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“That would have been an interesting encounter!” Millie said brightly.

  Zyemindar-Braata smiled politely. “But a brief one, because our little bus was only a can, and the probe’s projector could have shattered it. I then summoned the others, but I had used up almost half of our available time.

  “Wandering through an abandoned probe was a creepy experience. We could smell that there had been people there recently. There were dirty dishes in the mess, food spoiling in the freezers. Even the hydroponics had been drained, which never happens.” He shivered. “We went looking for the entangler first, naturally, and established that entanglement had been broken. Now we cannot reestablish a string once it has been broken, not without starting from scratch and sending one end of the link in a probe. We think it will always be impossible, but there is always a faint suspicion that one day someone will find a way, so Captain Chessel told me to set up my charges and put a four-day delay on them. Of course I left a babysitter.”

  “Perhaps you would clarify that term to calm the fears of an ignorant cleric?” Andre asked drily.

  “Sorry, Brother. Just a monitor that stops transmitting when the charges detonate, so we know they have gone off. I concealed it as well as I could.”

  “Thank you. And they did go off?”

  “Yes, Brother. And later the captain called me to the Wong-Hui projector—that’s the main engine. She told me to mine that, also, with the same four-day delay. This I did.” Braata stared miserably at his feet. “The time is up by now.”

  “You did not question that long time lag?” Skerry whispered hoarsely.

  “No, Gownsman. The probe’s orbit was unstable, passing so close to Javel that it was sure to break up soon. But a domesticated asteroid is a valuable property, so I assumed that STARS planned to refurbish it and reuse it at some later time. I assumed that Chessel had reset the projector to stabilize the orbit. She would have had to program in one or more course corrections at the right points in its orbit, so a delay of several days seemed quite reasonable. I had no authority to supervise her actions, Gownsman! I didn’t know she was aiming it at the world. I suspect she did not know, either. She was just obeying orders.”

  “We believe you, Engineer,” Millie said. “Or at least I do. But why destroy expensive equipment like that? Why not just leave it harmlessly circling Javel?”

  “Because a probe is never harmless, Friend Millie, any more than a loaded gun is harmless. It looked innocent enough, but that girlie is huge! There must be a hundred kilometers of tunnels in the mother. We had no time to search for hidden control panels, no time to make certain that there was no hidden delay equipment still operable. There could even have been crew hiding away somewhere. I thought I was disabling the drive so that the neither the cuckoos nor anyone else could ever hold the probe over us as a threat.”

  Oxindole said, “There is no doubt that the projector started up as directed and the orbit was adjusted?”

  “None,” Skerry muttered. “The chances of hitting Pock’s by chance are infinitesimal. It was deliberate.”

  “And there is no hope of restarting the motors again?”

  Braata looked up at him like a man in a permanent nightmare. “I have always been proud of my competence, Gownsman. In my work you have to be good, and I am good. I did a fine job on that projector, an excellent job. I set it to shatter into the equipment into a billion pieces without cracking the asteroid in its hot and weakened condition. I did not know I was destroying my home world.” He shook his head. “And in case you’re wondering whether anyone else on the team tampered with my work after I turned my back, I can tell you that I was the last one out, with two minutes to spare, right at the limit of our return fuel supply. That probe is ballistic now.”

  Oxindole nodded. “I don’t think any jury would convict you if the facts are as you say, but you may be in much danger from lynch mobs if the story gets out. Likewise, you have to be kept out of STARS’s clutches. That’s why Monody has subpoenaed you to appear before her, which means no one can arrest you in the meantime. If I release you on your own recognizance, will you give me your parole?”

  “I so swear.”

  “Then you will proceed to Abietin and wait for her there. Monody is in Dugite at the moment, but I am sure she will cut her visitation short and head home shortly.” Oxindole sighed—wearied and worried both. He peered out the window behind him. “There’s old Bubinga huffing and puffing and burning down forests, so we are not far from Hederal now. The Church keeps a chapter house there, honored friends. You will notice that the sun is just rising, so we shall have no more darkness for half a fortnight, except during eclipses. I suggest you pretend it is a sunset, not a sunrise, and rest for half a day. By then we should have more information on the pirate’s trajectory, and we will accompany you to inspect the hominin.”

