watching the hall.

“No,” Fao’sg replied. “We’ve been here the whole time. We’re fine.”

Walker reproached Fao’sg. “Don’t you know what an evacuation klaxon

means? Don’t you know the drill?”

“Of course,” said Fao’sg. “We’ve practiced many times.”

“Then why are you still here?” Bartlet interrupted.

“We were told to stay put,” Fao’sg explained.

“What idiot told you that?” Walker asked.

“T’jardis.”

Both humans blinked.

“T’jardis?” Walker scoffed. “He’s dead.”

“He’s not dead,” Fao’sg contradicted. “We saw him less than twenty
minutes ago.”

“Could he have hidden in Republic and made an escape when it docked

here?” Bartlet wondered hopefully. “Could he still be alive?”

“That’s nuts,” Walker objected. He remembered T’jardis quivering on the

bloody floor of Republic's sickbay, the Fuzzie’s convulsions and how he
gnashed the air when they tried to touch him. “He was in no condition
to run and hide when we last saw him.”

“I’m telling you, he’s alive,” Fao’sg asserted. “He told us to stay put,
because it wasn’t safe to be around humans. He said the humans are going
to die.”

“The humans are going to die? What kind of shit is that?” Walker asked.
“Accurate shit, so far,” Bartlet answered without humor.

Walker glared at her.

Fao’sg went on: “He said others were coming, that we wouldn’t get hurt if
we weren’t around humans.”

Walker gestured at the Regnant remains in the hall outside. “Did he tell you
what these others have in store for you after all the humans are dead?”

“No,” Fao’sg sputtered. “Is it bad?”

Walker scowled. “It’s bad.”

Fao’sg became alarmed. “We didn’t want to stay, but he told us to.” He
turned to Bartlet.” He told us to!”

“It’s all right,” Bartlet calmed. “We believe you. We just didn’t think
T’jardis was alive, but we believe you now. I hope he’s okay.”

“You hope he’s okay?” Walker growled. “If he did escape, and if he isn’t
under Regnant control, he might as well be. He’s helping them to take over
Hephaestus!”

“Not necessarily,” Bartlet countered. “The Regnant almost wiped us out on

Republic and they’ve got the upper hand here, too. Regnant don’t hurt
Fuzzies if they don’t get in their way. Maybe he’s just being practical.
Fuzzies do have survival instincts, you know. Like getting out of the way of
a falling tree.”

“But how did he order these Fuzzies to stay? That’s a decision, not a
reaction. Fuzzies can’t make decisions like that. I know. Someone has to
give the order.”

Bartlet didn’t respond. She liked T’jardis, damn it, and she didn’t like the
implications of this new information. “Whatever the answer, it isn’t his
fault.”

Walker nodded. He was not without sympathy.

“Have you seen Nis?” he asked Fao’sg.

“No, should I have?”

“We don’t know,” said Walker. “Are there any other Fuzzies on this deck?”

“Yes, lots. T’jardis gathered us into groups all over.”

“Do you know where they are?” asked Walker. “Can you take us to them?”

Fao’sg swallowed. “I think so.”

“Good. Everybody out,” Walker ordered and led them into the hall. “Come
on. Up and out. Move!” he said when they responded slowly.

The Fuzzies filed out into the corridor. Bartlet retrieved her lost torch and
grenades. She stowed them all securely in deep pockets throughout her
jumpsuit.

“Which way to the first group?” Walker asked Fao’sg.

He pointed away from the ramps. “Down there and to the right.”

“Let’s go.”

They started off, but the Fuzzies took three steps and froze, sniffing the air,
their ears extended backward.

The obvious conclusion: danger behind them.

Walker dashed back to the nearest ramp and looked: nothing. He listened:
something was coming up.

“Friend or foe ... ?” he challenged.

Silence.

“Friend or foe!”
Faint scrambling noises.

Foe.

Walker pulled two grenades and set their detonators: one for three seconds
and one for five. Swinging his arm back, he bowled them down the ramp.
The spheres did not bounce, but rolled straight to the outside curve of the
spiral and arced out of sight. Explosions followed. Bam ... one-one-
thousand... Bam!

Silence again.

Walker jogged back to the group. “That takes care of that.”

They followed Fao’sg’s direction. Ten paces down they passed through a
carved wooden arch. The trunk corridor became a passage unlike any of the
station’s other trunk corridors. It wasn’t straight. In fact, there wasn’t
a straight line, except for the floor itself. The snake-like passage seemed
carved out of the living rock, but it wasn’t. The walls felt like rock or earth,
but they were a man-made material, sculpted by Fuzzie hands. The surfaces
rippled, some polished to a dull luster. Lights and other functional fixtures
were set in organic alcoves. Those few plain stone and steel walls were
painted colors which soothed the eye, even under these conditions,
and every door was ornamented with wreaths of woven grass and dried
food, or some other Fuzzie tribal art. Potted plants and creeping vines lined
the well-tended passages. Flowers were everywhere.

Welcome to Deck Six: the Fuzzie deck. Fuzzies might have to work in
space, but unlike humans, they refused to live in a cold, space-like
environment. They made their own deck the way they wanted it and that
meant bringing home with them. It smelled of security, of good
food cooking, of the endless cycle of existence.

Walker liked it. It reminded Bartlet of more peaceful times, back on Jayvee.

Fao’sg led a good distance, then took a left-forking snake and pulled up.
“There,” he said, pointing to a closed door ahead. “I think there’s a group in
there.”

Bartlet knew, by the carvings above and beside the entrance, that the room
inside was a pod bower: a sort of family room for one of the Fuzzies’
extended family groups.

“Is that the last place you saw T’jardis?” Walker asked Fao’sg.

“No. 1 last saw T’jardis back at the human lounge when he left to come
here.”

“Is he in there?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it.”

“Fao’sg, I’m going to stand to one side. I want you to open the door like
nothing is wrong.”

“Why, is it?"

“If T’jardis is in there, do you think you can lure him to the door?”

“If you want me to try.”

Dialog with Fao’sg was like running in quicksand, but Walker succeeded in
being patient. “Yes.” He addressed Bartlet. “Stay here and watch the others.
Shoot if you have to.”

She nodded and turned to guard the rear with the Glock.

Walker and Fao’sg crept up to the door. Walker stood Fao’sg to the left and
took a position to the right.

“Don’t move until I say so,” Walker hissed.

Fao’sg bobbed his head, took a deep breath and hit the doorbell. He waited
patiently. Walker urged him to hit it again. This time the door swung inward
on quiet and smooth servos. Nothing leaped out, so Walker gave Fao’sg the
signal. A cautious peek and the Fuzzie stepped into the doorway. Walker
saw him scan the interior for danger, his eyes eventually locking on
something in front of him.

Fao’sg saw a room full of mothers. T’jardis had apparently gathered all
pregnant females and females with cubs there. Fao’sg wondered why that
thought sent shivers through his fur.

A pretty, young female with a three-year-old cub had answered the door.

“Fheoir,” he said. “Where is T’jardis?”

“He told us to stay here and left,” she replied, frowning. “How did you get
here?” It was a loaded question. Her body language was clear. «Are you
trustworthy?» She had seen T’jardis order Fao’sg to stay in the lounge. She
did not know how Fao’sg could disobey T’jardis’s command any more than
she knew how he could give it.

All this strange behavior made the mothers nervous.

Walker stepped into view. “I told him to bring me

here.” The tension eased. “Gather up your cubs. We’re taking you to
safety.”

“But T’jardis told us to stay,” Fheoir’s three-year-old objected. “Aren’t we

safe here?”

“Of course you are,” Walker returned, hardly missing a beat. “T’jardis just
wanted you to stay here until I could take you upstairs.”

“Oh....”

Walker could tell that his size intimidated the cub. He bent down. “We’re
playing hide-and-seek. Can you be real quiet so no one catches us before
we get home-free?”

“I guess,” the cub said shyly.

Walker winked. “That’s the spirit.” He stood up again and addressed the
Fuzzie mothers in a calm, even tone. “I want all of you out in the hall,
quickly and quietly. We don’t have much time. Fao’sg, which way to the
next group?”

Fao’sg questioned Fheoir: “Where’s the next place T’jardis was going?”

“The roasting hall,” she replied confidently.

Walker motioned Bartlet to join them with the other Fuzzies. Soon they
were moving through the pungent, smoke-filled deck in search of the next
group. The Fuzzies were unnervingly quiet, even the children. Humans in
the same conditions would be on the edge of panic, but the Fuzzies
remained calm. Perhaps it was because they had no control over the
situation anyway. Walker took the lead, while Bartlet brought up the rear.
It made him nervous to have such an inexperienced rear guard, but it was
more dangerous up front and, like the Fuzzies, Walker didn’t have a choice.

Nis and Stol’ss did not get far before power washed over them and they lost
control of their actions. They were squeezing through a narrow space
between a huge fan and two even larger columns, which were
actually pipelines circulating air throughout the lower decks, when they
were drawn to a metal grate behind the fan.

When he could muster the force of will, Nis parted his fingers and peered
around. Stol’ss was doubled up beside him and the grate was before him.
The fan was drawing air out through the grate and forcing it into the
return pipeline at high pressure.

The air coming out of the grate reeked of power.

Mordant curiosity compelled Nis to see what lay on the other side. Without
rising, he edged closer. The small shoulder cam, which was still attached to
his suit, rubbed against the wall as he craned his head up to look
through the grate.

On the other side was a large, dark room. It was now used for storage, but
had once housed Hephaestus’ original generators. There were still
impressions on the stone floor where heavy machines had been bolted. Nis
saw the dusky stains wherever they weren’t covered by Regnant. There
were fully three dozen of the sort Nis recognized. Some looked like demon
Fuzzies, others did not, but were at least bipedal in design. These hovered
around a Regnant which Nis did not recognize. It was the Old One, in all its
corpulent splendor, and the others clearly deferred to it.

The bloated thing was the source of the power. It came to Nis in a flash that
it was using power to subjugate its own kind. A sniff of the air drawn by
him confirmed it, but it wasn’t the same sort of power he had smelled so
far. It was a richer, concentrated essence which even the vile creatures
themselves couldn’t resist. Subtle and varied fragrances combined to form
scents so complex as to almost be a language. Nis and Stol’ss were under its
effects by sheer chance. The real targets were the other Regnant.

Wait, that was it!

It was a language. A language of irresistible commands, written with

invisible compounds. The Regnant with the greatest vocabulary ruled its
less literate vassals. The pen was mightier than the sword—if it was dipped
in power ink.

Having received their orders, the bipedal Regnant left and, for the first time,
Nis noticed that dozens of Fuzzies huddled about the perimeter of the room.
All of them were crouched with their hands over their eyes.

Nis recognized many of them, was casually friendly with a few of them, but
close to none of them. Hephaestus’ Fuzzie community was particularly
close knit and he was not a part of it. It wasn’t their fault: it was his.
Although none of them sang the Rote any more, Nis was keenly aware of
the fact that they all had songs and he did not. A few of the smallest cubs
born at Hephaestus had no song, and would receive no songs when they
came of age. That was because the Fuzzie race was sloughing off its past
in favor of a more promising future. Fuzzies of the next generation would
have no melodies because the Rote was no longer necessary, not because
they were undeserving of song, like Nis. Nevertheless, they knew none of
this. They would and did welcome Nis among them. It was his
own perceptions which kept him apart.
Nis heard a sharp intake of breath. Stol’ss had finally mustered the courage
to look through the grating. Nis followed his worried gaze to a corner
opposite them in the other room, where a beautiful auburn and gold
female cowered with her cub. Her name was Phlae and she was a member
of the same social pod Stol’ss belonged to. Judging by Stol’ss concern for
them, and the black and white patches on the cub’s pelt, Nis guessed that
Stol’ss was the father.

Stol’ss turned to Nis with wide eyes. “What are we going to do?”

He expects me to know? thought Nis. He expects me to decide? Not fair.

I’m just a Fuzzie, too.

Nis didn’t think he was even capable of leaving the Old One’s presence,
never mind rescuing anyone else.

Nis didn’t know it, but Stol’ss had every reason to look to him for help. In
truth, the Fuzzies at Hephaestus regarded Nis with a certain amount of
respect. They admired him, as Stol’ss did, because he went his own way. He
was the only Fuzzie weapons officer in the system. In a good way, they
envied the bond he had formed with the human, Walker. It was like a social
pod of two (three now, counting Bartlet) which allowed Nis to travel
about the ring belt, when and where he pleased, for as long as he wished,
without regard for the social restrictions which prevented most Fuzzies
from doing so. He was a romantic figure to them. Of course, they had no
idea of the great loneliness Nis lived—how could they imagine what
they never knew? The fact that he kept mostly to himself, against all Fuzzie
instincts, only increased their respect and the mythos they were building
around him. Such stuff is the making of heroes, and thus Stol’ss turned to
Nis in his hour of need.

“Don’t worry, Stol’ss.” Nis tried to sound brave, even while he cowered on
the floor, with his head spinning from the Old One’s power and the drugs
the medics had given him. “We’ll think of something.”

He hoped.
Walker recognized a lovely group of flowers. For fuck’s sake! They were
crossing familiar territory for the second time in a row.

Fao’sg led them around the deck, retracing T’jardis’s route between the
enclaves of Fuzzies, gathering information and Fuzzies, then moving on to
the next group in a leapfrog fashion, which had them criss-crossing the
expanse of the deck. The Fuzzie deck was beautiful, but it was also a maze
and Walker was thoroughly lost. They had gathered a large number of
Fuzzies, but they had no idea how many more were left—or when the next
Regnant attack would come. And the likelihood of that increased with each
second that ticked by.

Walker dropped to the back of the pack. “How many?” he asked Bartlet.

“Sixty-one,” she said immediately. “That’s good, but there’s still about one-
forty unaccounted for.”

“I think we’ve only covered half the deck,” he said. “We can double that, if
our luck holds. We’ve been lucky so far.” He tapped the wooden stock of
Bartlet’s shotgun.

“I’ve noticed,” she agreed. “I wonder why there’s been no Regnant activity
since we left the lounge?”

“Unknown. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Walker suspected it was
just the calm before the storm, but he kept his suspicions to himself.

He returned to the front of the group. Fao’sg was paused at a bend in the
tunnel and was looking around it indecisively.

Walker looked around, too. The passage ran twenty paces, at which point
another passage went off to the right, while the original went on twenty
more paces, then bent right itself, apparently paralleling the middle passage.

“Problem?” Walker asked.

Fao’sg conferred with several Fuzzies. Their heads bobbed and shook in
unison.
“I’m not sure exactly how T’jardis went to the next group. It’s on the other
side of the deck,” he said wearily.

Another trek across the Fuzzie deck! That was too much.

“We need to search in a more efficient order,” Walker told Fao’sg. “We’re
wasting time.”

“But this is the order,” Fao’sg said.

“Yes, but there must be a better order.”

Fao’sg considered: “I don’t think so. This is the order we know.”

“I know this is the order you know,” Walker said, falling into the trap. “We
need the order you don’t know.”

“But how can we know that?” Fao’sg said innocently.

“Fao’sg,” Bartlet said, coming up and hoping she could use her skills to
clarify the matter before it got worse. “Maybe if you ask everyone where all
of the Fuzzies are that you know, we can make a better order to them.”

“But we know all the Fuzzies,” Fao’sg protested, concernedly after some
thought. “Who don’t you want to go to?”

“We want to go to them all,” said Walker getting frustrated.

“We want to too,” said Fao’sg, relieved.

“We just want a faster order,” Bartlet coaxed.

“We need to go to them faster,” Walker agreed.

“I’ll try to get everyone to go faster,” Fao’sg said, “but we have to walk
such a long way, some are tired.”

“Yes!” said Walker. “So, if we could walk a shorter way we could get there
faster, without crisscrossing this damn deck ten times, and everyone would
be less tired.”

“Oh,” said Fao’sg, nodding like he suddenly got it. The Fuzzie pondered.
“But this is the order that we know— and it is not short.”

Damn Fuzzie logic. Damn Fuzzie brain lock.

Bartlet felt for Walker. They had both gone through this many times before.
Hopefully, they would live long enough to go through it many times again.

“I give up,” Walker said to no one in particular.

Where was Nis when he needed him ?

Sixty-one pairs of nonhuman eyes looked at them with varying degrees of

concern from high to extreme. Bartlet didn’t know if Fuzzies could panic,
but she didn’t want to find out.

“Fao’sg,” she said. “Do you all know where the next nearest group of
Fuzzies are?”

He looked from one face to another for consensus, then said, “Yes. But we
don’t know which direction to take.”

“Where does the first turn lead?” she asked.

“Back to the ramps.”

“And the far one?”

“I think it’s a dead end.”

“Could there be any Fuzzies down there?” Walker asked.

Fao’sg shrugged. “Possibly, there’s a large room in that area.”'

Walker didn’t want to lead the group down a dead end, but he had to check
for possible Fuzzies. He did not want to get to the other side of the deck just
to find out they had to come back here.
“Wait here,” he said to Bartlet. “I’m going to check the far end.”

“Be careful,” she cautioned. Bartlet was unsure of what she thought of
Walker’s tactics, but she didn’t want anything to happen to him. “Watch
your back.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll frag them before they frag me.”

Why did he have to put it that way?

A Regnant stepped out of the first passage. But it did not charge. Even as
Walker fired at it, it tried to duck back out of sight, but three poorly aimed
shots took out its legs and it fell. The wounds were no more than a
scratch. It began healing itself.

Walker was out. He swapped clips.

This was strange. The Regnant should be crawling at him, dragging its
wounded parts closer to take a slash at him, but it did no such thing. It
looked back the way it had come, then barred its many teeth and howled at
Walker. It made a feeble attempt to drag itself away.

It was another trap.

“No fucking way!” Walker growled. He pumped a round into it.

It howled.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Walker called. Where was the
ambush? He advanced slowly, pumping enough bullets into the Regnant to
keep it wounded, but not enough to kill it. Still no assault came. Where
were they?

Bartlet watched as Walker closed on the creature, firing at a measured pace.

It was clearly trying to get away now. She wished Walker would just put it
out of its misery. At every shot the Regnant became more desperate.
Walker blew off its arm, then peered around the corner.
“I’m not falling for any more of your traps!” he roared over the Regnant's
agonized howling. “This is what happens when you fuck with me!”

The Regnant kept regenerating, Walker kept it on the edge of life for three
very long minutes. What purpose did this barbaric act serve? At the end
Bartlet couldn’t watch. She stared at the Fuzzies as Walker applied the coup
de grâce. None of them saw a thing, they were curled into balls.

Walker took another look around the first corner. The tunnel he saw was
heavily lined with foliage, but he didn’t see any Regnant.

“It’s clear,” he said.

Bartlet didn’t answer, but glared at him. She made an imposing figure
standing over the curled up Fuzzies.

He crossed. An open doorway looked into an empty room on his left.

Closed doors lined the passage ahead on his right, but he ignored those in
favor of the turn coming up.

Walker realized his mistake a split second too late: the Fuzzies were still
curled at Bartlet’s feet.

Sparks flashed on the wall to his left. His thigh shuddered and he fell
against the wall, his pistol dropping to the deck. He was shot! He twisted
around. Regnant were attacking from the passage he just checked.

They had pieces of foliage wrapped around their bodies for camouflage,
and they were holding and firing assault rifles.

Beyond the Regnant, Bartlet screamed something, but he didn’t hear it. The
Fuzzies were curled up into balls between the combatants. Some sprawled
on the floor where they had been hit.

Walker saw at least five Regnant. They swarmed into the tunnel. They held
their new weapons awkwardly. Some holding them out from their bodies or
upside down. One Regnant actually shot repeatedly into the back of
the leading Regnant. The bursts were poorly aimed, but the sheer volume of
rounds in the air made it a dangerous place to be. Walker fumbled for a
grenade as the bullets impacted all around him. His hand shook. He
grabbed one, but ripped the cord which held them all at his belt. They
tumbled to the deck at his feet. Punching the detonator on the ball of
explosive he did hold, Walker tossed it at the Regnant charging him.

With astonishing reflexes, the lead Regnant caught the ball of explosive and
tossed it into an empty storage room. An explosion filled the doorway with
searing light.

Out of the corner of his eye Walker noted an LED timer counting down.
One of the makeshift grenades at his feet was armed. It must have been
activated when it hit the deck.

Not enough time to kick it away.

Shit. I’m going to die.

And the Regnant was on him.

The first grenade went off, and then another and another.

“No!” Bartlet screamed soundlessly amidst the roar. The shock wave
bowled her onto her back. The force was so great that a section of ceiling
collapsed over Walker and the attacking Regnant. Metal panels
ruptured. Support structures and electrical cables fell in a crushing, tangled
heap. Regnant howled in agony. Their bodies twitched maniacally in front
of the explosion on her retinas: a big green blob, where the grenades went
off and beyond that a blurry image of Walker caught in the full force of the
blast. Her targets were crushed by the cave-in and torn apart by the
explosion. Chunks of sinew and sprays of vaporized leafage smeared down
the tunnel walls.

The entire grisly picture remained frozen in Bartlet’s memory, even after the
dust settled.
Chapter 23
Small Power, wielded cunningly, will achieve great Control..

—Regnant maxim

From its hiding place just outside the Old One's temporary haven, the
Plantagenet watched the others leave. The scent of the elder Regnant's
orders lingered on the brethren. The Plantagenet could still smell the words
and it knew the others would not return quickly. The Old One wouldn’t be
alone for long, of course, other brethren would come, but the Plantagenet
didn’t need long for what it had to do. If it took long, it would be
dead anyway.

During the assault on the fleshbag base, the Plantagenet had not used any
of its internal power reserves. It had survived and destroyed with only its
physical prowess. Impressive as that was, it had received several minor
wounds from the fleshbag resistance. These, however, would not impede
the Plantagenet's plans, so it did not waste power healing itself.

The course of action the Plantagenet was about to set in motion was as old
as the brethren themselves. By design, there were no individuals, or at least
long-lived individuals, among the Kind. The brethren lived by
absolute authority of one leader. All others submitted to its command, or
they were killed. The idea of individuality was one inherently fraught with
peril. An individual could not hide itself forever—even one as smart as the
Plantagenet. Eventually discovery must come. Therefore, the individual
must strike first. Once the struggle for ascension was initiated, there was no
second chance. Self-serving Kind faced two fates: discovery and death, or
coup and victory.

Victory bequeathed the satiety: the temporal moments of one’s existence

spent in preeminence over all else. However long that might be, it was
enough. The Kind inhabited the temporal now, not the moments spent going
to the future ox from the past, as many thralls did. The Kind controlled the
perception of time. One instant was as good as eternity, just as endless years
could pass in the blink of an eye. Still, the brethren knew greed, as the
Plantagenet did. There were eternities and eternities....

Defeat granted only death—the Everlasting Unfulfillment. There could be

no compromise.

The Plantagenet had witnessed unsuccessful attempts. Endings came

shamefully upon the loser. The Plantagenet had watched and learned from
the mistakes of others. Many were the plots and strategy, but always the
Old Ones were preeminent. None could beat their combined power, for Old
Ones under the control of a preeminent Old One always fought for their
master. It was certain death for the individual foolish enough to try.

But now ... now, the Plantagenet was ready.

The fleshbags had tipped the scales. When the anthropoid fighting ship
destroyed the larger vessel, it also destroyed most of the Ones, who were
too cautious to leave the safety of their accustomed surroundings for the
dangerous anthropoid hive. Now, only the one elder remained. The elder
which had to enter the fleshbag hive to oversee its subjugation. The Old
One was now preeminent.

It would be tough, the Plantagenet did not delude itself, it was but one,
alone.

It was time.

Picking up the pile of weapons taken from the dead fleshbags, the
Plantagenet strode into the Old One's haven. There it was, its bulk sloshing
back and forth within the confines of its volume. The Plantagenet knew that
behavior indicated nervous unease. The Plantagenet paused as the door
closed behind it. The haven was filled with thralls the Old One intended to
keep for itself. The Plantagenet's blood raced. Soon they would be his.

The Old One noticed the Plantagenet. «Come,» it emitted.

The Plantagenet did not resist the command. It needed to get nearer. The
Plantagenet moved as close as it could without arousing suspicion and
dropped the hoard of weapons between them.

«What?» scented the Old One, stretching tendrils toward the rifles. It
couldn’t reach. It couldn’t form appendages longer than the average
diameter of its bulk. The Plantagenet had figured that out over years of
careful observation and now used it to his advantage.

The Plantagenet picked up a rifle. The Old One formed tendrils which
curled upon themselves suspiciously. It did not completely trust the
Plantagenet. The Old One's pustules tensed, but the Plantagenet fired
harmlessly into a discarded metal drum, riddling it with holes. The
Plantagenet made a show of cocking the weapon and firing at another piece
of junk. A thrall would have made a more impressive target, but there were
too few to waste. The demonstration achieved the desired result anyway.
The Old One rippled with excitement.

«Closer.»

The Plantagenet was pleased. It pushed the pile of weapons well within one
body length of the Old One. The foolish brethren was playing right into its
hands. The Old One picked up several weapons and formed eyes to
examine them.

Now was the moment the Plantagenet had planned for. Before the Old One
could order it back. The Plantagenet dumped all of its power, including
reserves, into its own blood stream. No half-measures now. If the
Plantagenet failed in its gamble, it would be powerless, less than a thrall.

In an instant, the Plantagenet was a whirling projectile of claws and teeth

arching at the Old One. Two dozen tentacles aimed, cocked and pulled
triggers on nine assault weapons—nine firing pins clicked on empty
chambers.

The Plantagenet had removed the explosive cylinders from all of the
weapons but the one it now held pinched between specially-grown calluses.
It shredded its way into the Old One's meat. The large brethren healed fast.
It had greater power reserves than any three younger Kind combined.
«Back!» it stenched mightily. The thralls in the haven pressed against the
walls.

The Plantagenet was only able to resist because of its own power coursing
through its veins, but that wouldn’t last long. It had to reach the Old One's
inner core before that stockpile wore out. The Old One clubbed the
Plantagenet with the empty weapons, every moment forming new
appendages designed for attack. Scores of them tore at the Plantagenet’s
body. The Plantagenet felt its bones shattering under the pressure, splinters
driven deep into its muscles by its own exertions—and it could not heal
itself. If the Plantagenet was to succeed, it must save its power to resist. It
slashed into the Old One's regenerating flesh with crippled limbs, not
letting itself feel the pain, slowly making headway.

The Old One stank with agony. «Submit!»

The cowering thralls curled more tightly upon themselves. The Plantagenet
could not resist one more command of such force. Its own agony was
exquisite. By force of will alone it kept tearing through the ropy tissues and
ichor.

There it was! The Old One’s unchanging inner core: a sphere of black bone
over five heads in diameter which housed its brain and power glands. The
Plantagenet moved the loaded weapon into its least-mauled hand,
but almost dropped it. The limb’s motor control was too damaged. The
Plantagenet felt its consciousness ebbing under the Old One’s assault.

Success was so close, but the Plantagenet felt the Everlasting Unfulfillment
clutching, grabbing. Failure was close, too, however unthinkable. There
was only one last desperate step the Plantagenet could take....

Rain fell inside Hephaestus. Stale warm water, drizzling down from above,
obfuscating Bartlet’s emotions. The sprinklers had cut in moments before,
set off by scattered flames left after the explosion. Fire alarms added to the
din of klaxons wailing. Half-buried Regnant corpses lay at her feet,
dispatched by falling debris.
Three Fuzzies were wounded. Considering that the Regnant had been using
assault weapons against them, it was a miracle they weren’t all dead. Bartlet
checked each of the Fuzzies in turn. They had minor wounds, but nothing
life threatening.

Bartlet stared dumbfounded at the twisted metal blocking the passage. “See
to the wounded,” she mumbled to Fao’sg and tossed him a packet of battle
dressings.

She was unsure of her own feelings, unsure of what she had just seen.
Regnant torn to pieces by the detonation of Walker’s grenades, certainly.
But what about Walker? Was there any possibility he might have survived?
If the Regnant had not, could a human? She didn’t think so.

Typical, she thought. First I fall for a man, then I don’t know if he’s a
power-hungry killer, and then he dies before I can resolve it. Her long-
searched-for companion—that’s how she saw Walker in her bleary-eyed
condition—had died in an invasion of bug-eyed monsters, bent on
universal domination. It sounded ludicrous, especially in the midst of all the
chaos. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe she had let the genie out of the
bottle. Maybe it was inevitable that Marshal Walker would take over. His
torturing of the Regnant had not given her much confidence. If Walker was
the kind of man who could hurt and kill without restraint, then it was for the
better. The pain was that she didn’t know. And the pain was going to be too
much. She knew it. She was numb now, but that wouldn’t last forever.
Where was her anger? Fury would clear her mind, keep her focused, but her
hot blood had deserted her. She stifled an insane desire to laugh.

Bartlet stepped through the Fuzzies to the blockage. It looked impassable,

but she began pulling at the debris. A few small pieces dislodged, but the
larger ones would not budge. The emotion welling up inside her, which
first tried to find release as sorrow, and then manic laughter, finally
manifested itself as uncontrolled frustration. She tore at a large pipe which
anchored the blockage, knowing full well that it was far too heavy for six
men to move. With every futile tug, ragged edges scraped her hands, and
her frustration grew tenfold.

“Dr. Bartlet,” said a small voice behind her. “Dr. Bartlet?”

She turned. It was Fao’sg. “What?” she said, her emotion getting the better
of her.

“It’s no use,” Fao’sg said, patting her with a consoling hand. “No one can
get through that. It’s impossible.”

Bartlet didn’t want to hear it. She shrugged him off. “Shut up!” she yelled,
finding anger now, too. She clenched her cut hands around the pipe. “What
do you know? You couldn’t choose between your ass and a hole in the
ground!”

Fao’sg bowed his head and backed off.

Bartlet instantly regretted the hurtful words. She pounded her fists on the
immovable blockage. Shame quelled her rage. She knelt down beside
Fao’sg. Words were hard to find. She had vented her anger at a Fuzzie and
there was no one who deserved it less. She felt despicable. “I’m very sorry,”
she apologized. “Everything’s gone crazy. I feel so powerless.”

Fao’sg shrugged, his fur slicked to his skin by the rain. He looked shrunken
and weary. “It’s all right. I know how you feel.”

His words touched her, and not just because of his easy ability to forgive.
For the first time in her life, it hit Bartlet how difficult it must be to have no
control over your life, to be so intelligent, and yet incapable of the
smallest decisions humans made without thinking twice. The thought of
eons of genetic repression, with no way out in sight, chilled her heart. It
shocked her that she had studied for so long and not understood such a
basic part of Fuzzie life. What a pathetic anthropologist she was. It was
a good thing Fuzzies weren’t like humans. Humans under similar
circumstances would destroy themselves with anger—as she was now.

We have a lot to learn, she thought.

And it didn’t end there. Humans and Fuzzies had a symbiotic relationship,
but humans had forgotten that just because it worked so well didn’t mean it
was perfect. Human leadership saved the Fuzzie race from extinction, but it
didn’t address the basic problem: Fuzzies craved control of their own
destinies. And they deserved it.

Bartlet’s own feelings of loss, and all the frustrations of her life, didn’t add
up to much next to what Fuzzies endured. If she lived through the next few
hours, she vowed to do something about it.

She stood up. Fao’sg straightened and brushed his wet fur back into place.
All the Fuzzies were staring at her. She recognized that look. It was the look
Walker commanded.

He had been their undisputed leader, but he was gone and these aliens were
giving her a field promotion. She was human: therefore she was their
leader. They waited for her guidance. It was in their genes. Bartlet knew
more than ever that they had no choice.

“Okay,” Bartlet said, swallowing her feelings as best she could. “There is
nothing else we can do here. We have to move on.”

“What about your mate?” Fao’sg asked gently.

Her mate. How could anyone stay mad at a Fuzzie? “I hope he’s still alive,
somehow.” She couldn’t let her emotions get the better of her again. “If he
is, he will find his own way back,” she answered soberly. “If he isn’t
there will be time enough to grieve later.”

Fao’sg did not respond, except to smile, not a threatening show of force or
subtle derision, but one of compassion and understanding. It gave Bartlet
the confidence she needed to clear her mind and return to the matter at
hand. Their situation, after all, was far from safe.

“Let’s gather up the wounded and get going,” she said crisply, and moved to
the other end of the group. The wounded had been tended to. “We’re going
to plan ‘B’.”

Fao’sg’s ears swivelled toward her. “Plan ‘B’?”

“Make it up as you go along,” she whispered.

“Oh ... excellent.”

“Humans use that plan a lot,” Fheoir remarked.

The Fuzzies picked up their cubs, shouldered the wounded, and Bartlet led
them away from the sight of the explosion.

Bartlet kept a brisk pace, pausing only long enough to make sure they didn’t
lose anyone and that they wouldn’t run headlong into trouble. Behind her
Fao’sg and a couple of other Fuzzies checked rooms they passed for
any friendlies still in hiding. An additional eight Fuzzies were rescued in
that fashion. The sprinklers continued their downpour, soaking clothes and
fur, adding to the discomfort of the warm environment.

Of course rescue implied a certain degree of safety, which Bartlet did not
feel. They had been lucky so far, but that made Bartlet quite paranoid. She
worried that it wouldn’t last. She imagined this was how soldiers felt on a
battlefield: waiting for the attack which must come, but never knowing if it
would be days or only seconds, mourning the loss of fallen comrades.

The ever-present sirens and alarms abruptly ceased. So did the sprinklers.

“That’s a relief,” Fao’sg said, unfanning his ears like the other Fuzzies. “I
thought I was going deaf—”

“Shhh,” Bartlet said, not wanting to be detected in the sudden silence.

It was uncanny after such a long period of loud noise, and the gloom which
encompassed the Fuzzie deck enhanced that feeling. Smoke obscured
vision. Clouds of it eddied around red night lights which hummed
quietly. Rivulets of brackish water rushed to low points in the deck.

Bartlet advanced through a vast shallow lake where the runoff had pooled.

“Watch it,” she hissed. “The deck’s slick.”

Fao’sg passed it on as she continued along the zigzagging passage.

Bright light was coming from just ahead. Bartlet saw gentle eddies of
smoke suddenly sucked away from them, as she got closer. The source was
just around the next bend. Now she saw that the light was fluttering. It
threw staccato pulses on the mud-like walls. She crept around the corner
ready to find trouble.

It was a straight, flat hallway—the first she had seen in a while. It was taller
than most, with vents completely making up the floor and ceiling. Large
fans rotated above the upper gratings. White light shining from above cast
the turning shadows. Bartlet stepped into the hall. Her boots clattered on the
metal and she felt a refreshing wash of cool air flow down over her. It
reinvigorated her after the heat and moisture everywhere else. The crisp
temperature helped her to focus.

It was an environmental barrier. The cold air rushing down from above was
immediately sucked out below her. The swift passage of air served to block
unwanted currents of air from flowing from one part of the deck to another,
like a hot air vent beside a window in winter.

The area was short, only twenty paces long. The temperature might feel
good, but it was still dangerous territory, despite the lack of obvious peril.
She motioned the Fuzzies to keep following her. Soon, they were
halfway across without problems. The Fuzzies shook under the draft, letting
the currents draw some of the water out of their fur.

Beyond the ventilation barrier was a radial joining of five passages. It was
empty and dark. Bartlet strained to see in, now that her eyes were blasted
with the brighter light above them. Everything appeared safe.
Apparently Bartlet had been worried for nothing..

And then a Fuzzie bent over.

And then they all doubled over, shivering on the grating with their arms
over their eyes. Bartlet dropped to a crouch, ready for the worst. What to do
if it was a Regnant? She was not a soldier. A monster weapon did not make
up for her lack of training—or enthusiasm. She hadn’t fired the shotgun
since their first firefight on this deck. Bartlet held the Glock to her shoulder
now, but she dreaded that she might have to fire it.
There was no attack up front. She scuttled ahead to the end of the straight
hall. Keeping her head low, she peered around. It looked empty, but she
wasn’t going to make any hasty decisions. After a minute or so, she
dropped back and looked along the train of Fuzzies snaking back the way
they had come. There was no trouble there either. Bartlet waited for the
attack. Where would it come from? She looked into the grates above and
below them. There was no space for Regnant to hide in either location.

After a couple more minutes, there was still no attack.

Bartlet checked the end of the line again. Fuzzies at the far end of the line
were craning their heads around curiously. Those up front were still tightly
crouched over, but Bartlet was pretty confident that there was no
attack coming.

She reentered the ventilation hall and noticed a bittersweet blood scent in
the cool air. Even she could smell it. The scent instantly took Bartlet back to
the escape from Republic, when Walker had been coated in Regnant blood.
Bartlet had thought that scent was only the smell of Regnant blood, but
there were no dying Regnant here.

It was the smell of the pheromone.

“Get up,” Bartlet ordered, not expecting the Fuzzies to obey. They did not.

Bartlet moved to the forward end of the hall. After a recheck of the radial
hub, to make sure there really were no Regnant, she cranked a handle,
which shut the fans down and closed louvers in the vents. The flow of
air stopped.

“Get up,” Bartlet repeated, nervously keeping an eye on the passages ahead
of them. They remained curled, still under the compulsion of the
pheromone. “Get up. Get up!”

This time the Fuzzies began to uncurl. Slowly, they raised their heads and
got to their feet. Bartlet noted how the Fuzzie mothers had sheltered their
cubs with their bodies. Even as the pheromone forced them to cower, they
resisted enough to shelter their young.
“You protected your cubs,” Bartlet said with amazement.

“Of course,” Fheoir replied. She was closest to Bartlet. “How could we
not?”

“But the Regnant pheromone,” Bartlet wondered. “It makes Fuzzies drop
everything and curl up. I’ve seen it over and over. None of you can resist.”

“We didn’t resist,” Fheoir responded.

“But you protected your cub.”

“Of course,” Fheoir repeated.

“But how did you do it? If you can resist that much, maybe you can resist
other things too.”

Fheoir drew her lips back over her teeth several times in rapid succession.
“There’s no secret. There’s no magic potion that makes us better, Dr.
Bartlet.”

Because Bartlet understood Fuzzie language, she recognized Fheoir’s lip

movement. It was the Fuzzie gesture for frustrated dismissal of a young one
—or a stupid adult. Bartlet was offended: it was the first time a Fuzzie
came remotely near to insulting her.

And Fheoir, it seemed, was far from being finished. Before Bartlet could
say anything, Fheoir asked a very pointed question, “Do you have
children?”

“No,” Bartlet answered, feeling suddenly on the defensive. She made an

excuse, “I never had time.”

“Then you can’t understand,” Fheoir said bluntly. She motioned to the
mothers around her. “We protect our children because we must. There is no
choice. The Eyes of Light and Darkness have no sway in this. Your
pheromones have no sway in this. We are mothers.”
Bartlet was not used to such confrontational dialog with a Fuzzie. It was
hard not to snap back at Fheoir for her attitude, which to Bartlet verged on
self-righteous. “What makes mothers so different?”

“You can’t understand,” Fheoir said dismissively.

“So make me understand,” Bartlet argued. “Teach me whatever it is you

know and I don’t.”

Fheoir caressed her cub’s social marking. “This came out of me,” she said
seriously. “I carried this child for three seasons. He grew inside me. He was
a part of me. That changed me. Before I was alone and separate, but now
there’s another piece of me, that I can hold in my arms, and it’s helpless, it
needs me, it trusts me completely.”

“I’m not helpless,” the cub said as fiercely as he could.

