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The Gates of Time by Neal Barrett Jr.



PROLOGUE



THE SQUAT, black ship looked nothing at all like a ship should look. It looked vaguely like the blossoms of Dionaea muscipula, Venus's-flytrap—though its builders had never heard of that plant, nor the world where it had grown.

The ship was modeled after something far more grotesque, with a grim touch of humor that mirrored its makers' disdain for all living things—especially themselves. For the Bahdaz were conceived in the throes of hatred for one another.

Metal fingers unfolded, and the Invader stepped down upon the planet. He was dressed in heavy black armor that masked his shape. World-burning weapons hung from his studded belt and his boots crisped the ground where he walked.

The Invader was puzzled. Here was a bright new galaxy ripe for the plucking. The acid taste of its wealth was tart upon his tongue. He could smell the sweet odor of untapped emotional nectar hanging in heavy clusters about a billion worlds.

Yet, this first insignificant mote clinging to the nebula's tail had defied him. He had fried it with enough energy to turn a system into dust—and it remained untouched.

Something was terribly wrong.

And before he went further, before the uncounted black vessels waiting above moved on to conquest, he meant to get to the bottom of this particular problem.

A small figure stepped out of the feathery grove only yards from the ship. The Invader frowned beneath his dark helm, then smiled grimly to himself. The thing's features were hidden beneath its hood, but it had suitable emotional capacity for a fair feeding. First, though, he would get answers to his questions, then…

"If you cannot destroy this planet, Garaxus, how can you think to destroy me?"

The Invader was taken aback. "You," he said sharply. "How do you call me by name? And do not pretend that you read my thoughts for that is not possible. I am shielded against such things!"

"Believe what you will," said the creature. "I know you are Garaxus of the Bahdaz and that you come to conquer." The being shook its head. "Do not waste your time, Garaxus. This galaxy is closed to you."

Garaxus stiffened. "Thing," he said disdainfully, "do you see my vessel there?" He pointed with a thorny gauntlet. "Each of those gems encrusted upon its hull is a galaxy that was 'closed' to me!"

The creature shrugged. "You will try because you must. And when you have finished, come back and I will tell you what service the Immortals would have of you."

The Invader moved a step forward. He found it hard to believe his senses.

"What service I can do for whom?"

The creature laughed lightly. "I have been certain in my own mind for some time that the Immortals reflect the unreadable desires of their masters. And since you are a conqueror by nature, it would not surprise me if the Megalords did not place you in the role of defender. Such is their way, as I myself can tell you!"

"I have not heard of these Immortals and Megalords or whatever it is you speak of," Garaxus said tightly, "and I would hear no more of them—or of you." He loosed a weapon from his belt.

"Lower your hood, creature, so I can remember what it is I have destroyed."

The being shook its head. "You would not like what you saw."

Garaxus said no more. He savagely pressed a stud upon his weapon and a blinding force erupted from its dark, fluted barrel…

I



I SCURRIED down three steep levels of the Skeiriee nest, taking the longer, circuitous route out of habit. I was almost certain Gaars would be on the Fourshift at such a vital time as this, but I had no desire to chance upon that gaunt gray pelt in the half-light.

The hot, pseudoveldt image shimmered on the long wall, and odor tapes hinted at brittle, dusty grasses and the subtle-sweet smell of carrion. Two Skeiriee females glanced up as I passed—sleepy eyes under dark lashes. One offered a morsel of food in platinum claws. I laid the three formal fingers of gratitude against my cheek and passed on. The sound of their purring laughter followed me down the path.

"Jarcal?"

My feet no more than whispered across the deep carpet, but Keehri heard and opened one eye and spelled my name in velvet letters. She was curled above me, love-lazy naked on the high ledge. One leg dangled prettily over the cobalt pool.

The room was dark except for the high pinspot that simulated Skeiriee's blue-white sun. It caressed Keehri with its warmth, and made silver highlights dance on the tips of her body down.

"You've not answered me, Jarcal."

She stretched, an unconsciously wanton gesture, and propped her head on one slender arm. "You've been thinking, Jarcal," she smiled accusedly. She studied me with wide, yellow eyes. "And unpleasant thoughts, too."

She sighed and shook her head. "Come up here to me, D'zhell A'r."

I didn't answer, even when she used my ritual name. But Keehri was more than adept at reading faces. And besides, she could see the pale blue bottle propped against my cushion.

"As you wish," she said resignedly. "Stay, then, and think your—unpleasant thoughts. And dull your senses with that. But really, Jarcal, it's so—"

"So M'wari?" I finished for her. Then I leaned back and laughed, and deliberately took a deep, pungent swallow from the slim bottle, though I had had enough and wanted no more.

I'd used a Skeiriee word that roughly translates as "primate," but it has a more idiomatic and specific meaning: "silly-monkey-person-that-broods-and-chatters."

Keehri sat up and looked at me. She braced herself on one arm so that her chin was cupped in the soft hollow of her shoulder.

"I did not use that word, Jarcal. Such a thing was not even upon my mind. You have the habit of assuming things."

"And you have the habit of avoiding issues," I said. "Keehri, there isn't even a Skeiriee word for 'unpleasant.' You used it twice, and had to borrow a phrase from the Jelak." I shook my head. "I don't think you had the slightest idea what you were saying. Did you?"

Keehri shrugged and dipped one toe into the water. Tiny blue ripples moved from her side of the pool to mine.

"It is not a Skeiriee concept," she admitted absently. She stood, wrapped a loose robe about her slight figure, and faced me.

"I imagine you are trying to make some point, Jarcal. If you are, I hope that you will make it soon. You must know such things hold little interest for me."

"Ah," I said. "And that is the point I am trying to make, Keehri."

"What is?"

"That such talk-"

I stopped, ran a hand wearily over my eyes, and shook my head. I pinched the neck of the blue bottle and tossed it aside.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "The heady fumes of the Ak'vari speak for me today. Forget my words."

She gazed at me, blinked once. "All right, Jarcal," she said simply, "I will forget."

She was of the Skeiriee, and could do such a thing.

I leaned over the pool and cupped water to my face. When I looked up again, I had to laugh.

Keehri, Keehri, my unfathomable she-cat. Pliant lips, much too wide: coral ribbons flicking at the ends in perpetual amusement. A nose too small, and cheekbones curving up to hold green-chip saucer eyes flecked with gold. Nymphet breasts, and slip-silk fur. All seedpearl frost and silver ash from head to toe.

"Jarcal," she asked, "you are more yourself now, are you not?"

"Yes," I told her, "I am more myself now, Keehri."

A thought brushed against my mind, then faded. I am myself, it said. But who might that self be?

The long, helix corridor tunnels through the ship like a chromium worm in a great steel apple. Its ways are usually heavy with traffic. The T'aj is a busy ship, and there is much to do.

But today the halls were empty. Off-duty crewmen kept to themselves, or went quietly about their business in other places.

I passed a Mudder slapping his way to quarters, and wished him Good Breathing; but he didn't hear or didn't deign to answer. Two cased and darkened Medusae glided grimly by. And that was all.

The pale of gloom that had settled over the T'aj was no faunt specter. It was very real and clearly visible from the great bubble. For that reason the hall to Concourse was closed during hours of duty—though I think few desired to pass that-way. Still, any who did met the cold, crystal eyes of a tall Steraxis standing guard there.

But there is always more than one path to a destination, and there are several to Concourse—some less treacherous than others. All, of course, more sensible than braving the gaze of a Steraxis. I chose the narrow corridor that twisted into the bowels of the ship, then rose sharply past the deep tank of the Navigator. This in itself is a risk, but I have never been overly susceptible to that creature's emanations.

The dome at Concourse is an enormous blister on the dark metal hide of the ship. It is shaped like a great milky eye, and it stares blindly into the vastness of space.

At first there were stars. Hot, single points of light and thick, glossy clusters. Then as the T'aj swung lightly on its axis—

Nothing!

I gasped for breath and sank weakly to one of the low benches.

It was not the emptiness of space. Even the darkest regions are speckled with lonely islands of matter. This was something else. A sprawling, shapeless amoeba thousands of light years thick that didn't exist. It was nothing. Null. No-space… And what, I thought, of the stars that had been there before? And the worlds, and the creatures upon those worlds?

I was alone. And not alone. For something cold and terrible stood there with me.

Something caught my eye and I stood and stepped to the edge of the bubble. Light blinked near the aft of the T'aj. Tiny figures in red, gold, and green drifted in and out of the big starboard portal, like clusters of slow-motion moths about a bright candle. One of those figures, I remembered, was probably Keehri's trimate, Gaars.

Suddenly darkness blotted out the light. A blunt, stubby object nosed silently out of the ship. For a moment it drifted aimlessly away from the hull. Then powerful spots caught and held it in cones of quartzite blue.

It was a Johr Tube, the first I'd seen, and it occurred to me that this thing was nothing like a "tube" at all. It may be I was expecting some sleek, torpedo shape—a gunmetal shark of space with needle nose and razor dorsal fins.

And why, Jarcal, said the voice from somewhere—why a shape like that? What do you remember?

The Johr Tube was nothing like that. Instead, it was the same breed as the T'aj itself: a creature born to space, with all the beauty and grace of an animated warthog.

A thick cluster of antennae rose from the thing's back. Its dark tail curled like the sting of a scorpion, and on the tip of that sting pulsed a bright, lavender light. I stared at the light a moment, then turned away, nearly overwhelmed by a wave of nausea.

When I looked up again, the Johr Tube was far from the ship: gaining speed rapidly and heading straight for that terrible cloud of emptiness. Below, crewmen swarmed about the bright portal again, and another Tube nosed into view.

"I thought to find you here…"

I whirled around, then relaxed as I recognized Lhis-Quan in the shadows.

"Forgive me, Jarcal." It was Quan who spoke. He moved toward me over the silence of his carrier. A rubbery tendril rose from his leafy crest and rustled a dry greeting.

"I had no intention of startling you," he said somberly. "You know, the measure of an individual being's tolerance for intrusion could stand further study. A paper, perhaps, clarifying the—"

I laughed lightly and waved his words away. "Good doctor, guilt startled me—not you. For a moment I thought I had been discovered by the Steraxis, for certain!"

"If you had," another voice snapped sharply, "you would be resting in the Nether Nest now, Jarcal. The Steraxis are not programmed for conversation!"

I looked up. Lhis spread leathery wings and regarded me coolly over her broad, rainbow-flecked beak. She perched just above Quan's thick, bulbous base, where his root system disappeared into the nutrient material of his gravitic pod.

A strange relationship indeed, the symbiosis of Lhis and Quan. But no stranger, really, than many another liaison of life forms. And it has occurred to me that Lhis-Quan, or the ganglia-paired Medusae, might find my simple intimacies with Keehri most incomprehensible.

And why not?

At times, I have had difficulty understanding this myself. What little we have in common is certainly overshadowed by our differences.

"Lhis," I said, "as foolish as it may seem to you, the fact that Concourse is forbidden is quite an enticement in itself. Maybe not to all races, but surely to mine. Even if I hadn't known what there was to see here, I would have been eager to find out. Steraxis or no Steraxis."

Lhis made a rasping sound in her throat. "Quan," she appealed dryly, "if I show any inclination to pursue alien psychology in the future, I hope you will dispatch me mercifully." She tucked her beak beneath her wing and turned away.

"Jarcal," Quan said patiently, "Don't you imagine our Council of Captains might have some good reason for such a rule? Interference with the free movement of an individual is something no council takes lightly."

I frowned. "Reason, Quan?" His words frankly puzzled me. "What's the dark secret here, doctor? Our mission is the placement of Johr Tubes around the Great Void. I'd be surprised if a single crewman is unaware of this. Yet the Concourse is closed by the captains." I shook my head. "We do what must be done to contain that terrible emptiness—but we mustn't see what we do, or think upon it!"

"Few wish to know more than they have to about such a thing," Quan muttered darkly.

"I'm one of those few, then," I told him. "The Void doesn't go away when I close my eyes. It isn't a fantasy or a superstition. It's real. Fearful and awesome, yes. But real."

"And that's where you're wrong," said Quan.

"Oh?"

"Yes, Jarcal. The Voids are not real. They are nothing. The terrible absence of reality."

I shrugged. "Technically, yes, but—"

"Jarcal…"

Lhis raised her head. Pinpoint eyes bored into mine. "The Voids hold no fear for you, is that it?"

"No, Lhis." I spread my hands. "It's not that at all. I have a healthy respect—"

"A healthy respect!" she hissed. "Do you know who you are, Jarcal?"

"Lhis!" Quan warned sharply.

She shook her head. "This is necessary."

I stared blankly at them both. "What are you talking about? Necessary? What is necessary?"

I laughed. The laugh didn't sound real to me. It sounded empty and hollow.

"You know who I am! I'm—"

I bit my lip. What was the matter with Lhis? What kind of a question was that?

"Jarcal."

"Don't, Lhis," I said. I ground two fists into my eyes. "My head hurts!"

"Answer!" she snapped shrilly. "Who are you? What world do you come from, Jarcal?"

My world. My world—my world—MY WORLD—

I turned, looked up.

Emptiness.

Nothing.

The bubble of Concourse twisted above me. Stars whirled dizzily in sick orbits. And then the Void reached out and swallowed the stars and there was nothing.

Null.

No-space.

MY WORLD!

And I remembered…




II



"YOU REMEMBER?"

"Yes." I opened my eyes. "Lhis-Quan?"

A gentle but firm green tendril eased me back onto the bed.

Bed?

What was I doing in a bed?

Concourse. Yes. "I was standing in Concourse—"

"Rest," said Lhis. She was perched by my side, peering intently at a small silver instrument. It sang lightly. Pink, blue, and pale green lights bounced off her leathery features. Tiny fingers at the tips of her wings danced over golden keys.

"I was standing in Concourse," I began again. "I left Keehri and went to Concourse to see the Void—"

Quan's deep voice cut in. "That was nearly twenty ship periods ago, Jarcal. You've been resting. You're better now, and it's never going to be as difficult again. I think we can promise you that."

He was far away, but I understood. And he was right. It wasn't as bad, anymore. The low ache in the back of my head was gone. I remembered. But I remembered in a—different way.

Lhis seemed to read my thoughts.

"You will remember. But you will remember without fear. You are not afraid now, are you?"

I shook my head. Funny—there had been fear, but it was gone. And while it had been with me, I hadn't known how great that fear had been. I could still feel its terror, taste its bitter edges; but the sharpness, the razor-pain of memory was dulled.

My thoughts were much like an ancient, rusty blade. You could see the nicks there, and know this was a weapon that had seen its share of action, but the blood and the weariness and the death of each single battle was forgotten.

"It was necessary to bring your memories back slowly, Jarcal," Quan explained. "To let you see all the past at once could have been disastrous. But a few bubbles rising to the surface with understanding…"

"Now," Lhis said quietly, "let me ask you a question I have asked many times before." Her fingers poised delicately above winking lights.

"Who are you, Jarcal? Where is your world?"

A great weight pressed down upon me—a dark, oppressive blanket of sorrow.

"Gone," I said, and the words stuck in my throat. "My world is gone…"

The great ship hung in space outside the lunar orbit. It was polished to a mirror finish: lean, long, shaped like a slender bullet. For the Aguila was designed to take men to the stars and to plunge them through the atmosphere of a new, manlike world, if such a world existed.

Outside, spidery fireflies blinked and clustered about the shiny hull. A bright string of lights trailed from the moon's cratered surface to the Aguila and back again. Last minute supplies. A thin tape of blue mountains for memories. A serum against darkness. Embryo of honey bee…

And inside the Aguila—silence.

The faraway thrum of great engines. The ping of expanding metal. The contemplative click of a computer. Nothing more.

Far beneath a thick, shielding wall, two hundred men and women in deep, viscous sleep, dreaming of the stars. Already, for them, the long centuries whisper past like fleeting seconds, and they will not wake again until a different sun blazes against Aguila's hull.

In a tank of thick blue liquid, Luis Jarcal dreams of a bright patio, a tiled fountain, and high white walls washed in the late afternoon sun. There is a quick image of a dark, stern woman with graying hair… a tall man, slightly stooped with the years… a girl with startling black eyes and the smell of cinnamon in her hair…

I sat up.

Cried out.

My body was cold with sweat and my hands trembled.

"Easy," said Quan. "You remembered."

"Yes," I said. "I remembered."

The light of a million suns travels on through darkness … but the suns themselves are gone …

Aguila is twenty years from Earth, and the great emptiness of the Void only whispers against its hull… only a tiny, cold whisper of death …

Earth, Aguila, and half a thousand light-years of the galaxy's rim sigh into nothingness…

The leafy column at the top of Quan's stout body seemed to stir. Lhis lowered her head.

"It is done, Jarcal," she said. "Do you see, now, why you alone aboard the T'aj had little real fear of the Voids? That was a memory we dared not let you see—for no one has more reason to fear that awesome thing than you."

I didn't answer.

I thought of a silver ship.

And people named Thomas, Hardow, Li-Chin, Dvorek and Cherokin. And other names I couldn't remember. And a hundred more I never knew.

And I thought of green grass and blue water and concrete and hot tar and rain in dark dots on a sidewalk.

I shook those thoughts aside. All of Lhis's blinking lights and golden machines could not bring back my world. They could patch a shattered psyche, piece the shards of Jarcal together, and even salve the cold reality of being one cipher left out of billions. More than that, neither Lhis-Quan nor all the physicians in this new universe of mine could not do.

I sat up, stared at Lhis-Quan. "Why?" I asked. "If all those sleepers died, why was I alone spared from the Aguila? How is this possible?"

Lhis-Quan hesitated. Finally, Quan moved his carrier closer.

"Jarcal, it is not possible that you were spared. What I am saying is that there is no way to explain why your ship was not destroyed by the Void. Or why you alone were left alive aboard it. If there are gods in our universe—"

I stopped him. "Quan, if there are any gods at all, they are gods that despise their creatures. What kind of god would destroy a world and leave one being behind to carry all its memories?"

Quan was silent. He had no answer for that…




III



THE ANCIENT way was like a fine drawing of a cobbled street: worn, ivory-pinkness spiderwebbed with the memory of individual stones. It flowed through circular mounds of rock and past the smooth nubs of buildings—wind-carved relics now no higher than a man.

And that was the thing about Llhai…

It was a world without straight lines and sharp angles, a world too old and tired for harsh intrusions.

I stood with Lhis-Quan and watched a swollen sun die on the flat horizon.

"I have to say I've been in more exciting ports," Lhis complained. She shivered impatiently in a ruffle of stiff feathers and glared at me from Quan's green crest.

"If you've seen enough of the sights, Jarcal—though how you could call 'em that I wouldn't know—perhaps we can start back before this great potted plant expires in the night air."

"Potted plant, is it!" Quan rumbled. He flicked her gently with a leafy brush of greenness and she squawked to the safety of my shoulder.

"Go back if you will, then," I laughed. "I'll wait a bit and join you."

My words met with heavy silence.

Finally Quan rustled uneasily. "Under the circumstances…" he began.

"In plain talk," Lhis interrupted, "he says you've no business wandering around out here by yourself. And I agree."

I shrugged, made a great show of glancing about the featureless landscape.

"I see little here that could do me harm," I told them.

"It's an old world and a strange one," Lhis snapped. "And not a place to walk idly about."

She fluttered back to Quan and fixed me with ebony-pit eyes. "And besides, Jarcal, that's not what we were talking about, and you well know it!"

"Lhis," I smiled at her, "I well know you're good friends who are convinced I'll sink into some black mood if I'm left untended for more than a quarter hour."

I shook my head. "It's not so. You've done a better job of putting the pieces back together than you know."

Lhis turned to Quan. "Ah, now he's diagnosing his doctors," she said acidly.

Quan shrugged. "The creature's in worse shape than I'd imagined."

"Go back to the T'aj," I grinned, "before I discharge you both and get a pair of qualified physicians to look after me!"

They both protested loudly. And even as they disappeared under Llhai's gray-blue dusk, I could hear them muttering to themselves: Lhis's harsh chatter playing counterpoint to Quan's booming bass.

Lhis was right, of course. There was little to see on this brittle, barren world that couldn't be seen a step from the T'aj. And it may be that Llhai appealed to me for just that reason. There was a somber sense of resignation here—a mood that more than matched my own.

For if there was purpose in my life now, it was one I couldn't see…

Night came quickly, and with it a chill thrust of polar air. There was no moon over Llhai, but we were close to the galaxy's bright heart and the sky was ablaze with stars.

I pulled my cloak tighter about my shoulders and walked on. Soon the weathered clusters of stone faded behind me, and in the distance I could see the blue ports of the ship, and beside it, the bright arch of the Portal.

I stared for a moment at that great ring of light. Even a good two miles away the thing pulsed with a life of its own. I'd stood there earlier with Lhis-Quan as a new cargo of Johr Tubes whined their way into existence from some far planet. Behind the pale crimson aura that marked the other side of the Portal, ghost things wobbled about on unknown errands, and behind them, wan smudges that might have been high towers.

The dark mood hit me then—and of course, it didn't go unnoticed by Lhis-Quan. Very little seemed to get past their watchful eyes.

It was a sudden hammerblow of reality. I was struck by the thought that here was a universe where even starships that swallowed the years were snail-machines—a universe where the planets of the Confederation were linked by the great web of the Portals. Where no world was ever more than seconds away from another.

And then I thought of Aguila.

What a proud and pitiful effort! I wondered: How many races would reach out for greatness, if they knew their dreams had been fulfilled a million times before?

I stopped suddenly, listened. Another footstep sounded seconds after mine.

I held my breath, peered into darkness. The Llhaian landscape sloped gently upward. I was in a shallow depression among another collection of stony nubs. Blue from the ship was lost, but crowded stars bathed the scene in shades of whiteness.

"You've good ears, Jarcal. Almost the ears of a Skeiriee."

I whirled, faced Gaars inches away. Gaunt companions stood behind him, great eyes like green jewels underwater. Night cloaks fell from their shoulders and silky hands touched the butts of silver pistols.

Gaars caught my glance and wrapped it in a tiger-bright smile.

"You know why I came to find you, then."

I nodded. I knew. Even without the silent companions, his eyes told me the story.

"Get on with it," I said quietly. "I'm unarmed, and there are no witnesses to interfere." I looked past him. "The rest of Keehri's trimates, is it?"

The two Skeiriee exchanged lewd cat grins. Gaars stared at me a long moment, then threw back his head in a bristle of laughter. When he looked at me again, the laughter was gone.

"If I'd no reason to kill you before," he said darkly, "you've given me more than enough now, Jarcal. Klesarr and Maaik are on Homeworld and not aboard the T'aj. It's unspeakable to think more than one Skeiriee'd be with his mate at the same time!"

He looked at me with jade-eyed disdain. "But you're not interested in our customs, are you? Just the sweat-lust of our females!"

He threw words over his shoulder. "Trai—your weapon!"

Gaars's hand flicked out but Trai clamped strong fingers over his belt. He shook his head.

"There's no honor in it this way, Gaars."

The other Skeiriee nodded solemnly. "They won't record a straight kill on Homeworld."

Gaars set dagger teeth and glared.

I decided he was weighing some fine point of honor within his code against the chance of getting me out of the way at the time and place he'd chosen.

Finally his features tightened and his mouth clamped in decision. Then, without taking green eyes off mine, he reached up and calmly raked razor fingers from his ear down to his chin.

I backed away, startled. Blood welled up to fill ugly furrows. Gaars's two companions nodded solemnly—as if whatever had been done, had been done properly.

"You have given me offense, Jarcal of no world," he said stiffly. "I demand satisfaction for that offense."

Then he turned and stalked away toward the ship.

One of the Skeiriee followed, but Trai paused and regarded me curiously. "You have fought a Cherza duel before?"

I shook my head. "No. Nor any other kind, either. I imagine Gaars has, though."

"Yes," said Trai. "Forty-six in all, I believe."

"How many did he win?"

The Skeiriee frowned. "How many? All of them, of course. He is alive, isn't he?"

I let out a deep breath. "I see…" That answered several questions.

Trai laughed. "I cannot imagine why Keehri would wish to perform mating with such as you. It is clear you know nothing about anything." He shrugged and scratched his pelt, and walked quickly away to catch up with his friends.

I decided little else could happen now. Earth was gone, and the Aguila, and even the temporary enticing pleasures of Keehri. And now the final loss was nearly inevitable—life itself.

I had no illusions about the outcome of a duel with Gaars. Whatever the Cherza might be, Gaars had at least forty-six more chances of winning it than I. The gods Quan spoke of had picked a poor receptacle to carry the heritage of Earth.

The temperature was falling rapidly. Ancient Llhai could barely hold its thin envelope of atmosphere after its dim star faded. I thumbed my cloak a notch higher and started up the slope for the long walk back to the T'aj.

And stopped.

At first, I thought the night air had started my ears to ringing. But it wasn't that kind of sound at all. It was a high, pleading thing that rose and fell in tremulous waves— as if it might well die in the next instant. It was a fitting sound for Llhai.

The dim rose of the Portal was barely visible, but the blue of T'aj glowed plainly in the distance. From atop the shallow bowl, the sound was only slightly louder.

I didn't think about following. It was something that happened. One moment I was watching the blue ports of the ship, the next I was walking in an entirely different direction…

The grove of trees on the low hill could only have grown on Llhai. Bare-bone-brittle. Gaunt old men with sick limbs bent to the ground. For a moment I thought the sound was the sound of trees in pain.

And then I saw the Llhaians—

Old. Incredibly old. They'd seen the winds weather their cities to the ground, watched their sun swell to a sterile balloon, and now they were hollow shadows themselves, pale things with no more substance than the quaver-sound that held them together.

That was the sound of life. When the sound died, the Llhaians would die with it.

I knew that, but the Llhaians didn't tell me. They didn't tell me anything. They flickered, faded. Smoke-flesh under spider trees.

They knew I was there.

They even knew I was Jarcal no-world.

I was outside the grove—

—in.

outside—

—in.

Like a heart beating from one point in space to another.

OUT

in

OUT

in…

They clustered about me—blind, wisp-eyes peering into mine. Whisper-hands like moth-touch brushing curiously over my face.

I breathed the sound of their life.

IN

out

IN

out…

The sound was the sky shaking in anger, the Llhaian earth rumbling and dry-splitting and shapelessness sliding up from brittle crust. Cold—cold, cold blueness. Colder than the dark heart of emptiness …

When it embraced me in its frost-azure grip, every life that ever lived was mine. Every death a new dying. My pain was the pain of all the universes that ever were. …




IV



LHIS-QUAN said I faced nine gray deaths after they found me and sank me in the ship's Reviver.

"One more would have made ten," I said glumly, "and solved problems for all of us."

"Joke if you like," snapped Lhis. "You were close enough to that number, I can tell you! If any's come closer, I've yet to hear it."

