The Flame at the Heart of the World, an eureka seven fanfic

DISCLAIMER: This is an (alas) unlicensed work of fan fiction. I do not own the copyright to Eureka Seven, the characters of the anime series or its setting. Bandai Entertainment and Bones Studio have the legal rights to anything directly relating to the wonderful Eureka Seven -- though all my original characters are solely mine.

This story is a sequel to -- and completion of -- the events chronicled in my earlier Eureka Seven followups, Out of the Nest (1),Loss of Life (2), and And I Shall Be Your Light (3), which can be found here on this site.

The Flame at the Heart of the World is the fourth and final installment in this series. Taken together, these four sections make up a single novel-length saga, collectively titled The Fire In The Heart.

The Flame at the Heart of the World

(4)

A story from the world of Eureka Seven

John Wagner

One

The pounding at the front door thundered through their house, and Kenji Aruno dropped the flowered bowl he'd been drying. It shattered into jagged fragments on the kitchen floor, but neither he nor his wife Mai took any notice, standing frozen with dread, their faces gone death-pale in an instant.

"It must be one of Kazuya's crazy friends," Mai said, not believing her own lie. With a forced calm, she groped for a dishtowel to wipe the foamy streaks of soap from her arms. The pounding came again, louder and more insistent, vibrating through the entire house.

"It's not," said Kenji, and hurried for the door, already knowing what he would find there.

Seconds before he reached it, the door exploded inward, crashing back against the wall with enough force to embed its knob in the vestibule wall. Three men -- Kenji assumed they were men, though in their bulky black combat armor, it was hard to be sure -- stood at the threshold, blocking the night sky completely. "What do you --?" he began.

The one in the lead grabbed him about the neck, nearly lifting him from his feet, force-marching him into the living room. Mai's collection of glass storks on their tiered shelves crashed into tinkling slivers as the following pair scrambled in behind, swinging their automatic rifles from side to side, hulking in a combat-ready crouch.

Their leader threw Kenji to the floor just in front of the couch. "You will lie motionless with your hands visible at all times!You will answer all questions promptly!We have authority from the Federation of Predigio Towers to answer any resistance with deadly force!" Kenji felt the cold barrel of a gun gouge his skin just between the shoulder blades.

Mai appeared at the kitchen doorway, already wild with fear at the sight of her husband face-down on the floor. "Who are you people? What do you --?" The leader of the three invaders gave a curt hand signal and one of his two followers ran forward, seizing her about the waist and flipping her over one armored leg. Her face impacted with one of the arms of the couch as she fell, and she cried out, quickly joining Kenji face-down against their braided rug.

Throttling his burning outrage, Kenji shouted "What do you want? We've done nothing wrong!"

"You are Kenji Aruno and Mai Aruno," the leader barked out. It was not a question.

"Yes, but --" They heard a new crash behind them, and knew that the antique candy dish and the vase once owned by Mai's great-grandmother had just been contemptuously swept from the coffee table. Kenji risked a look upward, to see one of the armed intruders holding the framed photograph of Tomika before the dark face shield of his tactical helmet.

"It's her, sir." he said, handing the photo to the leader.

The leader nodded. "You are the parents of Tomika Aruno, convictedin absentia of treason, desertion and disloyalty to the Federation of Predigio Towers?" he demanded of the two lying motionless on the living room floor.

"T-Tomika? You're mistaken. Tomika was our daughter," protested Mai, her tears dropping in a warm stream to the carpet. Around her, she could see nothing but brilliantly-polished black boots, heavy and unyielding. "She's in...she was in the Army. She was killed in action; we got the e-notification from her commander. Please, we haven't done anything!"

"She is a known traitor and member of the terrorist organization Gekkostate. She has been judged guilty of capital crimes against the State by secret tribunal. The Terrorism Security Authority is entrusted with the task of impounding all those guilty of terrorism -- and their associates. You will be held for interrogation for an indefinite period, until higher authority chooses to release you from custody. Where is your son?"

Mai whimpered and opened her mouth, but Kenji cut her off at once. "He's out. Out reffing, with some other kids. They go out someplace by the coral bluffs at the end of town, till all hours of the night."

One of the underlings stamped down the stairs to the second floor, his gun held at the ready. "No one upstairs, sir. No sign of the kid."

"We'll find him later. Put the restraints on these two and throw them into the van. Take them to the detention facility."

"But we haven't done anyth --" Two of the TSA enforcers silenced Mai's outcry with their rifle butts. Goaded beyond endurance, Kenji made an attempt to scramble to his feet before all three of them beat him into unconsciousness with rifles, fists and boots.

The leader grunted and kicked an end table out of the room, to make more room for trussing them up. "Make it quick," he ordered, and pulled a communicator from one pocket of his assault vest.

---

Across the suburban street, concealed by the darkness and a parked automobile, Kazuya Aruno crouched, horrified, as he watched his shackled, unconscious parents dragged to the rear of a TSA armored van and thrown in. The night was warm and still, and every word had carried clearly through the gaping front doorway. Tomika's alive!And she's part of Gekkostate!

Kazuya tightened his hands around the edges of his ref board until his knuckles ached, knowing well that against armed and armored TSA enforcers, he would be worse than helpless. As the van rumbled to life and rolled away into the anonymous night, his anger swelled and burned. But his father had always taught him to think before acting, and he thought now, harder than he ever had before.

Soft, fearful voices began to float over the street as neighbors, having seen the armored van, emerged from their homes, speculating in whispers. Kazuya knew he could not stay here much longer, and in the shadow of the car, he came to his decision. He would need the ref board, for certain, and some things from the house. Best to go get them now, before the TSA comes back to loot the house looking for 'evidence.' Fast, before anybody spots me. I'll have to go out the back way when I'm done. But I'll be back, Mom and Dad, I swear. I swear it.

He hurried across the street, bent low, already steeling himself against the painful feelings the empty house would surely bring out of him. But this was no time to be distracted. The rolled copy of RayOut rubbed in his back pocket as he slipped inside, beginning a journey whose end he could not imagine.

Two

The sharply canted wings of the IPF SL-1200 attack ship Moonlight had shielded Renton and Eureka Thurston from many deadly threats during its brief but violent career. All the more reason, they both agreed, that their current role of sunshade against the relentless late-morning heat of equatorial Thuu Bak was the most satisfying of all.

Renton half-meditated, half-dozed on the unrolled blanket at Eureka's side, letting the lazy morning pass through him in all its variegated richness: small children crying out to each other as they ran stiff-legged around the hulking warship playing LFO, pointing and mimicking the sounds of air-to-ground missiles; deep, complex harmonies throbbing on the wind from the Vodarek temple at the other end of the meadow; the vibrant scent of dry grass mingling with exotic cooking odors as lunchtime neared. Eureka and peace, he decided, his eyes growing unexpectedly damp. What more could I ever I need?

"Papa?"

With great reluctance, he opened his eyes, squinting into the glare beyond the wing's broad shadow. A ragged cluster of dirty, naked children stood giggling before him, four of them his own. "Yeah, Maurice?"

"Could we have some money, please? I wanna take Ariadne over to the village and get her some raisins."

At his side, the little Coralian girl grinned like a jack'o'lantern and held tightly to Maurice's hand, her tiny wings fluttering eagerly. "I like raisins," she assured them.

Eureka lifted herself from the blanket to a sitting position, smiling at them, her lavender-pink eyes aglow. She reached for the personal-communicator case strapped to her left thigh and pulled a few aluminum-alloy Federation coins from its storage pocket. "That's very thoughtful of you, Maurice. Here. Don't spoil your supper again, either of you."

"Thanks, Mama. We'll see you later."

"Be back in time for supper," Renton called to their retreating backs. "And wash before you eat, okay?"

"Okay, Papa," shouted Maurice over his shoulder, carefully running no faster than Ariadne's short legs could keep up.

Renton sighed and stretched as he sat beside his wife, moving closer to her side. "I don't mind them rolling naked in the dirt, as long as they shower it off when they come home."

"Why, Renton Thurston. You sound just like...a father." She kissed him, brushing his cheek with one of her magnificently iridescent wings. "You're so sweet."

"You make it easy." And to show just how much he meant it, he held her in in his arms, matching the heat of Thuu Bak with his own. "This is even better than the mountains were, don't you think? I mean yeah, it's hot all the time, and you can't walk around in the daytime without sunglasses and the grass is like toothbrush bristles till the sun goes down. But we're together and for a change, nobody's trying to kill us. And the kids are with us this time, and we get to watch them grow up. Wouldn't it be great to live like this all the time?"

"Yes, I know what you mean." She looked off toward the surrounding foothills, with their bizarre mutated-pine jungle. "These two weeks we've had here seem almost like the true beginning of our life together." Her dreamy smile faded. "But we can't just shut out the world forever."

Renton stiffened and pulled back, holding her at arm's length. "Why not? You think the Vodarek are gonna throw us out? No way! They think we're Mr. and Mrs. God. They want us around, you know that. Why can't we stay?"

"You know why," she said quietly.

The hot wind teased at her electric-blue hair. Somewhere in the Vodarek village just beyond, the street vendors in called out over the low buzz of the town's market square. Renton nodded, and kissed her forehead, just above the Coralian jewel between her eyes. "I know what you mean. Because the Federation can't blow up the world any more, but it can still be a dictatorship that murders people, like we saw at Tresor. And because the thing that scares them most of all is...us." He let his hands run down the silken length of her arms and smiled again. "Well, what're we supposed to do? It'd mean talking to Egan and the rest of the World Parliament again. And sooner or later, it'll all start all over again, the running and the hiding and the fighting...and the killing. But Eureka, we can't keep up that stuffforever. I've been thinking about it, and..."

"Youshould be thinking about it," said Mischa.

Both of them turned behind them, toward the great ship's fuselage, where Dr. Mischa Svarovsky, resident physician of the Moonlight, emerged from the extended catapult ramp. She wore a sort of light sari of some white cloth, the first time Renton could remember having seen her in any sort of casual clothing. "Wow, you look really good today," he said. "Was it Dr. Egan's idea?"

She returned a lofty glare. "And you think it would never occur to me on my own to wear something more attractive than a lab smock, I suppose?" The pretense shattered, then, and she broke into bright laughter that would have been unimaginable during Renton and Eureka's first year together aboard the renegade airship. "No, you're right -- it was Gregory's idea. But I'm starting to learn. And maybe after I reverse-age a few more years, I might even start dressing the way so many of the local Vodarek women do. Or even the way Eureka does."

Puzzled, Eureka looked down at her own brief, low-waisted white skirt. "Is there something strange about my clothes?"

"No!" Renton clamped his arm about her bare waist. "Mischa, what'd you mean, we should be thinking about something?"

"That your thoughts were running in the right direction for a change, that's what. And more immediately, you need to be collecting them for Stoner's interview. You'll need to make a good impression, you know."

His shoulders slumped; the moment of tranquility with Eureka was evaporating already. "I was kind of hoping he'd forgotten about that. Where is Stoner, anyway? I've hardly seen him anyplace at all for the past two weeks."

From the village, the squeal and shriek of small children at play came riding on the wind. Mischa turned in its direction, her severe face revealing nothing. "Of course not; he's been keeping very much to himself. He didn't make himself very popular, betraying you all to the Voice of the People."

"That was a mistake," Eureka objected. "He was being stupid, but he really thought he'd be doing a good thing by getting us in touch with the VOP. He never would have done that if he'd known the truth about them. Renton and I have forgiven him -- and so has Holland."

"Yes, I'm sure we all have. But forgiveness and forgetfulness aren't the same thing, are they? I'm certain that all of Gekkostate has forgiven him, but it's going to be a long time before we can forget." She smiled down at Eureka, perhaps remembering the distant, introverted young alien in human shape for whom she had cared so long ago. "One of the less pleasant aspects of humanity, I'm afraid. But all that to one side, he is going ahead with a series of recorded interviews with the two of you, then he'll edit them into video documentaries; a sort of broadcast version of RayOut. He and Woz have been working on a way to insinuate it into the Federation's satellite uplink."

Mischa pulled up the hem of her white sari and crouched beside them. "Eureka, you won't need to change a thing for video...well, except perhaps your wardrobe. But you, Renton Thurston, are going to need a lot of work."

"Me?" he grunted, already resentful.

"Certainly. For a start, you're going to have to learn to comb your hair more often than once a day. But most of all, you need to work on your speech patterns. You'll be representing the World Parliament and the Independent Planetary Fleet, in case you've not noticed. Like it or not, the two of you have become a powerful symbol for all the people who are risking their lives against the Federation. That means no more 'I'm gonna,' or 'way cool,' or 'we gotta,' do you understand? How you speak in private is up to you, but in front of Stoner's cameras, Renton Thurston is going to comport himself...well, more like his father."

"Like my Dad? But I'm not Dad! I'm..."

Mischa silenced him with her upraised palm. "I know who you are -- and I know you're not Adrock. But your father was an outstanding public speaker, and no matter how painful it may be, you ought to be looking at recordings of his presentations, studying his technique. Eureka, I know he'll listen to you, if no one else. Please try and impress the importance of this upon him, will you?"

"Yes, Mischa, I will. And...by the way, your hair looks nice that way."

The older woman stood, blushing but dignified. "Thank you, my dear, I'm glad that someone in your family notices such things. I'll be seeing you both again."

"You didn't have to go along with her so fast," grumbled Renton when Mischa was out of earshot.

"Why not? She's right, after all. With so many people taking such terrible chances against the Federation, I think it's right that we should do our part to help."

"'Ourpart?'" He stared at her, shocked and outraged. "Look, in case you don't remember, our part has almost got us killed more times than I can count! How much more d'they want from us, anyway?" Seeing the patience glowing tenderly in her Coralian eyes, Renton hung his head, his anger evaporating as quickly as it had appeared. "I'm sorry; none of that's your fault. It's just that...all I ever wanted was to be with you, just you -- and the kids, too. But the world just doesn't let us alone. We're always on somebody's stage, always in the spotlight. I'm so damn sick of it."

She moved closer to him, taking his hand, leaning her head to his taut shoulder. "Maybe I don't mind it as much because I'm so used to it. I've been 'in the spotlight' since the day they pulled me from that trapar cave near Tresor. I really don't know any other way to live, I suppose."

His heart melted within him and he held Eureka tightly, her warmth and nearness his only stable anchor in a life that seemed to have begun the instant of their first meeting. "I wish I could give you another way. I wish it could be the way it was in the mountains, right after we came to Earth again. I wish we could keep it that way forever." Renton sighed, heavy with bitter regret. "But since we can't, then at least I can share that stinking spotlight with you. If you can take it, Eureka, then so can I. I'll do whatever I've gotta."

"'Whatever I have to,'" she corrected him gently.

Renton held her at arm's length for an instant, looking unbelieving into her delicate face. Then her deadpan self-control slipped at last, and they both dissolved into a shimmer of laughter that brought the light back to their broken morning.

Three

Holland Novak managed to look grim even while wearing only a pair of gaudy multicolored reffing shorts with Catch the Ultimate Wave embroidered on one leg in orange thread. He stood with arms folded at the glassless southern window of the Vodarek temple's topmost meditation chamber, two hundred meters above ground, contemplating the grounded Moonlight on the meadow below.

"You seem concerned," said Viyuuden, the shaven-headed Vodarek high priest.

"Aren'tyou? None of your plans've worked out since we got here."

Viyuuden placed teacups around the low, circular table at the center of the room. "The Will of Vodarek is making itself known. I am content with that."

"Not making itself known any too fast, though, is it?" He turned to face the priest. "I really don't get you, you know. I don't know about the other Vodarek, but once, you were the slipperiest anti-Federation guerrilla leader anybody'd ever heard of. Now...here you are with a bunch of robed mystics, worshiping the Coral in the middle of nowhere."

The man's laughter was in no way mocking or harsh. "It's remarkable how you trusted Norbu so completely, yet never understood his teachings. We of the Way of Vodarek do not worship the Coralian -- or anything else. What do you prefer to drink?"

"Coffee. Black, but with plenty of sugar."

"A soldier's drink; caffeine and carbohydrates. No, Captain, the Coral is not a deity. It's a completely new form of life, one whose very nature puts it in instinctive contact with the transcendent realities that humankind has sought by trial and error for millennia. The Coral is a gateway, for those flexible enough and imaginative enough to perceive the shape of its thought. I tell you, there are things beyond this world of the Third Dimension that you haven't even imagined." He looked up from the coffeepot with a casual smile, like a man discussing the odds on the latest championship soccer match. "But you have the capability in you to understand. Norbu knew that -- and you proved it by becoming the protector of the Messenger, and later of the Chosen One. But the time of your regency is quickly drawing to a close...and you are aware of that, are you not? You're a man who has temporarily lost his way, Captain Novak."

Holland sipped at the coffee, hot and rich. "I've told you, don't call me 'Captain.' Military rankings remind me too much of Seven Squad." He seemed to find something bitter and ugly at the bottom of his cup. "You don't want a butcher like me in one of your white robes, anyway."

"You think not?" Viyuuden's stern but pleasant face lost its smile as he tugged at the golden hem of his own sleeve. "You wouldn't be the first butcher for whom the Coralian Mind has opened the portals of the infinite, Holland. Ah, Dr. Egan; Dr. Svarovsky; Professor Borodin -- welcome. And you, Drs. Morita and Wakabyashi. And Captain Sorel, too! How good to see you again! It's been several weeks since we've met. How is your wife?"

Dominic, wearing a pair of white Thuu Bakkian briefs and a pair of sandals, nodded in acknowledgment of the others and lifted his briefcase to the tabletop. "She's doing great, thanks to your treatment. I haven't seen her so lively and happy since...well, since ever. We're both truly grateful, sir." He hesitated for a moment, scratching absently at his forehead. "In fact, she... Well, I can talk about that some other time. Right now, Dr. Egan and I have some things to tell the rest of you... Oh, hello, Yuki, I wondered if you'd come."

"Babies never sleep on a schedule," she said, hurrying in with long-legged strides, pretending not to notice the impression her short skirt and halter top were making.

Mischa smiled happily at her, almost nostalgic. "You've put your old outfit back on. Good for you, Yuki. That uniform of yours was appropriate for a while...but now I think you've outgrown it. Lord, how much we've all changed since the days..."

"Since the days before Eureka and Renton emerged from their chrysalis," said Dr. Egan, pulling out a chair for Mischa. "The world is changing, my little pony. And we must guide that change -- all of us -- and somehow in the process, simultaneously grapple with our own lesser transformations."

As the others seated themselves, Viyuuden poured them all fruit juice, tea or coffee, according to their tastes. "Well said, Gregory. But surely you didn't call this meeting for philosophical reasons."

Dominic cleared his throat. "Actually...it was me who called it. Some of you may already be aware that the Vodarek priesthood removes the electromagnetic barrier over this area for a few minutes each night, so that Annette can download a burst-mode transmission from one of the Federation communications satellites. Jobs and Woz have figured out an algorithm to decode their military traffic, so we're able to monitor Federation activity while we're here."

"Sothat's where Katsuhiro's been getting that information," said Mischa. "That's very impressive."

"Yes." He opened the briefcase and withdrew a handful of printed documents. "We know The Federation's wondering where the Moonlight has gone, so we're keeping them worried..."

"Always a good thing," muttered Ken-Goh.

"...but in addition to that, we've come up with a couple of disquieting items." He ran his finger down the face of one page. "Jobs has written an AI text filtration parser, so we can sift out the important items from the chaff fairly quickly... Here it is. Federation Aerial Command has sent a couple of messages back and forth mentioning something called 'Violet Lightning.' They're extremely guarded about just what it is, but they seem to have some high hopes for it. We'll be passing the transmissions on to Admiral Juergens during tonight's window."

Dominic took a long breath and scratched again at his face, as though reluctant to continue. "And...there's another rather small item we discovered in some routine log records from the lower echelons of Federation Intelligence. Without Jobs' filter, I don't think we'd have spotted it at all." He looked around the room at the circle of expectant eyes. "There've been some arrests in Stoertinget province."

"Wherearen't there arrests in the Federation these days?" said Sonyia, frowning in distaste.

"Well, yes. But this one strikes pretty close to home. The victims this time are...Kenji and Mai Aruno."

Yuki was the first to understand. "Tommy's parents? Oh, no."

Dominic nodded, his uncooperative dark hair dropping forward over his forehead. "Exactly; that's why I didn't invite the entireMoonlight crew to this meeting. I wanted it to look like some kind of high-level World Parliament gathering, so they didn't all hear the news at once. This is the kind of information she shouldn't have to hear in front of a group. I'll...tell Tommy myself, as soon as I can get her alone. And Eureka and Renton, too, of course."

Viyuuden, who had been staring intently at Dominic during this announcement, looked sharply around at the others. "Does the Free Underground have any further information on this matter?"

"What's the 'Free Underground?'" Sonia asked.

Dr. Egan, much too tall for the cramped wooden chairs Viyuuden had moved into the meditation chamber, shifted uncomfortably before speaking up. "Something we have anticipated for some time, but whose existence has only recently been confirmed: it is the beginning of a resistance movement. The reclusive Mr. Stoner's laudable efforts withRayOuthave given rise to an informal network of dissatisfied thinkers, centered around, but not limited to, reffing clubs across the Federation. Spontaneously, this has begun to grow into the nucleus of a true resistance. Not a worthless rabble like the local Voice of the People, but a very tentative coalition of young folk, intellectuals, disenchanted journalists, former military personnel and many others who dare not oppose the Federation openly. We have as yet no direct contact with them, for their trustworthiness is still unknown; they are rank amateurs and may well be riddled with Federation spies. But it may soon be necessary to initiate some sort of dialogue."

"And that's because...?" said Holland.

Dominic replaced the papers in his briefcase. "Because Tommy's younger brother Kazuya has gone missing. He wasn't in the house when the TSA squad rounded up his parents, but the TSA interrogated his reffing friends and he hasn't been seen since the morning of the arrests. My IPF superiors and I agree that he must have found out what happened to his parents and gone into hiding. Since he's an enthusiastic reffer, there's a chance he's gotten in touch with the Underground."

"Well? What's that got to do with us? The Federation can't find him, and neither can we. I feel for the kid -- admire his guts, even -- but I don't see any reasons for taking the risk of getting in touch with these Free Underground play-actors. We've got enough on our hands at the moment, waiting for Viyuuden to decide when the 'Will of Vodarek' is going to talk to Eureka and Renton."

Viyuuden sat immobile, staring ahead over his folded hands, a lupine smile playing across his thin lips. "The Will of Vodarek will manifest itself; have patience. But this boy running away on his own...troubles me. Captain Sorel -- have the Federation's controlled media officially announced that Miss Aruno is a Gekkostate member?"

"Yes." Seating himself again, Dominic closed the briefcase with a sharpclick. "We don't know how they found out, but it was all over their propaganda 'news' broadcasts three days ago, just after the arrests."

"But why?" asked Yuki. "Advertising that one of the Federation military has deserted and come over to Gekkostate doesn't sound like good propaganda to me. Why should they make a public announcement about it?"

Dr. Egan sat forward. "Why indeed, Mrs. Novak! Though the point which troubles me is how the boy was able to escape so readily. If the Federation wanted his parents, why not him, as well? Would it truly have been so difficult to simply watch the Aruno home and wait until they were all three present before moving in? No, there is a great deal here to suggest that our data is incomplete. And when some aspect of Federation behavior appears illogical, it is wise to assume at least some measure of malice. Captain Sorel, I thank you for making this matter known to us. Please keep us advised of any new developments."

Four

Kazuya opened his eyes, still lost in the half-waking dream world of clattering and bouncing in which he'd spent the long night.

Still too exhausted to move, he lay inert on the dirty metal floor, his head painfully propped against the edge of a shipping crate as the train hammered its way southward. Dull beams of sunlight, clearly outlined in the airborne dust, slanted in through the freight car's ventilation slots to announce the arrival of dawn.

He closed his eyes once again, ready to dissolve back into whatever semblance of sleep had nagged him through the nighttime hours, when the train slowed with a clanking of buffers. He pried himself up from the floor and staggered on legs gone painful and stiff to the loading door, opening its latch and sliding it back a few centimeters, just enough to see outside. Dull and commonplace scenes of industry and commerce flashed past: loading docks, sidings, stacks of plastic girders and refractory brick, flatcars bearing crates of military supplies -- even one carrying what could only be stacked armor for Federation KLFs. Beyond rose the pile bunkers and tower of an industrial city or large town, indistinct in the dawn fogs. Other tracks crowded close by, some of them sidings on which other freight cars waited. With a hiss of brakes, the train jolted once more, decelerating still further. Knowing that they were either slowing for passage through the freight yard or coming to a stop, Kazuya shouldered his heavy backpack, grabbed his ref board and crouched by the partially-open door.

He cursed his carelessness in having slept so long. His original plan had been to leave the train during darkness, the better to avoid the attentions of the military guards that swarmed over all facilities of the State Railway; that would be far more difficult, now. And where exactly was this place? The large freightyard and busy sidings suggested Magdalin, with its titanium foundries and steelyards. If so, the Cochinero Canyons would be only about fifty kilometers eastward.

Kazuya carefully poked his head outside the door, squinting into a cool, damp wind. Above, the webs of overhead catenary from which the electric locomotives derived their power zigzagged back and forth, following the complex yard trackage. Along the perimeter of the high fence surrounding the freight yard, he saw sleepy-looking Federation patrollers just coming on their shifts. The train slowed to the speed of a fast walk; now would be the time to get off. Waiting till it slithered between another two lines of freight cars, Kazuya slid the door open wide and jumped toward the rear.

He stumbled, rolling forward and going down hard in the sharp, cold gravel but quickly picked himself up and hurried to the fading shadows of a tank car loaded with military thruster fuel. The solvent-reeking fumes venting from the relief valve went to his head at once, and -- whether to escape from them or because of them -- he found the nerve to tuck the ref board beneath one arm and sprint toward the transfer terminal some hundred meters distant.

"You!" The voice roared out of the railyard's background clatter, arrogant with its expectation of instant obedience. "Halt and put up your hands!"

Out of pure reflex, Kazuya turned. A gray-uniformed military guard watched him from sixty meters up the track, walking toward him with easy confidence, a Series Ten automatic rifle held ready at his waist. Kaz made his decision at once, and jumped beneath a hopper car loaded with ore, rolling to the other side while carefully protecting the ref board clutched to his chest.

"I said to halt!" bellowed the guard. "This is restricted property of the Federation of Predigio --" The flatulent air horn of another approaching freight train cut him off. Angered, the guard released a flurry of gunfire that sparked off the side of the hopper car with fiery little explosions of tracer bullets.

Crouched beneath a goods-wagon on the next track over, Kazuya choked on his fear. In only seconds, the guard would call for assistance and the freight yard would swarm with the entire morning shift. Kazuya would either be arrested and imprisoned, or -- depending on the mood of the Federation guards -- killed outright. Either way, his parents would continue to rot in their detention cell.

The heavy boots of the patroller grew visible beneath the tank car sitting on the next track as he searched for his prey. Beyond, the rails brightened with the headlight of the approaching train, the rattle of its string of empty goods-wagons and gondolas already overpowering. Kazuya struggled to control his breathing. Could he get back to the original track and jump into an open car of this new train without being shot? Not at ground level. But if he were to climb to the top of the tank car...

Again he made his decision without hesitation. He scrabbled across the sharp ballast between the tracks and jumped for the tank car's side-ladder just as the big red locomotive thundered by, air horns bleating a constant warning to the freight yard as it slowed. His head swimming once more with the penetrating fuel vapors, Kazuya climbed to the catwalk along the top and crouched by the humped dome of the filling valve, waiting for the first empty gondola to pass beneath. There. Ten seconds...five...three... He tensed his legs, waiting for the precise second...

Something exploded from the metal of the catwalk just to his right, peppering his leg with burning particles that stung and seared. He staggered and looked below to see the Federation patroller lowering his rifle from the warning shot he'd just fired, mouthing an unheard command that was swallowed up by the racket of the passing train. The gondola passed; Kaz squatted atop the tanker, desperately looking down the line for the next one. He knew that his leg had suffered no major damage, but the incendiary fragments were like hot nails in his flesh as they burned themselves out. The next gondola neared, almost here. He forced himself to an unsteady crouch, choking on the thruster fuel vapors, blinking back tears of pain...Ten...nine...eight...

A second shot clanged off the tank car's filling turret, one burning particle cutting through his ref jacket to graze his arm. Kazuya cried out, staggered and fell backward, slipping on condensed fuel as he tumbled four meters to the harsh rocks below. But as he fell, the Federation guard, seeing his victim drop beyond the reach of his bullets, grew careless in his rage. He shouldered his rifle and released a five-round burst at the metal turret just as Kazuya tumbled away. The blazing tracer rounds splattered on the metal relief valve, showering it with a cascade of yellow-hot sparks...

The fuel explosion and Kazuya's impact with the ground came at the same instant. A white fireball blasted out of nowhere, blinding him and scorching his exposed face and hands. His ears ringing, he crawled across the ballast, beneath a parked goods-wagon, across another, empty track, into a line of flatcars...anything to get away from that hellish column of light climbing into the morning sky from the tank car's demolished remains. Burning fuel splattered the sides of parked freight cars amid a choking reek of raw solvent that seared Kazuya's lungs. Klaxons went off all over the yard and he heard the wild oo-gah;oo-gah of fire engines from somewhere. And still Kazuya crawled.

Utterly out of breath, he found himself at last next to the transfer-terminal office, in the concealment of a heavy truck with an enclosed cargo bay, one rear door of which now opened on a stack of cartons labeled "Model N2 bicycle." Not military cargo, then. The building stood deserted; presumably all the civilian yard personnel were off dealing with the explosion and fire. He hoisted himself inside and crept behind the farthest wall of cartons. If the truck was not heading in the right direction, he could always leave later and hitchhike; for now, the highest priority had to be getting out of the guarded and thoroughly alert freight yard before someone thought to order outbound traffic halted altogether.

Some five minutes later, the doors slammed loudly, locked from the outside. That in itself caused him no fear, for he had already seen that the latches would operate from within as well. Shortly afterward, the truck bounced fractionally as the driver settled himself in and started the engine. Kazuya coughed, his lungs afire, then settled back, the stabbing pains in his leg subsiding into a low throb, his half-aware mind still dominated by the sight of his parents being hauled away in chains. But he was alive -- somehow -- and still free. Another half an hour, perhaps more, and he would jump out at the first stop, then start hitchhiking. He blinked back exhaustion; that could wait. A long road still lay ahead.

Five

"Now, Lady, you must sense the trapar flow in the ground beneath you..."

Eureka reached her arms around Renton's bare chest. "Only beneath us? But it's all around, in the ground and the air. It's even forming all the time, out of nothing."

"You can...?" Chala, the Vodarek priestess appointed by Viyuuden to instruct them, hesitated. "You can sense the natural formation of trapar? But...no one has ever been able to perceive trapar's spontaneous generation..."

"Ican. After I meditate the way you showed us, I can see it all around us, little bits of sparkling dust."

"Me too," said Renton, holding out his arms and letting the ambient trapar flow stream around them in shining spirals of liquid light. "What...is trapar, anyway, Chala?"

"Trapar?" She produced a smile and pressed on. "There are...two answers, Renton-sama, the scientific and the spiritual. Scientifically, it is a unique state of matter, neither solid nor liquid nor gaseous nor plasma, which can behave as either energy or mass, depending upon the force -- or the will -- being applied to it." Tilting back the dark glasses worn by nearly everyone against the blistering Thu Bakkian sun, Chala watched her two charges closely. "Spiritually, it is the condensate of the Coral's dreams; the distillation of their manifestation in the Seventh Dimension of pure thought, emerging into the Third Dimension of matter. Does that answer your question, Sir Renton?"

Eureka and Renton looked to each other. "Sort of, I guess. So that's why we can ref on trapar, then -- because when we put reflecto wax on a ref board, it makes the trapar underneath the board act kind of like a liquid."

"Yes, precisely, Lord. And for the same reason, coating an aircraft's lifting surfaces with reflection film allows it to travel long distances on very little fuel. Trapardynamics is the basis of all airship design." She looked about her on all sides of the open meadow, seeing only Dominic, approaching but still over a hundred meters distant. "Let us proceed quickly, before Captain Sorel arrives. Lady Eureka, please create a trapar flow from your wings, but this time visualize that you are compressing the trapar particles as you produce them. Renton-sama, as she directs the flow to your body, form it into a small sphere directly in front of you, and cause that sphere to rise into the air. Is this clear to you? Excellent. Proceed, then."

Renton felt the familiar chill tingle of trapar pulsing from her body into his own, and bent his concentration into sculpting it into a ball in mid-air. Previously, they had only been projecting the trapar in one direction or another, but this was a much slipperier task. No matter how he curved his hands, the trapar sphere quivered like the yolk of an egg and slithered away to one side or the other, dissipating into a shower of pale-green light.

Eureka's mind brushed his own. I don't think either of us can do it alone. I think we need to join. Wordlessly, he agreed, slipping comfortably into the link between them and allowing their merged will to command the trapar between his hands.

With a cry of fear, Chala leaped backward, away from the brilliant green ball of energy that bloomed before them with astonishing speed, growing to a meter -- six meters -- across its dazzling diameter. "Up! Upward, please!" she cried, shading her eyes with one arm. "Send it into the sky, Blessed Ones, please! Quickly, before it drifts toward the town or your ship!"

At once, the flaming globe shot skyward, leaving a sparkling trail behind as it climbed over three kilometers into the equatorial noon before exploding in a soundless display of light and fire. From far away in the village, the sounds of applause and delighted shouting rolled across the meadow.

"That might have been a little too much," admitted Eureka as their merged minds slipped apart once more.

Chala nodded, staring at the two-meter round crater the brilliant sphere had left in the surface of the grassy meadow. "As always, Lord and Lady, your...sheer power goes beyond anything in Vodarek experience. I hardly know how to guide you in this matter, except to counsel you to concentrate above all else upon control. Your command of trapar is more potent than any before you; from now on, we must focus upon directing that power with precision and delicacy."

Renton bowed politely. "I know. It's just so...hard to make the trapar do just exactly what we want."

"I'm sure we can do it, though," said Eureka. "But it's going to take a lot of practicing together. We promise to try harder."

"Please do, Lady. And now, let us... Oh, Captain Sorel. You weren't injured, I trust...?"

"No, Priestess, nothing like that." He waved at his shining face with one of the white folding fans favored by the Vodarek. "But I've got a confidential message from the World Parliament for Renton and Eureka. No offense, but could we be alone for a few minutes?"

She bowed placidly and backed away. "Our tutoring session is nearly ended in any case. We shall meet again tomorrow at the same time and place, Lord and Lady."

Renton waved good-bye, then, taking Eureka's hand, moved closer to Dominic. "What's going on with the almighty World Parliament today? Did they vote to make the Federation illegal yet?"

"It's no joke this time. Tommy Aruno's parents have been arrested. I thought you two'd want to know."

Eureka gasped, clenching Renton's hand. "Oh no. Are they still...alive?"

He dropped the heavy briefcase to the dry grass of the meadow and fanned himself with greater vigor. "As far as we know. I'm on my way to give her the bad news now, before anyone else hears about it."

"She has a little brother, too," said Renton. "Is he all right?"

"We think he's on the run; the Federation hasn't found him yet." He shook his head, frowning. "That seemed to bother Viyuuden, somehow. Maybe Dr. Egan can figure that guy out, but I certainly can't. Have either of you seen Anemone?"

Renton pointed dolefully toward the still-steaming pit in the grass. "No, we've been busy learning how to do things with trapar all afternoon. Listen, tell Tommy how sorry we are about her parents and her brother, would you? Neither of us really ever had parents or brothers, but I guess this's gonna...going to...to upset her pretty bad...badly. Thanks, Dominic."

But as Dominic walked away in the direction of the village, Renton watched with a growing sense of personal outrage that went beyond his genuine sympathy for Tommy. Why won't they let us alone?Why won't they just let us alone?

Six

Maurice slowly lowered the stubby training rifle to the crisp grass, opening the bolt, setting the safety and stepping away from it, just as Tommy had always taught him.

Something was wrong. After Captain Dominic came to talk to her, Tommy grew very upset, close to crying. Maurice had never seen her so upset before, and it worried him.

"What's the matter?" whispered Ariadne as they both watched Dominic holding Tommy, patting her back, trying unsuccessfully to give her comfort.

"Don't know. It's gotta be bad news, though. Tommy's as brave as anybody, so she wouldn't cry like that over something little."

The girl stared at the two adults, her Coralian eyes unblinking. "Is Jobs gonna be mad because she's hugging Captain Dominic?"

Maurice looked down at her, intrigued. Somehow -- no one seemed to know justhow -- Mama and Papa had arranged for Ariadne to be born two years old. That was peculiar enough, but she could talk only a couple of days after being born. And she'd say the strangest things; in some ways, she already seemed to know much more than any normal two-year-old. Their foster brother Linck would turn four before the end of the year, and he'd never been anywhere near as smart and understanding as Ariadne. Neither had five-year-old Maeter. In fact, Maurice didn't really mind admitting, she could sometimes ask questions that even he couldn't answer. Still, he found her endlessly fascinating, and always made it a point to answer to the best of his ability. "No. Jobs is her boyfriend; Captain Dominic's just trying to make her feel better. In fact, I'll bet Tommy goes straight to Jobs as soon as she stops crying."

"Can Jobs make it all better for her, d'you think?"

"Don't know. She looks really upset. She's gonna want to talk to Jobs real soon, though, I can tell. I think she's almost done crying now."

Ariadne pulled another handful of raisins from her small paper bag and chewed thoughtfully. "She must love Jobs, then. Mama and Papa love each other, and they always wanna be together when they're upset, don't they?"

"Yeah, they do. Here she comes -- don't say anything about her crying, okay?"

Tommy smeared tears from her shining cheeks with the back of one hand and crouched down before the two children. She wore her black hair in two short pigtails today, and her eyes, that Maurice always found so bright and pretty, swam in sparkling pools of sadness. "Look, Maurice, I'm afraid we're g-gonna have to cut your shooting lessons short today, okay? Can you unload the rifle and take it back to the storeroom on the Moonlight?"

