Owl, predictably, made no reply.

Merlin grimaced, but he was actually just as happy to be left to his thoughts for the moment.

The possibility of building additional PICAs had never occurred to him before. On the other hand, if he could, and if the additional PICAs' software duplicated his own, he could create clones of himself, which would be hugely helpful. Not only would it allow him to be in more than one place simultaneously, it would give him the advantage of redundancy if one of him inadvertently did something to which some high-tech watchdog system might take exception.

And if Wylsynn's right about something "returning" in a thousand years, I may just need all the reinforcements I can get, he thought grimly. This is the year 895, but they've numbered their "Years of God" from the end of "Shan-wei's Rebellion," from the time the Church of God turned into the Church of God Awaiting. The Day of Creation was seventy years-Standard Years, not Safeholdian ones-before that. And that makes this year 979 since the Creation. Which means we've got twenty years, give or take, before whatever's going to happen happens.

Twenty years might sound like a lot, but not when it was all the time they had to break not simply the Church of God Awaiting's political supremacy but also its stranglehold on Safehold's religious and technological life. They'd been working on it for five years already, and all they'd really managed so far was to stave off defeat. Well, they'd begun gnawing away at the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng-slowly and very, very cautiously-but they certainly hadn't found a way to take the war to the Church and the Group of Four on the mainland! And even if they managed that, simply defeating the Group of Four militarily wasn't going to miraculously undo ten centuries' belief in the Holy Writ and the Archangels. That fight was going to take far longer ... and it was likely to involve even more bloodshed than the current conflict.

Perhaps still worse, if there was something-"Archangel," AI, or PICA-waiting to "wake up" under the Temple, he had to assume any technological advancement beyond the simple steam engines which still hadn't attracted the bombardment system's attention to the Castaway Islands was going to be noticed by its sensors and reported to the Temple. At which point it was entirely possible the wake-up's schedule might be rather drastically revised.

"Owl, could analysis of this PICA give you the data you'd require to build additional ones?"

"Probability of success would approach unity assuming a complete analysis of software and hardware," the AI replied.

"And would such an analysis constitute a risk to this PICA's continued operation?"

"Preliminary analysis indicates a sixty-five to seventy percent probability it would be rendered permanently inoperable," Owl said calmly.

"Why?"

"Most probable cause would be failure of the unit's software. There is a significant probability that the necessary analysis would trigger a reboot, which would wipe the unit's current memory and personality."

"What if it were possible to reload the memory and personality from another source?"

"In that case the probability of rendering the current unit inoperable would drop to approximately twenty-eight percent."

"Still that high?" Merlin frowned. "Why?"

"In the event of a reboot, standard protocols would reinstall original program and system defaults, Lieutenant Commander. The software alteration which permits this unit's indefinite operation lies far outside those defaults and would be eliminated in such an eventuality, thus restoring the ten-day limitation on autonomous operation."

Merlin grimaced. That made sense, he supposed, and twenty-eight percent was still unacceptably high. Under the current circumstances, at least. But if circumstances changed....

"Do you have the capability out of existing resources to build both a Class II VR and a recording unit?" he asked.

"Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander Alban."

"In that case, get started on both of them immediately. I assume you can run up the recording unit first?"

"Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander Alban."

"Then send it out to me as soon as it's finished." He grimaced again. "I might as well get myself recorded as soon as possible."

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant Commander Alban."

JUNE,.

YEAR OF GOD 895.

.I.

Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark "Don't be such a greedy guts!" Byrk Raimahn scolded as the wyvern swooped down and snatched the morsel of fresh bread from his fingers. "There's plenty if you just behave yourselves!"

The triumphant wyvern only whistled smugly at him and flapped its way back up onto the green-budded branch of the apple tree from which it had launched its pounce. It seemed remarkably unmoved by his appeal to its better nature, Byrk reflected, and tore another piece from the loaf. He shredded it into smaller pieces, scattering them across the flagstone terrace for the less aggressive of his winged diners, then picked up a wedge of sharp cheddar cheese from the plate beside the bowl of grapes. He leaned back in his rattan chair, propping his heels on the matching chair which faced him on the other side of the table, and nibbled as he enjoyed the cool northern sunlight.