I shrugged and gave her a laugh that shattered off the long walls and raised hackles on her neck.

"Close and 'closer' come shy of the mark, Lhis. My black luck's holding and I'm still aboard this abominable universe of yours!"

Quan grasped me in a strong, ropy tendril. I jerked away, but nine times up from the grave leaves a man short of his best efforts.

"I count you more than a patient, Jarcal," he said darkly, "but I'll say this and be done with it. When you give yourself to the saving of lives, it sickens your soul to hear some creature hold his own so cheap!"

We were midway down the aft helix of T'aj, under the great silver eye that windows on blackness.

I turned to Quan. "Cheap, you say?" I shook my head. "If I hold life cheap, then there's a reason. The value of a life is what it proves to be worth—by that standard you'd find few takers for mine!"

"No one sets a being's price except himself," Quan observed somberly. "If you've set yours at nothing—why, that's what you'll get for it, then!"

"And you see something more?" I asked him.

I stopped. Over Quan's green shoulder I traced a thousand splintered Jarcals gazing from the ship's mirrored walls. A specter face looked down and smiled inanely. Blood eyes circled in shadow peered out and saw nothing. Gauntness huddled under a gray cloak, and was little more than a sack of bones wrapped in fish-belly flesh.

"What is it you see?" I shouted hoarsely. "What worth do you read, physician?"

Quan trembled, shrank back. Green juices coarsing his veins paled to milky white. Lhis curled to a pitiful feathered thing.

My body shook uncontrollably. I stood with black murder in my heart for the only two creatures who cared whether Jarcal no-world lived or died, and the horror over my shoulder grew from a pale point of blue to an angry cobalt star. Blood turned to smoky ice. Razor tongues sliced. Blue hate engulfed me and I screamed like a blind thing in pain down the helix hall, silver walls about me bursting in frosty shards of steel…

When I awoke after eight gray deaths, Lhis-Quan's anxious faces shimmered down through viscous pink.

The thing huddling in its mind vault woke with me. It moved once, told me it was there, and showed me its love-hate.

I opened my mouth, screamed. Choked on red Reviver jelly and cursed the pair above me; begged them to cut life tubes and send black poison into my tank.

But this they wouldn't do. They left me there to heal, grow new flesh and bone, and listen to blueness hum its song of pain and tell me I was Jarcal no-world, and something more.

That I was Jarcal, and the heart of starness—Jarcal and the gulf between darkness and light, and that the thing that was/was-not Jarcal was named—

N'CIL

The color of that name burst in frosty white letters. I died again and blessed the ninth of the gray dyings…

The golden iris hissed and showed me Gaars and dark companions in the bright hall.

I had to laugh. The cat-pleasure on those lips was gone, and the green moon-eyes showed fear instead of murder. There was no silver pistol by his side.

"Come in, Gaars. Jarcal welcomes even hatred, now," I told him. "And few come to give as much as that!"

He hesitated, then stepped inside. But he came no closer. I could imagine his thoughts. The room was dark, for I shunned light. The icy blue globe hovered over my shoulder setting my face in corpse-light.

"I came to say there will be no duel between us," he said flatly. The red ridge-welts on his face had been wasted. "I'll—I'll not fight a creature who brings the weapons of darkness to his side."

He jerked around to his companions standing silently behind him. "It has been decided among us. There's no dishonor in revoking the challenge under such circumstances."

I laughed harshly, Gaars stiffened and his pelt tufted in a light tremor of movement.

"Your Skeiriee code be damned, Gaars! If one of those he-cats with you has a weapon, why take it and fire away. And don't fear this 'weapon of darkness' you see. Its hate is for me—not you!"

Color came back to his silken cheeks. Hackles settled into place. He grinned slyly, and his friends shot back uncovering smiles of assurance.

"I'm not such a fool, Jarcal. It'd suit that thing of yours, now wouldn't it, for me to murder its host!"

"It might," I said. "I've no idea what it wants of me, Gaars. It may well be the quick taste of death."

Gaars looked at me strangely. "That may come to you soon enough," he said soberly. "But not from my hand, Jarcal."

He backed out of the room, and the iris sighed behind him.

I knew what he had in mind. Lhis-Quan had told me more than once of the wild stories and rumors that had spread about the T'aj since our lift-off from Llhai.

Two of the precognitive Zhan, it was said, shattered into half-life upon contemplation of Jarcal and his blue horror…

Stars had taken the shapes of beasts…

Blackness had crept into the aft helix and sucked the life of a crewman…

There was more.

But one rumor had the solid ring of truth: Gaars had gathered the Skeiriee behind him, and others as well, and petitioned the Captains' Council. I was named a menace to the safety of the ship and its crew. If the Council should agree—

"Can that be done?" I cried. "Great God, what are these creatures to judge whether I should live or die? This thing they're all so damned afraid of has passed sentence enough on me—what more do they think they can do!"

"Out of fear, creatures do things they'd loudly condemn another time," Lhis said plainly.

I glared at her sharply. "Well, without really saying a thing, Lhis, that answers much, doesn't it?"

This was not a time when I returned the friendship of friends…

For the most part, during the long days after Llhai and my Revival in the tanks, I huddled in my gray cloak in darkness. I shut a door between Lhis-Quan and myself. The crew of the T'aj put me aside in their own particular fashion. Even the grim Medusae stepped aside now when Jarcal passed!

And Keehri—

Keehri whose sharp cries of desire had mingled with mine. Keehri whose pelt burned like soft fire against my skin!

She lay curled on the high ledge as I remembered, basking in whiteness that sent the heavy odor of musk across the blue pool. She was naked as love, and green-gold eyes turned to mine in sleepy abandon. Even the death chill of my cobalt star was forgotten for the moment.

"Much time has passed between our loving," I said softly.

"It has, Jarcal."

I stepped toward her.

"Jarcal…"

She turned my name into a question, pulled the green chemise about her and watched me with curious eyes.

"I felt much for you," she said. "You know this."

"Felt?"

She turned away. One silken thigh absently stroked another. "It is not the Jarcal who touched me that I see now."

"It is the same Jarcal!" I said. "You are not like the others, Keehri—frightened by children's tales."

"I am Keehri," she said wistfully, "nothing more. Gaars says—"

"Damn Gaars!"

"Damn him or not, Jarcal," she purred calmly, "I entwined limbs gladly around one from no-world. One who touched me as I have not been touched by others. I do not see that one now. I see another who wears a mask on his face."

She trembled slightly, and her breasts strained against cobweb cloth.

"You see me!" I shouted hoarsely. "Jarcal!"

Keehri stiffened. Ice glazed the green-gold eyes. Black pupils narrowed to pen scratches. "I see the shadow of Jarcal," she said hollowly. "And the thing that lives in his soul, now."

Her coral mouth twisted in a curve of disgust—but there was sadness there, too. "Would you have me couple with that, Jarcal?" she whispered. "Would you fill my belly with death, now—as you filled it with life before?"

I looked into her eyes. And saw myself. I turned with a stiffled cry that stuck in my throat like black bile and bolted from the room, down the high Skeiriee cliffside, through the dusty grasses and the burning halls.

I was alone, then, and the veldts of the Skeiriee were closed to me forever. In one way or another, all doors were closed to me now. Life wanted nothing to do with the icy touch of death.

Ship dawn was still hours away when I raised up from pain-sleep and let the golden iris open. I blinked back light and frowned at the small figure.

"What do you want?" I asked it.

"Jarcal of no-world, you are summoned." Its body was carrion beetle black, its voice the rustle of leather and wood.

"Summon another," I said. "I've no interest in you or your master—whatever it might be."

"My master is the Council of Captains of the voyager T'aj," it crackled. Then, as an afterthought, it touched the red gem hanging from its scale throat by a golden chain.

I knew the captains' pendant, and laughed at it.

I asked it: "You have no fear, creature, of the blue star you see? Do you not imagine I might have it burn a fine hole in your skull?"

The thing bit horny lips. "I fear you, yes. This does not. My death or yours affects it not at all."

I looked past the small figure. A tall Steraxis brooded in shadow. The thing was right. Who could take the life of something that had never truly lived at all?




V



IT WAS EXPLAINED to me once that there was more than one captain on the T'aj because of its tremendous size. I know better, now. The true reason for this arrangement lies in the racial mixture of a starship's crew. The worlds of the great Galactic Confederation are not necessarily all of one mind.

Seven captains faced me. They sat on a high Meganite dais under silvered walls.

"We welcome you to the council, Jarcal," Lak-shi smiled broadly. He was their spokesman, a huge ursine creature from far Maguaine, with black furred jowls and tiny red eyes.

"The captains believe a crewman should be present when matters pertaining to his welfare are under consideration," he said. "It was good of you to join us."

I glanced over my shoulder at the gleaming black Steraxis. "Thank you," I said solemnly, "though I had little choice in the matter, as you well know."

Lak-shi considered me a long moment, then turned to the shark-nosed being at his side.

"Captain Dexissi," he said blandly, "please let the record reflect that Jarcal of no-world gratefully accepted the council's invitation, and expressed his thanks to that body for their consideration."

Lak-shi laid one big paw across the other and gave me a muzzle-wide smile. "Now, if crewman Jarcal has no further comments…"

Gaars was there, of course.

He gave an interesting account of our meeting on Llhai. I was, it seemed, acting quite strange at the time. He and his companions urged me to accompany him back to the ship. I refused and wandered off by myself. "Seemingly in a daze," as Gaars put it.

He awarded me a quick, tigerish grin as he took his seat. I met his gaze and said nothing.

What good would it do to give my own accounting? The disposition of crewman Jarcal had already been decided. We were merely going through the formalities, now.

"The council wishes to do all in its power to help you," Lak-shi assured me. "Further, it wishes to emphasize the gravity of the council's position."

"Sir," I said bluntly, "that is something I would indeed like to hear."

Lak-shi raised a brow and glanced at his fellow captains.

"Our position," he leaned forward earnestly, "is the safety of this vessel, Jarcal. Through no fault of your own, we're certain, you seem to have contracted an affliction which could endanger this ship and its crew."

"Ah," I said, "and I am the first crewman, then, who has ever contracted an affliction? And every afflicted member of the T'aj's crew is called before a Captains' Council?"

I laughed. "Surely you can do better than that, Captain Lak-shi!"

Lak-shi seemed taken aback. He huddled with his companions a moment. Finally he straightened and faced me again.

"Crewman Jarcal," he said with bear-grin patience, "the —nature of your particular affliction calls for special consideration." He glanced warily at the shimmery blueness over my shoulder.

"Is this thing a disease? Can it be contracted by others? Is it possible that it might spread some new plague throughout the ship—not to mention the Confederation?"

Lak-shi warmed to his subject. "There is something else we must think about, too, Jarcal. Llhai is an ancient world. Great civilizations rose and fell there before the present races of the Confederation even crawled from the seas. Now," he spread his broad hands, "who can say whether or not a world that old has harbored some unknown form of life that-"

"If that is so," shouted a shrill voice from behind me, "that life comes under Central's jurisdiction, not yours!"

"And if it's an affliction as you say," a deeper voice finished, "it comes under ours!"

I turned as Lhis-Quan burst through the chamber door, ignored the black Steraxis, swept past in a flurry of leaves and feathers.

"I do not recall asking the ship's physicians to join us," Lak-shi said stiffly.

"And we do not recall granting permission to try a patient under our care," rumbled Quan.

Lak-shi half rose, hackles stiff on his broad back. "Captain Dexissi," he said, "do not enter these persons in the record. For your information, Lhis-Quan, no trial is being conducted here. We are interviewing crewman Jarcal, concerning—"

"Hah!" squawked Lhis. Her rainbow beak flashed and leather wings pumped air. "This is Lhis the physician you speak to, Lak-shi. Lhis who set your big toe when you fell from the aft stairs after a night with the bottle. Lhis who listened to you cry and moan like an overgrown cub!"

Lak-shi reddened. Lhis laughed scornfully. "When you've seen a creature bare naked under a sick gown, his fine robes and braid impress you not at all. Now behind all these fancy council trimmings you've something up your sleeves. We'd know what it is, and how our patient's concerned in it!"

The seven captains were from seven different worlds. They stared at Lhis-Quan with cat eyes, eyes that floated like lead balls in mercury pools, and eyes that were not really eyes at all.

"You forget where you are," Lak-shi said coldly. "Jarcal may well be your patient, but first he's a crewman of the T'aj and subject to council law. As you well know, there's not a body in the Confederation with more respect for an individual's rights. On the other hand, when that individual threatens the safety of the group…"

"Then you've already decided Jarcal's a threat," Quan protested, "and this so-called interview isn't halfway finished!"

The captains muttered angrily among themselves. Quan moved up and thrust a green tendril at Lak-shi.

"What is it you've decided," he demanded darkly, "and don't put me aside with more words, captain!"

"Nothing has been decided," Lak-shi said stiffly. "As you have so dutifully pointed out, the meeting is not yet concluded."

"But if it is decided he's a menace…"

"If that were our conclusion," Lak-shi said wearily, "obviously Jarcal would have to leave the ship."

Lhis-Quan went collectively rigid at his words, but Lak-shi's pronouncement meant nothing to me.

"You know as well as I," Quan was saying, "that T'aj is committed to half a dozen ship-months in space before we port again."

Lak-shi bit black lips and twisted big paws. "I know the T'aj's course," he snapped. "There are—other answers to a problem as serious as this one."

"I'm aware of those answers," said Quan. He looked squarely at Lak-shi, his wide, fleshy white eyes burning into the captain's.

"Now," he said, "you be aware of this! Come to any such conclusion, and I will invoke the Rule on you, Lak-shi, and every captain sitting on this council!"

The captains erupted as a whole. A sea of rustling stalks, flashing fins and crackle-limbs waved in protest under a babble of alien voices.

Lak-shi stared at Quan. "You don't know what you're saying!"

"We do, though," said Lhis. "And if this is such a solemn and honest affair, great captains, who's to fear bearing his mind to the Medusae's touch? Would it be because we all know this interview's a farce—and has been from the beginning? That your Skeiriee captain's pulled you into this for the satisfaction of one of his own?"

"Enough!" Lak-shi's big fist slammed down on the high dais.

Quan ignored him. He whipped a long tendril at Gaars, behind me. "That creature lied," he said. "And Jarcal here's too big a fool to defend himself. The Skeiriee make up a full third of our crew, Lak-shi, and it's only your long years that see you sitting there as spokesman." His eyes locked upon the big creature. "Will you shame those years—by giving in to that one!"

Quan swept the row of captains and let his eyes rest on a gaunt being with iron gray streaking his pelt, and angry green eyes. Laahrs, the Skeiriee captain went rigid.

"You go too far!" he warned.

Quan shook his head in a dry-jade rustle. "The Rule would go much farther than I, captain. I'd give much to hear what you have to tell about this sorry affair!"

Laahrs's eyes flashed yellow at Lak-shi. "Remove them. They've no business here!"

"The Rule, captain," Lak-shi said nervously, "they do have the right—"

"They can invoke nothing if they are not present, captain!" Laahrs shot Lak-shi a tiger glance.

"Now or later," Lhis warned. "There will be a time when we reach a Confederation port…"

Laahrs clenched razor claws. And out of the corner of my eye I noted Gaars slip past Lhis-Quan to the dais to whisper quickly in his captain's ear. Laahrs went blank for a moment, then his face relaxed into a broad grin.

"Good captains," he said, "may I have your ears a moment?" Flecks of cold silver danced in his eyes.

"It may be the physicians are right. We have not taken the creature Jarcal's rights under full consideration."

The other captains stole quick glances at one another.

"Crewman Jarcal's affliction is potentially dangerous to us all. Still, the individual's welfare must not be overlooked by this council. Jarcal needs medical attention, as our physicians have stated."

His eyes swept over me, and burned as they passed. Finally, his gaze fell on Lhis-Quan.

"I propose that crewman Jarcal, in the care of his physicians, be dispatched by life capsule in the direction of the nearest Confederation world—for further treatment."

He gave us all a white grin. "Our best wishes go to him."

Laahrs didn't wait for the assent of his fellow captains. He no longer pretended Lak-shi was spokesman for the group. Upon his silent command, the dark Steraxis moved forward until I could feel his iron breath on the back of my neck.




VI



"YOU MUST sorely regret the day Jarcal no-world fell into your hands, Lhis-Quan. See where the thing you kept alive has brought you now!"

We huddled in a platinum gut-sac of the ship's belly. The black Steraxis stood under the blood glow of a work lamp. His masters huddled well beyond their creature.

"A physician can't choose his fate, Jarcal—no more than the meanest beggar," scoffed Quan. "And besides, this action's not on your hands. That fine group has to live with their cowardice, and such a thing'll catch up with them one way or the other."

I looked down into the dark slit-iris of the life capsule. The gray womb was ready to bear us off into nowhere. It sang and chittered pinkness to itself. Its nuclear nit-brain didn't know what I knew: that we'd be as likely to make safe port in its velvet innards as we would in an Akh's egg. The captains, of course, were as aware of this as I.

I answered Quan. "You may be right," I said, "but when justice gets around to the T'aj, I'm afraid we'll be in no great position to profit from it."

Lhis cackled. "For a creature who cared little for his future," she chided, "you've a sudden interest in seeing more of it."

I smiled at her wearily. She was right enough. Now that my wish for a short life was about to be granted, I wasn't nearly as anxious to see it come.

Captain Laahrs moved a step toward us with a whisker-spread grin.

"Well, then. All's been prepared for your comfort. The course we've set will surely take you right to port and proper care."

"Greater wonders than that have happened, no doubt," muttered Quan.

In the red light Laahrs's jade-slit eyes were terrible circles of black.

"It's the choice you made yourself, physician!" he said harshly.

"You believe that already, then?" asked Quan. He peered past the captain. "I see Lak-shi's not among you. Council justice finally sticks in his throat."

Laahrs threw back his sleek pelted head and laughed. It was a tiger-cough laugh from the night edge of some jungle pool.

"The great bear has no guts in his broad stomach," Laahrs sneered. "Caution's ever been a weakness of the Maguaine folk—as action's the strength of the Skeiriee!"

For the first time, the captain's frost eyes fell on me. I saw why he'd been willing to risk so much to follow Gaars's bidding. I was a pale and peltless thing who'd dared taste the warm delights of a Skeiriee female. No member of that proud race could live with such a thought. And I wondered, sadly, if poor Keehri would live long after her lover.

"There's no more to be said, as far as I can see," snapped Laahrs. He glanced over his shoulder at the black Steraxis, and I wondered if he thought Lhis-Quan and I might suddenly decide to avoid the capsule and take on all the captains and their guards.

"Captain," I said tightly, "I can only hope there's a chance I might face you again someday."

Laahrs raised a fury iron brow and grinned.

"If I thought this voyage of yours would end before I rot of old age, no-worlder—why, I'd look forward to such a meeting!"

"It may just be, that—"

And those were the last words I spoke aboard the T'aj.

Suddenly, a saurian captain gave a lizard wail as the wall behind him turned white-hot, searing scale-hide to the bone. A captain beside him burst into orange flame. Another melted to tallow with surprise on his face.

Alarms shrieked in a hemorrhage of fear. The deck bubbled in a blue metal sea.

Lhis-Quan shoved me roughly into the life capsule and plunged after. And as the iris whispered in upon itself, I saw a thin shaft slice Laahrs's puzzled features in a snick of brilliant purple…

In no more than two quick seconds, it was over.

Spore-foam grew and embraced me and cushioned the capsule's terrible acceleration from the ship. A small screen winked to life and I watched the T'aj shrink from a small red globe to an ember point—then nothing.

Seconds passed. And where the T'aj had been, an ugly green flower suddenly blossomed, grew, and spread fiery leaves against blackness.

Quan cried out beside me.

"Great God," I gasped. "What happened!"

"It was an attack," Quan said soberly, "so fast and terrible I doubt another capsule got away but ours."

He shook his leaf crest and looked at Lhis, then at me. "If you ever look for a bit of irony, this is as good as any. The good Captain Laahrs has turned our death sentence into an acquittal." He shrugged. "Temporarily, at least."

Spore-foam died, fluttered back to its nest, and left us in a ship's half-gravity. Lhis clutched a cushioned wall in her claws and gave me a beaky stare.

"Jarcal," she said finally, "you have one trait I greatly admire. When some great calamity overtakes the vessel you're aboard—why, you somehow manage not to be aboard her at all!"

Lhis's words jolted me. I felt neck hairs climb up toward my skull.

It was true! Aguila and now T'aj. A word from my own dead world suddenly bubbled up in gray neon:

Jonah—

A man who carries the seeds of catastrophe within him. A plague carrier who brings death and destruction to all around him.

The blue star on my shoulder shimmered to brightness at the thought. Then Lhis and Quan were shouting for my attention and I followed their eyes to the screen and saw the spiny ships swelling into tight circles around us…




VII



BLUNT, COLORLESS vessels with the wart-shapes of sea creatures.

"Xoromii," Quan shuddered. "I should have guessed!"

"You know them, then?"

Quan frowned distastefully. "Know of them, as who doesn't. They've plagued this arm of the galaxy longer than anyone can remember. They're the main reason the Confederation's not spread any further in this direction."

I glanced at the screen. The knobby things sniffed around us. I remembered what they'd just done to the T'aj, a well-armed ship with four thousand aboard. Our tiny Akh egg would be no great challenge.

As if in answer, the capsule shuddered violently. Lhis-Quan and I bounced from one round wall to another like stones in a pot. Spore-foam swelled into action again, but something had ruptured its think strands, and soon we were covered in foamy, ineffectual spittle.

Then, with a high, piercing whine of metal on metal, our egg split and spilled us in darkness.

I grasped for a hold on anything, caught a handful of emptiness. My head hit something hard and solid. I shook myself and stood unsteadily.


"Lhis-Quan!"

"Quiet!" hissed Lhis. She wasn't far away. "Say nothing. And whatever happens—don't move from wherever you are!"

I froze, let my eyes dart about in dimness. What I'd taken for blackness wasn't blackness at all. A red-violet lamp wobbled unsteadily above, sent feeble shadows wavering about. My own blue glow was a bright star beside it.

I heard nothing, saw little more. Obviously, we'd been taken aboard a Xoromii ship, but beyond that—

Darkness moved to my left. Then another. My heart stopped. Cold sweat-beads covered my body. I was swept up in such an intense wave of fear I wanted to cry, run—anything to get away from the circling shadows.

I remembered Lhis's warning, bit my lips until blood came.

One of the things shuffled in closer than the others. I smelled its heaviness, caught a glimpse of thick fur, a blind and featureless face.

The glimpse brought another wave of wet, oppressive fear. Nerves and muscles sent me messages:

Run!

Hide!

Run!

Hide!

The thing dragged itself away. Fear needles dropped back into green.

My body shook with relief. That was it, then: the creature radiated fear. It was something they'd probably developed as primitives—a psi-weapon to compensate for near-blindness. And when their prey bolted from cover in terror—

Lhis-Quan confirmed my guess.

The Xoromii had prodded us into a small, dark cell thick with their own odors.

"They see," said Quan, "but not in the same way either you or I see. They're nearly totally blind, and make their way about, I'd guess, with a highly sophisticated natural sonar."

Lhis shivered and pulled her way further into Quan's fibrous sheath. She cocked one dark eye.

"Hmmm. Interesting. What would you say, a specialized sense of telepathy? Tight band emanations?"

"Olligar-si says no," Quan answered her. "His studies among the Yurggi Storii indicate something else entirely. A vibratory effect, strictly organic. More along the line of high order auditory development—"

"Yes!" Lhis said excitedly, "possibly akin to the Geebat phenomena. Ah, but you'd have to consider the nerve-pulse factor…"

I moaned, turned away from them, huddling in my cloak on the cold floor reeking of Xoromii dung. Our captors might bake us all for dinner in dark purple ovens before the day was done, but by then Lhis-Quan would know the exact nature of the creatures who cut them up for curried fowl and crisp green salad.

Standard days blinked by. We couldn't say how many. The Xoromii had little use for heat of any kind, and Quan swore every leaf in his stalk was wilted before we'd passed more than a few hours away from the capsule.

We were lucky in one respect: we were still alive. And the Xoromii had the sense to rescue our food and water rations from the capsule. Whatever they might have offered us of their own, we surely couldn't have stomached it. Quan might have survived, with the nutrients available in his carrier pod. Lhis and I would have starved for sure.

At intervals that made no sense at all, the Xoromii came to stare. Always in fours—no more, no less. They huddled around each other outside our cell, gibbered senselessly, pointed with thick, hairy fingers, and left thick curtains of fear behind them.

I noticed one thing: they kept their distance from me. I decided they had a healthy fear and respect for the cobalt star on my shoulder. I couldn't read their featureless faces, but I knew they were in awe of that blue light for more than its brightness.

We ate when we were hungry. Slept when we were too tired to stay awake. No jangle-bells or fusslights marked the passing of shiptime, so I had no way of knowing how long we'd been aboard the Xoromii ship when I woke up screaming.

I screamed my throat ragged.

Razor-pain slashed veins. Needle-backed animals burrowed cell tunnels to gnaw bones into frost-brittle. Cold fire laughed at agony…

When it was over, I looked up into Quan's anxious eyes. Jade tendrils held me to the floor. Quan's body was kissed Vvith my own chill. The room was glazed in cold blue. And something else— I came up out of pain into puzzlement. "We've landed," said Quan, and I noticed the heartbeat of power was gone.

Lhis peered at me narrowly. "Your screams began the moment we touched ground, Jarcal. It may be that blue star of yours has no more liking for Xoromii worlds than we."

I sipped hot liquid from our rations and considered her words.

"Maybe," I said, the grim thought fresh in my mind, "and maybe it senses an evil here that more than matches its own…"

The planet was well-suited to the thick-furred Xoromii.

As they herded us across the broad field from the ship, I glimpsed spine black towers tipped with frost and dotted with dim needles of red-violet. Quan guessed it was a world of eternal night, and I agreed. Certainly, our near-blind captors could never live under even the dimmest of suns.

The landscape was covered with litter and debris of every description. We stumbled over half-carved piles of gray stone flecked with cold silver, rusty tongues of metal, brittle shards of glass.

"Damn!" cursed Quan, in a rare burst of temper, "there's the garbage of a century here unless I miss my guess! How such a race became a menace to the Confederation I'll never know!"

"There was nothing slovenly about their attack on the T'aj," Lhis reminded him dryly. "You can't judge a creature's talent for murder by the way he sweeps his nest."

"No," I said, "you can't. And there's further proof of that." I pointed, and Lhis-Quan followed my arm.

Behind us, as far as the eye could see, the squat, ugly silhouettes of Xoromii warships nosed up against the cold sky in neat, even rows stretching to the horizon.

