Chapter 55

Moon saw the cart strike the water, plunge and reemerge; heard it, felt its impact vibrate in her bones. The crowd's roaring went on and on, hideously. The boat form drifted away from the dock, lowering in the water, swinging slowly until she could see Starbuck's hidden face and the face of the Snow Queen, Arienrhod ... herself: serene with drug stupor, bound to her impotent lover in a grotesque parody of an embrace. The boat began to spiral more rapidly as it filled with water. Moon tried to shut her eyes, but they would not close against the hypnotic final movement of the death dance on the water. She remembered her own ordeal by sea, remembered all that had brought her to this place, again, sacrifice upon sacrifice. And still she could not look away The boat lurched suddenly, as the faces revolved again toward the crowd, and in the blink of an eye it was gone. Moon blinked again and again, but it did not reappear. The sea surface lay in unperturbed undulation, with only a telltale litter of boughs to mark Her acceptance of Her peoples' offering. The crowd's roaring was like a storm, and the underworld trembled. Moon watched the lazy motion of the swells, standing as fluid and unresponsive as the Sea Herself.

One of the Summers came forward at last, touched her arm hesitantly. Moon shuddered under the touch, and breathed again. "Lady?" He bowed as Moon turned at last. The Summers acknowledged their Queen's role as the Sea Mother incarnate, and did not use the artificial off world form of royal address. "The unmasking—"

"I know." She nodded, looking back over her shoulder at the sea even as she spoke. Fair voyage, safe haven. She moved away from the edge of the dock, into the crowd's eye once more. "Lady" ... 7 am the Queen.

"The Queen ... the Queen ... the Queen is dead. Long live the Queen!" The shouts of the Summers echoed inside her, a mockery.

She placed her hands on her mask, hands that felt damp and chill like the wind through the underworld. "My people—" She felt her body resist the motion of exposing her face again; suddenly, disconcertingly aware of the danger she had only glimpsed in the eyes of the Summers who stood here on the pier around her. Now her resemblance to Arienrhod would be obvious to everyone — and especially to the off worlders If they even suspected the truth... She shook her head, shaking the rest of the words loose that she must say to the waiting crowd: "Winter is past, Summer has come at last. The Lady has taken our offering, and will return it ninefold. The life that was is dead — let it be cast away, like a battered mask, an outgrown shell. Rejoice now, and make a new beginning!" She lifted the mask from her head.

All of the crowd together — Winters, Summers, even off worlders-became one in this one moment. Their shouts of joy and the rustle of countless masks being torn from countless heads crescendoed-baring faces freed for that moment from all past sorrows, sins, and fears. Their celebration and adulation lifted her up onto its shoulders, swept into her heart. This world will be free!

But as she spoke the words, holding her mask high, the crowd's voice changed; the cavernous underworld reverberated with the cries of a people who saw a thing beyond their understanding, and could not deny it... "Arienrhod — Arienrhod!" Moon felt the Summers' superstition curdle, felt the disbelief spreading like paranoia through the crowd, imagined it echoing through the entire city. Knowing that she must stop it now — stop it before she lost everything without ever having had it. How ... how do I stop them? like a prayer, pressing her hand to the sign at her throat. The sibyl sign ...

"People of Tiamat, children of the Seal" She reached up, pulling at the neck of her clothing, to bare the trefoil tattoo. "I am a sibyl!

See my sign — I serve the Lady faithfully and truthfully. My name is Moon Dawntreader Summer, and I will do the same as your Queen. The keeper of all wisdom speaks through me, but only to you. Ask and I shall answer, and I will never speak falsely."

A hush fell, went on falling as the echoes died; all eyes throughout the city were on her throat, or on its image on some screen. The Winters were speechless with uncertainty, the Summers were speechless with reverence, at the undeniable proof of their Queen's transmutation, the symbol of her rebirth and holy status. And from the corner of her eye Moon saw the strange look that passed over the faces of the off worlder officials hi the viewing stands, to see that sign, below that face...

