Source: Recovery

The home of the Recovery League bulks like a cliff thrust upward from the side of a gentle hill covered with a rich carpet of verdant moss. Its windows are vast panels of yellow glass, mirror surfaced, reflecting the surrounding land as if that land were actually within the building, lit by a brilliant light.

The Board room looks out over the valley from the top floor. Pitchers of water stand in a line along the simple table of polished ebony. Celine stands by the window as the others file in. C45 is just visible past the next range of low hills, and she imagines that she can see the aerodrome at Field.

A deep male voice interrupts her daydream. "Celine, good to see you." She turns, to receive the embrace of a huge bearded man, whose skin and eyes are as dark as the table behind him. "Sasha," she replies. "So you made it."

"Oh, yes, don't remind me. Two months. Do you know they shot at me fifty-seven times? And missed every one. They are lamentable marksmen."

"And you were able to retrieve Yevgeny."

"Indeed. She starts work for A'HurinimatoRega Genetics tomorrow. We have received a very grateful commission from them." He smiles slyly. "Very grateful."

"We need all we can get," she replies.

He nods. "Yes, indeed."

The others have been filing in, gesturing in their direction. She eyes the three isolation suits and asks in general, "Anyone know where Ilul-aa might be? Is it coming?"

Mikshi, a pentagonal echinoderm, gestures a conic arm, and its translator emits what she hears as a soft contralto - "Gone to supervise at the borders of Durik. For three more months, no contact. Has program proxy at Tharanala for simple matters, abstains from complexity."

"Someone bring that up, so it can listen in..." A screen lights with a pattern recognizable as a still frame of Ilul-aa.

"Good. Well, first, I gather congratulations are in order for Sasha. They missed him again, and he brought Yevgeny Turatao to Prometheus. Yevgeny is the premier animal geneticist and designer on Proxima 3, Sasha's homeworld."

Sasha smiles. "Yes, Yevgeny will be starting work tomorrow, and we have received a five million certificate commission from the A'HurinimatoRega Genetics, which she selected as her employer from the pool of initial contributors to the retrieval."

Lak'Lak, an insectoid in a tight, luminous methane suit, asks, in its echoic choral voice, "And how many statists were you able to kill off this time, Sasha?"

Sasha shakes his head. "Sadly, only five of them took the opportunity to shoot at me, however, I disabled three and may have killed the other two. It is a shameful testimony to the deterioration of my marksmanship while I was in that blighted place. I can't wait to get back to the range." A variety of humor responses join his smile.

Dano, a lanky albino with dark contacts and a photorepellant skin paint, raises a hand in query. "Celine, what's the story with that Cocteau woman, Sherril? I hear that Rannart's wife tried to block her ratification."

Celine sighs. "Well, we all know how she felt about Haris' work for us. Apparently this was her outlet. Even though we've paid out the death benefits to her, I'm sure that doesn't even come close to compensation. As for Clu, of course, she was ratified, and she's living in South Shore, working for Field Aeroforms. Even I don't get to know what she's working on, naturally."

Lak'Lak interjects, "The retrieval contributors were a little annoyed at losing Masson. Three publishers wanted him on staff."

Celine shrugs. "And we didn't get a commission, either. At any rate, someone spotted her during the testing period, and recommended her to Field. She was a no pay, anyway, there was no pool on her - it was just a favor to Rannart, and the funding came from the family reunification funding. I think Field was a good opportunity for her, and, you know, Cocteau tech experience hasn't been that valuable for most new retrievals. At any rate, I'm hoping to get a new effort going to find out what happened to Masson."

"We don't have many assets left on Cocteau with Rannart's loss. His whole network seems to have collapsed," Lak'Lak hisses.

Celine's eyes harden. "That doesn't matter. That man must be in the prison system somewhere. We need to get someone on the surface who can find out."

Sasha toys with a stylus. "That's typically something that requires a fair amount of on-planet time. Rannart was our most deeply integrated agent. Is there another network that can step up to the firing line on this?"

"I've asked Tanneau to come out of retirement and if we'll approve funding, he's willing to go back in for a year or so. My thought is, though, that we've got to find Masson in the next month. If he's in the prison system, they may have sent him to the ruby mines in South Cocteau, or to the fisheries off the coast of Damask. Either way, he won't be available for long. Comments?"

Lak'Lak raises an appendage. "I'll approve if Tanneau will federate a new network, and if we pledge him to find someone else to put in when he leaves. There's something bothering me about the situation out there. I can't put a claw through it, but... something. We are in terrible shape if we need to organize an exodus."

"You think the Leadership Council regime is at that stage?" Celine asks, eyebrows raised.

"It's your homeworld. You know better. But I read your reports, and Rannart's. There's an instability that worries me. I'm also wondering about the tech level. It just isn't diminishing as fast as a late Propaganda system normally does."

Sasha sits forward, frowning. "Outside help?"

Lak'lak twists. Twice. Perplexity, insecurity.

Sasha sits back unsatisfied. Finally. "I'll approve. When Lak'Lak gets nervous, my feelers get a little raw, too." He looks over. "No offense."

Lak'lak spreads its appendages. "None taken," it intones.

The vote is unanimous.

Clu stands by the tall desk, waiting. Beyond the windows at the rear, a giant aircraft shifts slowly past, and its low rumble jitters a few objects on the desktop. From a door leading out onto the field, a tall man with jet black hair wearing a loose fitting coverall with a quietly shifting pattern enters the room. He looks up from his thoughts and sees her. He grins. "Hi, did someone help you yet?"

Clu shakes her head. "No. But I just got here."

"Arthur!" the man calls toward the door behind the desk. But there is no answer. The man looks embarrassed. which in turn makes Clu blush - she is still not used to the courtesy that Prometheans both seem to take for granted and to require. "I'm terribly sorry," he apologizes. "Can I help you?"

"Marie Field sent me. I have an appointment to start flight lessons. Mixed propulsion certification. Field Aeroforms is paying." She hopes she has remembered everything she was told to say.

"Oh," he says, with a brief break in his voice, as if everything is explained. "You must be Sherril."

"Yes."

He thrusts out his hand, in another of those common gestures which she still is uncomfortable responding to. But she pulls up her confidence and shakes his hand with resolution. "Britt Stannard," he states in identification. There is an odd fold to his eyelid, and his iris is completely dark, but his mouth smiles generously in a welcome that his eyes share. "It doesn't matter that Arthur isn't here, after all. I'm scheduled to handle your instruction. What have you flown?"

"Fixed wing jet, ramjet, and planet to insystem small warcraft. All on Cocteau. I'm afraid I don't have any experience with Prometheus flight regulations, other than some very brief reading yesterday."

"Don't worry, your experience is going to make things a lot easier. Come on," he grins, almost shyly, and beckons. "Let's go take a flight. I've got a nice Peuvieut 671 on the parade. You've never flown fan before - there's nothing like it."

The fan plane is a streamlined dart with a canard and a keel rudder, standing on tall struts. The pilot and companion perch at the front of the dart, looking out from a crystalline oval bubble, and the shrouded fans are centered where they can draw air across the wing. The aircraft looks like a fragile contraption to her, but based on the many others alongside it, must be popular.

"Do they have fanplanes on Cocteau?"