Our cell beneath Xoromii towers was the twin of the one on board their ship: cold, damp, dark and heavy with the creatures' fetid odor. The walls were stone instead of steel. Other than that, nothing had changed.

"Do we sit here, then," Lhis asked darkly, "until we die of stench and dampness?"

"Or worse still," I added, "run out of rations and choke to death on roach meat or whatever these things use for food."

Lhis winced. "I could have gone all day without that."

I laughed. "There's a more ominous question than that to be answered: why have they kept us alive in the first place?"

"Curiosity, maybe," Lhis mumbled.

I shook my head in the darkness. "Surely they can get all the captives they want. They made no effort to save samples from the T'aj, you'll notice."

"It's clear enough," Quan put in suddenly, "if you'd but open your eyes, Jarcal."

I squinted at a far corner, raised a brow at the tone of his voice.

"My eyes are open," I told him, "but it's still too dark in here to read your meaning, Quan."

He rustled close to me. "It's not the first time I've spoken of this," he said patiently. "Something watches over you, Jarcal."

I could see what was coming.

"We've been over this business of your gods before, Quan."

"Then it's time you let some light break through to that mass of gray stuff you mammals politely call the brain!

"Look," he said soberly, "and tell me if I'm wrong. First"— he lifted a wavy stalk—"you leave your planet headed for the stars. With a crew of two hundred, you say, out of billions your Earth has to offer—and you are among 'em. The great Void swallows both your ship and your world—all except Jarcal, of course, who survives an emotional trauma as bad as any I've seen, goes on to live through the physical and mental pain of that terrible blue star—"

He paused dramatically. "And if that's not enough, you avoid a fatal duel with Gaars and then survive the destruction of the T'aj"

Quan's flesh-eyes held mine. "Jarcal, do you have any idea what chance we had of reaching any world in that ridiculous egg of ours? Do you? Infinitesimal, at best. But do we die in the cold of space?"

He shook his big head. "Oh, no, assuredly not. Not with Jarcal no-world aboard! We are picked up by the Xoromii, who have no more use for us alive than they have for another tuft of foul fur on their odorous bodies. Still, they save us, and bring us to their world. And you wonder that we're still alive? I'll say it again, and you can believe what you will: we're every one of us here because something wants you to be here!"

I marveled at him. "You are the last of a breed, Quan—a real philosopher-physician!"

"Laugh if you like," Lhis scolded. She aimed a dark eye down a leathery finger. "What he says is true enough. And more than that, it's all been done for a creature who's more than once said his life's over and finished as far as he's concerned."

I breathed silence a long minute, then looked at Lhis-Quan.

"I know nothing about gods or things of that sort," I told them, "but one thing you say's true no longer—and hasn't been since I looked into Laahrs's moon-eyes there in the lock of the T'aj."

I peered down at my hands. Pale azure. Long finger-weeds tinder a blue pool.

"I read purple words printed on Laahrs's face. They said triumph, power—his power over mine. The idea that such a creature could dot the sentence of my life. Anyway, I felt an anger I've never felt before."

I looked up, saw eyes broad and aqua-white, next to metal-black points.

"I decided then that my life belonged to me! That if I lost it, why, I'd be damned if I lost it at the hands of a Laahrs—or any of his kind. That I could surely spend whatever coin was left to me in some profitable manner."

Quan sighed. The rustle of summer-fall. "I'm pleased you've come to this. More than pleased."

"Wait," I said, "there's more, and it's best you hear it all. With the will to live came something else, Quan. It came to me that living wasn't enough. That it was necessary to spend your breath-money to some purpose."

"You're right in that," Lhis agreed. "Without purpose, life's as empty as the Great Voids themselves."

I stared at her. Then threw back my head and laughed loudly. My voice bounced like a hard stone from one cold wall to another.

Lhis's beak fell open. "The gods help you, Jarcal; the blue star's possessed you again!"

"No," I smiled finally, "but it comes to me that you must surely share my madness, Lhis."

"Which madness is that?" she asked warily.

"The Voids, the thing that turned my world into something that never was. I'd know how such a thing can be."

"It's something you won't know," snapped Lhis. "And it's a waste of good time to even think on such things. Better that you spend your days on whatever purpose you've willed for yourself, Jarcal."

I looked at her blankly. Why—she didn't understand at all!

"Lhis," I said, "don't you see? My purpose is the Voids. I—"

"You're still in some kind of shock is what you are." She shook her head firmly. "Don't waste your life on questions that can't be answered."

"It hasn't been answered yet," I said doggedly. "That doesn't mean it won't be."

Quan gave a woody sigh. Tired leaves rattling in a wind-rustle.

"It's not my place to say why the gods have spared you, Jarcal; but I'd hope it was for something better than a fool's dream."

I felt blood swell at his words. "If my fate's tied to the Voids," I said, "it's not the business of your gods, Quan—who laze on their godly butts while billions of those fools you speak of die in their insane creation!"

"Curse the gods all you like," he said stoicly, "but a creature with ambitions such as yours would do well not to turn away from them."

I would have answered him but Lhis hissed us into silence.

The familiar, shuffling steps of the Xoromii whispered against stone at the end of our corridor.

Lhis cocked sharp ears. "There's more than the usual number in this bunch."

I listened. Took in a sharp breath. "There's more than Xoromii among 'em, too!"

I leaned at a sharp angle through the bars. A dozen ape-dark things bearing a high litter on furry shoulders. Near-blind eyes were covered with heavy goggles against brightness. Brightness was held in the hands of the litter's passenger and a cry stuck in my throat at the sight of her…




VIII



THE GIRL STEPPED lightly to the ground and the creatures retreated quickly down the hall.

"You're here, then!" she gasped. Tiny bells in clean air.

"Thank the gods." She gave a soft sigh. "You can't really tell when the Xoromii lie to you, you know. They don't always understand the truth of things."

She swung yellow light across our cell. Shadow-glimpse of olive-silk flesh, black hair lazy-tumbled over round shoulders.

"They said a being like a tree," she spoke wondrously, "and one a flying thing—"

Then, for the first time, she let the light fall full upon my own face.

A small cry escaped pink-soft lips.

"It's true!" Eyes widened at the sight of me. "Why—you're like me!"

She glanced quickly at my cobalt star. "Only I don't have a blue light like yours." She sounded almost disappointed.

I grinned, blinked against the unaccustomed light. "That's a long story. And I am like you," I told her, "and not like you at the same time."

A small frown crossed her brow. She pressed her lips together in puzzlement. "I don't like riddles very much," she admitted. "Is that a riddle? Like me, and not like me?"

I caught her eyes. Full, summer-night eyes, flecked with darts of silver. They held a hint of sensuous woman—but they were glazed with a girl-child's wonder.

"I'm sorry," I said gently. "I only meant that you are right. We are alike. Only I'm a man and you're a woman."

She stared at me a moment, her lips wet-soft, then her face broke into a wide smile. "Oh, yes!" she laughed. "I know that. I've seen pictures of a man before."

I raised a brow. "Pictures of a man?"

She nodded. "If you mean have I really seen a man—no. There are no others like us on C'chell, and I've never been anywhere else."

Before I could follow that question, Lhis asked it herself.

"Who are you, then. And what are you doing with the Xoromii?"

I saw the sharp needles of hostility. "Lhis—"

"Leave this to me, Jarcal. I know well enough she's of your own stock, or close to it. It takes no great talent to tell you're pleased with what you see. What you forget is that she's on one side of these bars with the Xoromii while we're on the other!"

I felt sudden shock at her words. She was right, of course. But I simply hadn't considered there could be any connection between the girl and our dung-beast captors.

"Now," Lhis said warily, "if you'd be good enough to tell us what it is these creatures of yours intend to do with us—"

The girl's eyes widened.

"Young lady," Quan interrupted, in his best fatherly manner, "I'm Quan, the physician, and this is Lhis, also a member of that profession. And this fellow being of yours is Jarcal. And you are—?"

The girl's features relaxed slightly.

"Sesharane," she said, "and I'm with the Xoromii because they live on C'chell as I do, and I have no other place to be." She looked questioningly at Lhis. "Is there something wrong with that?"

She shook her head sadly. "As to what they intend to do with you, I couldn't say. But I imagine they will put you to the hook-flesh torture, or possibly the skull sacker, which is a favorite of theirs, and finally dispose of you in some manner."

She raised soft shoulders and sighed. "I never get to talk to anyone from outside long enough to really know them!"

Lhis-Quan and I let hollow words hang in the air between us. Neck hairs started their worm-climb up my head again. This beautiful half-woman half-child had pronounced our death sentences as casually as she might give the time of day!

"Sesharane," I said, clearing the fear-things from my throat, "you've—spoken to other prisoners of the Xoromii?"

She nodded. "Yes, all of them, I think." She squinted lovely eyes in thought for a moment. "Some, of course, stay longer than others. For reasons I'm not to know. But eventually…" Her words died with a sad little shrug.

She seemed to read our faces. "I'm very sorry. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you at all. I forget that others—from the outside, I mean—don't live as I do. I've never known anyone who stayed on C'chell very long, so I suppose I've come to expect them all to die."

A crystal tear coursed down a perfect cheek. I felt a sudden welling of pain for her, and I wanted more than anything to break Xoromii bars and hold her long enough to kiss away sadness.

"Please," said Lhis, suddenly gentle, "we quite understand."

"Yes," Quan rumbled deeply, "it's all right, really." She sniffed and ran a hand over her face. "Thank you," she said softly. Her eyes brushed me again, and a sudden thought seemed to strike her. She smiled with brightness, forgetting sorrow.

"At any rate, nothing will happen until the master returns. And it might be he'll let me keep you, since you are like me. It's a chance, anyway!"

I opened my mouth. Quan cut off words with a quick wave.

"Sesharane, who is this master you speak of?" Sesharane shuddered. It was as if a thousand pink-soft butterflies trembled across her slimness. Her face went death white.

"The master of C'chell and all D'arahd," she said, "is Prrdrexus…"


Quan stiffened.


Lhis's beak dropped open.

"Gods preserve us," Quan whispered, "there is such a thing!"

Lhis craned her long neck. "Don't be foolish. The girl speaks of some tyrant who calls himself by that name to keep his followers in line. Nothing more. She—"

"Wait," I said, "do you mind telling me what this is all about? Both of you looked as if you'd seen a ghost at the mention of—whatever it was, and Sesharane turned to chalk. Now you say it's no matter after all!"

Quan's eyes darkened. "Prrdrexus, Jarcal, is the name of a demon. The myth of Prrdrexus is as old as the galaxy itself, I imagine. He's one of those indescribable horrors mothers on half a million worlds use to frighten their young into sleep."

"Oh, no," cried Sesharane. She'd listened to our talk, black eyes growing wider by the second.

"That's not true," she protested. "You must not say Prrdrexus isn't real. He's in deep space now, but who knows how far away he can hear our words!"

She wrapped her arms about bare shoulders and drew away from us. The yellow light wavered in her hand. Whatever this Prrdrexus might or might not be, he held Sesharane in terror, even though he was far from C'chell at the moment.

Finally, Quan managed to bring her back to calmness. In answer to his questions she told us she'd always lived on C'chell as the slave of Prrdrexus. That she was allowed to go wherever she might wish on the planet, since—as she'd told us before—she had never known another place, and couldn't leave this one even if she knew where there was to go.

We learned Prrdrexus was not only master of C'chell and the Xoromii worlds, but overlord of the dark D'arahd Empire as well—a league of many races under Prrdrexus's sway.

"I've heard the name D'arahd before," Quan muttered, "but as far as I know, it's assumed 'D'arahd' and 'Xoromii' are two words for the same thing."

"That's not so at all," Sesharane assured us. "There are ten thousand or more worlds in the empire—and only a few of those are peopled by the Xoromii."

Quan sank into brooding silence. He was seeing the endless rows of ships on the surface above us, and was mentally multiplying.

The Confederation thought of the Xoromii as a frontier nuisance. Certainly, they were more than that. And no one at Galactic Central had even dreamed of the D'arahd.

"Whatever this Prrdrexus is," Quan said soberly, "he isn't arming a hidden empire for nothing." He slapped a green tendril against the side of his carrier. "No doubt, he plans to strike the Confederation itself when the time suits him."

Lhis disagreed. "Even such an empire, Quan—if it truly exists—would be a puny thing beside the power of the Portal Worlds…"

We'd questioned Sesharane before. She shook her head at our description of Portals.

"I've never heard of such a wonder. There's nothing like that in the empire, I'm certain."

"Prrdrexus knows about the Portals, for sure," said Quan. "And doubtless he'd like to have them for his own. But there's no greater secret in the Confederation, I can tell you that."

"And without that power…" said Lhis—

Sesharane bit coral lips and took a quick breath. "Once, I heard Gegallian, Prrdrexus's captain, boast to others of power—a great power that might fight beside Prrdrexus in some battle to come."

Quan's flesh-eyes narrowed. "What's that? What kind of power?"

"I couldn't say," Sesharane shrugged. "Things like that are beyond my knowledge. But I know Gegallian was unaware Prrdrexus was somewhere near when he spoke."

She shuddered. "I—think Prrdrexus gave him to the Xoromii after that."

Lhis leaned forward intently from Quan's shoulder, fixed bead-eyes on Sesharane.

"You say Prrdrexus was 'near' and that Gegallian was 'unaware' of this. What do you mean, Sesharane? Prrdrexus knew the creature's words, but wasn't present to hear them?"

Sesharane stared. "But—he was not, of course. I mean, he is there, but he's never seen by the D'arahd—or anyone!"

"Never seen?" asked Quan. "And you, Sesharane, who have been his slave all your life—you've never seen him either?"

Sesharane trembled. One slim arm reached up to worry the neck of her gown.

"I don't know. I—think I did see him once—a long time ago. When I was a little girl…"

Memory-fingers felt around in the past, came up with adder-thoughts. Sesharane's face twisted out of loveliness.

"Why?" She turned glaze-black eyes on Quan. "Why did you make me remember? I'd forgotten and you made me remember!"

The yellow lamp fell to stone, and its beam caught bare legs in a quick light-net. Then she was gone.




IX



HER BODY-SONG lingered.

Black thoughts leered at me. Was she back among the Xoromii? Did they ever harm her in any way?

Nightmare flowers blossomed into ugliness.

"Come away and have some tasty rations," Lhis called dryly. "I saved some of the green tubes, as you seem to like them better than the rest. Though they all taste like seaweed to me."

"It's best you get some sleep," added Quan. "She's not likely to come back soon."

I whirled on him and spat anger. "It's not likely she'll return at all, Quan. Not after you scared the life out of her with endless questions!


"And aside from that," I added, "you've turned away the only help we're likely to get. Have you thought on that?"

Quan shrugged. "I mean no harm to the girl. You must be aware of that."

He paused, piecing words together.

"I wonder if you've really—considered this girl, Jarcal. I mean without the emotions she obviously invokes in you."

I gave him a way look. "What are you trying not to say, Quan?"

"Simply that—objectively speaking—I wonder just how much help Sesharane could be? Admittedly, though I can't very well judge the physical attributes of another species, she's a lovely creature. But her mind's not yet caught up with her body and—"

"There's nothing wrong with Sesharane's mind!" I said hotly.

"No, there isn't. It's just not properly developed, my friend." He smiled patiently. "You're aware of this, whether you'll let yourself admit it or not. She is a child. She has no ability to make judgments in an adult manner because she has no experience upon which to base such judgments. She's a creature of reactions—conditioned reflexes. Am I wrong, Jarcal?"

I didn't answer. I moved away to the damp corner I'd taken as my own and pulled my gray cloak about me.

Damn Quan, anyway!

There are times when a man has need for truth, and times when he'd prefer to live with illusion.

I had never touched her, yet I ached to hold her, feel warmth against me. And each time I imagined eyes liquid-soft on mine, they turned to child-eyes, dark and wondrous.

Sesharane! I cried out once to myself. Where is love-hunger and desire? Go to sleep, and wake up a woman!

I swam up, surfaced from troubled sleep.

Lhis laid a leathery claw on my arm. "Jarcal—sometimes I seem a gruff, unfeeling creature, all bluster and shriek and bird cackle." She laughed grimly. "Part of that's my nature, I know. Flying things have ways of their own, as do Quan's people and yours."

She sighed, dark eyes bits of hard stone. "What I mean to say is there's a heart under this squawking beak, and I've a warm place for you there. It pains me to see you eat yourself with sorrow for something you can do nothing about."

I reached up and laid a hand in sandpaper fingers and held them tightly. Beyond her, Quan sat in shadow-silence before the yellow lamp we'd gained from Sesharane's visit.

"I can only say my heart's close to yours, Lhis. And I'm grateful for your words."

"Pah!" she crackled, "words are noise, Jarcal. They mean nothing if they can't bring the warmth they speak of."

"I thought she'd come back, Lhis."

"And well she may! But you can't pass the days dwelling on that, can you? There's more to you than that girl, Jarcal. What of the purpose you spoke of before? What of that, now?"

I felt around for the thought, remembered, and laughed.

"My great conquest of the Voids? It seems a hollow, foolish thing now."

"It's as hollow as you make it," she snapped.

"It's hollow enough—locked in a black hole under C'chell, and Sesharane gone…"

We didn't see or hear them this time.

One moment we were all immersed in lukewarm sleep, the next the Xoromii were upon us.

We jerked up to screams and beast-howls. The corridor sprouted waves of filthy hides. They slapped flat paws together, hopped about inanely on terrible splayed feet, shook at our bars.

I barked a warning to Quan. He moved toward the rear of the cell, but not before a jeering thing poked him with a long rod.

Quan rumbled and clutched his body sheath, holding back green fluid pulsing from an ugly wound.

We cowered together. They pelted us with rocks, garbage, and bits of their own body filth. And each time they sensed one of us had been solidly stung, their howls rose to an unbearable din.

As suddenly as they'd come, they were gone. Gibber-grunts died down the dark hall.

"It's my fault, I fear," growled Quan painfully, "they kept away as long as we had the lamp going—"

"Never mind that," I scooped the lamp from the floor, switched it on and held it high while Lhis staunched sap-blood as well as she could. Finally, she wrapped a layer of Quan's own fibers around the wound.

"He'll survive," she said. "Better than you or I with such a puncture. There is some advantage, after all, in being a lower life form, Jarcal."

She finished her work and gave me a broad wink—but her eyes told me she was more than a little concerned. Our pesthole was no place to suffer an open wound.

"I'll answer that with precise, scientific facts," said Quan, "if I recover from your so-called medical care, doctor."

He turned harried flesh-eyes on me. "What do you suppose brought that demonstration about? Even unreasoning creatures have something behind their actions."

I admitted I had no idea. I was engrossed in the near-hopeless task of removing bits of Xoromii filth from my clothing.

"Whatever they had in mind, though," I said, "it can't mean anything good for us, you can be su—"

"Jarcal!"

I made the edge of the cell in little more than one step. "Sesharane! It's really you!" I knelt down and thrust my arms through the bars and for the first time touched her hand. She gazed at me, a small question mark on her brow. I remembered she'd never felt another's skin. The question mark remained, but she made no effort to pull away.

"I had to come back. I wanted to see you again."

She bit full lips and turned away. "There's little time left, now."

I tightened my grip at her words. "What do you mean, Sesharane?"

Lhis-Quan peered over my shoulder.

She swallowed. I watched the cords in her white throat. "They know Prrdrexus will be on C'chell soon. They wouldn't have dared come here like that if they didn't know. They— smell the future-fear on you…"

Lhis-Quan and I exchanged quick glances.

"How soon do you think?" asked Lhis.

"I don't know!" She shook her head fearfully. "Hours, days—I don't know!"

I held her as closely as I could and tried to soothe her.

"We'll have to move fast, then," said Quan.

"Move fast?" She looked at him without understanding. "But don't you understand? There's nothing you can do!" She reached swiftly into her cloak and dropped something cold-hard into my hands.

I stiffened at its touch. "Sesharane. What is this?"

She wouldn't face me.

"It's poison," she said soberly. "I stole it from the Xoromii." She held me with pleading eyes. "You must take it, Jarcal— all of you. You don't know Prrdrexus!"

"No." I shook my head. "Not that way. We'll get out of here, and off C'chell—somehow." I squeezed her hand. "And you'll go with us, of course, Sesharane. I'd say you've been a slave of Prrdrexus long enough."

She jerked away. "Go with you?" She shook her head woodenly. "But I couldn't do that, Jarcal."

I read turmoil in her face. "I know. You feel that way because you can't imagine being anywhere else. That will change, I promise you."

"He's right," Lhis said gently. "You must go with us, Sesharane." She raised a feathery brow. "The only thing is, Jarcal's not yet shared his bold escape plan with the rest of us. Doubtless, though, he has the problem solved."

I felt quick face-heat. "Not in its entirety," I admitted. "But you agree we can't sit and molder in dampness until Prrdrexus comes to hand us over to his beasts."

"Oh, the thought's a good one," Lhis chided. "And I heartily agree. It's the method that has me puzzled."

"Just a moment," Quan broke in suddenly. "It may be we have the method, Lhis."

We both looked down. Quan held Sesharane's yellow lamp, turning it over in surgeon fingers. "I've said nothing before," he told us, "because I saw no way to put such knowledge to use."

"What knowledge is that?" I asked.

He balanced the lamp deftly, and with a quick twist removed its back, held up a tiny wire.

"It's not a complex device," he said absently. "A standard long-life A-cell of low intensity. But I've had more than enough time to think in this dismal place."

He stopped, held up the lamp so I could see its innards. "There. Built for low power to preserve its light life. This little squiggle governs intensity by its angle against the cell." He looked up at me with meaning. "The lamp has the capacity for greater brilliance."

An almost malicious grin crossed his fiber-features. I read his thoughts.

"Of course, I couldn't guarantee how long it might last, once the power was increased so much. It might simply flare up suddenly. Phoosh! Nothing."

I laughed. "And if it does? What chance have we without trying?"

"I hate to put a damper on all this," Lhis said wearily, "but you can blind every Xoromii on C'chell, doctor, and it'll do us little good locked behind these bars."

Quan turned to Sesharane. "Will you help us," he asked gently, "even though you wish to stay here yourself?"

I opened my mouth to protest. Quan chopped off words with a look.

Sesharane stared down at the strange sight of her hand in mine, looked up at me.

"I would do whatever Jarcal asks me to do," she said simply.

Lhis-Quan and I lay close together in a far corner. Sesharane's heavy cloak hung over my head, masking the blue light of my cold star.

We waited. I wanted to think of Sesharane and where she was and whether the Xoromii— Instead, I sat in an armor of sweat-beads and tried to align fourteen diverse geometric constructions in their proper places.

Thick footsteps shuffled along the hall, stopped. In my mind-eye, a bright green rhomboidal shape aligned itself with a pale red polyhedron…

"It doesn't matter what you think about," Quan assured us, "as long as it takes every ounce of concentration…"

Xoromii gibberish. Sesharane's answer in its own tongue. A quick look, and I imagined its beast mind: fear-shadow-smells-no-good… wrong—wrong!

"Don't let anything else enter your mind but the problem— and the harder the problem the better! I doubt they'll truly think we're gone, but with the fear emanations almost imperceptible…"

Fear!

Slam mental doors against it.

Move the polyhedral thing into its precise-Whine, click!

White pain-light in a tight beam from Quan's hand. Tear off the cloak, leap up at blind ugliness.

It shrieked in the cone of brightness. My hands grabbed filth-fur, felt for soft flesh. I choked on its odor, heard the big skull crack against stone. Again—again—again until there's nothing but harsh death-rattle.

And then I stepped out of the beam and retched against a damp wall.

Sesharane's eyes were glazed with fear. I swept her up without a word and ran after Lhis-Quan.




X



SUDDEN, HIGH beast wails told me Quan's lamp had surprised a squad of Xoromii. I rounded a corner, glimpsed chaos, whirled as a thick shape dropped at my feet.

Quiet, somber Quan was a physician of death, sowing pain with every sweep of brightness. Faceless fur-things screamed, clawed to reach him—then tore at no-eyes and shuddered into dark heaps.

Red-violet whispered from darkness.

I pulled Sesharane beneath me as Xoromii beams carved a molten scar above us. Slag stung my shoulder. I shouted above death-noise and Quan jerked, twisted his light. Heavy bodies wailed pain. Weapons clattered on stone.

I yelled something to Sesharane and pulled her over dark bodies. Lhis croaked quick directions and I saw Quan had seen it too: narrow stairs up from C'chell's depths.

He gave the hall a last, deadly hail of brightness, swept past me. I pushed Sesharane ahead, scooped up Xoromii weapons and hosed the darkness before I followed.

Lhis-Quan and Sesharane paused at the top. I joined them, bolted the heavy doors as beams sizzled into stone.

"They seem to have some mild objection to a good clean ray of light," laughed Quan.

"They do that," I said. I leaned against stone and sucked in night air. Sesharane trembled beside me. Strength came back, and fear-acid drained from my mind. The halls had been thick with the emanations of pain and death.

"The ships are over there," said Lhis, "if I've got my bearings straight."

"You do," I nodded. I pointed to a low wall running from the surface door behind us.

"We'll have cover until we get close to the field. After that, we've a nice bit of running in the open."

"With all the company we could ask, no doubt," added Quan.

In answer to his words, sirens screamed high banshee wails across the night. The sound set my teeth on edge. We moved out quickly, keeping close to the long wall.

Behind us, the iron door exploded in a shower of red-violet. Lhis shouted a clipped warning. Xoromii beams licked stone above us. Sesharane cried out. I wrapped my cloak over an angry furrow in her arm.

Pain-shouts answered Quan's deadly light. I sprayed one of the creature's own ugly weapons into the night, and Sesharane slid limply into my arms. I swept her up and ran.

"I don't like it," Quan whispered. He turned back from the thick column at the end of our protective wall.

"There should be a whole hairy army out there, Jarcal. They know for certain where we are!"

I nodded. "They've also guessed we're after a ship—and know we-have to cross open ground to get it."

I peered past Quan. The squat outlines of starships seemed a thousand miles away. The night was deadly silent. Dim red-violet eyes winked from ragged towers.

I glanced at Quan, took a deep breath and strained for sound—a single, betraying shadow. Nothing.

I laid Sesharane gently to the ground. Lhis read my thoughts. "Jarcal, no!"

I didn't answer. I bolted from the wall's cover, keeping low to the ground. Left, right, right, left—a drunken crab out on the town.

A searing beam as thick as my waist cratered rock yards ahead. I threw myself aside. Another stabbed out. Closer. It scooped up earth like a hot spoon. I jumped back. Slag rain showered over my head.

The night came alive with probing fingers. I whirled in a wide sweep back to the wall and jeering beast-cries rose from my right. Hand weapons spat red hornets at my heels and I threw myself behind stone.