"Sure." He held out three cartridges, flashing golden in the high sunlight, and handed them over to her. "I already unloaded it and took it outa battery, like you always say. Me and Ariadne'll clean it once we get back. What's the matter, Tommy?"

"It's..." She took the ammunition and swiped again at her face. "It's my parents. The Federation's got'em."

Maurice sympathized at once, his own foster parents having been on the run from the Federation for as long as he'd known them. "I'm real sorry, honest. What're you gonna do?"

"I don't know. I just don't. I can't really think right now." She stood, looking around her but not really seeing a thing except Federation prisons with her mother and father locked inside.

"Jobs is in the Temple," said Ariadne. "You oughta go talk to him." She stretched her wings, fanning them to create a breeze around her.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll do that. So long. And thanks, Dominic."

She hurried off across the dry meadow with long, determined strides while the three of them watched in silence. "Captain Dominic," asked Ariadne, "did we make her feel better?"

"You probably did a better job than I did, anyway." He tugged his white service cap lower over his forehead. "She's tough; she'll handle it. But she'll want to do something about it, too, and that's going to be a problem. You kids seen Anemone?"

"In the village." Maurice pointed over his shoulder. "Looking at clothes."

Dominic smiled. "That'd be her, all right. See you later, then."

"'Bye, Captain."

Maurice picked up the training rifle, carefully, so as to avoid getting any dirt or dry grass into the barrel or mechanism. "C'mon, Ariadne, you can help me clean this. You wanna go into the jungle afterwards and look for tree-cats?"

"Yeah! They'll be hidin' under the bushes now, 'cause it's so hot."

He grinned at her. "Let's hurry, then."

Seven

"Am I...on time?" Renton paused at the doorway to Stoner's quarters. Though the door had been left open, he could not escape a haunted feeling of being unwanted, or at least unwelcome.

Matt Stoner looked up from his desk, buried beneath notes, photographs and layouts for the imminent issue of RayOut. Renton recognized the picture on the cover page: himself, awkward in dark sweater and trousers, Eureka angelic in her short, filmy gown, as they made their entrance to the doomed Tresor monthly ball. It all seemed such a long time ago, now.

He found Stoner himself far less enchanting. The man had lost weight, achieving not the lean look of health but rather a pallid ineffectuality that put Renton in mind of a ghost. His once-careless beard and hair, now scrupulously clipped, only reinforced the disquieting image of faintness, of a photograph overexposed. Vanished too was the red beret Stoner had made into an insouciant trademark, but Renton knew where that had gone, and said nothing about it. "I mean, Mischa said I should come to see you at one o'clock, and it's about that now, so..."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it? Slipped my mind, you know? Out of sight, out of... Well, just move those stacks of paper off that seat and enthrone yourself."

"Okay." Renton lifted a pile of scrawled notes to the floor and dropped into a hard plastic chair obviously stolen from the Moonlight's galley. Stoner made him nervous, like a prisoner just released from a long and agonizing sentence. His skin, the color of soft cheese, told of far too much time spent here in his solitary burrow and accentuated the loose dark pouches beneath his eyes. "Mischa said you wanted to start with those video interviews again. But she told me I oughta watch some recordings of my father, first. Everybody thinks he was a great speechmaker."

Stoner folded his hands over his bare chest and made something resembling a smile. "'On the king's gate the moss grew gray; The king came not. They called him dead, and made his eldest son one day...slave in his father's stead.' Be careful, Renton. Don't let them make you a slave in your father's stead."

"I'mnot gonna be a..."

"That's what you're already afraid of, isn't it? That they'll bind the pair of you with chains of obligation and clip her wings forever. Two lovebirds in a gilded cage." Seeing the tightening of Renton's hands on the edge of his chair, Stoner held up one hand in a languid gesture of peace. "I was the one who picked you up from that mountainside, remember? Do you think I didn't see the longing in your faces; see how much you really wanted to stay there? If it hadn't been for your kids, I think you would have stayed there." He rubbed at his eyes and sighed, waving one hand over the scattered embryo of the next RayOut. "Don't waste your outrage on me, Renton. The Federation tried to make a figurehead of your father, and the World Parliament wants to do the same thing with you two. The difference is, you and Eureka arealive. You can still struggle against those icy chains -- and maybe you can even win. But don't ask me how. I'm the last one to ask for advice on being a winner."

Renton's politeness began to wear thin. "Hey, are you really feeling sorry for Eureka and me? Or just yourself?"

"Ah,touché. I forgot how transparent I am these days." Stoner pulled out one of his desk drawers, fumbling about in its contents and coming up with three video crystals, still in their blue-plastic slipcovers. "Here. These are recordings of a couple of Adrock's speeches. I didn't know your father personally -- he had better taste in friends, I gather -- but this stuff sounds to me like fundraising material; trying to coax more research appropriations from the Federation High Council. He was no gung-ho Federation patriot, but he was a hell of an orator. No wonder Mischa wants you to see him in action."

"Thanks." He reached across the chaotic desktop and snatched up the recordings.

Stoner peered at him closely. Something in the way the slovenliness around him contrasted with his obsessively trimmed hair and beard only added to Renton's uneasy impression of a broken ex-convict. "Tell me something, Renton: are you going to find it hard to watch those things? You pretty much idolized your old man in the old days, before you eclipsed him."

"Maybe. At first, when I was just a kid, I...I hated him, because he wasn't around. When he died, it didn't even make much difference to me, since I never saw him anyway. Then, like you said, I started thinking he was the greatest thing ever. But now...I dunno." He looked up to Stoner's weary brown eyes, curious. "What d'you think of him?"

"Never having either been a father or had one, I'd be the worst possible authority. It's said that 'the gods visit the sins of the father upon the children,' but in your case, it's hard to know who's visiting who. Go on now, take the crystals and look into the face of might-have-been. Then come back in a day or two with Eureka, so we can cobble together some rough sort of outline for an interview. Just don't let anyone see you on the way out, or you'll get a reputation for associating with low company."

Renton rose to go, but turned at the threshold, troubled. "What's thematter with you, anyway? I know you feel bad about what you did with the Voice of the People, but...everybody forgives you for that."

He slammed his hand to the desktop, making Renton twitch and papers jump to the floor. "Forgive me? Of course they forgive me! Have you got any idea what it's like to know that every time your old comrades look at you they're forgiving you? Tiptoeing around you like a dying man, always trying not to bruise what's left of your self-respect, always sanctimoniouslyforgiving? In my tender naiveté, I once believed that justice was what we wanted for other people, while mercy was what we want for ourselves. That was before I found out just how sharp a whip mercy could be!"

Wanting very much to leave, Renton still hesitated, looking back at the shrunken journalist, wondering. "Stoner...how come you can seeother people so good, but you can't see yourself?" And before the man could hurl another dusty quotation, Renton took himself from the room, down the corridor, running by the time he reached the catapult ramp, into the light again.

Eight

Kazuya stretched and yawned as he walked, nearly drunk with weariness, sustained only by the burning need to avenge the sight of watching his parents hauled away like so many troublesome vermin by the hired gangsters of the Federation.

He stunk, he knew that much. With the sun so high above the horizon, his ref jacket and the shirt beneath were both growing unpleasantly ripe, accentuated by the sharp odor of synthetic lubricant from the floor of the truck in which he'd stolen his first ride.

After that one, there'd been hours of hitchhiking on the backs of trucks -- always in the back, for no one would invite him into the front seat -- until the last one deposited him here, on the well-worn dirt road leading to Cuchinero Canyon. Just a few kilometers up the road, the affable lorryman at the wheel had assured him, and you'll come to the place where all those crazy reffers are forever hanging out, risking their fool necks to fly over those damned rocks.

But Kazuya already knew well what went on in Cuchinero -- the legendary "Cooch," where natural trapar currents streamed through its unique venturi-shaped canyon network to create pressure waves of an intensity unlike anything for thousands of kilometers around. Only the very best could ref the treacherous high-velocity wavefronts of Cooch; the rest either came to watch in awe, or died.

Somehow, though, even the prospect of finally seeing the Cooch with his own eyes failed to bring its customary exhilaration. Kazuya squinted into the sun, turning quickly away, stumbling to one knee, then dropping wholly to the stony ground. Maybe just a little rest...

Kazuya stretched, mildly surprised to find how much his arms, legs and head all ached in various unpleasant ways. Not yet entirely awake, he found himself reluctant to give up the lingering caress of sleep. At least the floor of this truck was soft, not like all those others...

Truck?The last truck let me off, three kilometers down the road!I should be walking...

Snapping himself upright, he popped open his gummy eyes and looked around in a panic. A bed, crude but comfortable, lay beneath him, and a well-used dresser and nightstand suggested that its normal occupants might be people of neat sensibilities but limited means. Another Federation trick? Had he been gassed, then dragged to a cell in some remote area, where they could question him the moment he regained consciousness? Terror swelled, cold and consuming, in his stomach. He swung his legs to the floor, discovering in the process that his boots had somehow gone missing. To keep him from escaping? Kazuya decided not to test the theory; he tottered to his feet, immediately struggling without success against a quick wave of nausea before collapsing to the floor, his vision a snowstorm of crawling white spots.

Quick footsteps pattered in from somewhere. Reinforcements? Someone grabbed one of his arms, dragging him half a meter across the varnish-scented floor. "Get your stink...stinking hands offa me!" he groaned.

The hands disappeared. "Suit yourself, kid," said their owner.

On his own, Kazuya rolled more or less upright, looking up into the smirking but highly appealing face of a honey-haired girl, wearing a pair of abbreviated blue ref shorts and a thin white blouse tied loosely just beneath her breasts. Realizing how unsophisticated he must surely look, sprawled on the floor and staring like a sideshow hypnotist, Kazuya closed his mouth and rummaged his cluttered mind for something intelligent to say. "Uhh..."

"Easy, Kaz, nobody's gonna hurt you. My name's Lala. Hey, Ripper," she shouted to someone apparently just beyond the door. "He's awake."

"How'd you know what my name is?" he asked, slowly coming to his bare feet. At that moment, though he could be certain of little else, he knew beyond doubt that he wore nothing but a pair of reffing shorts at least two sizes too big. He held tightly to the waistband in an effort to preserve at least a bit of dignity

"You got it written inside your boots, unless you stole 'em from somebody named Kazuya Aruno."

Someone he assumed to be "Ripper" pushed his head inside the door. He wore well-worn ref gear of board boots and a deep blue skimmer jacket. "Oh, yeah. He's major okay, now, fer sure. Hi, kid; you looked really pitted when Ollie and Spinner dragged you in. Feelin' better now?"

"I..." The young man's long-jawed smile beneath green eyes and a dark widow's peak touched something in Kazuya's memory. "Ripper.Ripper! Holy hell, you're Ripper Neary! You won the Eastern Nationals three years ago, with a perfect Flying Roundhouse Cutback! You practically invented the Inverted Shoveit!"

Neary smiled, embarrassed but not entirely displeased. "Naw, the Shoveit was Screwfoot's baby, not mine. Okay, Lula, I'm gonna go get Skeetch, okay? I know this guy needs a bath, but Skeetch said to just hang twenty on anything else till he gets here."

"Oh,damn," sighed Lula in a theatrical way, snapping her fingers. "And I was so hopin' to wrestle him into a tub."

In his excitement, Kazuya ignored the heavy-handed sarcasm at his expense. "'Skeetch?' Then I made it? This is Cuchinero, isn't it?"

"Yeah, that's right," agreed Ripper, "this's the Cooch. Wherever you came from, you musta wanted to ref here awfully bad; we found you passed out on the road, maybe a kilo or two back." His easy smile faded. "But look, kid, this's no place for skurvers, no matter how good you are on that shortboard we found with you. This trapar doesn't forgive. If you know ref at all, you know that the Cooch has eaten more'n one highlined shralper alive. If you've got any ideas about..."

"I didn't come her to ref," he cut in, standing at his full height and looking from one to the other of them. "I just need ta talk to Skeetch Bremmer."

Lula folded her arms most interestingly and leaned against the doorframe. "Fanboys line up here," she said, jerking her thumb over one shoulder.

"Maybe I'm a skurver but I'm no fanboy! Every reffer knows that Skeetch is in the Free Underground."

The casual, bantering manner of the two reffers burned away in a silent flash of wariness. "Is that so?" asked Ripper at last, evaluating him through narrowed eyes. "And what d'youwant with Skeetch, anyway?"

Kazuya met his gaze with an even greater intensity. "I wanna find Holland Novak."

Nine

The man on the video screen looked out to his unseen audience, confident, almost exultant, his brilliant white uniform shining in the spotlights. He spread his arms wide, smiling beneath a luxuriant dark mustache, beckoning as though he bore news too delightful to be held inside a moment longer.

"Members of the High Council!" he began, balanced on the verge of laughter. "Commanders of the Federation military! And most of all, you, the citizens of the Federation of Predigio Towers, Greetings to you all!" Prolonged applause filled the air; presumably the man in the gaudy uniform spoke before a small but overflowing hall. "This planet, our place of refuge from our long Exodus through the stars, quivers beneath our very feet with deadly tremors. Yet there are now far too many of us to return to space a second time, in search of still another home for our people. Is there a man or woman among us who would not rejoice to know that a solution to this grave crisis is within our reach? And it is! I bring you news of the happiest kind this evening, to..."

Renton jumped at the touch of a gentle hand on his shoulder; he fumbled in the darkened room for the video controller and the man on the screen froze in silence, his firm jaw thrust forward, his dazzling blue eyes flashing in the stage lights before the video panel dimmed to black. "Eureka! Jeez, you really startled me. When did you come in?"

She knelt beside him, folding her legs beneath her on the thick carpet she'd had the Vodarek lay on the bare stone of their quarters high in the Temple. "Just now. If you'd had the lights on, you'd have seen me; I was putting the children to bed. Why didn't you tell me you were going to watch these old recordings of Adrock?"

"I don't..." He turned to her, his face half in darkness, half aglow in the frozen light of his father's eyes. "Maybe I was embarrassed. Or maybe I just didn't know how I was gonna feel -- how I was going to feel -- when I watched this stuff -- this recording. I didn't want you to see me if I was...going to start breaking up or something." Renton dropped his face. "I never like looking bad in front of you."

Slipping her silken arms about him, Eureka touched his cheek with a delicate kiss. "That's foolish. You could never look bad to me. How long have you been watching these things?"

"I dunno, what time is it now...? Oh, jeez, it's been almost two hours... You and Grandpa...you both told me that Dad was different from me." He closed his eyes, grateful now for the enveloping dark. "I never understood that till now, though, not really. Dad was... He was possessed. So wound up in his dreams and his theories... I mean, even though they were true, well, all the same, they were everything to him. More than Mom, more than Diane...more than me. I can learn totalk like him for Stoner's cameras, but I can't ever learn to be like him. Grandpa was right; when I met my father in the Tenth Dimension, the reason he couldn't talk to me was that he didn't have anything to say. There's just no way where we could ever really get together -- you understand?"

She held him more tightly, pressing her cheek to his, holding back the unseen currents of his fear. "You're not him, Renton. I'm always grateful to Adrock for what he did, for me and for the Coral. But I could never have loved him."

Nodding, he turned and embraced her fully, with all his strength. "There was a time -- you know, the time when I got stupid, and ran away from you -- the time I got in with Charles and Ray for a while. I'm...sorry for that. So sorry that I could only really explain it right to your mind, only I don't want you to hafta have so many stupid memories."

"You needn't..."

"Yeah I do! I almost would've stayed with those two. Because...because I was still just a kid, then, Eureka. And I thought that what I wanted most was parents." The two of them rocked slowly back and forth together, her phosphorescent wings fanning slowly around them. "And then I found out what they wanted -- what they wanted to do to you. And then I knew that parents didn't matter to me any more. What mattered was you." Renton held her face close to his, their foreheads touching. "Charles and Ray got corrupted, Eureka, poisoned. They seemed like such nice people on the outside, but inside they were all rotten with some kind of sick craziness. I shoulda hated them. I do hate them! They wanted to murder you, all for some stupid, twisted, crappy fantasy that didn't have anything to do with you! If I could've...I woulda killed them myself!"

He shuddered for a moment before going on, and Eureka stroked his hair, silencing him with a kiss. "But you didn't. And we're still together. We promised to be together forever, remember? And we always keep our promises."

"Yeah. But I still think about Charles and Ray -- over and over since they died -- wondering about them. The Vodarek meditation helped, some, but it still scares me somehow." Renton looked from her to the quarter-moon, part of the valentine inscribed by the Coralian Mind floating in the equatorial night. "I don't know why. But all the same, I keep thinking, over and over, that it's something important. Do you know what it is, Eureka?"

Very slowly, she stood, taking his hand and lifting him to his feet before her. "I know that we love each other and we always will. And I know you shouldn't watch any more of those old recordings. You can make your own speeches; you don't need any more of Adrock's help. You and I are more important than any of that, aren't we?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

"Then you must think about us and about now, Renton. You taught me how we must have faith in each other; maybe it's time I reminded you of that. Come with me."

"Huh? Where?"

Gently, she pulled him toward one of the long, high windows opening to the village and the meadow spreading before them two hundred meters below. In the dry, hot, even climate, no glass had ever been needed, and they faced outward into the bare caress of the night wind. "After all the practicing with Chala and the other Vodarek masters, I've been thinking. There's something we can do, the two of us, that they've never thought of. I'm sure we can do it." She undid the single button at her waist, and her tiny white skirt dropped with the patter of cats' feet to the floor. "Now you must take off your shorts and sandals, too."

"Me? What for?" But he did as she asked, and followed without question as she took his hand and led him to the window, where she hopped to its low sill and stood there, magnificent and charged with magic and wonder, the night itself taken female form. "Er, Eureka, it's a long way down, and I haven't got any wings..."

She smiled, and caressed him with the lavender worlds of her Coralian eyes. "Have faith in us, Renton. Come up, and don't let go of my hand, not even for a second. That's it -- don't worry, you won't fall."

"All...all right." Pushing his fear away, he put one leg to the windowsill and boosted himself up beside her. Accustomed though he was to altitude, standing here nearly at the point of a two-hundred-meter stone pyramid sent waves of dizzy terror though his brain. "Are we...?"

But Eureka's eyes closed now in silent concentration, almost ecstasy, as she stood on tiptoe, her chest thrust forward, back arched, spreading her magnificent wings, alive with radiant trapar fire that threw back the darkness behind them.

The cold fire spread down her body, setting her alight, then through her hand to Renton as well, until the two of them shone in the night more brightly than the moon that bore their names. Eureka laughed, clear and bright. "Have faith in us, Renton!" She leaped out, and Renton jumped with her, his fingers still tightly interwound with hers. And through the velvet stars they soared together, laughing, a pair of twinned moonbeams trailing their joy in each other across a black sky hot with love.

On the meadow far below, Viyuuden's eyes snapped open, his deep meditational trance shattered. "What is it, sensei?" asked the frightened disciples seated in a circle about him on the night-soft grass, their own meditations broken. "We felt it, too. Something of great power and importance. What can it be?"

He only smiled, and looked upward at the sparkling green trails far, far above. "The unfolding of the Will of Vodarek, my friends. The new era draws quickly nearer."

Holland stirred in his bed with the urgent sensation of something out of the ordinary. For over twelve years, "out of the ordinary" had meant danger in his world, and he swung his legs to the floor, padding quickly to the window -- only to find Yuki already there, looking out into the night.

"What's wrong?" he asked, tensed for quick action.

"Nothing. Look there." She pointed upward, toward the graceful swirls and arcs of trapar ionization gliding above them like the sparkling trails of ice skaters.

He smiled, then, and put his arm about her bare shoulders. "Reffing at this time of night, are they?"

"Eureka doesn't need a ref board, and if I'm not mistaken, Renton's doing without one tonight, too."

"Yeah?" Holland watched intently as they soared across the moon. "Well, I'm damned, you're right. That's quite a trick. Y'know...I've got to admit, Viyuuden's making more and more sense about those two."

She pressed her cheek to the curve of his shoulder, where the scars of a violent life were already fading under the influence of the Coralian Gift. "They're getting beyond us, Holland. What are they becoming, do you think?"

Holland Novak held his eyes to the emerald-frosted sky and smiled once more. But he had no answer.

Maurice never fell asleep quickly -- there was always far too much to think about before letting sleep take him. And so when Ariadne stirred, sat up and ran to the window, he knew about it at once, and followed. "Be careful," he whispered, so as not to wake the others in their beds. "You might fall out."

"It's Mama and Papa," she said, and as she looked to him and pointed, Maurice saw the little jewel on her forehead glow with a faint pink radiance. "Up in the sky."

"Oh, yeah!" He almost laughed aloud at the sight, watching them dive and soar. "Both of 'em! Wow, that looks really neat!"

"WishIcould fly." Ariadne fluttered her own tiny wings, and Maurice could feel the frustration and yearning in her.

"It's okay, you will. Not yet, but you will."

"Yousure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Mama couldn't always do it, either, not till her and Papa got married."

"Oh." She fell silent for a while, then moved nearer to him. "Stay here and watch with me, will you, Maurice?"

He nodded, watching the sky, wondering what lay beyond its infinite horizon. "Sure. Don't worry, Ariadne. I'll stay with you."

Dominic and Anemone awoke simultaneously in their Temple quarters. "Did you hear something?" he asked, at once suspicious.

"Yeah. I'm not sure what, but I'm pretty sure I heard it, all right." She jumped from the bed in a single graceful bound, her long pink braid whipping behind her as she dropped to a crouch near the light fixture across the room. "You want me to turn the lamp on?"

"Not yet. What's that light? I don't mean just the moonlight from the window -- it looks...green."

Cautiously, Anemone approached the window, the moon's cool midnight sheen washing across the shallow curves of her body with each feline step. "Oh, cool! Look, it's Eureka and Renton, reffing. See how pretty it looks at night! Jeez, like fireworks, only longer."

"Oh, right! That is beautiful, isn't it? No, wait a minute -- Renton's not using a board, is he? What a maneuver! Just think how the Federation High Command would tremble in its boots to see that." Impulsively, he kissed her neck, thrilled as always at his incredible good fortune in having her near.

"Mmmm. You're pretty good at making me tremble in my boots, Captain Sir. If I was wearing any, that is." She embraced him and sighed, her breath burning at his chest. "It's all so much better now, isn't it, Dom? And it's gonna get better still, I know it, I know it. They're gonna try and stop us, the Federation, but I'll fight those against those slime twice as hard as they ever made me fightfor 'em. What we've got -- what we're doing, all of us -- it's worth fighting for."

"Worth fighting for, every bit of it." And he held her against him, kissing her, filling his arms, his life, with her. "And we'll fight together this time, Anemone."

The trapar contrails still laced through the warm night. But the two of them could hear that invisible music without looking, and immersed themselves in their own quiet fire for time beyond caring.

The warm, dew-soaked strands of night-grass brushed at Matt Stoner's sandaled feet as he wandered without direction or purpose across the meadow near the edge of the Vodarek village. The sounds of hammers and shouting as they prepared for their upcoming Festival Night had long faded, leaving a darkness and silence exceeded only by those within Stoner's own heart.

The masquerade's wearing thin. I've gotta get out of here while I still have the option of leaving voluntarily.

What the hell was it that drove me to desert the Federation Press Corps and find Gekkostate in the first place? 'Idealism,' I called it, wearing it like a shiny badge inscribed 'Nobility is the one and only virtue.'

Crap. All crap.

Time to cut away the self-deception, Matt. All you've ever been doing is flaunting your own morally-superior innocence in the face of a world of filth and corruption. Stoner the Rebel. Stoner the Crusading Journalist, Champion of the Underdog. Stoner the Stainless Warrior of the Pen. How ironic, how fitting, that when the corruption came, it was good old crusading Matt Stoner who fouled his own nest. Who betrayed his own comrades to keep his badge of innocence shinier than anybody else's. And who ended up buried to the neck in a dunghill of his own choosing. Wordsworth knew what he was talking about when he said that 'the homely beauty of the old cause is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence.' He must've known I was coming. Gekkostate'll never be the same again; the times are changing, and the last thing that'll be remembered when the history books're written will be the treason of Matt Stoner. Let's see... Brutus; Cassius; Judas...and Stoner. Has kind of a catchy rhythm to it...

"Look at it! It's beautiful!"

"But what? And how? What's going on?"

Irritably, Stoner shook himself from his acid bath and allowed himself to grow aware of his surroundings. A group of half a dozen men and women -- he guessed them to be couples -- were running from the village in a state of high excitement, gawking and babbling to each other, their shadows a dance of darkness in the moonlight. What the hell?Not another VOP attack? "Hey. Hey! What's going on? What's the emergency? If you need help, I can send a signal from the Moonlight..."

A wide-eyed woman with short dark hair gasped as he stepped forward out of the shadows, and Stoner understood for the first time what two weeks of self-loathing had done to his appearance. "You...you're one of the people from the airship?"

"Yeah. I'm Matt Stoner. Look, what's the buzz? You guys need help in any way? Is there..."

Her companion interrupted, pointing to the sky. "Just look! Have you been staring at the ground all this time? We're going to the Temple, to see what they know of it. How could you miss it?"

Irritated without quite knowing why, Stoner followed his trembling finger and stood immobile, staring, blasted by the whimsical beauty of the fiery embroidery written on the night. "My God," he whispered.

One of the women crept closer, unsure, her kindly face soft with concern. "Are you all right, sir? Do you know something frightful about this light?"

"Frightful?" Stoner smiled, and his eyes glittered like raindrops, but he faced her without embarrassment. "No. No, nothing to be afraid of. It's just...funny, you know? It made me think of something important. Or remember it. No, it's the Lady Eureka and the Renton-sama, giving us a little reminder, that's all."

The little group nodded among themselves, at once calm, almost serene. "Then the signs grow ever stronger, as we've already known. But it's a beautiful thing, is it not? How, I wonder, do the Messenger and the Chosen achieve such a casual miracle?"

Laughing now, Stoner fought down an urge to embrace her -- to embrace them all -- for having made him see what he had so nearly forgotten. "Nothing to it!" he shouted, light-headed with the joy of understanding. "Nothing at all." Wistfully, he glanced up to the moonlit wonder once again. "You just...think wonderful thoughts...and they lift you up in the air. Right?"

"But...?"

"Sorry, but I've gotta fly now. I've got work to do, lots of it. The signsare strong, and I've gotta be ready for them. So long -- and thanks."

Ten

Kazuya sat on a high bluff, knees tucked beneath his chin, overlooking the deep, jagged furrows of the Cuchinero Canyons. Roughly parallel, they brought to his mind the image of some gigantic rake, dragged for a dozen kilometers through the topsoil and the coral beneath to create a reffers' paradise where prevailing trapar currents could rush down the venture-like channels at velocities unobtainable anywhere else, this close to the ground.

In the lowering sun, he could see several diehard reffers still catching the trapar -- "in the green room," as the reffing community would have it -- swirling, rising, falling, executing brilliant Eggbeaters, Board Throws, Jamblos and the supremely difficult Flying Roundhouse Cutback, all within scant meters of the deadly pointed coral shards on all sides. Kazuya shook his head at the sheer artistry and foolhardiness of it all, and wondered where he had ever got the nerve to call himself a reffer.

"You wanted to see me, kid?"

He turned quickly, amazed that a man of such height and powerful frame could have come up behind with such silence. "You're Skeetch Bremmer; every reffer knows you. Yesterday, everybody told me you weren't around."

Bremmer joined him, sitting cross-legged on the bare coral. He wore a patched green-and-yellow striped bodysuit with a sunburst insignia sewn above the right breast, and his brown hair, flecked here and there with gray, tossed in the steady wind rising from the canyons below. "I'm not always around, not for just everybody. Especially for guys who shoot their mouths off about things that can get'em killed these days. Things like the Free Underground, for instance."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to get anybody in trouble." Kazuya did not lower his face. "It's just that I'm in a hurry, and there wasn't any time for me to play like a detective. I've gotta find Holland Novak, fast."

"That so? How old are you?"

"Thirteen; almost fourteen. What's it matter?"

One of the distant reffers proned out on his longboard, catching the trapar overspill from the nearest of the canyons, coasting in, then kipping up from the board at the last instant to catch it beneath one arm and stroll nonchalantly toward the clubhouse. "Damn that Screwfoot," Bremmer mused. "Always too cocky, and someday it's gonna get him killed. You've gotta be a little cocky t'be a good reffer. But agreat reffer always knows where t'draw the line. It was a little before my time, but they say Holland Novak always knew right where to draw that line. You know Holland, kid?"

"My name'sKazuya. Everybody calls me Kaz. No, I never met him, I just read about him inRayOut, him and Gekkostate. But my sister knows him. Her name's Tomika, and she joined Gekkostate; I just found out a couple of days ago. The Federation first said she was killed at Tresor, putting down a terrorist attack. But she's alive." He took his head in his hands. "Now they arrested our parents, for some kind of lying treason charge. They're in jail, and I don't know what they're gonna do to them. Tomika might maybe know what to do. And if she doesn't, Holland Novak will."

Bremmer whistled, long and musically. "Tall order, Kaz. If even a tenth of what I've read about Holland is true, he's got enough guts for fifty guys. But still... Yeah, I believe what you're telling me. I wouldn't be here, otherwise. Lala and Ripper passed your story along to...certain people, who say it's true about your sister and your parents. And your right leg's got burn holes all up and down that match the ones on your pants. But don't get your hopes up too high; even Holland Novak can't just haul miracles out of a hat, y'know."

"But he's the only one who maybe can! I gotta..."

"Yeah, yeah, don't blow up a wind, I'm only giving you fair warning, see? If you get disappointed, I don't want you saying Skeech Bremmer didn't go all the way for you. Listen up, now: last anybody heard of theMoonlight, it was in Samit Prakkun, the capital of Thuu Bak. The Federation's tried to hush it up, but word in the Underground is that Holland's carried some diplomatic types to the Thuu Bak government, to try to get them to break away."

"Wow! That's --"

"Save it. Now, as far as we know, the Moonlight's still somewhere in Thuu Bak. Nobody knows exactly where, but it's not a big province." Bremmer looked around them, as if suspecting spies on the very wind. "We have contacts with some sympathetic aircrew personnel on civilian cargo runs to the south. If we can get you into the Twelve Patriots Aerodrome in Haklova, they're willing to smuggle you onto a cargo liner to Samit Prakkun. But that's as far as we can take you; after that, you're on your own, and it's not gonna be easy, I can promise you that. There's a lot of jungle in Thuu Bak, it's hotter than hell-on-a-ref-board, and we can't even be sure theMoonlight's still there." He looked hard into Kazuya's dark eyes. "So on those terms, yeah, the Underground can get you that far. But there's no way we can tell what you'll be heading into."

Kaz held his fists beside him, nodding sharply as the setting sun caught his face. "It's not like I've got anything to go back to, is it?"

"I guess not. Okay, your stinking clothes're washed and patched, and Ollie patched up the scratches on your board. You get yourself ready to move, Kaz Aruno, 'cause when the word comes, you'll need to be on your way fast." Bremmer stood, hesitant in spite of his astringent manner. "I hope to hell I'm doin' the right thing, 'cause this might be a one-way trip for you. But... If you do find Holland...tell him that he did the absolute best rail-to-rail rollercoaster anybody's ever done." With a curt nod, he disappeared beyond the hill, as silently as he had appeared.

Eleven

Tommy sat before them, fidgeting and shifting in her seat, a solemn Jobs brooding at her side. Tonight she wore a thin sleeveless shirt with heavy twill shorts -- both in military camouflage pattern -- and the thick boots of a Federation soldier. Renton thought it obvious why she'd wanted to meet with them here, in the galley of the Moonlight, rather than in the Vodarek temple, for this was Gekkostate business, private and internal, not subject to the scrutiny of outsiders, however friendly.

Holland stood, still in his flashy reffing shorts but looking far from relaxed. "Okay, I guess we can all pretty much guess what Tommy called this meeting for. Everybody knows by now that her parents've been jailed by Federation Internal Security and her brother's gone missing. And so... Stoner?"

Matt Stoner breezed into the room, two still cameras slung about his neck, his old ironic smirk firmly in place. "Sorry for the fashionably late entrance, people. I couldn't find one of my cameras; I've misplaced a lot of things lately." He grabbed a chair and dropped himself into it, already framing his first shot. "But I've found everything again, now. Tommy, sorry about your folks. What's the plan?"

She nearly smiled. "I...don't know what the plan's gonna be. I just know I can't stay here playing around with the Vodarek while my family's rotting in a Federation interrogation cell."

"But what will you do?" Eureka asked. "I don't see how you can go against the Federation all by yourself."

"She won't be by herself," said Jobs, folding his arms in a determined way. "I'm going with her." Renton thought he looked strange, almost military, with the short, bristly expanse of brownish hair now adorning his once-shaven scalp. But then, Stoner, too, seemed out of place without his red beret. It all had an air of unreality that made him squirm uneasily; nothing was what it had been any longer.

Woz shook his head. "No one's doubting your courage, but Eureka's objection still stands. Even the two of you, talented as you both are in your own ways, can't take on the whole Federation. It'd be suicide." He allowed a faint smile to touch his broad face. "And speaking for myself, I'd hate to lose either of you."

"I... Thanks, Fernando." He sniffed self-consciously before going on. "I'll miss you, too -- all of you. It's just something I've got to do -- we've got to do -- that's all."

Holland looked to Yuki; the two of them shared a quick, secret wink. "Then let's stop all this long-faced crap about leaving and suicide, okay? It's starting to feel like a funeral around here, and I didn't bring my hanky with me. The first thing we need is a plan."

"'We?'" Tommy looked round the circle of plastic chairs, not quite certain what to think. "But it's just Job and me --"

"No it's not," Hap cut in, stretching luxuriantly until his chair creaked. "We're Gekkostate, and we stick together, right? I guess you being new and all, you might've forgotten that, but Jobs oughta know better. We been at work on some ideas since yesterday. Annette wormed us into the Federation Intelligence network again, and thanks to Yuki's experience working with that bunch of scum --"

Yuki shot him a look through narrowed eyes. "You'd better not be including me in that!"

"-- present company excepted, of course; Dominic's been able to come up with some ideas about where the Arunos might be locked up."

Dominic scratched self-consciously at his forehead beneath the brim of his cap, then rose as formally as he might once have done for a classified meeting of the Federation High Command. "Right now," he announced, reading from a printed sheet of paper, "our best guess is that there's an eighty-seven percent probability that Tommy's parents are being held in the Zemplén district Re-education Center, operated by the Ministry of Interior Security." He looked round at them. "The good news is, the prison isn't in a major population center. The bad news is that it's on the top of a low hill in the middle of open fields. And there are barbed-wire fences with armed guards circled around it."

"Could it be a trap?" asked Jimmy, slouching in his seat.

"I doubt it; the information was hard enough to get that I don't think the Federation meant us to find it. As to the exact cells where the Arunos are being kept, I'll have to bring Dr. Egan and Dr. Morita in on this, to help with getting more precise information."

"How long'll that take?" asked Matthieu. Renton stared at him, wondering just what seemed so very odd tonight... His hair. Matthieu's former billowing bouffant of puffed hair had been clipped to no more than five centimeters or so, accentuating the hard, evaluating glint in his eyes and revealing the Federation officer he had once been.

Holland smiled. "You in a hurry?"

"Damnright I am! Fact is... The fact is, Hilda and me are gonna get married, and ripping apart some Federation prison might delay the honeymoon." Beside him, Hilda laughed and held tight to his right arm.

"Getting married?' cried Annette, clapping her hands together. "That's sosweet! Jimmy and I are doing the same thing! How about a double wedding? We can have it in the village, and get Viyuuden to perform the ceremony! What's a Vodarek wedding like, anyway, Eureka? We'll have to..."

"Wait a minute!" Holland laughed, raising both arms for order. "The wedding cakes will have to wait -- we've got a job in front of us, don't forget. As soon as Dominic, Egan and Morita can get us some accurate data on what cells Tommy's parents are in, we need to start the logistical planning. This might...well, let's face it, this might be Gekkostate's last mission, and I damn well intend to see it done right."

"How canwe help?" asked Eureka at once, holding tight to Renton's hand.

Holland's buoyant mood faded at once; the others fell into an awkward silence. "You're not. Hear that? You two are staying right here. You've got more important things on your plates than our little games, and we're not going to jeopardize the future of everything we've all fought for by taking you along and risking the Federation getting their hands on you. And don't look so hangdog and disappointed! God knows, nobody here questions your guts, either of you. But there's too big a piece of the future in your laps right now, and this's the place where you need to be to make it work. Understood?"

The two of them nodded; embarrassing as it might be, there could be no denying the truth of Holland's assessment. "Yeah, we get it," said Renton.

"No tricks?"

Renton's face burned, but he made no protest. "No tricks. We promise."

"Okay, then." Holland stood, holding their eyes with his feral grin. "Dominic, go ahead and contact Egan and Morita. Hell, Viyuuden, too. See how much specific information they can get us about the Zemplén prison and where we can find Tommy's parents; I'll talk to them myself tomorrow morning. Tommy; Jobs -- stay put until we're ready to leave as a team."

She nodded eagerly. "We will. And thanks so much. I wasn't --"

"I know you weren't. But now you know how it is with Gekkostate; we're the good guys to the bitter end. Everybody get some rest and keep yourselves ready. When there's more to talk about, I'll let you know."

Renton and Eureka descended the Moonlight's catapult ramp hand in hand until they reached the dark meadow just beyond the range of the perimeter lights.

"Why do you keep looking back at the ship?" she asked as they walked, in no particular direction.

He shrugged. "I dunno...I don't know. I guess it just doesn't seem right, somehow, the Moonlight sitting here on the grass, all calm and peaceful. Just think about how many times you and I took off from that ramp in the Nirvash, with you or me at the controls. When you and I were on the ship, something was always happening."

"Something awful, most of the time."

"Well, yeah." She had left her shoulder-length electric-blue hair unbound tonight, and he loved the way it danced and swirled about her face in the light of the waning moon. "It's just that...everything's changing. Isn't it?"

"I'm not afraid of it; change is all I've ever known. It's all been for the better, though. And I had you with me, didn't I? Well, you'll always have me with you."