“Hush,” Fheoir said.

“I know what you mean,” Bartlet said to her. “I’m an anthropologist. It’s
part of my job to study maternal interaction.”

This time Fheoir shook her head human-style. Her words were filled with
derision. “You can’t read about this in books. When this child was born, I
knew I would defend him with my life. 1 will give him my food if there is
not enough. I will fight for him. I will do anything to protect him. You can’t
understand it, believe me.”

The harsh words were making Fao’sg and the other males very uneasy, but
the females were all ears.

“If you were a mother, you’d act like one. And you can’t because you
haven’t given birth.”

“I don’t have to give birth to understand maternal instinct,” Bartlet said

angrily. “Even males can understand maternal instinct.”

“Maybe they can guess, but they can’t know,” Fheoir said with conviction.
Bartlet refused to see it Fheoir’s way. “I think they can.”

“Is there anything you would defend with your life, doctor?” Fheoir asked.

“Jayvee,” she said instantly. “I would give my life for the colony.”

“Not give your life,” Fheoir retorted, “defend with your life. I will bite and
scratch and tear out eyes, if I have to. I will kill for my child. Giving my life
is no use. Those are hunters’ words, not mothers’. What use is dying for
him? If I die, he dies. I must live for him. What will you kill for? Will you
kill for my child? Will you kill for me?”

Bartlet was acutely aware of the gun in her hands, and the fact that the
safety remained on. She had not even remembered to turn it off when she
believed they were under attack. She had risked the lives of the
Fuzzies entrusted to her care because of a personal agenda.

“You should know the answers,” Fheoir accused.

“Fheoir!” Fao’sg jumped in, trying to keep the peace. “Dr. Bartlet is our
leader. It’s not right to speak to her like this.”

Fheoir was undaunted and continued to berate Bartlet. “You are the leader
because we don’t know what to do. You have to. We trust you and we are
helpless without you. Our lives are in your hands,” she said, clutching her
cub to her.

All the rescuees were looking at Bartlet now. She had never seen such a
wide variety of expressions in a group of Fuzzies before. There was no
consensus—which was a very unusual occurrence among the aliens—but
there was an overpowering need for leadership.

“I know what to do,” Bartlet lied angrily. “I’m going to get you all out of
here.”

“Good,” said Fheoir testily.

Bartlet wasn’t going to take the bait. “Fao’sg, do you know of any more
groups of Fuzzies?”
“No, I think we have found everyone on this deck,” he replied.

“Which way back to the ramps?” Bartlet asked, looking at the four possible
routes which radiated from where she stood.

“Second left,” Fao’sg pointed.

“Let’s go.”

Bartlet marched off with her blood boiling, partly because Fheoir had found
a sensitive chink in her armor and partly because Fheoir was right. What
was Bartlet going to say if the Fuzzies all died because she wouldn’t
protect them: that she watched them torn apart because she didn’t believe in
violence? That was just as weak as killing without restraint. Bartlet was a
doer, not a watcher or a waiter. She didn’t subscribe to passive aggression
as a strategy.

But for all that arguing with Fheoir, Bartlet still did not know how she
would react when the Fuzzies needed Marshal Walker and she was all they
had. If it was quick and instinctual, maybe she would just pull the trigger,
but if Bartlet had a chance to think about it, well then she didn’t know the
answer.

She flipped off the safety and hoped she would make the right choice.

It was all or nothing.

In desperation, the Plantagenet channeled the last drop of power out of its
blood into one tendon: the one which contracted over the trigger.

«RETREAT!» the Old One’s aroma impelled. «DESIST!»

The Plantagenet was helpless to resist—another split second and it would

comply with the Old One’s command—but its ploy was on autopilot, and it
worked. The tendon contracted, and the weapon came to life,
spitting destruction at the black sphere, ripping through the
bone, puncturing and tearing the vital hrunes and brain within.
Power from the ruptured sacks flooded into the air, accentuating the force
of the Old One’s last words. Thralls ran from the haven at the commands
heard more with their skin and muscle than with their nose and brain. Bereft
of power, the Plantagenet itself tried to obey, but its form was crippled and
could not comply with its desire.

It was too late for the Old One. The Everlasting Unfulfillment relaxed it
into a steaming heap of inert meat.

“Victory,” the Plantagenet thought through the pain. Soon its hrunes would
produce enough power for it to regenerate itself. Soon it would reign
supreme among the Kind. The thralls were running loose, but that was no
matter. There would be more than enough thralls to enjoy later. Now it
would conquer this fleshbag hive as it should be conquered. No more
securing each level one at a time as the Old One had commanded. The
Plantagenet would attack the very heart of the anthropoids’ defenses
and mop up later. In any case, the pathetic defenses within this rock in
space were inconsequential.

At that moment the Plantagenet was vulnerable, but all it needed was a few
hundred heartbeats undiscovered and then it would begin the subjugation of
its empire.

They stared at the ramps. Bartlet and the Fuzzies had come back to them
from the opposite direction from which they had left. A wide botanical
garden stood between them and escape. Ahead, up the trunk corridor,
past the two spiral ramps, was the human lounge where Fao’sg had been
hiding.

“Where are the bodies?” he asked warily.

Although it was hard to see because of the distance and the low light,
Regnant corpses were suspiciously absent from the deck outside the lounge
—and there should have been at least eight.

“Something must have moved them,” Bartlet guessed.

“Or did they move themselves?” Fao’sg countered.

“Walker killed them,” Bartlet said firmly. She remembered how he had
pumped extra bullets into the regenerating ones.

“Then we’ve got company?”

“Yes,” Bartlet worried, “and we’re not home free, yet.” A botanical marvel
lay directly in their path. The garden was one of the most popular areas on
Hephaestus. It contained over four thousand square meters of native Jayvee
flora which the Fuzzies had built into their deck. Bartlet remembered the
controversy when Hephaestus’ human builders had balked at its
construction, but the Fuzzies had absolutely swamped the Council with
passive aggression until they got their way. Upon completion, the benefits
of such a large garden became evident, even to its most ardent opponents.
The Fuzzies had executed it with great artistry. Fountains bubbled through
flower beds. Tree-gliders peeped from nests in the arching roof. In
the center of the garden was a lake, and in the center of that a small island.
A giant wendwood tree on the island wrapped itself around a column in the
center of the sprawling beauty, neatly disguising the high-pressure pipelines
which moved air throughout Hephaestus’ lower decks. It was an oasis of
green, soft and warm in a hive of cold, hard gray. Seldom a minute of the
day elapsed when it wasn’t occupied by Fuzzies and humans alike.
Bartlet herself had come here to relax after stressful conversations with
Holland. She had fond memories of the place. She could smell night-
blooming flowers already.

The fragrances didn’t set her at ease, however. Walker would have said the
garden was a large, dark forest of hiding places with a possible Regnant
lurking in every bush. And they must now cross seventy meters of it
to reach the ramps on the other side.

Bartlet led them through a curtain of hanging soothsinger beads. Shshshs-

Kskskshsh. The passage widened, walls dropping away as the vast space
opened up and a wandering path crossed the greenery, but she didn’t follow
the path. Even she had enough sense to know that she should not follow the
expected route: she mustn’t make it easy for her enemies. Instead, Bartlet
and the Fuzzies trudged around bushes and plants, staying about half
way between the right hand wall and the central column.
The Fuzzies were visibly affected by the soothing surroundings. It was hard
not to be. Silky polyp fronds brushed against them. The muskeg sprung
vibrantly under each step they took, seemingly impelling them onward. The
gentle hooting of happy tree-gliders was hypnotic. Some Fuzzies actually
oohed and aahed, as though they had never seen the garden before. Bartlet
forgave them for their innocence, but she was not about to fall into that trap.
She looked at each bush as if it hid an enemy, constantly wary as they
moved from one spot to another. What was behind that rock, hiding in the
water, beyond the flowers? She knew how the Regnant loved their
traps. So, when the tree-gliders stopped hooting and the Fuzzies curled up
yet again, it came as no surprise to her. She had expected it. In fact, she was
perversely relieved. If the Regnant were laying in ambush, their pheromone
was working against them, because Bartlet and the Fuzzies were nowhere
near any plants large enough to hide a Regnant. They were almost a third of
the way across the garden on a gentle knoll with no heavy plant life around.

Bartlet hit the deck with the Fuzzies and scanned around for signs of the
Regnant. There were several likely spots between them and the far exit, but
she couldn’t detect anything. Maybe Fao’sg could with his Fuzzie senses.

Bartlet bent down. “Hey, Fao’sg,” she hissed at the cowering Fuzzie.

No response. All the Fuzzies were under the influence of the Regnant.

Bartlet thumped him on the head. “Fao’sg!"

“What?” he whimpered.

Bartlet got right down and turned his face to hers.

“I need to know where the Regnant are,” she said, but Fao’sg’s hands
remained firmly over his eyes and ears.

“Leave me alone,” he cried, incapacitated by the compulsion and his fear.

No amount of prodding would straighten him up.

If they were to cross the garden safely, Bartlet needed to know how many
Regnant were near and where they were. How could she do that?
Bartlet had an idea. She edged past Fao’sg. “Fheoir,” she said to the female
curled over her cub. “Fheoir, I need your help!”

“I can’t help you,” Fheoir said, distressed and not uncurling a millimeter. “I
told you, I can’t help you.”

“1 need to know where the Regnant are, Fheoir. They’re hiding, and if I
don’t know where they are, we can’t avoid them,” Bartlet said forcefully.
Fheoir still didn’t respond.

Bartlet looked around. There was no sign of attack, yet, but Bartlet knew
they didn’t have much time. The Regnant would soon switch to a more
aggressive mode if their ambush wasn’t working.

Tension colored Bartlet’s voice when she spoke to the Fuzzie again. “Help
me, Fheoir!”

“I can’t!”

Bartlet reached under Fheoir, grabbed her cub and yanked. “Help me to
defend your cub!”

That got a reaction out of Fheoir. She didn’t let go, but her Fuzzie facial fur
rippled and her muscles mashed against each other. She was trying to help.

“I can’t move my arms,” Fheoir protested in reference to her hands over her
eyes and ears. Maternal instinct might be strong, but the pheromone was
strong too.

“Then tell me where the pheromone smell is coming from,” Bartlet said
desperately.

Without uncurling, Fheoir first sniffed to one side of her head and then the
other. Finally, she pointed with the top of her head. “There.”

Bartlet looked in that direction for any sort of clue to the Regnant
whereabouts. There! Movement in a rambling line of bushes to the left of
the lake. As predicted, the Regnant had given up on hiding and waiting, and
were trying to sneak closer. Now at least, Bartlet knew the location of her
opponents.

Bartlet checked to make sure the Glock was loaded and the safety was off.
The Regnant were a good forty meters away from them. Even Bartlet knew
that shotguns were short-range weapons and at that range the pellets would
have less effect on Regnant armor than a no-see-um gnat’s bite on human
flesh. Even if she did get lucky and hit one, it would heal itself without
thinking. No danger of killing here.

Bartlet raised the weapon and looked down the barrel, aiming for what she
guessed was the lead Regnant. Bartlet fired single shots. A spray of leaf
fragments erupted from the target bush and a Regnant howled with shock
and annoyance. The bush shook rapidly, and then there was no more
movement.

It worked.

And why not? Humans didn’t like being bitten by pests, however small.
Bartlet fired again for good measure. Another howl. Bartlet allowed herself
a darkly humorous grin, but she knew she mustn’t get carried away. If
she got too annoying, the Regnant might break, however much respect they
had for her weapon.

They did try to move. Bartlet took a lesson from Walker and fired just
enough shots at them to keep them pinned. The strategy held true in its
effectiveness. The problem was, its pitfalls held true as well. One
shot wouldn’t keep the targets pinned for long.

After a few exchanges where the Regnant tried to move closer and Bartlet
fired to keep them back, one of the hideous creatures broke out of cover and
loped away from Bartlet into a clear spot. She had a clean line of sight,
but it was too far away for her shots to be effective. What was it up to? It
was hunched over, rooting through some undergrowth. Then, it moved back
toward its original hiding place. It did not return to it, however, but kept
moving forward in plain sight until it was even with the other hidden
Regnant, but in the open. It had a bunch of small, dark items cradled in its
arms. These it now dropped, and one at a time, began chucking them at
Bartlet and the Fuzzies.

An object thumped a Fuzzie squarely on the back. He wasn’t hurt much, but
Bartlet was surprised by the object itself:

The Regnant was throwing rocks.

Maybe it was hoping for a lucky shot, perhaps it just wanted to piss Bartlet
off, but whatever it was up to, she didn’t like it. She shot it. It howled and
backed off to heal, then moved forward again and threw another rock.
Bartlet shot it again. And so followed a creepy ballet in which the Regnant
would stay in the open throwing rocks until Bartlet shot it. It would never
come close enough to allow Bartlet to seriously wound it, but it never went
back into hiding. The cycle repeated for quite a while with the Regnant’s
body language becoming distinctly taunting.

That’s when Bartlet stopped shooting.

The Regnant wanted her to shoot at it. Its actions became more theatrical; it
flailed its appendages and threw several rocks at a time, as if saying, “Shoot
me, shoot me, I dare you to!”

It was trying to get her to waste her ammunition!

Bartlet cursed herself for being a fool. They couldn’t stay on this knoll
forever. Eventually more Regnant would come, more than Bartlet could pin
with a single weapon, and eventually she would run out of
ammunition, even if she didn’t fall for any more tricks. When they found
that out, it would be all over.

Bartlet had to be smarter than the Regnant. Everyone told her she was
smarter than most humans; she had better be smarter than these aliens. It
was the only advantage she had. Bartlet doubted she could hold off a full
scale Regnant assault, even assuming she made herself use deadly force. It
was time to prove her intellect.
But what did she have to work with? Her resources were scanty at best: one
shotgun, three grenades, and four score of helpless, useless Fuzzies. If they
would just get up, Bartlet could keep the Regnant pinned, while the Fuzzies
made a dash to the far hallway. But they were genetically unable to do a
thing as long as the Regnant pheromone was in the air, and the source of the
pheromone wasn’t going to just pick up and leave, that was for sure.

Bartlet realized their problem was bigger than just getting out of this
garden. Eventually the whole station would become so permeated with
pheromone, that Fuzzies wouldn’t move even if Regnant weren’t
present. The escapade at the environmental barrier had proved that. The
Fuzzies had cowered without a Regnant being present, just because the
pheromone was in the air ducts. Of course their problem right now was the
Regnant in clear sight, but perhaps Bartlet could learn from the incident at
the barrier.

If the ventilation system could work against them, maybe it could work for
them.

There were no ventilation ducts nearby, or even within a useful distance

from the Regnant, but Bartlet had an idea. After brief consideration, she
leaned her shotgun on a rock and shifted to remove a round lump from a
thigh pocket. It was one of Walker’s homemade grenades. Holding it in her
left hand, she stood up and placed a thumb on the detonator. Two quick
depressions of the cap were rewarded with two distinct clicks. Now she had
five seconds. Straightening her wounded arm as much as the combat
dressing would allow, she aimed with it as Walker had shown her. She then
threw the sphere with her left arm. It arced gracefully through the air, along
the path her other arm pointed out, and disappeared beneath the surface of
the lake with a plunk. Bartlet ducked back down. Moments later a plume of
water erupted, spraying the ceiling and even the Regnant hiding across
from Bartlet.

The Regnant weren’t even fazed. Maybe they weren’t so smart after all.

Bartlet bit her lip. The throw had been right on target, but short. Repeating
the arming procedure, she hurled the second of her grenades with all her
limited might. The Regnant watched its flight, unaware of their imminent
undoing. The projectile arced along the same path, up over the lake, nearly
clipping the ceiling, then beginning its descent—and impacting the
wendwood tree in the center of the island!

The Regnant watched the sphere get trapped in the snarling vine stalks
which made up the wendwood tree, still unfazed by the apparent miss.

Bartlet clenched her fist: the shot was right on target. Just like clockwork,
the timer did its job and the detonator did its job.

A fireball exploded out of the dried tree stalks, shooting a spectacular shock
wave out from the central pillar, and—more importantly—a similar blast
force impacted the underlying pipelines. The sound of rending metal
hit Bartlet’s ears, and a split second later a tremendous roar filled the
chamber as a high-pressure pipeline ruptured. Quicker than Bartlet had
expected, the expanding atmospheric gases set up a hurricane-force storm.
Dirt and loose leaves swirled in powerful dust devils within the maelstrom,
as the larger winds tore at human hair and Fuzzie fur alike. The temperature
dropped several degrees. The surfaces of the lakes and pools were no longer
placid, but churned into boiling cauldrons. It was hard to see, and Bartlet
had trouble breathing, as if the winds she had unleashed were trying to steal
the air from her very lungs.

The Fuzzies clung to the earth where they were curled, shivering under this
new onslaught.

The effects of Bartlet’s action were severe, but the primary purpose was
succeeding. All the air in the garden was being forced out of the two
entrances to the room. No leaf, molecule or twig could escape the suction—
and no Regnant pheromone could make it across the gap between Bartlet’s
Fuzzies and her opponents.

Fuzzies began to raise their heads and look around. The Regnant tried to
leave their cover and rush her. Bartlet fired again, and they retreated once
more. She still had the advantage of position, and now the Fuzzies were not
under the Regnant compulsion. Bartlet screamed in triumph, but the
howling winds tore the sound from her lips.
“Run!” Bartlet yelled as loud as she could. “Run for the ramps!”

The Fuzzies couldn’t hear a word she said. The wind was too loud and they
all had their ears folded down to keep it out. Bartlet fired at the Regnant
again, then waved her hands toward the far exit and the ramps, but all
she succeeded in doing was looking like a victory-crazed sports star.

Think, she told herself, think. Then she got it. Holding her weapon under
the crook of her arm, she put her palms against her head. With two fingers
of each hand she made motions—like the flicking of Fuzzie ears—at the
ramps.

The Fuzzies all looked that way.

Bartlet didn’t have aimable ears, but she could mime the actions. More
importantly, the actions were part of the Fuzzies’ nonverbal language:
«Look at that!» The intensity came from her entire posture. It was crude,
but the Fuzzies understood. With a few more simple Fuzzie gestures, and a
couple of human ones thrown in, Bartlet had the troop moving toward the
exit.

The Regnant saw what was happening and tried to scurry behind the central
pipes and around the lake the other way, but as soon as they became visible
Bartlet fired again. They came closer than they had before,
probably spurred on by the imminent escape of their prey, Bartlet figured,
but they turned back when the shots started to do serious damage.

Bartlet kept a constant eye on her Fuzzies. They staggered against the wind,
but they made headway. Bartlet pounded her fist into her palm to accentuate
the urgency, but the Fuzzies needed no urging. They moved in small groups,
stronger, mature Fuzzies helping the wounded or females with cubs.

Fao’sg caught Bartlet’s eye and gave her a thumbs up.

They were three-quarters of the way across the garden. The wind picked up
the closer they got to the hall: as the winds were funneled into a smaller
space the air was forced to move faster. Temperature decreased
further, chilling their wet clothes and fur. They had to watch their footing on
the slick fronds and leaves. One whole group of Fuzzies tumbled into a
sphagnum bog when one of them lost his footing, but they got back up at
Bartlet’s urging and forged ahead.

The Regnant pursuing them were positively furious. Bartlet read their body
language clearly—those Regnant who were mutated Fuzzies were
particularly easy to read. They tore through the undergrowth and dove
across open spaces, trying to get closer, but Bartlet’s rearguard
action stopped them from getting through.

And still the wind howled out of the life-support pipeline.

Bartlet wondered remotely, as she shot, how much of Hephaestus’ life

support system she had destroyed by her rash act: certainly the lower deck
system. Not that it bothered her much. They were getting out alive. She,
Bartlet the scientist and pacifist, was getting them out alive— without
killing. Brains had won the day. And it was the Regnant's very killing
machine construction which allowed her to do so. When they pressed
closer, Bartlet’s shots hurt more and they fell back to heal before they tried
it again. She was discovering that she could mete out very harsh wounds
and not kill them. It was perfect. If the Regnant had to suffer for her and the
Fuzzies to live, then Bartlet could accept that compromise.

If the winds kept up for a few minutes more they would be on the ramps
and home free. And the winds showed no sign of abating.

Bartlet could hardly be blamed for not anticipating what happened next, but
she never forgot it.

Founts of blood erupted from several Fuzzies nearby. Fao’sg made a queer
gulping face as one of his knees ceased to exist. His body slumped against
Bartlet as she stared in horror, then he hit the ground.

Bartlet twisted around. Regnant were attacking from the ramp. Regnant
armed with human weapons, and who knew how to use them, unlike the
ones who had separated her from Walker. They crawled out of the ramps
into the garden, using their fearsome talons to dig into the dirt and pull
against the winds. Fuzzies dove for cover—they didn’t roll up into balls and
cower, but actively jumped for safety. In another situation their actions
might have been considered a triumph, but here in the garden the Fuzzies
actions had a terrible effect. Bartlet’s gale prevented the Regnant from using
their pheromones to make the fuzzies submit, so they fired their weapons
into the furry bodies without restraint. Six were already dead and just
seconds had elapsed.

Fao’sg squirmed at Bartlet’s feet, clutching his bloody stump as Bartlet

fired the Glock. Her original opponents were charging, spurred on by the
sight of reinforcements. She could just hold them back. They fell, writhing
like Fao’sg, but unlike the Fuzzies, these Regnant would be up again in no
time.

And the other situation was going from bad to much worse than a
nightmare. The armed Regnant were wading into the Fuzzies. Dead and
wounded Fuzzies lay in their wake. Bartlet choked as one large Regnant
grasped a cub by its legs and, lifting it high, pulled the child in half like a
piece of stringy taffy. Unhindered by Regnant pheromone, the cub’s mother
leaped at the murderous Regnant, a whirling blur of claws, teeth and fur.
She shredded into the beast. Here was maternal fury: before the
Regnant knew what hit it, bestial torso and head were slashed open and the
beast was dead.

The mother was covered in its pheromone-rich blood.

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she doubled up. Then two more
Regnant were on her. A flurry of strokes and she was no more, just a heap
of blood mixing with that of the Regnant and her child.

The victorious monsters tilted gruesome heads toward a nonexistent sky

and did what Bartlet could only describe as a victory dance, a series of
rapid, well-timed movements, like a secret handshake or a high-five. They
butted heads and ground the claws of their mighty feet across the earth,
through their vanquished foes. Here were creatures who lived for victory,
for power and control over other weaker creatures, who enjoyed killing and
would stop at nothing. No means were too brutal, no weapon too hideous.
They exhibited no concern for their fallen brother, only a terrible reveling in
their most recent kill.
All this Bartlet saw through a curtain of building fury. Bartlet might not be
a mother, but she knew what sorrow and loss were. She almost felt her
Fuzzies torment as they were torn apart.

A warning tingle on the back of her neck....

Bartlet whirled back toward the lake. Those Regnant had regenerated and
were charging again. There were scattered cubs in their path.

Bartlet flipped the weapon to full auto.

She had not thought her loathing of the weapon could increase, but it did.
The stream of lead spewing from the Glock literally cut the attacking
Regnant in half. Midsections shredded, chests exploded, ichor sprayed back
in wedge-shaped patterns across the ground. The shotgun had an incredible
kick. Bartlet’s shoulder ached. Her wounded arm was in agony. She hated
the weapon more than ever, but now it was her friend. The big bully on the
block who liked her and beat up her enemies, who vaporized her foes.

Bartlet and her friend made sure those Regnant would never regenerate
again.

She whirled again. Total chaos.

At least a dozen Fuzzies were down and more fell with every heartbeat.
Worst of all, Bartlet couldn’t fire at the Regnant for fear of hitting the
Fuzzies. She watched the tableau of death and destruction, devoid of any
sound except the awful roar of air thundering by. And the bark of her gun—
those desperately few times when she had a clear shot. Some of the Fuzzies
fled, a few Fuzzies cowered, but most of the Fuzzies tried to resist. Those
who had been hunters before they came to Hephaestus fared better than
those who had grown up around humans, but none fared well against the
assault weapons.

And then the Regnant were around Bartlet. A Regnant pounced at her,
ripping appendages outstretched. The shotgun saved her a couple more
times.
Bartlet’s impression of the next monster stalking toward her came in small
pieces. Familiar, yet unfamiliar features. Hands. Legs. Ears. Face. All so
commonplace, but savagely twisted. The underlying structure grown
so much stronger than the original. The ever-present black plates of armor
which all the Regnant had, Fuzzie-based or otherwise. The distended head,
every feature exaggerated to strike fear in the hearts of its foes. Every
tooth, jaw or cranial crest corrupted to aid in unfettered slaughter. All these
impressions came together in front of Bartlet to make a singularly appalling
portrait of terror.

This Regnant had been a human.

Not just any human, but one Bartlet recognized from Republic's log tapes. It
was Draven’s gangly lieutenant whom Bartlet had seen wielding the
flamethrower, the one who looked so much like her cousin. He was
still alive after decade upon decades, reincarnated as the monstrosity before
her.

Bartlet recalled Ledbetter’s autopsy tapes, his descriptions of changes, only

partially complete on those cadavers, but fully matured here. She
remembered the Fuzzie legends about the horrible change. This was the
link between pheromone and Regnant. This Regnant was the awful proof of
Bartlet’s theories, and a warning about an all too likely fate.

Bartlet did not want to become Regnant.

It had been male; vestiges of its sexual organ hung obscenely between
powerful legs. It was shriveled into impotence, but that didn’t lessen
Bartlet’s fear of the creature.

Bartlet squeezed a trigger already depressed. No tongue of searing fire

lanced from the barrel, no kick tore at her side. She pulled the bolt
frantically, but nothing changed.

The Glock was out of ammunition.

The Regnant grinned a very human grin; it knew the clip was empty. The
Regnant was within striking distance, but it did not spring. A spark of
recognition crossed its eye. It looked at her and itself, and it remembered.
And the remembrance was alarming. Not the longing for a road not taken,
but burgeoning, bloating rage at a lifetime of wrongs, real and perceived.
All of this hate was directed at Bartlet.

It looked her up and down as if deciding whether to kill her immediately, or

tear into her in a prolonged, sadistic manner. It was deciding how she would
end. Would it go for the drumstick, the breast, or just rip off her head?

Bartlet saw her death in its eyes.

She flipped the shotgun around and swung it like a club. The wood stock
connected against the black, hard skull with a shudder Bartlet felt all the
way to her feet.

With a snarl, the human Regnant finally lunged at her, knocking the gun out
of her grip. Bartlet fell defenseless. The carnage continued all around her.
There would be no help from the Fuzzies in any case. She scrabbled under
a bush, the Regnant on her heels. She burst through the other side, vainly
searching for any kind of weapon, anything to hold off death for one
moment longer. She wanted to live more than she ever had. She did not
want to die inside this cold, hard rock in space, away from everything that
mattered in her life back on Jayvee. It would be so meaningless. She wanted
a chance to find another Walker, and maybe have a family of her
own. Maybe that would make her a better anthropologist.

She felt the Everlasting Unfulfillment breathing down her neck.

It was these crazy, desperate thoughts which flashed through Bartlet’s mind
in those intense seconds, and they made her hands close around the only
implement in sight: a Fuzzie hoe. She swung around, wielding the hoe like
a scythe and planted the dull blade in the Regnant's neck. It howled in
agony, but the wound didn’t stop it. It knocked the pathetic garden tool
aside and barreled into Bartlet like a freight train.

Bartlet fell with it on top of her, its weight pressing her into cold mud. The
position was sexual on a primal level. She remembered it from an encounter
in the not-so-distant past. Tactile memories of body heat and irresistible
strength flooded back to her. But this encounter was a perversion of that
memory. The hot breath was repugnant. The intimacy was obscene.

The Regnant rose onto its hands and knees and Bartlet saw the evidence of
its own tactile memories: the vestigial organ between its legs was swollen
with blood. Swollen, but useless, and the Regnant knew it. Bartlet’s
gaze flashed to its eyes. The eyes told all: the building, impotent fury in its
hearts, the rage. And Bartlet was the focus of that rage, the object of its
vengeance. She understood that. The Regnant would dominate her, control
her. Rape her. Its flaccid weapon was not needed: the Regnant would rape
her in another way. Rape was the ultimate control. The more violent and the
more heinous the assault, the greater the control.

She would submit.

It moved down on her again, mashing its armor painfully into the softness
of her chest, pressing the air from her lungs. A ropy, prehensile tongue
extended from its mouth and slathered across her neck. She could not move.
The glistening muscle was over a meter long. Bittersweet ichor dripped
from a huge pore on its tip. She felt hideous strength in its wet caress, then
the worm retreated to its fleshy lair. The Regnant cupped her face with its
hands in a profane parody of embrace and Bartlet squirmed as the Regnant
forced her into its smothering kiss. The muscle inside its maw thrust into
her mouth. Rough, repulsive sweetness coated her own tongue. Bartlet
gagged as the violation lunged at the back of her throat, but the wash of
acidic bile did not stop the wriggling, ramming phallus. The contractions of
her throat would not stop it. She felt it swelling, expanding. Culmination
was near. And now Bartlet saw something much more frightening than
death in the Regnant's eyes. She saw the prison of eternal life, the gift it
would give to her.

She was lost.

And then the air around her changed. The roaring winds from the breached
high-pressure pipeline suddenly became rich with the pungent smell of
pheromone. It was far stronger than the smell of pheromone reeking
from Bartlet’s rapist, a hyper-intense blast of power, set free of its
unexpected prison.
Just as suddenly, Bartlet could breath again. She was free of weight and was
able to move. The human Regnant was backing away from her, its horrible
passion retreating unspent. Bartlet choked, heaving the contents of
her stomach into the mud. Even as she did, she saw all the Regnant
withdrawing, stepping backwards with glazed looks in their eyes. They
bowed their heads, leaving the battlefield on the verge of total victory,
disappearing down the ramps. Fuzzies ran helter skelter around her. She
saw Fao’sg clawing, hand over hand across the grass, his stump staining the
moss dark.

And what was he screaming? It was on the lips of all the Fuzzies Bartlet
could see. She could just barely make it out over the thundering maelstrom.

“Retreat!” said Fao’sg. “Retreat! Desist!"

Luck had not given the Plantagenet enough time to fully recover before the
Kind returned seeking further orders from the Old One. The Plantagenet
remembered the encounter.

The brethren had spread out around the stench of the battle, hugging the
walls in packs. They tested the air, scenting it with their own aggressive, but
unsure bouquets.

They wanted to kill the Plantagenet. The Plantagenet knew it looked

vulnerable, that it was vulnerable. Only the fact that the Plantagenet had
slain the Old One— and the tremendous amounts of power that implied
— restrained the brethren from attacking. The Plantagenet knew their
temporal consciousnesses were expanded, each of them living lifetimes in
those few heartbeats, absorbing and digesting this pivotal moment in their
histories. The Plantagenet had killed the Old One, that was apparent from
the redolence of the coup, but was the Plantagenet preeminent? Did it have
any power left? Would the Plantagenet force their obeisance, or would
a bloodbath determine the right of ascension?

Was this its time or theirs?

The Plantagenet knew it must seize the moment, and it had been prepared.
It was still very near to final death, but it had healed its exterior and enough
internal organs to stand. It had withheld its returning power for this
exact purpose. Raising the fleshbag weapon, it sprayed the brethren with
projectiles. Regnant blood spilled violently. The Plantagenet filled the air
with the stench of submission. None of the damage was fatal. The
Plantagenet’s shots were placed to wound, not to kill. It still needed
the brethren, after all. They easily healed themselves with power, but that
reflex action doomed them to servitude. Their expenditure of power denied
the brethren the ability to resist the Plantagenet’s will. Survival instinct
betrayed their dreams of ascension.

The Plantagenet was preeminent.

Its body shrieked with the agony of unhealed wounds, but it savored that
sensation. Only the Plantagenet had the will to rise above its animal
whimperings and reflexes. The pain was an exquisite reminder that force
of will triumphs, that the mind overcomes the narcissistic needs of the flesh.

Intelligence rules. Animals submit.

The Plantagenet had then distributed the anthropoid weapons among its
least-distrusted brethren—they were all under its power now, but why take
unnecessary chances? The Plantagenet set its plans in motion. It had no
memory of the time before its Becoming, from the time when it was a thrall,
but the Plantagenet did remember weapons, some like these fleshbag
weapons. It remembered how to use the weapons effectively and this
knowledge it imparted to its brethren. The Kind left to fulfill their new
tasks.

That was before. Now, the Plantagenet was alone once more. It took
advantage of the solitude and healed itself enough to run.
Chapter 24
One people, one fate, one Song....

—translation of first line in Rote by Dr. E. F. Bartlet.

Nis and Stol’ss crouched in the corridor outside the site of the Plantagenet's
battle with the Old One.

Nis had watched the clash, realizing he was witness to a critical event. One
Regnant killing another. It could only be a power struggle. What had been
the outcome? Neither he nor Stol’ss knew the answer. Just before the
climax, when it seemed one Regnant must triumph over the other, the
corpulent Regnant had emitted a power command stronger than anything
Nis had smelled before. Its intensity was unmatched, its message
irresistible.

Retreat! Desist!

There was no question but to obey. From the moment the fans drew the
power through the grate and sucked it into the circulation system over his
head, Nis had been its slave.

Retreat.

He and Stol’ss had run unthinking out of their hiding places as had the other
Fuzzies in the room itself, frantic with the urge to obey. Obey, or die trying.

Desist.

They froze. The other Fuzzies were frozen too. Nis could see them from his
position. They were scattered about the rooms and hallways around him,
curled up as he was. There were no Regnant in the immediate vicinity
to impel them to submit, but they were as helpless as ever because the
strength of the Old One's command would not let them move. They were
stuck in one spot until the residue of those words wore off.
And even then they still had a problem—what to do?

Stol’ss was singing beside Nis, going over passages of the Rote, searching
desperately for a way to save his loved ones in the only way he knew how.
Phlae and his cub were in sight, just down from him and Nis.

“We have to sing the Rote," he had said, begging for Nis to join him.

He didn’t know Nis was without Song.

Stol’ss sang, obsessing over what little melody he knew, but he got
nowhere. He became more and more anxious with each unsuccessful
repetition.

“Please, Nis,” he pleaded again, “sing with me. If you sing, maybe we can
find the answer. Please sing the Rote with me. We have to sing the Rote."

Nis could have faked it. He knew enough verses to calm Stol’ss down, but
Nis would not sing the Rote. It would not be right for a Songless one such
as he to sing. It was sacrilegious. But more sacrilegious was the other
reason Nis refused to sing: he didn’t believe the Rote knew the answers.
Once he had believed. Once he had been agonized by his exclusion, but the
truth in the Rote, which had known Nis must be cast out to find a different
truth, had seeded his doubt that it could help them now.

And, he remembered, there was another reason.

It was a beautiful late summer morning. Nis carried a load of water under a
sky which was the lightest shade of violet he had ever seen. Near the
horizon it was almost white, a sign of the cooling season to come, and there
was no haze. Nis could see all the way across the plains to the foot of the
Forbidden Jungle. Over his head where Protector loomed, the color of the
sky was also crystal clear, unlike the hotter days of early summer when the
color would be more full-bodied. There was a crispness in the air, a
refreshing feeling which bristled Nis’ fur. He saw the heatgliders, wing-
dishes fully expanded to catch any rising current, but they were not very
high today. Their circles would become lower as the days went on and the
cooling continued. On the other hand, the fronds under Nis’ feet were
reaching higher and greening up again after scorching weeks which had
dried them and which had sent the heat-gliders so high Nis couldn't see
them anymore. These soft fronds tickled his ankle fur the way the
sweet breezes did. And there were other flavors in the air too, besides its
crispness: scents of ripening berries, brain melons and sleeping-hunter
stool.

Yes, it was a fine day.

But not a normal day. On a normal day, the young Nis would have run and
foraged through wendwood creepers for the tasty worms which fattened in
sleeping-hunter stool, or searched for bright blue berries and gorged himself
until his mouth fur was stained blue so heavily it would have to grow out
(he didn’t like the bitter-pungent taste of brain melon yet), but today he
hurried back to the camp as fast as his short legs would carry him. The
water gourds sloshed because of his speed and the pole they were
suspended from cut across his back painfully, but he did not pause. He had
not paused at the riverside either, as he normally would have done, to catch
a gilded swimmer, or even to sneak up on the young females. Normally
Nis would have thrown dung balls at them as they washed their sibling cubs
in the flowing waters. Of course, they normally would have chased him
down and rubbed the dung balls in his face. If he was lucky Br’gitte and
her friends would tickle him until he couldn’t breathe and he begged for
mercy. It was childish, but that was part of the fun. Nis would not be a
young adult with Song for twelve seasons more. This was his transition
time between childhood and adulthood, and fun was still allowed.
Today none of those things would happen, however. Today the young
females were not at the river’s edge, they were back at the camp along with
everyone else who would normally be out hunting, or gathering, or doing
any of the other many tasks the people did in the daylight.

Nis had the camp in sight now. A small group of sporeeater-hide huts
huddled in a circle like a patch of domed fungus caps pushing out of the dry
earth. It almost appeared normal from this distance, but as Nis neared
that illusion faded. No smoke rose from the central pit. No cubs ran
screaming through groups of elders weaving frond-fiber into mats. No
parents to avoid, because they might spot you and give you something
useful to do. The camp almost appeared abandoned.

Except for the sound: the low, rhythmic descant coming from the long hut,
the sound of many voices, normally heard only at night when the Eyes of
Light and Darkness did not share the sky with Protector.

The Eyes of Light and Darkness were not even in the sky today.

Nis hurried to the long hut. Unbidden, hide curtains parted as he neared.
Moans arose as light speared into the darkness, but those same adult hands
which had parted the curtains whisked Nis inside and let them close.
Other hands hastened him through the darkness. Nis could not see at first,
his eyes being accustomed to the bright light outside, but he knew the scene
within: pod members lying along the length of the long hut, other worried
pod members lining the edges and Soothsinger moving from one of the
prone forms to the next. Those at the edges of the hut were tired, their fur
was not well groomed and their body language spoke of fatigue. Even their
voices were weak as Soothsinger led them in Song. Against common
tradition, they were singing a Rote during the day. The hut resonated with
their hymn.

As Nis’ sight cleared, he counted the people. Yesterday more had stood
concerned at the edges and fewer lain on the ground. Today it was the
opposite. There was hardly any room left on the ground. The tribe had been
stricken with a silencing sickness. Those lying tried to sing with the others
—they could not stop themselves—but they faltered. They were discordant
and their Songs found no verses or choruses, only splattered accents
inappropriately timed. Normally robust bodies lay decrepit, unmoving.
Their bottled Song festered inside them. Red sores and pasty gray flesh
showed through where fur had thinned drastically. Glazed eyes stared
unseeing as Soothsinger passed by, wafting smoke from smoldering life
roots over them, but the healing scents had not worked yesterday and they
showed no sign of working today.

Nis stepped carefully over to his mother, who took the many gourds of
water and passed them to those who nursed the sick. Br’gitte took one and
fed the liquid to her very sick mother. Nis watched her, but she was too
busy and too distressed to notice him. She had lost four pod relations
already and this was only the third day of the sickness. Many more would
pass out of the pod into total silence if the sickness went on for six more
days.

And that was why they sang the Rote.