"There's your answer," I gasped. "The heavy stuff is in those towers. They're too far away to worry about the lamp-probably automatic anyway—sense anything that moves. You heard the army that's waiting out there!"

"It was a foolish thing to do," grumbled Quan. "No more foolish than all of us walking out there to get it at once, old friend!"

Quan's crest folded in dejection. "The whole thing was for nothing, then. There's no way through that field of fire, Jarcal."

"No. There isn't. Just one of those beams—" I turned to Lhis. "We've little chance of getting fifty feet," I told her. "But we have to try. We have a fair idea what's waiting for us here."

Lhis said evenly. "You're about to say something, Jarcal, and don't wish to say it. We've no time to play games, have we? What is it you want me to do?"

I laughed at her gently. "Die with the rest of us, most likely—and maybe not. There's no way to cross, Lhis, not for us. There is for you."

She raised two black feather-questions on her brow. "Fly, Lhis. You can fly! They'll not know for sure how manv of us are leaving the wall. Go in low at first, wait for the first tower beam, then change your pattern to a higher angle—"

"By the gods," she cackled, "look who's giving flying lessons!"

"Just a minute…" Quan laid heaviness on my shoulder. "You'd send her out to decoy for the rest of us?" His eyes clouded. "I'll have no part of that and neither will you!"

I laughed. "You think I'd leave all the fun to Lhis, then? I swear you'll wish you could sprout a fine pair of wings yourself, Quan, before we get where we're going."

"And where might that be?" he asked warily. "The only place that weapon of yours can do its damage." I nodded toward the silent Xoromii army waiting in darkness.

Leathery wings flashed.

I held my breath and counted seconds. Sesharane stirred in my arms. I pressed her against me. One. Two. Three. Four.

Violet fire whined from high towers, laced dark brackets across the field. Flame howled from craters behind Lhis's erratic path. Quan cried out.

"They're still firing," I yelled. "When they stop, you can start worrying. Come on!"

The Xoromii had crabbed off at a sharp angle, following the path of their tower weapons. They paid no attention to the wall behind them. We came up on them from the rear and were in the midst of fur-hides before they realized what was happening.

Our lamp blazed a wicked arc. Front ranks turned blind eyes upon us at their companions' howls. Quan sent them writhing. I held Sesharane close, waded through dung-beasts who clawed at my boots until I sliced them away with red beams.

Quan shouted. I followed his gaze. The heavy tower weapons hesitated in their pursuit of Lhis. Violet tongues licked sluggishly toward us, then away, then back again.

I laughed. They'd have to fry their own to get us now. I didn't doubt they'd do just that. But if they waited a minute, two minutes—

I squinted through a searing sky. Starship peaks loomed close enough to touch. Then Quan cried out.

I turned. The big Xoromii warrior leaped from the ground in blind rage and tore the brightness from Quan's grip. The lamp dashed against stone, winked into darkness.

Xoromii voices lifted in death-joy. I leaped to Quan's side, sprayed thickness and heard high pain.

Quan's voice was lost in beast cries and scorching threads of fire. I stepped on something hard, scooped up a weapon and pressed it in his hands.

We ran low, broke through a Xoromii wave and bolted for the high ships. Slag pits blossomed behind us. Fire brushed my shoulder and Quan moaned and went down. I bent over him, sent a withering field of fire low to the ground, cutting beast legs from heavy bodies.

I cursed Quan. Yelled obscenities at his gods. And got him moving again. I looked back and saw tower weapons cut a wide swath through Xoromii. Fire columns seared closer. I stumbled, pulled Sesharane to me—and touched metal.

I looked up at dark steel pitted with space scars. Quan jerked me to my feet and we lost ourselves in a starship jungle.

Tower beams whined at the rim of their fleet. The Xoromii troopers probed the night with cautious weapons, and I guessed few of them cared to risk Prrdrexus's wrath if a careless beam should pierce a starship hull. "Jarcal!"

I leaped aside, covered Sesharane. A big paw swept me down in pain, and quatro-blades flashed in a heavy fist.

Suddenly, the Xoromii stiffened, waited in pain, and steel sparked stone. Blood welled in his no-face as talons tore into flesh. Leather wings whipped wind and the beast reached up to tear the demon from him as Quan sliced him in half with his weapon.

"Damn me!" squawked Lhis. She pulled talons from the red face and stared at the still body. "It's a careless bit of surgery you've done on this poor creature—I'll say that, doctor!"

She frowned at me, then at Quan. Her bead-eyes took in our appearance.

"Aye," she whistled ominously, "you didn't run into trouble, I trust, while I enjoyed that fine flight you sent me on?"

I laughed but didn't answer. Xoromii voices were closer. I got up on shaky feet and pressed my hands against cold port-locks.

The first four were tight and solid. I held my breath. The fifth clicked, slid open.

I stopped, looked back at Lhis-Quan.

"I never thought to ask which one of you might know how to get a starship off the ground."

Quan stared, laughed helplessly.

"It's a question I'd hoped had slipped your mind, Jarcal. I suggest we get ourselves out of this dangerous night air and very quickly start learning together!"




XI



WE LIFTED on a column of fire—and, no doubt, a multitude of burning pelts.

As Lhis wryly put it: "This should end forever any doubts about the Quan Theory of Interstellar Flight."

"You mean," I added wearily, "if one presses enough buttons, a ship either explodes or rises in the proper direction."

"Logic," sighed Quan, "simple everyday logic, my friends..."

Xoromii atmosphere screamed and died below us. Beam and missile blips crowded our screens, but we were well beyond their range.

Minutes after we left Xoromii behind, Sesharane's eyes opened, held me with quick fear. Then, just as suddenly, she relaxed, smiled gently.

"You're all right, now," I assured her.

"We are not on C'chell any more, Jarcal?"

"No. We're far away from there. Forever. You'll never have to think about Prrdrexus again."

Black eyes released a single tear. "I didn't really want to stay there, as I told you," she whispered. "But I was afraid to be somewhere else."

"I know…"

"I'm not afraid now, Jarcal. I'll never be afraid with you!" Her arms went around me and dark, tumble-curls brushed my shoulder.

"I've rigged a sort of booster," muttered Quan. "Pulled some wires and things apart, actually, and put them together again in a different way. It's not exactly what you'd call 'harsh' lighting, but we won't be stumbling about in Xoromii dark, either."

I'd joined him in the control console forward, leaving Lhis with Sesharane. Quan said it seemed a normal enough set of controls, not unlike other cabins he'd seen.

"Which, I admit," he said, "have been few in number."

I gave him a look of mock surprise. "What kind of modesty is this, captain? Why, after that lift-off, in which we received only minor bruises and contusions, I was certain we were in the hands of—"

He cut me off with a nasty glare. "We are lucky to be alive," he grumbled, "as you well know. If you're quite finished, I hope you'll take a look at this devastating array of dials and gadgets and see if you can make some crude guesses regarding their functions."

I shook my head. "Guesses are exactly what you'll get, too."

I leaned over his shoulder, and in a few moments we tentatively identified gauges referring to shiptime, cabin pressure, power plant and fuel consumption—plus a whole bank of comm devices we decided to ignore for the moment.

"By elimination, then," Quan mused absently, "we can assume this console refers to direction and speed. Very nice things to know, I'd imagine."

He raised a tendril and looked at me questioningly. I shrugged and nodded.

Very carefully, he inched a thin control bar half a notch forward. The ship slowed almost imperceptively. I mopped my brow and gave him an encouraging grin.

By painful trial and error, we discovered a similar control governing ship's direction.

Meanwhile, I'd been keeping an eye on the screens. Finally, the tiny dots I had expected made their appearance.

"How many do you think?" Quan asked warily.

"Maybe a dozen, maybe more. Can you magnify this thing at all?"

Quan gave me a leafy frown. "Probably," he said drolly, "are we accomplished enough now to assume this particular set of knobs is connected to screens, and will not jetison our oxygen supply?"

"We are," I said confidently.

He shot me a look of complete disdain. Nevertheless, the screen suddenly filled with large, jade-fire blips.

I swallowed hard. Magnification changed the picture considerably. Each of the dots I'd counted as an individual ship now separated into squadrons of eight.

"My revised estimate is between seventy-five and a hundred," I said.

"Let's not let ourselves be intimidated by sheer numbers," he suggested. "The way I see it, we can as easily be tentatively destroyed by four, five, or six Xoromii ships as by a thousand."

"I'd rather be tentatively destroyed by one," I said. "That way—"

Quan suddenly stiffened. I followed his eyes back to the screen. One by one, the Xoromii squadrons were winking out of existence.

"What-"

He ignored me. Multiple limbs flashed out, slapped us to full speed, angled our course thirty degrees.

"They've gone into stardrive," he said. He didn't look up again. "We were ahead of them. We won't be for long."

I gripped my comm seat tightly. It blossomed out to petal me with love. Xoromii ships fireflied to life again. Quan's eyes flashed from one screen to the other. Ships sighed into position ahead, above, below. Quan wrenched us into a new course. For the moment, we left pursuit behind.

Quan leaned back. If he had been a mammal, or some-thing similar, sweat would be pouring from every inch of his body, as it was from mine. Instead, his thick leaf-sheath wilted in limp folds.

"I have disappointing news, Jarcal," he said darkly. "Something has been worrying at the edge of my mind since we entered this cabin. Just as those blips appeared, I remembered what it was."

He faced me. "We are missing one very important set of controls. Now, their absence is quite obvious. This is not a starship we have stolen, Jarcal. It is an extremely fast interplanetary vessel—probably used for courier duty between nearby Xoromii worlds, or planets of the D'arahd Empire. It has no stardrive. Those ships out there very definitely do."

I stared at him. There was very little I could think of to say.

"Which means that we can continue evasive tactics probably for quite awhile. We can change course and speed each time they come out of stardrive."

"But eventually," I finished for him, "it's a losing game, right?"

Quan said nothing. The first Xoromii squadron had appeared again, then another. They were closer this time-much closer. Multiple blossoms of fire winked from individual ships, streaked for us at incredible speeds.

Chill-worms crawled up my spine.

"Missiles!" rasped Quan. But he didn't need to tell me. I chopped quick words through the comm at Lhis, let the petals pull me snuggle-tight as Quan wrenched us into an impossible angle that should have split us in half a dozen pieces.

Missiles droned in from three light-planes. Quan chose the least disastrous course from all three: one that allowed us the hopeful alternative of being vaporized into nebulae strands by only a sixth of the enemy's firepower.

Green, blue, blood red flowers blossomed. The ship shuddered…

Somewhere in the starboard hold, pipes snapped with a loud ping-pong! and I ignored the hiss of whatever vital gas was escaping.

"How much more of this can we take!" I shouted.

"None," yelled Quan, "as of about two minutes ago!"

He pulled us into a nauseous curve as purple fire seared our tail and a wicked yellow tongue licked space to port. The ship screamed in protest.

Then, quite suddenly, half a Xoromii squadron disappeared ahead of us in a beautiful ball of blueness.

Amazement spread across Quan's features. "Now what in all the gods—!"

I laughed. Pounded his bark back. "Look—in the screens!" The Xoromii missiles were silent. I imagined commands crackling over spacewaves as each squadron closed up tightly on the other until the entire fleet was massed in an enormous "V."

It was clear what had happened. The Xoromii had sought to box us in a pattern of random warping. Individual squadrons winked in-out-in-out of normal space to surround us with deadly firepower in moves no course change could anticipate.

Only they had made a serious error. The speed of their tactics had put one emerging squadron directly in the path of another's missiles.

"They'll stick together, now," said Quan. "It gives us some advantage—for awhile, anyway."

He glanced up solemnly. "But we can't outrun a whole fleet of starships, Jarcal. Not forever…"

"Quan," I said, "we've come this far. Forever seems a lot to ask."

The Xoromii changed their tactics to meet the situation. We could see what they had in mind. The main fleet followed us at a steady distance. Stringer squadrons occasionally warped into flanking positions. Soon there were auxiliary units above, to port and starboard, and dead ahead.

One maneuvering capability was effectively stymied. There was simply no place to go. The Xoromii doggedly closed in, eating up the distance between us. The squadron ahead reduced speed. If we slowed to match, the fleet behind simply closed the gap.

"Is there no chance of breaking out of this infernal box through some weak spot?" asked Lhis.

She and Sesharane had joined us in the cabin, now that wrenching speed and course changes were over for the moment.

"They haven't left any weak spots," Quan said bitterly. "We are very effectively trapped."

Sesharane laid her head against my chest. "We are to die then, Jarcal?"

I held her close. There was no fear in her words. A sweet smell of freshness clung to her hair. Blue skies, dark forests. It was the smell of Earth and my imagination and I let the memories slide away and disappear.

"We aren't dead yet," I said lightly, "odds of a hundred to one or more cannot intimidate Captain Quan."

Quan laughed, brittle stalks rustling in autumn. "You're right, Jarcal." He waved at the screens. "I'm quite beyond intimidation now!"

I moved away from Sesharane, studied the Xoromii positions a long moment.

"We have two choices," I told Quan. "The same choices we had in that damp dung-cage on C'chell."

"Stay and wait for certain death," Lhis muttered, "or take equally risky action."

I nodded. Lhis and I exchanged silent words.

"What 'equally risky action' do you suggest at this point?" asked Quan.

"Break out."

"We wouldn't stand a chance."

"I quite agree."

"And we have absolutely no chance whatever here."

"Again, you have correctly evaluated the situation, captain."

Quan let his gaze rest on each of us. He studied the screens himself.

"All right," he sighed, "strap in, if you will…

We stayed together.

Lhis shared a comm pad with Quan. Sesharane was warm against me. And I felt a terrible ache of sadness—knowing her warmth, feeling closeness, and very much aware we had perhaps minutes together. That all the future things would be time-scaled with a sudden snick. All the things we hadn't said or shared would go unsaid, unshared forever.

I glanced at Lhis-Quan. Past-films fluttered by like uneasy moths against a window.

If a man had to die, he could die with no better companions…

Quan sent the ship into a slow, yawn-roll to starboard. We wanted the move to be obvious enough to the Xoromii.

The hawks above us dropped down; the starboard wing pulled in quickly to meet us. Far to port, that group turned and closed in hungrily.

We fell in a long arc, directly into the jaws of three merging squadrons. Distance died rapidly. Two of the groups were already visible without benefit of the screens.

Gray, wart-stub hulls nosed closer.

Hot stars blossomed, winked from missile ports, whined toward us in waver-patterns of death.

Quan waited. Silent. Rigid.

Then, with an almost imperceptible nod of his head, he Jerked the ship into an angle as close to ninety degrees as the laws of mass and inertia allowed.

We broke laws. Made new ones.

I heard my soul-scream buried under others. Swept red mist from my eyes, saw Sesharane's face wet with blood from trickle-streams that came from her ears and nose. Blinked up at screens and tried to bring crazy shaking dots of color into focus.

A hundred death-clouds blossomed. The ship screamed in her new course, tearing herself apart. She shuddered with all the speed she'd been built for, and more, heading for the tiny, hopeless hole to port we'd opened by drawing the squadrons into our wide starboard arc.

If we'd pulled the port fleet far enough…

The Xoromii moved, shook itself into a torturous arc matching our own, burst to cut us off. Missiles bloomed, tossed the ship like a small boat in an angry sea.

I guessed our distance to safety, mind-measured the port ships' speed against ours. Knew, helplessly, that even if we could break through that infinitesimal pocket, we could do little more than begin the whole grim game again.

We gained on the Xoromii. The fleet seemed to shrink away, little by little. Missiles rained further behind.

I shouted at Quan. He gave me a green-ash grin, opened his mouth—and never spoke.

Fire bloomed under our belly. Red waves of heat splashed over the cabin, licked the hull, ringed us in flame.

Silence.

Quan leaned back, dropped his head on his chest, let limbs fall away from controls.

"It's done, Jarcal," he muttered. "That one took away our power plant. Every last miserable inch of it!"




XII



COLD-SWEAT beaded my brow. Fingers of acrid smoke drifted from the aft compartment. Needles froze forever on green zeroes.

I looked dully at the screens. Half our ship-eyes were blinded, but I could see enough. We drifted like a derelict. Sharks curved in for the kill. Spiderweb trails of missiles wove death patterns around us.

"A minute ... maybe two…"

I picked out Quan in the darkness. His shape rose against stars.

"It was really a very good try, captain."

He laughed. "By the gods, old friend—it was that, wasn't it?"

"Lhis?"

"Blacked out in that final thrust," he said. "And I'm glad enough of that."

I nodded, looked down at Sesharane. She slept limply against me.

Silence a smothering blanket.

Bright buds of color tinted the darkness, seemed harmless enough, now. They wormed toward us almost lazily, and I imagined that tiny shard of a second when I'd see one quick blink of brightness, the beginnings of a heat blossom that—

The ship trembled. Metal shrieked on metal.

I jerked up, and for a brief second relived that moment when the Xoromii had pulled our pitiful Akh egg into its belly.

And then the first brace of missiles gave birth to light and I closed my eyes and let the fist as big as all space crush me in its fingers.

I died in blackness—

—and woke in twilight…

I cupped one hand over my eyes and squinted out the far port. A swollen ocher ball rode an empty sea. Air whistled around the ship. A harsh, brittle landscape rushed by beneath us, burned by a blood red sunset.

I turned, and Quan gave a bleary laugh at my expression. "No, you're not dead yet, Jarcal."

He looked up. "Something's clamped us to its bosom and warped us out of the Xoromii's grasp, it seems!" He sighed wearily. "I couldn't begin to guess what it is, or where it's taken us—and wouldn't dare to ask at this point, seeing we're somewhat more alive than we've any right to be."

I had to agree with that.

Sesharane opened her eyes, smiled weakly, sank back into sleep. Lhis peered at me from Quan's shoulder.

"I'd not expected to see your poor featherless face again, Jarcal. Not this side of the Great Nest, anyway." She looked beyond me. "The girl's all right, then?"

"I'm with Jarcal," Sesharane said simply. Her eyes were half open. She looked up through sleepy lashes, then came fully awake and reached past me to peer out the port.

She gave a quick little gasp. Her face was warm in the giant dwarfs light, and I leaned over and kissed her lightly. Her eyes widened, and she gave me a curious, studied look.

"Whatever that was," she said soberly, "it was very pleasant. I hope you'll do it again sometime, Jarcal." I laughed, assured her I would.

The thing that held us in its grasp dropped swiftly to the surface of the ruby-shadow world. Metal scraped on metal again, and moments later we heard our rescuer winging away. From the starboard port, we watched it disappear into evening light. It arced sluggishly upward like a great iron spider, powerful legs dangling loosely, now.

As Lhis put it in her own tart words, we could sit aboard the grounded ship forever, or until our oxygen gave out. Or we could venture forth and see if there was more of the precious stuff outside.

There was air.

Cold, crisp, but thick enough to breathe.

We stood a few yards from the ship, wrapping ourselves in small cocoons of silence. Titanium ghosts and steel spirits played around us. Wind whistled through hollow iron skulls.

I looked up, held my breath. We were in the midst of a vast graveyard of starships.

Many were eaten by time, little more than rust-red patches of earth. Others formed jagged cones of corrosion. Thick hides that once held back the darkness were as thin as eggshells now. Some crumbled around us like ash towers at the faint tremor of our footsteps.

Silence.

Bathed in blood-ocher rays of a feeble star.

"By your own false gods, Quan," I whispered, "what kind of a place is this!"

Sesharane was slim-cold against me. Quan looked over his shoulder at the night's growing shadows. Lhis pulled parchment wings about her.

"If I believed in such things," said Quan, "I'd say this is the place old starships come to die."

He gazed about, stopped once and pointed to a pitted shell whose skeletal arms clawed weakly at the skies.

"That greenish stuff there's a metal that has a name," he said, "though what it's called I can't remember. I do know this: it's not been used for some thousands of years. It's a substance they say will last forever."

Lhis shook her head at the thin and fragile shadow.

"Forever passed this way some time ago," she shuddered.

"Jarcal!"

Sesharane's fingers dug crescents in my arm. I jerked around.

Out of the twilight a dozen dark creatures moved toward us. They marched in a long, double line, their shadows ragged patches before them. I caught the quick glint of red light off dull heads and shoulders. They were metal things, roughly humanoid, with two sets of spindle arms and short, thick-jointed legs. Once, they might have been painted sky blue, but only smears of color were evident now.

The robots were in various stages of disrepair. Some dragged a useless leg whose nub had worn to brightness, others nodded their heads uncontrollably, and as we watched, one gave a quick jerk and fell out of line to collapse in a tumble of scrap.

They stopped yards away and I signaled the others not to move until we had some better idea of their purpose.

The first in line jerked forward, let his gaze rest on each of us, and finally settle on me. He moved toward me on one spastic leg and stared with a single green glass eye. The other had long since blackened and corroded in its steely socket.

"Scraaaaaak! Shriiii!"

A garble of static came from a grid in its chest.

"Shraaaw!" It repeated. "Squua-a-aaaa!"

Finally, one arm struggled into a straight line, pointing roughly in the direction from which the column had come.

That was clear enough. I glanced at Quan and started forward. Lhis-Quan and Sesharane started after me, and the one-eyed metal man stepped crookedly in their path.

That was clear enough, too…

Sesharane paled. I shook my head. "It's all right," I assured her. "I don't think they mean any harm."

I looked at the motley array of bucket heads and bulby knees forming an uneven line about me.

"As a matter of fact," I grinned, "I don't believe they are in any condition to do a great deal more than stay on their feet!"

I didn't completely believe that, but the words did seem to comfort Sesharane. Quan gave me an encouraging nod, and I turned away. Half the squad went with me, the other remained at the ship.

The complex of domed buildings lay a quarter mile from the graveyard of ships, down the remains of a deeply rutted road. The buildings were in much the same condition as the robots. Some looked like sad, wilty stone mushrooms; others like cracked Akh eggs dropped carelessly to the grass.

We passed domes that had sighed in upon themselves and died, domes strangled by vines and thorn-tangles. The door of one structure opened and closed monotonously at two-second intervals. I shuddered to imagine how long that had been going on.

Finally, I stepped over a metal man who had long fallen into red dust, and into the largest standing building of the complex. My escorts remained outside.

"Come in, commander…"

I jerked up, searched dimness for the raspy voice.

The room brightened imperceptively, with a great effort of electric will. I faced a high wall studded with a thousand tiny lights that winked, faded, and chit-chitted to life.

"—ope you had a successful mission, commander. Any kills?"

I had to think about that.

"Ah—nothing definite." I hoped that would do for the moment.

"We'll get to that" the voice said evenly. It had the tonal quality of a platinum sandpaper soprano.

I looked down. A tiny bug carried the dry husk of its enemy over my boot. It left pin-tracks in the dust. A pale sick-white vine curled up the wall from a spider-crack in the floor.

"You may report" said the voice. "I am ready to receive…"

The wall hummed, coughed, cleared its electronic throat.

I thought quickly. Whatever I said—

"Come in, commander—ope you had a successful mission, commander any kills? kills? kills? kills? kills? kills? kills?"

A hash of static drowned out its own voice, throbbed, hummed and a full third of the wink-lights went dark. I caught the faint odor of burning wires.

"You may report. … 7 am ready to receive . . ."

"You may report… I am ready to receive…"

"You may report… I am reaaaaassshhriii!"

I glanced warily behind me. The one-eyed robot seemed to grin crookedly with its no-mouth. It stared at me with green glass patience. I had a quick vision of starving to death in this somber room waiting for senile tube-brains to come to their senses.

I looked carefully at the wall and chose words. "Confirm your station, please." It seemed as good as anything at the moment.

Hum-humming stopped. Lights froze. The wall fell into silence, but I could sense its pulse whispers, searching deep for cold memories.

Static.

Crackle.

"Helzian League Combot Center Seven-Oh-Oh-Foura-One-Niner, sir!"

"Fine," I said. And wondered what I had now that I had it. "I wonder if you would mind telling m—"

"… and I hope you officers know why you've been selected for this center. …"

Hackles began their neck climb. That wasn't the sandpaper soprano—it was a human voice.

"—ould he unnecessary for me to stress the importance of your—signment. The past six mon—have seen a marked incre —in th—orces holding their own, but we can't coun—on many victori—such as th—ector Seven, past the Arm, where the Andromedan fleet ha—us—w—ack—li—"

"Shraaivwwwkf—uccessful mission, commander… any kills? You may report… 7 am ready to receive…"

"I wonder," I said, "if I could— I would like to hold up on my report if I may. Until I could speak to some of the other commanders. To—verify action in other… sectors."

"—ery commendable. Fighter hour delay granted if no action of immediate importance relative to overall tactical-slash-strategic situation is anticipated, authority is RUS-Fiver-Fiver-Seven-Oh-Two, dated—"

Silence.

Light banks flicked crazily across gray metal.

"… all he concerned with the gathering of any intelligence the—to be of—port—c—i—th—su trai—will be—ey and action by Commander Malois-Kedrick in—"

"Listen, if you'll just—"

"… thank you for your time. Your report is clear and concise. You are to be commended for your careful attention to detail."

"I'd like permission—" I started.

"Granted. In the meantime, imagine you'd like to join your crew in Rest and Recreation, pending further assignment…"

Power groaned down the scale to a low whimper. Then nothing. Lights paled and died.

My one-eyed escort came suddenly to life and stepped aside for me to pass.

The small pastel domes were hidden among a thick forest of high, needle-leaf trees that reminded me wistfully of pine.

Sesharane ran up the path and threw her arms around me.

"You must see it all, Jarcal," she said excitedly. "I never imagined anything like this before!"

I realized trees and green things would be somewhat of a revelation to Sesharane, who knew nothing but the grim darkness of C'chell. Her black eyes were wide with life. I thought she'd been beautiful in the damp Xoromii halls—but away from that pale she was a flower just beginning to grow.

I held her. When her eyes met mine again, I saw a girl-child fading, and Sesharane the woman coming into her own.

I told Lhis-Quan about my walk from the ship and the ancient computer.

"It's still functioning," I said, "but it talks like an old man who's lived far beyond his time. It repeats what it has heard and said before, and then wakes for a moment of rational thought."

Quan nodded thoughtfully. "It's an incredibly old world, Jarcal. Maybe even as old as Llhai itself. A military outpost of some kind, obviously. But what kind, I can't imagine."

He glanced up at thick branches.

"I can sense some of the murmurings of these half-sentient cousins of mine. Their memories are as fuzzy as that computer of yours."

I told him some of what the computer had said. His eyes widened and he shook his head in wonder.

"By the gods, Jarcal. It's hard to believe what you say! The Helzian League… Lhis?"

She nodded. "More a myth than anything else. Yet myths have a way of coming true just when you've shelved them in dust."

I knew she must be remembering Sesharane's tale of Prrdrexus, another myth evidently all too real.