Renton stopped, wrapping her in his arms, wishing with all his heart that it could be like this always for them, just the two of them, beyond the tainted reach of the outside world. Yet at the same time he knew well that the outside world would never be so accommodating, and must inevitably make its intrusive presence known sooner or later.

Probably sooner.

Twelve

Renton stood in the darkened wings of the small stage erected in the center of the Moonlight's hangar deck, sweating.

The high, stiff black collar on which Stoner had insisted rubbed painfully at the skin of his neck; after two weeks of wearing nothing but shorts and sandals, his costume chafed at him like a suit of armor. The much-too-heavy IPF uniform jacket constricted his arms and even his shiny black boots creased just above the instep, digging into the soft flesh where he knew there'd be a raw blister by bedtime.

Out on the stage, Matt Stoner -- wholly out of character in a dark formal suit -- rambled on with his introduction, as smoothly self-assured as any smug video announcer in Renton's memory:

"...which is why everything you've been told about the IPF, the Gekkostate organization and the 'Second Summer of Love' has been nothing but a series of deliberate lies. Over a year ago, under the fanatical leadership of the late Colonel Dewey Novak, the Federation came within a hair of destroying the entire planet. Today, although their leader took his own life in a last-ditch effort to die along with our world, the hypocritical diehards of the Federation oligarchy are continuing to exploit the non-existent threat of the Coralians to impose their dictatorship upon the people of Earth. And they don't even have the excuse of insanity -- they know exactly what they're doing."

Stoner folded his hands above the podium, lowering his voice to a chummy confidentiality.

"Unless you've been regular readers of our underground magazine, RayOut, this is probably the first time you've ever heard the truth about the events popularly called the 'Second Summer of Love.'"

He glared into the camera, now, seething with an outrage that, through some inborn magic, communicated itself directly into the video receptor of the recording system and the eyes and ears of the unseen audience beyond.

"In actual fact, the Coralians think so well of us that they've prepared a gift for us, a near-unbelievable gift whose first distributors were our guests tonight, but whose magic has now been spread throughout the Vodarek people -- you'll find out about that in time. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, there is no 'Coralian Threat,' and never has been. It's all an elaborate deception, a brazen attempt to create fear in the minds of the people -- fear that the Federation uses to manipulate you in order to go on taking away your rights, creating a worldwide police state and extorting more and more and more new taxes from your pockets. And they intend to..."

"He's really very good, isn't he?" whispered Eureka next to Renton's ear.

"Yeah, he can sure make a speech. He's really got his old stuff back, now. I wonder what got him over feeling so bad." Renton turned to look toward her and knew again the thrill he always felt in her nearness. Eureka's innate elegance reached new heights this afternoon, her brilliant blue hair falling delicately past high cheekbones, framing her face to perfection. Renton fought back his usual mesmerized need to take her in his arms and kiss her on the spot.

"Are you nervous?" she asked.

He shrugged, igniting a violent itch between his shoulder blades. "No. I thought I would be, but I guess not. Maybe I just don't get nervous about talking in front of people. Or maybe it's like you said, and you and me have just been through so many worse things that making a speech doesn't seem like such a big deal." Renton strained to reach the itchy spot, but the Independent Planetary Force uniform tugged at his arms, restricting his reach, every time he groped behind his back. "How about you? Does this make you nervous?"

"A little, I suppose. I've never had to put myself before the public, and it's a bit scary. After all...you and I don't seem to be very popular among most people outside of the Vodarek and the IPF, do we?"

"You just wait'll they get a look at you," he assured her. "You're gonna -- going to -- be the most popular girl ever, before this broadcast is over." He stepped back, holding to her outstretched fingertips, the better to appreciate the dazzling debut outfit Yuki and Annette had worked together to assemble for her. Before their arrival in Thuu Bak, Eureka's everyday shipboard attire consisted solely of a simple gown, very short, very low in back to clear her brilliant butterfly-shaped wings but high in the front, to tie behind her neck with a pair of soft cords. Yuki's design followed the same basic form, but with a large cutout in the bosom to form a plunging neckline -- a favorite theme of hers -- and a thin satin sash to gather the fabric together at Eureka's waist. Annette somehow managed to come up with a bolt of diaphanous pink cloth, delicate and silky, for the gown's construction. It clung to Eureka's smooth, pale skin like mist, leaving Renton so entranced by her almost supernatural beauty that he nearly missed his cue.

"...particularly by the childishly vicious Federation propaganda about a 'Coralian monster,' supposedly sent by the Coral to subvert humankind," Stoner stormed on, his contemptuous mockery dripping with loathing as he waved his arms about him. "Nothing could illustrate the magnitude of the Federation's campaign of lies better than to show you the truth. And there is no one more qualified to introduce you to that truth than this young hero, son of the legendary Adrock Thurston, surpassing even his renowned father in courage and daring. Please join me in welcoming --- Renton Thurston!"

With long, confident strides -- the way his father's image had taught him -- Renton came out of the wings and into the spotlights just behind the dais at center stage, nodding ever so slightly to acknowledge the burst of enthusiastic applause. Without waiting for it to subside, he smiled and began his speech. "Hello, everybody. I'm Renton Thurston. I don't usually wear any kind of uniform, but Mr. Stoner wanted me to put one on because he thought it'd look more dignified. See, I'm not a soldier, and I don't think I'm even so much of a hero, because none of the things I did would've been possible without somebody who really was a hero. She was sent to us by the Coralians, all right, but she's no 'monster' -- or if she is, then so am I." Renton's voice came dangerously near to breaking; he swallowed and went on. "Withouther, I can tell you I wouldn't be here making this speech or anything else, because the world would've come to an end, and that's no exaggeration. I helped her with a lot of the things she did to save it, and neither of us ever want to go through anything that awful ever again. This is my wife...Eureka."

Renton turned toward stage left, extending his open hand, and Eureka walked cooly out into the spotlights, her fascinating face expressionless, her amazing lavender eyes gleaming in the spotlights, her gown waving about her. Renton put his hand to her waist and she smiled directly forward, melting his heart as the applause swelled to a great cheering crescendo. "Thank you!" she cried, drowned out by the enthusiastic reception. "Thank you, everybody!"

"Cut!"

The applause dropped instantly to silence as Stoner came back out on the stage, shading his eyes against the lights. "Okay, that was perfect, Eureka. You timed it exactly right. You too, Renton -- greatad-lib, the way you added that stinger about you being a Coralian monster, too. Guaranteed to touch all the emotional chords."

"Sorry I didn't stick exactly to your script," he said, unbuttoning the stuffy uniform jacket. Though the Moonlight's air-cooling units struggled mightily against Thuu Bak's relentless afternoon sun, the heat here in the hangar deck remained stifling. "But I meant it, after all."

Stoner grinned widely and reached, from long habit, for the red beret he'd left forever in the unforgiving jungles of Thuu Bak. "So much the better; that makes it serendipity, don't you think? Okay, everybody, we'll wrap with that one, and I can splice in Eureka's speech from Wednesday right afterward. We want to punch this into the satellite uplink by sixteen hundred hours. Hey, and Woz?"

At the edge of the darkness beyond the spotlights surrounding the three makeshift walls of their stage, Woz made a notation on a timing chart and looked up from the monitor of the camera mounted just ahead of his table. "Yes?"

"The applause sound effects were right on time, but maybe they went on just a little too long after Eureka started to speak. No need to do it over, but keep it in mind for next time, okay?"

"What ever possessed me to leave academia?" he sighed, flipping off a mock salute and touching the switch on his makeshift tabletop control console that killed the spotlights.

"All right, everybody," cried Holland, stepping out from behind the docked shuttlecraft. "Let's get all these walls and lights pulled down and back to the village -- we need to get this ship in complete battle-ready shape again."

"What a relief," sighed Renton gratefully as he rubbed his back against a protruding joint of Hilda's 808 LFO. "At first it was kind of interesting doing these videos, but after two days of this, I'm ready to quit."

"You and everybody else," Hap agreed, gathering up the cables leading from the backstage recording equipment. "If I have to listen to Stoner work himself into a foam over the lies about the Coralian Menace one more time..." He hesitated, shaking his head. "But he's doing a hell of a job, and it's a lot better than watching him rot in his cabin. Wonder what made him snap out of it."

"I thought it was a little over the top, myself." A skeptical Anemone looked on critically. "I mean, the tacky uniform for Renton? And having Eureka saunter out like a video star, waving to the cameras?" She folded her arms over the little mesh vest she wore above her pink briefs, her silver lamé headband catching the hangar deck's overhead lights. "Why not a song and dance, too?"

"Stoner knows what he's doing," Hap paused in winding the cables into loops over his hand and elbow to give her a thorough lookover. "That's just the kind of detail that catches peoples' eye. He's aiming for the biggest possible audience, not classical theater." He winked broadly at her. "'Course...if you wanted to audition for the song and dance part, he might listen to reason..."

She cast him a disdainful look, but seemed far more flattered than offended. "Sorry, hotshot, but I only do a duet act -- with Dominic."

"Whereis Dominic, anyway?" asked Renton, peeling off his formal white shirt. "I haven't seen him since yesterday." The hangar echoed with the crash and clatter of plastic-panel walls dropping to the floor.

"Off talking to Egan and Morita. They're trying to puzzle out the latest intelligence reports on that prison where Tommy's parents're locked up." She sighed and rolled her Coralian eyes. "When he gets all wrapped up in his work like this, he loses track of the time. I swear, if it wasn't for me, he'd probably forget to come home."

Neither Hap nor Renton risked any further comment, though Eureka nodded understanding. "I like that shiny ribbon you're wearing. Where did you get it?"

"Huh?" She stepped back, one hand fluttering to her face. "Oh, in the village. I just..."

"Holland Novak." All eyes swiveled toward the second-level entrance door, where Viyuuden stood leaning forward with hands on the safety railing. He wore the same tight black outfit Renton had last seen over an SFAR's barrel by the light of a jungle dawn.

Holland dropped the support beam he'd been carrying, instantly alert. "Viyuuden? What's the problem?"

"That remains to be seen; I invite you to please come with me. We've detected an anomalous radio signal being broadcast from within our nullification zone. Mr. Stevens is already analyzing its source; Dr. Wossel, would you be kind enough to join him?"

Thirteen

Deep in the Vodarek temple, the technicians of the isolated community had constructed a communications room of a sophistication sufficient to make even Woz and Jobs smile briefly. Ranks of rack-mounted hardware covered all of two walls, the components connected by ropes of neatly-bound cables, and the collected whirr of equipment-cooling fans filled the air with their cottony whisper.

At the center, two Vodarek specialists hunched before half a dozen console monitors with Jobs and and Woz, all of them staring intently, their faces weirdly lit by the crawling numbers and dynamic diagrams of their displays. Tiny status lights, blue and green and amber, twinkled along the dark equipment racks like the eyes of winking demons. At Renton's side, Eureka, wearing only her little skirt, shivered, and Renton held her close to him.

"There's a pattern in that transmission," said Jobs.

Woz nodded, never taking his eyes from the screen. "Definitely. But it alters itself with each iteration, based on a harmonic of the previous frequency."

"A nonlinear-RMM algorithm, do you think?"

"No; too irregular. It's trying to disguise itself as background noise."

One of the Vodarek technicians bent his head in acknowledgment. "Correct, Dr. Wassel. We would never have noticed it, had our Linear Diophantine Signal Analyzer not detected it among the true background clutter."

Holland lifted his eyebrows. "Where'd you guys get an LDS analyzer?"

"The Federation...loses...many items of equipment every day," said Viyuuden without looking toward him. "Many of them find their way here. Mehendra: what is the location of this signal?"

The woman put her finger to a touch-aware part of her screen and the display shifted to a simple map of the Temple and its surrounding meadow and forest. A yellow star blinked about halfway in from the edge. "It has been moving up the northwesterly road into the jungle for about three hours. At first it progressed fairly rapidly -- over forty kilometers per hour -- but then it slowed and is now approaching at an irregular speed that has not exceeded two. It stops occasionally."

"Someone on foot," suggested Holland. "Someone who came as far as he could on a vehicle, then had to get off and walk when it reached the edge of the forest and the rim of your EM-suppression zone."

Viyuuden nodded. "Very possibly. Someone who is broadcasting a Federation homing code as he walks. I'm taking the Guardians of the Flame into the jungle to deal with this. I assume you will wish to come as well."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll round up some of my team. But how're we going to get there in time? It took us three days to hike all the way in here. With your EM shield up, neither our LFOs nor tthe Moonlight's shuttle can get down there. But if you lower it, that homing signal will get out before we can destroy the transmitter. What's your plan?"

"I have none; the objections you make are all valid. Therefore, I must seek to know the Will of Vodarek." Viyuuden turned toward Renton and Eureka, making a deep bow. "My Lord and Lady -- will you take us to this place?"

Eureka edged closer to the blunt nose of the squat, boxy shuttle parked on the meadow, watching while Hap, Matthieu, Hilda, Jobs, Tommy and Ken-Goh lugged SFARS, RPPs and smaller weapons into its cargo bay, assisted by four of Viyuuden's Guardians of the Flame. "Are you sure we can do this?" she whispered to Renton.

He looked around to see if anyone might overhear. "No. But Viyuuden thinks we can, so I guess we oughta give it a try. I'd've felt better about just taking the Type Seven, but there's no way all those people could fit in it. And besides, its flight-guidance system won't work with the Vodarek shield up, anyway."

"Okay," yelled Holland as he slammed the cargo doors shut, "everybody aboard. Are you two ready to roll?"

"Oh, sure," said Renton, displaying a confident smile and holding open the cabin door for Eureka. "Sure."

Jobs took the co-pilot's seat with a portable tracking receiver on his lap, while Holland climbed in and sat before the controls, looking rather foolish with nothing to do. "We're ready," he said over one shoulder to Eureka and Renton, standing just behind them.

They looked doubtfully to each other and linked their hands. She spread her wings and, with the ease of two weeks' practice, sent a flow of trapar down her arm and into Renton's control. Renton swallowed hard.Is it like flying, the way we did the other night?Do I just send the trapar out into the hull...? They joined minds; Renton's hand lifted as they willed the flow outward, and the little ship began to tremble.

"Okay," said Jobs, checking the position of the homing signal on his laptop console, "we need to head northeast, slowly enough to --"

Flaring with brilliant green fire, the shuttle lurched into the air with a brutal acceleration that flattened the passengers into their seats, flipping through a complete horizontal roll before it had risen more than a hundred meters, then spinning northeastward in a pinwheel of pyrotechnic trapar.

"Slowly!" Jobs screamed, clutching the tracking receiver to his chest to keep it from flying away into the cabin walls.

"It's difficult," they said in their flat, simultaneous voice. "Control is harder than we thought..."

The shuttle decelerated violently, throwing Jobs and Holland forward against their restraining harnesses. In the rear, all unsecured cargo hit the forward bulkhead with a crash like fragmentation grenades, leaving a sharp bulge in the aluminum-alloy wall just behind Holland's head. The ground tumbled round and around the cabin windows in a green haze, then gradually stabilized as they came to a near-hover above the mutant-pine jungle blow. "We're s-still," said Jobs, his face gone deathly pale, "a kilo or so from the s-source. My God, we must have b-been doing over eight hund...hundred kilos per hour, starting from a standing takeoff. All right, decrease the altitude to about a hundred meters -- no, slowly!"

With a sickening drop, Renton and Eureka took the shuttlecraft down from its five-thousand-meter altitude to just above the trees, in less than two seconds' meteoric descent. Gagging, Holland brought his eyes together, staring out the forward window. "How close are we to the signal?" he coughed.

Jobs fumbled with the signal-gain and bandwidth sliders, his hands quivering. "Ab-about half a kilo ahead. Assuming we're still facing ahead. It's just beyond that curve, anyway. We'd better land and conceal ourselves in the..."

Obediently, Eureka and Renton plummeted the shuttle down to the nearest clearing, where it sank into the soft earth like a falling boulder. All around them, the ship creaked as its hydraulic struts strained to compensate, nearly drowning out the chorus of groans and curses from its passengers. Holland staggered to his feet, venom burning in his gray eyes as he fumbled with the buckle of the restraining harness. "This's the Will of Vodarek, is it?" he muttered, battering the pilot's door open with one shoulder.

Renton and Eureka disengaged their merged awareness and looked back, sheepish and apologetic. "Sorry," he said. "It's a lot harder than it looks."

Eureka furled her wings, cringing at the outraged cries from the rear cabin. "I...hope no one was hurt badly."

"None of us appear to be dead," growled Ken-Goh, leaning forward into the cabin, his broad mustache bristling, "though many might prefer it to another such flight. But we are here for a mission, not to make complaints; everyone out! Pick your weapons from the floor, conceal yourselves in the trees on either side of the road and wait for my signal! Quickly!"

Weapons in hand, the thoroughly shaken group scrambled from the shuttle and spread themselves into the shrubbery on both sides of the dirt path through the jungle. Holland, SFAR ready at his shoulder, gestured Eureka and Renton to remain under cover. They joined hands and hurried for the concealment of a shaggy bush with long, ribbonlike leaves.

For several minutes, nothing happened, and Renton began to wonder if Jobs' equipment was truly as accurate as he believed. But then a tremor of movement from just beyond the curve in the road caught his eye. He held Eureka's arm and pointed silently; she nodded, watching.

Enough fronds from the massive trees dangled above the path to make visibility uncertain, but there could be no doubt that they were seeing a human, rather short, walking with slow, weary steps up the path toward the Vodarek settlement. The deep jungle shade made details difficult, but it seemed to Renton that he -- definitely a male, that much could be guessed from his walk and general body shape -- seemed to be carrying something peculiar strapped to his back. A heavy pack of some sort, and strapped to it was... "What the hell?" Renton whispered. "He's got a ref board. Who'd come all this way just to ref? And why --"

The dead silence of the forest exploded as all four Guardians of the Flame jumped into the path as if on signal and opened fire. Renton jumped up, startled and horrified, Eureka at his side. "Hey! He didn't do anything yet! What're you guys...?"

Holland ran into the road, beckoning the Gekkostate crew to follow, furious and shouting, "What're you trigger-happy idiots up to? Cease fire, for God's sake, cease fire!" The slight figure on the road crumpled and dropped as the Guardians' automatic rifles fell silent.

"My God!" screamed Tommy, throwing aside her own rifle to run forward,
"It's my brother!"

Renton stood frozen with horror until Eureka dragged him out of the shrubbery by the hand. "Maybe we can do something," she insisted, pulling until he understood and ran with her.

The Guardians stood in a quiet circle about the fallen stranger, looking down placidly, rifles still smoking. Holland shoved one of them roughly aside. "Are you guys out of your goddam minds? Is this SOP for Viyuuden's pet assassins? There wasn't any reason to kill him! What the hell were you thinking?"

The man he had pushed raised his face, placid and polite. "Put your mind at rest, Captain Novak; the boy is unharmed. When the Guardians shoot, we do not miss. And we do not kill without reason." He gestured down where Kazuya lay stunned, eyelids fluttering as Tommy crouched next to him, taking his head tenderly in her hands.

"Then what --?"

Another of the Guardians, a tall woman with chestnut hair and a face of deceptive sweetness, bent and rummaged through the shards of splintered debris on the ground, all that now remained of Kazuya's ref board. "This was our target, Captain. This board was the source of the Federation homing signal. Once he was so near, our own instruments left no doubt." She lifted one wrist, displaying a short-range signal locator, its tiny screen now dark and calm.

"Well, you scared the hell out of him," snapped Tommy, lifting the semiconscious Kaz to a seated position and holding him protectively to herself. "And me. C'mon, Job, help me get him back to the ship, will you, before the sharpshooting team decides to try blasting off his belt buckle or something."

Matthieu slipped his rifle to its shoulder sling and stepped forward. "Hey, I'll help, too. Hilda, can you get his pack?"

"We should all get back to the ship," said Holland, sparing the Guardians a caustic stare. "Let's go. And this time, we're calling Viyuuden, to lower the EM shield long enough for us to fly back to the Temple with the shuttle's thrusters alone."

Fourteen

Viyuuden and Katsuhiro Morita huddled together over the low round table in the Temple's topmost meditation chamber, examining the splintered fragments of Kazuya's ref board. Morita pulled a small UV-laser flashlight from his breast pocket and shone it on one of the larger shards. "Your people were right, Viyuuden. There's a mycelian multinode network embedded in the coating of the lower surface of the board." Under the ultraviolet illumination, a complex interweaving webwork of fine lines, like flattened roots, glowed a bright orange. "It was absorbing solar power from the surface and using it to send a homing signal. How was it that the boy was carrying such a device?"

Holland, who had stood with arms folded, passively watching their investigations, walked forward to look over Morita's shoulder. "He told Tommy that a group of reffers at Cuchinero Canyon repaired his board when he stopped there to get in touch with the Free Underground. Somebody named 'Ollie' did the work, he said."

"Obviously a Federation infiltrator," said Dr. Egan from his stool next to the southerly window. "Your misgivings about the Free Underground, it seems, were correct to the point of prescience." He inclined his head in a token bow of respect, fully displaying his bar of tightly-cropped red hair. "But this matter has much more far-reaching implications, you know. Our young Mr. Aruno has made an altogether remarkable journey of courage and faith, but until he arrived at the boundary of Viyuuden's electromagnetic-shield field, he was broadcasting his location to Federation intelligence satellites at all times. The Federation still does not know our exact location -- nor do they even know that his search was successful -- but they must surely now be bending many of their considerable resources toward this general area."

"Yeah. It occurred to me." Holland looked out toward the northeastern horizon, his mind irresistibly drawn in the direction of the faraway Zemplén Prison. "That means that you and Dominic have got to come up with the exact location of the Arunos soon, so we can make our move while there's still time. What d'you say to that, Viyuuden?"

"That you and your crew are a very brave and very idealistic group," he said. "But your rescue mission will not interfere with our peoples' lives in any way, if that's what you're wondering. We are continuing with our plans for relocating to the place Dr. Morita has so aptly named 'The Heart of the World.'"

"How?" Some of the frustration of the past weeks' inaction colored Holland's annoyance over the priest's placid confidence. "You still think that Eureka and Renton are going to lead you on some epic march to the Promised Land? In case you haven't noticed, they've started tolike it here. They're no more interested in your crazy religious legends than I am."

"Their interest is not required, Mr. Novak, only their existence." He looked closely at Holland, not in a hostile way but with the gentle eyes of concern. "If ever I had any doubts that Norbu was a greater spiritual leader than I, your obdurate refusal to perceive the Will of Vodarek as it manifests itself would alone humble me properly. Why did you follow his teachings with such dedication, yet continue to scoff at my own?"

Holland shrugged, tugging at the waist of his reffing shorts. "I don't know. Maybe he revealed his powers to me at just the right time. The time, I guess, when I was starting to doubt the world I'd been fighting for and needed something beyond myself to give me a reason to go on. Once he showed me his power, I knew he was the real thing. You haven't shown me anything new, Viyuuden."

"I see; you expect me to convince you with a miracle, then, is that it? Strange, I think -- considering all the miracles to which you have already been witness."

To that, Holland had nothing to say. With a nod of good-bye to Viyuuden and the others, he left the room.

The door to Kazuya's medical quarters in the lower levels of the Temple edged quietly open, no more than a few centimeters. He lay with eyes closed, breathing in shallow wisps, on the cot where the Vodarek medics had put him to recover from the mild concussion induced by the Guardians' close-range fire. A bowl of crushed herbs and a glassful of amber liquid on a nightstand suggested to Renton that Kaz might have been given a sedative as well. He motioned to Eureka, and the two of them crept into the little room to have a closer look at this strange intruder.

"So this is Tommy's brother," said Eureka in her softest voice, as they tiptoed inside to stand at his bedside. "How old is he?"

"Everybody said thirteen. He's kind of short, but I guess he's got guts -- Jobs said he hitchhiked and hopped trains to get to some reffers who managed to put him on a freight transport to Thuu Bak. Then he asked a bunch of questions about us at the airport, and got a ride to the edge of the jungle. I guess the airport people saw the Moonlight take off in this direction when we sent out our distress signal that day." He frowned. "I never thought of that at the time. I wonder how many people in Samit Prakkun know, or guess, that the ship's out here."

"Well, I'm sure he's not injured any more, if he ever was. The Coralian Gift would have healed him by now. Tommy must be very happy that he's safe, don't you think? I wish they didn't have to go to rescue her parents, too, though. It's going to be dangerous."

Renton moved closer to her, aware as always of the warmth of her skin next to his. "I think Holland just wants Gekkostate to go out with a bang, is all. You heard him -- he thinks this is gonna be the last mission."

"And what then?" In spite of the ever-present heat, she shivered. "What will they all do then? It's hard to think of there not being a Gekkostate, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is. And what about us, Eureka? If there's not gonna -- not going to -- be a Gekkostate any more, maybe this could be our home after all. Maybe we could..."

Kazuya moaned like an irritable cow and rolled his head from side to side on the pillow. He gazed upward with empty eyes -- then jerked upright in the bed, staring wildly. "You're...you're Renton Thurston!"

"Uh...yeah, I am. But how d'you know me? I mean..."

"Buteverybody knows you! It's all over RayOut every month! Everybody who knows anything knows Renton Thurston!" Half-horrified, half-awestruck, Kaz swayed dangerously. "Oh my God...wings...eyes... You're Eureka! It's true...an angel...fairy... You're so beautiful!"

All at once conscious that Eureka still wore only her brief white skirt, Renton edged himself pointedly between the two. "Yeah, yeah, she really is. Look, don't try to stand up; just stay in bed till the medics say you're better, okay?"

"But I'm all right now! I can --" He swung his legs to the edge of the bed, reeling forward before Renton caught him by the shoulders. "Oh... Thanks, Mr. Thurston. But just gimme a couple of minutes and I'll be okay, really. Jeez...I never expected to see you here. Or you, Miss Eureka."

"Her name's Mrs. Thurston, if you've got to be that formal. Look, you came here to tell us about your parents being arrested, didn't you?"

"Well...yeah. But Tomika said Holland Novak already knows about it, and Gekkostate is gonna go and rescue them soon." Kazuya, who could scarcely keep his eyes from Eureka, blushed and managed a sheepish smile. "So I guess I made this trip for nothing, really."

Eureka stepped from behind Renton and faced the boy, her lavender-pink Coralian eyes lidded and gentle. "But it was a really amazing trip, after all. Just the kind of thing that Renton would have done! It was a very brave thing to do, so you shouldn't feel that it was wasted."

"I...didn't..." The boy stammered, his blush deepening into the far infrared, struggling not to stare and failing utterly. "Thanks, Mrs. Eureka! Will...will you -- I mean, both of you -- be going along to rescue my mom and dad?"

"No." Renton took Eureka's hand, tugging her toward the door. "We've got other stuff -- we've got too many other things -- to do here. But don't worry, Holland's missions're always successful; if he can't get them, nobody can. Just stay in bed for now, we'll see you later. Sometime."

"Wasn't that a bit rude?" Eureka asked him once they were back outside the medical room's closed door once again. "We don't really have anything so urgent to do right now."

"Yeah, I know. I just... I don't know, he just seems so dumb. How'd he ever get all the way here on his own, I wonder."

"You're judging him too quickly."

Both of them turned to find Mischa, in her white sari, standing behind them with a medical clipboard under one arm. "Kazuya is bright and courageous and resourceful, but full of hero-worship. Just like another starry-eyed boy I used to know," she added with a smile for Renton. "Gekkostate -- and especially you two -- are like some glamorous faraway dream to him. Waking up here among his heroes must be like dying and going to Heaven. So don't judge him too harshly or too quickly; I'm sure that if he stays, he'll want to become an addition to Gekkostate. Or whatever remains of Gekkostate after this rescue raid that Holland's planning."

"Is Holland really determined that this will be the last mission?" asked Eureka. Renton only drilled his sullen glare into the floor, not trusting himself to reply just yet.

Mischa shook her head. "It's not just a matter of what Holland wants any more. All of us are being pulled in different directions, now that Gekkostate'srasion d'être -- first protecting you, then getting you and Renton in touch with the Coralians -- has been accomplished. Gregory's told me that the government of Thuu Bak has finally agreed to announce its independence from the Federation soon, so we're going to be busier than ever with the World Parliament and forming a new state. Hilda and Matthieu and Jimmy and Annette will be getting married before long, and Jobs and Tommy probably won't be far behind. Woz keeps grumbling about how much he'd like to return to teaching. Axel's ready for some new challenge, as usual. Ken-Goh was one of the world's foremost trapardynamic engineers before he joined Gekkostate; he'd be wasting himself by staying. Not to mention the two of you, who've been steadily moving beyond us since the Coralian Epiphany. We've all earned our footnotes in the history books, but now there's a new world beginning to form, and we need to find our places in it."

"I never thought of it like that," said Eureka. "This is the only kind of world I've ever known. But how are any of us going to know when this 'new world' begins?"

With a knowing smile, Mischa opened the door to Kazuya's room. "Well, now, at the moment, that's entirely up to the two of you, wouldn't you say? See you at the Festival tonight." And she clicked shut the latch behind her.

"I'd almost forgotten about that village Festival." She brightened at once. "We haven't been to any kind of festival since that dance at Tresor. Let's go, Renton."

"Uh-huh."Damn them. Damn them all.Why can't they just let us alone?

Fifteen

"All right," said Holland, "here's how it is at the Zemplén prison facility." He intensified the display of the holographic projector in the Moonlight's galley, bringing the image into sharper solidity. "The hill it's built on isn't high -- maybe seventy-five meters or so above the surrounding plain. Around it, there are rings of electrified razor wire, four in all. The only entry, apart from the aircraft landing pad on the roof, is through this narrow dirt road, with checkpoints at both ends."

He zoomed the display, and the southernmost wall of the Federation jail leaped forward until rows of barred windows stared back with empty, skeletal grins. "The walls are cast durastone, one meter thick, but the blueprints we've managed to retrieve from the Federation Army's Construction Corps systems don't show any reinforcing rods inside."

Hilda made a brief entry on her notepad. "Good. That means it'll shatter under enough stress. We won't want to use explosives, though. It'd drop chunks of broken stone on the prisoners inside."

"Definitely not that," said Matthieu, nodding. "That's a political prison. The folks inside're dissidents, not killers. This isn't gonna be like hitting a normal ground target; this time around, the objective'll be to not hurt anybody. Won't be easy, Leader, but Hilda and me can do it. How high're those walls?"

In the backmost row of plastic chairs, Dominic looked up from his computational pad. "Thirty-five meters. So far, the information Dr. Egan's been able to acquire is suggesting that the Arunos are on the top floor, though we still haven't found out which cells." Anemone, still in her attention-grabbing outdoor wear of pink bikini bottoms, pink sandals, silver headband and broad straw sun hat, came in quietly and sat down at his side.

"Kind of a pain, them being up that high, though." Matthieu frowned, tapping at what remained of his beard. "We'll have t'work on that one. What happens when we get them loose?"

"We get them back to the Moonlight one way or the other." Holland gave them his wolfish smile as both bond and reassurance. "Then we hightail it the hell out of there, as fast as possible, and come straight back here at low altitude, under the ground-level sensor clutter."

Jobs spoke up at last. "And then what?"

Holland let the uncomfortable silence stretch out a few seconds longer before answering. "And then...I don't know. We've all been talking about this among ourselves, but never as a group. And now that we're all together...I guess there isn't really too much to say, is there?" He clapped his hands together to dispel the dangerous air of melancholy. "But for right now, we're still Gekkostate, and that means no slacking off! Jimmy, get the ship into standby mode, ready to take off on half an hour's notice. Matthieu and Hilda, same for the LFOs. We can keep the Type Seven onboard as a backup; only Renton and Eureka can use it to full potential, but it's still flyable by any LFO pilot. But I want the 808 and the 909 battle-ready, understood? Good. Jobs and Woz -- I want all control systems brought up to full ready status and kept there. Annette, you've already been doing double duty at the comm station; good work, keep it up. Tommy, you work with Axel to get the shuttle's thrusters tuned for maximum output, fuel usage be damned. Ken-Goh, there's nothing I can tell you about weapons systems, but I want you and Hap to go over them from top to bottom, making sure the Moonlight's got every bit of firepower she was designed for."

Ken-Goh, sitting with massive arms folded across his thin athletic shirt, nodded with evident satisfaction. "It will be so. When, then, do we depart?"

"As soon as IPF intelligence gets us a precise fix on which cells they're keeping the Arunos in. That information could come through at any time, so keep yourselves ready and don't make any jaunts out into the jungle where you'll be hard to reach on short notice." He hit the switch to the holo projector and the image of the bleak Federation prison quivered and dissipated. "Right, that's it, then. I'll be talking to each of you individually before mission time. When I send out the word, we'll all meet at our stations aboard ship. Any more questions? Okay, you're on your own. See you all at flight time."

No one spoke over the muted shuffling of chairs as they all rose and filed out the galley doors. Holland was the last to leave, and Dominic's eyes followed him closely from beneath the low brim of his service cap.

"Holland looks afraid," he said when he and Anemone sat alone in the silent galley.

Anemone shrugged with a little shudder; her minimal outfit, intended to galvanize male onlookers in the blistering Thuu Bakkian heat, gave no protection from the ship's powerful air-conditioning. "Maybe that's not so bad. His brother never looked afraid about anything. Dewey was always so damn smug and know-it-all, wanting everybody to think that he had everything under control, everything planned for. He was too arrogant to be afraid." She looked away. "I fell for it."

"So did I; we all did, all of us around him." On a whim, Dominic reached out and touched her silver headband; she winced and pulled back. "Don't have any regrets about those days, Anemone. All of us fell under the spell of his madness. Dewey's trick was to always surround himself with people who could be manipulated. But you and I are never going to be manipulated again." He stood, tugging the brim of his cap lower over his eyes.

"Yeah. Listen, Dom..."

"Anything wrong?"

"I don't..." Anemone hesitated, letting her long hair fall across her forehead. "This's maybe pretty silly stuff, but it's the real reason I came here after you. I thought...thought I saw somebody today. Back in the village, I mean, in the marketplace."

"Oh?" With the ease of long practice, he concealed his own fear; she was not the kind to imagine nonexistent threats. "Who was it?"

"Well... That's kind of the hard part. I mean, I don't know. I was looking around for something fancy for the party tonight at one of the little booths, and I just -- y'know, out of the corner of my eye -- caught a glimpse of...somebody up the street a ways. And right away, it made me think 'Oh, crap.' But when I looked back to see who it was, they were already gone. Sorry I can't give you anything better than that, but I knew you'd want to hear about it, no matter how crazy it sounds."

"It doesn't sound crazy at all." Dominic thought, hard, about this information. Had Viyuuden's Guardians of the Flame really cleaned out all of Colonel Peres' gang, the Voice of the People? What if any survivors might be looking for a chance for revenge? "Listen, I have to go back to the Temple for a little while, but I'd like to come with you and see if you can spot that familiar face again. Would you like to meet me in the village marketplace for lunch?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure I would. Hey, what gal wouldn't want lunch with a handsome Intelligence officer, right? But...how'll you know where to find me?"

Dominic bowed and took her hand. "You'll be at the center of the biggest group of adoring men, of course."

Sixteen

Mischa made a final notation on Kazuya's medical chart, then checked the 'Discharged' box and laid it on his side table for the Temple medics to examine and file away. "There's no need for you to remain here any longer," she told him. "Your broken eardrum has healed, and you haven't any other injuries, so you're welcome to leave whenever you want."

"Oh, okay." He swiveled around in his bed, carefully tugging the sheet about his midsection. "Uh, what about my clothes, then?"

"You'll find that people here in this hot climate don't wear very many." She handed him a small paper-wrapped bundle from where it lay on the room's single chair. "This is one of the thinnest of the Vodarek robes; you can wear it until you're able to come up with something cooler. Your sister should be able to help you out. But I'd advise contacting her as soon as possible -- the expedition to rescue your parents could begin at any time."

Kazuya almost jumped to the floor, then grabbed again at the sheets, hastily covering himself. "It can? Then I've gotta go see Holland Novak! I wanna help him with --"

"What? You think that you'll be going along?" Mischa made a highly skeptical sidelong smile. "You have a lot to learn about how Gekkostate works. Membership is by invitation only, and I haven't heard anything about Holland inviting you. You'll be right here with the rest of us, I'm afraid."

"But Dr. Svarovsky, I can't stay here! These're my parents, and I promised that I'd --"

"Listen to me. This isn't an adventure jaunt. Your courage and ingenuity in getting here do you a great deal of credit, but determination and a pure heart aren't enough. You've no experience in military operations, and you'd only be in the way. If you want to ask Holland himself, be my guest. But I warn you, he'll be far less gentle than I am."

Stung, Kaz hung his head, staring at the stone floor. "Oh. I just kind of figured... Okay. I guess. But can't I..."

"Mischa?"

She turned toward the voice, to find Maurice, standing in the doorway, wobbling under the weight of a large, shaggy gray animal cradled in his arms like a baby. "Sonia said you'd be in here. D'you know where Mama and Papa are?"

"No, I don't. What is that thing?"

"He's a tree-cat." Maurice smiled down at the placid creature, who rubbed one furry cheek against the boy's chin and gurgled. "He followed us. His name's TheEnd. We wanna keep him, but we wanna tell Mama and Papa first."

Smiling, Mischa crouched down beside him, experimentally touching one of the creature's broad, prehensile paws. "I'm very surprised he lets you carry him this way. The Vodarek with whom I've spoken all say that the tree-cats are extremely shy creatures who're hostile to humans who get too close... Wait. You said 'we,' didn't you? Who else is in on this little specimen-gathering expedition?"

Maurice gave an encouraging toss of his head, and Ariadne tottered in, struggling with the weight of the tree-cat in her own arms, just as bulky as the first one but with fur mottled in brownish streaks. "This's his girlfriend," she explained. "Her name's Nirvash. She's heavy."

"Hey, those are cool," said Kazuya from the bed. As discreetly as possible, he wrapped the sheet about himself, toga-style, and pattered barefoot to the doorway. "Will he let me pet him?" he asked Maurice.

"Yeah, long as me or Ariadne're with him. He might bite you if he's alone, though."