"No, we only use fans for lighter than air," she replies following him around the aircraft, trying to determine what he is looking for. He seems to realize that, since he pauses and says, "Here, bring up the loconn menu, and pick the aircraft stream. Use the registration ID, here," he points out the symbols stenciled on the smooth skin of the fanplane. She follows his instructions, and suddenly there is a checklist superimposed on the aircraft, with sequence numbers beside each checkpoint. "Ah," she cries. "If only I'd had this on Cocteau. It certainly makes things easier..."

He shows her how to compare the correct appearance of each component as shown on her contacts with the real appearance, and then to check off the entry with the fanplane system. "Won't let you fly unless you actually see each checkpoint," he tells her.

The bubble peels back as if melting, and a set of steps seems to extrude from below it, beckoning her within. Moments later, the bubble is complete again, but so transparent that seems not to exist. And though the surface in front of them is blank, her contacts show a variety of glowing synthetic instruments.

"So now what?" she asks. "Request clearance?"

"Clearance?" he frowns. "Permission? For what?"

"To take off?"

He laughs, gaily. "So you are from another planet." It is in the tone of a quote, but, of course, she doesn't know the reference.

"I gather you don't do that."

"No. Here." He waves a couple of times, there is a brief hoot, and the fans spin up with a soft whisper. A map of the airport appears, showing all of the taxiways and the locations of all of the aircraft. "You see? It's easy enough to tell where everyone is. When we get to the runway, it'll show us where everyone else is in the air, and how far away they are."

She grins. "So you can just fly. I like this. What's next?"

"Let's go."

The fanplane makes only the sound of the thin air that flows across its skin. She can see the tiny specks of other aircraft enhanced by the flight systems against the sky, and she can see the graphics of navigational beacons outlined against the distant ground. The world is wrapped hazily around her, seeming to bow away and then in the vast distance to curve up, lose itself in the haze, and reemerge, rising to the zenith and the suntube. Segments of shadow are spangled with the stars of intelligent life. Below, the next beacon crawls slowly toward them.

She is more joyous than she can ever remember.

She is given a chance to control the craft. It responds gracefully to her hand on the joystick. Then Stannard takes the controls, and the fanplane swoops dizzyingly down through altitudes which seem to bring the ground no closer for a long time. At last, the runways are in sight, and they float down to a graceful landing. She leans back as they taxi to the terminal, savoring the joy.

The taxi leaves her at the entry to the apartment block, and suddenly a depression crashes down on her. She can hardly manage the shallow steps. She shakes her head in a silent resistance, and makes it into the lobby. Ivo emerges from her door just as the glass panel closes behind Clu. "Hey, there you are, girlfriend. I was just coming up to see if you still wanted a lift out to the docks."

Clu remembers. She had decided to go have a look at the Zadar as the next step in her progression. Her shoulders straighten the slight amount they had bowed, and she nods. "If you don't mind."

They drive swiftly across the hills, winding up and down the paths between rows of tall, white, segmented cones that wave feathery green tendrils in the breeze. She wonders briefly if they are plants, animals, or something else. Below the columns, a thick carpet of lush violet hugs the ground and edges the road, catching the cool shafts of light that emerge between the columns and stripe the road.

"I'm thinking about getting an auto next week," Clu says. "I have enough saved. What do you think?"

Ivo frowns lightly, then smiles. "I think that's great. What are you looking at?"

Clu looks out the window as the landscape opens beside them onto a valley, then glances back. "I don't know. I can't afford much, but I don't want to have to keep calling on you, or taking a taxi... I have too much to do. You like this one?"

"Well, this is a Simone Custom. Its probably a little more expensive than you want. I've had a couple of problems with the flywheel, but otherwise, yeah, its great."

Clu's mouth quirks. "You know how many kinds of cars there are?"

Ivo nods, and her fingers quirk. "Yeah. One thousand two hundred twenty nine product lines, not counting completely custom fabricators."

"I should know better than to ask."

"You should know enough to look for some reports and some ads. In fact, you do."

Clu shrugs. "No time. Figured I'd use word of mouth."

"You let me know when you narrow it down some. I'll go with you to the dealer. You think you're tough, but they'll eat you alive. You go with me, you'll pay ten percent less than list."

"Is that right?"

"That's right."

"I guess I need to learn some more from you, then."

The bay is a vast area, clangorous with the movement of cranes and and platforms. They had ridden a large elevator down through a crystal shaft. It had bored through layers and ages of stone. They passed further through a region of glowing, semi-molten material until they were swept once again in marbled rock. From the base, they followed the guidepod Clu had been given by Celine, down polished stone hallways busy with comings and goings, and they watched vehicles rumbling down neighboring tunnels, carrying cargo modules and tarpaulined loads. Then they stepped over the threshold into openness.

"This place is incredible," Ivo marvels. "I can't believe I never came here."

"There it is," Clu announces, her eyes only for the Zadar where it is tethered a quarter mile away. The rectangular pit stretches under its vaulted ceiling for miles, with roads mazed like narrow ledges that extend out alongside the vertical shapes of the vehicles. There is a taxi stand nearby, but Clu opts to walk.

Autos and trucks flash by on the road that parallels their path, dragging wind across them. But Clu is craning her neck and pointing. Then they cross under the road in a tunnel, with the sound of swiftly moving life roaring above them as they walk under cold light. Finally they emerge in the giddy narrow space that nestles under the tall bluntness of the Zadar.

"Is that it?" Ivo asks, breathless.

Clu is staring at it with eyes she forces to register every scar and every rent panel. A long blackened scar reaches down toward them along its length, and passes below them toward the engines. Starting at the scar, plates are peeled back from the explosive decompression that was the result of the missile strike. She remembers the flame, the tug of the wind, the stiffening of the suit, and the blackout. Finally, she nods.

"And they shot at you."

"Look at the damage," she replies, angry. "I'll never get that fixed." She can see the exposed tankage and thousands of pipes and conduits, many burst and torn open.

Ivo grips her arm. "Don't worry. There are a lot of things that can be done."

"I can barely afford an auto. How am I going to get this fixed?"

Ivo draws a line down the air, following the scar. "How could you live through that?"

Clu glares at her for a moment, not understanding; then she relents. "You're right, of course. Well, I'll have to get an estimate." She looks down the length of the bay, at the vast, sleek, glittering craft that stand like skyscrapers in this noisy emptiness. "Guess I'll have to find someone who specializes in antique junk."

She stands by the sea, listening to the sound of the waves on the shore, and the peeping of the lizards. The depression has settled on her shoulders again. Ivo stops behind her. "Are you all right?"

"No. I'm afraid I'm not moving fast enough. That I'm not making the right choices. Lan's being destroyed in the camps."

"You're angry at yourself for not suffering enough."

"What does that mean?"

"You think this is too easy a way to live. You feel guilty that you're enjoying it, that you're making a life. But that's just emotion. What does your reason say?"

Clu reaches up and rubs the back of her neck. Her muscles are as tight and angry as her heart. "It says I'm doing what I can. As fast as I can."

"Then listen to it. Let your feelings know that they follow your mind, and that you can't blame yourself for doing what you need to do to live and gain your goal. It won't come any faster because you suffer. That's your homeworld reaching out to strangle you with altruism."

Clu shrugs. "Maybe." She turns to face her friend. "Some dancer you are. On Cocteau all the artists are wrapped up in their feelings. The ones that are left, anyway."