As she went on watching, her breath aching in her chest, she saw the look separating again into a natural spectrum of expressions: horrified amusement, fascination, disgust at the spectacle they had all just witnessed ... but still a lingering unease and uncertainty. Nowhere among them did she see any guilt, any respect, any real understanding of what they had seen. Next time — next time whoever stands here will see those things.

Letting her gaze go on, she followed it, walking back toward her own place in the stands among the Summer elders. Sparks stood waiting hi the place reserved for her consort; his flaming hair was a beacon to sign her place ... his face was tight, like a drawn bow. She took her place silently beside him, looked away from the crowd again to the spot where branches drifted on the sea. The crowd still waited, murmuring and uncertain.

"They expect a few words from you, Lady." One of the Goodventures who had been her ceremonial guides leaned toward her. She sensed a fog of unease among the Summers, too.

She nodded, wondering again, as she had wondered all through the mind-numbing song and celebration of the Mask Night, what the words would be that could make her people listen: How could one transform so many, and still keep their trust? But somehow, somewhere, there had to be the words...

The words came to her suddenly, not from the strange guardian of her mind, but from the strength of her own feeling. "People of Tiamat, the Lady has blessed me once, by giving me someone to share my life with me." She looked at Sparks beside her; her hand touched his, hanging cold and strengthless at his side. "She has blessed me twice, by making me a sibyl, and three times, by making me a Queen. Since yesterday I have thought a great deal about my destiny, and this world's, which all of us will share. I've prayed that She will show me the way to do Her will and be Her living symbol. And She has answered me." In a way that I never dreamed She could. Moon glanced toward the sea, and the secret that lay beneath the dark waters.

"I know there is a reason why She has shown herself to you as a sibyl, through me. I don't know yet the full pattern of the future, but I know that to create it fully I must have help — help from all of you, and especially from other sibyls. Summer has come to Carbuncle, and this city is no longer closed to sibyls — more than anyone, more than anyone can know, sibyls belong here! Islanders, when you go back to your homes, ask your sibyls to make the journey here if they can — not to stay, but to come to me and learn their part in the future's design."

She paused, hearing the crowd's voice whisper, trying to judge whether it was accepting her words, and her. She stole glances at the Summers in the stands around her, relieved to find a benign surprise looking back at her. The Winters would resent it, she knew instinctively, remembering their fear and scorn firsthand. She had to give them something of their own, a part hi the future. She glanced again at the waiting off worlders knowing the risk she took in this offering, the delicate balance she had to maintain while they still walked this world.

"If I — if I seem to stray out of tradition's shallows as Summer's Queen, and into uncharted depths, have faith in me. Try to remember that I am the Lady's chosen, and that I only follow Her will ." secure hi the knowledge that she told the truth. "She is my navigator, and She charts my course by strange stars," stranger stars than the ones that lie above us. She glanced at the off worlders again. "My first command as your new Queen—" the potential of power sang in her head, potential energy, "is that all the off world possessions of the Winters will not be thrown into the sea. Hear me!" before the crowd could drown her out. "Things made by the off worlders offend the waters, they choke the sea with filth. Three things from each Winter are all She demands — and the Winters will choose what offerings they make. Time ... time will take care of the rest!" She braced herself against the rise of Summer outrage.

But there was only a rippling water of dismay, here and there a shining drop of laughter or applause from an astonished Winter. Moon took a deep breath, hardly daring to believe-They trust me! They listen; they'll do whatever I say... realizing at last what Arienrhod had known — and how easily power, like fire, could break its bonds and destroy what it had been guardian to. Her hands tightened over the rail. "Thank you, my people." She bowed her head to them.

The Summers in the stands shifted into deferential resignation around her; but Sparks watched her like a cat, with suspicion and unease, as he sensed her sense of power.

She looked away quickly, struggling to keep her expression even as she saw the Prime Minister himself begin to descend opposite them, to start the final, official acknowledgement of her rule, to pay the hypocritical homage of one figurehead ruler to another. Watching him descend, she saw First Secretary Sims among the Assembly members, caught his own eyes on her with a dubious foreboding. She nudged Sparks, led his gaze to his father's; saw him struggle to meet his father's sudden smile. Sparks looked down again silently at his grandfather, as the Prime Minister began his salutation.