  “This is true, then?” Athena said. “You actually caught one of them?”

  The big man started. “Didn’t I tell you? I am deeply sorry! I believe it was news of Friend Braata’s plight that caused it to slip my mind. When we identified the pirate probe, Friend Skerry, here, suggested that the invasion, if that is what it was, would necessarily work to a long-term plan. He pointed out that adolescents are lighter to transport and have a greater ability to adapt to a new environment than adults. So we put a watch on schools and universities, and caught one trying to enlist in Hederal College.”

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  The gownsman shrugged. “I prefer to call the thing ‘it.’ We’ve been questioning it and examining its physiology and genotype. I was assuming we’d simply put it to death as a dangerous animal, but if we’re all going die in a few days, Monody may let it live long enough to watch the fireworks.”

  Chapter 8

  Ratty felt as if he had spent an entire day traveling from Elaterin to Abietin, yet the sky was growing brighter, not dimmer. His quarters were luxurious enough for a king and big enough to stable a team of darii. Even the medic was larger than any he had seen outside a hospital, although that might be just a comment on the rigors of the Pocosin environment. It clucked and buzzed at him, spouted out a vile-tasting potion, and warned him to take better care of his skin. Right, turn off the rain. He shunned the bathtub, changed into fresh shorts, visor, and sandals, combed his hair. Enervated by the constant steamy heat, he cast a longing look at the great bed. Someone tapped on the door.

  Bedel had explained the symbols. A cloth draped over one shoulder indicated a servant of the theocracy that effectively governed the world. White meant priestess, brown a palace attendant, blue a guard, green a high official, red a personal companion to one of the incarnations, and the rest didn’t matter for now. The two boys who wheeled in the trolley wore browns with thin beige stripes, and they brought delicious odors with them. Ratty’s mouth began to water harder than the climate.

  The taller boy raised the first cover. “This is scrob, honored guest. This is pickled lapsable. And this—”

  A woman entered by the open door. The boys dropped to their knees at the sight of her red cape. It had thin blue stripes, whereas Bedel’s had been solid red.

  “Emeritus Wisdom will receive you in the Rotunda now, Friend Ratty.”

  He sighed. “Just leave it, lads. I’ll eat when I get back.”

  The boys were dismayed. “But it will get cold, honored guest.”

  “Oh, we usually eat our food cold on Ayne,” he lied. “Lead the way, Companion.”

  * * *

  Rain was again dribbling through the forest canopy so high above, but Pocosins ignored weather. Her Holiness was waiting in a conical pit, like an amphitheater designed to hold several hundred people. From its center, where a circular pool steamed and bubbled, it rose in a dozen or so benches of black stone. Ratty paused at the top to record the scene, admiring the clever use of color even under a gray sky and the high-arched trees—the pool itself bright turquoise, brilliant cushions scattered at random on the lower levels, and the old woman sit
ting alone near the water, draped in white. The place was old, with many of its stones cracked and heaved, but if you didn’t mind rain, if both your skin and your clothes shed water, then it was a reasonable enough locale for a private chat. He set off down one of the two stairways spiraling inward like the arms of a galaxy.

  Wisdom, oldest of the incarnations, was shrouded from chin to wrists and ankles, but even that failed to hide her extreme scrawniness. Her face was drawn into deep furrows, the trademark variegated hair had lost its bloom and body, floating thinly above her scalp. She must be old even by Ayne standards, and Pocosins were not known for longevity. She nodded a cool welcome when Ratty touched one knee to the ground as Bedel had instructed him earlier.

  “Be seated, honored emissary. No, this side. This ear hears better.” She studied him for a moment with eyes nested in wrinkles, eyes that spoke of weariness and suffering. “I apologize for the way my errant great-granddaughter abducted you today. It was shameful.”

  “I loved every minute of it, Your Holiness.” Surprisingly, he could discern traces of Joy’s beauty still lingering in the ravished face. This was Joy’s destiny, three generations from now—unless STARS stole it from her.

