The Summer Queen

ONDINEE: Razuma

Kedalion Niburu leaned against the warm side of the hovercraft, breathing in the parched, spice-scented air of the marketplace, taking in the color-splashed scene with mixed emotions as he waited for Reede Kullervo’s return. He glanced diagonally across the street at a mudbrick wall topped by iron spikes. From behind its heavy wooden gate, he could hear the unmistakable screams of someone in serious pain The someone in question was not Reede, which meant that the visit was proceeding as planned.

The local dealer behind that gate had been cutting Reede’s product with inferior drugs, or so he’d heard. When he was in one of his moods, Reede liked to set matters straight personally, and he’d been in one of his moods today, when he’d kicked Kedahon out of bed at dawn, calling him a lazy son of a bitch.

Damn him. Kedalion took a deep breath. At least it had gotten them out of the citadel for the day. Humbaba didn’t like it when Reede did his own dirty work … but then, Reede didn’t care, and even Humbaba seemed powerless to stop him.

It seemed impossible that it had been less than three years, in subjective time, since he had gone to work for Reede Kullervo … since he had, more accurately, come under Reede’s thumb. He felt as though he had been Kullervo’s private property forever; even though he still remembered as vividly as if it were yesterday the day he had come to work for Humbaba’s cartel. Like a near-fatal wound, it was not something he was ever likely to forget: that day when he had finally admitted to himself that Reede Kullervo’s power and influence were actually as great as Reede had claimed; that Kedalion Niburu had become a nonperson, who would starve to death on the streets of Razuma’s port town before anyone would hire him for any job whatsoever—because Reede had put out the word that he was spoken for. With the Prajna impounded for docking fees and the red debit figure on his nonfunctional credit card showing larger each day, he had finally swallowed his pride and sold himself—and a willing Ananke—into this golden servitude.

He sighed, pushing the memory back into a closet in his mind, where he sometimes managed to keep it forgotten for days at a time. He had to admit, in spite of everything, that there were worse jobs, worse positions he could be in… .He could be the dealer getting the shit kicked out of him behind that wall across the street, for instance.

He inched farther into the hovercraft’s shade. The heat made him dizzy; the sweat on his skin dried almost instantly, but even that wasn’t enough to make him feel cool. At least the heat was predictable. Razuma was as close as he had come to a home in a long time, and he was glad enough to be back in town after their latest trip offworld.

His travels with Reede were neither as frequent nor—as far as he could tell—as hazardous to his health as his former solo runs. So far they had been offworld twice in the time he had worked for Reede. And the job paid a hell of a lot better, just as Reede had promised him. But the fact that he never knew what the trips were for—was never given even a clue about what Reede wanted, or got out of, those journeys—preyed on his nerves in a different sort of way; just as being stuck on Ondinee for the majority of his time, playing glorified chauffeur to a manic depressive, did.

On the other hand, he’d discovered that working for Reede had a built-in cachet that protected him from the locals’ harassment, while it gave him access to places and pleasures he’d never dreamed this planet possessed. A world was a big place, and not all of Ondinee was like Razuma. Reede had taken them along to a mountain resort with views he would never forget, to a city on South Island where the sea was as warm as bath water and the color of aquamarines.

And then there had been the orbital habitat, with some of the best gaming simulators he had ever encountered. Kedalion remembered watching Reede play the games one night. It had been like watching free-fall ballet, the way Reede’s perfect reflexes and brilliant mind had made winning seem completely effortless. Reede had given them unlimited player-credit, and their losses had almost offset the amount he had won himself. But afterwards Reede had been in a foul mood, as if he’d lost instead of won, or as if, when you never lost a game, winning might as well be losing… .

And on the other hand, most of what they saw was still Tuo Ne’el’s thorn forest and citadels, or the streets of Razuma.

Kedalion searched the crowds for Ananke, who had wandered off into the square, trying to take his mind off circumstances. He spotted him—surrounded as usual by a squad of street urchins. They shrieked and trilled approval as Ananke juggled anything within reach, contorted his body with an acrobat’s absurd grace, and sang nonsense songs. He had taken to wearing a specially fitted leather glove on one foot, instead of his usual sandal; it was a spacer’s trick, freeing one foot for use in low-gravity environments. On most of the spacers Kedalion had known it was only an affectation. But Ananke’s physical dexterity made the boast genuine: even in normal gravity, he sometimes seemed to have three hands. Kedalion watched him with mildly envious admiration. He saw some of the adults who invariably gathered around toss out coins; Ananke left them lying in the dust for the children to pick up. They all knew that he worked for the offworlders—the money, and his disdain for it, were the proof of his prestige.