It wasn't much like home, he thought, gazing out across the sparkling waters of North Bedard Bay. The locals (a label which he still had trouble applying to himself) usually called it simply North Bay, to distinguish it from the even larger Bedard Bay to the south. This far north of the equator, the seasons stood on their heads and even late spring and early summer were almost uncomfortably cool to his Charisian blood. Trees were much later to leaf, flowers were later to bloom (and less colorful when they did), and ocean water was far too cold for a Charisian boy to swim in. Besides, he missed Tellesberg's livelier waterfront, sharper-edged theaters, and heady, bustling air of intellectual ferment.

Of course, that intellectual ferment was the main reason he was sitting here on his grandfather's Siddar City terrace feeding bread to greedy wyverns and squabbling seagulls. It wasn't like- "So, here you are!" a familiar voice said, and he looked over his shoulder, then rose with a smile of welcome for the silver-haired, plump but distinguished-looking woman who'd just stepped out of the mansion's side door behind him.

"I wasn't exactly hiding, Grandmother," he pointed out. "In fact, if you'd opened a window and listened, I'm sure you could have tracked me down without any trouble at all."

He pulled one of the chairs away from the table with one hand while the other gestured at the guitar lying in its open case on the bench beside him.

"For that matter, if you'd only looked out the window, the fleeing birds and the small creatures running for the shrubbery with their paws over their ears would have pinpointed me for you."

"Oh, nonsense, Byrk!" She laughed, patting him on the cheek before she seated herself in the proffered chair. "Your playing's not that bad."

"Just not that bad?" he teased, raising one eyebrow at her. "Is that another way of saying it's almost that bad?"

"No, that's what your grandfather would call it if he were here," Sahmantha Raimahn replied. "And he'd mean just as little of it as I would. Go ahead and play something for me now, Byrk."

"Well, if you insist," he said in a long-suffering tone.

She made a face at him, and he laughed as he picked the guitar back up. He thought for a moment, picking random notes as he considered, then struck the opening chord of "The Way of the Widow-Maker," one of the very first ballads he'd learned to play sitting on Sahmantha's lap. The sad, rich notes spilled across the terrace while the sunlight struck chestnut highlights in his brown hair and the wind ruffled that hair, sighed in the branches of the ornamental fruit trees, and sent the shrubbery's sprays of blossoms flickering in light and shadow.

He bent his head, eyes half-closed, giving himself to the ballad, and his grandmother drew her steel thistle silk wrap closely about her shoulders. She knew he thought of his music as a rich young man's hobby, but he was wrong. It was far more than that, and as she watched him play her own eyes lost some of their usual sparkle, darkening while the lament for lost sailors spilled up from his guitar strings to circle and curtsy around the terrace. It was a haunting melody, as lovely as it was sad, and she remembered how he'd insisted she teach it to him when he'd been barely seven years old.

The year before his parents' deaths had sent him to her more as her youngest son than her oldest grandson.

"I don't suppose you could've thought of anything more depressing, could you?" she teased gently when the final note had faded away, and he shrugged.

"I don't really think of it as depressing," he said, laying the guitar back in the case and running a fingertip gently down the bright strings. He looked back up at her. "It's sad, yes, but not depressing, Grandmother. There's too much love for the sea in it for that."

"Perhaps you're right," she conceded.

"Of course I am-I'm the poet, remember?" He smiled infectiously. "Besides," his smile turned warmer, gentler, "I love it because of who it was that taught it to me."

"Flatterer." She reached out and smacked him gently on the knee. "You got that from your father. And he got it from your grandfather!"

"Really?" He seemed astounded by the notion and gazed thoughtfully out across the gleaming blue water for several seconds, then nodded with the air of someone who'd just experienced a revelation. "So that's how someone with the Raimahn nose got someone as good-looking as you to marry him! I'd always wondered about that, actually."

"You, Byrk Raimahn, are what was known in my youth as a rapscallion."

"Oh, no, Grandmother-you wrong me! I'm sure the term you'd really have applied to me would've been much ruder than that."

