Earthfall

STEP INTO THE WASTELAND OF TOMORROW...

A warm wind blew grit against her faceplate, moaned and howled the forlorn music of a tragedy so vast neither heart nor mind could deal with it. Chia had seen desolation many times, in many places. On worlds that had never known life of any sort. Worlds that had rolled round the sun for millions of years, swathed in unremitting cold and silence. But here was desolation of another kind. Here was a place that had known life but lost it. Here was a place that had been made desolate by a ruling segment of the planet's own hapless inhabitants. Watch out! the ship sent suddenly. I am picking up— A sudden shaking of the ground under her feet made Chia lose her balance. She fell, the

interlink finishing its belated warning and the suit's bodyshield scorching the stones where she sprawled. Rolling and about to rise, she felt the tremor move on, and saw the remains of a building less than a hundred meters away teeter and finally collapse in a shroud of dust... Ace Books by Jerry Earl Brown DARKHOLD EARTHFALL

EARTHFALL JERRY EARL BROWN This book is an Ace original edition, and has never been previously published. EARTHFALL An Ace Book/published by arrangement with the author PRINTING HISTORY Ace edition/January 1990 All rights reserved. Copyright © 1990 by Jerry Earl Brown. Cover art by Joe DeVito. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. ISBN: 0-441-85914-3 Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. The name "ACE" and the "A" logo are trademarks belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.

For Elvie "Beyond is the place where one lives. I would be lying to myself were I to say; 'perhaps everything ends on this earth; here do our lives end.' " —Leon-Portilla; Cantares Mexicanos

PART I The Northman The land is raw, empty desert, its backdrop a mountain range miles to the north whose peaks are mantled with snow and veined with hanging glaciers. Loose and lax in the saddle, a man in an old deerhide shirt and a wide-brimmed hat rides with his gaze at times on the ground, at times on the horizon, at times on various points between the two when some specific shape or shadow urges immediate attention and a finer focus. His face is the hue of red sandstone, like the country through which he moves—a rough topography of impenetrable solitude creased and scored by the erosion of some forty-odd years. From beneath the dusty hat the matted strands of his long hair are the color of the faraway peaks. Strapped to his right hip is a revolver, to his left, a long-bladed knife. The butt of an automatic rifle juts from the saddle scabbard under his left thigh. Behind the saddle is tied a bedroll and a bearskin coat. A piebald mare follows the bay. She is laden with a packsaddle full of pouches, sacks, and bundles, several of which reveal by their shape the elongated outline of arms. Both horses are shod, and when they cross a piece of old highway the wind has swept clean of sand, the noise of their hooves on the cracked pavement stirs from its lair a lizard half the size of the man. With eyes quickly alerted—and seeing what has caused the movement, just as quickly again gone abstract—he crosses the remnant of road. He thinks about shooting the lizard but has the smoked haunch of an antelope strapped to the packhorse. As usual, the thought of meat itself makes his stomach knot; but in a land with little else to eat he will tonight once again overcome this unsettling aversion in order to survive. A moon's ride south of the brink of snow country, ten days south of the people who called themselves the Hopi, in the middle of a plain where cactus, piñon, and scrub were making a comeback after a decades-long siege by cold northeasterly winds, he came at sundown upon the ruins of the fort. He sat on the horse for a long time, looking at the broken adobe walls, listening for the possible sound of life, turning in the saddle to watch the plain. He saw nothing, heard nothing but the wind. In the lee of a fragment of southwest wall, he dismounted and tethered the lead horse to a piñon bush that had risen out of a pile of fallen adobe. For the better part of the next day he poked about in the sand drifts inside and outside the fort's crumbling wood and clay walls, looking for ammunition for his guns or some usable

horseshoes and horseshoe nails, a better saddle—he was always looking for a newer and better riding saddle or packsaddle, for good knives, tools he could trade, but especially for ammunition and for newer and better guns—when he found the underground rooms, the skeletons, and the journal. O'Rourke could not remember when or where he had learned to read, as he could not remember when or where he'd learned about medicinal herbs or guns or horses. He could remember hardly anything at all of his childhood or early manhood. He remembered moving around a lot, with a number of other people who must have been family, some of them. He remembered bitter cold and nothing to eat. But he could not remember the faces of the people in any detail, or their names or who exactly they were, what they were to him. Rusty though his literacy was, he could understand most of the words in the carefully written, and because of its having been sealed in an airtight bag of durable material, wellpreserved journal. Having found it, he kicked his way back through the scattered piles of rag and bone, and climbed the stone stairway to the surface so he could examine the book in daylight. He sat in the southwest corner of a collapsed building, where the remains of two walls met, where he could be protected from the wind. Pulling the fur collar of his bearskin coat about his neck, he began to read. 6/29/1 I am dating this journal from the year after the fall of civilization. This is the first year after the end. It is doubtful anyone with much intelligence will ever read what I write here, if anyone at all ever reads it. But it is important that I keep a daily record—for the retention of my own sanity and clarity of thought if nothing else. 6/30/1 It is so hard to remember all that's happened: Janie's death, losing the kids to God knows what outcome, losing friends, loved ones whose individual fates will never be known to me any more than, until the very end, my own will be known to me. I suppose that I can say I know my fate in general terms. I suppose I can say that I will die here on this ranch that has been in my family for seven generations. Just how my death will come remains unknown, though I can narrow that down to a few categories: illness, freezing, starvation, disease, murder, suicide. Maybe the winds will blow the deadly air down from the north and we'll all go that way. But I must stop thinking about it. We will last as long as we can and that is all. 7/1/1 That last hour before we took off stays with me night and day: the mobs looting and killing everywhere, the burning city, the universal terror and panic and the plane itself hardly able to

leave the airport for the hundreds of hands pulling at its doors, clinging to its wings and tail; the clubs and stones flung at windows; the bodies of desperate flesh hurled suicidally against its body of ungiving metal. But what could we do? We were overloaded as it was, could hardly lift from the ground. We had no choice, no choice at all. Dear God, forgive us, we had no choice. O'Rourke looked up from the journal, listening. He did not know what had made him suddenly tense as though he'd heard something, sensed someone else's presence. He heard the wind howling over the tops of the walls but nothing else. Still he felt ken walls of the fort, someone very close. He felt as if the wind had thrust chill fingers down the back of his neck. He put the journal down, and pulling his revolver from its scabbard, stood. He moved cautiously through half-crumbled rooms, peered through ragged doorways, made a complete circuit of the ruins, checked the bay and packmare, looked out across the wind-raked plain in every direction and saw not the faintest hint of human life. Then, as he reentered the ruins, movement caught his eye in a distant patch of fading sunlight at a collapsed section of wall. Cautiously, he stepped through the wreckage and sand toward it. As he neared, he saw that it was a narrow piece of faded but intricately woven cloth, perhaps the shred of a woman's dress, caught in a crack in what was left of the wall and tossing in the wind. He touched it between thumb and forefinger and it came apart as if suddenly turned to powder. How it could have remained intact in the wind for so long, then disintegrated the moment he felt of it, puzzled him, and as he watched, what was left of it seemed to disappear into the air as if it had never existed at all but was something he had imagined. A strange and sudden melancholy came over him. The queer feeling of a presence was suddenly strong again, and again he listened, turned, waited, the revolver once more in his hand. But his tension had turned to a deep and inexplicable sadness. He could not fathom it, for some reason did not want to, and forced it away with an angry shrug as if afraid of it, as if he were trying to shake himself of a dead man's cloak. When at last he returned to the comer and, sitting, picked up the journal, he read until sundown, strangely entranced by the entries and their movement down an ever-descending spiral from despair into hell. 4/9/2 A dirty, unkempt band of men and women appeared at the gate this morning. They were the wildest, meanest-looking bunch of people I have ever seen in my life. They were like a misbegotten group of outlaws of old, desperadoes who had no morals, no values but those of lust and the basest kind of survival. What I saw in their faces were the worst elements gathered from every grisly epoch known to man. Death had put its mark upon them so deeply it would never be erased. They had no

doubt seen a lot of it, caused a lot of it, had become its devoted knights-errant. Because our radios have failed and we have not had contact with anyone from the outside in months, we were eager to talk with them. But if they knew anything about what had happened elsewhere in the world, they had no wish to talk about it with us. What they wanted was food, and when we told them we had too little of that for ourselves, they became threatening and restless. They had weapons of various kinds, from swords to machine guns, and though we outnumbered them and were prepared to fight, we let them have a little food in hopes they would leave and not bother us again. They left, but I fear they'll return and we will have to fight them. It was so strange when they rode away, with their shadows long in the late afternoon. They were dressed in every conceivable type of clothing, as if they had gathered from here and there the bits and pieces of dress from any number of eras. I had the feeling that time itself, that history, had slipped from its track, was turned upside down or inside out. It has indisputably been turned back. No, that is not exactly right. Time has not been "turned back." There has never been a time like this, a time that has been thrown out of time. The last of the day's light was fading, and O'Rourke was forced to squint when he came upon the following entry: 10/11/2 The storms are more and more violent, more frequent, more cold. All the food is gone and all but one of the wells is now dry. We have hunted the surrounding land until there is nothing left of either animal or vegetable life that is edible. Horrors such as I have known only from historical records have come round again. We have eaten the last of the ranch animals. We have eaten the last dog, the last rat, the last snake, the last lizard. We have eaten three of our own kind who have died, and each of us now watches the other, waiting to see who will be the next to drop. Again he thought he heard something and listened, feeling chilled to the bone. But instead of drawing the gun this time, he remained sitting, and rubbed with the palm of his right hand the stubs of the last two fingers on his left. The middle and third fingers of his right hand were also truncated at the knuckle, and he alternated rubbing them with his left palm and rubbing the left stubs with his right. They were ice cold, these nubbins of fingers. He could not remember for certain, but assumed they had been lost long ago to frostbite. Still he heard nothing but the wind. After some time, he closed the journal, unwilling to read any more. A weariness and depression had fallen on him like the iron door of a tomb. His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold the book now. Standing, O'Rourke went to the stone steps that fell to the basement and threw the journal

down them. Then he turned away, stumbled through the rums to the outside where he'd left the horses. On his way, he looked once in the direction in which he'd seen the remnant of the woman's dress. He saw rubble and dust. The west was ablaze with the colors of fire and blood when he mounted and kicked the bay into a trot for the nearest ridge south.

1

The ravaged planet filled the viewport. From the pilot's seat, Chia studied it with anxious fascination, but could discern little surface detail because of cloud. She had contemplated it many times from her ship, or from observation stations at various interplanetary habitats or from cities and outposts on Luna and Mars. Never had she seen it this close. She had never thought she might someday be this close. Above the control board the ship's central defense-systems screen indicated that Nightswann was now in range of the nearest robot sentries. Through the glass on the flight cabin's port side she could see the distant gleam of the closest sentry about two thousand kilometers off to her left. Though it was too far away to be anything but a pinpoint of light on its sunside, Chia knew it to be a slowly turning bulb of plastic, glass, and metal, studded and bristling with solar receptors, weaponry, antennae, and other sensory equipment. There were others just like it, hundreds. They ringed the planet. She pushed the button that would activate the code she'd stolen a week before at the IWF codes center. If the code didn't work, if it had been changed, if her ship's transmission of the code to the sentries somehow went awry, their cannons would torch her in seconds. The defense monitors registered no police craft within range of her ship's sensors. Chia held her breath, heard the tiny sounds of Nightswann's instruments, distant engines, her own thudding heart. She watched the monitors, watched the instruments, the indicators, and waited. Time seemed both to expand and contract, the approach to take forever and less than a nanosecond. Her whole life seemed to be compressed into this one moment, and she felt on the brink of bursting—into oblivion or some new reality. On the screens in front of her the data changed, revealed she'd safely penetrated the sentinel perimeter. Chia read each screen again, checking and rechecking, a tense hand unconsciously clenched against the breast of her flight suit. When she was satisfied that there could be no mistake, that the danger had passed, she sank back in the seat with a sigh, then let out a shout of joy. But her moment of inattentiveness didn't last long. She swiveled slightly to the left to look at another bank of monitors.

Nightswann was entering the atmosphere. The incoming data on these screens, reduced to simple language, said the planet, after more than a century, had come a long way in its healing processes. But many areas of seismic and climatic instability and upheaval—and "zones of negative biological data"—still existed, especially in the northern hemisphere. The data told her that large regions north and south of the 30th parallels still lay under snow and ice. She thought of the cities, the roads, the bones, that lay under that frigid layer, and involuntarily shivered. "Steer a course for the tropics," she said. "Against my judgement," said her ship. Lightning streaked inland and thunder rolled. The atmosphere was so heavy, the gravitational pull so strong, Chia almost sank to her knees when she stepped from Nightswann's stabilizing environment to the white sand of the beach. At the fringe of coastal forest, her ship, through the cranial implants that linked her with its central onboard data banks and the sensors of the lifesuit, sent one more warning. She ignored this one also. All her attention was focused on what lay beyond the sand. Water. An ocean of it reaching westward to the horizon, stretching to the north, to the south. Tens of thousands of square kilometers of surface and many hundreds of meters of depth. Under the edge of the receding rainstorm the water was gray-blue, and when the sunlight broke through the departing clouds, its color brightened and sparkled with myriad diamonds of light. It was water so vast, so deep and wide, the sight and smell of it, the feel of it, took her breath away. It had taken her breath away as she passed over it, coming down. But being here right next to it, right in front of it, within arm's reach, made her feel a little drunk. It seemed alive, rhythmically heaving and sighing, gently inhaling and exhaling with a patience that was outside time. It was the same mindless diastole and systole of stars, of galaxies. But much closer to the miracle called life. Much closer, indeed a necessary element, to the birth of her race. She had seen pictures, photographs, holographs, films, but they were mere fictions compared to the reality. No picture, no image, no verbal description, written or voiced, could have prepared her for this. Chia sank to her knees on the shimmering white sand and inexplicably began to weep. She had not cried since she was a child and she couldn't say why she cried now. These tears were unlike any she'd ever shed. They were tears of joy for being here, for seeing this, smelling this, feeling it. And they were tears of sadness for what had happened here, too. She felt as if she'd returned to her origins, yes, had, in a racial way, returned to her roots, come home—but it was a home that was, according to the surveillance data, uninhabitable.

Maybe that was why she wept. Maybe she wept at the size of it too, this ocean, its wealth, its value and extravagance and its uselessness. She reached up and released the helmet snaps. Must warn ... again, said the ship, whose telepathic signal was frequently hampered by the energy-charged air, that although ... sensors indicate ... air is breathable in this sector and ... germ content ... minimal ... nonetheless taking grave risk ... body's defenses ... not equipped ... withstand ... kinds of diseases— She lifted the helmet, and the connectors inside its crown released their hold from the implant outlets embedded in her cranium. Her first sensation as she leaned over to put the helmet on the sand was that of the sun's rays on her naked scalp. But she did not go back to the ship for ointment or a hat. Instead, she recklessly peeled away the rest of the suit and stood nude on the dazzling beach. Not for long. Her pale skin immediately began to blister in the unaccustomed heat. She ran, took a breath and held it, and plunged headfirst into the shallow surf. The water washed over her, a cooling, caressing balm. She rolled out with it, out to where it deepened. She felt the bottom give way and suddenly remembered she did not know how to swim. She went under. The undertow sucked at her legs. She slapped at the water in unexpected panic. Frantically she kicked her feet and swung her arms to resist the downward pull. Then, like a forgiving hand, a fresh wave came in and returned her, head over heels, to the shore.

2

It dawned with something he would never have foreseen, that day on which Sikatre had planned to break the wild horses that he and some of the less stupid members of his band had caught two days before. The dawn itself was not particularly remarkable. There was the usual predawn chill, then the pink of first light, then the blood-red sun rising above the smoky ridges of the firemountains east of the Plain of Ruins. The women were fumbling around in an attempt to get the cooking fires going. The men were seeing to the horses and weapons, and cursing and kicking their women into more energetic action. Sikatre did not have to curse or kick his woman. She feared him so much that she was usually out of the warm hides and building the morning fire before he was even awake. Sometimes he grunted for her to come back, and she did, of course, submitting to his sexual urge with neither passion nor protest. He had given her two children, but though she had no visible ugliness, she was indisputably umon because both offspring had been born too marked by the Curse for Sikatre

to bear looking at them. One had no arms or legs and the other was blind and just physically ugly. He had bashed both their brains against rock. Whah! He needed a new woman, one not ruined by the Curse, one healthy and strong like himself. There was no such woman in this band. He had tried each of the few that looked good. They were either barren or their wombs bore the same kind of rotten fruit as Mosa. It did not occur to him that he might have the Curse as well. No, he would admit to a little physical ugliness—he walked like a crow, had a jaw like the trunk of a tree, the face, some said behind his back, of a horse—but his ugliness was not of the kind so prevalent among those descended from the Contaminated. No, it was the women who were to blame. Sikatre needed a new woman, one whose womb was clean and pure. But this morning Sikatre had the wild horses to think about, and he was thinking about them when the thing came out of the west, over their mountain stronghold, and angled downward toward the Valley of Smoke to the east. Sikatre got to his feet, himself too frightened, awed, amazed, at the thing to be aware of the murmurs and shrieks of fear and astonishment from his band. Could it be? The thing was not a bird, or some piece of rock belched from a firemountain and falling out of the sky. Despite its distance from the ground, he had seen that it was silvery and sleek. It had to be a skymachine, a thing known only in the hated legends and tales of the past, a thing associated only with the race of sorcerers and devils who had ruined the world and caused the Curse and now lived in the sky. Sikatre turned and bellowed at his ragtag followers. "Saddle your animals! Get your weapons! We are going to the Valley of Smoke!" The camp immediately became one of turmoil. Sikatre went around kicking men and women, threatening, cursing and bawling most at the ones who had enough intelligence to get the others moving. It was more than a day's ride out of the western mountains and across punishing terrain to the Valley of Smoke. Maybe the skymachine would fly somewhere else long before they ever got there. Maybe they would never find it even if it was there. Maybe it had fallen to the Plain of Ruins. For all his hatred of the Devil Race, Sikatre was not sure even he, big and mean and strong as he was, had the courage to go into those ruins. If he did, he doubted a single man or woman in his cutthroat band would follow. Mounted and headed out of the stronghold, he looked back. He raised his rifle, cursed and bellowed at them—and suddenly began laughing. Looking at them, the way some could hardly ride without falling off their horses and donkeys, looking at their ugly faces, disfigured bodies, ragged hide cloaks and loincloths and leather breeches, Sikatre the Smart had to laugh. They were all terrified by the prospect of facing what they thought had to be a supernatural enemy. No matter. They didn't have to know or be able to do much. Their looks alone would scare anything, maybe even a Destruzido devil, to death. Sikatre threw back his head and roared with laughter. But they did have to ride to reach the Valley of Smoke. That presented a problem which

made his laughter fall away to a series of muttered oaths as he turned his horse for the dry creek bed at the base of the slope. Halfway out of the mountains and on a rocky flat, he said to hell with those who could not keep up, and kicked his horse into a gallop. In a straggling uneven line, the members of his lugubrious brigands, men and women, fought and floundered in their attempts to follow.

3

He'd felt it before he heard it, heard it before he saw it and made out its dazzling details as it angled in like a giant glittering riverstone about to skim the parched plain. But it didn't skim and it didn't smash. It came in over his cave with a rush and a whoosh and then incongruously glided to a landing that made it seem as light as a leaf. Stares-at-Nothing blinked his eyes, rubbed them, looked again, trying to make out what it was, but it had come down a good half-longrun from his cliff and now lay very still at the edge of the vast expanse of ruins at the northeast edge of the Valley. From where he stood at the cave mouth it looked like a pool of water lying there glinting in the sun in that place where only until recent decades, excepting a rare flash flood or unusual rainstorm, there had hardly been water enough to puddle for a hundred years. He scrambled down the rocks, incautious and curious as always, oblivious to the clan dictum that forbade anyone going near ruins left by Los Destruzidos, let alone going near something that had just dropped like a giant riverstone from the sky. He had nothing to lose anyway, except his life, and considering his current circumstances, that wouldn't be much of a loss. He had lost his place among his people many moons ago. They had cast him out, without a weapon, without anything but the rotting wolfskin that barely covered his loins. He was a coward, they said, a forgetter and fool (his own father said this), a malingerer and dreamer who did not want to follow the dictates of the elders and the demands of the clan. He was mad, heard voices in the rocks, in the streams, in the trees, heard songs in the wind; wandered into the forbidden wastelands and ruins, saw the ghosts of Los Destruzidos, the Destroyers. But the thing he saw now was no ghost. It was not a mirage, and nearing it, he could tell it was not a figment of his imagination either. It was, however, very much like one of those many unnameable things he sometimes saw in his visions and in his dreams. But this enigma had here-and-now substance. It lay under the very real cloud of dust its arrival had caused; and when the dust settled, it reflected the burning sun with a brilliance that, had it not been for the dust that now filmed its exterior, would no doubt have been blinding. Nor was it, he saw the closer he got, much like a flat, disc-shaped river rock. It was tapered to a blunt but definite point at the end farthest away, broad and stumped at the end nearest

him. On its silvery body were what looked like depressions, pits and recesses, bumps, warts, blisters, sticklike things protruding, ridges, planes, and nibs. It was big too; not huge, like a mountain, but much bigger than a hut, big like a modest-sized, low-lying hillock, or one of those low-lying temples at the Home of the Gods. When he was within shouting distance of it, it made a noise like a monstrous sigh. This caused Stares-at-Nothing, curious and careless though he was, to flatten himself on the ground in fear, with his face only a half-finger's length from a clump of cactus. He sneezed once, stifled a second sneeze and peered through the meager screen of dry weeds and thorny leaves that stood no higher than a man's knee. A shadowy doorway had inexplicably appeared in the thing's side and something was coming out of it, something that stood much like a man but was taller, and had a larger head which was featureless, almost perfectly round, and the front of which glinted like water in the sunlight. It had limbs—arms and legs, feet too—but its skin was like the skin of the thing that had housed it, generally slick and silver but marred with minute lines and markings and faintly discernible small knobs and holes. Its back, he saw as the creature turned and began walking away from its flying house, had a dark bulge like a packsack that ran from just below its roundish head almost to its backside. First came the fire and smoke, said the legends; then came the burning winds, the exploding mountains and the quaking earth, the chasms, the floods, the great waves on the oceans, the snows and the ice in the north and the many sicknesses and fevers in the south, and the Contamination and the Curse and the end of the civilization built by the ones who had destroyed it: Los Destruzidos. This one, this creature that had come out of the sky, had to be of the race that had brought the fire. All the Destroyers had not died, the legends said. There were those who lived in the moon and other such improbable places above the world their kind ruined. Stares-at-Nothing pushed himself up, heart thumping like a drum, and proceeded to follow. But he kept a wide distance between himself and the flying house, and in doing so lost sight of the manlike thing that walked. Beyond the flying house, the remains of the walls of the central part of the dead city rose like a distant island of tall, ragged-edged pinnacles that quivered in a phantomesque dance in the glimmering heat. Between that distant crumbling core and the edge of the arid plain where Stares-at-Nothing stood lay some twenty longruns of bizarre terrain infested with a horrible variety of wild dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, spiders, scorpions, rats, and insects that somehow survived in such environments, some of them much larger, and more grotesque, than the species from which they'd descended a century past. Into that grim deathland the silver creature had disappeared. Stares had heard that ruins of vast cities, such as the one stretching before him here, existed elsewhere. He had seen such ruins in his dreams and visions. And he had seen firsthand the ruins of lesser towns, villages, homesteads scattered about the countryside. The larger the town or the city, the more dangerous, the more infested with such fearsome creatures it had to be. Stares-at-Nothing had habitually defied the century-old ban on entering such places, on touching the remains of things left by Los Destruzidos. He had recklessly braved many a

ruin, many a dead town or village, but never one as large as this. He had seen too many terrible visions, from the mouth of his cave up on the cliff, in the dark aura still emanating from the region. And foolhardy as he might be, he didn't think he was rash enough to enter this place now, not even to satisfy his curiosity about the creature that had come from the sky. Maybe he already knew all he wanted to know about the creature that had come from the sky. If it was in truth one of the Destroyers, he knew better than to go near it. Still, that wasn't much to know. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know much more. The hunger for knowledge, the insatiable curiosity that had brought about his banishment from his kin and from his village, that had left him a dispossessed nineteen-yearold hermit and wanderer in a land where to be without one's people was to fall prey to any hostile band whose path one might cross—that hunger had found little sustenance on the dry plain north of the Valley of Smoke. Maybe if he just went to the edge of the outlying rubble and had a peek... You are being followed by an onworlder. The thoughtstream of the ship through her helmet-toimplant link was weakened by atmospheric disturbance, but Qua was certain she had understood. She stopped at this news. She had seen much vegetable and animal life in her four-day flyover of areas in the region, but had seen scant evidence of human life. Excited, she started to turn, then reconsidered and resumed walking the broken, upheaved remnant of a street, curious as to what the onworlder might do. She studied the information that entered her consciousness through the telepathic interlink. Directed by her ship's intelligence, the data in her mind's eye took the form of a video image of the indigene coming into the ruins. The image was bordered by physical information about him, such as height, weight, estimated age, the distance that separated him from Chia Swann, and the distance between him and her ship. He was only a rag-clothed boy. In the implant-induced image, she could see that he was staring at the charred trail burned by the bottom of her bodyshield, activated at mediumstrength, where she'd passed along the wreckage-choked road. He would soon be cut off from the ship's direct visual monitor by an intervening hill of rubble. When the ship warned her of this verbally, again through the interlink, she muttered an acknowledgment and continued to weave her way in and out of old automobiles, parts of buildings that had fallen across the road, and other debris. She watched the ruins on each side, and the serrated outline, made vague by the vertical heat lines and the force field of the shield, of the city's rotted heart some fifty kilometers away. Another one hundred kilometers to the south, and high enough to be wreathed in snow, two volcanoes smoked. Though her thoughts were primarily on the indigene, she was also taking in everything else she saw. She was not looking for anything in particular, not yet. She hadn't come here for an idle stroll either, though she suspected she could idly stroll in such a place, without any particular purpose in mind, for hours. She did not know why this was so, did not know why she'd had an abiding interest in the devastated and forbidden world since she was a child.

Despite her self-discipline and ability to analyze her own thoughts, motives, feelings, despite her cranial implants and age, she could still experience imponderables, not only in herself but in external reality as well, and one of those imponderables was her lifelong fascination with the past. Maybe that was because she, like many spaceborn women and men, had been the product of a communal sperm bank and an artificial womb, had been raised in a children's institute on Luna. Ever since the colonies declared themselves independent of the mother planet 119 years ago, traditional familial and ancestral values had for generations been legislatively and socially suppressed as part of the process of severing ties with the old problems and conflicts that had historically plagued Earth. Such severance caused its own kinds of social and psychological problems, but inasmuch as space society had become virtually obsessed in its deification of the future and its denigration of the past, that was not likely to change. Had Chia known her parents and been raised by them, her interest in the past might not have been acute. But there were many space people who had no wish to return to the home planet, let alone risk annihilation by the EarthWatch sentinels to do it. Because she had her suit's outside audio pickup activated, she could hear the hiss that the bottom of her shield made as it scraped, like the tail of a long invisible skirt, the cracked weed-and vine-covered pavement. She could hear tiny skittering noises in the shambles to left and right, and the moaning of the wind like the sound of something dead but living. There was little to fear here in the way of attack from anything but animals, and certainly no reason to fear the young indigene. Even if he were hostile, which he obviously wasn't, since he carried no weapon of any kind—indeed, he was almost naked— Chia could have easily defended herself without the use of the shield. The animals were another matter. In such a bizarre and disturbing environment, some monstrosity could spring from a hidden lair in the ruins before her suit's sensors gave warning. So she had activated the shield. But the prospect of seeing the kinds of earthborn animals that would be prowling a place such as this—the underground zoo at Crisium was shabby and genetically improved domestic livestock in the agricultural habitats had always bored her—was exciting. The onworlder ... like you ... is obscured, her ship sent sometime later. My sensors ... many objects ... atmospheric disturbance. Chia was standing before a dead river of lava a half-kilometer wide. I have him on my suit's video, she answered, making note of the continuing image coming in through her interlink with the suit. The indigene had closed the distance between them to a quarter-kilometer but was walking more slowly now, was no doubt reaching the limit his courage or stamina would allow his curiosity to take him. The suitlink beeped an "Alert Left" and she turned. A minor whirlwind burst from the ruins east of the street, spiraling dust and debris thirty meters into the air, churning up anything loose in its path. As it skirted a mound of rubble and whirled near, sand, pebbles, pieces of rusty metal, fragments of plastic and glass, sizzled and shriveled to ash against the invisible protective energy field only centimeters from her face.

When the wind had moved on, the suitlink's image of the indigene revealed him sprawled on the ground, screaming beneath a dusty reptilian shape which was, from head to tail, almost two meters long. Chia turned and looked back down the ragged road. She began to retrace her steps, moving with swift long-legged strides toward the point of danger. When she reached him, she stopped and studied the scene through her faceplate. Though emaciated and sluggish, the big lizard had already managed, with its many sharp teeth, to chew a gaping wound in the indigene's upper right arm. Chia watched, both fascinated and revolted. In a way, she was reluctant to interfere, as if the fact that she was an offworlder dictated her leaving the outcome to fate. But the boy was a human being, something she hadn't expected to find here, and that was enough to move her to act. She sent a solid kick into the reptile's flank, the energy in her shield burning into the creature's flesh before it felt her boot. The lizard released a noise like a liftjet's ignition, jerked around and, pain and rage apparently having boiled away its sluggishness the way the field around Chia's boot had scorched its scaly hide, leapt like a released spring. It hit the shield and exploded into myriad bits of black smoking meat and bone, claws, teeth, and cartilage. The indigene yelped and tried to squirm away. He was covered with burning fragments. Chia ordered the field turned off. The suit's generator complied. She bent down and flicked the smoldering fragments off the boy. He stared up at her with horror and wonder, but she did not look directly at him. On her knees, Chia extracted a wound-cleaning tool from the kit on the left front of her belt, and began to clean, cauterize, and dress his wound. The indigene lay as if paralyzed, except for his eyes which followed everything she did. When she was done, she allowed her own gaze to meet his. This was a mistake. His eyes were larger, more round, more bright, more deep, than any she had ever seen. Behind his confusion—the fear was gone now and gratitude had taken its place, but he was obviously perplexed by the fact she'd saved his life—Chia saw, without knowing what it might mean, an uncanny power of which the boy surely could not have been aware. Not yet. Looking at him, a feeling came over her not unlike the one she'd experienced when she stood on the beach and stared at the sea. A feeling that she was looking into both a past and a future that was outside time, that she was looking into something that, like infinity, mocked measurement, defied dimension. It took all of her will to wrench free her gaze. She stood, shaken. She picked him up, but did not look at him again. The wound was clean, the boy's own healing processes already at work. She turned and started back down the road. She had to stop frequently because, though thin, he was still too heavy for her to carry without rest. When she was out of the ruins, she put him on the ground and started for the ship,

nonetheless feeling those eyes follow her as she walked. Ten meters from the ship her knees began to shake, her legs to weaken. Her vision blurred and she dizzied. She was very tired, faint. The heavy atmosphere, of course. Her exertions carrying the boy. Perhaps she'd been foolhardy to remove her suit the day before and go into the sea. But that had been an experience she did not think she could regret no matter what the cost. Inside the ship, at the flight cabin's control board, she sank into the pilot's seat and unsnapped the helmet. She hadn't the strength to get out of the suit. All she could do was punch the appropriate buttons, issue the proper commands to the ship for departure. Later she would go back to the autodoc and find out what exactly was wrong with her. Now all she could do was sit there bathed in clammy sweat as the liftjets raised her from the plain and the ship's nose tilted skyward for the familiar realm of space. But, hurtling heavenward, Chia could not help being haunted by the boy and the latent psychic power she'd seen in him.

4

He awoke to the screams of the horses and looked up into a face whose details he was spared by the darkness of the desert night. He could make out the club, though, against the stars, coming down with a force intended to split his skull. O'Rourke rolled. The club hit the side of his head. He knew, before he blanked, that he was falling over the lip of the ravine. It was almost dawn when he regained consciousness. The side of his head was caked with dried blood but had stopped bleeding. The pain of the injury, when he tried to get up, made him fall back into the brush. He lay there staring up at the ravine's wall and could not focus his eyes. He looked down and saw that he held both pistols he always slept with. The blow on the head had failed to loosen his grip on them. After a half hour of crawling, staggering and stumbling up a short gully in the side of the ravine, he reached the top and saw what was left of his camp. They had taken everything edible, the smoked fish, nuts, wild fruit and berries he'd been painstakingly gathering for days so that he could ease his troublesome reliance on meat. They had also taken his heavy bearskin coat, his bedding, and the two horses. They had left his guns and ammunition pouches. For a moment he stared at these items in surprise, then concluded that they did not know what the guns and ammunition were for. Or maybe they did and wanted nothing to do with them. He had come across such people before. They would touch nothing they associated with the civilization that had destroyed itself, even if the object had high survival value. Their hatred of the ones who had caused the final war was

fanatical, and in O'Rourke's view, crossed into madness. They did not know about horses either, or what they knew about them could not have been much. Following their tracks, and then seeing the vultures, he found the remains of the packhorse about a mile south of his camp. They had hacked it up and eaten part of it there and the mess they'd left made O'Rourke's stomach turn. The ashes in their firepit still glowed red each time a gust of wind raked the hillside, and trying to quieten his stomach, he watched the firepit for a long moment without knowing why, just as he did not know why the sight of butchered meat should always make him so goddamned queasy. It was as if the firepit might tell him something that had nothing to do with the loss of his horses and food, but something he nonetheless needed to know. Still, he turned from the pulsating coals as if afraid of what might be revealed. He left the carcass for the vultures that closed in as soon as he turned his back on it. Their tracks and the hoof prints of his saddle horse remained easy to follow. They apparently had sense enough to lead the horse by the reins, and use it to pack the meat they'd hacked from its slain companion. He overtook them at midday, came upon them sprawled in the shade of some brush beside a small stream. From the crest of the low hill overlooking the creek, O'Rourke counted three men, two women, and four children. Their mottled and pustular faces, their various bodily disfigurements—all the children and two of the adult males were naked, their distorted limbs and sickly gray skin plainly visible—their very smell that was carried up to him on the westerly breeze, confirmed what he'd guessed from his assailant of the night before. They were what was called in this region union: "Children of the Smoke." And they were all asleep. Only the bay, lifting its head and looking up the slope, showed any awareness of his presence: immediately recognizing her master, she watched him expectantly, but made no unwelcome fuss. He sat where he could steady the barrel of the automatic rifle on a boulder and clearly see each target. Then he began to shoot them, one by one. He began with the biggest male, a fatal shot through the head. This brought the others up, shrieking and blubbering and bawling, but O'Rourke had downed the second male before they began to run. The third male came after him, straight up the hill, stumbling on his uneven legs, grunting and bellowing and wielding a crude spear. O'Rourke ignored him, concentrated on the two women running off in different directions, each with an infant clutched to her chest. His finger hesitated pulling the trigger, maybe because they were women, women with babies, or maybe because of some reason he couldn't name. But the noise of the male coming up the hill made him fire. He shot both women before either had cleared the stream bed. Then he pushed the fire-control lever onto automatic, stood, and with his would-be attacker less than ten feet away, let go a short, but nonetheless

extravagant, burst of fire. The male jerked to a stiffened halt, dropped his weapon, grabbed his gut, and spurting blood and sputum, crashed backward down the hill. On his way down to the horse, O'Rourke shot the two older children, who had not run far. He told himself he had no choice; they would have died on their own anyway, and he sure as hell was not going to take care of them. The two infants were not so easily dismissed and disposed of. But telling himself that considering the lives they were doomed to lead in adulthood, they were better off dead anyway, he forced away all compunction and shot them too because he did not know what else to do. Dusk found him back at his campsite, starting at noises and shadows. He did not know why. He had killed before, so many times he could remember no particular incident in any detail. He was not sure he had killed women and children before. He was not sure that was what made him feel as if his chest were pressed beneath rock. Without the packhorse, he had to leave much of the extra food and clothing and the tools and guns he'd been using for trade. But it was becoming warmer the farther south he traveled, and in those places where he found water and forests, there was more fruit, fish, and game. He did not leave any ammunition; he did not leave the pistols, the rifle or the shotgun. He would walk, he would crawl, before he did that.

5

In the hard two days' ride from his mountain stronghold east to the Valley of Smoke, Sikatre the Smart had seen no further sign of the thing that fell from the sky. But he kept riding, skirting the northern edge of the Plain of Ruins, despite the fact he'd lost half his stupid band. He figured if he and the rest did not find the skymachine, they'd find something else to attack instead, something less formidable and terrifying. Something that would once again enable him to prove what an invincible and ruthless leader he was. Maybe he would find a beautiful woman uncontaminated by the Curse, who could give him handsome sons. And Sikatre was right. On the third day, he sat astride his half-dead mount, looking down at a village on a river. He saw women and children and men, saw fields of crops, gardens, huts, sod and adobe houses, draft animals and animals for carrying loads and animals for eating. He saw boats tied to rocks and trees at the river's edge, saw men in boats out in the narrow river, fishing with spears and nets. These were people who had escaped the Curse. Pretty people. People with straight limbs and clear skins, with two eyes and one head, two legs, two arms; people who mated in the natural manner and produced healthy, finely formed children; people smart enough to

construct huts and grow food; people unlike most of those in Sikatre's band. People unlike Sikatre—who was not so ugly as most of those in his band but was ugly enough; whose limbs were straight but whose joints forever ached; whose seed, he was certain, had to be uncontaminated but whose offspring were always umon; whose skin was brown and smooth but whose face looked liked something beaten from rock with a very blunt ax. These were people who filled Sikatre with fury simply because they reminded him of what he was not, simply because they lived. As others in his band began to join him on the ridge, some walking and leading their mounts, some walking without mounts, a few still riding, Sikatre started to laugh. He was thinking of what he was going to do to the pretty people in the village down below. He was thinking especially of what he was going to do to the women. "See that, my brothers, my sisters?" Sometimes, when he needed their help, he could stoop to calling them brothers and sisters, though he hated those he led almost as much as he hated the ones below. The men around him muttered, mumbled, cursed; the women hissed and spat at the wind. "I am hungry for meat and for women like the women down there." Maybe, he thought, I will take one for a new mate. "I am hungry for the pretty people's blood." A sudden yell from some rocks down the ridge line told Sikatre he and his band had been spotted by a village lookout. He jerked a pistol from his waistcord with one hand, unsheathed his short steel sword with the other, and raising the sword against the sun, clamped his heels into his horse's sides, bellowed a bull-throated war cry, and in a cloud of dust, charged down the slope. The rest of his band followed, yelling and raising weapons, howling their hate for what they saw below, slobbering their lust for rendering it all ruin. The villagers were farmers and fishermen, not fighters. Though they tried to defend themselves as best they could with crude weapons made mostly of wood, the umon cut them to pieces with knives, guns, spears, arrows, and swords. Slashing his way through a group running for the boats, Sikatre saw the woman he wanted at the river's edge. Against her breast she clutched a perfectly formed, unblemished naked infant. Uncertain what to do with the child, she tried to hand it to an older woman who was in one of the boats, changed her mind and took it back, then changed her mind again and let it go. Sikatre swept down on her, grabbed her by the hair and wrenched her from the hands of those in the boat. He pulled her along with him, holding her against the side of his horse as she kicked and shrieked in terror. Unpursued and unhindered, he made for a nearby grove of trees where he reined in, dismounted and knocked her to the ground with the pistol. Not one of them came to fight him, came to save her, as he ripped her buckskin sheath to ribbons with his sword. They were all cowards, these finely skinned, finely boned fanners and fishermen. There wasn't even much fight in the woman. Naked on the ground between his feet, she

lay with her eyes and legs shut tight, tears streaming down her face. He put the point of the blade on the tuft at the fork of her legs. "Spread!" he roared. "Or I'll rip you open like a goddamn melon!" She obeyed, whimpering in despair. "Shut up," Sikatre growled. "You will receive Sikatre's seed. You will give him pretty children. Sons. Daughters. You will give him children that will show Sikatre's seed is not contaminated with the Curse." With the screams of dying villagers all around him and the bawls of his frenzied band hacking and slashing and shooting, burning huts and houses, plunging their mounts into the river to kill those trying to escape in the boats, Sikatre lifted his leather loincloth. About to kneel and thrust his wrath and his hunger deep into his helpless victim, he heard the sudden noise of hooves close upon him, looked up and saw that he was surrounded by a half-dozen women on horseback, women obviously not villagers, and just as obviously not members of his own band. Since several were clad only in breechclouts, it was easy to see they were not umon and one was more beautiful than the woman on the ground under his feet. Hair long and wild, darker of skin than Sikatre, with eyes like that of a jaguar, this one held a whip, and even as he stared at her, she swung it out and down and snapped its end over his still upright manhood. Sikatre howled with pain. He tried to grab the whip but the rider quickly pulled it back, leaving his now flaccid penis badly cut and bleeding. He lunged at her and she backed off, eyes wild with laughter but no sound coming from her throat. "Who the hell are you?" Sikatre roared. "Some wild bitch of my dreams?" Behind him a couple of the other strange women were helping the village woman up. He turned, started to grab them, but the whip cracked around his neck. He was suddenly jerked to the ground and dragged away from the trees, out over the rough river shore. As before, he tried to get hold of the whip, but with his head knocking against the ground and his body raking against stones, he was too dazed and distracted. He wasn't sure just when he stopped sliding and realized the whip was no longer around his neck. Dust spun around him. He staggered to his feet, tried to see. The stupid members of his own band were too preoccupied with raping, killing, pillaging, to have even noticed Sikatre's embarrassing and infuriating predicament. They paid no attention to him at all. "Idiots! Asses! Maggotbrains! Putrid piles of dogshit!" Running through the burning village, he cursed them all, threw stones and sticks at them, kicked and beat them as he passed. "Where is she?" he bawled, retrieving a sword from the ground. "Where did she go?" He pulled one of his brigands from a horse and mounted the skinny animal. He wheeled about, trying to see through the smoke and dust.

On a hill to the west he saw her. She sat astride her gray horse, flanked by the five other women in her small band, looking down at him. Though she made no sound, he knew she was laughing at him, laughing at Sikatre the Smart. He kicked his mount into a gallop for the slope of the hill. Like all the mounts in his band, this one was near exhaustion but Sikatre forced it on and up. When he crested the hill, however, the woman was gone. He saw her dust in the distance, moving east. He saw the Plain of Ruins beyond, in the Valley of Smoke. Bellowing at the horse under him, he started down the other side of the hill at full gallop. The animal's legs buckled under Sikatre, and blood foaming from its nostrils, fell dead and spilled him to the sand. He got up running, roaring his rage and excitement, sword in the air. But he didn't run far before the strange women were out of sight. He stopped and stood there laughing, shouting. "Whah!" he roared. "I will find you. Sikatre will find you and he will possess you! He will fill you with his seed and you will have little crazy wild bitches like you and little ugly smart sons of bitches like me." Then quieter, more wistfully, he said, "But maybe not so ugly, huh?" In the east, a whirlwind was moving across the great expanse of ruins. "Tornado," he muttered. "That's what I will call you. The Wild One." He watched the whirlwind and in it saw a reminder of the reason why he had come to this hated place. He had all but forgotten the devil skymachine.

6

Blisters on the soles of his feet had burst and, along with the cuts he'd suffered from rock and cactus, left a blood-smeared trail across the scalding earth. Stares-at-Nothing paid no heed to the pain in his feet, paid no heed to the heave of his agonized lungs, the ache in his tortured legs, the heat, the coyotes and wild dogs that had picked up his scent and now followed and ran alongside and behind him at an ever narrowing interval as they waited with slobbering jaws for him to drop. He was mindless of everything but the scenes he'd seen the night before when he sat at the mouth of his cave. They began normally enough—the usual grim and mystifying series of images that depicted people in a vast city that teemed with millions, being slowly decimated by poisoned air, by earthquake, famine, bloodshed, and disease; walking corpses feeding on dogs, rats, children, each other; dying over scraps and offal; dying under a suffocating cloak of smoke and ash or sinking under rubble or into streams of molten stone. But these scenes, summoned as if by the night wind that wailed across the Plain of Ruins, dissolved into something new, something even more terrifying. Stares-at-Nothing began to see faces he knew among the dying, and then those dying were suddenly being killed not by quaking earth or crashing buildings, not by fire or smoke or pestilence or ash, but by misshapen men and women who sat upon the backs of horses and donkeys, misshapen men and women who used not only spears and arrows and clubs and long knives, but long sticks that roared and unleashed invisible pebbles that hissed through the air with such speed and impact that they tore holes in the flesh and bone of their targets. Stares had heard of such people, had heard that there were nomadic raiders who never used horses to pull plows or carry loads; people who possessed weapons they had taken from forbidden places, who were not pledged or obedient to any clan law or custom, who had no religion, no home, no life but that of the roving marauder, robber, rapist, and killer. Such people could be of normal physique, or they could be the pathetic and dreaded umon, or a mixed band of both. Such a band could be made up of women as well as men. Such people, if people they could be called, were the stuff of nightmare, and though his clan contained members who claimed they'd seen them in the flesh, Stares's first experience of them had been in what he'd seen in the night wind above the Plain of Ruins. He ran, stumbled, fell, rose, ran on, gasping for breath, almost blind from the heat, the sweat in his eyes, and the midday brilliance of the sand. He could not see well enough to recognize the familiar landmarks of his clan's orchards and farms on the east shore of the River of Reeds. He was on the southern hill that overlooked the village center before he realized that carnage lay all around him and, topping the hill, saw the marauders still

plundering what was left of the burning huts near the river bank. His yell died in his throat and he collapsed in the dust. He tried to crawl and heard hooves coming near. A rope fell over him and jerked taut around his waist. He was yanked backward and dragged through cactus to a group of laughing umon who were roasting chunks of bloody meat over a large spit. Just before they began to beat him and break his limbs and he lost consciousness from the pain, Stares-at-Nothing saw that some of the carcasses over the fire were those of dead children. From a rocky ridge O'Rourke could see in the smoky distance an expanse of ruins perhaps four hundred square miles in size, like a gray-black inland sea stretching across the valley floor. There were in fact a few lakes of the natural kind, within the ruins and east of what remained of the once immense city. It was hot. Days ago he had cut the sleeves off his buckskin shut. Now he had to remove it completely. He tried to ignore the heat of the sun through the buckskin covering his legs. He would soon have to modify his breeches too. But he was reluctant to do that because the nights were still cold. Miles to the south he could see two fuming, snow-crowned volcanoes. And to his immediate southeast, less than a mile away and much closer than the ruins in the main part of the valley, the remains of a town or ceremonial center unlike any he'd seen before. With the aid of his field glasses, he could make out in these nearest ruins the details of two ancient odd-shaped hills, or pyramids, of terraced stone, one larger and higher than the other, dominating what was left of lesser structures. A long, very wide road, crosshatched with gullies and cracks, and strewn with debris, ran from one pyramid to the other. Looking over the other buildings that bordered this "road," he suddenly saw blue-gray plumes of smoke rising from the vicinity of a river southwest of the pyramid town, in a low area just east of the great valley. He had been a lone wanderer of wastelands for years and instinctively knew when it was necessary to face or avoid trouble. He could sense danger and death as easily as could the horse beneath him, and he knew the smoke to the south of the mound-topped pyramids was the smoke of trouble. He needed nothing from whatever it was that lay by the river. Yet the pyramid town puzzled him. Maybe in his years of wandering he had heard about such a place; if he had, he could not remember it. He wanted to know what it was and why it was here. O'Rourke had decided some time ago that the only goads that got him up each dawn were the wish to satisfy his physical needs and a desire to see what new horror or absurdity might lie beyond the next hill. Indeed, when the two were in conflict, he was often more inclined to answer the summons of the latter at the risk of endangering the former. After all, when it came right down to it, he didn't have a hell of a lot of reason to rise on any given morning except to see what was over the next hill.

He had ridden through the pyramid town, and more baffled than before, kept feeling a strong pull toward what burned along the nearby river. In spite of his impulse to avoid it, he turned the bay in that direction. It didn't take him long to move through what remained of the river village. Mercifully, he shot those with any life left in them. But when he came upon the boy lying in his own blood, limbs twisted at grotesque angles, not much more than a pile of broken bones and fetid dirt, he stopped. The two eyes staring up at him from out of an agony that had long since gone beyond pain, made O'Rourke lower his rifle and sit there on his horse, looking down. He did not know why he didn't finish the boy off, rein his horse around and put the place behind him forever. Instead, he dismounted and stood over the boy. The wind whipped sand and smoke across the flood plain, blew grit in O'Rourke's eyes, blew his hat from his head so that, held by its chinstrap, it snapped back and forth behind his neck like something half abandoned, unable to break free and unable to be still, "Who are you, boy?" he said, his voice thick, his throat dry. The boy, of course, did not answer. "They wanted to make you like them, eh? They damn near did the job." Looking at the boy, at his eyes, O'Rourke felt a vague and strange disquiet. It seemed something had altered in the air around him, or the ground had somehow shifted under his feet. He felt as if something inside him had opened, something that had been closed for so long he could almost hear its hinges creak. He had not felt it for so long he could not really remember what it was. In an ill-defined way, he knew he had felt it many times when he himself was a boy, so many times that as he grew older he had made a conscious effort not to feel it ever again, and consequently had learned to feel hardly anything at all. Three days later the boy spoke. After straightening and making splints for his arms and legs, dressing his wounds, cleaning him up and forcing some water and herb soup down him, O'Rourke had carried the boy up a low hill to some trees that provided shade and some protection from the stink of the village and the vultures. He was sitting on a rock, looking back toward the northeast at the pyramid town, when he heard the boy moan, and stood. "Thank you," the boy said from where he lay under the crude lean-to O'Rourke had built out of poles and sticks and skins salvaged from the wreckage of the village. O'Rourke went over. "How is it you speak the same language as me?" he said. "I don't know, sir. I think ... my people migrated down from the north after the Great Fire came ... generations ago. Many people here speak ... English. Or a mix of it and..." O'Rourke knelt down and looked more closely at the boy. The boy's eyes were full of tears, but for some reason O'Rourke had the feeling they were not tears of pain for himself, or even for the loss of his people. He could not say why he felt this and could not guess why the boy

cried. All he knew was that the eyes of the boy tugged at him like a palpable force, pulled him toward a realm unknown and unsettling to O'Rourke, and he looked away. He gave him some more soup but watched only his mouth, the wooden spoon, the bowl. He checked the splints and wounds, and then poured another herb concoction down the boy's throat, which would ease the pain and help him sleep. It was in the evening, after O'Rourke had built a fire and the moon had come out, that he asked the boy about the pyramids. "That is a sacred place, sir." The boy spoke with a bit more strength now. "It belongs to the Ancients. It is said that was the place where the gods lived, long ago. That is its name, they say. Teotihuacan. The Place the Gods Called Home." O'Rourke grunted doubtfully and put another stick on the fire. "Wonder where the hell they went, those gods that were supposed to've lived there." "No one knows for certain. But the ruins in the valley to the east and south, in the distance there beyond the river, sir ... they are the ruins of one of the Destroyers' cities. The Destroyers, Los Destruzidos, live in the sky, they say, and I saw one." "You saw one," O'Rourke said skeptically, nonetheless feeling half-buried memories stir. "You saw one come down from the sky, eh?" "Yes, sir. This one came from the sky where it lived, and that is where the people said the gods of the Ancients came from too. Maybe they are coming back. Maybe they are going to live in Teotihuacan again." "Umm. Those rains, the ones back there, covering most of the big valley. Infested with vermin and monsters, no doubt." "Yes, sir." "Well I've seen a few of those. Ruins, I mean. Vermin, too. Some damned big rats and wild cats and dogs living in those places, but no monsters." "Here the ruins have big rats, too. And lizards ... iguanas that are larger than they used to be ... they say." "Well, I've never seen any rains of 'the Ancients' such as what's standing yonder. Heard a lot about the so-called Destroyers. Never saw one of them either. Never heard much about any Ancients, or gods either, for that matter. I've heard some things about 'God.' The one who's supposed to be responsible for it all. Who were these 'Ancients,' boy?" "I don't know, sir. It is said they lived thousands of years ago. Long before the Destroyers. Long before the Great Fire and the Smoke and the Sickness. And you, sir, where do you come from? From the north, no? How far away in the north? It is said that people cannot live in the far north." "Some live there, yes. A band here and there trying to hunt, trying to snatch or scratch up something to live on before a new plague hits them or the weather turns unbearable again or they starve. A tough breed in the north. Not many, though. Not nearly as many as here.

Farther south I go, the more life I see. The more life and"—O'Rourke let his eyes wander beyond the fire, out across the moonlit carnage that was strewn over the flood plain—"the more death." He returned his gaze to the fire. "And south of here, boy? What's there? Do you know?" "Jungle, they say, sir. Great forests. More mountains and volcanoes. More villages, more rains. Some farms and ranches, yes. Good people and bad people and animals of all kinds, and far south, a great ocean. To the east, they say, are great rivers and lakes, more jungle, jungle so thick men can't penetrate it, more rains of the Destroyers, and more rains of the Ancients, all reclaimed by the great jungle. And far to the east, another ocean." "Sounds like a whole lot of great things there, eh, boy? Never seen jungle. Never seen nothing much but desert, cold or hot, frozen or thawed, and forests and mountains. I've seen mountains, live ones grumbling and spitting fire and smoke and running rivers of lava, and dead ones that are nothing but cold, craggy rock. I've seen pine forests, scrub flats, prairie, canyons, rivers, lakes. And ruins. I've seen all kinds of ruins and old roads half buried under dust or ice, old homesteads and towns and cities flattened by the wind or crumbling under snow and sand. Not much snow down here, though, unless you go up in the mountains." O'Rourke lifted his right hand and looked at the stubs of the middle and third fingers. "That's an improvement." "Were you born in the north, sir?" "I suppose. Don't remember being born. Don't remember where I came from exactly. Likely because I wanted to forget." "You have no family, no kin?" "None I know of, or care to find." "I think we are in the same canoe, sir." "Not exactly. I can walk. Or paddle." "Yes. That is true. Why did you save me?" "Damned if I know. Maybe I'm just getting sick of seeing death everywhere." That was an odd thought for O'Rourke, and he wondered where it had come from. "Seeing it and serving it in some cases," he muttered, amazed at himself. "My first thought was to put you out of your misery, and I'm not yet convinced that was the wrong thought. But I didn't, and here you are asking me questions and talking about the two of us being in the same canoe. I don't have a canoe and we aren't on water. Now that you're mending, what the hell am I going to do with you?" "I can take care of myself, sir. I was living alone, in a cave, when the bad ones sacked and burned my village. I was taking care of myself. I can hunt and cook and tan hides and—'' "Sure, sure you can, or could maybe. You can't do any of those things now, though, not for another moon or more. So how come you were in your village instead of your cave when the umon attacked?" "I saw what was going to happen, sir. Before it did. I saw it happening when I was at my

cave in the hills south of where the river bends there, and I ran back here hoping to warn my people but I was too late. The umon were already here, already finished with the killing and burning and—" "You what?" "Sir?" "I said—you said you ... What did you say? You saw it happening before it happened?" "Yes, sir." "How in hell did you do that? You trying to make a fool of me with a story that makes no sense?'' "Oh, no, sir. I'm sorry, but it's true. I saw ... I see things that happened in the past. I see things that will happen. I don't know why. I can't explain it. It happens. Not always but sometimes, when I don't expect it or want it or anything like that. It just comes, and goes. I've tried to tell others, but ... they didn't believe me either, even when what I told them came true sometimes. They thought it was coincidence or ... I don't know. I can't explain it and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know why I'm the way I am. I'm sorry." O'Rourke got to his feet. "Quit apologizing," he said. "I see things ... in people too, sir. I see in you ... you have seen, have lived much pain. Physical pain, yes. But the other kind too. You have lived great pain in your soul." O'Rourke did not like the way this conversation was going, though he could not say why. Suddenly aware of the disquieting strength in the boy's gaze again, he turned and walked away from the fire to where the slope inclined toward the remains of the village. Once more he felt that vague uneasiness, not fear exactly but an emotion that was like fear, or fear's antecedent; an emotion that was as strange as it was disturbing. Yet there was something about it, some premonitory quality about it, that seemed good even as it seemed threatening; disturbing the way sudden sunlight through cloud was disturbing, warming, wonderful, hope-inspiring, just before the clouds closed again and the snow fell. O'Rourke felt that same undercurrent of inexplicable change, of being on the threshold of something, as when he'd seen the boy's tears that morning. "What did they call you, boy? What's your name?" When he received no answer, O'Rourke turned. He saw that the boy's eyes were now closed. The shadows cast on his face by the firelight looked like the soothing fingers of friendly hands.