An answer must be found and it must be found soon. The Rote had verses
which told of entire pods muted by silencing sicknesses. Nis was young, but
he did not want this to be their final coda. The pod had too much to sing for
yet. He eagerly anticipated adulthood and full membership in the Rote. Nis
listened and studied and sang those juvenile parts which were harder than
any other in anticipation of the time when he would join the adults. Nis
wanted that time to come more than anything else. He listened now as the
adults wove their questioning voices throughout Soothsinger’s answering
tenor.

The pod intoned a lyric of Singing Nuts and Poison.

Soothsinger stood, tired but firm in his resolve. His eyes blazed as the Rote
fell silent.

“The answer is in the Forbidden Jungle,” he said with authority. “Who will
go to gather the Singing Nuts?” His eyes found each of them in turn, but the
pod was silent. The Forbidden Jungle could be entered but twice in a
lifetime: once as a child and once as an adult and only then by edict of Rote,
never by whim. There was no future in the jungle, no past. It was the place
of timeless remembrance. It was the Forbidden Jungle, prohibited by
Rote. No one had set foot in its moist, green depths in a generation, but then
the silencing sickness had not struck for that same time. None wished to go
now, but the need was dire.

“Who has been to the Forbidden Jungle before their Song?” Soothsinger
demanded, his robe of rain and thunder kaasssshing and shshshshing as he
moved among them.

Several of the silenced moaned in response. One found a voice.

“Soothsinger,” it croaked, “I will lead us....”

“No,” Soothsinger said gently. “You may not go. We need your brave heart
here with us, singer.”

Nis did not think old T’thoth would make it to the river, never mind to the
Forbidden Jungle. Who would save the tribe? Nis was very surprised by the
next voice that spoke.

“I know the Song of Singing Nuts.”

The heads of the pod swivelled in the direction of a middle-aged Fuzzie

with gray swirling markings and a widening waist.

“You, singer?” Soothsinger responded with the ritual of spearing doubt.

“Why should you go?”

The Fuzzie’s body manner was humble, but his speech was determined. “I
was there before my Song. I know the way. I will bring back the Singing
Nuts.”

“You will bring back three,” Soothsinger said, holding up three fingers to
accentuate his wishes. “Or the silence will be total.”

Nis was shocked again: three was a lot. Gathering the Singing Nuts was not
without risk. Nis knew that from an adult passage he had memorized.

“I will bring back three, Soothsinger,” the Fuzzie answered.

“And who of the people will you take with you, who has not received Song
yet? Who will go with you into the Forbidden Jungle?” asked Soothsinger.

Nis didn’t know the answer before the Fuzzie spoke. He should have
expected it, but he didn’t—the Fuzzie volunteer was his father.

It was a half day’s long trek across the rolling plains to the edge of the
Forbidden Jungle. Nis and his father had set off as soon as they could pack
enough food to survive for three days. They would need more, but they
could hunt for it. Of course, they also took with them spears, knives and all
the usual equipment hunters carried with them. Anything which would slow
them down was left behind.

They hurried. If they took longer than five days to bring back the nuts, there
would be no tribe to return to.

With less than a quarter of a day to go before nightfall, they crossed into the
strange, thick plant life which was the Forbidden Jungle. Nis was nervous
and excited at the same time. Few pod members ever got to come here,
and there were all sorts of tales told about this place by elders seeking to
enchant and scare those younger than they. Nis couldn’t help feeling a
foreboding tingle in his genitals, as he laid eyes on territory never seen
before. At the same time he marvelled at its variety. Gone were the
scrubby fire-tree bushes and dry fronds. In their place were uncounted lush
shapes, moist colors, and lyrical smells completely unknown to him. As
they moved along, the canopy grew thicker overhead. Light was forced to
peek through wherever the leaves were thin, or whenever the wind forced
them apart. It speared down in misty beams.

Nis saw a hunting-flower catch an unwary stumble-butt.

“Don’t smell the perfume,” his father warned. “It makes you sleepy.”

Sure enough, the stumble-butt soon stopped struggling and slipped into the
hunting-flower’s gourd-like stomach.

“We could use that smell to hunt,” Nis blurted, “just like we use poison
from louse-eaters on our spears.”

“Many tried,” his father said, “and many fell asleep while trying to cut the
flower down. They fell into its mouth and were eaten. If you pay attention, I
will sing you a verse.”

“I will,” Nis said, eager to learn all he could of this place.

Nis’ father sang a verse of the Rote which illustrated just such an
occurrence and warned them to respect the plant with the voracious
appetite. Nis’ father hummed almost constantly as they made their way. He
was reciting passages of the Rote which reminded him of the way to the
Singing Nut trees. It was one of the few times his father answered every
question Nis could ask. His father was normally tight-lipped, slow to laugh,
but slow to anger, too. Nonetheless, they would never repeat this
trip together and his father wanted him to learn all he could. Nis made an
effort to sing with him and learn all the new verses, so that he would
remember the way if the pod called on him to come here some day.

Mostly they climbed under or over obstacles in their path. Sometimes, if the
way was too thick, Nis’s father would take out his bone knife and hack at
the plants, but the Rote admonished them to pass without trace where they
could.

Nis didn’t forget why they were there, but he couldn’t help liking the trip.
He was seeing new things, doing new things, and Nis had the distinct
impression that his father enjoyed the passage too.

“I came this way with my father,” the older Fuzzie remarked at one point,
“and he came with his father, and he with his before that.”

“So many of our fathers have come here?” Nis wondered.

“Yes, the Rote calls those who serve it. We have never been great hunters,
but we have always been chosen to harvest the Singing Nuts,” his father
said with pride. He scratched the graying hair around his ears with a
claw, then pointed to a large mound of tree fiber, shaped like a grinning
spore-eater skull. Its surface was crawling with tiny creatures. “My father
and I stopped there on our way back. We didn’t have time to hunt, so we ate
the treeborers.”

“Don’t they sting?” Nis asked, imagining the crawly things swarming
through his fur.

“Yes,” his father laughed, “and they taste like dung.”

They trudged on until dark, which came early in the dense, high growth.
They were only about halfway on their journey, and Nis’ father was anxious
to keep going; but there was no way for him to pick out the way, so
they had to stop. They climbed into the low branches of a tree which
swayed like a log in the sea and they ate dried spore-eater meat. Nis was
able to spear a hopping creature he had never seen before. It was blue, with
bright yellow spots. It had a very long tongue which it used to shoot around
high branches and pull itself up. Nis suspected it also hunted with it. His
father couldn’t remember any lyrics about it and it too tasted like dung, so
they didn’t eat it. Nis pulled the tongue all the way out and whipped the
dead body around like a bola. Eventually he tired of that activity (largely
because the blue body became pulped from smacking into the bole of the
tree) and he followed his father’s lead: he fell asleep, rocked by the gentle
motion of the tree and lulled by the enveloping sound of the creatures of the
night.

Near midnight a tremulous wailing worked its way into Nis’ otherwise
peaceful dreams and he awoke to the tapping of his father’s knuckle on his
nose. The dreams quickly faded, but the wailing did not. He saw his
father’s ears, silhouetted in the Eyes' light, focusing on the sound.

There was the familiar sense of urgency when he spoke. “It is the valley of
the Singing Nuts. Come, we will go.”

“But it is dark,” Nis protested.

“We will follow the song.”

Nis followed without protest. They had to be extra careful not to hurt
themselves or fall victim to any hunting plants in the near darkness. At
night the jungle certainly looked more like the creepy descriptions Nis
had been told from the safety around a warm campfire, but he was with his
father, so he put his fears aside and tried to be helpful. Many times, if the
wind picked up nearby, or startled animals set up a screeching, they had to
listen intently to detect the wailing. Several times they lost their bearing or
went the wrong way completely, but by both listening and triangulating on
the sound, they were always able to get back on the right track.

After what must have been half the night, when Nis was dead tired, the
trees began to thin. In fact the undergrowth was giving way entirely, and the
wailing got louder. It was like the sound of wind rushing across far away
trees, but now it was not so far off. Countless tiny voices joined together to
form a choir ahead of them where Nis saw the silhouettes of just one variety
of very tall tree. They predominated in the valley which opened before
them.

“We will stop here until dawn,” his father said, backtracking to the thicker
area of the jungle and finding another comfortable tree. “Get as much sleep
as you can. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow and the pod is counting
on us.”

Of course, with those words hanging in his head, and even more interesting
unknown territory before them, Nis was unable to get any more sleep that
night. He stayed up. In time he saw Protector rise above the canopy,
routing the stars and shadows and revealing a bizarre landscape.

It was like another world, the predominant color of which was a red-purple.
Everything before Nis had that stain to some degree and it gave the sparse
vegetation the look of flesh. Actually there was only one thing growing in
the valley which the dawning light illuminated: huge trees, many dozens of
body lengths tall, with branches that were stubby in comparison to their
height. Each tree grew about fifty paces from the others in such even
rows that Nis would have hardly believed they could grow that way, had
this not been the Forbidden Jungle. However, nothing before him bore the
look of the Forbidden Jungle, either. There was no undergrowth of any
kind, just the trees, and they stretched away to the borders of the valley.

“The valley of the Singing Nuts,” his father said, drinking in sights and
smells he remembered from his own first journey here. “It takes me back.
We must gather vines.”

Nis was very anxious to investigate the valley, but his father insisted that
they forage in the jungle proper, first. Nis climbed trees and cut vines free
with his own bone knife, until they had many lengths of stout creeper.
These they dragged back to the edge of the valley. Finally, after hacking
down three small saplings the size of Nis, his father decided they were
ready and they proceeded into the valley.
The valley had the appearance of living tissue, not plant life. The Singing
Nut trees were red tinged like everything else. Trunks and branches looked
like muscles and bone, vines resembled veins. Even the sweaty fungus they
walked upon reminded Nis of freshly butchered sporeeater bladder.

“Why does nothing else grow here, father?” Nis asked in reference to the
lack of undergrowth.

“Those are the reason.” His father pointed at the remains of round, spiky
spheres which were everywhere they looked. “Their resin kills everything
but the trees and the fungus which lives on it.”

“Those are the Singing Nuts?” Nis asked.

“Yes,” his father answered.

“Why aren’t they singing?”

“They only sing at night.”

“Oh.”

“Most of these are female,” his father added.

“Oh,” Nis said again, and reached to pick up one of the egg-sized objects.

His father stopped him. “Don’t touch. They are poisonous.”

“If they are poisonous, why are we here?” Nis wondered aloud.

“We are after the male nuts,” his father said. Seeing that Nis still did not get
it, his father explained: “The male nuts are poisonous, too—more than the
females—but they are also medicinal. We must find three male nuts
and Soothsinger will use their essence to rid the pod of the silencing
sickness.”

“Do they look different?” Nis asked, looking at the millions of nuts on the
fungus around them.
“No, they are identical to the eye.”

“Then how do we find them?” Nis said, sensing the enormity of the task
before them.

“It is not as hard as it looks,” his father explained. “These nuts on the
ground are useless to us. They are last season’s. We need three fresh nuts
from healthy trees.” Nis’ father was eyeing the trees as they
walked, apparently searching for the signs of a healthy tree. “An unhealthy
tree would release bad Song.”

They certainly didn’t want bad Song, but Nis saw that there were thousands
of nuts growing on each tree, growing very high on the trees. “We must
climb and pick the nuts?”

“We will not climb.”

Nis noted that the trees were not really trees, so much as a myriad of stalks.
Each stalk resembled a vein, a fleshy pink hose with dark fluid, just barely
visible, flowing up the center. Some of them were almost as thick as Nis at
their base. Dozens of these vein-stalks were braided into a tube, which
made up the trunk of the tree.

“How do we pick them if we can’t touch them? And how will we find the
male nuts?”

“There is only one male nut on each tree,” his father said mysteriously.
“That one plants his seed in all the females on the tree.”

“But how do we tell it apart from the others?” Nis persisted.

“You must be patient. We will follow the Rote and it will show us the way. I
will say no more. You, Nis must watch, listen and learn.”

And so began the ritual harvest of the Singing Nuts. Nis’ father sang
passages from the Rote as they did each step, partly so that they would
make no mistakes, partly so that Nis would learn, and partly because that
was the way it was done. The people had followed the Rote for generations
beyond count, and if it was good enough for his ancestors, it was good
enough for Nis’ father—and good enough for Nis. They sang as they picked
the right tree: tall and firm, with no dead veins, or veins which leaked the
tree’s blood. They sang as they wove the vines harvested earlier into a cable
thicker than Nis’ legs. They sang as they stripped one of the saplings of ail
its branches and leaves. And they sang as they wrapped their cable around
the massive base of the tree chosen according to Rote.

Everything was done by Rote.

Most importantly, they sang as they turned the cable into a giant tourniquet
and cranked it tight with the stripped saplings as a lever. As predicted by
Rote, the great tree began to darken as the pliable veins were cut off and its
sap flow was stanched. Nis’ father carefully timed the rate of darkening
against Nis’ heartbeats. They must choke the tree just right, for if the
tourniquet was not tight enough, they would get no nuts, and if it was too
tight, they would kill the tree and that would bring the curse of bad Song.

“We must move back,” the older Fuzzie said, testing to make sure there was
no breeze.

They moved fifty paces from their tree. Nis’ father showed him how to use
one of the other two saplings as a broom, then made him sweep an area of
fungus clear of old nuts. Then, gently humming passages they had already
gone over, Nis’ father sat down and leaned back against a convenient rock.

“What do we do now?” Nis asked, suddenly aware that he had not been
clearing old nuts as part of the ritual, but to give his father a comfortable
resting place. He looked back at the tree. All their labor seemed to have
resulted in nothing.

“Be patient,” his father said in his usual taciturn style. “Watch.”

Hours passed, and nothing happened. Noon came and went. Nis tried time
and time again to question, but his father would have none of it. Protector
sank lower and lower in the sky.

“Patience, Nis.”
Finally, the older Fuzzie sat up straight. His ears were cocked and his eyes
focused on the tree. His nostrils flared. “The scent is right....”

A nut fell from the tree.

Nis wanted to run over, but his father restrained him. It was for good
reason. After a few more minutes, nuts began dropping from the tree in
large numbers. A hail of small spiked nuts showered on the ground,
bouncing off the bole of the tree and the fungus around it.

Nis’ face lit up with understanding. If he had rushed up to inspect the first
nut, he would have been clobbered by its falling, poisonous sisters.

His father smiled. “You see. This is much easier than climbing and picking.
We have choked the tree. Without its vital sap, its releases the nuts. All we
have to do is wait. Trust the Rote."

“And the Rote will tell us how to find the male nut?”

“It will.”

Within an hour all of the nuts had fallen to the ground. Nis noticed that the
veinstalks of the tree had become rubbery and the whole tree was swaying.

“Now we will find the Singing Nut,” his father said, getting up, “but first
we must release the tree, or it will die.”

They undid the tourniquet, not too fast, and the flow of sap resumed. Soon
the tree was as firm as its brothers, only bereft of its fruit.

Nis was fascinated. He waited patiently as his father sized up their progress.
There were thousands of fresh nuts around them, two or three layers deep in
spots.

The next step, when it came, involved the Rote. Singing, they used the
sapling brooms and swept the harvest of nuts into two huge piles, one on
each side of the tree.
“The old nuts are mixed in with the new,” Nis remarked when they finished.
It was getting dark.

“No matter, old nuts do not sing.”

Protector set, and as it did a melodious, wonderful thing happened. The

valley cooled and a brisk breeze flowed through the trees. The same
tremulous wail which they had heard the night before picked up again. It
was coming from above them, from the trees around them.

“The male nuts are singing,” Nis’ father said. “They sing to enchant their
wives.”

It was true. Nis walked from one tree to another. The sound resonating
throughout the valley was caused by single nuts hiding in each of the
thousands of trees. All their voices together made an awe-inspiring choir.

“Come. Learn more.”

Nis joined his father near one of their two piles of nuts. Together, they
brought their ears close to the heap and listened.

“There is no sound,” Nis observed, disappointed.

His father didn’t speak, but walked to the other pile. They listened again.
This time Nis heard a very faint whistling, from somewhere deep in the
pile.

Nis’ father smiled again. His yellow-white teeth flashed in the half light.
“The male nut sings.”

Nis was happy, but confused. “How do we find it?”

“We must split this pile in two.”

“What about the other one?”

“It is useless.”
Again they sang, and they did exactly as his father had said. They split the
singing pile in two. Then they listened to see which of the new piles sang,
and split that pile in two. The process continued through the night and on
toward morning, until they had split the uncounted thousands of nuts into
two last piles consisting of only one nut each. Father and son picked a nut
each to watch and waited.

“The male nut has none of his wives around and he is reluctant to sing. He
knows we will take him from them forever if he does.”

“Maybe he won’t sing,” Nis said.

“He will sing,” his father replied.

It wasn’t too much longer before the nut in front of Nis gave in to the caress
of the breeze and sang its farewell to the others. Nis carefully laid a hide
over it and picked it up. Father and son looked at their prize: a spiked nut,
no different in looks than the rest.

But it sang.

“Soothsinger will be pleased,” said Nis.

It would help save the pod.

“A Singing Nut must sing, as we must,” his father said with satisfaction.

They wrapped it in another hide, put it into a well-sewn sack and settled
down to catch a few hours sleep before Protector rose and they would have
to start the whole process all over again.

The next day followed the rhythm and song of the previous, except that
they were more tired, but they were buoyed up by the knowledge that by the
end of that night they would have two out of the three Singing Nuts
necessary to fulfill their quest. One more day and they would have the third
and they could return to the pod, right on schedule. The pod would be
saved, and they could go back to their normal lives.

Except things didn’t work out as they hoped.

The second night of harvesting was a disaster. They followed the Rote
religiously, doing all the steps precisely as they had before, but when night
fell on two new piles of nuts ready for separating, and the expected
breeze picked up there was no song. All the other nuts still in the trees sang,
but there was not a peep from their piles.

Concerned, Nis’ father sang the Rote for a clue what to do next. There was
more than a clue: stir the piles, it said. So, with their saplings, they stirred
the piles and waited. They repeated this process all night long, but the
coveted male nut never broke into song.

“What has happened?” the son asked. “Where is the nut?”

“I do not know,” the father replied, with rising concern. “We must sing.”

They sang the Rote for hours. The verses got older and older as Nis’ father
dug further into his memory for the answer. Nis was worried that there was
no answer. One did eventually come, but it was bereft of comfort.

It was just one of those things.

Once in a very long while, the Rote said, a male nut would not sing. There
was nothing to be done.

“I fear for the pod, Nis. If we must stay another day, Soothsinger will get
the nuts too late.”

“Isn’t there another way to find the male nut?” Nis asked.

His father shook his head. “The sickness was spreading fast when we left,”
he lamented, more to himself than to Nis.

Nis got the point, though: maybe the whole pod would be silenced by the
time they returned.

“Let’s do another tree right away, father.”

“We can’t. There would not be time before the breeze goes to sleep for the
day and we must not rush. If we rush we may do something wrong, and
then we might get no nut a second time and things would be worse.”

“But aren’t things worse now?” Nis asked. “It doesn't matter if it is one
more day, or two more days, because there are no more days.”

“Please, Nis,” his father begged. “There is only one thing to do. Tomorrow
we must start on another tree and hope that the pod still sings by the time
we get back. You should sleep now, but if you don’t, please be quiet. I
must rest.”

Nis wandered away so that his father could get some rest. He could not
sleep. The thought of the whole pod silenced was more than he could bear.
His mother, his friends, Br’gitte, all would be gone if they did not return in
time. Nis wasn’t as old as his father. He wasn’t as worn down by
unstoppable fate as the older Fuzzie was. He did not really know the
Longing yet and had not run into the immovable mountain of indecision
which plagued adult Fuzzie lives.

He let the melody of the Singing Nuts lead him through the valley. His
thoughts flowed on the simple song and he really didn’t give any thought to
where he was until he was at the far edge of the valley. He had gone into
a trance, partly from the sound, partly from fatigue and he had ended up at a
sheer cliff which bounded that end of the valley. Well, now he had seen it,
anyway. He was just about to turn back when it hit him that there was
something very peculiar about the tree next to him.

He looked up, and listened, and then ran as fast as he could across the
valley back to his father.

It took about an hour to bring his father back; dawn was threatening as the
two Fuzzies returned to the tree Nis had found. The sky in the east was a
lighter shade of deep purple. It framed the dark tree, which rose from its
base like a normal Singing Nut, but then twenty paces up, split into two,
forming two complete trunks, nuts and all.

Nis’ father listened skeptically. It was hard to pick out the sounds against
the background of nut song behind them. His face twisted into a frown, as
he made ready to chastise Nis for dragging him there, but his
expression changed. He thrust his chin out and tilted his head to favor his
better ear.

It was Nis’ chance to smile as his father turned to him in disbelief.

“This tree has two Singing Nuts!”

“Yes, Father,” Nis said eagerly. “Each of the trunks must have one. It is a
miracle! We can still save the pod.”

The elder was pleased, but unwilling to make the leap Nis made so easily.
“The Rote does not say anything about trees with two nuts,” he grumbled.

“But does it say we cannot harvest from a tree with two nuts?” Nis asked.

The elder thought, and hummed to himself, then finally said: “It does not. It
only says not to harvest from unhealthy trees.”

“This tree looks healthy,” Nis pointed out.

“It looks healthy in the dark,” his father countered. “What will it look like
in the light, I wonder?”

“I think it will look just fine,” Nis said confidently, “and if it is, the pod is
saved.”

His father gave in a little. He was cautious, but wanted to believe it was a
miracle, too. “Well, perhaps you are right, but we will see when Protector
comes up.”

As quickly as they could, Nis and his father brought their vines and saplings
to the end of the valley and began the process Nis knew intimately by now.

“I wonder why the tree split into two,” Nis said as they stepped back to wait
for the nuts to drop.

“Perhaps lightning,” his father mused, counting heartbeats and watching the
color of the tree. After a while, he said: “I do not think the color of the tree
is right. We must tighten the vines.”
So they returned to the tree and tightened the tourniquet, but they could not
get it tight enough. The upper portions of the tree where it split into two still
had too much sap flow.

“This tree is different in more ways than we can see,” Nis’s father reflected.
“The Rote does not tell us what to do with a tree that is two trees.”

Nis thought. “But it does tell us what to do, father. If it is two trees, then we
must do as the Rote says for two single trees.”

“I do not know what you are talking about, Nis.”

“We must climb to the fork and choke the base of each tree. That is what
the Rote tells us to do.”

“Ah, that is clever,” his father beamed. “You are learning your Rote well.”

It took a couple more hours to get more vines and braid them into two
separate cables, but well before noon they were ready to try again. Using
their claws to grip, they scaled the waxy veins to the split. Nis went first,
with one cable. His father slowly climbed up with the other.

“I am too old to play in trees,” he panted, as he made it to the saddle beside

Nis. He looked around. “Be careful, Nis. There is a hole here.”

Nis looked where his father pointed. In the center of the saddle was hole
about the size of his head where the interwoven veins split. Nis could see
down into the hollow center of the great tree. Near the top a pattern of
light shone through the interwoven stalks as light would shine through the
woven bands of a basket. But the hollow was deep and the weave got
tighter the closer it got to the ground. It was so tight at the base that water
had collected in the bottom. Nis saw a reflection of his head against a small
circle of purple sky.

“Let’s get to work,” his father said.

Very carefully, because of the great height, they wrapped the cables around
each of the two boles in turn. Nis had to climb around each one, with an end
of the cable in his teeth, and nothing but his claws to hold on with.

“Be cautious, Nis. It is a long fall to the ground.”

“Ron’t—rorry—rather,” Nis replied through clenched teeth. “I’ll—re—

carrel.”

They tied each tourniquet and watched with satisfaction as the flow of sap
backed up and the veins darkened.

“It’s working,” Nis said happily.

“Yes,” his father said, counting heartbeats again. “Calm down, you’re
throwing the count off.”

“Sorry,” Nis said, and he tried ineffectively to slow his racing heart.

“It is good,” his father said, “but the color is not quite dark enough. Perhaps
we should retighten the noose at the base of the tree.” He looked down,
sighing at the climb he had to make again.

“I will go,” Nis volunteered.

“Will you? Thanks, Nis. I am very tired.”

“You’re Welcome, Father.”

Nis scurried down the tree and grabbed the slack noose. They had had to let
the pressure off so as not to hurt the tree while they gathered new vines.
Holding the sapling, Nis cranked the noose until it bit into the stalks.

“How’s that?” Nis called.

His father inspected the color of the sap. “One more turn, Nis.”

Nis did as his father asked. The stalks groaned as they pressed together.

“Is it enough?”
“One more turn.”

The stalks complained even louder this time.

“I don’t think we should tighten this any more,” Nis said.

“Never mind, Nis. It’s perfect. It’s working.”

Nis saw his father lean back and look up. The boles swayed above the
elder’s head. The base of the tree swayed too, more than it should.

“Father, what does the Rote say when the tree moves too much?”

“These boles are not moving too much,” his father proclaimed, looking at
the trunks over his head.

“But this one is swaying a lot—Father!”

The lower part of the tree lurched and the upper forks suddenly leaned
apart. Nis’ father yelped and disappeared from view. Nis ran to the other
side of the trunk, but his father had not fallen off the tree. Where was he?

Nis looked up. The whole tree shuddered as the upper forks leaned outward,
swaying back and forth because there was not enough sap to hold them
upright. Without concern for himself or the damage his claws did to
the tree, Nis raced for the saddle. Nis felt the tree moving under him. By the
time he reached the saddle the motions of the forks were diminishing, but
the boles no longer pointed straight up at the sky but canted out over
the ground below. The stalks strained where the tree split, and there was a
rift in the center where before there had been a small hole.

Nis looked in the hole. “Father!”

His father had fallen down the hollow trunk and was submerged in the pool
of water in the base. The surface was turbulent. As Nis watched a wet
Fuzzie head burst out of the water. His father gasped for air, then
disappeared again.

His father was drowning! The elder’s head broke the surface again.
“Father!”

“Nis! Help!” he said, grabbing for a handhold on the tree around him, but
his claws found no purchase on the rotting inner vein material and he
slipped out of sight again.

What to do? What to do? Nis did not want to panic. He must not panic. His
father’s life depended on it. Nis closed his eyes and tried to shut out the
splashing and gasping. He concentrated, trying to coax a melody out of his
constricted chest. It came in fits and spurts, and then an uncontrollable
wash. Nis sang the quick urgent solo of the drowning Rote.

If one of the people is drowning, pull him out.

Nis looked inside the hollow tree again. He did not think he could climb
down the swaying waxy surface without falling in himself. No good.

Do not grow the danger or make more drowning Song with your own body.
Throw a long hand.

Nis did not have a free vine or rope which he could throw. The nooses were
far too short to reach his father, even if he had the time to loosen one.

What else? Nis sang rapidly.

If you cannot pull out those in danger, lower the sea.

Lower the sea? Nis had never been to the sea, but the Rote must be referring
to water in general. Nis didn’t know how to do it, but he could not lower the
water from where he was. With a last look down at his father,
Nis scrambled down the trunk. He went so fast that he half fell and hit the
ground hard, but nothing was broken. He picked himself up and looked at
the trunk. It was very thick. His father was just inside the tight weave of
massive stalks.

How to lower the sea?

Create new streams, so that the water may flow away.

That was it. If Nis could part the stalks, the water would run out and his
father could breath. Nis grabbed two stalks and yanked them apart with all
his might, but these veins supported the tree and they were too strong
for Nis to pull apart.

There was not much time left.

Consider your tools.

What did Nis have? He looked around. His bone knife, his spear, some
food, a bizillion nuts ... Nis grabbed the spear. He remembered a Rote
passage about killing spore-eaters.

Pierce its veins, that the blood may flow and the pressure of life within may
run out.

The tree was not a spore-eater and the verse had nothing to do with
drowning, but it inspired Nis. The tree did look alive and the stalks certainly
looked like veins, so Nis stabbed his spear into the tree. He did not
actually pierce the veins—hurting the trees was forbidden—but he forced
the tip between two of the stalks, sawing the jagged tip in and out. His
effort was repaid with a few drips racing down between the tight weave,
and then a trickle. Finally, a steady stream of water sprayed from within.
Nis made several more holes. At first the streams sprayed out at right angles
to the tree, but as Nis made more holes and the water within lowered, they
fell closer and closer to the trunk until there was no more than a dribble
coming out. Nis noticed that the veins around the base of the trunk were
contracting as the water subsided. He hoped his father would not be
crushed.

Nis pressed his mouth against one of the holes. “Father!”

He listened and was rewarded with gasping sounds.

“Father, are you alive?”

“I am alive,” the choking voice said.

Nis was so happy he couldn’t even think of a question to ask.

“This water tastes horrible,” his father complained. “It tastes like—”

“I know,” Nis cut in, relieved. “You say everything new tastes like dung,
Father.”

“But this does not taste like dung,” his father said. “It tastes like piss.”

Nis couldn’t laugh. His father wasn’t making a joke, besides it was still a
very serious situation. “Are you healthy? Have you broken any bones?”

“I don’t think so. But my head feels very large, and I feel tired.”

“Do not go to sleep, Father,” Nis said, alarmed. Everyone knew most
people died in their sleep, that was when the total silence could grab you
unawares. He didn’t have to consult the Rote to know that. Those with the
silencing sickness died after falling asleep. “Can you move?”

“No. The tree presses its insides against me.”

“What will we do?”

“We must follow the Rote”

Thunk. Thunk-thunk. Egg-sized spheres hit the fungus beside Nis.

“Nuts are falling, Father.”

_ “You must go, and wait for the nuts to fall,” the muffled voice said.

“But—”

“Nis, it is what the Rote says.”

How could Nis argue with the Rote? He could not. He could be worried
about his father, though. “Do not fall asleep. I will move back and wait.”

“I will not sleep,” his father assured him.

The time in which the nuts fell could not have been merely an hour and if it
was, it was the most stressful hour Nis had known. He sat unmoving as the
sprinkle of nuts became a rain and then a torrent, and then the
frequency reversed itself, until no nuts remained in the tree. If Nis had
allowed himself to pace or circle, he would surely have run in before the
last nut fell.

“I’m back,” Nis declared, returning to the tree. “Are you alive.”

“I am alive,” said a weak voice. “I did not fall asleep.”

“The nuts are all down. What will we do now?”

“We must follow the Rote,” Nis’ father replied.

“But how can the Rote know the answer we need?” Nis asked.

“The Rote has answers for all our needs,” his father declared predictably.

“But this is a difficult question,” said Nis, wondering just how he would get
his father out. His hour of enforced thought had not given him insight.

“If we do not have the difficult answer, then we must use an easy one,” his
father said obstinately. “We must follow the steps the Rote commands us to
take. You must unleash the sap of the tree.”

“Very well,” Nis said. His father wanted him to undo the noose not because
it might save him, but because it was the next step in the harvest of the nuts.
However, it might help: if Nis released the pressure, the tree might release
its grip. His father might be able to climb free.

Nis unscrewed the tourniquet. As with so many things that day, it did not
have the desired effect. Sap flowed up into the suffocating tree, the blue-red
color diminished and the tree recovered some of its stiffness, but in doing so
the veins around his father expanded rather than contracted.

His father cried out. Nis retightened the noose a couple turns.

“It is not working, Father,” Nis said.

“You must continue.”

“But the tree is getting smaller inside. You will be hurt.”

“There are few moments in life without hurt, Nis. Sometimes things must
get worse before they can get better. You must follow the Rote.'’

“I don’t understand,” Nis said.

“You don’t have to understand. You need to do what the Rote says.”

“But it is making it worse.”

His father grumped his displeasure.

Nis said nothing, but he did what the Rote bid, and what his father wished,
dreading each unwinding turn of the sapling. He heard the stalks expanding.
He imagined he heard his father’s pained intake of breath, but he could not
be sure.

“Father?”

“Keep ... turning.”

Nis turned again. The tree expanded a fraction more and the elder Fuzzie
was unable to withhold his cries.

Nis wound the sapling back. “I will not release any more sap!”

“We must follow the Rote."

“Yes, we must follow the Rote," Nis said his frustration getting the better of
him, “but I cannot release any more sap.’’

“We must follow the ceremony. The tree must not be desecrated.”

“The tree is fine,” Nis said firmly. “Plenty of sap is flowing.”

It was true. The tree was looking much firmer. Even the upper forks, which
were each still tied off, had straightened.

“The tree is healthy,” Nis reaffirmed. He grasped for an argument to use

against his father’s one-track approach. A line Soothsinger had told him
sprung onto Nis’s lips: “The Rote says we must not grow our danger by
thoughtless singing. We must sing the right verse at the right time.”

That seemed to mollify his father. “Very well, Nis, but you must help me
find the right verse. I cannot sing straight with my heavy head.”

“I will help you.”

First, Nis took his spear and widened one of the holes, wedging it open with
dried nuts until he could actually see a part of his father’s gray face. He was
tired of talking to a tree.

Then, they sang.

Nis sang every verse he could think of. His father sang every verse he could
remember, but Nis wondered how badly his father’s head was hurt, because
even the adolescent Nis knew the elder was not recalling the verses
properly. Nis redoubled his efforts to find a melody which would save his
father. If any adolescent could do it, he could. He knew the Rote better than
any of his peers. He wracked his brain to find the answer. Several times
they felt they had found it, but everything they tried did not work, or made
the problem worse. Verse upon verse dragged time by. Eventually the sky
began to redden as Protector sank beneath the trees to the west and
there was still no answer. Nis agonized over it, but he could not find one.

“Sing it again,” his father encouraged.

The fourth time he passed through the same verse, a horrible truth dawned
on Nis. He did not know it. Nis believed what his father said: the Rote had
an answer for everything—but he could not find it. Nis did not
know enough of the verses to find it. That was the frightening truth.
He told his father as much, but the stubborn old Fuzzie would not
understand. He exhorted Nis to think harder. If Nis would think harder, the
answer would come.

“Think harder, Nis. You have to think for me.”

But Nis had thought as hard as he could. He desperately wanted to get his
father out of the tree. He would have thought until his head exploded, but
he just didn’t know and he couldn’t will the unheard Song into his mind.

The sky was dark. The miserable wail of the Singing Nuts intruded into
Nis’ concentration.

“Start again, we are missing something. Here, I will sing it for you.”

Nis couldn’t even listen to his father’s wavering voice for clues, because the
elder’s lyrics were so confused.

For some reason Nis remembered a verse about sporeeater hunting again.
This one was what to do after the kill.

Cleave the core open, release the evil humors.

“I can cut you out with my spear.”

“No!” his father said. “We must not hurt the tree.”

There was no help. It was hopeless.

“You have overlooked a melody. Sing it again,” the weakening voice

persisted.

“1 cannot sing it again!” Nis howled “I do not know the answer!”

Nis was terribly ashamed. He had yelled at an elder, his father. It was not
right. But his father did not chastise him. Nis felt more shame. There was
only one thing to do.

“We must stop the Rote," Nis said.

Still no reprimand. Silence, then: “You must leave.”

“Yes,” Nis agreed, knowing what was coming.

If you must stop the Rote, you must get more Singers.

“I will bring more Singers.” More singers would be able to find the answer.
“I will be back by this time tomorrow.”

“No,” his father said. “You will be back in two days.”

“I will run all the way,” Nis said. “I will not stop, not even to sleep.” .

“I know, but you must bring three Singing Nuts to the pod.”

“But I only have one nut!”

“There are three. Tonight you must find the other two, and then you will
leave, and run back to the pod.”

“No,” Nis cried, “that will take too long—”

“Nis!” his father said with some fury. “We are here to get the Singing Nuts.
If you return empty handed, you condemn the pod to silence. Who will sing
if all are silent?”

“I’m sorry, Father. You are right.”

To find one nut was a task which normally took two of them all night. Nis
didn’t know how he was supposed to find two nuts in one night all by
himself. He was dead tired. Neither of them had slept more than eight hours
in the last three days.

But it had to be done.

Somehow, Nis pushed himself; he worked harder than he ever had before,
though his muscles ached and his own mind wandered from the effort.
Somehow he pushed the nuts into piles, and when one pile sang, he divided
that into two more piles and so on, until both piles sang. Now he had
separated the male nuts. The division went on and on throughout the night.
Always to the sound of the Singing Nuts. Nis hated the sound. It was the
sound of death. And he was watching his father die by increments. Each
time he checked, the elder Fuzzie looked worse. Once, Nis caught him
sleeping. It was a frightening time for a young Fuzzie of forty-seven
seasons. Perhaps it was that fear which urged him to achieve what had
never been done before. Nis knew it wasn’t his strength or his bravery, for
he was young and foolish, and it wasn’t his intelligence, because if he was
smarter he would have found the verse to save his father. Whatever it was,
when dawn came and the last of the evening breezes had died on
the warmth of morning, Nis had all three nuts.

“Now you must run,” his father croaked. “Run and don’t stop, and I will
wait for you.”

“I will run and I will not shame you,” Nis promised.

“You cannot shame me, son,” his father said, “I am more proud of you now
than I have ever been.”

The praise surprised Nis, because his father was not one to give praise, and
it shamed him more, because he did not deserve it.

Nis ran. He could not run all the way back to the camp and he had to rest;
but he kept sleep to a minimum and his legs moving as fast as they could,
and two days later he returned to the valley of the Singing Nuts with
Singers. And not just any Singers, but the Soothsinger and every other elder
of the pod healthy enough to make the trip.

The vital Singing Nuts had saved the pod. Nis had returned just in time to
reverse the silencing sickness. Not all were saved, but most were. Br’gitte’s
mother was among those now recovering, and his own mother, who had
fallen sick shortly after Nis and his father had left on their quest. Only a
quarter of the pod was silenced. It was a great loss, but not a loss so great
that life could not go on.

Nis had saved the pod.

And the pod’s greatest combined knowledge of the Rote had returned with
Nis into the Forbidden Jungle. It was the first time for such an occurrence,
the Soothsinger had said, but the Rote was clear. If the Rote was
stopped, more Singers must be brought. If more Singers were summoned,
they must go. Forbidden Jungle or no.

The Rote was the Rote.

Nis had brought back the Singing Nuts and saved the pod, and led
Soothsinger and the other elders back to the valley, but he could not save
his father. His father was dead when they got back. The Rote could not save
him because it was too late. They could not even retrieve his father’s body,
because they must not harm the trees.

The tree would be his tomb.

Afterward there were new verses in the Rote. A requiem about Nis, his
father and Total Silence in the Valley of the Singing Nuts. It was a tragic
lyric set to a heroic hymn, and Fuzzies took it to their hearts all over
their small world and sang it long after Nis was cast out.

But young Nis, the Fuzzie, didn’t care about tragic tales, or heroic hymns,
he only cared about his father. He wept at the foot of the tree, curled into a
ball. All the elders gathered around him and laid their arms over him and
held him as he shook. Because tears had a part in the Rote too, just as much
as any other part of life. And because Nis’ tears had given them voice to
sing the silence away.

“You did the right thing,” Soothsinger intoned. “It is the way of life. We
will sing.”

Twice in one week a daylight Rote was sung. This one just for Nis. It was a
song of forgiveness. They sang it to take his guilt. For they had no guilt and
his burden was heavy, but no verse in the Rote was strong enough,
nor could there ever be enough Singers to free Nis’ guilt, for he was the
One. They did not know it, but his destiny was cast.

The little Fuzzie in their arms was not like them and he never could be.
Stol’ss continued to sing, even as Nis remembered.

