"Amethyst, it's us again," PeeDee announced as they crowded through the door in the windmill's basement. As the light of his lantern suffused the room, the shadowy figure of Amethyst became apparent, lying in her pile of straw.

"Ugh, what now?" she groaned, rolling over. "I was sleeping."

This was a surprise to Connie. "I didn't know gems could sleep."

Amethyst looked in the direction of Connie's voice. "You don't see much else to do down here, do you?" She inclined her head. "You visited me recently, right? It was you?"

"Yes, I did." Connie was pleased at the acknowledgement. "You, uh, didn't want to know my name?"

Amethyst pushed her legs vertically into the air before letting them fall to the floor as she pivoted into a sitting position. "Yeah, I guess that was kinda rude. You can tell me your name if you like, but don't get all offended if I forget it. I've known so many humans it's hard to keep track."

"My name's Connie. You must have... lost a lot of people, over all these years."

Amethyst sighed. "Did you ever have a pet, Connie?"

"Erm... no."

"Oh yeah, I guess that's not really a thing so much any more." The purple gem looked thoughtful. "Ever had an animal you grew fond of before the time came to devour its flesh?"

Connie considered this. "Again, no."

"Oh. Well, that was a bad example, so good. But it used to be that humans had enough food not only for themselves but to keep pet animals. They'd let the animals live with them, and they used to treat them just like part of the family until they'd die, and then the humans got sad. Until they got a new pet." With this established, Amethyst sat up and leaned forward on her hands. "So, being a gem among humans is a bit like that, only it's worse, because the humans are so much more like you than animals are, and you understand each other, and then they live such short lives that it gets hard to bear." She sighed. "In the end it's better not to think of humans as individuals. That's just how I cope."

Connie was overwhelmed with pity. "I think I understand. Thank you for explaining."

"Connie had some more questions about your civilisation," Ronaldo prompted.

"It's not my civilisation," Amethyst protested, "and anyone who calls me civilised is a liar."

Connie was anxious to get to the bottom of the Pink Diamond question, but wasn't sure how best to approach it, or even how much Amethyst really knew. "You told me last time I was here that some of the gems weren't happy about Pink Diamond. Do you know why that was?"

"Gems don't like change," Amethyst explained. "Pink Diamond was enforcing changes to the way they did things, and some gems had spent too many thousands of years working in one way to be able to switch things up without grousing a whole bunch. But I think..." — she paused to think — "I think they were mad because it was less efficient. That's another thing they're big on. They were complaining things were going to take too long."

An unusual complaint for such a long-lived people, Connie assumed. "What things?"

"The process of building and making gems on Earth. On Pink Diamond's orders, it was all happening on a completely different time scale."

It wasn't much, but it added some nuance to Connie's idea of the gem behind the official portraits. What did all this imply about Pink Diamond herself? She had come here from another world to carry out her project, but had then delayed it due to her love of humanity. Was there anything truly sinister about her interstellar origins, or did they make her dedication to life on Earth even more inspiring?

Connie turned her attention to PeeDee and Ronaldo. "What did you guys think when you found out the gems weren't from Earth?" she asked.

"It made a lot of things clear," Ronaldo said darkly. "The colonising force from beyond the stars. Condemning humanity's greed while coming here to seize our resources in the exact same manner. And once everything is gone, and who knows how soon that'll be, they'll return to the heavens and leave us to our doom."

A ball of tension was building up in Connie's core. "And what do you think of that, Amethyst? Is he right?"

The gem shrugged. "Could be? I dunno. Certainly makes a neat story."

"Well I don't agree," Connie declared emphatically, turning on Ronaldo. She felt as though her voice was about to break, but determined to stay composed. "You keep saying this but it still doesn't make any sense. We've seen the technology gems have, the vehicles and power. If they came to Earth to... to do what you said, they could have wiped us all out on day one. We know Pink Diamond went out of her way to protect us. You're not being fair."

"Let's not draw any conclusions," PeeDee said diplomatically. "You wanted to ask some other questions, right?"

Connie took a breath. "Right. Yes. So... I'm interested in when the gems formally brought humanity under their protection. What was your experience at the time?"