7

Thanks to Nightswann's small but adequate library, Chia pinpointed her whereabouts and, having absorbed from data tapes the historical summary of the locale, was more intrigued than she'd been by the mountains or the coast. One tape had a map of the city as it was before its demise, and she superimposed this over the present topographic details on the geoscreen. After a number of flyovers, she managed to locate the Plaza de la Constitucion, but declined putting down there since the area was so riven with crevices and uneven terrain. The National Palace and other buildings in the vicinity were mostly rubble. Much of the area was flooded with low-lying lakes and marshes in among the ruins—from which water birds rose in great clouds of undulant color when she flew over—and marred by old lava beds that snaked through the eastern half. Chapultepec Park, near the sprawling dead city's western edge, offered plenty of open, debris-clear area for a putdown, but Chia wanted to land in the middle of the devastation. Much to Nightswann's dismay, she ordered the ship to land on a dry edge of Alameda Park, most of which had become marsh. With rest, reorientation, and the aid of the autodoc, Chia had recovered from her sunburn, dizzy spells, and weakness incurred on the western coast. According to the doc, she had suffered no long-term ill effects or organic damage. An occasional nosebleed continued to bother her, however, and this time, when she squirmed into a lifesuit and stepped out of the ship's side exit, she had a stronger inclination toward caution than previously exercised. Nightswann, nonetheless, still thought her foolhardy and told her so. You are once again putting yourself and the ship in danger. The region has a long history of seismic unrest. There are two very active volcanoes nearby. This particular city was built upon a large lake bed. The underlying material is extremely unstable. I have picked up a number of tremors in the vicinity since we landed. Minor tremors, Chia telepathed back. She had, of course, checked the seismic and atmospheric data before leaving the ship. It is my duty to warn you— You have performed your duty admirably and I thank you. At the fringe of the marsh, she stepped gingerly away from the ship to the broken, debrisladen street bordering the park on the north. Skirting wreckage or weaving carefully through it, she moved west, through calf-high water that her bodyshield boiled away to each side before it could touch her, toward the broad Avenida de la Reforma. The Avenida was fissured, sunk, and upheaved in places. On each side lay what remained of tall buildings, side streets, ground vehicles, bleached bones, and myriad dust-covered or half-buried minutiae she could not identify. Her helmet's audio picked up the rattlings and

skitterings and splashes of things fleeing her approach, things of which she dreaded the sight, things the mere thought of which made her involuntarily shudder. Recalling the big reptile that had tried to eat the indigene, she took comfort in the fact that the suit's shield was activated. A warm wind blew grit against her faceplate, moaned and howled the forlorn music of a tragedy so vast neither heart nor mind could deal with it. Chia had seen desolation many times, in many places. On worlds that had never known life of any sort. Worlds that had rolled round the sun for millions of years, swathed in unremitting cold and silence. But here was desolation of another kind. Here was a place that had known life but lost it. Here was a place, like so many other places she'd flown over in the last few days, that had been made desolate by a ruling segment of the planet's own hapless inhabitants. She thought again of the strange, rag-clothed boy she'd saved days ago, kilometers from here, on the fringe of this valley, and wondered what sort of life he lived. She remembered his eyes too, and marveled again at what she'd seen in them, without knowing exactly what it was she'd seen. Watch out! the ship sent suddenly. I am picking up— A sudden shaking of the ground under her feet made Chia lose her balance. She fell, the interlink finishing its belated warning and the suit's bodyshield scorching the stones where she sprawled. Rolling and about to rise, she felt the tremor move on, and saw the remains of a building less than a hundred meters away teeter and finally collapse in a cloud of rubble and dust. Report your condition, please. Chia punched the proper keys on her belt for a systems check of her suit. Data streamed across the inside of the helmet's brow. I'm all right, she told the ship. Everything is fine. I tried to warn you— Yes. Thank you. She waited several minutes, until the dust had somewhat settled, before she got to her feet and saw that the area where the ruin had stood was unexpectedly clear of wreckage. She climbed a mound of broken concrete and twisted metal for a better look. From the top of the mound she realized that much of the building had fallen into a chasm whose near edge she now could see. Chia moved unsteadily down the other side of the mound, still feeling the ground suffer an occasional quiver, as if in the last jerky spasms of death. At the foot of the mound she began to pick her way through the shambles toward the chasm's lip. You are moving too far away from the ship. Thank you. I just want to have a closer look at this. The chasm, she saw as she neared it, was actually a series of cracks whose combined width was perhaps two hundred meters. The edge of the one she stood upon was the broadest as far

as she could tell, broad and deep enough to swallow the building that fell. It was wide where she stood, but narrowed fifty meters to the north. Chia walked along the edge. Something glittered there where it narrowed, jutted from the wall on her side only a few meters below the lip. She continued toward the place, careful of the edge but drawn to the object despite the danger. Though the lifesuit was outfitted with a jetpak, it would not have the strength to shoot her into the air; she had already tested it. Designed for use in low- or zero-gravity environments, the jets were all but worthless here. Another object partially embedded in the clay of the far wall, ten meters away, caught her eye. Then suddenly she was seeing them in numerous places in the far wall, in places in the wall immediately below her. She knelt, looking out over the edge. The chasm's bottom, some twenty meters down, was full of water, in deep shadow and isleted with debris. From her belt, she pulled a pistol-shaped instrument that would give her the physical analysis of the objects. Chia aimed the snout of the analyzer at the nearest one and pressed the trigger. The analyzer hummed inside for a moment before its readout appeared in the small window on the left of its handle. The readout confirmed her suspicion. The objects were pure gold. A week later Chia was showing Hannon Ruhl a small gem-encrusted figurine she'd retrieved. They were at the streamside cottage where Ruhl was currently enjoying a retreat on Isle Twelve, one of the older and larger cylindrical offplanet habitats constructed during the monumental interplanetary colony effort a century and a half past. The cottage belonged to one of Ruhl's "business associates." With the exception of a few small farms and ranches scattered among its bucolic hills and valleys, Isle Twelve was now primarily a residential community whose residents, as a rule, had to number among the extraterrestrial upper crust to afford homes here. Hannon Ruhl, like Chia Swann, had no home. Both were independent contract pilots, and the nearest thing to a home either had known since early adulthood was a spaceship. Ruhl was even more an interface with his ship than Chia. She watched him as he lay studying the gold statuette on the grass by the stream behind the cottage. His brown body, like hers, was unclad for their pleasure; she was certain, with his darker skin pigment, he would not suffer as she had when completely exposed to the sun's rays. Watching him thus—letting her gaze roam over the several markings, the minute patterns, some subcutaneous, some not, on his shaven head, on his chest where internal artificial improvements, transplants, and implants had been placed—Chia was reminded that Hannon Ruhl was almost as much machine as he was man. For many artificially enhanced space people it was fashionable to embellish visible marks or alterations on the body with tattoos painted or imprinted on the skin, with jewelry and other decorations—not to conceal scars or unnatural protuberances or depressions, but to call attention to them. They were badges of esteem in the social structure that had evolved in the space colonies. But although flamboyant in other respects, in the way he would sometimes

dress or squander credits, Ruhl's taste for such things as badges and symbols of esteem was modest. He had the tattoo of a small fluorescent starburst imprinted on the skin around the man-ship implant at the base of his skull, but that was all. Chia went through periods in which she would succumb to vanity and indulge it with jewelry, tattoos, and the like. At the moment she was in no mood for such nonsense and her pale but long- and stout-limbed body was without adornment of any kind. A few places where she had blistered in the sun's heat were still sensitive and she had rubbed them with salve that made her skin glisten in the less injurious light of Isle Twelve. "Well?" she said, her eyes having strayed from Ruhl to the nearby stream. In the silence before he answered, watching the flowing water, she recalled with a mix of thrill and awe her first sight of the ocean in which she'd foolishly thrown herself and then panicked when she realized she didn't know how to swim. "An interesting find," said Hannon Ruhl with characteristic understatement. "A nice gift." He continued to study the figurine, holding it with one hand and running the other over its exquisite craftsmanship. The figure was no doubt an Aztec god of some kind. "But I wonder if it was worth the risk you took. How did you get through the sentinel net, by the way?" "I seduced a security guard at the IWF codes center. Found the codes while she was sleeping. Afterward." Ruhl didn't remove his gaze from the statuette. "But your penetration of the net had to have been recorded." "No. The codes should have provided protection against all means of detection." "You hope." "Yes." "And the security guard? She wasn't suspicious ... afterward?" "Too vain, my darling. She was convinced our liaison was purely for pleasure, if not love." At last Ruhl looked at her. "You had your 'liaison' in the code room?" "Of course." "Very romantic, I'm sure." "It didn't bother the guard." She reached over and put a hand on him, ran it down his chest. "But I like your little setting here better." "I'm glad. However, I'd like to see you live to enjoy it again." He studied the figurine some more. "But when you think of all the treasures that are to be recovered ... the entire planet must be one vast museum." Chia looked at the stream. "Or mausoleum. A graveyard, to be more precise." "Yes. With strong IWF edicts against unauthorized planetfall, let alone illegal pillaging." "Sure. The IWF wants it all for itself. Only the IWF doesn't realize, because the surveillance provided by the sentinel stations is obviously inept, that it is possible to land now, in certain places, without suffering lethal effects."

"What does Nightswann think of that?" "Nightswann doesn't like it. I suppose I have to remind you, the way I have to remind her, that I'm the pilot." "I suppose. My ship and I have a more loving relationship." "Sure you do. But that's because you've lobotomized Astra's higher cautionary functions." Chia slid her hand back up Ruhl's brown chest. "A very loving—and dangerous —'relationship.' So don't give me any lectures on taking risks." Ruhl sat up, putting the statuette on the grass between them. "And you saw life?" "Yes. In areas south of where the advanced nations were, in the tropical zones. Most of the northern and extreme southern latitudes are still too cold to allow much biological activity to flourish. Meterological activity is still violently unstable in many places all over the planet." "But you saw human life." "Yes." She had told Hannon about the strange boy she had saved. Her mention of the boy had left her with an odd feeling of emptiness, of longing, but she did not say anything about that to Hannon, did not dwell on the encounter, as she did not allow memory of the boy to linger long now in her thoughts. After her experience with him, Chia had made a number of flyovers of areas that indicated primitive settlement. "In the tropics there are apparently small pockets, enclaves, of farming and fishing communities. I also saw small bands of nomads wandering here and there. All primitive, or at the most pre-industrial. No threat to us whatsoever." "What is in your mind, Chia?" She picked up the statuette. She thought of the indigene with the strange eyes again. "You know, it's not the gold so much." She thought of the ocean, of the vast blue sky above it. "What then?" Hannon said. "I don't know. I was fascinated with everything I saw. Everything." Ruhl watched her for a moment in silence. He lay back on the grass with his eyes on the greens, browns, and blues of the residential area directly overhead and a kilometer away, on the opposite side of the colony. "I've got a load of 'medical supplies' to take to one of the mines in the Belt two days from now. After that, nothing for several weeks. You, I assume, have no immediate occupational obligations." Chia smiled and moved closer. "Imagine what it would be like to have our own little hideaway in someplace like, oh; Micronesia, say." "Where on Earth is that?" Chia jabbed him in the ribs, then rolled on top of him and covered his mouth with hers.

8

The contents of the hardcopy report handed her minutes ago by the head of Watch Security blurred before Allin Yaelu's eyes. Having read it for the third time, she slapped it down on her V-shaped desk and irritably, unconsciously, rubbed the virulent red scar on her neck. She glanced past Kharlo Fretti, glanced around her spacious office as if to find answers in officiously sterile walls, mute blue furniture, white floor, white ceiling, invisible but omnipresent artificial light. She was rewarded by feeling in the floor, in her seat, the faint vibrations of powerful engines heaving another interplanetary vessel starward from the surface of Koryzev Base. She was rewarded by seeing the lighting in her underground office flicker because of some problem with one of the HQ generators again. Her dark eyes came around to stare at her security chief. Standing squarely before her desk with his eyes on the far wall and his hands behind him, Kharlo Fretti seemed like another piece of furniture, tall, thin, immaculate in his dark-blue uniform, straight as a rod and right now just as inert. Yaelu knew that in Fretti's estimation she was by contrast an undisciplined civilian in both manner and appearance, though he could quickly get his fill of her sharp-edged military side in moments of crisis like this. "In central Mexico!" Yaelu cursed. Her beige, stylishly high-collared shirt was open at the throat and allowed her to distractedly stroke that part of the burn scar that was exposed along the left side of her neck and upper chest. She slapped a hand on the printout. "An agent of an IWF signatory?" "No. I'm afraid the penetration code was taken without authorization from the main codes center, Director," said Fretti. He raised his chin slightly, a subtle indication to Yaelu that he found the next admission difficult. "We have learned that one of our people had an amorous liaison with an independent contract pilot during working hours." "In the codes center?" Yaelu was incredulous. "In the codes center, yes." "And what have you done with this person?" "She has been sent to Outpost Hoarcroft in the Labraxes." "Good! And this independent pilot? Who the hell is he?" "A she, madam. The name she gave our guard was, of course, false. But according to the codes-center scanners, she is known as Chilia, or 'Chia,' Swann. She is forty-two years old, a freewoman born at one of the Imbrium nurseries in two-twenty-six. She served in the

InterWorld Federation Space Force, first in communications, then as a pilot, for ten years, and has been an independent contract pilot since. It is believed that, in effect, she is a mercenary who will sell the use of her ship and her services as a pilot for almost anything so long as the price is right. She has no home, no set base of operations, but frequently carries for such companies as Apollo Cryonics and the Moritz Triad." Yaelu put a hand to her short but unruly red hair. "So?" "She had some interest in Oldworld history, in archaeology, when young, and was once a member of one of the several terraphile organizations. That was, however, some years ago." "So?" Yaelu's eyes dropped to the printout. "Why the hell did she risk the sentinels' defenses? What could have motivated her to penetrate them?" "Mere curiosity, perhaps. Adventure. A wish to see the homeworld." "Ah. Being a terraphile yourself, you would understand, eh, Kharlo?" Fretti ignored her sarcasm. "Her background," he continued tonelessly, "her biography, attests to such a possibility. It has been tried before, you know. There have been unauthorized flyovers in the past, not only by independents but by IWF ships as well. Most of the illegal entries were neutralized by the sentries, but some, a few, have gotten through and risked landing." "But not in the Valley of Mexico, so far as we know." Yaelu rose from her chair and stepped from behind the desk to pace around the room. "And those isolated penetrations you mention occurred before the codes were changed, before security was tightened and refined." "Yes. And the situation down there was deemed still too unstable for effective exploration —or normal habitation. I dare say it is still too unstable for normal habitation." "Too unstable for us, you mean." "Yes. And probably anything else." "According to our surveillance devices." "Yes." "No. Permit me to point out, Kharlo, as if you didn't know, that just because our surveillance devices haven't picked up anything to indicate broad artificial or technological impact doesn't mean the planet's still uninhabitable. Surveillance has in fact picked up signs of some sort of human life, life capable of building crude houses, anyway, and cultivating crops. Maybe whatever that life is, it's abnormal, subnormal—what you mean by normal applies only to us, in any case—but it's life of some sort. You know all this. But I suspect the reason you downplay it is that you harbor some private ambition of your own to penetrate the sentinels without authorization so you can indulge your own terraphilic whims." Fretti said nothing and kept his face expressionless. Yaelu was glad he remained standing so that she could be spared having to look at the ridiculous fleur-de-lis tattoo on the top of his bald head. She stopped before the Oldworld holograph that slowly revolved, projected by holobeam from an aperture in the ceiling, to the left of her desk. A true image of the actual planet, the

surface details of the projection were confused or obscured in many places by the roiled patterns of turbulent cloud. "Well, to hell with whether or not it's suitable for human habitation for the moment. We are not ready for people to go prowling about down there, and there is an IWF edict against it!" She turned and faced him. "What if this Chia Swann was after something else besides adventure or artifacts? What if she somehow knew, or suspected, or was sent by one of our less-than-law-abiding entities to investigate a story, a rumor, say, that—" Yaelu threw up a hand. "We've got to find her, find out what she ... found." "She was tracked by the sentries, madam. Though she had the code to penetrate the sentinel weapons, she apparently did not have the codes to hamper their visual scanning and picture-taking capabilities. We have her activities on record. She landed in a number of places, but merely walked around." "You're sure of that? The sentries tracked her every move?" "Yes, of course. She landed on the western shore of what was the state of Sinaloa. She landed in the western cordillera. She landed in the Valley of Mexico." "What did she do there?" "Walked, I suppose." "You suppose?" "Because of the unstable atmospheric conditions on the planet, it is, as we know, sometimes difficult for the sentries to record what takes place on the surface in minute detail, madam. But we know how perilous conditions are down there. And she did not stay in the ruins of Mexico City, or even in the Valley of Mexico, long enough to have—well, the one day she landed there, she was in the northeastern corner of the city. She simply didn't go anywhere near the Chalco area, which, as you know, is at the opposite end of the valley." "If the sentries can't always record minute detail, I don't think we can be absolutely certain where she went, Kharlo. Because of those unstable atmospheric conditions you cited, I don't think we can be that confident in the surveillance data—" "It is still too unsafe to make attempts at earnest exploration. We can still detect either lethal radiation levels or intemperate weather in virtually every region north of the thirtysecond parallel. We can detect extreme meterological and geological instabilities almost everywhere." "Desist! I'm damned tired of you giving me the official line on Oldworld's condition. We cannot be absolutely sure of what's down there now, but we can be damned sure it's not as bad as we've played it up to the public!" Unruffled, Fretti said, "In any case, her ship was easily tracked at all times. The sentries are flawless in tracking artificial objects the size of a space hauler, even one as small as this Swann's. I beg to repeat, Director, her ship was never anywhere near Chalco—or Cuitlahuac, as I prefer to call it."

"Yes, yes, yes." Yaelu began pacing again, thinking, wondering. "But I want her found anyway, brought here, interrogated. I want her found now and I don't give a grand goddamn what you have to do to grab her." "We are looking, madam. She seems to have momentarily disappeared; but we do have one lead." Yaelu stopped. "What?" "She has a friend named Hannon Ruhl, also an independent pilot, who sometimes contracts for us. If we can't find Swann, perhaps we can more easily find Ruhl, and through him find her." Yaelu dropped into her desk chair. "I've heard of Ruhl. He'll be hard enough quarry himself—if he knows he's quarry. Get on it, then." Fretti made an exaggerated low bow from the waist—which treated the EarthWatch director to a glaring look at his obscenely garish cranial tattoo—straightened, turned, and about to exit the room, was stopped by her. "Kharlo?" "Yes, madam." "No one is to know of Swann's penetration. Absolutely no one. Until we know exactly what the situation is down there, and have total control of those key areas of our concern, the official word is that Oldworld remains uninhabitable and inaccessible. I only hope that this Swann is as you say, an idle adventurer poking around out of mere curiosity, and that if she found anything newsworthy, she keeps it to herself." "Of course." She nodded, and Fretti continued to the door. As she watched him go, Allin Yaelu tried to still her distrust of her security chief, but as usual failed. And for the moment there was nothing she could do about him. Like her, he had many friends in high places in the IWF Security Council and elsewhere. When he was gone, a feeling of relief swept over her; but her tension was not entirely released. Trying to suppress her fear of Fretti, and ignoring pressing work piled on her desk, she swiveled around to face the rear of the office where a mural-sized, three-dimensional star map lay over eighty per cent of the wall. She pressed a button on the left wing of her desk and the map instantly changed to the three-dimensional image of a five hundred-meters-long spaceship suspended in space, on its bow the name Centaurus. The holograph had been taken long before Yaelu, age fifty-six, was born. The Centaurus had left Nix Olympica Base 3 on Mars in 21AA (After Armageddon)—twenty-eight years after the Interplanetary Congress of Space Colonies signed its Declaration of Independence from Earth—bound for the closest star system with a planet possibly capable of supporting human life, possibly capable of having life forms of its own. On board the ship were 253 people of various professions and occupational skills, provisioned and equipped to colonize that world if it proved habitable. The last transmission received from Centaurus had been in

the year 47, when the ship, driven by the most powerful fusion engines yet devised, was little more than halfway to its destination: An unidentifiable epidemic, complicated, if not caused, by the prolonged periods of freeze-sleep necessary for such a journey, had broken out; half the people aboard were either severely ill or dead. During the thirty-seven years since that last transmission, numerous robot scout ships had been sent out to trace Centaurus' route and try to find it. Not a single scout had thus far been successful, and, unlike pre-mission robot probes to Alpha Centauri, these search craft had inexplicably but consistently lost communications with the IWF headquarters at NOB-3 before they reached the neighboring trinary. She pushed another button and the image changed to the most recent update of Oldworld. It was all too similar to the holograph turning slowly beside Yaelu's desk. A near-dead world, said the official surveillance data. Because of unstable environmental factors and unknown diseases, not likely to be habitable by humanity's extraterrestrial descendants for another hundred years, if then. But human beings of some kind lived there, cowering in huts or caves, hiding from the Watch flyovers. Surveillance had recorded evidence of primitive villages scattered about, belts of grassland, forest, jungle, and large animal herds in the tropics, a few herds of such animals as bison, deer, elk, and wild horse even in the cooler and more stormy zones formerly called temperate. God knows what kind of people hunted them, lived on their meat. God knows what kind of people had survived the eleven decades following that final wholesale madness. But Yaelu wasn't all that interested in whether the planet was habitable or not. She was interested in whether or not search teams could now land in the Chalco area, could conduct searches for a certain set of plans known simply as SD-Alpha, plans reputed to have been near completion by U.S. scientists just before global war, and in its wake, worldwide natural havoc, had rendered the planet virtually inaccessible. There were others, like Kharlo Fretti, within and without the InterWorld Federation, who knew about the alleged existence of those plans, others who would compete, fight, kill, to find them if they knew where to look if they knew conditions on the planet had improved enough in that one relatively accessible area on the southeastern edge of Mexico City for teams to land and carry out searches. Fretti knew as much as Yaelu about the possible location of those plans and, Yaelu feared, had his own private designs on seizing them once they were found. Whoever found them first, if they existed, could push spacekind forward into a new and revolutionary era. Those plans were said to contain the means to realize a dream that had been with humanity for almost half a millennium. But as far as efforts by physicists in the space colonies were concerned, it remained a dream. The research and related work by scientists on Oldworld had been kept highly secret, and any information pertaining to such work stayed behind the locked doors of labs whose security was purported to have been near perfect. But, because security can almost never be impenetrable, the records of that research were duplicated and secreted in more than one government installation on the doomed planet. (It was unfortunate that the plans hadn't been secreted anywhere in the fledgling space colonies, where, to Yaelu's thinking, they more properly belonged; but the decision-

makers had apparently deemed security in the colonies to be too fraught with risk—the colonies, after all, had declared themselves independent of Earth years before the global holocaust). At any rate, that was what a top-secret report said, written by a number of senior military intelligence personnel stationed in the colonies, all of whom had been dead now for decades. The voluminous report, known as "The Pre-Armageddon Evaluation," gave the names and locales of those installations: the Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs, SPL in Los Angeles, the Houston Space Center, and, improbably, a villa in the Chalco suburb Security Chief Fretti had labeled "Cuitlahuac," in the Valley of Mexico—a villa used by the U.S.S.R., which was very chummy with Mexico in the closing period before the final war, as a safe house for its intelligence agents. It was not known how the Russians had managed to get their hands on the American plans. In any case, every other place, so far as Yaelu and anyone else in the IWF knew, so far as Oldworld Surveillance had determined, was irradiated, burned, flooded, vulcanized, tsunamied, quaked or sunk—in some way destroyed or made incapable of sustaining life, even life protected by Dreppard bodyshields and Vivamax suits. All except that villa at "Cuitlahuac." And even that might prove inaccessible. Yaelu turned to the right wing of her desk. She pressed an intercom button in a row of buttons along the desk's edge. A male voice responded through a tiny speaker below the buttons. "Yes, Director?" "Find out what's on Commander Parquot's agenda for the day, and schedule me a meeting with him as quickly as possible." "Right away, madam. Is the meeting to be in your office?" "Yes." Yaelu switched off the intercom and returned to the left side of the desk and the remotecontrol selector on its panel. She changed the image on the rear wall to one of another starship, this one with the name Centaurus-2 on its bow. It was not quite as long as the original Centaurus, but was outfitted with important technological advances made since the first ship had left the solar system. Two years ago it also had lost radio contact, with even the farthest IWF outpost off Pluto. As in the case of Centaurus-1, robot search craft had thus far been unsuccessful in finding it. Allin Yaelu touched the top of the long burn scar that ran in a serpentine line from her hairline down to her hip, remembering an onboard disaster on another ship when she was a thirty-seven-year-old IWF information analyst. A disaster off Jupiter that had taken the life of her lover as well as the life of almost every other person aboard. A disaster that could have been prevented had the crew had a captain worthy of the name, had the crew been as disciplined and dedicated as they should have been, the way they would have been had Allin Yaelu been in command. But she didn't dwell on the memory, or the myriad possibilities of what could go wrong on a journey four light-years long. Instead, she turned to look at the Oldworld holo beside her

desk. Doomed spaceships, doomed planet, she thought. That did not mean the human race was doomed, no. The human race had proven itself to be remarkably resilient, adaptable, mutable. But it longed for a new world to replace the old, and artificial habitats floating in space, habitats and bases and cities erected above and below the surfaces of such worlds as Luna, Mars, Io, Ganymede, Titan, were only, in Yaelu's view, interim surrogates for planets where the race could truly live and flourish. The earlier era of universal cooperation, of peace and concerted effort, that had so distinguished and separated the space colonies from their birthworld, was coming to an end. Any number of incidents, disagreements, hostilities, had occurred between varied groups. Groups had even begun to form along old ethnic or nationalistic lines in some regions, and free-trade competition between companies and corporations was, in a growing number of cases, deteriorating into situations more like combat than healthy business rivalry. Because we are frustrated, she thought, rising from her chair again, pacing again. Because we have continually come up against the barrier of interstellar space. Some believed a return to Oldworld offered a means to surmount that feeling of having come to the end of going out. Not Yaelu. Granted, a return to Oldworld offered more than just the opportunity to find a copy of SD-Alpha, though that in itself was more than sufficient reason to make Allin Yaelu want to make Earthfall immediately. But despite its present turbulent state, Oldworld still held resources that spacekind could sorely use. A civilization and economy that relied so heavily on fusion power, for example, while making good use of such offEarth elements as helium-3, required abundant sources of deuterium oxide, namely heavy water. Though water had been produced and recycled in the colonies since their inception, though it had been retrieved from icecaps on other planets and their satellites, demand was outstripping supply on an alarming scale. In addition to natural resources, wealth in the form of treasures whose value was no longer calculable, such as priceless art objects, precious gems, antique artifacts still in reasonably good shape, had to be salvageable in areas not destroyed by the war and natural turbulence. One more reason to keep secret the planet's accessibility—if indeed it proved accessible—and keep it secured from unauthorized invaders. One more reason to feel uneasy about Kharlo Fretti and his ilk. But despite its resources and treasures, Oldworld was a dead world to EarthWatch Director Yaelu, who was definitely not a terraphile. The home planet stood in her mind for all the things that had gone wrong with humanity, for greed and corruption, for war and interracial conflict and the abuse of power. To return to it, in Yaelu's view, ran the risk of being contaminated by it in more ways than one. Her outlook was in the direction the Centaurus ships had gone. Thus everything else paled in the face of the possible recovery of SD-Alpha. She turned on her heel and contemplated the wall holograph of Centaurus-2 again. Like the primeval fish that had floundered onto the beach, humanity had left its original home and now floundered on the sands and rocks of dead worlds too cold, too bleak, to ever support life without life's ever vigilant and indefatigable help. Like the fish on the beach,

humanity had to make the laborious crawl out into a new realm where it could grow and change and develop into something new, something better. That journey out toward new worlds had to have a new ship—and a way to overcome the astronomical space-time difficulties of interstellar space. Yes. Allin Yaelu was going to be the one who found that way! Not Kharlo Fretti. Allin Yaelu would be the one who would find the means to lead humanity away from a birthworld cursed with war and egomania. Her fingers raked the scar, down her neck and inside her shirt. Not some undisciplined outlaw contract pilot maybe working for one of Yaelu's would-be rivals or working for one of her very real enemies on a corporate board or in the IWF government itself. Not some outlaw contract pilot who seduced the codes center guard and, in defiance of the IWF edict and Yaelu's own EarthWatch sentries, landed in the Valley of Mexico. She would have that woman's irreverent head and all that went with it. She would show that woman the disastrous result of disobeying governmental laws and edicts, of flouting the very foundation of civilization, which was law and discipline and obedience to those placed in positions of command!

9

Chia knew who they were the instant she saw their flyer land on the pad in front of the cottage. She leapt from the bed, pulling Hannon up with one hand and reaching for her clothes with the other. "What—?" "Get up, Han. IWF headmashers on the threshold." She pushed her legs into trousers, grabbed shoes, shirt. "Get up!" Ruhl remained immobile. "No point in trying to run," he said, looking out the front window. "The hell," said Chia, already headed for the door. "Maybe they aren't after you. Maybe you haven't given them as much pain as I have. Maybe the hauling you do for Security now and then will get you off. But I'm getting out of here." "Chi!" But she was gone. Ruhl jumped out of bed, went into the kitchen. Through the open back door he could see her leaping the stream and running through the shrubs of the neighboring yard. A speaker in the wall above the kitchen table emitted an incongruous chime. "There are two IWF security agents at the front door," said the cheerful voice of the house computer. Qua was right. They were after her, not him, but Ruhl had no intention of giving them any help. "Haven't seen her in weeks," he said, zipping up his trousers and hoping they knew nothing to the contrary. "We don't see that much of each other anymore. Our relationship has gone sour. She's a terrible person, worst woman I ever met." He decided he might be laying it on a bit thick. "You know how such things go." They watched him, impassive as the floor. One of them, the male, had a mouth that looked as if it had been cut open and stitched back together too tight. Ruhl decided that whatever the both of them had to say about romance wouldn't have filled a teardrop. The one with the disfigured mouth said, "You will be cummy wip ush." "If you insith—ah, if you insist." He was taken by police shuttle to the EarthWatch base at Koryzev on Luna, a six-hour trip from Isle Twelve. The cabin in which they'd confined him must have been equipped with subaural manipulators, because when the door opened, he was so docile, so pacified, he could hardly walk. His thoughts could not crystallize into anything definite, were not even aware of their own

lack of focus, were not really thoughts at all. Mentally he drifted as they led him through doors, down corridors, in and out of elevators—lost in a realm of strange music that was underlaid with a deep bass throb that might have been the pounding of his own heart, or the pumping of blood through his veins. In a small room whose walls were bare and light green, whose floor was furnitureless but for the chair in which he was placed, he was left alone. Along with his guards some of the music went away. "Hannon Ruhl, you are among friends." The voice was female and seemed to fill the room. "Are you comfortable?" He nodded, smiled, looked around. He saw nothing in ceiling, floor, or walls to indicate speakers or an observation glass. This confused him for a moment because he wanted to direct his smile at a specific place; but he didn't worry about it for very long: it was all right to simply sit there and smile and drift. The music made him think of the way the universe looked from the flight cabin of Astra, made him think of deep space, the imponderable and inexorable roll of galaxies, clouds of gas and dust, the eternal drift of stars. He was but a mote awash on the current of timelessness and that was fine ... that was just fine. "We have brought you here to ask you some questions about your friend, Chilia Swann," said the soothing and loving female voice. "We are concerned about her and would like for you to tell us of her whereabouts." Through the chair and his feet he felt the floor vibrate slightly. The light in the room, whatever its source, flickered for a moment, then was steady again. A dim disquietude insinuated itself into the music, disturbed it for a moment, but he decided it was of no importance and finally smiled. "She went away," he said, and his words sounded to him like a song. "She ran when she saw the do-gooders on our doorstep," he sang. "She ran away, she ran, she ran away." "Where did she go?" "I don't know, don't know. I really don't know. No. But I wish she were here...." Wish she were here ... went swimming in the ocean sea hee hee ... but wish she were ... here. La la ... wish ... yahah ... la ... la. "We want you to tell us about Chilia Swann's penetration of the IWF EarthWatch sentinels and her landing on Oldworld, Hannon. We want you to tell us everything she told you about it." "So. My fears have been irrefutably confirmed." Though she was shorter than Security Chief Fretti by several centimeters and roughly the same height as EarthWatch Fleet Commander Hilsen Parquot, Allin Yaelu's strides across the pavement at the edge of the underground repair aprons in the Koryzev spaceport complex caused both men almost to jog to keep up. "The EarthWatch sentries aren't worth a grand goddamn. This Chia Swann did find human life trying to survive down there, did find that regions in the tropical zones are inhabitable."

"I told you—" "You didn't give me anything but double talk, Fretti, didn't tell me anything but shit." She tried to calm down; after all, it was unseemly as well as unwise for her to become so incensed by her security chief. "The surveillance data said Swann landed in the Valley of Mexico. That was confirmed by your interrogation of pilot Ruhl," intoned Fretti. "And Swann apparently found objects of Aztec gold that Cortez and his Spaniards lost in Lake Texcoco when they retreated from the Mexica. I noticed your interest jump a notch or two at that disclosure, Kharlo." "Only because the surveillance data didn't—" Yaelu stopped, turned, faced Fretti. The very sound of his meticulously controlled voice had inexplicably enraged her. "The surveillance data be damned!" She turned to look at Parquot, a reticent but loyal ally, and in doing so tried again to calm down. That woman Swann's penetration of the sentinels had done something to her, knocked her off balance, made her recall the inevitable disastrous results of lawlessness and lack of discipline. She touched the scar on her neck and that helped still her rage; the scar told her she had survived that one. Chilia Swann, however, would not survive. Chilia Swann would be found and justly dealt with. Yaelu yanked an official-looking envelope from her shirt. "All right. We have authorization from the Security Council to proceed with the necessary requisitions for Operation EarthFall. You've had plenty of time to assess our situation, Hilsen. What is the disposition of the Fleet?" Parquot shook his head and put a cigarette between his pursed lips. "I'm sorry, Allin, but we fall far short of the number of interplanetary ships in flight readiness—'' "All right! Every one you do have that's in flight readiness. In addition to as many large interplanetary transports you can muster, we'll need transfer shuttles, onplanet patrol ships, fighters, scout ships, ground vehicles, rovers, AV's and AT's. A regiment of ground and flight personnel outfitted and trained for exploration and military operations. Your EarthFleet will be charged with the exploration and patrolling of the entire planet. "We'll need excavation teams and support groups, personnel for the operations center, clerks, doctors, nurses, administrators." The noncommittal Parquot lit his cigarette and exhaled. She looked at Fretti again. "We'll need at least three security regiments, Kharlo, with appropriate craft and equipment. It will be your job and that of your EarthForce to secure, to circle, close off and quarantine the Valley of Mexico and its surrounding mountains." "May I remind you," Fretti said drily, bending a little at the waist in order to leave no doubt of his condescension, "that you are talking about a region some one thousand square kilometers in size?" "I am aware of that fact! And I will leave it up to you to find a way to secure and quarantine it. That is all. Get to it."

Parquot gave her a resigned but respectful salute and turned for his offices at the south end of the spaceport. Fretti nodded stiffly, sidestepped and proceeded toward the Security buildings at the west end of the base. A bemused Yaelu watched him go, his thin shadow in the lights of the underground chamber like that of a blade gliding over the pavement past the spacecraft under repair, stacks of packing crates, engine parts, coils of cable. She wondered how many of his male subordinates were pleasuring him both during onand off-duty hours, and kept thinking of the look in his eye when he heard Hannon Ruhl tell of the gold Chilia Swann had found. Gold, like many other treasures, was indeed a rarity in the space colonies. A free-roving adventuress, a terraphile like this Chilia Swann, would certainly make an attempt to return to find more objects of wealth and history. She had succeeded once, and despite the fact that the EarthWatch sentry controls were now recoded, she might succeed again. Unless prisoner Ruhl did what he should. "Did you enjoy your swim?" she said from one of the lounge chairs at the pool's edge. She had been watching Ruhl swimming nude for the last ten minutes. Still controlled by subaural sound waves, coming at the moment from the recreation room's transmitter and entering his brain through the tiny receiver the police had attached to one of his cranial implant outlets, her prisoner was in a mild state of mindless bliss. "Yes," he said, climbing out and lying down at her feet like an obedient watchdog. Yaelu had once had a watchdog, a gift from a friend. But while animals of all kinds were raised and used throughout the colonies, she did not like them, thought them dirty and disgusting, and had finally had the dog disposed of. Her present pet stared happily at the ceiling. "You have a very desirable body, Hannon Ruhl. Are you a good lover?" Because she had lost the man she'd loved to an onboard explosion caused by undisciplined fools, it gave her no small satisfaction to have now for her amusement the lover of a woman who refused to obey rules. "Women think so," he said. "Does Chilia—Chia, you call her ... does she think so?" "Oh, yes." "Would you like to see her again?" "Yes." "Where would you find her if you wanted to?" He paused at that, his eyes roving the ceiling. "I don't know. Maybe ... I know some of her favorite places. I know her routes ... destinations ... when she's working. I could find her." He smiled. "Good. And you could tell us where we could find her."

"Oh. Oh ... I think I couldn't do that." "Why not?" "Because ... I can't." Yaelu thought for a moment, decided he could be pacified well enough, was likely already hers completely, to trust him for momentary release from Koryzev. "Will you find her and bring her here, then?" "Ah ... yes." "We want her, Hannon. You want her and I want her. We could have such a nice time together, all of us feeling as you feel now, and making each other feel the delights of love." "But I—" "Can you find her and bring her to me so that we can enjoy each other? Can you find her for me?" "Yes." "Good. I want you to do that. I want you to find her and bring her to me. I want to show you what kind of lover I am, Hannon. And I want to see what kind of lover you are. What kind of lover are you in water? Water, you know, is much better than a low-G chamber. Don't you think?" Ruhl's eyes dropped from the ceiling to look at her. "Oh, yes," he said. "Chia saw a lot of water on—" "Chia is not with us now, Hannon. You will find her for me, but right now you will show me what a wonderful lover you are. Come here." Ruhl rose to his knees in front of her. "You see this scar on my neck? I want you to begin by kissing me there. It goes down around my chest and back to my left hip. I want you to kiss it all the way down. I want you to kiss it all the way down to my groin. This pullover unzips. Come here, Hannon." He let go a vaguely witless laugh that momentarily disturbed her. "Here. Come here. Concentrate on what I'm telling you. You have to concentrate or you will not be able to find Chia. And you will not be a good lover. You will not have any fun unless you discipline yourself and concentrate." "Ya hah," said Hannon Ruhl. "Unzip me and kiss the scar."

10

They were a day south of the Valley of Smoke, in the mountains that descended to the valley of the Rio Balsas— O'Rourke on the tall bay he'd ridden all the way down from the north, Stares-at-Nothing two packhorses behind, on one of the stray horses O'Rourke had caught at the boy's marauded village on the river—when Stares said they were approaching people. O'Rourke reined in and sniffed the air, looked up the forested slopes and then down the trail toward the valley. He listened, finally looked back at the boy. "Where? I don't—" "We will see the smoke from their fires by sundown, sir." O'Rourke watched the boy in silence for a moment, then removed his broad-brimmed hat and squinted up at the sky as if to check the sun's position. He knew where the sun was; he was merely pondering the reputed clairvoyance of his new companion. The sky this far south of the Valley of Smoke was clear but for occasional cloud, the slopes of the mountains drained by streams full of fish, the woods rich in bird life, in game and wild fruit. But O'Rourke knew better than to think that life might suddenly become easy and friendly. He looked again at the boy. "You all right?" he said a little irritably, still not sure what to think or to feel—not sure he wanted to feel anything at all—about Stares-at-Nothing. "Yes. A little tired and sore but I am doing all right." "You're healing faster than I would've thought. Less than a moon and you're standing up to a day's ride now. Guess living with spiders and scorpions in a cave can either kill you or make you tough." "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." O'Rourke gazed at the boy a moment longer in wonderment, then sighed and faced forward again. He slackened the reins: the bay and the other horses resumed walking down the mountain trail. He leaned out over the saddle to look forward, but saw nothing except the track of game. O'Rourke had no idea whether the trail originally had been made by man or animal, had seen only hoof and paw prints since the pass they'd come through the day before; but he rode with the automatic rifle loaded in the saddle scabbard, and with the pistol on his hip ready for use. The trail followed a feeder valley that was cut by a shallow, rock-studded stream, a gash between slopes lashed by tropical rains and shaken by long-ago geological tumult. Like dark bones, stone outcrops protruded above the thick vegetable life, and high on the upper slopes the blackened remains of trees killed by some past fire stood against the unusually clear sky like the tormented fingers of something strangling under ash. But lush new growth—trees,

grass, creepers, vines, brush, flowers—was everywhere. O'Rourke had never seen so much greenery and he was not sure he liked it. Maybe he could come to like it, but just now he felt like a starveling whose stomach had shrunk to the size of a pea and was now crammed and swollen to the vomiting point. The vegetation could conceal things and it got in the way of seeing what was up ahead, obstructed the long view. So did the bends and twists of the tributary valley. He was used to plains and deserts and did not like blind corners, did not like the growing feeling of being pinched in, watched by eyes he couldn't see, shut off from a wide and quick exit. And the dense tangle on each side of the stream would exhaust if not cripple his horse if he tried riding up one of the slopes for a better look at the surrounding terrain. He could almost remember, if he tried hard enough, a time in his past when he had lived in some kind of canyon, when he and others, whoever it was he lived with, were pinched in. He could not remember, did not want to remember, it seemed, what had happened in that canyon, if canyon it had been. And he did not want ever to be caught in such a place again. "It is all right, I think," said Stares-at-Nothing. And that was another thing. O'Rourke wasn't sure he liked the uncanny way the boy could read his mood, if not his mind. Granted he didn't fear anything from the boy, but the mere fact another human being could do that made O'Rourke think there might be others who could, others not like the boy at all, those who would use such an ability for unfriendly ends. Then there were those unsettling remarks the boy sometimes came up with, like that first one he'd made after O'Rourke found him, that he knew his village was going to be attacked before it happened, that there were people up ahead now and they would come on them at sundown. They had met no one since leaving the burned river village. O'Rourke had seen a lot of horse track, some shod and some unshod, once when they were still in open country at the southern end of the Valley of Smoke, the hoof prints heavy enough to indicate the animals carried riders, but that was all. That was fine with O'Rourke. He didn't really want to meet anyone, especially in densely wooded country of the kind they now were in. He preferred seeing someone coming from a long way off, so he had time to have a good look at him before he got so close that looking was no longer relevant; he preferred coming up on someone who didn't know he was there so O'Rourke could have the good look first, before the other even knew he was being looked at. But seeing things before they were seeable was something new, and because he wasn't accustomed to being in the company of one who claimed he could do it, it took O'Rourke another hour to hit upon the idea of asking the boy just what kind of "people" they were going to meet at sundown. By that time the clouds over the ridge line to the east were turning crimson and he could already smell wood smoke. "It is all right," the boy said again, though he sounded half asleep. "We have nothing to fear. But there is great suffering." O'Rourke didn't bother to ponder this disclosure, but pulled the rifle from its scabbard, pushed the safety off, lifted and laid it across the front of his saddle. He could now see the

smoke of cooking fires above the forest canopy. The camp came into view as they rounded the next bend in the stream. It was on the opposite bank, in a bunch of well-leafed but gnarled and twisted old trees that looked more the victims of some blistering wind than anything else. A small band of maybe roughly fifty people, maybe twice that many, lay and sat among the trees. Only a few moved around the camp, helping those who apparently did not have the strength to move. Then, drawing closer, O'Rourke realized that many of those lying on the ground would never move again and those who lived did not have the strength to bury them. He had started to ford the stream but he pulled the bay to a halt. Stares-at-Nothing came up alongside him, still wrapped in the ragged cloak O'Rourke had plucked from a corpse in the boy's village. "Plague, boy. Or something like." "Yes." Stares started to continue across the stream. O'Rourke grabbed his reins. "You crazy?" "I think we will be all right." "You think—" "Please. I must see them." "What the devil for?" "I don't know. But I feel it, that I have to look at them, maybe help them in some way. I will be all right. You, too, if you want to come. You, I think, have withstood many diseases, many epidemics in the north where you came from. I do not believe either one of us have anything to fear.'' "Blazing hell." But O'Rourke dropped the boy's reins. Stares coaxed his horse across to the other side. O'Rourke sat there in the middle of the stream, the two packhorses behind him, watching the boy's horse carry him up the bank and into the abject trees. When Stares came to a halt in the-middle of the grisly camp, he sat there looking around him. Some of the people watched him, a couple came up to him, reached up to him as if they were asking him for something. They pulled at the tail of his cloak, fumbled with his saddle, searched in his saddlebags, removed food, clothing. O'Rourke remembered Stares could not dismount without his, or someone's, help. Both of his legs were still in splints and tightly Wrapped, the healing joints too tender for him to move them, stand on them. O'Rourke watched the ones clawing at the boy, at his horse, and started to shout for them to get away. Then he saw Stares raise his right leg, slowly, painfully no doubt, from the stirrup, lift it stiffly as he stood up with his left leg still in its stirrup, bring the right leg back and down the left side of the horse and dismount. The boy stood there shakily, hanging to the saddle as if his legs were going to give way any second.

Cursing, O'Rourke kicked his bay into movement. Water burst around his boots and leggings as the horse splashed through the stream. He reached the opposite bank, was dropping from the saddle before his horse stopped. "Goddammit, boy, you got less sense than I thought." He grabbed Stares under each of his arms and lifted him, carried him to a patch of grass under a nearby tree and sat him down. The group at Stares's horse had grown to eight, and were now turning to paw and rummage through O'Rourke's gear on the bay. But the bay didn't like it, stamped and snorted and shook them off. The ragged figures were too weak to do anything but fall away like so many withered leaves in a breeze. O'Rourke could smell the stench of death, of sickness and dying, all around him. It reminded him of the haunting vulnerability of his own flesh; the fact that he and the boy were right in the middle of lethal contagion made his skin crawl. Disease, pestilence, plague, were things against which he had no weapons but his knowledge of herbs and his own body's natural defenses. They had saved him up till now, but he did not regard them as consistently reliable as his skill with a gun. He did not care to be subjected to an enemy so tiny he could not see it, so indestructible and pervasive that, in one form or another, it had wiped out more people than the Destroyers' war and the deadly air and the cold that for years had followed in its wake. But there was something else about plague or any fatal illness, especially in its epidemic aspects, that bothered him, frightened and disgusted him; something so deeply buried he could not figure out what it was, and did not want to. "We've got to get out of here, boy." "Yes." But Stares-at-Nothing was pulling himself away from the tree, toward a woman lying on the ground nearby. "Hey," said O'Rourke, getting up. "What the devil—" He took a couple of steps to keep up with Stares and now saw that the boy's strangely luminous eyes were brimming with tears. O'Rourke looked more closely at the woman. With surprise, he saw that she was smiling, watching Stares move slowly toward her. A man lay beside her, the pallor of his skin and his vacuous gaze indicating he had some time ago succumbed. And between the woman and the man lay a dead infant, its belly bloated with starvation, its body covered with sores. "For the love of God, boy, do you want some help or do you prefer to just slide along the ground like a snake?" "Yes," Stares said. "Yes, help me. I want to reach her, touch her." "You want to die?" "Help me." O'Rourke had the impulse to grab the boy up, put him back on his horse and get the hell out of there. But the hand Stares held out to the woman, and the hand she held out to him, made him stoop, lift the boy and carry him to the woman instead. When he lay Stares down beside her he saw her face.

She was young, hardly in her twenties, O'Rourke judged. Her eyes were red and glazed with fever, the skin around them darkened by the sickness, her cheeks hollow from hunger. But she was smiling, and the gaunt features of her face seemed so open, trusting, and cheerful despite her ordeal, despite all that she must have lost, that it seemed to O'Rourke she was unbelievably beautiful even before Stares laid his hands upon her and she began almost instantly to heal. Her name was Luz, she said, and she spoke the old language of the region, much of which Stares-at-Nothing knew. He taught her some words in English, the northern language which he and O'Rourke spoke, and she was a quick learner. But she had difficulty with O'Rourke's name and called him at times O'Rook, at times, O'Rock, Ork, or Oak. Stares-at-Nothing she preferred to call Ojos, or Eyes. Luz was not the only one the boy healed, if in fact it was he who healed her. Maybe she'd simply not been as sick as the others, would have healed on her own anyway. But even as O'Rourke thought this, he knew better. Somehow the boy had given her as well as five others, through the touch of his hands, the strength and vital energy needed to survive. She did not heal in a matter of minutes, or even a matter of hours, but she healed. By the time Luz and the five others had responded to the boy's touch, the rest were dead, despite his attempt to help them also. Some of those in the last throes of their agony, O'Rourke, longing to be gone from the place, put out of their misery with one of his pistols. The ground was too rocky for him to bury them all, and after saddling and packing the horses and helping the boy and the woman onto the sorrel that Stares had been riding, he left the corpses for the predators and carrion birds. The five others Stares had healed wanted to join them, but O'Rourke said no. He would have told Luz to stay with her companions also, but when he looked at her bright and trusting face it left him wordless. Her band had been on their way to a miraculous lake, she said, reputed to have great spiritual and healing powers. It lay in the north, near the Valley of Smoke. Stares said he too had heard of this lake, that it was called the Lake of Mists and was supposed to be somewhere in the mountains east of the Valley. O'Rourke was skeptical, just as he was skeptical of Stares's healing powers. But when Luz told him plague was rampant in the south, he had to consider turning back, the existence of a miraculous lake in the north being beside the point. He had no place in his life for a woman who could not take care of herself, who could not defend herself. Taking into account the way he lived, if it could be called living, he had no use for a woman of any kind on anything more than a very temporary basis. But there Luz was, riding behind him with the boy because she was not well enough yet to be simply left on her own, and with her husband and baby dead she no longer felt any attachment to the five other survivors of her group. She wanted to continue her journey with Oak and Eyes, she said, and brought O'Rourke a bouquet of colorful flowers to show him her appreciation of his unvoiced consent.

She was not lazy, was despite her weakness ever eager to help and often tried to tackle tasks that were still too much for her. Though he was in country whose plant life was generally unfamiliar, O'Rourke recognized some of the varieties and poured various herbal concoctions down her. On the diet of such remedies and the fish, wild vegetables and fruit he gathered, both she and the boy improved daily. So much so that in her case, O'Rourke began to think—observing her gentle but eager nature, her wonder at everything and the way she was always smiling as if she knew some happy secret—that she might be addled or mentally impaired in some way. When the boy asked him why he thought optimism and a pleasant disposition necessarily implied derangement, O'Rourke grumbled that Stares must be addled, too, to even think of such a question. But despite his innate distrust of good fortune, he had to admit that these days were better than any he could remember. Granted, he could not remember very far back, but he was certain that one of the reasons he couldn't was because he didn't want to, because his past had been anything but fortunate or pleasant. With Luz and the boy, though, with ample fish in the stream so that he did not always have to resort to animal flesh, with sunny skies and clement weather and the way Luz in her innocence and warmth could make him laugh and feel good, O'Rourke began to feel a bit addled himself. He also began to feel uneasy about Luz. Something about her stirred inner sediment, disturbed the layer of rock that pressed down upon his interred past. He could not, especially when she was near, look into a fire at night or a cup of herbal tea, he could not listen to her laughter, her melodious voice, without feeling he was too near the entrance to a chamber he did not want to enter. In his head O'Rourke prepared what he thought were irrefutable arguments for eventually leaving both her and the boy to find the fabled lake by themselves—and then he saw her bathing one day at twilight in the river by which they were camped. Although she was of naturally slender build, her previously lank bones and gaunt look had begun to flesh out in recent days, and her skin and limbs, her eyes, her long brown hair, gleamed with the tone and sheen of revitalized youth and good health. In the day's fading light, her body looked golden. "Are you ... watching me, O'Rock?" Caught, he stepped out from behind the brush. "Couldn't help it," he said. "Sorry if—" "It is all right," she said carefully, speaking in his tongue. "I don't mind. Do I look ... good? Do I look good to you, O'Rock?" "Very good." She was coming out of the river, grinning, her body streaming, tiny beads of water shining on her skin, the nipples of her breasts taut and ruby in the reddening light. "I like that you look at me, then. If I look good to you." She stopped on the bank, only a few steps from him. The light in her eyes penetrated the iron walls that enclosed his soul. "I lost my child," she said. "I like children. I like doing what you do to make them. Would you like to ... how do you say it?"

"Yeah."

11

"Get up!" Sikatre the Smart stood over one of his umon compadres. The man lay sprawled in the dirt beside his dead horse. Sikatre kicked him, raising a cudgel above the man's head. "Get up, or I'll bash your stupid brains in and give you good reason to lie there blubbering like a gutless fool!" The man just stared at him, too exhausted to move. His eyes rolled; he was on the verge of passing out, or dying like his blood-flecked horse. Behind him, the rest of the depleted band sat or lay on the ground next to their spent, emaciated animals. Some stared at Sikatre with dull but undisguised hatred and the wish to kill, a wish several would have moved to fulfill had they the energy required for such an act. Another horse went down on its haunches; then, blood foaming at its nostrils, all the way to the earth. Sikatre turned, faced them. They were strung out for over a hundred strides back across the plain. "Get up!" he roared. "Get up, or I will leave you for the goddamn vultures!" "We are tired," said a man nearby. He sat on a low rock, long hair caked with sweat and dust, one hand on the butt of the pistol in his belt. "We have had enough of this chasing around looking for that crazy wild bitch you want. Maybe she does not exist. Maybe it is you who are crazy and you want to make us that way too." Sikatre leapt at the man, cudgel high in the air. The man pulled his pistol, but wasn't fast enough. The club came down with a force that drove his head between his shoulders and cracked his skull like the rind of a melon. But suddenly six or seven were on Sikatre, grabbing his arms, his legs. He went down under them, grunting and roaring. They were all too fatigued to hold on well, or to hit him very hard. But Sikatre the Mighty had the strength and energy of ten. He welcomed their rebellion because it gave him an excuse to vent his ire. He bit their ugly faces, spit in their eyes, rolled and struggled and fought them off one by one, kicking and raging and ramming with his head and retrieving and swinging the club. Then something blunt slammed into the base of his skull. Sikatre the Smart saw lightning flash and felt the earth heave as his face smashed sand. The dogs had shoved a knife in his back and left him for dead. But they were too weak to kill him, and Sikatre was too tough to die. Still, when he came to, he had lost so much blood and his head hurt so much he could only crawl. His vision was blurred, his body in agony, but he crawled.

