In joyful antic.i.p.ation of service? In expectation that yet another enemy of our clan shall meet extinction?

No. Instead you shudder, filling our core with mutinous fumes!

My poor, polluted rings. Are you so infested with alien notions that you actually hold affection for noisome bipeds? And for vermin g'Kek survivors we are sworn to erase?

Perhaps the poison is too rife for you to be suitable, even with useful expertise.

The Oailie were right. Without master rings, all a stack can become is a pile of sentimental traeki.

THE TALL STAR LORD WAS NO LESS IMPOSING IN A homespun shirt and trousers than in his old black-andsilver uniform. Rann's ma.s.sive arms and wedgelike torso tempted one to imagine impossible things . . . like pitting him against a fully grown hoon in a wrestling match.

That might take some of the starch out of him. Lark pondered. There's nothing fundamentally superior about the guy. Underlying Rann's physique and smug demeanor was the same technology that had given Ling the beauty of a G.o.ddess. , might be just as strong-and live three hundred years-if I weren't born in a forlorn wilderness.

Rann spoke Anglic in the sharp Danik accent, with bur- ring undertones like his Rothen overlords.

"The favor you ask is both risky and impertinent. Can you offer one good reason why I should cooperate?"

Watched by militia guards, the star lord sat cross-legged in a cave overlooking Dooden Mesa, where camouflaged ramps blended with the surrounding forest under tarpaulins of cunning blur cloth. Beyond the g'Kek settlement, distant ridges seemed to ripple as vast stands of boo bent their giant stems before the wind. In the grotto's immediate vicinity, steam rose from geothermal vents, concealing the captive from Galactic instruments-or so the sages hoped.

Before Rann lay a stack of data lozenges bearing the sigil of the Galactic Library, the same brown slabs Lark and Uthen found in the wrecked Danik station.

"I could give several reasons," Lark growled. "Half the qheuens I know are sick or dying from some filthy bug you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds released-"

Rann waved a dismissive hand.

"Your supposition. One that I deny."

Lark's throat strangled in anger. Despite every point of d.a.m.ning evidence, Rann obstinately rejected the possibility of Rothen-designed genocidal germs. "What you suggest is quite preposterous, " he said earlier. "It is contrary to our lords' kindly natures."

Lark's first response was amazement. Kindly nature? Wasn't Rann present when Bloor, the unlucky portraitist, photographed a Rothen face without its mask, and Rokenn reacted by unleashing fiery death on everyone in sight?

It did Lark no good to recite the same point-by-point indictment he had laid out for Ling. The big man was too contemptuous of anything Jijoan to heed a logical argument.

Or else he was involved all along, and now sees denial as his best defense.

Ling sat miserably on a stalagmite stump, unable to meet her erstwhile leader in the eye. They had come seeking Rann's help only after she failed to read the reclaimed archives with her own data plaque.

"All right," Lark resumed. "If justice and mercy won't persuade you, maybe threats will!"

Harsh laughter from the big man.

"How many hostages can you spare, young barbarian? You have just three of us to stave off fire from above. Your intimidation lacks conviction."

Lark felt like a bush lemming confronting a ligger. Still, he leaned closer.

"Things have changed, Rann. Before, we hoped to trade you back to the Rothen ship for concessions. Now, that ship and your mates are sealed in a bubble. It's the Jophur we'll negotiate with. I suspect they'll care less about visible wear and tear on your person, when we hand you over."

Rann's face was utterly blank. Lark found it an improvement.

Ling broke in.

"Please. This approach is pointless." She stood and approached her Danik colleague. "Rann, we may have to spend the rest of our lives with these people, or share whatever fate the Jophur dish out. A cure may help square things with the Six. Their sages promise to absolve us, if we find a treatment soon."

Rann's silent grimace required no rewq interpretation.

He did not savor the absolution of savages.

"Then there are the photograms," Ling said. "You are of the Danik Inner Circle, so you may have seen the true Rothen face before. But I found it a shock. Clearly, those photographic images give Jijo's natives some leverage. In loyalty to our mast ... to the Rothen, you must consider that."

