em" width="1em">“The Selkies murdered him . . . and now they’re killing me . . . they’ll kill you, too, my boy . . .”

He blinked hard twice. “Not me,” he said, and flicked the switch on the Emergency Interstellar Transmitter. . . .

Copyright © 2008 by Edward Willett.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

eISBN : 978-1-436-22416-1

First Printing, February 2008

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.

.S.A.

http://us.penguingroup.com

For my big brothers, Jim and Dwight: if not for all those science fiction books they brought into the house, I never would have started reading and writing this stuff.

Acknowledgments

This book began with a single sentence, written in September, 2005, as an exercise in Robert J. Sawyer’s class in writing science fiction, part of the Writing With Style program at the Banff Centre. Thanks, Rob!

Heartfelt thanks to my editor, Sheila Gilbert, whose insightful comments and questions helped make this a much better book than it would otherwise have been. Any remaining failings are entirely my own.

Finally, special thanks to the staff of Second Cup in the Cornwall Centre, Regina, Saskatchewan, where most of this book was written, fueled by Icepresso Chillers.

Chapter 1

THE MAIN PIER of Hansen’s Harbor stank, but that was only one reason Chris Keating hated it.

He stood in the early spring sun, shivering, glaring down the three-hundred-meter-long, fifty-meter-wide stretch of preformed bioplast planks. The pier looked secure, but Chris knew better. Some of that the end of the pier. Some of it came from rotting seaweed. But some of it, Chris knew, came from the slowly decomposing bioplast itself. To him it always stank of anaerobic decay, the smell of swamps and stagnant ponds. One day—he knew it—one of the pier’s massive posts would give way, and the whole structure would collapse, flipping everything and everyone on it into the deep, cold water of New Botany Bay, where they would drown like his father drowned, lost at sea, when he was four.

One day. Maybe even today, while he was on the pier.

Chris shivered again. He hadn’t expected to come down to the pier today, and his white shirt and pants were made of thin cloth designed for comfort in the warm, humid environs of the genesculpting lab’s algae room, not for keeping out the wind currently whipping up whitecaps on the bay’s blue-green water. But Dr. Stanless had radioed half an hour ago for someone to come help unload the samples he’d collected from the algae fields off Slick Rock, and the only someone who could be spared had been Chris.

He hadn’t dared refuse. No one on Marseguro knew his shameful secret except his mother, and she wasn’t likely to tell.

He clenched his fists when he thought of her. He’d visited her in the hospital on his way to work that morning. She’d looked so frail, lying in that hospital bed hooked up to the machinery that kept her alive—not at all like the strong woman he remembered from childhood, the woman who had single-handedly raised him after his father’s death . . . and single-handedly made sure he knew the truth that lay behind that “accident.”

She’d been conscious this morning, an unusual occurrence since the last stroke. She could speak, after a fashion. Most of what she said made little sense, and usually she hardly seemed to know he was in the room, but this morning had been different.

She’d squeezed his hand with astonishing strength for someone at death’s door. “Selkies!” she’d hissed, her eyes focused on his face with a feverish intensity he well-remembered but hadn’t seen in six months. “They killed your father. They’re killing me! They’ll kill you, too, if they find out . . . if they know. . . .”

“Shhh!” Chris had shot a look over his shoulder, though he knew he’d been left alone. Still, you could never be certain the Selkies weren’t listening. . . .

“He hated the sea. They made him go on that boat. The Selkies all came back. The landlings all died.”

Chris almost reached out and put his hand over her mouth. These were things they only talked about in their own home, never in public, never where someone else might hear.

“They knew . . . they must have found out he Believed . . . he never wanted to be here at all . . . never wanted to be on the Rivers of Babylon . . . Hansen kidnapped him . . . the Selkies murdered him . . . and now they’re killing me . . .” Her wide eyes suddenly filled with tears. “They’ll kill you, too, my little boy . . . my little . . .” Her eyes fluttered closed.

“It’s not just the Selkies,” his mother had told him over and over. “Most of the landlings are on their side. A very few of us know the truth. A very few of us cling to the Body Purified. But we can never let on . . . or they’ll kill us.

“Like they killed your father.”

Chris looked at the alarmingly narrow ribbon of bioplast stretching from the shore into the bay, and the balefully glittering water all around it. God, I hate this planet. But he couldn’t let on, or the secret Selkie cabal his mother had told him really ruled Marseguro would know he had inherited his family’s dangerous beliefs, and eliminate him as they had eliminated his father.

Maybe they’ve already decided to. Maybe this errand is a setup, carefully arranged to provide an opportunity for another “accident”. . . .

He shook his head. Don’t be paranoid, he told himself. If the Selkies wanted to kill him, he’d simply disappear. Hardly anyone would notice. Even fewer would care.

No, the errand was just what it seemed to be. And though he hated his job almost as much as he hated the pier—and the planet—everyone on Marseguro had to work, and if he quit at the genesculpting lab he’d be stuck scaling hulls or filling potholes with a Council make-work crew, doing jobs bots could do better and faster.

Gathering his courage and holding it tight like the teddy bear he’d carried everywhere until his tenth birthday, he set off down the pier.

Halfway to the SeaSkimmer, the Selkies swarmed him.

They soared out of the bay like dolphins, trailing drops of water that flashed silver in the sun. Their broad, bare webbed feet slapped down on the bioplast with the sound of fish being poured from a net. There were at least a dozen, male and female, all adolescents or young adults, all wearing the water resistance-lessening skinsuits the Selkies favored, vibrant reds and purples and greens and yellows personalized with lightning bolts and starships, Earth dolphins and Marseguroite squigglefish, flames and starscapes and abstract designs that made their owners hard to look at. They surrounded him in a whirlwind of color, and he stopped dead. They laughed and chirped in their own language, one landlings could neither understand nor speak, since they lacked the Selkies’ modified vocal apparatus and enhanced hearing.

“What do you want?” Chris could barely squeeze the words out through a throat gone tight with fear. His heart pounded in his chest, a caged animal frantically throwing itself against the bars of its prison. “What do you want?”

They ignored him, circling him like Earth sharks were said to circle their prey, chanting—not in Selkie, but in English. He suddenly realized what they were chanting: just a silly poem, but one that almost loosened his bowels. “Eeny-meeny-miny-mink, tip a landling in the drink, watch him splash and watch him sink, eeny-meeny-miny-mink.” Oversized eyes star"1em">

“We didn’t know he couldn’t swim,” the girl said.

“We didn’t know anybody couldn’t swim,” the boy said.

Chris felt himself flush. The shame and fury had reached the surface.

Dr. Stanless glared at the Selkies. “It was a stupid prank. It’s one thing to pull it on one of your friends, but grabbing a stranger and throwing him into the bay . . .”

“He’s not exactly a stranger,” the boy said. “We went to landschool together.” He glanced at Chris. “Don’t you remember? I’m John Duval.”

Chris still hadn’t spoken. The world seemed preternaturally bright and clear around him, as though the air had turned to diamond. At the sound of John Duval’s name, it grew harder and brighter yet.

John Duval. The Selkie boy who had bullied him from the time they were both eight Earth years old until they were thirteen, and Duval had gone off to seaschool. Tripped him in the cafeteria. Pulled down his trunks in the swimming pool, then swam off with them, leaving him naked and shamed in the water, begging someone to bring him a towel while the other kids laughed at him. . . .

He looked at the girl. Emily Wood. He remembered her, too. Remembered her standing with the other girls pointing and laughing.

How could they not know he didn’t know how to swim? The teacher had forced him into the pool that day, told him he had to overcome his fear of what had happened to his father. He’d been too little, too scared, not to give in. His mother had always told him if he didn’t conform, didn’t hide the truth, something bad would happen to him . . . but he’d never forgotten the shame, never forgotten that early proof that Selkies couldn’t be trusted. “They’re not real humans,” his mother had said. “They’re monsters.” Before that, he’d wondered. After that . . .

He’d never gone back into the pool. And the teacher, once she’d realized what had happened, had never made him.

They knew, he thought. They knew. It’s a warning. I’m being warned. The Selkies . . . the secret cabal . . . they suspect me, suspect I’m like my father . . . they’re letting me know what will happen to me if I cross them. . . .

He shivered as the sea breeze flowed over his wet body. I’m all alone, he thought. Mom was the only one I could talk to, and now . . .

Something clicked into place inside him, as though a switch had been thrown, and the heat of his anger vanished. Instead, he felt as if he had been doused in water even colder than that of the bay, water that froze into certainty his determination to do something that, until that moment, he had only toyed with on his blackest days.

He didn’t say a word to John Duval and Emily Wood. To Dr. Stanless he said, “I hate to ask, sir, but may I have a few days off?”

Dr. Stanless blinked, then frowned. “I understand you’re upset, Chris, but it was just a soaking.”

“It’s not that, sir.” Not precisely. “It’s . . . my mother.” Again, partly true.

“Oh.” Dr. Stanless knew all about Chris’ mother, of course. “Oh, I see. Of course. Take as long as you need.”

“A week or two at most,” Chris said. “Thank you, sir.”

With all the dignity he could muster, letting his gaze slide past the shamefaced Selkies as if they weren’t there, he turned his back on the sea and walked inland.

He didn’t look back.

Emily watched Chris Keating walk away, and felt her face burn. The prank that had seemed so harmless just an hour before when her waterdance class had streamed out of the Hansen’s Harbor Seaschool for the last time now seemed incredibly cruel and stupid. They’d recognized Chris as one of their old landschool classmates, thought he’d get the joke, laugh along with them. . . .

She glanced at John. He stood with his head bowed, biting his lower lip.

“I hope you two are ashamed of yourselves,” Dr. Stanless said. “Chris is one of my best lab assistants. A nice quiet kid. He was on his way to help me unload algae samples when you jumped him. Now who’s going to help? You two?”

Put like that, they really didn’t have a choice, and in fact, Emily thought a few minutes later as she helped pull slimy, stinking buckets of multicolored goo from the hold of the SeaSkimmer, she didn’t really mind. It was the least she could do to make amends . . .

. . . although Dr. Stanless isn’t really the one you need to make amends to, she told herself. She shook her head. She could barely remember Chris Keating as a kid; they’d never had much to do with each other. In fact, she couldn’t really remember Chris Keating having much to do with anyone. We should have known he’d react badly. It’s our fault, not his. Dr. Stanless is right. It was a stupid thing to do, and it would have been just as stupid even if Chris did know how to swim.

Except how could you live on a planet more than ninety percent water-covered, with fellow citizens genetically modified to breathe both air and water, and not know how to swim? She shook her head again. Well, it takes all kinds of genes to make a genome, as her mother liked to say.

