Melina had a good cover story when she came to Dolo, arriving ivith letters of introduction, and baby Lark on her hip. Everyone a.s.sumed she came from somewhere in the Vale. A typical arranged remarriage.

It never seemed an issue to Nelo, that his eldest son had an unknown father. Melina subtly discouraged inquiries into her past.

But a secret like this . . .

With Ulashtu's band came a prisoner. Vigor, the urrish tinker who befriended Sara back at Dolo, only to spring a trap, leading to captivity by Dedinger's fanatics and the reborn Urunthai. Now their roles were reversed. Sara noted Vigor's triplet eyes staring in dismay at the astonishing oasis.

How the Urunthai would hate this place! Their predecessors seized our horses to destroy them all. Urrish sages later apologized, after Drake the Elder broke the Urunthai. But how can you undo death?

You cannot. But it is possible to cheat extinction. Watching fillies and colts gambol after their mares below a bright rocky overhang, Sara felt almost happy for a time. This oasis might even remain unseen by omniscient spy eyes of alien star lords, confused by the enclosing land of illusion. Perhaps Xi would survive when the rest of the Slope was made void of sapient life.

She saw Uigor ushered to a pen near the desert prophet, Dedinger. The two did not speak.

Beyond the women splashing in the pool and the grazing herds, Sara had only to lift her eyes in order to brush a glittering landscape where each ripple and knoll pretended to be a thousand impossible things. The country of lies was a name for the Spectral Flow. No doubt a person got used to it, blanking out irritating chimeras that never proved useful or informative. Or else, perhaps the Illias had no need of dreams, since they lived each day awash in Jijo's fantasies.

The scientist in Sara wondered why it equally affected all races, or how such a marvel could arise naturally. There's no mention of anything like it in Biblos. But humans only had a sprinkling of Galactic reference material when the Tabernacle left Earth. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon, found on many worlds.

But how much more wonderful if Jijo had made something unique!

She stared at the horizon, letting her mind free-a.s.sociate shapes out of the shimmering colors, until a mellow female voice broke in.

"You have your mother's eyes, Sara."

She blinked, drawing back to find two humans nearby, dressed in the leather garments of Illias. The one who had spoken was the first elderly woman Sara had seen here.

The other was a man.

Sara stood up, blinking in recognition. "F-Fallon?"

He had aged since serving as Dwer's tutor in the wilderness arts. Still, the former chief scout seemed robust, and smiled broadly.

A little tactlessly, she blurted, "But I thought you were dead!"

He shrugged. "People a.s.sume what they like. I never said I'd died."

A Zen koan if she ever heard one. But then Sara recalled what the other person said. Though shaded against the desert's glow, the old woman seemed to partake of the hues of the Spectral Flow.

"My name is Foruni," she told Sara. "I am senior rider."

"You knew my mother?"

The older woman took Sara's hand. Her manner reminded Sara of Ariana Foo.

"Melina was my cousin. I've missed her, these many years-though infrequent letters told us of her remarkable children. You three validate her choice, though exile must not have been easy. Our horses and shadows are hard to leave behind."

"Did Mother leave because of Lark?"

"We have ways of making it likely to bear girls. When a boy is born we foster him to discreet friends on the Slope, taking a female child in trade."

Sara nodded. Exchange fostering was a common practice, helping cement alliances between villages or clans.

"But Mother wouldn't give Lark up."

"Just so. In any event, we need agents out there, and Melina was dependable. So it was done, and the decision proved right . . . although we mourned, on hearing of her loss."

Sara accepted this with a nod.

"What I don't understand is why only women?"

The elder had deep lines at the corners of her eyes, from a lifetime of squinting.

"It was required in the pact, when the aunties of Urchachkin tribe offered some humans and horses shelter in their most secret place, to preserve them against the Urunthai. In those early days, urs found our menfolk disquieting-so strong and boisterous, unlike their own husbands. It seemed simpler to arrange things on a femaleto-female basis.

"Also, a certain fraction of boys tend to shrug off social constraints during adolescence,' no matter how carefully they are raised. Eventually, some young man would have burst from the Illias realm without adequate preparation- and all it would take is one. In his need to preen and make a name, he might spill our secret to the Commons at large."

"Girls act that way, too, sometimes," Sara pointed out.

"Yes, but our odds were better this way. Ponder the young men you know, Sara. Imagine how they would have behaved."

She pictured her brothers, growing up in this narrow oasis. Lark would have been sober and reliable. But Dwer, at fifteen, was very different than he became at twenty.

"And yet, I see you aren't all women. ..."

The senior rider grinned. "Nor are we celibates. From time to time we bring in mature males-often chief scouts, sages, or explosers-men who already know our secret, and are of an age to be calm, sensible companions . . . yet still retain vigor in their step."