The speeches of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of Tiamat, half a dozen other dignitaries whose function she had never even heard of, were brief and patronizing. She stood patiently through them all, shielded from their arrogance by her secret knowledge, but seeing in each face suspicion and mistrust stirred by her own speech to her people. The Chief Justice looked at her too long and too piercingly; but he only mouthed congratulations like the rest, praised the traditional and ritual, her peoples' smooth backsliding into ignorance. He urged her not to stray from tradition's path too strongly-to beware the consequences. She smiled at him.

As he left his place before her, the last of her tribute-bringers approached, and she saw that it was the Commander of Police. As PalaThion passed the Chief Justice, she glimpsed a silent exchange between them, saw the dullness of PalaThion's eyes as she came on.

"Your Majesty." PalaThion saluted with formal precision, and the dullness sharpened and brightened as she took in Moon's actual presence above her at the red-draped rail. "I congratulate you." Incongruity pricked every word.

Moon let her smile widen. "Thank you, Commander. I think I'm as surprised to find myself here as you are." She felt suddenly awkward, as though she were speaking through someone else's mouth.

"I doubt that very much, Your Majesty. But who knows... ?" PalaThion shrugged imperceptibly. She raised her voice, "The recognition of your position as the Summer Queen ends my duties here, Your Majesty, and all police responsibility for what happens on Tiamat. And all official rule by the Hegemony for a hundred years, until we return again at the next Change. Keeping order will be your responsibility from now on."

Moon nodded. "I know, Commander. Thank you for your service to my people ... and especially to Summer, for saving us from the — the plague. I owe you a debt that I can't repay—" two debts, leaning forward against the rail.

PalaThion glanced down, up again. "I was only doing my duty, Your Majesty." But a surprising gratitude showed on her face.

"Tiamat regrets losing a true friend like you, and so do I. We don't have many true friends in this galaxy. We need them all."

PalaThion smiled thinly. "Friends turn up in the most unexpected places, Your Majesty... But sometimes you only know it when it's too late. The same goes for enemies." She lowered her voice. "Walk softly, Moon, until the last ship is gone from the star port Don't try to make the future happen yesterday. More than just your own people are wondering what you really are. You'd be in a cell right now if the Chief Justice didn't know it would cause a riot... The only reason you'll get away with changing the ritual is because it won't make any difference."

Moon blinked, her hands white against the red cloth. "What do you mean?"

"The Hedge has its way of dealing with tech hoarders when it goes. Never underestimate them — not for a second. That's the best advice a friend can give you now."

"Thank you, Commander." Moon straightened her shoulders, trying to hide her dismay. "But even that won't stop me." Because the mers are the real key.

PalaThion started to turn away, looked on across the Pier toward her own people. She hesitated. "Your Majesty." She stood close in front of Moon again, speaking softly almost inaudibly. "I believe in what you want to do. I believe it's just. I don't want anything to stop it." She seemed to reach out, without moving, "In fact, I want to help you make it happen," in a frightened rush. "I'm — offering you my services, my knowledge, my experience, the rest of my life, if you'll take them. If you'll let me use them for something I can believe in."

Moon felt PalaThion's urgency reaching higher, further, deeper; beyond the thing she asked. "You mean ... you want to stay? On Tiamat?" Her whisper sounded stupid and un queenly Sparks glared his disbelief.

But PalaThion, lost in her own inner vision, didn't hear, or see. "Not on the Tiamat that was. But on the one that could be." Her dark up slanting eyes asked, and demanded, a promise.

"You're the Commander of Police — the Hegemony's fist ... Why?" Moon shook her head, certain that PalaThion was sincere, trying to re-form the slipping sands of reality.

"This is the time of change," PalaThion said simply.

"That's not enough." Sparks leaned forward over the rail. "Not if you want to spend the rest of your life interfering in ours."