That young Fuzzie was so far away from him now. He wanted to deny it
was him, but he couldn’t. That young Fuzzie had devoted himself to Song.
He had studied harder than ever, learned every verse, lyric, or
melody Soothsinger would teach him, because he knew that if he had been
smarter and worked harder, he would have known the answer and his father
would not have died.

But Nis did not believe that now. He had no Song. And the Rote had no
answers.

The Old One's commands had worn off enough for Nis to touch Stol’ss.
“It’s no use. We must find another way.”

Stol’ss gave up and wept as Nis had all those years ago. “I don’t know what
to do. There aren’t any humans to tell me what to do.”

That was the answer, of course: they must find a human to tell them what to
do. Neither of them should really have had to think about it. It had been
drilled into them for as long as they could remember. If you get into trouble,
go find a human.

But there weren’t any humans around.

Nis was about to stand up, when a door opened at the end of the hall, and he
cowered again. The Plantagenet strode out. Nis remembered it from the
battle with the Old One and from earlier....

Nis’ throat tightened and his breath quickened as the Plantagenet's vicious
elegance overwhelmed him.
Chapter 25
First, there was heat:

It was like a fever dream. A feather floating gently, inexorably toward an

infinite lake of acid which stretched away to the horizons and beyond. The
descent was slow. He had little volume and almost no weight to pull him
down. His head was swollen with emptiness. Drafts of searing wind buoyed
him up, here and there, but always he resumed his drifting fall.

The lake beckoned.

He was afraid of the lake. Its surface was a black mirror on which he did
not reflect. It smelled of sweetness and decay. It smelled of stories
untold and dreams undreamed. Its odors whispered to him as he neared it.
He was afraid of its pure chemical eloquence. He didn’t want to listen to its
fragrant nightmares. Every follicle of hair in his matted fur quivered with
terror. And yet, the terror made him feel alive, as he had never felt before.
The terror had awakened a part of him which refused to slumber any longer.
And that innermost part anticipated the plunge which must come....

Then, there was cunning:

Even as one part of his mind sank toward the lake, another part lowered the
metal cylinder down from the weapons nacelle. Its tapered ends fit nicely
into the cradle on the motorized dolly beneath the mining pod. He admired
the sleek shape for a moment. Its elegant form was like a dart or a fish—a
quick fish, swimming in a dark lake. It was like him. Its simple exterior
belied its inner purpose. It wasn’t large, but it was powerful.

It would do, very nicely.

He remembered how easily he had come here. Of course, the Regnant had
not interfered with his passage up through the lower decks and he had
moved through the people above with complete anonymity. How close
they had come to him. Some of them had glanced off the slick fabric of his
pressure suit without pause—without pause! What they could have seen if
they only looked! His secret. There it was, under his skin! The lake.... But
the humans paid him no attention and the other Fuzzies couldn’t control
their grovelling. They abased themselves as he went by: they smelled the
power on him.

He still smelled the Plantagenet's presence in his own nostrils, intoxicating

him. The lingering fragrance of its commands filled him with love. He
would do anything for that love. It was right for the Plantagenet to kill the
Old One. Old fetters must be torn away so that this new love might flourish.

With the Plantagenet's success would come his own. That thought
intoxicated him, too.

He turned the cap at the tip of the fish. A little this way. A little that way.
He must be careful. He didn’t want the fish to bite, yet. The cap came off in
his fingers. Now it was dangerous.

Like me, he thought.

Mounting the dolly, he released the parking brake and pushed the drive
levers forward. Electric motors pulled him and his fish smoothly out from
under the shadow of the mining pod.

Murphy’s Law, it said on the nose.

He felt a brief surge of guilt. Walker. He kind of liked Walker—didn’t he?

He couldn’t remember: the lake was so close....

And then there was the love. It swelled in his chest. Walker wasn’t part of
that love.

Too bad.

Consciousness returned slowly. And painfully.

His ears rang.

Where was he? Hephaestus. Right. The base was under attack.
Walker was on his back, staring up at the ceiling from under a pile of heavy
debris. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out, but it couldn’t have been
long. He heard the sounds of fighting in the hall. Crack, crack! A cascade
of water sprayed down on him from a sprinkler overhead.

Walker looked around. What a mess. The grenades had torn chunks out of
the sculpted walls around him. To either side he could look through ragged
holes and see into the rooms beyond. The doorways which had opened into
those chambers did not exist anymore. Large pieces of electrical wiring had
fallen from the ceiling. Regnant parts littered the deck. His improvised
grenades packed a punch, to say the least. How had he survived
the explosion?

“At least I got the fuckers,” he said to himself. His lips stuck together at
first.

He noticed his skin was sticky.

How had the Regnant gotten their hands on human weapons? Walker
guessed the guns must have been taken from Holland’s ill-fated recon party.
Stubbs would have armed them to the teeth with goodies from the
weapons locker. Thankfully, there weren’t any really nasty weapons on
Hephaestus, or Stubbs would have taken those too. Walker didn’t relish the
thought of the Regnant using flamethrowers or rocket launchers. The image
of the beasts ambushing them with assault rifles and camoed up like a squad
of jungle shock troops was frightening enough.

But they were not beasts.

He must remember that. They were far beyond that. They were a
combination of everything, good or bad, bestial or sentient, which made
them effective killing machines: if they couldn’t gore you with their claws,
they laid a trap and killed you with your own weapons. Walker understood
their mind-set. He respected it. And he hated them for it, because he had
been like them, and he hated that part of himself.

“Damn things learn too fast,” he cursed, not for the last time.
It was too bad about Stubbs. Walker respected the old soldier. Fortunes of
war....

Looking back the way he had come, Walker saw the source of the noise.
Headless snakes writhed against jagged metal plating which blocked his
way. Crack, crack! They made a racket loud enough for him to hear over
the ringing in his ears. Sparks from the severed high-power cables lit up the
impassable tangle like flares and tracers over a far off battlefield. Of course,
it was really only a few meters away and inside a small dark
passage. Accumulated water pooled on the deck. The puddles Walker lay in
apparently did not connect with the ones the cables squirmed in, because he
was still alive.

Definitely no way out there. He would have to go the other direction.

Examining himself gave clues to the question of how he had survived the
explosion. He was covered with black bony plates held together with
stringy bits of tendon and flesh: the remains of the Regnant which had
tackled him at the last moment. It couldn’t be anything else,
Walker concluded. He pulled the bloody armor off. The Regnant had
unwittingly shielded him from the worst of the blast with its interposed
body and more or less disintegrated in the process. Walker was coated in
metallic crimson ichor. The protection was not complete: he had strips of
second-and third-degree burns where the Regnant armor had not covered
him.

He rolled over. Pain shot through the right side of his body. It had taken the
brunt of the blast and it was complaining. He stood up slowly, brushing
himself off as best he could. He was a sight. In addition to the Regnant
remains, his uniform was charred and torn, and scarlet blood—his blood—
seeped from rents in the fabric covering his left thigh. His thigh hadn’t hurt
before, but the glaring evidence that he was wounded prompted his brain to
double-check all the nerve endings in that area of his body.

Yes, it hurt.

Limping a few steps further away from the electrified puddles, Walker sat
back down and tore his pant leg open to the knee. Two small holes opposed
each other on the front and back of his leg.

That’s right, he remembered, I’ve been shot.

The wound bled steadily, but slowly: a good sign. The shot hadn’t damaged
an artery. If it had, he would have bled to death. Walker rapidly sprayed
combat dressings on his many wounds and tied his pant leg back
together again. The anesthetic in the dressing started to work almost
immediately. Standing up, he tested the leg. It worked and he could ignore
the dull thudding pain. Walker stuck a couple of stimulant patches on the
inside of his lower lip. It was way over the safe dose, but he could not
afford to go into a drug stupor.

Walker reached for his gun. Where was his gun? A quick look around
revealed nothing. He kicked through the debris. He moved to the holes in
the walls and looked into the rooms beyond. He winced as he scraped
against jagged metal, but there was no sign of his pistol, or the assault rifles
the Regnant had been packing. He gave up. The weapons might as well be
back on Jayvee if they were buried in the electrified mess blocking the hall.

Walker tried to remember how far Bartlet and the Fuzzies had been from
the blast. He seem to recall about thirty paces between him and them. That
should have been enough distance to keep them from harm—at least from
the explosion anyway. He had to find another way back to Bartlet. She was
a very capable woman, but she had a resistance to using her weapon and
Walker feared she would not last long against the Regnant if they remained
separated.

Setting off at a lope, Walker turned the far bend in the passage. It ended five
meters on, at a closed set of sliding doors. Fao’sg had said this was a dead
end. For his own sake, Walker hoped the Fuzzie was wrong. All decks
in the mining base were basically the same layout, except this deck, and
Walker couldn’t remember where he was.

Carefully, he approached. He froze as the power doors snapped open.

Beyond the portal was a wide room, whose depths he couldn’t make out.
Perplexing, hulking forms loomed in the darkness and stale odors assaulted
his nose.
Walker entered. The room was large indeed. He could just make out the far
wall, over thirty meters away from where he stood. The floor was spongy
under his boots. The odor was stronger, as though someone had boiled
his dirty socks in cloves. Walker skirted the edge, trying to stay away from
the large shapes. Suddenly there was a whirrr and a clack and a nearby
form reached out at him with long thin arms. He jumped back, but the
attack wasn’t followed through. In fact, the arms retreated. Clack, whirrr.
He stepped forward. Whirr, clack. He stepped back. Clack, whirrr. Each
time the arms extended and retracted. He was activating a proximity sensor.

Walker shook his head as he realized where he was: in a Fuzzie gym. The
odor was Fuzzie sweat, accumulated over dozens of years and reactivated
by the downpour of water from the sprinklers. The floor was spongy
because it and the walls were coated in a durable, rubbery foam. The shapes
were weight-lifting apparatus, specially modified for Fuzzie muscle groups.
Water from the sprinklers beaded on the chrome and soaked into the cracks
between the mats. Some of the machines Walker recognized, others he did
not. He wondered just what muscles the peculiar machine in front of him
was supposed to strengthen. It opened its arms to him again as he walked by
it.

The gym wasn’t just for weightlifting, either. Like human gymnasiums,
there were areas for more active sports. Doors along the left wall led to
showers and other rooms for personal use. The low gravity saunas were a
particular favorite. Walker knew many of the children at Hephaestus had
been conceived in them.

Now that he knew where he was, Walker wended his way directly across
the room, heading for an exit on the far wall. Each step he took made a wet
squish as his weight forced water out of the foam matting. He was
circumventing a large weight press when that far exit slid open and the
unmistakable shape of a Regnant passed by the opening. It paused,
apparently surprised by the automatic mechanism. Backing up, it looked
inside. It couldn’t see Walker behind the weight press in the dark, but it
snuffled the air.

Walker held his breath and hoped the strong odors in the gym would mask
his presence. His hand clenched empty air where the forty-five should have
been. One clean shot would take the Regnant out. Were there more outside?
That doorway was Walker’s only escape route.

“Go away,” he cursed silently.

It did not.

The Regnant entered the gym with an ease of motion and silence which
belied its great bulk. It moved a few paces, froze, then moved again. Each
time it stopped to test the air or stooped to inspect the matting—either
looking or smelling, Walker couldn’t be sure—before moving on again. The
Regnant stopped no more than a dozen paces from Walker. He thought it
must surely spot him now.

Then the Regnant did a couple of unexpected things. First, it tilted its head
in a gesture Walker would have sworn was confusion if it had been human,
then it made a much smaller version of the howling Walker had grown so
accustomed to hearing. It wasn’t exactly a gentle sound, but it was
definitely unsure in its timber. Almost questioning. Then a stench filled the
air, which could only have come from the creature. And what a stench:
it smelled like the mold which grew on rotting food in sealed containers or
a bin full of medical leavings in a wartime operatory.

Walker tried not to gag.

The Regnant sniffed the air again and repeated the sound, louder. Another
wash of noisome odor filled the gym.

Then Walker realized that his coating of sticky Regnant blood was
confusing the creature. It smelled another of its kind, but couldn’t find it.
The sound was a recognition call and there could be no answer, because
Walker didn’t know the proper response. Even Walker wasn’t crazy enough
to try mimicking the sounds.

Walker had to attack before he lost the element of surprise. It was his only
advantage. Moving only his eyes and not his head or body, Walker looked
for any kind of weapon. There was nothing within easy reach, not even
a dumbbell. The only possibility was a chromed-steel bar on the weight
machine before him. One end of it was slotted and fit into a row of grooves.
At the other end a pin held it in position. Moving the pin increased or
decreased the amount of leverage and the machine’s resistance. Removing
the pin would transform the bar into a handsome club.

The Regnant stalked closer.

Ever so slowly, Walker raised his arm and took a firm grip on the pin.

The Regnant froze. Walker froze. His scalp itched furiously as sweat seeped
from one hair follicle to the next. The Regnant tested the air once more. As
it moved its head Walker caught a gleam in its dark pupil—they had locked
eyes.

In the split second which followed, the Regnant leaped and Walker pulled
the pin, grabbing the bar with both hands. The Regnant was lightning fast.
Walker scarcely had time to bring the bar around before the creature
was upon him. Walker’s aim was poor and his stance improperly braced for
impact, but Walker managed to hit it in the area of its left lung. Walker fell
backward onto the matting and braced the bar against the floor. The
Regnant’s weight carried it down onto Walker and the bar pierced deep into
its chest. Now it howled at full volume. With the bar still firmly planted,
Walker used the remaining momentum to fling the Regnant over his head,
as one would a bail of hay with a pitchfork. The bar ripped out of Walker’s
grasp and the Regnant careened into another weight machine, wrecking it.

Walker barely had time to get to his feet before the Regnant recovered, but
as it lunged again, the bar in its chest tangled in the wrecked weight
machine. The Regnant howled in pain. It couldn’t move without causing
itself horrendous pain. Walker saw the flesh around his makeshift spear
writhe as the Regnant tried to heal itself. The metal groaned as the creature
exerted its enormous muscle power, but the wound could not be healed
before the bar was removed.

Walker dove for the cover of a rack of barbells. Grabbing the largest barbell
—and then a smaller one when he couldn’t lift the first—Walker charged
the Regnant and slammed the pig-iron weight repeatedly onto the creature’s
head. The weight was too crude to use with any degree of finesse, but it was
effective. The Regnant lashed out at him. However, the spear prevented it
from twisting to face Walker. He dodged its blows easily. Again and again
he slammed the barbell down. The Regnant thrashed at the entrapping metal
like a snared animal, its wounds healing almost as fast as Walker inflicted
them.

Walker’s blood pounded in his ears as he pummelled the Regnant. It might

be healing, but Walker was winning. The air stank of urine or musk, only
worse than either. Must be the pheromone, Walker thought. It’s trying to
enslave me.

“Won’t work,” he said aloud. “Use your fucking stink on someone else.”
This was his chance to kill it.

However, that hope evaporated when the Regnant grabbed the entire
machine in which it was entangled and ripped it free from its moorings. The
Regnant lifted the whole thing above its head and threw it at Walker.
Walker dove out of the way, but he wasn’t as lucky this time. He felt
burning pain as the trailing bars slashed across his back. He dropped the
dumbbell. Another man would have doubled over completely, but training,
and stimulants, overrode reflexes and Walker managed to roll to his feet.

Free of the wreckage, the Regnant turned its attention back to the
immediate source of its pain. It grabbed the metal bar with spiny claws.

Without thinking, Walker charged. The Regnant looked up too late and the
impact brought them both to the floor. Walker threw his weight against the
bar, grinding it viciously into organ and bone. The Regnant raked
Walker’s legs with its lower claws. Without the force of the charge, Walker
did not have the power to press his advantage. The Regnant backhanded
Walker and he flew through the air, struck a wall and crumpled in a dazed
heap.

Walker’s body was a total screaming wound. The new gashes and bruises
joined his older wounds and overstimulated his nerves. The pain hit him in
waves. Even with his drugs and stimulants, it was almost too much.
He fought to maintain clarity of thought.
Struggling onto hands and knees, Walker looked for the Regnant. He had
lost his sense of direction: the Regnant wasn’t where it should be.

An animal shriek refreshed Walker’s orientation.

The Regnant was bent over in the darkness, its face contorted in agony as it
pulled on the impaling metal rod. Its own defenses worked against it. The
flesh around the rod had healed and was bonded to the metal. Every tug
on the bar ripped newly formed flesh and caused the Regnant terrible
internal damage.

The creature itself appeared different. Nis would have said its body
language was changed, Walker knew. It was still a terrifying abomination,
but it no longer attacked without regard for its own well being. It tended its
wound while keeping one wary eye on its opponent. The creature was
perplexed. Perhaps this Regnant had never encountered a victim that
defended itself so well. Was it fear Walker saw in its eyes? Yes. But there
was more than that: it was the kind of fear accompanied by a sense of
begrudging respect.

They were finally on equal ground.

Walker respected it. He respected the Regnant’s power and fury, the pain it
and its kind had inflicted upon him. Most of all Walker respected its ability
to act upon its desires and needs without self-restraint or self-
recrimination. The Regnant had intelligence, yet they were not fettered
by any concern for right or wrong. Although Walker could not—would not
ever—allow himself to lose his newfound, hard-earned conscience, he
respected that purity of purpose. So be it. Walker could revere and despise
his enemies at the same time.

It was the beauty of being human.

“Now, you will die,” he thought.

It understood.
Walker didn’t know how, but the Regnant reacted to his thought. Dozens of
small sphincters along its head opened and streams of revolting, sweet
odors washed over Walker. Was this an attack or communication? If it
was an attack, it was useless. If it was communication, Walker didn’t think
it was praising his ancestry. If it used odor as a language, then its own sense
of smell must be very sensitive. The Regnant must be able to smell
Walker’s sweat and know he was afraid, to smell his blood and know
he was wounded. It might know whether he had last eaten meat or
vegetable. Maybe it could even detect the adrenaline rush running through
his body. Could it smell the buildup of lactic acid in his muscles as they
contracted over and over? Could it smell the beating of his heart? One of his
body’s chemical byproducts had alerted the Regnant to Walker’s resolve to
kill it, that was for sure.

The Regnant leaped. Walker leaped.

The Regnant was fast, but wounded and the bar restricted its actions more
than ever. Walker dodged, hit the mat rolling, and kicked up at the bar as the
Regnant passed overhead. The creature hit the floor hard and howled. Dark
metallic blood spurted from the reopened wound and dripped off the bar. In
an instant Walker was on it, pulling on the bar. He yanked with all his
strength, wrenching it free from the Regnant's chest and plunging it back
down. Repeated stabs sank into the Regnant. Soft tissues tore. Ribs caved
in. Swollen organs burst. A choking stench arose as the creature desperately
healed itself. Walker’s next thrust drove squarely into the center of
the Regnant's chest. Gouts of blood sprayed out. Walker had pierced its
heart. The Regnant's last swipe knocked Walker onto the floor, but he didn’t
resume the attack. It was all over. The creature’s thrashing faltered as
the pulses of ichor slowly diminished, slowly grew weaker as its life blood
oozed onto the matting. Soon, its struggling ceased.

Panting, Walker got to his feet and stumbled to the Regnant's side. It did not
move, not even when he swung the bar full force onto its skull. Its healing
appeared to have stopped, but Walker had to be sure. Placing his hand on
the center of its chest, Walker felt for a heartbeat. There it was, ever so
faint. After all the damage Walker had done, there was still a vibration: one
beat for every ten of his own, and then one for every thirty ... nothing.
He had killed it. Hand to hand. No guns. No bombs. Tooth and nail, with a
rod of steel.

Fatigue would have set in with the relief, but for a vibration in his kill. It
was hardly perceptible ... but there it was again, and another and another!
Walker jammed his hand hard against the body. There was no movement
in the chest. With a growing feeling of panic, he felt all along the torso. The
contractions were in the abdomen. Walker pressed his ear against the slick
skin: three ghostly, syncopated beats emanated from within.

The fucking thing had backup hearts in its guts!

With the fury of a madman, Walker grabbed the bar and repeatedly plunged
it into the Regnant’s abdomen, ripping and tearing without mercy until he
found and destroyed every last organ that vaguely resembled a heart.

“Die! You son of a bitch!” he roared. Before his fury was spent, the
abdomen was an empty cavity whose contents were strewn about the nearby
matting.

Walker stood over the body for quite a while, looking and listening for any
sign of life. Water drizzled into the steaming cavity. This time it was dead.

He ran a grimy hand through his hair. He couldn’t stay any longer. He must
find Bartlet and Nis. On his way out he stooped and wiped the metal bar on
the matting, but he never looked back.

***

The passages on the other side of the gym didn’t go anywhere, except to
more storage rooms, but Walker was lucky enough to find a ladder to the
deck below. Once on Deck Five he found his way again; gone were the
snaking passages and moulded forms of Fuzzie architecture, and in their
place were the boring, predictable right angles of a human deck. Walker
quickly made his way through the familiar layout. The deck was curiously
quiet. There were no sirens, no screams and no Regnant killing
everything in sight. Walker expected to run into them at every corner, but he
did not. He did find the burnt-out remains of a dining area, which must be
the source of all the smoke filling the lower decks, but the cause of the
conflagration was not apparent, and the automated sprinkler system had
put the blaze out all by itself.

As Walker neared the center of the deck, the light levels went from dim to
pitch black. Even the emergency lighting had failed there. Just ahead of
Walker were large, stygian openings which must be the ramps. Walker
had long ago lost his torch. If he went in, he went in blind. He didn’t like it,
but with the weight bar firmly in his right hand, and his left hand running
along the inner wall, he plunged up the spiral passage.

It was an odd feeling, much like flying a mining pod on instruments alone.
He moved at a swift walk, not daring to break into a jog or a run for fear of
the dark. Every one of Walker’s senses was on hyper alert, but he largely
had to ignore their sensations and go on what he knew rather than what they
said: dark-dark, smooth-wall-warm, footstepsbreathing-heartbeat, smoke-
sweat-smell-bittersweet.

Bittersweet?

Suddenly Walker collided with something large in the blackness. There

should not have been anything on the ramp at that point. He fell backwards,
scrabbling sideways, expecting an attack, holding his metal bar before
him, swishing it through the air. Whatever he hit had been hard, but not
immovable. Its surface had been irregular. A few dozen frenzied heartbeats
later there was still no attack. Well, if there was no attack, it wasn’t
Regnant. Best to push on. There was no other way out anyway. Walker
crept forward on hands and knees, bar feeling before him, like a blind man’s
cane. It hit something and Walker jumped back again, before realizing he
had tapped the hard, ungiving surface of a wall.

Damn. He thought he was going straight ahead, but he had obviously

become disoriented in the dark. Taking several deep breaths, he tried to feel
which way the slope of the ramp ran. It was much harder then he would
have thought. The slope was only about fifteen percent off horizontal and
that was a precious small amount to detect, especially when there was no
true gravity. The pressure fields did not pull the fluid in his inner ear down
and level, but pushed his body down from above. He desperately wanted to
magically pull a marble out of his pocket and feel which way it rolled. He
had no such things, but in the end, the time spent thinking allowed his inner
ear to settle enough for him to guess which way was up. Probably to his
right. With that in mind, he remembered another clue and tested the wall
again: yes, it was the inner curve of the ramp, bulging toward him at the
closest point, and receding in either direction. That made sense. He
had been rising in a gentle counterclockwise direction before the impact.

Very carefully, Walker turned to his right and crept forward on his
haunches. Tap, tap, tap, went the bar ahead of him. Tap, tap, tap. His pace
was harrowingly slow. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap—thup. Something ahead.
Still no attack. He scurried sideways, but kept on going. Tap, tap—thup.
The obstacles were all around him, like unseen trees in a dark forest. Except
that they could not be trees.

But they were not attacking.

What the hell was going on? Walker wound through the obstacles, turning
aside as soon as the tip of his bar touched one. He desperately wanted to
reach over and grab with his hands. Then he would know for sure, but
he would not take that risk. He was making progress, getting closer to
Bartlet with each crawling step and Walker had learned a long time ago not
to ask questions when he didn’t want to know the answer or couldn’t do
anything about it even if he did.

The smell of bittersweet was all around him.

That, for example, was an answer he didn’t want. He kept moving. Tap, tap,
tap. Tap, tap, tap. Walker’s skin was crawling, how much from sweat and
how much from fear, he did not know. Maybe more from fear.

And then, a new development: the darkness was lightening ahead, barely
enough to detect, but it was there. As Walker continued upward the light
grew still more, until he could just make out the looming forest of
shapes around him: mostly larger than man-sized, all of them taller than he
in his crouched position.

Any moment now I’ll be dead, Walker thought.

But death did not come in those seconds or the few that followed. Walker
was actually able to move quicker because he could see the unidentified
silhouettes and wind through them without tapping. The bar was now held
in a two-handed power grip, ready for trouble that stubbornly refused to
come.

The light continued to increase until Walker’s dilated pupils were finally
able to confirm his worst fears.

He was in the middle of a forest of Regnant. It was surreal. There were

dozens of them. They stood unmoving all around him, spaced randomly
along and across the ramp. They were so close Walker could reach out
and touch them. Were they dead? Had they suddenly frozen in spot and
their hearts seized up? Walker could think of no reason why they would not
attack him if they were alive. They were the enemy, but something was
wrong. They weren’t attacking. Walker’s instinct was to run, but the ramp
was too crowded.

Walker stood up slowly, ready for the creatures to end their sadistic, alien
practical joke. He was prepared to go down, swinging the metal bar and
taking as many of them with him as he could, but he was not to find release
of tension that easily. Walker began to slip through them, turning,
sidestepping, doing anything to avoid contact with the nightmare monsters.

The source of the light came into view around the curve ahead. It was a
single dull emergency light, coated with soot, like the rest of the surfaces in
the tunnel. Now Walker could see more than outlines and shapes. He
saw their features clearly—and they were not dead, or sleeping, or even
frozen. They were awake, but seemingly in a trance. Elongated heads and
terror-formed bodies moved back and forth in a strange, hypnotic manner.

They were very much aware of Walker. Stiletto eyes followed his
movement through them, unblinking, focused, backed by malevolent
intellect: the eyes of hunters targetting prey. Leathery lips twitched over
razor-edged teeth as he walked by. They wanted to kill him. Aliens or not,
Walker could read the faces and postures of hunters. He was a hunter, too.
He was a leader of killers and he knew the hearts of these creatures.
Marshal Walker knew their hearts intimately. It was eerie being this close to
the enemy and still alive.

And these Regnant were armed. He must have passed two dozen already
and at least half of them carried standard-issue assault rifles. They did not
hold them upside down, or backwards either, but in a proficient military
grip. Walker could even read the LED counters on the clips of cartridgeless
ammunition. These Regnant had a lot of firepower. They must have taken
the weapons from Holland’s men.

Walker wanted to kill them all. He wanted to kill them and take their
weapons, but all he had was his miserable metal bar. He had just barely
killed one Regnant hand to hand. He didn’t like the odds against three or
four dozen.

Whatever was happening to the Regnant, it was a reprieve for him, but he
didn’t like it, because it was part of his enemy that he did not understand—
and those were the parts which would surprise you and defeat you. It felt
like the calm before the storm. The unknown part of his enemy was
allowing him to live, but he must not kill. He must not covet his enemies’
weapons and make a stupid mistake. There was a delicate balance to the
situation. Walker knew that any small action might tip the scales and the
Regnant would suddenly spring into motion and shred him. He must
continue his way as long and as far as they would let him go.

Walker walked faster, ignoring the hungry eyes which followed him, and
the swaying movements, except to avoid them. The pheromone smell was
thick. It clung in the back of his throat, gagging him, but he pressed on.
He knew they were scenting him. The many orifices on their heads fluttered
as they inhaled or fanned every small flavor around them.

They were testing the air. Trying to smell something in the air. Waiting for
something in the air.

It did not come while Walker was among them. None of the four dozen
creatures he saw broke their frozen expectancy. A couple more minutes of
hair-raising sidestepping and he was in the open again. Walker looked back
as he broke into a jog.
No pursuit.

Weird, weird, fucking weird.

The events played across Walker’s mind a few times, but he could not make
any sense of them. As far as he could see, every moment he lived from now
on was borrowed time, because he should have died right there, killed by
Regnant.

A familiar click startled him back to reality. It came from beyond the visible
curve of the ascending ramp. Walker pressed himself against the inner wall,
the bar raised like a baseball bat. He strained as his trained ear picked out
the click of a weapon being charged. It was more armed Regnant then, and
these weren’t frozen. Walker figured he had a fifty-fifty chance if there
was only one. More than one and he was a dead man. He heard scuffling
just around the curve of inner wall. Heavy, labored breathing: in, out, in,
out.... Walker’s hopes grew. It sounded like just one. The breathing got
louder. It was just out of sight. Any moment now....

Walker jumped out, swinging the club with all his might—and he barely
avoided crashing it into a human head. It was Stubbs, carrying a wounded
man over his shoulders. The two men froze, Stubbs looking at the new dent
in the wall, Walker enjoying a close-up view of a gun barrel and the rifling
inside.

Stubbs relaxed his trigger finger and lowered the weapon out of Walker’s
face. “Is that any way to greet an old soldier?” Stubbs said, breathing easy
again. “You scared the piss out of me, Captain.”

“You had me going too, Stubbs,” Walker replied, also lowering his weapon.

Stubbs was bruised and cut. His uniform was torn and soaked with human
and Regnant blood alike.

“You look like shit,” Walker said amicably.

A grin contorted Stubb’s craggy features. “You look pretty bad too, sir.”
Walker looked at his own uniform. The stains were in different spots, but
otherwise it looked like the one Stubbs wore. “I guess so,” Walker admitted.
Much of the blood on Stubbs’ uniform had soaked down from the
wounded Guardsman he carried. “Who’s your man?”

“Charley Romero,’" the sergeant answered. “He’ll live if we get him to a

doctor. He took it when we got ambushed. Holland got it there, too.” He
looked Walker square in the eye. “You were right, sir. We
should’ve evacuated and fought ’em at life support. Holland was a great
administrator—God rest his soul—but he didn’t know shit from shinola
when it came to a fight.... Did you see that creep show down there?” Stubbs
asked, looking back down the ramp.

Walker nodded.

Stubbs shivered. “It’s enough to give a soldier the willies.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Walker. “Let’s move.”

Contrary to what Walker expected from the near future, things got only
stranger, not saner. The closer they climbed to the Fuzzie deck, the more
noise they heard.

“What is that?” Walker wondered at the atypical racket coming from above.

“I can’t make ass or tit of it, sir,” Stubbs replied.

It was sort of like a battle, but not quite. There were lots of voices, a
rhythmic clunk and thud, but the voices all had a familiar unthreatening
timber.

“More things?” Stubbs whispered.

“Give me your rifle, Stubbs,” Walker ordered. “You can stay here with
Romero and I’ll check it out.”

“Hell, no!” Stubbs balked. “If you think you can hog all the payback,
Captain, you got another thing coming. Stubbs pulled another assault rifle
from Romero’s back. “Take this.”
“Good man, Stubbs,” Walker said, arming the weapon. It still had more than
four hundred rounds of ammo in the clip. “Let’s even up the tally a bit.”

Grinning again, Stubbs cocked his own weapon. “Now you’re talking.”

Stubbs bent over and allowed Romero to slump against the wall as they
reached the Fuzzie deck. He and Walker jumped into the garden, ready to
charge into battle, but there was no payback or any other kind of combat
waiting for them—just a very weird scene:

At the far end of the garden, Fuzzies were running around like chickens
with their heads cut off, screaming, “Retreat! Retreat! Desist! Retreat!”
They were trying very hard to get out the far doorway, but were unable to
because as the frenzied aliens neared the passage, Dr. Elaine Bartlet hit
them over the head with a hoe.

Clunk!

Walker was shocked at how hard she hit them, but they were hardly
deterred. They would briefly stagger around, then go back for more.

“Retreat! Desist!”

Thud!

“Get back,” Bartlet yelled.

“We must retreat! We cannot stay!” the Fuzzies cried. Clunk!

It would have been funny except that Walker saw the remains of a large,
bloody battle there.

Thok!

Walker strode over to the besieged scientist. “Dr. Bartlet, save it for the
enemy.”

Bartlet’s face lit up. “Walker? You’re alive ... ! Help me!”
“What’s up with them?” he asked as he waded into the Fuzzies.

“A very strong pheromone order came out of that pipe,” Bartlet explained
breathlessly.

Walker had seen the hole gaping in the life-support pipeline. “You did
that?”

“Retreat!”

Clunk!

“Yes. The air’s all gone now,” Bartlet said, “but it was like a hurricane in
here before. It was the only way to get the Fuzzies to move with Regnant
around.”

Walker stepped beside Bartlet and immediately had to shove a Fuzzie away.
“You blew away the pheromone. I’m impressed.”

“It worked great until we got really outnumbered,” Bartlet said. “But then
the strong pheromone scent came out of the pipe and saved us. The Regnant
all started cowering like Fuzzies do and they backed off. They had us dead
to rights but they couldn’t resist the command.” Bartlet showed displeasure.
“Unfortunately, these damn Fuzzies can’t resist either.”

“Retreat!” a Fuzzie cried. Bartlet wound up with the hoe. Thud! The Fuzzie
fell to the grass and another took its place.

“This is the only way I can stop them from scattering into the deck again,”
Bartlet said. “I can’t keep hitting them forever, though. A little help would
be nice."

Walker promptly yelled as loud as he could: “Stop! Stop at once!” he

barked at the deranged aliens.

“We cannot stop! We must retreat! Retreat!”

Walker waded into the aliens again and got physical. “This is not the way to
retreat. Retreat is up the ramps. We must retreat up the ramps!” Walker
accentuated his commands with liberal applications of boot-heel to
Fuzzie butt. “Form a group near the lake and we will retreat. I order you to
retreat to the lake!”

Walker kept shoving and turning and kicking butt until they started to listen.
“We must retreat,” they still said, but now the mass of Fuzzies began
heading in the right direction.

Bartlet panted, scowling at Walker. “I hate you.”

“You just have to know what to say,” he said.

Bartlet cross-checked Walker with the shaft of the hoe. “Don’t you ever
scare me like that again!”

“Hey!” Walker exclaimed under the treacherous assault.

“I saw you blown up! I thought you were dead!”

“I’m not.”

Bartlet threw down the hoe. “I know that, you asshole!”

“I’m sorry, next time I won’t fight so hard to stay alive!”

Bartlet balled up her fists as if to resume beating Walker, but she threw her
arms around him instead. “I was hoping you’d show up. It was really bad
here.”

“I see that,” he said and hugged Bartlet back, blood, grime and all. Bodies
of dead Fuzzies and Regnant were scattered throughout the greenery.
Bartlet and the Fuzzies had apparently held their own, but it had been ugly.
He noted where Fao’sg had crawled into a flower bed and bled to death.

“You’re the best looking thing I’ve seen in a while,” she said.

He looked her over with thirsty eyes. She smelled like pheromone. The
collar of her jumpsuit was stained with the concentrated ichor. It struck him
how important the fiery woman had become to him. “So are you,”
he whispered.

“Good,” she hissed.

The moment was sweet, but short and colored by all the death around them.
Prolonged intimacy or lovemaking was inappropriate. They didn’t, couldn’t
say anything else. One heart-felt kiss and they reluctantly pulled apart.

They walked back to the lake, where Stubbs—who had retrieved Romero—
was herding the Fuzzies along as slowly as he could. There were still chants
of retreat and desist, but they were much more scattered now.

“Are you hurt?” Walker asked, looking her over for injury.

“I’m not physically wounded,” Bartlet said in a brave voice, “but some of
the Fuzzies are.”

“Stubbs has got a wounded man, too.” Walker turned to include the
sergeant, who had been resolutely examining his footwear during their
personal exchange, and Romero, who was now in the hands of a couple of
the more levelheaded Fuzzies. “Is this all the Fuzzies on this deck?”

“I think so,” Bartlet said, looking at the sixty-odd live Fuzzies

despondently. There were over a dozen dead. “But it’s way less than the two
hundred that’re supposed to be down here.”

“I know,” Walker double-checked the faces around them. “You didn’t find
Nis?”

Bartlet deflected the question with a hopeful look at Stubbs.

The old soldier shook his head. “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any Fuzzies
until just now.”

“This place is hotter than hell,” said Walker. “We can’t stay here to look.” A
tilt of his chiselled features indicated the Fuzzies bent on retreat. “They
wouldn’t let us anyhow.”
Bartlet wouldn’t meet Walker’s eyes. He caught the moisture in hers. “What
do we do now?” she asked.

“We keep our eyes and ears open on the way back,” he said to her, “and
hope he’s not down here.”

Bartlet nodded resignedly.

They went about the morbid task of inspecting every Fuzzie body on the
way out. Only two of them were alive. They gently lifted them and gave
them into the arms of their alien brothers. Those others who had fallen
would not rise again. Bartlet retrieved the Glock and loaded her last five
shells.

Stubbs lead the Fuzzies out of the garden and onto an upward ramp.

“Retreat. Retreat,” they chanted.

“That’s right, you furry beggars, we’re retreating,” Stubbs remarked as he

led them out of Walker’s view. “God knows when we’ll stop.”

Bartlet suddenly stopped. The rage and hate in her eyes rivaled that of any
Regnant’s. Walker followed their lead.

Two Regnant were half hidden in the bushes beside the entrance. Walker
raised his rifle, but there was no immediate danger. They swayed trancelike,
just like the others Walker had seen on the ramp. For some reason these
two had not retreated as far as the others, but that was not why Bartlet
boiled with anger or why Walker felt a cold lump in his stomach.

“No way,” he said in denial.

One of them was the human Regnant.

“What is that?" Walker asked with a chill. He too recognized the face from
Draven’s logs.

“That is what Dr. Ledbetter’s autopsy notes hinted at,” Bartlet said in a tight
voice. “That is our fate if we don’t watch out. It hurt me....”
Walker didn’t know you could get so much hatred into an utterance. Bartlet
and the Regnant shared a look of pure antipathy. Bartlet’s hands tensed on
the shotgun, but she did not raise the weapon to shoot.

“You want to kill it,” Walker said. “Kill it.”

Bartlet shook her head, no less furious. “No, I want it dead. But I will not
take revenge. I will not sink that low.”

“But you want it dead.”

“I want it to suffer.”

Walker pulled his bolt and squeezed off a dozen rounds. The human
Regnant fell. Its tranced brethren howled. Walker cut it down before it
could leap.

“Dead will have to do,” he said, expecting Bartlet would tear a strip off of
him.

Her answer and intimate tone surprised him. “Thank you.”

“I’ve got nowhere to go but up,” he explained, pulling her along after
Stubbs and the Fuzzies.

They formed a rear guard, exchanging stories as they wound upward.

Walker told Bartlet about the unmoving Regnant he had walked through.
Walker assumed her obvious interest was from the standpoint of Regnant
behavior and the fact that she was an anthropologist.

“Why didn’t you kill them?” she asked.

“I don’t think I could have,” Walker answered. “I didn’t have a weapon.”

“You could have found one.”

“Maybe,” Walker considered. “I should have killed them. One bullet, one
Regnant, one less problem. If you are forced to kill it must be absolutely
ruthless, otherwise you will be defeated every time. I just didn’t want
to waste the time, or take the chance.”

“So you decided it was not the time to be ruthless?” She asked.

“Is this leading somewhere?”

“Marshal Walker would have found a way,” Bartlet said quietly.

“Hmphf,” Walker grunted. The woman was perplexing.