  “Call me Wisdom,” the crone said sharply. “I’m done with all that holiness business. Before we get down to serious matters, tell me about this cleric you brought with you between the stars. He claims to know me?”

  So Ratty sat in the sulfurous steam and hot rain and recounted much of The Saint of Annatto. The old biddy listened intently, but at the end she nodded as if amused.

  “Yes, Jame was a saint even in my day, and just as impossible to deal with as any saint is. Well, I will see him again, even if I have to drag my rotting carcass out of here one last time, and I swore I never would. But Bedel thinks they will gather here. Most problems come to Abietin eventually.” She smiled, keeping her papery lips together to hide her teeth. “We die of cancer at forty-four, young man. That’s forty-four in our years, you work it out in yours.” About eighty, he thought. “I know the day I will die, within a couple of fortnights either way, and my last ambition was to see the next Joy, so I could hand over my duties to my daughter, such as they are. And now STARS is about to cheat me of that! And cheat Joy out of three-quarters of her life! Well, what do you say?”

  “I find it incredible,” Ratty said. “Even if there has been an infection from Malacostraca, common decency insists that you be given time to hunt down the cuckoos.”

  “Monsters!” She sighed. “And STARS is worse. What do they save us from by killing us all? Spiders! That engineer who ratted won’t live long. I knew a STARS man once. He said he was a professional spaceball player. He was so good in bed I offered him a long-term contract and he confessed he had an unbreakable commitment elsewhere. Impudence! He died soon after that. I’m sure it was because he’d told me.” She sighed and muttered, “I knew a lot of strong young men, more than my share, all dead now.”

  Assuming he was not supposed to have heard that, Ratty said, “I have no idea what to do. Time must be very short. Even STARS may not be able to change the probe’s trajectory now.”

  “You just hope they’re keeping your shuttle seat open, boy. They’ll have to guard the landings from mobs. Thousands trampled. No matter!” Wisdom dismissed the end of the world with a wave of a twisted hand. “I can’t help. My wisdom doesn’t extend to this, so Duty will have to decide on her own what to do without it. Small loss!”

  “What can she do?”

  “Pray.”

  “Ah. Of course.”

  Rain was roaring on the leafy canopy far above, spraying down like a shower. No climate, only weather.

  The old woman pouted at Ratty’s evident disbelief. “If we have only a few days left, the Mother would expect us to make the most of them. Joy has not been told, so don’t spoil her happiness yet.”

  “I have already promised Gownsman Bedel that I will not.” Ratty hoped he was done with babysitting the youngest Monody, but saying so might not be tactful.

  Wrinkles writhed around her mouth to form a smile, and the pain-dulled eyes even managed a twinkle. “We are not just an odd family, Friend Ratty. We are a unique family.”

  “Yes, Your Holiness.”

  “Our standards are not everyone’s”

  No, they weren’t.

  “So you promise not to be offended if my great-granddaughter decides to treat you as stud of the week?”

  Not as offended as I am by a crone pimping her great-granddaughter to a total stranger. “That would be a great honor, but not appropriate, surely? I’m not a Pocosin, nor a member of your faith.”

  “Why do those things matter?” she snapped. “Variety adds spice. You’re male, aren’t you? You’ve got a working prod, haven’t you?”

  Suddenly… Surely not? Wisdom, Joy had said, had never named her giver. Brother Andre’s tour on Pock’s had been unusually short, and Ratty had picked up faint rumors of a scandal… No, that was ridiculous.

  “I’ll be leaving in a few days.”

  “While Joy will be dying with the rest of us here. I suppose that will solve my problem.”

  “Um, what problem?”

  “I told you!” the old woman snapped. “If she doesn’t pick out a giver soon, I won’t see her daughter!” She scowled. “When Joy is born, Joy becomes Love, Love Duty, Duty Wisdom, and I get to be Memory, for a little while.” Had she forgotten about STARS and its dread purpose? Or was that just too horrible to consider? “Oh, begone, boy. I’m tired. They’re coming to put me to bed.”