Quan said, "It's hard to deny what you can see all about you, but I still find this difficult to fathom. We're on a command post of the First Empire, Jarcal, if we can believe that computer's gibberish. And I doubt you'd find a historian anywhere in the Confederation who'd admit there ever was a First Empire."

He turned and sighed. "Evidently, there was. And if that's true, those robots and that senile computer of yours are still fighting a war against Andromeda that legend tells us ended more than half a million years ago!"

I looked away from him and let my eyes rest on Sesharane, and beyond her, the black-greens of a thick forest.

… a war that ended half a million years ago.…

Something heavy turned over in my stomach. Time meant nothing at all to this world—

"Rest and Recreation," the computer had droned solemnly, "pending further assignment…"




XIII



IT WAS AN idyllic world, once cool forests shut out the Combot Center's eternal pursuit of long-dead enemies.

It was also a trap.

A beautiful trap, certainly, but a trap nevertheless.

We had food, safety, shade-glens, dark pools. It was tempting to forget the T'aj, imprisonment on C'chell, the terrible battle against the Xoromii.

With Sesharane beside me and an eternity of perfect lazy days, it was easy to ignore the fact that we had traded one prison for another.

Still, during the first few weeks, we tried.

Quan and I made forays back into the center, through empty domes and out to the dismal graveyard of ships. Each trip affirmed what we both knew from the beginning: there was no way off this nameless world. And if no ships had found it in half a million years, odds were slim enough that any would chance upon it now.

The last words of the computer were firmly underlined the day we found the older domes set deep in the forest. In one of these, some creature had set down his experiences here across two circle-walls. He told in pictures how his ship had been picked from space and set down among other derelicts; how he'd guessed, as we had, that the center had been capturing "non-League" vessels from space for 50,000 centuries—doggedly following some long-forgotten order.

He told how he'd spent his first long months here searching for some way to get back home… until he had finally realized there was no hope. The rest of his story died when one wall collapsed into dust thousands of years before we chanced upon it. But Quan and I hardly needed to see the rest. The deep shade of the forest seemed suddenly too cold, and we quickly sought the sun's warmth.

It was all too easy to read our own history beside that pitiful creature's scrawlings…

If the days brought us no closer to an answer, one thing made them bearable for me: every long hour was filled with the presence of Sesharane.

I'd known I loved her from the moment she appeared before our cell on that bizarre Xoromii litter. But now that love had time to grow and become the thing I was sure it could be.

She was never far from my side. We walked through deep forests and sat by narrow streams that sang with sun notes. Sometimes we hardly spoke for hours. We were together. Knowing we had each other made words unnecessary.

I'd sensed something troubled Sesharane for some time. But I thought little about it.

After all, she'd spent her whole life until now in an environment that should have left her nothing short of madness. It was normal enough that she should sometimes seem far away, that she should suddenly become sad and solemn in the midst of laughter.

She returned my love, I knew. And if she was often shy, or even fearful when I held her close to me, I remembered Sesharane had never seen a man until I'd appeared in the beam of her lamp under C'chell.

It happened quite suddenly.

One moment my world was filled with butter-yellow days, sleepy noons and green nights—the next, it splintered into nightmare shards.

We sat together on a bed of feather-fern against a tree that was old even on this world.


She was skin-warm against me. Her face turned up to mine like a petal seeking sun. I brushed her with a kiss, and then felt the deep hunger well up inside me and I covered her face and neck with quick kisses and pulled her to me.

Sesharane gave a low throat-cry and her arms silked about me. Her breath came in short whispers. The loose robe sighed from her shoulders and my lips found an olive throat and the high swell of breasts and— Sesharane stiffened.

Her face tightened and animal-pain escaped her lips. I jerked up and stared. She trembled in the clutch of sudden coldness and her throat made purple strands that choked a terrible cry.

"Sesharane!" I touched her lightly.

She pulled away, shrank back from me. Turned to me with wide, empty eyes.

"Go away, Jarcal. Go away and never touch me again!" I backed off, startled. Her face was a mirror of hate-fear. I looked for my reflection in her eyes. I was not there.

She rose unsteadily, stumbled once, fled into green-brightness…

I found her on a marble stone before the pond we'd discovered together.

Her brown legs were pulled up under her chin, her face buried against her knees. I took a soft step into the moss clearing.

"Sit down, Jarcal. Over there," she said without turning. "Over there—and don't come near me."

Her voice was not Sesharane. It was something else, something cold and unfeeling that had taken her place. "Sesharane…"

"Don't talk, Jarcal. Listen to me, now."

"All right," I said quietly, "I will, Sesharane."

"I love you, Jarcal," she began. "I loved you from the moment I saw you, and knew you loved me as well. It doesn't matter that I didn't know there was such a thing as love, that I had never spoken to a man before—it would still have been the same."

"I know that," I told her. "I know it because it was the same with me."

She went on as if I hadn't spoken.

"You have given me your love. I could never ask for more. I was a child when you found me. You tried to make me into a woman. I wanted to become a woman—for you, and for me."

She paused a long moment. I heard a tree thing chitter its heat song above.

"But I can't do it, Jarcal. I cannot be a woman."

"That's not true!" I protested.

"It is," she cried. "You don't know. You don't know!"

And she told me.

She told me of parents who had come from Orizell, one of the human worlds of the Confederation, a world she herself had never seen.

She told me how her parents had been taken in space by the Xoromii and brought before the thought-presence of Prrdrexus; how Prrdrexus had tried to break her father, make him bow before his dark will.

But her father was a strong and stubborn man, and even his last, dying scream was a curse of defiance.

Prrdrexus couldn't forget that last moment when death had stolen the pleasure of pain. Sesharane's father was dead. Nothing could be scavenged from that mistake. But Sesharane's mother was alive, and she carried a child in her womb. Prrdrexus decided that child would answer for its father's final words.

I listened with a growing sense of horror. I didn't know what was coming. I didn't know and didn't want to know.

But I knew …

During the pregnancy, Prrdrexus altered the genes of the developing child. He worked like an artist among atoms, a sculptor of cells. He painted a pattern of chromosomes that would produce a woman that was all a woman could be. He gave her the hair of a black-angel, the laugh of Shinja bells, a body of silk-whispers.

He gave her wants, needs, longings, hunger, desires.

He gave her nearly everything…

And when the child was born, Prrdrexus took it away and told Sesharane's mother exactly what he had done.

And once again Prrdrexus was thwarted. Sesharane's mother cheated him of the exotic tortures he had planned by escaping into madness.

"You see," Sesharane said dully, "I—tried to be a woman, Jarcal. I thought—though I knew it wasn't true, that some magic of your love could make it all go away and I'd wake up and know it was all an ugly dream."

She turned to me, and I choked back a cry at the sight of her emptiness.

"Do you see? Do you really see why I have given you all the love that I can—that I can give no more?"

Back of emptiness, I saw the faint desire-flame she wanted to hide.

"I want you, Jarcal," she said distantly, "I want you more than you can know. But I cannot have you. I'm Prrdrexus's living revenge.

"I am not a woman.

"I am nothing…"

I didn't want to listen.

I didn't want to believe and Sesharane knew this. And knew, as I told her, that nothing could make me stop loving her. So she did what was both cruel and kind. She went to Lhis-Quan, and Lhis-Quan came to me.

"Mentally," said Lhis, "she is a woman, Jarcal. And she's a woman physically, too, in every sense of the word—except for that one aspect of her alteration. Organically, she is nothing. A neuter. She has all a woman's desires, but those desires can never be fulfilled."

"Stop it," I told her. "I don't care to hear any more of this."

"I know you don't. But Sesharane is right in this respect. It is best that you know, that you—"

"I know all I need to know!" I shouted. "Why do you want me to know more!"

"Because in your mind you hold some hope, some idea that something might be done. Sesharane knows there is none. Now I know too."

I looked at her curiously.

Lhis sighed. "We live in an age of medical miracles, Jarcal. There's little that can't be done for the creatures of this galaxy. You should know that yourself. You're a living example. If there is a shred of mind-matter left, a pinch of nerve or skin—"

"What she's saying," interrupted Quan, "is that nothing can be done for Sesharane. Nothing to make her any more of a female than she is now."

Quan shook his head grimly. "It's difficult to know all there is to know without the proper equipment, but I can tell you this for certain: Prrdrexus did his work well. He has set a thousand biological traps within Sesharane's body. If any attempt were to be made to change what she is—and isn't—through surgical, chemical or any other medical means I know of—Sesharane is programmed to die."

The next day Quan found the Portal.

It should have been an occasion for great excitement. It meant there was a possibility we wouldn't be marooned forever on this world.

Now, it didn't matter to me one way or the other.




XIV



QUAN MADE his discovery quite by accident.

The Portal was completely buried under a low, grassy hill nearly a mile from our "Rest and Recreation" domes.

We'd passed it a hundred times and never gone near it. The runoff from rains had sloughed great chunks of earth and sent them tumbling down the gentle sides. It seemed a treacherous place to walk, and we went around it by another path.

"It was here," Quan said. "Just like this. After yesterday's shower pushed that facing aside."

The narrow opening was hardly wide enough for two people to pass. The Portal was framed in a faint tinge of red. Beyond it was a vague, disturbing sense of emptiness. It didn't remind me at all of the great Portal on Llhai.

"How can it still be working," I asked absently, "after half a million years?"

"That's not as unlikely as you might think," Quan answered. "The gods know I haven't the secret of the Portals, but I know it's not what you'd call a delicate device. It's one of those so-called 'simple, basic discoveries': something that's been there all along, if only someone'd had the sense to see it."

Quan laughed. "What you might wonder is that the First Empire had the things so long ago." He shrugged. "Ah, well, we didn't know there was even a First Empire, so what they had shouldn't surprise us."

He gave me a quizzical glance. "The next question is, where does it go?"

"Where could it go that matters to us?" I asked. "How many worlds do you know in the galaxy with half-million-year-old civilizations?"

Quan pondered that question.

He whirred away on his carrier and hovered just out of the sun under the shaggy brow of the hill.

"History's a funny thing," he muttered. "I sometimes suspect beginnings go back further than we'd like to think; such as this one, for example. It may be that there was an empire before the 'First'—one they forgot themselves. Or maybe a thousand empires before that one.

"In answer to your question, Jarcal, there's only one way to find out where this Portal goes—if it goes anywhere at all."

I looked at him.

For the first time since Sesharane and I had sat together-apart beside our dark pond, I let a small grin cross my face.

It had nothing to do with excitement and anticipation. Certainly, it had nothing to do with happiness.

It may be it was a grin of resignation. Maybe I hoped the Portal had no exit world at all.

For I knew we intended to walk through it and find out.

We discussed the wisdom of sending one of us through first, before risking the others.

We discussed it, but not for long.

Lhis's cold logic read the folly in that plan. "If our brave pioneer dies, who's to know it back here? And if he or she lives and can't return to tell the rest—again, how are we to know?"

Quan agreed. He said that if the Portal could take us anywhere, it was likely the code back to this station had long since erased itself from any record.

So we agreed we'd all go through at once. We might all perish; but then we asked ourselves: how could we live out our lives here now, knowing the Portal existed? One day we'd have to try.

And what better day than today?

At the last moment before we stepped through redness, I reached out for Sesharane's hand. She didn't pull away. Perhaps she felt as I did. That there was a slim chance this door went anywhere at all. That it was more likely we'd all be pale atom-shadows in the next few seconds.

Whatever had happened between us, whatever we'd had and lost, at least we silently agreed: we could face this moment together…

I braced myself for anything—

And nothing happened at all.

Passing through the Portal had all the sensation of walking from one room to another. One second we were under a low hill beneath a blood-sun, the next…

Quan gasped. "By the gods, it's Center itself!"

Too quick.

Too sudden.

Shrink to nothing.

Break-shatter.

I couldn't fight it on its own ground. My mind pulled back into a snug comfort-burrow and sent out whiskers of things it knew.

I was an ant in a bell jar twenty miles high and a hundred miles around. The jar sprouted ten thousand test tubes in neon palettes. They stretched from the jar's base to its top. Dark rings dotted with Portal auras worm-spiraled each tube.

Ants of every shape, fur, and slickness rose and fell in sick-speed blurs within the tubes—each in its own sac of atmospheric poison. Each blinked in-out between some far point of madness in the Confederation…

I sank into softness. A chair love-petalled around me and Quan handed me a drink. Hands wavered and amber spilled over the glass's sides.

"Drink it," said Quan. He passed one to Sesharane. "You too."

I emptied it. It had a tart, smoke-bark flavor. Warmth flooded through me. Tension drained, and the shock of Portal Complex and the unbelievable ride through Galactic Center fell away.

"Better?" asked Lhis.

"Better." I sank back. Grinned weakly. The room was small, quiet, dim-lit. It was done in nerve-soothing greens and blues. I had no intention of ever leaving it.

"Don't feel bad," said Quan. "I think you have to be born on Center to stand it."

"Quan and I had to put in a stint at MED-REF Central," Lhis shuddered. "It still scares the feathers off me."

Quan moved about the room, inspecting dust motes.

"It is an unnatural phenomena to begin with," he explained. "One big city covering every inch of the globe. It contains every creature, god and custom you can imagine. Nobody's here who doesn't have to be. I don't believe anyone stays longer than their business keeps 'em."

"I wouldn't think so," I said. "I'd think…"

My eyes felt heavy.

"I'd think…"

Quan swam like seaweed before me, disappeared.

Whatever the amber drink was, it gave me twelve good hours of sleep. I bathed and dressed in new clothes Quan had left me. On the way to breakfast I caught myself in a mirror. I stopped. I didn't recognize the face staring back.

It was a stranger-face. But a stranger I knew. It was the face of Jarcal who had lived once and died. Now it seemed he was alive again.

There were new deep lines, but circles were gone. The gaunt skull wrapped in parchment paper had disappeared under firm flesh.

Why?

I looked at mirror-Jarcal and asked.

What was the purpose of raising the dead? Who breathed life into corpses?

My world was gone.

All I ever knew had vanished.

Sesharane was-wasn't mine.

Why?

I looked at mirror-Jarcal again, and past him to the frost-star over his shoulder. Silent. Aware. But I sensed its life beat, knew it shared a soul-corner with me.

I stared at it intently. Is it you, I asked? Is it you, and not me at all? Do you bring me life-death?

But the star said nothing.

I joined Lhis-Quan and Sesharane for a morning meal in a sunny patio shaded by feather trees. Quan showed me how to order what I wanted from the milky globe hovering beside us.

Seconds later I had a breakfast that had some resemblance to bacon and eggs. The bacon had never seen a pig, and no hen would claim these eggs as her own; still, the taste was pleasant enough.

"Lhis and I are going to MED-REF, and then to Space/Commerce," said Quan. "Or whatever infernal bureau's called for. At any rate, someone has to he told about the T'aj, and warned of the war fleets of the D'arahd."

I muttered grimly and sliced eggs. The food globe had lightly touched my senses and gathered taste and smell factors—but evidently it had no feel for color.

"You can warn them of Prrdrexus's empire," I told Quan. "But what good will it do? Do you have any idea where the Xoromii took us? Do you know where the D'arahd Empire is, or even C'chell, for that matter?"

Quan frowned. He sat at the table with us as a courtesy, since all his nourishment was gained through the root structure buried under his carrier.

"True enough. But there's little I can do about that, is there? I will simply report what I know."

"And perhaps," Lhis added dryly, "in another century or so, that report will be discovered, forwarded, studied by half a million underlings in a hundred divisions of a thousand bureaus"—she caught her breath and picked some un-identifiable substance from her beak—"and eventually, it might, just might be read by someone who could do something about it."

I stopped my fork in midair.

"You're serious? It's as bad as that?"

Lhis made a face. "No. I imagine it's worse."

"I'm afraid she's right," said Quan. "It's not that GC doesn't try, Jarcal. But—well, for instance: I'm sure no one on this planet could tell you how many worlds there are in the Confederation. As you well know, there's an uncountable number of problems in a fair-sized country, much less a world. Multiply that world by hundreds of thousands… millions, probably…" He shrugged helplessly.

I was disappointed in Lhis-Quan's description of Galactic Center. Somehow I'd pictured an all-wise Confederation government: a round table of venerable old creatures—in white robes, of course—quietly guiding the destiny of the stars.

I gazed thoughtfully at the quiet patio.

"I should think a lot of the work of governing could be left to individual worlds," I said. "It seems to me GC could be relieved of a great many burdens if they merely served as, well, in an advisory capacity."

Lhis-Quan exchanged glances, then stared at me openly.

"By the gods, Jarcal," Quan gaped incredulously, "did you think GC bothered with trying to run the worlds? Trade, industry, politics—such nonsense as that?"

He shook his head in wonder. "This whole planet and all its uncountable bureaus, departments and creatures exist for just one reason: to keep some semblance of peace between member worlds, who'd burn each other to cinders given half the chance!"

I set down my fork and pushed my plate aside.

And then I threw back my head and laughed until Lhis-Quan and Sesharane gave me frowns of concern.

"I'm sorry," I said finally. "It just occurred to me how many creatures must have imagined the day we live in now. The unbelievable dream come true. A united galaxy of worlds!"

I shook my head. "And now, Quan, you tell me they're all banded together out of nothing more than mutual mistrust. Why, it's no different than my own world's pitiful efforts. Just bigger. An incredibly vast Confederation of Fear!"

Quan muttered irritably. "Maybe so. But I think it could be no worse than a great Confederation of dead worlds."

Sesharane left with Lhis-Quan. I sat for awhile over the food globe's conception of coffee.

Once again, I wished Sesharane would strike out at me, become openly hostile, show disdain, dislike, disgust, anything. If she would display an emotion, I could muster another to fight it.

But how do you fight a woman you love and who loves you? A hollow woman with empty eyes?

Under a glass bridge was a fern-hollow covered in turquoise grass as fine as silken hair. Gray mollusks half the size of a man spider-crabbed about on nervous pin-legs. They dragged their ridgy shells and left dark dewmarks trailing behind. Occasionally they gathered in little groups, shells clack-clack-clacking in rapid speech. When they finished, they waddled after a blue-green line down into a watery tunnel and disappeared…

The creature with a dog muzzle wore a plum-colored wig and hot-orange tights.

"Name," he said without looking up.

"Jarcal."

"Planetary ID Code?"

"Ah…"

"Creche? Nest? Nidus? Den? Warren? Snug-womb?

"I'm—not sure of that, you see I—"

He looked up with black-glass eyes. "What's that? You're not sure?" He curled his brown lips in irritation. "Of course you're sure. Everyone's sure."

"I'm not. My world was destroyed."

He frowned disdainfully. "Oh. X-code. You want reparations? Who were the destroyers and the destroyees? Has action been taken by Confederation Court? When exactly were Confirmation and Cause Notifications received by the survivor planet and/or planets in closest conjunction with your Portal Sector?"

He read the blank look on my face.

"Well?"

I shook my head. "I don't want reparations." I looked left and right. A thousand dog-clerks and a thousand lines stretched to infinity.

"What I want is information about the Voids. The sign outside said General Data Sub-IV and—"

"Next."

The dog-creature tore up the paper in front of him, pushed my card back over his counter and looked away. I felt an irritating electric shock run up my legs and I jumped aside. A big lizard with silver eyes rolled up behind me on pink-faced cry skates and took my place with a toothy grin.

I stood up. The seat deflated and sucked itself into the wall. The tube whirred off into blackness and I stepped out into the harshness of a double dawn, three thousand miles from the dog-man. The Blue Oxy-Ambient-Seven-Oh line snaked through an ocher garden of happy-stones. Garnet cones chattered in the air and rose on harsh cilia-gusts to a high silver gate. They unrolled a blue flesh-banner covered with green squiggles and begged me to listen to obscure injustices…

The creature rolled about in oily water and surfaced. It snatched my card in a tight flipper-grip.

"What is it you want?" it squealed. "Your card's not clear at all."

It studied the multitude of punch dots critically.

"I want information," I said wearily. "I—"

"This isn't a library," it snapped. "Try General Data Sub-XLIX. Your card is vague, disorganized. The pattern of inquiry is pointless and inadequately coded. It has no rhythm, no purpose. It makes me sick to look at it. What are you going to all these—places, for?"

"I want information," I said tightly. "I want to see someone who can tell me about the Voids. When did they first appear? How effective are the Johr Tubes? How—"

"Don't ask me questibns!" it screamed. "I don't have to answer questions!"

"Then let me see someone who can!" I yelled.

The creature gawked. "See someone? You can't just see someone!"

"Why not?"

It gave me a seal-sly grin and disappeared under water. In a moment it popped to the surface, splashing me with black water.

"Here." It snatched my card and covered it with more holes. "You have an appointment with Assistant Vice-Director Oss-aqk-Ka. From 011:36:07 to 011:48:12. Be on time."

I let out a deep breath. "Fine. I'm very grateful. When's the appointment?"

"GC Standard Year 171/44462, Xaltian Month, 54 day."

"What!" I jerked my card away. It was slippery and wet. "That's fourteen years from now!"

The creature cackled softly. "I like you. I worked you in ahead of the others."

Lhis lowered a blood-red morsel and tore it in quarters.

"You'd best get some rest while we're gone and forget about 'inquiries,' Jarcal. When Quan and I return—"

I shook my head and looked up from gray eggs and blue bacon. "I don't need any rest. I've had plenty of rest. I need to talk to someone about the Voids."

Quan sighed. "This isn't wise, Jarcal. Even on the T'aj I told you it was best not to ask too many questions."

I stood up, wiped my mouth. "Quan, this is nonsense. GC sent the T'aj on its mission. Somewhere, there's a bureau or a division that can answer my questions. Somewhere, someone knows when the Voids appeared; how extensive they are; when the Johr Tubes were put into operation."

"Yes. That's very true," said Quan. "And it may even be you could find such an office. I doubt it seriously. But if you did, it's unlikely they'd care to answer your questions."

I spread my hands. "But why!" I glanced at Sesharane, caught her looking at me with a small spark of longing in dark eyes. She saw me, and blinked on emptiness again.

"Because it is not a subject that is talked about," Quan insisted. "Will you believe that, Jarcal, and leave it alone?"

The towers were thick as iron trees. They blotted out the sun, smothered light, and disappeared into unthinkable heights. I pushed through chitterings, roars, mewlings, grunts, whisper-hisses. A great hairy shape as big as a small house lumbered by blindly and shoved me off onto brown stones. The stones slithered away and cursed me with dusty voices. I jumped back onto the Way, looked aside from the rust eyes of a spine-thing that turned itself inside out and snapped at my legs. The big translucent tube curled up into itself above and fluted into a shiny dome. The creature inside, breathing pink poison, pressed itself against the smooth sides and blinked at me with puzzled, wormy eyes…

I kicked myself for not thinking of it before.

The directory flashed before me and there were all the officials with names, titles, Homewords and even route codes. Hundreds of thousands of directors, ambassadors, vice-thises and associate-thats. With dimensional pictures and racial breakdowns.

I found Humanoid, narrowed it down to one that looked like me and memorized the route code and plunged myself down another whirring tunnel into the glass-guts of GC.

The little man scurried out of his office and into the men's room.

I was a step behind him. I snapped the lock on the door and leaned against it.

He turned wide, terror-stricken brown eyes upon me.

"What—what do you want?"

His hand went to a silken throat and his ruddy cheeks turned to chalk.

"Not another assassination, is it? Didn't Darekio get in touch with you people—tell you we were willing to negotiate and pull back temporarily, at least, as far as Aquad, until—"

I held up a hand. "I don't want to assassinate anyone and I don't know Darekio or anything about Aquad."

His face fell, twisted in irritation, then suspicion.

"What is it, then?" He'd regained his executive aplomb. "I'm busy. Make an appointment. No. Don't. I don't have time for anything."

"You'll have to take time. I need information."

"Go through the proper channels and get information, then. Get out of my way."

He moved toward me. I gave him a warning smile. He suddenly seemed to notice the cobalt star for the first time.

"What's that?" he asked warily.

"It's something that doesn't like to be cooped up in men's rooms. It gets irritated, nervous…"

The man sighed, glanced at his watch again and brushed thin black hair from his face.

"What is it you want to know?"

"I want to know about the Voids."

His eyes widened, then he caught himself.

"Never heard of them."

"Yes. You have."

He studied me for a long moment. "What do you know about the Voids? Where'd you hear about them?"

"That's not important. You're a minister. I looked it up. There are only about fourteen thousand ministers in the directory, so you must be fairly important. If you'd like to get back to whatever it is you do, just answer my questions."

"I don't know anything," he said tightly. "I've heard of them. That's all."

I raised a brow. "Heard of them? Something that's eating up space, stars, worlds, creatures—"

He shook his head impatiently. "It's a technical thing. How am I supposed to—" He looked at me curiously. "How did you say you heard of the Voids?"

I glanced meaningfully at the cold blue star.

"All right," he sighed. "Ah, well…"

He was stalling. His fingers twitched nervously at his sides. The door turned red behind me. I yelled and jumped away. Plastine melted and an ugly man in gray stepped over white slag.

He aimed a big jaw at me, glanced at the little man. "We got your signal. You all right, Eminence?"

I hit the gray man in the stomach. He dropped the black pistol with the red snout and folded over. The minister bolted past us into the hall.

I walked into the blue-green room, ready to drop, and headed for the soft chair.

Lhis-Quan and Sesharane were standing stiffly in the middle of the room, staring at me.

"Huh? What is it?"

"What is it!" snapped Quan. "What it is is that we have perhaps thirty seconds to get out of these quarters and disappear, Jarcal. Every screen on GC is broadcasting your picture. You have a million Tereks on your head so far, and I imagine every creature on the planet is trying to remember where he saw a tall human with a blue star on his shoulder!"




XV



WE WERE six minutes from our hotel. Nine minutes from Quan's hurried call that brought the low, aqua carrier thrumming to our door.

It was a remarkable sight, even on GC. Shark-nosed, tight with power. It hummed over broad avenues at speeds I didn't care to think about.

My face still grinned inanely over GC screens. Now, Lhis-Quan and Sesharane had pictures of their own. I reached up and clicked the set.

Quan leaned forward, tapped the creature in front of us.

"I had thought private carriers were restricted to ambassadorial personnel. Aren't we somewhat conspicuous in this thing?"

Coroq turned and blinked a pale toad-eye. He fixed Quan with a warty grin.

"Ordinarily this is true," he said smoothly. "But there are times when being conspicuous is the only means to anonymity. You comprehend this? And actually, you are of a correctness, good doctor. This vehicle was the former property of His Eminence, the Gastiak of Villeb. But His Eminence incurred financial-type debts through a weakness for continually choosing the slowest Dessh at the milla-track. This talent enabled me to do that worthy a service of sorts. Thus, goods change from one hand to another. It is the heartbeat of commerce and trade."