Up and up they wound their way to safety. There was no one in sight, but
there was plenty of evidence that Regnant had been that way. They saw
flames billowing out of blazing rooms, caustic smoke stinging their eyes
and noses. Mangled human remains lay in doorways. Walker knew there
must be more survivors scattered about those decks, but they could not
search every level.

They called out at every opportunity. There were no replies.

Halfway back to life support, the marrow-chilling howling resumed. Walker

didn’t think his pack of stationary Regnant were stationary any more.
Walker heard noises to the rear. Pursuit was not far behind them. He wished
for more grenades to roll down the sloping ramp.

They passed Deck Seven, Eight, and then Nine. One more time around and
they passed sickbay. Walker hoped Lieutenant Franks had kept the
bulkheads open. The Fuzzies had bunched up ahead of them.

“Go up there and see what’s wrong,” he said to Bartlet.

She moved through the press to the front. The Fuzzies had ceased their
mindless chant of retreat and desist. They stood quietly now with looks of
great concern, facing Stubbs on the Deck Ten landing. Directly ahead of
the sergeant a large steel bulkhead door blocked further progress.

“What’s wrong?” Walker called from the back.

“We’re trapped,” Bartlet said.

Chapter 26
He was alone. That was best.

The feelings he had he could not share. A confused rush of conflicting

images and thoughts. Some he recognized but could not comprehend, while
others which he knew were alien to him, he understood. Not that his mind
was clouded. On the contrary, his new thoughts left him with a sense of
oneness and a clarity of perception which threatened to overwhelm him.

Several times now he had stopped to consider his actions. Was this right?
Were these his friends or not? He couldn’t tell for frightening moments
— then the clarity of mind would return and his purpose was once again
clear....

“Shit, said Walker. Regnant must be close. Franks had sealed the bulkheads.
That didn’t exactly make Walker feel safe, standing in the open as they
were. Think fast, he thought. Everybody is waiting for you to be brilliant.

“Captain Walker,” A welcome voice called from his right. “Over here, sir!
Over here!” Lieutenant Franks was calling to them from the other ramp.

A light went on in Walker’s head: they were on the wrong ramp. They had
gone down the other one, but after all the fighting, they had mistakenly
come up this one. He only saw the error now, after all the chaos.

Murphy’s Law: if anything can go wrong, it will.

“We thought you were dead for sure,” Franks said as they jogged to her.
Walker noted that she and her two male partners now wielded automatic
weapons of their own.

“So did we,” said Bartlet.

“Many times,” added Stubbs, “but it takes more than a few scary monsters
to count us out, Lieutenant.”
“Of course, Sergeant,” Franks said, smiling. Stubbs had trained her and all
the other Guardsmen on Hephaestus.

“Save the love-in for later, guys,” Walker said. “We’re not out of the woods
yet.”

In no time, they were over the threshold. Franks moved to a panel in the
curving wall. It was the one which sealed the bulkhead.

“Is that all you found, sir?” she asked, looking at the Fuzzies.

Walker nodded grimly.

“What about your friend?”

“No,” Bartlet said sadly. “We didn’t find him. He didn’t pass this way?”

“No,” Franks echoed, discouraged. She turned to Stubbs. “We chose to

follow Captain Walker’s orders in direct defiance of our orders from
command center, Sergeant,” she apologized.

“Put a demerit on your record, Lieutenant,” Stubbs said with mock severity.

“Captain,” Franks continued. “We kept the ramp open, but it shuts now,
sir.”

“Can’t you wait just a few more minutes?” Bartlet pleaded.

“No, she’s right,” Walker said logically. “It’s not safe. The Regnant are
following. I heard something following us. Franks, carry out your orders.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Give yourselves a pat on the back,” Walker praised. “None of these people
would be alive without your quick thinking.”

The lieutenant punched a code into the panel. Machinery in the walls
groaned and the massive bulkhead ground slowly out of its recessed slot in
the wall. Walker had a distinct sense of failure as the metal wall sliced
across his view. He remembered his oath to Bartlet: “I’ll find him if its the
last thing I do....”

"Living up to our low expectations again, are we?” taunted Madness.

Walker couldn’t live with a memory like that. “I’m going back,” he said
suddenly.

“What? Captain are you nuts?” Stubbs asked. “You’ll be killed for sure.”

“No, I’ve got to find Nis. I won’t leave him down there.”

Bartlet bit her tongue. She wanted to find Nis, but she didn’t know if she
could handle another battlefield separation from Walker.

The bulkhead was half closed.

“I had to get everyone else out before,” Walker rationalized, “but now
there’s nothing to stop me.” He prepared to step through the narrowing
opening.

“Wait!” said Bartlet.

“I can’t. I can’t waste any more time—”

"Look!” she hissed. “Coming up the ramp.”

“Sir!” said Stubbs, pointing to a flicker of light wavering on the far wall of
the ramp below them. Stubbs carefully laid Romero down and readied his
weapon. “More bugs.”

Walker saw it, too. The light was getting closer. Damn! Now he had to stay.
If it was Regnant, jumping into their midst would be tantamount to suicide
—for Walker and everyone else. The Regnant must not be allowed into
the upper half of the station. He had to hold them off until the bulkhead
closed. “I hear them—why are all these doors so damn slow.”

It was only two-thirds closed.

“Design flaw, I guess,” Franks worried.

Walker and Stubbs raised their weapons. Bartlet and the young Guardsmen
followed suit. Walker’s finger itched over the trigger. All they had to do was
hold the Regnant off for a quarter of a minute more.

Multiple shadows were rising on the outer ramp wall below.

Three-quarters closed. Another close call was imminent.

“Hold the bulkhead!” Walker suddenly bellowed.

Franks punched the stop button, and its progress halted. Smiles broke out
all around. “What is it?” she asked, no longer able to see through the
opening.

“Nis!” exclaimed Walker and Bartlet at once.

“Walker! Dr. Bartlet!”

There, coming up the ramp, was their weary, gray-striped Fuzzie with the
black spidering mark on his forehead. A torch in his hand was the source of
the moving light. His pressure suit was even more battered than the last
time they had seen him and his fur was a mess, but the gold-tipped canine
and his other teeth made as good a smile as ever!

Even more miraculous were the hundred and thirty-odd Fuzzies in his
wake. Nis trotted through the small opening and stepped aside to let the
others pass. Bartlet threw her arms around him.

“Amazing!” Walker blurted as the Fuzzies filed in: Stol’ss, Phlae and her
cub, and many more. Joyous reunions took place as Nis’ large group of
Fuzzies and Walker and Bartlet’s smaller one came together.

Walker turned to his friend with a look of amazement. “Nis, you led them
here!”

Nis shook his head. “They’re following me, Walker, but I’m not leading
them.”
“Then how did you do it?” Bartlet asked. “How did you decide what to
do?”

“Decide?” Nis scoffed. “I didn’t decide.” He gave them a much abbreviated

summation of his exploits as the last of his army of Fuzzies passed into
safety and Franks finally sealed the bulkhead. “—after that, I just kept
shouting, the humans are this way, the humans know what to do! and we all
ended up here. Rule number one: if you get into trouble, find a human.” He
looked away. “Not particularly brilliant, I know, but... it worked.”

“It’s sheer, fucking genius,” Walker beamed, clasping the alien’s shoulder.

“How did you get by the Regnant?” Bartlet asked.

“I didn’t see many on the way up,” Nis observed. “I think they are massing
for an all-out attack.” He turned to Stubbs. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you
earlier,” he apologized. “All I did was howl like a cub. I’m ashamed.”

“Don’t be,” said Stubbs. “I knew I heard someone following us. That yowl
saved my life—and Romero’s. We owe you one.”

Nis changed the subject. Unwarranted praise embarrassed him. “Walker,

should we get these people out of here?”

“Yes, of course.” He turned to Stubbs. “Let’s get the wounded to the

infirmary.”

“Captain?” Franks spoke up as they started up the ramp.

“Yes, Franks?”

She hesitated. “Well ... What exactly are we supposed to do, sir? Command
center isn’t giving orders that make much sense.”

Walker thought, then, “Stay here unless it looks like the Regnant are going
to break through. They shouldn’t be able to, but they’re damned smart.
Don’t make the mistakes I made by underestimating them,” he said firmly.
“If you think they’re up to something—they’ve already done it! If you have
to, fall back to the next level and close the bulkheads there. I’m going to
talk with command about blowing all life support on the lower decks and
letting those things suffocate.”

“Yes, sir,” Franks responded with renewed confidence.

“You can stay in touch by com-link, sir,” one of Franks’ men said, handing
Walker his com-link.

The three Guardsmen saluted smartly. Walker saluted back and marched up
the ramp.

Nis was glad to be back with his friends, glad that they were still alive. He
had been right when he stumbled out of the infirmary looking for Walker.
Walker did go down. Walker was brave and so was Bartlet. It comforted Nis
to follow along behind them now as he tried to sort out all the strange things
he had heard and seen: Holland’s death, Stol’ss insistence that T’jardis was
still alive, the battle between the two Regnant. And then there was his
condition. Nis still felt strangely detached from time, and that could only
mean he was still sick. Maybe he should go to the infirmary, too. But he
didn’t feel physically sick. He felt strong.

Walker was talking into the com-link headset as they climbed the spiralling
slope. “This is Captain Walker. Get me Major Jacobi.” Seconds ticked by.
His forehead drew into deep furrows. “You don’t know where she is?
Who’s in charge up there?"

Walker was getting the runaround from a junior officer. Nis suspected it was
Holland’s personal lieutenant. He eavesdropped with his Fuzzie ears. He
could hear the confusion in the background as a woman babbled to
someone else. It was one of the shuttle pilots. He wanted clearance on the
situation or orders to leave the base. She spoke to him in a voice too loud
and too shrill to inspire confidence.

Walker waited, but the results were predictable: nothing.

“I asked you a question,” he broke in. “Answer me.”

“Just a moment,” said the voice.

The incessant chatter died down and a new voice spoke. “What is it,
Captain? We’re kind of busy up here,” it said petulantly.

“Who is this?” Walker demanded.

The voice paused, as if afraid to identify itself and be held accountable.

“This is Captain Winslow, acting commander.”

Walker couldn’t believe his ears. “Aren’t you an accountant, Winslow?”

“I’m Assistant Chief Administrator of Production and Material, and I’m

third in line for command,” Winslow said indignantly.

Nis read Walker’s frustration and commiserated. Human command structure

was definitely falling apart.

“Listen, Winslow,” Walker said. “I’ve just returned from the lower decks.
Give the order to vent the atmosphere down there. It’s our only hope of
stopping the creatures before we’re completely overrun.”

Winslow was aghast. “Captain, there are people down there. That would kill
them!”

“They’re already dead. Everyone left will die if you don’t act.”

I’m sorry, Captain, but I won’t make that kind of decision without
conferring with Commander Holland.”

Walker was losing his temper. “Have you heard from Holland lately?”

“No, but he’s down below, getting the situation under control.”

“Holland’s dead, has been for over an hour now!” Walker growled. “Or
didn’t you know that?”

“W—we’ve had no secondary confirmation of that report as yet,” Winslow

sputtered. “So I’m still working under the assumption that the commander
is still alive.”
“You want secondary confirmation—here!” Walker ripped the headset off
and handed it to the human next to him. “Tell him.”

Stubbs held the com-link to his ear. “Winslow, this is Stubbs. I saw General
Holland die with my own eyes. Listen to Captain Walker. We fought our
way back to safety and rescued two hundred Fuzzies along the way. It’s
really bad down below. I’m the security officer, I know. Do whatever
Walker says.”

Winslow made a noncommittal grunt.

“Here’s the captain again.” Stubbs returned the com-link to Walker.

“Well?” Walker asked gruffly.

“Thank you, Captain, I’ll take your orders under consideration, pending
further conference with my officers.”

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?”

“I’m afraid I have to go, Captain. Keep me posted if anything important

happens, won’t you?”

Walker closed the circuit, his face flushed with blood.

“Trouble?” asked Nis.

“It’s useless talking to those idiots,” Walker fumed. “We’ve got a

bureaucratic, middle-management moron in command. If anything is going
to get done, we have to do it ourselves.”

“Just tell us what to do, sir,” said Stubbs.

Bartlet affirmed her allegiance with a mate-to-mate look.

The humans’ body language reaffirmed their commitment. Nis knew his did
too, but he also knew humans were slow to pick up that sort of thing so he
said: “You are the leader.”
Walker’s body language oozed authority. It always had, but before Nis had
always seen an edge of self-reserve, almost a fear. That tinge was very
much reduced in the Walker he saw now. It was about time. Nis had
always had full confidence in Walker.

Nis looked around as Walker thought. They had walked up to where the
spiralling tunnels once again became ramps on the edge of the cylindrical
central shaft. On their left, Deck Twelve’s trunk corridor ran off into the
infirmary. On their right the huge opening towered above them. Scores and
scores of displaced humans and Fuzzies crowded the ramps.

It seemed to Nis that three-quarters of the station’s personnel was there, and
he was right. The odors emitted by all those concentrated bodies were too
much for the air circulation system to purify quickly. Nis smelled every one
of them. He kind of liked it, much the same way a dog likes a dirty sock.
Humans tended to be phobic about natural aromas, to the extent that they
doused themselves in chemicals which smelled like pesticide to most
Fuzzies.

Bartlet spoke up. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re safe for the moment,” Walker returned, “but that won’t last for long.
I doubt those bulkheads can withstand a concerted Regnant attack for long.”

“What can I do?”

“For now help Stubbs take the wounded to the infirmary.”

Nis watched a sheaf of papers flutter down the shaft. The humans were
oblivious.

“Where are you going?” Bartlet asked, obviously uneasy at the idea of
being separated from him.

“Back to life support to vent the lower decks myself.”

A teddy bear fell down the shaft and bounced off the deck at the bottom.
Once, twice, and then lay still.
“What about anybody still trapped down there?” Bartlet said.

Walker’s tone was even and cool. “We can’t help them now. It’s too late. If
we try, we jeopardize everyone that did make it out.” Then for Bartlet’s ears
alone. “Look, I know this sucks, but I don’t see another way out.”

What was that noise?

Nis leaned over the rail and looked up the shaft. Four decks above, people
were screaming and jumping out of the way. The motion of their bodies
rippled down one ramp like a human wave in a baseball park.

“Walker, look.” Nis said.

Walker broke away from Bartlet and followed Nis’s pointing arm. “What is
it?”

“Something’s coming down,” Nis said, focusing his ears. “I hear bearings
turning, and metal scraping.” The ungainly noise sent shivers through his
fur, like claws on a chalkboard.

The wave worked around two more decks. Even the humans heard the noise
now. Nis caught scattered exclamations from above: “Look out ... runaway
cart ... jump ... it’s going to go off!”

The crowd thinned for a short space and they saw what it was.

“A weapon dolly,” Walker said, confused.

The driverless dolly careened down the ramp at full speed, bouncing off the
outer walls in its headlong spiral descent. Sparks erupted wherever it made
contact. A long, cylindrical load quivered in its cradle.

“It’s an RDM,” Nis exclaimed. “And the nose cap is missing—it’s armed.”

“Is it on our ramp?” Bartlet asked.

Nis followed its projected path. “No. It’s on the other side.”
Bartlet gasped. “The Regnant,” she said pointedly to Walker.

“The bulkheads!” he said just as pointedly. Walker jammed the headset

back on and fiddled with the frequencies. “Franks! Franks, abandon your
post!”

Nis saw that there was no answer.

The dolly rumbled overhead. It made its last circuit, its electric engine
whining at full power, then passed out of sight for good where that ramp
became a tunnel.

“Franks! Get the hell out of there! There’s a missile coming down the
ramp!”

The screeching of metal against metal echoed hollowly up from below.

“Everyone down!” Stubbs shouted.

Everyone within earshot hit the deck.

At the last moment, there was a voice in Walker’s com-link: “Captain

Walker?”

“Franks! Open the bulkhead! Get out—!”

Nis felt the explosion more than heard it. A shock wave rippled through the
air, grasping at his madly beating heart. His ears popped painfully.
Hephaestus shuddered and the deck at the bottom of the shaft heaved up
around the ramps. Searing heat blasted out of the two tunnel openings and a
split second later, a rush of cool wind surged the other way to fill the
vacuum created by the blast.

Nis struggled to his feet along with everyone else. He was dizzy. His ears
were ringing, but he could just make out the wail of a siren and a
prerecorded alarm: “Warning. Life-support systems are inoperative. Oxygen
supply is limited. Put on emergency breathing apparatus.”

“Good God,” Bartlet said shakily. “That thing packed a wallop!”

“We’re lucky it was only a conventional one,” Nis said. He frowned.
“Where did it come from?”

Walker had a suspicion. He started to tell Nis about T’jardis. “Our friend—”

A series of small explosions shook the deck. Smoke billowed up from the
tunnels.

“Fire down below!” Walker shouted.

That was bad. Flames were a spacer’s worst enemy. “Fire will eat our
oxygen,” Nis warned. The usual strategy for putting out a fire was to seal it
off and pump out all the air, but that wasn’t an option any more.

“We can’t count on the automated systems to put it out, sir,” Stubbs said.
“The blast probably put them out of commission.”

“Agreed,” said Walker. “What are the chances the bulkhead held?”

“Against that warhead?” Nis shook his head. “Slim and none. I bet the
whole deck’s gone.”

“Regnant will attack through the breach once it cools,” Walker said,
anticipating trouble. “And that won’t be long.” Walker thought fast.
Everything had changed in the blink of an eye. As usual, the change was for
the worse, but that’s where Walker was at his best.

Walker spoke into the com-link again. “Command center. This is Walker.
Get me Winslow, on the double.”

Winslow wasted no time getting on the line. “Walker,” he quavered. “What

happened? We felt an explosion and now life support is failing! Should I
send a team to investigate?”

“There is nothing to investigate,” Walker said. “Life support is destroyed.

The station is being overrun. Our only chance now is to get as many people
into the shuttles as fast as we can and abandon Hephaestus to the
Regnant. They won’t last long once the oxygen runs out. Give the order to
abandon station.”
“I can’t do that! I’ll send someone down. When they report back I can make
a better decision then.”

“We will all suffocate by then!” Walker said.

Nis realized that Fuzzies weren’t the only ones lacking willpower. Some of
the humans were pretty weak, too.

“Listen to me Winslow,” Walker said, “and listen good. You are incapable
of handing this situation. I’m assuming command of Hephaestus.”

“Assuming command?” Winslow squawked. “You have no authority—”

“Shut up!” Walker barked. “Life support is destroyed and Regnant will be
all over us any moment. Our only hope is to evacuate the base without
taking crippling losses. You could be one of those losses, Winslow.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No. Listen: someone sent an armed missile rolling down the ramps. Either
Regnant have gotten through near you, or we’ve got a traitor in our midst.”

“Y—you can’t bully me into giving up command, Walker!” Winslow

stuttered defiantly. “I’m responsible for this base.”

“Is that shuttle skipper still up there with you, Winslow?”

“I’m right here,” said a defiant voice in the background. “Captain Staples,
Ragnarok."

“Captain Walker, Murphy's Law."

“Go ahead,” said Staples.

“How many years you got, Staples?” Walker asked.

“Five.”

“Good. I’ve got seven.”

“You got seniority.”

“Right,” Walker said. “Staples, I want you to evacuate the control room,
right now. I’m bringing the rest of the survivors. We’ll meet you in the
docking bays.”

“You got it, Walker,” Staples said.

“This is outrageous!” Winslow blustered.

“Staples, at gun point if you have to, but get everyone into your ship. And
get the other skipper to his ship. Start your emergency preflight checks.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Winslow said to Staples in disbelief. “You

wouldn’t disobey a direct order from your superior?”

“You bet I would,” Staples said with relish. “You heard the man, move.”

“This is mutiny!” Winslow protested.

Another voice broke into the circuit. It was the sergeant, on another com-
link. “Winslow, this is Stubbs. Quit with the theatrics. This isn’t a play. You
know you’re not supposed to be in command. Your position is strictly based
on peacetime authority. Holland wouldn’t leave you in charge of the
officers’ latrines. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. You’re a great accountant,
but you are not qualified for this emergency. The Council will hold
you responsible for anything that goes wrong here!”

That made Winslow reconsider. “Really?”

Nis could almost hear Winslow sweating in the pause that followed.

“Yeah,” Winslow considered. “I guess they will....”

Stubbs went on: “Think about it!”

“Well, but how ... ?”

Nis read the human’s indecision. “He doesn’t want to lose face,” he said to
Walker.

“Stubbs, give him number” Walker said.

Stubbs caught on right away. “Council Security regulation 65-A,

concerning transfer of command: you can step aside at any time, for
personal reasons, and appoint a temporary commander until the Council
appoints one of their own.”

“All right, all right! You win! Walker, I’m transferring command to you.
What should I do?”

“Order a general evacuation of all personnel to the shuttle bays, for

transport planetside,” Walker ordered without thinking twice.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

Staples broke in: “Ragnarok and Shangri-la only hold one hundred sixty
each, Walker, maybe two hundred if we push it. Hephaestus’ contingent is
over four hundred. What about the rest?”

“Don’t worry about it. My guess is we’ve lost over half the humans and ten
percent of the Fuzzies. Winslow, just order the evacuation and get yourself
to the shuttle bays. That’s where we meet.” Walker wanted to elaborate,
but Winslow had lost his cool. Walker doubted he could remember much
more. “Have you got that, Winslow?”

“Yes. Tell everyone to get out, pilots in shuttles, and scram ourselves.”

Close enough. “Stay calm, Winslow. Staples, help him out.”

“Sure thing.”

“I’ll see you both shortly.”

Winslow and Staples left the circuit.

“Regulation 65-A? There’s no such regulation,” Nis accused the sergeant.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that nasty rumor,” Stubbs said earnestly.

“Quick thinking,” said Walker.

“My neck’s on the line, too.”

Loudspeakers blared Winslow’s command to evacuate through Hephaestus’

many decks. Nis saw a rush of tension sweep over the mass of people in the
shaft. Some donned oxygen masks from emergency lockers, but there were
too few to go around. The masks weren’t necessary, Nis reasoned that there
was more than enough breathable atmosphere to allow complete
evacuation, but the humans’ animal instincts were very close to the
surface now. They needed strong leadership to keep them from panicking.

Walker wasn’t more than a split second behind that thought. “Nis, Doctor,
get these people moving.”

“What about the wounded?” Bartlet asked.

“Carry them—drag them if you have to. They’re as good as dead if they
stay here.”

“Agreed.” Bartlet turned to Nis. “You take this side, I’ll take that side?”

“Works for me,” Nis said with resolve.

“Stubbs,” Walker said. “Watch the ramps for Regnant." “Yes, sir.”

“I’ll check the infirmary and be right back.”

Walker ran down the trunk corridor and into the infirmary. His heart sank:
dozens of critically wounded colonists filled the infirmary’s intensive care
beds. It was a scene he had seen in many field hospitals during his Earth
campaigns. Nurses and medics went about their business with the quiet
efficiency of those tending the dying. Walker saw right away that the
patients could not be moved and it would be pointless to do so.

A surgeon, with a nurse beside him, operated on a man inside a sterile

pressure field. It was a bloody and, Walker suspected, hopeless task. The
man’s innards were mangled beyond recognition.

“We’re evacuating,” Walker ordered. “Time to get out.”

The surgeon didn’t look up. “Nurse, you go.”

“I’m not leaving,” she protested.

“That’s an order!” the surgeon rebuked, looking up at her and the other
medical staff. “All of you, get moving. You can’t make a difference now.
You’ve done what you can. Take any wounded that can be transported and
go.”

The staff hesitated, then quickly finished what they were doing and filed out
passed Walker. A very few patients went with them.

“What about you?” Walker asked the surgeon.

“I can’t leave my patient, Captain,” he replied, resuming his work on the

wounded man.

“They don’t take prisoners.”

The surgeon’s hands shook ever so slightly. “I’m a doctor. It’s my duty.”

The man had courage. “I understand. Good luck.”

Bartlet was on the ramp across from Nis. She had crossed over at Deck
Thirteen to keep the colonists on that side moving. She was at the end of a
long line of humans. After the evacuation order, more colonists had poured
out of the decks to join those on the ramps, but the additions had slowed to
a trickle. Bartlet’s best estimate indicated that most of Hephaestus’
surviving colonists were on the ramps. They moved at a measured pace
— measured by how fast they could go without breaking into a stampede.
Bartlet didn’t have to be a Fuzzie to see that they were extremely agitated.
Their posture verged on panic. Bodies jostled, children cried loudly. Bartlet
had no idea how she would control the crowd if things got out of hand.
Those at the front of the long line could not even hear her.
Bartlet envied Nis. His side of the spiral was mostly Fuzzies with just a
smattering of humans. It moved in a much more orderly fashion and it
showed no sign of breaking into chaos. But what was he doing over
there? He was selecting groups of Fuzzies and sending them over to her.
Fheoir and her cub crossed with one of those groups.

“Hello, Dr. Bartlet,” Fheoir said. “Are you surprised to see me so soon?”

“A little,” Bartlet said. “What’s Nis up to?”

“He told us we should come over here,” Fheoir said. “He’s getting awfully
pushy. ‘Walker said we should do this,’ ‘Walker said we should do that.’”

The others Fuzzies mingled with the humans nearby. Fheoir fell in beside
Bartlet. “I think we females should stick together,” she said.

Evidently Fheoir had renewed faith in Bartlet’s abilities after the episode in
the garden.

“I think we should, too,” Bartlet said. She couldn’t help noticing a

difference in the tension levels of humans who were grouped near the newly
transferred Fuzzies. The Fuzzies exerted a calming influence on their
comrades, because they remained quiet and levelheaded despite how they
felt inside. Maybe the evacuation would proceed more smoothly if the
Fuzzies were better dispersed.

Ahaa. Maybe that’s exactly what Nis was doing, Bartlet thought. Here came
another bunch.

In fact that was Nis’ conscious reason for separating them, and he told
Stol’ss as much after another whining question. “We are spreading out to
keep the humans calm.”

“But how do we keep the humans calm?” Stol’ss fretted. “How will we
decide what to do?”

“You don’t need to decide. Walker ordered us to help everyone get to the
shuttle bays safely. Just stay calm yourselves. Help anybody that needs
help. It’s simple.”

“Oh,” said Stol’ss. “Well, if you say so, Nis.”

The reaffirmation of Walker’s order set any hesitating Fuzzies into action.
Nis continued to separate them.

“All of you stay with me. You and you over there,” Nis said. He pointed out
a large group. “Why don’t all of you cross over and help the humans?” He
didn’t know exactly why he picked one group over another. It had
something to do with their body language, but Nis didn’t worry about it too
much.

The Fuzzies stayed in line, or scurried across the catwalks to blend in with
the horde of humans according to what Nis told them. Nis hoped they
would help Bartlet’s humans to stay calm. He watched the Fuzzies
spreading out among them. The effect was immediate. After a
short exchange with Fheoir, Bartlet gave him a thumbs up.

There was a burst of gunfire below. Nis moved to the rail and peered over.

The station was making a mockery of its namesake. Hephaestus was the
ancient human god of fire, the divine patron of smiths, miners, and
craftsmen. Ugly and lame, banished by the other vain gods to the
underworld, Hephaestus was kind and gentle at heart. Many of the colonists
on the base identified with that archetype—and not just the humans either.
It had been logical to name a mining station Hephaestus. Perhaps it was
also prophecy. The station burned with the flames of its namesake’s nether
world. Small fires glowed between many torn plates in the walls and deck
at the bottom of the shaft. Thick, black smoke rose from the flames in
twisting columns which braided themselves about one another as they
drifted up the center. Gouts of flame leaped from the two biggest fires,
where the tunnels started.

Smoldering Regnant spread out from those tunnels, some darting into Deck
Twelve toward the infirmary, some dashing up the ramps. Those met
gunfire from Walker and Stubbs. The two humans had split up, one to guard
each ramp, and they were a couple of full turns behind Nis and Bartlet.
Some of the Regnant fired back with weapons of their own, but for the time
being, Walker and Stubbs held them off by setting up a wicked cross fire,
a tactic which the Regnant had not been able to emulate yet.

The scene seemed unbelievable to Nis, hyper-real.

Time contracted.

The last few days had shown Nis events he had never expected to
experience in his wildest dreams. He was a different person now. It was
impossible to live through things like that and remain unchanged. He had
seen natural disasters on the evening news and recordings of Earth’s wars
and riots, but that wasn’t the same thing. What he had seen from the safety
of the other side of a liquid crystal monitor was terrible things happening
to other people. A part of his mind was horrified, but a different part was
thrilled by the entertainment—the power of it all. Nis was elated by the
images of disaster and upheaval, not because he enjoyed carnage and
suffering, far from it. Nis hated violence. What entranced him were the
individuals who rose to the urgency of the situation and took control.
Nowhere else was the power of selfdetermination more apparent, the power
of decision so magnified by unbridled forces of chaos which these events
unleashed. Nowhere had Nis seen the mastery of will he longed for more
clearly. But now he was living amidst that unbridled force and it was far
different from his imaginings. He couldn’t have known that force until he
heard the screams and explosions ringing in his head, felt the splatter and
trickle of blood in his fur, sensed the boiling emotion of hundreds of
sentients living on the edge. Emotion was so thick he could almost taste it.
There was an intense awareness, a sense of the now—he was alive now,
maybe not three seconds hence, but right now, and he wanted to stay that
way. Total anarchy was but a hair’s breadth away. There was no substitute
for direct experience. He realized that he could never have understood the
powers and energies afoot until he felt them in his bones.

Nis was aware of the humans on the ramps. In spite of the fighting below,
they had not stampeded at the sound of combat. The Fuzzies were holding
them in check. Not physically. Their mere example was enough.
Human dominance had led them to the belief that they were also superior.
Humans would never admit to such a belief— most of them considered that
sort of attitude, and the behavior it led to, repugnant—but it was there.
Seeing their subconscious inferiors behaving stoically shamed the humans
into rational behavior.

It gave Nis satisfaction to see his hunch paying off. Even though he was
still following Walker’s blanket order, Nis felt that in some small way his
contribution was helping to save lives. He had stretched Walker’s command
to the very limit of its scope (perhaps beyond, but his Fuzzie perspective
didn’t allow him to see that), but he was still restricted by his lack of self-
control.

This was Nis’ chance to rise to the situation, to make choices which would
affect not only himself but those around him, to be more than a docile
follower of those in control, to have the power himself and be respected for
it. And it was slipping away. No matter that Nis strove to succeed with
every ounce of will he possessed, every gene in his body rebelled, every
strand of Regnant-altered DNA passed down to him over untold centuries,
decreed his ultimate surrender.

His mind was no longer dulled from his heat exhaustion, notwithstanding
the strange flow of time around him. With total clarity, he resolved to make
a difference. He must make a difference! If he could not triumph now, he
never would. He would succeed. He must.

Time resumed its orderly flow.

Walker and Stubbs were in full retreat now, rather than a delaying action.
They weren’t just contending with Regnant on the ramps below them.
Regnant were attacking Walker and Stubbs from the side. They had
apparently taken secondary stairwells up through the decks. They continued
to learn. They continued to improve.

Just like Nis wanted to learn and improve.

However, Nis knew that the Regnant's recently improved tactics were due
to their new leader. There would be no more traps. The Plantagenet wanted
to end it quickly. Now there would be only ferocity and cunning. Nis tried
to shake thoughts of the glorious Plantagenet out of his head. What was he
thinking? That horrible creature was anything but glorious.

The distance between the two soldiers and the evacuees narrowed as the
Regnant pressed their attack.

The colonists moved up past the cavernous production floor. The ramps
spiralled twice more, then ended at the top of the shaft: launch bay deck.
The swell of colonists didn’t stop there. Nis could not have restrained them,
but he was very annoyed to see the two streams of people blend together
along the passage which headed straight for the nearest shuttle bay. All his
careful separation was wasted. He would have to begin again. He started to
push his way toward the front.

“Excuse me, pardon me, coming through.”

Bartlet fell in line about halfway back. Walker and Stubbs brought up the
rear. Nis lost sight of all three as the route followed the twists and turns of
the corridors. Nis spotted a few faces he hadn’t seen previously in the ranks:
Gresh, Winslow, and a majority of the command staff being the most
obvious.

Their path took a last turn to the left out of the larger corridor into a smaller,
rounded passage more like a tube or a tunnel than a hallway. The colonists
ahead of Nis were bunched up. They were all humans this far forward in the
line. Nis shouldered his way through the twentymeter tube into a large,
vaulted shuttle bay. Across from the tube the prow of Ragnarok jutted into
the room. Staples was visible through the bridge windows. Sounds
of Ragnarok's systems vibrated the deck. Two other tubeways entered the
bay from the left and the right. Of course the humans ignored these and
made a beeline for the open hatch in the shuttle’s side. It loaded much the
same way a passenger aircraft loaded planetside. Except that it
wasn’t loading. The humans could taste safety now, and in their frenzy to
reach it, they were jamming the gangway. One of the flight crew stood
beside the hatch, but she was having a terrible time dealing with the mob.

Nis pushed to the head of the gangway.

“Please slow down,” Nis said, but the humans paid less attention to him
than to the human crew member. “Please be calm. This will only make
matters worse.” The humans still did not slow down. One man tripped and
hit his head painfully on the gangway handrail. Nis helped him up.

This did not line up with Walker’s command to load quickly and safely and
evacuate. Several unidentified humans jostled and shoved him. No, this did
not follow Walker’s orders at all. Suddenly angered, Nis pushed and shoved
his stocky body directly into the oncoming rush, teeth bared and claws
extended.

“Cut it out!” Nis growled. The hair on the back of his head stood on end
and his eyes flared with inner frustration. “People are getting hurt.” He had
no idea what a fearsome sight he made, but the humans did and backed off,
shocked by the Fuzzie’s threatening resolve. “That’s better,” Nis said
retracting his claws and stepping aside to let them go past. “Now get inside,
quickly, but calmly.”

The loading resumed. The flight steward counted as the bodies filed by. She
gave Nis a surprised but encouraging nod. Both of them together were able
to keep the flow at the maximum safe speed.

“How many?” Nis asked the steward.

“Ninety-three, so far,” she replied, without losing count. “Captain Staples

says we can push it to two hundred if we ration supplies and turn off the
pressure fields.”

“Good idea,” Nis said. Turning off the gravity would increase the usable
space inside the shuttle dramatically. Many more bodies could float freely
in a given volume of space than could sit in seats, but there would be a
significant increase in space sickness, too....

The loading progressed nicely. Walker’s plan might work if they had
enough time. This is much better, Nis thought, and here come the first
Fuzzies.
Again Nis observed their body language. Which would be better with the
humans and which would not? He would have to decide fast. It looked like
more would be good with the humans than would not. Hopefully there
would be enough room in Ragnarok to accommodate them.
Chapter 27
“There are some sounds that you never forget,” said the Loneliness. “Like
your child’s first word, your lover’s cries in the heat of passion, or their
screams as they’re taken away from you.”

“And there are other sounds,” said the Madness. “Sounds you’ve never
heard before, but you know what they are the moment you first hear them—
like the sound of your own death....”

“Die! Die!” Stubbs screamed, bathing the far passage with lead.

Walker concentrated on the moving Regnant. Between him and Stubbs,

their combined firepower was devastating. Seven Regnant went down
without a chance to use their stolen weapons.

“We got you now, you sorry bastards!” Stubbs yelled as the remainder went
into retreat. “That felt good,” he said after the last Regnant disappeared.

Walker allowed himself a grim smile at Stubbs’ satisfaction. It did feel

good, but it could not last because their ammunition was running out, and it
was taking more rounds to kill each Regnant.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Stubbs,” Walker said, “but is their armor getting
better?

“You’re not wrong, sir,” Stubbs acknowledged. “It’s getting better.”

Regnant howling echoed through the empty halls around them, barraged
them from all sides with the creatures’ frustration.

When would it end? Walker wondered. When would the Regnant stop
getting smarter? What was the next step—armor resistant to tac-nukes?
Stow that paranoia, he thought. Can’t let them get to me.

He looked forward along the line of colonists. Bartlet was visible at the turn
leading into the shuttle bay. She waited at that corner as the mass of
evacuees moved slowly by. Too slowly.

“What’s the holdup?” Walker hollered. She cupped her hand to her ear.
“What’s the holdup!” he repeated louder.

She turned and yelled down the smaller hallway, then listened for a reply.

“Nis says everything’s okay,” she yelled back. “It’s just taking a while to
load.”

That was hardly okay by Walker’s definition. If the Regnant made a

flanking attack in these restricted quarters, there would be a massacre to
dwarf all previous massacres.

“Tell him to hurry it up!” Walker fired a few careful shots at Regnant hiding
behind them. With less than seventy rounds left, he had to watch his ammo.
A look at the counter on Stubbs’ slip showed thirty. “You’re low,” he said to
the old sergeant.

“I know, sir,” Stubbs said. “And no more reloads.”

Several massive concussions hit them coming from the industrial deck. The
monsters were doing their dirty work there, too.

Walker looked back at Bartlet. The colonists were moving a bit quicker. Nis
must be spurring them on.

The Plantagenet ran through the maze of fleshbag burrowings in real time,
even though condensing the lengthy pursuit was an attractive thought. It
had no power for temporal alteration, or even subjugating thralls. After the
battle with the Old One, and the healing thereafter, it had precious little left.
Even now, as the Kind pursued the anthropoids and their thralls, the
Plantagenet was still not fully healed. The battle was difficult. Several of
the; fleshbags put up such fierce resistance. Many of the brethren had gone
to the Everlasting Unfulfillment. The Plantagenet was using all of its
regenerating power to maintain control of the survivors. Worse, the fleshbag
hive no longer nurtured life. The Plantagenet smelled the air going bad
around it.
The anthropoids were retreating to their space vessels. Fine. This hive could
not be the source of the thralls in this system. There were not enough
resources in a ball of rock like this. Somewhere there had to be a home
world teeming with thralls, where an empire could be won. The anthropoids
would go there in their vessels of course: wounded animals always ran
home.

The Plantagenet would let the brethren continue to harry the anthropoids,
but not overwhelm them. It wanted them to go home—and when they did,
the Plantagenet would go with them.

In the shuttle bay, Ragnarok loaded at an accelerated pace. The colonists

were more than willing to rush, and Nis was getting better at dividing the
Fuzzies. Most, he allowed into Ragnarok, some he sent down the tube to
the left of the shuttle, where Shangri-La was berthed. Nis held each colonist
back just long enough so that they didn’t bunch up, but now that the flow
was predominantly Fuzzies, there was far less risk of evacuees running
over one another on the gangway. The enforced pause mostly helped Nis
categorize the Fuzzies going past.

Many of the people gave him grateful looks as he let them pass: Gresh,
Phlae and her cub, Stol’ss and the medics who had taken Nis to the
infirmary.

Stol’ss squeezed his arm. «Thanks. You saved me.»

Nis chuckled, «Yeah, right.» “Get out of here.”

The steward blocked the hatch. “That’s it,” she said. “Two hundred. We’re
full.”

Nis rapidly scanned the mass of Fuzzies waiting to board. Several of them
should go with the humans. “Just a few more,” he said to the steward.

“Nis, I can’t,” she reasoned. “We’re way over capacity as it is.”

“Just these last eight,” Nis pleaded. “It’s important to keep the balance
right.”
The woman vacillated. She wanted to, but she shouldn’t. “Just eight,” she
said, relenting. “Then no more.”

“Then no more,” Nis acknowledged. “You and you and you! You three and
you two, in here.”