He crawled for days, he thought, for a hundred miles maybe, without water, without food. What kept him going was what had kept him alive all of his thirty-five years, his hate for them and everything else, his rage and determination to live so he could have vengeance on the backstabbing piles of dog dung. He crawled until he came to a strange obstacle. He felt it first with one of his hands, and it took several moments before it struck him that it might be someone's foot. He spat sand, raised his head, trying to see—and found himself looking between two bare legs, two calves. His bleary-eyed gaze focused on two moccasined feet. He rolled over on his side and looked up, trying to see more clearly. A sharp fresh pain stabbed him in the back as the knife was suddenly removed. He bellowed, trying to see. The figure above him was a woman wearing only a loincloth, a bow and a quiver of arrows —and holding a whip. "No," he groaned. "You. Not you. The crazy one. Not this way." He tried to rise and could not. She threw back her head, her long hair streaming down her back. A high, eerie keening broke from her throat, or at first he thought it was she who made the noise, then realized it was coming from behind him, from the one who had removed the knife. He rolled over and saw the rest of them, two dismounted, the other three on horses. Then he saw the pool of dried blood only a few strides away, the track in the sand he had made dragging his body along. He had crawled no more than that. All were making the eerie keening sound now. All but her. She was making no sound at all, just looking down at him again. His spine crawled. "Mercy," said Sikatre. He did not know what kind of people these women were. They did not look umon but they looked wild, fierce. They might be anything, do anything to him in his helpless state. They might eat him. "I am your friend," he said. "You have mistaken me for someone else." He was having a difficult time talking. "There is another who looks like me. Calls himself Sikatre the Bold and other such nonsense. My name is ... El Feo. Whah." She bent over and spit in his face. "Thank you," he said, licking at the spittle running down his check. "I can use the moisture." A rope went around his legs and he was jerked and then dragged along the rough ground until he passed out from the pain. When he came to again, he found himself choking and spluttering in a shallow pond. He was naked—and the women were on the bank watching him, laughing, speaking to each other in a lilting nasal dialect, more English than Spanish, that he only partly understood. Except for her. The wild one did not speak, just sat there watching him with hatred in her

wildcat's eyes. Sikatre tried to stand, and fell. He was too weak. One of the others threw him a piece of meat. It splashed in the water. Half starved, he groped in the mud for it, salivating and groaning like an animal. He found it, brought it up, began to devour it, mud and all. The others laughed at him and threw him more. He caught some of the pieces, missed some. He tried to laugh with them. It came out part grunt, part growl, part howl. They thought he was very funny. They sat on the bank with their long hair and their tantalizing breasts and smooth flanks gleaming in the sun, their heads thrown back and their mouths open, their laughter every now and then going into the high keening which, he guessed, was a kind of victory cry. Two of them now wore nothing. All had discarded their weapons. Their horses were in a meadow behind them. Their loinclothed leader did not laugh and she did not talk. She watched him with her jaguar eyes and did not even crack a smile. Sikatre the Smart leered at her and made a clumsy bow. He ate the meat they threw him and drank the water and laughed and sank back into weary oblivion. He was hobbled, forced to hop about like a huge blundering rabbit. At knife- or spearpoint they made him fetch things like a trained dog. They let him watch when they played sexual games with each other, and laughed when his manhood rose. In fact, they thought his manhood the funniest thing about him, especially when it drooped under their peals of laughter. Sikatre, who kept insisting that they call him El Feo, The Ugly, came to be included in their sexual games. They would tease him, even touch him, to make him respond, then laugh or put a knife in his ribs or against his testicles, or slap him or pull him over with the rope to make him go limp again. It was the one he'd named Tornado who had him staked out on the ground, belly up and legs spread, so that they could coax him into readiness and ride him till he was drained. Sikatre enjoyed this aspect of his captivity and humiliation. But she did not take part in it. She stood off and watched, wordless as always, but a little smile at last on her lips. Feigning humility and good humor, he went along with it all—he couldn't do much else— but he covertly kept his pride, and overtly kept his manhood up, by telling himself that in due time El Feo the Wise would have his day, and when that day came, all the bitches in their bitches' hell would not be able to save these six from his unleashed vengeance.

12

The Chomsky and Martinsen Mining Company was considered an "unendorsed entity" by the InterWorld Federation because CMMC was not a member of a "legitimately recognized" corporation or cartel. It therefore depended a great deal on independent contract pilots willing to defy the ban on the transport of certain goods to such companies, contract pilots willing to risk capture or annihilation by the IWF police, whereas the company risked only a fine. Such pilots were thus well paid for the risk. The CMMC office on Hygiea lay on the floor of a crater near the asteroid's south pole. Steam from the engines of the powerful drills operating far below billowed out of the mine shafts that honeycombed the crater wall, wafted up from a narrow chasm and a number of small holes in the porous ground. With her payment for the cargo of foodstuffs and medical supplies she'd brought CMMC from Crisium, Chia Swann stepped from the office. The doors slid shut at her exit and she was about to send the command for the gravsoles in her boots to activate, when Nightswann's telepath interrupted. You have a visitor. I would have told you sooner but did not want to intrude on the payoff. Who? Hannon Ruhl. She stood on the lamplit bridge above the chasm in front of the office. Far below, the lights of electric torches cutting into rock flickered with the rapidity of her suddenly accelerated heart. She looked out toward the middle of the crater floor where she saw the sleek white form of Astra parked beside Nightswann, both belly down on the landing pad. Behind the two light haulers a single large upright freighter loomed like a dark parent, its nose pointing at the blazing stars. Chia flexed her knees and rose above the bridge, activated her jetpak and shot forward over the chasm to the landing pad. Nightswann's door was open. Her ship knew Ruhl's voice and would open at the sound of it. She dropped to the ground, stepped into the airlock anteroom, ordered the door closed and shed her suit. The door to the flight cabin slid open. He sat at one of the two seats before the instruments, still in his groundsuit, still with his helmet on. His ungloved hands rested on the top of the control console. He was smiling, but the smile was wrong, not genuine— and he did not get up to greet her. "Han." She stood still, was afraid to go to him. "Yes, Chia. It is me." His voice came through the helmet's speaker and, like his smile, did

not seem right. But it was obviously a difference only Chia noticed, since Nightswann had let him in. "What ... why are you here?" "I've been looking for you." "I heard you were arrested." "Oh. Yes." "Why did they arrest you? Was it me they wanted? Did they find out I penetrated the Oldworld sentries? Did they arrest you thinking they could use you to get to me?" He faced the console, looked down at it. "They heard I was hauling illegal cargo." "So?" "So my friends in Security got me off." "Take off your helmet, Hannon." He hesitated but finally did. His eyes, when he looked at her again, did not seem to be the eyes of the man she knew. They were the eyes of one wiped by drugs, or something worse, more permanently altering. "What is wrong with you, then? What did they do to you?" "There is nothing wrong with me." She took a step forward, watching his hands at the instruments. "What have they done to you, lover?" "Nothing." "Have you been subjected to their so-called pacification therapy? Are you under their control?" "No. I tell you I'm all right." "Turn around then. Slowly." "I want you to come over to Astra with me. I have something to show you. You will have to put your suit back on. But once in Astra we'll both remove our suits and ... I'll show you." "You'll show me what?" He rose from the chair. She saw that he wore a stunner clipped to his belt. "Let's go over. Astra will be delighted to see you." Chia stepped backward. "Turn around, Hannon. Let me see your head." "No. I can't do that." "Listen to me," she said. "Look at me. Do you know who I am?" "Of course. That's a stupid question." "Do you know who you are?" He stared at her. A shadow crossed his face, troubled his eyes for a moment. Then he gave

her the idiotic smile again. "Is this a game? Is this a new game you've learned?" "Answer my question. Do you know who you are?" "I am Hannon Ruhl." "Do you know what that means? Do you know what it means to be your own man, Hannon? Do you remember what it means to be your self and to be free?'' He stared at her again, obviously perplexed, having difficulty with what she was saying. "Of course I do." "Explain it to me, then. Tell me what it means to you." Inside, Chia was screaming, bleeding. Inside, she now knew the truth, without having to see evidence of an IWF implant somewhere in his naked scalp, somewhere in his skull. He did not answer. "Look at me, old friend," she said. "Look at me and tell me who I am. Don't give me my name. Tell me who I am to you, what I mean to you. I want to hear you speak from the heart, Hannon. Tell me what we have been, what we have meant, to each other.'' "Come with me," he said. "I'll tell you in Astra." "You'll tell me here." He moved toward her. She stepped backward again, came up against the door, but it did not open. He had turned off the door sensors. How much more he had shut off, she had no idea. "Why have they done this to you?" she yelled at him, frightened now, trying to think. "You are one of Security's best contract pilots. Do they want me so much that they would ... just because I landed on Oldworld? Why?" "I will tell you. I will tell you everything. But you must come over." "I can't get into my suit—we can't get out of Nightswann— unless this door opens." He hesitated, still smiling, then put his helmet on and turned to the instrument panel. Chia let him push the right button, and then leapt. She landed on his back, yanked the stunner from its scabbard and was able to hit his exposed right hand with two of the three shots she fired before he threw her off. She still held the stunner when she hit the deck. Scurrying out of his reach, she rolled to the door. It opened. She jumped through to the anteroom. He followed, holding his right arm with his left hand, the effect of the tiny tranquilizing darts having already traveled to his shoulder. In seconds the drug would reach his brain and put him out. She struggled into her suit and helmet, slammed her hand down on the stud that shut the door to the flight cabin, and opened the exterior doors. He was reaching for her with his left arm. "Chia," he said, eyelids fluttering behind his faceplate, mouth going slack.

"Tell me you didn't mean it," she whispered as she pushed him out where the gravsoles in his boots tugged him to the stony ground. For a moment she stood in the doorway looking down at his crumpled form, wondering if she could find what they'd done to him, correct it, reclaim the Hannon Ruhl she'd known. But she knew better. If they'd inserted an implant, they might have connected it somehow to the optic nerve or any number of vital nerve centers in the brain so that if the implant were tampered with, it would cause further impairment, disability, or death. Chia closed the doors, discarded the suit and staggered back into the flight cabin to fall into her chair before the controls. "Get us out of here," she told the ship. The proper switches moved on the control panel; the engines fired and Nightswann's belly lifted from the crater floor. "Destination?" said the artificial voice over the speaker in the center of the panel. "I don't know. It's a new game for me. Just go." "As you wish." For a long time, long after Hygiea was no bigger than a mote of dust beyond Nightswann's blade of a tail, Chia sat at the controls with a fist of anguish around her heart. Interplanetary space pilots were supposed to have their emotions in check at all times. Interplanetary space pilots, especially those born without family or known kin, were not supposed to become emotionally attached to anyone to the point of such attachment interfering with their work or undermining their skills. Interplanetary space pilots were supposed to obey the laws of the Interplanetary Congress and the InterWorld Federation and not seduce security guards and steal codes and land on a quarantined Earth and look into the strange and fathomless eyes of a rag-clothed indigene who might have answers to questions only those who felt anything for others might ask. Beyond Nightswann's noseport the beckoning stars danced in a haze of rage and tears. "Kiss the scar, Hannon." "Ah, Umm." Hannon Ruhl began kissing Yaelu's ear, neck, shoulder. She rolled a little on the bed so he could follow the scar down. "Do you know how I got that scar?" "Umm." "An onboard fire in the power plant of an XO-Forty, caused by idiots who would not obey orders. Why didn't you bring her back to me?" "Ah," "I let you go after her by yourself because that was the way you wanted it. But you failed to bring her back to me, Hannon. Go on. Don't stop."

"Aha." "Someone died in the fire that was very dear to me. Someone as good-looking, betterlooking, a better lover, than you." Ruhl had worked his way down to her hip where the scar ended. But she always wanted him to continue across her lower abdomen and down, and he did so. "Oh, that's nice, Hannon. That feels good." Yaelu opened her legs. "Yes. You'll do as a lover for now. That's it. Oh, yes. Right there." She closed her thighs around his head. "But I'm not happy with you as a Swann catcher. Don't stop, Hannon. Just listen to what I'm saying and keep doing that. Yes. Just like that. Yes ... yes." She reached behind her to the shelf below the panel at the head of the bed. From it she removed a cordless cylindrical device twenty centimeters long and four in diameter. Six centimeters from its bottom was a button on which Yaelu placed her thumb. "Oh, yes, Hannon. You do that very well. Oh, yes." She brought the device down so that its tapered, open-mouthed end was a hair's breadth from Ruhl's temple. "Yes. Yes." She pressed the button. The shockbeam shot into Ruhl's brain. She held his head firmly between her legs as he screamed and jerked spasmodically in a paroxysm of maniacal pain. "Yahhaaggg!" "Oh, yes," said Allin Yaelu, heaving against him toward orgasm.

13

Because of the need to avoid a number of wild bands roaming the countryside, the journey back north was tedious and protracted. Two months had passed since O'Rourke and the boy came upon the streamside camp where they'd found Luz, and neither had suffered any bad symptoms from the encounter. For weeks Luz had also continued to improve, and continued both to delight and disturb O'Rourke. With death everywhere, the urge to procreate was, like plague, pandemic. To O'Rourke, the gentle-natured Luz was beautiful and she wanted children; she especially wanted to replace the child she'd lost. O'Rourke was more than happy to oblige her in the first stage of the process. But the second and third stages, the one of pregnancy and its expected result, he could have done without. He told himself that was because he did not want, in addition to the boy and Luz, a baby to deal with. Something about a pregnant woman, though, and an eventual infant, bothered him more deeply than reason allowed or selfishness explained. Indeed, he wanted to blame her pregnancy, hardly more than a month old, for the fact that she again fell ill. Yet he knew from the way her illness enraged and terrified him that something in his slumbering past was somehow again threatening to awake. He tried to keep both his fear and his anger to himself, but it came out in little irritations and an ongoing restlessness that made the boy and Luz miserable and himself ashamed. Though she showed none of the plague symptoms familiar to O'Rourke—no discernible swelling in the groin, armpits or neck, no blemishes or discoloration of the skin—Luz had become lethargic and listless in recent days, finally collapsing while cleaning fish one hot afternoon. She did not have the strength to walk and had to be carried on a makeshift litter behind one of the horses. O'Rourke refused to believe she was afflicted with a recurrence of plague, and he knew such refusal stemmed as much from fear that he was wrong as certainty he was right. The term "plague" itself was used for any number of epidemic illnesses that had wiped out so many of the great population centers in the wake of the Destroyers' war, some of which had recognizable symptoms, some of which did not. The boy tried almost every day to help Luz, but for some reason the healing energy he seemed to have imparted before did not come forth now, nor was he able to divine the location of the fabulous lake when they reached the Valley of Smoke. "I'm sorry, sir," said Stares-at-Nothing. "Quit apologizing," rumbled O'Rourke, his gaze north, on the Plain of Ruins in the hazy distance. "And you'd think after three moons of seeing what I look like when I get up in the morning, you'd quit calling me 'sir.' Try calling me Ork, like she does."

They were near a junction of highways where the wind-blasted metal husks of old ground machines—automobiles, O'Rourke remembered being told they were called—sat half buried by brush and sand. He dismounted, took his canteen, and went to the litter bearing Luz. He removed the bandanna from his neck, knelt down and poured some water from the canteen on the cloth and bathed her face with it. Her pallor stabbed at him, made his chest ache. He wanted to see her bright smile, hear her musical laughter— She whispered something. On his knees, O'Rourke leaned so close he could feel the heat of her fever. "What did you say?" "Up above Valley ... they said ... in a forest in the foothills of a great firemountain." She slowly shook her head, closed her eyes, swallowed against the soreness in her throat. "I'm sorry, Oak. I'm terribly sorry I can't remember any better. I'm sorry I've become such a trouble to you." "I'm tired of everybody always apologizing to me. Here." He pressed the mouth of the canteen to her lips. "We'll find that goddamned lake." He scowled at Stares as if the boy were to blame. "If it exists." Stares-at-Nothing lay outside the hide tent that night. He wanted to be alone, and to see the stars. Despite O'Rourke's herbal remedies and his own resilience, the pain in his limbs still made it difficult for him to walk or to sleep; he slept as much in the saddle during the day as he did under his blanket at night. The pain also made it difficult for him to let his mind go, but he tried his best to forget the pain, to forget everything and keep his mind free of thought and sensation. The stars here were not as bright as they'd been in the mountains, and he could not see as many as he'd seen where the air was clear. The stars here were like the stars he used to see from his cave at the edge of the Plain of Ruins: dimmed and veiled by volcanic dust and smoke high in the upper atmosphere. The more he looked at them, the more they seemed to move and he began to see their great drift through time, their vast going outward and coming back, like the breathing and the heartbeat of being itself. And then he became aware of the beat of a heart much smaller and much closer and more significant to him than any star. Not as close as O'Rourke and Luz, but close nonetheless; somewhere up there, out there, but close. He began to see stars as if through a glass, through something like a window, only the window was curved like the inside of one half of a bubble and the bubble half was up there in the middle of the stars and he was looking at them above, below, and straight ahead. They were everywhere, but instead of being dimmed by smoke, they were dimmed by anguish. He rolled on the blanket, trying to drift, trying not to impose any interpretation on what he saw, but trying on a preconscious level to understand. The configuration of stars outside the bubble changes and suddenly a round object appears, a bluegreen disc wreathed in white cloud. Beneath the clouds lies an immense ocean broken here and there by

large land masses. The clouds part and the ocean fills the front of the bubble and there is water as far as the eye can see. "I think I can find the lake," the boy said the next morning when O'Rourke crawled out of the tent to build a fire. He went over to the boy's sleeping mat and helped him to a sitting position. "Is that a fact," said O'Rourke, not at his best this early in the day. "It came to you in a dream, I'll bet." "Yes." He eyed Stares a moment, then stood, deciding he'd better get some hot tea down his throat and breakfast going before he said anything else. After he had put together a morning meal of nuts, guava and papaya, and fed Luz, he helped the boy with his walking exercises. Stares was regaining his ability to use his legs, but they were still not as strong as they once were and the bones had not grown back together perfectly straight. He walked bowlegged and with a limp, but he walked. "Okay," said O'Rourke, watching Stares and thinking, Yes, the misbegotten sonsofbitches fixed it so the boy would be forever lame, forever one of the Disfigured like them. "Is this wonderful lake close enough for you to walk to it?" "No." The boy stopped and leaned against the tree near the tent. Sweat beaded his forehead. The breeze blew his long hair about his face. Slowly he flexed his knees and, grimacing, sat down with his back against the tree trunk. "But I think we can find it on horseback in a day or two." "You hear that, Luz? Eyes says he can find the lake." "I hear," she said weakly from the tent. "I believe Eyes can do it, Oak." O'Rourke turned and went to the tent, knelt and looked in at her. She smiled at him from her sleeping robe and lifted a hand for him to take. A sudden sadness, and the fear again, hit him. O'Rourke was painfully aware of this capacity for feeling that had grown since meeting the boy and then Luz. He liked it and was afraid of it, remotely remembered what it could do when you lost the one you had this feeling for, though he could not—or did not want to, refused to—remember who he had lost in the past. He took the hand. The warmth, the strange yearning inside him, his simple appreciation that someone like her existed, wanted to be voiced, to be expressed, but he did not have the words for it. The words seemed lodged in his throat like rock choking off the flow of a stream. And because he could not say the words, he felt much like a backed-up pool gone stagnant. He squeezed the hand and the pool stirred; but then he let her hand go, got up and began breaking camp. He did not want to think about, did not want to feel such things. That night they camped on a knoll farther north along the Valley's east side, near a cluster of ruins, and O'Rourke got a chance to do what he did best. Fortunately he was the one sleeping outside the tent this time. Rarely a heavy sleeper, he

awoke when the wind shifted, and lay there on his bedding, blinking away sleep and listening. In seconds he smelled the dogs. He was instantly up, strapping on his gunbelt, finding his machete and the rifle, damned glad that tonight the boy was sleeping in the tent with Luz. The wind bore the smell from the southwest where the cluster of half-fallen-in ruins lay. It could be a pack of wolves, coyotes, wild mongrels descended from village dogs or escaped from the dead city on the Plain, or a deadly mix of all four. Close. He could hear them now, rustling through the brush just below the brow of the knoll, sniffing the air and the ground as they tried to pick up the scent they'd lost when the wind changed. He could hear some of them whining, whimpering with hunger, and the sound made his flesh crawl. The moon was a thin crescent that provided little light, but it and the myriad stars enabled him to make out the dark, shaggy forms moving up through the brush. It was a large pack, maybe twenty-five or thirty beasts. He hated using up ammunition on dogs but knew he couldn't stop them all with the machete. With missing fingers on both hands, the machete would be a tiring and troublesome weapon at best. In any case, he might not be able to stop them all no matter what he used. Standing between the oncoming pack and the tent, with the automatic rifle against his hip, O'Rourke tried to discern the leader. There were two in front, both of them big. He squeezed the trigger, let go a burst into one. The other was already in the air when he fired the second burst and that one, knocked backward by the force of the bullets, fell dead. They were too hunger-crazed to care what had happened to the two he'd dropped. The rush did not slow at all. He fired into the middle of them, emptying the rifle's long clip. But one was at his leg, another at his right arm, before he could reload. He fell on top of the one chewing on his arm, breaking the bastard's back when he slammed it against the ground. He rolled, pulling one of the pistols, and while trying to kick off the one at his leg, fired into the face of another coming for his neck. The night was filled with slobbering fangs, with growls and yelps, rank hair and small narrow eyes that burned with the need to kill and eat. He emptied the pistol with his left hand and drew the machete. His right arm was so mangled he could not hold anything with that hand. Nor could he stand on the leg that had been chewed. On his knees, he swung out left and right—until he realized the blade was no longer cutting anything but air, that the attack was over and that the wounded remnants of the pack were dragging themselves off down the hillside and into the brush. He slumped to a sitting position, still holding the bloody machete, the pain and fear, now that it was over, starting to exact their toll. "Oak? Are you all right?" It was Luz's weak voice. He looked at the front of the tent and saw both her and Stares with their heads stuck out

the door. "Thought we could use some fresh meat," he joked between gasps for breath. He kicked away one twitching carcass. "Not much here but hair and bones, though. Like me." The thought of eating even a sliver of one of the stinking carcasses, no matter how carefully seasoned and cooked, made him almost lose his supper. Luz crawled out on her hands and knees. "Oh," she said. "Oh, my poor Oak." "You're ill," he panted. "Get back in the tent." "You come in. We must make you good again. Come. I can do that. Eyes will help. You do good for us all the time. You risk your life. We do good for you now, Oak. Please come." She put her arms around him. His blood soaked the front of her nightshirt. "Luz." Something tried to rise up, tried to burst from his throat, an unfathomable ache, a longing, a fear, but it came out only a strangled noise and he fainted. In a cold drizzle that had lasted through the night and most of the next day, a carefully bandaged and wound-tender O'Rourke led them, according to Stares's directions, up into the eastern foothills above the Plain of Ruins. They were following a trail Stares thought he remembered from his dream. Twice on this trail O'Rourke had had to threaten people with his guns when they tried to take the horses; in one incident, he had shot the ear off a man. He had intended to kill the man, he grumbled later, but shooting left-handed because of his injured right hand and arm, had affected his aim. Stares had learned that it was futile to point out to O'Rourke, especially when he was in a bad mood, that there were nonviolent ways to avoid violence. And even Stares acknowledged that sometimes no alternative was evident. At such times he thought of the strange creature from the sky, of the way the big iguana had burst apart when it tried to attack the skybeing. Stares-at-Nothing longed for the kind of power that would turn a would-be attacker into a friend, the kind of power that would turn violence into peace, discord into harmony, fear into courage and good faith, ignorance and stupidity into knowledge and wisdom, into understanding and enlightenment. He longed for the kind of power that would transform hate to love. "Hey, boy. You asleep?" O'Rourke said, looking back. Stares opened his eyes. The rain had stopped. They had come to a halt at the edge of the timber. Below them, glimmering in sunlight bursting through the breaking clouds, he saw what might be a lake. Fog or steam lay over much of it and it took him a moment to be sure; but the longer he looked, the surer he became. His last doubt lifted with the rise of a flock of colorful water birds from the surface. This was the lake he'd seen in his dream. "We are come," said Luz. "The Lake of Mists. Now we will be made good again." "Been my experience," said O'Rourke, rain dripping off the brim of his hat, "that anything

good will attract the kind of snake that wants it all for himself, or the kind of snake who'll try to find a way to get payment for the use of it." From under her robe on the litter where she had sat up to see around O'Rourke's horse, Luz smiled. "You always think the bad, Oak." "Ain't seen much of anything else." "You always think bad and you are so good," persisted Luz. "Some others ... must be like you and Eyes. Good." For a moment O'Rourke looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or growl. "It occurs to me I've done you both a disservice with my cynical remark." He contemplated Stares's grin and finally grinned himself and said, "But let's go down and see how many good folk there are, like me." The lake was long and narrow, large enough to support several small villages at various places along its shore, but the major village sat at its northern end, where the littoral was most level and least rocky and much of the area was protected by trees. No doubt storms with dangerous winds could develop on the upper slopes of the firemountain to the southeast, come down and wreak havoc on the lake. In fact, the lake lay on a shelf of the firemountain's northwest slope, and with the upper wind blowing westward, the smoke from the mountain's snowy cone could be seen as a dark smear of black against the otherwise clearing sky. Another volcano stood north of this one, and a third to the south, taller and larger than the other two. In entering the Valley from the south, they had come over a pass which cut through a ridge extending from the base of the largest one. Popocatepetl it had been called by the Old Ones, the boy had said. West of the lake, downslope toward the Plain and overgrown with forest, lay ruins where the suburbs of the once vast city had reached into the foothills. Here and there in the vicinity of the lake stood the remains of structures built before the Destroyers warred and the Darkness came. The few lake dwellers who were outside their tents and huts gave the three newcomers scarcely a glance. It was probable that people came and went here like debris blown on desultory winds. The primary building materials were skin and thatch, though a few dwellings were made of adobe, a fewer still of wood or rock. Gardens were most abundant on the west side of the lake where the soil was not as rocky as it was upslope, but the level part of the west shore was too narrow for any sizeable fields of crops or orchards to thrive. Immediately downslope, much of the ground was terraced for farming, but the encroaching tangle of tropical forest below cut short this type of cultivation also. Goats, pigs, turkeys, and chickens were penned beside huts, or running loose. Fishnets were strung up between huts to dry. Piles of bones and scattered bone implements suggested that the lake dwellers augmented tools taken from forbidden ruins with those they made themselves.

Nothing, however, had the look of real permanence until the three came to the north end of the lake. A large stone church fronted by a long flight of steps stood a hundred strides from the shore. At the top of the steps two huge double wooden doors were bordered by a white cross on each side. To left and right were narrow and high arched windows shuttered against the rain. A number of long, narrow stone buildings with small windows sat back in the trees behind the church, and west of these were fields of vegetables and grain and several orchards. East of the church complex were pens, sheds, and barns for animals and the storage of hay and corn. As the three neared the church, a tall man with long gray hair and a long mottled beard emerged from its front doors. He was dressed in a plain black robe that fell to his feet, and he had the air of someone who thought himself very important. O'Rourke reined in and Stares pulled up beside him. The tall man raised an open palm in greeting but did not smile and did not make any move to descend the steps. His eyes were dark and piercing. "Bienvenido," he called down in the old language of this region, the tongue that Luz understood. Then he said something else and it didn't sound friendly. "What?" said O'Rourke. He looked back at Luz, who was sitting up on the litter, looking around the bay. "What did he say?" "He said instruments of Los Destruzidos are not permitted." "Huh?" "He means your guns," Stares said. O'Rourke's pistols and the rifle were hidden under his leather poncho which fell over his saddle and legs; but the church dweller apparently knew he had them. How, O'Rourke could not guess. No doubt he looked like the kind who would carry guns. "Who the hell are you to tell me what's not permitted?" "This is holy ground," the man said in O'Rourke's tongue. "Maybe to you. To me, it's just ground. You look me over and guess that I'm armed. I can read you too, preacher or priest or whatever you want to call yourself. I've seen your kind before, and you don't own the ground I'm on or that lake any more than I do." "We are the servants of God and holy healers. The lake alone will not help the woman. If you want her healed, then you will do as I say." Though O'Rourke was obviously wounded and bandaged, the man could have assumed Luz was the sick one since she was on the litter. Nothing supernatural about that. "See, boy," O'Rourke said to Stares. "There's always some sonofabitch who names a price for something he's decided he owns." He looked again at the "holy healer," removed his still damp hat and slapped it on his thigh. O'Rourke's eyes went again over the crude facade of the church. "Los Destruzidos built stone buildings like yours," he said, "built them to last, but they didn't. Los Destruzidos built

great churches in which they worshiped power and property, in which they tried to reduce religion to property as well. All of it fell, your radiant holiness. Every goddamn brick and cornerstone. But I figured I'd see something like you someday." He didn't know where he'd picked up such a title as "your radiant holiness," didn't know where he'd learned about what he'd just said—he'd met and talked with a lot of people on his wandering down from El Norte—but it came out of him now as natural as it was sarcastic. The man's intense and burning stare did not waver from O'Rourke's face. On the litter, Luz groaned and lay back down. "But I'll take my guns into the forest and bury them," O'Rourke said, "because the woman needs help and I would do nothing to complicate her getting it. You make me regret burying my guns, though, and you'll be the next goddamn thing to be buried." "This," said the holy man, "is a place of healing, of love and peace. Bury your belligerence with your weapons of hatred and death—or do not return to our lake." He turned, reentered the church, and another priest, unseen inside till now, shut the two heavy wooden doors with a thunderous noise. O'Rourke sat for a moment more, looking up at the stone porch where the man had stood. Finally he turned the bay's head for a stream that ran into the forest east of the lake. Stares followed with the packhorses. By the stream, O'Rourke dismounted and helped the boy down. Then he untied Luz's litter from his saddle, and with Stares, erected a lean-to over her. When he remounted, he said nothing to either Luz or the boy as he jerked the bay's head for a forest trail on the other side of the stream.

14

Sikatre the Smart had fooled his female captors into thinking they could trust him enough to leave him free of bonds during the daylight hours. He rode with them now without fetters. True, he rode at the rear and on a donkey tied to the woman in front of him, but he rode with his hands loose. He was allowed to move freely about camp, to do the tasks they gave him without being under constant watch by at least one. Like a dumb animal untroubled by his fate, he did as he was told. They still abused him, verbally, physically, sexually, but not as much as before. At times, he wondered if he was a plaything that was quickly losing its novelty. While the others still had their fun with him, the one he wanted had ceased paying much attention to him at all. He didn't like that in a way, and in a way he did. She was the leader, the one who was the most intelligent and energetic. She was the most beautiful, the one most desirable. He wanted her attention even if it meant being subjected to pain; but he also wanted her to ignore him in case the opportunity for reprisal and escape arose. She kept them moving so much it was difficult for him to formulate any sort of a plan. They hardly camped in the same place for more than a night or two. She was as restless as the wind, and at times she would have them up in the middle of the night, breaking camp, saddling their mounts and packhorses, moving out without any definite goal or destination in mind—or if she had a goal or destination, she kept it to herself. She did not speak except through sign language, but the rest of the women, like many people in the Valley, spoke a mix of the northern tongue and the old language of the region. They wandered and traded and raided a village now and then, even ventured into ruins left by those who brought the Rain of Fire on the world and caused the Great Sickness and the Curse. And though the other members of her little band hated these places, Tornado seemed to regard them with the same wild and fearless contempt with which she looked on everything else. Sikatre had never met either man or woman as restless and reckless as she was. Once they had come upon a small herd of wild cattle on a plain and she had tried to ride the bull that dominated the herd, and was almost gored and trampled to death. She would often wear only a loincloth, her leather bracelets, her quiver, bow, beaded belt with its dagger, and her moccasins, with her whip tied to her saddle. She sometimes raided this way, long hair streaming behind her and her horse at full gallop through some camp or village, with her companions' throats vibrating with the high keening cry they liked to make. But she made no sound at all. When the raid was successful, the other women would sometimes force themselves on a man or two among the victims, and if in their fear and confusion the men could not respond

to attempts to make them ready, the women had them lie down so they could straddle the men's faces and receive satisfaction that way. Sikatre the Smart thought such behavior was funny and laughed about it, only to receive the Tornado's whip across his face. She took no part in these rapes. And God help the man who tried to make a sexual advance on her. Although she plundered, she did not kill, as Sikatre might, for the simple pleasure of killing. She killed only men, and only then to protect herself or her companions. None of them exerted any effort to protect Sikatre, and weaponless, he usually came out of a raid looking like something that had been used for target practice, with at least one wound if not half a. dozen. He would have to treat the wounds himself. It was plain they did not care much whether he survived or not—or perhaps were curious as to just how much abuse he could take before he expired. She would not touch him. When the other women were using him as their sexual plaything she might sit off somewhere and watch; she might give them ideas, suggestions, as to what the women could do to him, but that was all. He would grin at her and beckon her to join in, and she would stare at him with those eyes of icy jade, with a look that made him wonder if she were not planning some unimaginable horror reserved especially for her to perform on him. Or maybe she was observing Sikatre's performance with the other women in order to decide what he did best, so she could encourage him to improve upon it when the time came for him to perform on her. Sikatre of course liked that possibility best. Thinking about the other one made it difficult for him to perform at all. At a place where brush and forest had all but obscured an old crossroads, the half-tumbled remains of some squat stucco buildings stood in the broiling midday sun. Tornado, whose real name was Zi, reined in and dismounted before the ruins. The upper part of her body was draped with a badly torn and dirty cotton tunic that she wore to protect herself from overexposure to the sun. Now off her horse, where she sometimes threw a blanket over her thighs to protect them, her legs were bare. The other women were similarly attired. Sikatre had on what was left of a deerskin loincloth; his own skin was too tough to burn much. With the exception of Tornado, or Zi, he was much darker than the other women, who, he'd learned, had all come down from the north no more than a few summers ago. But the Tornado's chocolate brown skin was darker than his own. Sikatre had tried to convince her that meant they were descended from the same ancestry, were maybe even kin, but she had merely looked at him with disgust and turned away. The other women dismounted and so did Sikatre. As was their routine, a couple of them moved to each side of him as they all followed Zi to the open doorway that separated the cracked and roofless front wall. A piece of the door's heavy wooden frame lay at an angle across the opening. Zi motioned for Sikatre to come forward. Move it, she signed to him. He bowed affably, and in keeping with his act, said, "Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to remove this obstacle from your path, O Beautiful One. Thank you for giving me this

opportunity to stand so close to you—" "Just shut up and move it," one of the others said. "Of course, of course. Sikatre the Stupid will do as he is told, like always." He leaned into the length of wood, dislodged the end that was caught in the side of the door and stepped back as more loose masonry fell in the opening. Then he stooped and removed the rubble from out of her way, and backed to the side. Zi entered, stepping over and around piles of debris. She waved an arm for him to get in front of her and clear the way for her to walk. He obeyed, grunting, grinding his teeth as he sweated and strained against masonry and mortar, moving it all to left and right so the queenly bitch could pass. He was heaving away a four-foot-wide section of inner wall when the wooden floor beneath him suddenly gave way and he plummeted like a boulder into a basement room. Dazed for a moment, he lay there looking up at the hole he'd fallen through, seeing through the dust swimming in the shaft of sunlight from above the faces of the six women peering down at him. He lay there for a moment longer, grinning up at them, savoring their attention and the opportunity to rest. It was cool down here, though he could hear rats or small animals of some kind scuffling and scratching and shrieking somewhere nearby and that made him think of plague. Get up, the Tornado motioned from above. We will drop down in there and you will catch us. "Thank you," said Sikatre and started to rise. His hand hit a hard wooden object a foot away. He looked, could just make out the stack of crates in the gloom. The crates had writing on them, but he did not know how to read. He stood, broke open the lid on the top crate. It was filled with guns, the kind that were called submachine pistols. Sikatre had had one once, and lost it in a fight with a band on the Rio Nexapa many months past. He looked around him, saw more crates, boxes that maybe contained ammunition or other arms. "Hey, Ugly One," said the woman called Reez. "Come over in the light so we can see you." He hefted the top crate whose lid he'd removed, and dropped it in the pool of sunlight spilling down from above. Disturbed dust exploded out from under all sides of the crate. Through it the blue-black guns shone like dark jewels. The women did not know how to shoot. With a knife of good steel she found among the weapons in the basement, Zi persuaded Sikatre to demonstrate the firepower of one of the submachine guns. Outside the ruins, with the point of Zi's knife stuck in his ribs, shooting from the hip, he ripped an emptied crate to shreds. The women clamped hands over their ears and stared in astonishment at what the gun had done. No doubt they had seen and heard guns before, but never had witnessed the kind of destruction one of these could wreak. Of course, Sikatre the Smart was by nature an excellent marksman.

He pulled out the spent clip, dropped it, bent and picked up one he'd loaded, and shoved it up into the gun. He looked over his shoulder at the Tornado. "Huh? You want to try it?" She increased pressure on the knife point and pierced his skin. With her free hand, she signed, I will watch as you show one of the others how to shoot it. Sikatre did not even wince at the prick of pain from the knife. "Who? Who wants to learn?" Without taking her eyes off him, Zi motioned to the one called Nala. Come over here. He chose this moment to move. Whirling too fast for Zi to react, he slammed the gun against her head, instantly dropping her, and then turned it on the other five before they could reach him. "Whah!" He killed them all but she of the jaguar eyes. She lay on the ground, unconscious and bleeding. A fallen beam jutted from a half-collapsed segment of wall to the left of the doorway. He dragged her by the hair to the end of the beam and lashed her to it with rope. Then he built a fire with the crate and the other wood he removed from the ruin. By this time, the Unspeaking One had regained consciousness. He found her knife and walked over to her. Sikatre put the knife to her neck and watched the artery pulse against the blade. "I think you and I should, uh, raid together. We are natural leaders, no? Maybe we come from the same family. Maybe we can make some beautiful straight-limbed sons who will take care of Sikatre the Trickster in his old age." Her eyes gleamed with a hate and fury he thought he could feel scorching his skin. He laughed. "You are mine!" he said. "Yes. Whah! And Sikatre is going to make you feel his heat." With the knife, he turned toward the fire. Kneeling, he thrust the blade into the flames. "We will find us a new band, yes. We will ride and raid and plunder and be the terror of the Valley of Smoke." He turned the blade over and watched it go red. "And you," he said leering at her, "will ride the donkey."

15

Life at the lake was less than idyllic. Every activity, every waking moment, was regulated by the rules of Los Padres, the "Fathers" who lived in the church complex at the lake's north end. The Fathers had been here for many years, though just how and when they came to think of the lake as theirs, no one seemed to know. But think of it as theirs they did, and they had convinced the people who came there to be healed that it was faith in them and the god they "served" that really made the cleansing water work. O'Rourke had to admit, though not to anyone but himself, that he could not determine what exactly was in the lake that helped people rid themselves of illness. The lake was largely fed by hot springs, smelled of sulfur and was rich in other mineral content, but he did not know enough about minerals, and had no adequate way to analyze the water. In any case, he'd be damned if he gave any credence to the Padres' claim that they and their god were ultimately responsible for healing the sick. The church had been built by lake users, and the Fathers, of course, had the best land; the lake users had to keep it up, farm it, tend to the animals and orchards and crops. They were also obliged to listen to the Fathers preach. All this O'Rourke endured for the sake of Luz and the boy. He cared for them more than he would have admitted, since he now, with the wounds from his fight with the wild dogs healing, toiled as a farmer so that they could bathe in the lake. But in direct proportion to the improvement in their health, his restlessness and irritations with the lake life increased. His irritations had their source primarily in Los Padres, and one padre in particular. This was the tall one who'd greeted them when they arrived. He was the one who laid down the law the most. He was also a big meat eater, and demanded that the hunters among the lake dwellers keep his diet of beef and pork supplemented with plenty of wild meat, brought down by spear or arrow only, never by gun. And although, like all the padres, a selfproclaimed celibate, he was the one who most liked to bathe Luz. These immersions were usually accompanied by a lot of verbal blather called prayer. But the first time O'Rourke witnessed the ritual for Luz, he took note that Father Rojas was more adept with his hands then with the recitation of Biblical psalms. The Fathers entered the lake in their long robes, while the sick were led in naked; Father Rojas, in the case of Luz, took full advantage of this fact. Father Rojas was also the one who liked most to talk about God and the reasons why "He" brought the Final Holocaust. The loss of morals, he said. Hatred and lust and the greed for wealth and power. Egomania and war and devil worship. "I think I heard somewhere," said O'Rourke, "up north where the worst of it was, that after the Darkness, God was supposed to bring in a reign of peace and happiness, that the Devil

was supposed to be dethroned. What about that, Rojas? You think the world's better off now that God's had His holocaust?" They were at the usual outdoor meeting place, on crude wooden benches beneath a large many-branched tree between the church and the fields northwest of the lake. Rojas and the two other padres sat in chairs at the base of the tree, facing their listeners on the benches. "Yes, I do," said the dark-browed priest. "You think things have changed, huh? People are better? Different? You think evil is ... gone?" The padre on Rojas' left, a mild-mannered little fellow called Father Home, who had taken an instant liking to Stares-at-Nothing, tried to head off the confrontation between Rojas and O'Rourke. With a frown that maybe indicated he didn't find his own explanation all that satisfying, he said, "Each of us is faced with tests God wants us to go through, my son. That has not changed." "You'd think God would have tired of seeing people go through the same shit for so many thousands of years. You'd think He would have been fed up with pain and suffering, with bate and greed, a hell of a long time ago." "We are well acquainted with your blasphemous views, Senor O'Rourke," said Rojas. "And your bad attitude. It is a puzzle to me why you come to our meetings. They are mandatory only for those who wish to use the lake." "I keep thinking one of you might say something that makes some goddamned sense." Actually he came because Luz and the boy had to come, and wanted him to be with them when they did. "But I've given up on that. Now I come to listen to you make fools of yourselves. I've never seen it done with, in your case, Rojas, such high-minded and selfrighteous arrogance." Rojas stood. "You are no longer welcome here! You will leave us now and you will not come back." Luz grabbed O'Rourke's hand. "No. Oh, please, Father. He is ... we are a family. We are—" O'Rourke was also on his feet. "I learned some things a way back about the past, Padres," he said. "In the north, I used to come on places I'd poke around in. Come on people who could read, or remembered history. People who'd educated themselves as best they could. I learned some things from them. I recall one thing. When Los Destruzidos let loose the Holocaust, the Church was at that time as much to blame for what happened as those in government. Matter of fact, the Church was just another version of government and guilty of all the abuse of power that goes with it. But the one thing that sticks with me, especially now, is that the Church was an attempt to turn religion into something it owned, just like the State and the big-money corporations were an attempt to turn people into property, into things that could be used, manipulated, bought and sold, controlled and squashed. And you 'fathers' are carrying on the tradition here. You don't own this lake any more than I do, and if you think you can dictate who can use it and who can't, who can stay and who should go, the time's overdue for you to learn different." "Take your satanic fixations and leave us!" Rojas shouted, his hand pointed toward the

Valley. "We will not tolerate your rebellious blasphemies any longer. If you do not go this day, this hour, of your own accord, we will have the people bind and carry you out by force!" "Oh, I'll go on my own, priest. But not because you tell me to. I'll go because I can no longer stomach you and the rest of your sanctimonious bunch." He pulled his hand from Luz's, looked at her, at Stares, then turned and left the benches. Both of them got up to follow, the boy still limping and having trouble keeping up with Luz. "Oak," she yelled. "Please stop!" They caught up with him at the corral, where he'd already retrieved his saddle from the shed and was calling to the bay. "Aren't you going to tell us goodbye?" Luz said, her pale but still pretty face pained. He grabbed her and pulled her against him, looking over his shoulder at the boy. "I am learning many things here," Stares-at-Nothing said, his expression also one of consternation and uncertainty. "Father Home has told me I could become a Father with proper guidance." O'Rourke released Luz, but she clung to him. "Any unusual strengths you got are your own, boy. Those strengths of yours don't have anything to do with these blackrobes. But maybe it will do you good to stay and learn more. Just listen to the voice in your own head when you're listening to what the priests tell you. Remember that men will try to turn just about anything into something for themselves, and these priests are men." "Yes. I will remember that." O'Rourke gently pushed Luz at arms' length so he could look at her eyes. "It will be good for you to stay too. You are getting better each day." "I'm afraid to leave the lake with the baby coming," she said. "I'm afraid I will become sick again and lose the baby, your baby, Oak. Ours." "I know." "Where will you go? Will you come back?" "I'll come back in six moons, when it's time for the baby to come." She smiled, then saddened. "That is a long time." "Maybe sooner. Maybe I'll come to see how you are doing every moon. Maybe I won't go far." Luz brightened, clung to him again. The thought of Rojas putting his pious paws on her made him want to remain long enough to send the priest to that heaven for the good and righteous he was always talking about. Once, he would have done just that, without thinking twice about it. O'Rourke lifted a two-fingered hand for Stares to take. "I'm not the man who found you, boy. Because of you ... and Luz. I don't know how much you've changed me, or if I even like

the change, but I think I do. Seems like things look sort of different, like they shine a lot where they didn't shine before." He only hoped it wasn't a shine that could be blinding at a moment when he needed plain sight. He was not a day away from the lake when the loneliness began to eat at him the way a disease eats at one's vitality. He missed Luz's brave smile, her attempts to rename things, the attentions and care she gave him when she was well, her appreciation of the attentions and care he gave her also, especially when she was ill. He missed her cheering presence, the way she had of brightening all she touched, all she came in contact with. He missed her sweet warmth against him at night. He missed the boy's courage and cheerfulness too, missed his ceaseless questions, his crazy dreams and visions, his sense of wonder and fascination with everything, his compassion for those who suffered. Two days from the lake he began to remember all the death he'd seen in his long journey south, in his years of wandering the wastelands left by what Rojas and his kind called Armageddon. At first the memories were fragmented, not much more than the stuff of mood, or vague impressions rising out of the sediment of memory. Then he began to hear voices in the murmuring wind, in the rustle of leaves, the cry of birds. He began to see faces in his drinking cup at night, in firelight, in the dust under the bay's feet, in streams he crossed, in clouds, in the faraway smoke from the Valley's firemountains. He did not know at first who these people were whose faces he saw. But in time he came to realize that some of them were those he had killed.

16

Just as Father Home was short where Rojas was tall, he was also genial and kind while the head priest was fundamentally cold and crabby. Fortunately it was Father Home who took Stares-at-Nothing under his wing and introduced him to the way Los Padres lived. Stares was not sure he liked it. Though the priests claimed ownership of the lake and its environs, and extracted work and goods from the villagers along its shores, they lived a drab existence of self-denial and devotion to a god Stares had often heard about but never understood. He could understand how suffering could be a test of strength and faith, but like O'Rourke, even at the age of nineteen he found the priests' interpretation of history and recent events very suspect. Moreover, the god the priests worshiped was one without joy. And despite the lives they'd led till now, despite all they'd seen of the grim side of life, neither Stares nor Luz could easily relate to a deity that seemed more in love with pathos than anything else. Perhaps it wasn't the deity's fault but the fault of the ones who preached about him. But to Stares's mind, one so powerful should be able to come down from heaven and put a stop to their perversions of "His" truth. Stares often thought about the skycreature who'd saved him from the iguana in the ruins. He wondered what the skycreature would have thought of such things, wondered if it had ever seen God up there where it came from. He was in fact more interested in seeing the skycreature again man in becoming a novice in Los Padres' belief. He had told both O'Rourke and Luz about the skycreature, but no one else. O'Rourke had been skeptical, but Luz believed him. Luz believed almost anything anyone told her, or at least was willing to act as if she did. Without O'Rourke around to protect her, Stares tried to do so, often sneaking away from Father Home and the other priests in order to see how she was doing. She was recovering but still weak. Stares usually found her working when she should not have been, or at the lake or somewhere else with Father Rojas dogging her heels. Like the festival day Stares found him with her in one of the barns. He had almost walked in on them, but before he could let his presence be known, he heard Rojas say: "I am glad God has brought you to us, my daughter." He stood at one of the bins, where Luz was retrieving a sack of com to be shucked for the festival dinner. The noise of the autumn harvest celebration carried up from the lake. "You have the smile of one who has seen His truth." Stares-at-Nothing stepped from the doorway into the shadows along the nearby wall, and behind a stack of grain sacks.

Luz stood at the pile of corn that had been picked that morning, a bit startled and confused by Rojas' behavior. In the pen to her left, the goats were bleating, thinking they were about to be fed. "Oh. Thank you, Father. But I—I'm just happy because it's ... because people are dancing and ... because everyone is happy and it's festival time." Rojas stepped toward her, his dark eyes burning, shining with what Luz maybe assumed was godly love. He raised his hands from the folds of his robe and put one on each side of her face. His eyes fell to her lips. "Do you feel the power in my hands, daughter Luz?" "Yes, Father." "You have felt that power when I have bathed you in the lake time after time. Is it not true?" "It is true." "You have felt the power in my hands against your skin, daughter, against your nakedness. My hands want to share their power now. They want to touch you everywhere so that you will feel God's love and His power." "Oh, Father. You make me feel so humble. Why would God want to do this for someone like me?" "Because I have spoken to Him about you. Because I have chosen you to receive special attention from Him, and He has chosen me to be the instrument through which that attention will come. I am the instrument through which His power will flow from Him to you." "But why? Why me?" "Because you have The Light. Now undress, my child, so that you can receive His power." "Here?" "Yes. Lift your tunic up over your head." "Father, I'm not sure I—" "Do not be afraid." "But I ... I'm pregnant." "God will forgive you." "Forgive me? For being pregnant?" "For abandoning your body to one in Satan's camp." "O'Rook?" Rojas grabbed the hem of her tunic and pulled it up. "Father—" He tore the tunic away, shoved her downward to the hay-strewn floor. He raised his robe. "Prepare yourself to receive His power." Stares-at-Nothing was about to yell, when someone else entered, and he stayed silent in his hiding place.

The sudden laughter from the barn entrance made Rojas turn and look in that direction. A large man stood in the sunlit doorway. He wore a dirty loincloth and tattered leather leggings. On his waist was a belt that held a pistol, and in his hands was another gun of some kind, short and evil-looking. His laughter was low and guttural, like the sound a big animal might make, and he had one of the ugliest faces Stares had ever seen. The noises of the festival down by the lake had changed. The music and singing had ceased and in its stead there was screaming, the thunder of horses' hooves, the crash of upset tables, breaking pottery. Rojas pushed his robe down and staggered to his feet. "Who are you? What are you doing here in my barn!" The ugly man laughed again. "Me? I am called Sikatre the Terrible. And you are Rojas the Holy Ass. I have heard of you and your lake, and now I've found it and will take it. Prepare yourself to receive the not so holy power of Sikatre." He raised the weapon he was holding. But before he could fire, the sound of gunshots from up the slope east of the lake made him spin around and drop to a crouch so that he faced outward, just inside the doorway. "Who is up there on the mountain, priest?" "I do not know," said Rojas. "I know," said Luz, pulling her tunic down and rolling as far from Rojas as she could get. "It is Oak!" "Oak?" said Sikatre. "Who in hell is this Oak? He shoots too good. He is killing my stupid men." Luz got up and jumped over the fence into the goat pen. The goats gathered about her but she ran through them. "Daughter Luz!" Rojas yelled and started to follow. At that moment Sikatre turned and fired. Bullets hit several goats and tore into Rojas' legs. The priest fell face forward in the dung on the floor and was trampled by sharp little hooves running in panic. Sikatre howled with laughter. He came out of his crouch and stepped from the door to show that he was not afraid of the sharpshooter up on the hill. "Idiots!" he bellowed at the members of his band who cowered behind trees, overturned tables, boulders, sheds. "That is one man up there. One goddamned man! We take him and feed him to the pigs!" But Sikatre had not advanced two strides when he felt the air begin to quiver. He threw himself flat, thinking at first the earth was quaking or that the firemountain to the south was going to erupt. He quickly realized this was something different. Only the air shook; then it shrieked. He rolled and looked up at the sky, wondering if the god of Rojas did in fact exist and was about to wreak vengeance. The glint of metal flashed in and out of the clouds. It seemed the sky was all at once full of strange fish-shaped things screaming down toward the Valley of Smoke.

Some fell very close to the lake, so close that the wind their passage created made the trees toss like meadow grass. When at last the sky was emptied of the screaming machines and the silence returned, Sikatre realized that the man up on the slope had not resumed firing. He looked up the rocky mountainside, but could see no sign of any movement. The lake dwellers were fleeing into the forest, carrying whatever they could of their belongings. Sikatre's men did not pursue them. One by one, his fellow marauders emerged from their various places of concealment, and with stupefied expressions, looked his way. He got up. He was shaken himself. "Los Destruzidos," he muttered. Then again, as if he couldn't believe it: "Los Destruzidos?" Had the dreaded Destroyers returned? He glanced about for his horse. Like the lake people, the goats in the barn, and all the rest of the animals in pens or loose by the huts along the lake, the horses had panicked. He ran around the barn so that he could see down the slope toward the ruins at the edge of the valley. He saw telltale glints of silver here and there among the nearest ruins, perhaps a longrun away. He could hear the strange sighs, hisses, hums, and rumbles only machines could make. "Get the horses!" he yelled. "You stupid sons of bitches, get the horses!" In the barn, Stares-at-Nothing limped to where Father Rojas lay. The priest was bleeding badly in his legs and on the back where the sharp hooves of the goats had cut into him. Stares knelt. "I will get help," he said. "I will get Father Home." Rojas did not speak. The one eye Stares could see was closed, but he still breathed. Sikatre didn't wait around for his stupid men to find and catch his own mount. He ran back along the lake, ran south for the forest, where he and his band had camped the night before, where he had left the jaguar-eyed Tornado confined in the cage he'd had built. Only once did he look up the slope of the mountain as he ran, wondering what had happened to the man called Oak. It was a day for bitter disappointment as well as confusion and fear. When Sikatre reached his camp he found that his caged beauty had somehow enticed her guard to open the door. The guard lay dead, throat slit with his own knife, inside the wooden cage; and the extra horses, like the goddamned Tornado, were gone. He was about to bawl his rage, when out of the sky came more roaring and shrieking fishshaped machines descending like arrows and spears toward the hazy Plain of Ruins.