Amethyst had been gradually slouching into her straw, but perked up again and sat cross-legged. "Well, I spent a lot of time in my gem, I'll tell you that straight up. Back then I'd been living in a town in Europe with this family who'd always been nice to me. It wasn't too near any gem structures, so I could wander around outside, and I'd sometimes help out with chores and whatnot. My host was a historian, and he used to ask me stuff about the past to help him with his writing." Her faint smile faded. "So, one day he came running in. He told me that the gems were coming. An airship had landed in the centre of town and three gems had come out to announce that the people of that country had chosen to depose their king, and accepted the gems as rulers. Everyone was to come out and be counted, and await instructions of what to do next."

"What kind of gems were they?" Connie asked.

"I don't know for sure, but he said two of them were big and tough-looking, and the smaller one did the talking. As soon as he knew what was happening, the historian had come straight back to warn me. Everyone always knew I'd be in deep trouble if the gems ever found me, and he asked what he should do. So I explained about my hard-light form, and said he should stab through it with something and find a small container to put my gem in, and keep that with him and not let anyone else touch it. When it was safe, he could take the gem out so I could reform. He wasn't exactly thrilled about the plan, but he agreed to go along with it and poof! I was safe, for the time being at least."

She gave out a deep sigh. "I never met him again."

Connie was still trying to extrapolate from Amethyst's brief description to understand the practicalities of bringing humanity under gemkind's law. How many towns and cities were there to visit, and how many gems went to each one? Did it all happen at once, or in shifts? Did everyone listen to them? The minor detail of the new order being presented to the humans as a fait accompli was in retrospect so obvious, so necessary, that it didn't even register as controversial. By any cursory analysis, there was no way the Authority could realistically have conducted some kind of opinion survey on the entire population. The concept of humanity's co-authorship of its own destiny was merely a necessary allegory. In a way, Connie had always known this.

Amethyst continued her story. "I couldn't tell how much time was passing while I was in the box, but one day I found myself in open space and I was unable to resist reforming. I was greeted by a woman I didn't recognise, and she brought me up to date. We were in what the gems were calling a temporary settlement, which was a neighbourhood of one of the old human cities. Only, nobody knew where it actually was. Every few days, the gems would fly in and deliver food to everyone. Apart from that, they didn't really interfere. But they were around enough that I would have to stay hidden indoors."

"How much time had passed, if they didn't even know what city they were in?" Connie wondered.

"It was a few decades," Amethyst explained. "Everyone in the settlement had been relocated there from their old homes, and all the original signs had been taken down, so there was just no way of telling. It was somewhere with a warm climate. Anyway, this woman, Catherine, was the youngest person in the settlement. She had been born there shortly after the move. After that nobody else had any kids, so she'd grown up as the only child in a settlement of adults."

(Connie suppressed an urge to announce that she'd had the same experience growing up. Clearly she and this Catherine were kindred spirits separated by history, but she suspected Amethyst would not find this as interesting as she did.)

"This whole time, they'd had me tucked in this box. I don't know how they got it, because I asked about the historian and nobody there even knew him. But they somehow knew a little about me, and they'd brought me back because they had a question. See, nobody in this place was getting any younger, and some of the residents had already died of old age. My new friend was worried what would happen when she was the only one left. Obviously I didn't know anything about what was going on, but when they explained how everyone had these regulators that stopped them having children, I made what I think you'd call an educated guess. Seemed to me like the gems didn't figure out Catherine's mom was already pregnant when they moved everyone into this place, and the whole thing was a mistake. So I just told her, sit tight, one day they'll probably take you to a new home. And when they do, it'd be great if you'd bring me with you. From then on, I lived in the house with Catherine and her mom, and we would just relax and share stories."

"Were..." Connie chose her words carefully. "Were the people treated well?"