She laughed and shook her head at him, and he offered her the bowl of grapes. She selected one and popped it into her mouth, and he set the bowl down in front of her.

"Somehow the hothouse grapes just aren't as good," he commented. "They make me miss our vineyards back home."

He glanced back out across the bay as he spoke and missed the shadow that flitted through her eyes. Or he could pretend he had, at least.

"I think they have a lower sugar content," she said out loud, no sign of that shadow touching her voice.

"That's probably it," he agreed, looking back at her with another smile.

She returned the smile, plucked another grape, and leaned back, cocking her head to one side.

"What's this about you being off to Madam Pahrsahn's again this evening?" she asked lightly. "I hear you have at least a dozen rivals for her affections, you know."

"Alas, too true!" He pressed the back of his wrist to his forehead, his expression tragic. "That cretin Raif Ahlaixsyn offered her a sonnet last night, and he actually had the gall to make it a good one." He shook his head. "Quickly, Grandmother! Tell me what to do to recover in her eyes!"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll come about." She shook her head at him. "Although, at the rate she seems to attract fresh suitors, you may yet find yourself crowded out."

"Grandmother," he looked at her affectionately, "I enormously admire Madam Pahrsahn. I also think she's one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, and bearing in mind my paternal grandmother's youthful beauty that's a pretty high bar for anyone to pass. Even more important, I've never met anyone more brilliant and cultured than she is. But she's also somewhere around twice my age, and I think she regards me more in the light of a puppy who hasn't yet grown into his ears and feet than anything remotely like a paramour. I promise I'm on my very best behavior at her soirees."

"Of course you are. I know that," she said, just that bit too quickly, and he laughed and shook a finger under her nose.

"Oh, no, you don't know it!" he scolded. "What a fibber! You're worried your darling grandson is going to be so enamored of the gorgeous, sophisticated older woman that he's going to commit some indiscretion with her." He shook his head, brown eyes glinting devilishly. "Trust me, Grandmother! When I commit youthful indiscretions, I'll take great care to make certain you know nothing about them. That way you'll be happy, and I'll remain intact."

"You're right, 'rapscallion' is definitely too polite a term for you, young man!"

Her lips quivered as she fought to restrain a smile, and he laughed again.

"Which is why you're afraid of those youthful indiscretions of mine," he observed. "A charming, unprincipled rogue and general, all-round ne'er-do-well is far more likely to succeed in being indiscreet, I imagine."

"That must be it," she agreed. "But you are going to be out again this evening?" He looked a question at her, and she shrugged. "Your grandfather and I have invitations to the theater tonight-they're presenting a new version of Yairdahn's Flower Maiden-and I just wanted to know whether we should include you in the party."

"It's tempting," he said. "That's always been my favorite of Yairdahn's plays, but I think I'll pass, if you and Grandfather won't be offended. I don't think it's going to be up to the Royal Company's production. Remember the last time we saw it at the Round? I doubt they'll be able to match that here in Siddar City."

"Perhaps not." She shrugged lightly. "It is an easy play to get wrong, I'll admit," she went on, deliberately not addressing his reference to the Round Theatre, the epicenter of the performing arts back home in Tellesberg. "And your grandfather and I won't be at all offended by the thought that you prefer a younger, livelier set of companions for the evening. Go have a good time."

"I'm sure I will. And I promise-no indiscretions!"

He gave her a wink, closed the guitar case, kissed her cheek, and headed off into the townhouse whistling.

She watched him go with a smile, but the smile faded as his whistling did, and she looked back out across the bay with a far more pensive expression.

Despite Aivah Pahrsahn's indisputable beauty, Sahmantha Raimahn had never cherished the least fear Byrk might become amorously involved with her. For that matter, she wouldn't have been terribly concerned if he had. Madam Pahrsahn was as cultured as she was lovely. If anyone would have known how to take a young lover's ardor, treat it with gentleness, and send it on its way undamaged in the fullness of time, it would be she. And she was also wealthy enough for Sahmantha to be certain she couldn't possibly cherish any designs upon the Raimahn family fortune. In fact, Sahmantha would actually have preferred for her grandson's interest in her to have been far more ... romantically focused than she feared it was.

