She had left the tent flap partially unzipped at the top. In the sallow glow of her lightstick, she saw someone peering in through the insectnetting: a woman's face, deeply lined, framed by lank hair that may have once been blond before it turned ash-gray.

They silently regarded each other as the first drops of night rain began tapping at the tent's plastic roof. The woman's eyes were blue, Allegra observed, yet they seemed much darker, as if something had leached all the color from her irises, leaving only an afterimage of blue.

"Why are you here?" the woman asked.

"I'm...I'm sorry," Allegra said. "I didn't mean to...."

"Sorry for what?" The eyes grew sharper, yet the voice was hollow. Like her face, it was neither young nor old. She spoke English rather than Anglo; that caught Allegra by surprise, and she had to take a moment to mentally translate the older dialect.

"Sorry for trespassing," she replied, carefully speaking the English she'd learned in school. "I was..."

"Trespassing where?" Not a question. A demand.

"Here...your place. I know it's probably not..."

"My place?" A hint of a smile which quickly disappeared, replaced by the dark scowl. "Yes, this is my place. The Eastern Divide, the Equatorial River, Midland, the Meridian Sea, all the places he sailed...those are Rigil Kent's places. My son lives in Liberty, but he never comes to see me. No one inShuttlefield but thieves and scum. But here...." Again, the fleeting smile. "Everything is mine. The chickens, the stars, and everything in between. Who are you? And why are you here?"

The rush of words caught her unprepared; Allegra understood only the last part. "Allegra DiSilvio,"

she said. "I've just arrived from the..."

"Did Rigil Kent send you?" More insistently now.

In a flash of insight that she'd come to realize was fortunate, Allegra didn't ask who she meant. What was important was her response. "No," she said, "he didn't send me. I'm on my own."

The woman stared at her. The rain was falling harder now; somewhere in the distance, she heard the rumble of thunder. Water spilled through a leak in the tent, spattered across her sleeping bag. Yet still the woman's eyes didn't stray from her own, even though the rain was matting her gray hair. Finally, she spoke: "You may stay."

Allegra let out her breath. "Thank you. I promise I won't...."

The face vanished. Allegra heard footsteps receding. A door creaked open, slammed shut. Chickens cackled briefly, then abruptly went quiet, as if cowed into silence.

Allegra waited a few seconds, then hastily closed the tent flap. She used the discarded food wrapper to plug the leak, then removed her boots and pushed herself into her sleeping bag, reluctant to take off her clothes even though they were filthy. She fell asleep while the summer storm raged around her. She hadn't turned off the light even though common sense dictated that she needed to preserve the chemical battery.

She was safe. Yet for the first time since she'd arrived, she was truly frightened.

The next morning, though, Allegra saw her neighbor just once, and then only briefly. She awoke to hear the chickens clucking, and crawled out of her tent to see the woman standing in the pen behind her house, throwing corn from an apron tied around her waist. When Allegra called to her, though, she turned and walked back into her house, slamming the door shut behind her. Allegra considered going over and knocking, but decided against it; she clearly wanted to be left alone, and Allegra might be pushing her luck by intruding on her privacy.

So she changed clothes, wrapped a scarf around her bare scalp, and left to make the long hike into Liberty. She did so reluctantly; although there were no other tents nearby, she didn't know for certain that she wasn't camped on some group's turf. Yet her stomach was growling, and she didn't want to consume her last food bar unless necessary. And somehow, she had a feeling that people tended to leave her strange neighbor alone.

The road to Liberty was littered with trash: discarded wrappers, broken bottles, empty cans, bits and pieces of this and that. If Shuttlefield's residents made any effort to land-fill or recycle their garbage, it wasn't evident. She passed farm fields where men and women worked on their hands and knees, pulling cloverweed from between rows of crops planted earlier in the summer. Coyote's seasons were three times as long as they were on Earth-ninety-one or ninety-two days in each month, twelve months in a year by the LeMarean calendar. Still, it was the near the end of Hamaliel, the second month of summer; the farmers would be working hard to pull in the midseason harvest so that they could plant again before autumn. The original colonists had struggled to keep themselves fed through the first long winter they'd faced on Coyote, and they only had a hundred or so mouths to feed.