PART II City of Sorcerers

17

The "Cuitlahuac" suburb had really been a part of the town historically known as Chalco, itself long ago swallowed by the unremitting encroachment of metropolitan Mexico City. Before the Final War, Mexico was a sprawling megalopolis that reached almost three thousand square kilometers in size. It was Kharlo Fretti, with his irritating penchant for meddling with Earth history, who named the operations area Cuitlahuac, which he said was actually the name of a Mexica or Aztec city located near the site in the era before the Spanish came. The name, Fretti said, meant "City of Sorcerers" in the Aztec tongue of Nahuatl, as the name Mexico was derived from the Aztec words mexliapan and xitli, which put together meant "City in the Center of the Lake of the Moon." Such things did not interest Director Yaelu. For her part, it would have been more appropriate to have labeled the entire area Hell. The lowest parts of the Valley were once again becoming lake or swamp. Most of the old drainage canals and ditches used by the Mexicans for centuries had been ruined by quake or lava flow. Roughly twenty-five percent of the unflooded areas were buried under lava and volcanic ash, old lahars or mud streams, pumice, and what Yaleu's geologists called pyroclastic fragments, such as scoriae bombs. The sharp rock cut through the soles of boots; the thick dusty air was no doubt unfit for lungs even accustomed to it. Though the EarthFall Operations Base was being built at an elevation of twenty-five hundred meters, the still heavy atmospheric pressure, to those used to spin gravity and the low-G environments of space habitats, made everyone tired, caused headaches, lethargy, and nosebleeds; and the infirmary, the first-aid and medical stations were kept constantly busy with complaints that ranged from minor cuts and scratches to broken limbs and chronic fatigue and dizziness. Allin Yaelu issued an order that all personnel would wear proper clothing and face masks to protect them from the sun's radiation and the volcanic smoke and dust. According to the detection instruments, that was the only sort of radiation and air pollution they had to worry about. Seismic and volcanic activity in the region were more serious causes for concern. Almost every day at least one of the Valley's three active volcanoes, Tlaloc to the north and the two high ones, Iztaccihuatal and Popocatepetl to the east and south, belched at least a little smoke and ash from their cones. A hundred years ago neither the lower Tlaloc nor Iztaccihuatal had been volcanic. All three were what her volcano experts, after numerous flyovers and constant monitoring from research stations set up on their slopes, called at various times polygenetic lava, shield, or stratovolcanoes. Talk of magma chambers, vents, angles of slope, pit craters, calcium-

magnesium-rich rocks, olivine basalts, tephrites, trachytes, phonolites, lava lakes, calderas, terminal effusions, and lateral effusions, went in one ear and out the other where Yaelu was concerned. They could talk all day about that sort of thing but could not give her the answer to the most important question of all: Exactly when could they expect the next major eruption or earthquake? Or to put it another way, just how long could they expect to work and stay in the area before catastrophe struck? Nor could they determine why quakes and volcanic activity had become so violently active in the last one hundred years, not only in the Valley of Mexico but elsewhere around the planet. This was one of the studies to be conducted by the Exploration and Research Division of Operation EarthFall, ordered by the IWF Congress. Almost every day some kind of measurable tremor was indicated in some part of the Valley of Mexico or on the slopes of the foothills and mountains surrounding it; none had reached strength enough to create fissures or threaten operations buildings going up, but the frequent vibrations in the ground under their feet took a subtle physical and psychological toll on the EarthFall Force. Yaelu admonished her construction engineers and supervisors to make certain that all structures were adequately reinforced to withstand anything short of a major quake. They simply did not have the time or the materials to build sheds, field offices, agridomes, housing units, and other facilities that would resist an earthquake of major intensity. For Allin Yaelu, Operation EarthFall, as it was now publicly known back in the space colonies, had one mission: to find the SD-Alpha plans. That highly secret mission was the primary task of the Excavation and Support Division (most of whose members would not even know what they were digging or looking for). But in order to receive the necessary funding, she had had to go along with all the other studies and operations, most of which fell within the province of the ancillary Exploration and Research Division. EarthFleet Commander Hilsen Parquot, in being originally given the military responsibility of patrolling the planet, was now also in charge of the E&R division. Under Parquot were thirty-five hundred people; eighteen transport ships of the large interplanetary class, each with four space-to-planet shuttles; twenty-five long-range patrol-and-research ships, thirty scoutships with hover capability, twenty high-speed fighters, fifty groundrovers, and twenty light armored vehicles (LAV's, AV's and AT's). In addition to informationgathering flyovers, Parquot's E&R division would set up field laboratories at various locales all over Oldworld. EarthWatch Security Chief Kharlo Fretti's EarthForce was in turn responsible for the security of the Valley of Mexico in general and the Cuitlahuac Operations Base and its Excavation and Support Division in particular. Because the Valley was of primary importance, Fretti, with twenty-five paramilitary patrollers, forty-two scouts, eighty-two armored ground vehicles and three police regiments of one thousand people each, had with an army of over five thousand people under his command a larger and stronger military arm than Parquot. This worried Yaelu, but because the security of the Valley and the COB was essential to the primary mission, her superiors on the IWF Security Council had insisted on such an

arrangement. Though as EarthWatch, and now EarthFall, director, Yaelu was the nominal head of the entire operation, for all practical purposes her own immediate command was confined to the Cuitlahuac Operations Center and the Excavation and Support Division at the base. This comprised roughly one thousand people: engineers, scientists, excavation-machine operators, physicians, nurses, agronomists, administrators, clerks, aides, and the like. Although EarthWatch had had aircraft and ground vehicles waiting for decades for Operation EarthFall, much additional equipment had to be built, assembled, and outfitted for OE's special requirements. Except for the necessity of a police force able to combat interplanetary piracy, the space colonies had had little need for military capabilities of the kind the Security Council thought OE called for. Thus it had taken a monumental effort to put together this return to Oldworld, and it had caused a severe drain on the IWF treasury—a drain that would not likely have occurred had the true reason for the mission been made known to executives and investors beyond the upper ranks of the IWF hierarchy. The confidentiality of the mission's true purpose would, Yaelu knew, tax them all to the end. So would the rigors and inclemencies of this dreaded planet. Unlike some of her subordinates, such as Security Chief Fretti, the EarthWatch director took no pleasure in Operation EarthFall. Coping with a hostile and alien environment only aggravated their task, and Yaelu could see no beauty or attraction whatsoever in the vast stretches of ruins, plain, swamp, and forest that made up so much of the Valley. The old so-called Cuitlahuac suburb was a case in point. If this was the only accessible site where the SD-Alpha plans were secreted, she did not want to contemplate what the other places might look like. Commander Hilsen Parquot could have told her, and did. He sent her, via telecommunication, graphics of Cheyenne Mountain, of Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Bonn, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Honolulu, New Delhi, Karachi, Damascus, Bagdad, Tel Aviv, Athens, Rome, Madrid—or what was left of such places. Once back at the COB, he would tell her firsthand, but for now, three weeks after leaving the base for the initial exploratory mission, Parquot's mind was mostly on the outpost at Manaus. The Amazon River Basin was once again a thriving rain-forest ecosystem, virtually rid of man. The great epidemics that had swept over the Northern Hemisphere in the wake of Armageddon had not spared lands thousands of miles south of the irradiated zones, and the continent of South America was no exception. Though reports came into Parquot's command ship from as far away as Tierra del Fuego that scattered pockets of humanity, semiprimitive or at best pre-industrial, had been found, the great cities not touched by either nuclear or neutron weapons were still uninhabited, in effect dead. It was speculated that the epidemics had originated in urban areas, and for that reason, those generations who had survived would go nowhere near them even to this day. The disease or diseases that had wiped out the population centers of northern Brazil had not hurt the equatorial animal life, or the suffocating vegetation. Even the largest towns along the river were all but reclaimed by jungle. This thrilled the botanists and biologists in the E&R outpost that was set up at Manaus, but it did not thrill Hilsen Parquot.

He could understand the scientists' enthusiasm and eagerness to study life forms they had learned about only from books or films or data tapes and discs. Many space habitats, especially those whose primary purpose was agricultural, had a multitude of plant varieties and domestic animals—there was even a zoo of sorts at Crisium—but the kinds of life the scientists could observe in the Amazon wilderness would exceed their dreams. That was fine for the scientists; Parquot, however, had a special reason for not liking the Manaus outpost. His lover, Captain Lerine Jerusse, had been assigned by Director Yaelu to be its commander. Parquot therefore personally made certain it had an adequate defense perimeter, and silently prayed Lerine would have nothing worse to contend with than an occasional wayward peccary or crocodile. "I'll be all right," she said behind her air mask as they stood outside her HQ on a hill that had been cleared by ultralasers. The hill overlooked the river and the overgrown dead town. "Once I get the scientists settled down." Parquot took her hand. They had already embraced and kissed inside, where the field office's air unit allowed them to remove the bothersome masks. "I know you will. But I'll expect a daily report to that effect.'' "Goodbye, Hilsen." She tapped his faceplate. "Watch out for the things you can't see." He grinned thinly at her irony. "You, too." He let go her hand and turned away. Halfway down the hill to the clearing where his command patroller waited, he heard the howler monkeys in the trees that all but hid what remained of Manaus. A week later Parquot reported back to the Cuitlahuac Operations Base. "So, as Fleet exploration has indicated, this alleged Russian safe house is our only hope." At the table in the observation room of the headquarters complex, Director Yaelu looked up from the aerial photographs of the Cuitlahuac area, photographs taken by probescanner Xray cameras from hovercraft, which revealed the shapes of buildings buried under the lava, ash, mud, and rubble. Parquot stood a couple of meters from the table, looking out the observation bubble in the northwest corner of the room, down the command knoll at the nearest excavation site where the earthmoving machines and excavation crews worked. Even through the insulated walls of the command center and the low hum of the air purifiers, the noise of the big machines, the scrape and groan of rock lifted, the thud and crash as it fell from shovel to truck, reminded Yaelu of the endless excavation work in the Imbrium when she was a young girl at primary school. "You don't sound very optimistic, Commander," said Kharlo Fretti. Yaelu looked across the table at Fretti, who sat with his narrow dome of a head bent over his own set of aerial photographs. The absurd fleur-de-lis tattoo looked like some hideous insect that had attached itself to the security chief's skull. Yaelu was seeing insects everywhere—spiders, roaches, bugs of so much variety she thought of them in bed at night. The sight of the tattoo irrationally incensed her.

She was well aware of the friction, the jealous rivalry, between her security chief and her fleet commander, and liking the latter more—indeed, she liked Fretti not at all—she took perverse delight in treating Parquot with the respect he was due and handling her security chief with sarcastic condescension. "Maybe what Hilsen's seen in the last few weeks would put a kink in your spine, Kharlo. Assuming it's not made of metal." She heard laughter and glanced to her left, to see that Hannon Ruhl was smiling and watching the excavation work below also. His usual placid smile reassured her that he had not a troubled thought. She almost envied such mindless contentment and wondered what it felt like. She also wondered why he had laughed. Maybe because he had sensed her joke. Ruhl was not quite as mindless as he appeared at times such as now. He had memory and mind enough to have requested that he try to capture Chilia Swann alone; mind enough to have persuaded Yaelu with the argument that if anyone had accompanied him in his attempt to take her, he would not have been able to get even close. Though his failure to catch Swann had been a bitter disappointment to Yaelu, his "voluntary" return to Koryzev Luna Base proved how effective was the pacification therapy and implant and her control over him. Yaelu still wanted Swann, and would, by God, have her one day—the woman was an outlaw, had penetrated the EarthWatch sentries, defied the quarantine, seduced a codes keeper, and she perhaps had valuable information about the Valley of Mexico—but for now Yaelu had to concentrate on the task at hand. "You will pardon my doubts, I trust, Kharlo," Parquot was saying. "We have it from reliable accounts that Russian agents were successful in stealing a copy of the plans and hiding them here in a hillside villa," Fretti carefully intoned as if speaking to a mental inferior. "They made other copies, of course, like the Americans, but as far as we know, those copies were kept in the Kremlin and a few other places which were destroyed or, as you have seen with your own eyes, Commander, rendered inaccessible by the Final War.'' Yaelu looked at Ruhl again. He did not seem to be listening to what Fretti said. His eyes, under the visor of his lopsided suncap, were dreamy. She was nonetheless uneasy with Fretti's talk about SD-Alpha in front of Ruhl, She would not have had Ruhl in the command station but for the fact his presence irritated Fretti. Ruhl, despite control treatment, was an outsider, and it was still difficult for Yaelu to think that a man who was so imaginative in bed could be completely under her or anyone else's control. "The IWF has been waiting since its inception for conditions to become stable enough here to allow a search," Fretti continued, "and it obviously believes that time has come." Parquot still stood in the bubble, his back to them, and let Fretti talk on. "I believe you've done a sufficient job of stating the obvious, Kharlo," Yaelu said. She looked at Parquot's back. "About these sightings of indigenes, Commander." Parquot turned to look at her. Unlike the fastidious Fretti, Yaelu's fleet commander tended toward a relaxed if not rumpled look; and like Yaelu, he eschewed the prevailing fashion of a meticulously shaven head. In their current environment his short-cropped but thick mat of hair would no doubt be a comfort if he were caught outside without helmet or suncap.

"Yes," he said, coming away from the observation bubble. "Clusters of communal life distributed sporadically over most of the planet. Agricultural, nomadic, all of it pre-industrial in nature. They shun the cities, apparently have an almost religious or superstitious fear or hatred of anything that reminds them of the advanced technological civilization that destroyed itself. And then there is, of course, the fear of diseases that must have been rampant in the cities in the wake of the war. What's the situation here?" "A number of visual sightings from hovercraft patrolling the Valley, and from aerial reconnaissance. Several villages, as we knew; the largest ones along rivers or on lakes. There's a sizeable lake in the foothills a couple of kilometers above the COB, which we intend to use for much of our water needs here at the base. Some stone structures, one rather imposing, at the north end of that particular lake. A church. Evidence of previous villages there, but the people apparently vacated the place when we arrived, fled into the forest to the north, since we've observed wood smoke from cooking fires in that vicinity." Parquot did not sit down. Yaelu suspected that Ruhl's presence at the table bothered him almost as much as it did Fretti. That was one point her security chief and her fleet commander would no doubt agree upon. She looked at Fretti, who had ostensibly returned all his attention to the photographs. "Kharlo has had special security detachments encamp and quarantine those village areas closest to the COB, All such villages are now deserted, and it's our intention that they stay that way. We will brook no problems with the primitive indigenes, and no fraternization between them and any of our people. I would hope that our landings have scared them completely out of the Valley. But if not, they must go. One way or the other, Kharlo." Fretti looked up from the photographs, his gray eyes emotionless as usual. But Yaelu noticed the pads of his fingers rubbing against the table, as if he had an itch somewhere he could not at the moment scratch. "Of course," he said. "I have, acting on your orders, personally seen to those encampments, Director." "I'm sure. Is there anything more we should discuss before my afternoon meeting with our so-called archaeologists?" "One thing, madam," said Fretti. He sat up stiffly and did not remove his stare from her face. "I noticed your uneasiness when I talked about the true nature of our mission to Commander Parquot. Perhaps even you have misgivings about the presence of your sexual plaything in the Command Center?" Parquot moved decorously away from the table. "I think that it will do you good to go 'personally see to' the Valley outposts just now, Kharlo," she answered, touching the scar on her neck in an effort to restrain her rage. "I think you may proceed with that immediately. I will expect an updated report at zero-ninehundred tomorrow." A supercilious little smile appeared on Fretti's mouth. He gave her a slight nod, gathered up his pile of photographs and memoranda, and rose. "As you wish, Madam Director." "Goodbye," said Hannon Ruhl with his childlike smile.

18

"Where did you learn of this?" Chia put her drink on the packing crate between herself and the other pilot. "Heard about it when I was at Alphonse couple of days ago," he said. "Koryzev Base is damned close to being deserted. Dead as an abandoned mining camp. Eerie place now. Whole sneaky bunch just packed up and made Earthfall so quick nobody knew they were gone, though they must have been working on that little loadup for months. The story put out is that they went to make some 'on-site studies' of conditions in the tropical zones." He drained his cup and made a face. "On-site studies, my ass! With the whole EarthWatch fleet? What for? Something's going on down there the high riders don't want the rest of us to know about." "And Hannon was with them? With Allin Yaelu?" "That's the murmur. Not too much his old self, if the description's correct. Looked like he had his brains scrambled, all right. Least, that was the murmur." He eyed Chia a moment. "The two of you ... well, I hate to be the one to tell you. I liked Hannon. A good joker. Too bad." Chia kept her composure; she was the kind who grieved, and raged, in solitude; who could repress emotions until she deemed it the proper time to let them loose. You learned how to do that when you became a pilot. And she had already grieved and raged enough; what she felt now was the aftermath: a cold and deadly hatred; a deep-seated wish to avenge the enslavement and "pacification" of Hannon Ruhl. The other pilot pushed to his feet, helmet under his arm. "Got a rendezvous to keep at Argyre West. You ... maybe our blips will cross each other next time out." "Yes," she said tonelessly. "Maybe they will." "Hear the one about the freight inspector who..." Moving at the legal entry velocity of thirty-five hundred kilometers per hour, Nightswann was in the planet's corona, ten thousand kilometers above the Valley of Mexico, when the first sentinels in Earth's exosphere picked her up on their sensors. This time an earsplitting warning came over her radio: "FAILURE TO SEND THE PROPERLY TRANSMITTED CODES WILL NECESSITATE NEUTRALIZATION. SEND THE PROPER CODE SEQUENCE OR REVERSE YOUR COURSE AT ONCE." She punched the code sequence she'd used before, knowing that by now they could very well have changed the codes. "THE RECEIVED CODE SEQUENCE IS INVALID. REVERSE COURSE IMMEDIATELY."

Chia pulled on the helmet and fastened it to the collar of her lifesuit. She sat back in the pilot's chair, with the index finger of her right hand lightly touching the eject stud jutting from the side of the chair arm. Staring at Oldworld's growing cloud patterns, she telepathed to her ship: Give it all we've got, old friend. On the control panel the defense-shield lights flared as Nightswann's sudden acceleration flattened Chia to the back of the seat. The ship's nose guns fired. Lines streaking outward and coming in across the monitor screens indicated Nightswann's beams shooting toward the nearest sentinels, and the first incoming rays striking her shield. Most were deflected but some pierced the ion envelope. Not one of the sentinels' defenses was penetrated. Both her ship's and the sentinels' guns kept firing. Her shield continued to hold but was pierced again and again. Nose down and into the rub of Earth's stratosphere, the ship yawed sickeningly, and alarm lights began to blaze here and there on all three panels. Nightswann was finally hit badly in the tail, and had moderate damage in the aft cargo section. In the upper left-hand corner the internal stabilization lights pulsated red as more incoming beams raked the monitor screens. How bad? Terminal, came the reply through the interlink. Fortunately the slowdown rockets were not damaged. The accelerators had already shut off. With the abrupt deceleration, Chia pitched forward against the tight harness. You have been a damned good ship. No time for sentiment. I wish you well, said Nightswann. You must eject now. We will fragment any min— She hit the eject stud. The top of the nose opened, and the seat flew up and away from the doomed hauler. The immediately inflating balloon shot from the seat's back only seconds before Nightswann, veering to port and disintegrating, burst into a fireball. Chia was at once in night-black clouds. Turbulent winds buffeted her and the balloon to and fro, tossing her in the seat harness so violently she feared the straps, or her own bones, would break. But the heavy electrical storm she was in would perhaps foil the sentinel sensors, prevent them from locating her balloon. Strapped to the seat and insulated in the Vivamax suit, she continued to be thrown this way and that, but at the same time, the suit's altimeter indicated she was descending. The coordinates indicator told her she was, though over the Valley of Mexico, being blown southeast toward mountains. Chia opened the arm of the chair, punched the control knob for the jetpak. Beneath the seat, its small engine fired. She turned the knob a couple of clicks and felt for the directionalcontrol levers, one on the side of each arm. The stubby directional wings pushed out from each side of the chair. With the levers, she tried to manipulate the wings in order to steer the balloon back to the northwest.

The winds were too strong; they took her where they pleased, and it pleased them to take her still farther south. The violence of the storm subsided, and the clouds thinned as she descended. At last they opened up. And Chia discovered she was looking straight down into the boiling red crater of the region's major volcano! Even as she saw it, its ancient name, like the heat rising to lick at her feet, came swimming up out of memory, a name that sounded deceptively melodious if not childlike: Popocatepetl. Despite the fear that now had her in a chokehold, she thought improbably of some exotic and fantastic flower—a gigantic flower of fire. She was falling at an alarming rate. The crater yawned, threatening to engulf her. She could easily see the molten rock springing up in high fountains, see the churning sea of lava no more than a quarter kilometer below in what she guessed was me magma chamber. She could see the protective cells of insulating material in the legs of her suit beginning to swell, feel her overheated oxygen beginning to burn nostrils and throat. Chia jerked the jetpak's speed knob up to maximum power. But either something was wrong with the jetpak or the force of the wind was still too strong for the pak to do much good. Then the horrendous heat from the volcano's mouth began to slow her descent, and then buoy her up. In this way the jets' thrust was helped in pushing her away, in pushing her out over the crater's rim. But inside the helmet she was still sweating, gasping air that all but scorched her lungs. At last beyond the crater's rim, the outside temperature fell quickly. She was over slopes deeply mantled with snow now, in air that was frigid—but not so cold that the suit's internal temperature controls were again threatened. The left directional wing was not operating properly, however. Leaning over the edge of the chair, she tried to determine whether the wing had been damaged by the storm or was jammed by ice forming on it. She could not see what the problem was, and in leaning over trying to discern it, she tilted the precariously balanced chair and the balloon more off-course than before. She shifted, leaned to the right in an attempt to compensate. All she accomplished was to put herself into a slow spin. Erratic winds, though not as violent as when she was much higher, frustrated any further attempts to angle northwest by shifting bodyweight and operating the one good directional wing. She gave it up, sagged in the chair and let the damned winds take her where they would. Like the sea mercifully throwing her back on shore the day she jumped into it, the winds took her generally in the direction she wanted to go, to the northwest—but the balloon dropped her long before she was clear of the foothills between Vulcan Iztaccihuatl and Vulcan Tlaloc. She fell in a forest, in the middle of a rain. The balloon was snagged by the upper limb of a tall tree that caught and swung here there some ten meters from the ground. She unfastened the seat harness and switched on the lifesuit's jet. Designed for use in environments with

lower gravity, it was not strong enough to keep her airborne here, but Chia gambled that it would provide a cushion for her fall. It didn't. For some reason, the suit jet sputtered and died and she plummeted. Apparently a group of indigenes had seen her drop from the clouds—and were waiting for her when she hit the brush. She was too dazed and injured from her crash to remember to activate the suit's shield to avoid being captured. The pale hairless devil that fell from the sky was the strangest thing Sikatre and the seven remaining members of his battle-scarred band had ever seen. It was, he'd decided after cutting into its thick but oddly soft armor, stripping it and forcing its legs apart, female. It had no hair, was long and taut like a willow limb, and had the large round eyes of a fish. "Do you speak?" it hissed like a snake. Sikatre grinned. "I am Sikatre the Smart," he growled. "I speak. I am intelligent and strong. I am a leader. I am the Scourge of the Valley of Smoke. And you, Skywitch," he said, crouching where the shedevil was staked to the ground, "are my prisoner. I saw you falling from way down the mountain. Others saw you too, but we fought -them off. I wanted to see what you looked like up close. What's the meaning of all these devil skymachines coming down out of the clouds and taking over my valley. Huh?" She did not speak. "Whah. Maybe the devils in the sky sent you to me to replace the wild demoness of mine who escaped. Hah! You are scared. I can see it in your big eyes. You are frightened out of your wits by the power you feel burning from Sikatre!" "Please excuse me," hissed the skywitch, "but I've never seen a human being quite as physically repulsive as you." "Huh?" "Correction. I just had a look at your companions. You're not so bad after all, relatively speaking." "You mock Sikatre? Huh?" He stood, ripped away his loincloth and let her see his upright manhood. He took it in his hand and began to walk around her. "You see this?" he bellowed. "This is power! Sikatre is going to make you feel his power." She closed her eyes, perhaps overwhelmed by the sight of his stalwart member. The others were laughing and hooting and dancing around now. Sikatre scowled at them and they shut up and stood still with faces of stone. Abruptly he fell to his hands and knees on the ground between her legs and looked closely at her sex. "How is it that you have no hair? What happened to it? Do Los Destruzidos have no hair?" She was pale with fear, and in the sun her skin was turning pink. "Lost what?" she said. "Is that Spanish?"

"That is you," answered Sikatre. "You are a destruzida, in the old tongue of this land, a destroyer, a sky demoness. I have heard tales of you people since I was a boy. Whah! You brought the fire that burned the world, the smoke that put out the sun, the winds that brought the snows where it never snowed before. The winds that brought the smoke that killed and caused later generations to look like them!" He pointed at those of his men who were umon. "You brought the end to the great cities, and then you fled to your cities in the sky. It is so, no?" "No. You've got your history a bit distorted. I didn't ... we didn't ... the people who live in the sky didn't have anything to do with—" "Hah! It is so! Now you are here. A devil has fallen from the sky and I am going to find out what it is like to ram my power into her. And after me, them, my companions, will—" With a start he realized that a sudden quietness had fallen over everything, as if the air itself had abruptly drawn taut. Sikatre looked up at the others. They were all staring at the brush beyond the clearing. One of the men broke for the weapons that were piled near the horses, but the gun opened up before he'd gone three steps. All seven went down, wheeling and jerking and writhing as the bullets ripped into them with unabated ferocity. Then the silence and the stillness returned. Sikatre, still on his knees before the skywitch, could not believe he was not hit. He stared at the brush whence the gun had fired. It had made a sound like his own, like the ones he'd taken from the cache of weapons in the ruin when he was with the Tornado. He was newly awestruck by what such a gun could do in the hands of one who knew how to shoot. "You," he shouted. "Wild bitch of my dreams, are you there? Is it you? Whah! Have you come back for the handsome and mighty Sikatre?" The tail of a whip suddenly shot from the brush behind him. It lashed him across the face. He howled, tried to pull the whip from his head, but it was too tight. He clawed at it and was suddenly jerked backward. He could not see, could feel blood flowing under the tight grip of the whip, feel the lacerating pain across his face. Then he felt another pain. A sharp one at his scrotum. He kicked out and rolled, feeling the agony shoot up from his crotch. The whip snapped away, cutting him more deeply across the face. The whip must have damaged his eyes, because he still could not see. He reached out, trying to grab, trying to see if the devil was still there. He felt only sand. He reached down to his crotch and felt nothing but the warm sticky gush of blood. Zi, she drew in the sand with her knife, sheathed the weapon and thumbed her naked chest. "You are Zi," Chia said.

She nodded, green eyes watching, waiting. "I am called Chia." Zi pointed a finger at one of Chia's small breasts, and then cupped her hand around one of her own. "You are very nice," Chia said, unsure of what the creature wanted. Zi shook her head and pointed at Chia. "Me? I'm very nice?" Zi nodded. She placed a hand lightly on Chia's shoulder. It was a hand rough as sand and she ran it slowly, lightly, down Chia's arm. A smile slowly broke and spread on Zi's brown face as she felt Chia's skin, which was badly blistered an angry red and welted with insect bites. Chia winced from the pain of Zi's touch, and Zi noticed. She removed her hand, and bending forward, lightly licked Chia's arm with her tongue. Then she pushed herself to her feet, motioning for Chia to remain there on the blanket in the shade by the stream. "Yes," Chia said wearily. "I haven't the strength or the wish to run off. Don't worry." Zi was gone less than ten minutes. She returned holding a clay bowl and a freshly uprooted short-stemmed plant with narrow, elongated leaves that tapered to a sharp point at the end. Squatting beside Chia, she unsheathed her knife and began cutting off the stemlike leaves of the plant, slitting them open and then, with her fingers, scooping their creamy yellow juice into the bowl. When the bowl was filled, Zi dipped her hands into the emollient and began applying it to Chia's burning skin. It felt deliciously cool and soothing. Chia lay back with a grateful murmur, deciding to totally trust her liberator because at the moment she could do nothing else. She was completely covered with the salve and drifting off when she felt Zi lie down beside her. The Earthwoman had removed her loincloth.

19

Three months had passed since Earthfall and the establishment of the Cuitlahuac Operations Base. The winter solstice was on them, and along with half a month's persistent rains and resulting mud, the pre-Christmas "tidings" Allin Yaelu received from IWF central at Nix Olympica Base 3 were of the worst kind. Word had somehow leaked and spread through the space colonies that the homeworld was in many places habitable and exploitable. Already, reports were coming in that several rogue ships had tried to penetrate the sentinel barrier at various points around the planet. A couple of them, by engaging the sentry stations in combat, had even managed to blast their way through. Both had wisely plotted their planetfall in the southern hemisphere, but one, seriously damaged by the sentinel rays, crashed in the middle of the Pacific, and the other put down somewhere in the wilds of central Peru. An EarthFleet detachment of four combat-patrollers had left a week before to find the survivors of the Peruvian landing and, under Director Yaelu's orders, arrest or kill them if necessary. More, of course, would come, and others would no doubt succeed in penetrating the robot defenses. Yaelu had sent a request for additional ships and crews to strengthen her police capability, and was told by Central that the IWF police force had already been seriously drained by Operation EarthFall but that her request would nonetheless be considered. Because she'd received no word since that "promise to consider," she feared the request had been denied. Feeling as though she'd been left to sink or swim by Central, Director Yaelu thought of leaks, and their insidious spread, as she sat in the back cabin seat of a small crawler, waiting for its driver to figure out what the hell was wrong with its left brake. Irritably, she stared out the glass of her door at the rain splashing the huge puddle in which the crawler's tractor treads were completely immersed. Down the slope, a good ten kilometers away, she could see the vast dead city in the middle of the Valley, baking in incongruous sunlight. Much closer, less than fifty meters away, stood the makeshift shelter beneath which was located one of the five primary excavation sites. The winds and rains had continually ravaged the flimsy shelter's metal roof and it now leaked in countless places. Added to the water coming in through the roof were rivulets and mudflows entering the site from upslope, where a diversionary dike had broken. The excavation had become a small lake. Digging at this particular site—which had to be done by hand now because the walls of a structure had been uncovered days ago and they did not want to risk the damage that machine or robot diggers might cause—had thus stopped. Yaelu and her people were used to controlled environments, but even the internal environmental controls of field offices and living units were breaking down because they were dependent on solar-powered generators made for the arid climates of Luna and Mars

and not designed to cope with such things as mud, rain, humidity, and mildew. Though the climate of the region was supposed to be what meteorologists referred to as warm and "dry," and though the rainy season was supposed to be from May through September, the Valley's eastern foothills seemed to be suffering weather patterns all their own. More appropriate generators, built for use in such humid environments as El Four and Isle Nine, had been ordered, but it might take months before they arrived, if they arrived at all, and by then they could all be drowned. "Have you determined the problem?" she shouted at the driver in the front seat, who was bent under the crawler's control panel. "And can it be quickly fixed!" He muttered something that sounded insubordinate. "What did you say?" She looked at her male aide who sat next to her. "Did you hear what he said?" "No." "I said it looks like we will be stuck here for some time, Director." "How far is it to our destination?" "That perimeter outpost is about two more kilometers, Director," the driver said. "Shit." She pulled her air mask over her head, kicked the door open, and stood atop the crawler's left track in the rain. "Shall I call for another crawler?" the aide said behind her. "Didn't you hear the dispatcher say this was the only one available until late afternoon? We'll have to walk the rest of the goddamn way!" She looked toward each end of the track, started to walk it to the rear, where the puddle seemed most shallow, but slipped and fell feet first into the knee-high water immediately below the door. The aide reluctantly stepped down into the water and helped her wade out of it. When they reached higher ground, they were both soaked and spattered with muck. Director Yaelu was so furious she wanted to scream. The moment she laid eyes on the indigenes, Yaelu was glad she had told the outpost guards not to bring them in to the Operations Center. They were the ugliest, the filthiestlooking things she had ever seen. On top of their revolting appearance, they were also stupid. They blubbered and gibbered in an attempt to talk. Apparently they weren't so stupid that they didn't realize Yaelu was a figure of authority. As soon as she and the aide came up to the outpost they were almost throwing themselves at her feet. Fortunately, the guards kept them back so that the EarthFall Director was not touched. "This is what we walked two kilometers in the rain to see?" she yelled at the guards. "What do you want done with them, Director?" said the outpost commander, a young lieutenant Allin Yaelu did not know and who did not have his mask on. "They obviously want something, are trying to tell us something. They're scared to death of us but they—"

"Good for them. As for what they want, I could not give a grand goddamn. I have enough to worry about. Now, put your mask on, Lieutenant. And you will take these ... things well away from the Base. Who knows what kinds of diseases they could be carrying!" "Well, ma'am, some of us thought ... because it's Christmas, we thought—" "You thought wrong, Lieutenant! Are you ignorant of my order against fraternization with the onworlders?" "No." "Are you an imbecile, then?" "No, ma'am." "All right. Get them out of my sight. Get them as far away from this base as a four-hour round trip on a flyer will permit, and when you return, put yourself and everyone who's been anywhere near them through thorough decontamination baths. That is all!" The lieutenant turned and spoke to several guards, and they began pushing and prodding the filthy indigenes toward a landing pad near the guard station. "Christmas!" Yaelu spat. "Utter goddamn nonsense we should have outgrown centuries ago. I despise it." She looked at her aide. "I loathe every thing about this goddamn planet and its pathetic history. Christmas included!" "Indeed, madam," said the aide. "Our own history is, of course, free of the sorts of problems that destroyed Oldworld." She looked at him, suspecting irony, if not insolence. His voice had been as lacking in inflection as his face was devoid of expression. He was new to her, a transferee from Base Supply. Why did she keep feeling disquiet and disrespect around her? Yaelu touched the scar on her neck and looked again at the sunlight on the central part of the Valley. She turned and started back toward the Base, trying to decide whether to demote the aide and have him sent back to Supply or not. When she slipped in mud and almost fell, she decided to at least wait till they were back at the Operations Center. "Will this fucking rain never cease!" "I believe Meteorology said we will have two more days of it," said the aide, following. "See if you can raise Commander Parquot. I need a friend." "Commander Parquot is at the Teotihuacan outpost, and as you know, communications with them have not been good, but I will try." "Yes. See if you can do that," Yaelu snapped. "I want to know if he's located that elusive bastard Fretti." In addition to everything else, she had to contend with incompetence, insubordination, faulty communications, and impudence and absenteeism in her division heads! The aide raised his wrist radio to the mouthpiece in his mask. "Parquot is sticking his nose in things here at Teotihuacan, Chief. Wants to know where

you are. Doesn't like the idea you've been so hard to reach by radio." Kharlo Fretti watched the scanner screens above the panel to the left of the scoutship's main control board. He swiveled to the right so the board mike would pick up his voice, switched it on. "That's too bad. Tell him I'm still unreachable." "He knows one of our scoutships is at your location, Chief." "Okay. The ship that's here is on a routine flyover of Mexico City. I am elsewhere, unreachable by radio because of atmospheric disturbance." "Right. I'll relay that message." Fretti turned off the mike switch and swiveled back around to look at the scanners again. "Turn east," he said to the pilot at the main controls. They were near Chapultepec Park, moving slowly eastward now above the broken and debris-littered remains of a street called Puente de Alvarado. On the monitor to Fretti's left was a map of the ancient Mexica island city of Tenochtitlan, superimposed on the terrain over which the scout was moving. They were now exactly above the place where the causeway from the island city lay across what was then Lake Texcoco, the causeway the gold-laden Spaniards took when they retreated from the enraged Mexica, or Aztecs. It was here, along this causeway, that much of Montezuma's gold had fallen into the lake, there to be sucked into the soft lake bed mud and, so it was said, never found. EarthForce Commander Fretti's hands were on his knees, the pads of his fingers pressing the tight fabric of his trousers as his eyes watched the outline of metallic objects revealed on the central scanner screen. Behind him stood one of his closest aides, a man named Ahnovich. "There," Ahnovich breathed, leaning forward so that the front of his shirt touched Fretti's bald head. "There." "Yes," said the security chief. He reached up to grab the front of the aide's shirt and absentmindedly rubbed the shirt's material as he'd rubbed the material of his trousers before. "And there. And there. Some of it has been exposed by natural shifting of the ground. Look! By God, we've found it. The rape of Mexico!" "Getting it out of those flooded places, though, could be a bit of a trick.'' The pilot turned from the main controls. "Parquot's ship has left Teotihuacan, Chief. He's headed south, coming our way." "All right. Turn about, then. Head west, for that lake in the foothills." Fretti turned and looked up at his aide. "That's what we've been doing, eh, Ahnnie? That's what we are going to do. See to the progress of the outpost being set up at that lake above the COB." Ahnovich grinned down at his superior. "Of course." Then Fretti faced the scanner screens again. "Meddlesome bastard," he said. "As soon as we are strong enough at Teotihuacan, we'll no longer put up with either Parquot or Madam Director." Yaelu was at her desk when word came over the intercom that Parquot was on his way

back to the COB from the security chief's new headquarters. "Kharlo's been located at the lake above Cuitlahuac," the EarthFleet commander said via the radio line patched into the intercom. "Inspecting the outpost there." "All right," she said. "What about this business of him setting up an HQ at Teotihuacan?" "According to his second-in-command, there are a number of large roving bands of indigenes at the north end of the valley, and Teotihuacan is a good place from which to command the region. They are making use of the old pyramids and other structures, strengthening them, building fortifications, cleaning out the underground rooms and passages for use as offices and equipment rooms. And you know Kharlo's penchant for Earth history. Teotihuacan was the city where the predecessors of the Aztecs lived, I think." "I don't give a grand goddamn about his infatuation with Earth history. And I don't like him setting up a goddamn fort there or anywhere else." But she wasn't sure she could do anything about it. Fretti's friends in the IWF government insured his doing as he damn well pleased. "What about that rogue ship that landed in Peru, Hilsen?" "Yes. Its crew was killed in a fight with our patrollers." "Good. I'll see to it that the word gets to the proper news agencies in the colonies. Thank you, Hilsen. I'll see you tomorrow then, before you leave again." Yaelu turned off the intercom mike embedded in her desk, cursed and stood. She simply did not know what to do about Kharlo Fretti, but she was certain his setting up a bastion at Teotihuacan boded nothing but ill for them all. She did not know what to do about anything at the moment. She could not control Fretti or the weather or her own personnel or the idiotic scientists who wanted to study the indigenes, the flora, the fauna, the ruins, the earth, and the sea! There was one she could control, however. Hannon Ruhl did not seem to mind being confined to her private quarters; in his state of perpetual placidity, he did not seem to mind anything. This was the result of his pacification treatment, of course, but at times like this, when Allin was in a bad mood and irritable, badly in need of diversion and an escape from her troubles, she wanted a lover more lively. He had by degrees become increasingly indifferent to love-making in recent weeks, and she had begun to resort to the use of a drug called testosterozine. She gave it to him orally and by injection. But in her preoccupation with the excavation work and other things, she had forgotten to make him take the pill for almost a week. So when she found him sleeping nude on her bed, she wasted no time preparing the needle and giving him an injection. "Hah!" He awoke with a start at the pain of the needle. "Chilia Swann," she said as she got out of her clothes. "Remember her?" "Yes," he said, suddenly smiling and rubbing his buttock. "What do you remember about her?"

"She was nice, someone I liked." "Is that all?" "She was fun." "Am I as much fun?" "Oh, yes." He began to kiss her scar. He was soon ready. She straddled him. "Why didn't you bring her back to me? The three of us could have had a lot of fun together.'' He frowned, thinking about it. "I don't know," he said. "She wouldn't come." "Why the hell didn't you force her to come? I let you go after her alone because that is the way you wanted it. You said you could capture her alone. You didn't. Why?" "I don't know. She wouldn't come. I think..." "What? What the hell do you think?" "I think she thought I didn't love her anymore." Yaelu laughed. Love, like Christmas, was something the damned race should have outgrown centuries ago. The "lover" she had lost in the onboard disaster off Jupiter had been desirable, yes, attractive, pleasurable. Desire and pleasure were all right; Allin understood desire, and pleasure, desire's fulfillment. "Do you?" she said. "Do you still 'love' her?" "I don't know." "Where do you think she is now?" "I don't know." "Do you know what love is, Hannon? Can you tell me?" He just lay there, watching her with a puzzled look instead of his usual witless smile.

20

When the black and silver flying machines screamed down from the clouds and the terrified brigands raiding the lake had scattered in all directions, O'Rourke had descended from the overlook he'd occupied above the padres' barns. He led the lake dwellers deep into the forest north of the Lake of Mists, to a place he'd previously explored at the foot of cliffs that bordered a stream. The area seemed safe from both Los Destruzidos and from lava flow from the nearest firemountain, Iztaccihuatl. But Los Destruzidos were everywhere; groups of their flying machines passed over almost daily, and villagers who searched the forest for game, nuts, and fruit had to hide from an occasional foot patrol. If any of the natives were spotted by these patrols, loud announcements for them to leave the region blared from the skymachines or, in the case of ground units, from devices the Destroyers carried on their backs. If these loud announcements did not make the natives scatter, next came threatening gestures and, if that didn't work, strange hissing beams of light that shot from guns, which could reduce a tree to ashes in a couple of heartbeats. O'Rourke no longer doubted Stares-at-Nothing's story about the "skycreature" who'd saved his life in the ruins of Mexico City many weeks back. Whether a forward scout for these later invaders or a wandering loner like O'Rourke, the skycreature's true motive for having returned to Earth remained as obscure as the reason for these thousands having recently landed. But no evidence was reported of these new ones saving anyone's life, or acting in any kind of friendly manner at all. "They're people like us," O'Rourke tried to tell the villagers, "under all that weird stuff they wear." "Maybe they are people," said Mandadero, one of the village leaders, "but they are not like us. We do not live in the sky or have guns that shoot lightning." Though every instinct told him to move on, O'Rourke could not leave Luz or the boy now, and pushed by the urgencies of the lake dwellers' predicament, he began to organize them. He had them set up a perimeter defense with listening and observation posts at the edge of the forest and above the cliffs. He formed scouting and hunting parties, and work parties to erect huts and cabins. Badly wounded in the legs and mauled by the goats that had trampled him, Padre Rojas lay in a makeshift tent, his needs attended to by a couple of young priests. He was, however, still able to tell people what to do, and under his direction the holy fathers wasted no time in commanding their worshipful flock to build a new church and monastery so that the priests could shelter themselves from God's good rain and cold and keep themselves segregated from those less blessed. O'Rourke told the priests that they would work like the rest of the

villagers or leave the area, and the way he said it left no doubt that as far as he was concerned, they could all go back to the lake if they didn't like taking orders from him—or they could go to that Hell they were always threatening people with. They fervently crossed themselves and went off muttering anxious prayers for the soul of "the damned and blasphemous Northman." But they pitched in and worked along with everyone else. Stares-at-Nothing, on his crooked legs and with his crooked arms, tried to help. His curiosity about the priests and their reputedly benevolent god, whose primary preoccupation seemed to be one of punishment for those who did not adore Him, kept the boy most often in the company of the padres. But the rotund and jovial Father Horne differed from Rojas and many of the other priests in his interpretation of God. Love and compassion, not loftiness and tyranny, were the fundamental elements of his deity. Stares in fact did not fail to notice that those priests who preached the doctrine of a stern and rule-wielding god tended to be that way themselves. It was the same in the river village where Stares grew up. The vague idea of a benevolent but judgmental god the people believed in there was more often than not a projection of their own hopes, fears, dreams, weaknesses, and follies. This observation left Stares wondering if O'Rourke was not essentially correct in his unsympathetic assessment of religion. But from the time he'd been a child, he had heard of a group of seekers and seers in the mountains to the south" or to the east—no one was ever quite sure of the location of these fabled ascetics— who believed that God was in and of all things, positive and negative, and a mystery ever unfolding in the hearts of human beings as well as in everything else in the universe. Even Father Horne, though, despite his usual open-mindedness, dismissed such ideas as "pagan" or at best, pre-Christian, as if he, like his god, had no tolerance for an alternative view. The mystery had been revealed through Christianity, said Father Horne, through the coming of Christ. And God was all good, not a mix of good and evil; it was Lucifer who was bad. Soon Christ would be coming again, for the final time—all the Biblical prophecies had been fulfilled—and that would be the end of Lucifer and everything evil on Earth. In the days following his departure from the lake, before the Destroyers came, O'Rourke had restlessly explored the eastern fringes of Mexico City, what the natives called the Plain of Ruins. Although he did not venture deeply into the dense canyons of the dead city, his peregrinations were made worthwhile by the discovery of a military facility south of what had been its main airport, with plenty of workable weapons and munitions; a forge and blacksmith shop off a broad avenue that a broken sign said was Ignacio Zaragoza; and a saddle factory near the Bosque San Juan de Aragon. He now made good use of such finds. Leading parties of the more adventurous men from the encampment by the cliffside stream down to these areas, and making every effort to avoid being spotted by the invaders' patrols, with horses and burros pulling wagons, he hauled badly needed tools and equipment back up to the camp. As a result, the "camp" was quickly becoming a village. When not busy helping with the building of others' huts and cabins, O'Rourke found time to build a small cabin and corral on

the cliff side of the stream for himself and Luz. He attributed his unwonted community spirit to her influence, but was always impatient to rejoin her when helping the others. More and more she made him laugh and feel wonderful emotions he had not felt within the years he could remember. They warmed and frightened him, these strange yet familiar feelings. He was like a man at a desert well, unsure what the water would do to him, or looking constantly about as he drank, afraid someone might be coming to kill him for drinking it. She was almost four months pregnant now, and at night when lying together on the pallet on the cabin floor she would lay his hand on her belly and he could feel the stir of life within. This stirred within himself feelings good and bad, but he repressed the bad ones, not knowing their cause and not wanting to know, anxious not to trouble her own happiness with his fear of a dark rider coming toward the well. The rider came on a rainy day in midwinter. He came in the form of a fever that every herbal remedy O'Rourke tried would not abate. He watched her young face grow pale and gaunt, and in less than a week saw in her eyes, when she looked at him, that she no longer knew who he was. "Luz," he would say. "Luz." He would hold her and say her name over and over because he did not know what else to say, and he would rock her as though she were a small child because he did not know what else to do. Having known death as much as he had, having seen it so many times in one way or another, he could not understand why he had let himself feel for her so. It was as if what he felt for her had risen up out of some deep fissure in the bedrock that overlay his soul. His sorrow now at her illness rose up out of that fissure and it had all the earmarks of an agony he'd suffered before, long ago and far away.... She was not the only one suffering illness. The health of those villagers who had been ill before the Destroyers came had badly deteriorated since leaving the lake, and deprived of its healing powers, whatever they were, some had died. Like O'Rourke's herbal teas and soups, Stares-at-Nothing's healing powers, if indeed he had any, did not now help Luz. Though the boy tried repeatedly to ease her fever by bathing her face and kneeling with his hands upon her, his arms around her, for hours at a time, her condition showed no sign of improvement. That was because, said Father Rojas, Stares-at-Nothing had yet to give himself over to Jesus and the Holy Virgin Mother. His preoccupation with Luz had prevented O'Rourke from coming earlier to see if Stares was being coerced by the padres in some way or had of his own free will chosen to lose his senses and become indoctrinated into their beliefs. This comment by Rojas reassured him, but never one to be inclined much toward diplomacy, O'Rourke was in no mood for it now. The holy father was not looking in the best of health himself. Flat on his back in the new quarters his disciples had built, he looked as if he'd suffered some strain on his own belief in a personally beneficent god. Neither the gunshot wounds in his legs nor the injuries he'd sustained from the goats were healing well. Maybe, O'Rourke thought cynically, the present erratic diet here in the woods of nuts and berries, with only some occasional rabbit and venison, didn't do much for his recuperative powers.

"I'm taking the boy to my cabin." O'Rourke stood outside the entrance to the head priest's quarters, which were connected to the rear of the crude stone church that fronted the priests' compound. Rojas lay on a litter just inside the doorway, where he'd been placed by two of his monks. "Again?" said Rojas in a weak voice. "When will you concede that only God can heal, Northman?" "What's the reason He hasn't healed you?" Rojas struggled to sit up but couldn't. "Daughter Luz must come into the Church!" "Is that what you were trying to do with her when you went into the barn the day Los Destruzidos landed? Were you trying to bring her into the Church then, Rojas?" The priest's red eyes bulged. His mouth worked in his beard. "Where's the boy?" said O'Rourke. "You refuse to tell me, I'll tear every goddamn log and stone of your new compound down to find him." Tears welled in Stares-at-Nothing's eyes. He looked at O'Rourke for a moment more, then looked again at Luz. He lowered himself over her, weeping, covering her body with his own. On his knees beside the boy, watching like a helpless fool, O'Rourke felt a chill climb his spine. He looked around, looked out the cabin's front door as if someone had come up, but no one had. All he heard was the noise of the stream and the rain. Cold. Why the hell was he so cold? He felt as if he were naked, as if a bitter wind were howling around his ears. He felt as if he were in snow. His hands were numb, his feet had no feeling either. His belly hurt with the empty wrenching pain of days-old hunger. He was starving. He was starving and freezing, and someone close, someone dear, was dying.... He watched the boy and Luz a moment more, then looked up, startled again. He had read about something like this in that journal he'd found in Arizona. No. Yes. Something like it. A little like it maybe. Yes. No. He had lived something like this before. Something very much like it ... but what? Stares spent several hours with Luz. He murmured soothing words and wept and held her and removed her robe and held her that way. He closed his eyes and held her head and tried to will into her whatever healing power he had. He prayed, but not aloud. When he was finally too exhausted to move, too full of sorrow to speak, Luz lay as pallid and racked with fever as before. But when she opened her eyes, she at least knew who he was, now knew who O'Rourke was; she had not given him any sign of recognition for days. "Oak," she said softly, putting one hand on Stares and lifting the other toward O'Rourke. "Eyes and ... Oak..." O'Rourke lifted her in his arms. "Come back, Luz. Shake it and come back to us. Come back to me. I won't be any good without you. I wasn't worth a damn before you ... before we ...

come back to us. Come back so you can show me the way the sun shines through the trees and ... the flowers, Luz. I've forgotten their names. I never knew they were there before ... you ... before you..." But she soon fell away again, moaned in pain and dropped back into delirium. He lifted her frail, inert body from the pallet and stood. "What are you going to do?" the boy said. "I'm taking her to the lake." "They will kill you. You have seen their weapons burn and destroy from high above the ground, from far away. You've seen what they did to the ones who have tried to go back to the lake. The sky people will kill you both. You can't take her there." O'Rourke didn't hear. He stepped into the rain. He staggered across the log bridge, not with the weight of his burden, for she didn't weigh much, but with grief and a rising rage against anything that might stand in the way of saving her. As if they had divined what O'Rourke was going to do, a number of the priests and the other people had come out of cabins, huts, and lean-tos to watch him mount his horse and, holding the robe-draped Luz as though she were no more than cloth, leave the camp. He made the lake at dawn the next day. He knew they would be aware of his approach some time before he got there. They had artificial eyes and ears that could mark the movements of a mosquito. For some reason—maybe they were bored; maybe they were curious—they let him ride into the area without hindrance or harm. The rain had ceased during the night. Thick fog lay in the nearby timber and over the lake. He could not see them, but heard strange soft noises, faint hums, faint tickings. Every ten horse-lengths or so he could hear a sudden accelerated beeping like that of an alien bird gone berserk. And he saw vague square and rectangular shapes in the fog. He judged these to be temporary buildings of some kind, and assumed the noises were coming from machinery that told them he was here. The stone church and other buildings, when he passed them, seemed empty. At some point during the night—he did not remember when, just as he did not really know how he had found the way to the lake in the fog and dark timber and suspected the horse was to thank for that—he had had to lay Luz across the front of the saddle because his arms became too tired to hold her. She moaned now, and reaching the north end of the lake, O'Rourke dismounted and lifted her into his arms. He felt the warmth of the lake before he stepped into its mist-crowned water. Wading in, he heard the bay give an anxious snort, but O'Rourke did not turn. He pulled the robe away from her and, kneeling and feeling the vapors close around him, sat her in the water with her head up so that its warm mineral richness could envelope her. "Come back," he whispered. "Come back, little Luz." Something hissed behind him and he smelled burning air. The bay screamed.

Holding Luz's head up with his left hand, O'Rourke turned and drew his revolver. The bay was falling as he turned, nothing more than a charred and smoking carcass. Out of the fog hugging the shore appeared several human shapes in helmets that completely covered their heads and in clothing disfigured by belts, pouches, backpacks, and other gear. The air seemed to quiver and the fog to evaporate around them as if they had auras that burned away anything around them. Two held weapons that had to be pistols of some sort, connected by cable or hose to a power source on their backs; these weapons were aimed at O'Rourke. "Are you men?" he shouted at them. "Are you human? This woman is going to die. Maybe the lake will save her. You understand that? I'm trying to save her!" One of the pistols shot a light so thin and so brief O'Rourke almost did not see it, but he felt it strike his revolver. The gun was instantly so hot he had to drop it from his singed hand. The water boiled around it when it hit, and steam shot into his face. A voice that sounded as if spoken from inside a tunnel said, "What is your name?" He was surprised to have heard English. "I'm called O'Rourke. And you?" "I am called Kharlo Fretti. King of the Lake." He heard noises that must have been laughter coming from inside the helmets. But there was one who did not laugh; this one said, "Well, how about it, Captain? Are we human?" "I am afraid," said the one in the dark-blue uniform who had called himself Fretti, "that you will have to carry your animal from our midst. It stinks rather horribly and I don't think it is in any condition to carry you any longer." They laughed again, all except the one who'd asked Fretti if they were human and got no answer. Their laughter sounded like the hoots of strange birds from deep within a cave. "The woman," O'Rourke said. "She is—" "The woman will soon be like your horse if you do not do as you are told," said Fretti. "Get out of the water." O'Rourke placed Luz so that her body remained in the lake and her head lay on the bank. He came out of the water, eyes on the dead bay and the butt of his rifle jutting from the saddle scabbard. He knew there was no hope, knew he did not stand a chance against weapons such as these men had, but his rage and a compulsive will to fight made him lunge for the rifle. An invisible restraining force seized his limbs, froze him in midstride, and he fell to the ground. He tried to move, to crawl, to stand up, but whatever held him kept him rigid. He could not even curse them, could not even yell. For a moment he felt it ease just enough for him to struggle against it. Like a fool, he did. They laughed. He saw the muzzle of one of the hand weapons trained on him, heard a hum coming from it and realized that was what restrained him, an invisible force they could strengthen or ease

at will. A blue beam of much less strength than the one that killed the bay streaked from the other pistol, and O'Rourke felt its heat bite into his bearcoat, smelled the burning hair and hide. He saw the pistol move around in the Destroyer's hand so that its beam gashed the coat and his breeches but did not penetrate his flesh. He struggled like a dying fish, flopping and jerking spasmodically within an area no larger than the dead horse, but was helpless to do anything else. Within seconds, he was wearing only smoking shreds. They were still laughing, except for the one who was not doing anything, just standing there watching. Then the leader called Fretti also apparently tired of the fun. He turned and was moving into the fog, followed by four of the others. That left two; one who held a pistol and the one who didn't. "What shall we do with them?" the one with the pistol said. "I don't care," came Fretti's answer. "But if there's anything left when you're done, make sure we don't have to look at it." The laughter of the ones who were leaving faded with them into the fog. "I'll take them into the forest," said the one who held no weapon, the one who hadn't laughed. "You should get back to the scanners." The one with the pistol hesitated, but only for a moment; then he lowered his weapon and moved away. O'Rourke felt himself released from the force that had held him. But the one remaining pulled a weapon. It made a small pop, and he felt a sting like that of a bee hit him in the middle of his chest. Instant numbness spread from there throughout his body, and he collapsed. Luz lay dead beneath the robes he'd covered her with. He did not know when she died, did not remember how he had made his way back to the village by the cliffs. Stares-atNothing said he came stumbling into the camp carrying her, and she was dead. The boy sat with him. He had built a fire, put a robe around O'Rourke's naked shoulders. "I feel your anguish," the boy said, his voice tremulous. "I can feel your bewilderment and your agony." "Why did she die, boy?" "I don't know. I don't know why I couldn't help her. I don't know these things, Oak. I don't know much of anything at all. But I think the love you felt for Luz was, is, good. It is good for you, and I think it has opened a door to something that happened in your past." O'Rourke looked up, startled. "I think you lost someone else you loved very much, a long time ago." O'Rourke felt a sudden stab in his chest, a tightening in his stomach. Nausea engulfed him.

He threw off the robe, rose shakily to his feet, saw that he was naked. He went to his gear in the cabin's northwest comer and found a pair of deerskin breeches, pulled them on. "I am sorry," the boy said, bowing his head over Luz in grief. O'Rourke began throwing his things together. He went across the creek to where he'd tethered the packhorse, untied the animal and led it back through the stream to the fire. After securing the packsaddle to the back of the mare, he made a bundle of his belongings and lifted it to the packsaddle. Then he went in and picked up Luz's body and carried it out to strap it on top of his gear. "Oak?" On the piece of tree limb he used for a crutch, Stares had come outside. "You take care of yourself, boy. Find your own way. I'd tell you to stay away from those goddamn priests, but you have to find your own way about that." "It is a terrible thing to hate yourself for feeling," the boy said. "That is ... it is a sickness, Oak, and it is cowardly." O'Rourke turned, faced the boy. "Don't!" He tried to calm down, feeling ashamed of losing his affection for the boy. "Don't call me 'Oak,' " he said a little more calmly. "Please." "It's said that the soul still lives after one dies. You know that. I think maybe that is true, Northman. Her soul lives and she is now on a journey to a new life." "So I've heard said—and seen no evidence to support it. In any case, she was sorely needed in this life. Too few like her here. She was needed in this life, not in some other. That god you're learning about. Tell me why the hell he takes someone like her!" "Please," Stares said, taking O'Rourke's hand. "I don't know that much about their god. But to curse the mysteries of being is only to curse oneself. You must be less hard on yourself or you will always hate. You have a sadness, a deep pain in your heart. It goes beyond, goes back to something you cannot see, do not wish to see. To that something that happened long ago in your past. I cannot see it either. I see only your pain, your sadness, and the weight that presses down on your heart. Please try to find your way toward forgiveness for what you did and have since done." O'Rourke regarded the boy with a profound disquiet that made him tremble. He looked away, uncertain, afraid of something he couldn't name, yes, couldn't get hold of, as he was afraid he might at last blunder upon its name, might finally have hold of it. Bewildered as well as apprehensive, he grabbed the mare's lead rope and walked into the stream. It was too early in the year for any flowers to be out. But he found a meadow on a southern slope which the sun would bathe during the day. He buried Luz there. And he sat for a long time beside her grave, hearing the wind keening down a nearby canyon.