"Some of the humans used to grumble sometimes, but they were used to living in the settlement by the time I met any of them. Most of them didn't seem to mind that much. One thing they sometimes talked about was how before the gems came, they went hungry a lot. There'd been a lot of shortages toward the end, which maybe helped people see the Diamond Authority's intervention as a good thing. Apart from that, they had a big area of the city with parks and stuff, to roam around and make use of as they pleased. Kind of like here, they used to put on music shows and read and stuff. It was a big community, a few hundred in total. The funny thing was, there were humans from all over the world all living there in the same place, and they would still tend to separate out and hang around in their own original groups. They seemed content enough, though. The only real restriction was the wall round the edge of the settlement."

"Walls?" Connie exclaimed. "I wouldn't have been happy living in a... a prison!"

"Are you allowed to leave this settlement?" PeeDee pointed out.

"Well, no, but..." Connie floundered. "There aren't any walls," she feebly concluded.

"I guess someone in charge was keeping track of things," Amethyst continued, "because after her mother passed away they informed Catherine they'd move her to another settlement with more people her own age. So I talked her through the same routine as before: poof, gem in the box, smuggled out with the luggage."

"Does it hurt when that happens?" Connie asked her.

"Eeh," Amethyst wavered with an ambivalent squint, "sort of? I not sure if gems and humans experience pain in the same way. It certainly doesn't feel good, but, you know. I've seen humans injured, in agony, screaming and crying like they didn't want to exist. That's not something I could compare it to."

Connie had never experienced anything like Amethyst's disturbing description either. "Um. When did you see that?"

"Saw all kinds of things before I went blind," Amethyst replied simply.

"That's all in the past, though," Ronaldo blustered. "Stick to the stuff that happened two hundred years ago. What did they do to humans who didn't cooperate?"

"You know I don't know that," Amethyst scowled. "I never met anyone at the temporary settlement that hadn't accepted the gems as leaders. Everyone always knew they were powerful, and humans had always had superstitions about them. Maybe in the cities it was a different story, but I never heard anything about it. And when we moved to the next settlement, it was all humans who'd been born afterwards, so nobody could have known anyway. When we arrived there, Catherine was the only one who knew anything much about life under the old system, and a lot of that was from having me to talk to."

"What was this new settlement like?" Connie asked.

"It was different. More like this place, but without so many facilities. But the people used to farm their own food instead of receiving rations — you'd recognise it if you lived there, these places have always been the same ever since. This new settlement was on another part of the planet, they took Catherine through a warp to get there. The weather was colder, but there was fresh water and she said the scenery was nice. I was introduced to some of the other residents who were excited to meet me. But there was trouble pretty soon after that."

Amethyst finally stood up from her patch of ground, stretched, and began pacing around the room in an agitated fashion. "The Zircon assigned to that settlement came to Catherine and started asking questions, like they knew she was hiding something. It really rattled her, and we agreed the best thing would be for me to stay with someone else and hope their Zircon would drop it."

Connie stepped to one side to avoid being bowled over by Amethyst. On her next pass, she tactfully offered Amethyst a seat, guiding the gem to her wooden stool. "Do you think someone told on you?" she asked.

Amethyst gripped the sides of the seat with rigid arms, but otherwise reduced her nervous energy. "Honestly? I don't know, but I'm guessing maybe not. I've had a lot of time to think about things, and lately I've been wondering whether it was the warp. If they could detect an unauthorised gem going through the warp, that would have led them straight to Catherine."

Connie came to the glum realisation that it would also make this settlement a dead-end. Surely anyone and anything leaving here would do so by means of the adjacent warp pad.

"The Zircon stayed suspicious for years, but I guess she couldn't do anything about it. Eventually a few people got letters saying they were going to be needed in different settlements, and they decided the best thing would be if I go with one of them and hope to shake off the Authority that way."

Connie watched Amethyst with sympathy. "So you had to leave another friend behind."

"Everywhere I went, it's always been the same. Well, not quite. About a century back I was living in a place where they somehow never tracked me down. Obviously I still had to stay hidden but at least I could relax for a bit. Anyway, it didn't last, because they eventually shut down the settlement and moved the last few residents on to new locations. A few stops later and here I am." She shrugged. "I can go into more detail if you need."

"It's fine," Connie assured her. "I don't want to go dredging up memories if they'll just make you sad."