  Ratty rose and touched his knee down again. “It has been a great honor to speak with you, Holiness.”

  “No it wasn’t.” She dismissed him with a wave. As he started up the stairs, she called after him, “Be kind.”

  * * *

  Mouth watering again, he hurried back to his room. The first thing he saw when he walked in was Joy, sitting cross-legged on the bed, chewing. She wore her usual bare minimum and a grin even bigger than usual.

  “Hurry up and eat!” she said. “I want to show you something.”

  “I thought you’d been confined to quarters?”

  “I don’t pay any attention to that. Hurry! We don’t have much time.”

  He went to the trolley. Before he could decide what he wanted to try first, she was at his side, practically leaning on him.

  “Take two slices of that and a piece of that and spread it with that fish jam there; roll it up and you can eat it as we go. Put two of those in your pocket.” Then she reached around his neck and he realized she was pinning a red cloth on him.

  Alarmed, he pulled away. “Wait a minute! What are you planning?”

  “I can’t leave the palace without an attendant. You saw what this did for Scrob, didn’t you? Mm, it matches your nipples.”

  “Yours are bigger and prettier.”

  “Stop flirting! It’s disrespectful. And do hurry! It may be foggy up there.” She adjusted the cape on his left shoulder and began fastening a weighty holster around his waist. This was getting much too intimate and ridiculous.

  “Darling priestess, don’t I need a license to carry this thing?”

  “Oh, it isn’t loaded, but the rule is you have to be armed. Let’s go.”

  He drew the gun, confirmed that it was fully charged, and buttoned it back in the holster. Whatever this hellion had in mind could not be seduction, not when the biggest bed in the galaxy was standing right behind her. He needed food and sleep….

  She had only four days to live. So what did it matter? What did anything matter on Pock’s World now?

  “Ready, then,” he said. “Lead on, Holy One. I hear and obey. Your smallest whim is an irresistible command.”

  “That is much better! Keep that up and you may even outlast Scrob.”

  He bowed her out the door. “How long was that?”

  “I dunno. Two fortnights? I’m sure Mother wasn’t serious about him. She was picking the worst blockheads she could find ju
st to make me make my own choice. I ordered a two-seater.”

  As he followed her out into the rain, a flyer zoomed in overhead, buzzing ferociously down to settle on the grass. The boy riding it dismounted and knelt to Joy, who dismissed him with a blessing that made his face light up. The machine was identical to the flyers Ratty had seen earlier, only bigger, but he wondered if it was truly meant for two people. Joy opened a locker and brought out a set of goggles, which she handed to Ratty. She put in a package that she did not explain. He had to sit directly behind her, so she was between his knees, and he would have nothing to hang on to except her.

  “Devious little minx, aren’t you?” he said in her ear.

  “What’s a minx?” she asked, busily checking the settings on the boards. She touched a lens and the flyer began to vibrate in a deep bass register that sent shivers racing up his backbone from his crotch to his scalp.

  He looked at the five-meter wingspan and the gigantic forest. “What happens if you hit a tree trunk on the way out?”

  “I don’t know. You want me to try it and see? Hang on, here we go!”

  The flyer roared and bounced into the air; Ratty’s arms closed around her automatically.

  She said, “Wow!”

  “Is that a comment on my hugging or your flying?”

  The flyer shot forward. “I didn’t know these were so peppy!”

  Ratty howled. “You mean you’ve never driven one before?” He should have seduced her when he had a bed handy. Too late now. Forest giants whistled by on either hand.

  They left the forest park and soared higher into the mist and drizzle, but Joy kept the ground in sight. The landscape was rugged, all rocks and jungle and waterfalls, steadily rising.

  “What happens if you run into a cliff?”

  “The flyer probably won’t let me. This lens turns red if there’s anything ahead. I think it’s this one. No, that’s the fuel gauge. We’re going to see the ruins.”

  “The Old Ones’ ruins?”

  “The Querent city. There’s not much to see. The tourists are shown some junk on the other side of town, but we’re going to Real Quassia, where Monody was given her revelation. They’re very old.”