Mindful of TheEnd's discreetly protruding fangs, Kazuya stroked the long, soft fur of the tree-cat's plush neck. The animal watched him with big blue round-pupilled eyes, but made no hostile moves. "Neat. If Iwas your Mom and Dad, I'dlet you keep them." He reached for Nirvash in Ariadne's arms, staring as he noticed for the first time her lavender-pink Coralian eyes and short, quivering wings. "Omigod. You're..."

Tactfully, Mischa took him by one shoulder and raised him to his feet. "She's Renton and Eureka's daughter, Ariadne. And this is their son, Maurice. You children had better run along; the Vodarek medics will want to clean up this room after Kazuya leaves, and tree-cat hair isn't going to make their job any easier. And for heaven's sake, why don't you put them down? If they're as friendly as you say, they'll follow you and you won't have to strain yourselves carrying them around."

Maurice looked long at the astonished Kazuya, plainly less than pleased with this outsider's reaction to Ariadne. "Yeah. C'mon, let's take them out into the hall and let them down, okay?"

"Okay."

The two children hurried out and Mischa herself followed, pausing in the doorway to look back at the still-thunderstruck Kazuya. "You'd better get dressed. And...a piece of friendly, non-medical advice, if I may: if you keep gaping like that every time you see something miraculous around here, people are going to start wondering what's wrong with your jaw. And that would be very bad for my reputation."

Smiling to herself as she shut the door behind her, she made her way down the long stone corridor. With Kazuya completely recovered, there would be time to meet Gregory for lunch after his planning session with Katsuhiro...

"Dr. Svarovsky?"

She turned back, finding Dominic following at a fast clip, the brim of his service cap shading both eyes. "Yes? Are you looking for Gregory? I believe he's still in the..."

"No, Doctor, it's you I need to see. Could we... Could we go to your office, please? I've got a...problem."

Though Mischa's true professional space remained her office aboard theMoonlight, Viyuuden's medical personnel -- none of whom seemed to have much to do since the arrival of Eureka, Renton and the Coralian Gift -- had been happy to allocate one of their spare rooms for her private use. She led Dominic there, careful to maintain her best dispassionately medical demeanor, all the while wondering just what could have brought the young officer to her in such an agitated state. It can't be a medical problem -- the Coralian Gift keeps us all perfectly healthy as it shaves the years from our ages. What, then? Something wrong between him and Anemone? That would be a tragedy, after all they've been through in order to be together. And face it, Mischa -- who would you be to play at being a marriage counselor, you who so nearly lost your own husband?

She motioned Dominic to a stark but sturdy chair across from the table that served as her makeshift desk, then took her own seat. "All right, then, what seems to be this problem of yours?"

Hesitantly, he pulled off his white IPF cap, avoiding her eyes, pushing back the dark shock of hair that covered his forehead. Lurid in the light of the single window, an angry red swelling stretched the skin tight and raw, like the bud of a single horn pushing its way out of his skull.

Mischa rose and turned him toward the sunlight, the better to examine the obscene bulge. "Good Lord. Is it painful?"

"Yeah...yes, it is. It was just a little sore until yesterday, but now it hurts like hell. When I first got it, there was just this itchy place, and I thought it might be an insect bite. But the Vodarek tell me there aren't any stinging insects here, and anyway, it's much too big and painful." He grimaced as she touched it with delicate, probing fingertips. "Anemone's going to be meeting me at the market square; I haven't let her know. But I just can't hide it much longer. I've been deliberately working late, and the only time I took off my hat was at night, when she couldn't see it. I didn't want her to worry, you see."

She hardly listened, examining the swollen spot with a small magnifying glass. "Yes, of course. You haven't hit your head on anything lately? Not even two weeks ago, during your abduction?"

"Not in that spot, no. I've had a headache all morning, so I think it's getting worse, whatever it is. What do you think it is, Dr. Svarovsky?" He could not disguise the worry in his eyes.

"Call me Mischa; everyone else does. I've no idea what it might be. Come with me, Dominic. There's no one in the examining rooms and we'll have the facilities to ourselves."

They passed through a wide, empty reception area into a well-lit corridor broken up into small privacy stalls by curtains on wheeled racks. After finding exactly the one she wanted, Mischa motioned him to lie down on the examining table in the stall. Dominic shivered as his bare back touched its surface, but he said nothing.

Mischa rolled a diagnostic device beside him, positioning a pair of sensors on movable arms around his head, one to the left side, the other just above. "This is a mass interferometer," she muttered, half to herself as she brought it up to operational mode. "It's going to make a three-dimensional scan of your head, focusing on the front half. You won't feel anything, but you mustn't move while it's in operation or there'll be blurring on the image. Stay as still as possible."

She powered up the interferometer, impatiently watching the illuminated readouts indicating capacitors at full charge, then activated the display. Beneath a hood to shade it from the ambient light, a holographic image of Dominic's internal facial structure began to take shape.

Without allowing a hint of her shock to reveal itself to Dominic, she held her breath in a silent gasp. "Wait here for me a moment, would you?" she told him, offhand and casual. "I'm going for a bottle of radio-opaque tracing stain."

She forced herself not to run to the door out into the main hallway, where she snatched the arm of the first Vodarek medic she encountered.

"Doctor Svarovsky? You have some urgent need?"

"Very urgent, Dr. Husák. I've got a patient whom I daren't leave for long, waiting in the examining room; would you please send someone up to Viyuuden's meeting area and bring Dr. Egan down here? This is critical -- no matter what kind of conclave they're in, I must consult with him at once."

The man bowed; a physician himself, he knew well how precious was time when it might be measured in seconds of life. "I'll do better than that -- I'll go myself. Please return to your patient at once."

The three of them -- Mischa, the tall, spare Egan and Dr. Husák with his quick brown eyes, huddled about the display hood of the mass interferometer, watching silently as Mischa manipulated the depth-level controls. "You see?" she whispered to Egan.

"Yes. Clearly unique. Were you planning on excising it?"

"How can I? My God, look at the complexity of that network of nerves attached to it. I've never seen its like. Expanding all the way back to the cerebellum..."

"Did you get your bottle of stain yet, Doctor Svarovksy?" asked the motionless Dominic, pointedly reminding them of his presence.

Egan pursed his thin lips and nodded in a ponderous bow. "Our deepest apologies, Dominic, my boy. Callous disregard for the ordinary rituals of humanity is an occasional failing of the scientific mind, a failing I should by now have long left behind me. Please believe that our greatest concern is and continues to be your well-being."

"His well-being should not be in doubt," protested Husák through clenched teeth. "Since the arrival of the Messenger and the Chosen -- who then distributed the Coralian Prime Radiant to those of us here in this village -- no disease nor physical abnormality is possible among us! It's not just a matter of faith, you see. Our researches have confirmed it."

"Precisely, Doctor! You have seen to the essential paradox before us, yet you do not see its obvious resolution. Mischa, my little pony, I presume your surgical skills have remained undiminished by your years of associating with pirates?"

She stared at him, unbelieving. "You're actually consideringremoving that thing? But that could --"

"I shall explain in due course; for now, we must spare our good Captain Sorel as much pain as possible. Dr. Husák, I should like to impose upon your patience and good will once more; please have Viyuuden's messengers bring Mrs. Sorel here as quickly as possible."

Alarmed, Dominic twisted his head around, sending the interferometer's sensors to a shrill whining. "Anemone? No, Dr. Egan -- please. I don't want her to know about this. Not yet."

Egan's smile radiated calm assurance. "My good fellow, the odds are now overwhelming that she already knows about it. Dr. Husák, I believe the messengers will find her waiting in the village marketplace."

Seventeen

A very flustered Anemone arrived in the company of Dr. Husák to find Mischa spreading an anesthetic cream to the swelling on Dominic's face. "What's going on?" she demanded, crossing her arms instinctively. "What's wrong with Dom? Is he in danger?"

"No more or less than yourself." Egan stepped forward and deftly peeled the silver headband from her forehead -- exposing an ugly reddish-purple bulge nearly identical to Dominic's own. "Exactly as I expected, Mrs. Sorel. You have borne this excrescence for as long as your husband, if I'm not mistaken. Tell me, did it begin as an itchy spot and quickly become unsightly? That is why you have been wearing this band, is it not? To conceal it?"

"Well, I was... I mean, yeah, sort of. I thought it was some kind of cyst or infection or something; I thought it'd go away by itself. It was only this morning that it got so bad... I intended to go see your wife this afternoon." Fear sparkled in her Coralian eyes. "I was getting, well, kind of worried about it. Is it serious? Do Dominic and I have some weird...?"

"I think not. Please lie down upon this table next to your husband while Mischa applies topical anaesthesia, and I believe we may set both your minds at ease -- and learn something of possibly great significance at the same time. If you please?"

She still hesitated, but Dominic gave her a reassuring grin and Anemone settled herself on the examination table at his side, holding tightly to his hand as Mischa smeared the cool, numbing cream to the swollen spot. "That should take effect almost instantly," she told Anemone.

"It is. Are you going to...operate on it right here?"

Mischa smiled. "I'm not sure this is really going to count as an 'operation.' I'll do Dominic first. Dr. Husák, would you hand me the number ten titanium scalpel, please? The one in the number three handle."

"My pleasure, Dr. Svarovsky. This is of very great interest, and I thank you for the opportunity to observe."

With the deft ease of long experience, she stood over Dominic, mentally planning the depth of the incision, based upon what she had seen in the interferometer's magnified display. "Hold very still, now, Dominic. This won't take long."

He shut his eyes. "I'm ready. Tell me when it's over."

Mischa drew the fine blade downward across the tip of the swelling in a single precise line. At once, the tight red skin drew back, exposing a smooth gemlike oval of clearest green beneath. "Amazing," she whispered. "You were right, Gregory. Would you dab the blood away while I do the same for Anemone? That minor bleeding should stop within seconds."

Husák could scarcely contain himself once her quick scalpel revealed Anemone's identical jewel as well. "But this is wonderful! Dr. Egan, I salute you -- how could you have known?"

"Why, you yourself stated both the problem and its solution: no disease is possible under the influence of the Coralian Gift. Ergo, this peculiar swelling could not be the result of illness, or even injury." He waved one hand toward Anemone, now sitting up and peering wonderingly at a hand-mirror image of her jewel and its rapidly-receding bruised aura. "The interferometer scan of our good Captain clearly showed a solid nodule beneath the skin, whose shape suggested the ones borne by Eureka and Renton. Mrs. Sorel has already been altered into a Coralian hybrid by the direct intervention of the Coral itself, so inferring the appearance of an identical structure on her forehead was all but certain. The jewels would surely have broken through by themselves in a few more hours, but there was no need to put the Captain and his wife through such additional pain."

"Butwhy, Gregory?" said Mischa as she touched the edges of the jewels with cotton swabs dipped in antiseptic. Even as she watched, the flesh sank into a perfect oval about the gem-like structure on Dominic's face, fusing to it as though it had always been there. "What's the purpose of it all?"

But Egan only shook his head as he dropped her used surgical blades rattling into the sterile recycling container. "As to that, perhaps Norbu could have derived an answer -- as indeed may Viyuuden, once I've informed him. But for now, we must be content to observe the will of the Coral without understanding it."

"The will of the Coral, Dr. Egan?" said Husák. "Or the Will of Vodarek?"

Egan nodded acknowledgment. "Who's to say they are not one and the same? At any case, our patients may go, now. Mr. and Mrs. Sorel, you are obviously suffering no further discomfort, and what little swelling remains will surely be gone within minutes. But I beg of you, please keep us informed of any effects you may notice from these unique organs."

Sliding from the table first, Dominic helped Anemone down, both of them staring, fascinated and plainly confused, at each others' Coralian jewels. "We will, sure. Thanks, everybody. This is all extremely...weird."

She lifted her headband from the interferometer table. "Uh, I guess I won't be needing any more of these silver ribbons. Too bad; I was starting to like the way they looked."

"And since when has wearing even less than usual been a burden to you?" teased Mischa. Go on, both of you -- there's no reason for you to stay here at the moment. But this is an important development, and we're going to want to set up some tests, so please come back tomorrow afternoon."

Eighteen

Renton watched the carpenter's level tacked to the massive vertical beam with a craftsman's eye. "Okay, you on the right, pull it a little more." He leaned into the massive wooden beam with his own shoulder as the three men on the right-hand ropes tugged to bring it perfectly upright. "A little more...okay, that's perfect! You guys on the other three points hold it steady -- carpenters, come in with your braces and get this thing nailed into place!"

"Right, Lord Renton," they called back, swarming in with angle braces, hammers and pouches of nails, fastening the prefabricated bracework to the base of the center beam from which the Festival pavillion's roofing ribs would descend.

Renton himself nodded and wiped his face with the back of his bare arm. Under everyday conditions, the blazing heat of equatorial Thuu Bak had long ceased to cause him any real discomfort. But after two and a half hours of laboring beneath an afternoon sun the color of molten bronze, he found himself more than ready for a rest in the shade and a cup of cool pear nectar.

André, the lead carpenter, tucked his metal framing square into his loincloth, tilted back his flat sunhat and nodded in satisfaction. "They say your grandfather's a master of tools, my Lord; anyone can see it's in your blood. None of us had ever raised a roof pole this way."

"I saw a barn put up that way, once." He sat cross-legged on the grass, now in its daytime desiccation phase. "It was when Grandpa took me and my sister on a camping trip. And...I wish you people'd stop calling me 'Lord Renton.'"

The man only laughed in a good-natured way. "It's our way of showing our gratitude for all that you've done for the planet, you and the Lady. I don't know how much of the truth those poor souls living under Federation rule have gotten, but we Vodarek know full well all that the two of you have suffered."

"To tell the truth, we weren't always thinking about the planet." Renton rested his head on his knees and stared at the nearest water bottle, wondering if he still had the energy to reach for it. "Mostly it was being scared, or lonely, or worried. That, and running for our lives."

"Ah, you're a naturally modest fellow, Renton-sama,and one to whom we can give our sincere respect. The Will of Vodarek continues to reveal itself in our joined destinies. Lady Eureka!" The man bowed, sweeping his straw hat from his head with an elegant flourish. "We're doubly blessed today! I hope you and your husband will be honoring our Festival tonight."

In her little white skirt, white sandals and sunbonnet, she devastated Renton all over again, her Coralian eyes soft and inviting beneath the Thuu Bakkian afternoon's brilliant blue. "Thank you, we will be. Tell me, though: what's the Festival for? Is it a harvest festival? I've been reading about those." Having secured the roof pole, the other workers paused to stare from a distance at Eureka's captivating beauty.

"In a manner of speaking, Lady, for it's nearly that time of the year and most of our planted crops are in storage, now." André looked away, across the fields beyond the village. "But there's a deeper meaning this time, for it's our Farewell Festival also. Ever since you and Lord Renton arrived among us, we've been busy making preparation for leaving this village and following you on the Great Migration. Twenty-seven years we've been away from the world, here in the jungle, but the time has come to follow our larger destiny. It's a little sad, but a time for rejoicing, too. We're resigned to that. We're ready, now, whenever you give us the word."

Renton reached for the water bottle, unwilling to meet the man's eyes. "You guys expect so much of us. How do you know we want to leave this place? How do you know we even can lead you on this 'migration?'"

"The Will of Vodarek can be a subtle thing, Renton-sama. Perhaps not even the Coralian Mind understands it fully." He packed away his tools in a little canvas bag that he slung over one shoulder. "Nor can even the strongest of us resist it. All blessings be upon you, Lord and Lady. Hoy, now! You men! Let's break for the noon meal and return here at half-past one!" Then, with another little bow, he departed.

Watching the little group of carpenters move away toward the village, Renton stood and took Eureka's hand. "I hate that. Every time I ask anybody around here any questions about their 'great migration,' they just shrug and tell me it's the Will of Vodarek. No wonder Holland gets fed up with them sometimes."

"Dr. Egan seems to understand them, though." She looked back toward the towering pyramid of the main Temple, showing no great concern. "I thought you'd settled your mind about not staying here."

"Yeah, well, I did, too. But I just can't help thinking..."

"Papa! Mama!" Maurice came bounding across the dry meadow, Ariadne close behind, the two of them flanked by a pair of imposing-looking tree-cats with whom the children appeared on close terms.

"Aren't they cool?" panted Maurice, stumbling to a stop and pointing at the nearest animal. "This's TheEnd, and that's Nirvash over there."

"He's her boyfriend," said Ariadne, edging close to Eureka and spreading her wings in the sunlight. "Can we keep them, Mama? Please?"

Renton smiled doubtfully. "Tree-cats? I thought they were pretty wild. Everybody says they never come out of the forest." The nearest of them, TheEnd, sniffed his sandaled foot and made a gurgling sound that Renton hoped was not tree-cat-speak for "looks tasty." "Uh, how'd you get them to come with you?"

"It was Ariadne, Papa." Maurice pointed in her direction. "We came out of the jungle, and these two just followed her. They let us pet them, see?" He demonstrated by stroking TheEnd's long gray fur; the animal made a contented whining sound and yawned, displaying a set of formidable white fangs. "You can pet him, too, Papa."

"Uh..."

But without hesitation, Eureka reached down and rubbed at Nirvash's furry head. "Oh! She's so soft! I've never petted an animal before. It's nice. But what will you feed them?"

Ariadne scratched Nirvash's cheeks, as though to show her mother how it ought to be done. "It says in the books in the Temple that they eat fruits and plants in the jungle, and that they use their teeth'n'claws --"

"They have claws, too?" Renton made no move as TheEnd pawed experimentally at his foot.

"-- their big teeth'n'claws are just for protection. Can we keep them?"

"Well..." TheEnd wrapped his long tail about Renton's leg and whirred out a wordless plea. "How do Linck and Maeter feel about them?"

"They like them," Maurice assured him, unable to quite keep the delight from his face.

"Yeah, they do," Ariadne agreed.

Renton watched Eureka kneeling at Nirvash's side, tickling the tree-cat's plump, furry cheeks. "I guess so...as long you take care of them. That means all the time, not just when you feel like it."

Eureka looked back at him, nodded, then faced the children to lecture them in her most serious voice. "That's right. These two creatures will bedepending on you, the same way that you two depend on your Papa and me. You must always take care of them, even when there's something else you'd rather do. It's a great responsibility to have someone who depends on you, and you must never let them down."

Ariadne and Maurice nodded solemnly; a glance of agreement and understanding passed between them. "Maurice and me already talked about that, Mama. We promised to take care of them."

Renton watched them, so earnest and serious. I believe you. I believe you both. "Okay, then you can keep them. Here's a little money -- why don't you go into the village and buy them something to eat. Find out what they like."

"Okay, Papa!" Maurice laughed, and, having no pockets to hold the coins, clutched them in one eager fist. "And thanks. We knew you'd say yes. Kazuya said you would." He turned for the village, taking Ariadne by the hand.

"Kazuya said? What're you talking about?"

The two children, sensing the shift in his mood, stopped and grew subdued. "He didn't really say it like that," said Ariadne, looking at the ground. "He just said you oughta, is all."

"Wh... Oh, is that right? That kid thinks he can make those decisions for us, does he?" For several long seconds he stood without speaking, holding his hands balled at his sides. Then, understanding that his silence only made Maurice and Ariadne uneasy, Renton forced a smile. "Well, never mind. Go and get TheEnd and Nirvash some food, and watch out that they don't get lost around all the people."

"We will, Papa. So long!"

They hurried away with the animals scampering at their sides, and when they were gone, Eureka watched him closely. "You were angry, just then. Why?"

"I dunno, I just --" He threw his hands into the air. "It's that damn Kazuya kid, that's all. He just stumbles in here and acts like he thinks he oughta be a hero or something. And everybody pats him on the head like one of those tree-cats, and tells him what a good boy he is. And the way he he slobbered all over...all over us, when he woke up! He's so dumb! And now he's telling our kids what you and me ought be doing? He just gets on my nerves is all."

Eureka came to his side, brushing his shoulder with her cheek, fanning her wings in slow ripples. "You're worried. I can tell even without touching your mind. But you mustn't worry, Renton. I think the Vodarek are right, and everything will work out the way it's supposed to." Impulsively, she threw her arms about him, holding him tightly. "And even if you can't believe in the Vodarek, you know you can believe in...in you and me."

He returned her embrace, forgetting, if only for a moment, those infuriating demands of the indifferent world outside their love. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's right. Come on, let's you and me get some lunch ourselves, okay?"

Nineteen

Matthieu flinched, hunching his shoulders and cringing as the latest round of pink and green fireworks lit the night. "Dammit," he moaned. "I wish these guys could throw a festival without all the explosions. Gets on my nerves."

"You've seen too much combat," said Hilda, pulling at the straps of her blue halter top. Around them, the several thousand Vodarek villagers milled in happy profusion among the food-vendor booths and amateur entertainers. Some wore formal white robes, bright as moons beneath the light of the pole-mounted torches, while the majority made bore the evening heat in far less substantial clothing.

"We all have," Yuki agreed. To her old abbreviated Gekkostate outfit of a short blue and white skirt with matching top, she now added a baby carrier strapped to her back, from which little Holland stared around him, fascinated by the crowds, the lights and the exotic odors of strange foods. "We've all got too many bad memories dragging around behind us."

Holland handed over an assortment of Federation coins to a pastry-vendor, who refused to accept any of it. "There'll be no charge, Captain Holland! You and your Gekkostate crew are our guests. Besides, Federation money won't be any good where we're going anyway."

"You mean the 'Great Migration?' Oh, come on..."

The man raised both hands before him in a gesture of finality. "No. I'll take not a centime. But you'd be doing me an honor if you and your wife and friends would have some of my spiced-vegetable pastries."

"Thanks, friend," said Matthieu, handing one to Hilda and taking another for himself. "Hey! These're good! Where'd you learn to cook like that?"

"Ah, your pleasure is mine, Mr. Bouchard! Before I discovered the reality of Vodarek, I was a master chef at the Caravanserie Bleu on Pilgrim's Island. It's where Capital City is located -- have you ever been there?"

Holland only scowled and plucked a bit of broccoli from the steaming crust, blowing on it to cool it before feeding it to his son. But Hilda nodded with little joy. "Yeah, we've all been there."

Hilda brightened, breaking the dark mood. "Eureka! Renton! How've you two been? I haven't seen you all day."

They ran, stumbling to a halt, hand in hand, laughing and breathless. In her free hand, Eureka held a small paper bag that crackled as it swung back and forth. "Isn't it all wonderful? If this is what festivals are like, there should be one every week!"

"Nowthat's more like it!" Matthieu whacked the dour Holland on one shoulder and gobbled the last of his hot pastry. "About time we got a couple of smiles around here. Hey, where'd the kids get to?"

"Oh, running around through the crowds, getting in peoples' way." Grinning, Renton pulled Eureka closer to him. Her tiny black gown swirled about her like thin smoke. On all sides, the laughing, chattering, singing Vodarek of the village paused, and pointed in their direction, and whispered happily to each other. "Ariadne's proud of herself today. Eureka thought she looked taller, so we measured her in Mischa's office. She's grown two centimeters already."

"Two centimeters in two weeks," said Hilda. "She's...unusual, isn't she?"

Dominic breezed into the little group with a bag of trinkets on one arm and Anemone on the other. "You mean Ariadne? She gets it from her parents, I'm sure."

Anemone, in the midst of digging into a jar of strawberry jam with a little wooden spoon, threw a sly look into the sudden conversational lull. "Mmm. This's really good stuff; you guys ought to give it a try. I love jam. Hey, what's the matter? My outfit taking your breath away?" She spun around on one foot, displaying evening wear that consisted solely of a number of gaudy silver ribbons wound strategically here and there about her lower body.

"Your face..." began Matthieu. "Both of you."

"Are they real?" Eureka asked, smiling with delight.

Pleased with the impression she'd made, Anemone smiled and tossed back her long pink hair to better expose the green Coralian jewel. "Real as yours. Presents from the Coral itself, Dr Egan says. Him and Mischa... Hey!"

"Oh, sorry," said Renton, his own jewel still pulsing. "I just wanted to see if you could, you know, 'hear' what I was saying with mine."

Dominic shook his head. "No. But I could definitely feel something just then. More as if I knew where you and Eureka were, but no actual message. Anemone and I've been trying it together, and we've been able to exchange some feelings, when we concentrate hard enough."

"This iswonderful!" cried Eureka. Why, it's almost like having a brother and sister! What made the Coral do it, do you suppose?"

"Damn good question." Yuki shifted the baby a bit on one shoulder. "The Coralians do strange things, but never without reasons, even if we can't understand them. I wonder if..."

"Mama!" laughed Maurice, running wide-eyed into the circle of adults with Ariadne in tow and Linck and Maeter scrambling close behind. "Papa! You oughta see the acrobats over there! Kaz says he's never seen anything like them in all his life!" Nirvash and TheEnd hopped happily at his side, pawing at his legs and gurgling.

Kazuya edged his way out of the crowd, smiling in a tentative way. "Uh...they're really cool, honest, Mr. Renton --"

"Just 'Renton' is all."

"-- um, are your sure? Okay. Anyway, there's a family called the Wachovsky Whirligigs, who used to be really famous tumblers all over Friesland. But now they're Vodarek, and they're showing their act over by the place where the musicians are playing. The kids really liked them. I didn't mean to..." He caught sight of Eureka's hazy little gown, then Anemone's silver tracery, and swallowed.

"It was very nice of you, Kazuya," Eureka assured him, tugging up on Linck's suspenders. Under direct order from their parents, all four children wore skirts and shorts for the occasion, though with little enthusiasm. "Renton and I appreciate you going to the trouble of showing them around." A chorus of voices in close harmony sounded through the night, accompanied by a background of muted brass instruments. The air grew rich with the scent of deep-frying onions.

"We had fruit ices!" Linck laughed, clapping his blueberry-stained hands. "What's that in your bag, Mama?"

"This? Why, it's...popped corn. Your Papa gave it to me."

Ariadne looked at the little paper bag, dotted with butter stains. "How come you're not eating it then?"

"Well...I haven't got a spoon or fork yet, so I... Why are you all laughing?"

"You eat it with your fingers, Mama!" Maeter cackled, miming the motions of scooping popcorn into her own mouth. "Everybody knows about popcorn!"

Maurice turned on her with a stern glare. "Well, Mama doesn't! So don't be so rude."

"Um, Icould get you a spoon, Mrs. Eureka." Kazuya turned so abruptly that one of his sandals caught in the night-soft ground, nearly tripping him. He staggered backward, bumping into one of the girls in the surrounding crowd, setting her short brown braids to bouncing.

"Oh, no, that's..."

"Uh, sorry... No, it's no trouble at all! Honest! I'll just go over to the food stands and..."

"Abomination!" screamed the girl with the braids. A long knife flashed on high, driving downward toward Ariadne's heart.

Maurice threw himself in front of Ariadne; the blade drove deep into his back...

...another Vodarek-cloaked girl, dark of skin and with long, wavy black hair, produced an RPP from beneath her robe, aiming it downward it at the two children -- when her face and neck became a writhing mass of gray fur. She shrieked over and over as she collapsed, clutching at the attacking tree-cats, pulling at them, tearing at them in a useless effort to pry their claws and teeth from her flesh. The rocket projectile flashed wild into the sky, lost among the yellow fireworks and her muffled screams...

...while Dominic intercepted the brown-haired girl's arm as she tugged the knife free of Maurice's body and raised it for another thrust, kicking out to her midsection, then delivering an elbow-blow to her temple. "Monster!" she hissed at the children, lurching away, parting the horrified crowd before her fury as she made her escape...

...and a blonde third girl, seeing her chances dwindle to nothing, threw her own dagger aside and raced off in a second direction, her Vodarek robes fluttering.

Eureka and Renton connected with a single glance of fury; a shaft of hissing green lightning joined their two bodies and Renton stretched his arm toward the fleeing brunette murderer. "No you're not!" they screamed together, and a blinding bar of raw energy flashed forth from Renton's palm, blasting a fiery trench through the ground, roaring out to her and engulfing her in a sphere of living flame that lifted her from the grass and held her there, motionless and agonized.

Anemone snarled, looking after the third fleeing assassin, her face contorted. "I remember you now!" she cried, leaping upward into the night in an impossible twenty-meter arc, then swooping downward in a meteoric plunge to drop on the girl with an impact that crushed her to the ground. "Iknow you now, you dirty little bitch," she panted, teeth bared in a savage and humorless grin. "And you know me, don't you? The doll? The thing? The broken, drugged-up puppet? Dewey's worn-out toy? I wanna chew out your filthy guts..."

Something touched her shoulder; she snapped her head about, growling deep in her throat before recognizing Dominic standing above her, his face drawn and fearful in the flickering torchlight. "Okay, you got her, Anemone...you got her. Hey, any Guardians of the Flame here?" he shouted. There's a boy badly hurt, and three killers..." He stopped, realizing as a dozen armed Guardians materialized from the crowd, that they'd been shadowing Renton and Eureka all along, probably on Viyuuden's orders. One of them helped Anemone to her feet, then roughly jerked the blonde girl from the ground, her head lolling to one side. Dominic's eyes went wide. "That's who you recognized today? One of them?Here?"

Anemone clung to him, all at once exhausted. "Yeah. What about the others? What about -- Oh, hell, what about Maurice? C'mon, we gotta get back to them..."

Renton and Eureka stood for an instant, motionless and incandescent with rage, watching the girl screaming soundlessly in the trapar bubble as she floated a meter above the ground. The bravest of the nearest Guardians stepped forward and bowed to them. "Blessed Ones...Blessed Ones, please release her before she dies from the force of your wrath. We shall need to question her..."

The dazzling cord of light connecting them wavered and died, and they became two once again. Immediately, Eureka screamed and ran back to the children, with Renton only seconds behind.

Link was crying loudly while Maeter stared, horrified, at the sight of Maurice lying atop a fallen Ariadne, sobbing and bleeding freely from the slit in his upper back. "Maurice!" shouted Eureka, kneeling at his side, hardly knowing where -- or if-- she dared touch him. "Maurice, please be alive!"

"I'm alive, Mama." He turned his head toward her, willing a smile beneath the stains of his tears. His voice reached barely above a whisper, and blood dripped from his mouth in a sticky stream. "They didn't get Ariadne."

Renton took his hand, so cold and limp, barely in control of his own tears. "They damn well didn't, son. You did a great job. Just hang on now while the Vodarek get you to the medics, okay?" He looked up to the nearest Guardian. "Can't you guys get any doctors?"

"We have called for them, Renton-sama." The man crouched next him, still holding his weapon as the shocked and thoroughly shaken crowd around them began a slow chant. "But the Coralian Gift is already healing him. See? The loss of blood is lessening rapidly, and the damage will soon fade. But I've seen such wounds before, and he will have blood clots in the lungs that must be dissolved. The medics will do that. He will want a great deal of rest afterward. Put your minds at rest, Blessed Ones -- the boy will live. His attacker knew much greater agony."

The Guardian gestured a few meters away, where the girl who had borne the second knife lay, her brown hair sodden with dark blood around the shredded remains of her face. "Is she dead?" Renton asked, sickened.

"No. She, too will heal rapidly -- though whether she deserves such a boon is to be found only in the Will of Vodarek. She will be questioned, at great length, when she awakens."

Renton nodded slowly. "And the one Eureka and I...blasted? I've got to go see how she is." He looked to Eureka, still sobbing wildly and holding Maeter and Linck to her, rocking them back and forth. Ariadne watched, whispering words of encouragement to Maurice, who still lay atop her where he had fallen. But she would not move lest she bring him more pain.

Matt Stoner appeared from somewhere, a camera dangling from his neck. "C'mon, Renton," he said, putting a hand to his arm and helping him to stand once more. "The kids're okay. I'll go with you to check on the girl."

They walked together along the edges of the smoking trench in the ground, nearly a meter deep, its edges still glimmering with sparks of trapar. The Vodarek lined elbow-to-elbow beside them murmured encouragement and sympathy, but the disgusted Renton had no ears for their condolences. "We just blasted out at her," he told Stoner. "We didn't even think, either of us; we just...did it. It wasn't the same when the Federation troops were trying to shoot us out of the sky, or murder Eureka and me on the ground. But..."

"But it'sdifferent when it's your own kid, isn't it? Protective reflex, you might say. Look, I've got no family of my own, but Holland or Yuki would've done the same thing in your shoes, bet on it."

Renton tightened his hands into quivering fists. "Why do they make us do this crap all the time? Why won't they all stop wiping their dirt all over us? Why can't they let us alone? Why can't they just let us alone?"

"The Federation's a pretty disreputable bunch, my friend. You should know that better than..."

"I don't mean just the Federation. I mean the whole stinking world!"

A medical attendant knelt beside the fallen girl, whose singed robes still crackled with trapar. Beside him, a Guardian stood with rifle lowered, keeping back the sympathetic, horrified crowd yet ever alert for another attack. "Sir Renton," said the medic. "The power of you and the Lady is astonishing..."

"Never mind that stuff. Is this one still alive?"

The man nodded, and pressed the nozzle of a pressure syringe to her arm. Renton saw that, like the other two, the girl seemed no older than himself. Her fingers fluttered like dying spiders. "Yes. Whatever you and the Messenger did to her was painful but not destructive. She will live to be questioned. How are the Lady and the children?"

"They're all okay except for Maurice. He jumped in front of Ariadne to take the knife himself, and he..." And he almost died. Renton's own tears came then, and he wiped angrily at his eyes. "They say he'll be okay. Eureka's so upset...I've gotta -- I've got to go back, now, and take them all into the Temple where they'll be safe. If there's anyplace that's safe any more." He dipped his head toward Stoner. "Thanks for coming with me. Did you get any pictures?"

Stoner only shrugged. "Forgot all about it. First time in my life. See you around, Renton."

The Vodarek chanting was louder now, rising and falling in soft waves across the Festival meadow as word spread of the murderous attack on the First-Born -- and of the might of her parents' retribution. "Yeah. See you around."

Twenty

The inevitable meeting in Viyuuden's meditation chambers took place in an atmosphere as subdued and joyless as the aftermath of a train wreck. A clear yellow flame with no apparent source glimmered in the air overhead, adding to the funereal atmosphere. The Gekkostaters sat with arms folded, saying nothing, unwilling to meet Renton or Eureka's eyes, while Viyuuden himself whispered in intense conversation with several of his lieutenants. No one looked up until Dr. Egan entered the room, followed by Mischa, Katsuhiro Morita and Sonia. "Please forgive our tardiness," said Egan with a nod to Eureka and Renton. "We were engaged in activities of great urgency, which we shall explain presently. How is the boy?"

Renton saw that Eureka was still far too agitated to speak. "He's okay, thanks, Dr. Egan. Like the medics said, the wound is closed already, and they dissolved the clots in his right lung. But he lost a lot of blood and he was pretty well in shock. They chanted over him and gave him something to make him sleep. He oughta be all right tomorrow."

"Excellent news." He pulled out a chair for Mischa and sat at her side. "And your daughter?"

Renton smiled in a crooked way. "Not a scratch. She wouldn't leave Maurice, and she crawled into his hospital bed to stay with him, even though he's asleep. In fact --" He cocked his head to one side, his jewel sparkling for a moment. "-- she's asleep herself, now. The other kids were pretty shaken up, till Eureka took and tucked them into their beds and sang to them. They're brave; they'll get over it."

"They should not have to 'get over' such horrors," muttered Morita. "What kind of Federation viciousness has come to us now? Who were those girls?"

With a look to Anemone -- now wrapped in a Vodarek robe -- Dominic stood. "I can answer that. They were called the 'Swallowtails,' Colonel Dewey's personal entourage during his last days."

All of the Gekkostate crew except Holland stared at him, stunned. "Dewey?" cried Tommy. "But he's dead."

"Yes." Dominic nodded agreement. "But his influence isn't. The Swallowtails were the Colonel's confidants; Praetorian guard; trusted inner circle and chief executioners. There were seven or eight of them, I think-- they were always scattered around Dewey's flagship, up to something, so I never got a precise count. I've since learned that they were carefully picked for intelligence and cunning. All of them girls, probably for his own amusement, and all of them rigidly conditioned for absolute loyalty to him." He kept his voice even and dispassionate, well aware of how painful these revelations must be to Holland. "The brainwashing must've been extremely effective, since their loyalty to the Colonel obviously reaches beyond his own death."

Viyuuden spoke up. "Quite true, Captain. The girls have all been sedated and put under restraint, but not before they unleashed torrents of obscenity and invective upon the Guardians. From it, we were able to glean the information that these 'Swallowtails' consider Sir Renton and Lady Eureka to be Dewey Novak's true murderers, and their daughter the First-Born a hideous corruption of what they consider the natural order."

Hap made a distasteful face. "I thought that Juergens was gonna take in that bunch of brats and teach them some humanity."

"He tried," Holland said. "But in less than a week, they beat up his housekeeper while he was away on duty, stole some money and escaped. We're lucky only three of them showed up on our doorstep. God knows where the rest've gotten to."

"What about their injuries tonight?" asked Matthieu.

Viyuuden folded his hands. "The one called 'Wren' was the assassin most severely wounded, by the the tree-cats who protected the children. 'Lark,' the one who actually wielded the knife, was reduced to a temporary near-insanity by neural damage from the trapar energies engulfing her. The third, 'Dove,' suffered several broken bones from Mrs. Sorel's astonishing attack." He looked long and piercingly toward Anemone, but continued. "All will recover, physically. But their conditioning... It remains to be seen to what extent that can be reversed. And there's little time at the moment."

"Hey, whatabout that 'astonishing attack?'" Matthieu wanted to know. "Where'd you learn to jump like that, Anemone?"

Uncharacteristically, she blushed. "I...I don't know, honest. I just got so damn mad, seeing her there, watching the three of 'em trying to kill the kids and all. I hated them even in the old days, when the whole bunch'd torment me whenever they had time to spare from kissing Dewey's... Anyway, I just jumped, and there I was, sailing up into the air." Her face grew still more puzzled. "And the funny thing is, when I jumped...I couldn't even see her; she was ahead in the crowd. But Dominic could see her. And...I know how crazy this sounds...I could see what he could see, too."

"It doesn't sound crazy at all," said Eureka, speaking up for the first time.

"No, indeed." Mischa scribbled a few notes on a small pad. "Anemone's Coralian jewel, I suspect, coupled with the genetic modifications made to her by the Federation, have unlocked some unique abilities. I wonder if that might have been part of the Coral's motivation."