Amethyst's blank eyes stared into the distance. "I've always wondered whether I'm the only one, or if there are other defective gems like me, still hiding from the Diamond Authority. Whether they've been able to last all this time without getting caught. I guess I'll never know."

Ronaldo left a respectful (but not quite long enough) pause before speaking. "Regretfully, it turns out we haven't bought much time. The Authority continues to assert its... uh, authority, and they've already started searching houses again."

Amethyst hung her head. "Aw, man. This whole time I've brought you nothing but trouble. I'm really sorry, guys."

"Don't blame yourself," Connie reassured her, "blame that Zircon. You're just as much a victim as us."

(This earned her an almost inaudible 'hmph' from PeeDee.)

"So we need a plan," Ronaldo pressed on. "A better hiding place, or a way out of the settlement, or... or whatever. Anything. There are no bad ideas, guys."

PeeDee rubbed his chin contemplatively. "We could, uh... bury her?"

Amethyst raised her hand. "You know how you just said there were no bad ideas? I'd like to officially disagree with that."

"I'm just thinking out l... it's a process," PeeDee stammered.

Ronaldo raised a finger oratorically. "Some say that the best way to conceal something is to hide it in plain sight."

Connie blinked. "So your suggestion is to hide Amethyst in plain sight?"

"Maybe." He folded his arms and leaned on the wall.

"Wouldn't people see her?"

He awkwardly unfolded his arms. "I mean... of course it sounds obvious when you say it like that."

"No, wait, there could be something in it," PeeDee insisted. "Like, if Amethyst's gem was in a container of some kind. Maybe it's better not to hide it. Anything hidden under the floor, in the attic or wherever — of course they're going to look inside straight away. But they might not bother searching everything that's just sitting out on a shelf."

"Yeesh," Amethyst winced. "Sounds like a heck of a gamble. What if they do look?"

"Well," PeeDee said, "if they do, then... maybe we fight them."

It was Ronaldo's turn to look uncertain. "It's not yet time, PeeDee. We need to get the word of the Oracle out to more people."

Connie would have analysed this further, but a more pressing thought had struck her. "What if there was a way to heal Amethyst? Then she'd find it much easier to stay hidden."

"Well, yeah," Amethyst hesitantly acknowledged, "but the only way to do that is through the power of Pink Diamond. Kind of a tall order."

"Except," Connie countered, "haven't we all got a part of Pink Diamond's healing power with us? The organic regulator? Isn't there some way we could use that?"

"Well..." Ronaldo struggled with reluctance to concede this point. "I suppose it's technically analogous, but..."

"Does anyone know how the regulators actually work?" Connie asked. "I never really think about mine."

"Must be some form of modified gemtech," Amethyst suggested, "adapted to interface with organic beings. Or something," she shrugged. "I guess Pink Diamond could have put some of her power into it, it's true."

"A part of Pink Diamond's power," Connie breathed. It was somehow a humbling thought, that such power could be flowing through her right now. "Can I try something?" she asked.

Carefully approaching Amethyst, she slowly reached out toward the damaged gemstone. Then, thinking again, she stopped. If the power was inside her...

She hunched her shoulders self-consciously as she brought her hand to her mouth and licked her palm. Then, solemnly, she pressed the damp hand against Amethyst's gem. There was a reverent silence, and...

...absolutely nothing happened.

"Um..." Not knowing what to do, Connie briefly wiped the gem with the sleeve of her other arm, mumbled "sorry" and scampered back to her original position.

Amethyst was visibly confused. "Uh, what was that? Anyone?"

"Look," Ronaldo said charitably, "the main thing is that you're at least trying to help."

"I'm just impressed you thought nobody would ever have tried that before," PeeDee grinned.

("Seriously, what did I miss?")

"Fine," Connie managed through her embarrassment, "maybe it's not that simple, but I still think there's some merit to..."

"In the absence of any further contributions, we'll have to go with PeeDee's idea for now," Ronaldo announced. "We'd better prepare a container of some sort for Amethyst's gem. What would you find most comfortable?"

"It doesn't make any difference. I can't feel anything when I'm in there."