PalaThion rubbed her face. "How much is enough? How much proof did I ask of you, Dawntreader?"

He looked away, and didn't answer.

"To tell you what caused the change hi me would take me a lifetime. But believe me, I have reasons." She turned back to Moon.

"And you'll have to spend the lifetime here, regretting it, if you change your mind. Are you sure?"

"No." PalaThion glanced again at the off worlders waiting hi the stands, light-years distant from the world she stood reaching out to. "Yes! What the hell have I got to lose? Yes." She smiled, finally.

"Then stay." Moon smiled, too. Ifthis world changed you, then it can change itself ... we can change it ... I can. "Everything you want to give I'll need, Commander—"

"Jerusha."

"Jerusha." Moon stretched out her hand; PalaThion gripped her wrist, the handshake of a native.

"I won't be free of this," gesturing at her uniform, "till the last ship is gone from here; but neither will any of you. After that I'll be finished with the Hegemony, and ready to belong wholeheartedly to the future."

Moon nodded.

"And now, with your permission, I'll leave you, Your Majesty.

While I have the guts to change my old mistakes for new ones, I'm going to say some things that need to be said to a man who can't speak for himself."

Moon nodded, blankly, and watched her lonely journey back across the open space to the ranks of the off worlders Moon raised her voice again as Jerusha disappeared among the stands, to pronounce the end of the ceremonies, of the Festival, of Winter ... but only the beginning of the Change.

Cold twilight moved on wind wings through the oozing underworld of docks and moorages, where cold dawn had seen the Change come to Carbuncle. Moon walked with Sparks, trailed by a discrete retinue, among the creakings and sighings of the restless ships, the dim, echoing voices of their weary crews. The jam of Whiter and Summer craft that had clogged every open patch of water surface had thinned by half already, as Summers and Winters alike began their post-Festival exodus from the city.

The Summers would be returning before long; the Change was the sign for them to begin their northward exodus, leaving the equatorial ranges of the sea to fill the interstices of the Winters' range. As Tiamat approached the Black Gate and the Twins' solar activity intensified, the lower latitudes would become uninhabitable — the sea would turn against them, its indigenous life retreating to the depths or the higher latitudes, forcing them to do the same.

The Winters would have to share with them the scattering of islands and the vast reaches of ocean that had been theirs alone, and share as well a new, hand-to-mouth existence without off world sustenance. The nobility now would be going out of the city to relearn the task of making their plantations, which had been little more than boundaries for the Hunt, into a base that could support the precarious balance of life the off worlders had left them to.

And in the middle of this cyclical chaos, somehow she, Moon, had to begin a new order. "I thought that once I got to Carbuncle all my problems would be over. But they're just beginning." Her plaintive breath frosted. Even here, while they walked together, soothed by the presence of the sea, she felt the burden of the future bear down on her like the weight of the city overhead. She leaned on a time-grayed railing, looking down at the mottled, green-black water. Sparks leaned beside her, silent, as he had been all day: trying to make the best of what he could not change — to accept that change happened indiscriminately, and made its favorites and its victims one.

"You've got supporters now. And you'll get more. You won't have to carry it all alone. You'll always have them around you." A sullen note crept into his voice, and he moved slightly away from her. She knew that all of the people that she would be depending on knew what he had been; and even if they didn't still hate him for it, they would always remind him of it, and let him go on hating himself. "No one rules all alone ... not even Arienrhod."

"I'm not Arienrhod!" She stopped, realizing that he didn't mean it that way, but too late "I thought you—"

"I didn't."

"I know." But knowing that a part of him would always see Arienrhod when he looked at her — because Arienrhod would always be there for him to see; always there, making them afraid to meet each other's eyes. She wiped the twilight dampness from her face. Beyond the city's looming edge she could see the band of sunset in the west, a dying rainbow. "When will we ever see another rainbow now? Will we have to live all our lives without one?"