Kedalion shook his head, smiling briefly. He reached into a pocket and took out his huskball, tossing it back and forth from hand to hand. Ananke had proved to be quick and flexible, mentally as well as physically, just as he had promised; and knowing that his skill was recognized and appreciated had only made him work harder. Once they’d gotten past the fear that Reede would kill them one day on a whim, he had grown more comfortable with their new employment than Kedalion would ever feel. Ananke had gone from abject terror directly to a kind of blissful hero-worship that was probably a hell of a lot more dangerous. Fortunately his naive fascination with Reede’s volatile mood swings seemed to amuse Reede more than annoy him. This was the kid’s homeworld, and having Reede’s protection covering him seemed to free him of some of his dislike for living on it.

Kedalion’s smile faded, and he sighed again, thinking nostalgically on the false comfort of youth. He straightened away from the hovercraft as his eye caught motion at the distant gate. Reede came out of it, slamming it behind him, and strode through the crowd in the square as if they didn’t exist. They flowed out of his path as obligingly as water. Kedalion watched him come, seeing red stains on his clothes and black satisfaction in his eyes. Kedalion felt all expression drain out of his own face. He looked away, calling, “Ananke!”

Ananke turned, catching a handful of various fruits as they fell from the air. His own grin disappeared; he waded obediently through the belt-level protests of the children, tossing the fruit to them as he walked back toward the hovercraft.

Reede reached it first, and nodded at Kedalion with a grunt that meant he was pleased with himself. He leaned against the craft’s door, cracking his knuckles.

“Feel better now?” Kedalion said, and regretted it instantly; sounding even to himself like a man chiding a child.

Reede looked at him, and raised an eyebrow. “Much,” he said. “Do you mind?”

Kedalion grimaced. “Better him than me, I suppose.”

Reede laughed. “Damn right… . Don’t sulk, Niburu. Ozal will be crawling around on all fours by tomorrow. And he’ll never, ever fuck with my product again.” He shrugged, loosening the muscles in his shoulders, and pulled at his ear.

“Ananke!” Kedalion shouted again, an excuse to look away, an excuse to raise his voice. He saw with some annoyance that Ananke had gotten sidetracked into an argument with a group of boys who had begun tossing something cat-sized back and forth in imitation of his juggling. Kedalion recognized the shrilling of a quoll in distress; heard Ananke’s voice rise above the general laughter as he tried to catch the animal they were throwing like a ball across farther and farther stretches of air. They angled across the square, drawing him away from the hovercraft.

Reede’s head swung around as the animal began to shriek in terror or pain. He stood motionless, watching the scene; muttered something to himself about being a stupid asshole.

“Ananke!” Kedalion shouted again; feeling his stomach knot with disgust, not sure whether it was the scene in the street or Reede’s reaction to it that angered him more. “You bastard,” he muttered, looking back at Reede before he started out into the square himself—just as one of the boys shouted, “Catch this, juggler!” and pitched the wailing quoll into the air in a long arc. Ananke ran and leaped after it, futilely, crashing into the low ceralloy wall that rimmed the neighborhood cistern. Ananke barely kept himself from falling in as the quotl flew over his head, down into the depths of the springfed tank.

Kedalion stopped moving as he saw the quoll go into the cistern. Ananke hung motionless over the wall, staring down into the tank like a stunned gargoyle.

Someone pushed past Kedalion, jarring him; he saw Reede run out across the square to the cistern. Reede climbed onto the wall, stood looking down into the depths for a heartbeat, and then jumped.

“Edhu—!” Kedalion gasped. He began to run. Ananke was still hanging over the cistern’s rim, staring down into the well in disbelief as Kedalion reached his side.

Kedalion peered over the rim, just able to see down to where the water surface lay in the deep shadows below. He blinked the sunlight out of his eyes, heard splashing and panic-stricken squealing echo up the steep seamless walls. He saw Reede in the water far below, struggling to get ahold of the floundering creature. At last Reede clamped it in both hands and shoved it inside his shirt, kicked his way toward the steps that spiraled down the cistern’s interior.