"Right, right, good, good. PeeDee and I will identify an ally who would be least likely to fall under suspicion. Since Connie will not know their identity, she will be unable to inadvertently incriminate them in the presence of her parents. If it becomes apparent that the gems are closing in, we will dematerialise Amethyst and hope for the best."

"Hooray," Amethyst sarcastically intoned.

"We should get back," said PeeDee. "It must be late." The dimly-lit room gave no sense of the passage of time, but he was probably right.

"One last thing," asked Connie. "Why did the gems really remove humanity's leaders? Do you have a theory?"

There was a silence. "You're asking me?" Amethyst realised. "I always assumed the humans were getting in the way, and Pink Diamond wanted to have them where she could keep an eye on them." She added after a pause, "You do know I've got no more insight into this than you, right?"

"It's as valid a theory as any," Connie wearily smiled, and she and the Fryman brothers made their way out to seal the gem back in her dark prison.

The three of them congregated briefly in the grist mill again, it being too cold and dark to comfortably stand outside.

"You really need to think about what the Oracle told you," Ronaldo instructed Connie. "I guess you've lived a sheltered life with your peacekeeper dad, but our oppression by the gems is ongoing. Any time we develop a sense of community, they split us up. They move us around until we lose our sense of history. We lose all knowledge of what they did to the people who resisted. And how about those temporary settlements? Did you ever hear of a settlement with so many people, in our lifetime? Did you ever hear of anybody living in a city? Look at the places we live in now! We've heard a lot about settlements being disbanded, but never new ones setting up." He emphasised his points with outstretched hands as he loomed over her. "How many of us are even left? How long before it's none at all!?"

"Here's another question for you," PeeDee cut in, much calmer than his brother. "Why is the library the only place here that's always kept locked?"

This felt like a rhetorical question, but there was a silence Connie felt compelled to fill. "I guess because the books are..."

"Because," PeeDee interrupted, "knowledge is the only thing you can take out of the settlement that they can't find by searching you."

Connie was at a loss. There was much that was questionable about the gems' actions over the last few centuries, but characterising them as purely malevolent still didn't make sense to her. People had been hungry, had suffered at each others' hands, and the Diamond Authority had put a stop to it. Her working theory was that a faction of mid-level gems had mismanaged the organisation of the settlements — either through neglect and a lack of familiarity with the concerns of humans, or deliberately out of resentment towards Pink Diamond. There seemed little point in discussing this with Ronaldo and PeeDee, as in the end none of them had the evidence to back up their opinions, Oracle or no Oracle. It would be better to focus on their mutual goals.

"I still think you were a bit quick to dismiss healing Am... the Oracle," she said. "It's the only thing that would get us out of this mess for good."

"Really, Connie," Ronaldo sighed, "I think if it was possible to fix her by means of some hocus-pocus with the organic regulator, somebody would have figured it out by this point."

"There must be other things we could try, though. I don't see a reason to give up so quickly."

"If you try and mess with that thing, you're only liable to end up hurting yourself. Even if it did work," Ronaldo continued, "I don't foresee a happy life for our friend were she to go free. You heard how often she got found out by her so-called comrades in times past. The next time she got damaged, I dare say she wouldn't be finding any sympathetic humans to take her in." He patted Connie on the shoulder, chuckling. "Lucky for her your magical hand isn't so magic."

"I feel silly," Connie mumbled. "For a moment I was really convinced that might work."

"Put it out of your mind. We need the Oracle as she is, as the mascot of our revolution. She's living proof that the gems are lying, and she's living proof that they can be defeated. We've sacrificed too much to lose her now."

Connie edged away from him. "So what's your ultimate goal here? Downstairs you were talking about fighting them. I can't see that going well."

"But we're out of other options!" PeeDee exclaimed with sudden intensity. "All throughout history we've convinced ourselves they can't be fought, and where has that got us? Stranded on the few scraps of land they'll still let us occupy! When the Oracle came into our possession, that was a sign. Ever since then, we've been working with those we can trust to get the message out, to tell the truth about the Diamond Authority. We spread the word, and when the time comes, the uprising will begin."