His jade, hairless skull bowed slightly. He took a quick, appraising taste of Sesharane before turning away to mutter instructions to a nameless driver.

I could hardly ask Quan how he happened to know a creature like Coroq.

After all, it was my indiscretion that caused us to need his quick services. A withering look from Quan every second or so reminded me of this.

"I'm sorry," I told him later. He had relaxed a little, now that we were temporarily safe in Coroq's quarters. For the moment, he'd stopped glaring at me with disdain.

"I never intended to endanger us all," I explained. "I suppose I was getting somewhat frustrated, being shoved from one infernal bureau to the next."

Quan made some adjustment to his carrier and moved closer to the table where I was sampling Coroq's wines and cheeses.

"I can understand your feelings," he sniffed, "but that hardly explains GC displaying your face to every viewer on the planet. Plus a million Terek reward for anyone enterprising enough to bring your head to the police. Attached or otherwise—I believe that was the implication of the broadcast."

He eyed me with narrow flesh-eyes flecked with green veins. "I assume this frustration of yours displayed itself in some manner you've yet to share with us."

"I suppose there was some provocation," I admitted. "Ah, yes," he sighed. "I supposed there was." Reluctantly, I told him about the incident in the men's room.

Quan said nothing. He merely stared at me with stunned bewilderment.

"Actually," I told him, "I don't believe the fact that I temporarily held the minister against his will was the thing that brought GC down upon us." Quan raised a skeptical brow.

"No, I mean it. I don't know why, but I've come to believe you're right about the Voids. There is some reason the creatures in high places turn pale at the mention of that subject."

I told him about the minister's reaction.

"I have an idea only a few beings even know they exist.

I think it's something that's being swept under the rug, because no one's quite sure what to do about it!"

I had a sudden thought.

"How did they react at Space Commerce, when you told them about T'aj?"

Quan shrugged. "Why, they didn't react at all. There was no reaction called for, Jarcal. Ships have been destroyed before. There's little anyone can do about that. And you're wrong, I'm certain, about GC's reaction to the Voids. They don't want to discuss the subject, as I've told you, because—because it's—"

His expression brought a sudden, queasy feeling to the pit of my stomach.

I leaned toward him. "Listen," I said, "how many times have you and Lhis been assigned to the T'aj? Voyages that entailed work with the Johr Tubes among the Voids?"

Quan gave me a puzzled stare. "Why, just the one time, I-"

"You think," I finished for him.

"No," he snapped, "I know! Don't you think I'm aware of what vessels I've shipped on?"

"I'm not sure whether you are or not."

Lhis and Sesharane came up behind us. Lhis looked at me questioningly.

"What's all this about?"

I waved her to silence without taking my eyes off Quan. "Tell me the last three ships you served on before the T'aj."

Quan squirmed uncomfortably.

"This is nonsense, Jarcal. What are you trying to prove?"

He moved away from the table, drifted restlessly about the room, snapping tendrils nervously about his sheath.

"Just a hunch. If I'm wrong, we'll find out soon enough."

Quan stopped, sighed. "All right. Medical ethics compels me to humor your obsession—at least until I can get to the cause of it!"

For the next hour, he told me about assignments on a long-hauler out of Laril IX, circling the big snake-belly Terissh Quadrant—and two trips on Confederation military vessels.

I exhausted his knowledge of personalities, ports of call, and every other aspect I could think of. Finally, I turned to Lhis.

"Now tell me something Quan didn't mention. Something he forgot, or something that happened to you on those trips, and not to him."

"I'm afraid I don't understand the rules of the game," she said sarcastically.

"A conversation, incident—anything. A memory you don't share with Quan."

Twenty minutes later, even Lhis and Quan began to have some idea what I was after. No matter how hard they tried, neither could come up with a single separate memory the other one didn't also recall.

"All right," she said finally, "I admit this all strikes me as somewhat strange, Jarcal. Suppose you tell us exactly what it means to you."

"Simply this, Lhis: you share the same, exact memories of three voyages. You share them because all three voyages were totally imaginary. You've been brainwiped, Lhis-Quan. Quickly and inefficiently, with one single story given to you both—and every other member of the T'aj's crew, I imagine.

"I suspect you've spent the last six and a half years you just told me about aboard the T'aj. And I have a strong hunch your pictures are being broadcast along with mine because someone at Space Commerce just woke up to the fact that you two survived the T' aj—that this is one trip you still remember!"

Sesharane didn't answer my knock.

I opened the door quietly and walked in.

"Please, Jarcal. When I didn't answer you must have known I felt there was no reason for us to talk."

She sat with her back to me on a low sofa. A smoke gown of rose laced with silver fell from her small shoulders, whispered to spiderweb thickness above bare feet.

She turned. A sad, wistful smile on coral lips. Her eyes were full of yesterdays.

"You see, Jarcal—how you look at me still? What good are such looks, now? The thought in both our minds can never be more than that—a thought, nothing more."

"The thought that I love you hasn't changed."

She held me with dark eyes.

"And you think I've stopped loving you?" she whispered. "I haven't, and I never will."

She raised bare shoulders, lowered them in a deep sigh. I watched shadows play along her arms.

"The difference is that I've faced the truth, Jarcal—and you haven't."

"Sesharane…"

I stepped toward her. Her eyes stopped me.

"Damn it," I said tightly, "I love more than your body, Sesharane!"

"I know that."

"Then why in—"

"Stop it, Jarcal!" she cried. Her face twisted and her hands wound themselves into flesh-knots among the folds of her gown.

"Let me alone—please. Let me remember what we had, and not what you are turning it into by your—your foolish concept of loyalty that's destroying us both!"

I looked at her and felt her hunger, and never wanted to hold her more; and then I turned and closed the door behind me.

Coroq spread thin, web-fan fingers.

"I am most sorry," he said, "but that is the shape of things, my friends. The Portals, of course, were immediately alerted to your bio-codes. I fear there's no disguise that can fool their little tingle-brains." He grinned wanly. "If there were, it's likely I'd hear—and I haven't. Space lanes are closed, out of the question, and there's no other way off GC. I fear you must enjoy the comforts of Center for the time being."

"What do you mean," I asked him, "for the time being? That sounds as if you have some hope we might get out of here. But not now."

Coroq shifted in his velvet chair. White lamps made green highlights on his rubbery skin.

"What I mean is simply this," he said blandly, "things do change, opportunities appear, new ones are created…"

He let words die and yawned, showing a bright pink throat. He looked at us from slit-scratch eyes.

"Of course, you're welcome here at Coroq's, good doctor, for as long as you wish." He licked no-lips with a black tongue. "There's no safer place on Center than Coroq's," he laughed. "No, none safer at all!"

He laughed again, and it was obvious he shared some secret with himself that greatly amused him, if not us.

"How far can this slime-neck be trusted?" I asked Quan, when we were safely down the hall and away from Coroq's quarters.

"It's none of my business, but I have wondered what it is you offer this creature that overshadows the crisp taste of a million Tereks."

"It's not money," Quan said, "I assure you. My fortune— what there is of it—wouldn't even tempt him to take such risks as he's taking now. Let us say that in the past Coroq made a grave error that could earn him more trouble than he'd care to imagine. It happens I have knowledge of that error. For the time being, Coroq is quite willing to let me wipe out that debt."

I groaned. "Now you're doing it! That 'for the time being' business!"

Quan rubbed his high crest and nodded solemnly.

"You caught the look he gave me, I'm sure, and you know its meaning as well as I. Opportunities may be created—pah!" Quan made a face. "He's thinking beyond that debt, Jarcal. You can bet he's letting us stew awhile before he tells us just what it is he wants to get us off GC. And don't think he can't," Quan added. "In spite of what he says. Coroq could steal the center out of a star if he could think of someone who wanted to buy it from him!"

The days lazed by, and we were no closer than ever to leaving Center.

Coroq hinted vaguely at "plans" and winked confidentially about "inquiries," but nothing came of his talk.

Quan was right. Whatever he had in mind, our slippery host was setting us up for a fat fee. And it was doubly uncomfortable to know we couldn't possibly meet that fee-whatever it was.

Waiting took a toll on our nerves.

It wasn't long before careless words were misunderstood, enlarged, regretted. I took to strolling through Coroq's hideaway, down stone twistways that dripped black water, up levels and down again, through big halls and small halls and metal mazes until I felt I knew the place as well as Coroq himself.

I walked as far as I could before running into a beady-eyed guard. There were aspects of Coroq's enterprise we weren't welcome to visit.

I'd reached the end of a short corridor that led, I knew, to a narrow flight just this side of one of the "forbidden areas." I started back. Stopped.

Usually, I could hear the guard, or he'd hear me and step out and eye me warily and motion me back with a touch to the butt of the ugly pistol at his belt.

But not today.

The hall was empty.

Without even thinking, I walked by an empty chair and up the stairs.

Stairs ended one flight up. At a blue steel door. I opened it and looked in. I let out a breath I'd been holding and shrugged.

Big risk for nothing. A small room lit by a fire-wicker—and one section of a big ventilator shaft that curved like an oversize artery out of one wall and reentered another.

Except…

I stood still. The floor throbbed under my feet. Deep. A pulse-vibration too low to be audible. This was sound you felt.

I put my ear to the shaft. It was stronger there. I moved to the other side, where the shaft formed a half-curve that fenced in an arc of the room.

I touched metal coolness. Felt the button no bigger than a wart on a steel arm, and heard it click, saw a section of the shaft slide open with a whisper.

A maintenance hole, certainly, big enough to let a creature into whatever gut-sac this convolution served.

Cool air met my face. I pulled myself up inside the thing and inched forward in the direction of flow—

—and asked myself where in the name of all Quan's false gods I thought I was going?

Pale light-stripes appeared beyond the second bend of the shaft. I moved up, pressed against the narrow grid and looked.

And looked again.

And closed my eyes and squeezed them hard.

The thing was still there.

I was that ant again. Only this time I was an ant hanging from the ceiling over a butcher shop. They were selling brains today and they had an extra large one resting in a pink vat under soft lights and a clear plastine dome.

Only this brain was not quite ready to go. It was still very much alive. It pulsed and glistened and I could see the faint movement of nutrients through its grayness.

I decided it was nearly two thousand feet from one end of the brain to the other. Ants in white coats sat around its rim before bright consoles that flick-flicked in a thousand colors.

I held back a laugh.

No wonder Coroq felt he was as safe as safe could be: his hidey-hole was nestled snug against the galaxy's nerve center. I was looking at a living computer as big as some of the small moonlets that circled the planet—a giant culture-brain whose convolutions held data on endless—

I stopped. Cold spider-legs of realization walked up my spine.

Data on endless subjects;

Including the Voids…




XVI



THE ACCESS hole, opened onto a room that was the twin of the one where I had entered the shaft.

Only this one—if my sense of direction was working—came out on a level with the monitoring stations of the brain.

The routine seemed fairly obvious. Operators worked in individual shifts at their consoles, took short rest breaks, and—I breathed a sigh of relief—were not replaced during their absence. The endless stations ringing the brain were occupied or unoccupied in a seemingly random pattern.

I thought of a multitude of reasons for waiting, studying the system further. None of the reasons were really valid. When the nearest operator left his station, I walked into the room, pulled a white smock around me from a hook-rack, and strolled to the empty console as if I had some idea what I was doing.

The console was black. It lit up when I sat down before it.

"Who are you?" asked the brain.

I sat up straight. The brain knew its operators. Well, that was something I should have considered earlier. Too late now.

I risked a look over my shoulder. No one seemed to notice anything. I decided the brain's individual voices were confined to a narrow sound-cone that included only the operator. That made sense. Otherwise, the room would be a babble of noise.

"I—want to ask a question."

Lights flashed in blue impatience across the board.

"Naturally," said the brain. "Why else would you be here? That doesn't answer my question, though. Who are you? You don't belong."

I decided it was useless to try to fool a brain somewhat larger than a square mile.

"You're right. I don't belong here. What will you do, report me to the others?"

Lights flashed ocher to green to livid orange.

"What for?"

The brain laughed easily. "It makes no difference to me. It is merely of statistical interest that no one ever got in before that didn't belong. Not in twelve thousand four hundred and seventy-eight years, anyway."

I stared at the console. "You've been here that long?"

"Longer," said the brain. "But every ten thousand years or so I find it necessary to flush out useless garbage."

I thought I could sense the brain smiling.

"They don't know that, of course. Lots of things they don't know…"

"And you've been—answering questions, all that time?" I asked.

The brain made a disdainful noise. "I'm not a machine… It takes about two percent of my capacity to answer inane questions and solve nit problems. No. I write cantatas. I've written three million and seven cantatas and assorted nocturnes, sonatas, canticles, fugues and ballads. Want to hear one?"

"I'd like to, but-"

"Sure. No one ever does. So ask."

"What?"

"You came to ask a question."

"Yes. Can you—do you have visual senses? Can you see me?"

A green glow snapped on over my head. "I can see you."

"The cobalt star over my shoulder calls itself N'cil. It was forced upon me by the shadow people of Llhai. Can you tell me what it is? What it wants of me?"

The brain paused two full seconds.

"The N'cil gives life, and takes life away…"

Something cold turned over in the pit of my stomach.

"That's-all?"

"I have no further information." The brain's voice seemed suddenly cold, distant.

"Whose words were those?" I insisted. "Who said that about the N'cil?"

The brain paused, and for a moment I was afraid it had gone away.

"I have a memory of those words," it said finally. "The memory is so old there is nothing left. Just the memory itself. Now, go!" it said stiffly.

Lights brightened, turned hot-yellow.

"I have another question—"

"GO!"

Lights turned searing orange. I glanced over my shoulder, leaned forward.

"What are the Voids? What destroyed my world?"

The brain cried out I could sense it running back along its gray-pink tunnels.

"Answer!"

"Go… GO!"

"You must answer me!"

"Please!"

Blood-red console stars exploded.

"Answer!"


"No!"


"Answer!"

Voices rose behind me. I turned. Wide-eyed creatures in white smocks frozen in tiny knots. They pointed excited fingers. Stared at the blue star.

I jerked back to the console. Black-empty sockets. The smell of hot metal-smoke.

"Answer," I said. "What destroyed my world?"

Alarms shrilled.

Arms clutched, pulled, tore. I shook them away.

"ANSWER!"

The brain screamed.

Its wail rose out of wetness like startled water birds. I looked up. The dome above the brain cracked like thunder. A thin line ruptured through plastine in spiderweb fingers.

"ANSWER ME!" I shouted. I pounded the dead console, then jerked around to crush bone and flesh away from me.

"KEDRICK…"

A death cry echoing over pink pain.

"FIND

MALOIS

KEDRICK… !"

Malois-Kedrick!

Hope raised up on hind legs and laughed and I remembered. I spat in the brain's empty eyes and tore through a white-smocked babble.

Hands clawed.

Mandibles clicked.

Blunt fingers stabbed-gouged-tore.

And before I slammed the door to the small room and bolted it behind me, I turned.

Coils of gray-pink thickness writhed out of a blood-sea, ripped wet-matter on jagged dome shards, boiled over black consoles. White-smock ants scurried out of a thinky ocean…

"You are an ignorant, uncaring thing!" rasped Coroq. "You have brought me uncountable troubles!"

The aqua carrier whined over black streets. Coroq turned on Quan.

"I hope you find my debt to you adequately repaid, doctor!" His hate twisted in green folds.

"I regret what has happened," Quan muttered tightly. He gripped the foam bar as the carrier took a sharp turn.

"You regret!" spat Coroq. He murdered me with black-bearing eyes. Above, green balls of fire suddenly lit the sky.

"You see," he wailed miserably, "they're everywhere! You have brought the police down on Coroq—and Coroq has ever kept police troubles from his door. Even the Hyka-hyka business—a very gross error on my part, admittedly—was settled and resolved in unofficial swiftness. But now… !"

I glanced at Lhis-Quan and Sesharane, huddled close under cushion straps.

"I'm sorry," I began, "it seems I—"

Lhis held me with black-snap eyes. "It seems you have a limited vocabulary, is what it seems! I find myself waking in the night to wonder what it is Jarcal will be 'sorry' for in the morning—and whether or not I'll survive the experience!"

I turned away and contemplated the darkness. Sesharane gave me a weary smile.

The car jerked to a stop. Coroq slithered out, eyes darting warily to the skies.

"Get out," he told us harshly. "Go to the end of the alley and wait." He glanced nervously at me. "It may be the life sniffers haven't gaffed us as yet. Though I doubt such luck as that could follow Coroq after a night like this one!"

"Where are we, Coroq?" asked Quan. He looked about at nothing but darkness. I hadn't imagined there was any section of GC as deserted as this.

Coroq bit no-lips impatiently. "There's little time to discuss where we are," he spat sarcastically. "And I might suggest you're in a poor position to ask."

Quan didn't move.

All right," Coroq sighed, glancing to the sky, "it's a Portal station that's seldom used. It can, with luck, be—ah, manipulated, to allow access."

His eyes glowed in darkness. "Hopefully, it can be cleared of the restrictions that prevent you and your—friends from using it. It is my earnest desire that it will transport you to some far world where I will never have to look upon your faces again."

Quan stiffened angrily. "You had this, and kept it from us!"

Coroq grinned tiredly. "I am a businessman, doctor."

"We have nothing more to offer," said Quan. "You must be aware of that by now."

Coroq laughed. It was a laugh like a great toad coughing across a night pond.

"I am only aware that Coroq can provide a service for his friends," he said acidly. "And Coroq is ever willing to serve."

And then he was gone around the side of the dark building behind him.

"What do you think he's up to?" I asked Quan. We huddled in shadow near the dim aura of the Portal.

"I wouldn't attempt to outguess Coroq," Quan said morosely. He studied me with tired flesh-eyes: took in the various cuts, bruises, and the torn clothing I'd gained in my exit from the brain's quarters.

"By the gods," he shook his head, "less than a week on Galactic Center, Jarcal, and you have managed to kidnap a minister, put a price on your head, and—when you were not overly busy—destroy the entire archives of the Confederation! Do you have any idea how much history and knowledge you have erased? In seconds, we've lost a—a quarter million years, perhaps, of—"

"Longer than that," I told him. "But," I added lamely, "the brain said a great deal of its memories were irrelevant."

Quan grumbled under his breath. "I hope you took advantage of its 'irrelevant' knowledge, since no one else is likely to have the opportunity again."

I whirled on him. "Look, Quan," I said bitterly, "you don't need to remind me of what's happened: I'm well aware of it myself. I regret that the brain has died; but not, I'm afraid, for the same reasons. I don't give a damn for its quarter million years of woolgathering. I'm sorry it's gone because it was a living being with thoughts and desires that weren't stuffed into its cells by some white-smock nit-mind!

"And before you admonish me for what I've supposedly done, you might remember the brain destroyed itself. True, I brought its death about; but it killed itself because it couldn't face the knowledge of the Voids I forced it to dig from its memories. It had the answers, but they were answers it didn't want to know!"

"And nothing more than that, then?" Quan asked quietly.

I laughed harshly. "Oh, yes, there was more: a meaningless riddle about my blue star, and the name of a creature who can give me answers about the Voids…"

Quan started to speak and I stopped him.

"It's a name I've heard before, Quan. It first came out of that senile machine on our graveyard world. Now Center's brain plays it back to me.

"Tell me," I said bitterly, "what do I do with a name that's more than half a million years in the grave?"

Before Quan could answer, Coroq appeared out of shadows.

"It's done," he growled. "Punch yourself a destination, doctor. And let it be a distant one."

He peered anxiously over his shoulder. "I'd like the chance to quit this place and save my skin—which is precious to me, if to none other."

"We're grateful—" Quan began.

"Damn your gratitude!" hissed Coroq. "You need a service and Coroq's in the service business!"

He moved swiftly.

Before I could act, his slim greenness was behind Sesharane, one rubbery arm around her throat, a short, ugly pistol pressed against her head.

Coroq laughed. "I repeat: I'm a businessman. This merchandise won't begin to pay for what you've cost me, but a poor profit's better than none at all!"

His eyes turned to slit-marks.

"I'd suggest you take the trade, friends, and get yourselves gone while there's time."

"Let her go," I said.

Coroq grinned.

I turned to the blue star over my shoulder. "Zarachamius, I claim a service for the life I've given you. Turn this thing to a column of slime the color of his ugliness."

Coroq paled, caught himself, smiled slyly. "You're bluffing," he said. "That thing has no powers or you'd have used 'em before now!"

"Before now," I said evenly, "you didn't have Sesharane."

Sweat beads of indecision formed on Coroq's brow. Sesharane stared at me with quick fear in her eyes.

"Get going!" rasped Coroq, "you—you've no time!"

"And you've less than we," I told him. "Three seconds, Coroq."

"I don't believe you," he said stiffly.

"One.

"Two."

Coroq flung Sesharane from him.

"Take her, then, and damn you all!" he shouted.

Sesharane threw herself against me and buried a sob in my shoulder. Coroq melted into darkness as the green glow of GC life sniffers suddenly whined overhead.

Red heat-lines searched for us from the skies.

"Quickly!" yelled Quan. He punched a hasty code on the Portal's entry. We backed to the dim aura, one eye on descending globes.

Sesharane screamed…

I whirled, followed the shadow line where Coroq had disappeared.

Something moved.

Darkness slid out of darkness and whispered toward us.

It was murder-swift, fog-silent—night coming in under the door with red-star eyes…

Sesharane gasped, sank into my arms. Her mouth tried words. I picked them off her lips and read them.

Prrdrexus!

The blue star on my shoulder exploded in shards of pain.




XVII



REMEMBER…


NO!

Sink into softness and forget… "Come out of it, Jarcal. We haven't time!"


"Quan?"

Back under the warmth once more…

"Jarcal, please!"

Sesharane. Dark wings of hair frame black-black eyes.

Lhis-Quan. And beyond, gray-violet dunes, a flat, wine-red sea under an ocher sky.

"Where are we?"

Quan sighed. "Thank the gods! If you can, Jarcal, get up and walk around a bit and let the strength come back to you. We'll move again—and soon."

I sat up. "Again?"

He smiled wearily. "You've missed half a dozen worlds or more, and we're not through yet, I fear. If we're lucky, Coroq's manipulations back there will have 'em guessing for awhile. But they'll have a tracer working soon enough, if it's not on us already."

I looked at him without understanding.

"Tracer, Jarcal," Lhis said impatiently. "GC can unscramble a destination code and follow it through. That's why we've been hopping like fleas from one world to another."

I stood up shakily. Wineseas lapped a beach that stretched into emptiness. Red faces chittered at us, waved spider legs from crescent dunes. Far away, under blue-smoke clouds, towered a city of sand. Listless banners drooped from slim spires.

"And that's all there is?" I turned to Quan. "Running forever from one world to another—a step ahead of Center?"

Quan glanced warily at the silent Portal. "GC for certain. But I fear there's more than that after us now…" .

With a sudden chill I remembered.

Prrdrexus… darkness blacker than black.

Three times now the cobalt star had crushed me in a blossom of pain: once, on the T'aj, under the no-space of the Voids; and again on C'chell; and finally at Center itself.

The blue star was so incredibly old that all but its memory was forgotten.

And Prrdrexus… a myth that was not a myth at all.

These two great and terrible forces seemed drawn to each other again and again. But why? And from where? N'cil.

Prrdrexus.

And always in the shadows, the emptiness of the Voids. Finally, a name: Malois-Kedrick.

A name remembered by a senile computer and a giant brain. A name that meant nothing to me.

We lost count of worlds.

Ocher skies turned flame green, dawn blue, storm yellow. And sometimes the Portals brought us out under no skies at all. There was a domed city on Gallafa beneath a golden sea, a world high in the green branches of trees that swept the clouds, and another in icy caverns far below S'yetci…

We rested on a high cliff under feather leaves. Below was a deep valley, summer-green and yellow under an afternoon sun. Thick-furred animals with silvery horns grazed by a blue lake.

I stood for a moment and looked down and thought how much it looked like another world I remembered. And then I walked past Sesharane and faced Lhis-Quan.

"You ready to go again?" asked Lhis.

"I'm not going this time," I told her.

Quan looked up. "What are you talking about?"

Sesharane heard. Her face went suddenly pale.

"I mean there's no future running from one planet to another. We can't keep it up forever. You know that as well as I, Quan. We can't even stop long enough to sleep!"

I shook my head. "Eventually one or the other of our followers will find us. It's no use prolonging the inevitable."

Quan frowned questioningly. "You'd have us give up. Stop here. Wait for whatever comes through that Portal?"

I smiled at him. "No, I wouldn't do that at all. I'd stay myself and send the rest of you. They're sure to read our presence here with the life sniffers. But they may not know we're not all here together. It'll take them some time to find me. By then—"

"No, Jarcal!" cried Sesharane.

"No, indeed!" scoffed Lhis. She ruffled her feathers and held me in a withering stare. "It's all well and good to make noble gestures, Jarcal, but this one's as empty as space."

She laughed. "Do you think GC or that black horror hasn't guessed this is a thing we'd try sooner or later?

Leave one or two behind? Split and scatter in four different directions?"

She shook her head. "They want us badly. That's clear enough. Only for a reason I can't fathom, and wouldn't care to. But they'll not be fooled so easily. There's no need to spend your life for nothing when something's bound to claim it soon enough."

"She's right," said Quan. He shrugged broad shoulders with a dry rustle. "If you'd stay here, why they'd simply leave part of their forces to hunt you down and send the others on after us. We'd not gain a minute's time. I'm afraid our only answer is to keep going."

"Keep going to what!" I demanded.

"There's a chance we can find a world with a starship that'll take us to some world that—"

I laughed. "And we'll pay for our passage with what?"

I leaned down and scooped up a handful of stones. "This, Quan? Shall we find some poor dolt of a captain and trade him these precious gems for passage?"

I tossed the stones far down the valley, listened to their hollow clatter.

"It's a chance," he said simply.

But I knew he didn't believe that any more than I did.

Sesharane picked a leaf apart in her lap. "There's nothing else to do, Jarcal," she signed. "It's as Quan says."

"No," I said suddenly, "there is another way…"

The thought came into my mind as if it had been there all along, waiting. But I knew that wasn't true. It wasn't my thought at all.

"The Portal accepts verbal commands, doesn't it, Quan?"

He frowned thoughtfully, then shook his head. "Verbal commands, yes—but that's hardly the same as a directional code. It takes a complex set of pulsations to activate the Portals. You can't send those pulses by voice."

"Then what's the use of a verbal attachment in the first place?"

"For that one chance in a billion when a Portal's coding mechanism might not function. The verbal override will activate the Portal; but only if the coder's out of order.

"And it'll send you where you want to go?"

Quan smiled grimly. "Not where you want to go, Jarcal.