"Sure, so look at the state of their politics, girlfriend."

"Well, since you won't let me wallow in my self-pity, I suppose I might as well go to sleep. Good night... friend."

Ivo's smile is fiery and she pats Clu's arm. Then she walks away down the shore whistling, pausing only to light a long cigarette, whose aromatic smoke leaves a trail behind her.

Clu fires three shots. Her contacts show two missed, and the third at the edge of the target. She grimaces, and narrows her eyes down the line of the sight, and tightens her grip. Three more shots, and this time at least they are all on the target.

She checks her gun in at the desk. The small blue attendant twitches its long fingers over the weapon and quickly withdraws the weapon from the desk. It eyes the weapon closely, twisting it in all directions.

"Cleaned it yourself, did you, Miss Sherril? How was the shooting today?"

She smiles with some embarrassment. "I think I'm going to need some pointers next time. I'm hitting the target, but, well..."

He gestures up her targets. "That's not bad for the first week, Miss Sherril. They all look a little low, so my guess is that you're overcompensating for the recoil. Check your initial recording and this one, then set your aim point halfway between. The system's starting to figure out your jitter - see how the clusters are tighter? Yeah, not bad."

"Thanks, Harvey. See you in two days, then."

"OK, clamps away. We're hovering."

Clu can hear the cheer. But it is harder than she expects. The wind forces her to cant the disk slightly, while the aerodynamics of that position add flutter to her control problem. She tries to find the rhythm. "We could use some damping for this flutter. It's too chaotic for pilot management."

"How long do you think you can hold it?" Marie asks.

"I can hold it," Clu replies grimly. "I'm going for a little more altitude, see if the test stand is making it worse."

"OK."

"I'm at twenty feet. I think... yes, there's a little less turbulence. I'm out of ground effect, that probably helps. I'm increasing the airshield."

The reddish glow around the disk shifts suddenly to green.

"That's even better. But I'm correcting a little to get back over the test stand for recovery... I'm having to add thrust, and that's increasing the flutter." She feels a stab of fear that she may have gotten behind the curve, but she struggles with it, trying to keep it from going wild. She decides to put in her own flutter component, with the thought that it might be more predictable. As the disc wobbles, she applies more thrust, watching the test stand shift in front of her contacts, the cross hairs indicating projected positions. Finally she is over the stand, and she quickly takes out her wobble and reduces power, catching the disk just within the neighborhood of the clamps. "Getting ready for recovery," she mutters. Then "Tilt to zero, lift to zero, contact, clamps on, power to neutral. We're down." She runs through the power down sequence, and then she can lean back, totally exhausted in twenty minutes.

It is her first drive since certification. Clu carefully examines the maps before leaving, and traces a route for reference. Outside, she stands beside the auto for a moment. It is hers. Her eyes run along the clean fluid lines of it, the brilliant yellow she had chosen, and she feels a radiant joy. She touches the door control and the door wings upward. She slips inside, and as the door wraps her in silence, she activates the controls and the engine.

The road leads through the low residences of the beach district, and rises upward toward the hills as the apartments and stores give way to homes and businesses. A chemical factory looms ahead and then she is racing at a terrific speed along a net link fence beside it. She finds a reservoir of attention that allows her to glance at the arrays of pipes, tanks and walkways as she passes. A sign rises above the complex: Michael Vanorex and Family. The sight makes her smile.

The road winds down into a valley and then she turns onto the network of roads that ultimately lead to Celine's home. The final road splits off from the busy valley network, and leads her up a slight hill. Clu watches the map unrolling and knows she is close. She slows, and then she recognizes the driveway.

Celine is waiting in a chair on the sward. She comes to her feet and waves as the sleek yellow Lustran gracefully slows to a stop. When Clu emerges, they embrace, and Celine is smiling broadly. "It's great to see you. And you drove all the way out here, in your own auto. How far you've come..."

Clu nods. "With your help. And a lot of work."

"Yes, indeed, hon. A lot of work. Well, let's go get something to drink and sit on the deck like old times. I have some news for you, and something to ask."

Celine sips her drink. The wind is soft, the suntube warm. Only a few hairs stir among Celine's steel-grey short cut.

"First, let me tell you that the League is sending in a new agent. We need someone to replace Haris, and we have a very experienced man who's willing to go back in."

"Back in?"

"Up till about five years ago, he had spent twenty years in place. He was our senior guy, and he groomed Haris. He's very good, and we've kept his identity clean enough since his departure that we think he can fit back in easily, and get to a fairly high level of clearance in a month or two. With any luck, he'll have a lead on Lan within that time."

"Why?" Clu asks, leaning forward, drink forgotten.

"Why?"

"Why so much priority?"

Celine sighs and looks out over the yard. "Cocteau is important to the League. We have other projects which are more pressing, but there's a certain concern that the situation on Cocteau might become critical and catch us looking the other way. Losing Haris makes it especially hard for us, because its thrown chaos into his networks - they're checking everyone who knew him, so we really are low on current information. In addition, we have several contributors who are interested in having the opportunity to make proposals to Lan if he comes in. That means money for him, and money for the League."

Clu nods. "Makes sense." She laughs a little nervously. "I'm really glad. You know two of those publishers contacted me. They said they had money in the bank for him, that, if he were... gone, they'd make it available to me."

"That's how it works around here, hon."

"I know. Now. You know, sometimes I can't get over this. I don't know how it was for you, but I heard about this place when I was a kid, and it was a myth to us. Now I'm here, and it seems like I'm living in a myth. Some kind of golden time before everything went wrong."

"True enough, hon. I'd hate to have to live anywhere else. Listen, though, there's a favor I need to ask."

"Anything."

"I need you to brief an agent we're putting in Cocteau, from your perspective, and I want you to tell him about Lan. I need you to spend a couple of days speaking Franca with him, too. He might need the practice, for all I know."

"Sure. What's his name?"

"Marcel Tanneau. He was an industrialist in the pre-war days. We pulled him out right after the revolution started. I should say, we tried. He 'switched sides', and they made him the Chairman of the Metals Board. That gave us a great wide opening into the operation of the Leadership Council, hon, but there was a high cost. There were things he had to do... Twenty years were enough. We made him retire and sent him into seclusion, so we could pull him out. We've kept his identity mildly active for the last five years, so we can reactivate it without suspicion."

Clu stands and paces to the railing. She turns suddenly to face Celine. "What about Rannart? He wasn't a native, right?" He hair blows suddenly, and she pushes it back behind her ears.

Celine pauses, frowning. "No. He was one of the best field men we had. I won't say it's a sad waste - he chose what he wanted. He had identities on a dozen worlds, some for only a couple of years, but Cocteau for nearly a decade. I think he was running three separate identities on Cocteau, including one in the Planetary Security Force."

"But why?" she asks, and her voice is heated out of proportion to the question.

Celine joins her at the rail. "You know, hon, I often wonder that, too. The people who do this give up what you called a 'myth'. They go out and live in places that... well, some of them are a lot worse than Cocteau. And they keep going back to them. All I can think is that these are people that find the abstraction of freedom more vital than most of us ever do, and they end up passionately caring about the best of those trapped behind. Rannart... he was so proud of the people he brought out. The people he had known. Being good at getting them out. Barrieu, Fils de Mer, Felterberg, Glax'oic'ma - all those people are here because of Haris. They have some of the most productive properties in Cocteau." She chuckles. "They made Haris rich, not that he made much use of it."