21

In her private quarters, Allin Yaelu was in the midst of her third shower for the day—she could never seem to stay clean in this filthy place—when the quake struck. At first she thought she was having another attack of the frequent vertigo that almost everyone had been complaining about for weeks, herself included, when she felt the shower floor shift. Yaelu fell against the wall, the water from the shower pipe suddenly pouring over her in a thick stream when the sprayer popped loose from the shower head. Wall and floor shook. Above her the ceiling cracked. Belatedly, she heard the wail of the base sirens. She tried to get the door open but it had jammed. Panic seized her she would be buried, or she would drown. The Director and Commander in Chief of EarthFall would be found naked and crumpled in the most undignified manner in the debris of her shower stall. "Hannon!" she screamed. "Hannon, come here! I can't get out, Hannon!" The plastic door suddenly popped from its hinges and she tumbled out of the stall to the bathroom floor. The door to the bedroom was open. With the floor heaving, she crawled to and through it. She kept yelling for Ruhl as the walls of the bedroom buckled and snapped and sheets of the solarplex ceiling rained down around her. She sprang to her feet and sprinted for the living room. There Hannon Ruhl sat in his favorite armchair. The entire east wall was gone and he was looking out on the chaos of the headquarters complex, laughing like a child, or an idiot, and rocking forward in the chair as the floor tilted. Yaelu lost her footing, fell, and rolled through the opening where the east wall had been. Her living quarters were falling in with Ruhl still inside. But she had no time to think about him. Scampering away to break clear of the crashing debris, she ran into a group of people scurrying from the collapsing generator sheds. "Oh," cried the male sergeant who bowled her over and quickly stooped to help her. "Director Yaelu. I'm terribly sorry. But I didn't recognize you out of uniform." The most serious damage from the earthquake was the destruction of one of the medical supply warehouses, an agridome, a main generator (they were still awaiting generators more suitable to the problematic environment), and a number of solar collectors. Worst of all, the quake had ruined almost every one of the major excavation sites and thus set them back weeks. On the day Director Yaelu was finally handed a complete assessment of the damage—four days after the quake—a violent wind was blowing down off Iztaccihuatl and threatening to flatten the hastily reconstructed building that housed her office and her living quarters. The

windows, even the walls, rattled and shook. The air purifiers no longer worked and the myriad cracks and holes left by the overworked reconstruction crew let not only the wind in, but volcanic ash with it. Nevertheless, like everyone else, Allin Yaelu was so fed up with having to wear a mask all the time when outside, she'd be damned if she wore one in her office, despite the order she'd issued that anyone caught lacking proper protection from the natural environment would suffer a month of double duty without pay. She was already doing double, no triple, duty anyway, she told herself irritably, forgetting that the purpose of her draconian order was not to wrest more work out of her people but to prevent them from being completely immobilized by illness. Tlaloc, the smaller volcano to the northeast, had had a minor eruption the day before and had dropped ash everywhere. It was in the machinery and equipment, in their tools and supplies, in their clothes and their food. The ash was so fine that it had clogged breathing filters and gotten into lungs, through the air masks. Her volcano experts had given her a series of reports two months ago, which stated in essence that both Tlaloc and Iztaccihuatl, as well as Popocatepetl to the south, having undergone a number of eruptions in the last one hundred years, could again blow at any time. The Cuitlahuac Operations Base was close enough to both Tlaloc and Iztaccihuatl to be endangered by unrest in either, and the Base lay almost directly in the path of a previous large lava flow from Iztaccihuatl. Emergency evacuation procedures had been worked out, and all personnel were drilled weekly in the loading onto flyers and airships for takeoff in the event the evac sirens came wailing through radios and over loudspeakers. Such procedures would be successful, of course, only if detection instruments indicated the need to evacuate in time to allow them to sound the warnings. A draft of wind blew several pages of hardcopy from her desk, and Yaelu screamed in frustration. She sprang up and chased the papers around the shambles of her office. She heard Hannon Ruhl laughing in the next room. He was always laughing now, for no reason at all, laughing at her, she often thought, laughing at nothing, laughing to irritate her, laughing to drive her as crazy as he'd become. He laughed at her in bed now, laughed when she hit him, laughed when she beat him more senseless than he already was. The more violent and sadistic she became, the more he laughed. He seemed to love the pain she inflicted—or enjoyed enraging her, reveled in the fact he could cause the fury that turned her into a rabid animal. "Shut up, you goddamned fool!" she screamed at him. He laughed harder. She opened the door into the living quarters, and was greeted with the picture of her "pacified" plaything sitting nude in his favorite armchair, which like him had somehow come through the quake unscathed. He was leering at her maniacally, and vigorously playing with himself. The sight sent a series of Shockwaves through Yaelu, a maelstrom of emotions that finally converged in her libido. He had started doing this after the quake, and now when she went to him for pleasure he would be exhausted and she would have to perform any number of

elaborate erotic acts to work him into readiness. The dangerous thing, the unsettling thing, was that the less he was willing, the more she wanted him. "Stop it!" Suddenly seized with a second attack of vertigo, Allin fell back through the door, closed it, and staggered to her desk. She dropped into the chair. The attack eased but the lassitude came, pervasive and overpowering. This problem had started that very morning, and try as she might to deny it, she had apparently fallen prey to the same illness afflicting half the operations personnel, an illness she had for months been dismissing as laziness and her underlings' desire to malinger, an illness her doctors had thus far tried to diagnose as everything from heavy-gravity fatigue to another ineradicable virus. Health problems, like other problems, abounded: amoebic dysentery, and three different strains of virus that had been identified but-defied either control or cure. Insects, germs, rodents, disgusting animals of all kinds—some of them, like rats and iguanas in and near ruins, grown to twice their ante-Armageddon sizes—were ubiquitous, like the goddamned ash. With an almost debilitating nostalgia, Yaelu longed for the clean and environmentally controlled space habitats, for the sterile subsurface warrens of Luna and Mars, as much as she longed for discipline and obedience in her operations force. As she had feared, she was now certain something existed in Oldworld's disease-laden atmosphere that caused disorder and moral decay as well as pestilential illness. Maybe, she thought as she still heard Hannon Ruhl's laughter from the living room, madness too was endemic. Ruhl was likely suffering from some brain-damaging side effect of his pacification therapy, always a risk when using mind-control techniques, but Yaelu would not at this point rule out the possibility of lunacy being a home-grown product rife as that grotesque native aloe her botanists called the maguey. How else could she explain her own bizarre behavior when with Ruhl? The indigenous humans also filled her with horror. Many were obvious mutants, deformed monstrosities produced from genes no doubt ruined by radioactive fallout from the Final War. She had observed them from a distance, through field scopes, and their animal existence, their weird and demented rituals, made her flesh crawl. As it did now, when she heard Ruhl's laughter again. Fighting weakness and a fresh wave of dizziness when she got to her feet, she pulled a stunner from the desk's top drawer, went on shaky legs back to the door to the living room, opened it and raised the pistol. Hannon Ruhl was on the floor, making an obscene gesture not unlike the kind she had seen some of the monkeys in the surrounding forest make when chased away by EarthFall personnel. Yaelu aimed the gun, but instead of pulling the trigger, she threw it at him. The dizziness had eased. She unzipped her coverall, shed it, and came at him with a strange peal of laughter tearing up through her own throat. An hour before dawn, only half asleep because of the wind shaking her quarters, Yaelu came fully awake when the buzzer at the head of the bed sounded.

"What?" she barked at the mike in the wall. "An outpost in the southern sector has been hit by a band of onworlders, Director. They have caused serious equipment damage and some casualties, two of which are fatalities." She sat up, then sank back as the dizziness engulfed her. "What?" she said weakly, wanting to scream the word. "Why? How?" "Information from Internal Security says that the outpost was undermanned because of illnesses and apathy—and a couple of desertions, Director." "I want the officer in charge of that outpost before me this morning. I want every name who—" "The officer in charge was one of the deserters, madam." She heard laughter ... Ruhl's. Heard him pounding on the wall in the adjacent bedroom, where she usually banished him when she did not feel like having him sleep with her. It suddenly sounded as if he were banging his entire body against the wall and if he kept it up, would bring the quarters down again. "I want them found and arrested ... those deserters. I want them and all those responsible —what is the condition of the outpost at the present time?" "It was overrun, madam. But the onworlders retreated after they grew tired of demolishing equipment and beating those they caught. They disappeared back into the forest." "Haaaaaah!" howled Hannon Ruhl as he hit the wall again. "Haaah haaaaaah!" "I want the ones responsible found and brought in! Immediately! Has there been any contact with Security Chief Fretti?" "Not lately. The last report was that he had his hands full with hostile bands in the Teotihuacan region." "Shit!" "Is that all, madam?" "That is all!" She got up, wobbled for a moment, steadied, and advanced to the door to Ruhl's bedroom. He was all at once ominously quiet. She opened the door. Her sexual plaything stood in the doorway, blubbering happily and once again masturbating. She slapped him so hard he fell. Then she leapt on top of him and began beating him with her fists. "Goddamned idiot!" she shrieked, plunging out of control. He was supposed to alleviate, not aggravate her problems. "Yaaah," said Ruhl between the blows she dealt him. "Haa yaaah." The morning reports were the same as yesterday's. More injuries and illnesses at the Cuitlahuac Operations Base. Earthquake damage impeding progress at the excavation sites.

Equipment and machinery failure. Discipline and morale problems. No response from Kharlo Fretti at Teotihuacan; just one more terse reply from one of his junior officers that the security chief was again off chasing some wild brigand band in the north. And the daily report she requested from NOB-3 on Mars regarding Centaurus 2: no word on attempts to find the lost ship. No word. No goddamned word. EarthFleet Commander Hilsen Parquot had returned during the night from another exploratory mission in the southern hemisphere. From the window of her office Yaelu could see his blunt-nosed groundcar parked outside the Operations Center. Her rage with Ruhl earlier that morning had exhausted what little energy she'd regenerated during last night's sleep. She sat and stared dully out the window and forced herself to call the Operations Center. "Tell Commander Parquot I will meet him in the conference room in half an hour." "Yes, madam," answered the male voice on the intercom. Not one of her aides was fit for duty—or so the word was from the infirmary—and she hadn't replaced them because everyone was badly needed elsewhere. But she sorely missed having a subaltern at her elbow, to jump when she wanted something, to be a sounding board for her frustrations and distractions. In the bathroom she tried to cover her pallor with makeup, stuffed her tangled red hair up under a garrison cap and pulled her breathing mask over it. The second she inhaled, she could tell its filter was clogged. Cursing, she pulled it off and threw it down, exited the bathroom, and after looking in on the heavily sedated Ruhl briefly, left her quarters for the windswept yard between them and the OC. The wind almost knocked her down. "How?" she yelled when she entered the conference room and found Hilsen Parquot standing at the end of the table. "How in hell can the wind blow like this and the sky still be so goddamned full of smoke?" Ignoring the question, her fleet commander pulled out a chair for her. Wearily, she sat down. "When was the last time you had a medscan?" he said. "Is that your way of telling me I look like hell? I don't know. Last week. I'm all right." She looked up at him. "And you? You don't look so smooth around the edges yourself." His smile was strained. "Thank you." But he didn't take a seat. "I can't say that the southern latitudes agreed with me anymore than last time." "Were you at Manaus?" "Of course." "Well?" "The outpost has been hit by a virus carried by howler monkeys in the neighboring forest. Two people have died of it."

"And your lover?" "Lerine is all right but scared." "Aren't we all." "I would like to get her out of there, Allin. You could—" She was instantly incensed. "You know how thin we're spread. I'm working without aides! We cannot shift personnel around to ... to—dammit, she's as safe at Manaus as she'd be anywhere else. I've got enough on my mind now, Hilsen. Don't you add to my problems!" He said nothing, but turned away and stepped to one of the windows. Yaelu sat back. "So give it to me in brief. I'll have a look at your detailed report later, of course, but..." "In brief, we found the same as we did last time. More cities in ruins, the evidence indicating they were decimated by fallout, famine or disease. More seismic, volcanic, and climatic upheaval." Parquot sounded weary himself, depressed. "Some enclaves of human indigenes scattered here and there, away from the cities. When we questioned them—those we could catch and would talk to us—we again heard the universal hatred and fear of anything associated with pre-Armageddon culture and technology, though, as we've seen here, such things as guns and some rudimentary forms of machinery are used by those a bit more adventurous and less religious—or less superstitious. Some rather large and thriving towns in places, but vast regions that were once densely populated now deserted." Yaelu jerked her garrison cap off and suddenly felt exhausted by that simple act. "Do you think this loathsome planet will ever make a comeback?" "Our scientists think so." "I'm asking you, Hilsen. You've got more sense than they do." "Yes, I think Earth will make a comeback—especially if we help." She glared at him. Not him, she thought with dull alarm. "Not you," she said. "I am surrounded by would-be traitors who—" "Why would helping Earth and its pitiful people to improve their existence be a betrayal of you, Allin?" he said, turning from the window. His expression was one of incredulity. She banged her fist on the table. "Because you know where our energies should be totally concentrated, directed—" A spasm of coughing seized her. "Speaking ... of ... traitors—" She had to stop again until the coughing ceased. "Speaking of traitors—have any of your people been able to locate that goddamned Fretti?" "No. He has managed to elude our every approach. But of course we are still approaching him as a comrade, as someone we don't want to offend or estrange." "And could you take him if it came to a fight?" "With my people scattered all over the planet? No. With all units here, perhaps. I think so, yes." Yaelu was furious with Parquot's uncertainty, all the more so because she knew it reflected

her own ambivalence when it came to dealing with her slippery security chief. Fretti had become more and more independent, if not mutinous. More than once his people had been distantly observed exploring and digging in various parts of Mexico City. As far as the security of Cuitlahuac was concerned, they continued to perform their duties only in token fashion. As a result, the COB grew weaker by the day, even as the fortifications at Teotihuacan grew stronger. She knew that Fretti's security force was more loyal to him than to her or Parquot, and for that reason she did not want a confrontation with Fretti that might cause a serious rift—if not a collapse—in her command. The prospect of Fretti turning full-tilt against her, with all his people behind him, made her feel worse than she already did. Yes, Hilsen would stand by her, she was certain, but his doubts about overcoming Fretti in a military clash cemented the fact that she did not want a war between EarthForce and EarthFleet any more than she wanted a catastrophic eruption by the volcano at their backs. Parquot at last sat down across from her. "Unfortunately, there is a new development that could make you forget your worries over the loyalty of Kharlo." "Oh, God," Yaelu groaned. "What else? What the hell else can happen?" How much more, she thought, can I take before I snap? The mental image of herself as cracked as Hannon Ruhl made her entire body shake. Hilsen was right; she was going to have another medscan, and soon. "Captain Mien has returned from IWF headquarters at NOB-Three and he's brought bad news. It seems a significant number of large companies and corporations are itching to land on Earth and exploit the planet for their own ends. Within the InterWorld Federation, you and the entire Oldworld Watch Division are being accused by certain elements of duplicity, of having intentionally deceived the Federation into believing Earth was not accessible, so you could exploit it for yourself. Thus requests for the new generators, more medical supplies, et cetera, have been held up." "Who is speaking on our behalf?" she cried. "Anyone?" "A few. But it doesn't look good. A move for lifting the ban on Earth entry is getting stronger.'' "That's all we need. Along with everything else, we could have a thousand warring interests coming in and ripping everything apart. We could—" He reached across the table and touched her hand. "Allin. I want you to see Doctor Klovski today. You are overworked, overwrought." "All right!" She stood, and for a moment couldn't move. "One more thing," he said gently. "What?" "You must ease off on some of your orders, your restrictions and punitive measures." "The hell I will!" She tore open the collar of her shirt to rub the scar. "Listen to me. I value discipline as much as you. But you can't beat it into people with a

hammer and expect them to perform as you wish. They'll either crumble and become useless and apathetic, or rebel. Especially in a situation like the one we have here." "I don't—" "Hear me out, Allin. You have become increasingly harsh and severe since the beginning of EarthFall. My officers are aware of a lot of discontent. My units, I think, are dependable, but the civilian contingent—" Parquot shrugged and then echoed her own immediate fear. "And that brings us back to Fretti. Since he's become as elusive as that villa we're looking for, he is, as you know, less to be trusted than ever, and he's got a lot of lethal power behind him. His units are loyal to him only. And if you're really worried about him, as you should be, you should be standing on your head trying not to make any additional enemies. I tell you, Allin, the way you're clamping down on your own people, desertion and mutiny could spread here at Cuitlahuac like one of those damned viruses plaguing us, with much worse results. Fretti having the influential friends in the IWF that he does, virtually every deserter and mutineer will go over to him." She stared at Parquot, her fingers rubbing the scar on her neck. The scar felt like a coil of rope tightening its grip, one of those hideous Aztec renderings of a serpent closing off her blood. She thought she heard laughter, Hannon Ruhl's laughter. That was not possible. It was in her mind. It was in the goddamned wind pounding against the trembling conference room walls. Yaa haaaah! Haa Yahaa yahaah!

22

Since the day she had rescued Chia from being gang-raped by the group of unsightly males in the forest, since the moment she made the letters of her name in the sand, the unspeaking Zi had been a source of fascination for the spacewoman. Chia was amazed at how gentle and sophisticated a lover the otherwise rough and wild onworlder could be. Zi taught Chia sign language, how to ride a horse (though liking the beasts was not something that came easy), the use of herbs for health remedies; and deprived of her usual artificial means to control or sanitize certain bodily functions, some sensible uses for leaves and moss. Zi had trained Chia in the ways of the plain and the forest, how to hunt and fish, avoid enemies, live always with nerves and senses alert and keyed for an unexpected fight or getaway. Without her ship—she still thought of the death of Nightswann with regret and remorse— without all the technological wizardry and comfort she'd enjoyed all her life, Chia indeed felt alien and often exposed, helpless and dependent on the wily Zi. Thus Chia was a good student, knowing that everything she learned from this untamed but cunning creature could prove beneficial, if not vital, on this turbulent planet to which she'd returned. Of the greatest importance to Chia just now was the fact that what she learned could help her in the rescue of Hannon Ruhl. But she was uncertain, and uneasy, as to what her teacher, who had become her lover as well, would think of the idea. Though Zi could hear as keenly as an animal in the forest, it had become natural for Chia often to use sign language instead of speech, even when stealth and silence were not necessary. And because the handtalk symbolized the special link she had with Zi, she chose to use it to tell the Earthwoman about Ruhl. They were camped near the palatial remains of an old hacienda which Zi had tried to "give" Chia, thinking Chia would like to have a house even if she had to share it with rodents and birds, but when Zi indicated she herself would not camp or sleep inside the huge and half-ruined mansion, Chia, after satisfying her anthropological curiosity by wandering through it for several hours, had said, "The sky is my roof also." She stopped short, however, of saying, And my bed is yours. I must find someone, she signed that night by the campfire. Someone very dear. She drew a circle around her heart. Someone among the skypeople. A man. Across the fire Zi's eyes watched her with bright intensity. A man? she sent back. What would a woman who comes from the sky want with a man? Men are shit! Chia looked at the black hacienda silhouetted against the last traces of dusk in the west. She thought of the thousands of generations of women that had toiled in such places, in houses, enslaved as much to their own desires, their own need for security and comfort, as

they were to men. It struck her then that she and Zi were two women, one from the past, the other from the future, camped at the edge of a decayed monument to a confining domesticity that had once been, in the last century, almost defunct. Some men are good, she signed, some bad. Some women are good, some bad. The one who has enslaved the man I love is a woman who is bad. Previously narrowed with anger, Zi's eyes now widened with surprise. I once had a man as a slave. The very one I saved you from, the one whose manhood I took. He was no better, no smarter, than a donkey. As a slave, no great prize. But I would like to see this man you love—and the woman who has enough power to enslave him. It is a power rooted in evil, Chia said. And thinking of the "pacification" techniques Yaelu might have used on Hannon, she concluded: In sorcery. Zi suffered a brief shudder, and tightened the robe around her shoulders. It was the first time Chia had ever seen her display any sort of fear. The power of sorcery she obviously understood. For days the two women studied the layout of the main operations base at the suburban ruins southeast of Mexico City. They watched from numerous observation points on the slopes of the foothills above, but without visual aids it was difficult to know from such a distance just where the main security force had placed sensing equipment and outposts. The large lake between the base and the upper foothills, however, was easier to observe. The security at the outpost at that locale was lax and listless. During the six days they watched the lake, the detecting gear at several positions was simply abandoned and the people who had been stationed there did not return. On the night of the sixth day, they sneaked into one deserted station house and discovered the equipment still dutifully operating for the benefit of no one. Chia shut it down, found a number of items they could use, like field glasses, uniforms, air-purification masks, knockout pistols, and then she and Zi faded back into the night. As Chia suspected, security was also less than perfect at the Cuitlahuac Operations Base, and no one anticipated infiltrators dressed in EarthForce uniforms. But she did not intend for the two of them to be here more than a day. They were lucky to have stolen the darker blue uniforms of Security (though one of the uniforms required some alteration to fit the six-foot-six Chia) because this enabled them to move about the entire morning without danger of being grabbed for one of the many work details evident almost everywhere they went on the beleaguered base. Chia soon learned that nearly half the COB was either in the infirmaries or had taken off for parts unknown. She was quick to adopt a story that she and Zi were in from the lake outpost because of illness. But she tried to avoid contact with anyone as much as possible, while learning all she could of the base. Whenever they saw a dark-blue uniform like theirs, they were quick to find a door, side street or other exit into which they could duck. Along with the disgruntled complaining that Chia heard everywhere—the stories of

desertions, injuries, sickness, and insubordination—she learned that Director Yaelu's love thrall, the source of many a bawdy joke, had "blown his circuits" and was in the psychiatric ward at the main infirmary. She took this news with silent thanks that the tinted air mask concealed what her face would have otherwise revealed. Zi nonetheless felt her rage, and when they were walking again, she briefly took Chia's hand, squeezed it and let it go. The main infirmary, a complex of half a dozen solardome modules like most of the buildings on the base, sat some fifty meters north of the Operations Center cluster. They crossed the wind-dried ruts to the Receiving and Records module, where a lone harassed and weary-looking male clerk attending a bank of computer panels told them the psychiatric ward was at the east end of the complex. "You committing yourselves?" he asked with his back turned to them, his tone indicating he didn't really give a damn why they were there. "Are a lot of people committing themselves?" Chia said. The clerk didn't even turn from the panels. "Not an epidemic yet, but we get one or two more each day." Finally he turned, and a grin etched his sallow face. "Other day we had an excavation engineer come in here saying he saw Quetzalcoatl coming down out of the clouds. The Aztec god?" "Right," Chia said. "Just another case of homesickness. He wanted to go back where Quetzalcoatl came from. Thought he might get a ticket back to Koryzev that way. But the Grand Madame has decreed that all cases of mental illness will be cured here, or else. That's improved the outlook of a lot of our so-called mental patients. Hear the one about Madame's Final Ruhling?" "Yes," Chia lied. "We heard. Thanks." Outside again, she surreptitiously signed to Zi that they should wait until late that night to free Hannon from the psychiatric ward. They spent the rest of the day hidden in the ruin of an apartment building near the infirmary complex, catching up on some sorely needed sleep. An hour after midnight they left the ruin and, stunners ready, stole their way to the infirmary complex and entered the psychiatric ward. The nurse at the front was asleep; Chia shot her once in the chest just to make sure she would stay that way. Another nurse they met in the corridor was downed where he stood, and they met no others. A quick search of the rooms off the corridor turned up Hannon. He was sedated, and so emaciated they managed to move him out the ward's back exit without difficulty. But they had to knock out two more people with the stunners before they were safely into the foothill forest northeast of the base. They had thrown their air masks away and were moving as fast as they could up a narrow trail, the branches of brush tearing at their clothes and faces, having to stop frequently to rest now because they had carried Ruhl for nearly a mile, when, still perhaps fifty meters from the place where they'd tethered the horses, Zi, in the lead, suddenly dropped Ruhl and sprawled, pulling Chia with her, in the brush beside the trail. "What?" Chia whispered, lifting her face from the ground and tasting dirt and humus.

Zi's hand reached back to close Chia's lips, and she obediently fell silent. "Get up." It was a man's voice speaking in English from somewhere forward of their position near the trail. "Get up with your hands in the air." It was so dark that Chia did not understand how anyone could see them without artificial aid. Maybe he wore infrared nightglasses, and maybe he didn't. After all, Zi had seen him, or somehow sensed he was near, without aid. For some reason, Chia did not think he was a member of the landing force. Chia thought of the indigene who called himself Sikatre, and prayed this wasn't one from the same mold. Then, Zi leapt. It looked to Chia as though she had pulled her knife from its sheath behind her neck; the half-wild woman had apparently forgotten she had a stunner. Surprised by her recklessness, Chia stood, her own stunner drawn, trying to see, trying to distinguish the man and Zi among the vague shapes of trees and undergrowth. She heard struggling, but it was impossible to see well enough to shoot without running the risk of hitting Zi. She stepped forward, intending to help her friend. A hand lashed out, hitting her across the side of the head. She went down again. Dazed, she then saw the vague man-shape holding Zi as the latter kicked and tried to break free. When Zi was at last exhausted, he let her go and she fell. It seemed she no longer had the knife. "Who are you?" Chia said to the darkness, not knowing what to make of the fact he had not killed either one of them. "Name's O'Rourke. Who the hell are you?" The voice was an angry growl. "I am Chia. This is Zi. She doesn't speak—except through sign language." "And who are you carrying?" Chia rose slowly to her feet, her hands in the air. "A friend." "What's the matter with him?" She pondered telling the truth. "Are you an onworlder?" "A what?" "I mean, are you an inhabitant of Earth?" "I guess you could say that." Putting aside the oddness of this answer for the moment, Chia said, "Zi here is an onworlder, like you. I am not. But I am not with the space people who came here, either. I am what is called a nonworlder, a—" "Who are you with?" "I am alone." Something made her want to tell this man she could not see the truth, and— inexplicably—she remembered the young indigene with the strange eyes. "I came here to get my friend. He is ill. He is sedated now, unconscious. He was their prisoner. Down there, at

the offworlders' base they call Cuitlahuac. I came to take him back to the life we knew before. We were space pilots. Independent contract pilots. Belonging to no company, no organization. In ... space. I have come to take my friend back to that," she added lamely. "On a horse?" She tried to check her irritation at the asinine question. "I— we ... the horses are to take us out of the region, of course. I haven't come up with a plan how to return to—" He stepped closer, became a more distinct shape against the darker foliage. Chia could tell he held a weapon of some kind, and wore a broad-brimmed hat and a coat. "I'll help you with him," he said. "I know a place where some people are camped. More a village than a camp now. But if that one jumps me again, she's going to be as out of it as your other friend. She damned near parted my head from my neck." Zi slowly stood, but she did not raise her hands in the air. Deeper into the forest, the man built a small fire so that Chia could look at his wound, a short cut just below the jawline, only centimeters from his carotid artery. She was about to clean and dress it, when Zi came forward and pushed her aside. I will do it, Zi signed. I caused it. O'Rourke regarded her warily, but when it was obvious she meant to do him no harm, he relaxed and looked at Chia watching them from the other side of the fire. From the way his eyes moved over her face, her hairless scalp, her long lean body in the EarthForce uniform, he was full of questions. "I've spent a lot of time looking at the night sky," he said, "and I've seen a lot of desert, a lot of emptiness here on Earth. But not the kind you must have seen. What kind of creature is it who can live with that kind of emptiness ... the kind that's up there?" Chia removed the rag from the hot water in the pan he'd taken from one of his saddlebags. She passed it over to Zi. "You have a point of departure and a destination. In between, you have your ship—and a few good friends," she added with a pained look at the still unconscious Hannon on a blanket O'Rourke had spread. He continued to watch her, the firelight glowing in his eyes. "That's more than some have, I guess." Chia looked at the fire. "When I was younger, I studied human history. One of its lessons is that the species can adapt to almost anything. Not only adapt, but come to regard as the natural state of things, come to regard as comfortable even, what it might have previously felt was too adverse for survival." She looked over at him. "And there is that in us which wants to make of adversity a state of grace." "If adversity's all you got, you want to do something with it just to make it seem of use, maybe." "Maybe." Zi had finished cleaning and bandaging the wound. She threw the rag back in the pan.

Splashed water hit the fire and hissed. Looking at both of them, Zi signed, I do not understand such talk, such words. She put a hand on each side of O'Rourke's face and turned it so that he had to meet her stare. She seemed both angry and perplexed, and letting him go, spoke emphatically with her hands: Where do you learn such words? "I don't know," he said, having no trouble understanding her. Apparently he had learned sign language at some point during his "seeing a lot of emptiness." He looked at the fire. "When I was younger, I guess. In the north." You do a lot of guessing. "Yeah." Zi signed for him to look at her again. You are strange, not like any man I've known. You could have killed me and the starwoman. Maybe you are strange—and maybe you are just a fool. "Yeah." It took the rest of the night—riding on horseback along a winding hilly trail through forest, the two women on Zi's mare and Hannon Ruhl strapped to Chia's mount—for them to follow O'Rourke to the village by the cliffs. Though it was hardly past dawn, many of the people were up, some tending outdoor cooking fires. The entry of O'Rourke and the newcomers caused a village-wide stir. The people gathered around them as they rode in, many greeting O'Rourke as one who'd left and whose return was an event worthy of celebration. While he merely nodded or spoke some brief word to those he knew by name, he seemed to be searching the crowd for a face that wasn't there, and giving up finding it, pushed on across a stream to a cabin on the other side. There he told Zi and Chia to dismount, and helped them untie Hannon and carry him inside. They had no sooner laid him down than Chia herself collapsed with fatigue. When Hannon at last shook off the sedation later that morning, Chia was asleep. She awoke to his bewildered cries for Allin Yaelu. "Where are you, Allin? Is this one of your games?" he shouted from the pallet on which he'd been placed. He laughed a moment and then stared around at the cabin's rough interior, eyes wild and frightened, confused as a child's. "Allin?" Chia sat up, wincing at the itch of insect bites, the ache in her limbs from so much riding. "Hannon," she said softly. "Han, do you know me?" She tried to imagine what it might be like for him, waking in a setting for which he had no experiential frame of reference, for which little or nothing in his life had prepared him. But not knowing to what extent his mind had been damaged, she could only speculate. "Hannon?" She moved over to him. He stared across the room at Zi, who was now waking and also sitting up. He looked around him again, at the walls, the windows, the stove, the dirt floor. He looked at her. The fear in his eyes seemed momentarily to ease. "It's Qua," she said. "Do you remember me?" She took his hands. "Chia," he responded, his mouth open, the lines in his drawn face deepened in

concentration. The paroxysmic firelight in the open stove, flickering the length of his jawline, suggested to her the erratic synaptic flashes that were likely taking place in his brain. Some remote part of him seemed to be remembering, or trying to remember. "Aahh, Chia." A stick cracked in the fire and his concentration was broken. His eyes dulled and he looked around him again. She kept trying to get him to look at her, kept holding his hands and talking to him, recalling things they'd done together, places they'd been, and at times he seemed almost to remember, but his attention span was short and becoming shorter by the minute, and he could not sit still. Chia looked about her, desperate for help. "Where did the man who brought us here go?" she said to Zi, who was now standing with her back to Chia. Gazing out the front window, Zi pointed and signed. He comes with another. She moved to the door and opened it. Through the doorway Chia saw the man named O'Rourke— unmistakable in the broadbrimmed hat whose shadow angled across his face so that it was cut in half, dark on one side, light on the other—and a smaller figure wearing a long gray robe and walking with the help of a crude stick crutch, crossing the narrow footbridge spanning the stream. As the two drew near, Chia recognized the face of the boy she had saved from the big lizard—how many months ago now? It seemed like years, and seeing the boy enter the cabin, she indeed thought that he had aged significantly. His eyes were as uncannily large and lustrous as Chia remembered them, with a light that easily outshone that coming in through the windows and door of the cabin. The two came over to where she sat with Hannon by the stove. Hannon held her hands tighter, as if afraid. "Chia," he said, "who ... are these people?" For a moment she thought he had realized who she was, but after watching him again, she decided with a sinking heart that he had merely addressed her because she was the only one here whose name he'd just learned. O'Rourke spoke to Chia. "The boy knew you were here. He's like that, claims to know things sometimes the rest of us would have a hard time knowing. He thinks he knows you." "Yes," said the boy. "I know you. You came from the sky. Before the others did." He knelt beside Chia. "You saved my life on the Plain of Ruins." "That is right," she said, certain he could not have made out her features when she was in her lifesuit that day. "How is it that you ... how did you know me?" "I can't say—it doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes I see and sometimes I can heal, but often I can't. Often I see or do nothing extraordinary or unusual. But your friend here; he is ill. He has been hurt by others." "Yes." She then knew he had come not just to see her, but to see if he could help. "Can you help me, help him?"

"I don't know." The boy sat and faced Hannon. He took Harmon's hands but said nothing for a long time. The rough-voiced O'Rourke remained silent and finally moved quietly back through the door. Chia saw him go to the stream that ran past the cabin. There he squatted with a pail, his back to the cabin. Zi was watching him also, through the front window. It struck Chia that Zi and O'Rourke were much alike, perhaps both more wild than they were civilized. But her attention went quickly back to the boy and Hannon. The boy looked at her a moment and Chia saw the doubt, and the compassion, in those eyes that almost burned her with their light. Then he closed them. "I want you to close your eyes," he said to Hannon. "I want you to close your eyes and listen to my voice, my words." Hannon did, a childish smile on his face. "I want to take you somewhere," the boy said softly, his tone hardly overriding the sound of the stream. "I want to take you back to a place where you haven't been in a long time. It was a good place but someone took it from you and you must find it again. You want to go back and find it. Someone good, someone who loves you, waits there for you, in that place. Someone who was both your lover and your friend." The boy was silent again, holding Harmon's hands. Hannon seemed to be almost dozing, with his head canting to the left. The boy finally spoke again. "Her name is Chia. Your lover and your friend. She longs for you to come back. Go back to her. Go back to the place where Chia waits." Hannon's head slowly straightened. Chia watched his face. The smile had faded. His eyes remained closed but his expression now was one of deep concentration and strain. The boy kept speaking in the same way he had spoken before, softly, gently trying to probe what was left of Hannon's mind, trying to awaken a memory that was perhaps irrevocably destroyed. All at once Chia heard shouting from the footbridge. She looked out the door. "Brother Mira!" Three men in robes much like the boy's had appeared on the bridge. One was taller than the other two, had a long gray beard and, like the boy, supported himself on a makeshift crutch. This was the one whose booming voice carried across the stream and into the cabin. "Brother Mira, come out of there!" It broke the hypnotic influence the boy had over Hannon, and the latter jerked convulsively, opened his eyes and looked fearfully about and began to moan. "Do you not know that hypnotism is satanic?" shouted the man. The three were beginning to cross the bridge. Chia saw no sign of O'Rourke. Zi had not moved from the front window. "Have you still not learned that the only way to overcome illness and unhappiness is through prayer to God and through observing the canons of His Church? You are merely

imposing your egotistical will on this man! You are merely imposing your ego—" O'Rourke stepped from around the cabin and stood in the way of the three priests. His right hand shot out with a blow that sounded lethal when it hit, and the tall priest who'd done the shouting fell backward to the ground. "Murderer!" One of the other two yelled melodramatically. He turned and shouted back toward the main part of the village. "The Northman has just killed Father Rojas! Help us!" Still on the ground, Rojas groaned. "Get that sonofabitch away from my cabin," said O'Rourke, "before I do kill him." No one came from the village to help. The two priests stooped to lift the fallen Rojas. They began dragging him back across the bridge by the arms. O'Rourke picked up the crutch Rojas had used and threw it at them. The stick broke against the logs of the bridge. Chia looked back at Hannon Ruhl. He was blubbering now, shaking his head and muttering gibberish. O'Rourke came into the cabin. He closed the door and knelt beside the boy. He watched Hannon. "I got this thought—I was hoping he might tell us why—" He suddenly looked at Chia. "Maybe you can tell us why those offworlders, as you call them, have come here." "No," she said. "I don't know." She looked at the moaning Ruhl. The boy bowed his head and let go Ruhl's hands. "Hannon? Hannon, this is Chia," she said anxiously, trying to take hands which now waved in the air like those of one falling. She feared that if there'd been any basis for hope before the priests appeared, it was gone now. "Hannon, can you hear me?" Before her eyes he had become nothing more than a babbling two-year-old.

23

He had managed to stanch the flow of blood with his loincloth, and crawled to a village nearby in the middle of the night. In the dark, he found the medicine man's hut and crawled in. With a knife and crazed by pain and loss of blood, he persuaded the old shaman, who'd tended previous wounds Sikatre had incurred, to keep his mouth shut about this one. Without surprise or alarm, the old man grunted unqualified obedience, proceeded to examine and clean the wound, and by candlelight had carefully sewn it up with a length of sinew. But, hidden in the hut for days while he healed and regained his strength, Sikatre decided his doctor's promise of secrecy wasn't good enough. And so, the night before leaving the village, after helping himself to one of the horses in the corral, he hastened the shaman's departure to the next world. Riding was torture, so he walked, leading the horse into the hills. Camped for days in the mountains called Sierra de las Craces, west of the Valley, Sikatre the Indestructible groaned and gritted his teeth and rolled on the ground with the pain and indignity of the still tender wound, and watched the skymachines moving over the Plain of Ruins, moving over and dropping down, disappearing among the ragged and teetering buildings, rising up, moving on again. He watched and let his fury grow till it consumed him. It was because of the female skydevil that he'd lost his manly parts and thus his ability to make children. Maybe the Tornado had been the one to wield the knife, but it was on account of his preoccupation with the skydevil that the Tornado had managed to surprise him so. Now he would never know what kind of beautiful sons he might have had by a woman not touched by the Contamination. He watched the skymachines hover over Mexico City, and let his wound and his pride mend and his wrath and hatred grow. In a cave only he knew about, where he'd cached weapons, Sikatre extracted two submachine guns, two pistols, and more ammunition than his horse could carry. He had to leave one of the submachine guns and half the ammunition he wanted, but his saddle pouches still bulged with bullets, and with him in the saddle, the poor mare he'd stolen wheezed and snorted going up or down the smallest hill. Having never been shod, her hooves were badly cracked and sore; she was lame when he located the Terrible Thirty-Four. They were said to be the meanest and most ruthless band in Central Mexico; but Sikatre didn't think they were as terrible as he was, because he had a gun that would make a sieve of their one-armed leader, Acatl Guerre. Acatl Guerre, it was said, could trace his bloodlines all the way back to the Aztecs, and he liked to make sacrifices of his prisoners by cutting their hearts out and offering them up to the sun. At dusk, Sikatre came upon them at a village on a creek the Terrible Thirty-Four had just raided. Through the dust and smoke, he saw from his concealment in some nearby

undergrowth that Acatl was engaged in just such a rite. Both fascinated and disgusted, Sikatre watched four of Acatl's men hold the female victim to the ground, a man clutching each limb as Acatl opened the screaming woman's heaving chest. Acatl, an umon, wasn't exactly one-armed. His right arm was stunted, very short, and the hand at the end of it was shriveled and useless. His right leg was shorter than the left also, which made him stand lopsided, and move with difficulty. He was otherwise tall and big, a good target. He was naked, streaked with the blood of those he'd butchered, and the butchery obviously aroused him sexually. Maybe it was because he'd lost his own, but Sikatre felt, as the leader of the Terrible Thirty-Four turned to offer another heart to the dying sun, that Acatl had the biggest penis he'd ever seen. This instantly inflamed him with the jealousy of a eunuch. He started to mount the mare and she went down under his weight. The noise of the fallen horse alerted the umon raiders and Acatl. Sikatre stepped from the brush and, grinning, fired his automatic weapon into Guerre. The heart he held flew into the air, and Acatl fell backward over his last victim and the four men holding her down. Armed with nothing more awesome than pistols, knives, and swords, the Terrible ThirtyThree froze in varied positions of readiness for fight or flight. A few of them cast surprised and disappointed glances at their bullet-riddled leader. "Whah," said Sikatre, and gave them an almost apologetic grin. "You are the marauders called the Terrible Thirty-Four. Thirty-Three now. Huh? Me, I am Sikatre the Horrible. But we can still be the Terrible Thirty-Four. Or you can all be dead before the sun dies." He heard no argument. "I want to see how terrible you are. I am going into the deathland, into the ruins of Mexico City. I am going to make war on the devils who came from the sky. I think you are terrible enough to come. He who doesn't, will no longer be considered anything more terrible than a suckling infant." In the dawn, they came down the broken trail of the old Toluca highway, weaving through the rotting remains of long ago abandoned automobiles, farmhouses, and buildings of the eastern suburbs. Acatl Guerre had been the owner of a fine sorrel stallion. The horse had been persuaded to like his new master, Sikatre the Smart, after being hit in the head a couple of times with his submachine gun. The stallion, whose name was Yacac, understood that kind of language. Sikatre sat astride him out in front of the Terrible Thirty-Three, knowing some member of his new band could put a bullet or an arrow in his back at any time, but doubting any one of them would. They were cutthroat brigands, whah, bad as he'd ever seen, but they were followers, and just now Sikatre was the meanest-sonofabitch-of-them-all and he was the one who led. But the meanest sonofabitch of them all felt his meanness melt when he led them off the

old Toluca road and onto one of the streets going into Mexico City toward the eastern edge of Chapultepec Park. He had watched the skymachines land here almost daily, others hover about and land in the densest part of the dead city only eight or ten kilometers to the east. This morning was no exception. They had come flying from Teotihuacan and dropped in the same places. Looking directly east now, at the forested hill at that end of the park, Sikatre could not see well for the trees but knew at least two were in the vicinity of what was left of the (M sprawling Chapultepec Palace. He reined Yacac to a halt at a place where two roads crossed west of the road encircling the castle's hill. The bravest of the Terrible Thirty-Three drew alongside him. Sikatre's crotch itched and burned. He tried to ignore it. "We will charge and cut them down. We will burn their goddamned skymachines. We'll burn the skydevils too." They stared at him as if they thought he might be crazier than .Acatl Guerre. "You have seen what their weapons can do," said the one called Racho. His lower jaw jutted out so far it looked as if it wanted to eat the upper part of his face, and he had a voice that sounded like gravel being ground to grit in the region where his vocal chords should have been. "You go first, jefe. We will sit here and watch." Some of the others made noises that sounded dangerously like laughter. Sikatre swung his submachine gun into Racho's head in the same way he'd dealt with Yacac. Racho toppled from his saddle. "You know what the skydevils are doing?" Sikatre bawled so that all could hear. "They are looting the ruins. They are after all the gold and jewelry and fine trinkets in such places. We will take it away from them. We will be rich and rule the Valley. Come on. Let's see just how terrible you are. Whah!" Sikatre the Wrathful kicked his stallion into a full gallop for the hill. He was ten horse-lengths out in front before the rest broke into a charge behind him. Jumping brush, splashing across a stream, dodging trees, he howled a battle cry and raised his automatic weapon high above his head. It still hurt him in the crotch to ride so hard, but he was too full of the fever of imminent battle to notice the pain or the blood beginning to run from his freshly opened scrotal wound. "Whaaaaah! Kill the devils from the sky!" His long-legged mount was quickly closing the distance between himself and Chapultepec Hill—and the pain shooting up from his groin was at last making itself known. So was his fear. He had seen what the skydevils had done to his band at the Lake of Mists. And the skywitch who had caused his mutilation would not be among these at the castle. What was he doing here? He was crazy, whah, like Racho thought. He was also going to be very soon dead. He tried to think of some reason he could give the Terrible Thirty-Three for turning back. They were behind him, yelling and brandishing weapons and crashing through foliage like a cavalry of madmen. He jerked Yacac's head to the left as the stallion labored up the hill. He saw several broad

archways and headed for one. Maybe he could hide somewhere inside the walls of the castle, let the Thirty-Three go up in smoke like his old band had. Then he'd escape somehow without Los Destruzidos even knowing he'd been there. Whah. But he wanted to see the devils cut and run. He wanted to flush them like a bunch of quail. He wanted to cut them to pieces. The stallion's shod hooves clattered on the broken stone of the ruined colonnade. Sikatre burst into an overgrown courtyard. All at once one of their skymachines popped up from the middle of the palace ruins, and just as it did, a spasm of excruciating pain shot up from Sikatre's crotch. He grunted, and with the hand that was on the reins he touched himself there. His hand came away wet with blood. The pain blazed again, this time so sharply he almost fell from the saddle. He was so preoccupied with the pain and his rage, he lost the reins, and the stallion, frightened by the skymachine, threw him head-over-heels into the tangled brush. He came up with his submachine gun chattering at the thing coming over the courtyard with the hiss of a giant snake. Yacac was running wildly around and around the courtyard and snorting and kicking at the air with his hind legs. Sikatre heard the main body of the band clattering and crashing through the debris of the colonnade. The thing in the air swooped down over him, somehow not even touched by Sikatre's bullets, which for some reason blew up in little puffs of vapor before hitting it. But it no sooner began to drop than its rapid whir and whoosh suddenly made an irregular sputtering noise. Some of the band entered the courtyard, then scattered upon seeing the machine in the air. Sikatre fired again, emptying the gun of ammunition and hitting only the invisible wall that shielded his target. It started to rise and seemed to be having difficulty. Suddenly it veered left, over the far wall of the courtyard in the direction from which it had come. Fighting the agony in his crotch, Sikatre reloaded his gun and climbed some stone steps to an upper level above the colonnade. There, across an expanse of collapsed roof, he could see the machine sputtering away. A half longrun east of the castle it dropped like a rock. "Whah! I killed it!" he bawled, coming back down to the courtyard. "I hit it! The mighty Sikatre brought down the skymachine! It is dead!" But he knew better. Something had gone wrong, was ailing, in its own insides and that had brought it down. The umon believed him, though, and one rode up with his horse. "You are wounded,'' said the rider, looking at Yacac's blood-stained saddle and then at Sikatre's loincloth. He grunted and winced with pain as he threw himself into the saddle. "No," he said between clenched teeth. "You are mistaken. I had some berries in my waist-pouch. The pouch

came loose and got mashed between my crotch and the saddle. Berry juice you see. Now we find the gold and the jewels. Chapultapec Castle is ours!" They found no gold, no jewels, nothing but rats, spiders, scorpions, rubble, and debris. They lost their leader also, at least for the rest of that afternoon. The mighty Sikatre had sneaked off into the forest at the base of the hill and there tried to tend to his wound. While there, another skymachine came and dropped down where the first one fell. He watched from the trees five devils with heavy bags and other stuff leave the fallen one and get into the new one. He heard them complaining about dust getting into something in the fallen machine's insides and he watched the new machine leave. At dusk, on the brink of passing out from weakness and pain, he walked with the tired but still excitable Yacac held by the reins, to the place where the first one fell. It was dead, whah. Abandoned. No bigger than one of those long land machines that had been called trucks by the devils that had brought the Smoke. He emptied his gun into it and watched the bullets this time make holes in its metal hide. Then he tried to get one of the side doors open, and couldn't. He didn't have the strength left to do anything but crawl off into the brush. When the others came riding up, they did not see him. Like the stupid asses they were, they whooped and rode around the thing and shot at it and beat on it until both they and their horses were exhausted, and they returned to the castle ruins still looking for Sikatre. "Idiots!" he muttered. But he did not let them know where he was. He was too weak and could not risk their finding out why, could not risk their learning that their new leader had no manly parts and was bleeding in the crotch like a woman at her time of the moon.

24

Two miles above the village by the cliffs, at a place where a smaller stream emptied into the one that ran down through the village, O'Rourke had shot the deer. In dressing it out, his stomach revolted, as he feared it would, and he lost his breakfast in the midst of some nearby brush. They had to eat, and deprived of the gardens at the lake, with the weather too cold at this altitude and at this time of the year to find much in the way of wild fruit or other edibles, and unable to catch enough fish, he had been forced to hunt for meat. Picking himself up and wiping his beard, O'Rourke steeled himself to deal with the carcass. He hefted it onto the back of his horse and tried to still his uneasy stomach. He stared at his hands and his several truncated fingers as if they belonged to someone else, as the blood seemed to belong not to the deer but to something else. Even as his stomach continued to rebel, he had a sudden seizure of hunger that was overwhelming. He wanted to lick the blood from his hands, wanted to slice raw meat from the carcass and devour it. And though it was cold up here in the timber above the village, it could not have been as cold as he now felt it was. The actual temperature had to be well above freezing, yet the blood on his hands was turning to ice. He dropped to his knees, soul-sick and shivering and aching with hunger, and though the wind was not blowing, he felt its stinging lash freeze the tears upon his face. Since the night he had watched Stares-at-Nothing—or Brother Mira as the priests had started calling him—hypnotize Hannon Ruhl, O'Rourke had been mulling the possibility of the boy's being able to penetrate his own buried past that way. But he remained unsure, afraid of what the boy might uncover. The old fear and ambivalence still prevailed: he was not sure he really wanted to know what had happened that he could not remember. Yet he felt that if he continued to keep it buried, it would finally destroy him, or at best prevent him from ever really knowing or feeling what he had come so close to knowing and feeling with Luz. Further efforts on the part of Stares to make Ruhl recognize Chia, or tell them why the space people had come to the Valley of Smoke, had been futile. Though at times Ruhl seemed almost to know who Chia was, or seemed to realize she was someone he should know, he remained mentally incompetent, if not demented; muttering nonsense, unable to even feed himself. He seemed to have lost what little identity and will to live he'd had left, yet found a kind of simple-minded happiness in the company of the boy, who alone had the patience and

compassion to deal with him for very long at a time. Chia Swann was too full of pain, too full of hate for the woman named Allin Yaelu, to give Ruhl more than an occasional anguished glance. According to Chia, it was this Allin Yaelu who was the leader of the space people in whatever undisclosed purpose that had brought them here. O'Rourke did not know quite what to make of these three people he had found in the forest. Chia's disclosure that she and Ruhl were former lovers and "independent contract pilots" who'd had their own spaceships and flown millions of miles between artificial habitats hanging in space, between colonies and cities and mines on the moon and Mars, colonies between Mars and Venus, mines in what she called the Asteroid Belt, research stations on Io and Titan, left him amazed even as it seemed to arouse some remote memory, as if he'd heard of such things long ago in that part of his life that remained as closed to him as a cave sealed with rock. Despite his innate skepticism and distrust of strangers, O'Rourke believed Chia Swarm's fantastic stories. He believed her when she said she did not know why the space people had come; he believed most of all her unstated but obvious wish for vengeance on the woman called Allin Yaelu for what she had done to Hannon Ruhl. He also believed that Chia was not the sort to sit still too long, brooding about it. Then there was the half-wild Zi. O'Rourke had noticed her watching him a number of times, with a look that made him think she considered him at best a curiosity, at worst, something to hang from a tree for bowand-arrow practice. Hers was not the soft and gentle sunlit beauty and nature of Luz. With her wild hair crowning her face like a whirling black headdress, her ever watchful and snapping eyes, her chocolate skin and agile body, she was like some sleek and powerful animal. O'Rourke watched her warily and with bemused fascination. The fact that with the exception of days when it was cold she rarely went about with anything on but a loincloth and her knife—and sometimes only the knife belted to her naked waist or hanging down her back from a neck strap—made the holy fathers break out in holy hives, and O'Rourke break out in a lusty sweat. She seemed to like to bathe in the hidden pool above the village at the same time O'Rourke did. But she did so at a distance, watching him all the while and letting him watch her bathe herself, yet making no sign she wanted any kind of advance from him. She seemed more curious about him than anything else, and taking into account how wild she was, maybe she thought nothing at all about her habitual nudity, but O'Rourke suspected she was well aware of the effect it had not only on him but on the priests and other people in the main part of the village. He also suspected that crawling under a blanket with her could be comparable to bedding down with a panther. Rojas and his holy brethren kept to their part of the village now, and tried to convince their dwindling flock that O'Rourke's little camp on the cliff side of the stream, with a gun-toting killer, two skydevils, and a naked she-wolf, was inhabited by the worshipers of Lucifer.