An hour later they’d loaded the last of the algae tubs onto the rollerbot, and it had trundled off toward the labs. Dr. Stanless, his arms splattered with stinking slime, grinned as he watched the samples roll away. “Some fascinating specimens there,” he said. “I can’t wait to get at them in the lab.” He stretched his arms above his head, yawning hugely, then turned to where Emily and John stood side by side, every bit as splattered and stinking as he was. “A nasty job, but thank you for it.” His eyebrows drew together and he gave them each a hard stare. “And I hope you’ve learned a lesson.”

They both nodded. Dr. Stanless held his severe look for a mohe thought, you’d think they’d be happier about the outcome.

She jackknifed, kicked, and swam off in a new direction.

Chapter 2

CHRIS KEATING STRODE up through the streets of Hansen’s Harbor to the old concrete building that housed his dingy one-bedroom apartment. The building dated from the first wave of construction at the site of what eventually became known as Hansen’s Harbor. Flat-roofed, utilitarian, it stood three stories high and housed two other tenants besides Chris. He’d never exchanged more than five words with either of them.

Once inside he stripped off his still-wet pants, shirt, and underwear, rolled them into a sodden ball, and dumped them into the clothesbot for washing, drying, and folding. Next, he took a long, hot shower, only stepping out when he could no longer even imagine he smelled the stink of the pier, the bay, and the Selkies who had attacked him.

He ran a comb through his collar-length sandy brown hair, checked on the still-disappointing growth of his wispy beard, then padded into the bedroom. He liked hiking and until his mother had gone into the hospital this last time had headed inland whenever he had a couple of days off, camping there out of sight and smell of the sea. The last time had been weeks ago, but his pack stood ready, leaning against the closet wall.

He tugged on underwear, then his favorite worn-but-waterproof hiking pants, shirt, and jacket, shoved his feet into his toughest, most comfortable boots, then went into the kitchen and pulled out enough prepackaged camp rations to last him for a week. They were made mostly of algae and seaweed, and tasted like it, but what wasn’t made of algae and seaweed on this flooded excuse for a planet? From a cupboard by the door where he kept odds and ends, he pulled out a short crowbar. He stuffed it into his pack.

The last thing he picked up before heading out the door was his multiplayer. He left the stack of music and vidchips on his bedside table. Since his mother’s stroke, he’d only been listening to one thing: the ancient, precious chip his grandfather had given his father before shipping him off to the Moon in the hope he’d survive the impending destruction of Earth.

Chris had listened to it before, of course, but its contents had become more meaningful as he faced the dreadful truth that his mother would soon be gone, leaving him completely alone among the monsters of Marseguro. The chip was his lifeline to Earth, to a planet free of Selkies or any other genesculpted abominations.

His grandparents’ faith had been weak, he thought, not for the first time. Had it been stronger, his grandfather would have known that the Avatar would successfully Purify the Earth, and that God would repent of Its threatened destruction of the planet. Had his grandfather truly Believed, he would not have secretly paid to have Chris’ father, then just eight years old, smuggled to the Moon along with another family and their young daughter . . . and his father would not have been one of the refugees, forced to live on the dry-docked Rivers of Babylon by the overtaxed ize="3">Very few of the people trapped aboard were Believers. Of those who were, only one man made the mistake of admitting it. Hansen’s followers had thrown the man out of the air lock before the ship crossed the orbit of Mars.

The other Believers had kept quiet, and pretended to be as relieved to be free of the Body Purified as Hansen’s followers were. They’d kept on keeping quiet even after they landed on Marseguro. But in the privacy of their homes they’d clung desperately to their beliefs, and so Chris’ father, and his mother—the small girl whose family Chris’ grandfather had also sent to the Moon, and given the care of his son—had grown up immersed in the truth. Even if they hadn’t fallen in love, they would have married, Chris believed. How could either of them have polluted themselves with a moddie-lover?

Chris didn’t even know the names of the other original Believers, didn’t know if they had clung to their Belief, didn’t know if any of the other children of his generation were secretly of the Body. Belief, as his grandfather had demonstrated, could be a fickle thing.

He sometimes hated his grandfather for that reason. If only he had truly Believed, I would have been born on Earth . . . and everything would have been different.

Chris locked the door of his apartment behind him and looked up and down the street, empty this time of day: the only buildings on it were clones of the one he’d just exited, and the people that lived there (all landlings like him, of course; Selkies lived in underwater habitats) were either at their low-paying Council-prescribed jobs or asleep because they worked nights.

Nobody to see him leave, then. Just the way he wanted it.

He turned left, then left again down the just-wide-enough-to-pass-through space between his building and the next. A paved alley ran behind both buildings: every night, the sanitation workers—some of whom were probably his sleeping neighbors—drove along it, collecting refuse, most of which they delivered to the microfactories ringing the south side of the bay as feedstock for the fabricators.

On the other side of the alley, rock-strewn ground, barren except for the occasional low purplish-red needle-bush and patches of scraggly blue-green notgrass, rose steeply to a ridge crowned with the open-umbrella-shaped treelike plants dubbed bumbershoots. Following a path up the slope he himself had worn, Chris climbed until he stood beneath one of those plants. There, for the first time, he stopped and looked back.

Hansen’s Harbor stretched left and right, curving around the semicircular shore of New Botany Bay, sheltered and surrounded by the ridge he’d climbed. Many of the buildings, especially those farthest from the water, were gray concrete like his own; others sported the violent colors favored by the Selkies. To his left, the microfactories lay haphazardly scattered across the ridge slope like squat black building blocks dropped by some careless giant. Taller structures of glass and black or dark red stone, the homes and offices of well-to-do landlings, rose at the water’s edge. The very tallest buildings stood in the water itself, with eight or nine stories above water and another four or five below. To Earth eyes, Chris suspected, the city would have looked half-flooded—but nove gripped him as he read the words of The Avatar. Unfortunately, it squeezed his voice even higher. “They moved through the chaos, calm and unafraid, giving aid and succor, promising that all was not lost, that the oncoming asteroid need not destroy the Earth.” The reader paused. What The Wisdom of the Avatar of God did not spell out, but Richard knew because of his somewhat privileged position within Body Security, was that those early followers of the Avatar had also moved through the corridors of power of the World Government, bribing, assassinating, coercing, convincing, paving the way for the Avatar’s rise to power. You had to admire their faith, Richard thought. Everyone else thought the end was near, but they believed in a future—a future they intended to control.

“Thus spake the Avatar,” the Messenger intoned, the ritual insertion Messengers used when reading from the Great Work whenever they came to a first-person passage, to ensure that listeners understood that what followed were the Avatar’s words, not their own. “They were my followers, the Body Purified, the faithful whom I had prepared for the Edge Times for twenty years, for I knew . . . I knew, with the certainty that only one who has heard the Whisper of God can know . . . that the asteroid was coming, long before the so-called men of science detected its approach.”

As a child, Richard had felt a thrill every time he heard that passage read. The truth of it could not be denied. The Avatar had had advance knowledge of the approach of the Fist of God. Where else could that knowledge have come from but God Itself?

“Those ‘scientists’ fled, too, those who could. Nothing could stop the asteroid, they said. It was too big, too fast. No power within humanity’s grasp could deflect it, or alter Earth’s doom.” Richard’s eyes moved to the next stained glass window, where the asteroid loomed, although the artist, either through scientific ignorance or simply for effect, had surrounded it with blood-red flames that it most certainly had not displayed.

“And they were right. No power within humanity’s grasp could have stopped it. But what is impossible for humanity is as nothing for God. ‘We must show God we repent,’ I told my followers, as God had instructed me to tell them. ‘We must show God that we will cleanse the planet of the evil that has fouled it, that we will purify humanity, the Body of God. If we do this, God will repent of Its decision to destroy us all. If we do this, humanity will regain its future.’

“Some laughed. Some mocked. Some turned their backs on me and rejected my message. But some remained faithful. And it was they who took the actions that convinced God humanity deserved another chance.”

And now they neared the part that Richard had particularly loved as a child, imagining himself as one of the selfless heroes of the Purification . . . and a part he had grown to dread as an adult, since the day he discovered his family’s not-so-secret shame. He shifted again on the unforgiving pew.

“It was they who burned the unnatural crops and the evildoers who had defiled Earth’s God-given soil with them, they who bombed the genesculpting laboratories, they who slew the genesculptors, and they who hunted down and eradicated the genesculptors’ abo second time, in a dream. ‘You have done well, my servant,’ It said. ‘I have repented of my decision to destroy your world. But I will still deliver a powerful rebuke. Warn your followers to take shelter. Then, when the rain of fire has passed, emerge and lead the world into a new age.’

“I gave the orders. The Body Purified descended into the shelters I had ordered built beneath our places of worship and training. From deep beneath the surface, we watched the Miracle occur on the vidscreens providing our only link to the surface.

“Within the orbit of the Moon, another asteroid, miraculously unseen until that moment, slammed into the oncoming killer, slapping it out of the way like an annoying fly.”

The stained-glass artist had certainly outdone himself depicting that amazing occurrence, Richard had to admit. That window rose directly above him to the right, though, and if he did more than glance at it he’d get a crick in his neck. Instead, he dared to look around the House again. Two thousand people, all looking in his direction—but up, at the window. Not looking at him at all.

Not anymore, he thought, fully aware he was being paranoid. But then, he knew that “they” really were out to get him, if you defined “them” as the Body Purified hierarchy. He could never be trusted until he had proved his loyalty.

Soon, he thought. Soon.

He’d worried the problem so long it had even begun to seep into his dreams. Recently he’d been waking from nightmares in which he was Victor Hansen, desperately loading followers and monstrous creations alike into ships fleeing Earth’s imminent destruction. Odd he’d never dreamed of the final flight from the Moon, though . . . perhaps his imagination couldn’t extend that far.

Well, if what he’d just discovered panned out, he might be able to put paid to those nightmares forever. Although . . .

He shook his head and tried to refocus his attention on the Lesser Deacon instead of worrying about his own state of mind.

“The asteroid missed the Earth,” that worthy continued. “But though God spared us from total destruction, It delivered a stern rebuke, just as It had promised.

“Small pieces of both asteroids streaked into Earth’s atmosphere. Some burned up. Some blasted through the ionosphere, and kept going. Some fell into harmless orbits. One, as I fully expected, destroyed Orbital Orleans, the space station infamous for its licentiousness and debauchery even among the most godless people of Earth—and crawling with moddies who ‘entertained’ the patrons of that devil’s palace in unspeakable ways.

“That alone was a powerful sign that I and the Body Purified had done the will of God. But the most powerful sign of all was that, though the rocks that made it through the atmosphere destroyed a dozen cities, raised tsunamis that scoured whole islands and coastlands clean of life, and killed tens of millions,” (Richard didn’t even attempt to crane his neck to see that window), “not one—not one—of the members of the Body Purified who heeded my call to the shelit, you’re sitting in the catbird seat, you’re God’s favorite mortal.” He leaned back and smiled, or at least showed his teeth. “Hell, you might even get my job . . . after I retire, of course.”