Clu sighs and bows her head. "I wish I'd really known him. He saved my life, probably more than once. I saw he interviewed Lan. But I only met him a few times."

"Don't let Fiona's outburst at the ratification make you feel guilty."

"I try not to. But it's hard. I don't have much to stand against it."

"I know."

They sit at a table that overlooks the field. Marie eats delicately, with two thin sticks that she pins between her fingers and uses to deftly retrieve small pieces of food.Clu uses a fork, to avoid embarassment. In the distance, a small cargo rocket lifts off on a trans-shell ballistic trajectory to one of the manufacturing plants overseas. Its plume of smoke becomes clean flame as it rises slowly into the sky. Clu smiles, looking at it.

"So, what do you think," Marie asks.

"Hmm? Oh, about the disk? It's fine. I think we can try an on-board untethered the day after tomorrow."

"Some of the staff think you're going too slow."

Clu eyes her carefully. "What do you think?"

"I think you're taking good care of a multi-million certificate irreplacable prototype."

Clu nods. "I'm trying."

"But I also think we need to move a little faster."

"In what way?"

"Clu, you haven't been here that long. I imagine that back on Cocteau, you had few or no competitors."

Clu leans back in her seat and watches the smoke trail from the rocket drifting and dispersing in the breeze. The vehicle itself is a bright spark slowly diminishing in the distance. "No, we were a state institution."

"Here, the situation is significantly more dynamic. Gravitational field control on this scale is a hot topic right now. I have at least fifteen competitors who are probably working on this. If they beat us to market, they'll have a foothold that will be extremely difficult for us to displace. If we get there first, then we're the ones who will be hard to displace. We need that position, Clu, and I need you to help make sure we get it."

"Marie, there's a lot I don't understand. Field is a huge company. Why be afraid?"

Marie sips her tea, and reflects. Finally, she replies, "Clu, the bigger this thing gets, the easier it is for parts of it to die, and for no one to notice until it's too late. I have to stay desperate, and I have to be sure a certain amount of that makes it down to everyone who works for me."

"You can't enjoy that."

Marie grins and sets down the cup. "But I do. It's exciting. Oh, it takes getting used to, but that happens."

"So where do you want me to go with this?"

"I want you to continue to be careful. And I want you to get that thing in the air, with you inside it, in the absolute minimum time possible. As soon as that happens, I can go to the investors, we'll show them a demo, and the money for the next stage of development should be there. If that happens, and I can make the announcement and start the pre-sale work, there will be a twenty-thousand certificate bonus in it for you."

Clu frowns. "I don't need extra to do my job."

"I didn't think you would. That bonus was there from the day you came in. I just wanted to let you know. I've heard you have a project where it could come in handy."

"I have a ship. Or what's left of one."

"That's the one you designed."

"That's right. I need to get it running, so I can return to Cocteau. My husband was arrested and sent to a prison colony, and I need to do everything possible to get him free. The ship is ... heavily damaged. I'm saving up to pay for an estimate."

Marie gestures a couple of motions. "Mind if I have a look?"

"Oh, no."

A few more commands, and the Zadar is visible to her. She rotates it. "Tough damage. Listen, I'll send Naskalata over there with a small team and have them go over it. I'll have them give you equivalent replacement cost, and reasonable upgrade cost. You have weapons on board?"

"Two electron inversion pulse cannon, a missile grid. EM countermeasures. That sort of thing."

"Hmm, a nice militia vehicle. After you get back, you might want to spend some thought on joining the militia, or I'm sure you could find someone who wants to join but needs a vehicle, and would take it off your hands. Anyway, after they give you the estimate, you let me know if you want us to do it. I'm sure we can help out, keep the cost down. Or we'll subcontract to someone, maybe Strachan."

"After I come back," Clu muses. "You know, it seems so far away that I'll even leave."

Marie leans over the table and touches Clu's hand. "I have no doubt you'll manage to do whatever you need to. Look how far you've come already."

Clu hesitates. "Marie, why are you helping me?"

Marie nods, as if this confirms an expectation she holds. "Because I like the kind of person you are. I think you have the potential to do some great things. Hopefully with Field. If not, well, so be it. But if I help first, maybe you'll want to."

"I keep waiting for the other side to show. The things I was always told about capitalists. About manipulators. I keep being afraid that everyone who helps really wants something, and what I'll have to pay later will be more than I can afford."

"You're going to pay, Clu. But you won't be paying me. And any real businessman will make sure you know the price in advance."

Clu drinks the rest of her tea. She feels her energy rising. "I guess I'd better get back to work. After all, you're right. I'm not paying you - it's the other way around."

The afternoon light from the suntube is hot on Clu's back as she runs with a demanding gait along the path that parallels the ocean. Her breath is slightly harsh in her throat. But she is enjoying it.

She pauses near the edge of her home plaza, admiring the clean lines of the porcelain structures gleaming as if the sand of the beach had been made a crystal, altered here and there so that portions of it are clear while others are clean white, and others are vivid strips of blue and red that follow the lines of the structure's masses.

The glass doors part, and Ivo steps out, and to Clu it is a perfect complement to the clean lines of the building that it should be fronted with so precise a figure of a human being. Then the moment is past, and she jogs to the door. "Hi, Ivo," she grins.

"Clu, hey, what are you doing day after tomorrow?"

Clu considers. "Any special time, or the whole day."

"At night."

"Local?"

"Yeah."

"Probably working some more on building my Zadar simulator. What did you have in mind?"

"Del and I are showing a new dance."

"New Tech?"

"No. Something else. It's the kind of thing you like."

Clu frowns. "I could use it."

"What's the matter?"

"I got the estimate yesterday."

"How much?"

"You don't want to know."

"That much?"

"I didn't want to know. Eighty thousand. Discounted. The only thing that actually makes me think I should do it is that the closest Promethean, used, is a hundred fifty thousand."

"What do you have so far?"

"Minus rent, food, the car, and... believe it or not, running clothes - it's hard to imagine: running for fun, but there it is, anyway, twenty five thousand, so far."

"What, are you still feeling guilty because you spent a thousand out of ten?"

Clu shakes her head and looks out over the plaza, then back to Ivo. "I guess."

"Well, don't. Come to the show."

Finally, Clu nods abruptly. "OK. How about a map?"

"Sure." The map crosses an abstract boundary from one hand to the other.

The landscape ahead is a galaxy of lights as Clu drives up toward the darkness. The shadow edge seems to be rushing across the sky and then she is in it. The car lights the road, and the strips of curb glow neon, while the lights of homes and businesses speckle the hillsides.

She listens to a recording from Del, and tries to merge with the triumphant surge and flow of the cellos, tries to relax from the overload of practice, tries not to think about Lan.

He'd be proud of her if he knew, she thinks. And the warmth becomes ashes.

The guard smiles at her. She waves and drives past, toward the distant line of bluish light that delimits the test complex.