Young "Brother Mira" nonetheless paid the satanic camp a daily visit, much to the priests' dismay. This rebelliousness on the part of the boy, in fact, drove Rojas into rages, and for that reason, when Stares-at-Nothing failed to come to O'Rouike's cabin for a longer period of time than usual, he suspected the boy was being forced to stay in the priests' compound against his own free will. It was drizzling again and cold when he returned with the deer. He hung it from a tree limb near the corral and unsaddled the horse. Inside the small cabin, he threw off the wet leather poncho and his dripping hat and sat on his haunches before the fire. The cabin was the first O'Rourke could remember building, yet it had seemed he knew what to do, or his hands had. Fourteen-by-ten feet, it provided enough space for four, with some privacy allowed by throwing blankets or robes over rope stretched across corner or end. The only time he had seen any desire for privacy from Zi was when she'd tried to coax Chia to her bed; but the pitiful Ruhl, mindless of it though he seemed, claimed all of Chia's attention and affection if or when she was inclined to give either to anyone. The cabin was snug, made of well-seasoned logs cut by ax from a stand burned over a year ago by fire, and chinked with clay from deposits under the cliffs. The iron stove O'Rourke had found in a ruin kept the interior amply heated, and sometimes ran them out. Some of the villagers, with cabins and huts that did not have any sort of stove with a serviceable pipe to control the smoke, were forced to live with an open firepit in the floor, and a smokehole in the roof. O'Rourke was not sure why he had built the cabin, why he had decided to stay in this village again. Maybe it was the boy, maybe it was the two strange women, one from a life, a civilization, he could hardly imagine, the other even less civilized than himself. From a corner on the other side of the stove, light from the front window on her face, Zi watched him. He was relieved to see that she had on the capelike fur robe she sometimes wore when the weather was chilly. When wanned by the stove, he rose again and picked up poncho and hat. Her eyes snapped and her hands flew out. Where are you going? Out, he signed back to her, not wanting to wake Chia or the excitable Ruhl by speaking— and not wanting company in going to find the boy. Where? she demanded, her dark eyes betraying an interest— the way they could often betray an intelligence and intense curiosity about things—that surprised O'Rourke. Surprised him because he had no doubt that were he to give her enough excuse, she could slit his throat without a thought about it. Thinking about it himself now, he supposed he could do the same to her, were he given enough excuse. All at once he remembered the blood of the deer on his hands that morning, and unnerved, pulled on poncho and hat and stepped through the cabin door without giving Zi an answer. He crossed the footbridge he'd built across the stream, walked past the huts and cabins and lean-tos and skin tents of the main part of the village. Most of the villagers he saw greeted him with respect, and in some cases, even awe. But though he had been the one who

led them here, showed many of them how to build a cabin, shoe a horse, shoot a firearm, a few watched him from the windows or doorways of their hovels without showing any sign of greeting or friendliness. He was to these, he guessed, as the priests had dubbed him, a man of death. He was that even to himself. O'Rourke must have given off a detectable odor too, because Rojas was already at the front of the main cabin, the "seminary" part of the priests' compound, when he came up. From under his cowl, the good padre surely looked as malevolent as O'Rourke. "You are forbidden here!" said the holy father, who was flanked as usual by two of his fellow priests. The way O'Rourke's poncho covered him made it impossible for Rojas to determine if he carried a weapon, but he was unarmed. "Came for the boy," he said. "Haven't seen him in nearly a week. Miss him. He brings a lot of warmth and light to my cabin." "Brother Mira is ill—" Rojas turned an angry look on the priest to his right who had spoken. It was the rotund Father Home, O'Rourke noticed, one of the few padres Stares-at-Nothing spoke highly of. Rojas leaned more heavily on his crutch and faced O'Rourke again. "You will cease to defile this holy ground by your presence, immediately or—" "I want to see the boy, Rojas. Where is he?" "Begone, I say!" "Say it all you want." O'Rourke looked at Father Home. "Where is he?" Home cast a fearful look at Rojas, muttered something and turned away. O'Rourke saw his left hand surreptitiously dart from the folds of his robe to point at one of the long log houses perhaps thirty yards to the left of the cabin where they stood. The hand quickly returned to concealment before Rojas could see it. O'Rourke turned toward the indicated log house. "I will summon followers who will remove you!" Rojas shouted. O'Rourke continued on to the long log structure, which was new, and which he assumed housed the novices like Stares. At the front, he pushed open the wooden door and confronted a narrow hallway down the middle, on each side of which were doors to small rooms. He proceeded to open each one. The boy lay on his pallet in the third room. He looked feverish all right, pale and hollow-eyed. O'Rourke bent down, put a hand to his brow, checked his eyes more closely, looked at the inside of his mouth and scooped him up. "I shouldn't leave," the boy said weakly. "Can't think of a single goddamn reason why you should stay." He carried Stares back down the hall, kicked open the front door and confronted over a half dozen of Rojas' most belligerent brethren, all holding cudgels of one kind or another. Rojas himself was at the center of the row, but depending on his crutch as he did, he

obviously couldn't handle a club. "In the name of God, we will smite you down, Northman!" "Resorting to my way of solving disputes, your holiness?" O'Rourke barked, glad Rojas was going to give him a reason for a fight. "Smite away then." But just as he knelt to put the boy down, out of nowhere appeared Zi. She jumped in front of the priests, opened and shed her robe and made a sound not unlike an angry wildcat. The holy brethren shrank back before her unabashed nudity. They averted their faces, stumbled over the hems of their robes. When she began lewdly to advance upon them, they were so anxious to cross themselves and avoid being polluted by such evil, they dropped their cudgels and fled. AH except Rojas, who, O'Rourke noticed, had averted his eyes the least and now was the slowest to withdraw. His outraged visage wasn't totally devoid of a little carnal interest either, but when Zi turned her shapely backside to him, he definitely looked as though he'd been slapped. O'Rourke picked up one of the discarded clubs, and Rojas wrenched his gaze from Zi, hurled a dozen pious damnations upon them both and took off in the same direction as the rest. She sat across the fire again, watching him with the boy. Chia was out somewhere; the often somnolent Ruhl was still asleep. One of several leaks in the roof that O'Rourke had not yet fixed dropped an occasional drop of rainwater on Zi's head, but she seemed oblivious. Every time he thought about it he had to laugh or at least smile in recalling what she had done to the priests. She sat on top of her robe now, and wore only the band around her neck that held the knife, and a loincloth. He tried to keep his eyes on the tea he was making the boy drink. For a moment, O'Rourke again puzzled over where he'd acquired his knowledge of herbs, and so much else of what he knew, like the words that would sometimes pop into his speech as if he were becoming someone else or becoming the person he'd once been, a person who knew much more about history and other sophisticated subjects than he usually did, or usually could remember. These thoughts made him recall once more the blood on his hands of that morning, and he wondered again if the boy could dispel his amnesia, wondered again if he wanted it dispelled. He decided, for a number of reasons, that looking at Zi was preferable to looking at his hands. "Diplomacy's never been one of my virtues," he said to her. "If I've got any virtues at all. When it comes to dealing with fools like Rojas—well, you showed me another way to get Stares out of there short of knocking Rojas in the head, and I must say, in that case at least, I liked your method much better than mine." She frowned for a moment, as if she didn't understand all he'd said, or hadn't gotten all the

nuances. Then, apparently understanding, she grinned back at him fiercely. It was a grin that seemed partly a sharing in the humor he felt and partly an invitation to bedlam. Indeed, as he watched her, she lifted her arms and put her fingers through her wild hair, pushed it back from her brow. In doing this, she thrust her naked chest at him in a way that seemed both an offering and a challenge. O'Rourke decided that looking at the boy was preferable to looking at either her or his hands, at least for the moment. The boy's eyes were closed. His mouth was open and his breath was labored. O'Rourke bathed his forehead with a cloth dipped in the hot water on the stove. And he wondered what visions Stares-at-Nothing now saw. Zi moved over. She put a hand on one of O'Rourke's. He looked up, surprised at this unusual gesture of intimacy and tenderness from her. She took the cloth from him and continued bathing the boy's face. It occurred to him that maybe she thought her previous overt randiness wasn't going to work on him, and so she'd try another approach. Or maybe she simply wanted to help. In any case, O'Rourke had his mind on the boy at the moment. "Can you hear me, Stares?" O'Rourke said. "If you can, maybe in that fever of yours— maybe you can see why the Destroyers have come." And maybe, he thought again, you can tell me where the hell I came from, and what I did there—if I can decide whether or not I really want to know. He looked up to see Chia standing in the door, watching him curiously. "Yeah," he said, realizing he had just given credence to the boy's alleged clairvoyance. "I guess it makes as much sense as anything else." "Maybe more than many things we think of as making sense," the spacewoman answered. Zi's hands all at once flew into those quick but oddly graceful movements she made when speaking her language. Things do not make either sense or nonsense, she said with a perceptiveness that surprised O'Rourke. People make whatever sense is to be made of things, or judge them to have no sense at all. Stars ... comets ... worlds of sea and desert, cloud and gas, fire and ice ... distances that exceed any conventional concept of space ... eons that stretch time to its limit and the unfathomable nothingness beyond. Stars without number ... planets revolving around them, and lesser satellites revolving around the planets. Some systems with a single star, a single sun; others with two, three, four suns. Suns in the last gigantic swell of death devouring half their planets; suns faded to cold insignificance or turning in upon themselves or bursting into blazing life. Worlds barren and uninhabitable. Planets too cold or too hot to allow any sort of life to develop at all. Planets whose temperature and atmosphere, whose composition, was just friendly enough to allow only the most rudimentary forms of life, like viruses and bacteria, to appear and fade, appear and fade again. And a few planets, rare and separated by varying

vast numbers of light-years, able to support life forms more complex. A fewer still where life as it was known on Earth had at one time or another flourished. And one here and there in the general galactic ocean of lifelessness, a blue and green jewel much like Earth. Was this the true picture of the universe? Stares-at-Nothing was remotely aware of kind hands on his face, of a rough but compassionate voice speaking to him as if from a mist, as if from the bottom of a lake. He struggled in his fevered sleep, in his dream, to determine if what he was seeing was the accurate reality. Beyond is the place where one lives. I would be lying to myself were I to say; Perhaps everything ends on this earth; Here do our lives end. Where had that come from? Who had said that? Someone long ago, someone who lived in the Valley of Mexico ... long ago. A priest maybe; maybe a philosopher. An Aztec seer, an Olmec or Toltec poet? It is not true, it is not true That we came to live here. We came only to sleep, only to dream. Here? In the Valley of Smoke, in the Valley of Mexico? Who came here to sleep, to dream? The smoky darkness in his vision swirled and changed. He saw people gazing through instruments that magnified distant celestial bodies, instruments that brought the objects in closer for more detailed observation so that those who looked through them could see what was real. He saw oddly shaped machines large and small traveling the incomprehensible distances, with artificial sensors and receptors that recorded and analyzed information of all kinds. He saw a great ship full of sleeping people and animals and plants and all sorts of exotic equipment and machinery moving across a dark sea of dreams.... A dreamscape of a vast plateau ringed by mountains. A high valley called Mexico, the Valley of the Moon. A city at its northeast fringe. A city with a long broad avenue between low terraced temples, other buildings, dominated by two great stepped pyramids and an elaborate temple. The Citadel of Quetzalcoatl. The Pyramid of the Sun. The Pyramid of the Moon. The Avenue of the Dead. A city of long ago ... built by gods who came from the sky. Built by a celestial race that interbred with and taught the primitive natives astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy, agriculture, irrigation ... a plethora of disciplines that advanced them from a hunting-and-gathering society to a civilization founded on laws and science and the worship of the gods who taught them such things. Was this true, an accurate picture of the past? Or was it simply what some people had believed? Strange names the priests had told him about, strange stories, histories, cropped up in

Stares-at-Nothing's dream: the Aztec pantheon that, in the priests' opinion, consisted of devils and demons that demanded the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of people. Quetzalcoatl ... the Plumed Serpent ... the god that was the marriage of sky and earth. The bearded god that returned, the king called Montezuma thought, in the guise of a Spanish conquistador named Hernan Cortez. Cortez who conquered the heathen Aztec, dethroned their demonic gods and brought the knowledge and culture and power of fifteenth century Spain and the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church to Mexico. But images and ideas and the fragments of fables and legends came to Stares that the priests had not told him, like the belief that the gods who'd built the ancient city of Teotihuacan had come from the sky. Like the fact that virtually every civilization that had developed a religion had believed their gods dwelled in or had come from the sky. Even the Christian priests believed their god lived in heaven, which according to everything they said, had to be somewhere in the sky, in space, somewhere out there whence the Destroyers had come. Were the Destroyers gods or devils then? Chia was neither. Stares-at-Nothing had observed all her very human strengths and weaknesses, her heartache over the madness of Hannon Ruhl, her outrage, her depression, fear, confusion, loneliness, bitterness, and wish for revenge. Clarity of image once more lost out to cloud as the fever carried him like a boat on water tossed by storm. The dream sank as consciousness surfaced. He opened his eyes, heard rain, saw O'Rourke bent over him with a cloth. He opened his mouth to speak but could make no sound. "Just take it easy, boy," said O'Rourke. "I've got some hot soup going." He could hear Chia murmuring soothing words to Hannon Ruhl on the other side of their blanket curtain. He looked over at Zi at the stove, stirring the contents of a large pot that steamed. Thank you, he wanted to say, but his throat hurt too much. It's good to be here. He closed his eyes, sank again, surfaced, sank. He saw again armored cavalry, saw things that the priests had not told him about: endless cycles of conquest and the quest for material riches ... ruthless subjugation and exploitation of the conquered by the conquerors, and conquerors often wearing the Christian cross. Generation after generation of this, with faces and weapons and flags and religious or ideological symbols changing with the rise and fall of empires ... with the power and wealth changing hands but always, with variations, the grim pattern of their abuses repeated, no matter what race or people or nation had them. War between those in power, fought by those who had none, and revolution and counterrevolution and more war and exploitation and repression of the powerless ... and revolution again and war again, and poverty and squalor among millions and a few trying to improve conditions for those less fortunate, trying to create a sane and humane world, trying to counter the unremitting rule of inhumanity on and on, up to and through, the century that spawned the weapon that could turn cities to ash.

He awoke in the night. He had a vague memory of having been fed the soup by O'Rourke. He remembered the way Zi had watched O'Rourke feed him, with a thoughtful softness in her look she'd not had before. Northman, he thought, but could not speak for the hurt in his throat. His body ached in every bone, every nerve. He was cold and shivering and the darkness of the cabin swam. The memory of the way Zi looked warmed him a little, eased his pain, made the darkness dance instead of swirl. Out of it materialized a conquistador upon his horse. Or perhaps a conquistadora. He could not say why he suddenly thought it was a woman, because the visor of the helmet was open and there was nothing inside, no head, no face. Northman, I can see the heaviness that lies on your heart. But listen to me, listen to me. The helmet of the sexless rider with the sword is filled with nothing, with blackest night. No. He saw that he was wrong. The helmet was filled with stars.

25

"This"—Kharlo Fretti paused to catch his breath and swept his hand before him as he faced south across the Plain of Otumba— "was where Cortez defeated the Aztecs." From the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, whose 248 steps he and Hilsen Parquot had just climbed at Fretti's insistence, the ancient city of Teotihuacan, with its two massive pyramids — imposing artificial hills of earth and adobe encased in stone— the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, and the Avenue or Way of the Dead that ran between them, was an impressive study in height and mass. A place, Fretti had told Parquot, that had influenced Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler's architect, in much of his work for the Third Reich. Kilometers to the hazy south lay the sprawling Valley of Mexico. Parquot was dizzied by the seventy-meter climb, and all he'd seen in this pre-Aztec city. From sophisticated spacetech defensive measures to the "recreational" practice by Fretti's people of using bows and arrows and crossbows to shoot rats and iguanas still in the vicinity, it had been a morning of grim surprises. Like the gun station that had been constructed on the flat uppermost level of the Sun Pyramid, a few meters from where they stood. Four gamma guns mounted on a single turret were, Parquot realized, capable of sweeping the surrounding countryside and the sky overhead with firepower that, with similar gun emplacements on the Moon Pyramid, and other structures, could be impenetrable. "This was one of Mexico's most famous archaeological sites, and a lot of restoration work was done in the two centuries before the Final War. Curious, isn't it," said Fretti, "how well preserved things are here, when the region elsewhere has undergone so much seismic upheaval. The ground, of course, is more solid in this area than in those parts of Mexico City that were erected on top of old lake beds. Still, it's as if a cosmic hand shielded Teotihuacan from havoc." Fretti threw Parquot a look that seemed to invite the latter to dispute him. Parquot did not oblige. Fretti had kept up an incessant chatter about Teotihuacan since Parquot arrived two hours before and was given a tour of the "improvements" the EarthForce garrison had made under Fretti's direction. The security chief wore no hat, no face mask. Obviously he sided with those doctors who were now contending that the best defense they could have against the region's germs, short of exterminating every carrier of vermin or destroying every source of disease, was their own immune system; but it had to be allowed to build up a resistance to local maladies, and that meant going about without mask or air filter. "You know, there are so many fascinating things about this place. Things that indicate it was built by a highly advanced people who were not originally of Earth. I could go into those fascinating details—" "I didn't come here to talk of history, Kharlo," Hilsen Parquot said mildly, "or to speculate

on alien visitations in the remote past." Here in Fretti's domain, he too had discarded his helmet. He had to admit that Fretti's security force had fewer cases of illness than his own. And the lanky Fretti himself, tanned by the sun and wind, looked better than Parquot had ever seen him. "You didn't? A pity. It's a fascinating subject. I've become quite enchanted with it. Of course, I always was something of a terraphile." "And a collector of precious memorabilia, Kharlo?" Fretti fixed Parquot with a baleful stare. "I hope you didn't come here to tell me about Madame's edict against treasure hunting. I trust that is not why you and Madame have been trying to have a face-on chat with me for the last month. Surely you have better things to do, Hilsen." Parquot looked down the side of the pyramid toward the offices and sheds, the groundcars, scout and patrol flyers parked among the temples and buildings in the center of Teotihuacan. The Sun Pyramid sat in the middle of the city, facing the north-south Way of the Dead. At the north end stood the Pyramid of the Moon, not quite as huge or as high as the one whose summit they'd reached, but unmistakably armed like the Pyramid of the Sun; at the south end of the Way was the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, or the Citadel as Fretti liked to call it, decorated with representations of Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent god, and the fanged and goggle-eyed heads that were supposed to represent the Olmec/Aztec rain god Tlaloc, a name Fretti said was derived from the word tlalli, meaning "earth." Virtually everything Parquot looked at from up here had been put to some sort of military use by Fretti's people. It occurred to him that, with his small squadron of five scouts, he could easily be taken prisoner in the security chief's camp. "You've become too hard to reach when Allin wants to reach you, Kharlo. You've become too often inaccessible." "Really?" Fretti gave Parquot one of his thin smiles and motioned for them to start back down the long series of steps toward the ground. "Simply busy. The Valley of Mexico is a rather vast area to keep secured and quarantined." Parquot didn't bother pointing out that his own region of responsibility, in effect, encompassed the planet, yet he remained accessible and in communication with Director Yaelu, in one way or another, all the time. "And what have you become, my friend?" Fretti said. "You, the EarthFleet commander. Madame's errand boy?" Parquot swallowed the insult in silence. Fretti changed the subject again. "Did you know that a thick sheet of mica was found up here? It covered the fifth level where the temple stood. And to the south of the Sun Pyramid about three hundred and fifty meters, down there"—Fretti pointed down the Way of the Dead (so named by Indians, who "discovered" Teotihuacan nearly two thousand years ago, because they thought the mounds of rubble along each side of the broad avenue were tombs) —"mica was also found. You know why that is fascinating, Hilsen?" Parquot, still studying from this height the added fortifications and defense works Fretti had put up around the city, was too preoccupied with his worsening uneasiness to comment.

"Mica is highly resistant to electricity, and it's opaque to fast neutrons. So it can be an effective insulator or nuclear reaction moderator. Isn't that interesting?" "Very," said Parquot, weary of the irrelevant. "You have repeatedly ignored her summons to come to Cuitlahuac," he said. "I am here to ask you personally to come to the Operations Center with me." "And if I refuse?" "I have instructions to order you to Cuitlahuac, Kharlo." Fretti stopped. He contemplated Parquot with a bemused and humorless smile. "Really. You know, of course, that you are under my authority here in the Valley of Mexico." "Not any more." Parquot removed a directive from his jacket pocket that placed him second in command, under Yaelu, of Operation EarthFall. He handed it to Fretti. "Signed by 'Madame.' " The security chief held the letter but did not open it. He resumed the descent. "You know, Hilsen, this place does something to one. Oh, I don't mean just Teotihuacan here, though it weaves a magic spell all its own. But I mean the whole Valley." "Delusions of rebellion, Kharlo? Mutiny?" Fretti laughed shortly. "Oh, no, my dear fellow. I haven't the time or the taste for such oldfashioned nonsense." "What then? Just what nonsense has entered your head that you're going to excuse by citing the 'spell' of the Valley of Mexico?'' "Surely you have heard that Madame has fallen from favor among many of our esteemed legislators and stockholders in the IWF. Surely you have heard that there is even a movement afoot to have her recalled to NOB Three." "Yes, I've heard." The suspicion Parquot had felt for some time made him ask the next question. "And you are quite popular among those who have been denigrating Director Yaelu. Tell me, Kharlo. Was it you, or some of your spies and informers acting for you, who spread the lies that Allin is here for her own avaricious ends, that she's here to do what you've been doing, plundering ruins, and that the search for SD-Alpha is only a screen to conceal such a purpose?" "Lies, my dear fellow? Surely you don't still believe that shit about the Russian villa?" Parquot grabbed Fretti by the shirtfront, stopped him and turned him around. "Have you gone crazy?" Fretti looked down at Parquot's gloved hand on his shirt. "You will kindly unhand me, my friend, if you want to leave Teotihuacan so you can go trotting back to Madame." Parquot let go, and tried to regain a hold on his temper. He was certain that a number of Fretti's people were watching them from various places below. They were less than halfway down the pyramid, still too far up for Parquot to tell what might be transpiring on the ground, but he trusted that his own people, standing by their aircraft, were sufficiently alert. But alert to do what? They were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.

"So you have ambitions to replace Allin?" Parquot said almost in a whisper, in an effort to conceal his rage. He had to ball his hands into fists at his sides to keep from grabbing the security chief and hurling his skinny frame down the remaining steps. Fretti signaled someone below. "I have ambitions to do the bidding of the IWF majority. That is all. In any case, I think we had better terminate this conversation and that you had better depart, Hilsen." A small scoutship had lifted from the ground and was rising toward them, dust billowing from beneath its liftjets. "I hope you've enjoyed the tour. The next time we meet"— Fretti grinned—"it could be like two armies facing each other. Here." He pointed south, beyond the ancient city. "On the Plain of Otumba." For a moment Parquot wondered if Fretti was indeed losing his mind, as he sometimes wondered about Allin. He thought of her fury and irrationality over the loss of Hannon Ruhl. But he did not ask Fretti if he had any information on Ruhl's disappearance; Parquot thought of Ruhl in terms of good riddance. The man before him, however, was an enigma he definitely had to deal with. "No old-fashioned nonsense, Kharlo?" "Only the epic kind," answered the security chief, his thin blade of a face now as dark and unyielding as the stone beneath their feet. The scoutship drew alongside and hovered; its side door opened and a crewman appeared in the doorway to assist Fretti's stepping in. As he did so, leaving Parquot the indignity of descending the pyramid alone on foot, the EarthForce commander grinned again. "You and Allin are the ill-fated Aztecs. And I am Hernando Cortez." Parquot sat at the communications alcove in the command ship as the squadron lifted from the main landing pad at Teotihuacan. Hoping that simply leaving the security chief's bizarre fortress would free him from the mood Fretti and the place had cast over him, he leaned over the long-distance mike in the console and hit the button that would connect him with Manaus. "This is Commander Parquot," he told the answering officer at the other end. "Get me Captain Jerusse." "The captain is unable to come to the radio, Commander, at this time." "What's wrong?" "I am under orders to tell you that she will return your call as soon as possible." "You're under orders from me, Lieutenant, to disclose exactly why Captain Jerusse cannot talk to me this minute." Silence followed from the Manaus end. Sweat began to break out on Parquot's brow. The last time he had checked with Lerine, half the Manaus camp was infected with the howler monkey virus, but she was all right. Against Allin's protestations that they were needed at the COB, a team of medics and a doctor was ordered by Parquot to Manaus. That had been less

than a week ago. Other pressing matters had forced him to put off calling her till he could put it off no longer, despite his worries about Fretti. "Lieutenant!" Parquot barked. He rarely lost control, especially with a subordinate, but the tensions of the day were fraying his nerves. "I have Captain Jerusse on the way, Commander—here she is." "Commander?" Lerine's voice was weak; with the background static, almost inaudible. "How are you, Leri? Are you all right?" "Yes." "No. You're ill, aren't you? What has that medical team done? Have they been able to do any good at all?" "I don't know. It's difficult to tell..." Her voice trailed off as if she hadn't the energy to end the sentence. "Leri, for god's sake, how sick are you?" "I'm all right. Don't worry about me. You ... you have enough to—" "Lerine?" "Yes. Yes, I'm here, Hilsen. I'm all right. We ... listen. You'll soon learn about our situation here anyway, so I ... I might as well tell you. We've had fourteen deaths in the last two days. But we think we've got it checked. I'm ... just a little weak, but I feel better today than I have. We think ... the medical team says we have it licked. So don't worry." "Lerine, I'm ordering you back to Cuitlahuac. At once. Do you hear me?" Silence. "Lerine?" "Hilsen, I can't. Not right now. My God, every one of us is ... we're all needed here now. We can't spare ... we—I can't. Please don't worry ... just ... call me in another couple of days. I'll have a detailed report prepared. Please." "I'll come down there and bring you back myself. I'll terminate that outpost if I have to, in defiance of Yaelu." "Don't. I'll ... just call me in a couple of days. Okay?" "All right. For God's sake—" "I love you." She broke the connection. He was so unnerved over what he'd heard from Manaus, he decided not to bring it up with Yaelu at all, and resolved he'd find a way to go down there within the next twenty-four hours whether she liked it or not. From the airpad atop a ridge above the Cuitlahuac ruins to the Operations Center was a kilometer and a half of deteriorating dirt road. The airpad road, like all the roads the Engineering and Construction people had built, was in constant need of repair. Winding down the hillside to Cuitlahuac, it was subjected to erosion by heavy rains, mudslides, rockslides, and the cracking, buckling, and shifting that could occur anywhere

when a tremor or quake of sufficient strength occurred. The road, Hilsen Parquot decided as he sat and bounced beside his driver in the front seat of the command groundrover, was like Operation EarthFall itself: losing out to the relentless onslaught of adversities trying to destroy it. The image of Kharlo Fretti standing on the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan burned in Parquot's brain like that of a character from one of those old videos he used to enjoy as a boy. On the final switchback before the foot of the hill, Parquot looked across the Cuitlahuac ruins to the power complex east of the Operations Base. Perhaps it was the smoky air or his weariness—or maybe he was coming down with a virus himself— but it looked as if the water storage tanks were on the brink of sliding downhill, and the area that held the conversion units and the generators, from this perspective, looked in danger of imminent avalanche from the slopes above. And looking down toward the Operations Center, through the dust raised at the excavation sites, he was hit with a sudden sense of futility, a feeling that no matter what the geologists and seismologists said, the entire area was on the edge of inevitable collapse, if not by quake or volcanic eruption or flash flood or something else comparably sudden and catastrophic, then by slow climatic processes, by disease, by exhaustion, disillusion and apathy and a host of other things that could render the base as much a ruin as the shambles in which they'd built it. Fighting depression, EarthFleet Commander Hilsen Parquot felt a moment of envy for the wayward and perhaps half-mad Fretti. An hour later, he found Allin at the Seismic Center, where— because of a computer breakdown and a report from the monitoring station high on the western slope of Iztaccihuatal that the volcano was showing symptoms of imminent eruption—everyone was on the verge of panic. Parquot almost physically pulled her outside so that he could talk to her. "You have people who can get the word to you if we need to evacuate," he shouted at her over the noise of a gathering thunderstorm. "I've got to talk to you!" "Talk!" "I found Fretti. I talked with him," "Yes?" "He intends to see you relieved of the directorship. I think he's behind all the clamor for your removal in the IWF. He wants to step in and take over. Needless to say, he's accumulated a lot of artifacts of inestimable value and has converted Teotihuacan into a fortress. He all but threw me out. I warn you for the last time, Allin. We should hit him full scale, and now that may be too late." "He has friends—" "He has friends, yes! And he's using them to get you ousted. You have friends, too. And at the moment, you also have the law on your side. You are in command of Operation EarthFall, Allin. He is bound by law to obey your orders. If you order me to arrest him, if you allow me to stop playing these foolish diplomatic games that he throws back in our faces, if you will

give me the command to go up there and take Teotihuacan apart and arrest the strutting bastard for disobedience and incipient mutiny, then—" "Then what! Then we will have to prove our case before a board of inquiry." "You would rather let him—" "I would rather—" She stopped, sat down on a narrow bench to the right of the Seismic Center's entrance. She held her head in her hands as if unable to deal with what he was saying. She looked more pale and drawn than ever. When she stared at him again, her eyes were a little wild. "Did you ask him about Hannon Ruhl?" Parquot had had enough. He grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted her off the bench and shook her, not giving a damn who might see it. "Goddammit, get a grip on yourself! I heard on the way up here that you have ordered people who are badly needed elsewhere to look for Ruhl. More than half the landing force has been crippled by sickness or accident, a quarter have died and another quarter run off, deserted, and the outpost at Manaus—" He checked himself. "And your security chief has all but officially declared his mutiny and all you can do is ask about an idiot who can't say his own name!" "That's just it." She wrenched herself free. "Who would want an idiot who can't say his own name? Who but the one who started all this! The woman who penetrated the sentinels and ... and maybe knows—" "Knows what? If she knew anything about SD-Alpha, don't you think you would have learned of it by now?" "No. Not necessarily. We don't know anything about her, what she was doing in this area, what she—" "If you keep this up, I'll have to put my vote in for your removal, Allin, for reasons of my own!" "The hell you will." "Listen to me. We can't keep people working under these conditions, can't keep their loyalty, if we persist in the lie that what we're looking for is some old records and plans for solar technology and that sort of crap. For God's sake, don't you think that anyone with any brains can conclude that we have learned more about solar technology in space in the last century than they ever dreamed of knowing here on Earth? We have got to tell them the truth or we will not be able to retain control or command!'' A sergeant burst from the SC. "Director, we'd better sound the evac-alert." "Are you sure?" "Yes. Iz Two says eruption is certain from five to ten minutes." Yaelu ran a hand through her hair, turned away from Parquot. "All right. Sound the goddamn alert!" The sergeant returned inside. The EarthFall director and the EarthFleet commander parted at a run for their respective staff and getaway vehicles as, for the fifth time that month, the evacuation sirens wailed.

26

Drained by Los Destruzidos for use in their operations base below, the once-long Lake of Mists was almost dry, fallen at least ten feet below its former level. From his hiding place in the trees, O'Rourke could see several steaming springs, now exposed where before they'd been underwater, trickling down the bank to the shallow residue in the lake bed. With rock jutting here and there the length of what was left of the water, he feared it was not deep enough to immerse oneself in, or to do Stares-at-Nothing any good. But he had not killed the three space people for nothing. With the explosives he'd brought, which he hoped would still work, he planned to blow the pumps and the pipes used to move the lake water down to the Destroyers' base. The guards had deserved to die in any case, he told himself, thinking of the ones who'd refused him the use of the lake to save Luz. Then he thought of the one who hadn't taken part in the fun they'd had with him, and he quickly pushed the memory out of his mind because he knew it was possible that he'd unknowingly killed that one. They lay beside the multi-eyed instruments to which they'd given insufficient attention inside their outpost hut. Maybe there were more on the other three sides of the lake. If so, they might have to die too. But he hadn't come here to go on a killing spree. In the past, he would not have thought about the killing at all. But he thought about it now, and despite his argument for the need of it, he was bothered. Maybe because he feared the boy would not approve. Maybe because... He sensed someone behind him, rolled into the brush and jerked his pistol up. He was greeted with two intense dark eyes looking at him through the tangle of leaves, vines, and branches. They were eyes he could now recognize instantly. How she could shadow him without his knowing it unsettled O'Rourke, and he wondered if the edge on his survival skills was becoming dull or if she was simply better at sneaking up on him than anyone who'd ever tried. "What the hell are you doing here?" he whispered. A hand leapt from the foliage so that he could see it; the thumb was jerked toward the west, and then two fingers flew up, their meaning unmistakable. He turned and looked through the trees to the west side of the lake. Two space people were coming at a run, with weapons. They had no doubt heard his shots when he ambushed those in the guard hut. He got up and followed Zi through the undergrowth to their horses.

In recent weeks she, like the spacewoman Chia, had adopted the habit of wearing deerskin tunics acquired in trade with some of the village women. O'Rourke had no idea why; the weather was no colder in February than it had been in December. Maybe this new mode of dress had come about because the other village women, in awe of both Zi and Chia, nonetheless did not go around half naked, or maybe it was because Zi admired Chia and wanted to do as the spacewoman did. Chia could very well have adopted such attire to honor the local women. Whatever the reason, wild Zi wore a tunic now, its thigh-length hem hiked to her hips so that she could straddle her mare. He saw that she wore nothing underneath, and looked away. Looked back to see if they were being pursued, but saw no sign of that. Maybe the remaining guards at the lake were too afraid to chase them into the forest, or didn't have a flying machine available; or maybe they simply no longer gave a damn. The diligence with which the space people had tried to run the natives out of the region when they first arrived had significantly weakened in the last couple of months. In the lead for several hours, Zi turned off the familiar trail three-quarters of the way back to the village by the cliffs. Thinking she might have seen or heard something they should avoid, O'Rourke followed her into the forest, up a slope and to a clearing. As he reined in, she turned her horse around and moved abreast of him. "What is it?" he said. "You see someone on the trail?" She watched him in silence. "What is it? What's the matter?" Her eyes were luminous in the late afternoon light. You are the matter, she signed. "What?" She reached over and touched his thigh, then quickly removed her hand and stared off down the slope for a moment. She faced him again, her eyes more brilliant, and she lifted both hands in a delicate flowing motion to indicate herself, her body. She pointed at his groin, then raised the folds of her tunic and pointed at her own. An uncertain smile teased her lips. I have been fucked by men, she signed. Never laved or treated in a loving way by one. It has been years since I let one touch me. I came to believe men were not capable of feeling love. O'Rourke swallowed hard, not knowing what to say. She placed a hand on her sex and rubbed herself, then again pointed at him. O'Rourke realized his silence made her think she was not getting her wish across. "I appreciate the invitation," he said, suddenly remembering the death of Luz, and almost remembering something else, that mystery which remained hidden on the other side of a wall of long-ago anguish that had hardened into hate. But hate for what? Life? Everyone? Everything, himself included? Or some specific thing he could not grasp, that thing that moved like a malevolent shadow on the other side of the wall. "But I need to get back to the boy. He's very sick." I have never known a man to care about someone else so much, she signed irritably. Men care only for themselves. You are different. You are strange.

"Maybe. I haven't always cared about someone else. And while we're on the subject, you're not exactly like most women I've known either. But I'm not sure that fact makes us compatible." I don't understand that word. I don't understand when you talk like that. Where did you get that kind of talk? "I don't know. Come on. I've got to see how the boy is doing." O'Rourke put the steaming cup to Stares's lips. He took a sip of the hot soothing tea and lay back, exhausted by the effort. O'Rourke's face was creased with worry and fear for him. "It's all right," he rasped. "I'll come through." "I can't see you go, boy. I'll not see you die like Luz did." He groped for O'Rourke's hand. "I won't. I promise you." His throat still hurt too much to talk. His entire body was one long organ of pain. He tried to speak again, wanted to tell O'Rourke about the mystifying images, visions, that he'd seen, all the things that baffled rather than enlightened. "I ... I can't see why the Destroyers are here." "It's all right, boy." "I see all kinds of things ... wonderful and unfamiliar things ... some not so wonderful, but, yes ... still not anything like ... I've seen." "It's all right. Don't try to talk anymore. You can tell me when you're better. Don't try to talk." "They are hard to understand ... the Destroyers ... because they ... they are confused ... have ... confused reasons for..." "Here." O'Rourke lifted his head again and put the cup to his lips. Stares saw that Zi sat nearby, watching. He could feel her fascination with O'Rourke, and her warmth toward him. Stares wondered if O'Rourke knew. He wanted to tell him. He also wanted to tell him that he had seen something whose meaning had suddenly become clear to him now, came swimming up from the dark lake of dreams. "I ..." he said, and dropped away. Zi was cooking a venison stew over the outdoor firepit when the Northman came out of the cabin. She looked up, watched him move restlessly and angrily around the outdoor cooking and tanning area which they often used when it was not raining. She put the spoon down, caught his eye and signed to him: Who was the woman? "What woman?" The woman you spoke about with the boy. The one you said died.

He studied her silently for a long time, then came over and sat across the fire from her. He sat there watching her, not saying anything. She could see that he was thinking very hard about something, and Zi thought she knew what it was. No, she had never had a man in the right way, in the good way. They had always had her, sometimes two, three, four, five of them at a time. Always with beatings they had her. Always with no pleasure, only pain and humiliation, ugliness and cruelty. It had started when she was only a girl of nine, with her brothers and her father and mother helpless to stop them, turning their backs, going off where they did not have to see or hear. And after that, because she had been ruined and because she had not been able to speak since birth, her parents would sell her to men, for maize, for corn and tomatoes, for hides and tools. That was why she had left her family at the age of fourteen and begun the long years of wandering alone or joining a band led by men, only to have to fight them, only to have to submit to them, submit to being raped again, brutalized again—by umon whose grotesque faces and bodies made lying down with wolves and scorpions more desirable, and by men not so ugly as the umon but who nonetheless treated her the same—until she became old enough, wise and quick and cunning enough, to kill them and flee, old and wise and strong enough to form a female band of her own. That was why she had always preferred women. Because men had made her sick, built fires of rage in her that she did not think an ocean of human kindness could put out. One of the reasons she had fallen into the habit of going about often unclothed when she was old enough and quick enough to hold her own with men was to tempt them into thinking they might take her, only to find out the price for their folly could be death or mutilation. But she was curious about this one, curious and ... from the first she did not feel the old rage with him that she always felt at the very smell of a man. The night that he had come upon her and Chia near the lake, and she attacked him, he had only held her so that she could not hurt him, and had refused to harm her. That was something new. This one, yes, was different. Much like her, he was one who lived by his cunning, by being quick and deadly. And like her, he had an anger burning in him—yet he was not cruel. Like her, he was one who until recently, she had learned from the talk between him and the boy, had come from the north and had for a long time wandered alone. She put the pot of stew on one of the flat rocks that rimmed the fire, so that it would not overcook. Then standing, she looked down at him and was not sure what to do next. She was not sure what she wanted him to do. She had an impulse to lift her tunic over her head and motion for him to take her, but she sensed that would not be right, not with this one. He wouldn't want to go into the cabin either, not with the boy inside and Chia bringing the crazy one back from their afternoon walk any minute. She knew the clearing where she'd taken him was a place that was right but that the time had not been right. You, she signed to him. Me, he signed back, as if, like Hannon Ruhl, he were an idiot. Come. She stepped around the fire, reached down and grabbed his hand, pulled him up. She led the way around the cabin and up through an opening in the cliffs.

O'Rourke followed her, reluctant to leave Stares alone in the cabin but enticed despite himself by the sway of her body in the narrow tunic. It was a body he'd seen completely unclothed so many times he knew its every alluring detail, but that did not at the moment make her any the less appealing. He had not had a woman since Luz. The trouble with this one was he could not be sure he'd still have his hide, or his penis, when the lovemaking was done. They were not far from where he'd buried Luz, but that did not bother him. Sunny Luz would have wanted him to do this, he thought. She would have approved. And with a poignant mix of elation and sorrow, he imagined her smiling down on them both from somewhere in the air above. When the cleft opened up onto a moss-covered ledge that looked out over the treetops, Zi went to the rock at its far side, turned, and leaning against it with her hands behind her, watched him with an eager yet uncertain look. He was unsure himself. The woman before him did not attack him, did not lift the garment over her head and commit some wild obscenity as a prelude to kicking him over the edge. Instead, she now seemed almost virginally shy, and waited as if she wanted him to make the next move. A softness and yearning burned in her eyes he'd never seen before, and as he drew closer, he saw that she was trembling. Her hands came from behind her and lifted to make her language. I will make you forget your sadness about the woman, your sadness and your fear for the boy. And you will make me forget my hatred of men. "I've heard worse offers." The spacewoman taught me how to kiss. He stepped to her. "Show me," he said, his voice thick. She raised her hands to each side of his face and pulled him down so that their lips could meet.

27

From the viewports of a hovering scoutship, the bubbling, frequently geysering lava inside Iztaccihuatl's caldera resembled the thermonuclear turmoil on the face of the sun. But scoutships no longer flew over the huge lava lake in its crater. It had been four days earlier when the volcano had given them another false alarm and chosen not to blow. But, as if "Izzy" were fed up with being so rigorously scrutinized round the clock, its unremitting unrest shook loose a portion of the western rim where the uppermost observation station was located. The station had two people in it at the time. They tumbled to their deaths with the debris of the collapsing section of rim, down the western slope of the mountain. In another incident two days later, a dense cloud of smoke and ash spewed from its vent at the moment of a scoutship's flyover. This confused the craft's instruments and caused it to crash into the inside of the crater wall, then plummet to the molten inferno below. Though capable of being robot-operated, it had on board at the time a pilot, a co-pilot, and four observers. Two of the latter were senior EarthFleet officers and one of them EarthFall's top seismologist. All were lost. That was why, Allin Yaelu informed the investigative team that had come down from NOB-3 on the morning of the day after the scoutship disaster, they were not going to be allowed a flyover tour of Iztaccihuatal or any of the region's other volcanoes. But Yaelu did agree to a flyby of the smaller and less turbulent Tlaloc the next afternoon. "We are fully aware of what you're up against." Head of the investigative team, Venna Santell was also a member of the IWF Security Council and knew the real reason for Operation EarthFall. An aging executive of one of the largest corporations in the colonies, Venna's angular, almost severe, features contributed to the impression she projected of precision and authority. "And we are doing everything we can to stop a move among certain elements in Congress who are anxious to have you relieved." "I appreciate that," Yaelu said with undisguised sarcasm in her voice. "Has any progress been made in determining the reason for so much seismic unrest in the last century?" "Not a bit. And I don't expect any. The planet has decided it no longer wants to accommodate human life. That's as reasonable an explanation as you'll get." "Have the pilot turn back for the Operations Base," Venna said, turning her gaze again to the viewport at the right of her seat. The rocky upper slopes of Tlaloc were becoming more obscured by cloud. "You know what I'm up against," Yaelu snapped. Though she said nothing to the pilot,

Venna's wish had been heard by him because in this type of small observation scout no partition separated the flight cabin from the cramped passenger compartment. The craft had begun banking to the west. "You've seen the conditions we're trying to work under. You've seen my reports. You've seen the shambles, the rot, the rust. You've seen the looks of weariness and resentment and frustration in my people. You've seen the sickness. You've seen the figures on the death toll. So while you're doing 'everything you can' at NOB Three, could we have the supplies, the new machinery and equipment, the eight hundred additional people we've requested every week for the past two months?" "You have my word they will be sent." "When?" "As soon as possible. But you—" "That is what you've been telling us since the requests began!" "It's not an order that's easily filled, especially when requisitions of that magnitude have to be cleared by both the Congress and Security Council. As I started to say, Allin, you must regain control of the situation, and of yourself, or the Council will find it tough going trying to keep you in the directorship." "All right. But I need—I—Will the Security Council back me if I begin handing down stiffer sentences for desertion and mutiny?'' "How stiff?" "Life imprisonment for desertion and death for mutiny." "Surely you don't mean without due process." "I mean to do the sentencing at Cuitlahuac just as the captain of a ship would do." Cuitlahuac. The very name of the place infuriated her, reminded her that Kharlo Fretti had named it, that in addition to doing as he pleased, he had put his indelible mark on the Operations Base. "If you want me to stay in control, I have got to have that kind of power!" "You would also need a crack police force." "Yes! Which brings us to the subject of Kharlo Fretti." "Ah, Security Chief Fretti. Your allegations are being looked into." "Allegations?'" Yaelu tried to stave off her mounting ire. She would only make matters worse if she continued to argue with Santell. "Of course, as you know, he has many friends in Congress and on the Council." "I am sick to death of hearing about that bastard's friends. What about my friends, Venna? What about you? Are you— Whose friend are you?" "I am an impartial councilwoman, Allin, too old to be tempted into the messy business of politics, and that is why they sent me to have a look at what's going on down here." "He ignores my orders, operates as he pleases—" "He does keep the Valley quarantined and secure?"

"I don't know. It is no longer possible to evaluate exactly what he does. His people are all over the place, more engaged in plundering the ruins of Mexico City than anything else. He has made of Teotihuacan a bastion bristling with weaponry, and thumbs his goddamn nose at every summons I've sent. He has in effect mutinied, but if I try to arrest him, he ... he'll claim I don't have the power, that I am a goddamn civilian and that he is a policeman who takes his orders directly from the Council, or some such shit. I know him. Hilsen thinks I am in supreme command and wants to go get him, but Hilsen refuses to see the political risks—" "You had Fretti in mind when you expressed your wish for autocratic powers?" Yaelu beat her fist against the arm of her seat. "You want me to control things here? Then let me. I have battled overwhelming odds but we are still digging. With less than halfstrength crews. Venna, I must have the power and the backup to continue. Anybody would have to have it. It isn't me who needs replacing. It's Fretti who needs to be removed. Fretti and all his loyal army of grave robbers. We need all the personnel and equipment we've lost to this goddamn planet, this Valley, this environment, replaced. We need a trustworthy IWF police brigade to come down here and take Fretti because Hilsen's EarthFleet is spread"—she threw up her hands—"spread all over!" Santell studied Yaelu across the little table separating them. She glanced across at two of her aides on the other side of the narrow aisle, then back at Yaelu. "We will be visiting Teotihuacan tomorrow. That is all I wish to say about the security chief at this time. I will report on all I've observed and heard, Allin. Bear in mind that the official story that Oldworld is still too disease-ridden and turbulent for resettlement and exploitation is fast wearing thin. The SD-Alpha plans must be found soon. At the same time, I suggest you get more rest and watch your health. You look very tired, overworked and overwrought. I have consulted Commander Parquot about this and he is very concerned. Don't let professional ambition or obstinacy blind you to your own incompetence." "Thank you." Yaelu looked out her port as the scout began its drop to the COB. She bit her lip to contain her fury, then said, "Venna?" "Yes?" "Is there any new word on a third Centaurus expedition?" "No." "When we find those plans, I want to be on it." "Are you so sure you'll find them? Or that there will be a third Centaurus expedition?" Yaelu almost laughed in the councilwoman's face. "Of course there will be. When I find those plans!" Parquot was climbing the steps of his command ship at the EarthFleet airpad, about to leave for Manaus, when an aide came running up to tell him Yaelu wanted him on the phone. "I'll take it in the ship," he said with undisguised irritation, and stepped inside. Because he'd had to guide Councilwoman Santell around, and because of other matters needing his immediate attention, Parquot's departure for Manaus had been continually

delayed, and he was in no mood for further demands from Director Yaelu. "Santell has left," she said over the ship's radio when the call was transferred. Sitting at the command console in the flight cabin, Parquot said nothing. The ship's engines were on, wanning up. To his left sat the pilot and co-pilot, ready and waiting for his order to lift off. Through the left viewport he could see the four other patrol craft that would accompany him to Manaus, also ready and waiting with engines running. "I want you to take a detachment and arrest Kharlo Fretti. I want the detachment to be small, inconspicuous, but prepared for a fight if necessary." Parquot almost hit the console mike with his fist. "Have you taken leave of your—"Yes, he decided without finishing the question. She had taken leave of her senses, was crazy. The thought chilled him. "Have you turned a deaf ear to everything I've been telling you for the last two weeks?" "We cannot risk all-out war with him," Yaelu cried, a ragged, almost hysterical note in her voice. "I'll not risk demoralizing the entire operation—" "Then I'll not be able to take him. I might not be able to take him even if I could assemble every ship and gun I've got!" "You will arrest that bastard and bring him here!" she screamed. He loosened the collar of his shirt and tried to calm down, realizing she was on the brink of losing the little control she had left. "Allin ... get a grip on yourself, for God's sake. He was not at Teotihuacan when I took Santell there. He won't be there when I go again." "I'll have no more argument, Hilsen! You bring Fretti back here to Cuitlahuac and do it without causing open warfare. That is an order!" "He is to take my word that he is under arrest?" "I will radio Teotihuacan and inform him he is to submit to you and turn over the EarthForce command to his first officer!" "And you actually think he will do that?" "Go!" Never in all his years of military service had Hilsen Parquot felt so close to walking away from his career, so close to disobedience, if not mutiny. That would, he reflected bitterly, be playing right into Kharlo Fretti's hands. Yaelu was her own worst enemy. He knew that his people in the flight cabin of the patroller— the pilot, co-pilot, systems coordinator, weapons officer, and his second in command—were well aware of his mood, had heard the argument he'd had with Yaelu. But they said nothing as the five patrollers— Parquot's ship at the squadron's point of their arrowhead formation—shot out over the Valley of Mexico. At the command alcove to the right of the flight panel, Parquot watched the bank of screens above the console for any indication of a Fretti scoutship or other craft in the ruins.

Such areas as Chapultepec Castle, the National Palace, University City, the homes and villas of the rich, were high on the list of places to be plundered, and most of these had been repeatedly sifted through by Fretti and members of his EarthForce. Still, Parquot was certain the pickings remained rewarding so long as the search was diligent enough. Precious jewels, antiques, gold and silver art objects, ornaments, artifacts that had somehow escaped the ravages of catastrophic upheaval, brought unbelievable prices on the interplanetary black market; and diggers, transporters, and dealers alike could find themselves rich in a matter of days. Fretti's ships were privy to the sentinel codes, their safe passage between Earth and its space colonies thus assured. Yaelu had pleaded for another change in the codes, but footdragging by those in Congress who were profiting from the wealth coming off the planet, either by receiving a percentage of the black market take or by accepting "gifts" in the form of actual treasure, had thus far kept the same codes in place. Security Chief Fretti, however, was not without his own problems. Though EarthForce was in overall better health than EarthFleet or the Operations Base, it was not completely immune to the natural hazards of the environment. Fretti's security force, originally five thousand strong, had been diminished to almost less than seventy-five per cent of that number, with several hundred fatalities from accident and disease. Like Yaelu, Fretti had also had desertion to contend with, and defection of some of his people over to her; most, however, remained loyal to him. In helping themselves to the Valley's treasure, they could claim before an IWF court, if it ever came to that, that they were only following Fretti's orders. According to information derived from the trickle of defectors to the Yaelu camp, the security chief ordered no one to plunder ruins. He didn't have to; it was tacitly allowed if not condoned. Even under his indulgent command, his people were supposed to continue to keep the Valley protected from intruders—but he spent little effort in seeing that this charge was carried out: he was too busy engaged in his own treasure hunting—and in seeing that the "Home of the Gods" was turned into an impregnable stronghold. Because of that stronghold, this mission was pointless, foolish. But not knowing what else to do short of disobeying an order from his superior, Parquot had made the decision to go through with it, knowing what its humiliating outcome would be. His thoughts were on Lerine at the Manaus outpost, when Captain Maassen called his attention to the screens, then pointed out, through the right viewport, a Fretti scoutship. The blue sword emblem plainly visible on its left side, it took off from the vicinity of the Plaza de las Tres Culturas and zoomed north for Teotihuacan. "Shall we pursue?" Maassen asked, the expression on her face suggesting she was ready for blood. "No," Parquot answered. "No point." Parquot's mouth was as dry as the plain beyond the Mexico City ruins, the one Fretti called Otumba. Because a true war in space had never occurred, Parquot's military experience had been limited to combating piracy, smuggling, labor unrest, or some other problem that was

essentially police work in nature. A full-scale battle with an opposing force equal in strength or more formidable than his own would be something new. And just now, with a squadron of five patrollers, the odds were overwhelmingly in Fretti's favor. Fretti. The very name had begun to conjure up in Parquot's mind the lunacy that had destroyed civilization on Earth. Yaelu had in her own way become almost as bad. He had always known she was stubborn, dogmatic, despotic at times, egotistical. But not crazy. Could there be something to her idea that Oldworld exerted a malevolent influence on them all? Could the Armageddon madness still envelope the planet the way the ash and smoke of its volcanoes blanketed the Valley of Mexico? The EarthForce scoutship dropped into the Fretti fortress. The ancient city lay dead ahead, across the Plain of Otumba, in the EarthFleet ship's nose glass. Parquot recalled the gamma guns mounted atop the pyramids and other prominent edifices. "My God," breathed the pilot, abruptly pulling her stick to starboard in order to veer off. The sky was suddenly ablaze with a curtain of impenetrable warning beams fired from the pinnacles of Teotihuacan. Yahaah hah yahah! She heard it in her rooms at night, heard it in the nimble and clatter of the excavating equipment during the day, in the air purifiers in her office, in her sleep, in her brain. She heard it when her biologists and botanists came to tell her once again how fascinated they were with the myriad life forms on Oldworld and reminded her how many wild animal species that had been transported to space habitats had not survived and they wanted her permission to begin collecting plants and animals unknown in space. And she clawed her scar, and heard it in the hiss and rattle of the radio transmission when Hilsen Parquot told her he had been turned back at Teotihuacan and that Fretti, over the radio, had declared to Parquot that he was no longer a part of EarthFall, that he was independent of Allin Yaelu's authority and that she and Parquot and everyone else under her command could all return to Koryzev Base on Luna because Kharlo Fretti commanded the Valley of Mexico. She heard it when they found her collapsed on her office floor, revived her and strapped her to a stretcher, injected her with a sedative and carried her still screaming to the infirmary.

28

Chia held Hannon's hand as she preceded him along the familiar path to one of their favorite hiding places above the cliffs. He was quiet, but he was often that way now; he could spend hours sitting or lying down and staring at her, a puzzled frown on his face, and sometimes a grin. But it was never a grin of recognition, at least not the kind that Chia wanted or could understand. And he often babbled now, made noises from which no sense could be derived, and could spend hours sleeping or simply staring blankly into space. He could neither feed nor clean himself, and each day seemed to regress him further back toward helpless infancy. His silence on this particular morning stabbed Chia with guilt. She steeled herself, having come to the conclusion that there was nothing else she could do. His babbling, his silences, and his staring had by now driven her to near madness herself. They had driven her to this moment, this day. A day that was warm. A day in which the year's new grass was appearing on those hillsides that were struck by the early March sun. "Remember the Ionian Alps?" she said as they reached the greening meadow and she turned to look out across the great Valley toward the mountain range in the west. "Remember how we would fly in and out of the Needles? Remember how pink and ... how purple the peaks .... remember the eerie electrical storms in..." She stopped, knowing that because she'd asked such questions repeatedly before, he did not remember, or if he did, could not say anything about them. "Sit here, Hannon. I want you to sit here and look out across the Valley at the mountains in the west." He obliged her and she backed away, still talking. "See how purple they look in the haze?" From inside the lunch basket she'd brought, Chia removed the small revolver she'd borrowed from Zi. He was muttering but did not turn to see what she was doing. He sat with his head pushed slightly forward, the leather cap a little lopsided on his head, arms around his knees. She had dressed him as she usually did, in the clothes he'd worn when she and Zi had taken him from the Cuitlahuac base; the clothes were now almost tatters. "Robaba buhya ... iflipullit ... kaaahkabayui." Chia raised the pistol. At the moment her finger pressed the trigger he turned, his pale face creased with a befuddled smile.

For many weeks O'Rourke and Zi had been teaching the farmers in the cliffside village hunting and foraging techniques. And while keeping an eye on the Cuitlahuac base from a vantage point above the Lake of Mists, they had also been watching a roving herd of wild horses that grazed on the western slopes of the Valley's northernmost volcano. On a day when they had managed to cut off sixteen of the herd in order to force them into a creek-fed cul-de-sac where they could be penned, one of the villagers helping them—a natural leader called Mandadero because as a boy he was an intervillage messenger— broached the subject that had been on O'Rourke's mind for months. "Northman," Mandadero said, slipping the upper log into its notches in the rock on each side of the canyon where a slide had dropped enough boulders to form a natural gate, "I want to talk with you." Inside the roughly circular area where they had been penned, the horses whinnied their fear and frustration as they ran about trying to find a way out of the canyon's dead end. The dust they raised all but obscured them. In that dust, in the high canyon walls, some memory lurked for O'Rourke. He had lived in a canyon of some kind as a boy, a canyon with a cul-de-sac maybe. A man with a beard would stand before a fire, and his shadow would be thrown back on the canyon wall and he would talk about the world and its history. This man was someone close to O'Rourke, a strong and wise man.... He motioned for Mandadero to follow him away from the noise and dust of the pen. Because of the midday warmth and their exertions with the horses, both had discarded their shuts. But in the shadow of the canyon walls and with a rising wind coming up the canyon, they sought more clothing at the bend where their two horses were tethered. "We have been talking," Mandadero said. "The people in the village, and they asked me to speak with you." Mandadero pulled his poncho over his head. "They wanted me to ask you if you might know of any way we—I know it would be very hard, but ... maybe you have some ideas—" "Los Destruzidos," O'Rourke said. "Yes. I think maybe you have been thinking about this thing too, for a long time. People are dying. We continue to lose loved ones day after day. The winter ... the loss of the lake. There is so little food up here. Even when the spring comes, we will not be able to grow anything. We are too restricted in where we can go even to hunt. But the skypeople are not as strong as they were before. We don't see their skymachines flying over the way we did when they first came. Not as many are at the lake now. Not as many are at the big camp below the lake. I see you when we watch from above, when we watch the lake and the crazy village they made below it. I see it in your eyes. You have thoughts. We ... we want to know what you have been thinking on this." O'Rourke leaned against his horse, glad to be away from the cul-de-sac but suddenly very weary. They had watched the wild horses for weeks, had waited days for them to come near enough to be run into the canyon, had worked most of this day running them in. Of the sixteen they managed to cut off from the rest of the herd, five escaped and one had broken a

leg in the canyon and had to be shot. They had ended up with only ten, and six of those were small and malnourished, hardly worth breaking and shoeing. He listened to the cries, to the thud and clatter of unshod hooves on dirt and rock, around the upward bend, and it occurred to him that they were much like those horses they'd just trapped. The image of the tall man with the beard, speaking before a lot of people, flashed freshly across his consciousness. "I think we've got just one chance," he said. "But I don't know if she has any ideas because she hasn't been talking much." "The skywoman." "Yeah." O'Rourke pulled himself into the saddle. "Let's go quarter that mare we had to kill before the coyotes and vultures get to it." Mandadero mounted and followed O'Rourke down toward the mouth of the canyon, where they'd left the dead horse. There they dismounted and began skinning, dressing out, and quartering the carcass. O'Rourke worked hurriedly, trying to think of anything but what he was doing, trying to be blind to the knife and the blood, oblivious of the smell. It was almost dark before they were finished, and O'Rourke was nauseated and near passing out from the strain. Pleading the need to relieve his bowels, he went off into some brush near the canyon's mouth and lay down for a while, trying to think of nothing, trying just to rest. Later, when the stars were out, he began to wonder about Zi, who had stayed on some rocks above the canyon's mouth as lookout. At last she came riding in to where they were suspending the meat by rope from some overhanging rocks. "We'll camp here tonight," he told her, "behind those rocks over there where we'll be out of the wind. We'll need your horse to carry meat, too, in the morning." She dismounted. Despite his fear of emotional attachment, O'Rourke had grown close enough to her now that he could sense her moods, and he knew that something had her disturbed. He also knew her well enough not to press her. It was not until they had made camp, and she had assured him with a shake of her head that she hadn't seen anything that would make a fire unwise, that she began to sign. A great band, she spread her arms, of mounted men crossing the plain to the northwest. The flint in O'Rourke's hand sent sparks that caught the dry leaves under the wood Mandadero had gathered. "You sure a fire's all right, then?" She nodded. In the wolfskin robe she'd made, the hood thrown back and her hair a wild thicket about her head, Zi stood with her back to the slick face of the rock behind her, hands and fingers flying, their shadows dancing on the canyon wall. A band bigger than any I have ever seen. Many of the members ugly ones; umon, Children of the Smoke. She nodded at his look. And I think I know who leads them. A man who held me captive moons ago. The man I told you about. The man who captured the spacewoman. She slashed her hand across her crotch. The one I desexed and left to die. He is like the giant iguana that one. Unkillable. "What is this one called?" O'Rourke said.