Women and girls with water jugs balanced on their heads stood gaping as he hauled himself up out of the water onto the platform where they had gathered; they backed away as he staggered to his feet and started the long climb up the steps. Kedalion and Ananke watched him come, with the animal held against him, still struggling futilely.

Reede reached the street level at last, his eyes searching the crowd. Kedalion hurried forward, with Ananke trailing behind him. “Reede—!”

Reede turned at his voice, waited at the top of the stairs until they reached him. He wasn’t even breathing hard, Kedalion noticed—Reede had more physical stamina than any three men. But water streamed from his hair and clothing, his arms and chest oozed red from the scratches and bites the frantic quoll had inflicted on him in its struggles.

“Bishada!” Ananke cried, grinning with awe and gratitude. “You saved it—”

Reede read the expression on the boy’s face, and his own face twisted. “No. You saved the fucking thing,” he said. He reached into his shirt and dragged the animal out, slung it at Ananke. “Here. You know the rule by now. You save it, it belongs to you. It’s your responsibility. Not mine.”

Ananke took it into his arms gingerly, keeping its long, rodentine teeth away from contact with his hands, protected by the layers of his robes as he held it against his chest, murmuring softly to it. He glanced up at Reede again, for long enough to murmur, “Thank you.”

But Reede’s attention was somewhere else already. He moved away from them abruptly, shoving past a couple of locals to pick someone out of the crowd of curiosity seekers. He caught the boy by his robes and dragged him forward, pitched him over the cistern’s rim almost before the boy had time to scream in protest.

Kedalion heard the boy’s scream as he went in, and heard the splash as he hit the water far below. The motion had happened almost too fast for him to recognize the victim as one of the quoll’s tormentors, the one who had thrown it into the cistern.

Reede came back to them, not looking right or left now, his face expressionless as he glanced at the quoll. It had stopped struggling and was burrowing into the folds of Ananke’s sleeve, making anxious oinkmg sounds, almost as if it were trying to become a part of his body. Ananke stroked its bedraggled fur as gently as if he were touching velvet.

Reede moved on past them, the motion signaling them to follow.

“Reede—” Kedalion said, catching up to him with an effort.

“Drop it,” Reede said, and the words were deadly.

“—Are we going back to the citadel?” Kedalion finished, as if that were what he had intended to ask.

“No.” Reede looked away; looked down at himself and grimaced, shrugged, looked away again. “I have other business to tend to. Drop me in Temple Square. Take the evening off; I’ll call you when I’m through.”

“You better tend those bites,” Kedalion said. “The gods only know what that quoll—”

Reede looked down at him, his irritation showing. “Don’t worry about me, Niburu,” he said sourly. “I’m not worth it.”

“Just worrying about my job,” Kedalion muttered, trying to bury his unintentional display of concern as rapidly as possible.

“I thought you hated this job,” Reede snapped.

“I do,” Kedalion snapped back.

Reede laughed, one of the unexpectedly normal laughs that always took Kedalion by surprise. “If I die I’ve left you everything I own in my will.”

Kedalion snorted. “Gods help me,” he murmured, half-afraid it might even be true. He unsealed the doors of the hovercraft.

Reede grinned, climbing into the rear as the doors rose. He sat down heavily, obliviously, his clothes saturating the expensive upholstery of the seat with pink-tinged water. Kedalion got in behind the controls; Ananke climbed in beside him. Ananke was still carrying the quoll, which had buried itself in his robes until all that was visible was its head pressed flat against his neck, sheltered beneath his chin. It still made a constant burbling song, as if it sought a reassurance that did not exist in the real world. Ananke clucked softly with his tongue, and stroked it with slow hands. He glanced up, as if he felt Kedalion’s eyes on him; his own eyes were full of an emotion Kedalion had never seen in them before, and then they were full of uncertainty.

Kedalion smiled, and nodded. “Just don’t let it shit all over everything, all right?” He took them up, rising over the heads of the streetbound crowd and higher still, until even the flat rooftops were looking up at them. He could see the pyramidal peaks of half a dozen temples rising above the city’s profile; he headed for the one that he knew Reede meant, the one near the starport that the local police had driven them into one fateful night. He tried not to think about that night, without much success.

He brought the flyer down again, settling without incident into an unobtrusive cul-de-sac near the club where they had all first met. The Survey Hall still occupied the address above its hidden entrance. Reede often came to this neighborhood, although what he did here was as obscure to Kedalion as most of his activities were.