Woz, his long dark hair tied back in a ponytail, raised one finger, as if he stood before a classroom. "We can theorize later. Right now, another question's much more immediate. How did these 'Swallowtail' cutthroats find us?"

"Ah." Egan sighed; the reflection of the flame flashed from his eyes. "Have you not already guessed, Dr. Wossel? It was the boy, Kazuya."

Renton jerked his face up, his eyes smoldering. "What?"

"Of course. Viyuuden's misgivings when Kazuya arrived have unfortunately been proven correct. Clearly the Federation tracked the lad as far as the edge of the jungle and its signal-cloaking shield. These 'swallowtails' therefore came to Thuu Bak and followed the jungle path until they arrived here at the village and observed theMoonlight parked upon the meadow. The rest is obvious."

The Guardian chief at Viyuuden's side nodded agreement. "The ravings of those three girl killers back up what you say, Doctor. They were very unobtrusively following the Blessed Ones for several hours."

"Were they indeed? Then, my friends, there can be but one conclusion: if the Federation can send its willing assassins to this place, then the Federation itself must now know beyond doubt that we are here. And sooner or later, we can expect them to act accordingly."

Holland jumped to his feet. "Then we've got to clear out as soon as --"

"Not just yet," said Egan, raising his hand. "There is another matter -- the one which delayed my colleagues and myself in arriving here." He looked round them, weighing the impact of the news he now bore. "We have finally succeeded in accessing the Federation's internment-records database. We know where the Arunos are being held. But if you intend to rescue them, it must be very soon, for the cell assignments in the Zemplén facility are rotated weekly. And tonight at midnight Zemplén time will be the next weekly rotation."

"Then we get that one out of the way first." Holland began pointing around the room. "Jimmy, you and Hap and Maestro get to the ship right away and bring it up to departure-ready. Jobs, Woz, Tommy, Matthieu and Hilda, take your stations on the double; we're leaving as soon as we're at full power. Dr. Egan, give us a couple of minutes to get to the Moonlight, then download all your data on Zemplén to Annette." He turned to Dominic and Anemone, a bit hesitant. "And you two...it seems like you've both got some...special talents we could use in a big way. You're invited, if you want to join us."

The two of them looked to each other and agreed with a single shared smile. "Sure," said Anemone. "Just let us change into some battle duds, and..."

"Won't be necessary; Viyuuden's given us some of those Guardians of the Flame outfits to wear, and there're plenty left over. Come on, now, everybody move -- let's make our last mission our smoothest one." He stooped to kiss Yuki and the baby, speaking some soft words of farewell, then sprinted from the room with the rest of the crew in a rumble of displaced chairs.

"It feels strange," said Renton into the heavy silence once they were gone, "to see everybody all headed off like that without going with them. As if we're goofing off or something. Let's go, Eureka, and check on the kids again."

As he stood and took Eureka's hand, his eyes strayed to the yellow fire quietly rippling in the air above them. "Is that the 'flame' that the Guardians are supposed to guard?" he asked.

Viyuuden waved airily. "Just one of my parlor tricks. Has no one yet explained to you? You are the Flame, Renton-sama -- you and Lady Eureka. Together, you are the Flame of Vodarek. And we shall follow your light the moment you command it."

Renton could only sigh. Hand in hand, he and Eureka left the meditation room, both of them acutely aware of the expectant eyes boring into their backs.

Twenty-One

As the two of them made their way toward the elevator to the medical level of the Temple, Eureka came to a very annoyed stop. "I forgot it, Renton!"

"What did you forget?"

"The bag of popcorn I got at the Festival. I left it in our quarters when I went to get extra pillows for Maurice. I wanted to give it to him. I must go and --"

Renton took her by the shoulders. "No, I'll get it. I can tell how worried you are, so you just go on ahead down to his room. I'll go for the popcorn and bring it down myself."

"Well... I hate to go without you, but..."

"It's okay, Eureka." He kissed her, knowing well how hard this night had already been on her; how badly she needed to reassure herself of the children's' recovery. "I won't be more than a couple of minutes. Go right ahead, and I'll hurry down to our rooms and bring the popcorn as soon as I can. It's only one floor down, so I won't even have to hold up the elevator. Okay?"

"All right, Renton...and thank you." With a smile, she hurried off to the elevator. Renton watched her till the door closed, then made away to the nearest stairwell, his mind still racing.

The door opened at his touch; the lock had been keyed to his and Eurekas' DNA patterns. Inside, the little tables, the dressing-cabinet, the mattress, the chairs... As though he and Eureka had lived here for a lifetime, Renton knew their locations without need of a light. He plucked the paper bag from the countertop next to the window, pausing for a moment to look down and out across the dark meadow to the lights of the Festival, flickering like fallen stars around a scattered group of Vodarek still earnestly chanting. Beyond, theMoonlight, roosting in its circle of harsh floodlights, whined and crackled as Jimmy spun up the ship's inertial flywheel gyros. The two poles of his life, Renton understood at once. The Moonlight, once so dazzling and formidable, already seemed a distant part of the past, a treasured childhood memory. And the village? His present; the place to which he felt more and more he had been led. By whom? The Coral? And why? His eyes rose to the night sky, brilliant with tropical stars, searching for the future -- for their future, his and Eureka's. So many people, and all of them want something from us.What makes them all so sure we've even got whatever it is they want?Why the hell can't they just leave us alone?

Renton took several long, slow breaths to calm himself, and ran for the door.

"Unh!" The shock of collision with someone just outside the doorway sent him reeling to one side, slipping along the stone floor until he rammed head-first into the opposite wall. Another one of those Swallowtail killers...? Furious and frightened, Renton rolled to his feet, into a wide-legged stance, hatred blazing in his eyes. "I'm not so easy as a little kid!Come on and..."

Kazuya threw one arm over his face and huddled against the wall. "I'm sorry, Renton-sama, I'm sorry! I was just comin' to see if the kids were..."

"You!" Renton stood above him with quivering hands, clenching and opening his fists. "Where d'you get the nerve to come anyplace near them?"

"I don't --"

"It wasyour fault! You led those killers here! You showed'em where we were!" Step by step, he advanced on the cowering boy, pointing at him, holding him with his eyes. "Ariadne and Maurice almost died on account of your stupid stumbling around."

"But I didn't mean to --"

"'Didn'tmean to?'" he mocked. "Then you're stupid! How could anybody be so damn careless and stupid?"

"Listen, I --"

"Shut up! You're the worst -- the stupidest -- the dumbest... The Federation was tracking you the whole time, and you thought you were so damnsmart that they'd never follow you?" Renton's eyes strayed to the floor where half the bag of popcorn now littered its cold surface. Half a bag that Maurice and Ariadne would now never get. "You little jerk! Tommy oughta be ashamed to be related to a jerk like you."

Kazuya forced himself to his feet, swaying but not looking away. "Don't you say that kind of thing about Tomika!"

"Yeah, big brave little boy, screw things up and then whine about it! Y'know, that childish attitude of yours is really getting on my nerves. Dragging all the slime of the Federation in here to murder our kids; all their stinking dirt... I oughta..." Blinded with loathing, Renton pulled back his fist...

Time stopped. Renton froze where he stood, hearing nothing, seeing only a bizarre vision of a much smaller version of himself, recoiling before a plunging fist, feeling the terror, the sickening resentment at such callous injustice. Those who punch. The words cut themselves into his mind. Those who punch...those who punch...

Very slowly, he lowered his knotted hand, opening the fingers wide, staring at it as though it belonged someone he would have been ashamed to know. For a moment, he wanted to vomit. "Kaz...Kazuya...I'm..."

"Go tohell, you creep! You're the Great Renton Thurston? What pack of lying crap!" Tears crawling down his cheeks, Kazuya ran as fast as he could, away, into the stairwell where his unsteady, stumbling footfalls echoed slowly away into silence.

Renton made no move to follow. Somehow he could see nothing but his hand, trembling, embarrassing him with its presence. "I'm sorry," he whispered to the soundless corridor.

A slow shadow slithered across the floor, connected at the feet to Matt Stoner. "Now...where have I seen all this before?"

"Stoner?" Renton shook his head, shamed and disgusted. "What the hell am I doing? I shouldn't have...shouldn't have..."

"Uh-huh. I heard it all." Stoner took him by one arm and led him back into the darkened apartment, carefully rolling up the paper bag with its remaining popcorn. He closed the door behind them. "Okay, now we can talk. What was going on between you and the kid?"

"Look, I didn't mean all that stuff I said to Kazuya. I don't know why --"

"No, youdon't know. But I do. Quite the pillar of righteous indignation just now, weren't you?"

He turned on the nearest electric light and Renton cringed from its revealing brightness. "I'm scared, Stoner. I'm so damn afraid I haven't even let Eureka see it. I haven't been so scared since the old days, with Gekkostate. What's the matter with me, anyhow? Is this what being a man is supposed to be like? This wanting time to stop; wanting everything to stay the way it was? Haven't I got the guts to grow up after all?" He flexed his hands and dropped into the nearest chair, sending it to creaking beneath his dead weight. "That Kazuya kid was right -- I'm no big hero. I just want it all to stop: all the people chasing us, worshipping us, wanting something from us. Don't Eureka and me have a right to our own happy ending? Don't we? Is it so damn immature for me to want one?"

Out of long habit, Matt Stoner reached for a cigarette pack in his pocket, finding neither shirt nor pocket nor his long-abandoned cigarettes. He pulled up a second chair, turned it around and sat himself in it, resting his arms and chin on the back. "No, it's not. Not a bit. Is that how it's been for you since you came back? Worrying that you're afraid to grow up?"

"Yeah," he grunted through a haze of misery.

"That explains a lot. Well, it's no wonder, is it? Growing up was something you had to do fast, a lot faster than any of the rest of us. Renton, the trouble is, by the time you even had a chance to think about growing up, you already were. It's to be expected that you wouldn't recognize the signs."

The shadows about the room stood up stark and threatening against the walls. Renton rubbed at his eyes. "Then what...?"

"Because it's not losing your childhood that's worrying you, my friend...it's losing your innocence."

Renton scowled, still not wholly sure that this might not be some elaborate philosophical joke. "That's crazy. Why would I be afraid to losethat, anyway?"

"For the same reason you'd prefer to be clean instead of dirty." The older man snorted and shook his head. "Just consider, if you will, the odds you've beaten, so many times. It takes courage to take those kinds of chances. But it takes the purest kind of innocence to even understand why it has to be done at all. You've kept that innocence -- you and Eureka both -- through nightmares that most of us groundlings don't even want to imagine. And now you're afraid of being contaminated by a world that won't stop reaching out to violate your little island of purity."

"I don't..." Renton studied his face closely, wrestling with his own doubts. From outside, in the meadow below, the faint scream of the Moonlight's magnetohydrodynamic fuel accelerators as they charged formed a background to the Vodarek chant. "How do you know so much about it?"

Stoner spread his arms with a wide carnival-pitchman's grin. "Because you see before you the world's biggest innocent. That's what all my 'crusading journalist' persona was about, you know. It's why I joined Gekkostate and started RayOut; to keep a dirty world at bay and preserve my own purity against its corrupt embrace." The smile vanished. "It worked -- until, in my well-meaning hubris, I thought that a bunch of bloody-handed rabble called the Voice of the People were the same sort of kindhearted crusaders that I wanted to be, and I set out to convince my comrades of the same thing."

He turned his face away, unable to keep up the pretense of lighthearted irony any longer. "I got dirty at last, Renton, as dirty as you can get. And with the purest of motives, I sold my comrades to the very scum I'd loathed for so long. Matt Stoner, defender of the defenseless, ended up violating himself, can you beat that? I thought I'd lost my innocence forever, and it came nearer to killing me than anyone but you will ever know."

"Really?" said Renton.

Stoner began a slow chant that made a dolorous counterpoint to the Vodarek chorus two hundred meters below:

"When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover."

Renton considered the archaic verses, untangling the various wouldsts and might'sts in his mind, trying to get at the meaning of it all. "So...who helped you recover from death to life, then?"

"You might say I had a vision." The easy smile creased Stoner's affable face once again. "Strolling around in a fey mood one pleasant evening, I looked up and saw a couple of fairies flying rings around the stars, all green and sparkling. Quite a sight it was, too."

"But that was just me and --"

"And when I saw that, it occurred to me that if two people who'd gone through as much asthey have could find it in themselves to stay so playful and innocent...well, then maybe corrupt old Matt Stoner could do it, too." He nodded in Renton's direction. "Drop the angst, my friend. If you're still capable of worrying about your innocence, it's still intact by definition. And so...is mine. So why don't we both just get on with our jobs of keeping the enemies of goodness and light at bay, and do without all the hand-wringing?"

Renton felt his face grow red as he considered what Stoner had just revealed. "Well...yeah. I guess, then... Innocence. That is what I don't want to lose -- what we don't want to lose. Nothing to do with 'growing up' at all, then, is it?"

"Not a thing." Stoner shook his head, watching him, gently patient.

"I...kind of think maybe we knew both that, once. But maybe we lost track of it after we came back to Gekkostate." He stood, frowning thoughtfully. "Innocence... Thanks, Stoner. I'm gonna -- going to -- go down and talk to Eureka. She's waiting for me. Oh, yeah -- I've been meaning to ask: how'd the broadcast go? You know, the video thing we did?"

He stared back wide-eyed, genuinely surprised. "It was the hit of the century. Woz inserted it into the Federation video-repeater satellite chain as a self-replicating virus that ran over and over for twelve hours before the Federation State Network could shut it down. A huge audience; hundreds of millions estimated. The Free Underground's been exploiting it with extra RayOut distributions, and there's actually talk of insurrection in some provinces. Wouldn't surprise me if it had a lot to do with tipping the Thuu Bak government over into declaring independence. The Federation is well and truly worried."

"And they know pretty much were we are, now." Renton nodded, his mind now clear about what he and Eureka must do. "Thanks, Stoner, thanks for talking about this. I'm headed down to the hospital floor, now."

"Sure, I'll be leaving, too. Wait -- don't forget this." He handed Renton the half-full popcorn bag. "I'm going to find a broom; some hothead spilled popcorn all over the hallway. That kind of mess can give Gekkostate a bad name."

Only a small red night-light illuminated the hospital room when Renton stepped in, quietly closing the door behind him. Maurice lay beneath the light covers, deeply asleep with Ariadne curled up at his side, one wing draped over her left shoulder. Eureka stood next to them like a guardian angel, looking down at them but saying nothing.

Renton crept to her side, leaving the popcorn on the night-table beside the bed, next to a pitcher of fruit juice. "You don't need to worry about them," he whispered. "Not with those six Guardians stationed outside the door." Someone -- probably Ariadne -- had put two extra pillows on the floor for their heroic tree-cats, who now lay sleeping in magnificent comfort. For only a passing moment, he wondered if it had been truly coincidence that led the animals to the children's side. More evidence of the Coralian Mind, manipulating them from the shadows? Or...the Will of Vodarek?

"I know. But I wanted to be with them all the same in case Maurice woke. But I think the Vodarek sleeping liquid will keep him asleep till morning. I just had to be...sure."

"Eureka...there's something I've got to tell you. Something just happened, and I..." Unwilling to waken the children and unsure of how to explain to her in words, he touched her mind, giving her the knowledge of all he had done, thought and learned over the past half an hour.

When he was done, she watched his face, her eyes faint in the wash of red light. "So that was it. That's what worried you so. You should have told me about it sooner. 'Innocent?' I suppose we are, aren't we? And we must go on being that way, or we or we could become...like Charles and Ray. Losing ourselves and turning into something awful." She put her hands to Renton's cheeks. "You've...grown, very much, since we met, you know. The Renton I met when I crashed into his home in Bellforest wouldn't have thought of these things."

He turned his eyes to the floor, ashamed. "You're the one who's grown. Anyway, you wouldn't've thought I was so great if you saw me chewing out poor Kazuya."

"You must apologize to him, you know."

"Yeah, I will, just as soon as I can find him again. But look -- I think I know what we have to do, now. I think maybe it's the only thing left for us to do..." Again he sent forth his thoughts and this time her own mingled with them, their jewels strobing furiously in the darkened room as their minds joined and resolved, argued and analyzed, all in the space of a few flickering seconds.

"D'you agree, then?" Renton asked when they were separate once again.

"I...think so There isn't any other way, is there? But...can we do it? We've never done anything like that. No one has."

Beyond the temple, the Vodarek chant finally ended, drowned out by a deep rumble rolling across the meadow. Turbines whined as Jimmy ignited the Moonlight's vertical thrusters on their warmup setting. Renton put his arm about Eureka's waist and together they walked to the window, where they watched the great ship at the center of its ring of light, the thruster fire throwing back the night-grass on all sides with its hot wind. Jimmy released more power and the long fuselage lifted from the ground nose first, followed immediately by the heavier wing and body section till the entire ship balanced on narrow columns of blue-white flame. Slowly, like a weathervane seeking a northeasterly wind, theMoonlight rose to a hundred meters altitude and turned about in a graceful pivot. Jimmy ramped up the flow from the ionic reactors; over a gradually swelling roar, the thrustgate nozzles of the main engines irised inward, raising their exhaust pressure to takeoff velocity. The thunder of a tethered sun flamed in the night and the warship pulled in its undercarriage, broke its ties to the ground and accelerated eagerly upward on twin tails of white brilliance.

When the deafening roar had faded and the twinkling dots of theMoonlight's engines lost themselves among the stars, Renton turned to the bed, expecting to find the children awake and frightened. But only the tree-cats sat upright on their pillows, annoyed by this rude interruption to their slumber; Maurice and Ariadne lay still, undisturbed, indifferent, her forehead jewel pulsing a faint violet.

"Come on," whispered Renton, taking Eureka's hand. "We've got to tell Viyuuden what to do."

Twenty-Two

"Climbing to altitude three hundred meters," called out Jimmy from his console on the darkened bridge. "Climb rate is..."

Holland cut him off at once. "Cancel that. Keep us at seventy-five meters altitude."

"Seventy-five? You mean that? That's awfully low, especially at night."

"It's my intention to keep us in the ground clutter, below Federation sensor range. I don't want them detecting us on the way to Zemplén."

"If anyone simply looks up, they will detect us," said Ken-Goh without lifting his eyes from the glow of his weapons console.

"If anyone looks up, they'll take us for just another low-flying military aircraft. Jobs?"

A virtual screen bloomed over Holland's console immediately, revealing Jobs at his station deep in the ship. "Yes?"

"I want you to set the navigational AI to maximum predictive mode. We want the Moonlight to be able to guess as far in advance as possible when there's a forest or mountain coming up ahead."

"Copy that, Leader." He reached out of the camera's range for a moment to make the appropriate adjustments. "Woz is also tying the autopilot to the output from the forward radar, ultraviolet-LARAN and mass-detection arrays. We've got to keep our speed below 1238 km/h, though, since sonic shock waves confuse the mass-detectors. It's not just forests and mountains we have to think about running into, it's buildings, broadcasting towers, power lines..."

"All right, enough!" cried Hap. "We have enough to worry about at this altitude, without you coming up with a new list!"

Woz leaned into the camera's field of view. "Idiot! We worry about these things so you guys on the bridge won't have to." The video channel went to black.

Holland opened an audio link to the hangar deck. "Axel; Tommy. Are the weapons lockers unsealed and ready?"

Tommy's voice vibrated with the characteristic tinny echo of the open hangar area. "Open, all of them, and all equipment ready to roll. Magazines are topped off, and all bandoliers stocked. SFARS all have full propellant and projectile chambers. The jetpack's fully fueled and combat-ready. Axel's got the shuttle good to go, along with the 808 and 909. And...Dominic and Anemone are back here, too, suiting up in the black Guardian uniforms that Viyuuden gave us."

Ken-Goh made a disdainful snarl. "Vah. I shall continue to wear my own uniform until it is time for us to disembark."

"Tough guy, aren't you?" teased Tommy. "Why do you wear that weird white outfit, anyway?"

He made a minor adjustment on his control board before answering. "It was the uniform of the former Kulikovia State Militia, of which my grandfather was a part, before the Federation established its power over the provinces. First the Federation banned all privately-owned weapons; then it deployed an occupation force to bring the disarmed population under its complete domination."

Jimmy spared him a glance from his readouts. "Didn't anybody resist?"

"Yes, many. My grandfather was one of them; he was killed. That is why I wear this uniform while on duty. And I shall do so until the Federation is no more."

"Autopilot engaged," said Jimmy. "Navigational system at max predictive. Cruising speed locked at 1000 km/h. Relative altitude locked in at seventy-five meters AGL."

Hap evaluated his own displays. "New ETA, five point seven three hours. Get comfortable, everybody."

The routine among the bridge crew settled into silence as they roared on through the troubled night. From time to time, Jimmy announced minor course corrections and Hap called out trapar differential readings. Holland sat silently, deep in his thoughts. All of them grew accustomed to the occasionally severe up-and-down movements of the ship as it hugged the near-invisible terrain only seventy-five meters below them. The only truly difficult moment came when a water tower appeared before them from a stand of trees and the autopilot threw the Moonlight into a violent bank that sent everyone not secured by a seat restraint rolling across the floor as the portside wing cleared the tower by no more than fifty centimeters.

It was with mixed relief and apprehension that Hap finally announced, "Zemplén fifty kilos ahead, Leader."

"Fine. Jimmy, drop our airspeed to six hundred, and cut the navigation lights." Holland sat up, punching at a switch that brought up the three-dimensional topographical map just ahead of the command stations. In the center, the Zemplén prison squatted on its hilltop, gray and ugly, surrounded by ten kilometers of open meadow in every direction. A road ran from the south through three rings of razor-wire fences with guarded gates staggered ninety degrees apart, before reaching the single entry point into the prison itself.

He picked up a phased-laser pointer and directed its yellow dot to a location high on the eastern wall. "There's our target; that's where the Arunos are kept. Everybody fix that location in their minds."

Anemone's voice came over the intercom. "No antiaircraft weapons?"

"Not according to the intelligence reports. Matthieu; Hilda; Dominic -- are you ready?"

"Yo, 909 ready here."

"808 ready, Leader."

"Hey, this is just like the old days!" laughed Anemone.

Dominic's voice came back almost instantly. "I hope not. Shuttle ready."

Holland's teeth bared in the raptor grin they all knew so well. "Okay. Jimmy, get into a fifty-kilometer circle around the prison and put us down in the first concealed spot the MADs and the LARAN can find."

Hap switched the angle of the mass detectors and laser ranging devices downward, carefully watching the realtime holographic simulation of the ground beneath them. In short order they located the naked landscape of clearcut forestland, stripped bare by Federation resource-exploitation crews, and settled to the ground.

"Touchdown," Jimmy announced. "Keeping the flywheels spun up; all systems in Standby mode. All sensors scanning in Distant Warning cycle. All external lights off. Opening the rear hangar doors...now. I'm keeping the engines in warm-ready state, so you guys in the LFOs, watch out, 'cause the main engine nozzles'll still be hot when you exit. Otherwise, you're clear for egress."

"Copy that," said Hilda. "Just be sure and come running when we're all done breaking things, you hear?"

Jobs came back on-line. "Rear catapult charged; passing control over to the shuttle. Ready when you are, Dominic."

In the pilot's section of the Moonlight's shuttlecraft, Dominic and Anemone looked to each other, aware of each others' confidence as they'd never been before. "We're ready," they answered in unison, and Dominic pulled back sharply on the forward-thrust lever.

"Hey, don't tell me you two are..." began Holland, too late. The ship's electromagnetic catapult growled its bass hum and the shuttle shot upward into the night, its wings unfolding and rear thrusters firing in the same instant. At an altitude of one hundred meters, Dominic pulled the little ship into a sharp northerly bank and skimmed the treetops on instruments, flaming them toward toward Zemplén.

Twenty-Three

Anemone turned to face her husband, the red readouts on the panels below accentuating her annoyed grimace. "Holy crap! I knew you were gonna turn, but I wasn't expecting a one-eighty Bat Bank! If I'da known that, I'd've wanted a gee suit for this trip!"

He hit the switch that activated the shuttle's own heads-up holo display, and a green monochromatic relief map of the terrain below filled the cabin. "You'd never wear a gee suit; it's not sexy enough for you. Just keep an eye on..."

"...yeah, the approach display. We're only about..."

"...ten kilos from Zemplén, but..."

"...I've gotta be ready to go fly by the time we reach three, right." She unfastened the seat harness and stood, tightening the restraints of the aerotrooper jetpack strapped to her shoulders, waist and thighs.

"Seven kilos...have you got all your equipment?"

"You know I have, lover. Don't worry, I'll be back before you..."

"...before I know it, right. Five kilos. All the same, I wish it was me going down there instead of..."

"...instead of me? You're the hotshot shuttle pilot, remember? But I'm the one who was Dewey's Little Helper; dirty tricks are my specialty. Just come running when I..."

"...call. You can count on it. Two kilos; slowing for approach. Watch out for the bank this time..." Dominic eased the shuttle into a shallow turn as the prison heaved into virtual view beneath them, igniting the landing thrusters at the same time to drop their speed still further. Surely the Zemplén personnel would see and hear them by now; time to get Anemone as low as possible, as quickly as possible. He let the shuttle stall out directly over the prison roof, falling as rapidly as he dared. "One thousand meters...eight hundred...seven...six...I'm going home with you or not at all...five..."

Anemone yanked back the cabin door, standing in the thruster roar and the rushing night wind. She turned back toward him, her dark-vision goggles pulled over her eyes. "I love you, too, baby," she cried, and leaped into blackness.

She ignited the jetpack only six meters below the shuttle, leaning herself away and out of the downward-flaming thruster exhaust. The straps pulled at her like invisible hands as she watched the greenish roof of the prison rising up toward her. At the same time, the shuttle arced away above her, as Dominic put it into a holding pattern at a thousand meters. Around the perimeter Anemone could see guards staring up into the sky where the shuttle's engines had last been, beginning to understand that something suspicious might be going on. Swinging herself sideways to gain some lateral momentum, she unclicked one of the flares from her belt and flung it away, soaring out into the bare gravel just inside the second razor-wire ring. It ignited in a white blaze that lit the ground around it, and she turned both her night-vision goggles and herself away, back toward the roof. No one up here; good. They'll all be watching the fireworks down below for a couple of minutes.

Make sure you touch down on the easternmost corner of the roof.

Behind her goggles, Anemone blinked. The thought hadn't been hers, she was sure -- but it was a good one. Still dropping, she checked the gyrocompass readout in her display and jiggled the jetpack controls to send her eastward. Seconds later, she dropped to a crouch on the rough concrete surface, her knees bending under the added weight of the fuel tanks. Quickly, she stood and undid the quick-disconnect bindings, letting the still-smoking pack drop to the roof and hurrying to the spot thirty meters from the southeastern wall. Below, out on the gravel plain, she could hear excited shouting as the flare started spitting golden sparks high into the air and the guards charged toward it, rifles blazing. Jerks.

From the equipment belt wrapped about her waist, Anemone pulled a length of flexible chain-molecule steel cable and fused it to the storm gutter running around the roof's edge with a small thermite charge. The ring on the cable's free end she snapped to her belt, then rolled over the edge, her momentum carrying her just outside a high, barred window. She bounced there on the end of the cable for a few seconds, spinning like a toy on a string until she could grasp one of the bars to steady herself. "Hey, you!" she shouted inside. "Anybody in there?"

A man's face appeared, baffled, wary, showing the effects of a week's harsh treatment in the hollow cheeks and rings below his dark eyes. "Wha...what do you want? Damn you, if this is another of your interrogation tricks --"

"Stow it! You're Kenji Aruno, right? Where's your wife?"

Kenji stared, his beaten mind not yet fully grasping the concept of someone who hadn't come to torment him. "Who are you...?"

"Nevermind that now!" She lifted the night-vision amplifiers, revealing her Coralian eyes. "I'm one of the good guys, just take my word for it. I'm here to snatch you outa this place. Now where's Mai Aruno?"

"My God. I don't... She's next to me. In the next cell over." Resentment over the things that had been done to him and his wife ignited like the incendiary flare now sputtering on the prison grounds. "They haven't let us be together...they tortured me, and then her, and then both of us in front of one another. They're..."

"Skip it, pop. I know damn well what the Federation does to people. Can you talk to her? Can she hear you?"

Aruno grasped the bars, pulling his face close to hers. "Yes. Yes, I can shout around and she can hear me. But we're not allowed, and the guards will..."

"Forget the guards; they're gonna have their hands full real soon. Just yell to her to stand back from the windows, got it? And while you're at it, yell to anybody else who's up there, too."

"But I..."

"Just do it! If you wanna see your kids tonight, you and the missus stay back from the damn window, get the picture?"

He nodded, his sickly eyes hardening now with determination. "I get the picture." Running to the hallway side of his small cell, opposite the window, he pressed his head to the bars and began to shout in a hoarse bark, "Mai! Mai, listen to me! Get away from the window, do you hear? They're here! No, I don't know who, but they're going to get us out! They're going to...do something. Stay far back from the window. And call out to the others to do the same thing, too!"

Anemone wasted no further time eavesdropping any further; she pulled herself hand over hand back up to the roof and activated the little shaped-charge detonator she'd brought along, leaving it just at the edge of the wall. The same switch activated a burst transmitter, and almost at once she fancied she heard, over the ragged gunfire from the other side of the prison, the characteristic high-pitched rasp of LFO thruster engines, distant but growing louder. Time to get outa here. She sprinted back to the discarded jetpack.

A line of fire hissed out of the night, striking the pack and igniting its fuel pods in a brilliant flower of hot light. Anemone drew back, stunned, watching the Federation guard in the gray uniform of the Ministry of Re-Education running toward her, his RPP still held tightly in one fist. "Stop!" he commanded. "This is Federation restricted property! You will lie on the ground face-down! You will be silent until questioned. You will..."

"You will shut the hell up!" She sprang from the concrete like a striking serpent, flipping into a high-speed somersault in mid-air and striking the guard in the midsection with an impact that sent him sprawling. "Dirty little bullies," she panted, landing on all fours and staring at him with poison in both eyes. "I've known better windbags than you,jerk."

The guard pushed himself up on one elbow, pointing the RPP unsteadily. "Getback. I'm warning you, lie face down and...get back! I'm warning you!"

"Yeah, well I'm sick to death of being warned by the likes of you." She stood and stepped boldly forward, oozing contempt. Don't do this just keep out of his way till the LFOs get here... "Drop the rocket gun while you still can, big man! You're not so tough with people who aren't tied down so you can torture'em, are you? That's more your style, right?" Don't do it Anemone... "Go ahead and sweat, the way I used to sweat."

She continued her slow advance; the now-terrified guard lifted the RPP higher, pointing directly toward her heart. "Stay...back. Get away, or I'll shoot you dead."

"Will you? Maybe you're not as fast as you think you are, scum. Y'know, I've been learning a lot about myself lately, and I think I'm a whole lot faster than I used to be. What d'you say we find out...?" She bent her knees, ready for another spinning leap, when the shaped-charge device went off behind her, shearing away the walls of the Arunos' two cells and sending a rippling shock wave through the concrete roof. Anemone staggered, thrown violently to one side, sliding across the rough surface with a ringing in both ears.

Seeing his chance, the Federation guard jumped to his feet, holding the rocket pistol trained on her midsection. "Crazy broad. You're aterrorist, and the penalty for terrorism is execution." While Anemone scrambled to regain her feet, he sighted and aimed...

Just above him, something bright and massive blocked out the stars. The shuttle, plummeting from a thousand-meter altitude under Dominic's skillful hand, opened its thrusters all the way, the aft-portside nozzle instantly incinerating the guard like an insect in a blowtorch. Balanced for a split second between downward momentum and its fading upward thrust, the shuttle wavered minutely before settling to the roof. The rear doors spread open, wide and inviting. Get in, Anemone!

She stared, shocked, at the pile of smoking ash where the Federation flunky had threatened her, then sprang to her feet and jumped inside in a single flat leap.

"You were supposed to come back using the jetpack!" Dominic shouted as he gunned the thrusters again, lifting them from the roof.

"Don't blame me." She picked herself from the aisle between the two rows of metal seats, but did not yet go forward to the cockpit. "That SOB shot the..."

"...shot the jetpack? What for? Oh, because..."

"...he didn't want me t'get away, that's why. Wanted the credit for catchin' a terrorist all for himself."

Dominc nodded, wheeling the shuttle around to the side of the building. The hull rang with the dull clangs of gunshots. "We've been spotted."

"Of course we've been spotted! Between you and your fancy flying and all the explosions on the roof, the whole Federation must know we're here by now. Just get us down so we can..."

"...rescue the Arunos before the LFOs get here. I'll have to back us up to that opening where the cell walls're blasted away. Just keep looking out the back, Anemone -- it's the only way I can see behind."

"See behind...?"

"I can see what you can see, Anemone! Keep watching back there while I drift us backwards!"

She hesitated, shivering, unsure of what it meant and at the same time well aware of the need for quick action. In some part of her own mind, if she concentrated, she found that she could see a kind of ghostly overlay to what her own eyes told her, a vision of the shuttle cockpit with Dominic's sensitive hands caressing the controls. He can see what I can see...How the hell...? "Okay, Dom, I'm watching! Back us up." She yanked the lever that opened the rear doors wide.

As he hovered in mid-air a hundred meters above the plain below, the gunfire increased, splattering the hull, skidding a sparking trail along one armor-glass window. Gently, Dominic let the shuttle float backward, gently, gently. Colliding with the jagged concrete around the blasted gap in the wall could be fatal, yet if he left any gap between the flattened rear of the shuttle and the Arunos' cell, they could be hit by the gunfire from below. Searchlight beams stabbed out from the guard stations on the ground, finding them, converging on them with their accusing beams.

Thud. The rear plating of the hull touched the concrete. Without hesitating, Anemone jumped across the hand-wide space between shuttle and wall. "Hey!" she shouted into the dark cell. "You guys ready to check out? Hurry up, we can't hang around out here forever. Get a move on!"

Kenji Aruno staggered out of the darkness on legs obviously stiff with terrible pain, holding his dazed wife tightly at his side. She showed little sign of understanding exactly what was happening, but clung to him, trusting. Anemone's own heart ached in sympathy.

"C'mon, Mei," she said, pulling Mrs. Aruno's arm over her own shoulder, "just a couple more steps. We're from Gekkostate, and we're here to save you." Just ahead, the shuttle wobbled back and forth under the hail of gunfire from below but Dominic held it steady. In her mind, Anemone could feel his anxiety that the guards below might soon bring up heavier artillery. "Just keep walking, that's good."

"Gekkostate?" muttered the dazed woman, stumbling on the rubble of what had been the wall separating her cell from her husband's.

Anemone's skin crawled. Had Mai simply been drugged, or was this what the demonic science of Federation torture had left of her mind? "Yeah, that's right. Keep walking, now, so we can get you back to the ship, okay? Just hang on to Kenji and me." They came to the deadly space separating the cell floor from the safety of the hovering shuttle, only centimeters across but a drop of a hundred meters to the ground below. "C'mon, Kenji, you go over first, okay? She knows you, and you can pull her in."

"Right." The man wavered at the terrible gap, but managed with an effort of his unresponsive legs to wobble into the shuttle. "Come to me, Mei," he called gently, holding out his arms to her. "Just a little further."

She looked around her, clearly unsure of what all those metallic clanging noises were, and who this strange pink-haired girl in the black outfit might be. But Kenji... Kenji she knew, and trusted, and loved. "All right, Ken!" she said, and stepped forward without looking down.

Anemone sighed; both of them moved up the shuttle's aisle and dropped heavily into a pair of the forwardmost seats. Time to get the hell out. Shutting her eyes against the frightening drop below, she poised for a jump, leaped...

No, Anemone! I've got to see through your eyes!

...and as she popped them open again, the shuttle jolted ahead, opening up a meter-wide chasm between her and the spot her feet were to have contacted on the shuttle deck.

With inhumanly quick reflexes, she twisted in mid-air and grabbed the deck's edge in both hands, dangling over death. Bullets sizzled through the air on both sides, several of them fragmenting on the jagged concrete behind.

Dom! Don't back up now, or I'll be crushed!

But you're slipping, your hands are slipping!

Kenji Aruno, seeing at once that no matter her strength, she could never hold to the metal deck for more than a few more seconds, made a brave attempt to run to the rear of the shuttle and take her hands. But his crippled legs folded beneath him and he fell to the side, striking his head on a metallic seat frame, groaning.

The fingers of Anemone's left hand pulled loose; in a fit of panic, she grabbed the deck again, feeling the other one begin to slip. "I'm gonna fall!" she screamed -- and a warm hand clamped itself upon hers, holding her by the wrist, pulling, stabilizing her. Another hand clutched at her other wrist, not strongly enough to pull her back, but enough to keep her hanging and alive.

"Dad!" shouted Kazuya. "I've got her! Grab my legs! I'm slipping out, but if you grab my legs and hold onto the seats with your feet, we can pull her back!"

"Pull her back...?" Kenji Aruno shook the fog from his brain and lunged forward for his son's ankles, holding with all the strength he had left. "Right!" At the same time, he hooked two of the seat bases with his own feet, bringing Kazuya's backward slide to a stop. Anemone, now firmly anchored, jerked herself into a forward backflip, rolling atop both Arunos, inside at last. She picked herself up from them and jumped for the door switch, watching the rear doors flap shut on their hydraulic pistons, near to tears.

"Okay, Dom..."

Yeah, we're on our way out. Welcome back, my love.

The shuttle leaped away from the building just as an explosive shell impacted the wall below, showering the hull with shrapnel that shook it from end to end. "Kazuya!" cried Anemone. "What the hell areyou doing here?"

"Uh, stowed away," he admitted, pushing himself from the floor. "I got kind of mad, back there at the village so I..."

Anemone threw both powerful arms around him and kissed him, long and professionally. "Never mind why, kid. I'm just glad you did." She ran forward to the cockpit to be with Dominic, leaving Kaz staring behind, embarrassed and thrilled in equal measure.

"Nice work, son," said Kenji, his eyes gleaming in the cabin lights. "Now before we meet any more of your girlfriends, help your mother and I to our seats, will you? It's been a hell of a week for us..."