Something broke the water surface below them, a soft intrusion on the words. Looking down, Moon saw a sleek, brindled head rising sinuously to meet her gaze. She felt her own breath catch, heard Sparks's involuntary protest 'No’...

"Sparks!" She caught his arm as he would have pulled away from the railing. "Wait. Don't." She held him.

"Moon, what are you trying to do to me?"

But she didn't answer, crouching down, drawing him with her, the beadwork of her gossamer green shawl rattling on the wooden pier. She put out her arm, reached until the mer's dark silhouette met her outstretched hand, becoming real under her touch. "What are you doing here?" The lone mer looked at her with ebony, expressionless eyes, as though it didn't have the answer even in its own mind. But it made no move to leave them, its flippers stirring the flotsam-littered water at the dock's edge rhythmically in place. It began to croon forlornly, a single voice from a lost chorus of patterned song. The songs ... why do you sing? Are they more than songs? Could they tell you your purpose, your duty, your reason for existence, if you only understood? Excitement tingled in her. Ngenet. Ngenet could help her learn. And if she was right, learn to teach them She had seen him in the crowds today, seen the pride and hope on his face, but hadn't been able to reach him. And she had also seen the unforgiving memory as his eyes found Sparks beside her. She kept Sparks's hand locked in her own, holding on against his trembling resistance; forced it out over the water. He groaned, as though she were holding his hand over a fire. The mer looked cryptically from her face to his, and sank slowly back into the dark water without touching him.

Moon let his hand go, watched it stay outstretched above the water of its own accord. Slowly Sparks drew his hand back to himself; crouched, staring at it, bracing against the rail.

Behind them Moon heard the incredulous mutterings of her Summer retinue — the omnipresent Goodventures, who had seemed to follow while trying to lead her all through the day. She had antagonized them by her willful disobedience of their ritual expectations, and she knew that because of their royal background they could be dangerous enemies to the future. She resented them even more now, when she needed this moment alone with Sparks in the intimacy of his grief. She understood at last that becoming Queen did not mean absolute freedom, but the end of it.

"The Sea never forgets. But She forgives, Sparkie." Moon reached to touch his hair, cupped his chill, tear-wet face between her chill, wet hands, feeling his shame like one more icy splinter of doubt. "It just takes time."

"A lifetime will never be enough!" A dagger, driven by his own hand. He would never belong, here, anywhere, until he found peace within himself.

"Oh, Sparks — let the Sea witness that you hold my willing heart, you alone, now and forever." She spoke the pledge words defiantly; the only words that filled her need to fill the need in him.

"Let the Sea witness ..." He repeated the words, softening as he spoke, his strength, his resistance, melting away.

"Sparks ... the day's finished out there, even if it never ends in Carbuncle. Let's find our place for tonight, where you can forget I'm a queen, and I can forget it..." She glanced over her shoulder at the Goodventures. But what about tomorrow? "Tomorrow everything will start to fit into place. Tomorrow we'll be free of today; and then on the day after ..." She brushed her hair back from her eyes, looking out across the darkening waters again, where no trace lay at all of the sacrifice they had given to the Sea this dawn. The Sea rested, sublime in Her indifference, an imperturbable mirror for the face of universal truth. Today never ends in Carbuncle ... will tomorrow really ever come? She saw the future that lay dying beneath the dark waters: the future that would never come, if she failed, if she stumbled, if she weakened for a moment-She whispered fiercely, close by his ear, "Sparkie, I'm afraid." He held her tightly and did not answer.

Chapter 56

Jerusha stood in the fiery hell-glow of the red-lit docking bay, beneath the vast umbrella of the suspended coin ship. The final ship, taking on the last of her police officers — the last off worlders to depart from Tiamat. In the frantic finality of the past few days the ships of the Assembly had already lifted into planetary orbit, into the company of the other coin ships already there to take on shuttle loads of die-hard merchants and exhausted Festival refugees.