Reede got out again, saying only, “Do what you want. I’ll call you, but it won’t be soon.”

Kedalion nodded, and watched him move off down the street with the casual arrogance of a carnivore. Reminded of other animals, he turned to look at Ananke; at the quoll, lying against Ananke’s chest like a baby in folds of cloth, only muttering to itself occasionally now. “How did you do that?” he asked.

Ananke shrugged, stroking its prominent bulge of nose with a finger. “Quolls are very quiet, really. You just have to let them be.” The quoll regarded him with one bright black eye, and blinked.

Kedalion half smiled. “You could say the same about humans.”

“But it wouldn’t be true.”

Kedalion’s smile widened. “No. I guess not.” He glanced away down the street; Reede had stopped at a jewelry vendor’s cart near the corner of the alley.

“I want to go to the fruit seller.”

Kedalion popped his door. “Go ahead. You heard the boss: Do what you want.”

“You’re the boss, Kedalion.” Ananke grinned fleetingly, his white teeth flashing.

Kedalion shook his head, not really a denial. “Since when do you have an appetite for wholesome food?” Whenever they were in town Ananke lived on keff rolls—bits of unidentifiable meat and other questionable ingredients, rolled in dough and fried in fat, all so highly spiced that pain seemed to be their only discernible flavor. “Is the fruit seller young and pretty?”

“Quolls only eat vegetables and fruit,” Ananke said, glancing down.

Kedalion shrugged and nodded, watched him get out and wander off in the direction of the square, passing Reede, who was haggling with the jewelry vendor. Kedalion had never seen Ananke show any real interest in either a woman or a man, and that was strange enough. The kid seemed to be pathologically shy, to the point of never letting anyone see him undressed—something which could get damned inconvenient in the crowded quarters of a small ship on an interstellar voyage. Maybe that explained his problem, or maybe it was only another symptom of whatever the real problem was. … He supposed it didn’t really matter what Ananke’s problem was, as long as he did his job and didn’t go berserk.

He stretched and got out of the hovercraft, securing the doors behind him. He thought about Ravien’s club, remembering Shalfaz. He hadn’t gone back there for a long time, after what had happened to them that night. And when he had, it had been after two trips offworld with Reede. More than nine years had passed at Ravien’s, while only two had passed for him. Someone had told him then that Shalfaz had retired. She’d gone into the somewhat more respectable profession of dye-painting—‘ decorating the hands of wealthy, daring young women with intricate designs for weddings and feast days. He was glad for her, but he missed her. And he sure as hell didn’t miss the drinks, or the atmosphere, at Ravien’s. Maybe he’d just go get himself some early dinner… .

He made his way around the rear of the craft, heading for the square. As he glanced back, checking it over a last time, his eye caught on something that lay glinting in the dust. He went back and picked it up. It was the white metal pendant set with a solii that Reede always wore—he called it his good luck charm. The quoll must have broken the chain in its struggles, and the pendant had fallen out of his clothes.

Kedalion glanced down the street, saw Reede’s back him as he started away from the jewelry vendor’s cart. “Reede!” he called, but Reede went on around the corner.

Kedalion started after him down the narrow street, not even sure why; telling himself that handling Reede’s lost charm made his own superstitions itch. He reached the corner, ignoring the jewelry seller’s singsong wheedling as he looked past the cart at the open square. After a moment his eyes found Reede in the crowd, as the flash of dangling crystals danced across the stark black of his vest-back.

Reede was not moving fast, which meant there was half a chance his own short legs might catch up with Reede’s long ones. Kedalion pushed on, keeping to the edges of the unusually heavy crowds. The air reeked with incense. It must be some sort of feast day, for so many people to be out in the square, damn the luck. But he was gaining on Reede, slowly, and he called out his name again. Reede glanced back, but Kedalion was hidden by the crowd.

Reede went on again, walking faster. They were nearing the place where Ravien’s club was located. For a brief moment Kedalion wondered if he was headed there—he swore under his breath as he saw Reede turn off suddenly into a passageway between two of the buildings that ringed the square. He kept his eyes fixed on the spot until he reached it, and ducked into the same entrance, below a peeling archway. The shadowy access was so dark after the brightness of the square that he had to stop a moment, blinking until his eyes adjusted. There were ancient flagstones under his feet, featureless walls with no openings on either side of him, so close together that he could almost reach out and touch them. Reede was nowhere in sight.