Fallen laughed to cover brief embarra.s.sment. "My step is no longer my best feature."

Foruni squeezed his arm. "You'll do for a while yet."

Sara nodded. "An urrish-sounding solution." Sometimes a group of young urs, lacking the means to support individual husbands, would share one, pa.s.sing him from pouch to pouch.

The senior rider nodded, expressing subtleties of irony with languid motions of her neck. "After many generations, we may have become more than a bit urrish ourselves."

Sara glanced toward Kurt the Exploser, sitting on a smooth rock studying carefully guarded texts, with both Jomah and Prity lounging nearby.

"Then you sent the expedition to fetch Kurt because you want another-"

"Ifni, no! Kurt is much too old for such duties, and when we do bring in new partners it is with quiet discretion. Hasn't Kurt explained to you what this is all about? His role in the present crisis? The reason why we gambled so much to fetch you all?"

When Sara shook her head, Poruni's nostrils flared and she hissed like an urrish auntie, perplexed by foolish juniors.

"Well, that's his affair. All I know is that we must escort you the rest of the way as soon as possible. You'll rest with us tonight, my niece. But alas, family reminiscence must wait till the emergency pa.s.ses ... or once it overwhelms us all."

Sara nodded, resigned to more hard riding.

"From here . . . can we see-?"

Fallen nodded, a gentle smile on his creased features.

"I'll show you, Sara. It's not far."

She took his arm as Foruni bade them return soon for a feast. Already Sara's nose filled with scents from the cook- fire. But soon her thoughts were on the path as they crossed narrow,' miraculous meadows, then scrublands where simlas grazed, and beyond to a steepening pa.s.s wedged between two hills. Sunlight was fading rapidly, and soon the smallest moon, Pa.s.sen, could be seen gleaming near the far west horizon.

She heard music before they crested the pa.s.s. The familiar sound of Emerson's dulcimer, pinging softly ahead. Sara was loath to interrupt, yet the glow drew her-a shimmering lambency rising from Jijo, filling a vista beyond the sheltered oasis.

The layered terrain seemed transformed in pearly moonlight. Gone were the garish colors, yet there remained an extravagant effect on the imagination. It took an effort of will in order not to go gliding across the slopes, believing in false oceans and battlements, in ghost cities and starscapes, in myriad phantom worlds that her pattern-gleaning brain Grafted out of opal rays and shadows.

Fallon took Sara's elbow, turning her toward Emerson.

The starman stood on a rocky eminence with the dulcimer propped before him, beating its forty-six strings. The melody was eerie. The rhythm orderly, yet impossible to constrain, like a mathematical series that refused to converge.

Emerson's silhouette was framed by flickering fire as he played for nature's maelstrom.

This fire was no imagining-no artifact of an easily fooled eye. It rippled and twisted in the far distance, r.i.m.m.i.n.g the broad curves of a mighty peak that reared halfway up the sky.

Fresh lava.

Jijo's hot blood.

The planet's nectar of renewal, melted and reforged.

Hammering taut strings, the Stranger played for Mount Guenn, serenading the volcano while it repaid him with a halo of purifying flame.

PART FIVE.

A PROPOSAL FOR A USEFUL TOOL,STRATEGY BASED ON OUR EXPERIENCE ON JIJO: IT HAS BEEN NEARLY A MILLENNIUM SINCE A LARGE OUTBREAK OF TRAEKINESS WAS FOUND.

These Hare-ups used to be Frequent embarra.s.sments, where stacks or hapless rings were round languishing without even a single master torus to guide them. But no word of such an occurrence has come within the memory of living wax.

The reaction of our lollijhy ship to this discovery on Jijo was disgusted loathing. HOWEVER, LET US NOW PAUSE and consider how the Great Jophur League might learn,benerit from this experiment. Never belore have cousin rings dwelled in such intimacy with other races Although polluted,contaminated, these traeki have also acquired waxy expertise aoout urs, hoon, and qheuen sapient lilc-torms-as well as human wolflings and gis-ek vermin.

MOREOVER, the very traits that we Jophur find repellent in traeki-natural rings-their lack of locus, sell, or ambition-appear to enable them to achieve empathy with unitary beings! The other five races of Jijo trust these ring stacks. They confide secrets, share confidences, delegate some traekts with medical tasl< p="">

IMAGINE THIS POSSIBILITY SUPPOSE WE ATTEMPT A RUSE.

INTENTIONALLY we might create new traeki and arrange for them to escape the loving embrace of our n.o.ble clan. Genuinely believing they are in (light From oppressive master rings, these stacl< p="">

Next suppose that, using this knack of vacuous empathy, they make Iriendships among our toes. As generations pa.s.s, they become trusted comrades.