The distant roar of engines drew her attention; looking up, she saw a shuttle descending upon the landing pad. More passengers from the Long Journey being ferried down to Coyote; now that a new ship from Earth had arrived, the population of New Florida would increase by another thousand people.

Social collectivism may have worked well in the Western Hemisphere Union, built upon the smoldering remains of the United Republic of America, but there it benefited from established cities and hightech infrastructure. Coyote was still largely unexplored; what little technology had been brought from Earth was irreplaceable, unavailable to the average person, so the colonists had to live off the land as best they could. Judging from what she'd already seen in Shuttlefield, utopian political theory had broken down; too many people had come here too quickly, forcing the newcomers to fend for themselves in a feudalhierarchy in which the weak were at the mercy of the strong, and everyone was under the iron heel of the colonial government. Unless she wanted to either become a prostitute or live out the rest of her life as a serf, she'd better find a way to survive.

Allegra came upon a marsh where Japanese bamboo was grown. The most recent crop had already been harvested, their stumps extending for a hundred acres or so, the ground littered with broken shoots.

On impulse, she left the path and waded out into the marsh, where she searched the ground until she found a foot-long stalk that was relatively undamaged. Tucking it beneath her arm, she returned to the road.

This would do for a start. Now all she needed was a sharp knife.

Liberty was much different than Shuttlefield. The streets were wide and clean, recently paved with gravel, lined on either side by log cabins. There were no hustlers, no kiosks; near the village center, she found small shops, their wares displayed behind glass windows. Yet everyone she passed refused to look her way, save for Proctors in blue uniforms who eyed her with suspicion. When she paused before the open half-door of a glassblower's shop to watch the men inside thrust white-hot rods into the furnace, a blue-shirt walked over to tap her on the shoulder, shake his head, and point the way to the community hall. Few words were spoken, yet the message was clear; she was only allowed to pass through on her way to the community hall, and not linger where she didn't belong.

Breakfast was a lukewarm porridge containing potatoes and chunks of fishmeat; it resembled clam chowder, but tasted like sour milk. The old man who ladled it out in the serving line told her that it was creek crab stew, and she should eat up-it was only a day old. When Allegra asked what was on the menu for dinner, he grinned as he added a slice of stale bread to her plate. More of the same...and by then it'd be a day-and-a-half old.

She found a place at one of the long wooden tables that ran down the length of the community hall, and tried not to meet the gaze of any of the others seated nearby even though she recognized several from the Long Journey. She'd made friends with no one during her passage from Earth, and wasn't in a hurry to do so now, so she distracted herself by studying an old mural painted on the wall. Rendered in native dyes by an untrained yet talented hand, it depicted the URSS Alabama in orbit above Coyote.

Apparently an artifact left behind by Liberty's original residents before they'd fled. No one knew where they'd gone, although it was believed that they had started another colony somewhere on Midland, across the East Channel from New Florida.

Allegra was wondering how hard it might be to seek them out when she heard a mechanical sound behind her: servomotors shifting gears, the thin whine of an electrical power source. Then a filtered burr of a voice, addressing her in Anglo: "Pardon me, but are you Allegra DiSilvio?"

She looked up to see a silver skull peering at her from within a black cowl, her face dully reflected in its ruby eyes. A Savant: a posthuman who had once been flesh and blood until he'd relinquished his humanity to have his mind downloaded into cyborg form, becoming an immortal intellect. Allegra detested them. Savants operated the starships, but it was surprising to find one here and now. And worse, it had come looking for her.

"That's me." She put down her spoon. "Who're you?"

"Manuel Castro. Lieutenant Governor of the New Florida Colony." A claw-like hand rose from the folds of its dark cloak. "Please don't get up. I only meant to introduce myself."

Allegra made no effort to rise. "Pleased to meet you, Savant Castro. Now if you'll excuse me...."

"Oh, now...no reason to be rude. I merely wish to welcome you to Coyote, make sure that all your needs are being met."

"Really? Well, then, you could start by giving me a place to stay. A house here in town would be fine...one room will do. And some fresh clothing...I've only got one other change."

"Unfortunately, there are no vacancies in Liberty. If you'd like, I can add your name to the waiting list, and notify you if something opens up. As for clothing, I'm afraid you'll have to continue wearing what you've brought until you've tallied enough hours in public service to exchange them for new clothes.However, I have a list of work details that are looking for new employees."