Kedalion went along the passage, doggedly, unable to stop now until he had found out where Reede had gone. The passageway ended abruptly at a featureless metal door. He pushed on it; to his surprise it let him in.

The corridor beyond it was startlingly clean and modern. Inset glowplates gave him dim but sufficient light as he moved along it, more confidently now, until he reached another set of doors. The doors slid back at his approach, opening on a meeting room. He stopped dead as the people gathered there turned to stare at him. He stared back, taking in the glow of datascreens around a torus-shaped table, the hologramic display at the table’s core, the startling contrast among the faces seated around it or still standing together near the doorway.

Half a dozen of them had ringed him in already, looking down at him with the eyes of Death, before he had time to realize he had made a mistake that was probably fatal.

“Are you a stranger far from home?” an ebony-skinned man wearing the robes of a High Priest asked him.

Kedalion glanced down at himself. “I guess it shows, then,” he said, and smiled feebly. The smile faded as he watched weapons blossom like deadly flowers, and knew that he had not given them the right answer.

“Kill him,” a voice said from somewhere.

“Reede—” he said, “I’m looking for Reede!” raising his voice in desperation.

“Niburu!” Reede’s face appeared suddenly, like a vision, among the faces of offworld drug bosses, local police and church officials, other faces he couldn’t put any occupation to. Reede pushed into the center of the ring and caught him by the shirt front. “What the fuck are you doing here—?” Reede’s fist tightened; the exasperation on his face was as genuine as the anger.

“I thought you’d want this.” Kedalion held out the charm, keeping his voice barely under control.

Reede snatched the charm from his hand, and stared at it. “Gods …” he muttered, like a man who had lost his soul. As he stuffed it into his pocket, Kedalion realized that two men and a woman standing in the circle around him were wearing the same pendant. One of the men was a drug boss named Sarkh; the woman was Reede’s new wife, Humbaba’s ex-wife, Mundilfoere.

“Reede—?” someone demanded from behind him.

“He’s my man. He saw nothing. Right—?” Reede’s hand closed painfully over Kedalion’s shoulder. “You saw nothing.”

Kedalion shook his head, as Reede pushed him roughly backward through the barrier of bodies until they were both out in the hall. The doors sealed shut behind them.

“You saw nothing,” Reede repeated, softly this time, looking down at him with something in his eyes that Kedalion almost imagined was compassion. “Never follow me again.” He released his grip on Kedalion’s shirt, turned his back on him and disappeared through the doors as if his pilot had ceased to exist.

Kedalion stood a moment longer in the hall, before he had the strength to shake off the invisible hands that still seemed to hold him prisoner. He turned finally and went back along the hall, along the passageway, and out to the street.

“What the hell was that all about?” Sarkh snarled, as Reede reentered the meeting room alone.

“This.” Reede pulled the solii pendant out of his pocket and held it up.

The eyes of everyone in the room were on him, now, but he made no further explanation. One by one they began to look away from his gaze, backing down.

Sarkh frowned. “That was a stupid risk. I think we should—”

“Don’t think, Sarkh,” Reede said. “Why spoil your perfect record?”

Sarkh turned back, his face mottling with anger, and took a step toward Reede.

“I speak for Kedalion.” Mundilfoere stepped quickly between them. “Reede— remember where you are!” She held up a dark hand, palm open, in front of each of them; stepped back again, in what seemed to be a single fluid motion. The two men eased off. “Kedalion Niburu has worked for Reede for years,” she said, looking at Sarkh. “He saw nothing that he could have understood. And he is perfectly trustworthy. He will do what he is told; and he was told to forget it.” She twitched a shoulder, half smiling.

Sarkh grunted and shrugged, turning away as Mundilfoere looked back at Reede. She was not wearing bells and veils now; never did, here. She was dressed in the formless gray coveralls of a starport loader, her long, midnight-black hair pulled back in a pragmatic knot. A perfect disguise … or maybe the woman back at Humbaba’s citadel was really the disguise. There was no trace of deference in her manner here, nothing but anger in the glance that flicked over him and found his behavior wanting.

“Mundilfoere—” he said, his hand reaching for her almost unconsciously.