She made the zigzag sign that meant scar. In the old language of this land. "Cicatriz?" She hesitated, then nodded, telling him that the Spanish word was close in sound to what the man was called. "Where does he have a scar?" Zi pointed to her heart, indicating the scar was inside. And, she motioned, he now had one between his legs. "Did you cut off everything?" She made a circle in the appropriate place. Everything. O'Rourke inwardly winced, amazed and incredulous that a man could live after incurring that kind of wound. He thought of what it must have felt like, and marveled at the constitution it would take to survive it. He also thought of the cicatriz in his own heart, whose cause he did not want to see. "This band," he said. "Riding in which direction?" To the west, away from us. "Okay. Let's have something to eat and get some rest. We've a long walk tomorrow." But despite the day's labors, he had no appetite at all that night. They had in fact a two-day walk back to the village on the stream beneath the cliffs. The horses were unloaded at the smokehouse, taken to the corral, watered and fed by Mandadero's son and one of the other village boys. They were about to saddle some fresh horses to return to the ten that were penned in the canyon, when one of the boys mentioned that the "skywoman" was speaking to the village council. "You two go on. I'll catch up," O'Rourke told them. He wanted to hear what Chia was saying. Zi did not mount her horse. She thumbed her chest. I will stay too. I will hear what the spacewoman says. Mandadero left for the canyon with a couple of other village men he asked to help bring back the wild horses. As O'Rourke and Zi approached the large fire in the center of the village, they heard Chia's voice, edged with bitterness, over the crackle of the flames. She walked around the fire as she spoke. A circle of the village elders sat nearest the fire; behind them sat others, men and women, with eyes wide and awestruck as always by the tall hairless woman who had come from the sky. A village fire, enrapt faces. A commanding speaker... O'Rourke shook off the memory, and with relief saw Stares-at-Nothing lying on a pallet under a tree near the people at the fires; but nowhere did he see Hannon Ruhl.

Chia was trying to tell them that the space people did not cause the final war that devastated the planet, and the way she was talking, the fact that she was talking at all, had emerged from the silence and depression she'd been under ever since she and Zi had rescued Ruhl, made O'Rourke wonder if she had not at last laid the brain-damaged spaceman permanently to rest. He and Zi moved to the tree where Stares lay. O'Rourke squatted beside the boy. He felt his forehead and found the fever still unbroken. Stares reached feebly up and took O'Rourke's hand in his own. The grip in the boy's hand was stronger than it had been, but the strength didn't last and he let go; O'Rourke held on. "You see," Chia was saying in a voice that sounded as tight as a bowstring, "the people who colonized the moon and Mars, who built space habitats between Earth and these planets, declared themselves independent of Earth's nations and Earth's governments some fifteen years before the war came that destroyed civilization on Earth. The offworlders had nothing to do with it," she emphasized, almost angrily. "The weapons, the bombs and missiles and rays, many of them, came from the sky, yes. From airships that cruised through the upper atmosphere, from stations on the brink of space, but not from the space colonies. Up there people lived in peace and made an earnest attempt to remain severed from the international conflicts, the social and economic inequities and the various forms of tyranny that continued to trouble Earth." O'Rourke heard the venom coming out, the rancor, and with a vague uneasiness felt his own half-buried memories once again stir. "But the situation in space has changed. In too many ways, we are becoming up there a mirror image of what you were down here many decades ago." The bitterness in Chia's voice grew stronger, and O'Rourke realized that she was on the verge of both rage and tears, that she was venting her grief. He knew then that Ruhl must be dead. O'Rourke suddenly felt dead himself for some reason, listening to Chia recount events that led up to the end. Or rather he was suddenly aware of that deadness inside him, more poignantly aware of it than he had been till now. It lay over his memory like an iron door too heavy for anything to lift. Yet it had lifted now and then, had cracked, shown him glimpses of what lay inside, let some of it leak out like clouds of noxious vapor that gave off a frightening smell: vapor that almost but not quite took some sort of definite, identifiable shape. Much of what Chia was saying it seemed O'Rourke already knew, had forgotten or suppressed along with everything else in his past, and now that he was hearing it, knew he'd heard it before, and more than heard it, knew it, had memorized it—the dates, the names of the nations, the leaders, the little wars and alliances, distrusts and cynicisms that were the prelude to what the priests called Armageddon. And it wasn't just the history that O'Rourke recognized, but a feeling also, that feeling which Chia too seemed to have, the rancor and rage for those who, driven by greed for wealth and power, driven by fear and bad faith as well as arrogance and egomania, were said to have caused it. Yet this feeling did not seem to be his, not in origin anyway; but someone else's. Pondering it, sensing the vapors continue to ooze from beneath the iron door, he thought perhaps he

could have heard it from the tall man, a teacher, a village leader, on a night much like this, before a fire much like this, long ago in a canyon or some other place. "I do not know why this particular group of space people have come here to the Valley of Mexico, to what you call the Valley of Smoke," Chia was saying. "I do not know what they are searching for, digging for, in the ruins of the town that was once called Chalco but which they have named Cuitlahuac. But the one who leads them is a woman mad with power and ambition." Murmurs of surprise carried through the listeners. Chia and Zi were anomalies, but, though they found it strange, the villagers had gotten used to the idea that women had not always been limited to the demands of procreation and household chores. Still, the thought of a woman as chief of the skypeople apparently taxed their imaginations. O'Rourke let go the boy's hand and stood. Over the heads of those nearest the fire, he said, "I hear your hatred of this woman. I want to know if you have any ideas about fighting her and the ones with her. I want to know if you think we can drive them out of the region, all the way back to where they came from." Chia appeared startled for a moment. Then she recognized who had spoken. "Northman, that's a question I, like you, have been pondering for some time. The pity is that they could help you so much here, could help people all over the planet, could help the planet recover and—" "Los Destruzidos are too formidable," said one of the village elders, cutting off Chia's digression. "It would be impossible!" "They are human like you and me," she said. "Take away their weapons, their lifesuits and energy shields, their aircraft and ground vehicles, and they are no stronger than us, perhaps not as strong." "But how," cried someone, "can we do that? How can we take away their awful weapons and strip them of their defenses? How can we take away their machines?" A silence fell over the group, broken only by the occasional snap or crack of a piece of burning wood. Chia stared at the flames, her face shimmering and glowing in the firelight. High in the trees the wind moaned, and above the trees the stars hung as alien sources of light that gave none, gave no warmth, no answer. "You, Northman!" one of the elders said. "Maybe you can find a way. Maybe you and the skywoman together can find a way." "If we do not get our lake back, we will all die. We are dying now!" another yelled. This caused much abrupt talking, arguing, shouting. From her place before the fire Chia looked across gesturing hands and shaking heads at O'Rourke, her eyes ablaze with a desire for vengeance on the woman who had destroyed Hannon Ruhl. O'Rourke stared back, thinking of Luz, thinking of the ones who'd refused him the use of the lake, of the one called Fretti. He felt his own pain and hate rekindled. He felt the rage of the man who had stood before that long ago fire and told of the lunacies that brought the end. The boy was touching his leg, trying to say something. O'Rourke bent down.

"You don't ... have to..." Stares-at-Nothing said. "What?" O'Rourke could not hear him for the clamor around the fire. "Just wait ... they will ... you don't need..." The boy fell back, unable to continue. O'Rourke picked him up. When he looked at Zi, she told him with her eyes that she knew where he was going but that she would remain at the fire for a while. The din of talk at O'Rourke's back, when he turned for the cabin, drowned out the sound of the stream.

29

Despite its geological unrest, the temperate climate of central and southern Mexico had lured migrating bands and clans for decades, from the north and from the south, after the Time of Fire. Periodic onslaughts of famine, plague, cholera, and a host of other epidemics that inexplicably rose and fell away like the tides in the sea, had made many move on in search of an ever elusive better place. Some of these returned, and newcomers entered the Valley. Many had heard of the Lake of Mists and tried to find it, only now to be chased into the mountains by patrolling skymachines that spit thin streaks of lightning that could in seconds reduce trees and rock, let alone people, to smoldering dust. As a result, the mountain and foothill fringes of the Valley of Smoke hid innumerable groups of people, some nomadic hunters and herdsmen, some sedentary farmers who for various reasons had had to uproot themselves and leave their former locales, some lone wanderers like Zi and O'Rourke, and some roving bands of marauders who preyed on anyone vulnerable to attack— like the one that had raided the Lake on the day Los Destruzidos first landed, like the huge one Zi had seen from her lookout point above the canyon where they'd penned the horses. For the kind of sneak hit-and-run guerrilla warfare O'Rourke envisioned as the only way to weaken and finally defeat the offworlders, he and Zi both instinctively knew these bands of brigands would be best. They would also be the hardest to lead, to control, to discipline. And they would hardly fight such an exotic foe for something so trivial as the health and safety of peaceful hunters and farmers on whom they usually preyed. "I have heard of you," O'Rourke said in Spanish, and he pointed at Zi who sat on her chestnut mare beside him. "This one, who is called Zi, has heard of you." He looked beyond the man whom he addressed, seated on his horse in front of O'Rourke, at the mounted men behind him. There were perhaps fifty in all, here on the sand flat where they'd met. And on the ridge immediately above them at least another fifty watched. They were dressed in a ragged assortment of ponchos, cotton shuts and breeches or loincloths or pants of various material, woven by women or taken from raids on villages and ruins. Their weapons ranged from guns to bows, but their horses seemed all to be shod. O'Rourke raised his voice so the others could hear. "Everyone has heard of Naca, the umon with the white eyes. Everyone trembles at the mention of his name." He looked at the leader again and dropped to a normal tone. "But look at you now up here in these scruffy hills, eating the mush from the fruit of the cactus. Los Destruzidos have chased you from the Valley as though you and your men were sheep. Now you can't even take a shit without first finding a safe place from their skymachines."

Under his mop of thick black hair, the brigand leader's pearl-colored eyes narrowed only slightly at the insult. O'Rourke realized he confronted a man with some intelligence, at least enough to know he was being baited. "And I have heard of you, Northman. They say you weep at the sight of death." He looked at Zi a moment. "Like a woman." O'Rourke leaned slightly forward in his saddle, his right hand no closer and no farther from the butt of the automatic rifle in his saddle scabbard or the pistol at his hip. "That is true. I think it is something I have only learned recently," or remembered recently, he thought, "how to do. But I weep for the loss of that which I love. Like a woman." "The umon do not weep. The umon do not love." O'Rourke smiled thinly. "And the umon do not lie either, eh, Naca? Tell me if it is not true. I have heard that your love for your own kind is exceeded only by your hatred for those who caused them to be Children of the Smoke." "Are you saying we have something in common in what we hate, Northman?" "I did not risk coming here to admire your horses." That night the three of them sat on the ground around a fire in the middle of Naca's camp in the western foothills. "We have with us, in our village, a woman from up there." O'Rourke pointed at the stars. "What you would call a Destruzida, but one who hates the Destroyers as much as we do, because the Destroyers are led by a woman who took her man and made of him a child." (He saw no point in going into the fact that the "Destroyers" from space had had nothing to do with the destruction of civilization on Earth; such a historical detail would likely have little relevance for Naca.) "She would be with Zi and me now, but she does not ride as well, and with others is keeping watch on the Cuitlahuac base from above the Lake of Mists. She is thinking on ways we can fight them. She watches them all day, every day, and judges their weaknesses, determines their security routines, thinks on ways the Destroyers can be hit." "I have heard of this skywoman," Naca said. Then he looked at Zi again. "I have heard of this one too." A sardonic smile curved his lips and exposed a number of bad teeth. "How is it this one rides with you? I have heard she is half panther and half rattlesnake." O'Rourke nodded. "It is true. She rides with the Northman because she has found in him someone meaner than she is." "Hah!" Naca laughed. "That is to be doubted, no?" But when his pale eyes shifted back to Zi's, his grin faltered at her unfriendly look. Then it rallied, turned more cynical than before, and this time contained a rising glimmer of lust. Zi, O'Rourke knew, was even less a diplomat than himself. He cleared his throat and looked around. "I thought we were supposed to get something to eat at Naca's fire!" The pale-eyed umon grunted and raised a thick arm whose gold biceps band flashed in the firelight. Several women draped with ponchos and serapes appeared with wooden bowls filled with fruit. A smoking platter of meat was placed before Naca and O'Rourke.

O'Rourke stared down at it and felt a wave of cold nausea sweep over him. In the dancing light of the fire it looked like a skinned and roasted human infant. He fought to keep his gorge from rising, looked away, felt Zi's hand on his arm and knew she was aware of his sudden struggle to conceal what he felt. Not only would it be interpreted as an insult, but also as a weakness. If the Northman had no stomach for such a fine delicacy, how could he fight Los Destruzidos? His stomach heaved as he took a cup handed to him by one of the women. Fighting the urge to stand and leave the fire, he tried the drink; it was mescal. Zi was trying to tell him something. He rolled blurred eyes at her. Her hands flew. The meat was monkey, she said, pantomiming a simian creature brachiating through tree branches. From the south, she gestured. Not human. Of course, it was monkey, he could see that now. It was as if his mind had superimposed the body of a human infant on what really lay before him. Zi's hand was on his back, trying to soothe. He was not aware that she knew of his aversion toward meat. Sometimes he had little problem eating it, and at other times the mere thought of it made his stomach convulse. But Zi, who could have been called Sees Everything, missed nothing, and obviously she knew. In any case, her present attempt to help him came too late; the fact that he would have to eat monkey instead of infant did not make the cold and the nausea subside much. Nor did the mescal help. It in fact acted as an oil for the hinges on that submerged iron door. In the briefest of glimpses, he saw an infant lying in snow, alive and crying. He was standing over it with a knife. There was the presence of someone else somewhere nearby, someone else lying in the snow.... Fruit was shoved in his face by Zi. He grabbed an orange and with shaking hands tried to peel it. Naca, fortunately, was preoccupied with one of the women and did not notice O'Rourke's condition. He glanced around him; the other men seated nearby were busy eating. The image of the baby in the snow came back. A sickening horror hit him in the gut so hard it bent him over. Naca was now curiously looking O'Rourke's way. Zi stood. She threw off her robe and thrust herself in front of the umon chief. Clapping her hands, she began to sway and dance around the fire as she wriggled out of her loincloth. Someone began beating on a log with a stick. A crude chanting began. The umon men grunted, murmured and watched bug-eyed as Naca stood and commenced to gyrate with the naked Zi. Hardly aware of what was going on around him, O'Rourke got shakily to his feet, staggered backward away from the fire, turned and blundered through several umon to the darkness of some nearby trees.

He fell, retching and racked with convulsions, seeing in his mind's eye images of the dead baby in the snow, of another body near, hearing instead of the drumming and chanting at the umon camp, sounds of a keening wind; feeling the bitter bite of stinging cold eating into his marrow and turning his flesh the color of pinebark. No longer knowing where he was or what he'd left, he tried to come back, tried to fight the assaults of nausea, tried to stand. He reeled and thrashed about in the undergrowth like a mortally wounded animal, but managed to stay on his feet. When the drumming and chanting resumed hammering at his consciousness, he remembered where he was and that he had left Zi alone at Naca's fire. Bathed in a cold sweat, with his shirt gashed open in front and chest bleeding from contact with some bush spiked with thorns, his hat, held against his back by its chinstrap, swinging wildly with his wobbly walk, he gathered his bearings and with an effort of desperate will, forced enough of the dizziness away so that he could remain upright and lurch back toward the fire. What he saw made him seize the handle of his pistol, but he knew he had to be careful or he and Zi would end up with their heads ornamenting the tips of two umon spears. They were tossing her back and forth across the fire as though she were a piece of meat being teased for roasting. Each toss dropped her closer to the licking flames. Weakened by his seizure, O'Rourke moved like a man whose legs were lead. Unable to think of anything else to do, he was about to pull his gun, when Zi, turning in midair, suddenly grabbed and clung to Naca as the umon chief and another man caught her. When they tried to throw her back across the fire, she climbed Naca's chest and clamped her strong legs around his head, straddling his face with a grip certain to suffocate. The other umon thought this was great sport as, drunkenly laughing and hooting, they watched their leader lose his balance and fall backward under Zi's weight. O'Rourke could tell from the look in her blazing eyes that Zi thought this great sport too but that the game was over and that her intention was indeed to kill the white-eyed one this way. And judging from his already feeble attempts to get hold of her and throw her off, Naca was fading fast. The idea of enlisting Naca's help had obviously left Zi, and all she could think of now was to hurry along his demise. She reached back and pulled her knife from its neck scabbard. O'Rourke jumped, grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her loose from the umon chief. She tried to stab him but he held her wrist away. They rolled on the ground. When she at last saw who he was, she let him cover her, threw her legs around him and began to weep. He had scant time to marvel at this unexpected change in her character, but it told him how terrified she was, and how brave. Terrified himself, O'Rourke panted into her ear, "Roll away, get away, when I get up." He let go of her and stood with his bloody chest exposed so the umon could see. "This is her mark on me," he yelled at them, unsure himself what the hell he was doing or where he was going to take it. "Zi is a crazy woman who can't fuck without stabbing her mate, but that's the way the Northman likes it." Vaguely, he realized he was not a little crazy himself at the moment, in a kind of delirium of fear and readiness to kill. "And if anyone else touches

her, he'll have to suffer the bite of her knife." He jerked the pistol from its holster and fired it into the air. To a man, they jumped back. "Then after he's felt her blade, I will shoot the sonofabitch." They stared at him, and at the gun. Guns, he had noticed, were not in large supply among them. He had seen only five, one of them a bolt-action rifle tied to Naca's saddle with a leather thong, which, since it belonged to the chief meant it was likely the best firearm in the band. In the moment's silence, he glanced at the spot where Zi had lain and saw with relief that she had vanished. Then he felt his throat tighten, his eyes mist over as he freshly realized what she had done, what she had risked, to save him from being seen as a weak-stomached fraud by their hosts.

30

Minutes before the first rogue ship entered the EarthWatch perimeter, reports of the penetration were coming into the Cuitlahuac Operations Center from the robot sentinels studding the exosphere. In his quarters adjacent to Yaelu's, Hilsen Parquot was aroused by the soft but urgent chime of the intercom speaker set into the headboard of his bed. (Mainly for reasons of morale, Yaelu's collapse was being handled as secretively as possible under the circumstances, and next in succession, Parquot was now in unofficial command of the entire EarthFall operation.) "Completely around the planet?" he gasped at the two-way intercom, fumbling for clothes, boots, sidearm. "We have reports of unidentifiable spacecraft capable of planetfall at various places, Commander, within minutes," came the uneasy reply. "The scanners have picked up thirtytwo rogue ships in the medium class and more than twice that number of smaller vessels coming in. A few that were apparently not privy to the codes have tried to blast their way through. Three of these have made it. Fourteen sentinels are damaged but still functioning, and two are destroyed. The strongest penetration has been over the southern hemisphere. All Fleet craft and camps have been notified. All but five have acknowledged receipt of the message. The outpost in the Urals, the ones on Hawaii and Kodiak, and the two Australian stations. We are still trying to make contact with them." Out of habit, Parquot started to grab his air mask, decided the hell with it, and shoving a cigarette between his lips and pulling on his coat, rushed for the door. His nose began to bleed and he cursed vehemently. He had not been bothered with nosebleed for weeks. He could not help but envy Allin Yaelu, mercifully sedated and asleep in the infirmary. But whatever in the devil this planet-wide penetration of the sentinel net meant, he was going to Manaus this morning. He had talked to the outpost communications officer the previous evening, and Lerine's illness and the already precarious condition of the entire camp had seriously deteriorated. Nothing was going to keep him from personally going down and pulling her out of there, even if this rogue invasion threatened the COB itself. Hardly aware he was doing it, he wiped a sleeve across his nose as he descended the steps and saw the lights coming on in the operations offices of the HQ complex. His sleeve came away smeared with blood. It had been an unusually clear night for the Valley and its environs. An hour before dawn

the heavens were still clear of smoke or cloud. But the freshly lit breakfast fires of the hillside encampment on the western slope of Firemountain Tlaloc were suddenly paled by a flash of light in the sky that put even the stars to shame. Sikatre the Smart stood and shielded his eyes against its brilliance. But he had no sooner seen it than it vanished. Others in the camp who saw it muttered and mumbled with a noise like a hive of giant bees. He was their leader. What was to be made of it? Just a shooting star? No, too big, too bright, too ... close. Far away but much closer than a true star or the lights of those false stars that belonged to the skydevils one could always see hanging here and there in the night sky, or moving across it. Different from what stupid people called a falling star and Sikatre had learned years ago should be called a meteor, that was certain. Colors in the flash of light: yellow, red, green, and blue. Strange. Then suddenly Sikatre the Smart had it, knew what it was. He turned to them grinning, waving the leg of mutton he'd been eating when the thing lit up the sky. "One of the metal birds of the skydevils just blew up!" He threw back his head and howled. "Maybe they will all blow up! And the ones who don't will fall to us and we will ride down on them and tear them to little messy pieces!" He laughed again; watching the Terrible Thirty-One (two had deserted days ago), marking the ones who didn't laugh with him, and the ones whose laughter was dubious or weak. "We," he said, hitting his chest, "are going to be a thousand strong—whah! We will be known as the Terrible Ten Thousand and we will rule the Valley of Smoke!" As if to mock his prediction, the sky was suddenly split with the roar and shriek of a huge long thing that dropped like a giant arrow from the night, a black thing dotted with lights whose noise made even the fearsome Sikatre dive for cover. He sprawled on the ground and pulled a nearby hide over his head, peeked out and watched as it and two more thunderous monsters just like it dropped toward the ancient city of Teotihuacan, the one place Sikatre the Fearless feared most of all because of the exotic and ominous changes made by the skydevils inhabiting its ruins. O'Rourke lay beside Zi under their bedding beneath a rock overhang. They were camped with several of Naca's band beside a small lake in the Valley's northwestern foothills. Both had awakened at the flash of light and the subsequent noise of the spaceships' descent to Teotihuacan. The brigands were coming out of their robes and tents, exclaiming, gathering their weapons and other gear, heading for their horses. O'Rourke started to rise, to tell them to stop, but Zi clung to him. "I've got to stop them. We need them." Her hands flew out from under the robe. They will come back. They haven't the intelligence to go very far alone. You stay with Zi now. Keep Zi warm. Zi keep you warm. She was right. When silence returned to the night, so did the brigands to the lake. They milled about and settled down again, still looking toward Teotihuacan. It had been O'Rourke's idea that Naca split his band into small groups in order to search the foothills for others who would join them. Zi and O'Rourke were leading this particular

small party, and most of them had trouble knowing when and what to eat without being told. They knew how to fight, however, and that just now was what mattered most, though exactly how they were going to fight Los Destruzidos, O'Rourke couldn't yet say. And now that more of the offworlders, as Chia called them, had just landed, O'Rourke's hopes were taking another turn downward. The very idea of trying to go against such weapons and machines made him wonder if he and Chia weren't as crazy as some of the more witless umon. For the moment, Zi, never one to waste time worrying, made him forget their troubles. While he sometimes slept fully clothed in case of the need for a hasty departure, she was nude as always when abed. Biting his neck, she rolled over on top of him and opened his shirt. Her wild hair was like a tangled thicket against the sky's first primrose hint of dawn. The vine- and branch-covered observation overlook where Chia had stationed herself with a couple of men from the cliff village was a good forty air kilometers away from where the three ships went down. Intervening hills stood in the way. But she knew about the offworlder fortifications at Teotihuacan from reports brought back by Zi and O'Rourke. The bright flash of light just before the first ship descended into Earth's atmosphere had to have been caused by the destruction of either another ship or one of the EarthWatch sentinels, which could mean these ships were here without Yaelu's or the IWF's authorization. If that were true, Chia did not know what to make of it. From the rock overlook, she had observed through field glasses evidence of discord and lack of discipline at the Cuitlahuac Base. Intrigued, she wondered if there were some sort of schism within the EarthWatch force, perhaps a mutinied garrison at Teotihuacan. Were, in fact, outlaw ships penetrating the EarthWatch sentinels to join the mutineers? "Here. You must eat." It was Paco shoving breakfast fruit in front of her. "Skywoman must eat or big wind off Iztaccihuatl take her away like leaf." "Thank you," she said, unappreciative of his attempt at humor, vaguely aware that she did not laugh at anything anymore; Chia put the guava aside and let her gaze fall through the natural window in the rocks to the Cuitlahuac Operations Base below. A flock of birds suddenly exploded from some brush downslope, and she watched the spot several moments to see if she could determine what had disturbed them. She wondered what EarthWatch Director Allin Yaelu was doing at this moment, wondered what she would be doing that day. Chia had not seen her for several days, when before she had often spotted Yaelu going to and fro among the buildings, riding an open groundcar off to some excavation site. Perhaps the esteemed director was ill. She hoped not. The thought that sickness might deprive her of the satisfaction of killing Yaelu herself threatened to turn Chia's cold calm into immediate and foolhardy action in which she would probably see no one killed but herself. Faintly, as if something huge and deep beneath the ground were turning over in its sleep,

she felt the rock under her feet stir. In the village by the cliffs, Stares-at-Nothing stood in the doorway of Father Home's hut. His fever was at last broken, though he was too weak to stand there for very long. Father Home was outside, talking to some of the villagers. Both he and Stares had been awakened by a terrible distant roar, and now, as the boy listened to the shouts and the animated talk from the people gathering around the priest—men, women and children aroused before dawn, alarmed and looking skyward—he knew that more skymachines had descended. He backed away from the door and returned to his pallet, too spent by his months-long illness even to start a fire in the iron woodstove, one of several O'Rourke had retrieved from some ruins early in the winter. Lying back, he closed his eyes once again and let his thoughts be taken where they might, on an ever-strengthening stream of semi-dream that had become a constant companion during his fever. It was a dream of which he understood very little. But a feeling had come over him a number of times, like the night O'Rourke and Chia were chosen by the village council to lead them against Los Destruzidos, that so far as the space people were concerned, all they had to do was wait. He could not speak that night, could not get out what he wanted to say, and now that he could, neither Chia nor O'Rourke was here to hear him. Knowing the way Chia felt after what had been done to Hannon Ruhl, she would not likely have listened anyway. And Stares did not really know what they were supposed to wait for. All he had was this vague premonition, and a few images of conflict, of disarray and ruin, of which he could make little sense. He was not even able to discern upon whom the ruin and disarray fell. Perhaps, the reasoning part of him thought, the Destroyers would destroy themselves if simply left to their own devices. As he lay there listening to the talk outside the door, he felt the earth begin to tremble and he saw in his mind's eye old dismaying scenes of crumbling cities. In Kharlo Fretti's headquarters in the underground labyrinth of rooms and passages beneath the Avenue of the Dead at Teotihuacan, the former EarthWatch security chief was in contact with almost every rogue ship that had penetrated the EarthWatch defense barrier. For the past hour he had stood, like a maestro in command of an invisible orchestra, before the banks of video screens and instrument panels in the underground communications room. Four communications NCO's sat at their stations before the panels, coordinating incoming data on the newcomers' landings, and outgoing orders and directions from Fretti. The three ships descending on Teotihuacan were directed to land on the pad northeast of the Pyramid of the Moon. The commandant of Teotihuacan buckled on a fine silver-haudled sword that had been exhumed from some rubble in the Tecuba district. Commandant Kharlo liked to think that the sword was one Cortez might have used, or the even more ruthless Alvarado, but he knew the designs of swords and the history of the region well enough to concede that it likely had

belonged to some postconquest potentate who used it purely for ceremonial purposes. The first temblor caught Fretti in the narrow corridor as he was climbing the steps for the surface. He was thrown against the wall but remained standing, recovered his military bearing, and continued to the upper level door, his two aides much less composed but dutifully following. Halfway to the "Moon Pad" the second temblor hit and knocked all three off their feet. Fretti was soon up, dusting himself off, righting his sword and resuming his long-legged strides for the pad, the lights of the Avenue of the Dead brushing his sharp blade of a face like the fingers of some forgotten Aztec deity. Support vehicles were converging on the five belly-down ships, and the doors in the ships' forward cabins were opening to allow captains and crew to exit. More ships would be coming, if they succeeded in breaking through the sentinels. "Welcome," Kharlo Fretti cried when he made out the captain of the first ship, the son of an old friend of his on the IWF Security Council. The young captain, whose name was Scanlan Palamet, was having trouble standing. He and others coming out of his ship looked about doubtfully as structures in the distance shook and the landing pad underfoot trembled. Quite accustomed now to such geophysical unrest, Kharlo Fretti staggered only slightly as the last tremor subsided, and extended his long arms widely as though everything in sight were his and he had personally called up the minor earthquake in honor of the newcomers' arrival. "Welcome, my friends! Welcome to Teotihuacan and the Valley of Mexico. Welcome to Oldworld and her endless opportunities for riches and conquest!"

PART III Gates of Heaven, Gifts from Hell

31

The hand of dread pressing down on his chest made Parquot almost ill. After trying constantly, following the squadron's departure from Cuitlahuac, they had not been able to raise Manaus again. From the air he could hardly tell where the Amazon outpost had been. In the two months since his last visit, the vines and creepers, grass and brush, had reclaimed almost everything. Buildings, ground and aircraft alike were covered and discolored with fungi, festooned with greenery dense enough to make him sick. They had to burn a landing swath with the patroller's nose guns before putting down in the midst of the rampant new growth. Smoke from the clearing fires floated past the ship's opening doors like black tentacles raking at their throats even through their air masks, and as their boots touched the scorched earth, the screams of howler monkeys in the surrounding wall of trees stung their ears. With his aides, Parquot tried to run toward the cluster of buildings at the clearing's south end, but the stifling heat and humidity slowed them to no more than a brisk walk. Like the smoke from the dwindling fires on the periphery of the landing swath, the stench of death was noticeable through the filters of their masks. Parquot slowed to a stagger as they neared the communications hut and saw the first bodies on the ground. High in the nearby trees the howlers screamed and shook branches and threw feces. When some members of the patrollers' crews began shooting at them, Parquot commanded them to stop. Inside the headquarters hut he found the body of Lerine. Like the rest, what was left of her clothes was gray-green with mildew or black with the ubiquitous rot. Like the rest, she was almost unrecognizable, half her flesh already consumed by animals and insects. Parquot stumbled backward, out the door. "Burn it," he said. "Bum everything." "But, sir, shouldn't we determine what—" "The goddamned monkeys," Parquot yelled, turning, reeling away from the door. "You don't remember that the goddamned monkeys are carrying a virus that infected the camp months ago? Now burn it!" "Yes, sir. Sir, would you like me to call one of the medics? For you, I mean—" "No." Parquot tried to erase the picture of Lerine, or what remained of her, from his mind. He tried to control himself, fought to steady his return to the ship.

He felt as if he were being strangled, suffocated, and had to fight a nearly irresistible urge to rip the air mask from his face. The primordial jungle seemed to close in upon him on all sides like a monstrous presence, mindless and immutable, steaming with disease and decay and so alive with shrieking mouths that it seemed maniacal spirits ruled the place, overjoyed that they were driving the alien intruders away. He was a commander. He was at the moment in command of the entire EarthFall operation. He had to control his emotions, and his stomach. He could not think of ... could not remember how she looked ... oh God, oh God, no... Inside his private quarters in the command patroller's ship, he tore the air mask from his face. He dropped to the chair of his small desk and shuddered as he fought the shock, grief, and horror that threatened to flatten him against the deck. Hilsen Parquot had seen death many times but never in as grim a display as that at the Amazon outpost. He could not rid himself of the image of Lerine's half-eaten body in the headquarters hut, nor ignore the loss. Had he been able to do so, he might have reacted better when the squadron of rogue fighters came out of the clouds over the Guiana Highlands. The captains in the other patrollers did not react much better than Parquot, no doubt because they too were badly shaken by what they'd seen at Manaus. Despite ample warning from their instruments, the smaller but more maneuverable fighters were on them in a swarm before the patrollers' guns loosed their first beams. The missiles and rays of the attackers tore at the command ship's shield with a ferocity that penetrated it in a score of places. Heavy damage was immediately incurred in the power plant and flight cabin. Caught in the passageway outside his quarters, Commander Parquot was enveloped in smoke. Momentarily blinded, he groped for the passageway wall and fell forward into flame. Three days after Allin Yaelu was released from the psychiatric ward at the Cuitlahuac Base infirmary she received word of the attack on Parquot's scoutship. She did not grieve the loss of Parquot as a friend and fellow human being, but instead became enraged at the news of this latest blow—and blamed the planet she was certain was her personal enemy. In order to be released from the infirmary, she had convinced her therapist that his attempts to rid her of this obsession had succeeded. But being skilled in ways to pull the wool over the eyes of the practitioners of psychiatric science, she had left the infirmary with her views on this subject essentially unchanged. The fact that Parquot's ship had been destroyed by outlaw fighters no doubt acting on orders from Kharlo Fretti was in a way irrelevant: Fretti had fallen under the spell of Earth's demented history. Not a terraphile but a terramaniac, he was merely a servomechanism to the planet's overall malevolence. She hated Fretti well enough, but the therapist had told her hers was the kind of mind that preferred goals and adversaries on a cosmic scale. She preferred to think a planet was against her rather than a man, because that meant if she failed, she could feel the odds were greater than any human being had any hope of overcoming.

She could, the therapist had said, therefore expect to become the victim of rage and frustration in corresponding degrees. But because human beings were not constructed or equipped to cope with conflicts of a godly kind, when they tried to do so, they could quite easily self-destruct. Lofty observations from someone who obviously considered his work to be healthily humble and mundane. But Yaelu felt she'd already wasted too much precious time being put through an examination-and-therapeutic process designed for lesser minds; she could not give any more thought to what her fatuous therapist had said. On leaving the infirmary, she had been instantly incensed by the mess things were in at the Cuitlahuac Base, but for three days she had managed to control her emotions lest she reveal signs of another breakdown. Then, with the news of Parquot's death, she had to confine herself to her quarters until she felt sure her stability was back. She was nonetheless on the verge of smashing anything within reach when an aide came and told her that an excavation team in the northeast section of the Cuitlahuac ruins had uncovered what might be the longsearched-for villa. "Today?" She jumped up from her desk. "About eight or nine days ago, Director, when you were still in the infirmary." Yaelu studied the young female sergeant for signs of derision, latent treachery. Could she be a Fretti infiltrator? "Why the hell wasn't I told before now?" "We were under orders from Chief Physician Klovski not to disclose the news until you were released and ... back into your routine." "Let's go. Goddamn fools. The very thing we came here for may have been found and I'm not told about it for weeks?" In the front seat of a battered and begrimed open groundcar that rattled and wheezed as if dying, she was driven by the tactfully taciturn aide down the OC hill toward the excavation site. A chill spring wind blew off the higher slopes of Iztaccihuatl, pulling in rain-threatening clouds over the Valley. Silently cursing the wind, the clouds, the aide, the groundcar and the miserable excuse for a road, Allin pulled her jacket together and indignantly zipped it to her neck as she was bounced and tossed against her seat strap. Had she not undergone therapy, she likely would have cursed aloud; the fact that she kept silent, she assured herself, indicated she was well enough and nobody had better try to tell her different. The rain had started by the time they reached the site. It was coming down in a torrent before Yaelu and her aide were out of the groundcar. The ash-covered ground was instant goop on which she slid and almost fell before reaching the field shed at the edge of the excavation. The group of site personnel, previously alerted to her coming, greeted her with less than jubilant warmth. In fact, they were almost surly. Surely there were Fretti spies among them. But who? Which ones?

Only the site supervisor, an excavation engineer named Thieu, who was no doubt anxious to keep his job, spoke with any genuine respect. "We found these in a room that was probably an office," he said, pointing at several items laid out on a table: books mostly, and stacks of file documents. "So what do they tell you?" Yaelu yelled against the noise of the rain on the shed's roof. She was looking down at the portion of the villa that had been uncovered just below the shed. The structure's roof had caved in long ago, and she could see into the cleared interior, now being washed by the rain. "They indicate the villa was a Soviet safe house."

32

From her weeks-long vigil at the rock overlook above the Cuitlahuac Operations Base, Chia knew its layout by heart. She had drawn a map for O'Rourke and his guerrillas to use; she had also made a record of the routine moves of the base's security patrols. Security, so far as Chia could determine with binoculars from the overlook—and from what she remembered when she and Zi had infiltrated the base to rescue Hannon—was sloppy and lax. There would be perimeter sensory devices she could not see, of course, but to judge from the poor morale and rampant illness, at least some of those devices might not be manned. That, in fact, proved to be the case. Under cover of rain and darkness and with explosives taken months ago from the big weapons depot south of the airport on the eastern edge of Mexico City, O'Rourke was able to crawl into the south end of the base where the massive generators were located. He tried to blow five of them, but three of the detonators failed. The two charges that blew were less than spectacular, but the noise and flame were enough to divert attention from the rest of the base. Risking annihilation by deadly ray weapons against which they had not a prayer, over three hundred mounted indigenes, led by Naca and Zi, rode down through the heart of the base, firing automatic weapons and hurling grenades. The base security force, its discipline eroded and its strength depleted more than fifty per cent by disease and desertion, was so surprised that the guerrillas incurred few casualties until they had passed all the way through the base. Once through, though, deadly rays tore into their ranks as they scattered down into the ruins of Mexico City. Sky and ground machines pursued them into the ruins where their only chance, as O'Rourke had told them before the attack, was to scatter. Into the hills of rubble in the suburbs of Culhuacan, Ayotla and Tlahuac, into the ragged labyrinth of streets of Ixtapalapa and along the debris-strewn slopes of Cerro de la Estrella, the guerrillas fled. Amid broken walls eerily lit by searchlights, horses and riders went down under the deadly beams that turned the rain to vapor and blasted anything they struck. Earth, rock, adobe, wood, glass, steel, bone, and flesh flew burning and smoking into the night sky. The rats, wild dogs, cats, iguanas, birds, and bats by the thousands that lived in the ruins exploded screeching from burrow and lair. In a tangle of half-fallen walls north of the Avenida del Molino, O'Rourke's horse ripped its belly open jumping a snag of metal he did not see in the dark. Screaming in agony, the horse went down. O'Rourke was dazed by the fall, but the smell soon told him the horse had been gutted. He drew his pistol and fired point-blank into the animal's brain, disentangled himself, slung the automatic rifle over his shoulder, grabbed ammunition and grenades, and ran.

Other guerrillas crashed and thundered through the nearby shambles. He heard someone calling him, saw the horse and rider coming up, the hand reaching down. He grabbed and swung up, his tortured lungs heaving, his throat aching for unscorched air. But the worst of it was in the rear, back toward Cuitlahuac, where the sky was lit as if by an appalling electrical storm. The cavalry raid was a diversion that worked. It enabled Chia to sneak onto the airpad atop the hill west of the main part of the base. Moving in the rainswept shadows among the parked aircraft, she reached the control station while the guerrillas were making their pellmell dash down through the heart of Cuitlahuac. Through a window she could see only one person inside, a woman guard standing on the opposite side of the room and looking out a window at the battle raging below. Several ground vehicles that had left the airpad were turning down the hill with reinforcements from the security contingent up here, and Chia pressed herself against a shadowed wall of a building adjacent to the control station to avoid their lights. When they were gone, she swung around the corner, ran for the control station, kicked open the front door and stepped in with her submachine pistol aimed at the woman on the opposite side of the small room. With a cry, the woman had turned, obviously terrified at the sight of the tall gun-wielding intruder in ragged wet clothes and skin streaked with charcoal to blend with the dark. "Over here," Chia said, indicating with the snout of the gun a computer alcove distant enough to allow her to strap the submachine pistol over her shoulder and seize a stunner near the instruments where the woman had sat. "I want the key to a fighter. Where?" The woman pointed at a wall board holding a number of cylindrical finger-sized keys. "One key fits all craft?" "Yes." The woman nodded her head anxiously, ready to say anything that would remove Chia from her midst. Chia grabbed every key on the wall board, then pressed the trigger on the stunner and stepped forward to catch the woman as she fell. She lay her down on the floor and in seconds was out the door and running for the nearest fighter. She was plainly visible in the pad's lights but no one yelled or fired. Maybe all of the airpad's security unit had descended to Cuitlahuac. After all, who would think one of the indigenes could steal and fly an aircraft? Sitting before the controls of the fighter, Chia wondered if she remembered how. Living as she had with the onworlders for the last several months, the unfamiliarity of the cramped flight cabin of the fighter was at first unsettling. But she soon got her bearings, determined where all the appropriate instruments were located, remembered Nightswann, remembered... Without flight lights, the fighter shot into the rainy smoke-filled night. Relying only on the instruments, Chia swung the aircraft south and shoved it into a steep climb.

On the geoscreen just under the noseport appeared the topography of the western slope of Iztaccihuatl over which she flew. At five thousand meters she was abreast of the volcano's outside crater wall. She cut back on the speed, studying the layout on the geoscreen, the cliffs and outcrops, creases and ridges beneath the belly of the aircraft. At fifty-two hundred meters she began to level off. On an oblique approach, the ship angled over the crater's rim. Eight hundred meters below, inside the caldera, the lava lake boiled and gleamed like a great caldron of red-hot gold waiting to be drained. She banked and came back around to the summit's outside western wall, descended from the rim and again studied the geoscreen. She soon found a large gap in the rim on the northwestern side where lava had previously escaped and scoured a canyon down the face to the ravines below. Those ravines flowed in a generally northwesteren direction, toward the ruins of the suburb of Chalco, and to the Cuitlahuac Base some forty land kilometers away. Data on the readout screen to the left of the topography graphic indicated the wall was composed of old lava, basalt, and other igneous materials less than fifty meters thick in some places. Pinpointing two of the thinnest of these areas on the crater wall, Chia punched in the coordinates, and coming in close, pressed the firing buttons of all four nose guns. The beams struck the rock face as she slammed into the climb again. Above the rim, she rolled the ship, then put it into a backward dive that brought the full force of the guns against the wall for a second time. On the third try, the intense heat of the rays burned a breech through the rock. As she shot upward into the clouds, Chia watched on the geoscreen that segment of the wall crumble and part like an opening floodgate. Turning northwest toward Cuitlahuac, she checked the long-range scanners and saw that a squadron of airships like the one she flew had taken off from the main airpad. She punched the craft's speed up to max and was mashed back against her seat as she veered off to the north toward Teotihuacan. The scanners confirmed that the fighter squadron was after her, but with a twenty-kilometer lead she had a chance to make the northern fortress before her pursuers brought her down. The big question, the big gamble: Was the garrison at Teotihuacan in fact at odds with Cuitlahuac, and if so, would they welcome her or cut her to pieces? Charged with adrenalin, alive as she had not been since she'd lost Hannon, she decided it was fitting—on this world where such behavior had been highly valued and was central to its glory and its doom—to be in the game of the big gamble, the ultimate risk, again. And looking back through the flight cabin's rear glass at the brilliant orange-red river beginning to flow down the west face of Iztaccihuatl, she said, "This is for you, Han. This is for you." In his underground control center at Teotihuacan, Captain General Kharlo Fretti, as he presently preferred to be addressed, stood before the bank of monitors and data screens

tracking the EarthFleet fighter that had fired on Iztaccihuatl. The screens were also tracking the squadron in pursuit. Because of too many intervening hills and ridge lines between Teotihuacan and the volcano, the incoming information did not reveal the result of the pursued craft's having fired a series of rays at it. Fretti and his command assumed the fighter was being flown by a mutineer who for some unknown reason had fired on guns or some sort of threatening installation high on the mountain. "The pursued craft is dead on course for Teotihuacan, sir," said the systems coordinator sitting before the monitors. Standing behind the SC, hands behind his back and the multicolored lights of the instruments and screens painting his sharp face the mixed hues of a mad chemist's brew, Fretti looked over at Captain Scanlan Palamet, leader of the eight rogue ships that had recently landed and joined the Fretti Alliance. Then Fretti looked at the communications officer on the far side of the SC. "Let it in," he said. "Yes, sir," said the CO. As the son of a close friend of Captain General Kharlo's, Palamet had been given secondin-command status at Godhome. While he fell several centimeters short of Fretti, he had the solid build of a gymnast. What he lacked in years—he was only thirty-eight, an age still youthful in extraterrestrial society—he made up for with a natural commanding presence that kept his fleet in line. And with his good looks, he usually had at least a half-dozen lovers dangling on his whimsical string. The captain general had thus far concealed his jealousy and his lust; however, in time... "But wipe the pursuers," said Palamet with a grin. "Eh, Captain General?" "Of course," Fretti smiled back. "Wipe the pursuers." "Yes sir," said the CO as he turned to relay the command to the gun emplacements ringing Teotihuacan. Chia had considered calling Teotihuacan to ask permission to land, but the flight commander of the squadron on her tail persisted in ordering her on every frequency available to turn back on pain of annihilation. She could not have gotten a word to Teotihuacan even had she known the right frequency; she therefore plunged headlong for the main airpad east of the two largest pyramids. The pad was well-lit, as if welcoming her. She cut the power back, slowed to hover mode for the descent. The narrow belly of the fighter was fifty meters from the pad's pavement when the Teotihuacan guns began slicing into the approaching squadron from Cuitlahuac.

33

She was questioned for six hours by three interrogators with "truth-testing" aids in a subterranean chamber where, in the final hours of the interrogation, Chia began to see Aztec ghosts. When they released her, she was escorted by an orderly down a narrow, dimly lit corridor to a small room with stone walls, a bed, and a toilet. She was brought something to eat, given a pill to help her sleep, as if she needed one, and was then left alone for what little was left of the night. Late in the morning, another orderly came to escort her up an earthen stairway to another corridor and finally to a room in which stood two men, one tall and thin and dressed in an odd costume whose design had to have been copied, at least in part, from some painting of a Spanish conquistador. The shirt—actually it was more like a jacket or waistcoat with a high stiff collar and raised shoulders—was burgundy in color; the loose-legged cotton trousers, like the knee-high jackboots worn with the bottoms of the trousers tucked into their tops, were black. Strapped to this one's waist was a stun pistol worn on his right hip and a sword on his left. Chia saw no insignia of rank or any other contemporary military mark or decoration. The other man was not as tall but was stout and sturdy-looking. He wore a skintight dark blue flight suit, which also lacked any designation of rank or corporate or military affiliation. Down his back fell the kind of long satin cape favored by some stylish and flamboyant space pilots. Hannon had once worn a similar cape for a while. "Please be seated, Chilia Swann," said the tall one, pointing to one of two chairs before the desk behind which he moved. His eyes glinted with a sheen that somehow reminded Chia of Io's ice, glinted with some private amusement, or dementia, in the room's meager light. While the tall one took his chair behind the desk, the other man seemed to be waiting for her to sit before he did, a quaint custom that had been dropped from sexually egalitarian space society generations ago. But perhaps he simply preferred to stand. "You know who I am," she said, still standing. "Who are you?" She looked from the one behind the desk to the one standing beside her. "I am Captain General Kharlo Fretti, formerly EarthWatch Security Chief. And this is Captain Scanlan Palamet, an interplanetary fleet commander." Chia sat down, self-conscious in her tattered homespun. Scanlan Palamet did not take the other chair in front of Fretti's desk. The narrow-faced commander of Teotihuacan watched her with his crazily gleeful, chillingly cold, glint; with an intense and, she was certain, ill-disposed interest. "For an independent space pilot, you look rather acclimated to the local region, Chilia

Swann," Fretti said. "I've been here a while." "Yes. You were the extraordinary pilot—a pilot whose skills we can use, I assure you—who broke the sentinel codes and penetrated the EarthWatch perimeter, oh, more than a year ago now. You were the lover of one Hannon Ruhl, another independent space pilot." Chia tried to change the subject. Her gaze falling pointedly to the gold medallion suspended from Fretti's neck, she said, "You are no longer under the command of Allin Yaelu, then?" "That is correct. I am under my own command." "The purpose of which is?" Fretti sat back. He cast his cold smile on Palamet. "Perhaps you would like to tell her where our priorities lie, Captain." "Happily, Captain General," said Palamet. "We are engaged in the search for antiquarian evidence of alien visitation and influence here in the Valley of Mexico." It was a mouthful, and in Palamet's mouth it didn't sound right, as if the words had originated with someone else, like Captain General Fretti. There was something about Palamet besides his cape that poignantly reminded Chia of Hannon Ruhl. His dancing eyes maybe, his sensuous mouth. There was something about him that made her feel he really didn't belong here beside the so-called captain general. And she had the feeling that Palamet was being ironic, self-mocking as he tried to expand on the timeworn reasons for suspecting that Earth had been visited long ago by a highly advanced race from beyond the solar system. An idea Chia cared little about at the moment. Something in the way Palamet watched her as he spoke told her he didn't have much interest in it either. Chia had the suspicion that the primary concern they had for the past lay in retrieving precious artifacts and other treasure from Earth for the purpose of selling them on the extraterrestrial black market. Glorified grave robbers, she thought, and wondered if that was not a phrase Palamet would appreciate. She had once had ambitions to find ancient art objects here too; had indeed found some. A very long time ago, it seemed. A time she no longer wanted to recall. She was looking straight at Fretti when she said, "Have you found the gold the conquistadores lost when they fled Tenochtitlan?" "I see you know some history of the region," intoned the captain general. "But the answer is no." "Perhaps it never existed," said Palamet smoothly, still watching her with his ambiguous smile, "at least in the quantity attributed to the Aztecs. Perhaps it was found and exhumed by indigenous plunderers years ago." And, thought Chia, perhaps you lie. She noticed Fretti glance at the younger man, and saw in the glance an ill-concealed

irritation, resentment maybe, for Palamet's dwelling on the subject, or maybe for his apparent interest in her. "But enough of what we are up to, Pilot Swann. I want to know what you were doing at the Cuitlahuac Operations Base. Surely you were not there as a trusted employee of the EarthFall operations, since an IWF warrant for your arrest was issued some time ago. How did you come to be at the COB? Why did you commandeer a fighter? What did you attack so high up on Iztaccihuatl?" These were questions the interrogators had not asked—they had concentrated solely on "truth-determination," and on her identity and background—which made Chia conclude that Fretti had wanted to save this part of the questioning for himself. Her instant dislike for him had deepened with every second she spent here in his musty underground office. His lank but lubricious looks, his arrogance, his counterfeit geniality and absurd clothes, made her feel he was no doubt as ruthless and monomaniacal as Allin Yaelu. "Well, Pilot Swann?" "I am surprised that you don't yet know the answer to that one, Captain General Fretti. Do you not have spies—" "Answer!" "I blew a breach in the volcano's crater wall in order to send a river of lava down on Cuitlahuac." The former security chief paled. He rose from his chair. "What? You ... did what?" Intrigued by this reaction, Chia nonetheless was silent. Fretti pressed the talk button on his desk intercom. "I want an immediate report on the condition of the Cuitlahuac Operations Base and Vulcan Iztaccihuatl!" Palamet seemed as interested in Fretti's sudden dismay and outburst as Chia. In another minute the voice on the other end of the intercom came back. "We have a report from one of our agents at the COB and one from high-altitude surveillance, sir. A significant portion of the volcano's northwest wall was blown away last night by the rogue fighter, and a lava flow is moving down the mountain toward the COB." "You idiot!" Fretti yelled at Chia. She stood. "Why? Why do you care what happens to the COB? What's all the excavating about at Cuitlahauc? Alien artifacts, Captain General?" "That is ... none of your business, pilot!" He pressed the intercom button again. "I want two armed orderlies—" "I'll take her back to her room," Palamet said. Fretti was about to protest, then seemed to think better of it. Palamet had spoken in a tone that implied he wanted no disagreement. Maybe Kharlo Fretti was in command of Teotihuacan and maybe he wasn't; maybe he was lusting after Palamet—Chia could not think of someone like Fretti being in love with anyone— and maybe he wasn't; in any case, he

obviously wanted no friction between himself and Palamet for the moment. "Take her!" he said. At the door to her room—it was more aptly called a cell—Chia turned and faced Palamet. "Do you know what they are doing at Cuitlahuac, Captain?" "Perhaps." "But you will not tell me." "Perhaps. In time." "But not now." "I'm not sure I know yet. When I am sure, I will tell you." She searched his eyes. "I don't think I want to hang around here that long." His smile was quizzical but friendly. "I was hoping to get to know you better. You have a dependable escape plan, of course." Unsure of him, Chia didn't return the smile, or give him an answer. Her mind was in turmoil trying to figure out what could be at the COB that would have made Fretti react the way he did, and she regretted now having opened the volcano's crater. Her hatred for Yaelu had blinded her to the undisclosed importance of the base. Now she wanted to know its purpose—and wondered if she could do something to halt or alter the flow of lava down to Cuitlahuac. Maybe Fretti was already issuing orders to do just that, or maybe he was up to something else. "I think you are not what you seem, Captain Palamet. Will you help me?" she said. He watched her in silence for so long, his eyes probing hers, moving over her face to her mouth, that she began to wonder if he'd understood her question. "If I do, what will you do for me?" he finally said. "What would you like?" "I would like a little of everything."