“What about the rest of us?” a Fuzzie asked.

“The shuttle is full,” Nis said satisfied that he had loaded the right mix on
Ragnarok.

The waiting crowd stirred. Tensions rose. The line was backing up again.

“Nis!” Bartlet yelled pushing to him through the line. “Get them to the next
shuttle!”

“Follow me,” Nis said, as forcefully as he could. “The quicker we get out of
this bay, the quicker Ragnarok can launch and the quicker we get onto
Shangri-la.”

Nis lead them out the left-hand tunnel, cursing himself all the way. He had
known what to do, but Bartlet had beaten him to the decision—he had
missed another opportunity to take action on his own.

The tail of the mass snaked out of the tube, past Shangri-la and Bartlet.
Walker and Stubbs retreated with it, joining her in the bay.

“How are we doing?” Walker asked her.

“So far, so good,” she said. “Ragnarok’s full. Nis is leading us to Shangri-
la. As soon as we clear, Staples will take off.”

“Good, good,” Walker said, with a short wave to Staples in Ragnarok’s

bridge. The odds of their successful escape were going from abysmal to
merely unlikely. Walker turned to the sergeant. “Stubbs, I want you on
board Ragnarok.”

“No way, Captain!” Stubbs instantly objected. “I’m not going to cut and
run.”
“You won’t be running,” Walker argued. “Think, man. We’re almost out of
ammo. We need someone with a firm hand to control the people on that
shuttle—someone who can whip a mob into order,” he added with a grin.
“Your name’s written all over that. It’s not far to the next bay. Bartlet and I
can hold the Regnant back until we get there.”

“But—”

“That’s an order.”

“I guess you’re right,” Stubbs gave in reluctantly, “but you’re taking my

ammo, sir.”

“No argument.” Walker said, taking the clip Stubbs thrust at him. “Go.”

Stubbs dallied. “It’s been a pleasure, Captain, Dr. Bartlet. I’ll see you both
planetside.”

“You can bet your ass on that,” Walker said. “Get moving, soldier!”

Stubbs dashed up the gangway and pounded on the hatch. It opened. Stubbs
saluted Walker one last time and disappeared inside.

Walker and Bartlet raced after the colonists. As soon as the bay was clear, a
pressure door slowly closed across the tube behind them. Walker heard a
rumble of engines and a whoosh of air as Ragnarok left her berth.
Apparently Staples was in such a hurry to leave that he had not bothered to
decompress the bay first. All things considered, he certainly would not get
any demerits from Holland for wasting air.

With their backs protected, Walker turned his attention the other way. The
line of bodies stretched down the rounded passage, across an intersection
and into another rounded passage. Beyond that was the shuttle bay.

The intersection was a danger point. Walker held his breath as they closed
on it. They made it through, but again the line was slowing as its head
snaked into Shangri-la.
Nis entered the second bay. Shangri-la was directly ahead. There was
another entry tube to the right.

The Plantagenet watched the thralls and fleshbags enter the bay. It
recognized the lead thrall. Excellent.

A worried crew stood in Shangri-la’s open hatch. They moved into action
on sight of the evacuees. Nis hustled his charges across the bay and urged
them on board.

“Quickly,” Nis encouraged. “Quickly, but calmly, please.”

Several brethren arrived behind the Plantagenet, ready for action.

“Take this,” Bartlet said, handing Walker the Glock. “There’s only five
shots left. I’m going to help Nis.”

Walker backed out of the intersection as he slung the shotgun over his
shoulder. “You do that. I’ll stay here until the bay is clear. Be careful.”

“I will,” she said. She pecked him on the cheek, so as not to distract him
from his job, and pushed through the tube full of Fuzzies.

It really was full of Fuzzies. Bartlet counted fewer than twenty humans, and
most of those were near the front of the line. The population she moved
through was one hundred percent Fuzzie. Together with the meager number
of humans, they didn’t add up to one hundred persons. Nis had a very
peculiar idea of how to divide groups into even numbers, it seemed. Things
were running fast and furious, though. He probably hadn’t had time to do a
better split.

Maybe he had mistakenly thought there were more survivors than there
actually were. She couldn’t fault him for being optimistic.

“There you are,” Fheoir said as Bartlet passed by. “I’ve been looking for
you. I thought we were going to stick together.

“We are,” Bartlet said and grabbed Fheoir’s hand. “Let’s jump the line.”
“Oh, no,” Fheoir protested. “That would not be right. I’ll wait my turn.”

“Suit yourself,” Bartlet smiled. “It won’t be long either way.”

“You go tell Nis what to do,” Fheoir advised. “Tell him to stop being so
pushy.”

“I will.”

Bartlet joined Nis at Shangri-la’s entry hatch. He had seen her exchange
with Fheoir and he had a weird look on his face. “She was supposed to be
on the other shuttle,” he said indignantly. “I told her she should go on
Ragnarok.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bartlet said, helping him load. “She probably
followed me here. Ragnarok was overloaded anyway.”

Nis sighed. Again he had failed.

Suddenly the head of a woman in front of them erupted, spraying out and
down over the corrugated metal decking. The bay was awash in automatic
weapons fire. Some humans fled for the cover of the entry tunnel, others
panicked and ran helter skelter. They were gunned down before they knew
what hit them. A dozen humans and Fuzzies fell, shrieking.

Bartlet watched Fheoir cut down before she could cower out of the deadly
field of fire.

Simultaneously, Regnant attacked Walker’s end of the line. It was a half-

hearted effort and he easily kept them pinned behind a stack of boxes. All
the evacuees were bunched up in the tube behind him, unable to go
either direction. Most of them were curled up into little balls anyway.

Bartlet gasped. Fheoir’s cub lay quivering in the middle of the bay, next to
his slain mother, but she could not get to him. Bartlet had taken cover inside
the shuttle and it was suicide to even think of moving into the open.

Nis looked to his left. A Regnant fired from the other entry. It was large and
its aroma was magnificent. Nis remembered it. The Plantagenet strode into
the bay, surviving Fuzzies cowering at his feet. Nis cowered too.

Walker fired again at the Regnant behind the crates. The ammo in his gun
ran out. Ejecting the empty clip onto the deck, he inserted the one Stubbs
gave him. Only nine rounds left. He switched to single shot.

The pause in his own firing allowed Walker to hear the firing in the bay. His
view of it was sporadic, blocked by a few intervening humans, but he saw
the large Regnant finishing off humans on the deck, while Nis crouched
at his feet.

“Get up, Nis!” Walker yelled, unable to shoot in that direction. “Waste it!
Rip it a new asshole!”

The Plantagenet shot the fleshbags with abandon. It was exhilarating. The
Plantagenet was using no power— not that it had any—and yet the thralls
cowered from the residual power of the Plantagenet’s very presence.
And the weapon was fun! The Plantagenet would have the anthropoids make
more once it enslaved them.

Nis did not hear Walker’s commands over the shrieks of the dying around
him. They alone would not have been enough to stir Nis into action in the
face of the Plantagenet anyway. That motivation had to come from
deeper inside the Fuzzie.

Nis slowed time.

He remembered the battle between the Regnant and Holland’s men, the
smell, the experience of love he had felt for the Regnant about to kill
Stubbs. Nis remembered his feelings of worthlessness and impotence,
shame and inaction. Those memories paralyzed him.

The Plantagenet ignored the thrall at its feet, believing it had less to fear
from that one than from any other cowering thrall.

Nis read the Plantagenet’s body language. It cared not a whiff for him. It
was humiliating.
The Plantagenet turned its weapon on the anthropoids in the tunnel.

Nis’ friend was in that tunnel. He would watch Walker be gunned down.
Every gland in his body injected action stimulants into his bloodstream and
every strand of his DNA resisted. It was hopeless. Hopeless. And he
was worthless.

Easy pickings.

Nis’ mind was overloading from conflicting motivations, exploding with

chemical impulses, chemicals from his glands, his brain, his cells. The
smell of Regnant and human intermingled in his sinuses. All of them
clamored for time in the synapses of Nis’s brain. The cold sweat
of indecision burned his eyes. He must act, or his friends would die. The
Plantagenet would kill Walker and then it would kill Bartlet. They were his
pod. He would gladly give his own life for them, but he was caught in an
endless battle between his heart, his mind, and his traitorous DNA.
Something had to give and—whether it was the conflagration of those
forces, or powers he would not understand until the very near future—
something did.

“NO!”

The Plantagenet convulsed, searing pain and cool wind shooting through its
abdomen. The limb holding the weapon spasmed. The Plantagenet’s aim
was ruined and the rounds impacted in a line which wandered up the
wall of the launch bay, away from the mouth of the entry tube. Tearing,
tearing. Its already wounded organs cried for mercy as the world around
the Plantagenet tilted to one side. The Plantagenet twisted around. The
weapon fell from its grasp.

The thrall was attacking it.

Impossible! It was too soon....

Nis gouged the Plantagenet's innards with his claws. It struck back,
slashing painfully through Nis’ suit, but he ignored the pain. He didn’t care.
It felt so good to take action!
Nis closed his fists on a group of warm, pulsating organs deep within the
Plantagenet's gut.

The thrall had ripped out its lower hearts! Unbelievable pain consumed the
Plantagenet as they were torn free. The Plantagenet spent its last, feeble
reserves of power. It was a desperate act. Should the Plantagenet live, it
would be powerless, less than a thrall.

The smell of power joined the odors of bowel and blood, but it was too late.
Nothing could stop Nis now. He plunged his claws deep into the Regnant's
chest, piercing its last heart.

The Plantagenet was beaten. It had made an error. The thrall was stronger
than the Plantagenet had realized. Its final thought was of defeat. Defeat
and the Everlasting Unfulfillment. At the hands of a thrall....

Two more Regnant charged the shuttle. Nis scooped up the Plantagenet's
fallen assault rifle, and filled the marauders full of holes. It was all very
unreal, but correct. He was aware of each and every spasm, every spurt
of blood as the Regnant fell.

He let time resume its normal flow.

Nis had done it. He had made a choice and taken action, but ... he didn’t
know how. Nis had been pushed to the edge and he had fought back, but he
still didn’t feel any different. Where was the grand revelation? He had
expected the secrets of the universe to be laid at his feet, that self-
determination would be easy afterward, but it didn’t feel that way. It still
daunted him. Was he still as powerless as before? Was he still just plain old
Nis? It sure felt that way.

Then he saw the others. They rose, humans and Fuzzies alike, eyes lit up
with wonder. They had witnessed the impossible. Suddenly, all the tension
in their bodies found wondrous release. A spontaneous cheer erupted from
the masses. Nis felt the emotion caress him like a warm wind. Respect.

Bartlet gripped his shoulder from behind. “Nis, that was incredible.”
“I don’t know if I believe it myself, Doctor,” Nis said quietly.

“It was incredible!” Bartlet repeated, then ran into the bay. Nis watched her
scoop up Fheoir’s cub.

Everything fell into place. He was just plain old Nis, but that was enough.
He had broken the legacy of submission. It didn’t matter how or why he had
done it. He had done it. He had made a choice. Nis could face what
fate threw his way because he knew he would make another, no matter how
difficult or how long it might be in coming. Nis was confident.

It was glorious.

He struggled to speak. “Go,” he choked. “Into the shuttle. Go!”

Nis called down the tube: “Walker! Let’s move!”

But his friend was still pinned. The evacuees could load, but if Walker
retreated, the Regnant would be on them in seconds.

The colonists started across the bay again, picking their way through the
bodies. Bartlet rejoined Nis with Fheoir’s cub and helped him board. She
comforted the cub while she stared at Nis.

Walker stared at Nis too, between shots. His mouth hung open. He had seen
the magic moment when Nis, a Fuzzie, stood up and chose his own fate. He
had cheered with the rest of the Fuzzies. He was dumbfounded.

“Nis just killed three Regnant!” A nearby Fuzzie said. “He did it all by
himself ... !”

“Great,” Walker managed. “That’s three I don’t have to kill.” He really

didn’t know what to say. Words eluded him. Walker fired the last of the
rounds in his rifle, slung it over his shoulder and switched to the Glock.

Bartlet helped Nis load the shuttle. They pushed the people by them as fast
as they could.
We’re going to make it, Nis thought, and I made a difference. I made a
decision.

Twelve Fuzzies to go.

A figure appeared from the other tunnel. Nis raised his gun, ready for the
worst, but it was T’jardis. His pressure suit was damaged, his swollen neck
and face obviously wounded. He carried an assault rifle of his own.

“T’jardis?” A smile spread across Nis’s face and he lowered the gun. “I
thought you were—”

“T’jardis? Get down!” Bartlet screamed.

Four more Regnant appeared behind T’jardis, but he didn’t see them.

“Look out!” Nis warned. How had Dr. Bartlet anticipated the Regnant? She
dove into Shangri-la with the cub, clutching at Nis’ pressure suit, but he
must stay where he was and help his Fuzzie friend.

T’jardis cocked his weapon.

Nis’ heart knew the distinct metallic clatter, like a lock closing.

T’jardis raised the assault rifle and gunned Nis down.

Bartlet watched in horror from inside Shangri-la. Nis spasmed like a rag-
doll, a look of innocent shock on his face, as round after round ripped into
him. Bits of pressure suit and blood splattered on Shangri-la’s
pristine, white hull and carpet as his lifeless body fell backwards through
the hatch and landed beside her.

It did not move.

Chapter 28
He hadn’t imagined death this way. There was very little pain and no fear.
No fear at all. Just wet. Very wet. His lower abdomen felt wet.
Breathing was hard, but he didn’t care. An enveloping warmth was
spreading from his groin. Tingling black energy swept through his body
from the pit of his gut to ward the edges, down along his legs, over his
knees to his toes, up his spine and out his arms to his claws and finally up
to his neck and head. It grew dark all around him. So dark and moist. So
clinging, like the regret.

And there was the light. The light he had glimpsed before. Faint at first. It
blossomed far above him. It lashed him with a lightning bolt of Oneness.
Now there was fear. He felt it with every last nerve in his dying mortal form.
But he also wanted the light with all the longing of his songless soul. The
light was forever. Come back, it called to him. Oneness. Belonging. Infinity
without loneliness, without self.

Surrender.

The light was forever and he was homesick for eternity.

Of all the atrocities Bartlet had seen, this was the worst. Why did it have to
be him? Of all the people who had to die, why Nis? Nis was the nicest,
fairest, most honorable person she knew. He did not deserve to die. There
was no one who deserved to live more than he. He had done the undoable,
the unthinkable. Nis had broken the Fuzzies’ eternal genetic bonds and
made a choice on his own. He was poised to take the Fuzzie race to heights
even she could not imagine, for if he could do it, then all the Fuzzies could
do it. Couldn’t they? Who would teach them his secret now? It had been
lost even as it was found. And worst of all, she would never hear his
voice, never see his ears cocked askance at her again.

Her mind could barely grasp the enormity of the loss. She didn’t want to
grasp it. She wanted Nis to live. Things were happening too fast to weep.
Vital seconds were ticking by and she did not even have the time to mourn
the loss of her friend. She must move now or she and the cub would join
Nis.

What a tragedy.

If Bartlet was horrified, Walker was devastated. He let out a wail of anguish
which rivaled the Regnant’s own howling. Rising to the challenge of that
battle cry, his opponents sprang from their cover and charged him. In a feat
of marksmanship, Walker used the last shells in the Glock and laid them to
waste.

He turned to the bay. The Regnant in the bay had made short work of the
last few humans and dragged the remaining Fuzzies into Shangri-la.

“Fuckers!” Walker cried, running for the bay, the empty shotgun still in his
hands.

T’jardis closed the hatch as Walker made it to the large space. Walker
slammed into Shangri-la as he heard the latch locking. He looked up to the
bridge windows. They were coated with blood.

Shangri-la began to shake. A loud rumble filled the bay. “Warning,” said a
cold computer voice. “Clear launch bay. Shuttle engines are igniting out of
sequence. Catastrophic decompression imminent.”

Walker pounded on the hatch. “Nis!”

The whole bay shook now. Double bulkhead doors began sliding shut on
the entryways. Shangri-la ripped free of her moorings. Walker came to his
senses as the air in the bay howled out. The pressure fields cut off. A
couple more seconds and he would be sucked out the widening gap into
space. He could not save Nis by dying. And Nis was most likely dead. The
soldier in Walker knew that. Nis had received too many wounds, but Bartlet
lived. If he was going to rescue her and all the other passengers in the
shuttle, he had to stay alive. He had to get out of the docking bay, and fast.
Again, he slung the Glock over his shoulder. Grabbing the external handle
to the hatch, Walker bunched his legs up under himself. He pushed off the
nose of the shuttle as it backed away. The force of his spring sent him
careening weightless through the bay and he slammed into the deck.
Linking his fingers into holes in the corrugated metal, he pulled for the
exit. Hephaestus’ atmosphere roared past him on a one-way trip into the
vacuum. He struggled to make headway against the bone-chilling wind. It
pulled at his clothes and limbs. Dead bodies swirled by Walker like so
many leaves in a tornado. Arm over arm, Walker closed on the exit passage,
but the bulkhead ground steadily shut.

The station’s automated systems were trying to keep it alive, trying to stop
the mortal hemorrhaging of warm atmosphere into cold space. Loose items
from beyond the bay were sucking through it: containers, trash, more
bodies. Walker didn’t have time to worry about it, but that was not a good
sign. He was very close to the bulkheads, and he prepared for another final
spring to safety. As he did, a rapidly moving orange glow swept down the
walls of the tube and the closing rim edges of the bulkheads lit up. A
brilliant orange teardrop, twice the size of a human head shot out of the
passage. Its surface flexed like water in zero-g, but at slow motion speed.
The surface tension was too high to be water. Walker felt intense heat as
the pulsating globule narrowly missed him, but he did not have time to
observe it or he would be stuck in the bay forever, doomed to freeze and
orbit as a particle in the rings.

Walker leaped, but his aim was off and he slammed into the upper half of
the closing doors, his arms flailing and his fingers scrabbling for purchase.
There was nothing to grab onto, but in his frenzy, his left foot locked over
the lip of the bulkhead. Doubling up, he hooked his other leg and then his
arms over the edge. The speed and force of the air escaping through the
narrowing slot was horrendously strong. Walker manhandled himself
through the gap with sheer, brute strength, pummeled by small metal screws
and tools caught up in the tempest. He was almost through when the
shotgun barrel caught and he actually had to relinquish some of his hard-
won headway to get free. It was very cold in the fast-moving air. His
exposed skin would start to freeze very shortly. Walker mustered his
strength and forced himself the final distance through the closing gap.

Now the force of the escaping winds pushed Walker against the surface of
the bulkhead. He crawled into the corner where the bulkhead met the wall
and looked back. He had actually made it with more space than he
thought. The bulkheads moved very slowly and the two edges were still
about a meter and a half apart.

Good. He still had time.

As quickly as he could, he unslung the empty assault rifle and edged back
along the side of the bulkhead toward the gap. The intense suction of the
racing winds tore at him even harder. He had to be careful, because
there was still no grip on the surface of the bulkheads themselves. He
stretched flat, with his arms reaching out before him. Crawling on his belly
like a snake, he got within reach of the gap—and jammed the assault rifle
vertically into the wall slot in which the metal doors travelled. A split
second later the moving slabs hit the rifle, pressing it together like a giant
vise. The stock broke. Plastic pieces shattered and were sucked toward the
gaping hole where Shangri-la was just a glowing halo of retro-rockets.
The barrel of the assault rifle began to bow under the great force. Walker
hoped it would not buckle. He prepared to shove the Glock in if he had too.
Then the assault rifle flexed. One end jittered a few centimeters along a rut
in the slot, but it held. The door was jammed open.

Excellent. Walker pushed himself back from the edge, using every surface
of his body to get a grip. When he finally made it back against the wall, he
realized that the pressure fields were off in the tunnel as well as the
bay. That meant there was probably no gravity in the entire station. The
explosions he heard earlier were making their effects felt. Walker pulled
himself along the ribs of the light fixtures that ran along the top of the
rounded passage. Halfway up, he looked back. The rifle still
held. Hephaestus’ life-giving air raced out of the wound as fast as ever.

That was fine with Walker. As far as he was concerned the station was
enemy territory. Preventing the bulkheads from sealing was his way of
implementing the ancient military doctrine of a scorched earth retreat. If the
humans and Fuzzies could not have Hephaestus, neither would the Regnant.
Letting the air out was the final, best way of dealing with those Regnant
still in the base. They would suffocate, and if they held their breath a really
long time, they would eventually freeze solid as the temperature inside the
base plummeted to absolute zero. Walker didn’t think even the tenacious
Regnant could survive under those conditions.

Walker knew there were still some colonists hiding in the decks of the
station, or sewing up patients like the surgeon—if he still lived—but as far
as Walker was concerned they were martyrs to the cause. Doubtless
history would call them heroes if Walker could prevent the Regnant from
making it to Jayvee, but he knew the lonely, painful deaths they would
suffer, so he wouldn’t glorify their sacrifice yet. There was still a good
chance he might be one of them.

He was just about out of the tube, when he saw another bright wash of
orange sweeping across the wall of the cross-corridor above. This time a
stream of glowing tear drops spewed into the tube, sucked down the center
of the wind. They swept around the bend, like a string of water drops under
strobe light. As the first of the blobs raced past, Walker again felt its intense
heat, and saw his funhouse-mirror reflection on its quivering surface. More
of the blobs passed. The heat was strong enough to be unpleasant, even in
the cold rushing air. What the hell were these things? Walker had never seen
anything like them.

One of the forms didn’t make the corner. It was too large and its momentum
carried it wide as it slewed after the smaller mirror blobs. It impacted ten
meters ahead of Walker. Yellow fluid sprayed out over the tube
surface. Plastic fixtures melted on contact. Smoke trailed down at Walker as
half the mass flowed over the uneven surface, dribbling in the direction of
the wind. The other half of the mass exploded into a spray of golf ball-sized
globes. Walker ducked as the red-hot projectiles arced over him or skittered
off the walls near him. A tiny droplet hit his face and he yelped as the
searing heat burned his flesh. He scrubbed frantically at his cheek, but there
was no relief until the pellet cooled. He couldn’t smell the burning flesh in
the wind, but Walker knew it was there. The glowing puddle ahead of him
was rapidly cooling from its bright yellow through orange-red and then
becoming a seared gray. The blob had hardened in half-melted parody of
the metal surface underneath, but almost exactly the same color.

The globules were molten metal.

Walker rubbed his cheek again. If one of the larger ones hit him, he would
be dead or severely mutilated. They could easily sear his head off or
amputate a limb. He waited respectfully as the last of the stream passed
out into the bay below him. Then he pressed ahead, careful to avoid the
cooling metal in his path.

When he made it into the next passage, the going got a little easier. There
was still no gravity, but at least there were more things to hold onto. A
quick check to confirm his bearings and he pulled for the mining pod bay.
He had to get back to Murphy’s Law. The mining pod was the only hope he
had of inserting himself into Shangri-la and saving his friends. More loose
items swept past him. An assault rifle clattered tantalizingly near him, but
he dared not loose his grip and grab for it or he would follow it back the
way he had just come.

Walker turned another corner. Dead bodies of Regnant he and Stubbs had
killed rolled along the walls and floors like pebbles in a stream. Vehicles
and dollies partially blocked some of the passages he saw to either side.
He would have loved to have one of those blockages behind him in case he
lost his grip in the powerful winds. It would have given him a chance to
catch himself. One ahead of him would have also protected him from
the molten metal streams, but he was not that fortunate. He saw lots of
cooling splatters where the globules had hit the walls, floor, and ceiling.
The frequency increased as he made his way across the deck. This was a
dangerous area to be in if another stream caught him there.

Walker began to hear other noises beside the moaning winds. He couldn’t
identify them, but they increased in volume as he neared an opening ahead.
Walker pulled himself down off the wall he had been using for handholds
onto the floor. There was very little to grab onto on the floor, but the walls
dropped away. The passage became a catwalk. Walker sprang with his legs
off the wall and pushed with his arms on the floor. He reached the railing on
the edge of the catwalk and he was able to pull himself hand over hand to
the opposite side.

Below and around Walker was chaos. The catwalk spanned a portion of the
enormous production deck where it rose up into the docking-bay deck to
accommodate oversized blast furnaces. The huge open space was filled with
floating objects which swirled in narrowing vortices toward openings in the
wall like children’s toys twirling down toward a bathtub drain. Everything
that was manufactured, or used to manufacture something else,
rushed around Walker. The oversized blast furnaces were the source of the
escaped molten metal. The air was thick with it, and not just globules either.
Giant amorphous masses billowed from self-destructing ovens. They moved
like living flesh, reflecting the madness around them on even madder,
warped surfaces. Blobs separated and reformed like wax in boiling oil,
spreading destruction wherever they moved or touched, breaching,
melting and jamming all the other behemoth machinery around them. A
yellow globule impacted a gray machine and then danced with the sickly
green streams which rushed out to join it. Walker saw every color in the
rainbow, and dozens of unknown forms of death capering in the
maelstrom around him. Here and there live humans flailed helplessly,
spinning in midair. There was a dead Regnant and there was a live one,
tearing a human in half even as it was sucked out of the room into one of
the many tunnels which would eventually spew them out of the launch bay.

Everything in the production deck was making its way out, drawn
inexorably to the vacuum outside, returning whence it had come.

Walker turned left where two catwalks crossed and pulled twice as hard for
the far wall. The pod bays were just on the other side of it. If he could make
it to the bay, he had a chance to live. Debris was moving with him toward
his target door. Not as much as the flow toward the doors and passages on
his left, but enough that he had to keep a constant lookout. He dodged the
flying objects as best he could. Once he lost his grip avoiding a
hissing mass of acid. It ate through the hand rail where he had been seconds
before. His stomach managed to heave as he floated free, helpless to control
his movement. Walker had to let the wind pull his body past the spot before
he could hook on again. It seemed to take an eternity, but he did reach the
far side.

He looked behind him. One of the bilious molten masses was headed in his
direction. This one was reddish silver. Walker had no idea what alloy made
that color, but he knew it would be hot. Letting go of the rail, he
allowed himself to be sucked head first into the passage ahead of him, like
dirty water down the drain. Walls rushed up around him and he bounced
hard twice before correcting his trajectory and flowing with all the other
debris in the center of the current. He pushed dangerous objects away from
him if they were not wet, hot, or glowing.

If they were, he held his breath and relived portions of his life. Walker was
up to his plebe year at military academy when his last obstacle approached.

He was racing toward the door to the pod bay. A few more heartbeats and
he would be past it and the current of air would suck him by a different
route back where he did not want to go. Walker grabbed a plastic barrel
which careened down the chute with him. It was full. That was good: it
would offer more resistance. Walker pushed off. The barrel went in the
other direction and impacted with the wall. Walker saw the plugs come lose
and brown liquid spray out. The drum tumbled end over end away from him
as he moved in the opposite direction. Here came the doorway. He had only
one chance to get this right. Flexing his hands, he prepared for a quick grab.

And there it was!

Walker jammed his fingers around the handle which cycled the pod bay. It
was in the vertical position, relative to the floor (which meant the pod bay
was pressurized). It was perpendicular to Walker’s direction of travel,
however, so he could use it as a handle. The bones and tendons in his hands
protested as his body flipped over under the force of the air current, and he
was pelted by small objects still moving with it, but Walker did not let go.
He used the momentum of his flip, adding as much of a kick as he could,
and swung into the doorway, letting go of the bar at the last moment and
hoping he would fly into the bay and not get sucked back out.

Walker’s ears popped. He skittered across the floor, crashing into a stack of
unarmed missiles. Outside the pod bay, the wind howled as fast as it ever
had, but inside the wind and noise was much less. The pod bay was like
an eddy in the currents outside. It had a cool, low-pressure feel, but the air
was not in motion.

Walker picked himself up, every bit of his body in pain to some degree or
another. Thankfully, his leg had gone completely numb. That was a bad
sign, but it wasn’t a crisis and Walker only had time to deal with crises just
then.

There was Murphy’s Law. Battered and scorched like himself, the ungainly
but proud old pod hung on the arresting hooks, ever-vigilant for Walker’s
return. She was heavily damaged, the techs hadn’t had much time to
effect repairs, but Walker loved her anyway and he would take her as is. He
crawled across the gangway, climbed in and buttoned up. As the hatch
closed, Walker felt an irrational sense of security. The pod’s armor had
always protected him in the past. It must protect him now.

***

Walker plopped down in the cockpit, not even bothering to strap in before
he started flipping switches. As with the earlier escape from Republic, all of
the pod’s systems were cold and had to be turned on. He heard the
slow building whine as power flowed through the complex machine around
him. Lights on the dash pulsed into life. Monitors rolled, then stabilized,
relaying data on the computerized portion of the procedure. Gentle currents
picked up around Walker as environmental systems kicked in. It was a
reassuring process which Walker had done time and time again. Walker
tapped his fingers across critical gauges in the ritual order. Many of them
were dead. Under normal conditions he would have aborted the launch
if just one of them had not been functioning. He could feel the pod coming
to life around him and he ignored subconscious sensations which told him
she wasn’t up to what he was about to try.

“Hang in there, girl,” he said, finally taking a moment to buckle in. “It’ll be
over real quick, one way or another.”

All Walker could do was sit quiet for the next two minutes. He was anxious,
but the pod would take the time she needed. He watched the unending flow
of air just outside the doorway. Multiple streams of liquid metal
rushed past. He had gotten out just in time. The hallway was a deathtrap
now. One of the molten globs impacted against the doorway, spreading
across the door jamb, melting everything it touched.
“Shit,” Walker cursed. He should have closed that door when he first came
in. He tried the remote. One half of the door attempted to slide shut, but
stopped after a pathetically short run and the other half didn’t come out of
its slot at all. The metal had melted the tracks. “Double shit.” That was
going to be trouble in the near future.

Murphy’s Law was almost ready. Thirty seconds to go.

A shape flipped out of the hall. Two more followed it and then three more
followed them.

Regnant.

Two of them had limbs seared off. Apparently the molten metal had worked
them over. Their healthy brothers left them for dead and pushed through the
large space, headed for the humming mining pod.

Walker hit the switch that would open the large podbay doors. He heard the
mechanical rumble as the Regnant swarmed toward him and he saw the
effects of air venting behind Murphy’s Law. Molten metal and debris were
diverted from the current in the hall and sucked into the bay. The melted
doors tried to close again in a kneejerk reaction to the bay decompressing,
but even more molten metal flowed across the jamb, further blocking
the mechanism.

The decompression took the Regnant by surprise. One was sucked passed
Murphy’s Law without a chance to react, but the others grabbed onto
anything they could: railings, gantries, other mining pods. Undaunted,
they continued to grapple toward Murphy’s Law. Scrambling over the
obstacles in their way, jumping from one clawhold to the next.

A green light blinked on the dash.

Walker thumbed the launch button. The grappling arms disengaged the
mining pod and flame shot out of maneuvering thrusters on her prow.
Murphy’s Law began to move backwards. Walker looked in his rear-view
mirror. The pod-bay doors weren’t fully open yet, but the Regnant were
coming fast.
The mining pod cleared the gantry cleanly. Walker only had seven or eight
seconds before he would run out of space, but at least he was clear of the
dry dock and moving away from the Regnant. Unfortunately, several cables
trailed out behind the pod. Walker had neglected to disconnect from the
base’s power supply and refuelling hoses. The pod was actually dragging a
fuel dolly back with it. The locked tires left skid marks as it neared the dry
dock. The Regnant jumped onto the fuel dolly as it lurched off the service
deck into the empty dry dock. They began scaling the hose. Threatening
streams of molten fury were hot on their tails. The volcanic liquid swamped
through the bay, melting everything in its path. Walker didn’t want to be
attached to the fuel dolly when the hot metal hit it. He looked into the
mirror again. The outside doors were three-quarters open,
mathematically just enough for a mining pod to squeeze through.

Walker fired the maneuvering thrusters full force and Murphy’s Law surged
in reverse. Not recommended procedure. Cables and hoses snapped under
the force or ripped sections of the service deck free. The fuelling hose was
stretched to the limit. The four beasts were halfway up. Rocket fuel seeped
from scars made by scaling Regnant claws and streamed back toward the
dolly.

Here came the doors. Walker couldn’t help but duck as the pod accelerated
through. There was a huge lurch as the bottom hit the lower pod-bay door.
The pod dove backwards and down. Walker watched some portions
of Murphy’s Law fragment and join the mix of stuff sucking out behind him.
He made course corrections with the sluggishly responding controls.

Molten metal brushed the fuel tank on the trailing dolly. The surface of the
tank was rapidly awash in flame, feeding on fuel dripping from the hose
and oxygen rushing into the void.

Any second that tank was going to go. Walker’s right hand hovered over the
throttles. Waiting, waiting....

Finally the pod responded, righting her trajectory. Walker slammed the
levers forward, firing the main engines. Before those powerful rockets
could send Murphy’s Law crashing forward into the docking bay Walker hit
another switch and clamshell thrust reversers closed over the massive
nozzles.

Again, not recommended procedure.

Flame shot forward, over and around the pod, and she shot backward faster
than Walker had ever launched before. The hose was burnt through in an
instant. The burning tanker tumbled free and exploded, leaving a twisting
trail of burning jet fuel as the pod’s rockets forced it backward. It crashed
back into the surrounding surface of the asteroid. One of the Regnant went
down with it. Three of them shot forward as the tension on the hose
released. One of those three grabbed onto the weapons nacelle and soon
their bodies formed a living chain, scrambling to get closer to the pod.

They were close enough that Walker could see the reds of their eyes. He
saw their black plates of armor thickening, molding around delicate
exposed membranes, forming a hide four times as thick as normal.

They were growing their own pressure suits!

Walker didn’t know how long they could hold out, but if they didn’t rupture
from the forces of decompression, they might last long enough to do severe
damage to Murphy’s Law. Even now they were climbing over one another
to get to the pod, grabbing hold of the manipulator arms which hung under
the cockpit.

Letting go of the stick, Walker thrust his hands into the waldos which
controlled those arms. They came to life as he flexed his fingers. Walker
directed the arms, tens of times stronger than a human or Regnant, to grab
the lead creature. Walker’s motions weren’t very practiced—Nis usually
operated the waldos—but he hit the creature hard. It lost its grip on the
weapons nacelle and foolishly fell into a battle with the metal appendages.
The other Regnant did not let go as the pod’s appendages pulled the
first one to pieces. It was very gratifying for Walker to watch the thick,
black armor stretch and strain and then shred as he cut it in half. The two
portions spasmed manically as its nerves fired dying bursts. The other
Regnant abandoned their grip on it. One leaped for the nacelle and the other
scrambled over the severed pieces. Walker shook the pieces free and
reached for it, grabbing one of its legs. The Regnant on the arms turned and
fought like a wildcat, but it did not attack the robot arms
themselves. Instead it went for the hydraulic hoses, chomping right though
them with its deadly fangs. Walker’s right-hand arm went dead. There were
many other mechanical arms and Walker switched to one of those, but now
the Regnant had a safe perch from which to attack the others. It quickly set
to ripping and biting every hose it could see as the other one climbed from
the nacelle up toward the cockpit.

Behind the Regnant, Walker saw bright flashes on Hephaestus’ rocky

exterior where streams of molten metal burned through pressure doors and
window. Geysers of boiling metal spurted into space, white-hot near the
base, cooling rapidly the further out they went, like lava in water. The
surfaces crusted over, then red-hot cracks appeared as internal heat and
pressure forced the newly-formed skin apart. Even smaller jets of metal
squirted from these new cracks at very high speed. Some of them closed in
on Murphy’s Law.

Walker battered the Regnant in the arms, but the other one had reached the
canopy. It glared at him through milky cataracts, recently grown to protect
its moist eyes. It began feeling around the edge of the transparent bubble,
looking for a place to get a grip and rip it open. Walker didn’t have enough
hands to fight them both at the same time. The Regnant on the manipulator
arms had disabled over half of them now. The Regnant in front of him got
more frantic as it searched for ingress and found none. Any second now it
would give up the subtle approach and do something drastic to the canopy.

And here came the white-hot metal.

Walker used his thighs and one hand to make two quick moves with the
stick. With his feet he adjusted the rudder thrusters just so....

Murphy’s Law slowly began responding to his inputs.

While Walker shoved his left hand back into the waldo, he faked an attack
with a right-hand appendage. With the left in position again he aimed a
reciprocating appendage. The Regnant went for the ruse, striking for the
hydraulic weak points on the feinting arm. That’s when Walker thrust the
left-hand appendage into its side. The boring attachment on its end drilled
into the creature. It began to spin, first one way, then the other, as the
reciprocating head cycled. Larger and larger gouts of ichor and
entrails burst out with each turn until the bit punched right through. Gore
fanned out in the mining pod’s wake. Some of it sizzled as streams of
molten metal sliced through it, heading for Murphy’s Law. The Regnant on
the arm slumped.

Reaching its point of desperation, the last live Regnant pulled a spiked arm
back to punch through the canopy.

Murphy’s Law responded to Walker’s previous inputs.

The pod spun, throwing the Regnant off balance. Its hind claws dug in too
well for it to lose its grip, but it straightened—just as the pod’s motion
brought a snake of metal over to its head.

Walker’s gamble with the controls had paid off.

Once touched, the metal’s surface tension flowed the deadly hot fluid onto
the crest of the Regnant’s head and down over its body. The creature was
instantly gilded. Walker knocked it off before the flow of metal reached the
pod. He watched it tumble away, molten globules enveloping it, its
expression of outrage preserved forever.

It was a very good likeness, he thought. Even if he did say so himself.

Walker quickly shook the drilled Regnant free and addressed himself to his
primary purpose. Retracting the thrust reversers, he spun the pod on its axis
and allowed the unaltered full acceleration of the main engines to rocket
Murphy’s Law away from the dying mining station and toward Shangri-la.

The shuttle was gracefully backing away from Hephaestus. Only now did
tongues of flame flare on her side, beginning the long turn the shuttle must
make before firing her main engines. In the distance the smaller shape
of Ragnarok made good its escape. Beyond both of them the ring belt
glittered like ten thousand fireflies. Then came Protector, and then the Eyes
of Light and Darkness. Somewhere just out of sight behind Protector lay
the shuttles’ destination.

Unsuspecting, undefended Jayvee 9.

Chapter 29
To win enduring Power,
Attack Power which endures.

—Regnant maxim

Bartlet pulled the little Fuzzie away from the open hatch and Nis’ body. She
led him down the aisle of the first compartment in the shuttle, frantically
searching for a place to hide, but there was none. The compartment
was lined with facing rows of seats and every one of those seats was
occupied.

More gunshots outside.

She looked over her shoulder. Any moment now T’jardis and the Regnant
would swarm through the hatch into the cabin. She had to find a place to
hold out with the cub until Walker could get to the ship and fight it out with
the creatures.

Dark shadows blotted out the hatchway.

“Here they come,” screamed a human at the back of the compartment.

Desperate for any kind of cover, Bartlet dove between two rows of seats,
pushing opposing sets of knees aside to make room on the floor and
shoving the cub between her and the curve of the hull. The Fuzzie
occupants of the seats did not protest.

Bartlet leaned back over the aisle and peered through the seats as four
Regnant passed through the hatch. They paused just inside, sniffing the air,
then loped forward through a short, narrow passage which led to the
bridge. Bartlet expected screams and cries for help, but the slaughter was
mercifully silent. She heard a surprised moan, a bubbling gurgle quickly
silenced, and several telling thuds.
Another shape near the entryway grabbed the hatch. It must be T’jardis. She
thought she heard Walker’s voice outside.