“Sit down,” she said, and turned her back before he could touch her. Her motion sent out ripples through the figures still standing; they followed her like a wake toward the meeting table. A few of them glanced back at him, at his wet clothes and the fresh scratches on his bare arms and throat, as they took their appointed places.

Reede was the last to sit down, hanging back like a sullen child—or at least, made to feel like one, when he sat down at last at Mundilfoere’s right hand.

“Who has called this Brotherhood to meeting, here?” Irduz, the Priest, asked. He always led the Questions, being the sort of pompous bastard who enjoyed repetitious ritual. Reede shut his eyes and leaned back in his seat as the drone of the recitation began. Gods, get it over with.… He fingered the beaten metal of the ear cuff he had bought from the street vendor, shifting impatiently in his seat.

“I have.” Reede recognized the voice of the next person in the circle—Alolered, the Trader, who in the outside world was a dutiful, successful businessman in the interstellar datastorage trade.

“I have.” The voice of Mother Weary, one of the few women who had made it big in the drug trade; she headed a cartel that was still growing. She was nearly eighty, and as vicious as firescrub.

“I have.” The voice of TolBeoit, who appeared to be nothing more than a seller of herbal cures in a Newhavenese botanery.

“And who has called this Brotherhood into being, and given us our duty, and shown us the power of knowledge?” the High Priest intoned.

“Mede.” The progression of voices came inexorably toward him.

“Ilmarinen,” Baredo said, next to him. Reede sat motionless, his eyes still shut, paralyzed by the vision of three faces out of memory, three impossible faces… . Knowing that it was his turn to speak, but unable to. Baredo reached across the empty seat between them to nudge his arm impatiently. Reede jerked, glaring back at him. “And Vana—Vana—”

“Vanamoinen,” Mundilfoere finished the name for him. Her hand brushed his briefly, reassuringly; his own hand felt cold and clammy. He blinked, his eyes burning. He hated to say that name. He could never get it out of his mouth, when it came his turn to speak it. The other names were nothing; but that one …

“Ho, Smith,” Mother Weary snorted, “penis envy?”

Reede glared at her across the table. “Eat it, you dried up hag,” he said. She cackled infuriatingly. They called him “the Smith” for the same reason they sometimes called him “the new Vanamoinen”—because if a project involved biotechnology, he was the best at inventing it, producing it, fixing it. He had heard often enough from the Brotherhood that only the Old Empire’s last recorded genius could have done it better, faster—or at all, in the case of the water of life, which he had failed so profoundly to recreate. Lately the title had become a mix of compliment and jibe, even though the real Vanamoinen had only been a skillful manipulator of the existing technology, and who had had the resources of an Empire plus the brilliant search data of millennia at his disposal … something the Brotherhood would never be able to match, not limited to the Eight Worlds of the Hegemony.

He hated being taunted with Vanamoinen’s name, but that was not why it stuck in his throat. … He looked down at himself, staring at the raw crystals glinting like rainbow-hazed stars against the black night of his vest; at his hands, his tattooed is, the muscles of his body, that he had used so recently, together with his superior find and perfect reflexes, to beat the living crap out of a cheating small-time drug dealer. Vanamoinen. Vanamoinen. It caught in his throat, in his thoughts, like an obscene refrain, playing obsessively; when the real obscenity was here, in us … in his …

Reede stretched the fingers of his bruised hands and forced his mind to pay attention to what was going on around him. The drone of stale ritual was nearly finished—the invocations that supposedly served to remind them all of the greater tradition to which their particular cabal belonged, and from which it drew its real power: Survey.

“And dedicated to one thing, for millennia—” Irduz intoned.

“Survival,” Baredo answered beside him, as the progression of questions and answers came around the table toward him again.

“And what is the thing that binds us all—?” Irduz asked the last of the ritual Right Questions.

“Blood.”

Reede lifted his head, his mouth still half open to speak the response.

Someone had appeared in the empty seat to his right—or something had: A shapeless, amorphous darkness, in which there might have been a human body, somehow twisted or deformed… .

Reede swore under his breath, drawing away instinctively from what suddenly inhabited the space beside him. The Source. Wondering why in the name of a thousand hells Thanin Jaakola had chosen to occupy that particular seat.