At which point we arrange for agents to s.n.a.t.c.h-to harvest-some of these rogue traeki, converting them to Jophur exactly as we did when Asx was translormed into Ewasx, by applying the needed master rings.

Would this not give us quick expertise about our toes'

GKAN 1 L,U, this L,wasx experiment has not been a complete success. The old traeki, Asx, managed to melt many waxy memories beiore completion of metamorphosis. The resulting partial amnesia has proved inconvenient.

Yet, this does not detract From the value of the scheme-to plant empathic spies in our enemies midst. Jples who are believable because they think they are true triends! Nevertheless, with the hoon of master rings, we can reclaim lost brethren wherever and whenever we hnd them.

Makanee THERE WERE TWO KINDS OF PUPILS IN THE WIDE, wet cla.s.sroom.

One group signified hope-the other, despair. One was illegal-the other, hapless. The first type was innocent and eager. The second had already seen and heard far too much.

# good fish . . . # goodfisb, goodfish . . . # good-good FISH.' # Dr. Makanee never used to hear Primal Delphin spoken aboard the Streaker. Not when the keeneenk master, Creideiki, used to hold the crew rock steady by his unwavering example.

Nowadays, alas, one commonly picked up s.n.a.t.c.hes of old-speech-the simple, emotive squealing used by unaltered Tursiops in Earth's ancient seas. As ship physician, even Makanee sometimes found herself grunting a s.n.a.t.c.h phrase, when fmstrations crowded in from all sides . . . and when no one was listening.

Makanee gazed across a broad chamber, half-filled with water, as students jostled near a big tank at the spinward end, avid to be fed. There were almost thirty neo-dolphins, plus a dozen six-armed, monkeylike figures, scrambling up the shelf-lined walls, or else diving to swim agilely with webbed hands. Just half the original group of Kiqui survived since they were s.n.a.t.c.hed hastily from far-off Kithrup, but the remaining contingent seemed healthy and glad to frolic with their dolphin friends.

I'm still not sure we did the right thing, taking them along. Neo-dolphins are much too young to take on the responsibilities of patronhood.

A pair of teachers tried bringing order to the unruly mob. Makanee saw the younger instructor-her former head nurse, Peepoe-use a whirring harness arm to s.n.a.t.c.h living snacks from the tank and toss them to the waiting crowd of pupils. The one who uttered the Primal burst-a middleaged dolphin with listless eyes-smacked his jaw around a blue thing with writhing tendrils that looked nothing like a fish. Still, the fin crooned happily while he munched.

# Goodfish . . . good-good-good! # Makanee had known poor Jecajeca before Streaker launched from Earth-a former astrophotographer who loved his cameras and the glittering black of s.p.a.ce. Now Jecajeca was another casualty of Streaker's long retreat, fleeing ever farther from the warm oceans they called home.

This voyage was supposed to last six months, not two and a half years, with no end in sight. A young client race shouldn't confront the challenges we have, almost alone.

Taken in that light, it seemed a wonder just a quarter of the crew had fallen to devolution psychosis.

Give it time, Makanee. You may yet travel that road yourself.

"Yes, they are tasty, Jecajeca," Peepoe crooned, turning the reverted dolphin's outburst into a lesson. "Can you tell me, in Anglic, where this new variety of 'fish' comes from?"

Eager grunts and squeaks came from the brighter half of the cla.s.s, those with a future. But Peepoe stroked the older dolphin with sonar encouragement, and soon Jecajeca's glazed eye cleared a bit. To please her, he concentrated.

"F-f-rom out-side . . . Good s-s-sun . . . good wat-t-ter . . ."

Other students offered raspberry cheers, rewarding this short climb back toward what he once had been. But it was a slippery hill. Nor was there much a doctor could do. The cause lay in no organic fault.

Reversion is the ultimate sanctuary from worry.

Makanee approved of the decision of Lieutenant Tsh't and Gillian Baskin, not to release the journal of Alvin the Hoon to the crew at large.

If there's one thing the crew don't need right now, it's to hear of a religion preaching that it's okay to devolve. Peepoe finished feeding the reverted adults, while her partner took care of the children and Kiqui. On spying Makanee, she did an agile flip and swam across the chamber in two powerful fluke strokes, resurfacing amid a burst of spray.

"Yesss, Doctor? You want to see me?"

Who wouldn 't want to see Peepoe? Her skin shone with youthful l.u.s.ter, and her good spirits never flagged, not even when the crew had to flee Kithrup, abandoning so many friends.

"We need a qualified nurse for a mission. A long one, I'm afraid."

Ratcheting clicks spread from Peepoe's brow as she pondered.

"Kaa's outpost. Is someone hurt-t?" "I'm not sure. It may be food poisoning ... or else kingree fever."