The air is cool with a faint breeze. She strides across the vast expanse of glossy stonemelt, heels clicking with her impatience. At the hangar, the disk is already out on the field, standing on its tripod, entrance clamshelled open. The technicians are standing in knots and the mist is rising from the tanks of cryogenic volatiles. Marie is standing nearby in slacks and a coarse blouse, hair knotted into a casual braid, she turns as if she hears Clu's approach, and her eyes are a dark brown.

"We have a little bit of a hold," Marie tells her quietly over the more distant rise and fall of technical voices.

"Anything important?"

"We're scanning a pump joint for the supercooling, over at the elbow near 35. Had a little higher than usual contaminant in that frame. Probably nothing. Better to check. Want a cup?" She holds up a small paper container.

"No, thanks. I think I'll go get suited and wait till they let me preflight."

Clu crawls into frame 35 for a special preflight check, pulling herself along on her back. Finally in position, she produces her scanner and eyes the elbow in the piping. Then she shifts uncomfortably onto her side and brings up the Spectralyzer for a sniff. The graph spikes, but the peaks are within their limits.

On the flight deck, the ceiling folds shut above her and the systems light her contacts as if the walls are gone. Then the shapes of the controls and monitors fly up to their places. She shifts a few of them to more convenient locations, and enlarges the altitude and drift indicators to dominance.

Now this is flying, she thinks, as she starts the coolant pumps and listens to the swiftly cresting whine. She reaches over to start the reactor. The disk pulses with the faint sound and vibration of power.

"OK." She clears her throat. "OK, we're operating. Five minutes for startup monitoring. Anyone have a book?"

She hears a chuckle from the comm link.

Five minutes later, she brings up the energy output and establishes the airshield. The tripod sparks where it intersects the shield. The oxygen and nitrogen begins to glow from the impinging electrons as population inversion is attained and the near surface layers begin to lase.

"Field generators activated," she reports. She feels faint tidal forces plucking at her hairline and feet. "Looking good." She eyes the spaceframe stress graphics and the contact sensors. "Good, no effect." She settles back into the chair. "Any reason not to fly?"

"Crash carts are on the line, sensors look good, the field is foamed. Have fun, Mrs. Sherrill."

"Thanks, L'ihart'Imata. Honor to your precision." She raises her hand in the exciting gesture of beginning. Her heart pulses faster with the gathering sensation of tide and engine. She raises the vehicle. "Airborne. Here. We. Go." She draws a line to the destination. The vehicle tilts, vibrates slightly, her hair raises. The vehicle is suddenly fifty yards away. "Wahoo!" she shouts. Then she sobers. She is still a hundred feet above the field. "Coming back." She redraws the line. "I'm clocking that at a 100 fps."

"No sonic boom. It's looking good."

"OK, I'm going for touchdown, then." She eases it down toward the landing mark, her fingers guiding it along the metric with a steady motion.

And that's when it breaks loose. The coupling at bulkhead 35 shatters with a sudden report that has Clu staring around for a moment of shock that is a moment too long. Deprived of supercoolant, the plasma shockguides go into stutter and the airshield fails. In the meantime, the supercoolant sprays past bulkhead 35 and a cascade failure starts in the support system for the field controller in that segment. At that moment, as Clu is striving to comprehend and react, the disk destabilizes. It drops twenty feet from the sky and hits at a slight angle on a tripod leg. Clu localizes the failure and sweeps up the neighboring segments, seeking a momentary stability. In the same moment, her hand flashes to the tripod retract, which pulls the contact leg away from the surface for a moment. She shifts her hands quickly. The disk regains lateral stability, and as soon as it is within ten degrees, she hits the emergency descent trigger. The disk hits the ground and bounces slightly before sagging. Clu pops up the emergency shutdown checklist and runs every item, even as the crash trucks circle the disk, lights flaring and flashing.

The roof rips open and the armored extract team is framed above. "No, no!" Clu yells. "I need shutdown." She glares back into her augmentation and ticks the last few elements. The reactor terminates, and she feels the life die away from the disk. Then eager hands pull her suited form from the seat into the chaos of the outside.

She finds Marie waiting outside the conference room the doctor had used for a quick checkout. "I'm fine," Clu says in response to the unasked question.

Marie nods. "I know. I thought I'd drive you home."

"Really, Marie..."

Marie holds up a hand. "Look at this." She grasps Clu's arm by the wrist in a startling gesture - more startling then because Clu sees her hand shaking involuntarily. Marie releases Clu's wrist. "You just saved twenty million in hardware and a hundred and fifty million in development costs by doing the smart thing in three seconds. I can drive you home. Bob can deliver your car in the morning. Consider it a well-deserved week off."

Clu nods. Somehow, she can barely restrain a yawn.

She awakens from a dream that immediately receeds into darkness. Then her lids fly open and the sun is burning across them. She is about to leap up. Then she remembers. She forces her eyes closed, her mind to rest.

The Clark Studio is one corner of a complex of luminous angular structures and spires. The wind pushes at the formally dressed crowd, and makes them glad of the shelter of steep metal walls as they file through the doors into the lobby.

Clu wears the dress Ivo had helped her find. It has the sleek lines Clu loves, but is made of a nearly frictionless fabric that makes her feel as if she is clothed with a thin shield of infinitely flexible metal. As she moves, the fabric reacts and plays images that emphasize the lines of her legs and torso as water shows the form of the geology beneath.

Perhaps it is this which accounts for the gazes that light on her movement through the crowd.

Or perhaps it is the unwelcome notoriety from the day of her ratification.

But she is here to honor her friend, so she ignores it.

A discreet note at the lower right of her field of vision informs her of negotiations between her systems and the systems of the building - very powerful systems, according to the glyph. The negotiations complete, and the glyph is gone.

Now she can see the images on the hanging flags. There is a symbol which the contacts show as a graphic - a half circle . Then there are words - "A Dream Of Home" - and below them "Ivo Hitaro Ikai". But below that is something truly startling. "To the benefit of my friend Clu Sherril's ship repair fund."

She supposes that accounts for the looks she has been receiving.

For a moment she is uncertain whether she is angry, embarrassed, or ashamed, but then she walks defiantly to the theatre entrance and presents her ticket to the attendant, pushing aside the disorientation.

Beyond, the room is a steep bowl. For a moment, she is unpleasantly reminded of the auditorium of the Jeune Ecole, where she had once been denounced. Then she takes in the quiet and elegant movement of beautifully dressed human and non-human figures in conversation, and the illusion vanishes.

She wonders why these people are here, and how much they know about her.

The attendant leads her to a seat halfway up the bowl, near the center of the row, looking down on the glossy white surface of the stage. As Clu lowers herself into the comfortable armchair, she can see Del surrounded by machines and instruments, including a cello, just in front of the stage. Suddenly, he looks up and waves at her. She nods back, uncomfortable.

The room is filled with the soft sound of multifrequency voices. She can pick very few threads from the fabric, but there is something soothing about it. Only the occasional looks make her less comfortable.

The benefit of my repair fund. Why is she doing this? Clu wonders.

The lights begin to dim, and the conversation fades. The stage darkens to a faint grey.

The music begins with a soft cadence that reminds her of the slow fall of snow in the city. It is faintly melancholy.

A white clad woman moves across the stage in a vague course. Her form is smooth and her motions include complex turns. Somehow she seems taller than normal.

Then another, another, and then there are several on the stage at once. As each one comes on, her costume seems more complex than the last. Then the stage is filled with whirling white dancers, and Clu realizes that they are like flakes of snow.