Twenty-Four

Hilda leaned forward to shut off the strobing red light on the accessory panel of the 808 LFO. "Right. There's the signal cutoff from the detonator. Anemone's blown the wall."

"Got it," said Matthieu from the cockpit of the 909. "Let's get clear of these woods and move in."

Both LFOs leaped from their concealment in the high forest in a roaring blaze of light, accelerating into a parabolic climb that took them to a two-kilometer reconnaissance altitude in slightly over a minute. Matthieu frowned at his radar display. "Where the hell's the shuttle? They oughta be out of there by now."

"We can't hover up here on thrusters forever -- no way we want to be pushing bingo limits on a combat mission."

"Right, right... Ah. There they are. Wonder what took'em so long. Well, we can ask them when we're back to mother. Sync to me, 808 Blue, we're going down."

"Copy that; take us to the dirt, Orange Leader."

Too impatient to wait for gravity, they accelerated their LFOs groundward like matched meteorites, then flipped vertically for braking just above the Zemplén prison complex. Hilda unlocked her controls and drifted the 808 in a wide circle about the prison building itself, a powerful searchlight following her all the way. "What the hell? The place is lit up like an amusement park. What were Dominic and Anemone doing down there to get these clowns so stirred up, so fast?"

"Ground fire, too," said Matthieu as a lucky bullet pinged away from the 909's armor. "Looks like nothing the plating can't handle, though. There's the northeast corner and the handhold they promised us. You two footsoldiers ready to move in?"

Jobs and Tommy, cramped together in the storage area behind the 909's pilot seat, tensed. "Roger that, Matthieu," she said, activating the headset of her communicator as they slipped transparent full-face vapor masks over their faces..

Briefly, Matthieu studied the heads-up holo display in the cockpit; with so much light on the building itself, he had no need for any virtual replica covering the outside, but the image showed the internal structure of the prison, based on hacked Federation intelligence data. Just inside the southernmost wall, two floors up, a short, wide corridor glowed chrome-yellow. "Okay, gang, there's the Detention Control HQ. Give me just a minute or two to open the front door for you."

Still hovering on jets, he looped around to the spot on the anonymous gray prison wall indicated by the holo display, then thrust out the LFO's armored fist and rammed the concrete wall. Job's teeth rattled unpleasantly in the cramped storage space as Matthieu rammed a second time, then, seeing little results, cursed under his breath and fired an air-to-ground rocket into the prison, sending concrete fragments rattling off the 909's orange armor.

"That's better!" Moving them in next to the wall, they could all see an astonished prison staff staring out from the brightly-lit room beyond the ragged hole. Matthieu put the LFO's hands into the opening and pulled outward, the cement crumbling to dust beneath its titanium-alloy fingers. Several of the surviving staff inside appeared to be screaming as they scattered like ants; others stood their ground, firing pistols and at least one RPP at the invading LFO.

"Wasn't that hurting innocent people?" asked Jobs, watching wide-eyed.

Matthieu twisted around for an instant in his seat. "This is a political prison, man! The only innocent people in this torture chamber are in the cells. You two ready to fly?"

"Ready," said Tommy, checking the fit of Jobs' vapor mask.

Matthieu raked the wall opening with rapid automatic fire, sending everyone inside the room running for cover. He popped the cockpit canopy open, and the avalanche of noise from the LFO's main engines and the gunfire from below thundered over them. "Now!" he cried, sending out a fresh burst of covering fire.

Tommy and Jobs scrabbled from their cramped seat, out and down the 909's right arm. Jobs avoided looking down at the distant ground, running after Tommy with his SFAR held ready in both arms.

Tommy jumped inside the control room first; an angry-looking uniformed guard raised his pistol and Jobs cut him down with his SFAR, watching with sick regret as the man tumbled backward from the impact and did not move. He aimed over the heads of those still standing, raking the room itself with covering fire while Tommy unclipped a pair of gas grenades from her belt and threw them to both sides.

Billows of pale yellow anesthetic gas gushed from them, filling the room in seconds. Several more shots rang out -- answered by Tommy with her automatic rifle -- before the room grew still. She swung her rifle from side to side, its cesium-laser siege light sweeping the Detention Control room. "They're all out cold. I'll cover you in case any of'em are holding their breath. This's where you take over."

With a sharp nod, Jobs ran for the command console occupying a large expanse of one wall. He threw an unconscious Federation guard from one of the seats and grabbed the nearest keyboard, hoping that its last user had been logged in to one of the synoptic-command accounts. He was; now what operating system are they using...?ARGUS-III, good.

Loud impacts shook the door to the room, the one opening inward toward the rest of the prison; obviously someone outside already knew of their breakin. Tommy ran to the door and activated its security lock, hearing the steel cylinders click into their sockets in the massive doorframe. But the hammering from the other side continued, along with gunfire that rebounded from the door's steel surface -- for now.

Jobs now poured all of his concentration into the console before him. First activate the graphical interface for the cell-block lock-control system...there, under the LOCKUP menu. Not passworded?Good. I guess they never thought anyone who wasn't authorized could possibly get physical access to this console. Arrogant Federation swine...

Once Tommy and Jobs disappeared inside the hole yawning in the prison wall, Matthieu hit the 909's boosters, rocketing up three hundred meters before pivoting in mid-air and bringing his humanoid warcraft to the adjoining side of the Zemplén prison. Hilda hovered the 808 about halfway up the eastern wall, the flames of its engines casting weird shadows along the great gray concrete face.

"The cargo delivered?" she asked, uneasily listening to bullets pattering like sleet against the 808's blue-enameled armor.

"Confirmed, Honey. Now we take care of our own business while those two go to work. That the niche Dominic and Anemone left for us up there?" With one finger of the 909's massive arm, he indicated the place high on the northeastern corner where Anemone's shaped charge had blown away the outside wall of the Arunos' cells.

"That's the spot; that's our handhold. Let's go."

The two LFOs made a weird sight as they flew to the roof level and clung there like huge metallic crabs, pushing their manipulator hands into the opening and yanking outward, ripping away long chunks of concrete wall. The Federation MPs gathered below were forced to scatter as the jagged slabs hit the ground, giving Matthieu and Hilda a brief, welcome break from the rain of bullets and RPP projectiles. "Hey," said Hilda, hurling away a twenty-meter strip of wall, "once you have a starting hole, this stuff isn't hard to peel away at all. It's reinforced against outside force only, Egan said, and he was right. I think we could peel the whole damn building in under an hour."

Matthieu laughed. "Don't go getting so ambitious, Honey! We just need to clear the walls from a ten-meter channel from roof to ground, so everybody'll have an exit once the cells're popped. Don't go exceeding orders, or..."

"Orange Leader and Blue Leader, do you copy? This is Mother calling." Both of the two LFO pilots stiffened; the voice was Annette's.

"We copy; this is Orange Leader. What's the deal? I thought we wanted radio silence."

"I'm afraid things are changing. Woz says we're picking up deeplanes, heading twelve degrees north, seven of them, probably from the Federation base at Trondal."

Inside her domed cockpit, Hilda shook her head. "Military craft? Why would they scramble a flight of military attack ships just for a raid on a prison? Shouldn't that've gone up the local civil chain of command first? This isn't --"

Holland cut in. "Unless the military already suspected we were in the area, and had something up their sleeve to begin with. My guess is that our little hit-and-run has just accelerated something that's been in the works for at least a couple of days. We've gotta assume our cover's been blown."

"Uh-huh." Matthieu thought furiously, still holding precise control on his manipulators. "What's the ETA on the bad guys?"

"Ten to twelve minutes, but don't push the margin, Orange Leader. We've still got to get back to home base and pick up...our people...before we go on the run again." There was no need to spell it out: "our people" meant Eureka and Renton.

"Okay, yeah, we copy. Any IPF squadrons in the area?"

"None close enough to give us any backup in less than an hour, minimum. You get back here to the nest, PDQ; things are about to get hot in a major way. Over and out."

Matthieu cursed bitterly. And everything was going so damn smooth... "Blue Leader, get our little gremlins on the line and give'em a heads-up. Tell'em we're pulling out in three minutes. Meantime...keep on ripping these stinking walls out -- and make sure they fall on as many of those lousy Federation slime down there as possible!"

Jobs tried to wipe sweat from his forehead, swearing under his breath as he realized he still wore his transparent antivapor face covering. What the hell?This ought to be a simple menu structure! But "Security Settings All Floors" leads to a fire-alarm test submenu and "Lockdown Settings" brings up a selection of lighting levels. What's going --?

The pounding at the door rose to a series of leaden thumps whose vibrations shuddered through the walls. "Job!" cried Tommy. "They're firing MAX-T projectiles at the door! Sooner or later, it's gotta go."

"Yeah, right, right." All his concentration poured into the stubborn system before him. The menu structures were childishly simple. Why did they keep leading to useless destinations? He backed up two levels, to the "Cell Administration" menu, then tapped the "Surveillance" button on the screen before him. It opened up a series of subheads all having to do with monitoring the water supplies to the cell toilets. "Dammit!" he whispered, shaking the relentless sweat from his eyebrows, clenching his jaw in rage.

"Change of plans," crackled Matthieu's voice over his and Tommy's headsets. "We've gotta pull out, pronto."

"What?" Tommy flinched as the latest series of impacts shook the door. This time, it vibrated visibly, a sure sign that its cylinder mountings within the wall were loosening. "You guys were supposed to strip away the outer walls while we --"

"Change ofplans, I told you! Egan and Viyuuden were right -- the Federation's onto us. There's a flight of deeplanes on the way, and five'll get you one there's a lot more right behind them. Hilda's still out there ripping the walls off, but as soon's I collect you two, we're all headed straight back to the ship. I'm comin' down for you guys now."

Frazzled, Jobs pounded at the control console. "I'm not finished here! Those cells are still locked!"

"But they're almost in here!" Tommy fired a burst of automatic fire into the thumb-sized gap now appearing around the door's edge.

"All the more reason to let me get on with this without wasting more time!" He turned to her, attempting a sympathetic smile. "Look, I know this mission was mainly to spring your parents. But there are over two hundred other people in this dungeon, too -- people whose only crime was opposing the Federation. How many of them are somebody's parents, too?"

Tommy opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came. "Just hurry up then, because Matthieu and Hilda'll be here any second." Another massive thump struck the steel door, prying it inward another centimeter or two and sending networks of deep cracks into the frame around the locking cylinders.

Jobs turned back to the console without another word, glaring at the screen with growing loathing. None of the menus lead to where they're supposed to go. Knowing it would get him nowhere useful, he clicked on the "Surveillance" button, only to be presented with a list of prisoner conviction transcripts. What is this nonsense?It's completely illogical -- as if no one's even supposed to know where anything is...

He froze, just as the yellow-white glare of the 909's engines flooded the room from just outside the breached wall. Of course! That's why there's no password -- only the personnel who work here are trained to know which menu button actually leads to their assigned screen!Simple but brilliant!

"Job!" shouted Tommy, emptying an RPP round into the opening beyond the bending door. Screams and a fusillade of bullets answered her, but the door still held. "Job, Matthieu's here! We've gotta leave!"

"Just a second, just a second..." What's the function for spinning off a command-line shell in ARGUS-III...oh, yeah, command/dup/restart/cancel. He spread his long fingers to encompass the complex keystroke function, and the menu structure collapsed, leaving him at a directory prompt on a black background. The command shell isn't passworded!Thank God!

"Come on, Job! Matthieu can't hover out there forever!"

"I'm almost there..." Angrily shaking away the sweat from his eyes once again, he typed in the ARGUS-III command function for a file listing. SHOWFILES...yeah, there's the main menu module. And in a directory below that...DROPDOWN SUBS...yeah, there they are!Each and every submenu its own separate trinary!Now which one...

With a tremendous crash, the metal security door toppled inward, lock cylinders ripping free of the wall; Tommy filled the gap with a blast from Jobs' SFAR, followed by a fragmentation grenade.

That'sit!CELLOK-RT!That has to be the cell-lock control module! Trembling, he typed in CELLOK-RT ACTIVE and watched as the menu titled CELL SECURITY LOCK MASTER CONTROL bloomed across the screen. "Yessss!" The roar and blast from the LFO's engines combined its din with gunfire from the outraged Federation guards just beyond the doorway as he clicked the UNLOCK ALL button.

UNLOCK ALL CELL GATES? CONFIRM YES/NO.

A bullet sang past his left ear, smashing into the temperature-regulation unit just beside the control console. As if driving a stake into the heart of the Federation itself, Jobs stabbed his finger at the touchscreen's Yes button and watched as all the lights on the Cell Status board went from red to exuberant green.

"They're open!" he shouted, leaping to his feet and all at once becoming aware that Tommy stood directly behind him, covering them both against the gunfire pouring in the collapsed doorway. He drew his own RPP and fired one explosive round into the console, disabling it permanently before grabbing Tommy's arm and leading the two of them toward the beckoning rent in the prison walls.

Leaping, stumbling backward, tripping yet keeping up a constant wall of return fire, Tommy and Jobs made their way through the smoky rubble of the office. Just beyond the opening, the cockpit of the 909 bobbed tantalizingly, waiting, inviting. "Hurry up, you guys," urged Matthieu over the headsets.

Tommy squeezed off another automatic burst, watching the door fall away altogether. The corridor beyond was a solid mass of Federation military guards. "We've got a...few visitors back here." An RPP round exploded less than a meter from Jobs' chest, destroying a backup-media cabinet in a blossom of searing sparks. "I kinda think they don't want us to leave."

Matthieu drifted the 909 a few meters to one side, bringing the angular bulk of its shoulder-mounted air-to-ground missile pack to the opening. "Stand clear, you guys! Gekkostate knows how to give a guest a real welcome!" A gusher of white flame tore across the room and into the open doorway beyond. Jobs and Tommy fell back, flattened by the hot pressure wave as the warhead detonated in a burning flower of instant death for all who stood beyond.

"Come on, Tommy!" Jobs shook off his nausea at the carnage he had just witnessed; that could wait for later. He pulled Tommy to her feet, dizzy and disoriented, carried forward only by the urgent need to get her, to get them both, back to the safety of the LFO's cockpit before the next wave of guards arrived. They poised at the rim of the rim of the blast-hole in the outside wall, knees bent, watching as the cockpit drifted into alignment under Matthieu's sensitive control... "One...two...three!"

Hand in hand they leaped across the long fall between building and LFO, dropping in a heap of arms and legs into the cargo pit behind Matthieu. "Okay, Hilda," he called out, "I've got the lost chicks. What d'you say we get back to the nest?"

Above, Hilda stopped tearing away shards of the outside wall and tumbled her blue 808 LFO in a perfect somersault, catching herself upright with a burst of the main engines, bobbing at Matthieu's side. "Shame we couldn't finish stripping the prison walls, but --"

A jet of fire from the sky tore into the back-mounted engine unit of the 808. Its starboard thruster engine blew, spewing burning gouts of hot yellow behind. The 808 spun around twice in mid-air, then began to settle groundward, listing badly as Hilda struggled with the manipulators to hold an upright stance.

"Hilda!" cried Matthieu as he dropped the 909 toward the ground, reaching out with its arms to stabilize the damaged LFO. He grasped...and missed.

The 808 dropped, hard, to the ground, still dripping fiery fuel, sending armed Federation personnel running madly away in every direction. With icy skill, she managed to avoid a complete crackup, bringing the LFO down on one knee, both manipulator arms pressed to the ground. And there it remained, like a runner poised at the starting line, a column of smoke and fierce flame rising from its back into the night. "I'm down," she announced, breathless and shaken, over the communications link. "I've bought the farm, Orange Leader. Fuel pressure gone, number one engine gone. The archetype's taken major damage, too -- one leg out, hip joint smashed. Weapons systems failing. And these dirtbags on the ground are letting me have everything they've got."

"Jeez, don't scare me like that again, Honey." Matthieu touched the 909's legs to earth just in front of her. The scattered Federation guards, sensing a weak point in the attack, regrouped and peppered both machines with sustained small-arms fire and the occasional grenade. "What the hell hit you? Nothing down there can do that kind of damage."

Behind him, Jobs pushed himself to his knees, pointing upward. "There! Above us!" Overhead, the silver sickle of a Federation deeplane swooped low, releasing another air-to-ground missile that exploded less than thirty meters from them both. He stared, horrified. "My God, they don't even care about hitting their own troops!"

"Typical. Hilda -- we're just targets out here. Can you get over to the 909? Make it quick, before that silverbug can circle back."

"Negative, Orange Leader. The ground fire's too thick. I'll...I'll be shot before I can run to your cockpit. Leave me, you big dumb hero, and get back to the Moonlight for help."

"Don't gimme that 'hero' stuff, hear? That deeplane squad is gonna concentrate their fire on you, you know that damn well. And there is no way in hell I'm gonna leave you here while that --"

Another of the silver attack ships swooped in at ground level; the 909's radar squealed out an alarm and Matthieu turned the LFO's hulking torso toward it, letting off a heat-seeking homer that blasted it from the air. The flaming remains tumbled to the ground, smashing at last into the prison wall where it burned furiously. "They're starting already," said Tommy, forgetting for an instant that her headset was still tied into the communications net. "We've got to get her out of there, fast. But I don't see --"

Matthieu made an angry, wordless growl and bent the 909 toward the crippled 808, as though in a formal bow. "Blue leader -- oh, crap, Hilda -- is your bailout system still functional?"

"Is my...oh. Yeah, yes it is. Do you think...?" A rocket-launched grenade exploded nearly between the two craft, hurling metal fragments that left dents even in the 808's combat armor.

"Yeah, I think. Count of three, okay? On Three, we both pop our canopies. Then you eject, got it?" She was no more than ten meters from them now, and even Jobs and Tommy could see Hilda's face, contracted with worry, lit from below by the fires burning all round them.

"I...think so, Matthieu. Let me just wiggle out of the manipulator prosthetics...okay, ejection system primed... One..."

His right hand tensed on the 909's cockpit control. "...two..."

Another deeplane roared in from the sky, antiaircraft cannon flashing on the forward edge of its wing. But Matthieu dared not move his LFO.

"Three!" Both canopies flipped back on their hinges, opening the operator cockpits to the crash and stench of the destruction around them. Hilda pulled back on the Eject ring and her pilot's seat roared out of the 808 on solid-fuel rocket boosters, shooting across the space between the two LFOs until she impacted the open canopy of the 909. Flames still roaring from the rocket boosters, Hilda and seat tumbled downward into the open cockpit until they dropped together, face-down, bridging the space between the pilot's station and the storage shelf behind.

"Kick this thing out!" she screamed, yanking on the quick-disconnect rings that dropped her free of the still-firing seat assembly. Together, Tommy and Jobs rolled to their backs and kicked upward, terrified that it might roll over and incinerate them before burning out, knocking it tumbling over the edge of the cockpit, wheeling down to the hostile ground below. "God, but that was..."

The canopy snapped back into place; Matthieu wheeled the 909 to starboard, releasing another heat-seeker at the deeplane skimming in from the northeast. The missile detonated just above one wingtip, sending the plane into an uncontrolled spin aimed directly at them. Pushing the 909's legs and engines to their full force, he leaped backward, barely missing the massive fireball as the crippled Federation ship impacted the downed 808; both ripped themselves apart in a blinding detonation. He fought with his controls, riding the shockwave, keeping the 909 upright and activating its ECM suite. "Mother, this is Orange Leader, d'you copy? We got a..."

Two more deeplanes flashed past, their pilots not daring to use their missiles at such close range, opening fire with armor-piercing antiaircraft shells. Matthieu ignited the back-mounted engines again, trying to reach an altitude at which he could switch to the LFO's ref board and make an escape, but the Federation planes kept up a steady cycle of harassing attacks, pinning them down, unable to get airborne. "This doesn't look good, boys and girls," he muttered, twisting the 909's torso in all directions to maintain a return fire from the antiaircraft cannons. "See, the homers are no damn good in such close quarters, 'cause they might just end up doubling back on you."

"You can't use laser cannon?" asked Tommy.

Hilda shook her head. "The laser cannons were on the 808; that was my job. Supposed to be, anyway."

"Spilled milk, honey, don't have any regrets. We're startin' to run a bit low on ammo, though... Mother, this is Orange Leader again -- do you copy? Blue Unit's down, but Blue Leader is operational. We're being held down by that string of silverbugs you mentioned. Please respond, Mother."

The deeplanes went into a complex, interweaving maneuver in tight orbits around the grounded LFO, as Matthieu struggled against them like a man fending off a swarm of hornets. From the rear, the passengers watched helplessly as he hunched forward, deep in concentration, sweat streaming down his neck. And still the attack intensified as a fourth deeplane joined the dance. "Ammo's really low," he growled from between tightly-clenched teeth. "We gotta...we gotta try a homer. Only chance we...got. If it doesn't work...I apologize in advance. And Hilda... I..."

A brilliant beam of white speared down from the night sky, flickering among the Federation attack ships. One exploded, then another, both burned in halves by the high-powered plasma cannon. The pilots of the two others broke formation immediately, but their own deeplanes flashed and splattered to the ground in flaming pieces.

Ken-Goh's voice crackled over the radio link. "Very well, if you amateurs cannot adequately protect yourselves, the task is left to us with greater skills."

"Mother?" Joyously, Matthieu laughed aloud. "Ken-Goh, you sarcastic pig! If you weren't such a great shot, I'd challenge you to a duel. Where've you guys been? I've been calling you, y'know."

"Holland here. Yeah, we heard you, but we needed to keep radio silence while we approached, till we were on top of your Federation friends. They turned out to be a little faster than we anticipated -- and we're getting some military-channel chatter that makes it sound like there's a lot more to come. Get up here and rendezvous with us on the double; we're headed back to base, fast."

"On our way, Moonlight." Matthieu fired the LOF's back-mounted engines, leaping two hundred meters into the air and flipping the oversized ref board from its clip, then grabbing it with the LFO's magnetic foot locks. The battered 909 and its grateful passengers followed their radio beacon to the Moonlight, circling invisible in the deadly night. Yet none of them dared wallow in the illusion of relief; the worst could only be yet to come.

Twenty-Five

"The sky is starting to lighten," said Eureka, brushing her iridescent hair from her eyes. "It will soon be dawn."

Renton watched the final few stragglers from the Vodarek village hurry along the meadow, and nodded in a distracted way. "This is really scary."

"I know." She moved closer to him, taking his hand in the familiar gesture of intimacy that had sustained them through so much. "Do you really think we can do this, Renton? I mean, do you really think so?"

"I dunno...I don't know. All the Vodarek say so, especially Viyuuden. But even he says nobody's ever done this before. All I know is that we can't go on like this, always running from the Federation, always wondering if somebody's going to jump out of the bushes and try to murder the kids -- or us. Gekkostate can't protect us any more. The only thing left for us to do is...protect ourselves, the only way we know how." He sighed deeply, wrapping her in his arms. "And to protect as many other people as we can."

"My Lord and Lady?" Viyuuden, in his black Guardians of the Flame uniform, bowed to them, fidgeting with impatience. By the pale predawn light, they could see the lines and shadows marking his face. It had been a long night for all of them.

"Hello," said Eureka. "Are all of them ready now?"

"Yes, Lady, our long preparations over the last several months are now come to fruition. Only a few hours were needed to ready ourselves. All of us are prepared to fulfill the Will of Vodarek. But...there is another matter."

Eureka and Renton glanced to each other, wondering and fearing what could possibly be disturbing the priest even more than the burdens he already bore this night. "What's going on? Is it the Moonlight? Are they in trouble?"

"Trouble? Yes, Blessed Ones -- but they have overcome it, according to the coded messages we've received from them. They are on their way back even now." He looked downward, unwilling to bring up what he obviously considered a distasteful subject at such a time. "No, this is other news. The Federation is on the move." Above the horizon, Venus shone clear and bright through a hazy sky.

Eureka frowned. "They're always on the move."

"Yes, Lady, but...Dr. Egan has now learned, through intercepted and decoded transmissions, that the entire Federation Third Air Fleet is moving on Thuu Bak. We believe this action has been planned for some time, to punish the Thuu Bak government for its secessionist tendencies. But your presence is surely giving them an even stronger incentive. It appears that the Federation wishes in a single stroke to eliminate both the beginnings of rebellion and its ideological nucleus."

"Meaning us," said Renton.

"Yes -- and the Vodarek people, whom they have always hated. " He looked from one to the other of them, watching their impassive, unreadable faces. "Have I...done the wrong thing in telling you this? This is a time of great strain for all of us, and you need no new burdens..."

Eureka reached out and brushed his arm with her fingers. "No, you did the right thing, Viyuuden. After all, it wouldn't be right for us not to know the truth, no matter how terrible it is. How...soon before the Federation fleet gets here?"

"Gregory tells me that the first wing of the main force will be here within four hours, possibly five, depending upon many unpredictable factors. But there's no doubt in his mind that they will be here." He spread his hands helplessly. "I'm truly sorry, Lady. All of us know the terrors and sacrifices you've both endured already..."

"No, it's okay," said Renton. "Don't feel bad about it, it's not your fault. All the Vodarek have been about the nicest people we've ever known. It'll have to be soon, then; real soon. Oh, yeah, one thing, though -- when will the Moonlight get back from Zemplén?"

"Approximately two hours, Renton-sama. Do you want to be notified when they arrive?"

The jewels on their foreheads pulsed briefly in sequence. Eureka shook her head. "No, we'll be waiting for them out here on the meadow. And besides, we'll be...in touch with them before then. But would you please have someone make sure the kids' things are all packed and that they're ready to board as soon as the ship arrives?"

Viyuuden bowed, his shaven head catching the first faint sheen of a sun that would never again dawn on the same world. "I promise it. And now, if I may, my place is with the Vodarek people." He hesitated before turning back toward the Temple. "Thank you, Renton and Eureka. Thank you for all you've done for the Coralian Mind, for humanity...and for me." With another parting bow, he hurried along his way.

Renton released his breath in a long gush. "Wow. That sounded too much like 'good-bye forever,' didn't it?"

Even now, Eureka had to laugh. "Yes, well, he is a high priest and all. He's so different from Norbu, but then all humans are so different, aren't they?" She came to Renton and settled into his arms once again. "Let's not be afraid any more, dearest Renton. Whatever happens, you and I will be together forever, won't we? Just like we promised? 'The fires of conflict make a great and terrible light, but their flames bring only destruction and pain.It's the fire in the heart that gives us warmth, and light and love, and it lasts beyond forever.'"

He looked at her with a pleased, astonished smile. "That's really nice. Is that another one of Norbu's poems?"

"No. That was one of my own; I made that one up myself." She pressed herself more tightly to him, trying to bury her trembling in the solace of his nearness. "Hold me, Renton."

Twenty-Six

Holland slumped in his command seat, watching the morning clouds pass below them. Jimmy and Hap, intent at their consoles, spoke in soft monosyllables when they spoke at all. Even more intense and silent, Ken-Goh peered at the long-range detection screens with a burning alertness that never wavered.

Above and behind them all, on the overhead observation deck, Anemone and Dominic leaned against the stainless-steel railing conversing in soft whispers when Tommy came up behind them, rubbing at her smoke-stained face with a damp cloth.

"How are your parents?" Dominic asked.

"Okay, thanks; I left Kaz with them. Dad's leg's starting to heal. Even the scars from where they carved him are smoothing over. The Coralian Gift, I guess. I haven't told him about that, yet." She ran one hand through her dark hair and joined them at the railing. "Mom was so full of drugs that she hardly knew her own name. If you two hadn't got them out of there, I don't think they'd have lasted much longer. Thanks; I mean that."

Anemone pulled back her long pink hair and tied it with a silver ribbon. "It's okay. Gave us a chance to really get back at the Feds, for the way they screwed with our lives. I just wish we coulda done more." Her hand strayed to the Coralian jewel on her forehead, pulsing now and then with a soft yellow light.

"What do those things do?" asked Tommy, openly staring.

"We're not entirely sure, yet." Dominic touched his own jewel, still unaccustomed to the feel of the hard little oval. "If we think about it, we can see things through each others' eyes. And sometimes it seems as though our thoughts start to run together, just a bit. But there hasn't been time to experiment with it. Maybe someday we'll be able to do some of the tricks that seem to come so naturally to Renton and Eureka. Or maybe it means something else altogether in our case. The Coral has a purpose for us, it seems."

Tommy turned to Anemone. "Is that why you... I mean, with all the jumping and flying around. I mean, not even my weaponless-attack instructors at boot camp could even come close to what I saw you do when those girls tried to kill Ariadne. It was like watching a panther, only even more so."

"Like an animal, yeah." She allowed herself an ironic smile, looking sidelong toward her husband. "Yeah. Like the Coral's been getting us ready all along, maybe. And who the hell ever knows what the Coral's got on its mind, huh?"

Below, on the bridge, Annette spoke up from her Communications console, her face tight and strained. "A message coming in from the IPF fleet," she told Holland. "From Fifth Wing Air Marshal Sato, aboard the Mikasa. Audio-only, encoded."

"Put him on." Holland sat upright, shaking off his reverie. "Sato? This's Holland. Why do I get the feeling you haven't got any good news for us?"

"Because these aren't good times, Captain Holland. I'm told you already know about the movements of the Federation Third Air Fleet. They're going to try to blast Thuu Bak into submission, then install a puppet government that will ensure it remains a captive state of the Federation."

"Then...they'll also want to bomb the crap out of the Vodarek settlement in the jungle." He scowled down at the tops of the dawn-brushed clouds, so innocent, so pure.

The Air Marshal's pause told everyone aboard the Moonlight that this revelation had taken everyone on the bridge of the Mikasa by surprise. "Vodarek? So that's why they're targeting that area beyond Samit Prakkun. They want to make it appear that the Vodarek are behind the breakaway movement. First they'll destroy the capital, then slaughter the Vodarek --"

Holland's gray eyes smoldered. "What the hell was it you wanted, Sato?"

Hesitating, Sato picked up the conversation on a different line. "Thanks to the decryption keys your people passed on to us, we can follow most of the Federation Fleet's operational comm traffic. And we're now certain that they've discovered where you've had your ship based for the past two weeks. Extrapolating from their existing information and concentrating their sensor scans on the region between Zemplén and Thuu Bak, they've penetrated your ECM cover; the Fleet now has a fix on you. We think it likely that they hope the...Important Passengers are aboard."

Dominic and Anemone drew closer; everyone on the bridge stirred minutely. "Well, they're not," said Holland. "Those idiots in the Federation fleet've always thought we're as stupid as they are. Anyway, the Moonlight is still the fastest thing in the sky. What about you guys? Can you get to Samit Prakkun ahead of the fleet?"

"In a word...no. Our best estimates indicate that the main phalanx of the IPF will reach Thuu Bak over an hour behind the Federation's advance air-to-ground attack wing. At best, we can prevent them from destroying the capital city entirely. We've been broadcasting air-raid warnings to them, so the Bakkian authorities can get as many people to safety as possible. As for the Vodarek settlement you mentioned...they seem to be under a radio blackout. We have no idea if our transmissions are reaching them at all. Your ship is only half an hour from Thuu Bak. Can you give them warning?"

"Yes."

From behind and above Holland came a quiet voice -- no, two voices joining as one. With a chill of premonition he stood, looking upward toward the observation railing, already certain what he would see. "You, too, now?" he asked Dominic and Anemone.

"Wecan contact them...There.They now know how near is the danger." The two of them shuddered as if they might fall to the floor; their forehead jewels dimmed and darkened. Tommy caught Anemone under one arm, but she shook her head, smiled and stood again.

"What the hell was that? Dom, are you okay?"

He held himself against the railing, swaying briefly but standing upright. "Yeah...yeah, fine. You were...right about the Coralian, though, weren't you?"

"What's going on?" Fleet Commander Sato demanded over the cockpit intercom. "Holland, are you in trouble over there?"

"No, everything's under control. You can pass the word on to Juergens that the Vodarek and the Important Persons have been warned. We just discovered a...a new channel of communication. We don't have to --"

Holland tumbled from his feet, rolling across the cabin to smash into Annette's comm station; loose objects took to the air like frightened birds as theMoonlight wrenched into a violent twist to starboard and something brilliant flashed past, close enough to warm their faces with the heat of its passage.

Alarms screamed all over the ship while Jimmy peeled them into a bank tight enough to press them all into their seats. "Missile attack!" cried Ken-Goh, arming all the weapons systems from his console. Through the floor, they all felt the hum of the ship's wing-mounted plasma cannons swiveling into tracking position.

Matthieu and Hilda staggered to the bridge, holding tightly to anything that might give support as the G-forces of Jimmy's evasive maneuvering brought them to their knees. "What the hell's going on up here?" Matthieu shouted over the roar of the boosters, quivering through the ship's entire structure.

"Watch and learn!" Holland pulled himself into his seat, fastening the restraint belt. "Ken-Goh, what was that?"

"Unknown intruder. He slipped past our rear sensors and released an optically-guided air-to-air missile. We are undamaged, but he is circling back for another attack."

Hap stared into his sensor array, hardly believing what he read there. "Damn, that thing's fast! The Doppler LARAN says it was doing over 3600 kilos per hour before it dropped down to 2000 to release the bird. Fastest thing I ever saw in the... Wait a sec, the the automatic cameras got a look at it...here, I'm gonna pipe the images to your consoles."

Before each control station on the bridge, the viewscreen flickered to an artificially-slowed sequence of a brilliant silver aircraft creeping past the portside tracking camera. To Holland, it had the look of a long metallic cigar protruding from the open end of a fat barrel. He could see no sign of wings or other control surfaces, but the sharply-pointed nose had the characteristic transparency of a windowed cockpit. As the image crept out of the camera's longitudinal range, He could make out a blurred black registration code at the rear of the barrel: ST-1762.

"Violet Lightning!" cried out Ken-Goh. "Of course! That has to be what the code designation meant! The arrogant swine did it after all!"

"Are you in trouble, Moonlight?" crackled Sato's strained voice from the far-distant IPF fleet.

"Weapons Officer Ken-Goh Borodin, here. We are being pursed by an experimental Federation trapar coleopter, the model ST-1762. Almost certainly it will be associated with the internal code name of Project 'Violet Lightning.'"

"Roger that, Professor Borodin. Stand by while we pull whatever information we have from our decrypted database."

"What's a coleopter?" Holland wanted to know. On the radar display, he could see the thing swinging about in an abnormally wide -- but fast -- turn to begin another pass at them.

"A cylindrical-wing aircraft. That hollow cylinder you see surrounding its body is its single control and lifting surface. While working on the design of the Moonlight, I heard that the Fennel Downs research group was conducting trapar-stream tests for such a design." He bared his teeth in an animal gesture of hatred. "It was rumored that several test pilots were killed in attempts to produce a working prototype. Anysane organization would have dropped the project at..."

"Here he comes again!" Jimmy shouted. "Stand by for hard evasive!"

Instinctively judging that the intruder would come down on their starboard side, he rolled the Moonlight in that direction, holding its wings perpendicular to the ground. As the coleopter roared by, releasing two heat-seeking homing missles, Ken-Goh opened up with a volley of its own homers from theMoonlight's dorsal batteries. The shock wave of the Federation ship's passage shook the Moonlight wildly, nearly bringing it to a power stall before Jimmy could compensate. Behind them, the morning sky flashed with the jagged explosions of of homing missiles harmlessly detonating each other.

Hap turned from his console, disbelief written on his face. "He made that pass at mach twelve! The fuselage on that thing's almost as long as ours, so it's big. How're they getting that kind of speed out of it?"

"Highly-efficient trapardynamics," muttered Ken-Goh, half to himself, as he made a series of complex adjustments to his tracking calibrations. "Did you not note the characteristic tapered midsection to the fuselage? The annular wing is acting as a kind of trapar ramjet; trapar is compressed into the forward opening by its forward speed, then expels itself at a much higher velocity. The craft's speed is limited only by atmospheric friction."

Jimmy sent theMoonlight into a helical dive, spinning wildly. The sun-glare flashed in and out of the cockpit windows, blinding them all till he leveled out only three kilometers above the ground, mashing all of them into their seats.

"Wait a minute," Matthieu called out as he pulled Hilda to her feet again. "That means this 'Violet Lightning' thing's gotta keep moving -- fast. If it slows down below sonic speed, the trapar compression'll stop, and it'll fall outa the sky. It can't glide, so how in the hell did it ever get into the air in the first place?"

"It's carried to cruising altitude beneath a Federation attack cruiser." The voice was Jobs', coming over the cockpit audio/video link. "TheMikasa's engineers are transmitting its known technical specs over to our system. Matthieu's right -- it can't land or even slow down below sonic velocity...must have to be retrieved by a high-speed mothership. In fact, it'd even be in trouble if it entered a zone of low trapar density. It's also very unstable...completely experimental...looks like it relies heavily on subatomic array processors for the computing system that interfaces to its Compac drive...human reactions aren't quick enough..."

"Missiles incoming!" shouted Hap, and Jimmy pulled them up into a sharp climb that put theMoonlight between the heat-seekers and the sun.

"A good trick, lad, but it is not working." Ken-Goh growled and released a magnesium-flare rocket, dazzling even in the full sunlight, lancing out toward the pair of attacking missiles. One of them peeled away, diving for the lure of the flare and exploding harmlessly, but the other raced on undeterred, closing with the far slower Moonlight.

Jimmy took them upward into a roll of such force that structural members creaked and protested throughout the ship. Ken-Goh fired off a second flare, and Hap brought his ECM suite to bear on the uncaring missile, none of which had the smallest effect against its path. "Prepare for impact," called Hap over the intercom, "Missile arriving in eight...seven..."

With an obscene curse, Jimmy took the ship into another sharp dive, then drew upon the momentum to fling them up into an even sharper climb. His fingers hovered above the booster switches, when the ghost of an idea forced its way past his rage and frustration. He turned the Moonlight dead away from the missile and let their course stabilize.

Released from the whirling G-forces, Holland leaned forward against his restraint belt. "What the hell're you doing? We can't outrun that thing!"

"...five...four..."

"That's the whole damn point! Ken-Goh, gimme a couple of antimissile interceptors from the stern tubes; Hap, full ECM to the stern, now!"

"...three -- roger that, Jimmy -- two...one..."