And so Richard Hansen had been handed the quest—the completely hopeless quest, he suspected, but he knew well enough that Cheveldeoff’s “two options” had been nothing of the kind—that, should he fulfill it, would redeem him and his family in the eyes of the Body Purified, and by extension, all of unmodified humanity.

He glanced at his watch. And if he didn’t hurry, he’d be late delivering his latest report on that quest.

He increased his pace down the broad boulevard leading from the House of the Body to the headquarters of Body Security, at the heart of the City of God (once known as Kansas City, though no one who had lived there before the Day of Salvation would have recognized any part of it; the original had been largely pulverized, then burned, by the nearby impact of one of the larger chunks of the asteroid, and the remaining ruins had been scraped away and used as feedstock for microfactories).

For two years, Richard had been reporting to Cheveldeoff at monthly meetings. At the very first one, Cheveldeoff had surprised him by bringing out a chessboard. “You play, of course,” Cheveldeoff said. It hadn’t been a question, and Richard could hardly be surprised that the Archdeacon of Body Security knew of his predilection for the game. He hadn’t really been surprised to discover that Cheveldeoff excelled at it, either. Richard, no slouch himself, always put up a good fight, but hadn’t won once.

He sometimes wondered what would happen if he did.

Two years. Hard to believe. When he’d taken on the challenge of finding his grandfather’s pet moddies, he hadn’t realized just how thoroughly Victor Hansen had disappeared. He’d assumed the moddies would have maintained some kind of contact with other colonies settled from Earth, so he had begun his search on New Scotland, recently Purified and brought under the oversight of the Avatar. But though he had scanned and searched and combed through current and archived intercepted communications using every tool at the disposal of the Ministry, he had found nothing to point him to Grandpa’s secret hideout . . .

. . . until yesterday.

He looked up at the cloudless sky and grinned. Today, he had a surprise for his chess partner.

Samuel Cheveldeoff finished setting up the ancient hand-carved ebony-and-ivory chess set, and glanced at the loudly ticking image of a clock on one of the vidwalls, currently displaying his favorite wallpaper: the interior of a nineteenth century Italian villa. The images of rich furnishings and Old Master paintings gave his Spartan office warmth it generally lacked. Richard Hansen should arrive within minutes.

Cheveldeoff sat back in his chair and glanced at another vidwall, temporarily switched from displaying the villa to showing the rapidly emptying interior of the House of the Body. The automated defense systems in the House had made short work of the moddie who had attacked the Messenger, but Cheveldeoff stilbad for the Body to lose worshipers on the holiest day of the year. The Avatar . . . he grimaced; no, not the Avatar, but the Avatar’s Right Hand . . . would not be pleased.

“Message from the Holy Office,” the computer suddenly said, as if on cue. “Your presence is required in the Holy Office at 1900. No rescheduling permitted.”

Cheveldeoff clenched his jaw for a moment; then forced himself to relax it. Much as he would have liked to tell the Right Hand what he could do with his meeting, the stakes were too high. The Avatar, felled by a mysterious stroke . . . and though Cheveldeoff suspected the Right Hand suspected him, he had had nothing to do with it . . . lay alive but vegetative in his private hospital. The prize Cheveldeoff had been working for all his life was in play—but the Avatar had been struck down too soon. He could not be certain he had enough votes on the Council of the Faithful. His main rival, Ashok Shridhar, Archdeacon of Finance, controlled the purse strings of the Body—and purse strings could easily become puppet strings.

If the Avatar’s illness had been brought on by something other than his own penchant for debauchery, it could mean Shridhar was confident he had enough votes among the Council members.

Well, Cheveldeoff could not outbribe the Archdeacon of Finance, but he suspected he could outblackmail him.

In the meantime, though the Right Hand officially remained above all such maneuverings for succession, and would serve whomever God in Its wisdom appointed through the deliberations of the Council, in this situation the Right Hand essentially was the Avatar, and until the real Avatar died or recovered, Cheveldeoff dared not cross him. The Right Hand could bring his own weight to bear on certain Council members, for he knew everything that had happened in the Avatar’s Dwelling, behind the screen of discreet silence even Cheveldeoff had never been able to pierce. Cheveldeoff had heard rumors of some of the activities certain Councillors had enjoyed in the company of the Avatar, but he had no proof. He suspected the Right Hand had pictures, video, and gene samples.

Enough waffling. “Computer, accept meeting request from the Holy Office.”

“Meeting accepted,” said the computer.

My turn, Cheveldeoff thought. “Computer, request meeting with Grand Deacon Ellers. Topic: the poor performance of the Holy Warriors at today’s Salvation Day service in the Central Meeting Hall. Time: tomorrow, 7 a.m.” He grinned savagely. “No rescheduling permitted.”

“Meeting request sent,” the computer said. A pause. “Meeting accepted.”

Cheveldeoff nodded to himself. An early morning meeting that forced Ellers to clear his schedule for Cheveldeoff’s convenience should powerfully remind the new commander of the Holy Warriors that, since the primary function of the Holy Warriors was to keep the Body secure from enemies both internal and external, the Holy Warriors served Body Security.

Or, ended to ensure, by any and all means, that the Holy Warriors continued to serve him, in case the coming succession battle moved from the Council chamber into the streets.

The sound of a faraway doorbell rang through the room, and the computer said, “Archdeacon, Richard Hansen to see you. Identity confirmed.”

“Computer, all walls to Villa Two,” Cheveldeoff said, and the image of the interior of the House of the Body disappeared, replaced by ceiling-high windows framing a sun-drenched view of vineyards and olive trees. “Computer, open door.”

A door in the villa apparently opened, and Richard Hansen came in. The ultramodern blood-red vestibule behind him clashed visually with the wood and marble of the wallpaper for a moment, then the door closed.

“Come in, Richard, come in,” Cheveldeoff said. “I believe it’s your turn to play white.”

“Good afternoon, Archdeacon,” Richard Hansen said. He crossed the matte-finish black floor and sat down across from Cheveldeoff. Without another word, he moved, pawn to king four, and the game began.

Cheveldeoff played with half his brain. Though a decent enough player, Hansen couldn’t really challenge Cheveldeoff, who could have been a Grand Master if he had cared to pursue it. Cheveldeoff enjoyed their games, but not because of the chess. The real reason he brought Hansen in week after week was that the man fascinated him.

As well he should. Richard Hansen had been Samuel Cheveldeoff’s pet project for a quarter of a century, ever since Cheveldeoff had taken command of Body Security (at the remarkably young age of thirty) and had first been briefed on the long-term experiments already underway with Victor Hansen’s “son” and “grandson.”

I wonder if he knows just how much he looks like a young Victor Hansen? Cheveldeoff thought, studying Richard as Richard studied the board. Probably not. The Body strictly controlled all information about Victor Hansen, including images. And Peter Hansen, Richard’s “father,” had certainly not been provided with a stock of images of Victor Hansen to keep around the home.

Even if Richard Hansen were to see a photograph of Victor Hansen at the same age, Cheveldeoff doubted he would put two and two together. After all, many grand-sons looked like their grandfathers. Cheveldeoff’s own grandfather had been not that dissimilar from himself.

But Richard Hansen, though he would never know it, was an exact duplicate of Victor Hansen at his age—because Richard Hansen, as only about ten people on the planet knew, was not Victor Hansen’s grandson at all.

He was Victor Hansen’s clone.

Cheveldeoff moved. “Bishop to Knight Five. Check.” Hansen bent to the board, giving Cheveldeoff a few more minutes for reflection.

When that old sinner Victor Hansen had stolen the Rivers of Babylon and fled the solar system, he had left behind underwn head these days.

He moved the rook. Cheveldeoff took his bishop. Richard studied the board again. The situation had not improved. “The records are stored on the far side of the Moon, but they’re raw data files downloaded from an old automated deep-space station, ironically one of the ones that first saw the Fist of God approaching. They hadn’t been completely ignored—some analyst studied them immediately after Hansen escaped. But the micronuke that destroyed Sterling Heights at the moment of departure fried electronics all over the far side, and for several months after a lot of data that came in from deep space was lost or scrambled while equipment was being repaired or replaced. I doubt the analysts of fifty years ago could retrieve anything.” He needed the rook more than the bishop, he decided, and pulled it back a rank to safety. “But technology has advanced. My algorithms identified a great deal more data from that deep-space station tucked away in odd corners of the database than those old analysts knew existed.” He attempted to threaten Cheveldeoff’s king with the rook he’d saved on his last move.

Cheveldeoff blocked the rook with a pawn-protected knight and with the same move opened up a new line of attack from his bishop on Richard’s remaining rook. “Go on.”

“That space station had picked up something, I could tell that right away, but the signal was almost nonexistent. It took several days of tweaking to filter out the noise burying it, but by yesterday, the computer and I agreed: the space station had recorded—and located in space—the electromagnetic footprint of a Cornwall branespace engine spinning up. The Rivers of Babylon must have changed course just before it left the system. Combining the data from the deep-space station with the final observation of the Rivers of Babylon’s position within the system gave me . . .” He slid his queen forward, on the theory that the best defense was a strong offense. “Check.”

Cheveldeoff blocked with his bishop, without a second’s pause. “A vector!”

“A vector.” Richard shook his head. The queen move had been an act of desperation. He couldn’t sustain the attack. He had to move her back and concentrate on defense again . . . or resign, and he wasn’t quite ready to do that. He pulled the piece back toward his side of the board. “It’s not enough to tell us where the moddie planet is . . . if it exists . . . but at least it narrows the field of search. All we need now is one unexplained burst of electromagnetic energy, one anomaly reported by some fortune-seeking scout ship . . .”

“And we’ll finally be able to Purify the worst abominations the genesculptors ever created,” Cheveldeoff said. “And just maybe save the human race from the wrath of God. Excellent news, Richard!” His own queen slashed across the board. “Check. Mate in three.”

What? Richard stared at the board. How did I miss that? Well, he could see it now readily enough. He reached out and tipped over his king. “Good game, sir.”

“I eagerly await the next,” Cheveldeoff said, getting to his feet and thus signaling the end of the audience. But he held out his hand, and he’d never done that before. “Good work, Richard,” he said as Richard took it. He held it a moment longer than necessary for a handshake, and looked Richard in the eyes. It wasn’t a comfortable look; Cheveldeoff’s eyes had af something that was supposed to taste like bacon and eggs but Chris very much doubted really did (because if bacon and eggs had really tasted like that, why would anyone have ever eaten them?) Chris packed up and hit the trail. As the orange rays of the sun cleared the ridges, mist rose from the wet pavement, swirling around him as he walked.

Today he chose to walk in silence. He doubted even an Archdeacon could listen to the Avatar’s book every day. It was too rich, like eating bubblesquid pâté for breakfast, lunch, and supper. And too infuriating.