Then as if a wind appears, they are swept from the stage, and there is an illusion of blowing snowflakes that joins the stronger rhythm that is developing in the music.

Now Clu can see Ivo - at least, it is someone who moves like Ivo - but her hair is black and she is wrapped in a long coat, collar turned about as if against the snow. Her motions are stylized, as if she is moving against the wind in a graceful slow motion that requires her to lean forward into streamlined positions, the coat draping from a leg raised in a smooth form behind, then coming forward for another stately, resistant step. The melancholy takes on a deeper, more ponderous rhythm with heavy drums deep in the background, synchronized with every step.

Several dancers in similar but different coats form a queue that moves slowly backward onto the stage, where Ivo joins them. Their motion shifts forward, but has a mechanical aspect to it which is very different from the stately fluidity of Ivo's motion. The snowflakes die sway, and there is a tolling of bells in the distance. The dancers ahead of her dissolve in a graceful flow to both sides of the stage. A male dancer remains, wearing what Clu recognizes as a classic Cocteau shopkeeper garb. The shopkeeper dances this way and that, gesturing to shelves that have appeared from the wings - shelves which are empty. Clu stifles a laugh, as she realizes what they are demonstrating. It is a performance which would cause arrests on Cocteau, even if it is only a suggestion.

But then the shopkeeper is gone, and the snow returns. Ivo turns up her collar and dances a slow mournful dance toward a door that has been pushed in from the right wing of the stage. The door is buckled and warped, but she passes through, to another that follows it in a progression across the floor.

Ivo pauses at the door, as if worried, and then whirls through. Her next steps tell the shock. The music rises to a mournful crescendo that seems to weep, she drops the coat to reveal a dress the color of blood, and she collapses to her knees as if overcome.

The doors now are gone, and behind Ivo appears a male dancer wearing an old-fashioned suit and hat. He dances backward, and Ivo follows him as if pleading. The man gestures like a magician, and Clu can see the image of another man beyond the gesture, a man behind the bars of a fence or a cell. Ivo reaches for him, her arms alive with longing, but the image fades.

She rises slowly to her feet, and then with stylized gestures pushes away the suited man, who departs. Ivo moves with graceful, but angry motions. She finally enters a series of turns that droop until she is in a mournful pile on the floor, bathed in a pool of bluish light. Then the light is gone, and applause rings out.

When the light returns, the stage is backed with the image of an industrial space, and there are abstract machines in a few locations on the floor. Dancers enter from the wings, released one by one, clothed in skin-like body suits that reveal every muscle. They fill the stage with graceful turns that they complete in unexpected and apparently chaotic directions. Then Ivo enters, her costume now a broad cape of white with a black leotard underneath. She dances a stern a disciplined set of steps, presenting her arms and then gathering in the others from the wings. They respond with evasive motions, but she gestures with emphasis, and they form into a pattern of motion that is irregular, yet ordered. Finally, she dances away, and the others gradually move off until the stage is empty. The lights dim to a blue like moonlight, and the machines are gone.

Ivo is dressed all in black, with a hood over her hair, and only her face clearly seen. She dances furtively across the scene, with short rushing motions and long graceful foreward extension of her legs. She is clearly holding a weapon, and equally clearly is searching for something.

Suddenly ahead of her is the image of the man behind bars. She reaches, but it eludes her. She reaches again, but then it is gone, and two burly uniformed men with giant mustaches have hold of her arms. An elegant dance of struggle ensues.

Ivo is subdued. But as the guards lift her across the stage, the man with the hat reappears and halts them with a strident gesture. The guards bow to him and release her. She runs past the man, and races for the wing. The man holds up and hand to the guards, and follows her with several great leaps

The stage is darkness and the music is cold, like the breath of air from an opened airlock. The stage floor and the backdrop are spangled with stars, and somehow, Clu sees their immense depth in a way that the true distances of space never allow outside the mind.

Then, from the left rear steps Ivo, dressed in a dramatic and complex white that trails behind her on the floor. Her motions are stately and stepped as she moves onto the stage, the music rising in parallel with her progress.

Then the music shifts to a faintly ominous tone, and from the left rear emerge small grey clad figures, which step, rotate, and crouch. From behind them appear slightly larger figures, and Clu can see that they wear complex casques. They step rotate and crouch past the smaller ones, and the movement is arranged so that it seems as if the smaller ones behind have drawn closer, and that new figures have appeared.

A third wave appears, and the smallest are gone. Ivo gracefully looks over her shoulder, as if in slow motion. but when her face returns to the audience, it is clearly worried. Then, the leading figure stands, turns, and on completion of the turn its had points out then up, as if to command a halt. A beam of red light springs from that hand, narrowly missing the slow moving Ivo. Then each in turn swing out and laser light streaks again and again.

Then Ivo turns in a smooth sweep, and her hand comes up, lancing green, and one of the gray spills to the side in a spiral to the floor.

The music and the dance grow martial, as the figures deploy in complex arrays. They move with turning and spinning, and Del's gestures spur the music on to a crescendo.

The man with the hat appears at the right rear. With a sudden uncoiling and three vast leaps, he springs between the warring figures. A red beam strikes him as he raises his hand to halt the persuers, and his motion becomes a complex whirling, decaying into a tumble that lies him flat on the stage in a stylized death. Clu feels the tears rising.

The music screams like a saw into stone as Ivo turns away, hands over her face, and a red beam strikes her in the back. She enters into an endless set of turns, tall on her shoes, arms random, as if limp; a dark figure emerges to catch her as she seems about to fall- carrying her away past the right front into darkness. Behind, the formations of grey dancers disperse, as the music and the light die away.

The applause is deafening and stately in the darkness.

The lights rise again to full brightness on a scene from the inside of a Promethean home. Ivo emerges from the arms of the dark figure in a costume of tan and bright colors that streak down her form and her loose knee length dress. Her dance explores the room with wonder and joy.

But suddenly against the backdrop appears the image of the man behind bars, and she is stricken in mid motion. Tentatively, she dances toward the image, head turning away to alternating sides as if the image causes pain even as it attracts. But as she reaches out to it, the man steps from the image into the room. The two dance together in rapture, circling each other and then embracing in complex turns and lifts, then separating, circling again and returning. But then as they separate for a third time, a gossamer curtain falls between them, with the man on the far side. They continue to dance together, but though Ivo reaches imploringly in rhythm with music of increasing sadness, another gossamer curtain falls between them, and the image of the man is further blurred; finally, the lighting changes, and only the shadow of the man remains. Then he is gone, the gossamer falls to the stage, and the scene is as before. Ivo stands dejected, and only slowly resumes a motion of exploration. The light fades, and the applause returns.