With the plunging homing missile less than half a kilometer distant, Jimmy opened the Moonlight's boosters full-throttle, sending huge tails of white-hot flame spearing behind them. At the same instant, the the electronic countermeasures transmitters beamed every confusing signal at their considerable command sternward and two of the ship's defensive missiles leaped backward into the fire. Less than a hundred meters from its target, the homing missile exploded in the angry fires of the Moonlight's exhaust, most of its shockwave dissipated by the simultaneous explosions of the antimissile projectiles.

The Moonlight shuddered along its entire length and slid into a sickening sideslip that a sweating Jimmy only managed to bring under control with skill and deep concentration. "Cutting boosters...lateral control pretty squirrely. We've been hit, Holland."

"Damnright, we have. Jobs! Damage report!"

"Coming...there's damage back here in Engineering...two systems out, but Woz's working to get them back online. Looks like the portside rudder's been blown away...some reflection-film damage on the inner trailing edge of the port wing. And a couple of carbon flaps on the portside nozzle are cracked. No fires; air seals in all sections still intact; Axel reports that the LFOs are unharmed."

"Seven minutes till we reach the Vodarek village," Hap announced.

Holland struck the surface of his console with an angry fist. "Damn! And that guy's already circling back for another go at us! Maestro, that thing's too shiny for the lasers, so program the plasma cannons to aim along its projected course. Give us all the evasive you can, Jimmy, and..."

"No. Proceed on course for the village."

Jerking himself round again in his command chair, Holland saw Dominic and Anemone, miraculously still upright, standing motionless together as they held to the overhead deck railing. The jewels in their faces shone a brilliant yellow. "What the hell are you two doing?"

"Renton and Eureka know our situation," they answered in their monotonous simultaneous voice. "Here are their instructions: pass the Moonlight directly over the village at a two-kilometer altitude, but maintain at least a one-kilometer lead over the Federation ship."

For several excruciatingly long seconds, the only sound on the bridge was the creak and vibration of the wounded ship, punctuated by an intermittent singing from the plasma cannon servomotors. "The coleopter's dropping into a dive again," said Jimmy. "He thinks he can finish us off easy, now. What're your orders, Holland?"

At last, he raised his gray eyes from his console, brooding yet strangely serene. "You heard the Ghostly Choir up there -- do what they say. And everybody pray that Viyuuden knows what the hell he's been talking about. Let us down to half a kilo altitude and reduce speed to subsonic. Hap, hold us on course straight for the village, and let me know when we're about there. Jimmy and Ken-Goh -- you two keep us alive till we get there. Now, dammit!"

"You have a plan?" said Ken-Goh as he aligned the dorsal missile tubes to track the incoming intruder.

"Ialways have a plan. I just hope it's Vodarek's almighty will that the guy in that coleopter isn't any smarter than me."

Twenty-Seven

Matt Stoner ran across the blazing meadow for all he was worth, the various cameras and ancillary equipment strapped to his back and dangling from his neck bouncing with every long step. Just ahead, not far from where the Moonlight had been docked until last night, stood Renton and Eureka, hand in hand, looking up into the brilliant Thuu Bak sky as the hot wind of morning swirled about them.

"Am I on time?" he panted. God, how out of shape I've gotten. "All my equipment was stored in the Temple and it wasn't easy finding..."

He fell silent. Renton -- or rather, the part of them with Renton's face -- turned toward him and smiled, pointing upward. Stoner knew then that they were linked, in that touching, yet slightly disturbing, way of theirs and nodded understanding. He shaded his eyes and looked again; still nothing visible. "But you guys wouldn't have sent that message for me to come out here with no incentive, now, would you?"

A long, shimmering cloud rippled into sight far above, catching the rising sun in a delicate rainbow of color. Skyfish, the biggest concentration of them he had ever seen. A chill ran up Stoner's back, in spite of the heat. He flicked the "Standby" switch of his video camera, kept his face to the sky, and waited.

"Hap -- give me a reading on the average ground temperature below us."

Startled out of his tightly-focused concentration, Hap ran his finger along the console touchstrip controlling the ventral sensors. "Fluctuates, depending on what we're over, Leader. Bare rock and plains're averaging about 43-48 degrees Centigrade." He glanced below, watching the yellow-brown highland grasslands of Thuu Bak flicker by at 965 kilometers per hour, only half a kilo beneath the crippledMoonlight.

"The Federation ship is in full dive," Ken-Goh announced. "Estimated intersection time, sixteen seconds."

Holland leaned forward, elbows on knees, holding his chin with one hand. "We're going too slow for him to make a direct intercept, though. He's got to keep that thing moving, fast, or it stops flying. Keep a couple more of those flare decoys ready to go."

The ship slid to starboard, wallowing dangerously. Jimmy swore again. "Sorry, Holland. With only one rudder and the portside nozzles damaged, it's hard to keep us laterally stable."

"Fine. In fact, I want us to start oscillating from side to side, to throw that guy's aim off."

Ken-Goh grunted. "Useless! Our minor wobbling will not defeat heat-seeking missiles! Interception in eleven...ten...nine..."

"Just keep your finger on the trigger of those magnesium warheads, Maestro, and leave the tactical brilliance to me."

"Bah. Foolish hubris...six...five...he is pulling out of the dive; that machine's maneuverability is severely limited...he is releasing two heat-seeking missiles!"

Holland looked upward through the exposed upper dome of the cockpit. Even with naked eyes, he could see the white puffs of rocket trails as the pair of homers accelerated downward like eagles in a dive. "Send out the decoys now! Jimmy, get us as close to the ground as you can!"

"Roger that." He dropped them another hundred meters, wrestling the unresponsive ship into a series of irregular lateral sideslips. TheMoonlight shuddered as the magnesium-flare decoys struck out into the sky, exploding in bursts of white.

"The homing missiles were diverted for an instant, but they are back on trajectory. We must gain altitude..."

"Not this time, Maestro. Jimmy, keep us floundering around..."

On the radar display, the twin sparks of the homers drew rapidly nearer to them; Hilda and Matthieu held each other, not daring to breathe, as the three blips merged...

The ground exploded to their starboard side as one of the missiles dug itself into the Thuu Bak plain. The second blew a geyser of rock and dry earth up before them in a black wave; the autopilot cranked their trajectory to port, but the Moonlight's single remaining rudder proved inadequate for any quick maneuvering. The shower of stones erupting from the earth below shattered against the permaglas of the cockpit windows, blasting a jagged hole into one hexagonal pane and peppering them all with its rough-edged crystalline fragments. Several other panes glistened into the instantaneous spiderwebs of cracks, but held intact.

"Brilliant!" cried Hap over the sudden roar of the outside wind. "It was the ground heat, right? The sun's high enough to make the ground so hot compared with our engines at low output that it confused the homers' infrared sensors! Two minutes to the village, Holland -- now what?"

Hilda shouted as she scrambled to Holland's command chair, where he slumped forward, held in place only by the restraint belt. "Holland!"

With Matthieu's deft assistance, the two of them lifted Holland free of the chair, then stopped, seeing at once the spreading stain of blood low on the right side of his chest. "Damn rocks," he moaned, trying to force a casual laugh but achieving only choking spasms of pain. "Just like...bullets. One of 'em, anyway. Went right...through me, I think."

Matthieu unzipped Holland's flight jacket. The wound seemed just above the lower edge of his rib cage, a hand's-breadth lower than his heart. He saw the same knowledge in Hilda's eyes. "Easy, man, just take it easy. You're pretty badly..."

"No, notnow dammit!" His voice came as a rough, wet wheeze, punctuated by blood-speckled coughing. "Only a couple more minutes... Jimmy, altitude two kilos. And open up the boosters for all they're worth."

"Roger that, Leader." Without daring to look behind, Jimmy pushed the booster throttles all the way forward, trimming the starboard nozzle, fighting the unstable Moonlight's growing desire to go into a lateral spin. They rose to two kilometers, a wavering meteor only minutes from destruction.

Ken-Goh called out, "The intruder is making a lateral circle. Surely he realizes his mistake and will not attack us from above again. He is pulling into level flight at our altitude, distance eleven kilometers behind us and closing rapidly. It is risky for that ship; the Federation must want us badly."

"Gotta keep us...at least a kilo ahead," Holland coughed, coming near to vomiting.

Jimmy held the control yoke in a sweaty grip. "You just stay alive. I'll keep us on course."

The ship rattled and trembled around them as their speed increased. "Getting flutter in the portside engine nozzle," said Hap. "Starboard nozzle temperature rising."

"Intruder distance six kilometers." Ken-Goh switched his sensor output fully to the stern array. "Arming stern missile tubes...five kilometers... There is an EM signature of laser crystals being charged! He intends to use laser cannon on us."

A violent shuddering shook the entire ship; Holland cried out in pain but, with Matthieu and Hilda's help, remained in his command seat. "Ten seconds till we're over the village," shouted Hap. "Shockwave resonance on the port engine; power's dropping..."

"Intruder's laser capacitors at near-full charge..."

From somewhere to the northeast, Matt Stoner caught the sound of aircraft engines, labored, irregular. He lifted his camera and sought out a quickly-growing dark spot along the horizon, a spot that the telescopic lens resolved into the Moonlight, one vertical control surface missing, trailing brown smoke from one engine and swaying visibly. It doesn't take an engineer to see that they're in big trouble...

Beside him, Renton and Eureka lifted their free hands skyward. They spoke not a word, but at once Stoner felt a crackling tingle in the air as something cool and prickling oozed along his skin. Without lowering the camera, he looked at his forearm. Trapar. Flowing along flesh, clothing, cameras, and even sparkling across the dry grass of the meadow. The roar of the crippled Moonlight drew closer to them, followed by something else, a sharp hiss not unlike the many attack missiles he'd heard in his eventful years with Gekkostate. Something's following them.

The control yoke jerked and bucked in Jimmy's hands, overriding the feedback dampers; how much longer he could maintain this speed he had no idea.

"The remaining nozzle flaps're starting to cook off on the portside engine," called out Hap, shouting above the rush of the wind through the shattered cockpit. "Two seconds...one second...we're over the village!"

At the same instant, Ken-Goh turned round to Holland. "Intruder's laser cannon arming!"

Above the Vodarek village, the air crystallized into emerald fragments, glistening in the equatorial sunlight. And just as the woundedMoonlight thundered past overhead, Eureka and Renton projected their combined will upward. Every particle of trapar vanished from the air above the village, sucked from the atmosphere itself and condensing to the ground.

The Federation coleopter, instantly deprived of all lift and control, tumbled helplessly in the trapar vacuum, its trapar-compression propulsion system choking, its cylindrical wing wholly inadequate for atmospheric-only flight. Like a falling icicle, it thrashed and spun, and before its horrified crew could begin to understand the magnitude of their mistake, the ST-1762 dropped to earth, flipped once and spread itself in a firestorm of tiny fragments across the hot plains of Thuu Bak.

"My God," breathed Stoner, steadying the camera with effort. Far away, he heard the Moonlight's engines drop to a lower pitch and followed their black smoke trail as they circled slowly back overhead on thruster power, finally settling to the ground. Renton and Eureka blinked, separated, and ran for the ship's catapult ramp, now lowering with hydraulic precision to the grass.

Twenty-Eight

Eureka and Renton raced up the extended catapult ramp, then forward to theMoonlight's bridge. All along the main starboard corridor the choking smoke from the overheated portside engine nozzle being sucked into the air-circulation system stung at their eyes and lungs.

"There you are!" Anemone wore a broad smile of relief as they appeared. "Jeez, you were in our heads so long, it seems weird to see you guys in person."

"Yeah. Thanks for everything," called Renton. But they made at once for Holland, laid out on the cabin floor as Matthieu, Hilda and Hap hovered over him, to his obvious annoyance.

"Renton...Eureka." He turned his head in their direction, summoning up a good imitation of a sardonic grin. "I'm alive, don't let this bunch of nannies fool you. Did I just see Stoner? And with a camera, naturally. Where the hell's he going?"

Eureka knelt at his side, her wings quivering. "I'm sorry, Holland. It was careless of us to wait so long. We never thought that something like this might happen to any of you."

"You can --" he shook with a wet cough "--you can do better next time, then."

"There's not gonna -- going to -- be a next time." Renton looked around the crowded bridge, taking them all in with a single sweeping glance. "We're through with hiding and running from the Federation, wondering when they'll try to murder us next."

Eureka returned to him, touching his arm, her round Coralian eyes shining. "And we're done with bringing death and fear to the people around us, too. This is no way to live. It's all got to end."

"And precisely how do you intend to --?" began Ken-Goh, when Mischa raced up the corridor and into the bridge, still in her sari but carrying a medical bag.

Holland stared up in surprise as Mischa crouched beside him, lifted his shirt and began to prod his blood-soaked side with professional delicacy. "How'd you know I was...?"

"Ariadne told me. Yes, this could easily have been a much more serious wound. The Coralian Gift has closed the opening already, but you've still lost a great deal of blood and you'll need to take it easy for the next several hours." She winked toward Eureka. "Gregory is bringing the children along; Ariadne told us it was time."

Jimmy stood next to his pilot's station with one arm about Annette's waist, watching impatiently. "Hey, look everybody! Listento me, will you? I'm as glad to've made it back as anybody, but you're all forgetting something -- like the Federation fleet's on its way here to bomb Samit Prakkun and this village. And it's not far away."

"We are not unaware of this fact," said Dr. Egan, dipping his head to clear the arching portal to the Moonlight's bridge. Behind him, Ariadne, Maurice, Link and Maeter hurried in, quickly gathering about Renton and Eureka. "You must all of you remain here on the ship, for we have every intention of evacuating immediately."

"How?" Ken-Goh planted both hands on his hips. "This ship will not fly again without major repairs. And in any case, it would be the act of a weakling to desert the Vodarek, who have treated us with such generosity."

"Nor would I ask you to do so, my good Professor." Egan zipped up the breast of his Tresor coveralls and favored Ken-Goh with a thin smile. "But your courage is about to be put to the test in quite another way. Mischa, my little gumdrop, would you be kind enough to find the Aruno family and bring them forward? Thank you. Now...Ariadne, my dear, would you please ascend to the observation railing above and join your uncle Dominic and aunt Anemone? Yes, I'm sure the three of you already understand the reason."

Ariadne folded her short arms and glared up at him. "I'm not gonna go without Maurice."

"No?" He regarded her carefully, not at all disturbed by such stubbornness. "No, I think that perhaps you, after all, are the best judge in this matter. Very well, Maurice may join you, but Maeter and Link, please remain here with the crew. They are, you know, a high-strung group, and may require your reassurance if they become frightened."

Link gave him a solemn nod. "We'll take care of'em, Doctor Egan."

"What the hell've you got cooked up, Doctor?" asked Hap, fidgeting beside his console.

"Myself? Nothing. But there is now only one escape -- one destiny -- for us all. My good friend Viyuuden and I haved discussed the matter in some detail, and it seems we undoubtedly stand between certain death and the first steps toward a new world. And there are only two who may have the power to open that new world to us." He waved his hand toward Eureka and Renton, standing quietly hand in hand.

Stoner burst onto the stunned and silent bridge with Jobs and Woz close behind, both of them carrying cables and junction boxes, already connected with Stoner's camera and audio headset. "Okay, I'm ready for the broadcast of the century. Woz will be boring me into the Federation satellite network, the same way he managed to get our last transmission out."

"Broadcastingwhat?" Holland heaved himself to a sitting position. "What's going on?"

"Just shut up and let someone else be in charge for a change."

He stared, outraged. "Yuki? And you brought the baby? The Federation's going to invade in less than an hour! Are you crazy? Why're you here?"

She gave him a cool and enigmatic look as she walked past and eased herself into the command chair, holding a happy Holland Jr. in her lap. "Because my place is damn well with my husband at a time like this, that's why. And because when he grows up, the little guy, here, will never forgive me if I don't give him a front-row seat."

Behind her the Aruno family emerged, baffled and frightened, on to the bridge; Stoner handed his video camera to Tommy with a quick exchange of instructions. She nodded and fixed him in the viewfinder, waiting.

"Enough!" shouted Ken-Goh, his boot crunching in the shattered permaglas littering the floor. "Egan, I demand that you tell us at once what you are doing!"

"As I have already told you, Professor, I am doing nothing. Like yourself, I shall be a mere observer." He and Mischa drew close to each other, and Egan pointed forward, beyond the ragged hole in the canopy, out onto the dry grass of the meadow. "That is where our future lies, my friends."

All of them stared, realizing that Eureka and Renton had slipped quietly outside, standing now facing ahead, hands gripped to each other.

Waiting.

Twenty-Nine

Though he knew they were still hundreds of kilometers beyond the horizon, Renton could almost convince himself that he could hear the terrible thunder of the Federation fleet approaching across the searing Bakkian plain. Eureka's hand, as sweat-slippery as his own, quivered from time to time, and he had no need to touch her mind to understand the depth of her fear. Or his own.

"Renton...what if we can't do it? No one's ever done anything like this. What if the Coralian Mind is wrong, like they were with Norbu and Sakuya? What if...if they all die?" She faced him, putting her arms about his neck, pulling him near. "What if we try this...thing...and it fails?"

He looked into the circles and ripples of the lavender-pink Coralian eyes he knew so very well, and the memory of a young and very inexperienced boy melting before the girl standing on an LFO in the rubble of his room overwhelmed him. He took her in his arms, so warm, willing time to stop, to bind them both to the here and now forever. "Listen to me, Eureka. We've just got to do our best, the way we always have, because there's no other way. But whatever happens...whatever happens, I love you, and I'll love you forever."

"Forever," she whispered, and Renton felt his chest grow wet with her tears. "Renton...I'm soscared."

"Then...then let's do it fast, okay?" The effort to hold his own voice steady was too great, now. "That way we won't have to think about it any more. And we'll be together." The wind blew across the empty meadow, hot and insistent, gently urging them on. "Let's join now, Eureka. I love you. Forever."

"Forever."

Forever...

Their minds slid together into one, more deeply and intimately than they had ever dared before.

And the light swallowed them.

"Hello. Hello, am I on? Is the signal going out, Woz? Okay?" Stoner looked into the hard eye of the video camera in Tommy's hands as Woz, squatting over his control box, gave him the "OK" signal.

"Citizens of the Federation, this is Matt Stoner, broadcasting realtime video from the bridge of the IPF attack ship Moonlight. Something enormous is about to happen, something I don't entirely understand myself. Something that just might fail and kill us all. Either way, Gekkostate wants you to know the truth to the very end, the truth that the Federation has been laboring to keep from you for decades."

Stoner walked slowly around the crowded bridge as he spoke, and as he did, Tommy followed with the camera, taking in the entire scene. "This is the IPF attack ship Moonlight, just back from a mission to rescue two political prisoners who were being tortured by the Federation -- and to destroy that stinking pain factory at Zemplén at the same time. The ship and its crew took a serious beating on that raid, but everyone's..."

All round him, a low murmur went up from the gathered crew. Stoner trailed off. From outside, a light, even more brilliant than the hard, sun-raked morning of any other day in Thuu Bak, flooded in through the permaglas panes of the ship's nose, throwing back the shadows that surrounded them all. He turned, half-afraid of what he might see.

Beyond theMoonlight's damaged nose, hovering outside in the air at the level of the bridge, a miniature sun three meters across pulsed and throbbed, a sphere of green fire that dazzled the eyes without blinding. "My God!' shouted Hap, backing away. "What's that?"

Dr. Egan stepped forward with Mischa at his side, both of them gazing on with something very like rapture shining in their faces. "It is the Flame of Vodarek," he said. "Viyuuden was right. Now, finally, we know what the Coralians meant. At last, Eureka and Renton have truly...united."

"The Flame of..." Stoner blinked, recovering his journalistic professionalism and standing aside so the awestruck Tommy could get a clear shot out the forward windows. "Those of you who're regular readers of our magazine RayOutwill be wondering where Eureka and Renton, our two Coralian messengers, are. Well, there they are, out there in that green fireball you see floating just ahead of us. You see, the Federation is sending its Third Air Fleet here to Thuu Bak, to punish the local government for declaring independence. Gekkostate's been here in a little village in the jungle nearby for the past couple of weeks, where the Vodarek who've fled from Federation persecution have given us sanctuary. And our intercepted military transmissions tell us that after the Fleet's through pounding Samit Prakkun, it's going to destroy this village of innocent people, too, and try to blame them for the carnage they're about to inflict at Samit Prakkun.. That's 'your' Federation government in action, folks. We'd very much like to get away before the Fleet gets here, but the Moonlight took some significant combat damage on the way back from Zemplén, and we can't take off. And now it looks as though Eureka and Renton are..."

"Hey!" shouted Holland. "We're moving! What the hell?"

"That was Holland Novak, captain of the Moonlight, who you just heard. And he's right! The whole ship is shaking, now, and that green light is getting brighter and larger...almost too bright to look at...it's bigger than the ship's bridge section, now...Tommy, give us a shot around the cabin, will you?"

A bright yellow light flared from the observation deck; Stoner saw that it came from Ariadne's forehead jewel and he motioned Tommy to turn the video camera in her direction.

"Don't power down the ship," Ariadne said in a loud voice. "Mama and Papa say you should keep the electricity going, but don't try to use the engines!"

Annette pressed her hands together, delighted. "She can hear their thoughts."

"That was little Ariadne you heard and saw just now, Renton and Eureka's daughter. The Federation never told you that the two 'Coralian monsters' had a daughter, did they? The propaganda...wait a minute, something's happening..."

Hap checked his console, as if unwilling to believe what his eyes were telling him. "Hey, wait a minute. We're lifting! We're off the ground! Renton and Eureka -- those two are lifting the whole damn ship!"

Spontaneous applause filled the cabin as the trapar-glistening Moonlight rose from the grass behind the shining sphere, swaying uncertainly, then ascending higher and higher into the clear morning air. Alarmed, Holland tried to stand, but Yuki gently pushed him back to the floor, remaining in the command seat with the baby in her arms.

"Did everyone hear that? The ship's lifting off, without thrusters! Tommy, get us a shot out the window, there, would you? Right now, we're a couple of hundred meters above the ground...there's the Vodarek village over there -- does that look alike a 'terrorist training camp' to you? And over there, at the other end of the meadow, that stone pyramid is the Vodareks' temple, some kind of ancient structure that the Vodarek appropriated and remodeled when they were driven from Cielo del Sol and settled here. It's extremely old, and about two hundred meters high..."

"There is a large formation of aircraft approaching from the northeast, just at the edge of sensor range." Ken-Goh looked up from his weapons station. "The distance is too great for precision, but logically it must be the Federation fleet. The flight computer estimates them in weapon range within twenty-three minutes."

For the first time, Kaz Aruno spoke. "But...what about the Vodarek?"

"Hush, Kazuya." His mother moved to pull her to him, but he dodged backward, beyond her reach.

"No, the boy speaks for myself, as well." Ken-Goh brought his menacing black eyebrows together, challenging them all with his eyes. "Whatabout the Vodarek? Those good people gave us sanctuary for over two weeks, at great risk to themselves. Shall we now abandon all five thousand of them? I, for one, am neither weakling nor coward! I shall take the shuttle down --"

"Mama and Papa say stay where you are, Ken-Goh," shouted Ariadne. And at that moment, they all saw that beside her, Dominic and Anemones' jewels now flashed a brilliant yellow light of their own.

The Moonlight banked suddenly to starboard, still in its slow, drifting flight over the village, forcing everyone on the bridge to shift their footing. "Where are the Vodarek?" asked Annette, looking down through the permaglas dome. "I don't see anybody in the village. Are they in hiding, or what?"

Egan watched, placid and unconcerned. "They are waiting, my dear Miss Dee. Waiting."

Beckoning Tommy nearer to the dome, Stoner pointed downward to the blunt stone apex of the temple, no more than fifty meters beneath them. "That's the Vodarek temple you see down there. You can see how extremely old it is, even though the stonework seems to be in perfect shape. Maybe the Vodarek have some method for repairing... Wait a minute. Wait a minute, something's happening. The light from that flaming sphere ahead of us is intensifying; the sphere itself is growing larger, and we're gaining altitude as we circle around the temple. I don't... Hey, get a shot of that, the ground is starting to ripple and turn a shining green, rolling like the ocean. See it? But it can't be water; there's not enough surface water here to flood the meadow..."

"It's not water." Hap, seated at his console, watched the readings with eyes gone round with wonder. "That's trapar. The trapar density levels are shooting up, fast. It's streaming in from...from everywhere, all over the countryside. It's...the density levels're pegged, these're the highest trapar readings anybody's ever seen. Particle reflectometer shows it centering around the temple, climbing up the sides...what the hell?"

Excited murmuring broke out all over the bridge; Mai Aruno cried out and even Ken-Goh shouted in a language none of them had ever heard. Vibrations passed the length of the ship, irregular and harsh, and exposed metal surfaces crackled. Hilda stumbled against Matthieu's shoulder; the baby in Yuki's arms stirred uneasily.

Below them, the shining tide of trapar rose now to cover the immense pyramid while beneath the noonday sun, the meadow glimmered like an ocean of liquid emerald. As the ship circled above, the trapar circled with it, swirling in an immense whirlpool, splashing against the shining flat walls of the Vodarek pyramid. Concentric waves raced out from its base, radiating away with growing frequency, ripples on a living sea. Ahead of the slowly circling Moonlight, the Flame of Vodarek expanded, doubling, tripling in size and brilliance, an earthbound star of slow fire that pulsed in subtle rhythm with the trapar flames engulfing the pyramid below.

On the light-blasted bridge, Stoner kept up his running commentary for the unseen video audience spread across the Federation. "As you can seebelow, the Vodarek temple is almost lost beneath those waves of trapar... I won't pretend to understand what's going on; Dr. Egan and Viyuuden, the Vodarek high priest, gave me a quick outline last night, but this wasn't... Hey. Hap, are we losing altitude? Hap?"

"Just a second, it's hard to get a decent reading with all this trapar... Nope. Altitude constant at 425 meters."

Tommy stared downward at the burning pyramid, shaken, nearly dropping the camera. "But Stoner's right -- we're getting closer to the top of the temple..."

Hap jumped to his feet, pointing. "Hey, that's not --"

"No, that's not possible --" Shaking her head, Yuki scanned the instruments of the command station, searching for confirmation of what her own disbelieving eyes told her.

"No," growled Ken-Goh.

"Theycan't do that! No one can!"

"Impossible!"

The swirling trapar about the temple's base condensed into a luminous ring, flaring outward now, a roaring sunflower of kilometer-long trapar flames. Jimmy watched, and grew dizzy with terror, and held tightly to Annette. "We're not losing altitude. It's notus going down -- it's the temple. It's coming up!"

As though balanced atop a volcano of incandescent trapar, the tremendous mass of the pyramid slowly lifted free of the Thuu Bakkian plain, rising majestically into the sky beneath the power of the Flame of Vodarek, itself now outshining the full sun. The captive Moonlight climbed higher now, faster, accelerating skyward ahead of the immense pyramid, both of them following in the Flame's fiery nimbus.

A shaken Holland could only stare at the the rolling hills and forests of Thuu Bak below, half-listening to Stoner's excited narration: "It's true! It's true! I can hardly believe it myself, but Renton and Eureka have not only levitated this ship into the sky, they've somehow commanded a rush of trapar powerful enough to lift the Vodarek temple and all the people inside! The Federation tells you that the Coral is a monstrous alien intelligence that wants to kill us all. Does this look like the work of monsters to you? The Coral -- and its Messengers -- is saving five thousand lives whose only crime was to contradict official Federation propaganda! Woz, patch the ship's rear-facing camera online for a minute...yeah, that's great. Do you see that? There's a comet's-tail of trapar behind us at least ten kilometers long. And our altitude's rising, little by little. We're up to over eight hundred meters, now..."

Ken-Goh interrupted, his voice catching. "The Federation Third Fleet is coming within full sensor range. A line of six Titan-class KLFs is pulling ahead; that huge mass of stone behind us surely produces an enormous radar signature. Therefore, we must assume that their target is us. We should launch LFOs at once."

"No!" cried Ariadne. "Mama and Papa say there are too many Federation ships, and our LFOs'll just be shot down. Just wait, they say, and everything'll be okay."

"But look..." began Matthieu.

Maurice stepped forward to the railing. "No, you've gotta listen to what she said! You trust Mama and Papa, don't you? Do what Ariadne tells you to, okay?"

No one made any open objection. But Annette, pulling Jimmy along behind, hurried back to her comm console. "I'm monitoring the Samit Prakkun emergency channels. They're warning everybody to take shelter, because the Federation fleet will be there in seventeen minutes. All public buildings are available for shelter, but there are still thousands of people on foot and bicycles on their way out, jamming the roads. They only had a few aircraft, and those left a long time ago."

Ken-Goh made an inarticulate growl. "It will be a slaughter."

"No itwon't," Ariadne insisted. "Just you watch!"

Thirty

At the stark, spacious bridge of the Federation sky dreadnought Waterloo, Admiral Vijay Paramyanatha stood behind the the weapons officers' radar holo display, deeply concerned. If the instrument were to be trusted -- and the mass detectors and LARAN sensors backed it up -- something enormous, bigger than any natural object he had ever seen in the sky, was now accelerating northwestward away from the Samit Prakkun area.

"The analysis systems have no match for it, Admiral," said the ECM officer. "The thing's gigantic, and it's surrounded by some kind of highly-charged energy cloud. It almost seems like a trapar flow, except that it's orders of magnitude too intense for trapar." She turned back toward him, as if waiting for his wisdom and experience to give her the proper guidance. "Shall we dispatch a battle cruiser, sir?"

Paramyanatha stood like a monument to decisiveness, all the while sweating in terrified agony within. To admit such fears before the crew would be unthinkable. "Not yet. Our primary mission is to stamp out the rebellion at Samit Prakkun, and this may well be nothing but a rebel decoy of some kind. Keep the fleet on course, but send out our KLF escort to see what it is."

"Admiral!" called out the communications officer on the opposite side of the bridge. "Admiral, we're picking up a very strange video transmission. It seems to be coming from the Federation satellite network..."

Thirty-One

"...as you can see, the entire crew of the Moonlight is as stunned by these developments as you must be." Tommy panned her camera away from Stoner's face, around the ship's bridge, filled now to capacity and illuminated by the harsh greenish flare of trapar. "The Federation Third Air Fleet is only minutes away from the mass murder of a hundred thousand civilians, as punishment for their desire to be free of Federation tyranny. Their plan is to destroy Samit Prakkun altogether, then mass-murder the Vodarek and blame the extermination of Thuu Bak's capital city on them. 'Terrorism,' they plan to call it. Only, it's nothing but a false-flag operation to rally support behind the Federation itself, to keep you in a state of fear and let them go on bleeding you dry for taxes and make you willing to surrender more of your rights. They intend... uh-oh, the ship is tilting upward more sharply, now. We have no idea what that means. Renton and Eureka -- or whatever they've become -- are in charge of the show, now. Them and the Coral itself."

"KLFs approaching," said Ken-Goh, his hand poised uncertainly above his countermeasure-activation switches. "Two kilometers and closing."

"This is Theta patrol," came the voice over the Waterloo's ship-to-ship communications network. "We have optical contact with...the target, Admiral."

Just to the front of his raised command seat, Paramyanatha stood with chin outburst and folded arms. "Report."

"It's... a huge pyramidal object, Sir. Gigantic. Some kind of advanced-looking attack ship moving in formation with it, and a big sphere of green flame, very bright, in front of them both. The green fire is sweeping back to encompass both the ship and the pyramid. Never seen anything like it."

The communications officer turned round in his seat wearing a look of deep concern. "Sir, about that video transmission..."

"Not now! Theta Leader, are there any indications of attack preparations from any of the three unknowns?"

"Ah...negative, Admiral. Sensors show no weaponry charging. But the trapar levels around the sphere are way beyond anything that ought to be possible...making it hard to keep my LFO's ref board stable...trapar's coming in sharp waves..."

"The Akira seems to be dropping out of formation, sir," said First Officer Pahmuk from her command station.

"TheAkira?" Paramyanatha took notice at once. "What is it? Mechanical failure?"

"No, sir. I'm getting confused transmissions...there seems to be an insurrection on board."

"What are your orders concerning the UFO, Admiral?" Theta Leader wanted to know.

"Use your initiative, dammit! Attack! Now, what's going on with the Akira?"

The ECM officer cut in before Pahmuk could answer. "Radar shows three -- no, five -- ships breaking formation, Admiral. The Osaka appears to be turning back toward base."

"What thehell? What's happening? What do all those ships have in common?"

The First Officer eyed him cooly over the top of her duty station. "They're all watching the video transmission, sir."

"KLFs in attack formation!" said Ken-Goh. "Holland, shall I activate counerdefenses?"

"No!" shouted Ariadne, standing on tiptoe at the observation railing. "Mama and Papa say there's been enough killing! Don't do anything."

"But --"

Holland only waved languidly upward. "I'm not in charge at the moment, Maestro. Do what the lady says."

"But they are attacking..."

"Hold on a minute." Hap found something of intense interest on his console screens. "Trapar's getting strange outside of the cloud we're in. Seems t'be receding in waves, going into that whirlpool effect again, only on a much bigger scale. And we're at the center of the whirlpool."

"Theta Leader here! Acknowledge, Waterloo!"

"Waterloo acknowledge, Theta Leader," answered the comm officer. "What is your status?"

"We'refalling! Atmospheric trapar levels have dropped to zero; our ref boards've lost all lift. Switching to booster packs to get us down to ground level."

The Admiral stormed to the communications console. "Negative, Theta Leader, negative! Your orders are to attack the UFO, with all..."

"Not enough fuel in the jetpacks for an attack, begging the Admiral's pardon. Descending on emergency thrust now. Theta Leader out."

Paramyanatha whirled on his First Officer. "Have those mutinous ships..."

"There are five more, now, Admiral. Osiris and Dresden are in open rebellion and have already broken formation. Acting captain of the Dresden -- Wing Commander Emerson -- has openly declared mutiny and ordered his ship on a northwesterly course. He cites the video transmission from the Federation Satellite network as the incentive for the insurrection." She looked back, eye for eye, waiting for his response.

"'Transmission?' What is this 'transmission' everyone's talking about?" He turned back to the comm officer, rubbing his hands together rapidly. "Put it on the main screen, dammit! And hurry up!'

He nodded "Aye, sir. It won't take but a second; it's already visible in the crew sections. It's been available to them for some time, now...here it is, Admiral."

"The approaching KLFs are dropping, rapidly." In a day of wonders, Ken-Goh found this one the smallest of all. "They seem to be on emergency rocket descent."

Hap held up one arm, shielding his eyes against the relentless glare of the Flame of Vodarek as he studied his own displays. "Here's more news for you: the Federation fleet's breaking up. Eight of them've pulled out of formation, and one of them is taking off toward the IPF fleet. Must be a defection; can't be an attack, not with only one ship. Looks like the battlecruiser Dresden; the others're going off in all directions."

Jimmy stared, his face alight with wonder, tears gathering at his blue eyes. "The Dresden?Yes! That's my father's ship! He's defecting!Go for it, Dad!"

"I'm getting really weird decrypted transmissions from over half the Federation ships," said Annette. "It's like they're going on mutiny or something. The comm officer on the Valkyrie is yelling something to the other crews, trying to get them to join in. He says something about the Federation being 'a bunch of lies,' and he says the crew overthrew their officers because they don't want any more blood on their hands."

Stoner gave a low whistle and plowed on, no longer troubling to hide the excitement in his voice. "Do you hear that, people? Even the Federation fleet is boiling with dissent -- professional military officers who refuse to blindly follow the orders of the lunatics in Capital City any longer! Principled men and women who refuse to go on swallowing the corrupt government's lies..."

Admiral Paramyanatha face burned a brilliant red as he watched Matt Stoner's impassioned face glaring from the video display. "Gekkostate! Those damnedtraitors! Cut off that transmission! I won't have such terrorist propaganda on this ship! Pahmuk -- rally the ships still loyal to their commanding officers and have them pull into attack formation. We'll deal with the turncoats later, but right now, we're destroying that rebel ship and whatever garbage it's carrying along with it. I don't give a damn how big it is, we're blasting it out of the sky now!"

"The Federation fleet's regrouping," said Hap. "Another three ships've cut loose and two others act like they're having trouble deciding who's in control, but the rest of them are pulling into a trident attack formation... Yeah, they're accelerating now. Heading straight for us."

Stoner leaned closer to the camera. "This is it, the Federation Third Fleet is moving in for the kill. And if we don't start climbing soon, I don't see how we can all escape being shot out of the air, even that pyramid full of humanity trailing behind us. Tommy, bring the camera over here, will you, over Ken-Goh's shoulder? Right. Get his radar display. That three-pronged arrowhead you see moving toward us is the fleet itself. Holland tells me that the middle group strikes first, then the two outer prongs rotate in three dimensions and close in on the target from all sides. The target being us, of course. I still don't see any signs that we're taking evasive action..."

Yuki left the command station and joined Holland on the deck, holding him and the baby tightly to her, letting her tears fall to his bloodstained shirt without shame; Mai and Kenji Aruno stood in each others' arms, unspeaking. Even Gregory Egan fidgeted as the most powerful destructive military force ever assembled in the skies of Earth rolled down upon them like a tidal wave of death. "Don't do anything!" repeated Ariadne, and Ken-Goh's hands twitched at his sides, only his iron will keeping them from the defensive controls at his weapons console.

Hap's face lit with joy. "Wait a minute! That trapar whirlpool -- it's intensifying. Pulling in trapar from farther out; from a hundred-kilometer radius! Trapar densities are dropping, fast, everywhere but here!"

"What the hell was that?" Paramyanatha shouted as the first tremor hit the Waterloo. He thrust out one arm for support, but missed the computational console and stumbled, hard, into the Control Systems Officer's station.

"Trapar density falling," called back the ship's pilot. "Somehow, all trapar's fading from the atmosphere...we're dropping...down to aerodynamic-only, Admiral." The huge ship wavered sickeningly, then dropped into a rapid, circling glide under his practiced hands. "No more trapar-reflection lift...we can't sustain powered flight. I'm taking us in for an emergency landing."