"And who would they show their pictures to?" Rann chuckled. Then he glanced at Lark and his expression changed. "You would not actually-"

"Hand them over to the Jophur? Why bother? They can crack open your starship any time they wish, and dissect your masters down to their nucleic acids. Face it, Rann, the disguise is no good anymore. The Jophur have their mulch rings wrapped tightly around your overlords."

"Around the beloved patrons of all humanity!"

Lark shrugged. "True or not, that changes nothing. If the Jophur choose, they .can have the Rothen declared anathema across the Five Galaxies. The fines may be calamitous."

"And what of your Six Races?" Rann answered hotly. "Each of you are criminals, as well. You all face punishment-not just the humans and others living here, but the home branches of each species, elsewhere in s.p.a.ce!"

"Ah." Lark nodded. "But this we have always known. We grow up discussing the dour odds. The guilt. It colors our distinctly pleasant outlook on life." He smiled sardonically. "But I wonder if an optimistic fellow like yourself, seeing himself part of a grand destiny, can be as resigned to losing all he knows and loves."

At last, the Danik's expression turned dark.

"Rann," Ling urged. "We have to make common cause."

He glared at her archly. "Without Ro-kenn's approval?"

"They've taken him far away from here. Even Lark doesn't know where. Anyway, I'm now convinced we must consider what's best for humanity ... for Earth ... independent of the Rothen."

"There cannot be one without the other!"

She shrugged. "Pragmatism, then. If we help these people, perhaps they can do the same for us."

The big man snorted skepticism. But after several duras, he brushed the stack of data lozenges with his toe. "Well, I am curious. These aren't from the station Library. I'd recognize the color glyphs. You already tried to gain access?"

Ling nodded.

"Then maybe I had better have a crack at it."

He looked at Lark again.

"You know the risk, as soon as I turn my reader on?"

Lark nodded. Lester Cambel had already explained. In all probability, the digital cognizance given off by a tiny info unit would be masked by the geysers and microquakes forever popping under the Rimmers.

Yet, to be safe, every founding colony, from g'Keks and glavers to urs and humans, sent their sneakships down to the Midden. Not a single computer was kept. Our ancestors must have thought the danger very real.

"You needn't lecture a sooner about risk," he told the big man. "Our lives are the floating tumble of Ifhi's dice. We know it's not a matter of winning.

"Our aim is to put off losing for as long as we can."

They were brought meals by Jimi, one of the blessed who dwelled in the redemption sanctuary-a cheerful young man, nearly as large as Rann but with a far gentler manner. Jimi also delivered a note from Sage Cambel. The emba.s.sy to the Jophur had arrived at Festival Glade, hoping to contact the latest intruders.

The handwritten letter had a coda: Any progress?

Lark grimaced. He had no way of telling what "progress" meant in this case, though he doubted much was being made.

Ling helped load beige slabs into Rann's data plaque- returned for this purpose. Together, the Daniks puzzled over a maze of sparkling symbols.

Books from pre-Tabernacle days described what it was like to range the digital world-a realm of countless dimensions, capabilities, and correlations, where any simulation might take on palpable reality. Of course mere descriptions could not make up for lack of experience. But I'm not like some fabled islander, befuddled by Captain Cook's rifle and compa.s.s. I have concepts, some math, a notion of what's possible.

At least, he hoped so.

Then he worried-might the Daniks be putting on an act? Pretending to have difficulty while they stalled for time?

There wasn't much left. Soon Uthen would die, then other chitinous friends. Worse, new rumors from the coast told of hoonish villagers snuffling and wheezing, their throat sacs cracking from some strange ailment.

Come on,he urged silently. What's so hard about using a fancy computer index to look something up?

Rann threw down a data slab, cursing guttural phonemes of alien argot.

"It's encrypted!"

"I thought so," Ling said. "But I figured you, as a member of the Inner-"

"Even we of the circle are not told everything. Still, I know the outlines of a Rothen code, and this is different." He frowned. "Yet familiar somehow."

"Can you break it?" Lark asked, peering at a maze of floating symbols.

"Not using this crude reader. We'd need something bigger. A real computer."

Ling straightened, looking knowingly at Lark. But she left the decision up to him.

Lark blew air through his cheeks.

"Hr-rm. I think that might be arranged." .