The last time he had come this way, he had been one of a company of two-dozen ten-year-olds, Emily Wood and John Duval among them. They had been on the traditional field trip to the Landing Site, and they hadn’t been walking. Instead, they’d been riding in big-wheeled electric cars with sealed, humidified interiors designed to keep the Selkies’ skin from drying out, never mind how uncomfortable it made the nonmods. “It’s only for a short time,” the teacher said when he complained. “You’ll live.”

This morning the air held at least as much humidity as those car interiors had, so much he was almost surprised it didn’t trigger his fear of water. Sometimes Chris dreamed about living somewhere dry. The closest thing Marseguro had to a desert was a high plateau in the mountains where it only rained or snowed three or four times a year, but the only way to get there was by air and you had to have a pressing scientific reason to make the trip. Suspecting mold had started growing on your skin didn’t count.

After an hour, the road’s gentle slope steepened, and it began to wind up the side of the ridge between pink boulders and purplish bushes. Chris walked faster. If he remembered right, once he crested the top . . .

There. Landing Valley, broad and flat as a table: the ideal place to set down a starship.

Very little remained of the Rivers of Babylon after all these years. The settlers had stripped the electronics and most of the metal out of her to build Firstdip which, after decades, Chris had always thought, still looked like a refugees’ shantytown. But the First Landers hadn’t been entirely focused on the immediate needs of survival. They’d left one section of the ship undisturbed, as a kind of monument, and it glinted below him in the afternoon sun, a short, stubby cylinder of silvery metal, ten meters wide and a hundred in diameter, set on its side so that it towered over the site: a cross section of the hull taken from the holds, showing the heavy shielding that had protected the Selkie children in their water-filled tanks from radiation through the long trip to the edge of Earth’s solar system, through branespace (not that radiation was a problem there) and then in from the edges of this system to Marseguro. Years later, a museum and interpretative center had been set up in a low building next to the hull section.

None of that interested Chris. He descended into the valley and strode past both the museum and the hull section without a glance, heading instead for the dark opening in the steep red rock of the far valley wall, maybe three hundred meters farther. He remembered asking the teacher about it during the field trip.

“It’s a cave,” she’d sat Landers thought might be needed in the future, or if the microfactories failed.”

“Like what?”

“Spare parts, survival rations, communications equipment, things like that,” she’d said vaguely. “An emergency beacon, I think. Maybe someday we’ll want to talk to the rest of humanity again. After the Body Purified is gone. Now hurry up and catch up with the rest of the group. I think there’s gelato!”

Chris couldn’t remember if he’d had gelato that day, but he’d never forgotten the cave. He’d longed to explore it even then, but of course children weren’t allowed in, and nobody ever came here except on school field trips or for significant Landing Day anniversaries—the next would be the fortieth, still half a year away.

They’re probably planning something really special, Chris thought. Well, it will certainly be special if this works out.

He reached into his pack and pulled out his flashlight and crowbar. He didn’t expect much in the way of security, but surely the entrance would at least be locked: and so it was. The mouth of the cave had been closed off with a wall of cement blocks, which held a metal door, painted in peeling blue. A rusty hasp, secured by an equally rusty padlock, held the door closed. The crowbar made quick work of the hasp, and a moment later Chris flicked on the flashlight and stepped out of the just-starting-to-warm-up day into a dank, dark chill.

He had no idea how far into the hillside the cave and its additional rooms reached, or how long he might have to search, but in fact he found the equipment he wanted in the first natural chamber, just inside the cement-block wall, where it could be easily retrieved if needed. The First Landers had only wanted some place out of the rain; they weren’t trying to hide anything. Why would they? They believed everyone on the Rivers of Babylon was united in purpose, had all thrown in their lot with this do-or-die quest to found a world safe from the Body Purified, a new home for a new, improved breed of human . . . and their unimproved slaves, Chris thought. Us.

Just the day before, he’d heard once more the Avatar’s unanswerable question: “What good are normal humans to superhuman monsters? They’ll come to despise us, then enslave us, then eradicate us.”

The death of Chris’ father was proof enough the Avatar was right. Chris shook his head. “Not me,” he growled.

He found the equipment he wanted, clearly marked. No inkling that it should be secured or at least left unlabeled had apparently ever crossed anyone’s mind. Some superhumans, Chris thought, pushing the white packing crate toward the door. The scraping of plastic on stone echoed back from the cave walls with the sound of a knife on a grindstone. As Chris pulled the crate into the light, the text that he had previously only seen in the circle of illumination from his flashlight became clear: EMERGENCY INTERSTELLAR NULL-BRANE BEACON, and below that, an identification number, and a small panel of instructions. He read them over carefully. Among other things, they told him to make note of the ID number on the case, as he would need it to activate the beacon. He pulled his clunky old datapad from the backpack and stored the ad air. But they also had water. In fact, Coriolis had just about any combination of the two elements anyone could want. There were submerged-seating areas that looked like pictures Emily had seen of swim-up bars on Earth, rooms that were not only nonsubmerged but dehumidified for the comfort of landlings, other rooms that were nonsubmerged but regularly humidified by a fine mist of water vapor (available in a variety of scents from floral to savory), and two-level rooms that allowed Selkies to sit submerged and landlings to sit high and dry.

Emily’s parents were waiting for her in a small private submerged-seating room. She swam up into the room from below and surfaced, then ran her fingers through her short violet hair and over her face to clear away the water. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi, yourself,” said her mother, and Emily instantly knew she was in trouble.

Dr. Carla Christianson-Wood was in her late thirties, local years, which put her in her mid-forties in Earth years. Her hair, much longer than Emily’s, remained more blonde than gray, and unlike her daughter and most of the rest of the younger generation, she had never dyed it.

Dr. Christianson-Wood’s mother, Dr. Alice Christianson, had been one of the first-generation Selkies on board the Rivers of Babylon, and had studied genetics with Victor Hansen himself. Dr. Christianson-Wood, like her mother before her, had focused her research energies on viruses—specifically, the differences between the local equivalent to viruses, which fortunately, as predicted by Victor Hansen’s scientific team before the Rivers of Babylon landed, were incapable of infecting Earth-evolved life, and the viruses the settlers had brought with them from Earth. “There is some concern that Marseguroite and Earth viruses could exchange genetic information and produce something really nasty that neither we nor Marseguro life would have any immunity to,” she’d told Emily once. “We need to know if that’s possible and what to do about known. ‘In the long run, the arts are more important to society than the sciences.’ ” She mimicked Naborikov’s rounded vowels and clipped consonants perfectly. “As if the arts will help us survive on a hostile planet!”

“But that’s just it,” Emily retorted. “Marseguro isn’t a hostile planet. After four decades, we know that. There are hardly any threats. Some nasty sea predators, but that’s about it. You’ve said yourself there are no native diseases to worry about. Solar radiation? Not a problem. Hurricanes? Rogue waves? The mountains shelter us. Marseguro is a paradise.”

“You sound like a Consolidationist,” her mother said. She made the word sound like an insult. “We’ve barely begun to really colonize this planet. All our people, nonmods and Selkies, live within a few thousand square kilometers of each other, close to this one continent. The nonmods have barely penetrated the interior, and the Selkies have barely explored beyond the shelf. We may never live in the abyss, but there are shallows that we could make our own, a whole barely submerged continent where we could build underwater habitats—and maybe even anchor floating habitats for nonmods. The Council is already talking of building a prototype float-hab as a test. But if the Consolidationists get their way, this tiny corner of the planet is all we’ll ever inhabit.”

“I’m not a Consolidationist,” Emily said. “But I’m not an Expansionist either. Those are last generation’s labels, Mother. Members of my generation just want freedom to live our lives the way we want. Some of us will go into the sciences. Some of us will help build new habitats. But not all of us.” She gestured at Amy. “Not these two of us.”

“You’re being selfish and shortsighted,” her father said, softly but forcefully. She knew that voice: he’d used it when she was a little girl and he was very angry with her but trying not to yell. “You have the brains and the grades to go into the hard sciences, and that means you have a duty to do so. A duty to improve life on this planet and help us spread across its surface. A duty to your ancestors, who fled tyranny to build a new life here. A duty to Victor Hansen, who created our race and led us to safety. Freedom!” Now his voice rose, though he still wasn’t shouting—quite. “What kind of freedom will you have if the Holy Warriors find us all nicely bunched together for them to exterminate, amusing ourselves with waterdance and amphibian opera? You know your history. You know the Body Purified is still searching for us. All it takes is one scout to stumble on us, and—”

Emily shook her head, hard. “No, I don’t know that the Body Purified is still looking for us. It’s been fifty years on Earth. The Body Purified probably doesn’t even exist anymore.” She saw her parents’ lips tighten but plunged ahead just the same. “All that crap they said they believed. Nobody could force a whole population to swallow that bunk for fifty years. It’s insane.”

“I’m going to have to have a word with the head of the Education Committee,” her father growled. “They seem to have left Earth history off the curriculum. Fifty years is nothing. Empires based on myth and superstition have enslaved entire populations for centuries.”

Emily shook her head. “I’m not willing to live my whole life in fear of something that will probably never happen. I want to create, entertain, communicate, move people. I want—”

“You want to be a self-centered, naïïve, shortsighted eighteen-year-old,” her father said. He looked at Amy. “And twenty-year-old.” Amy said nothing, leaving the argument to Emily, as she tended to do when family disagreements broke out. “I understand that. Perfectly natural. But just because I understand it doesn’t mean I can condone it.

“And there’s another thing, Emily.” He leaned forward and shook an accusing finger at her. “Underwater dance is Selkie-only.”

“Well, of course it is,” she said impatiently. “You can’t expect landlings to do it. Even with scuba gear they’re about as clumsy as—”

“It’s exclusionary,” her father said flatly. “It can’t be enjoyed by nonmods.” He emphasized the word. “It’s not helping to unify Marseguro society, it’s driving a wedge down the middle of it. It’s just another example of the kind of mind-set that’s creeping into the younger generation of Selkies . . . the same mind-set that led you and your friends to think throwing some poor nonmod off the pier was the height of harmless humor.

“It’s a mind-set that will destroy Marseguro if it isn’t checked. There are no second-class citizens on Marseguro. We’re modified humans, but we’re still human, and modified doesn’t mean ‘better.’ That’s as bad in its own way as the Body Purified’s doctrine that moddies are subhuman at best, nonhuman at worst. Pursuing Selkie-only ‘arts’ like underwater dancing is counterproductive and antisocial, and I won’t have a daughter of mine lending credence to it.” He turned his attention to Amy. “And amphibian opera is no better. Nonmods may be able to appreciate the above-water part of the performance, but not the underwater part. They can’t even hear most of it.