"Thanks, but I'll..." A new thought occurred to her. "Are there any openings here? I think I could give a hand in the kitchen, if they need some assistance."

"Just a moment." Castro paused for a moment, his quantum-comp brain accessing data from a central AI. "Ah, yes...you're in luck. The community kitchen needs a new dishwasher for the morning-to-midday shift. Eight hours per day, starting at 0600 and ending at 1400. No previous experience required. One and a half hours credit per hour served."

"When does it start?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Thank you. I'll take it." She turned back to her meal, yet the Savant made no move to leave. It patiently stood behind her, its body making quiet machine noises. Allegra dipped her spoon into the foul stew, waited for Castro to go away. All around her, the table had gone silent; she felt eyes upon her as others watched and listened.

"From your records, I understand you had a reputation back on Earth," Castro said. "You were known as a musician."

"Not exactly. I was a composer. I didn't perform." Looking straight ahead, she refused to meet his fathomless glass eyes.

Another pause. "Ah, yes...so I see. You wrote music for the Connecticut River Ensemble. In fact, I think I have one of your works...."

From its mouth grill, a familiar melody emerged: "Sunrise on Holyoke," a minuet for string quartet.

She'd written it early one winter morning when she'd lived in the foothills of the Berkshires, trying to capture the feeling of the dawn light over the Holyoke range. A delicate and ethereal piece, reconstructed in electronic tonalities by something that had given up all pretense of humanity.

"Yes, that's mine. Thank you very much for reminding me." She glanced over her shoulder. "My stew's getting cold. If you don't mind...."

The music abruptly ended. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't give it justice." A moment passed. "If you're ever inclined to compose again, we would be glad to have you do so. We often lack for culture here."

"Thank you. I'll consider it."

She waited, staring determinedly into her soup bowl. After a few moments, she heard the rustle of its cloak, the subdued whir and click of its legs as it walked away. There was quiet around her, like the brief silence that falls between movements of a symphony, then murmured voices slowly returned.

For an instant they seemed to fill a void within her, one that she'd fought so long and hard to conquer...but then, once more, the music failed to reach her. She heard nothing, saw nothing.

"Hey, lady," someone seated nearby whispered. "You know who that was?"

"Yeah, jeez!" another person murmured. "Manny Castro! No one ever stood up to him like that...."

"Who did you say you were? I didn't catch..."

"Excuse me." The plate and bowl rattled softly in her hands as she stood up. She carried it to a wooden cart, where she placed it with a clatter which sounded all too loud for her ears. Remembering the bamboo stalk she'd left on the table, she went back to retrieve it. Then, ignoring the questioning faces around her, she quickly strode out of the dining hall.

All this distance, only to have the past catch up to her. She began to make the long walk back to Shuttlefield.

When she returned to her tent, she found that it was still there. However, it hadn't gone unnoticed. A Proctor kneeled before the tent, holding the flap open as he peered inside.

"Pardon me," she asked as she came up behind him, "but is there something I can help you with?"

Hearing her, the Proctor turned to look around. A young man with short-cropped blond hair, handsome yet over-weight; he couldn't have been much older than twenty Earth years, almost half Allegra's age. He dropped the tent flap and stood up, brushing dirt from his knees.

"Is this yours?" Less a question than a statement. His face seemed oddly familiar, although she was certain she'd never met him before. "Yes, it's mine. Do you have a problem with that?"

Her attitude took him by surprise; he blinked, stepping back before he caught himself. Perhaps he'd never been challenged in this way. "It wasn't here the last time I stopped by," he said, businesslike but not unkind. "I wanted to know who was setting up here."

"I arrived last night." Allegra glanced toward the nearby shack; her neighbor was nowhere to be seen, yet she observed that the front door was ajar. "Came in yesterday from the Long Journey," she continued, softening her own tone. "I couldn't find another place to stay, so..."

"Everyone from the Long Journey is being put over there." The young blueshirt turned to point toward the other side of Shuttlefield; as he did, she noticed the chevrons on the right sleeve of his uniform. "Didn't anyone tell you?"

"No one told me anything...and now I suppose you want me to move." She didn't relish the thought of packing up again and relocating across town. At least here she was closer to Liberty; it would cut her morning hike to work. "I spoke with the lady who lives next door, and she didn't seem to mind if I..."