When the lights return, it against the backdrop of the docks that a silver mannequin stands, dressed in a torn and burnt white dress - the same dress that Ivo had worn during her flight. Ivo enters and dances around the manniquin with small motions of her legs, standing stiffly on her toes. Her dress is a stiffened lacy disk around her waist, and a play of animation lights her bodice. She approaches and receeds, finally running a loving hand along the dress, even while looking away. Then she backs away, in the same tiny steps. As she makes those steps, standing in place, she gestures, and small dancers in white coveralls and skullcaps emerge in gaggles from the wings. From one of them, she takes a strip of shining cloth, and dances to the mannquin, laying its length along a burn mark. She looks at the tiny dancers, who seem to confer, and who then nod as one. She dances back to them, repeats the process with another strip, gains assent, and then dances backward through the smaller dancers, gesturing them forward. They rush to the mannequin. As they work, Ivo dances to lyrical music, joined by the man. The two of them cross back and forth in front of the stage, extending desirous arms to each other as they pass. Then they dance away together to the wings, as the small dancers in white engage in a complex coordinated dance, and the light slowly fades.

The stage is then space again, and a dancer who looks much like Ivo, but with a face and body colored a reflective silver, paces stately from the left across the stars in time with a rhythmic martial music. A globe at the right looks to Clu like Cocteau seen from space. As the dancer in white passes the first third of the stage, a light opens from above on the left, and shines down on Ivo, standing proudly, arms extended slightly from her sides, feet slightly apart, dressed in a gleaming white skinsuit. Barely visible black figures stand just outside the light, wearing silvery gloves to the elbow, reaching into the light to fix complex mechanical plates to her skinsuit. Then they step aside, the beam and Ivo are gone, and the silvery dancer has reached the world.

The music crashes, and there is a brilliant flash of cold light. Now Ivo stands before a crude fence of wooden poles and barbed wire, facing away from the audience. A landscape rises beyond. Then, from each wing come four uniformed dancers carrying long weapons. Laser light strikes toward her, but is reflected in several directions by mirrors at elbow, wrist, and chest, controlled by her stylized motions. Then she twists her arms and angles her body, and the beams travel across her attackers so that they fall away, one by one.

On the far side of the tall fence, the man steps from a shadow. He shades his eyes and sways back and forth, then unsteadily dances toward the fence. Ivo and he put their hands to poles on the left and the right. They push, and the fence breaks.

What follows is a dance that epitomizes joy and love, filled with embraces and lifts where Ivo seems to float weightlessly in the arms of the male dancer. As the dance and music step inexorably to completion, Ivo races across the stage, flinging aside her armor with each step, and she leaps into the air, to be caught by her partner - caught in an exquisitely graceful arc of body and angle of legs. The audience bursts into applause, as Ivo is slowly lifted above his head, and then brought slowly down to her feet again, where they embrace as the light closes around them, and then vanishes.

The audience is on its feet, cheering and clapping hands. Cries of joy fill the space between the applause. Then the lights rise again, and a line of the smaller dancers, still in white coveralls, appears. They are followed by the taller dancers, still in black with silver gloves. Then the silver skinned woman, and the hatted man. The applause rises like a wave, and then Ivo and her partner come from opposite sides of the stage to meet at the center. Each carries a bundle of flowers which they exchange. They embrace and step back, hold hands, presenting each other to the audience. The lights fade, but the applause is sustained. The lights return, and the entire cast steps foward to bow. Clu is cheering with the rest, and the tears are running unnoticed down her cheeks.

"This is Michael Palin-Itrosky," Ivo makes the introduction.

He is tall, with dark hair and a tight-muscled face that seems a culmination of the trim lines of his formal suit. His eyes are hazel, but cold. Yet when he takes her hand, a smile splits his face like sunrise over a glacier. "There aren't many people who could live up to an abstraction of Ivo's."

Clu feels the blood rush to her ears. "I imagine you won't believe me, but you knew about this before I did." Her eyes flick to Ivo, with a barely restrained harshness - still, she tries to keep her tone light.

Ivo just grins at her, shamelessly. "Come on, Clu, You've got to come meet T'larifhaginare. I bet you've never seen a Tersligore."

T'larifhaginare is a creature the size of a truck that drifts in a tank of cloudy methane. Though this side of the tank fronts on the lobby, Clu realizes that the other side looks out over the stage, and the roof above is hinged. She wonders what this creature, like a vast lantern of paper stretched over a skeleton of withe, its mobile head hanging beneath the gasbag, could make of a ballet, or why it would care.

Its voice surges and rasps with faint horn tones at the edges of the sound. The glossy white eyes watch her, shifting slightly. The hands which surround it twitch slowly, as if restless. "So, you are the refugee who desires to battle a conflict already completed."

She takes issue with its implication. "The conflict isn't complete. I still have options."

"So you say. But help you will need. I will help."

"Why?" she asks.

It drifts toward the glass and bulks above her like a building. The dark cores of its eyes are pointed toward her. "Humans are not the only creatures who imprison themselves and others in systems of false protection or coercion disguised as assistance. I wanted to build things, but they laughed at me, and then they tethered me. Now, I float as my own buoyancy. I make buildings for smaller races, and for my own. My life is better. Yours will be, when you have created your desire, and completed your plan. And when that happens, perhaps people from Cocteau will need housing..."

She laughs, startled. "Maybe they will."

"Come visit my office, I will show you some designs I have been considering for your world." A tendril snaps out to the glass wall and a small shape appears in her visual space. Clu steps forward tentatively and grasps it with a gesture. "My card," it informs her.

"I'll visit," she promises.

Just outside the door is darkness, and Clu and Ivo pause on the boundary for a moment.

"I don't know if I should hug you or shake you," Clu says seriously. "Why couldn't you just tell me?"

Ivo tugs at her scarf. "Don't know, girlfriend. Just didn't think it makes a good surprise if you know. "I also think you're as independent as you should be, and the only way to help you is by surprise. You're more one of us than you know."

The nightwind is collapsing down from the upper atmosphere, and Ivo pulls the scarf a little tighter. "So, you didn't like it."

"I don't know if I liked it. I don't know how to react to it. I still can't imagine being an artwork."

Ivo shakes her head, laughing. "You're not an artwork. That was the artwork. But it's all true.

"I wish it would come true. It was beautiful. I wish anything in my life could live up to it." She looks down at her shoes. "I'd be happy if I understood enough beyond the story to know why it was so beautiful."

Ivo squeezes Clu's shoulder. "It's the story that matters. And what was beautiful about it was yours. All I did was arrange and select. C'mon, let's go home."

The cars are arriving and departing in the courtyard below where they walk down the stairs. On the fringes of the darkened space, vehicles one by one turn on their lights and engines, then lift slowly into the sky like a scattering flock. Others drive away on the road. As they step through the crowd at the bottom, Clu's arm is clutched with surprising and almost painful strength. Clu turns in a reflex, to find herself looking down at the wide and angry eyes of a redhaired woman. It is Rannart's wife.

"So now you're going to kill Haris again and again. Is that it? Enjoying the profit?"

Clu had been about to wrench her arm away, but she is suddenly still as the crowd swirls around them.

"Maybe you won't believe this," Clu speaks defiantly, "but I had nothing to do with your husband's death. He made his own choice. I can't even say why. I'm not your enemy, or his. I hardly knew him. I wish I had."

"You don't want to know him, you wanted to use him, like the rest of the collectivist filth on your world, like the Recovery League..."

Just as the pressure of Rannart's fingers reaches pain, she feels another hand come between and pry them away. Her startled glance meets the luminous green eyes of Marie Field. "A problem?" Field asks, voice tight.

"No," Clu replies. "Nothing."

"Fiona," Marie nods.

Rannart glares and turns away into the remains of the crowd.