“Fuckers! "

T’jardis slammed the hatch and locked the securing lever. Bartlet heard a
body slam into the outside of the shuttle. Then thumping resounded on the
hull. Walker was pounding on the hatch. She heard him call out again, but it
was muffled and she couldn’t make it out.

She ducked down again as T’jardis took a sweeping look across the
compartment. When she dared to look back, he was gone.

The shuttle’s engines, which had been warming, roared to life. The hull
shook and there was a great groaning as rockets pushed the large spacecraft
back from her berth. Bartlet saw the windows fog over as the air inside
the launch bay raced out the breach in Hephaestus’ hull. Bartlet was
suddenly very worried for Walker. She rubbed at the window nearest to her,
but she could not clear it because the condensation was on the outside. She
saw mansized shapes tumbling past the ship, sucked into the void by the
catastrophic decompression. She could not tell if they were alive or not. She
could not tell if any of them were moving—if any one of them was Walker.

“Who’s flying the Goddamn ship?” the human wailed.

Of course T’jardis must be flying the shuttle under Regnant command.

Even Bartlet could see that. She wished whoever it was would shut up. She
recognized him from the command center, but she could not remember his
name.

“Oh my God. We’re all going to die!”

“Shshshs!” she hissed at him.

Bartlet heard the bridge door flap on its hinges, slamming against the wall
as a Regnant burst through it. She saw its loathsome head near the hatch. Its
gaze locked onto the whimpering bureaucrat at the back of the cabin. It
strode along the aisle at a pace measured for the greatest effect. Closing,
unstoppable, impending doom. What was Bartlet going to do? The hulking
death machine was heading for the noisy target ten rows behind her, but
as soon as it saw her it would tear her, and maybe the little Fuzzie, to
pieces. She had no weapons. There was nothing around her even remotely
resembling one. Bartlet did not kid herself that she could fight it hand to
hand. That was laughable.

In a wave from front to back the Fuzzies in the cabin cowered. The little
Fuzzie in Bartlet’s arms curled up even tighter. She had only a couple of
seconds to act. Six rapid heartbeats hammered in her ears. It was two
rows away from seeing her. All it had to do was look this way. Bartlet felt
its heavy steps where her pelvic bone was in painful contact with the deck.
One row away. A million reckless thoughts passed through Bartlet’s brain
and she picked the most outrageous of them all. The Regnant moved into
plain view.

Bartlet put her palms over her eyes, her thumbs over her ears—and curled
up into a little, submissive ball.

She felt the footfalls stop. It was looking her over. She felt the downy hairs
on the back of her neck bristling. Her defenseless back was terribly exposed
to the creature. Begging it to attack. This was too foolish. Whatever
perverse urge had tempted her to try this ruse would soon see her dead.
Every muscle in her body trembled in anticipation of the killing blow. It
was toying with her, drawing out her terror for the maximum effect. It
would kill her sadistically to torment the other human at the end of
the compartment. Would it rip her in half for a quick gory show as she had
seen Regnant do, or keep her alive and pull her limbs out of their sockets
one by one?

It walked away.

“Oooh shit!” the bureaucrat whined. “Oh shit! Oh shit—”

Bartlet heard a flutter of feet, felt a heavy hit. The little Fuzzie quivered
beside her at the beastly sounds. Exactly how long the atrocity took to
commit, she was not sure, but she stayed curled up. Her stunt had worked
and she wasn’t about to tempt fate. She guessed in hindsight that it wasn’t
so dumb-ass as she had first thought. After all, she was an anthropologist.
She studied behavior. There was a good probability that it would work. The
Regnant would not kill a submitting Fuzzie. Why would it kill a submitting
human. It was bound by its instinctive behavior as much as Fuzzies, or even
humans. The problem was, Bartlet the anthropologist also knew that
intellect had a counteracting effect on instinct. As soon as the Regnant had
enough time to think, it would realize it had been duped and return to kill
her. How long would that be?

How long would it take the killing machine to slaughter all the humans on
the shuttle?

Not long.

“You can get up now,” a small voice said.

Bartlet parted her fingers and saw the little Fuzzie uncurled before her. She
uncurled herself and saw that all the other Fuzzies were sitting upright
again, too.

Rising on her haunches, she looked aft over the seat. The Regnant was
nowhere in sight. It must have gone farther aft. The curtain between
compartments blocked Bartlet’s view beyond the cabin she was in.

“Are you all right?” Bartlet asked the cub.

“Yes. I’m fine,” he said, looking around like she was. “We’re in trouble,
aren’t we?”

“Yes, we are,” Bartlet said, deciding the cub was too

smart to believe a lie. “But I’m going to get us out of here okay, so don’t
worry.” She hoped that was not a lie.

“Do you promise?”

Fuzzie children knew the human rhyme which was the usual response to
such a question, but Bartlet would not cross her heart and hope to die. “I
promise.”
More human cries sounded from the cabin aft of them.

Bartlet half-stood, half-crouched and took a better look around them. There
was nowhere to go. They were trapped in a tube six meters wide and one
hundred meters long. There were not a lot of places to go in that length and
to make matters worse, that was the dimension of the shuttle from nose to
tail. The compartment she occupied was only fifteen meters long and
crammed with seats. A bloodletting was happening in the cabin behind
them. Nis’ body lay face down near the hatch. She averted her eyes
from the relaxed hand which protruded into the aisle. Beyond that there
were three Regnant and a Fuzzie with questionable motives on the bridge.
At least they seemed occupied with the task of flying the shuttle. Bartlet
knew that it was a two-person job, and the Regnant only had T’jardis to
do it. At best it would be a complicated, slow task for them to help him. No
matter how smart they were, they couldn’t learn how to fly a shuttle in five
minutes.

Well, that was a small miracle. Bartlet wanted to put in a request for some
more, because there was nowhere to go and there was not a lot for her to
work with where she was.

All she really had was twenty or thirty Fuzzies.

If they would just rise up and defend themselves, if they would attack in a
mass, they could take out four Regnant. Some would die, but the Regnant
could be beaten that way. Bartlet had watched what one female
Fuzzie could do to a Regnant when freed of the pheromone’s bonds. How
had Nis done it? How had he broken the barrier? It would be so much easier
if he were alive to tell them, but then again all these Fuzzies had seen Nis
take action. They knew first hand. Maybe all they needed was the right
motivation to push them over the edge, too.

It had been done once. It could be done again.

Bartlet refused to wait patiently for the Regnant to come back and rip her to
shreds. If Nis could do it, these Fuzzies could do it. At least that’s how she
saw it and she was going to do her damndest to make them see it her way.
“We’re not going to take this sitting down,” Bartlet said in a low voice.

“What?” said the cub.

“We’re all going to work together to beat these monsters,” Bartlet

explained, still in a low voice.

“Oh,” the cub whispered back.

Bartlet waved her hands as high as she could without hitting the low
ceiling. Only about half of the Fuzzies were looking at her because of the
seating configuration and she had to get their attention. A few of them
looked in her direction. None of them had the usual Fuzzie sparkle in their
eyes. They were lethargic at best. The tension must be getting to them,
Bartlet thought. It was getting to her. Perhaps if some of the Fuzzies
followed her lead, the others would pick up on it.

Bartlet made a nonverbal command: «Stand up.»

She made it again, stronger. «Stand up! The hunt is now.» She gestured at
the bridge. «Prey waits. Killing time.» Her pidgin gestures got bigger and
bigger, but still there was no response. «I lead. I sing life for pod. Stand up!
Hunt now!» The Fuzzies did not even give her the “you’re nuts” look which
Bartlet so often got when she tried to use their nonverbal language. Not a
cocked ear or a smirk in the whole bunch. There was no sign any of
the Fuzzies were paying attention to her at all.

Bartlet drew her lips back from her teeth several times in frustration. It was
a very good imitation of the frustrated dismissal of young one or stupid
adult gesture which poor Fheoir had used on her not so long ago.

Fheoir’s cub recognized it and pulled at Bartlet’s jumpsuit.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you,” Bartlet whispered.

“I know,” the cub said.

“I’m trying to get everyone to team up and fight back.”

“I know,” the cub said again, “but they can’t hear you. They’re losing their
Song.”

“What?” Bartlet asked. That was a very weird thing for the cub to say.

The cub made a gesture: «No song.» Then he made an encompassing sweep
of his small arms.

Bartlet turned around. The Fuzzie’s behavior certainly appeared abnormal.

What did the cub know that she didn’t? She turned back to him,
accidentally bumping a Fuzzie next to her.

The Fuzzie growled at Bartlet.

She looked down, not believing what she heard, but it growled again. A
menacing rumble in the back of its throat. She noticed that its fur was
sweaty, and its eyes unfocused. When she touched it, fangs were bared
and champed against each other. It was behaving as T’jardis had back in
Republic’s sick bay.

“They’re sick,” the little Fuzzie conveyed, gesturing and speaking sadly,
“«dead-Fheoir-mother» brought us to the «sick-ship».”

The sick ship.

How had Nis been separating the groups of Fuzzies, anyway?

«Stay here,» she communicated.

The cub did not move as Bartlet took a quick look for danger, then chanced
a rapid check up and down the aisle. None of the Fuzzies looked normal.
Some of them were vaguely aware of her presence, but most of them
had blank looks, on their faces and those also exhibited sweaty fur. They
gnashed their teeth if she prodded them. Bartlet got a dreadful knot in her
stomach. These were the same Fuzzies who had cheered Nis just minutes
ago. Something about their unaccountable behavior affected her more than
the fear for her own life.

She returned to the cub. «Follow me.»

«Where?»

«Look, back. See others, if sick.»

The small one looked askance at Bartlet. «You mean go back and look if
more are sick, also?» He communicated with a rich vocabulary.

«Yes,» she said-hurrying him to the curtain which separated their cabin
from the next.

There were more wails in the back of the ship. How far back, Bartlet could
not tell, but the Regnant’s purge was not over yet. Bartlet had never realized
different species made such different mortal screams. Fuzzies’ death
cries sounded nothing like what they heard coming from aft; neither did the
Regnant’s.

How far back was the Regnant? Bartlet guessed the sounds were farther
away than the other side of the curtain.

«The hunter is not close,» the cub offered, ears moving to test the sounds.

Bartlet accepted the statement as fact. Even a three-year-old Fuzzie had

better hearing than a human, and they had to move back. Bartlet needed to
see if there were any normal Fuzzies on Shangri-la. If she could find
some, maybe she could get them to fight, maybe she could save some of the
dying humans.

Bartlet drew the curtain aside. She and the cub passed under it.

Walker concentrated on flying the wounded pod. Everything conspired to

make the task difficult. Distracting orange and red reflections of Hephaestus
self-destructing filled his mirrors and tinted the canopy overhead, while the
white flare of Shangri-la's main engines blinded him ahead. The
excruciating response time confirmed that the techs had not done any
repairs to the controls.

Murphy’s Law. Give a dog a bad name.

The blinding white, and the floating afterimage it created were recent
developments. It had taken T’jardis a much longer time than it should have
to get the shuttle properly lined up for the burn which would take it
to Jayvee. Walker had used every one of those precious moments to close
with the larger vessel. As with Republic, once the larger ship with its bigger
engines got going Murphy’s Law didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell
of catching it. Walker had to hope that he would intersect with Shangri-la's
path before it got up to speed. The shuttle was still getting bigger. Walker
believed he was still gaining on it. He had been gaining on it for the
last several minutes, but he didn’t know how long that would hold up. He
couldn’t run the targetting computer from his seat, neither did he have a
certain Fuzzie’s talent for figuring trajectories in his head.

Walker jabbed a row of touch pads along the rim of a monitor. Various
schematics flipped by, but nothing he could use to determine the distance to
Shangri-la. Targetting radar: out. Range-finding lasers: out.

Everything useful: fucked.

Walker had to go on gut instinct, just charge ahead full throttle and pray it
worked.

Walker kept jabbing the touch plates. An unfamiliar image flashed by. He
backed up. It was not one of the known systems displays. It was not a
computer-generated image at all. It was a digital video image from a
camera. A cockeyed view of a narrow hallway stared back at Walker, as if
the camera was lying on its side. The image moved in and out of focus, over
and over. Walker tried to adjust the monitor.

No, the problem was not with the monitor.

Walker turned the sound up. A servomotor whined in sync with the repeated
blurring of the image.

What was he looking at?

It was not a view from Murphy’s Law. The mining pod had five external
cameras used for maneuvering, but this was an internal view. Murphy’s Law
did not have any hallways, narrow or not. Walker looked harder. A
large object filled part of the frame. It was always out of focus, but it
stretched into the background. It was an arm. And the view was looking
forward along one of Shangri-la’s narrow passages, probably the one which
connected to the bridge. A hand connected to the arm. It was covered
in gray fur with dark strips and claws glistened at the tips of stubby digits.

Walker gasped. He felt a sorrow which could easily overwhelm him. The
monitor was still receiving transmissions from Nis’ shoulder-cam.

I am.

We are.

Divine nothingness.

Too soon. Too soon. Everything in its time.

He must go back. He could not be one with the light, yet. Could not stay. He
wasn’t finished.

Go back.

He wept. Nothing would ever be the same.

Immortal soul. Mortal body. Isolation. Partitioned from the rest of the
universe. The pain returned. A little box. A cell. He felt it dying around him.

Then. The swelling in his loins. Beating. Beating. Relentlessly....

The camera moved.

Walker’s heart jumped into his mouth. He leaned closer to the monitor. It
was picking up signals from Nis’ camera and the image had just moved.

The view was still. Walker held his breath. Had he imagined the movement?
Nis had taken a long burst in the chest, right in front of Walker’s eyes.
There could not possibly be movement. How could it move? Had
someone bumped the camera? No! There it was again. There was no
question that time. The camera had moved. Walker turned the volume to
maximum. Labored breathing came from the speaker on the dash, and in the
background human screams and wails echoed some distance from
the camera. And there, the ever-present Regnant howling.

The arm flexed.

“Nis!” Walker exclaimed. He keyed his headset. “Nis, it’s Walker. Can you
hear me?”

The view lurched again, but there was no reply.

“Nis!” Walker spoke sternly, keeping the joy out of his voice. “I’m ordering
you to answer me!”

The view lifted a few centimeters and swung around. Walker tried to pick
out Bartlet, but all he saw was a forest of chair supports and Fuzzie legs.
The view swung back toward the bridge.

Nis did not answer Walker’s order. That meant the techs had not even fixed
the radio.

“Nis, if you are receiving, put your hand over the lens.” The view
continued, unbroken by any attempt to block it.

Damn. Damn. Damn. Walker was receiving, but Nis could not hear him
because Walker was not sending.

Blurred movement was visible at the far end of the narrow hall. The hand
entered the frame, grasping, searching for a grip. It closed on the plastic
deck grating, pulling the camera forward. Another hand repeated the
motion, then the cycle started all over again. Nis was crawling to the bridge.
Walker’s momentary elation slipped away. It was hard for Nis to move. The
monitor relayed his groaning and gasping. A hulking shape appeared briefly
in the bridge doorway.

Walker couldn’t help yelling at the monitor. “No, Nis! No! It’s a fucking
Regnant. Just back off! Back off! I’m coming to get you!”
Walker checked the position of Shangri-la. It was much larger than the last
time he looked. He was gaining.

The video view kept moving. It laboriously crawled through the dark,
narrow hallway linking the first cabin and the bridge. It reached the bridge
doorway and shuddered as Nis pulled himself erect by the doorjamb.
The camera tilted up from the deck to a Regnant hunched over dead humans
in the pilots’ seats. It was a big, nasty Regnant. It was wearing a pressure
suit. The Regnant turned.

The Regnant was T’jardis.

The features were distorted, disfigured, mouth drawn back, eyes pushed
together on a boney skull as black as the void, but it was T’jardis. It made
terrible sense to Walker. He remembered T’jardis quivering on the floor
in Republic's sick bay. He remembered Stol’ss’ story about T’jardis giving
orders for the Fuzzies to stay put. He remembered the missile rolling down
the ramp. T’jardis knew how to load and arm them. Most recently he
recalled T’jardis shooting Nis. T’jardis had looked pretty normal in the
launch bay, but then Walker hadn’t had a really good look because of the
combat, and the pressure suit hid most of T’jardis’ body, even now. The
awful changes to his head must have happened rapidly in the time since
T’jardis bolted the hatch and launched Shangri-la.

It all made sense if T’jardis was a Regnant.

Bartlet had told Walker that the Regnant could make more of their own kind
by transforming Fuzzies, but it was still shocking. Walker had seen many
Regnant that looked like Fuzzies and even a Regnant that looked like
a human, but Walker had never seen a Fuzzie he knew transformed into a
Regnant.

T’jardis attacked. His blurred image lunged. The camera shuddered as he

and Nis fought. The view moved too fast to tell what was going on. Then it
flipped end over end, alternating views of light ceiling and dark
deck flashed across the monitor as the camera was knocked free and
tumbled to the deck.
Walker took a quick look at Shangri-la, adjusted the rudder pedals to stay
on course, and looked back down to the monitor.

All the camera saw was the indistinct lower halves of two combatants. How
could Nis take such punishment? Walker wondered. How could he even
stand with the wounds he had taken? His Fuzzie constitution was working
overtime.

The fight was over almost as quickly as it had begun. A bloody form in a
torn pressure suit fell large into the camera’s field of view.

Walker choked a cry in the back of his throat.

The camera was jolted again, but this time Walker saw the Regnant foot
which did it. Vicious spurs and claws had burst through the shiny material
of pressure suit boots. It moved out of frame.

Walker forced his breath to come evenly. If Nis had survived the bullet
wounds, he could survive a hand to hand with T’jardis. Nis had probably
fallen from accumulated exhaustion and wounds, not from the damage
T’jardis dished out. Walker had to believe that. Nis had to be alive so that
Walker could get him out.

Shangri-la was very close, within one hundred meters, but at this distance
Walker could see that he wasn’t gaining on the chase much. If he was, it
was undetectable to the naked eye.

Walker shielded the light of Shangri-la's exhausts with a hand. He could see
the cabin lights shining through the strip of windows running the length of
the shuttle’s hull, and he could just see a dim green glow coming from
a window on the prow. That green glow was from the instruments on
Shangri-la's bridge.

Nis was just inside those windows and Bartlet was somewhere in the long
hull, very close and very out of reach. It was so tantalizing. Walker could
throw a rock and hit the shuttle; he just didn’t know if he could catch up and
board her.
The Regnant felt anger. Anger at the fleshbags it ripped apart. Anger at the
furred thralls who cowered so it could not rip them apart. Anger at its lack
of control and insatiable desire for more. Anger at those who controlled
it. Anger at its impotence. Anger at itself. Anger because it must do the
bidding of any Regnant with more power than it and anger that it was not
one of the chosen few Regnant who produced enough power to quell their
own subservience. Anger that it was not smart enough to change its eternal
fate.

The Regnant was anger. Anger was the lasting emotion. Anger was the
defensive emotion. Anger was the armor of the soul. All other weaknesses
paled beside anger, faded over the eons. Feeble poignant emotions like love
and loyalty and sorrow could not survive the ages. The Regnant felt only
what it needed, all else was discarded, and this Regnant needed anger.
Anger was stronger in it than even the lust for control.

The Regnant was smart enough to know it was subservient as much as any
of the thralls. It did not submit, but it must do the bidding of its stronger
brethren just as the thralls must. No punishment would come from the Kind
for disobedience, except that there was no disobedience for the angry
Regnant. A steady stream of power would force it to obey the will of all
stronger than it.

It had been powerless before the Becoming and it was powerless now.
Every one of the Kind above it could command it. Thralls fulfilled the baser
needs and desires, but there was nothing like the thrill of making one of
the brethren obey a petty command. The angry Regnant knew that. It
scented the pleasure of those who taunted it with their flippant edicts, and
there were many. There were no brethren with less power than the angry
Regnant. There would soon be more Kind, but none as weak as it. It
had never commanded one of the Kind. It had never revelled in that simple
ecstasy. More anger boiled as it knew that experience would never come.

All it had was its anger. All it had was its fury and hatred. Rage was its life.
Power and blood flowed downhill and the angry Regnant was at the bottom
of the brethren heap.

But not at the very bottom of the heap.

Below it were the thralls. It could vent its anger at the thralls. It could
exercise control over them with cathartic fury. It could rage and abuse and
terrorize to its furious hearts’ content. And it had been a very long time
since there had been thralls to vent upon. Ages upon ages of submission to
the other Kind, brethren who did not experience the temporal prison of their
destinies, the Kind who were so rich in power that they could contract long
spans of between time into the beats of their hearts. Throughout that
between time the angry Regnant had obeyed, and obeyed, and obeyed. It
did not remember the indignities except as a terrible heat and pressure in its
chest and loins, a shameful impotent burning. Now at last there were thralls
again, and the angry Regnant found release.

The fleshbags were good. They did not submit. Why they did not submit the
angry Regnant did not know and did not care. The power orders clinging in
the angry Regnant's head denied its rage to those thralls which submitted,
denied its pleasure upon the furred thralls. They went down as the angry
Regnant moved through the fleshbag ship. It was gratifying and infuriating
at the same time. They were helpless before the angry Regnant as it
was helpless before the brethren. It did not extinguish the furred thralls for
the same reason the Kind did not send it to the Everlasting Unfulfillment.
Control was Fulfillment. More control was more Fulfillment. The more
under a Kind, the greater its pleasure. Why waste a source of pleasure? The
angry Regnant knew the truth of it. It had been the object of much pleasure
in the between time. Now it would be the perpetrator.

The angry Regnant stalked through the cabin seeking an object to perpetrate
upon.

Submission, submission, everywhere it looked, furry submission. Curling,

anticipating, easy submission. Resist! Just do it!

Then it could snip their furry heads off!

There were not enough fleshbags in the fleshbag ship. Anger surfaced in the
Regnant again. It had only pleasured itself on two errant thralls in three of
the pens. Where was its pleasure here? It raged through the space, scenting
and searching for release, but there was none. The angry Regnant burst into
the next confining pen.
Immediately, it smelled fleshbag. Its blood raced in anticipation. Soon there
would be release. Where was it? There! Hiding. Hiding was good. Hiding
was crawling behind other thralls. Hiding was active. Not submissive.

Hiding was the kiss of death.

The fleshbag squirmed as the angry Regnant reached behind the

obstruction. It made arousing pain sounds as the Regnant’s spurs hooked
into an appendage and dragged it into the open. The angry Regnant smelled
its fear. It drank deeply of that flavor of control. The furred thralls did not
smell like fear. They smelled of helplessness, but the fleshbags gave off a
weak, pitiable imitation of power and that smelled like fear. Fear and sex.
Anxious fleshbags smelled of fear and sex.

«Make up your mind-stench!» the angry Regnant emitted.

The fleshbag’s scent of sex infuriated it, reminded it of its own sexlessness,
reminded it of its impotence before the Becoming. The angry Regnant had
not been a dominant thrall; like the mewling fleshbag before it, it had been
a breeder. Even then it had submitted and obeyed those around it, abused
toy and object to those in control. The angry Regnant did not remember
much of the before time, but it remembered more rage.

Now it vented that rage on the seeder thrall. The pleasure was intense. As
all the fleshbags did, the thrall fought before extinction. It resisted. It was
miserable, but gratifying. There was more venting on a thrall which
resisted, more flow of bottled up ferocity, more savage release. The Regnant
felt no sorrow, no remorse. This was the way of life, not fair or just but
unchangeable. The angry Regnant knew its place. The thrall did not, but it
was learning in fast, excruciating doses. The thralls had every opportunity
to kill the angry Regnant. It allowed them plenty of anticipation to react, but
they did not. They were weak. All they did was reek of their fear and sex.

The angry Regnant snapped the fleshbag’s head off with its thumb-blades.
Pop. Slurt. Plish.

Ecstasy.
The Regnant ripped the fleshbag in half. Tearing into it in search of hrunes.
Consumption of the essence could increase the angry Regnant's control.
Fury. Fury. Of course the fleshbag did not have any hrunes. If it had the
glands of power it would be Kind, not thrall. The angry Regnant held the
lonely heart. This was all a fleshbag amounted to. A single bleeding heart.

The angry Regnant tossed the organ in disgust.

More feeble bleating behind it.

There was another fleshbag in the pen. Two for one. And the second was
always better, because the thrall’s fear was more intense. This one was a
breeder. Good. The angry Regnant had a lot of unresolved hostility, from
before the Becoming, toward breeders as well as dominants....

***

Walker was defeated. Murphy’s Law was no match for the powerful engines
of the shuttle. She had not closed another millimeter; in fact they were
slipping back from Shangri-la. Walker knew they were. It was almost
imperceptible at that moment, but the shuttle would pick up speed, its
acceleration snowballing. Walker watched his friends’ prison racing away
and there was nothing he could do about it, no tricks he could pull out of his
pocket to save the day. At full bore, maximum thrust, perfect vector,
Shangri-la simply was much faster than the brave little mining pod.

His only option was to blow the shuttle to kingdom come.

If Shangri-la made it to Jayvee with its cargo of Regnant, it would be the

end of the colony. Walker had seen four Regnant, plus the traitorous
T’jardis Regnant on the shuttle. The numbers weren’t great, but Walker was
well aware of the creature’s sheer intellect and potential to wreak havoc. It
would be four wolves among thousands of sheep. It might even be worse
than that. The trip from Hephaestus to Jayvee orbit took nine days. T’jardis
had turned into a Regnant in just over three.

Walker knew what he should do.

Stubbs might sound the alarm. Holland’s bureaucratic brethren might even
believe him, but even if they did, Jayvee had no standing army. The only
force vaguely close were the Guards and Walker had seen them in action.
Their training was completely inadequate for the threat. Walker had no idea
how Stubbs had become so good at what he did, considering the resistance
Jayvee society had to the idea of fighting men in general. Even if Stubbs
could convince the pencil pushers and there were forces to marshal in
defense of the orbital station, Rag-narok was only fifteen minutes ahead of
Shangri-la. That did not give him much time—assuming he even
knew there was a problem, which he didn’t at that moment. Walker could
not use the radio to warn him. The old sergeant was a savvy fellow. He
probably would suspect trouble when there was no communication between
the shuttles, but then again if the Regnant-worked the trick Walker had
heard about them performing with Ledbetter’s dead body, even Stubbs
might be fooled.

Walker couldn’t board Shangri-la. He couldn’t beat the Regnant. He

couldn’t even keep up with them and he was the colony’s last bastion of
defense. Ragnarok was committed to her trajectory. She couldn’t turn back
now without using fuel she needed to make it to Jayvee orbit safely. She
was too far away to help even if she could, and she could not. If Shangri-la
got away from Walker the Regnant were home free. There weren’t any
armed craft in the system outside of the mining base. There was nothing to
stop her.

Walker should destroy the shuttle, but his hands did not even dally over the
firing switches. He would not shoot Shangri-la. His friends were in that
shuttle. They were the only things which defined his new existence and
nullified his past. Planetary populations, sweeping military concerns,
strategies and tactics were the domain of Marshal Walker. The redemption
of Walker the sleeper depended on Nis and Bartlet. They were the keys.

Walker would not be the instrument of their destruction.

He believed they were alive. Nis and Bartlet were clever. Walker had to
give them every opportunity to succeed on their own. And that was that.
Suddenly Walker’s faith was repaid. For whatever reasons, Shangri-la's
engines flamed out. Murphy’s Law, which was still under power, raced at
the big ship, closing on her faster and faster. The white vessel swelled
before him, the dead rocket nozzles staring back like a blind man’s eyes.
Murphy’s Law was less than fifty meters away. Ten more seconds and his
pod would be nipping on the shuttle’s heels, but Walker did not want to be
behind it. Even as that thought arose, he saw a spray of sparks inside the
main engine cones: giant pilot lights for flames which would incinerate
Murphy’s Law at this range. Bwouf! A puff of flame billowed as an attempt
to restart failed.

Twenty meters.

Walker made inputs with the controls. Fwaff! Whooph! Two more false
starts. Pilot sparks were actually bouncing off the canopy. Ignition so close
would melt the clear bubble and sear the skin from Walker’s
bones. Whaughph! A cloud of soot blacked out the front of the canopy.
Walker could barely see ahead. The stream of pilot sparks was so strong
Walker could not see the stars in any direction, the inside of the cockpit was
lit up like a ballroom dance floor.

Whamm!

A pillar of fire ten meters across thundered past Walker’s head at two
o’clock high. One of the eight main engines had kicked in. The others were
sure to follow. Walker would be eradicated at any second.

And then the pod dove, reacting to Walker’s previous commands. It

skimmed under Shangri-la, racing past her sleek underbelly. Murphy’s Law
was much faster on all her engines than Shangri-la was on one of hers.
Walker could not see in front because of the soot, but he could see overhead
and behind. He saw two, and then four more pillars of flame shooting
behind the shuttle. Murphy’s Law lost her headway in relation to the bigger
ship. Walker went from gaining, to station keeping, to losing ground with
ominous rapidity. Murphy’s Law skipped off Shangri-la, leaving gouges and
dents as her armored back bit into the shuttle’s softer skin. The white hull
filling Walker’s view slipped by, taking with it his window of opportunity.
Walker shoved his arms back into the waldos. Moving his forearms and
clenching his fingers, he tried to grab onto Shangri-la with the remote
appendages. However, the exterior of the shuttle was not like the mining
pod at all. It had a smooth skin. There were few protrusions which could be
clutched. Walker reached for an overhang and missed. He grasped at a
circular vent, but the pincers slipped off. He looked back. Shangri-la
was three-quarters past. He grabbed at another likely hold; the pincers held,
but the metal appendage twisted under the force, bending and then ripping
free from Murphy’s Law and the pod continued its rearward plunge. With
both robot arms, he attempted to bear hug one of the long struts which held
cargo containers nestled in Shangri-la’s gut. It worked. Walker was able to
grasp the pincers on the ends of the metal arms together. The pod was still
slipping back, but it was a start. Switching to different arms, he added force
to the grapple and friction slowed the passage of the shuttle—or rather
brought Murphy’s Law up to its speed. The pod dangled from the end of the
cargo strut. The manipulator arms protested under the stress but they held.

Walker looked back through the canopy again. There under the rear of
Shangri-la’s tail was the docking boom. If the shuttle were not under
acceleration he could release the arms and float back under attitude rockets,
but he dared not separate from the shuttle, because it would merely race
away from him again.

Thus he began the delicate process of lowering the pod, mechanical hand
over mechanical hand, down the length of the shuttle toward the docking
boom. It was terribly slow. Walker chafed at the time passing, but it was
working, and it was the only option he could think of. Grip, search, release,
repeat, and so on.

His problems were not over when he reached the docking boom. Ordinarily
one of the shuttle’s crew would operate the boom. Walker would just fly up
underneath and the operator would fly the boom into place. There was
no such operator to help Walker and the boom was not even extended, but
pressed into the underside of the ship. Fortunately the coupling faced out,
but it was still a very tricky matter. The robot arms weren’t designed to
move large masses like the shuttle and the pod—any attempt to bring
Murphy’s Law closer to Shangri-la was actually an attempt to bring the
inertia of the ships together. The difficulty was in direct proportion to their
masses. Walker levered the hatch on top of Murphy’s Law toward the
coupling. Any metal on metal impact would crush the boom or distort the
coupling and then he would really be up the creek. Walker jerked the arm
controls as the ships swung together too fast. It was just the right amount of
braking. The hatch and coupling bumped once, then snapped together in a
perfect airtight fit.

Now Shangri-la could do as she pleased and it wouldn’t matter. With the
boom and the arms locked in place, Murphy’s Law would stay put under any
acceleration or maneuver the Regnant could put the shuttle through.

Walker unbuckled and scurried aft through the crawl tube, leaving his
prized shotgun in the cockpit. The ten gauge was far too much firepower to
use inside the shuttle. One blast could pierce the hull and
condemn everyone inside her to decompression and suffocation. Walker had
to find another weapon he could use on her Regnant hijackers. There were
no other weapons in the pod, besides a few eating knives. All of her
potent weaponry was external and no good for his purpose. Walker would
have to be creative.

What was there in the pod’s stores, equipment, or replacement parts which
was ready to use, small enough and deadly enough to be effective as a close
range weapon?
Chapter 30
“The end is near,” mourned Loneliness.

Madness laughed. “What the caterpillar calls

the End, the wise man calls a Butterfly....”

Bartlet and the cub hung back from entering the next cabin. The death cries
were loud enough that she didn’t need him to tell her to stay out. They had
moved three cabins back from where they had started and Bartlet had not
yet found any way to stop the slaughter. Some humans tried to run, some to
hide themselves in clever spots, but the Regnant always found them and it
always killed them by pulling off their heads and ripping them in half.

Bartlet peered through a hatch left loose by the Regnant's passage. It was a
cargo hold. Rows of identical metal containers were stowed in long rows,
two units high. There weren’t many Fuzzies. The number of them in
the compartments had decreased drastically. There were half a dozen in the
cargo hold, barely more in the cabin Bartlet watched from. All of them had
the uncanny blank stare. Bartlet worried about how quickly the affliction
had come upon them. She refrained from touching them if she could.

The Regnant pulled one of Hephaestus’ command staff humans down from
a stack of containers. The portly, balding manager put up quite a struggle
for his age and weight. Bartlet observed the look of pleasure in
the Regnant's burning eyes as it played cat and mouse with the poor man.
Bartlet’s heart went out to him, even if he was a pencil-pusher, even though
his stupid kind had gotten them into this mess. The man’s struggles tumbled
him into a seated Fuzzie. The Regnant was hot on the man’s heels, so it was
in the Fuzzie’s face as it growled, spitting through interlocked teeth. Every
muscle in the Fuzzie’s face was contorted.

The Regnant ignored the bureaucrat as he scurried out of the room. It turned
its attention full on the Fuzzie. If it had hackles they would have risen.
Bartlet sensed the Regnant equivalent in its posture. It was taken aback,
unsure what to do, but very, very mad. Bartlet wondered whether it would
kill the Fuzzie.

The Regnant grabbed the errant Fuzzie roughly around the neck, bending
down over it. Dozens of elegant teeth flashed in the wide maw. The
Regnant hovered indecisively over the Fuzzie’s neck, but what followed
was not a mortal attack as Bartlet had anticipated. For a second time
she glimpsed the prehensile Regnant tongue. This occasion was at a much
safer distance, but it still turned her stomach to see it slither out of the
Regnant's wicked jaws and spray the Fuzzie’s face with repulsive umber
seed. The Fuzzie convulsed, then settled down and did not utter another
peep as the Regnant turned back to its human victim.

Bartlet let the hatch close.

«What?» Bartlet gestured to the cub, in reference to the Regnant's last

action.

«He blinds—unknown gesture—the—unknown gesture— light.»

«Not understand.»

“They can’t see light,” the little Fuzzie whispered.

Bartlet gestured back to him, not wanting to distract the Regnant. «What?
How blind?» she asked.

«They see dark,» the cub replied.

«See in dark?»

«No. See through dark.»

Bartlet did not understand exactly what the cub was getting at. She didn’t
think he knew. The little one was just communicating what he instinctively
felt. The important thing was those instincts lined up with the
warning scrawled in hieroglyphs on the inner walls of the great Fuzzie
ziggurat.
A moment prophesied in the ancient texts was happening. She was living
through it. She was an alien observer to unfolding Fuzzie events. Because
she was an alien, there was nothing Bartlet could do for them. They
weren’t just sick. Something more was happening. The Regnant were here.
The Song was dying. The Fuzzies were turning from the Eye of Light. They
were at a Rubicon, changing from one form of existence to another.

Bartlet did not want to be around when that happened. The scientist
believed she would not live through that event. Seventy Fuzzies meeting a
repulsive destiny. Their eyes were completely glazed over. The ones nearby
were unaware of her passage among them, and she would not attempt to
communicate. They were looking from one world into the next.

How stupid she had been to worry about what the Council thought about the
passage Jeremy leaked. The translation of the last scrawled passage was so
important to the survival of the colony. Dr. Elaine Bartlet had been right
all along and it was worse than she had ever imagined.

Beyond here there is no Beginning and no End. The Eye of Darkness loses
its Song. It sees pure Regnant power.

She grasped the little Fuzzie. “How are your eyes?" she asked gravely,
unable to form the sentence in gesture.

He recognized her emphasis. «I see light.»

«Good.» Bartlet squeezed him, opened the hatch and pulled him along into
the cargo compartment.

Bartlet decided that she and the cub must get off the ship. She had a great
feeling of remorse about the inevitable, but there was nothing she could do
for any surviving humans and Fuzzies. She could not raise the Fuzzies to
battle to save the humans. She could not even communicate with the
estranged Fuzzies. The two of them must make their way to an evacuation
lock and escape in one of the inflatable emergency blisters. Bartlet knew
where they were from her nine-day trip out from Jayvee, just as she knew
where most things were on the shuttle. Nine days was a long time to explore
a confined space, no matter how large. They would die in the blisters if they
weren’t picked up within two days, which was unlikely. But at least Bartlet
wouldn’t have her head twisted off by the pop-top Regnant and she would
save the small Fuzzie from whatever horrors awaited the others on board. It
would be a peaceful passing, she and the cub falling into an endless sleep in
the rings, just another glittering particle among millions.

Bartlet had lost her moral high ground. She would destroy Shangri-la if she
had the means, but she was not a walking encyclopedia of destructive things
to do like Walker, and she did want to try and get out with their lives.

Bartlet moved to the next hatch left swinging by the Regnant. The
evacuation locks were in the next cabin. She peeked through the opening.
There was a chamber on the starboard side of the shuttle. Inside it was their
escape.

The action taking place between the stowed equipment was predictable in
its atrocious intensity. The Regnant was hard at work. Two more humans
were without heads and it had cornered a lone woman. She could not escape
because the exit behind her was locked. A sign declared
Authorized Personnel Only, but she tried it anyway. It was Holland’s catty
assistant, the one who had such a hate-on for Bartlet. The Regnant allowed
her to run from one spot to another and work her fear into terror before it
pounced on her. Bartlet expected the cries and pleading, but the
woman’s passing was not loud. She turned her head to one side, shaking
like a leaf. Her eyes met Bartlet’s just before the final pain. Gone was the
sharp condescension, stripped away by imminent death. In its place was
naked, vulnerable humanity. The woman could have tipped the Regnant off
to Bartlet’s presence with so much as a telling flip of her head, but she did
not.

Bartlet closed her eyes and gave an inner prayer of thanks as the Regnant
went through its inevitable motions.

There was no one else in the compartment. No humans, no Fuzzies. The

Regnant strode to the final hatch, ripped the locked door open and
disappeared. The compartment beyond was the final section in the shuttle.
However many humans were back there, if any, it would not take long for
the Regnant to dispose of them.
Bartlet entered the room vacated by the Regnant and dashed across into the
lock with the cub in tow. Inside was a row of deflated, silver evac-blisters,
which resembled large beach balls, each in its own ejection port. The idea
was to seal the lock, climb into a deflated sphere and zip it up. Automated
systems would pump it full of air, activate the limited air purification, heat
and beacon devices and spit the blister at high velocity away from
the shuttle. Bartlet had run the drill. It was not difficult. One blister held up
to three adults. It would easily sustain her and the cub, maybe even longer
than two days, considering it was well under capacity.