“Beginning without me—?” Jaakola said. If an exhumed corpse could be forced to speak, that was the voice it would have. Reede almost thought he could smell a faint odor of putrescence leaking out of the blackness beside him. But he was probably imagining it; that thing beside him was only a hologramic projection, just like several of the two dozen other Brothers around the table, who, like Jaakola, chose not to attend in person. It was rumored that Jaakola had some wasting, incurable disease. It was also rumored that the darkness was all for psychological effect. The Source could be anyone, do anything, as long as he held that secret. Reede had no idea at what level in the Brotherhood Jaakola actually functioned, which meant that he was powerful enough to be extremely dangerous.

“We begin at the agreed time,” Mundilfoere answered, making the response that no one else would make. “You requested this meeting.”

He grunted in acknowledgment, or disgust. That he hated women was the only thing anyone seemed to know for certain about him. Reede had never heard why, if there was a reason. He was not sure at what level Mundilfoere’s own influence ended, but she dared more against the Source than most of the Brotherhood who gathered here dared. Sometimes he wondered if she antagonized Jaakola specifically because she knew what he thought of her. “I am in time for the real purpose of this meeting, then,” Jaakola said, increasing the level of insult a magnitude. “Brothers, news has come to me of something that we have only dreamed of—and in this company, I don’t say that lightly.” There might have been a smile behind the words. Reede was sure it was mocking; not sure why. Jaakola had the attention of everyone around the table, now. “Someone has discovered a source of stardrive plasma—here in the Hegemony, on Number Four.”

Exclamations of disbelief and surprise filled Reede’s ears, but his own incredulity drowned them all out. He sat motionless, accessing passively as Jaakola fed data into all their units. The Old Empire had been able to exist in all its farflung glory because it possessed a means of faster-than-light travel. The stardrive plasma was a form of smartmatter, bioengineered to manipulate spacetime, to permit time-like movement by a ship through space without paradox. When the Old Empire had fallen, the technology had been lost to many, possibly most, of its former worlds. None of the worlds that became the Hegemony had possessed a viable stardrive, for a millennium or more. And even though popular wisdom held that the sibyl net could answer any question, there were questions that it would not answer—including any concerning the process for recreating smartmatter. There were those who said smartmatter had caused the Old Empire’s fall; that the net’s creators had wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again, by suppressing all data about it.

The sibyl net also refused to provide its users with a starmap, for reasons no one clearly understood. As a result, it had become virtually impossible to locate other worlds of the former Empire, whether you had a stardrive or not. Kharemough had found the seven worlds of the Hegemony by sending countless probes through their Black Gate, like notes in bottles.

The Kharemoughis’ obsessive archaeological work in Old Empire ruins had actually given them a key to the location of a former neighbor in interstellar space as well; one that was not absurdly distant in light-years. They had sent out their fastest sublight ships, hoping to find stardrive plasma still in existence there. The ships had gone out nearly a millennium ago, and the Kharemoughis believed they would return any day now … if stardrive technology did still exist on that planet. “Come the Millennium,” they said, like a prayer, meaning the day when they regained their freedom in the galaxy. He for one had never expected to see the day when the Hegemony saw a single molecule of stardrive plasma.

But now the Millennium had come, from a completely unexpected direction. One man, out in the formidable wasteland known as World’s End, had discovered why the bizarre anomaly called Fire Lake had caused the phenomena that made World’s End a realtime Hell: the Lake was actually stardrive plasma run wild, from the remains of an Old Empire freighter that had crash-landed there during the Empire’s last days.

Reede wondered what kind of man it was who had made that discovery. He knew the data on World’s End; had studied all that was recorded about it in the universal access, because it had fascinated him. There had been details in the data that had seemed to mean something to him, but he hadn’t been able to make his mind put it together. The visuals had haunted his dreams like succubi, calling him. He had wanted to go there, to see it for himself, to answer it … but the Brotherhood always had plans for him, and none of them included Fire Lake. Now someone had done what he had dreamed of doing—entered the heart of World’s End, and actually discovered the secret that had defied centuries of study by the best minds in the Hegemony.

Now that he knew the answer, he saw with sudden, galling clarity that the answer had been obvious all along. But he hadn’t asked the right questions. He felt a surge of something that was almost lust when he imagined meeting whoever possessed the mind that had.

Reede glanced into the darkness beside him; looked away again, listening to the mutterings of excitement and concern spreading around the table. He covered his ears, absorbing the datafeed again, trying to ignore the infuriating slowness of it. He hated this system, with its crude combination of inferior technologies. He had never seen a better system; but somehow he knew one existed, somewhere. Just as the stardrive had.