The First Officer stared at the radar with growing horror. "So is everyone else in the Fleet! Watch yourself, Mr. Horne -- the Orion and the Izanami just had a near-collision...the whole fleet's dropping..." She hit the master alarm and harsh sirens sounded throughout the falling giant. "All hands prepare for emergency landing. Secure your stations. All hands prepare for emergency hard landing."

"The Fleet..." muttered Ken-Goh.

"What is it?" Stoner motioned Tommy in closer.

"It is...disappearing. Falling out of the air." He looked back, open-mouthed, unbelieving.

Hap stood and let out a wild cheer. "Trapar density around the fleet has dropped to zero! They're on aerodynamic-only, and those mantas have about as much aerodynamic lift as a bus! All of 'em are scrambling just to stay out of each others' way while they do their damnedest to glide to the ground in one piece!"

"Do you hear that?" asked Stoner of his unseen audience over the roar of shouting and whistling on the Moonlight's bridge. "The Flame of Vodarek -- Renton and Eureka, that is -- just pulled the rug out from under the entire Federation Third Air Fleet! And all without killing a one of them. Those are the 'Coralian monsters' the Federation's been telling you to be afraid of! Thuu Bak is saved from the mass extermination the Federation had planned for it! And so are we. Now we're...uh-oh, wait a minute, something's happening. We're tilting upward, sharply. I've gotta hold on...Tommy, grab hold of Ken-Goh's seat with your free hand..."

Holland forced his way forward, fighting against gravity as he pulled himself hand over hand, closer to the cockpit windows. Nearly the entire view ahead was now filled by the roiling fireball of the Flame of Vodarek, but he held himself steady and looked into it, wondering. "I can't believe this," he said, his voice cracking with loss of blood and the strain of holding himself upright.

"No, neither can I." For a moment, Stoner himself forgot his camera presence to gaze forward into the light of the Coralian Mind. "Who'd have ever imagined that those two kids could be the vessels for this kind of power?"

Holland shook his head, his short grayish-brown hair flattened with sweat. "That's not what I mean. I mean that I can't believe we were all part of this...that I was part of it. It's...as if all of us in Gekkostate were tools in some way that I can't...can't even imagine."

With a sympathetic half-smile, Stoner looked back at him. "The...Will of Vodarek, by any chance?"

Startled, Holland twitched in his direction, opening his mouth for a reply, when Hap shouted out, "We're accelerating, folks. Heading upward and still northwest, pyramid and all. There's so much trapar gushing behind us that we've gotta be the biggest fireworks display anybody's ever seen!"

"Where the hell can they be taking us all?" wondered Holland. "Where are we going? What's their course?"

The ship tilted upward once more, and Matt Stoner smiled at the Flame of Vodarek like a man hearing his child's first laughter. "Second star to the right," he murmured as the currents of trapar swept around them, over them, through them. "And straight on till morning."

"Angle of attack forty-five degrees!" Hap warned. "Bridge crew, to your stations and buckle yourselves in, good. Everybody else, get to a cabin or brace yourselves against the bulkhead, 'cause the gees are gonna come hard and heavy. Angle of attack forty-eight degrees...fifty-three...sixty-two...accelerating..."

The visible sky around the nimbus of the Flame of Vodarek deepened to indigo as they rocketed upward through levels of atmosphere dropping rapidly to near-vacuum, yet no cabin air escaped from the shattered permaglas. Stoner and Tommy found themselves flattened along with Jobs and Woz to the heavy bulkhead to the rear of the cabin. Fighting with all her strength, Tommy turned the camera upward, to the observation railing, where Ariadne stood undisturbed, Maurice laughing at her side.

"Higher than the sun!" they cried, beyond the world, into the fire.

Thirty-Two

A weightless Matt Stoner held himself to the edge of the doorway with his free hand. "Hap Fukoda tells me we're just past the peak of our ballistic trajectory right now, which means we'll be starting to fall back to earth any second. You can see -- Tommy, turn the camera down there, would you? -- you can see the New Lands, the exposed half of the Earth that the Coral left open to us when it blasted half of itself away. That archipelago over there on the far right was once known as 'Japan.' And on the western edge, you can barely make out a piece of the area called 'Algeria' in the days before the Great Exodus. The coral that still covers the other half of the planet forms a sheer cliff around the New Lands three hundred kilometers high." Like a deflating balloon, he began to sink to the cabin floor. "Uh-oh, gravity is returning. What'll happen now is anyone's guess."

Admiral Guenter Juergens saw his intercom light glow orange and turned from the video display at his command seat on the IPF cruiser Izumo. The rest of the silent bridge crew not actively occupied by their duties had virtual screens of their own up, following Stoner's disjointed narrative with an interest beyond the purely professional.

"Admiral," said the comm officer. "Captain Darrieux of the Megantic is on the line. Audio and encryptedvideo, as per your orders."

"All right, put her on. Directly to my speakers, please. Captain? This is Juergens; what's on your mind?"

"Admiral. With all proper respect --"

"Your respect is appreciated. Now what do you want?" Jeurgens' impatience with the slow holding pattern in which he was forced to circle his fleet had swollen over the past several hours into a raw irritability.

"Very well, sir. It's about the video transmission from the Moonlight... Admiral...on behalf of my staff officers... Is it real? I mean...it's not simply a cleverly-staged propaganda stunt for our side?"

Juergens bit back the angry rebuke that jumped so quickly to mind; the woman had only defected from the Federation four months earlier. "It's real, all right, Darrieux. All of it and much more. Those people -- two of them in particular -- have laid their lives on the line more times than you and I combined to bring this about. It's no foolish poetic license to say that the fate of the planet is very literally depending upon what happens in the next half-hour."

"The next...?" Startled, the captain glanced back toward the virtual screen over her own comm officer's station, watching Matt Stoner's nonstop monologue. "They've escaped the Federation Third Fleet, sir; my staff confirms that there's a traparless no-fly zone covering central Thuu Bak that's grounded the entire Fleet. Surely they're out of danger?"

"You think so?" Juergens fidgeted in his command seat, looking up and outward through the forward windows, into an empty sky. "Through some frightening Coralian magic I don't pretend to understand in any way, they've hauled an attack cruiser and some unidentified gigantic mass to the peak of a five-hundred-kilometer-high ballistic trajectory. But now gravity wants them back."

Captain Darrieux watched him carefully, amazed at the depth of the sadness she saw there in the Admiral's hard eyes. "You don't think they'll be able to control their downward momentum, sir?"

"I...pray that they can." He rubbed his hand wearily across a face creased with weariness and fear. "And for the sake of humanity's future...I suggest that we all do the same."

Hap felt as though the belt of his command pod would cut him in half like a wire through a turnip. "Shockwave configuration...indicates...speed of...around Mach three and rising."

The entire ship bucked and vibrated around them, but none of Jimmy's controls had any effect whatever. Frustrated and frightened, he clutched at his useless joysticks to give himself at least some faint illusion of security. "I don't like this. We're dropping like a rock. And there's a real rock with the mass of a small asteroid right behind us."

"Sourpuss," grunted Matthieu, his back planted firmly against the rear of the pilot's command pod, Hilda pressing ever more heavily into his lap.

The green nimbus of the Flame of Vodarek engulfed them completely now, roaring backward around the ship in long tongues of cold fire. "Hull temperature is not rising," said Ken-Goh. "We are being protected from atmospheric heating, it seems." He removed his extravagant plumed hat and studied the intersecting curves on a dynamically-updated graph. "And fortunately so, for this ship was not made for extended re-entries at such speeds." Another tremor gripped the Moonlight, severe enough this time to jolt them all.

Having persuaded Yuki to take the baby to one of the crew quarters for safety, Holland sat firmly buckled into his seat, straining to hold himself upright as they plunged wildly into the flaming soup of atmosphere. "Anybody figured out where we're headed yet?"

"Someplace west of dead center on the biggest land mass," shouted Hap. All of them had to raise their voices over the rising wind noise and the groaning and clattering of the ship itself. "Egan can probably tell us that after we land." If we make it was the unspoken corollary.

"Speed has risen to Mach four point six." Ken-Goh regarded his instrument display with distaste. "So far, our only deceleration has been due to...atmosphere resistance. If we are to make it to the ground alive, we must...soon begin to slow our descent in a decisive manner."

Tommy, secured to one of the vertical support beams by her cartridge belt, could no longer hold the video camera steady. But Stoner went on with his feverish narrative as he tied himself fast to Annette's communications console using his own video cables. "We're falling fast, now. You heard Professor Borodin -- we're over Mach four, and we would've burned up by now if it weren't for the protection of the Flame of Vodarek around us. I think so, at least. The gee forces are really dragging at us, trying to suck us forward, through the front windows. If Tommy could still lift the camera, you'd see that there's nothing visible up there but green trapar fire... But all the same, we're still hundreds of miles above the surface of the earth...it's...we're..." He grunted as the fist of physics seized the Moonlight,wrenching them all forward against their restraints. "De...decelerating, now. No idea how; we're starting to slow down a bit..."

The ship made a sickening twist and sideslipped far enough to give them all a terrifying view of the uprushing Earth. Holland cried out; Jimmy reflexively grabbed at the nonfunctioning controls.

"Good God, is their power beginning to slip?" asked Ken-Goh. No one dared answer, but behind them, the sternward camera showed the pyramid begin to turn ever so slightly off-center.

Hap's fingers twitched here and there at his sensor controls. "I got a LARAN reading just now. We're down to eighty kilometers and decelerating hard. We oughta be feeling it even more than..we...are." He pulled in a deep breath against the constriction of his restraint belt.

Jimmy scanned his own instruments. "Our trajectory's flattening out. Renton and Eureka must be trying to get us on a level course. Flight attitude is straightening out again... I'm gonna put the ventral camera online...

The Moonlight made a sharp drop of about eight meters, then just as quickly returned to its original position behind the fireball of the Flame of Vodarek. Both wings reverberated with ominous creakings and something in the cabin bulkhead gave a loud pop.

Hap swallowed hard. "Speed's dropping to Mach two; how the hell they're getting it down so fast without breaking us apart, I don't know...wait a second, what's that?"

Revealed by the bottom-mounted ventral camera, a sharp-edged dark mass insinuated itself across the view of the rapidly-moving landscape below them. "That's the pyramid!" shouted Holland. "It's not behind us any more! They are losing control..."

"Don't be stupid. Mama and Papa wouldn't drop the temple."

All of them turned to look up at Ariadne and Maurice at the overhead railing, still amazingly standing upright in spite of the various stresses of re-entry. "They aren't gonna drop it," Ariadne repeated with just a touch of scorn. "They just needed it to be out of the way for a minute."

"Out of the way of what?" Hap wanted to know. "There isn't..."

Jimmy cut him off. "Rear hangar doors opening. There's activity back there in the hangar...it's the Type Seven. It's launching."

All of them felt the characteristic jolt of an LFO detaching itself from the ship's mass, and within seconds, the domed cockpit of the green Type Seven pulled into the view of the ventral camera, its leg-mounted trapar vanes extended, carried along at supersonic velocity by the trapar aura of the Flame of Vodarek. "Don't be alarmed," came the flat, emotionless dual voice over the ship-to-ship communications link. "We're required just now."

Stoner unwound himself from his web of cables, the deceleration forces having dropped to manageable levels. "Is that Renton and Eureka I hear? I mean, they're the only only ones who can fly that thing properly..."

"Not any more they're not." Holland's face creased into his trademark icy grin. "There're two others around here with the right equipment, now. Anemone; Dominic -- is that you out there?"

"Yes. Eureka and Renton need us to be their eyes. All their concentration is needed to maintain the ship and the pyramid in flight. But they are strained to their limit and their strength is nearly gone --"

"I didn't need to hear that," moaned Hap.

"-- so we will do this job for them."

The Moonlight shuddered for a fearful instant. "Do not worry yourselves," Ken-Goh hurried to assure them. "That was only our shockwave breaking up as we drop below sonic speed." At the same time, the Type Seven dropped away from the ship, soaring off ahead without another word from its joined pilots.

"Speed now four hundred kilos per hour." Fearfully, Jimmy eyed the enormous dark mass of the Vodarek pyramid creeping up on their starboard wing, dwarfing the ship and its fragile passengers. "We're changing course...going into a circling pattern..."

As Tommy disengaged herself from her makeshift restraint belt, Woz bent to retrieve her fallen video camera. He checked it quickly for function, then trained it on Stoner, making an "OK" sign with one hand.

Stoner nodded, tapped his headset to make certain the microphone was still in working order, and stepped forward. "This is Matt Stoner, back on the air. We're still alive, and as you might have heard as we descended, somehow the Flame of Vodarek kept us all from plowing right into the ground here at the middle of the New Lands. But the strain has been a terrible one on Eureka and Renton, and it's not clear how much longer we can remain airborne. Wait a minute -- we're slowing way down. Hovering, it seems, now, about a five hundred meters above the ground. Woz, get a shot down there out the window, would you? Great. As you can see down there, the big green Type Seven LFO is suspended over that meadow on its trapar vanes...wait a minute, there's a bright spot in the grass...it's the Type Seven's laser cannon. It's firing into the grass...what the hell...it's tracing a big square outline; you can see the smoke from the grass burning..."

"Pyramid's moving," said Hap. "God, but that thing's huge. How they ever got that pile of rock to fly is..."

Holland undid his restraint belt and came to his feet, running forward to peer out the nearest side-facing pane of the bridge window assembly. "It's going down."

Woz pressed his camera to the window beside him as Stoner carried on: "Holland is right! The Vodarek pyramid is slowly settling to the ground...look, that's trapar streaming from the Flame of Vodarek to the earth within that square section the Type Seven marked out...dissolving the ground...making a foundation pit! The temple is dropping so lightly you'd think it was a balloon, instead of billions of kilograms of ancient stone. A perfect fit, right into the square pit... The temple is down! It's landed! The most amazing thing I've ever seen! What a miracle!"

Ken-Goh stood, smiling and astonished. "We are going down as well! The ship is coming to earth."

The Moonlight settled toward the waiting meadow below them. "Altitude five hundred meters," Hap called out. "Four hundred. Three. Two-fifty...one...twenty-five..."

The deck dropped out from beneath their feet; the ship fell through empty space, crashing to the ground from a height of ten meters and sending them all tumbling to the floor. Holland crawled back upright. "What the hell was it this time?"

Jimmy, still securely belted in, initiated the shutdown sequence from his console. "Looks like Renton and Eureka finally ran out of power after all. Lucky thing I never retracted the landing gear. The struts took most of the shock, but we got some more minor damage. Lowering the catapult ramp, now; everybody can go out and kiss the ground."

But Annette ran forward and wrapped her arms around him, laughing. "Hey, you! I've got a lot of other kissing to do, first!"

The long catapult ramp beneath the Moonlight's forward fuselage opened on its hydraulic cylinders, coming to rest in the soft grass. With the soft unfamiliarity of visitors to a cathedral, the crew filed out, staring around them in wonder, only Matt Stoner still keeping up his stream of narrative. "I don't know exactly where we are, but it's beautiful here, as you can see. Seems to be a broad valley, with low, rolling mountains on either side...and that looks like a lake in the distance. The air's dry and cool; after the tropical heat of Thuu Bak, it actually feels cold. The others're coming down the ramp. First the couples, it seems -- Holland Novak and Yuki Talhoe, with their baby, Holland Junior; Matthieu Bouchard and Hilda Bairns, our LFO pilots; Mai and Kenji Aruno, just rescued from Zemplén prison, walking with the help of their son Kazuya; James Emerson, theMoonlight's pilot, along with his fiancée, our communications specialist, Annette Dee. That's the famous Dr. Gregory Egan you see there, with his wife, Dr. Mischa Svarovsky, and behind them --" Stoner's voice broke for the tiniest instant before he recovered himself with the professionalism of a lifelong journalist "-- behind them are Job Stevens, one of our two systems engineers, and Tomika Aruno, newest member of Gekkostate. Anemone and Dominic Sorel are climbing down out of the Type Seven LFO over there, which leaves only Eureka and Renton, I suppose. Why, I wonder, are they taking so long to transform themselves back out of that burning trapar ball and take the praise that's coming to them?"

"We're all wondering the same damn thing," murmured Holland as the entire group gathered around Stoner beneath the pure sky, looking upward. The fiery trapar sun of the Flame of Vodarek continued to bob some hundred meters overhead. "Why aren't they coming down?"

"You'd think they'd want to get outa that thing." Matthieu scowled, holding one arm firmly about Hilda's waist.

Kaz slipped unobtrusively beside them, shading his eyes against the twin glare of sun and trapar. "Yeah. But...what if..." He swallowed before voicing the unthinkable. "I mean...what if they can't?"

The joyous small talk stopped at once. No one spoke another word. They only stood, watching. Waiting.

Thirty-Three

Somewhere, a low table rested upon a floor of polished hardwood. Cool breezes played through a small, neat house as a fresh-faced teenaged boy who used the name "Norbu" knelt on the mat before the table. He swept the topknot of dark hair back from his otherwise-shaven scalp and smiled across the table at the girl pouring hot green tea from a steaming little china pot.

Sakuya. Somewhat younger in appearance than himself, her sea-blue hair fell across smiling blue-striped cheeks so adorably smooth that it was all he could do to hold back from kissing her. But then, most of the time, he did not trouble himself to hold back. "It smells particularly wonderful today," he told her, entranced at the way her lavender Coralian eyes caught the satiny metallic blue of her robe.

She allowed him a demure nod of acknowledgment. "Thank you; the blend is a bit different. I thought you might like it. It's such a pity, though, that I can't offer any to our guests."

"Guests?" With reluctance, he took his eyes from her and looked round the austere, yet tasteful, tea room. "Are we expecting guests, my love?"

"They're already here, though they don't seem to know it yet. Do you see them now? It's Eureka, and Renton."

Norbu smiled and lowered his head in a token bow; the topknot fell forward, and he flicked it back with a practiced switch of his head. "So they are! But then, you're much more sensitive than I; you always have been. Please, dear friends, won't you come in?"

Norbu? Sakuya? What's happened? None of this seems right.

"Well, ofcourse it's not right!" Laughing, she poured the steaming tea for herself and pushed Norbu's across the table. "What a way to come for a visit! You two've gotten yourselves in trouble again, haven't you?"

We were saving the ship and all our friends. And we had to bring the big stone pyramid along, too...

"I know." Norbu beamed at them, like a proud parent. "We know what the Coral knows, and it knows all about your activities, believe me. They're very pleased that you finally figured out how to 'unite' the way they wanted. It wasn't what you thought it was, now, was it?" He laughed in a gentle, sympathetic way. "You finally achieved the thing at which Sakuya and I failed. If we weren't so contented, I think we'd be jealous."

But we --

Sakuya gave him a reproving glance without much force. "Norbu! We would not! Well, maybe a little... But really, we're so happy for you. And saving all those poor Vodarek at the same time! That was such a wonderful thing to do. I just knew you two would do great things."

Thanks, but something's wrong. I mean we're...we're like this, and we don't seem to have bodies any more, and we can feel the people who were on the ship and in the temple, but we can't see them. Where are we? What's happened to us?

"Where are you? Why, in the Tenth Dimension, of course. Haven't you remembered a thing of my teachings?" Norbu sipped carefully of the tea, drawing back as it burned his lips. "Viyuuden's a good man, but he never was one for communication. Too full of himself; always playing the mystic and powerful prophet. That's not the way to get a message across. You've ascended to the Tenth Dimension after concentrating so hard on uniting. It's a good marker of your spiritual advancement...but you don't belong here."

We don't?

Sakuya touched the surface of her tea with one delicate fingertip. "Oh, I made it too hot again, didn't I? No, of course you don't belong here. Not yet. And certainly not in this form."

'Form?'Please,whatare we, then?

"You're a Coralian singularity, what else?" laughed Norbu. "You've joined into a single consciousness, and done it so thoroughly that you've made a kind of miniature Command Node of yourselves! The Coralians themselves are pretty well amused by it, too, I can tell you. To them, you two're like a little girl, clomping around the house in her mother's high heels, tripping over an evening dress twelve sizes too small." He picked up a delicate, crispy wafer from a tray and nibbled at it enthusiastically. "Ah. Delicious, my darling. Oh, but don't get the idea that they're making fun of you, far from it. You two have succeeded beyond anything they'd ever hoped for. Humanity and the Coralian Mind are right on track, now, to become companion races, learning and developing together." Norbu drew his fine brows together for a moment. "You're going to need that kind of symbiosis sooner or later, you know. The universe is a pretty damn big place, and not everything in it is particularly nice."

Oh!Why can't we just stay here in the Tenth Dimension, with you?We've earned it, haven't we?After all we've been through together, don't we have a right to settle down?

Sakuya giggled, the song of water trickling over the stones of a mountain stream. "I never knew you two had such a stubborn streak! That's why you're like this, all wound into a singularity. What you really want is to settle down with each other, away from a world that won't let you alone. That's right, isn't it?"

Well...yes.

"I thought so; that desire is pulling you inside yourselves, hiding you from the world. But you can't do that, not yet. Listen, both of you: the world needs you, and it's going to need you for a long time to come. Oh, there's so much for you to do, and learn, and see; so much for you to teach...your children." She sighed, then brightened once more. "There's no need for you to be afraid of it any more. You two are strong. You can handle just anything together. Haven't you noticed? The Coral was right, you know -- youare the right ones for this job."

Norbu took a full sip of the cooling tea. "Don't feel so disappointed, my friends. One day, you will join us here in the Tenth Dimension, and then we'll have plenty to talk about, believe me. But that day's a long, long way off. And it's not as if your lives'll be some terrible drudge back in the Third Dimension; you're not starting from scratch any more. Go on back, both of you: the world needs you."

But...how?

"Easy as pie." he popped another crisp wafer into his mouth. "All you have to do is accept it. Accept that you have responsibilities -- and that there are a lot of people waiting for you; depending on you. Starting with your own children."

"Two of them especially," added Sakuya, her bright eyes taking on a strangely pleading intensity. "Don't abandon them. They're going to need you both."

I...suppose that's true. All right, then. For their sakes. But...won't we ever see you any more in the meantime?

"Sure you will." Norbu poured a second cup of tea, and helped himself to another wafer. "We can make it through to the Third Dimension now and again, when there's trouble. Not that we have a hell of a lot of advice for you any more -- you're both way beyond us, now. But the Coral will have its eye on you, and so will we. Oh, you're leaving now? Thanks for dropping in, it's nice to know that you thought of us when you were in trouble."

We're...fading. We can't see you clearly any more...

Sakuya waved. "That's normal, so don't worry! We wish you everything happy and wonderful! Good-bye, for now! Good-bye..."

Thirty-Four

"Their brain patterns show that they're awakening -- be quiet, now. Hush, all of you!"

Renton swam in a sea of fog, aware that a brilliant, warm light was receding from him, a light in which he wanted to swim forever. Him and Eureka, of course. There'd be no point in having that kind of happiness withouther along.

The ringing in his ears faded, and soft voices whispered all around. Jeez, how clumsy and slow. They're actually using just sounds to talk with each other. To his right he felt a familiar warmth and knew that Eureka was at his side. That alone made it worth opening his eyes.

"Welcome back!" shouted Holland, and the medical room rang with the clapping of many hands and the happy cries of familiar voices.

Something huge and dark thumped itself to Renton's chest; He laughed to see TheEnd's azure eyes staring into his own as he whirred and gurgled in a transport of delight. Renton scratched the creature between his ears and levered himself upward in the bed. Beside him, Nirvash gave the same treatment to Eureka, who seemed far more perplexed about what to do with an affectionate tree-cat. Both of them, he understood as his mind slowly cleared, seemed to be naked beneath the sheets of a hospital bed somewhere in the bowels of the Vodarek temple; that in itself could only be a good sign that everyone had made it alive and well.

"Uh, thanks, everybody. It's really good to see you all. What happened to Eureka and me?" Matt Stoner stood at the foot of the bed, his video camera capturing it all.

"An excellent question," Mischa told him, disconnecting her monitoring equipment. "That ball of trapar floated there for almost two days --"

"Twodays?" said Eureka.

"Yes. We were all terribly worried, you know. We had no idea if you were going to come apart again or not, so Viyuuden stationed the Guardians of the Flame on the ground under you. Finally, the sphere floated to earth, and when it faded, there the two of you were, unconscious. The Vodarek brought you here, and here you've been for another day while they chanted around you and I lost a great deal of sleep waiting to see any signs of life. Your brainwave monitors were showing patterns I'd never seen before."

"Uh, yeah, I'll bet." He pushed himself to a more upright position, twitching his shoulders uncomfortably. "What the hell's the matter with my back? Feels like there's bandages and stuff stuck to it..."

Everyone in the room roared with laughter, and even Eureka looked his way with wide and happy eyes. "Renton!" she cried, reaching to touch him.

Dr. Egan wheeled a caster-mounted full-length mirror to his side of the bed. "I anticipated your reaction, Renton, my boy, and requisitioned this. I warn you, prepare yourself for a rather disconcerting sight."

Staring into the mirror, Renton found himself struck speechless. His once chestnut-brown hair now gleamed bright electric-blue under the overhead light, and a pair of lavender-pink Coralian eyes looked back at him from his own openmouthed face. "Whaaaat?" he shouted, and as he did, his butterfly wings flapped open like twin umbrellas, quivering and iridescent.

"That's what you get for chasing off after foreign girls," Axel told him, doubled over with laughter. "End up being a bad influence, I always say. Damned if you don't look good in it though, Grandson. Welcome back -- both of you."

"What's the matter?" asked Yuki. "Don't you like your new look?"

"I... uh, yeah. Yeah, I do!" He pulled Eureka to himself, running his hands along the edges of her wings, comparing them to his own. "Eureka, I always wanted us to be alike -- to be like you. And now we really are. This is great! Hey, can you teach me how to fly?"

But she could only hold him to her, unable to hold back her tears as the children ran into the room and joined them on the bed, laughing, crying, touching. Home at last.

"I think you already know how to fly, Renton," said Hilda, dabbing at her own cheeks. "I guess you always have."

Thirty-Five

"Do we really need these lights and video cameras?" asked Admiral Juergens, scowling at the equipment Stoner had strung about Viyuuden's Temple mediation room.

Dr. Egan nodded affably. "It is a bit awkward, I agree. However, we very much wish to have the conferences of the World Parliament recorded for future historians." He nodded affably toward Mischa, at his side, and leaned forward, hands folded upon the table. "We are all of us in a unique position, after all. Historic events often occur which are not known to be historic until long after the event. But we stand now at the cusp of a new era in human experience, and are fully aware of the future importance of all that we do in these times. Hence, Mr. Stoner, as newly-appointed head of our newly-created Office of Communications, will be documenting as much as possible of our collective doings."

"All right, all right." The Admiral shrugged away the losing skirmish and opened his notebook before him. "First of all, 'Heart of the World' will be the official name of this new capital we're founding here?"

"It will," said Dr. Morita. "That was the figurative name we were using all along, and now it seems an appropriate one in actuality."

Beside him, Sonia Wakabyashi, in a gold-rimmed Vodarek robe, nodded agreement. "Personally, I think it describes the function of our new government, as well as its spirit." She made a little token bow in the direction of Renton and Eureka, across the table. "And besides, the Blessed Messengers like it, too."

Juergens only grunted, but made no objection; he seemed to find the sight of Renton's blue-green hair, Coralian eyes and folded wings somewhat unnerving. "Very well, that's how we'll refer to it in all official IPF communications from now on. And since we have an official capital city, when can we expect a base here for at least a few of our airships? Now that Thuu Bak has officially broken from the Federation, we've been using their civilian airport, but we'll need hangars and refueling facilities here in the New Lands, at the very least."

"We'll have them, but it'll take a while," said Holland. "Morita wants to transfer the Tresor facility here, too, so we'll have to come up with a priority list. Money's still very short for the World Parliament, and so's manpower. By the way, how's the political situation in the Federation? It's been over a week since we came here, and all we get is Federation propaganda broadcasts. To hearthem tell it, the Vodarek Terrorist Menace is being beaten back on all fronts."

Juergens gave a bitter laugh. "Wishful thinking on their part. Mr. Stoner's own propaganda broadcasts have been having enormous effect. There are open insurrections going on in Friesland, Stoertinget and Mianmer, and most of the other provinces now have independence movements going on as well. The Federation's having to spread itself very, very thin to keep the rebellions down. Frankly -- and I speak now for IPF intelligence as well as myself -- I expect Kulikovia to fall and seek membership in the World Parliament within a year."

"Grand news!" cried Ken-Goh, raising one hand into a fist of triumph.

"I expected you to be pleased, Professor. We're offering the various rebels the same tax incentive we gave to Thuu Bak, so the World Parliament can expect to see a significantly greater revenue flow in the months and years to come. Ladies and gentlemen, we are well on our way toward becoming what the Federation was in the beginning: a loose confederation of independent states under the general umbrella of a single administrative unit that works for the common good. Which, I suppose, leads to a related question: what kind of military assistance will you need to keep the Federation from destroying the Heart of the World? They tried it in Thuu Bak, and there's no doubt in my mind that the Federation would love to blow this place to atoms."

Viyuuden gestured in the direction of Eureka and Renton. "For that, we rely upon the power of the Blessed Messengers, Admiral. They are now in control of all the trapar flows on the entire planet. Your own ship was able to travel here only because they permitted a trapar corridor for it. The Federation's warcraft are barred from these lands forever, by a five-hundred-kilometer-wide trapar vacuum surrounding the New Lands."

"And...what about a ground-based attack?"

"Coming across the three-hundred-kilometer-high coral cliff?" Viyuuden's austere smile did not touch his eyes. "I think not."

The Admiral made a quick notation in his notepad. "What about orbital attack? Or what if they decide to develop aerodynamic-only long-distance craft? There were such things in pre-Exodus times, after all."

Eureka spoke up for the first time. "There's no need to be worried about that. We've caused a trapar shield to cover the New Lands. It's very intense, and anything coming through will be destroyed."

"We've thought about this a lot," said Renton, nervously twining his fingers as he spoke. "We've got all the New Lands sealed off from the Federation...but then there's the Coralian Gift to think about. People've got to come to the Vodarek to get that, and somehow we've got to keep the whole world from trying to run in here all at the same time -- like a stampede -- once they find out." Automatically, he took Eureka's hand but kept his head high. "The Coral wants people to have it, and so do we. But I don't know how we're going to manage it all. I'm glad there're so many smart and brave and honest people here to help. I know we can all figure something out. I guess...I guess Gekkostate isn't really finished, after all. In fact, maybe this'll be its real job, d'you think? Anyhow, thanks, everybody, for deciding to stay here at the Heart of the World."

Matthieu shrugged, and winked toward Hilda. "Oh, well, it's not like we could get a job anywhere else, is it? I mean, who's gonna hire you when you write down 'dangerous terrorist pirate' under 'Previous Experience?'"

The casual humor broke the meeting's dark atmosphere and they all laughed, with many a sarcastic comeback. But Eureka and Renton -- and Viyuuden and Juergens, too -- knew well that these were brave, bright, skillful people making a commitment to a long and difficult struggle, expressing that dedication in the way they knew best.

"Does this mean the meeting's over?" asked Jobs, standing.

"For today, yes." Egan offered his hand to Mischa, and both rose together. "We shall convene tomorrow again at, let us say, ten o'clock. Is that suitable to all? Very well then, thank you, ladies and gentlemen."

As they filed out, Stoner began winding up the video cables for storage, eventually finding himself next to Juergens and Viyuuden, both deep in soft conversation. "Nothing's really ended, has it?" he asked.

Juergens looked up. "Eh? No, nothing's over, Mr. Stoner. The very world is changing before our eyes. Endless youthfulness and health will come to everyone; the Federation will inevitably wither away; we'll all be in some kind of unprecedented partnership with the Coral. No end of challenges lie ahead of us. None of us are going to be getting bored any time soon."

"Nor are the mysteries here among us diminishing in any way." The Vodarek High Priest peered out toward the distant low mountains, now catching the orange light of a lowering sun. "What are the implications of Renton-sama's final metamorphosis? What further part will Mr. and Mrs. Sorel have to play in the transformation of the Earth? And what about Ariadne, the First-Born? We still know so little about the Cora's thoughts and plans. So many questions, both spiritual and functional. A pity the Honored Norbu is no longer here to offer his guidance."

"Never knew the man," said Juergens, gathering up his notebook and stretching. "By the way, speaking of transformations, what became of those Swallowtail girls your people took into custody? Holland told me their injuries have healed; any chance they can still be rehabilitated?"

"Only time will resolve that matter, I'm afraid. Would you and your executive officer care to join us for dinner, Admiral? For the time being, we all dine in the Temple's main hall, until individual housing can be constructed again."

"Love to, and I'm sure Maria will be pleased as well. Mr. Stoner, will you be coming?

Stoner stowed his cables in a padded case and strung a camera around his neck. "I'll be down later, thanks. Once upon a time, before I sold my soul to the Federation, I had a reputation as a pretty good journalist. I intend to start earning that reputation back again."

"You've done a damn good job of it up to now; glad to have you on board, Stoner."

Renton and Eureka made their way hand in hand toward the topmost level of the Vodarek pyramid. "Y'know," he ventured, "having to save the world isn't so bad, I guess, when you can share it with the people you like and trust."

"We'll be all right now, Renton." She walked very close to him, pressing to his shoulder. "You look very good in that black jacket, I think. Even better than Holland did, I think."

He laughed, slipping his arm about her. "Thanks. It's all gonna take some getting used to, though. All my shirts and jackets feel like I've got them on backwards, now, with those cutouts back there for the wings. I don't know if I'll be able to get used to them as fast as you did. I still wonder... Oh, hi, Kaz."

Kazuya, having popped out of a cross-corridor, stood staring at him, truculent, apologetic and frightened all at once. "H'lo, Mr. Thurston. Hello, Mrs. Eureka. I heard you coming; I been waiting for you. Look this's the first time I've been able to talk to you alone since we...landed last week. And I...I wanna apologize. I been talking to Tommy and some of the other Gekkostate people, and I guess I sort ofdid look like kind of a jerk to you. Truth is...well, I didn't know anything at all about what kind of pressure you -- I mean, both of you -- were under then. So if you don't wanna..."

"No." Renton stepped toward him, shaking his head. "No, Kaz, I was the jerk. I don't think I knew what you were going through, then, either. Getting all the way down from Stoertinget to Thuu Bak, dodging the Federation all the way, just to find us... That was a real piece of work. And I was just too wound up with my own worries to notice. Lousy way to ever be a good leader, wasn't it? Anyhow, I'm sorry. And in case anybody asks...Tommy's not the last member of Gekkostate. You are. You earned it."

Kaz stood, too stunned to speak for a moment, unable to hold back a wide grin. "I...thanks! Really. My folks're gonna be saying here in this place, y'know, and so will I -- I'm gonna help them build a house, in the spring. I hope I can join in with whatever you and Holland and all the others'll be doing from now on."

"I hope so too, Kaz. Look, we're going on up to the next floor, to watch the sun set; tell the others we'll be down to dinner before too long, would you?"

"Sure, Mr. Renton!" He raced off down the hall, then screeched to a stop and turned back for a moment. "Oh yeah, and I don't give a damn what anybody says -- I think your new hair looks cool!"

Eureka laughed at Renton's exasperated scowl as Kazuya hurried off to the nearest elevator shaft and they resumed their upward walk. Within minutes, they stood together in a crisp breeze already touched by the autumn soon to come. Eureka wore a light blue jacket over white insulated tights and ankle boots, and Renton thought her the loveliest thing he had ever imagined. "Such a beautiful view, isn't it? Much nicer than the one we had in Thuu Bak. But look, Renton -- something's wrong with the trees near the bottom of the mountains. Their leaves are all red and yellow."

He came behind her, holding her in his arms, lost in the scent of her hair, she softness of her skin. "You've just never seen a real fall before; the mountains where we spent our first year were all pines. Other trees do that in the fall. It's really beautiful, and you and I can go hiking in the woods on the mountains, and the stars stand out all clear and sparkly at night. And in the winter we can teach the kids to sleigh ride and skate, and in the spring there'll be flowers and rain, and then it'll be summer again, like Thuu Bak only not as hot. It's okay now, Eureka. We're home. We're finally home, for good."

She turned round and kissed him, and they held to each other in the warm aura of the descending sun. And then Eureka took him by the hand and jumped easily to the top of the low wall at the edge of the open deck and pulled him up with her. She smiled at him then, and spread her wings, catching the sunlight in flaming jewels. "You said you wanted me to teach you to fly with your own wings?"

Renton held to her hand and opened his wings against the breeze, tentative and awkward. "You've been doing that since the beginning, Eureka. I'll always fly with you." They leaped into the glassy air over the Heart of the World, first dropping, then streaking upward in twin trails of trapar fire, still soaring in the journey that would never end.

Six floors below, Matt Stoner leaned out over a metal railing to catch a photo of them rising into the sky, already planning in advance the cover story for a future issue of RayOut.

"Did you get a good picture of them, Stoner?" asked Maurice, standing on tiptoe beside him.

"Only kind I ever take. How come you and Ariadne aren't downstairs at dinner?"

"We knew Mama and Papa were gonna fly," she explained in her grave way. "So we wanted t'see how it looked." Ariadne flapped her little wings; Maurice dodged out of their way just in time, but did not release her hand. "Mama couldn't fly till she got Papa, you know. I want to see how to do it."

Turning from the deepening sky to their earnest faces, Stoner lowered his camera and smiled. A new life. A new world. Wonder if any of the Vodarek girls are intrigued by famous photojournalists. Maybe it's time I found out. It's a big world when you're innocent enough, and anything is possible. Anything.

He pocketed the camera and went back inside the Temple corridor, some five meters behind the two whispering, giggling children. And then Stoner stopped dead, stunned, and reached for the camera again, brightening as he knew beyond a doubt that he'd just found the first major story of the new era.

"Aren't you goin' down to dinner, Stoner?" asked Maurice, looking back over his shoulder, curious.

"Uh, sure. Sure, I just wanted to get a shot of you two from behind, that's all. Just keep on walking ahead of me, okay?"

Maurice nodded. The ways of the Gekkostate elders could be obscure at times. "Awright. Don't let go of my hand, Ariadne, okay?" He turned forward then, walking hand in hand with the little Coralian girl.

Still scratching absently at the itchy spot between his eyes.

The End