Under those conditions, the Portal responds to only one destination. Galactic Center."

I bit my lips thoughtfully and looked out over the valley. The sun was covering the yellow-green meadows in blue shadows.

"I don't care for that look of yours," Lhis said warily. "I begin to wonder what it is you'll be apologizing for tomorrow."

I laughed. "You may well be right, Lhis." I turned to Quan.

"Have you forgotten," I said quietly, "there's something far older than Center tied into these Portals?"

Quan looked blank for a moment, then paled. "No, Jarcal. Get that thought out of your mind!"

I spread my hands. "Why, Quan? We found one forgotten remnant of the First Empire? Why not another? If I recall, we were better off there than we've been since!"

"To answer your question, the chances that another such place even exists is infinitesimal," he snapped.

"As infinitesimal, maybe, as our chances of running far enough and fast enough to avoid GC and Prrdrexus?"

And then I turned and walked away from them and up the hill and picked up a stone that was hard and heavy in my fist and dashed it as hard as I could against the Portal's coding panel.

Lhis-Quan and Sesharane stared.

Quan bristled. His knot fists hardened in anger. "You—had —no—right!" he said tightly.

I wondered what was the matter…

I looked down at my hand. It was clutched tightly around a rock and I stared at it a moment and then let it fall to the ground.

I felt strangely alone. Lhis-Quan and Sesharane were paper things, but I was real. And Quan was wrong. I did have the right. I didn't know why, but I was chillingly certain everything I had ever done had led me to that Tightness.

And the Portal, it was my throat that moved, my mouth that spoke.

But the words were not mine at all.

"Emergency," the I/not-I said. "Helzian League Combot Station, Advance Sector … !"




XVIII



DARKNESS.

Air bone-chill and dry, like wind swept over ragged peaks.

Metal, bitter cold to the touch.

"You notice?" whispered Quan. "Gravity's some lighter than standard."

"Yes," I said absently, "it's kept about three-quarters. Enough to—"

I stopped.

Sweat made sting-droplets on my face.

I didn't say that! I don't know anything about the gravity here or anything else! Who are you!

Quan said nothing more. Sesharane's hand trembled in mine and her face was drawn, chalk blue in the light of my star.

The corridor stopped. Turned left. At the far end, a red battle lamp glowed weakly. The distant whir of machinery. Soft, hiss-whisper, of air.

We passed the lamp, turned again.

Sesharane cried out, shrank back against me.

The man sat against the wall in heavy blue battle armor. Feet spread comfortably, shoulders slumped, arms loose against the floor, palms up.

Resting, I thought. Hell rest another million years or so, then he'll get up and—

I leaned down, wiped dust from his faceplate. Mummy features dissolved under glass at my touch, sank into dust. I caught a glimpse of a young face, light, close-cropped hair, sightless eyes.

There was a small, neat hole in the faceplate, slightly scorched at the edges. Slag scars pitted the walls behind the armored body. A heavy weapon lay just beyond the open hands.

Mark XIX, I thought, seven-point-two pounds. Capacity: Four S-laser, with optional—

The picture moth-fluttered away.

Quan motioned me to him and I joined him steps up the corridor, looked down. My stomach tightened.

"God, what is it!"

But I didn't have to ask. It was like the weapon I knew…

Fear set a fine edge to Quan's voice. "I don't know," he said distantly. "I shudder to even think."

Two figures-things-forms lay in the corridor. Silver tubes that might have been weapons lay nearby. Neither wore armor. One was cut in half: at least some segment of its self was separated from the other.

There was no way to tell more. There was no coherent shape. There was a vague, uncomfortable suggestion of pseudolimbs. There was a roundness. A glitter like wetness.

But those things were not really there. What was there was the sight of winter mustiness, the taste of brittle-bitter blackness, the muffled sound of mold.

And I felt if I could peel away one more layer of gray-ness.

"Jarcal, please!"

Sesharane's eyes pleaded. I swept her quietly up the corridor toward Lhis-Quan, shielding her from the things behind me.

We left them but they weren't gone. Frost-tendrils of their being stayed with me. Because I'd seen/not-seen them before.

The corridor went forward, branched left and right. Three choices, but I turned right without pausing and ignored quick glances between Lhis and Quan.

There were more signs of battle. Gaping metal scars, twisted shapes I didn't look at. And there was the door.

I stopped, reached for the seal-bar, looked down at my hands.

"What is it?" asked Sesharane.

I turned away from her. "I don't know."

"It wasn't you. Back in the PortaL"

"No. It wasn't me."

"Who, then?"

"I don't know…"

She drew away from me, left my hand empty.

"What is it, Jarcal?"

I said nothing. I bit my lip and tasted blood-salt. And opened the door.

The consoles winked—welcomed me with dull eyes. I swept the boards automatically.

Standby Yellow on all stations-Seven, Twelve, Eighteen, Thirty-nine out of action.

Battle chairs empty! Someone ought to—where are all the commanders? I wondered dully. They've got to—

"All the gods!" gasped Quan, and I blinked, turned and looked at him.

"We're outside," said Lhis dully. She shuddered against Quan, peered up beyond winking consoles, past the glasteel dome. I followed her gaze. A billion stars blazed in white anger. The spiral spread hot arms and blotted out darkness.

"Outside," Lhis repeated. "We've left the whole galaxy behind!"

"No," I told her, "that's not your galaxy, Lhis. We're further than that, now."

She turned dark bead eyes upon me.

"Andromeda," I told her, because I knew. "We're on the steps of Andromeda…"

The dead and debris of a half-million-year-old war circled the station in lazy, tumbling arcs. Moon faces without eyes stared at me, drifted away. Blue metal showed me bright red letters still as new as yesterday. There was an elongated "o" and something like a "j"…

Why doesn't Batsik bring up the damn reserves? Where's LeSer's bloody ships, Winn? Hell, does he think we— R-tuhes ready, what's left of 'em! The Treckies lined up his stuff to suck 'em right down the slot, then Batsik's Group will slice those— If Batsik gets here at all. If the Clooties haven't—

"Jarcal?"

"Huh?" Blink. Come back.

"Yes, Quan."

Quan studied me carefully. "Where were you?"

I shrugged. "Thinking, I guess."

"Thinking what?"

"Just—" I turned to him blankly. "I don't know."

He frowned, closed his eyes. Moved green juices in his mouth.

"I get the feeling…" He took a deep breath.

"You recognized those creatures in the corridor, Jarcal. This place, this room— I don't know how that can be, but it's true, isn't it?"

I nodded, stared past him. "The things in the hall are Chkttclu. We called 'em Clooties. We fought them for a thousand years, drove them from the League Worlds back across the Gap, back to Andromeda. We—"

"We? We, Jarcal?"

I stared at empty battle chairs. Cleavik—and on Seven, who? Grayling, Morostov, Coup-Brent…

"I don't know, Quan," I said numbly. "I don't know."

Quan let out a breath. "Well, let me tell you something I know, my friend! The Portal's one-way, here. I checked. Evidently, the defenders decided it was dangerous to leave open, so they destroyed its return capacity. Do you understand? Do you know what that means? We're a nice two million light-years away from GC Police and Prrdrexus. But we're that same two million from anything else, either. We're in a tomb, Jarcal—nothing more. A one-way tomb. A place to die!"

"A lot of men died here," I said. My own voice came from some distant ghost-hollow. "It's not a bad place to die, Quan…"

He muttered something and stalked away. I looked up at Andromeda, remembered how Corglio had blazed out of the Rechian Arm, torn through the Clootie fleet to reach Station…

"Quan's right, you know. I've brought us all to another place to die, Sesharane."

She looked small and fragile, lost in the black cushions of the battle chair. She motioned me down with a wistful smile and I eased into the chair beside her—stopped myself from reaching out to cover knobs, lock myself in Ready.

She made small circles on the broad arm. "It doesn't matter," she said softly. She looked up at me. "I don't fear death, Jarcal. I don't know why. I don't, that's all."

I shook my head. "It's not death though, you see? It's living. Living until you die of old age or decide to open a lock and walk outside. The Station will make food and air and water until the universe ends because it was made to do that. But people just—live."

I laughed harshly, glanced up at the great nebula. "There's not even a Clootie left for company anymore!"

Sesharane winced at my words. She brushed dark hair over her shoulders, kept her eyes on the wink-lights.

"I guess we should say some things," I told her. "And I suppose now is as good a time as any."

She drew one leg quickly over the other. Silk brushed flesh in the silence.

"We've—said all there is, haven't we?"

"No. I don't think so. I—"

"Jarcal," she said sharply. Her eyes blazed black-silver. "Don't!"

"I love you as I always have."

"I don't want to hear that."

"Hear it anywayl" I snapped. "Hear it, Sesharane, and know…"

For the first time in half a million years, long-silent alarms wailed through the emptiness of Station, cut silence like a knife. A thousand ships winked to life above, and all consoles flared from Standby Yellow to blood-red…




XIX



I SLAPPED dark knobs.

Metal softened to clutch hands. Nodes grew, pricked lightly to tell fingers they were there and ready.

Seconds before console armor petaled around me, before the life-hood dropped into place, I shouted Sesharane and Lhis-Quan to battle chairs, saw their safe-lights wink, and turned to the angry board.

With one motion I brushed aside Area Controls; brought all boards to me with automatics on backup override. If I was hit, at least the relays would switch me out of circuit and take over.

I didn't need to tell Station we were on Red. Station knew. It was fully awake and fighting. The dome was down and the blue fields up and crackling. Already, overload blisters of angry purple spotted every screen, showed me where ships and missiles tested the web's strength.

Aye-Dee hit apology codes.

Aye-Dee didn't recognize the enemy. The enemy hadn't existed the last time it had scanned blackness. But I didn't need Aye-Dee this time. I knew the ships, recognized the gray-snout silhouettes of Xoromii.

If Gorsto or Sabine were on the Tubes now… machine's faster, sure, but no substitute for seat-of-pants intuition of a good Weapons man. No way to— Snap out of it! It's your baby, commander. Gorsto and Sabine and everyone else are five hundred thousand years in the grave…

Only—none of them ever made it to graves, did they?

After six minutes I knew we could stay in control another three.

Station said five. But I knew what Station couldn't admit. That Station was dying faster than it realized.

I pushed automatic, disengaged. Station was in control of its own fate, now, could die without any help.

Outside the hood air smelled harsh, hot, electric. The fields were falling in upon themselves faster than I could count them. Telltale yellow strands of nuclear collapse snaked into blue. Gaping holes. Penetration, then. Somewhere, they'd broken into Station itself, were sniffing the corridors for life pulses.

I hurried Sesharane and Lhis-Quan past Battle II and through safe-doors. I breathed a quick sigh when panels clanged behind. When Perimeter died, Control would be the first Interior Command to go.

Station shuddered under my feet. One hit. Two. I pushed Sesharane and Lhis-Quan ahead, slapped the weapons cache buried behind Monitor.

Nothing.

Jammed.

Atoms locked by time. I tore the panel with a fireax, ripped metal, bundled Mark XIXs and XXs under one arm, tossed grenade clusters to Quan.

The doors from Control were locking fast as hit vacuums formed behind them. Nine, Fourteen, Fifteen seared themselves shut forever. I glanced at their screens. Battle-armored Xoromii raked the halls ahead of them with red-violet death.

I grinned, felt the skin tighten around my mouth, laughed to myself, remembered what I couldn't possibly remember, but did. And waited.

"Jarcal." Sesharane pulled at me, pleaded. Lhis-Quan shouted and their words faded under a wail of seal-sirens as more doors died behind us.

Still I waited, eyes on the screen.

Now.

Now…

NOW!

Secondaries flared. Screens darkened to compensate for that awful brilliance and Xoromii turned to shiny ion layers and disappeared.

I laughed again, and above the thunder of missiles gnawing at Station's steel hide, I heard the silent sound. Station was dying.

But, by God, it wasn't dead yet!

And then I pulled Lhis-Quan and Sesharane through the last battle door before it seared behind us.

We slid down auxiliaries, wormed around cold stanchions, stopped—heard Xoromii plod overhead in iron boots. Station was guiding us on a twist-path through its safeholes, turning us one way then another seconds ahead of heat scars.

And then we met them…

We turned a narrow corridor and saw them yards away. A blind spot Station couldn't see, probably. An eye-node that died before it signaled danger.

I swept Sesharane aside, dropped to my stomach under red lances, let the weapon chatter against my shoulder. Slag showered, dug craters across my back. I swept the hall at knee level, heard Xoromii howls and inched back around the corner. Quan pushed me to safety, slung black eggs into heavy fire.

I cried out, shoved them all before me down the hall. Grenades imploded. Whatever was left behind us drew itself into a fistful of matter.

Quan groaned. His cry sent chills up my back and I jerked around, saw him clutch the bundle of torn flesh and leathery feathers to his chest. His voice rose in a harsh, terrible pitch.

Rage. Anger. Hate. Pain.

I tore the lifeless thing from him, handed her to Sesharane, thrust a Mark XX into broad tendrils.

Station trembled. Shuddered. It was a death-shudder that should have sounded half a million years ago. Station was tired of fighting. It had given too much and could give little more.

I knew where Station was leading us. Station knew, too, but there was nothing else it could do. It could die behind us, sear walls shut and throw itself between us and the enemy as long as it could. But to do that it had to lead us deeper into its heart; and from there, there was no way back. As it cut off death behind us, it guided us toward another death ahead.

Quan grasped his weapon in a kill-grip. His eyes said nothing. Sesharane clung to my side, blood-flesh pressed against her.

Pink bulbs winked no-air, no-air, pushed us forward through one door and then another.

Station followed us into its guts, frantically thrusting air before us.

Behind, I knew, it sent false life-pulses to small pockets far away, where it could still trap and kill Xoromii. But there couldn't be much of that left, now: Perimeter must be long dead, and Control, too.

A still-functioning screen set in cold, frosty steel. The chill of no-air inches behind it. The screen sent pulses of probability. Problem: Xoromii blasted their way toward a crawlway we had to pass. We would beat them there or we wouldn't. The screen's green squiggles wormed too close together to tell. Maybe, though, we were a little ahead. We weren't.

They were there to meet us. A big room off our passage-walls lined with empty R-Tube racks under dim battle lamps. Station warned us seconds before and we hurled all but a clusterfull of grenades in ahead.

They countered, neutered, absorbed some by greater powers. The rest turned Xoromii to black balls of density.

Dark shapes howled themselves at us behind a field of fire you could walk on. I answered with a chatter-burst, jerked back, guessed our chances of another way around the trap. I moved to push past Quan, shouted for him to follow. He stopped me with a strong limb against my chest.

"Damn it," I yelled, "we can't get through there! There's nothing out there but"—I cringed, ducked slag—"but that!"

"There's nothing behind us, either," he said dully. "Nothing. Nothing anywhere."

"Quan—" I held his arm, read his eyes, and pulled back as if I'd touched fire. He looked at me with emptiness, and then he was gone.

I tried to cover, jerked back with a smoking shoulder.

I knew what he wanted.

The healer wanted to kill. He wanted to tear wounds instead of close them, rip things apart instead of put them back together. But more than that he wanted to go out and find death. Because a part of his life already lay dead in Sesharane's arms.

Death laughed at Quan, turned its back.

He moved into a wave of Xoromii, weapon braced in arms like twisted vines. He loosed a withering spray into the enemy, aiming, as I'd taught him, between knee and thigh. Other limbs tossed implosion grenades at Xoromii rear ranks. Soldiers in front files turned from crippling fire-met their brothers fleeing death behind.

Quan seemed to weave a random pattern through the enemy, his carrier whirring left and right to avoid Xoromii beams. But I knew what he was doing. He was slowly working his way to the left of the big room, away from Xoromii toward the narrow corridor ahead.

I shouted once to Sesharane, sent her off against the dark wall, then leaped out behind Quan. I came in under his cover fire, low in an infantry crouch, keeping his back between me and the Xoromii. Then, yards away, I jerked suddenly to the right, rolled to a flat silhouette. I squeezed the ring-trigger and held it.

It worked nicely.

Quan had them bunched, firepower angled thirty degrees port. My weapon raked naked flanks, sent them out of my way into Quan's pattern.

He saw me, moved to cover, tossed his last grenade and whirred off ahead. I crabbed left to Sesharane, caught her shadow, dodged redness and pulled her to Quan and the corridor behind him.

The second wave of Xoromii poured out of burning steel. We dropped, returned their fire, moved back.

"Here!" I yelled to Quan, "take Sesharane. I'll—"

I stopped, stared past him. Past dim battle lamps and armored Xoromii and into darkness.

Even the Xoromii wailed before it.

They moaned, folded fur-arms over battle helmets and turned from their master. Blackness flowed out of blackness, hovered a moment over its dead and held us in a thousand eyes. And then it hiss-whispered toward us in a curl of viscous gray fog. Sear-breath moved before it, eating light as it came.

Fear strangled a cry in Sesharane's throat.

The blue star held me in its pain-grip, blossomed in hunger toward Prrdrexus, frosted steel with white needle-scars.

Quan's voice a million miles away.

Legs wrapped in nightmare syrup.

Green rope-arms snake around my shoulders, pull me.

And then running with demon breath and red lances behind. Station dying and searing doors against darkness, sending last electron sighs to open safe-holes before us…

Silence.

The hiss of air. One dim battle lamp. Lean against cold metal and bring breath back to tortured lungs.

Quan was silent, greenness turned to russet-brown bent low over something close to death or past it.

And somewhere behind us blackness sniffing for the smell of life…

And I remembered.

I remembered darkness out of darkness, even the Xoromii cowering in fear. But there were two who moved with the master—a glimpse of hood-things curled under black wings and then they were gone…

I cried out.

I could hear my voice but it wasn't my voice at all.

Sesharane's hands reached out, and there was the strong clutch of vine-arms. I shook them off, ran…

Must run. Get away. They don't understand—don't know the need! Don't—

Down metal arteries of Station's heart. Down… down… Through chromium darkness, steel bones shuddering in death.

Stay alive, Station. Stay alive a little longer!

And then nothing.

A door with no door beyond—and the wink-lights greet me, welcome me back…

To what? You can't welcome me because I've never been here, seen you, don't know!

The room is small.

It's big enough for a man to sit in the metal chair and face the gray console and the lights and the postage-stamp screen. I know where it is. It's the heart of Station. As far as you can go. All the rest is dead: Perimeter, Control, Interior Command. Dead.

Station knows I'm here.

It pulls all its power-blood to me. Drains every vein of plasmic force, bundles stray ergs of energy and thrusts them to me. I see the dim lights grow, hum with life…

My hands are not my hands.

They sweep across the gray console with a life of their own. The voice thunders the names of Arakhan, Tresdayne, Karilor of Vahn… calls upon Dremiann, Tewkrester-Nine, the League of Hevordia and Shimikin's far suns…

Dead names.

All of them. Dead men. Dead Stations. Dead worlds.

Names I do not know, but now I call them to me and see the lights before me blossom, die, burn to blackness.

Station shudders.

Trembles.

Dies.

Thrusts its last life-giving air into its dead heart and sighs into silence…




XX



GREEN STONE burnished with bright veins of copper.

Water glistens on the stone and there is the smell of deep, wet earth. Somewhere water falls in slow hollow droplets, echoing off high walls.

I wanted to turn and see the water, and see if it dropped into a pool so clear you couldn't tell whether the bottom was three feet away or a hundred.

"Lie back, Jarcal…"

I raised up on soft sand. "No, Sesharane," I said carefully, "I want to see the pool. I want—"

The thought flashed in blue block letters:

Pool? There's no pool on Station!

"Got to get-AWAY!"

"Hush, Jarcal." A smooth hand.

I blinked. Came awake. Asked her a question with my eyes.

She smiled weakly. "I don't know, Jarcal. I don't know where we are or what we're doing here." Black eyes haunted with weariness.

"It may be you can tell us that, since it's you who brought us here!"

I didn't want to look at Quan. His voice warned me before I turned and caught the hate in his flesh-eyes.

I looked past him. Beyond a small red fire I saw the still figure on the sand. No more than a large fold under his cloak.

"Lhis. Is she—?"

"She's alive. Barely so, and not likely to last much longer." His lips pressed to whiteness. "She'd have a chance with proper care. I can't give her that in this hole in the ground!"

I tried to remember.

Something worried at the edge of my mind.

"Why, Jarcal?" Quan leaned forward. His body trembled. "Why bother to bring us out of death if you meant to take us to—this? We had a ship, damn you; a ship that could take us somewhere she could get help!"

His voice broke.

"When she dies, may the gods forgive me," he said tightly, "I swear you'll not last a second longer, Jarcal!"

I looked blankly at Sesharane.

"You don't know, do you?" she said.

"Sesharane," I shook my head, "there's something wrong."

She stood up, looked down, and held out her hand. I followed her past Quan, down a narrow passage in the earth. She held a torch from the fire to light our way.

The passage widened, and I could see darkness ahead, dim stars.

Sesharane stopped.

I looked at her, but she said nothing. She just stared past me at the cave's opening.

I walked out and looked up into emptiness.

Sesharane told me.

I remembered little of what had happened. I was not Jarcal, then, and I think I had been Jarcal for some time before. Certainly, from the moment we set foot on Station— and perhaps before that.

She told me how we escaped from blackness. The Station searing walls and passages behind us, Prrdrexus's thunder always only seconds away. And she told me how I thrust her aside, with a voice that wasn't my own, while she and Quan followed my wild passage to the heart of Station.

They watched the dead console live at my command. Heard me cry out in tongues no creature had spoken for half a million years or more.

And I remembered. …

The screen is alive with ships. Ships with blood-rust, dark with the stains of time. They come at my command for one last battle. They come from dead worlds and forgotten stations across the lonely Gap.

Dead ships with metal-man crews, every lost derelict of the First Empire that can rise from the grave and warp sleeping engines to life.

They die as quickly as they come. But they die in fire-blossoms amid the dark Xoromii fleet. Metal-men burn themselves to slag as they fight their way through Station to reach us, carry us out through red death to a single starship huddling in Andromeda's shadow under a hail of missiles…

I stand on the starship's ancient bridge, a metal-man with one green eye beside me. And I give the command that warps us across the Gap…

… and into the shadow.

"Do you see, Jarcal?" Sesharane whispered beside me. "Do you see why Quan curses you and wonders why you've brought us to this place?"

She sighed. "I should not say it, but I can't help letting the words come out. Whatever it is you've become, it seems to move us ever closer to darkness."

Her eyes turned fearfully to the skies.

I had seen the Void before, standing safely under the bubble of Concourse on the T'aj. An awesome thing, a terrible negation of life, emptiness reaching out to touch me with coldness over billions of miles of darkness.

The safe-miles were gone.

We stood in the very shadow of the thing, so near that the dim aura of its borders seemed close enough to touch.

Quan had told me once that the redness we could see was the only visible manifestation of the Void—that it denoted the death of real space in the horror's sweeping path.

And how far away was that path now?

Would this world die in a thousand years? Next week? Or was it only seconds away?

I had brought us here.

I had brought us to a world in the maw of the Void.

A world with no escape.

A world where eventually Prrdrexus would seek us out again.

Why?

WHY?

"Jarcal…"

I didn't answer.

I didn't answer because I remembered…

I remembered who I was and knew whose boots had felt the steel of Station half a million years before…

Sesharane called out. I didn't answer. He was waiting and I knew where to find him.




XXI



HE WAS AT the end of the maze of narrow tunnels that branched off behind our cave.

He lay on a slab of obsidian blackness under a veil of blue fire. He was tall, dressed in tight scarlet and black boots. Silver worlds circled his shoulders and curled up in a pattern of stars about his tight collar. His gaunt face had been darkened by white suns and hardened by cold space. His hair was short, and the color of iron.

A suit of worn, blue battle armor had been placed at the foot of the stone slab. I read the dull inscription stamped across the left breast. A chill, ancient wind swept over my shoulder and the cobalt star filled the small room with cold blue light.

The brain at Center had called his name in its death scream, and now I stood before him.

"You know me, then, Jarcal. I'm glad of that. It's time we talked together."

The body in bright, First Empire red hadn't moved. Its lips were silent. But its commanding voice was present.

"Yes," I said simply, "I know you."

"I stood in your boots at Station and fought beside you," said Malois-Kedrick, "as I fought there once before."

He laughed. It was the deep, clear laugh of a man who has lived with the song of life in his veins.

"It was a good fight we fought. But it couldn't touch the battles that went before. Your fur-heads from the D'arahd are no foes like the Clooties, Jarcal. There's none can match those devils!"

"And now those 'devils' of yours are back," I told him.

I listened to my own words and wondered at them. What did I mean by—

"Aye," Kedrick said solemnly, "you're remembering, Jarcal. You saw the hooded things under their new master's wings. We conquered them once, and now Prrdrexus has brought 'em back from Andromeda to plague us again. It's come. It's come and it's something that had to be. The D'arahd worlds wait his bidding, and now the Chkttclu are at his side. It is the beginning of the days of darkness again, Jarcal."

Kedrick paused and I looked down at the still figure. Around me, the dust of ages made a thick carpet of gray. But nothing had changed for half a million years behind that shimmer-curtain of blue. The last breath of Malois-Kedrick's life still sat upon his lips.

On stone by his hand, a tiny spider-thing lifted one wiry leg in unfinished motion. A mote of dust hung forever over Kedrick's face, frozen there for all time.

"I know," I told him, "that all has gone before that I might stand here now. I know this, know you brought me here, but—"

"But why is another thing, isn't it?" he finished. "And you're almost right, Jarcal. I did bring you here. In a way. Not by myself, though. That was the will of another.

"You didn't die when your starship was swallowed by the Void, Jarcal. You didn't die because that other had already chosen you for its own."

"Other? What other?"

"It rests above your shoulder now."

A chill wave of fear swept through me.

"No!" I cried out, and shrank back from Kedrick.

He went on as if he hadn't heard. "The N'cil cannot see all things clearly beyond its time, but it has an awesome power over things concerned with the Great Voids. It saw you in its future, and it reached out and thwarted death-pulled you back to life."

"It did me no great favor, then, if I've been brought here to serve its kind!" I shouted.

"What must be done is done!" Kedrick said firmly. "You were needed, and you were brought to me."

"To die," I said tightly.

"Every man dies," said Kedrick. "It's what comes of his death that matters."

"Mine's to serve this evil, then. The evil you serve yourself, it seems!"

Kedrick laughed lightly. "Not so, Jarcal. Can you think

Prrdrexus hounds you to match his own blackness with the blue star? The N'cil's not what you imagine it to be."

"Then it deludes you," I said stiffly, "for it's served me no other way."