Marie sighs, and releases Clu's arm. "I'm sorry about that."

Clu shakes her head. "Not your fault."

Then she regains her manners. "Marie Field, this is Ivo Hitaro Ikai."

"Yes, we've met." The two clasp hands. Then Marie reaches back and gestures forward a small girl. "This is my daughter Lejenia."

The little girl stares up at Ivo in awe. "You're the dancer." Then she smiles shyly and steps back toward her mother. "I'm just starting the ballet, you know."

Ivo chuckles and squats down to the girl's height. "Yes? That's great. What do you like the best?"

"I want to be Henrika some day. But they won't let me dance pointe yet."

Ivo nods. "Give yourself time. Your feet are too young to dance pointe - for now. Your time will come."

Lejenia's eyes seem too large for her face, and Clu finds herself smiling with a strange maternal emotion.

Marie turns to Clu. "I hadn't realized the complexity of your story."

Clu frowns. "I suspect Ivo's talent has added a certain drama to it."

Ivo laughs and claps her hands.

Marie shakes her head ruefully. "I know enough of the story to know that, if anything, it was understated - no offense, Ivo, you did a brilliant job. I'm sure you'll do well with this."

"Well, we'll know how it does after the reciepts are counted, but my guess is that Clu will be repairing her ship soon."

Clu wonders how she will deal with that success.

The modest dome is cloaked by the shadow of tall dark foliage spikes. Clu steps out of her Lustran into the mottled light. A mist clings to the ground near the dome below.

She walks slowly down the path, listening to the songs of the creatures in the foliage, face drawn and tense with the thought of what she is about to do.

The door is an old knotted wood framed with vines and leaves, centered with a circular boss of glass. Clu presses the luminous annunciator just below the window. After a moment, shapes and colors shift behind the boss, distorted by the optics. Fiona Rannart's voice emerges from a hidden source, clear, but annoyed.

"What is it you want?"

"Madame Rannart, I need to talk with you."

"Why?"

"The only way you're going to find out is to open this door."

Reluctantly, the door creaks open. Fiona Rannart looks around the edge, face empty of emotion. "The door is open. What do you want?"

"I want you to come for a ride with me."

"Why should I?"

"Because you want to know about what happened to your husband. I can help with that. A little."

"I already know enough. At least about you."

Clu shakes her head. "You think so, but you're wrong. Come with me and find out what I mean."

Rannart looks at her for a long while. "Why?"

"Let's not dance, Madame. Either come with me, or I'll leave."

"Then leave," she snaps. But she closes the door, slowly.

Clu sighs, desperately disappointed. She turns and starts up the path to the waiting Lustran.

Then the door opens behind her. "Wait!"

The shattered and scarred wall of the Zadar slips down past them as they rise above the dock. After a long and silent drive, Fiona Rannart looks on with shock.

"This is terrible." she whispers.

"Come inside." Clu steps past the glass onto the catwalk. "There's no lock anymore, the last salvo took it out, opened the interior to space." The catwalk twists through 90 degrees but retains gravity, so that the Zadar and the entire space dock seem to twist as they walk, until the Zadar takes on an apparent horizontal orientation.

Beyond the tear, Fiona can see by the harsh cast of the worklamps that a huge section of the interior has been blackened and melted away like wax on a grid of string. "Come this way," Clu gestures toward the nose. They step across temporary walkways, past recently rigged bracing that keeps the warped metal of the walls in place. Brushes of char rush toward the front, counterpointed by droplets and streamers of metal that had followed the air rushing out on that long past day.

At the entry to the flight deck, Clu steps aside, and points through the shattered opening. "That's where I was sitting."

Half of the chair is melted away. A section of it had been torn off and is embedded in the panel beyond.

Fiona focuses electric blue eyes on Clu, but the anger is diffused. "Why are you showing me this?"

"I want you to see part of what happened to me. Even with all the effort your husband made, this is what happened. I don't know if it was my fault, deciding to turn back. I thought... for no good reason, I thought I shouldn't escape, the way he wanted me to. I thought I should try one more time to get Lan. That let them get into range, take me, and I guess he thought all he could do was fire back at them. I don't know why he thought that. I don't really know, because I was too busy, and none of the data core survived the impact." She sighs and slumps against the metal. "Maybe you're right, maybe it's my fault. You husband is dead, my husband may be. I don't need your hate behind me, Fiona."

In the light from the windscreen, Clu can see the fine wrinkles at the corners of Fiona's eyes, and the seams at the edges of her mouth.

The inside of the dome is a combination of adobe and wood in a vaulted arrangement. The back wall is glass looking out on the garden and the trees. The thin glazed cups accept tea from Fiona with a faint tone. They sip in the soft late afternoon.

"Haris was gone for most of the year. He would stay here for a month and then go back. He told me that it would be for five years, and then it would be over. Then it was eight years. He'd done six. Our children are grown and away. I hoped he'd be here with me. But this job needed to be done, he said. I couldn't say no - that's not how things are in Prometheus." She sips her tea.

Clu frowns. "I don't understand. He has everything anyone could want. I know it. All I have to do is look around. Why come to Cocteau? There's nothing there anyone would want."

"Nothing?" Fiona's eyes widen over her cup, and Clu remembers...

The buildings are like spikes of crystal against the sunset sky. Buoyant wings cast their shadows across the streets as she watches.

"No, something, I guess. Used to be a lot of things. You're right."

Fiona crosses to the wall, where real books share rack space with a memory expansion for the house systems. Her hand extends to a binder, and she takes it from the shelf with a certain reluctance. She looks over her shoulder at Clu. "I don't know why he'd never commit these to the house system, but somehow having them outside made him feel they were maybe more - or maybe less - real." She sets the binder on the low table and opens it.

Clu feels as if something hard and cold within her begins to melt. Here she sees a page sized image of a beautiful field, backed by the ranks of hydrogen trees and the mountains beyond. She turns the page. There is an image of the city - Goslin - as she had loved it, perhaps taken from a historical source. She turns the page. There is an image, slightly grainy with distance, showing the yard of a prison camp, and when she touches it, she can see the figures shuffling in the dust, until one is struck in the neck by a guard and falls to the ground. The sequence repeats, and she turns the page hastily. There is a head shot of Lan, his jawline proud, his eyes clear. Her breath catches. "Do you know who this is?"

Fiona leans across. "I think... a physicist. Haris helped him publish in Prometheus, I think. He was proud of that."

"That's my husband. Lan Masson." Clu whispers.

"Oh..." Fiona's voice trails away. Then, "He's very handsome. Young. He was smart. That's what Haris said."

"Very smart. They took him to prison while I was at work. Because of his book. The one Haris helped him with."

"Oh."

Clu turns the page. Another picture. More. Men, women, many of them in business or industrial environments. Next to many of them, a small note telling when they were arrested, or when Rannart was finally able to help them escape. A few have only a scrap of paper with a Promethean address.

Rannart had helped. But there are a few where the image has a second picture thrust in the corner. A picture that shows an execution in a grainy, long distance resolution, or perhaps the outside of a cell block. A Cocteau date is scrawled across each in an angry hand.

Clu turns back to the second page and pushes the book away to where she can see it. She picks up the tea cup, but it shakes in her hand until it reaches her lips. She sets it back down, and it rattles for a moment against the saucer.

"I understand, now."