“No. You are both free to pursue your artistic endeavors, of course—your mother and I enjoy and encourage your creative efforts, you know that—but pursue them as your sole careers? Out of the question. Our society is not large enough or well-established enough to allow our best and brightest to fritter away their talents on frivolities of any kind, much less frivolities that exclude half our population.”

Emily felt her face flush. She’d always blushed easily. Her father used to call her a Selkie thermometer, teasing that he could measure her anger or embarrassment by how high the red wash of blood rose in her face. She hoped he remembered, because if she were a thermometer, she was sure the top of her head would have burst by now. “Do you have any idea how pretentious you sound, Dad?” she said, keeping her voice at a reasonably normal volume, but only with an effort. “We aren’t a totalitarian state, remember? Society doesn’t get a say in what I do with my life, as long as I don’t hurt anybody else. And just because you’re my father doesn’t mean you get a say, either.

“And don’t give me="3">Cheveldeoff waited to see if Rasmusson would add to that. When he didn’t, he repeated, “Why?”

Rasmusson smiled slightly. “I have my reasons. They relate to you only tangentially, however, and therefore I will not share them. In any event, I did not ask you here merely to tell you you have my—entirely unofficial, of course—support. I asked you here to tell you that merely having my support is not enough to guarantee your election.”

Cheveldeoff couldn’t help it; he blinked. Then he sat back in the couch. “But my count—”

“Your estimate is flawed,” the Right Hand said. “Shridhar’s influence reaches farther than you know. Six of those who have told you they will support you will actually, come the vote, support Shridhar. I believe I can . . . persuade . . . perhaps two of those to return to your fold, and believe I can turn two currently in Shridhar’s camp in your favor without him being aware of it—well, until the vote, of course. But if you will do the math . . .”

Cheveldeoff already had. The Council of the Faithful had twenty-four members. He had been certain of the support of ten of them, and had thought Shridhar had the solid support of nine, leaving five undecided. But according to Rasmusson, he had only four certain votes. The Right Hand promised him another four, putting him only at eight. Shridhar would have eleven. “The undecideds?”

“Are still undecided. But I believe three, possibly four, are leaning toward Shridhar.”

Cheveldeoff felt a familiar sensation: cold rage. “What do you want me to do?” he growled.

“I want you to win the election,” Rasmusson said. “But to do so, you need a major success, something that will shift Councillors to your side through fear that the people will erupt in the regions they personally supervise if you are not elected. In short, Sam, you need to become a hero—a Julius Caesar, if you will.” The Right Hand sipped more wine. “The question is, how.”

Cheveldeoff grimaced. It was all very well to tell him to come up with a major success, but if he could do that on demand, he would have done it already, wouldn’t he?

Every continent had its hot spot. The Middle East was the worst, of course, but parts of China were almost as bad and even sections of the Rockies were complete no-go zones for Holy Warriors at the moment. “Central America has quieted down,” he pointed out. Mainly because hardly anyone is left alive down there, he thought, but didn’t add. The Right Hand had personally approved that particular pacification program, after all.

“It has,” the Right Hand agreed. “But if you’ll forgive my saying so, a quiet Central America is unlikely to impress anyone much beyond the few Neo-Incans who still survive down there.” He put his now-empty wineglass down and leaned forward, hands folded, elbows on knees. His eyes narrowed. “If we cannot have a security victory—and things do not look any better for such a victory among the colonies, do they . . . ?” He paused.

“No,” Cheveldeoff admitted after a moment. The Holy Warriors had so far barely penetrated the New Mars sysg the string of numbers. No . . . no . . .

Pain stabbed his head so sharply it frightened him, then quickly subsided. Those numbers . . . looked right, in a way he couldn’t explain.

This is crazy, he thought. But the star that now centered the display had codes beside it that cross-referenced to the databases they’d been searching. The codes indicated that the algorithm only rated the connection as “of potential interest,” but it couldn’t hurt to look.

“Computer,” he said. “Display details of data associated with star at coordinates . . .” He read them off.

The screen changed. He rubbed tired eyes that didn’t want to focus, then squinted at the small print. Apparently an automated freighter several light-years from the star in question had picked up a weak signal from its direction. The signal had not triggered any particular action on the freighter’s part, since it did not match any current distress codes. In fact, if the freighter hadn’t been an ancient piece of crap, still running its original communications equipment, it might not have picked up the signal at all: it arrived as a crude null-brane pulse in a region of the branefield no one had used for communications for a couple of decades. The freighter’s computer had flagged the signal as random noise, but logged it nevertheless.

“Computer, download signal, analyze per standard search parameters.”

Richard still didn’t expect anything. He certainly didn’t expect what flashed up on screen almost instantly: PARAMETERS MET. ESTIMATED PROBABILITY 100 PERCENT.

“Parameters met,” the computer said redundantly. “Estimated probability 100 percent.”

For a long moment, Richard just stared; then he remembered to breathe. His heart raced. Calm down, he told himself. It’s not the first hit you’ve seen, and they’ve all been false alarms so far.

Which was true, but he’d never seen, or expected to see, a probability estimated at one hundred percent. In fact, the way he’d written the search parameters, he wouldn’t have expected to see a rating like that unless—

“Computer, display intercepted message.”

It appeared on his screen, and his heart skipped one beat, then another, then raced even faster.

—unless a transmission came from the Rivers of Babylon herself.

He opened his mouth to tell the computer to contact Cheveldeoff, then closed it again without speaking. Double-check, he thought. Triple-check. You don’t want to wake up the Archdeacon of Body Security only to find out you’ve been duped by some interstellar con man.

Not that he thought that likely: you didn’t set off something with the transmission power of a ship emergency beacon just for laughs. But he ran the checks anyway. It took him another ha message, even the slightly unfocused quality of the transmission, exactly what the computer predicted a signal generated by fifty-year-old equipment should look like.

And it had originated from the very star whose coordinates he had somehow intuited, a star he might never have looked at closely if not for that strange sense of knowing he should look there.

I don’t believe in ESP. I don’t believe in magic. And neither does Cheveldeoff.

He doesn’t need to know how I found the star.

“Computer,” he said at last. “Contact Archdeacon Cheveldeoff. Priority call.”

The opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony woke Cheveldeoff from a sound sleep. He answered the vidcall prepared to bite off the head of whomever had thought anything short of armed revolution worth waking him at that ungodly hour, but when Richard Hansen told him what he thought he had discovered, Cheveldeoff’s sleep inertia vanished. Two hours later, he sat in his office at the same table he and Hansen played chess on every month, sans chessboard. Three of the walls displayed the Italian villa interior, but the fourth showed a block of repeating text, accompanied by graphs and lists of numbers providing technical details of the transmission’s properties.

Hansen looked rumpled and bleary-eyed: he obviously hadn’t been to bed at all. He’d been waiting for Cheveldeoff in the antechamber when Cheveldeoff arrived, and hadn’t even sat down before launching into an explanation of what they were looking at. “The signal wasn’t strong enough to reach Earth itself,” he said, pointing to a series of numbers that meant nothing to Cheveldeoff. “A freighterbot en route from Stableford to Freerock picked it up. It recorded it and logged it, but didn’t flag it as anything interesting. When it sent its next data dump to its owners on Freerock, our listening buoy intercepted it.”

He’s leaving something out, Cheveldeoff thought. I wonder . . .

“What made you look at it, then, if it wasn’t flagged?”

Hansen looked uncomfortable. “Desperation, I guess. We haven’t found anything in any of the obvious places to look, so I just decided to dig a little deeper.”

“So it was a hunch.”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“Interesting,” Cheveldeoff said, and meant it. The gene-bomb’s gone off . . . but he hasn’t gone mad.

Not yet, anyway.

“There’s no doubt this originated from Hansen’s ship?”

Hansen shook his head. “None. I’ve checked it every possible way, and everything matches.”

Cheveldeoff looked at the text of the message, which was less than informative: STARSHIP RIVERS OF BABYLON ecord message to Grand Deacon Ellers.”

“Ready,” the computer said.

“Computer, message follows: Grand Deacon, report to my office at 0700 hours with whatever additional staff you need to plan the Purification of a rogue human colony. Message ends. Computer, send.”

“Sent,” the computer confirmed.

Cheveldeoff smiled at Richard. “If this pans out, Richard, I think we can safely say you’ve desmirched the escutcheon of your family.”

“It will pan out, sir,” Hansen said. “I’m sure of it.” He cleared his throat. “Sir . . .” He paused. “Sir, request permission to accompany the Holy Warriors on their Purification mission.”

Cheveldeoff looked into the projected flames of the Italian villa’s fireplace, thinking. Hansen waited silently, watching him. Well, why not? Cheveldeoff thought. If the gene-bomb really has gone off, and the gene therapy keeps him sane, he may have more “hunches” that will serve us well. If Victor Hansen’s mad scheme works out fully and he becomes a mental as well as physical copy of Hansen, then he’ll be even more valuable as an intelligence asset already in custody and available for interrogation. And if he simply becomes unstable, like his “father” . . . well, what better place to dispose of him quietly than within a combat force in a war zone?

He looked up. “Permission granted. You will accompany the Holy Warriors as my personal observer.”

Hansen’s face lit up. “I’d like that, sir!”

So easy, Cheveldeoff thought. People are so easily manipulated. An implied threat, an occasional treat . . . they’re no different from dogs. And as Avatar . . . I’ll have my hand on the leash. Earth will be pacified. I’ll bring the colonies under control. And after that . . . well, it’s a big galaxy. We can and will spread the human race to many more planets.

God will be mollified. And even if It isn’t, It will have lots of planets to choose from if It feels it needs to destroy one to get our attention.

“Good,” he said out loud. “When Grand Deacon Ellers arrives, I’ll introduce you. And feel free to make any suggestions you may have during the planning sessions, Richard. Your input will be invaluable.”

“Yes, sir! And . . . thank you, sir.”

“Grand Deacon Ellers will be here in less than three hours, and you look like hell. Go get cleaned up, maybe take a nap, and I’ll see you here at 0700.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you again.”

Cheveldeoff watched him leave, and thought again, So easy.

And then he activated his secure comm circuit to the Right Hand, who answered looking as if he’d been up fo“We’ve got them,” Cheveldeoff said. “Hansen came through.” He explained succinctly. “Ellers is coming here at 0700 to begin planning.”

Rasmusson (or his CG image) looked thoughtful. “You know that Ellers is secretly supporting Shridhar’s bid for the Avatarship.”

“I know,” Cheveldeoff said. “But he’s the Grand Deacon in command. There’s no way to not involve him. And from my past dealings with him, I don’t believe he will sabotage a mission as important as this for political reasons.”