She endured the inventories patiently, checked and rechecked the data from reports and records, trying to be certain that no one was left, nothing vital left undone, un salvaged unsealed. It was her responsibility to make certain that the job was thorough and complete. She had done the job to the best of her ability, making certain that her men left no power pack in place, no system un stripped no outlet accessible. And all the while she had known, with a strange double vision, that tomorrow she would be trying to undo again everything that she had just undone today.

But by the gods, I won't make it easy on myself! Knowing that if she finished the career that had meant so much to her once with an act of betrayal, she would never be able to build a new life on its foundation that would have any meaning. Nothing worth having is easy to get. She looked away from the loading of miscellaneous supplies, away from the cluster of blue uniforms and containers by the coin ship's suspended loading foot. The ship, the docking bay, beyond it the spaceport's throbbing complexity that was almost like a living organism — all that they symbolized, she was giving up. Not in a year, or a week, or even a day — in less than an hour, all that would be behind her, would be leaving her behind. She was giving it all up ... for Carbuncle. And before the last starship left Tiamat space, it would send down the high-frequency signal that would demolish the fragile microprocessors that made virtually every piece of technology left on the planet function. The tech hoarders would hoard in vain, and Tiamat would be returned to technical ground zero. She remembered with sudden incongruity the sight of a windmill on a lonely hilltop on Ngenet Miroe's plantation. Not quite ground zero. Remembering that she had had no idea of what use he could possibly have for a thing like that. There are none so blind as those who will not see. She smiled, as suddenly.

"Commander?"

She pulled her eyes back to the space around her, expecting one more request or verification. "Yes, I'm — Gundhalinu!" He saluted. His grin highlighted the spectral gauntness of his face; his uniform hung on him like something borrowed from a stranger.

"What the hell are you doing out here? You shouldn't be—"

"I came to say good-bye, Commander."

She broke off, set down the computer remote on the makeshift desk of empty shipping containers. "Oh."

"KerlaTinde told me — that you were resigning, that you're going to stay on Tiamat?" He sounded bewildered, as though he expected her to deny it.

"It's true." She nodded. "I'm staying here."

"Why? Your reassignment? I heard about that, too." His voice turned flat with anger. "Nobody likes it, Commander."

I can think of one or two who were overjoyed. "Only partly because of that." She frowned through him at the idea of the force chewing gossip about her resignation like old men in the town square. Having decided that it would be useless to complain, she had kept her anger in; but there was no way she could keep the fact of her humiliation from the others. And she had refused to discuss her decision or her resignation with anyone — whether out of fear that they would try to change her mind, or fear that they wouldn't, she wasn't sure.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Her frown faded. "Ye gods, BZ. You've had trouble enough without me giving you another load."

"Only half the trouble I'd have had if you hadn't covered for me, Commander." The point of his jaw sharpened with feeling. "I know if it weren't for you I wouldn't still have the right to wear this uniform. I know how much it's always meant to you ... a lot more than it ever meant to me, until now; because I never had to fight for it. And now you're giving it up." He looked down. "If I could, I'd do my damnedest to help you get this assignment changed. But I ." He was looking at his hands. "I'm not my father's son, any more. "Inspector Gundhalinu' is all I have left. I'm ten times as grateful to you that I still have that much." He looked up at her again. "But all I can do in return is ask you, Why here? Why Tiamat? I don't blame you for resigning — but hell, any world in the Hegemony is better than this one, if you want to make a new life for yourself. At least if you don't like it you can leave it."

She shook her head, with a small, resolute smile. "I'm not a quitter, BZ. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have something better I was going to. And I think I've found it here, unlikely as that sounds." She glanced up and away, toward the line of high windows overlooking the field — the empty hall where Ngenet Miroe kept unseen watch on the Hegemony's departure, waiting for the moment when she would become wholly and irrevocably a part of this world at last.

Gundhalinu followed the line of her glance, puzzled. "You always hated this world, even more than I did. What in the name of ten thousand gods could you have found — ?"

"I'll be swearing by just one, now." She shook her head. "And working for Her too, I suppose."

He looked blank. Comprehension came back into his eyes: "You mean ... the Summer Queen? You mean Moon ... you, and Moon?"