She hadn't been entirely honest with Byrk about her husband's probable reaction to his destination for the evening, either. Claitahn Raimahn hadn't shaken the dust of Tellesberg from his feet lightly when he moved his entire household-and all of his business investments-from Charis to the Republic of Siddarmark. Claitahn was a Charisian to his toenails, but he was also a man who took his principles seriously and a devout son of Mother Church. When it came time to choose between heretical Crown and orthodox Church, principles and belief alike had driven the inevitable outcome.

His stature among Charis' mercantile elite, his wealth, and the fact that he'd sacrificed so much of that wealth in the process of moving it from Tellesberg to Siddar City's Charisian Quarter gave him a standing second to none in the Charisian emigre community, yet he himself remained trapped between his two worlds. Despite his horror at the Church of Charis' open break with the Grand Vicar, he remained too much a Charisian not to argue that the Kingdom had been grievously provoked. One sin couldn't justify another in his view, but neither would he condemn Charis' initial reaction to a totally unprovoked and unjustified onslaught. He'd fully supported King Haarahld's decision to fight in self-defense; it was King Cayleb's actions he could not condone.

Not that he blamed Cayleb entirely. Haarahld's premature death had brought Cayleb to the throne too early, in Claitahn's view, and the new king had found himself in a desperately dangerous position. It had been his job to protect his people-no one could dispute that-and he'd been too young, too susceptible to the pressures of his advisers and councilors when it came to doing that job. The true culprits were Maikel Staynair and the Earl of Gray Harbor, who'd pushed Cayleb into supporting open schism instead of at least trying to make a respectful appeal to the Grand Vicar's justice first. From there to the creation of the new, bastard "Empire of Charis" had been only a single, inevitable step, in Claitahn's opinion, and he could not support it. But by the same token, he was quick and fierce to defend Charis, as opposed to the Church of Charis, when tempers flared.

His and Sahmantha's surviving children had accompanied them into voluntary exile, and he encouraged them to continue thinking of themselves as Charisians. Sahmantha lacked the heart to tell him, yet her own advice was quite different. In fact, she'd encouraged them to find homes outside the Charisian Quarter and do their very best to integrate into the Siddarmarkian community.

She loved her homeland as much as Claitahn ever had, but unlike him, she was able to admit-and too self-honest to deny-that the Church of Charis wasn't going away. Claitahn would never see his dreamed-of, longed-for peaceful reconciliation with the Temple. If the heretical church was brought down, it would fall only to the sword, and the carnage-and retribution-would destroy the kingdom he remembered so lovingly. The ashes would poison the ground and bear bitter fruit for generations to come, and she would not see her family poisoned in turn by clinging to an identity which was doomed. Better, far better, for them to recognize reality and become the Siddarmarkians into which fate and their faith in God had transformed them. She and Claitahn would die here in Siddar City, be buried in the Republic's alien soil, still dreaming of the past they could never hope to reclaim, and she would never even hint to him that she'd realized that hope could never have been more than a dream.

But not every Charisian living in the Republic shared that attitude. The fracture lines within the rapidly growing Charisian community here in Siddar City grew deeper-and uglier-with every passing day. Over a third of its members were here not because they'd fled Charis out of religious principle but because this was where trade and commerce had brought them long before the current warfare had erupted. The swelling influx of newcomers were as much Temple Loyalist as she and Claitahn could ever be, yet even a growing fraction of them were being attracted to the Reformist elements within the mainland Church, and nowhere were those Reformist elements stronger than here in the Republic. Many a Siddarmarkian-and even many of the Charisian emigrees who'd turned their backs in horror on the open schism of the Church of Charis-found the condemnations of clerics like Maikel Staynair resonating with their own disappointment in what the vicarate and the Church had become in the hands of men like Zahmsyn Trynair and Zhaspahr Clyntahn. Schism they would not condone; Reform they were prepared to respectfully demand.