“I hope you’re right, Archdeacon.” The Right Hand nodded. “Well, this is excellent news. Keep me informed.” He moved as if to switch off communications, then paused. “And move quickly, Sam. News of the Avatar’s condition is leaking out. Just rumors, so far. We’re countering with misinformation about a viral attack that has left him bedridden but still fully functional and in command. But we can’t keep a lid on this forever. Eventually . . . within a few weeks, at most . . . we will have to pull the plug and convene the Council of the Faithful.

“Finish your business by then, Sam. Or start making your retirement plans . . . for somewhere far, far off Earth.”

The screen went blank.

High stakes, Cheveldeoff thought, then smiled.

He’d always been a gambling man.

Richard left Cheveldeoff’s office filled with elation. At last! he thought. At last. All his life, Victor Hansen’s successful escape from the Body had hung around his neck like Jacob Marley’s chains. Now he felt like Ebenezer Scrooge on the Christmas morning after the long, haunted night.

Not that anyone legally celebrated Christmas anymore, of course.

His elation persisted through the week of planning that followed, reinforced every time someone asked his opinion. Having the favor of Cheveldeoff, he discovered, made all the difference in the world. Even when they ultimately discounted his suggestions, people listened to them respectfully and explained why they thought they wouldn’t work. But a few of his suggestions were followed. He’d made a study of his grandfather’s abominations, and had already amassed much of the information about the Selkies’ abilities that the Grand Deacon needed to know as he outfitted his troops and ship.

“They’re not true merpeople,” he explained during one session in Ellers’ office, as he and the Grand Deacon looked at an image of one of the Selkies. Richard had studied it for years. Maybe that was why it no longer disgusted him as much as it once had. Green eyes without eyelashes, almost twice the size of normal human eyes, peered out beneath naked bony brows and a shaved skull in a face almost albino-white. The nose with its two slitlike nostrils made a barely-noticeable bump in that pale oval, and the ears were no more prominent. The mouth, oddly, appeared completely normal, and it seemed wrong that such an unmistakably human feature should appear in such an inhuman visage. And then there were the gills: three slits on each side of the neck, open in the photo, displaying a pink interior that made Richard em">

Alien . . . horrible . . . monstrous. Richard remembered thinking that about the Selkie. But somehow, today, he saw a kind of beauty in the strange face he’d never appreciated before. It wasn’t a mutilated human being, after all, but a human-based creature designed—by his grandfather!—to live in an environment alien to normal humans.

An astonishing achievement, when you thought about it. I wish we didn’t have to . . .

He cut that thought off. He couldn’t think that, couldn’t let a hint of those kinds of doubts infiltrate his thoughts. The Body did not allow doubt. God did not allow doubt. And while the Purity Watchers might not be able to read his thoughts . . . yet . . . God certainly could.

The Selkies were abominations. Their world had to be Purified. End of story.

But that stray thought worried him. Where had it come from?

He continued his mini-lecture. “They can’t eat underwater, for example, and they need to drink fresh water just like a normal human. That means that although they may have underwater buildings—if they’ve got any technology to speak of at all after fifty years—those buildings must have breathable air in them. That means they’re most likely to be located in shallow water close to shore, and to have some kind of air intake.”

“Which means we can easily find most of them,” Ellers said. “Excellent.” A trim, gray-haired, square-jawed man, he was the very model of a modern Holy Warrior, like something off of a recruiting poster. He wore a light blue short-sleeved casual uniform. Beneath the skin of the inside of his left forearm, a nanodisplay crawled with ever-changing data. “Anything else?”

“They can function on land, but if they stay out of the water too long their skin and gills dehydrate. I understand that if their gills dry out, the pain is excruciating. Eventually, they die.”

Ellers made another note. “Could be useful for interrogation,” he said. “What about those big eyes of theirs?”

“Very good underwater vision,” Richard said. “But they pay for it on land. They have a third eyelid that improves their vision underwater. On land, they sometimes close it to keep their eyes from drying out. It’s transparent, but their vision suffers—they have difficulty seeing things at a distance. They have excellent night vision, at least over the short- to mid-range—much better than ours. On the other hand, a bright, sunny day is quite unpleasant for them; their eyes can’t adjust.”

“Hearing?” Ellers asked. “They don’t seem to have much in the way of ears.”

Richard nodded. “My grand—um, Dr. Hansen deliberately atrophied their ears, modifying them so they’re more like dolphin ears. They hear much better than normal humans in the water, but worse on land, since their ears don’t concentrate sound waves the way normal humans’ do. However, they can hear well into what we’d consider the ultrasonic.”

“Like dogs.”

“Something like that.”

Sanctification. The taxibot had brought him past some of that equipment, armored personnel carriers, boxes of ammunition and power packs, aerial bots and folded-wing ultralights, mysterious crates and boxes of uncertain origin and content, several boats, and at least three subs, two small, one fairly large. It all had to be secured for both takeoff and the zero-G conditions that would prevail in much of the ship thereafter. Much of it would be prestowed in the large transport shuttles that would take it to the planet’s surface . . . after the assault craft had done their work, of course.

His luggage bumped against his leg as though impatient, and Richard turned his attention back to the crew-entry elevator. He climbed the ramp, luggage following a respectful meter behind. The guard gave him a slight nod, then turned his attention back to the expanse of pavement behind him.

Richard entered the elevator, the door closed behind him, and he began his ascent. A journey of a hundred light-years begins with a single elevator ride, he thought, and grinned. And as long as we’re thinking in clichés, “today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

If this mission went well, he expected the rest of his life to be much better than his life so far.

He’d dreamed again the night before that he was Victor Hansen. Well, watch out, Grandpa, he thought. Little Ricky is coming for you.

The funny thing was, even though he knew the old man must have died long ago, Richard had the distinct feeling Grandpa Hansen would be waiting for him.

Three weeks after the disastrous dinner with her parents (who had not mentioned the evening again, but in that subtle-but-definite “we’re not talking about this, but don’t believe for a second it’s over” way of not talking about it that parents had), Emily saw Chris Keating again for the first time since she’d almost drowned him.

She’d come to the Square to meet her friend Dahlia Schaefer. For weeks, they’d been talking about taking a trip to the Schaefer family’s deep-water vacation habitat, but somehow they hadn’t managed to buy all the supplies they’d needed. A store not far from the Square offered deep-water equipment, and so they’d agreed to visit it together.

Dahlia was late, not unusual for Dahlia, and Emily was early, not unusual for her; she seemed to be constitutionally unable to show up at the agreed-upon time for any appointment, for fear she’d be (unthinkably!) late. With time to kill, she’d ducked into the grandly named though in fact rather dinky Marseguro Planetary Museum for a few minutes.

Its dimly lit halls and brightly lit display cases always took her back to her days in landschool, those first six years when Selkies and landlings studied together. They’d made several field trips here. It hadn’t changed: it remained, as it had always been, essentially a shrine to the man who had both created the Selkies and brought them and their landling comrades here—Victor Hansen. In fact, most of the museum’s exhibits had been brought to Marseguro in his personal effects. So had about half the contents of the library next door, though all of the First Landers had contributed parts of their digital collections as well. The Odominated the Library, though new work by Marseguroites occupied an ever-growing space. My generation will fill the place with homegrown music and art and literature, Emily thought defiantly. Whatever my parents think about people wasting their time on the arts.

She wandered aimlessly around the museum. Photographs filled one room, images of Hansen on Earth before the asteroid threat brought the Body to power. Tall, black-haired, handsome, he smiled at the camera with confidence whether standing at a lectern, cutting a ribbon, or shaking hands with the President of United Europe. When he wasn’t smiling, it was because the camera had caught him in impassioned speechifying, before the World Assembly, the Council of Scientific Advancement, the guests gathered at the Nobel prize ceremony.

Another room provided more background about Hansen. He’d always loved the water; among his effects had been a ship model, a Yankee Clipper, every piece of rigging impeccably strung in fine thread. Here, too, were the handful of hardcopy books he had brought with him: the Bible (“It’s the story of God, isn’t it?” she remembered John joking on one school trip to the museum. “Hansen thought it was all about him.”), Moby Dick, a first edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, a signed copy of The Double Helix . . . and a children’s book by Arthur Ransome, an early twentieth-century English author, called We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, which Hansen supposedly included at the last minute as he made his plans to seize (with the approval of the Lunar government) the Rivers of Babylon, rebuild it, and get it into space before the Body attacked the Moon. “I loved that book as a kid,” he’d said (according to the display text). “And the title appealed to my sense of humor, considering what I hoped to do.”

Emily entered the next room. At its center, above a projector set on a pedestal, floated a holographic image of the Rivers of Babylon as it had been at launch. If she manipulated the projector’s controls, she knew, she could peel the image like an onion, and see how its inner core, normally open to allow zero-G travel the length of the ship, had been bulkheaded and sealed and filled with water for the Selkie families fleeing Earth in Hansen’s care. Diagrams and photographs around the room detailed the construction work, carried out under impossible deadlines. The Lunar government, which had sheltered so many refugees from Earth—moddies and nonmods alike—had refused to bow to the threats from the Avatar, firmly ensconced on Earth after the Day of Salvation. The Lunarites had provided the necessary materials and workers and had kept Hansen apprised of the massing of warships in Earth orbit.

Only the chaos on Earth in the aftermath of the Day of Salvation had given Hansen and his work crews enough time to get the Rivers of Babylon ready. Most of his followers had been employees in his massive genesculpting business empire on Earth; other landlings who had joined them had been refugees, or Luna residents, who chose to throw their lot in with him rather than face life under the Body Purified.

A second ship, unmodified, had taken aboard many other refugees who intended to take their chances in the existing colonies.

Emily paused before the last display in the room, a large photograph of that other ship, Sterling Heights. The image, captured by the fleeing Rivers of Babylon, showed Sterling Heights, twice the size of Rivers of Babylon, breaking in two in a blossoming spgrew even colder, and the strange little smile vanished completely.

“Oh, that’s . . . uh . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, again. Sorry in so many ways, she thought. Sorry we pushed you in the water, and just about as sorry I came over to apologize for it.

“So you’ve said. Several times.” Keating gave her approximately the same look she’d use trying to figure out the origin of a slimy glob of floating sea trash. “Is there anything else?”

“No. I’ll . . .” She tried a final smile. “I’ll see you around?”

“For a while, maybe.” Keating strode past her and on down the street.

Now what did that mean?

“Emily!” Dahlia’s voice rang across the Square, and she turned to meet her friend, putting Chris Keating out of her mind.

The encounter with one of his Selkie attackers in the Square left Chris shaking with anger and disgust. At first he had rather enjoyed facing Emily Wood again, thinking of how little her apologies would mean when Earth answered his call. But when she dared to mention his mother . . . and then to pretend she actually cared what happened to a landling . . . the hypocrisy infuriated him. The Selkies had no true human feelings. They were nothing but intelligent animals, devolved and degraded from once-human stock. They could manipulate, mock, and mimic true human feelings, but they no more understood it than parrots understood the words they could repeat or monkeys understood the actions they could copy. So said . . . had said . . . his mother. More importantly, so said the Avatar.