A mixed company of militia drilled under nearby trees, looking brave in their fog-striped war paint. Lark saw only a few burly qheuens, though-the five-clawed heavy armor of Jijoan military might.

As one of the few living Jijoans ever to fly aboard an alien aircraft and see their tools firsthand, Lark knew what a fluke the Battle of the Glade had been-where spears, arbalests, and rifles prevailed against star-roaming G.o.ds. That freak chance would not be repeated. Still, there were reasons to continue training. It keeps the volunteers busy, and helps prevent a rekindling of old-time feuds. Whatever happens-whether we submit with bowed heads to final judgment, or go down fighting-we can't afford disunion.

Lester Cambel greeted them under a tent beside a bubbling hot spring.

"We're taking a risk doing this," the elderly sage said.

"What choice do we have?"

In Lester's eyes, Lark read his answer.

We can let Uthen and countless qheuens die, if that's the price it takes for others to live.

Lark hated being a sage. He loathed the way he was expected to think-contemplating trade-offs that left you d.a.m.ned, either way you turned.

Cambel sighed. "Might as well make the attempt. I doubt the artifact will even turn on."

At a rough log table, Cambel's human and urrish aides compared several gleaming objects with ancient ill.u.s.trations. Rann stared in amazement at the articles, which had been carried here from the sh.o.r.e of a far-off caustic lake.

"But I thought you discarded all your digital-"

"We did. Our ancestors did. These items are leftovers. Relics of the Buyur."

"Impossible. The Buyur withdrew half a million years ago!"

Lark told an abbreviated version of the story-about a crazy mule spider with a collecting fetish. A creature fashioned for destruction, who spent millennia sealing treasures in coc.o.o.ns of congealed time.

Laboring day and night, traeki alchemists had found a formula to dissolve the golden preservation sh.e.l.ls, spilling the contents back into the real world. Lucky for us these experts happened to be in the area, Lark thought. The tiredlooking traekis stood just outside, venting yellow vapor from chem-synth rings.

Rann stroked one reclaimed object, a black trapezoid, evidently a larger cousin to his portable data plaque.

"The power crystals look negentropic and undamaged. Do you know if it still works?"

Lark shrugged. "You're familiar with the type?"

"Galactic technology is fairly standard, though humans didn't exist, as such, when this thing was made. It is a higher-level model than I've used, but . . ." The sky human sat down before the ancient artifact, pressing one of its jutting bulges.

The device abruptly burst forth streams of light that reached nearly to the canopy. The High Sage and his team scrambled back. Urrish smiths snorted, coiling their long necks while human techs made furtive gestures to ward off evil.

Even among Cambel's personal acolytes-his bookweaned "experts"-our sophistication is thin enough to scratch with a fingernail.

"The Buyur mostly spoke Galactic Three," Rann said. "But GalTwo is close to universal, so we'll try it first."

He switched' to that syncopated code, uttering clicks, pops, and groans so rapidly that Lark was soon lost, unable to follow the arcane dialect of computer commands. The star lord's hands also moved, darting among floating images. Ling joined the effort, reaching in to seize ersatz objects that had no meaning to Lark, tossing away any she deemed irrelevant, giving Rann working room. Soon the area was clear but for a set of floating dodecahedrons, with rippling symbols coursing each twelve-sided form.

"The Buyur were good programmers," Rann commented, lapsing into GalSix. "Though their greatest pa.s.sion went to biological inventions, they were not slackers in the digital arts."

Lark glanced at Lester, who had gone to the far end of the table to lay a pyramidal stack of sensor stones, like a hill of gleaming opals. Tapping one foot nervously, the sage kept wary vigil, alert for any spark of warning fire.

Turning farther, Lark found the mountain cleft deserted. The militia company had departed.

No one with sense would remain while this is going on.

Rann muttered a curse.

"I had hoped the machine would recognize idiosyncrasies in the encryption, if it is a standard commercial cypher used widely in the Five Galaxies. Or there may be quirks specific to some race or alliance.

"Alas, the computer says it does not recognize the cryptographic approach used in these memory slabs. It calls the coding technique . . . innovative."

Lark knew the term was considered mildly insulting among the great old star clans.