Sahmantha Raimahn was a shrewd, clear-eyed observer, determined to protect her family, and the shadows were growing darker, even here in the Republic. Claitahn sensed it, too, and despite his own sympathy for much of the Reformist argument, he resolutely refused to embrace it. Neither would Sahmantha, for she'd seen only too clearly the horrors of which Zhaspahr Clyntahn's Inquisition was capable. She recognized the danger hovering in the Reformist label, even here in the Republic, where the Inquisition's writ ran less deeply, and that was the true reason she longed to pry her grandson gently away from Aivah Pahrsahn. She'd begun picking up whispers that the brilliant, witty, wealthy beauty who'd taken Siddar City's society by storm looked with favor upon the Reformist movement. As always, Madam Pahrsahn spoke gently and calmly, championing peaceful reform, condemning violence, couching her murmured arguments in terms of love and compassion. No reasonable soul could possibly have accused her of the least impropriety ... but these were not the times for reasonable souls.

Be careful, Byrk, she thought after the grandson she'd raised. Oh, be careful, my love! You're too much like your grandfather. You try to hide it, but beneath that surface you show the world, you feel too deeply and there's too much integrity for times like these. Forget you're a Charisian and remember to be cautious. Be Siddarmarkian, please!

Thwap!

Sailys Trahskhat stiffened as the well-rotted apple smacked him squarely between the shoulder blades and then oozed down his back in trickles of brown pulp and slime. His head whipped around, looking for the hand which had thrown it, but no guilty expression gave away the culprit. Indeed, no one seemed to be looking his way ... which said a great deal.

His fists clenched at his side, but he managed-somehow-to keep the fury he felt out of his expression. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened. It wouldn't be the last, either, he thought grimly. He was just lucky it had been an apple instead of a rock.

And at least this time the bastard didn't shout anything, he thought. Fucking coward! Brave enough when he doesn't have to actually face someone, isn't he? Then he gave himself a mental shake. Just as well, too. If he had said anything, pointed himself out, I'd've had to do something about it, and Langhorne only knows where that would've ended!

He bent back to his task, hoisting another bag of Emeraldian cocoa beans onto his shoulder and rejoining the line of longshoremen carrying them into the waiting warehouse. It didn't pay all that much, but it was better than the soup kitchens, and he was lucky to have the work. Enough people didn't, and in his calmer moments he realized that was part of the reason for the hostility he encountered every day. But still....

"See who it was?" a voice asked quietly as he entered the warehouse's dim cavern. He hefted his bag down on a pallet, then turned towards the speaker, and Franz Shumahn, his shift foreman, raised an eyebrow at him. Shumahn was Siddarmarkian, but he was also a decent man, and he looked concerned.

"Nope." Trahskhat shook his head and smiled, deliberately making light of it. "Just as well, I guess. Last thing we need is a riot down here on the docks just because some stupid bastard needed his head ripped off and shoved up his ass. Probably wouldn't have done me any good with the Guard, either, now that I think about it."

"Probably putting it lightly," Shumahn acknowledged with a chuckle. He seemed genuinely amused, but there was a note of warning in it, too, Trahskhat thought. Not that it was necessary.

"As long as they stick to rotten fruit, it's not going to cost anything but another washing day for Myrahm," Trahskhat said as philosophically as he could. "If they start throwing rocks, like they did at the fish market last five-day, though, it's going to get ugly, Franz."

"I know." Shumahn looked worried. "I'll have a word with the boss. See if we can't get a little more security down here. A couple of big bruisers with cudgels'd probably cut down on this shit a lot."

Trahskhat nodded. It might. It might not, too. A lot would depend on whether the troublemakers thought the "big bruisers with the cudgels" were there to help Trahskhat or them.

It's not just about you, you know, he reminded himself. There's other Charisians down here on the docks, too. And you're lucky Shumahn's thinking about getting someone down here to break the troublemakers' heads instead of how much simpler it would be to just fire your ass!

"I'm asking Horahs and Wyllym to keep an eye out for the rest of this shift," Shumahn added. "Anybody else tries something, they'll spot him. And if he works for us, his ass is history. The boss doesn't like this kind of shit."