But shame and guilt mingled with his anger. He’d felt secret relief when told his mother had died at last, and that shamed him, even though she had, in a very real way, died the day of her stroke. But what kind of son felt even an iota of relief at the death of his mother?

And mixed with that shame, the guilt: guilt that he had not triggered the emergency beacon years before, when he had first thought of it and his mother had still been alive. If he had acted then, instead of letting his fear for his personal safety get in the way, the Holy Warriors might have long since come to Marseguro—and brought with them the technology that could have helped his mother recover from her stroke, or even have prevented it altogether.

Now it’s too late. He had traveled three blocks at a fast walk since leaving the Square, heading toward the genesculpting lab where he had recently resumed work, but now he stopped and sat down on an empty crate outside a survival supply store, the sort of place that sold deep-sea shelters to Selkies and tents to the few nonmods like himself who liked to travel into the interior. What if they don’t come at all? It had been more than two weeks since he had triggered the beacon. He knew intellectually it could be months or even years before there would be a response, but knowing that and sustaining the hope he’d had when he first triggered the beacon were two different things. Already he’d begun to worry about what would happen the next time someone visited Landing Valley. Would they discover what he had done? Worse, would they figure out he had done it? He didn’t think he’d left anything anyone could trace bacaccess to much of anything, including any part of the ship that wasn’t either his cabin, the automated mess hall just down the corridor that he seemed to have entirely to himself, or the recreation room next door to the mess hall that it seemed he also had to himself, if you didn’t count the image of the Avatar that appeared every hour on the hour in every holocube in the room to lead whomever happened to be present in the prayer du jour.

Despite being alone and apparently unobserved, Richard made a point of being in the rec room at least once every day at a designated prayer time. Just because he thought he was unobserved didn’t mean he actually was. Given his family history, he doubted he’d spent more than a few hours of his entire life unobserved. If he hoped to change that with the success of this mission, it wouldn’t do to give anyone any reason to doubt his devotion.

He didn’t know what to expect from liftoff, but an automated announcement came on to tell him to strap himself into the chair/acceleration couch thoughtfully provided and to stow all loose items in the nearby drawers. During the launch, he felt very heavy for a few minutes, but not unbearably so. Another announcement urged him to stay strapped in “during spin-up of the habitat ring.” For a few minutes he experienced weightlessness and barely managed to keep down his breakfast, but then weight returned, albeit not as much as usual: if he remembered right, the habitat ring spun up to about 0.9 G. Feeling both light and light-headed, he unstrapped when told it was safe to do so.

Some hours later, another announcement told him they had left Earth orbit, though he felt nothing unusual. About two days after that, there came another announcement that they had made the transition to branespace. Effectively, they’d left their own universe . . . and Richard hadn’t felt a thing. He lay on the bed, staring at the blank ceiling, and thought that if people knew how boring space travel was, the Body Purified wouldn’t have to outlaw talk about it.

Fortunately for his sanity, shortly after that announcement, his vidscreen beeped and lit with an image of Grand Deacon Ellers.

“Mr. Hansen,” said the Grand Deacon. “I trust you’ve enjoyed your journey so far.”

“I can’t complain,” Richard said—the literal truth. “I’ve been wondering if I’m really on the right ship, though. It seems pretty empty down here.”

“I apologize for not speaking to you sooner,” Ellers said. “There have been a great many demands on my time. In any event, security protocols are strict: nonmilitary personnel are restricted to isolated quarters during launch and the transition to branespace.

“Now, however, if you’d care to join me, I’d be happy to give you a tour of the ship. I’m sure you’ll want to prepare a report for transmission to Archdeacon Cheveldeoff once we’re back in normal space.”

“I’m sure I will,” Richard said.

“Excellent. I’ll send an escort.”

Twenty minutes later, after being guided threre blank, but the forth showed a schematic of an unfamiliar solar system.

“You made it, I see,” Ellers said.

“Only with help.” Richard nodded at his escort.

“Thank you, Chan. That will be all,” Ellers told the silent Holy Warrior, who saluted and left.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to find the way on my own,” Richard said. “Who designed this ship? Escher?”

“It’s a security feature,” Ellers said. “Not only is the interior counterintuitive, many of the corridor/room combinations are mutable. Anyone attempting to take this ship by force is going to find it very difficult to reach any of its critical systems.”

“I’m glad I didn’t try to escape my comfortable little corner of it, then.”

“You wouldn’t have.” Ellers indicated the system map on the vidwall. “I thought you might like to see this. Our branespace probe returned with this information just before we departed.”

Richard took a closer look. The system had two Jupiter-plus gas giants in distant orbits, a couple of chunks of rock in close . . . and a fifth planet, third out from the star, right in the middle of what the diagram helpfully labeled the habitable zone.

“Some of this is conjecture—there may still be some undetected planets,” Ellers said. “But there’s no doubt that that planet,” he pointed to the third from the star, “is our destination. The beacon whose transmission you uncovered is still yelling its message into space. The probe also detected low-strength radio signals. And,” Ellers gave Richard a rare grin, “the probe is quite confident that that world is almost entirely covered in liquid water.”

“A perfect Selkie world,” Richard said. He thought for a moment how wonderful it would be to be able to breathe underwater and explore a vast world ocean . . . then shoved the thought down, almost in panic. They’re monsters, he thought. Not mythical merpeople.

“Indeed,” said Ellers. “Congratulations. I think there can no longer be any doubt that you have uncovered your grandfather’s hideaway.”

Richard took a deep breath. He felt huge relief—he’d been confident, but he hadn’t been sure—but hard on its heels came a strange surge of . . . sadness? Panic? Anger?

Angst seemed to be the only word to describe it.

And again, he didn’t know where it was coming from.

Ellers was still talking. “. . . take you on the grand tour. After that, you’ll be free to come and go as you please, at least until we return to Earth.” He rose and led the way to the door.

The tour took the better part of two hours. They even ventured up to the ship’s core, the central zero-G shaft. The assault craftg vehicles could be flown the length of the ship and out the other end. Surrounding the central shaft toward the stern were the vast zero-G holds filled with supplies and weapons. Anything that absolutely required gravity was stored in smaller holds in the habitat ring, the rotating torus where the crew lived and operated. “It has a radius of around ninety meters,” Ellers explained, “and rotates at about three revolutions per minute. It’s big enough and slow enough that Coriolis forces aren’t a problem. It would be difficult to keep troops in fighting trim if we didn’t have some kind of artificial gravity on board. The branespace engineers keep claiming they’re on the verge of figuring out how to generate ‘real’ gravity, but they’ve been saying that for twenty years now.”

Richard discovered he had his own reason for appreciating the habitat ring’s artificial gravity: neither he nor his stomach very much enjoyed zero-G. He didn’t throw up, quite, but he was very glad to pull himself into the elevator in the core and feel his weight gradually return as it eased its way “down”—really, “out”—into the habitat ring.

The tour complete, Ellers led Richard to the bridge. Here, at last, were exterior views of the ship, but since the featureless void of branespace appeared in vidscreens as pitch-black, they didn’t hold much interest. Richard’s eyes were drawn instead to interior views that displayed some of the places he’d just been shown, the holds filled with weapons and vehicles, the three assault craft, the training rooms where the Holy Warriors practiced everything from knife fighting to unarmed combat to light-weapons fire. In one large simulator, a half-dozen Holy Warriors put a virtual submarine through its paces. “It’s very impressive,” Richard said. “I feel sorry for the Selkies . . .” his voice trailed off, and he hastily added “. . . almost.”

“I don’t,” Ellers growled. “They’re abominations and they deserve what’s coming.” He grinned then, or at least showed his teeth. Richard had a momentary and unsettling sense of the skeleton lurking just below the thin layer of skin and tissue that made a living human being. “And what’s coming is the Hand of God Itself, made flesh in the Holy Warriors of the Body.”

Richard resisted the temptation to say “Oo-Rah,” opting instead for, “What’s our ETA?”

“Two weeks in branespace, two days in to the planet.”

Richard looked back at the vidscreens of the Holy Warriors in training. “I’ve got a lot of time to kill,” he said. “I was wondering . . .”

Two weeks and two days later Richard stood on the bridge again as BPS Sanctification entered orbit around the planet where they expected to find the Selkies. Looking at the screens displaying the planet’s vast blue curve below them, he rubbed his left shoulder. After two weeks of long daily workouts, his instructor in the form of unarmed combat the Holy Warriors called “angel wrestling” had boosted the level of intensity a notch, and Richard had the bruises and strained muscles to show it. He’d had more luck with weapons training: much to his surprise, he’d turned out to be an excellent shot with both projectile and laser weapons. And at least now he knew which end to hold, should the need arise, and how to reload both.

He’d also managed to overcome his spacesickness . . . to a degree. He could function in zero-G as ting—no problem. Zigzagging and jackknifing back and forth across the central shaft—upchuck city.

Although he had discovered that vomiting could actually be used as a crude—very crude—zero-G propulsion system.

Who knew?

The planet-wide ocean glittered below them, fluffy white clouds dotted across it, each trailing a deep blue drop shadow. It looked beautiful and innocuous, but “Here There Be Monsters,” Richard thought. The moment they had exited branespace two days before they had heard the powerful call of the emergency beacon. “STARSHIP RIVERS OF BABYLON REQUESTS ASSISTANCE. THIS BEACON WILL RUN CONTINUOUSLY. STARSHIP RIVERS OF BABYLON REQUESTS ASSISTANCE. THIS BEACON WILL RUN CONTINUOUSLY . . .”

All the way in they’d also been listening in on the planet’s ordinary radio traffic. Accents were strange and references uncertain, but they’d overheard enough mentions of “Victor Hansen” and “Selkies” and “genesculpting” to make it clear to everyone that Richard’s claim had been spectacularly upheld. Here at last was the secret hiding place of Victor Hansen’s genemodded monsters.

They’d also learned what the residents called their watery home: Marseguro, Spanish and Portuguese for “safe sea.”

I don’t think so, Grandpa, Richard thought. He’d found himself talking to the long-dead genesculptor more and more in his head, and the weird thing was, it didn’t feel like he was talking to himself.

At least the headaches and dreams had subsided during the trip.

Ship sensors had provided more and more detail about Marseguro as they had approached. Water covered all of it except for one largish island or minicontinent and a scattering of smaller ones, some little more than wave-pounded rocks. The ocean was kilometers deep everywhere except for one enormous area of much shallower water, where a continent seemed to be either rising or subsiding.

Human—near-human, Richard reminded himself—habitation appeared to be concentrated in a series of towns along the eastern shore of the continent island. (The north and south poles had been designated based on the planet’s direction of spin, Earth’s “sun-rises-in-the-east” paradigm having been taken as the norm—as indeed, according to Body Purified doctrine, it had to be.)