"That's right." She nodded. "How did you know, BZ? That shed won."

"She came to me, in the hospital; she told me." The color faded from his voice. "I saw the mask of the Summer Queen. It was like a dream." His hands moved in the air, touching something out of memory; his eyes closed. "She had Sparks with her."

"BZ, are you going to be all right?"

"She asked me that, too." He opened his eyes. "A man without armor is a defenseless man, Commander." He smiled, bravely, barely. "But maybe he's a freer man for it. This world ... this world would have broken me. But Moon showed me that even I could bend. There's more to me, more to the universe, than I suspected. Room for all the dreams I ever had, and all the nightmares heroes in the gutters and in the mirror; saints in the frozen wasteland; fools and liars on the throne of wisdom, and hands reaching out in hunger that will never be filled... Anything becomes possible, after you find the courage to admit that nothing is certain." His smile twitched self-consciously. Jerusha listened in silent disbelief.

"Life used to look like cut crystal to me, Commander — sharp and clear and perfect. My fantasies stayed hi my pockets where they belonged. But now ..." He shrugged. "Those clean hard edges break up the light into rainbows, and everything gets soft and hazy. I don't know if I'll ever see straight again." A forlorn note crept back into his voice.

But you'll be a better Blue For it. Jerusha saw his eyes search the vastness of the sunken field, settle on the nearest exit, as though he expected that somehow his new vision would grant him one last glimpse of Moon. "No, BZ. She isn't here. The star port is forbidden ground to her."

His gaze sharpened and cleared abruptly. "Yes, ma'am. I know the law." But it told her he understood now that even the laws of nature were imperfect; that the laws of men were no less flawed than the men who made them; that even he could realize what Moon was and what she, Jerusha, intended to help her do ... and look the other way. "Maybe it's for the best." Not even believing that.

"I'll do my best to take care of her for you, BZ."

He laughed shyly, the echo of a caress. "I know, Commander. But what force in the galaxy is stronger than she is?"

"Indifference." Jerusha surprised herself with the answer. "Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn't act, it allows. And that's what gives it so much power."

He nodded slowly. "And maybe that's why people want to trust Moon. Because things matter to her, and they do; and when she touches them they know they matter to themselves." He held his hands up hi front of him, stared at the scars still waiting to be erased. "She made my scars invisible..."

"You could stay, BZ."

He shook his head, let his hands drop. "There was a time ... but not now. It wasn't just my life that was changed. I don't belong here now. No," he sighed, "there are two worlds I don't ever expect to see again, barring the Millennium. This one, and my own."

"Kharemough?"

He sat down unsteadily on the stack of crates. "My own people will see my scars forever, even when they're gone. But what the hell, that still leaves six to choose from. And who knows what I'll find where I'm going?" But his gaze returned to the empty exit, searching for the thing he would never find again.

"A distinguished career." She flicked a switch at her throat as her communicator began to buzz again.

Gundhalinu sat on the crates, patiently watching while the final cargo was loaded, the final report given to her, the confirmation relayed to the heart of the looming ship. They stood together as the last of her men saluted her for the last time and self-consciously wished her well before heading back to the cargo lift.

Gundhalinu nodded after them. "Aren't you coming aboard to give your final report?"

She shook her head, feeling her heart suddenly squeezed by a relentless hand, the moment of schism. "No. I can't face that. If I set foot on that ship now, I don't think I'd be able to leave it again, no matter how sure I was that this is right." She handed him the computer remote. "You can give them the all clear for me, Inspector Gundhalinu. And take these." She reached up to her collar again, unfastened her Commander's insignia. She handed them to him. "Don't lose them. You'll need them someday."

"Thank you, Commander." His freckles crimsoned, making her smile. His good hand closed over the pieces of metal like rare treasure. "I hope I wear them with as much honor as you did." He held up his twisted hand in an instinctive Kharemoughi gesture; she pressed her own against it in farewell.

"Good-bye, BZ. The gods smile on you, wherever you go."