34

On the rainy night of the raid through Cuitlahuac, the horse bearing O'Rourke and his umon rescuer had stepped into a narrow gully shortly after O'Rourke lost his own mount. The umon's mare broke its leg and threw both riders ten feet. The umon was slammed headfirst into a slab of concrete, but O'Rourke, sliding on the muddy ground, escaped physical injury. The fall left him only dazed for a few moments. When he came around, hearing the horse's screams and seeing the blinding streaks of radiation from the Cuitlahuac base cutting into the rear of the raiders, he assumed the foremost of the band had ridden on without anyone else having seen him fall. He was trying to get to his feet when another rider, smoking and toppling from his saddle, fell on O'Rourke. The sudden stench of scorched human flesh was overpowering. He rolled away, gagging, once again disoriented. But this time his head didn't clear, became more clouded, went spinning back over the years to a scene in which he saw himself kneeling over a body in the snow, a knife in his hand. He saw the red and bleeding flesh opening up to the knife, the flow of the blood slowing, stopping as it became exposed to the freezing air. The mind's-eye image changed. He was at a fire, shaking, frostbitten, holding something over the flames, smelling it as it cooked, his stomach rebelling even as it ached to be filled. He did not want to know ... did not want to see.... Horses, some with riders and some riderless, splashed and slid, snorted, wheezed and galloped past him. The air hissed with steam and stank of fires. He reeled, clawed at his throat as if strangling. His stomach heaved and his bowels exploded. All at once before him, thrust down from her horse, was the face of someone he knew and cared for. It was a face crowned by wild black hair, darkened by ash, streaked with the erratic light of the deadly beams a half-mile away. Because he cared for her, he did not want to have anything to do with her. He did not want to care for her, did not want to care for anyone, did not want to feel, did not want to touch her with his hands, those hands that— "Northman!" someone else, one of Naca's men, yelled. The man was there beside her, dismounting, reaching to help O'Rourke into the saddle behind her. "No," O'Rourke said, drawing his pistol. "No." Something hard came down on his head. He had no memory of the ride back to the cliff village on the creek. When he regained consciousness, it was daylight and O'Rourke was lying on a pallet in the cabin, his head in Zi's lap and a cup of tangy herb tea at his lips. Stares sat beside them, his hand on the lump

on O'Rourke's head where Zi had hit him with her rifle butt. "How do you feel, Ork?" The boy was smiling sympathetically, and with affection. By using one of the old names Luz had given him, Stares intentionally called up the brief but comradely life the three had shared. Stares looked better than O'Rourke had ever seen him. His large eyes brimmed with warmth and vigor. He had somehow changed since coming through the long fever, had matured and been altered in some subtle way that O'Rourke could not at the moment define. "Boy," O'Rourke said, trying to sit up and falling back. "No. You're not a boy anymore. But ... I need ... to—" Zi pushed the cup against his lips again and he sipped at the stimulant. As his head slowly cleared—there was little pain and he could not help but believe this was because Stares's hand was on the injury—lie heard the rain on the roof, saw the low fire in the open door of the woodstove, saw that the cabin was empty save for them. "... things I don't remember ... don't want to remember, but ... ever since you, and then Luz, and now—" He looked up at the worried, almost angry, face of Zi. "I ... I've got to know what ... I've got to find out what I ... what happened in the past. Got to face it or ... I'll get somebody killed." You!, Zi signed. "Yes," Stares said. His voice was a soothing baritone, stronger than O'Rourke had ever heard it, and it was related to the power coming from the hands. "I know. Zi told me what happened. Please trust me. Trust me; trust Zi here. We love you. We are your friends. Please let us share your burden. We will help you carry it. We will help you rid yourself of its terrible weight." "I ... goddammit, I'm afraid." "I know. We are here. We love you. You are a rough man, Ork, made that way by a rough life, but I have seen the heart beneath the armor. I have seen you help so many in so many ways, and I have seen you change. I have seen into your heart and I, like so many, love you. I want to help you, but for me to help you the most, you must trust that I can, must believe I can, and you must believe that you deserve my help as well as need it. It is the same with all of us. For one to love someone else, to truly love anything at all, one must believe that he himself is worthy of love, is worthy to be loved. You are worthy. You are as much worthy of my love as I am of yours." Stares's voice, his words, his hands on each side of O'Rourke's face, made the latter almost swoon with a fathomless sense of peace. "I want you," O'Rourke said softly, slowly, "to take me ... back." ... cold ... a canyon ... fires; firelight on stone walls ... a camp ... no, a village, in a cul-de-sac protected from the desert wind … no, not a canyon but a cul-de-sac in a city ... a dead-end street in a canyon with walls of concrete and steel ... deserted by its earlier inhabitants; inhabited now by the people of his village, his people, his father's people, his father ... speaking before a fire ... telling of the

time before The End ... the time before the Time of Fire and Smoke and the coming of the Long Snows ... a teacher, a Rememberer, his father ... telling of history and science and philosophy and religion and why The End came ... telling his people at meetings before the main village fire and telling his children, explaining in simpler terms, these things to his children in private. His children ... his wife ... his sons' wives ... his daughters' husbands ... an extended family of twelve in all. Moving on ... moving south before the cold and the snows ... horses starving, falling on the trail ... people starving; dying of hunger and disease ... death on the trail and in the camps always ... beside them like their own shadows on the barren earth ... people killing each other to keep from being killed, killing each other to survive, to keep from starving ... people killing each other to... But sometimes things were good ... sometimes the sun shone and it was warm and there was enough fish or fowl or good animal meat and fruit and nuts and berries to eat and enough sweet water to drink and sometimes they came across people who had managed to raise some crops in some little place of warmth and sunlight somewhere. But mostly it was people killing each other ... cold ... nothing to eat again; always moving before the wind and the snows and nothing to eat most of the time, always searching for something to eat ... dying; dying of disease, committing suicide ... starving most of the time ... eating horses ... dogs ... leather and hair and hide ... people ... eating... He shrank back from it, whatever it was that lay just there behind ... whatever lay just beyond the blue curtain of wind and driving snow. He could feel it in his hands, feet, limbs, in the fingers and toes he had lost, in his ears and nose and cheeks ... the stinging cold ... and in his gut the ever-gnawing teeth of hunger, the unappeasable emptiness. A young woman's face, smiling, golden hair awash with sunlight ... laughter ... hers ... despite the hunger, despite the cold ... laughter ... and love. Not Luz but a woman like her ... a young woman O'Rourke had loved once ... loved with a depth that opened him now like a knife ... his wife ... mother of his children ... lost ... how ... why? Her name ... her name was Chelle and ... and ... her name ... laughter ... gold hair in moonlight ... on the snow ... on ... the ... snow. Bleeding within, once again he reeled back from reality's face. He felt as though he were being flayed and gutted, drained of blood, chewed down to raw bone. He came up sweating, moaning. "Ahggg ... no ... not... no." "Northman." It was the boy speaking. His hands were still on O'Rourke's head and he was shaking. "I think you—" The boy closed his eyes. "Wait ... wait. I'm sorry but—I think something is wrong. I think we are ... something coming up on us ... on the village." He opened his eyes and he looked at Zi, his expression suddenly one not of pain so much as fear. "Can you feel it, Zi? Something is wrong out there, around us, around the village." She lowered O'Rourke's head and stood, grabbed her weapons from their pegs near the door and rushed outside. O'Rourke tried to rise, finally managed it. "I'm sorry," the boy said. "You need to rest. You were close. I could see—I don't think you

should go out there now. Maybe the others can manage. You're too confused now. There will be violence ... what you have ... it's what has made you—'' "I don't know. Hell with it ... too horrible. Where am I?" O'Rourke was up now, staggering around, groping, looking for his guns. "Northman." The boy reached for him. "I don't know," O'Rourke kept mumbling. "Name's Quentin. Quentin O'Rourke. Chelle. Her name. God, what did I ... hell with it... where's Zi?" And he too went through the door. Stares-at-Nothing closed his eyes. Still feeling the anguish that was O'Rourke's, whose ultimate cause had yet to be known and whose horror seemed too grim to name, he hung his head in silent prayer beside the fire. He did not pray to the god of Father Rojas, or to anything that could be called a deity. He prayed to the power he knew was there, inside and outside him. Not out there in some unattainable realm that mocked shape and substance, time and space; and not up there in the place the priests called Heaven. But in and of all time and no time, everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere. He prayed to the primal source of it all and All's negation which, like O'Rourke's terrible memory, defied the disclosure of a face or a name. He had weapons—an automatic rifle, a pistol, a knife. He recognized the sound of abrupt gunfire on the western fringe of the village, but did not know where he was. The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. The sun through the driving clouds was at its late afternoon point, about to disappear behind the mountains across the Valley. Among the huts and cabins the trees dripped and the earth was soggy underfoot. He ran toward the gunfire with the long-buried images reeling through his brain the way the bats reeled from the ruins of Ixtapalapa the night of the raid. He sat in the snow, bent over her as she lay dying, her eyes glassy with fever, her face gaunt with hunger, and her pale lips curved in the faintest of smiles. "No," he heard himself say. "I'll die here with you and the children. Oh, Chelle. Jesus God, Chelle." "You must live, Quentin. Please. It's the only thing you can do. Maybe little Nan can make it. She will need you.'' "You know better than that, Chelle. Nan is sicker than you." "It's all right. There's nothing else you can do." An explosion nearby made him throw himself to the mud. He was suddenly seized with a grief that was bottomless and without any clear focus. It doubled him up, left him lying there on the rain-soaked ground, writhing and holding his belly as if it would open and his insides spill. For once, his precious guns were forgotten, and the agony and anguish in his heart and in his soul filled the universe. "There's nothing else you can do."

35

From astride his horse, Sikatre the Manly was about to bend down and bash in the skull of a sniveling villager at the edge of the first huts when, with an ear-splitting roar, a devil skymachine dropped out of the clouds. Behind and abreast of him, the members of his hardened band—the Terrible Thirty-Four had grown to the Terrible Two Hundred—quailed. Their horses reared and spun about in the meadow, bucked and screamed. Riders were thrown and horses fell. Some fired at the thing coming down upon them, but most, recalling previous injurious encounters with Los Destruzidos, turned and ran. The terrorized villagers who had been caught by surprise on the edge of the village fled in panic into their forest settlement and toward the cliffs. Village riflemen and archers shot at the brigands from behind the fringe huts and trees. But they too shrank back as the skymachine descended. Sikatre the Brave tried to control his terrified horse, and bawled for his cowardly band to come back. "I will show you," he bellowed at them. "I will show you Sikatre is not afraid of the goddamn skydevils!" His horse, dizzied and weakened by its own thrashing about, fell and dumped Sikatre in the grass. He heard a tremendous wind noise, and leaping to his feet with his automatic rifle ready, looked in the direction of the skymachine. It was slowly dropping to the ground, its sharp snout pointing in his direction. He could see a skydevil sitting inside the bubble behind the snout. Sikatre pressed the rifle's trigger, letting go several bursts at the bubble. The bullets popped into smoke just short of hitting their target, just the way they had when he'd fired on the one at Chapultepec. But maybe something would happen to this one too; maybe it would develop internal problems and crash and make it look as if Sikatre had downed it. He sprayed more rounds at the snout and watched the bullets burst into vapor again. He did not understand this sorcery, but he'd seen it enough times, in various attempted raids on Los Destruzidos, to know there was nothing he could do to overcome it. Nonetheless, he hurled a grenade, which suffered on a much larger scale the same harmless effect as the bullets. When the smoke from the grenade cleared, though, he saw that the devil was no longer inside the bubble. A hiss came from the side of the machine and a hole appeared in its wall. Sikatre moved around so that he could look directly into the hole, his ineffectual rifle leveled where he looked. He was aware of villagers watching him now from the trees behind him, aware of his own weak-kneed marauders having halted their retreat and come back to watch from what they considered a safe distance on the far side of the meadow.

"Hey," he yelled at the bullet-shaped machine, enjoying the attention. "Hey, devil! Come out and face the invincible Sikatre!" An amplified female voice all at once blared so that everyone watching could hear. "You put your weapon down and come inside, Sikatre. I want to talk with such a mighty leader as yourself in private." "Whah!" He looked around at the spectators, hoping they didn't notice his sudden weakening of nerve. "You have no reason to be afraid of me," blared the voice. "I will not hurt you. Just put your weapon down and come inside for a few minutes. I want to talk to you." "Whah! Sikatre afraid? Sikatre is afraid of nothing! Sikatre is Lord of the Valley of Smoke. Sikatre eats lizards and cactus for breakfast! Sikatre—" "Yes, everyone has heard of you, of your exploits and appetites. But do please put down your gun and come inside for a few minutes so that we can talk. I do not have much time." "Whah." He looked around him again, tried to grin, gather himself up. Then, knowing if he thought about it any longer he might lose his courage, turn tail and run, he threw down the rifle and moved with clenched fists to the hole in the machine's wall. "Sikatre is not afraid of anything on the earth or in the sky! Sikatre is invincible!" Some of his own band who were watching cheered and raised weapons and shot off a few rounds into the air, but most were like the villagers, still and quiet as midnight. "Come in, Sikatre the Brave." The sound of the skydevil's voice was now like something deadly lying back in a dark den. "Hah." He jumped up into the hole, crouched for action, and found himself in a narrow walkway between walls that had tiny eyes and holes and bumps that blinked and murmured and snickered at him. At the end of the short walkway was a small circular room and a table where the skything sat. "You!" Sikatre blurted and straightened up, seeing that it was the bald female creature he had captured when she fell from the clouds months ago. "Me," the devil said. "You may stop there on the other side of the table. Relax and listen to me." He looked around the room, saw a narrow doorway to the right, another to the left. Could the Tornado be here too? "I want to make a deal with you," the creature said. "Sikatre does not deal with devils." "You'll deal with this one or I'll let it be known that as well as all those other titles you give yourself, you can also be called Sikatre the Unsexed." "Huh?" "I was there when you lost what you were most proud of. Remember?" He almost leaped across the table to strangle and snap her reed of a neck.

"Where is the other?" he roared. "The one who desexed you? She is in the village you were trying to attack. We have all come together to fight those— skydevils—at Cuitlahuac and Teotihuacan." "What's this Cuitlahuac?" "The Destroyers' base below the Lake of Mists. You might know it as Chalco. I have heard you would like to rule the whole Valley. I suggest that if you would like to rule at least part of it, you join us and fight with us in conquering my kind. Otherwise" —she lifted her hands from beneath the table, and in one hand was an object that looked something like the thing called a clip that held bullets for an automatic gun—"I will use this little device to burn away your clothes and expose you as a man who has ignominiously lost his manhood. The nearprimitive people you lead—men mostly—put great value on having all their manly parts intact. So do you. Thus how long do you think you'll stay a leader if such exposure occurs, Sikatre the Smart?" "Goddamn devil sorceress! You—" "I'll do it. Don't doubt it for a second. I've no time for curses, threats, grunts, or other such crude remonstrations. Either you join us and gain much or you go against us and lose what you already have. Surely one as intelligent as yourself can see the choice to be made. In fact, I suspect someone as intelligent as yourself will turn this visit with me into advantage over those he leads." Minutes later he emerged from the skymachine's side, shaken but making every effort not to show it. When he stepped to the grass, he raised his hands above his head and howled: "Sikatre the Brave has persuaded this skydemon to join him in a great war against Los Destruzidos!" Zi had kept out of Sikatre's sight until he left the meadow to bellow and bawl his band into some semblance of order. Then she rushed back through the village to find out what had happened to O'Rourke. She found him sitting at the council fire. Others stood around, four of Naca's men looking as if they were ready to fight him. O'Rourke was weaponless. Naca stood nearby. "The Northman has been bewitched," Naca said. "He was in a fit. My men had to hold him down." Get away, she signed to him. Stares-at-Nothing came limping up on his staff, with two of the village boys who had begun following him almost everywhere he went. He knelt with Zi beside O'Rourke, who seemed in a daze. "The spacewoman comes," Naca said. "Northman," Stares said, "are you all right?" O'Rourke gave the boy an abstracted look and only vaguely seemed to recognize him; it was as if he were looking at Stares from across an unbridgeable chasm. Then his eyes

widened and blinked as though they'd been struck by light. Chia came up, surrounded by villagers. Her voice was hurried and strong, carried over and quieted the general din of other voices. "The man who is in command of the garrison at Teotihuacan is named Kharlo Fretti. He is on the move against Cuitlahuac. It is my belief that Fretti is our most powerful enemy, and that this is our opportunity to seize Teotihuacan. With the bulk of Fretti's force having left Teo, with a skymachine flown by me and the addition of Sikatre's large band, we have a chance. But we must organize, plan the attack, and move quickly." "Northman," Naca said, "can you ride?" Zi helped O'Rourke up. He will ride, she signed, and gave them all a glare that defied dispute. She then took O'Rourke's hand and pulled him along after her toward the horse pen. "You have only to wait," Stares-at-Nothing said, trying to get near Chia so that she could hear, trying to reach and stop Zi. "You have only to wait. Ork, listen, you should not go!" But the commands now being shouted the length and breadth of the village, the noise of preparations for battle, drowned the boy's voice. He stumbled on his crooked limbs, and before his two young admirers could catch him, fell. Snow slanted across Quentin O'Rourke's eyes, and it wasn't snowing. The cold bit into his bones and it was not cold. He held the reins of his horse and rode at the head of the column along the trail through the forest on the western slope of Tlaloc. In his hand was a pistol which he pressed against her head and fired. In his hand was a knife.... Through timber and across flats and down and up the walls of ravines and across creeks and around boulder fields through more forest till the sun had dipped behind the edge of the western mountains and the plain whereon lay Teotihuacan stretched below and he could feel the knife in his hand cutting into her freezing flesh even as he wept and loathed and hated himself and wanted to turn the knife into his own shrunken gut and die beside her rather than use her body, her flesh, her death, to stay alive. Stay alive ... stay alive ... anything to stay alive. For what. To lose the child Nancy after all. To lose them all and wander and fight and kill and forget and remember ... and stay alive. A sharp hand stung his face with a slap. That hand and its mate flew in the air, making signs. Wake up! You must come out of your memories! We must fight now! O'Rourke stared at her where she sat next to him on her horse. A very different woman, dark-haired and wild, but warm too when ready and willing to be, wanting warmth like him, like everyone with any sense who wanted to live ... to really live. She reached over and hit him in the jaw with the butt of her rifle. He almost fell from his horse, but she caught him, pulled him back upright. He stared at her through tears of pain, then turned, looked back, saw the others behind him, saw those coming alongside so they could see from the ridge down the slope to the ancient pyramid-

dominated city no more than two miles away. "Has the Northman been eating the buttons of the maguey?" It was Naca, coming up on his right. "Does he need knocking in the face to be ready for battle?" "Hell with your cactus juice, White-Eyes. Just a mosquito on my chin." He tasted blood inside his mouth, met Zi's look and saw the worry in it waver and turn into relief. "Big mosquito," Naca muttered. "Maybe buzzing around in your head. The ugly one has led his band north so they can attack the far side of the city, as you ordered. What do we do now, sit here and make jokes?" "Deploy as planned, and wait till dark." "What does dark matter to those who can see through rock?" "Maybe those kinds of eyes have gone with the ones headed for Cuitlahuac." O'Rourke pointed toward the south, where the dust stirred by Fretti's armored ground vehicles still hung in the fading twilight. And in the dust he again saw the driving snow. The dark, he knew, would bring more than that. They waited back off the skyline, on the opposite side of the ridge from the plain, each rider holding the reins of his mount as he dozed or sat thinking or sharpening or cleaning a weapon. About an hour after nightfall the sky was split with the howl of aircraft taking off from the landing pads of Teotihuacan and heading south for Cuitlahuac. They had to fight to hold their horses to keep them from turning in panic for the hills. In seconds it was over but it took a half hour to calm the horses down. Zi sat close to him. "Listen to me," he whispered to her. "I'm not much good at the sort of thing I want to say, but ... I want you to know how much you mean to me." She put a finger to his lips to hush him, but he took the hand away and held it. "I'm not much better at this sort of thing than you are, but I want to be better because you rot inside without it, without the feeling I feel for you. Do you understand that?" She jerked free her hand and signed, Bad luck to speak of such things before battle. He could not see her face in detail, but was sensitized to her moods well enough to know that she did not want to talk about "such things" because she felt them too. And she was right. Love wasn't the thing to feel just before facing the apparently never-ending curse of blood lust and the will to kill. A weariness seeped into his very marrow, a leaden deadness that could immobilize him. He tried old tricks: the Destroyers had ruined the planet, were responsible for the death of his wife, his children, his parents, his people; responsible for what he'd done, what he'd had to do.... They had returned to wreak more havoc.

It didn't work. As Chia had said, those in space had separated themselves from Earth long before the global destruction was put into motion by those then in power here. But those from space who had returned were wreaking havoc, yes. Luz had died ... there, that helped. Yes, Luz had died because of the sonsofbitches taking over the Lake of Mists and draining it. Luz had died, others, more would.... Zi could die because of them. Yes. And Stares-at-Nothing could die too. They all could die. They were nothing, worms, ants, to the arrogant and ruthless invaders who had come to Earth for their own ill-conceived ends. Yes, he was getting into it now, feeling the old rage he'd always felt, the hatred for an amorphous enemy that only now had taken on a definite identity, a concrete reality, a name. Los Destruzidos. From space or from Earth, it made no goddamned difference. The ones at Teotihuacan and Cuitlahuac were the heirs to the same death-serving lunacy that had destroyed civilization here more than a century ago. He stared down upon Teotihuacan with a rekindled fury he hoped would last. He saw himself inside the city's walls, tearing up gadgetry, ripping apart machines with his bare hands. A giant, an indestructible god who could kill with words: "You think you're better than the pitiful umon who run ragged and rabid across these wastelands, raiding and killing and eating each other? You think you're better than those who try to survive on the planet your kind ruined and left? You think by declaring yourself independent from Earth you, really cut yourself free of the greed and hate and inhumanity that had this world so much in its grip just before the end? Look at you! Look at your wonderful spaceships that can travel to other worlds, your exotic gadgetry that can see and smell and hear and think a thousand times faster, a thousand times more precisely than you, and look what you've done with it. You've used it to return and pillage the world your kind destroyed. You've used it to do the very things that were done to destroy that world! You sicken me, you people who set yourselves up as being better and smarter and wiser than those less fortunate, who exploit the weak and helpless and commit the very cruelties and inhumanities you think you're above committing, on a scale those you look down upon could not begin to commit. You sicken me even as I have been sickened by myself.'' Full darkness two hours upon them and his ever-smoldering wrath freshly stoked, O'Rourke rose and passed the word to mount up. They were almost a thousand strong now, seasoned by skirmishes with diggers in the ruins, by raids on Cuitlahuac and peripheral outposts. Their weapons were guns that frequently misfired or failed to fire at all, grenades that could go off before they were thrown, if they went off at all. Their weapons were swords, spears, bows and arrows, knives, fists, feet, teeth, and anything else that might be used in violent confrontation. Not much against shafts of light that cut a horse or human being in two or turned one immediately to ash. Not much against invisible shields that even grenades or high explosives couldn't penetrate. Not much against skymachines and ground machines that could come out of nowhere at a speed that left one dizzy and burrowing like a terrified rabbit into the dirt to hide. AH they had were their numbers, their significantly improved skill as guerrilla cavalry,

their hatred for the Destroyers—and in many cases, like Naca and their new ape of an ally, Sikatre the Grunt, a lust for the plunder the invaders were known to have amassed. Paced with an attack on those who had devices that could sense movement day or night, close at hand or far away, they had no hope of surprise. Out on the plain, with hundreds of mounted raiders to his right and left and behind, their horses breaking into full gallop as he spurred his own into breakneck speed, O'Rourke remembered the journal he'd found in the ruins of the fort in southern Arizona many moons ago, and what the writer had said about time having been turned around or in upon itself so that this was a time out of time or a time in which the old and the new met head-on in lethal collision. Maybe the journal hadn't said all that, and it didn't matter anyway, but that is what O'Rourke now felt. He felt thrown back down across centuries, or thrown out of any sane current or orbit of history at all. Maybe somewhere, somehow, time had not gone so awry and history not gotten so off a comprehensible course. But whenever and wherever that was, it wasn't now; it wasn't here.

36

The excavation team in the ruins of the Russian safe house had been working at a debilitating pace since the raid by the onworld guerrillas the previous night. The lava flow created by the stolen airship was now moving at an average rate of four k.p.h. and the main stream of it had by late dusk of this, the second night, progressed more than seventy sinuous kilometers down the side of the volcano toward Cuitlahuac. Machinery dispatched to divert it had thus far failed, two people died in the attempt, and a bulldozer was lost. Had the flow been moving in a straight and unobscured path, it would have wiped out the COB hours ago. Allin Yaelu was right there in the middle of the team, working more frantically than her minions, digging away debris with her fingers, on hands and knees, trying to find a box, a cabinet, a drawer, something that contained the coveted copy of SD-Alpha. The room that contained the files found earlier was taken apart down to the square centimeter, but they had not uncovered a clue as to where the plans might be, or even that the villa held them. Director Yaelu tried not to ponder who had stolen the EarthFleet fighter—she had enough to worry about at the moment—but now and then the nagging question intruded. All she could think of was that someone from the Fretti camp had joined the indigenes; such a suspicion seemed confirmed by the fact that COB radar tracked the stolen aircraft's flight to Teotihuacan after the perfidious pilot opened the volcano's crater. She was with Thieu and other excavation engineers, in a room they had sifted bare of the minutest particles of dust, when a shout from elsewhere inside the well-lit ruin made them run to see what had been found. Incredibly, two members of the eighteenperson team had discovered a concealed basement room previously overlooked. Bleary-eyed and shaking with fatigue, the entire team huddled inside the small room as lights were brought in. Yaelu ordered out all but Thieu and the two who had found the place. In a corner was a safe. Using a laser pistol powered by an energy pak on his back, the burly Thieu began cutting away the door. Then, over the noise of the beam slicing into the metal, they heard the howl of approaching aircraft. Thieu stopped. "Keep going," Yaelu said, even as she heard the emergency sirens wail over the base. "Keep going, goddammit!" Her wrist radio beeped. She put it to her mouth. "What?" "A squadron of unidentified aircraft presumed to be under the command of Security Chief Fretti has passed over our position and is on a southeast course for—wait a moment, Director ... yes, oh—it seems the Fretti squadron is now firing on the area in front of the lava flow in an attempt to dam it up or divert it from the COB."

"He is no longer 'Security Chief Fretti!" Yaelu blurted irrelevantly into the mike. "Yes, madam. Of course. Also ... also, we have picked up the movement of a sizeable ground force on its way toward us. Request instructions." "Get our fighters into the air, idiot!" The door of the safe clanged as it hit the concrete floor. Yaelu knelt beside Thieu and shone her handlight inside. The beam danced crazily as the light wavered in her shaking hand. The safe was crammed with documents. She handed Thieu the handlight and began pulling them out, unaware that she whimpered like a starveling as she did so. With her arms full and the safe emptied, she stood and for a moment could not find the door. "Let me carry those for you," Thieu said. She looked at him and wondered if he too could be a traitor, an informer for Fretti. "I'll carry them myself," she snapped. With the light, Thieu stepped forward, led her out of the room and through the ruins. She dropped some of the documents, but when Thieu stopped and bent to help her retrieve them, she shoved him away and grabbed up the papers herself. She wanted no one's hands but hers to touch them. Thieu was so close behind her he kept stepping on her heels as they ran up to ground level. She screamed for him to back off. At almost the same moment the sky roared and thundered with the noise of COB aircraft lifting from the base airpads. In the dark of night, the main lava stream was a kilometers-long orange-red serpent that twisted and turned and cut its way down hillsides, through forests, rock fields, old lava beds and water courses that exploded in great geysers of steam against its on-rushing wall of molten rock. At the controls of his EarthForce fighter, Squadron Commander Scanlan Palamet saw the topographical configuration he wanted on his geoscreen, a point where the lava would eventually be moving across a small piedmont. He pushed the stick forward and went into a dive above the plateau, and pressing the trigger on the stick, used his nose guns to vaporize earth and timber to scour a stream bed across the projected path of the lava. The other fifteen fighters, one by one, followed his lead, each deepening and widening the cut so that the flow would be diverted from the piedmont and down into a lower valley to the south. Palamet did not pass over the bed a second time, but instead veered to the northwest toward Cuitlahuac, cutting speed so that the rest of his squadron could catch up and re-form. The COB air force was already in the air in attack formation. So was another aircraft flying alone and twenty-five kilometers removed from either group. In its flight bubble sat Chia Swann. She had located the frequency being used by Palamet's squadron and tuned her radio to it.

"Commander Palamet, this is Chilia Swann. I have a request to make of you." Palamet's response was almost immediate, and betrayed no surprise. What it did betray, though he tried hard to keep his tone emotionless, was a note of delight. "I have you onscreen, Pilot Swann. You know, the captain general was quite upset, and baffled, as to how you managed to escape Godhome." "Convey my apologies that I did not give him a personal goodbye. I hope no heads fell as a result of my unmannerly departure." "None. But to put it mildly, he is not happy with some of us. What is your request?" Chia tried to keep her own voice as unruffled as a robot's. But it was difficult, recalling how pleasant it had been giving Palamet everything he liked so he would help her create a plausible escape from Teotihuacan. "I want to know what Allin Yaelu is seeking in the ruins of Cuitlahuac." "And if I can't tell you, you will join with Yaelu against us?" "That is a possibility, Commander." "You must have a very high opinion of your skills as a pilot." "I do. Perhaps we could take on Yaelu and Fretti both, you and I." "Ah. You pick a most pressing time and a daring means to raise challenges and discuss treachery, speaking as you are over a frequency the captain general can hear. You'll have to pardon me, though, for the moment. The Cuitlahuac air force has taken up the gauntlet. I believe we are about to be engaged in aerial combat, as they used to say here. You know, I've never experienced a 'dog fight' before, except in training, of course." Palamet peeled away to the north just short of Cuitlahuac. His squadron followed. Above the Fretti ground force, now less than a kilometer north of the COB, Palamet went into a dive over the lead AV-10's with the rays from his nose guns lighting the night and torching the armored vehicles on the plain. The Palamet frequency remained silent as the members of his squadron flanked him and likewise fired before lifting out of their individual dives. That radio silence told Chia this unexpected traitorous attack on Fretti had been preplanned. For the moment, she did not ponder its reason or its ultimate purpose, but, as the frequency suddenly exploded with screams from the captain general, she swung her fighter into the Palamet formation and joined him in cutting the Fretti ground force to pieces before it reached Cuitlahuac. Captain General Kharlo was saved by the confusion of the oncoming COB aircraft. Instead of realizing the force in the air had turned on Fretti, the squadrons from Cuitlahuac went straight into an attack against Palamet. The latter tried to get across to the Cuitlahuac force commander that they were allies, but Fretti's communications people kept the frequencies jammed. In the command AV in the middle of the formation on the plain, the captain general was

livid with wrath as he ordered what was left of his ground armor to turn back for Teo. Sweating profusely in the conquistador costume he'd had one of his junior officers make, worn now under his Vivamax suit, he reached inside the suit's neck and tore at the jacket collar to loosen it. He had some time ago unfastened the sword from the lifesuit's belt because it kept getting in the way of his movements in the cramped confines of the AV. The retreat was a rout. On the tiny monitor above the console in his command recess, he could see that over half his land-attack carriers had been damaged or destroyed. And half those still in operation had punctured or ruined shields. His own craft's shield was neutralized because the power plant in the carrier's rear had been penetrated by a particle beam. But at least there was no further incoming fire from that strutting traitor Palamet. His squadron was too busy dealing with an air force from the COB that outnumbered it two to one. His gamble that the Cuitlahuac fighters would join him in wiping out the captain general hadn't worked. And the rest of the Teotihuacan air force was now on its way to engage the COB fighters, and make sure in the process that Palamet didn't live to reach Cuitlahuac. No doubt the Cuitlahuac squadrons were so confused they could end up firing on their own craft. Maybe like Fretti, Palamet already had informers at the COB, but if he did, they'd somehow failed to get the word to Yaelu that he was—for whatever idiotic reason and for however short an alliance—on her side. "We won't make it," the AV's commander shouted from the forward pilot station. "We're losing acceleration and we've got radiation leakage through a damaged wall in the plant compartment!" "Call for somebody who's undamaged to pick us up, then," Fretti yelled back, grabbing his sword. "Get me out of here!" As the captain general leapt from the overhead hatch of the AV, he saw a sky ablaze with missiles, beams, and tracers; with flaming aircraft whose shields had taken too many strikes; with exploding debris as a ship took a fatal hit and came apart in midair or impacted with the smoking earth. At the village by the cliffs Stares-at-Nothing sat in the meadow at the edge of the forest, among those who had not gone with the guerrillas to Teotihuacan: Father Rojas and the other priests, women and children and old people. He saw in the distant lit-up sky the ragged death art of the ages, the power and violence of competitive annihilation, the will-to-win and the ultimate-risk frenzy that lay at the heart of the dark and strange folly called war.

37

Though almost half the guerrillas had fallen in the three-pronged attack on Teotihuacan, the rest had made it inside the fortifications through sheer strength of numbers and the fact that with the bulk of Fretti's forces departed for Cuitlahuac, the fortress had only a handful of human defenders. Outside the ancient city's walls, on the surrounding plain, lay scattered dead and wounded indigenes, dead and wounded horses—burned, bullet-riddled, blasted by beam and fragmentation bomb. Inside, where the offworlders' deadly weaponry could not easily be trained without injuring their own, the guerrilla cavalry fought with frenzied hope of gaining the upper hand. At a broken section of temple wall on the south side, O'Rourke looked back and thought he saw Zi caught in the crossfire of beams. He was about to turn his horse, and then realized that those coming behind him might think he'd lost his nerve and was turning back. Caught in the onrushing wave of guerrilla cavalry galloping through the breach, he had no choice but to lead them through. His nostrils were filled with the smell of burning and smoking flesh, his ears deafened by the noise of guns and grenades and the cries of people and horses. Riding and firing, leading the others in assault after assault on the internal defenses, he had little time to think again of Zi, but when he did, a deadness came over him at the thought of her death, as if inside he had turned to stone. At a gun emplacement where a temple wall had been blown partly away, he saw one of Naca's men thrust a knife into the belly of a female offworlder. As if the knife had slashed into O'Rourke's past, cut further the rent in the veil before his inner eye, he saw his own knife cutting into the body of Chelle, his young wife. Nothing else you can do. He was cutting her up, putting what he had not eaten in a bag. He was cutting into her belly, cutting into ... a fetus. Other bodies lay in the snow. Little bodies. One was alive. Moaning and blubbering with anguish, he wrapped it in more blankets, knowing the infant would not survive the night. The others, he cut up as he had Chelle, put the flesh into bags and cached what he could not carry. "There's nothing else you can do," she had said, as if she'd been referring not only to the hopelessness of his saving her life but also giving her consent, her approval, to the use of her and their two dead children for food. There was apparently no end, no bottom, to the horrors he'd repressed for so long. But when he thought of Zi, it didn't seem to matter anymore. Zi was dead. Luz was dead. Chelle was dead. He was dead too. He had been a walking dead man since the day he'd

begun using the flesh of his dead family to live. The baby Nan had died in the night. She he had buried. He no longer knew if that was because he could not bear eating her or because she'd had too little meat left on her bones to eat. Where had they gone? Where does the soul go when the body dies? An old, old question. He did not remember having ever asked it before. Stares-at-Nothing might know, he thought in a kind of growing delirium. He would have to ask the boy about it. He and Zi and Luz and Chelle and Stares would sit around a fire one fine night and talk about it. In the meantime, there were Los Destruzidos to kill. But he sagged into immobility inside the smoking temple. There by the strange-looking ray weapon, long as the body of a horse and quiet now as the three offworlders' who'd died defending it, quiet as the statues of Aztec gods, some broken, some intact, that were now his sole companions, O'Rourke sat and stared at the dust in front of his eyes. Only when word reached him that the one called Kharlo Fretti was coming back to Teotihuacan did he rise shakily to his feet and go to find his horse. With the dawn, a series of temblors, perhaps triggered by the explosions of crashing aircraft during the earlier air battle north of Cuitlahuac, and the many bomb detonations at Teotihuacan, quaked the Plain of Otumba as the Fretti ground force neared Godhome. The Shockwaves shook the earth the length of the Valley, and the heavy armored vehicles under Fretti's command veered and crashed into opening cracks and crevices, reeled and turned over as the ground rose up and toppled them like pebbles. Pilots and gunners leapt out and ran in panic, were picked up by those vehicles still upright, or were left to try to make Teotihuacan on foot. The walls, pyramids, and other buildings of the fortress itself rocked on the brink of collapse. Inside the walls, while still fighting here and there, especially in the underground chambers where the plundered treasures of Mexico City had been cached, guerrillas and offworld defenders alike were suddenly the victims of falling stone and splitting earth. With the prospect of Teotihuacan's treasure being buried, the discipline holding each group together, like the mortar in the rock around them, began to come apart. Sikatre the Bold was up to his elbows in gold and silver coins, vases, goblets, plates. Surrounded by members of his band who had fought their way through Naca's men as well as Los Destruzidos to seize the chamber, Sikatre was so dazzled by the shimmering riches before him that only when a sizeable block of antique masonry fell from the ceiling into their midst did he realize the roof was on the brink of caving in. He and his men scooped up as much gold as they could, filling pockets, bags and ammo pouches, before the room's walls began to buckle and they had to scramble for the door. In the plaza at the top of the stairs, they tried to toad their plunder onto their terrified horses.

With gold and precious gems flying everywhere, Sikatre was on his hands and knees trying to retrieve them when several horsemen crossed the plaza and drew up. "Are you done fighting, Ugly One?" Sikatre looked up. It was White-Eyes and beside him the one they called the Northman. Sikatre stood. "You!" he shouted at the Northman. "I have been wanting to talk to you ever since I heard you are the Tornado's man now." The brim of the Northman's hat hid his face. "Tornado! The one they call Zi," explained Sikatre. "She is my woman." The Northman said nothing. "More of them are coming," Naca said. "Los Destruzidos. In their big land-crawlers. The one they call Fretti. On the plain. You have been fighting my men for the things you have stuffed into your saddle bags. Do you fight with or against us now?" "I am tired of fighting. I want the rewards of battle. And I want the Tornado!" "It is believed she is dead," Naca said, "though her body has not been found." "She is dead." The Northman had spoken, and the flat cold timbre of his voice chilled Sikatre the Brave to the bone. "No," said Sikatre. "No!" The two turned away. "No!" Sikatre bawled as his corner of the plaza heaved and he fell. "She was mine! I wanted to be the one to kill her!" Five feet away, the stones opened and four of his men, with their gold-burdened horses, pitched forward screaming into the crack. The earth had risen in front of the AV occupied by Captain General Fretti. Its pilot poured on the power as they swerved to the left and sought less troubled ground. In the seat behind the pilot, Fretti was strapped down and thrashing about like someone gone berserk and being transported to a mental clinic. Through the narrow one-way port forward of the pilot station he could see the outline of Teotihuacan's buildings in the erractic lights of firebeams, rays, and detonations. And he knew his stores of riches were being plundered, knew from radio reports that his own people had turned against each other, that the Fretti Alliance was disintegrating even as his air force had fallen to that turncoat Palamet and to Chilia Swann. His one satisfaction lay in knowing that Palamet's fighter had gone down, exploding in flame and smoke. No one had seen the prissy fiendish friendfucker eject. He was dead, the turncoat bastard was dead!

And somehow the captain general would see all the rest of them roasted too. Somehow he would recuperate and return to Cuitlahuac and have the SD-Alpha plans, if indeed they'd been found. He had not had a word from engineer Thieu, one of his many COB agents and the one closest to the excavation work, in more than a day. The last transmission he'd received from Thieu indicated they were still sifting through the dirt and debris of the Russian villa. Though Fretti had had his doubts that they even existed, he now had a feeling in his bones that the plans had been found. Somehow he would have them. All at once in the headlights of the AV he saw the horsemen coming, jumping the remains of the south wall, their mounts staggering, some falling, as the ground again shook. Over a hundred of them, leaping crevices and coming through the smoke and dust for what was left of Fretti's badly mauled army. With only four AV's and three groundrovers left, shields and guns damaged and the ground shaking so badly the vehicles could not keep to a straight course, a hundred horsemen might overwhelm them, and likely would. "Turn west," he yelled at his driver, then at the radio, "Get out there on open ground so we can outrun them. Turn your goddamn lights and guns around!" The guerrillas gave chase as if they no longer cared whether they lived or died. Out in front of them all was a grim-faced man with a wide-brimmed hat tossing behind his neck. Beams and bullets flowed out behind the AV's and rovers, going wild and mostly without effect because of the difficulty in aiming the guns while the vehicles weaved and bounced so much on the uneven and shaking earth. An irrational panic seized Fretti. It was not possible that mounted men—men relentless and unstoppable as Cortez and his goddamned Spaniards—would be the death of him; yet on they came. The horsemen did not fire, shot nothing at all, but simply kept coming. In the erratically jumping lights of the AV's, in the dust left in their wake, they seemed to take on a supernatural quality, a band of killers not subject to the normal laws of flesh and blood. It would have been better for Fretti had they yelled and fired their weapons, but they came on as silent as death, inexorable as a final judgment. "Chilia Swann!" he yelled. "You cunning, conniving bitch! And you, Yaelu. May you all roast! May you rot on this godforsaken planet that has turned on me. Me who has loved her so!" He leaned forward and irrationally began to beat the pilot of the AV. Suddenly the quaking seemed to cease and they were careening inside ruins with the broken walls of buildings rising up around them like black hands, fingers, faces. They had blundered into some northern environ of Mexico City. The thunder of the horsemen echoed down the empty avenues. The noise of the wildly shooting guns and the engines of the AV's and rovers brought rubble raining down upon them as each vehicle took off into a different side street. Fretti's pilot turned a corner so abruptly that the captain general was almost thrown free of his seat straps. They immediately came up against a barrier of crumbled stone.

He heard the clang of hooves coming on, coming on. He unbuckled his seat straps. Seizing powerpak and a gamma rifle from the seat, he climbed through the hatch, leapt into the shadows and ran. He took one frantic look back and saw the mounted guerrilla with the broad-brimmed hat in the AV's rear scanning light. The AV's pilot and gunner were jumping from their vehicle as the guerrilla aimed a stubby automatic weapon and dropped both men. Fretti continued running, stumbling in the dark, falling over rubble and cringing from the noises of rustling claws and the stink of unseen animals. The ground gave a sudden shudder and was still again. He ran on, hearing the horseman. He searched for a narrow passage between walls through which a horse could not go. Shouts and the noise of gunfire and grenades and ray weapons came from elsewhere in the ruins. He could not find a hole, a crack in a wall. He was in an open courtyard strewn with rubble and crisscrossed with cracks. A narrow chasm lay beneath him, and in it things hissed. Fretti shrank back from the brink, turned and saw the horseman coming. He raised the gamma rifle. But the man was leaping from his saddle—a dark amorphous figure flying through the air like something spawned by the night, and the terror Fretti felt made him fumble the trigger of the gun. The impact of the man's body when he struck knocked Fretti backward. They fell at the lip of the chasm. The flickering lights of a gamma gun from an AV in a street several buildings over momentarily lit up their faces. "We've met before," the man said, pinning Fretti and holding down the gun. A knife appeared in one of his hands and he cut the straps holding the powerpak to Fretti's back. "You're the one who wouldn't let me use the lake. You're the reason Luz died." "I d-don't know wh-what you are talking about," sputtered the captain general. "You listen to me. I can make you rich. I—" Something as big as a man leapt from the shadows. It landed atop the horseman. Fretti smelled its hot reptilian breath and screamed. The iguana bit into the horseman's back. He rolled off Fretti, and wrenching himself free, fired his automatic weapon into the big lizard's face. Fretti searched frantically for his pak and its attached weapon and could not find either in the dark debris. Horrified, he realized the pak could have fallen into the chasm. He started to stand as the horseman turned to level his submachine gun on him. "No," Fretti said, and instinctively stepping backward, fell over the rim. The horseman leapt, and behind him came another iguana into the crack. Kharlo Fretti hit the bottom with a jarring thud and thought for a moment he had broken an ankle. But he didn't have very long to think about it before the horseman fell on top of

him. The bottom of the chasm moved under them. It was alive with iguanas. Fretti felt the horseman's hands at his neck, felt teeth biting into his legs. The horseman was laughing crazily. Another lizard had crawled on his back and the horseman was laughing like a raving lunatic. "Eat!" he said. "Eat and survive. Eat and be eaten!" The horseman's maniacal laughter was the last thing Fretti heard before jaws strong enough to burst his skull closed over his face. When he emptied the submachine gun, O'Rourke pulled his long-bladed knife from his belt and slashed and hacked at the hard scaly hide, at the teeth and jaws, flanks and bellies and legs. He laughed and thought of Chelle and Luz and Zi. He thought of his father standing before the people of his village, like a priest, recounting human history and teaching the ways and demands of survival. He did not feel the innumerable teeth tearing into him, the blood flowing out of him, the flesh leaving his bones. He slashed and laughed and thought it was fitting that he should at last be the one to be eaten.

38

In addition to turning the Cuitlahuac Operations Base into a shambles, the series of quakes had caused the lava stream off Iztaccihuatl to alter course again, and the molten rock was once more moving toward Cuitlahuac. The tongue of the stream was lapping at the eastern outlying buildings when, near midnight, Allin Yaelu—with excavation engineer Thieu and her most trusted female aide—reached the smoking and burning airpad atop the hill west of the suburb's ruins. It had taken them that long, because of the quakes, the panic and confusion in the face of threat of attack from Fretti, to find a vehicle that would take them to the airpad. To the north, the noise of the aerial battle between what remained of the COB and Teotihuacan air forces was faint and fading. Several aircraft had returned to Cuitlahuac and landed, but too late Yaelu's aide, at the wheel of the rover, saw that at least three of them were EarthForce fighters and veered away from that segment of the pad where they sat. Almost every aircraft on the pad had been badly damaged or destroyed by attack from the air. And too late, they realized those three fighters they'd seen among the wreckage must have attacked the pad. They saw no sign of the pilots. Frightened, confused, they were unable to spot an undamaged ship. Thieu was suddenly trying to wrench the documents from Yaelu's grasp. "What the hell's the matter with you?" she yelled at him. "Let me have them," he said. "I'll take them to a safe place." The aide frantically turned the rover back toward the road down the hill. But another rover shot out from between two buildings and cut their exit off. Thieu slumped back in the seat. Yaelu clutched the bundle hard against her chest. In the intercepting vehicle sat a driver and two other men. All were still in their unmarked flight suits but had removed their helmets. "Good evening, Director," said one of the men in the rover's rear seat. He rose with an arrogant grin, a stun pistol in his hand. "My name is Rene Gustav, Captain Scanlan Palamet's second in command. Captain Palamet's fighter was shot down and I am carrying on in his absence. We are IWF Security Police. And I have a warrant for your arrest." "On what grounds?" she yelled, standing also. "Mismanagement of the EarthFall expedition. Abuse of your power and authority—" "You're a godamned liar! You're one of Fretti's outlaws. I don't know why you attacked his ground force or how you got away from the air battle and I don't care. But you're no IWF—"

"Yes, we pretended to be independents allied with Fretti. But we were in the Fretti camp to see for our own eyes, as only insiders would be allowed to see, what was truly going on at Teotihuacan. Our assessment was that, yes, Fretti had become an outlaw—just as you had, according to Councilwoman Venna ' Santell's report, become incompetent and out of control in your directorship of the EarthFall expedition. So I give you due warning, Director. Either submit to arrest willingly or we will take you the other way." Yaelu wanted to scream. Implausibly, she thought of finally relinquishing the documents to the crazy Thieu and telling him to run with them. She thought of looking for a niche in the rover so she could hide them, knowing despite her fear and rage that that would be impossible. Then it occurred to her what this Rene Gustav was, what he had to be. Of course. Not a policeman but an agent sent by an organization, corporation, or individual who had somehow learned the real purpose of EarthFall. Maybe an agent sent by someone in the IWF itself, even someone on the Security Council, sent to take over the operation and to get rid of her with bogus charges of incompetence and mismanagement. "Who are you?" Yaelu yelled. "I demand to know who you are! I demand to see the warrant for my arrest!" "Out of your rover, Direc—" He twitched suddenly, dropped his weapon and grabbed the back of his neck. Then, as he went lax and pitched forward, the other two were each hit by someone firing a stunner from the shadows between two sheds nearby. Thieu suddenly jumped up and tried to grab the documents again. Yaelu kicked him, screamed at him. Then he too was hit and went down. Qua stepped from the shadows, still in the ill-fitting flight suit and helmet she'd found in the stolen fighter. She had landed with the three Palamet pilots and helped them in knocking out the COB personnel left alive at the airpad. After they had accomplished that task, she had disappeared as her companions found a vehicle and moved to intercept Yaelu. From the shadows she had turned her stun-rifle on her would-be comrades, and on the man in the rover with Yaelu and her aide. "I have an airship ready for your departure, Director Yaelu," Chia said. Yaelu stared at her, then at the man crumpled in the back seat. "Thieu?" she yelled. "He can't hear you," Chia said. "He was another goddamn traitor. I knew it all along! And you?" she said to Chia. "Who the hell are you?" "An EarthFleet pilot, Director, loyal to you." The alarms began to sound again down at the base. "What now?" Yaelu clutched tighter the bundle she held against her chest and stared at Chia's suit. She could not see her face behind the helmet's faceplate, but the insignia and style of the flight suit were obviously of EarthFleet design.

"That's the volcano alarm," the aide said. "All right. Get me out of here! Get me the hell off this godforsaken planet once and for all!" "Park the rover and follow me on foot," Chia said. She led them past burning buildings to the lower end of the pad where a ship that had escaped damage by the aerial attack sat. It was one of the few interplanetary vessels kept at the Cuitlahuac airpad, a freighter in the medium class that Chia had noticed when she and Palamet's three pilots attacked the pad from the air. A quick examination of the freighter's interior, once Chia was on the ground, revealed that a smaller craft, an observation-scout incapable of interplanetary flight, sat in the aft cargo hold. They were at the top of the stairway to the ship's belly when Iztaccihuatl blew. The entire night sky was lit with the blazing red of the eruption that had been building for months. As they looked, the fragmenting cone became obscured by ash and smoke. The earth shuddered and shook the spaceship. Chia aimed her stunner and fired. The aide cried out and fell from the stairs. Chia pulled the EarthFall director inside and pushed the button that closed the door. With the gun against Yaelu's ribs, Chia shoved her forward into the flight cabin. "Who are you?" Yaelu screamed. "What are you doing? What do you—" All at once she saw what sat in the pilot's chair. "Oh, my God," she said, turning white. "Oh, my God." "Sit down," Chia said, and removed her helmet as Yaelu sank into the co-pilot's seat on the left. Chia snatched the bundle from the terrified EarthFall director's hands. "Who are you?" Yaelu said. "My name is Chia Swann. I believe you know your pilot." "Oh, God. Listen to me. I will tell you what is in those documents. I will let you in on their contents if you ... if you will—" Chia had opened one of the folders. "I can see what the contents are. The legendary SDAlpha plans that no one, at least not privy to Security secrets, really believed existed. The legendary plans to build a spaceship capable of overcoming the speed-of-light barrier, is that not correct, Madame Director?" The ship shuddered as new quakes shook the earth. Chia pushed the strap button on Yaelu's seat arm. The seat harness shot out of its slots and clamped her to the chair. "Listen to me," said the EarthFall director. "Listen to me. With those plans we can build a ship that will go to Alpha Centauri in a matter of less than three years. We can—" "Is that where you would like to go?" "What?" Chia began pushing buttons on the plotting panel and slammed forward the liftoff studs.

Then she sat and strapped herself into the seat to the right of the pilot's as the ship leapt vertically from the airpad. Yaelu was again staring in horror at the corpse of Hannon Ruhl, a corpse that had been reasonably preserved in the dry cave in which Chia had closed and hidden it for weeks, from which she'd retrieved it before joining the aerial battle over the Plain. "Listen to me," Yaelu kept saying. "Oh, God, I can't believe this. I can't deal with it. I've had enough to deal with. No one knows what I've been through. This goddamned planet ... this ... you've got to listen to me!" The ship was tossed in the turbulent air from Iztaccihuatl's eruption. The flight cabin's internal stabilizers and all other flight systems were on. At an altitude of four thousand meters and with the nose pointing at a 45-degree angle for the stars, Chia activated exitignition, unstrapped herself, and holding the seat's back with one hand and the SD-Alpha plans with the other, stood. "You have the answer to humankind's survival," Allin Yaelu was shouting as they climbed toward the exosphere. "Listen, what I did, I did for humanity. I've worked all my life for humanity!" Chia looked down at the wild-eyed woman she had at last where she wanted. For a moment she saw the eyes of Stares-at-Nothing looking at her. The eyes were sad, reproving. But with Yaelu's last words ringing in her ears, she quickly erased the memory of the boy's eyes from her conscience. "Please," Allin Yaelu moaned. "Please. You are deranged. You are sick! You don't understand." "I am deranged?" Chia said icily. "It indeed amazes me that someone like you was given command of something so important as Operation EarthFall. But then power seems to attract the demented, and the demented somehow manage to hold on to it till the bitter end." "You don't understand! You are too stupid—" "You are on course for Alpha Centauri, Madame Director. May you have an uninterrupted journey." "No! That's insane! This ship is not equipped to—it can't—I can't get out of this harness!" Yaelu began to claw feverishly at the scar at her neck. "You've turned the radios off. You can't! You can't—" But she spoke to an empty flight cabin now, empty but for herself and the grim remains of Hannon Ruhl. In the aft cargo hold, Chia strapped herself into the pilot's seat of the scout and pushed the button that opened the escape chamber. Night lay like a familiar blanket over Earth's rim. A second image of Stares-at-Nothing burned in her inner eye. "I'm sorry," she whispered to him. "I had to do it. It's the way with those like me." Scanlan Palamet would have perhaps understood that sentiment. Too bad he wasn't here to share it with her.

Too bad Hannon wasn't here. The scout shot into the night as she heard the distant roar of the freighter tear free of Earth's gravitational grip. So long, Hannon, she thought. See you next time out maybe, somewhere out past that Warp or Stargate or Wormhole or whatever's supposed to release us from the laws we've tried to escape for centuries. So long.

39

Whaaah! The very air had turned against him. Growling and roaring like an animal driven mad with rage, he had thrown himself at it a hundred times since waking in the middle of the strange white-walled room. But always he had hit that invisible wall, a wall through which he could see another wall, a visible wall, a real wall beyond. The real wall had windows that looked out on stars. The one he kept hitting had nothing, was nothing, yet was there and would not give way. Devil sorcery! He was trapped in a skydevil's den. Dizzy, dazed, sick with wrath and confusion, Sikatre could not remember anything since being hit by a tiny dart when trying to get out of the falling devil houses of Teotihuacan. He was naked, his outrageous wound of a crotch exposed for all to see. No one was now in the room to see it, but someone must have; and if the air had become a wall, surely there could be eyes he could not see, eyes that could be watching him now. "Pigs!" he howled in the northern tongue. "Your mothers suckled dogs! Snakes! Scorpions! I will break you in a thousand pieces. I will—" "You call yourself Sikatre?" a strange male voice boomed from somewhere, from all around. "I am Sikatre the Smart!" he bawled, covering his crotch. "I am Sikatre the Brave!" "We are taking you to a new home, Sikatre the Smart, for study and observation. It is good that you can speak English." "Who? Who the hell are you!" There was no answer. He tried to keep the fear out of his words. "Where? Where is this new home for me going to be?" "You can see it out the window to your left now," answered the voice calmly. He looked, and paled as he saw the great growing silver horizon—studded with mountains and deep-shadowed craters just appearing in the window's right corner—of the moon.

40

Prevailing southerly winds had blown most of the smoke and ash caused by Iztaccihuatl's eruption away from the Valley of Mexico. The resulting lava streams and mudslides had not come near the village by the cliffs or the forest-fringed shelf that held the Lake of Mists. Varicolored wildflowers bloomed on its shores when the villagers returned in May. Snowmelt on the mountain's upper slopes, and the warm mineral springs in its bed, had refilled the lake. The waterfowl had returned and the grasses revived from the damage done by the boots of Los Destruzidos and the wheels of their machines. The bands that had come together to attack Teotihuacan under the leadership of the Northman, Zi, Naca, and Sikatre had scattered with the riches they'd managed to take. Found still alive beneath the bodies of several dead guerrillas the morning after the battle, Zi was taken first to the village by the cliffs and later brought to the lake with the rest of the badly wounded. Half her body had been severely burned, but with the help of Stares and the Lake, she overcame her wounds and on a day of heavy rain returned to the north of the Valley to search for the Northman. The last that anyone had seen of him was in the ruins south of the Plain of Otumba. Zi looked for a week, found the remains of guerrillas and offworlders, but not a trace of Quentin O'Rourke. She had been told that he thought she'd been killed. So she preferred to think that he simply rode away after the battle was over. She would not, could not, think of him as dead. She did not come back to the Lake but turned farther north, out of the Valley of Mexico, to look for him. She would find him, over the next hill, just beyond the next clump of trees, in the next valley, somewhere on the next plain. She would find him ... someday. She let the sun and the wind tell her that she was right in believing he was not dead. At night by her campfire she watched the stars and sometimes thought of the skywoman. But mostly she looked at the fire and thought of O'Rourke. By June the lake dwellers had rebuilt their village, replanted crops and found and rounded up many of their sheep, goats, cattle, and horses that had run off when the Destroyers landed. And Father Rojas and the other priests had again taken up residence in their old compound; but the previous control they'd exerted on the villagers was a thing of the past, mainly because Father Horne and Stares-at-Nothing had subtly and surreptitiously educated most of the people well enough for them not to allow it. Late in June, Stares-at-Nothing decided it was time to leave the Lake. When he went to say goodbye to Father Horne, he found the good-hearted priest fishing with some children in one of the ponds on the north side of the monastery.

"How will you manage?" the padre said, getting awkwardly up from the bank and handing his pole to a boy. "Mandadero gave me a donkey. I can ride. I will manage." "You know they may not exist, those ascetic seers you seek. And what can they tell you that the religion of our Lord cannot?" "I don't know." Horne smiled. "There is much sickness in the south, little brother." "I will be going east, toward the coast, to the mountain that is called Orizaba." "East, south, it doesn't matter. Much sickness." "I will be all right." "If you do not find them, will you return to us?" "I don't know." Horne embraced him. Holding his walking stick with his right hand, Stares put his left arm around the priest's shoulder. "I will miss you, Father," the boy said. "I will miss you too. Everyone will miss you." He was followed for a long time by a number of the villagers who regretted his leaving. At the high pass between the two mountains called Tlaloc and Iztaccihuatl, he waved goodbye to them all. Descending toward the next valley, he passed people on the trail, on their way to the fabled Lake of Mists. He wished them health and peace and would have blessed them had he been a priest. He had not become one. He did not know what he was. His childhood seemed to have been that of someone else, the village where he grew up, his parents and other kin, more a dream than reality. He felt different and strange, full of questions, in turmoil within himself and hungry, starved, for knowledge and for wisdom. He was confused, and perhaps because of O'Rourke's influence or perhaps because of his own innate questioning, a seed of skepticism had sprouted into life. Father Rojas said Armageddon had come and gone and that the Son of God's arrival was imminent. Father Horne said they were still in the midst of Armageddon and that perhaps the Coming was still a long way off. He believed Chia when she said that the people who lived in the sky had had peace and harmony for a time. But he did not agree with the reason she gave for their having lost it. Chia had said that because of the limitations of the Sun's planetary system and the inability to go beyond it, the skypeople too were becoming the way Earthpeople were before the Time of Fire. But Father Horne said they were becoming that way again because their spiritual side was malnourished. The skypeople, like the Earthpeople, were too preoccupied with the physical, with the material, to the neglect of the spiritual. The sickness that had destroyed

civilization on Earth had been carried into space in dormant or latent form. And O'Rourke had considered it all a fairy tale thought up to allay human fear and suffering. Armageddon, the Northman thought, or said he thought, started at the dawn of creation and would end when creation collapsed. The many brightly colored birds and wildflowers he saw reminded him of Luz. He remembered what she used to say: "The birds are here to tell us we can fly, that we are as much of the air as of the earth. The flowers say we, like they, are beautiful. And they will always come back." In the central mountains to the east of the ill-fated Valley of Mexico, Stares-at-Nothing had a dream. He was thinking of O'Rourke and of Zi when he went to sleep that night, but his dream was of Chia Swann. He saw her not as he remembered her, not as one of human form and substance, but as a beam of troubled light wandering across the stars.