"You've been served by evil, for certain. But not from the N'cil. Only because you carry its burden for me…"

I looked at the still form narrowly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"The N'cil is not of our universe, Jarcal. It comes from a place far outside the gates of time—as does Prrdrexus. Neither would be here now if the terrible weapons of the First Empire and the Chkttclu hadn't ripped the fabric of space and torn a path between one plane of existence and another.

"I can't say what worlds lie beyond that plane, no man can in this universe. But one thing I know: the N'cil and Prrdrexus are not the same, for after that path was opened, the N'cil fought for the Empire and helped defeat Prrdrexus, who had allied himself with the Chkttclu.

"When the great war ended," Kedrick went on, "and the Clooties were driven back to Andromeda, Prrdrexus was left with no minions to plague us. But a thing such as Prrdrexus does not give up so easily. He retreated to a dark edge of the galaxy to lick his wounds. And always, of course, he kept his senses extended for some trace of his enemy, the N'cil."

"And the N'cil," I began, "slept in the hands of the Llhaians." I stared at Kedrick's form. "Why, then, if it was truly against Prrdrexus—"

"There's still much you don't know, Jarcal," said Kedrick. "Neither the N'cil nor Prrdrexus have physical powers of their own in this universe. Each is confined to the body of a host on this side of the gate. Without such a host, they are no more than mental intrusions of energy from another universe.

"Prrdrexus, when he entered this plane, found many hosts to his liking: foul things from the pits of Andromeda and the dark regions of the Ghellian Arm. The form he takes now is no more hideous or destructive than the other masks he's worn for half a million years.

"The N'cil didn't have the luck of Prrdrexus. A short time after the great war ended, the N'cil and its host plunged through the crust of Llhai in a starship that should have seen the graveyard long before its final battle. The N'cil's host was badly injured and, rightly, should have died. But the N'cil let itself be trapped in the depths of that planet, so his powers could preserve his host in a stasis-state between life and death. It chose to do this for reasons of its own. I can guess that it felt the time was not ripe to host again and face Prrdrexus. Instead, with the last of its mental energy, it directed the metal-men who survived the crash to place its host's body where it would be safe from the wrath of Prrdrexus. It wisely chose this world: a world that forever flees just before the shadow of one of the Great Voids."

"And you, then—" I began.

"Yes. I was the N'cil's host, of course. I was placed here behind a veil of the N'cil's own fabric—out of time—against the day the N'cil could escape the depths of Llhai and complete its mission: the destruction of Prrdrexus.

"You see," said Kedrick, "the N'cil knew all along where the rip in space that brought it to this universe could be found—while Prrdrexus did not. Prrdrexus, of course, has no desire to return to its own plane of existence; it has found us ripe for its dark desires. Prrdrexus knows that once the gate to his universe is destroyed, he has no need to fear the N'cil—for nothing can harm him in this plane of existence.

"Prrdrexus has searched long and hard for the gate. His creation of the Voids was simply a series of no-space nets cast out in search of that gate. It was for this reason, of course, that the N'cil chose the very shadow of the Void as a hiding place for its host's form, and for the gate itself.

"It was the N'cil, using my stasis-consciousness as its tool, who put the concept of the Johr Tubes into certain minds at Galactic Center. Prrdrexus knew, then, that the N'cil was fighting him in the only way that it could at the moment; knew only the N'cil could be responsible for such a concept. Then, Jarcal, when the N'cil led you to Llhai to release it from its imprisonment of half a million years, and you began to search for the secret behind the Voids, Prrdrexus knew his chance to close the gate forever was at hand."

"But why," I asked. "Why me, Kedrick? The N'cil could have chosen another in half a million years! Another who— who—"

"As I said," Kedrick answered, "I cannot answer that, Jarcal. I can only say that our time is not the same 'time' as that experienced by the N'cil and Prrdrexus. And for another thing, I believe the N'cil sensed what lay ahead in its future, and waited—chose the moment in this universe that it desired."

"That it desired for what?" I asked. And when Malois-Kedrick's voice did not speak at once, I felt the blue star's death-chill grasp me in its coldness.

"You know already, I think, Jarcal," Kedrick said softly. The N'cil's trap for Prrdrexus is set, and even now, Prrdrexus comes. The gate is close at hand. If the N'cil can get Prrdrexus through that gate again, Prrdrexus can be destroyed forever. If Prrdrexus can close that gate, then he and his Chkttclu will have this galaxy for their own. And, I think, a thousand more, if they desire."

"And my part… ?"

"You are the N'cil's host, Jarcal," Kedrick said somberly. "He cannot fight Prrdrexus without a creature from this universe. And I need not tell you that the N'cil must pass through the gate with Prrdrexus to insure that being's destruction. And you, Jarcal, must pass through with him."

Kedrick paused. "It is ironic, I think, that you have wished for death so many times and I have lain here sleeping between life and death for half a million years solely to grant you that wish."

The cryptic words of Center's brain came back to me. Now I understood them only too well.

"The N'cil gives life—and takes life away.…"




XXII



SESHERANE LISTENED, and horror blossomed like a dark flower on her face. Quan preferred to think I'd wandered off in the tunnels somewhere and suffered another stroke of madness.

Still, he had to admit the silent form of Malois-Kedrick sleeping behind his timeless blue veil was no illusion. He said nothing until we were walking back to our cave where Sesharane watched over Lhis. And then his ropy tendrils suddenly wound about my shoulders and his great rustle-body shuddered. He wept openly. Big sap-tears coursed down his stubble face. He told me he had never wished for anything to come between our friendship, but that the tragedy of Lhis had affected him in a manner he couldn't control.

"Quan," I told him, "no one could blame you for your feelings. What you've thought and what you've said were true enough. I've done nothing but lead us all down a path that ends in darkness. Why apologize when you were right? No matter the reason, the end is the same."

Quan shook his head. "Ah, but that's the thing, Jarcal, I knew all along in my own mind that some force outside us all had a hand in this. Lhis and I spoke of it, remember?"

I remembered. "You said the gods always pulled Jarcal no-world back from the brink of death." I laughed. "And so they did, old friend. Now we know the reason."

And now that the road neared the end, I felt strangely ready to meet it. I had heard it is the unknown man really fears: how long he might live, how he might die, what pain he might feel.

Once those questions come near to being answered, it no longer seems necessary to struggle against fate. It becomes almost a relief to know the illegible scrawlings of the future are nearly readable at last.

A new companionship blossomed between Quan and I.

Part of this, I was sure, came from the experiences we had shared—a greater part from the knowledge that we were inexorably bound together until the end of the game. Creatures who live together can share much. Those who die together share a great deal more.

I had one regret: that there could not be more between Sesharane and I during these last days. I didn't mean I expected some miracle of Quan's gods to occur, that we'd suddenly share hot fires of passion. That was something we could never know. What I hoped for was simply the silent warmth and understanding that comes from no more than a touch, a look.

But Sesharane was now more distant and withdrawn than ever. When I came near her, she found something to do in another place. When I caught her eyes, she quickly looked away.

Four long days went by in what passed for day on Kedrick's lonely planet. Each was much like the other, but for one thing. I said nothing to Quan, but I could sense Prrdrexus drawing closer. I didn't know how this could be, but I did know there was a subtle difference, now, in the relationship between the N'cil and myself. And as I felt the approach of that dread darkness, the N'cil's blue glow seemed to swell, and brighten.

Lhis seemed to be better.

Her breathing became easier, and once I thought she opened pin-black eyes and looked at me.

Quan shook his head at this. "It's true in one sense that she's better. But have no false hopes about her condition. The Xoromii weapon burned certain organs that can't be repaired or replaced without proper facilities."

"But she is better," I insisted. "Her breathing, her color—"

"NO!" he said almost angrily. "She's better because the shock of her wounds has subsided. She'll get no better than she is. Then, finally…"

His voice trailed off, and I questioned him no more. "There's nothing you can do for her," he said darkly. "Right now you'd best look to Sesharane if you can- She needs whatever you can offer, Jarcal."

He looked at me meaningfully. "And whatever she's willing to accept, of course."

I spread my hands in a hopeless gesture. "That's the thing, Quan. She'll accept nothing at all. There were times on Center, and then at Station, when—" I shrugged. "Well, when fear brought her a little closer. Now…"

Quan nodded. "I know." He stoked the coals of our fire and bent low to listen to Lhis's shallow breathing.

"Now, though, she needs you more than ever, Jarcal. Because she's more aware than ever of your need for her. And the more she thinks on this, the more she remembers she cannot be a woman to you, that she fails you when you need her most of all."

I stood up, looked down at him. "But that's not true," I protested. "What Sesharane is or isn't is no fault of her own!"

Quan glanced up and smiled wearily. "Ah, but what she feels, Jarcal, what she feels…"

Dawn painted the narrow tunnel of our cave with pale patches of pink. Quan had left, mumbling something about herbs or medicinal plants and names I couldn't remember. But he was really gone because he could no longer stay and watch Lhis dying when he was helpless to stop her.

I warmed my hands around a cup of "breakfast soup," took a final sip, and let the rest hiss on red coals. It was pale, tasteless stuff, made from the colorless vegetables that grew around the mouth of our cave. But it would sustain life, Quan said. And added, with grim humor, for as long as we'd need it, at least.

A small outcropping of stone hid our pool from the rest of the cave. I bent over the fire and stirred coals and shut my ears to the sounds coming from that direction.

I tried to bring other sounds and thoughts to mind. Instead I heard Sesharane's every movement in the water; imagined one sound was a lovely slim leg rising above the surface. Another was Sesharane standing, clear droplets beading on olive skin. I could see dark hair caressing round shoulders, and then a single drop of blue water fell from the soft curve of her neck, over breasts tight from the cold pool, down the gentle curve of her waist…

I shut my eyes, held my fists against the sides of my head.

"Jarcal?"

I jerked up. Sesharane stood over me. Her eyes mirrored puzzlement and a tiny frown creased her brows.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm—all right, yes," I told her. She sank down beside me with a little sigh. Her gown still clung to her wetly, and she brushed damp hair-tips over her shoulders.

"You don't mind if I sit with you, then?" She looked away and twisted her hands in her lap.

"Why, of course I don't, Sesharane."

She looked up and bit her lip. "I just thought, well, I've tried to stay away from you, Jarcal."

"I know. And I understand."

"I'm glad. Because—" She let the subject drop quickly. "Have you talked to him again?"

I knew she meant Kedrick. "No. He's said no more since that first day. I don't think there's much more he can tell me."

She shuddered, looked past me at the low fire.

"What is it?" I asked her.

She looked down and let sand run through her ringers. "I keep thinking about it, that's all. I don't want to, but I can't help it."

She glanced at me quickly. Just a flash of black eyes.

"I don't want you to die, Jarcal."

I reached out for her hand. It was as cold as death. I looked into her frightened eyes and pulled her to me and she let all the fear spill over at once.

Finally, she curled up against my shoulder and closed her eyes.

"Jarcal, why couldn't it have been different?"

I didn't answer. I held her warmth and softness close to me and tried to shut out the rest of the universe.

"Don't talk about it," I told her. "Don't talk about that or anything else—just be here."

She suddenly pulled herself from me. She drew herself to her knees, hands against her legs.

"No," she said firmly, "I want to talk about it now—don't you see? I want to remember how it was, how you held me, how you wanted me as I wanted you with an ache I've never known before…"

"Sesharane—stop it!" Words stuck dryly in my throat.

She shook her head. "No. I stopped it then, remember? I can't do that again, Jarcal." Her dark eyes glazed, and her lips trembled over the words.

"You kissed me," she whispered, "you kissed my mouth and touched your lips to my neck, and you wanted to kiss me here and here… But I wouldn't let you, because after that I couldn't have stopped you and then you would have known, wouldn't you? You would have known what I was, and I couldn't let you find out like that, Jarcal." She rose slowly, stood above me.

"I was ashamed, then. I'm not ashamed anymore." She spoke so softly I could hardly hear her words. "It's too late for that now, Jarcal. There's no time left. No time at all! Things that mattered then don't matter now. And I want you to kiss me, Jarcal, and I want you to see me!" she cried. "I want you to know that all the woman that I can be has ever belonged to you!"

Her hands stretched behind her neck and did something to the catch of her gown. Her eyes never left mine. I felt a live thing grow and twist inside me and then the spider-cloth slipped from her shoulder and whispered to her feet.

She stepped out of a wave of whiteness and stood before me. Then she smiled gently and reached down for my hands.

I stood, and my legs wavered like water. And then she was in my arms and her flesh was silk-warm under my hands; and I held her and touched her until I heard myself scream with hot-pain and Sesharane jerked back, eyes wide with horror…

"Don't move," snapped Quan.

I sensed him over my shoulder. The walls of the cave swam in dizzy rock-waves.

"Any pain?"

"I—don't feel anything—I don't think I—"

"Shock," he muttered. I saw a ropy arm snake past me, pull hot iron from the fire, and some part of my mind wondered, curiously, why Quan would—

"Scream all you like if it helps any," he said tightly. "I've nothing to give you for this, and I'm sorry. It's primitive, but it's the best I can do. And unless I can stop the blood…"

Fire seared my back and I screamed over the smell of burning flesh, swam at the sickening edge of consciousness.

"Quan!"

"Now listen," he said intently, "and try to understand what I'm saying. She did it with this"—he tossed something aside I couldn't see—"scalpel. Got it from me, the gods know how, but she did. I had to bind her back there, Jarcal, she tried to turn the thing on herself when I got here."

I stared at him. I didn't understand. Sesharane in my arms. The pain of want. Fright in her eyes.

"Quan," I moaned, "you're wrong, Quan. She—"

"I know what she was doing," he said. "You don't have to tell me more." He muttered to himself, pounded one green fist into the other.

"We were fools, Jarcal! The N'cil guided you to its own will; and you're no more to be blamed for your actions than—than Sesharane is for hers."

He held me in pale, flesh-eyes. "D'you see? If the blue star can turn a creature's mind, why couldn't we see that black horror could do as much?"

Quan stood at the end of a long, hollow corridor. His words stumbled over the tops of each other in clumsy stacks.

"No," I said wearily, "… wrong, Quan. Sesharane…"

"Sesharane had nothing to do with it!" he spat impatiently. "Prrdrexus led you to her as subtly as the N'cil led you to Llhai! And he waited his time, Jarcal. Waited until the time he could best use her to do the thing that had to be done. Do you see it now? If you die, and leave the N'cil without a host, where does that leave Prrdrexus? With nothing between him and that damnable gate is where!

"You should be dead now from that wound," Quan growled, "I can tell you that. The N'cil is keeping you alive, now—and won't even let you pass out from the pain!"

I looked up. A thought struggled out of thick cobwebs.

There was something…

Something I had to do…

I pulled myself up on one arm.

What was it? Kedrick said… Kedrick…

Quan swam in a green fog. Leaves dancing under deep water.

And then I heard it. Through pain came a greater thunder. Rock trembled against my back and pebbles clattered in the blue pool. When the thunder rolled away, a high shriek split the morning air.

Starships, I thought dully. Sky must be full of star-ships…




XXIII



The N'cil is Fury____

It swells, blossoms, envelops—spreads cobalt petals in a surge of blue energy and I am its heart.

There is no pain. …

I am beyond that. Either dead, now, or locked on the clock-point of death like Kedrick: one eternal breath away from it.

The gate is open. The N'cil reclaims his veil from Malois-Kedrick and Kedrick sighs into powdery sleep, and where he was is the gate. It unfolds itself. Turns itself inside out. Twists from where it wasn't to where it is/isn't and wavers in formlessness—a nothing-colored wound. Even my new oneness is not enough. I cannot look upon it.

I exist/do not exist.

I am/am not.

A battle rages about me.

But "rage" and "about" are not the right words. It is not a battle such as other battles. It is:

Motionless.

Silent. Timeless.

Frozen.

Comparison is the only basis for description. There are no comparisons that apply. Say: If the N'cil and Prrdrexus were blocks of cold-steel they would be molecularly locked to one another's surface. But I cannot say that there is such a physical contact.

I feel that suffering is imposed from one to the other. A pattern is formed.

Presented - Countered

D

A   E R E


L T

((((absorbed))))

A billion simultaneous games of no-chess are conceived/ concluded.

I know the N'cil is weake n i ng.

His patterns probe, )))))))   ((((((((( are met with blunt rejections, strangled in cleverly woven equational strands. His razored thrusts of logic fall back in disharmonious shards of energy, dissolved in Prrdrexus's sticky matrix.

The N'cil tires-

The cobalt shell flickers, and a wisp of time-consciousness reaches me and with it

PAIN!

And I know Prrdrexus has won.

I know the N'cil cannot sustain life in its host, and fight its enemy, too.


And

    as I

        DIE

             N'cil

                    dims

                            and 
                            it
                        is

                         over.…

Through a blood-veil tinged with blue I can clearly see Prrdrexus, now, for the first time. He has disengaged—left the N'cil and I to flesh and photonic disintegration.

Prrdrexus must surely have chosen his host from Andromeda's deepest hell. It is a form to match his own black soul. Some beast of the Chkttclu, perhaps, for I sense it is a mindless thing with no intelligence of its own. There is the suggestion of great, enfolding wings over impossible convolutions studded with ruby-star eyes. The whole exudes a viscid aura of darkness.

Prrdrexus hovers over the gate.

I sense his growing patterns of negation. He absorbs the subtle sense of being that has allowed the gate's tenuous existence, imprints rejection of its substance in this universe.

The gate's nothingness flickers, wavers—

And then the N'cil MOVES-

It drops its shell from me for the smallest part of an instant of no-time, lets me feel the impact of my own death-pain.

It doesn't allow me to fade quietly into death with a whisper, to go out with a candle-flicker sigh.


It makes me

                                    DIE

                                            in a hot flame of agony.


It makes me

                        DIE

in a last, final explosion of life-force; and it grasps that death-bomb that is the sigh the essence the ultimate erg of being of Jarcal, takes it hungrily to itself, molds to its needs… And in that blink

of

      no-time

                    Prrdrexus

                                    knows he has lost,

                                        knows


                                    he

                            cannot
                            relinquish
                        his hold
upon the gate
and turn
to meet
the N'cil's last, devastating pattern of FORCE.

Somewhere, I sense the touch of whisper-softness, the scent of summer-black hair.

—and then the gate closes forever.




XXIV



THE PATH wound through a grove of trees.

The trees were tall; white trunks as slim as a woman's waist stretched to thick crests of silver-green leaves.

The trees were real, and the path and the low whisper of ferns growing beside it. But beyond there was nothing.

And I knew I was creating the path and the trees and the blue sky, because I hadn't thought about a blue sky until that moment, and it hadn't been there before.

I recognized the creation. It was a combination of three worlds. It was Earth, and it was the deep black-green forest not far from where we had discovered the Portal to Center— and it was a world where I had smashed another Portal's coding panel before I sent us to Station.

Beside us, now, was the high cliff and the yellow-green valley of that world, just as I remembered it and made it again. The silver-horned animals grazed by their blue lake. The topaz sun died under an evening-thought, and lavender shadows sent long fingers down high peaks.

When I looked again it was gone, and in its place was a thick-boled tree and a deep pond. Sesharane smiled as she recognized it.

I knew I had not created the man.

He sat on a rock around a bend in the path. He looked up and smiled. He was young, with deep-set eyes. It was hard to look into the eyes—they were a color and not a color at the same time.

And I knew—though I couldn't say why—that he did not always appear as he appeared now. That I would not understand the way he seemed to himself.

"Do I know you?" I asked. And knew the answer.

He nodded. "We met once."

"And when was that?"

"In time," he smiled. "Is it hard to remember, Jarcal?"

I was trying. But the memories seemed cotton-thick. As if they were lost behind something, and I had to reach in carefully and feel what they were like.

"No," I told him. "There are memories, but I can't find them, now."

He looked at me, let his gaze rest on Sesharane for a moment, then turned and held me in the colorless eyes.

"A door opened once," he said. "For no more than an instant. And in that instant this universe brushed against another, and I lived for a moment apart from myself."

I tried very hard. "And I—knew you, then? Who—"

He shook his head. "What I was then has no meaning here. Aspects assumed in that universe caji only exist in that universe—and not in this one."

He gazed at me with a wistful smile. "When I returned, Jarcal," he said, "you returned with me. I'm glad this has happened. It makes that moment that wasn't a moment a completeness for me."

I didn't understand.

A door opened once, for no more than an instant. …

I remembered. One small spark-thought.

There was a road, a path. And now the path was gone.

He seemed to read my thoughts. "Jarcal," he said somberly, "if there was a way, if you could go back through the gate, would you walk that path again? You remember enough now to answer."

He was right, and I shuddered at the memories. Cold, brittle-black moth wings fluttered against memory.

"I don't know," I said. "There are things…"

He nodded, understanding. "You could return, but not as you are, Jarcal. Not after you've passed through here. You left that universe in death; to return to it would be to return to death, wouldn't it?"

He looked away a moment. "What I became couldn't exist here. What you are now couldn't exist there again."

I glanced at Sesharane, looked back at the man. "What might we be, then, if not as we are?"

The man smiled. "That's something we can talk about later," he said. "Enjoy this existence for now, Jarcal." He laughed lightly. "You see? No-time has its advantages. It matters very little when we speak again, does it?"

He stood, and started away from us down the path that wasn't a path.

"Wait!" I called after him.

He turned.

"I remember you," I said. "When we met before, you were called N'cil." -

He smiled with the no-color eyes. "You remember," he said softly, "but you remember as a being of your own universe remembers."

I looked at him blankly. How many ways were there of remembering?

"I said the aspects I assumed had no reality here. What I became is unimportant, because the qualities of both are absent in this universe."

I stared at him. "Qualities of—"

He was there and not there. As if the world was rapidly blinking its eyes.

"As you say, Jarcal," his voice came back to me, "I was N'cil when we met. And the other segment of my being was called Prrdrexus…"

I couldn't believe my eyes.

Sesharane broke away and ran, grasped the familiar figures with a high, joyous laugh.

"Lhis-Quan!" I shouted, and joined Sesharane—met her in a tangle of bright greenery and leather feathers.

"What are you doing here?" I cried. "I—never thought to see you again!"

Quan smiled through a habitual scowl. "What are we doing here indeed! What are any of us doing anywhere is a better question than that!"

"What we're doing," squawked Lhis, "is much the same as ever: following Jarcal no-world from one catastrophe to another." She glared at me with pit-eyes and craned her long neck suspiciously. "What queer place have you brought us to now, might I ask?"

I threw back my head and laughed. Partly at the joy of seeing Lhis alive, and as much again at hearing that her perpetually sour disposition was unimpaired.

I avoided her question for the moment. How could I explain to Lhis about one side of the gate and the other? When I didn't truly understand myself? Instead, I turned to Quan.

"Old friend," I shook my head incredulously, "finding myself here is strange enough. Finding you and Lhis is stranger still."

Quan shrugged. "It's a long enough story," he began. I knew Quan. He could well be right.

"It was all I could do," he grumbled, "to hold Sesharane, here. She loosed herself from her bonds immediately, and when you and your assorted demons disappeared, I couldn't control the foolish creature. She tore from me and followed you through that—that hole into nothing!"

I grinned at him and held Sesharane to me.

"And who did you tear away from, Quan?"

"Eh? What's that?" He cleared his throat. "Why, I didn't tear away from anyone, as you put it. The damnable thing was still shimmering somewhat, and I—felt if there was some chance either of you might have survived…"

I laughed, and Lhis and Sesharane laughed with me.

"You're a stuffy bundle of leaf mold, is what you are!" Lhis crackled. "You'd rather turn brown with rot, you would, before you'd admit the workings of that curious nose of yours!"

Quan muttered something about ungrateful friends, and how a being was seldom if ever appreciated for the little bit of good he tried to bring into the life of others.

"I'll say this," said Lhis. "For once, I'm grateful Quan's infernal curiosity got the best of him. Though I don't pretend to understand it at all, life and death seem to play by different rules this side of wherever we are—and I'm glad enough of that!"

I smiled at her warmly. "And I'll go along with your thoughts, Lhis—for certain."

I held Sesharane close to me under the tall trees with silver-green leaves. Even if this universe ran on a time all its own, I felt as if a very long day had ended. And as the thought came, the sky above muted to twilight colors.

"Jarcal," Sesharane whispered, "do you think we'll go back through the gate again?"

"I don't know," I answered. "Some very strange thoughts have crossed my mind today, Sesharane. I think the man we met on the path still has much to say about our tomorrows."

She was silent a long moment, and I gazed out over the green-yellow valley, fading in shadow, now.

"I'm not sure I'd care to leave this place," she said hesitantly.

"It's like our own universe, and better in many ways," I admitted. "But still—"

She raised up and laid a finger gently across my lips. "Jarcal," she sighed, "before you begin to question the benefits of reality and unreality, do you recall what our friend on the path said? That we were not as we were before, and that we could never return to our own universe as we are now?"

"Yes," I said, and looked at her questioningly, "I understand that, but why do you—"

She lay beside me, black hair framed in a lazy tumble of green fern. She bit her lip softly and looked up at me with dark eyes flecked with silver.

"Because," she whispered softly, "the being was right in what he said, and I for one am very definitely not as I was before. And if you will stop talking, and thinking, and gazing about and come here to me, you will find out this is true, Jarcal…" ,




EPILOGUE



ON THE SMALL planet, Garaxus the Invader moved a step forward.

He eyed the hooded creature with cold disdain. A new galaxy lay behind this troublesome being. Garaxus's mouth was dry for want of the wine of death. His boots burned to step on blistered soil.

"I have not heard of these Immortals and Megalords you speak of," he said tightly, "and I would hear no more of them—or of you." He loosed a weapon from his belt.

"Lower your hood, creature, so I can remember what it is I have destroyed."

The being shook his head. "You would not like what you saw."

Garaxus said no more. He savagely pressed a stud upon his weapon, and a blinding force erupted from its dark, fluted barrel…

Waves of merciless heat enveloped the still being. The earth around him trembled and cried out and fused into dark, smoky glass.

Garaxus released his finger. He gasped in shock and surprise.

The creature laughed.

"Believe now, Garaxus," it said soberly. "Believe and put aside your weapon and listen. There is no conquest for you here."

"There is ever conquest for Garaxus!" the Invader shouted. "Who are you!"

The creature lowered its hood.

For the first time in his life, Garaxus shrank back in fear.

"My name is Guardian," said the creature. "I serve the Immortal Jarcal and with wishes of the Megalords—your new masters."

"I have no—masters!" hissed the Invader.

"I did not ask you to become a slave, Garaxus," sighed the Guardian. "I ask you to become more than you are, and less than your masters."

The Guardian raised his terrible no-eyes to the Invader. "There is not as much pain in laying aside your weapons as you might think, my friend. You will come to know this in time, as I know it myself. For even the Chkttclu were children once, eternities ago."

He shook his head, remembering. "Now, though, it is time to forget childhood, Garaxus, and take a bigger step."