"And on you, Commander. May your many-times-great grandchildren venerate your memory."

She glanced toward the distant, darkened windows where Ngenet waited; smiled privately. She wondered what those many-times-great grandchildren might say to his, on the day of their return.

Gundhalinu drew his healing body up with an effort, and made a perfect salute. She returned it — the final salute of her career, the farewell to a life and a galaxy.

"Don't forget to turn out the lights." He started away to where the other patrolmen waited, already in the lift and holding it for him. She turned her back on the sight of them, of the lift like an open mouth calling her, calling her insane... She went as quickly as she could without running to the nearest exit from the field.

She found Ngenet watching the doorway for her as she entered the deserted auditorium. She joined him at the wall of shielded glass, looking down across the field at the inert mass of the solitary coin ship, alone in the vast, ruddy pit, as they were alone. Miroe spoke quietly, complimenting her competence, asking innocuous questions; his voice was hushed, as though he were experiencing a religious event. She answered him distractedly, barely hearing what either of them said.

The ship lay in its berth for a long time — made longer by her straining anticipation — and she let him listen over her headset to the last drawing-in of cranes and equipment, the ship's officers going through their final checks and tallies.

"Are you clear, Citizen PalaThion?"

Jerusha started as the captain's voice addressed her directly. "Yes. Yes, I'm clear." Citizen. An irrational disappointment stirred in her. "All clear, Captain."

"You're sure you want to stay behind here?"

Miroe looked up at her, waiting.

She took a deep breath, nodded ... said, as an afterthought, "Yes, I'm sure, Captain. But thanks for asking."

Life and noise continued at the other end of the gap for a few seconds longer, and then her communicator went dead. She stood very still for a long moment, as though she had heard herself die, before she pulled off the delicate spider's web of the headset.

Below them she saw the hologrammic lights of the ignition sequence play across the ship's hull and fade, mute warning. She stared until her eyes ached, searching for motion.

"Look. They're lifting."

Now she saw the motion, too, saw the ship's structure tremble — as the grids of the star port repellers engaged and it began to rise — and the faint distortion of the air. It drifted up and up, toward the portion of the star port protective dome opening like a flower on the deeper, ruddy field of the star-choked night. It passed through into the outer darkness where, somewhere far above, it would join itself to a convoy of a dozen others, in a fleet of dozens and dozens more. And from there their fusion drives would carry them on to the Black Gate and they would pass through, and never in her lifetime would they come back to this world again.

The dome resealed far overhead, blotting out the stars.

Jerusha looked down, across the glowing grid work of the field, down at herself standing in this dark, empty hall, alone, like a castoff stick of furniture. Oh, my gods ... She covered her face with a hand, swaying.

"Jerusha." Miroe steadied her hesitantly. "I promise you, you won't regret it."

She nodded, pressing her lips together. "I'm all right. Or I will be, when I catch my breath." She lowered her hand, tracing the seal of her jacket down. "Like any other newborn." She smiled at him, uncertainly; he fed her smile with his own until it grew strong.

"You belong here, on Tiamat. I knew it from the first time I met you. But I had to wait until you knew it too... I thought you'd never see." He was suddenly embarrassed.

"Why didn't you say something, anything, to help me understand?" almost exasperation.

"I tried! Gods, how I tried." He shook his head. "But I was afraid to hear you tell me no."

"And I was afraid I might say yes." She looked out the window again. "But I've belonged to this star port too. And so have you..." She sighed, looking back. "Neither of us belongs here now, Miroe. We'd better get out of here before they seal it up like a tomb."

He grinned, easing. "That's a step in the right direction. We'll take the rest as it comes; step by step." He turned solemn again. "Whenever you're ready."

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be, Miroe. For whatever comes." She felt her excitement and her courage coming back to her. "It's going to be interesting." She felt her face warm as he touched her. "You know, Miroe—" she laughed suddenly, "among my people, "May you live in interesting times' is not exactly a benediction."

He smiled, and then he began to laugh; and together they started back through the abandoned halls — returning to Carbuncle, going home.