She shoved the cub into the first blister and fumbled to get in herself. If the
Regnant reappeared, she did not believe it would fall for her cowering ruse
again. Half way through zipping up the blister, Bartlet realized she had
not sealed the lock hatch. Scrambling out, she jumped back to it. Bartlet
was slamming it shut when she heard an unbelievable sound from the aft-
most cabin.

“Stand and deliver,” said a masculine human voice.

Bartlet grabbed the edge of the hatch, pinching her fingers badly, to prevent
it from closing and making a noise. Sucking and shaking her bruised digits,
she listened for the voice to speak again, but of course it did not.

“I’ll be right back,” she hissed at the cub. «Don’t move.»

He nodded.

Bartlet crept to the busted door.

The compartment was five meters long, tapering as it receded to make room
for the shuttle’s massive rockets. The corners of the cabin were rounded
where the machinery intruded. The Regnant stood in the middle.
There were no Fuzzies and no more bureaucrats, but beyond the monster
was an open airlock door and in that stood a large man in a weathered, torn
uniform, jaw set in determination, arms hanging at his sides. Neither of the
bipeds moved.
The angry Regnant scented the fleshbag. It was not like the others. It did
not flee. It did not make begging sounds. It did not emit fear. Yet it did not
attack. Scents from an unfamiliar ship clung to it.

What was its purpose? What was its scent?

Challenge.

The Regnant increased the threat in its posture. The fleshbag challenge
reeked back even stronger. This fleshbag knew about control. The angry
Regnant felt it. Its ire rose. Raw scents and fluid washed the back of its
throat. Here was a thrall that would fight. Here was a fleshbag with the gall
to contest power with a Kind. It did not increase the anticipation, or the
pleasure as the angry Regnant had imagined. The angry Regnant recalled
all of its subservience to the other brethren, its inability to control all but
the weakest, the thralls. And here was a thrall which would not back down.

The angry Regnant recalled a long lost emotion.

Shame. Burning, festering shame.

It made an unsure sideways motion.

Bartlet saw the human clearly. Why was he just standing there? The
Regnant would be on him in a flash. The special human would fall before
he knew what hit him.

“Walker!” Bartlet said.

The angry Regnant turned and saw the breeder fleshbag. The one who had
cowered. It communicated with the challenging fleshbag. There was a link.
The angry Regnant remembered the awful bondage between breeder
and dominant. More shame. But this shame it could use. It would
demoralize the challenger with an artful termination of its submissive.

Raping the soul of the breeder would hurt the bonded fleshbag.

And the breeder was an easier target.

“Don’t even think it,” Walker said. Raising his arms.

Bartlet saw the bizarre device in his hands. Scissoring jaws on hydraulic
pistons gaped from an implement the size of a jackhammer. Walker held it
in front of him, both hands gripping the heavy mass. Hoses ran to a tank
on his back.

“Come and get it, beetlehead,” he snarled.

Even the shameful Regnant could not ignore the tone of the challenge any
further. The thrall would not cow its rightful master!

The Regnant pounced, a smear of claws and spurs.

Walker pulled a lever. The jaws snapped shut and he aimed them at the
Regnant's head as it arched at him. The Regnant’s maw opened wide as he
expected. He did not flinch as it struck for his neck, but shoved the
hydraulic scissors into the mouth. Teeth shattered. Regnant blood was let.

Walker’s eyes never left his opponent’s. He grinned. The weapon was a
jaws of life. Its old purpose was to rescue humans and Fuzzies pinned in
wrecked spacecraft. It had a new purpose now. Walker liked to think of it as
the jaws of death.

Before the Regnant could pull back, he slammed the lever the other
direction. The hoses tensed as high pressure fluid expanded into the pistons.
The jaws scissored open, slamming the unsuspecting Regnant's own
jaws open to their maximum and beyond. The hideous armor plates bent
and stretched. The predictable healing process sealed the tears even as they
were made, but it was far from up to coping with what Walker had in mind
for the Regnant. The jaws continued to open, crunching into the skull
around it. Walker pushed forward with his body, making sure the jaws of
death would seat between the elongated cranium and tree-trunk neck. The
Regnant flailed as the jaws parted further and further. Walker felt the metal
passing through bone and sinew. Flesh rent, soft tissues oozed. The Regnant
howled its horrible howl, the force of its cry spewing blood and ichor.
Rancid pheromone stench stung Walker’s eyes.
The ultimate shame: sent to the Everlasting Unfulfillment by a thrall it
could not control.

The head put up a final, futile resistance and then exploded as the hydraulic
jaws separated it from the Regnant’s hideous torso.

Shattered head and twitching body tumbled to the deck.

Walker shook the jaws free of flesh and closed them back up. He marched
over to Bartlet. “We’ve got work to do.”

Bartlet returned to the moment. It had been very gratifying to see the
creature, which had decapitated all the humans, come to such a cold-
blooded, gruesome end. It was fitting.

Bartlet’s response to his words: “We’ve got to get out of here and blow this
ship to oblivion.”

Walker blinked. Did Elaine Bartlet just say that? “No way,” he said with
determination. “I’m going to kill every last Regnant on board, one by one if
I have to. My days of sacrificing innocents are over. I’m going to save them
all and fly this ship home.”

Bartlet felt the heat of his conviction, and she loved him for it, but it was
not to be. “You can’t. It’s impossible.” She retrieved Fheoir’s cub from the
evac-blister. “Save us. There are three more Regnant up front. Let’s get out
before they come back here.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear what I just said,” Walker said forcefully. “I’m
going to save these people.”

“You didn’t listen to what I said! You can’t. It’s too late. You can’t make
good on your noble conviction. All the killing in the world can’t save one
person besides us.”

“Just watch me.”

“There are no humans left!” Bartlet spat.

“There are Fuzzies,” he spat right back.

Bartlet didn’t want to say what came out of her mouth next, as if the act of
verbalization would chisel her fear and suspicion in stone. “You can’t save
them. They’re turning.”

“What do you mean ‘turning?’” Walker growled.

Bartlet ripped the unwanted words out of her chest. “They’re turning into
Regnant.”

Walker response died on his tongue.

“They’re turning,” Bartlet repeated. “It’s just a matter of when....”

Walker didn’t challenge her. He had seen T’jardis. If Bartlet believed it, he
believed it.

“You came in Murphy’s Law?” she asked. At his nod she said, “We’ve got
to blast out of here and destroy Shangri-la before it’s full of brand new
Regnant.

“I’m not leaving.”

“What?”

“I’m not leaving without Nis,” he said resolutely.

Had Walker not seen T’jardis shoot Nis? “He’s dead,” she said evenly.

“No, he’s not. I saw him. He’s alive.”

Bartlet shook Walker by the collar. “I held him in my arms. Look, this is his
blood! I saw all the bullet holes. He’s dead.”

Walker shook his head vehemently. “I picked up a transmission from his

camera. He crawled into the bridge. I saw him fight with T’jardis. I know
Fuzzies can turn because T’jardis is a fucking Regnant.” Walker
shoved Bartlet, but she held on stubbornly. “I’m going to march up to the
bridge and rip that Regnant bastard a new asshole. Nis is up there—on the
deck—but I know he’s still alive. Are you with me or not?”

Bartlet hesitated. Easy escape and certain destruction of the Regnant-

contaminated shuttle lay aft. Certain bloodshed and probable death lay to
the fore, but if Walker was correct, so did a badly wounded friend of theirs.

“You’re sure about Nis? You’re sure he’s alive.”

“I’m sure. I’m not going to leave here without Nis,” Walker declared.
“Nobody gets left behind. I don’t care what it costs.”

This was the Walker Bartlet believed in, the one she knew would save the
colony. She had made the right choice when she convinced Walker to fight.
The awful past was long gone. Here was the clear evidence. She trusted this
man more than ever.

“He was by the fore hatch last time I saw him,” she said acquiescing.

“More hide and seek?” Fheoir’s cub asked the tall man.

“Yes,” Walker said, flexing the jaws of death. “But this time they’re hiding
and we’re seeking.”

Walker marched off. Bartlet picked up the little Fuzzie and fell into step
behind him.

Walker was right. Nis’ body was gone. A trail of blood led from the hatch
down the narrow passage and disappeared under the bridge door. They had
seen no Regnant on their sweep forward.

Bartlet held up three fingers and pointed at the door.

Walker nodded, understanding: three Regnant dead ahead. He stalked

forward, knees bent, jaws of death held high. He smelled the bittersweet
pheromone. He heard the whir and beep of circuits at work, a white noise
rush of many fans cooling elaborate calculating devices, but there was no
telltale sound of Regnant. No howling, no slavering, no clatter of spurs and
armor against deck and wall.
Walker neared the door. He would slam it open and rip them apart as they
came at him. One man could hold off four monsters in such a tight space,
especially a man like Walker, determined to succeed or die trying. He
would get Nis out.

Suddenly a warning voice from beyond the door. “Walker, Dr. Bartlet, go
away! You must leave this ship!” The voice was unquestionably Nis. It was
heavy and slow, as he would sound lying in a pool of his own blood. He
could not have heard them, even with his Fuzzie ears. He must have
smelled them.

Walker kicked the door open and lunged.

The bridge was wide and dark. A large Regnant lurked in the shadows
between the pilots’ crash couches. The expected form of a Fuzzie in a
pressure suit lay face down under the navigator’s console to Walker’s right.

The Regnant did not attack.

“Nis!” Walker said. “Nis, can you move, can you crawl out of here while I
cover you.”

Nis did not speak.

Walker took a couple of small side steps and toed the unmoving body
without taking his eyes off the Regnant. Where were the other three?
“Come on, Nis. We’ve got to get out of here. This place is crawling with
these bastards.”

The Regnant loped out of the shadows. “I know,” it rumbled.

A bomb went off in Walker’s heart. He choked on his breath.

Boney black plates grew across the deadly form pressing upward from
under furred skin. Spurs elongated on serrated limbs and joints sharpened
into killing knives. The skull lengthened as Walker watched. Blood red
eyes glowed under jagged brow plates. The ears, still thin, turned black with
a throbbing network of purple veins latticing the batwing flesh. The entire
creature grew in strength and size as the metamorphosis turned the
small body into an ominous beast, more hideous by the heartbeat. It was
unmistakable, despite the claw razors, despite the Regnant smell of
pheromone.

Walker’s world dropped out from under him. He felt as though the pressure
fields had quit and his guts were in the back of his throat. Sweaty, hot
nausea flushed his neck and face.

“Oh my God,” Bartlet whispered behind him.

The Regnant was Nis.

Nis remembered now.

He remembered the Republic. Going back to the mining pods alone.

Climbing the docking tube and looking in Sex Kitten’s hatch.

He remembered the Plantagenet, waiting for him.

Resplendent. The smell of power. The eyes like orbs of crimson steel. The
compulsion.

He remembered the embrace. Such wretched ecstasy. His mind screamed for
release. Helplessness. Obscene intimacy.

Rape.

The Becoming.

Not heat exhaustion. Transformation. Time dilation. Contraction. Variable

states of existence. Consciousness.

Choice. Self-determination. Decision.

Regnant.

The power coursed through his veins. He could use it at will. Even now it
healed his mortal wounds. He smelled its bitterness. The fragrance
wrenched his mind.

And he knew how right the Rote had been. Nis: no Song. But silence was a
melody unto itself. The harmony of power.

It wasn’t like before, when he killed the Plantagenet. He hadn’t understood

then. He hadn’t truly broken the shackles of his DNA, only accelerated a
transformation already in progress. That fleeting glory was pitiful by
comparison.

He had the power. Not the pheromone which accelerated his awareness, not
guns or grenades, or anything so menacing. The real power was ever-
present, never sleeping. Especially now. The real power wasn’t fast or
particularly lethal in most cases. The power was thought.

Free choice.

The power to choose without restriction. His thought processes had been
confined before, but now vast courses of action were laid out for him.
Tangled trees of cause and effect made clear for his every possible caprice.
If he chose this: this happened. If he chose that: that happened. So many
alternatives. His inspiration danced with plenty. Love, hate, murder,
destruction, subjugation, victory, empire.... They were his for the choosing.

The Longing was gone. The Power was his.

Walker stared at the Regnant, his world swimming. Where was the faithful
Fuzzie who, before Bartlet, had been his lone companion? With her Nis had
dragged him out of the depths of his darkest moments, pulled him free of
the mire of his cryogenic psychosis, shown him how to accept his own
terrible history and go on. Where was the Fuzzie who had taught him the
simple truths of honor, loyalty, purity? Where in the monster before him
was that friend?

Where was Nis?

Walker flipped the limp body with his boot. It was T’jardis. T’jardis was the
Regnant on the deck, not Nis. The pressure suit had fooled him. Walker had
been wrong about only one thing he saw on the video transmission. T’jardis
had lost the battle.

The Regnant cocked its head. Piercing eyes stabbed him, blood red but just
as deep as they had ever been. There was a faint spidering mark on the
glistening black carapace. Where it had been black before, now its
tracery was silver. There was also a small gold canine in the wicked forest
of teeth. Walker grabbed onto those small vestiges, like a drowning man
clutching for a lifeline. Everything else swirled around him, but he and the
monster did not move. Creature or not, transformation or not, whatever the
form, nothing could keep Walker from his friend.

“I can save you,” Walker said.

The Regnant sighed. Orifices fluttered across the high-domed skull. It

seemed at a loss for words. Finally, it said, “You must leave.”

“I’m not going to leave you here, Nis,” Walker said, his resolution an
anchor in stormy seas. “I mean it. I’m taking you with me. You, me, Dr.
Bartlet, and the cub. We’re getting out of here.”

A rumble shook the mighty frame. “For once I have the choice and you do
not. I have found my freedom. I can decide. I have broken the bonds,
Walker. I’m ordering you to go. I’m ordering you to get off my ship.”

Walker bristled, sorrow and rage mixing. “I don’t have to take orders from
you. You’re still my weapons officer—you’ll do what I tell you to!”

“Please listen,” the deep Nis voice said.

“I don’t have to,” Walker said, “and I won’t.”

“You cannot fight it,” Nis said. “I cannot fight it.”

“I’m not listening, hair-ball,” Walker raged through a shield of denial.

“You must,” a feminine voice said. Bartlet’s hand was on his shoulder,
fingers gripping firmly. All her years of observation and excavation, study,
firsthand experience and translation, allowed her to understand what
Walker could not. “He’s free. There’s nothing more we can do. He’s found
his choice.” Bartlet meant it, but even as she said the words she found the
reality menacing, terrifying.

“I understand the choices, Walker,” Nis said. “It’s so simple.”

“That’s right, it is simple,” Walker said, his anger unabated. “You’re a

Regnant, but you’re still Nis.” He brandished the jaws of death. “I’ll chop
off your arms and legs and drag your stumpy body back to Murphy’s Law,
and I’ll tie you up so when it all grows back you can’t break free.”

Nis shook his obsidian head sadly. “I am not going with you.”

“Try and stop me,” Walker hissed.

Three Regnant stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the bridge. They
did not attack, but their posture toward Nis was protective. Walker could
not fight them all. It was the moment of his ultimate defeat. Now there
was nothing he could do to stop the avalanche of awful events.

Next to the other three, it was Nis who shone through like a beacon in the
night. Walker couldn’t bear it. It was too horrible to be true. All the great
tragedies in his life paled in comparison.

The Regnant which was Nis stepped closer and gently pushed the human’s
brutal weapon aside.

“I can’t be saved,” Nis bellowed, “but you’ve got one who can be.”

Walker followed a pointing blade to the cub in Bartlet’s arms.

“Save him. I am saved. I have made my choice, but the little one can’t.
That’s your responsibility. I order you to carry out your mission.”

Again, Bartlet knew the truth which Nis spoke. She must get the cub to
safety. It was very important to her. The vow she had made to herself came
flooding back to her. She had promised to help set the Fuzzies free of
their bonds. The little one was now a vital part of that promise.
“Walker, we’re going,” she decided. “Come on.”

“I can’t let you go,” the big man protested to his friend, grief clutching at
him. His voice got as close to pleading as Nis had ever heard it. “Don’t you
see that?”

Nis nodded. Always, life was pain.

«I sing you love,» Bartlet postured, hopefully. She did not get the response
she wanted. Nis only nodded again. It was foreboding. Then the Regnant
body postured, squeezing Walker’s arm. «Sing him love. Sing him
affection. I am silence.»

«I promise.»

Walker watched Nis’ motions, not understanding the subtext. Still he did
not move. He wanted to grow roots into the deck, so they couldn’t make
him leave. He knew he would never see his friend again. His dark fate
would prevent that.

Hands which were weapons clasped the human by the shoulders. Weathered
human hands clasped them back.

“I have a destiny to fulfill,” Nis said, “and you’re not part of it. You have to
leave.”

Walker finally understood. He always had, of course. He still wished it

could be different. A great melancholy took him. It was not over yet and it
would be worse before it got better.

“It’s all become very clear to me,” Nis said. “I see with the Eyes of Light
and Darkness now....”

“I’ll never forget you,” Walker choked.

“I know,” Nis said woefully. He pushed Walker away.

Nis’ posture changed as Walker strode out of the bridge. Bartlet could not
read it. It was part Fuzzie, part Regnant—and it chilled her to the core. She
struggled to find the right forms.

«You see light,» she emoted as forcefully as she could, «You see darkness.
How do you choose?»

«I choose what I must choose,» the Regnant replied ominously.

It did not satisfy her, but Walker dragged her along with him. Striding too
fast through the strange calm of turning Fuzzies. There was an
overwhelming sense of evil growing, germinating, gestating. If there was
any doubt before about what was happening to the Fuzzies, there wasn’t
any as they left.

Bartlet worried that Walker was too overcome with grief, but a loaded
glance in the cargo cabin convinced her otherwise.

“I know,” he said.

“What?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said in a low voice, the final tragedy
caressing his lips, “and I’m prepared to do it.”

Bartlet repeated the words so often on her own lips in the last half hour.
“We have to blow up this ship.”

With a great, shuddering intake of breath Walker said, “I have to blow up

my best friend.”

Bartlet had thought she was tough enough to face the hard truth of the
matter, but she wasn’t. Just the way Walker said the words drove the horror
home.

No more words were exchanged until they were off the big ship.

The three Regnant circled around him. They did not attack. He was one of
them, but what was his-place? Nis flexed his hrunes as he had done before.
His power filled the air, much more than last time. Last time he had
just held them in check. This time the Regnant cowered. It was pathetically
easy. These Regnant would obey his every whim. Nis was Plantagenet now,
but stronger than his sire’s wildest imaginings. His was a power frightening
even to the Kind.

It all came down to choices. And he could make them.

He closed his eyes. There was no fear. He was in total control. He was
Regnant. A master, full of power and strength, controlling his current
actions and future destinies. It was appealing: to become everything his
race coveted, longed for, so greatly. He had the ability to shape Fuzzie
destiny without a Song, to mold others without the Rote, never constricted
by its unalterable fate.

And more, if the myriad possibilities found their likely end.

Nis would be emperor of Jayvee, lord and master of all he surveyed,

millions of thralls at his command—Fuzzie and human alike—for the
humans would not resist the power long. However much time it took, the
humans would submit.

It was foreordained. Nis could stop his brethren from creating new Kind,
but he could not stop their use of power, not when it was their very means
of communication. It would be cruel. To be Regnant was to use power. It
was a core truth of his new incarnation. He had felt it from the first beating
of the hearts in his loins, from the first coursing of power from his hrunes.
Even one so powerful as Nis would not stop the Regnant from using power.
He could, but he would not. He might as well kill them.

He might as well deny the destiny laid out for him.

And he could not do that.

Murphy’s Law blasted away from the elegant shuttle, staying well clear of
the eight pillars of flame stabbing out from her engines.

Walker reached in front of Bartlet. “O-U-T-C-A-S-T,” he punched into Nis’

console. He flipped the arming toggles. Belts whined underneath them as
missiles rotated into position.
Walker took his time aligning the prow of the mining pod with the fleeing
Shangri-la. There was time to do the nightmare right. Shangri-la was faster
than Murphy’s Law, but the missiles were ten times faster than both of them.

Bartlet looked over her shoulder at the little Fuzzie in the navigator’s crash
couch. He sat quietly, dwarfed by the adult-sized seat. His eyes were as big
as saucers—so afraid, but trying to be brave. He brought to mind the most
appalling vision on Shangri-la: the turning cubs. What would be their fate if
Walker missed his shot, if they were unable to stop the deadly cargo from
reaching its destination? Bartlet clenched her eyes, fighting her natural
emotions. She must not be weak. She must not undermine Walker’s shaky
resolve. There were too many children on Jayvee to worry about the half-
dozen on Shangri-la.

Attitude jets puffed on the prow in front of the canopy. Shangri-la swung
into position dead ahead. There was no targetting computer, but the large
ship was directly under a cross hair etched into Bartlet’s heads-up display. It
was an easy shot.

Walker’s fingers flipped the safety catch, but they only hovered over the
firing button. Bartlet tensed. Was he losing his resolve? How shaky was it?

Her mind was full of children’s faces. Bright young human and Fuzzie
faces.

“Do you want me to do it?” she asked.

“No,” he said after a bit. “I’ll do it. I owe him that much.”

Eyes of Light. Eyes of Darkness.

So many paths to suffering.

Nis considered repugnant alternatives. To prevent the spread of the Regnant

and their power. To deny the rest of the Fuzzie race their chance of
fulfillment. To keep them enslaved to a spiral down into stagnation by
denying them the right of choice. To protect the human colonists,
and prevent the massacre which would surely follow at the expense of his
own people.

Suffering, suffering.

It wasn’t right.

The choices were coming, but they were not easy.

And why did his mind keep returning to the repugnant ones?

The choices were hard. The burdens difficult to bear. One way or another
the price would be nothing less than his very soul.

If Regnant had souls.

He scented his three companions. He could kill them, but that seemed like
murder now that he was one of them. What had they been before the
Becoming was forced upon them, as it had been forced on Nis? Who had
they been? Ordinary souls, like Nis? Most likely. They had not asked for the
horrible change. They were beasts now, but had they once been fathers,
sons, mothers, daughters, lovers ... ? Surely. Had they longed and cried
and laughed and dreamed as Nis had? Had they felt the desperation of pain
and loneliness? If they were beasts, then so was he. If they deserved death,
then he deserved it too.

They were. And he was. And they did. And he did.

But Nis saw the ordinary souls in them, just as Walker had seen the
ordinary Nis in his omnipotent Regnant body. And that was his answer.

Ordinary souls.

The Eyes of Light and Darkness blinded him with their truth.

Nis looked around. The navigation computer was a battered hulk. No

matter. Nis saw the proper trajectory in his head, like a golden umbilical of
mathematic symbols.
A tear ran down his Regnant cheek as he programmed the course into the
helm console.

The choice was made....

“What are you waiting for,” Bartlet asked, her voice becoming shrill against
her best efforts to keep it calm.

“There’s time,” Walker repeated. “I’m waiting.”

“What for?” Would she have to take action herself?

“I’m waiting for Nis.”

Walker was losing it.

“Maybe I’ll see him,” he continued.

Bartlet prepared to shove his hand aside and launch the weapons with her
own hand.

“Look,” he said pointing. “There he is.”

Bartlet looked. What the hell did he mean? She did not see Nis. No
humanoids jumped from open hatches or floated beside the shuttle.

Dozens of fairy flames danced on Shangri-la's port flank. The stately vessel
turned away from them until the flare of her main engines completely
blotted out her hull. She was headed straight for Jayvee now, straight for
the Colony.

Bartlet grabbed Walker’s hand and tried to jam her thumb down on the red
button, but she did not catch him by surprise. She did not connect. His
superior reflexes and strength stopped her millimeters from release.

“Let me go!” she screamed.

“Watch!” he yelled back. “Just watch!”

He crushed her wrists together in one vise-tight hand and grabbing her
cheeks, turned her face to the stars.

Shangri-la was still turning. She was edge on to them now and still going.

Bartlet ceased struggling.

The needle prow swung all the way around, pointed right at the heart of the
mining pod. An aurora flared behind the shuttle as her main engines fired
again.

It was clear to Walker.

The soot on the canopy partly obscured their view, but the shuttle
accelerated, growing in size, rocketing toward them. Bartlet sat motionless
as Shangri-la came at them. It was going to ram them.

“Get us out of the way!” she yelled at Walker, but he still did not release her
arms.

Bartlet closed her eyes and prayed. Walker wanted to die at Nis’ hand but
she did not. She clenched her teeth, pushing herself back into the crash
couch—as if that would help—but they were not impaled. Bartlet peeked
as the white mass blurred by, seemingly only an arm’s length away.

Walker applied starboard rudder with his foot. He let go of her wrists as the
pod swung around one hundred and eighty degrees.

And then it was clear to Bartlet.

Seconds, and then minutes ticked by and she did not try to press the button.

Nis watched Hephaestus in the bridge windows.

The end of the golden umbilical.

He had reached his life-long goal. He had seen the light only to plunge
himself back into blindness. It wasn’t fair, but it was right. He felt the hand
of destiny in his actions. And above all, it was his choice. He chose. Nis
the outcast.

Soothsinger, he wanted to say, you were right. I’ve found the Power.

Father, I’ve found the answer.

He wished the Fussrapth Thnaphthl Pthpth could have seen it.

His choice.

But not the choice of his brethren.

They could not resist his power. They could not deny his control, but they
did not want his fate. He was taking them to the Everlasting Unfulfillment
and they did not want to go.

They were afraid.

To be Regnant was to be immortal. To be Regnant was to deny death. One

quick rape and everything they loved had been torn from them. Everything
they loved grew old and died from their lives—if they did not destroy it
first. They had nothing to cling to but their ever-lasting existence, nothing
precious but eternity. They feared dying more than any Fuzzie or human.
The thralls could not understand it. They lived with their bodies dying
around them from the moment of birth. Their acute awareness of mortality
intensified their brief existence, but the Regnant did not feel death. The
power freed them of that ultimate fetter. To be Regnant was to be alive. To
be Regnant was to be immortal. And to be immortal was to fear death more
than any mortal.

They were very afraid.

In them Nis saw himself before the Becoming, unable to change fate,
unable to choose, but striving and longing to with every ounce of his soul.
In them he saw himself before the Singing Nut tree, waiting for his father to
pass into silence. He saw their terrible heartbreak.

«Do not be afraid,» he scented.

He filled the cabin with his power. Power the likes of which they had never
felt before. Power richer than any hundred Old Ones combined.

The power of Truth, the power of Redemption, the power of Forgiveness.

«Come,» he emitted.

And they gathered round him. They had to, but more importantly, they
wanted to. They pressed their bodies against him, linked their arms around
him. They clung together, huddled against death—as the Soothsinger
and the elders had huddled against a young Fuzzie’s anguish in the
Forbidden Jungle all those years ago. Quivering beasts humbled before the
beauty of imminent Oneness.

They were a pod.

«I will take you with me,» Nis said. «We will find the Everlasting
Fulfillment together.»

It was right.

He slowed time.

Hephaestus was less than a meter away. His Regnant body would resist
death, resist the fiery purity to come. If he wanted to, the split second before
impact could be stretched into an eternity. He had enough power for
them all....

No.

Murphy’s Law had a perfect view.

Shangri-la collided with the station. The arrowhead of the white ship
plunged into a blast furnace at the center of the vast cone-shaped maw.
Boiling clouds of searing flame and soot billowed back as momentum
carried the vessel onward. Everything but the central fuselage was stripped
from the shuttle as it pierced the heart of the station. It disappeared
completely, but its effects did not. Hephaestus released its dying fury in a
conflagration which shook the two-kilometer asteroid to its very
core. Shock waves rippled across its surface, cracks appeared as the
rampant energies increased, feeding on themselves, until they could be
contained no more. The rock on the side of the station opposite the fatal
entry wound bloated out and then exploded in a cataclysmic eruption of
rock, flame and metal as the last disintegrating fragments of the shuttle and
its inertia punched through. For a brief moment there was a crater a third
the size of Hephaestus itself, then the entire asteroid collapsed. Chunks of
rock and ore expanded in all directions.

Walker saw them approaching like a swarm of sledgehammers. And

Murphy’s Law was the nail.

We’ve got about four seconds, he thought.

He tried to bring the armored side of the pod to bear. Not that it would do
much good.

Fragments ripped into Murphy’s Law, her main engines, her weapons
nacelle. Pressure fields failed. One large piece tore open the hull. The
cockpit was suddenly cold as air wailed out the breach. All three
occupants gasped. Moisture condensed out of the air and froze in an instant.

The pod spun out of control, careening wildly into the ring plane.

An emergency sphincter sealed the cockpit. Walker struggled to right the

pod. The controls were slow before; now there simply wasn’t much left
which could respond.

It was a torturously long time before the pod stopped tumbling. The man,
the woman, and the Fuzzie looked out the canopy behind them.

The base was gone. Only small rocks remained. Hephaestus had returned to
the asteroids which spawned it. The ring had reclaimed its own. All
evidence of sentient effort wiped out in the blink of an eye.

They sat in silence for a while, then Bartlet said, “No one will ever believe
it.”
“It’s all in the flight recorder,” Walker said numbly.

“Even the transmission from Shangri-la?” she asked hopefully.

“No. Just the audio. And flight records.”

Too bad. Their story was fantastic. Belief would be hard won without visual
proof. But that wouldn’t stop Bartlet from retelling the events to every
single Fuzzie on Jayvee. Anyone that would listen. It was important. She
had promised to help the Fuzzies find their self-determination, and she
would.

The little Fuzzie unstrapped and floated forward into Bartlet’s lap. She
embraced him.

“You saw it, didn’t you,” she said softly, realizing the significance of his
presence.

"I saw it, ’’ the little Fuzzie said.

Destiny.

Walker brushed a thin layer of frost from the few working gauges.

“Life support’s borderline,” he noted. “Radio’s out, main engines are gone,
and we’ve lost all of the secondary systems. We’ve got maneuvering
thrusters. That’s it.”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

“Stubbs will radio for a rescue. He couldn’t have missed the fireworks.”

“Maybe he’ll come back and get us,” Bartlet said, not looking up.

Walker couldn’t even tell which point of light was Ragnarok. That meant
her accelerating burn was over. “No. They’ve spent their fuel already. If
they come back two hundred people will need rescue, not just three.”

“How long will it be?”

“About ten days.”

“Can we last that long?”

“With a little luck.”

Walker shifted, frowning. His mind was racing. Rescue didn’t seem
important. It would come, or not.

He was thinking about his friend.

Nis had overcome his Fuzzie limitations. He had achieved the longed-for
power of decision, the ability to look at all the possibilities and make a
choice. As a Regnant Nis had achieved innate power beyond the dreams
of humans. And yet it had not corrupted him. With all his power and
knowledge, Nis was still a Fuzzie at heart. Kind and good and caring.

Something was right in the universe.

Walker felt a new-found strength within him. A seed had been sown in his
heart, sprouting in the mire of his emotions. Now that sprout pushed
through to the surface.

Perhaps one day it would flower as Nis’ had, but for now it was enough to
know that it was there.

He felt the grip of Loneliness and Madness slipping. He would not forget
them. They would be with him for the rest of his days. They were a part of
him. They could not— should not—ever be separated from him. Because he
was human, he was weak and afraid and alone, despite all his striving for
courage and strength and love. He knew the dark sides of himself better
than most. They had been his sole companions for seven long years.
They had also been his teachers. The irony was that it had taken an alien to
show Walker how to love the human parts of himself. An alien, trapped by
his ability to see only—or rather, act only—upon the good things. An alien
whose final freedom had only come when he achieved, and overcame, the
very power of choice which had fettered Walker.
Nis’ humanity was beyond reproach. But he was not human. He was
Fuzzie.

“Thank you,” Walker whispered, from the bottom of his heart. It was his
good-bye. His eyes moistened, but he didn’t fight the tears back.

God, he was going to miss Nis.

Bartlet gently rocked back and forth with the cub in her arms.

Walker looked over at Bartlet and her cub. The three of them would be
forever linked. Whatever form that took. They all knew it. The death of
their friend had bonded them, whatever the future brought. The
humans would be lovers, mates, perhaps enemies, definitely parents
because the little Fuzzie made them a pod.

Nis’s pod.

"Remember,” she cooed to him. "Remember....”

Slowly, Walker looked up through the canopy. To his watery eyes the pod
seemed very tiny and very alone under the cold unblinking gaze of the Eyes
of Light and Darkness.
Requiem
And so the tale draws to a close. But, as all good stories must come full
circle and end where they began, so too they must begin where they end....

There was heat and there was pressure. Torrid callous power and sweet
living agony enveloped him, destroyed him and created him anew. And then
the cold. The dark. But the seeds had blossomed with petals of fiery
purity, which even the ice in his soul could not extinguish.

They were in awe:

“What is it?” asked the Loneliness.

“It is new to us,” said the Madness.

“I am Strength,” said the voice.

“Strength?” asked Loneliness. “We know how the weak envy the strong. We
understand you, not like the others—”

“Silence!” said the voice. “I am Power and I will not listen to

manipulation.”

“We are afraid,” quivered Madness.

“Do not be for I am also Compassion and I know you well,” the voice said,
freeing them of all fear with elegant ease.

“Who are you?” they asked, sensing the Oneness in the other which they
might become. “Teach us what you know,” they begged eagerly, longing for
its Embrace.

“I am Nis,” it said, “and this is my Song....”

S. Andrew Swann

HOSTILE TAKEOVER

□ PROFITEER UE2647—$4.99

With no anti-trust laws and no governing body, the planet Bakunin is the perfect home base
for both corporations and criminals. But now the Confederacy wants a piece of the action—
and they’re planning a hostile takeover!

□ PARTISAN UE2670—-$4.99

Even as he sets the stage for a devastating covert operation, Dominic Magnus and his allies
discover that the Confederacy has far bigger plans for Bakunin, and no compunctions
about destroying anyone who gets in the way.

□ REVOLUTIONARY UE2699—$5.50

Key factions of the Confederacy of Worlds have slated a takeover of the planet Bakunin ...
An easy target—except that its natives don’t understand the meaning of the word surrender!

OTHER NOVELS

□ FORESTS OF THE NIGHT

UE2565—$3.99

UE2589—$4.50

UE2613—$4.50

□ EMPERORS OF THE TWILIGHT

□ SPECTERS OF THE DAWN

Buy them at your local bookstore or use this convenient coupon for ordering.
 PENGUIN USA P.O. Box 999—Dep. #17109, Bergenfield. New Jersey 07621

Please send me the DAW BOOKS I have checked above, for which I am enclosing
$_____________________(please add $2.00 to cover postage and handling). Send check or money

order (no cash or C.O.D.'s) or charge by Mastercard or VISA (with a $15.00 minimum). Prices and numbers are
subject to change without notice.

Card #_________________________________________Exp. Date_______________________________________

Signature_____________________________________________________________________________________
___

Name______________________________________________________________________

Address______________________________________________________________________________________

City_________________________________State____________________Zip Code_________________________

INHERITOR
by C.J. Cherryh
Six months have passed since the appearance of the starship Phoenix—six months that
have allowed the alien atevi to reconfigure their fledgling space program in a desperate bid
to take their place in the heavens alongside humans. But the return of the Phoenix has
added a frighteningly powerful third party to an already volatile situation, polarizing political
factions in both human and atevi societies, and making the possibility of all-out war a
constant threat. How can Bren Cameron, lone human emissary to the court of the atevi,
find a way to save two species from a three-sided conflict that no one can win?

□ Hardcover Edition UE2689—$21.95

Be sure to read the first two novels in this brand-new series from C.J. Cherryh:

□ FOREIGNER
 UE2590—$20.00

UE2637—$5.99

UE2638—$19.95

UE2687—$5.99

□ Hardcover Edition

□ Paperback Edition

□ INVADER

□ Hardcover Edition

□ Paperback Edition

Buy them at your local bookstore or use this convenient coupon for ordering.

PENGUIN USA P.O. Box 999—Oep. #17109, Bergenfield, New Jersey 07621

Please send me the DAW BOOKS I have checked above, for which I am enclosing
$_____________________(please add $2.00 to cover postage and handling). Send check or money

order (no cash or C.O.D.’s) or charge by Mastercard or VISA (with a $15.00 minimum). Prices and numbers are
subject to change without notice.

Card #_________________________________________Exp. Date_______________________________________

Signature—________________________________________________________________________

Name _____________________________________________________________

Address—_____________________________________________________________

C.J. CHERRYH

THE ALLIANCE-UNION UNIVERSE

The Company Wars

□ DOWN BELOW STATION UE2431—$5.99

The Era of Rapprochement

□ SERPENT’S REACH UE2088—$4.99

□ FORTY THOUSAND IN GEHENNA UE2429—$5.99

□ MERCHANTER’S LUCK UE2139—$3.50

The Chanur Novels

□ THE PRIDE OF CHANUR UE2292—$3.99

□ CHANUR’S VENTURE UE2293—$3.95

□ THE KIF STRIKE BACK UE2184—$3.99

□ CHANUR’S HOMECOMING UE2177—$4.99

□ CHANUR’S LEGACY (hardcover) UE2519—$15.00

□ CHANUR’S LEGACY UE2559—$4.99

The Mri Wars

□ THE FADED SUN: KESRITH UE2449—$4.50

□ THE FADED SUN: SHON’JIR UE2448—$4.50

□ THE FADED SUN: KUTATH UE2133—$4.50

Merovinqen Niqhts (Mri Wars Period)

□ ANGEL WITH THE SWORD UE2143—$3.50

The Aqe of Exploration

□ CUCKOO’S EGG UE2371—$4.99

□ VOYAGER IN NIGHT UE2107—$2.95

□ PORT ETERNITY UE2206—$2.95

The Hanan Rebellion

□ BROTHERS OF EARTH UE2290—$3.95

□ HUNTER OF WORLDS UE2217—$2.95

Buy them at your local bookstore or use this convenient coupon for ordering.

PENGUIN USA P.O. Box 999—Dep. #17109. Bergenfield. New Jersey 07621

Please send me the DAW BOOKS I have checked above, for which I am enclosing
$_____________________(please add $2.00 to cover postage and handling). Send check or money

order (no cash or C.O.D.'s) or charge by Mastercard or VISA (with a $15.00 minimum). Prices and numbers are
subject to change without notice.

Card #_________________________________________Exp. Date_______________________________________

Signature_____________________________________________________________________________________
___

Name______________________________________________________________________

Address______________________________________________________________________________________

City_________________________________St3te___________________Zip Code_________________________
 COLD SLEEP

had given Earth the stars, but at what price? Filled with the hope of a new life on a new
world, many a voyager had entered the cryo-containers aboard the titanic starships sent to
populate Jayvee 9, Earth’s lone far-flung colony. For some that hope was fulfilled, for others
there was no awakening at journey's end. And for those like ex-marshal Walker, a man
permanently scarred by the madness and loneliness of seven years of cold-sleep, the sole
way to find peace was in space itself, flying the starways as a solitary mining pilot.

With the empathic alien Nis as his only companion,Walker combed the giant asteroid rings
near Jayvee, searching for ore and returning periodically to his base at Hephaestus Station.
It might not have been much of a life, but for Walker it was enough.

But the discovery of a massive derelict, the sleeper-ship

E. S. S. Republic, found floating in the debris of Ring Belt 3 signaled an end to Walker's
personal seclusion. AssignecTto investigate this wreck which had been lost for more than
a century, Walker and a team of anthropologists led by the renowned Dr. Elaine Bartlett,
were about to confront

an alien presence far more terrifying than Walker s most shocking cold-sleep nightmares!

ISBN 0-88677-726-7