"I know. I've just talked to her." He cast a wary eye upon the shack, and for an instant it seemed as if the door moved a few inches, as if someone behind it was eavesdropping. The Proctor raised a hand to his face. "Can I speak with you in private?" he whispered. "You're not in trouble, I promise. It's just...we need to talk."

Mystified, Allegra nodded, and the blueshirt led her around to the other side of the tent. He crouched once more, and she settled down upon her knees. Now they could only see the shack roof; even the chicken pen was hidden from sight.

"My name's Chris," he said quietly as he offered his hand. "Chris Levin...I'm the Chief Proctor."

A lot of authority for someone nearly young enough to be her son. "Allegra DiSilvio," she replied, shaking hands with him. "Look, I'm sorry I was so..."

"Don't worry about it." Chris evinced a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm sure you've noticed by now, but the lady over there...well, she keeps to herself. Doesn't leave the house much."

"I picked up on that."

Chris idly plucked at some grass between his knees. "Her name's Cecelia...Cecelia Levin, although everyone calls her Sissy. She's my mother."

Allegra felt the blood rush from her face. She suddenly recalled the old woman having mentioned that she had a son in Liberty. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"You couldn't have. You've just arrived." He shook his head. "Look, my mother is...truth is, she's not well. She's very sick, in fact...as you may have noticed."

Allegra nodded. His mother stood out in the pouring rain last night and raved about how she owned both her chickens and the stars; yes, that qualified as unusual behavior. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Can't be helped. Mom's been through a lot in the last few years. She...." He broke off. "Long story. In any case, that's why no one has set up camp out here. People are afraid of her...and to tell the truth, she chases them away. Which is why you're unusual."

"How come?"

Chris raised his eyes, and now she could see that they were much the same as his mother's: blue yet somehow hollow, although not with quite the same degree of darkness. "She let you stay. Believe me, if she didn't like you, your tent wouldn't still be standing. Oh, she might have let you spend the night, but as soon as you left she would have set fire to it. That's what she's done to everyone else who's tried to camp next to her."

Allegra felt a cold chill. She started to rise, but Chris clasped her wrist. "No, no...calm down. She's not going to do that. She likes you. She told me so herself."

"She...likes me?"

"Uh-huh...or at least as much as she likes anyone these days. She believes you're a nice woman who's come to keep her company."

"She wouldn't even speak to me this morning!"

"She's shy."

"Oh, for the love of...!" "Look," he said, and now there was an edge in his voice, "she wants you to stay, and I want you to stay. No one will bother you out here, and she needs someone to look out for her."

"I...I can't do that," Allegra said. "I've just taken a job in Liberty...washing dishes at the community hall. I can't afford to...."

"Great. I'm glad you've found work." He paused, and smiled meaningfully. "That won't pay much, though, and by winter this tent of yours will be pretty cold. But I can fix that. Stay here and take care of Mom when you're not working, and you'll have your own cabin...with a wood stove and even your own privy. That's better than anyone else from your ship will get. And you'll never have to deal with gangs or turf-tax. Anyone who bothers you spends six months in the stockade, doing hard time on the public works crew. Got me?"

Allegra understood. She was being given the responsibility of looking out for the demented mother of the Chief Proctor. So long as Sissy Levin had company, Allegra DiSilvio would never have to worry about freezing to death in the dark, being shaken down by the local stooges, or being raped in her tent.

She would have shelter, protection, and the solitude she craved.

"Got you," she said. "It's a deal."

They shook on it, and then Chris heaved himself to his feet, extending a hand to help her up. "I'll talk to Mom, tell her that you're staying," he said. "Don't rush things. She'll introduce herself to you when she feels like it. But I think you'll make great friends."

"Thanks. We'll work things out." Allegra watched as he turned toward the shack. The door was cracked open; for an instant, she caught a glimpse of her face. "Just one more thing...."

"Yes?" The Chief stopped, looked back at her.

"How long have you been here? I mean...which ship did you come in on?"

Chris hesitated. "We've been here three Coyote years," he said. "We came aboard the Alabama."

Allegra gaped at him. "I thought all the first-timers had left."

He nodded solemnly. "They did. We're the ones who stayed behind."