Connie had never seen PeeDee so animated, and it was decidedly unnerving. His eyes blazed with fanaticism. Not for the first time, she began wishing she wasn't in a room with the Frymans. "But if what you've been saying is true, and there really are so few of us left..." She trailed off under PeeDee's glare.

"We're the violent ones, right? We're the ones that are supposed to be so dangerous. One of us is worth a dozen of them, now we know how to neutralise them. You should seriously be considering whose side you're really on."

Connie forced herself to remain calm. "I want," she said, "what's best for everyone in this settlement." Amethyst included, she thought.

"They think they can suppress the truth," Ronaldo scoffed. "Their final mistake will be underestimating our resilience. There are others like us, in settlements previously graced by the Oracle. Whenever they remove us from our homes, thinking to stifle dissent, they inadvertently help spread our message further."

"I'm glad they took Mom," PeeDee spat. "Knowing she's out there, bringing the truth to yet another settlement's worth of people, only strengthens our determination. We all miss her, but these are the sacrifices that must be made."

Connie froze as the full implications of what PeeDee was saying sank in. "You mean, the peacekeeper was..." She stared at them, aghast. "They split up your family!?"

Ronaldo turned to her, shadows hiding his eyes. "You see at last the cruelty and indifference of the Authority. You see why they must be defeated."

Connie composed herself, carefully observing the obstinate brothers. "This has given me a lot to think about," she said, her voice neutral. "I remain committed to protecting the Oracle at any cost. Now it is late, and I should go home before my parents realise I've snuck up here."

The dangerous energy in the room suddenly dissipated. PeeDee's defiance faded and he seemed somehow pitiable. Ronaldo merely nodded. "Very well. The two of us will stay here a while longer. We'll contact you again soon."

A tumult of conflicting thoughts and emotions ran through Connie's head as she picked her way back down the hill. It was now very much dark, and the moonlight barely revealed the contours of the ground in front of her. She felt her way carefully and focused on the vestiges of light spilling from the distant windows of the settlement.

Sheer fantasy. Ronaldo and PeeDee were living in a fantasy world, and a dangerous one at that. To have convinced themselves they could fight the Diamond Authority, precisely the hand that fed them, was utter folly. Furthermore, it was a folly that had cost them so dearly they no longer had any choice but to cling to it.

Connie had somehow never thought to wonder where the boys' mother was. She supposed that, if challenged, she might have assumed Mr Fryman was a widower. But the truth of it went some way to explaining why the peacekeeper had been so sympathetic to their cause, to the extent of risking her own position. A risk which clearly had not paid off. Connie wondered whether Mrs Fryman had originated this nonsense about taking on the Diamond Authority, or whether the boys had fallen into it as a way of justifying their loss. She felt sorry for them.

On the other hand, despite knowing what had happened to their mom, they had still encouraged her to find out whether her dad might be prepared to defy the gems too. How could she trust them when they hadn't even warned her? The thought of her own family being split up made her feel sick. Surely that Zircon must have been exceeding her authority, to take such measures? Connie briefly wondered whether it had been the same Zircon all along, pursuing a vendetta against Amethyst. But that wouldn't explain the overarching patterns in the way the gems had organised human settlements over the years. The Oracle had given her too much information to parse, and at the same time not enough information to draw certain conclusions.

Poor Amethyst was a pawn in this whole thing. It seemed more and more like the gem was being treated as a kind of trophy. The boys were happy to keep her locked away and discuss only how she might further their own agenda. Connie wondered how many custodians Amethyst had had over the centuries. Did they all truly care about protecting her, or did it merely make people feel good to turn the tables on the gems, by keeping one of their own in captivity? By holding power over a being so powerful?

For all their supposed revolutionary credentials, it seemed Ronaldo and PeeDee were slaves to tradition just like the kids at Mr Pita's. They all asked for opinions, then summarily rejected anything that didn't match their own worldview. Even when doing what people had always done was doomed to end in failure, everyone was scared to try something new. For each novel idea there was an evasion or an excuse, and people would forever muddle along the well-trodden path. Maybe this was what came of spending your whole life in one settlement?

For her part, Connie was determined to revisit her idea of freeing Amethyst, with or without anyone else's help.