He pulled his mind back into the present at last, forcing himself to pay attention to the discussion that had been evolving around the table.

“—about what this could mean to our trade,” someone said, across the table.

“It changes everything,” Sarkh echoed, belaboring the obvious.

“It doesn’t mean shit if we don’t have it,” Mother Weary snapped. “And we don’t have it.”

Noticing Mundilfoere’s silence, Reede glanced at her, wondering what was on her mind. She did not look surprised; he found her staring back at him with an indefinable expression. He held her gaze, unable to look away.

“Exactly,” Jaakola said, bending the word like a piece of plastic. “And so graciously put. We do not have the stardrive plasma in our possession. And obviously, we must change that.”

“Who controls this Fire Lake?” Irduz asked.

“The centralist faction that calls itself the Golden Mean, that wants the Hegemony to exist in more than name only,” Jaakola said. “Kharemoughi dominated, of course, but they are allied with influential cabals on Four. They are already working to ensure that Kharemough gets the stardrive first, so that they can seize military control.”

“They will succeed, then,” TolBeoit said. “Our influence on Four is not strong. And if we know about this now, Kharemough knows already. We’ll have to send someone in—”

“But that will take years in realtime,” someone else protested. “By the time we actually get our hands on the stardrive, it may be too late. The Hegemony will be hanging in our skies, ready to obliterate us.” The other voices around the table began to rise.

“That need not be so,” Mundilfoere said softly. Her words silenced them abruptly. All eyes fixed on her, including Reede’s. “Fire Lake is the result of stardnve run wild, perhaps damaged in some profound way—at the very least left to breed uncontrolled for centuries. Even the Kharemoughis have no real experience in dealing with such things. It will take them longer than they think to control it; perhaps it will take them forever. Their own best people are all on Kharemough; they will have to send them to Four. That in itself will give us enough time, if we act.”

Reede’s eyes widened slightly. She knew. He realized she had known all along, even before Jaakola had arrived. The darkness that was Jaakola seemed to deepen, if that was possible. Reede wondered how many of the others around the table had known about the stardrive even before they came here. He knew there were circles within circles, even in this elite; there were things he knew sometimes that the others did not—although usually he only knew them because Mundilfoere had told him. He felt a sharp twinge of annoyance that she had not chosen to share this particular miraculous secret with him; when knowing about it made his head sing… .

The water of life and the sibyl virus were the only forms of the Old Empire’s smartmatter technovirus still in existence anywhere in the Hegemony—or they had been, until now. And he had never even seen a sample of the water of life; had thought he never would. But now everything was changing.

“Are you sure of that?” Mother Weary said to Mundilfoere. “Or are you just trying to cheer us up?”

Mundilfoere smiled, not even glancing at Jaakola. “My sources are most reliable,” she said gently. “Be assured.”

“We have to move, then,” Irduz said. “We have to put together a team—”

“I’ll go,” Reede said. “Send me, with Mundilfoere. I’m all you need.”

Mother Weary laughed; the sound made him wince. “And modest, too, you crazy bastard!”

Reede twitched with annoyance. “I know more about smartmatter than anybody living. Everybody knows it.”

“And you’re crazy, and everybody knows that too,” Sarkh muttered.

Reede held his gaze. “Only when it suits my needs, Sarkh.”

“Yes,” Jaakola muttered, beside him. Reede turned toward him in surprise. “He should be the one to go. Let the New Vanamoinen unravel the secrets of the Old Vanamoinen. His very unpredictability gives him an edge, wouldn’t you say? He makes a perfect thief. And let him take his leman, if he wishes.”

Reede stiffened, sensing more than seeing Mundilfoere tighten with anger beside him. He frowned, suddenly uncertain, and glanced back at her. He thought doubt flickered like heat lightning across her face; or maybe it was just his own paranoia he read there. But she met his stare with a gaze that seemed to him suddenly to hold all of history in it, and he felt her trust, her confidence, her love fill him, like waters rising out of a bottomless well.

“Yes,” she murmured, “you are the one who should go, Reede. This is what you were made for, by the higher power that binds us all.” Reede opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head. “But by the same power, I cannot leave certain boundaries unwatched, or projects untended for so long. You will go alone this time.” Her eyes forbade any protest. He sat paralyzed, staring at her, while on around the table the others voted agreement, one by one.