Twenty-four hours ago, a probe had been sent ahead of Sanctification to orbit the planet and collect more detailed readings. That data, now arriving in near real-time, confirmed what they had suspected since entering the system and finding no signs of space travel: civilization on Marseguro appeared focused almost entirely downward, into the ocean. The only artificial satellites ID’d themselves as being part of the complement of Rivers of Babylon. Their function seemed limited to providing global positioning information, over-the-horizon communications, and meteorological information. “They knew they might be pursued,” Richard had mused out loud to Ellers as they neared the planet. “Why wouldn’t they have at least a couple of early-warning sensor platforms?”

“They might have them and we can’t see them,” Ellers said. “If they were entirely passive, we’d have no way to recognize them as are shrugged. “But after fifty years, it doesn’t matter. Our stealth technologies make us essentially invisible to anything but another Body ship. Whatever ancient sensors they might have hidden around the system couldn’t possibly detect us. And even if by some miracle they did see us coming . . . what could they do about it? Fifty years isn’t long enough to create the kind of technological and manufacturing capability it takes to build a ship that could challenge Sanctification. Their entire complement of microfactories would have to run flat-out for decades even to make a start, and they will have had other priorities. The most they could do if they spotted us would be to run and hide. And since no one is running or hiding . . .”

True enough, Richard thought now. The communications chatter remained mundane, talk of cultural events and sporting competitions and fishing grounds and, of course, what products were needed where, how soon the microfactories could produce them, and how much would be paid for them. It provided no hint that anyone below realized that Victor Hansen’s pipe dream of escape from the Body Purified was about to become a nightmare.

Richard glanced at Ellers. The Grand Deacon held his head tilted slightly to the left, listening to the earbud he wore on that side, a tiny device that could also transmit his voice. “Well,” Ellers said suddenly, in response to whatever he had heard, “I see no point in delay. Sound General Quarters. Pilots to their assault craft, drop teams to their shuttles. Attack to commence as scheduled, 0945 ship time.”

Richard looked at the peaceful ocean passing far below them, then at the day/night terminator approaching. Soon they would swing through the planetary night. On the far side of Marseguro, the town they had learned was called Hansen’s Harbor would just be moving into the light, most of its citizens, human and subhuman, still asleep.

They’re in for a rude awakening. Grandpa, your dream is over.

He just wished he felt happier about it.

Sanctification swung into darkness.

“Is that it?” Dahlia asked as Emily tightened the final strap on the last of an inordinate number of bundles in the dolphin sub they’d rented. They were in the dry hold; the last food barrel had gone into the wet hold—which also made an excellent refrigerator—twenty minutes ago.

Emily stepped back and surveyed her handiwork. “I think so,” she said. “Nothing to do but say good-bye.” She checked the wall chronometer. “We’re only an hour later getting away than I’d hoped. Not bad . . . well, not by your standards, anyway.”

“Very funny,” Dahlia said. “I still don’t know why you insisted on leaving in the dark.”

“I like the dark,” Emily said. “It feels like you’re in deep water the minute you undock. It’s just more . . . romantic.”

“I don’t think of you in that way,” Dahlia said dryly, and Emily laughed. Dahlia was the most heterosexual girl she knew, as any number of Selkey did, but to his indignation, they weren’t gentle about it.

Richard watched the assault from the bridge of Sanctification, having been told in no uncertain terms by Grand Deacon Ellers that civilians were neither wanted nor permitted in the assault craft. After it became clear—as it did within minutes—that no organized resistance existed on Marseguro, he began to chafe under that restriction.

Not that he lacked information. The bridge’s vidscreens displayed a constantly changing kaleidoscope of carnage, with feeds from cams on the assault craft, the armored personnel carriers, the helmets of the Holy Warriors, hovering reconbots and even the noses of smart missiles all vying for attention. But there were too many images, and too many voices, and vid, no matter how vivid, couldn’t substitute for personal experience. Richard desperately wanted to go down on the ground and smell, hear, taste, and feel what was happening for himself. The desire was so strong it was almost a compulsion.

He put it down to his need to see for himself the long-delayed Purification of his grandfather’s pet planet—and the long-delayed polishing of his own unfairly tarnished reputation.

He knew that the second wave of ships descending to the planet’s surface would be supply shuttles. He’d heard they were a rough way to get through the atmosphere, but he was seriously beginning to wonder how he could talk his way onto one when he discovered he didn’t have to.

He didn’t pick out the message from Grand Deacon Ellers from the muted cacophony of voices all around. The first he knew of it was when a young man, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed and with the painfully erect bearing of a newly minted Holy Warrior, trotted around the second-level walkway that surrounded the main pit of the circular bridge and saluted. Richard felt his hand twitch in response but managed not to salute back. After weeks on Sanctification, he had to keep reminding himself he was a civilian observer, not a Holy Warrior. “Yes?”

“Grand Deacon Ellers’ compliments, sir, and he requests your presence on the ground.”

At last! Richard thought, but he maintained a studied calm. “Did he say why?”

“No, sir. Just that if you will take the next supply shuttle down, he’ll provide an escort to take you to Government House.”

“Government House?”

“That’s what the moddies and traitors call it,” the young man said. “Some kind of tribal headquarters.”

“Very well,” Richard said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir!” The young man saluted again, obviously having taken to heart the advice given the lowest-ranking members of any military that to be safe one should salute anything on two legs. He trotted back around the bridge to his original post.

Richard stepped to the nearest general information vidscreen and found that the next supply ship, carrying ammunition, food, and medical ae day before in the hope he’d go down to the surface, use the bathroom (it seemed a prudent precaution), and take the lift to the central core. Holy Warriors from the ship’s crew stood by at each of the three intraship transporters, platforms that slid along slots placed at equidistant intervals around the cylindrical core. Richard carefully transitioned from the spinning habitat ring to the nonspinning section, and a crewman shoved his bag into a box on the platform and strapped it in place. Richard seized one of the many handholds on the transporter, and they zipped the length of the ship in two minutes. “Thanks,” Richard said. The crewman shrugged, handed him his box, and zipped away again.

Richard took a moment to take a couple of deep breaths—the relatively rapid transit of the core had unsettled his stomach a hair—then pulled himself along the soft silvery webbing that covered every wall of the zero-G part of the ship, tugging his luggage behind him. He entered an access tunnel, emerged a moment later in the shuttle launch bay, and flinched: the shuttles were all locked down, of course, but two of them, including the one he wanted, hung overhead from his perspective, fat cargo-carrying cylinders with a much smaller crew compartment at the bow like an olive attached to the tip of a sausage.

Richard knew better than to try to simply jump across the intervening distance: the zero-G training he’d had on board Sanctification had brightly and painfully illuminated the difference between mass and weight, and the unforgiving nature of inertia, and he knew he could very easily misjudge the amount of force with which he’d hit the far wall and break an ankle—or his neck. Instead, he continued around the brightly-lit space using the webbing, and finally reached his shuttle with five minutes to spare. The pilot, a man who looked solid enough to have been hewn out of a single—and very large—block of granite, took one look at his passenger, grunted, and pointed him to . . .

“What’s that?” Richard said. It looked a bit like a medieval torture device, all black metal, straps, and buckles. There were six in the crew cabin, three on each side of the smallish, white-painted space.

“Is called a rack,” the pilot said, apparently confirming Richard’s impression. He had a thick Russian accent to go with his bearlike appearance. “I show. Go there.” He didn’t give Richard an opportunity to do otherwise, manhandling him into position with casual strength. “Straps go here, here—” he pointed to Richard’s shoulders, waist, and crotch. “Pull in handles, so—” He demonstrated. U-shaped, padded handles swung away from the wall on hinges and locked in front of Richard’s chest. “Helmet . . .” The pilot opened a locker on the other side of the small compartment and took out a dark blue crash helmet with an alarmingly battered look. It had a short bungee cord attached to the back. The pilot jammed the helmet onto Richard’s head, almost taking his ears off in the process, clipped the bungee cord onto a metal loop on the wall, and fastened the chinstrap. Then he tapped something on the side of the helmet, and built-in headphones came to life. “You hear?” the pilot said.

Richard nodded.

“You hold on,” the pilot said. “Ride rough.”

Richard nodded again.

So far, so smooth. But within minutes, they plunged into the atmosphere, which announced its presence with a thin whine that soon grew to an all-encompassing roar. The supply craft bucked, pitched, yawed, did everything but flip end over end, and a couple of times Richard thought it might have done that. Richard’s stomach fought to crawl up his throat and hurl itself and its contents into the crew cabin which, in addition to vibrating to the point of blurriness, had reached a temperature that seemed more suited to slow roasting a turkey than keeping its occupants comfortable. “Why . . . so . . . rough . . . ?” Richard called out when the turbulence slacked off just enough he thought he could get out the words without biting his tongue off.

“Some bad design,” the pilot said. From his voice, he seemed unaffected by the turbulence, although of course that might have had something to do with the fact he enjoyed the embrace of a padded motion-dampening seat while Richard hung on the wall like a side of beef. “Some bad weather. Some evasive maneuvers.”

“But . . . no . . . weapons . . .”

“Seems so,” the pilot said. “Don’t know for certain. Rather be all shook up and alive than calm and dead. Hold on tighter. Worst about to start.”

Richard clenched his jaw, swallowed hard, and prayed he wouldn’t embarrass himself by throwing up before they reached the ground.

Alas, as the Avatar liked to say, “All prayers are answered, but sometimes, the answer is ‘no.’ ”

When they were safely on the ground, in a sports field commandeered to serve as a secondary landing site away from the town square for the cargo shuttles, the pilot summoned a cleanerbot to slurp up the widely redistributed remnants of Richard’s morning toast, simbacon and near-coffee. He also provided Richard with a clean standard-issue (but insignia-free) light blue Holy Warrior one-piece to wear. Richard retrieved his bag from its locker and rather shamefacedly made his retreat out the tiny personnel hatch and down the five-step ladder to the blessedly solid ground. Bots were already unloading the contents of the fat cargo cylinder.

A fully armed and armored Holy Warrior waited at the bottom of the ladder. “Grand Deacon Ellers is expecting you,” he growled. “This way.”

As they walked through the streets of the town the Selkies had named after his grandfather, Richard looked around eagerly, finally able to experience it without the mediation of a video camera.

“Primitive” was his first impression. The building styles—lots of brick, with accents of shiny metal and glass and solar panels—reminded him of the seedier parts of the City of God, the ones that predated the Day of Salvation—which made sense, he supposed, since that style had been current when Grandpa Hansen had fled. The buildings didn’t look new, though; they looked decades old.

Heunder it. Or had been, before the Holy Warriors so quickly and efficiently blew them up.

He couldn’t see any bomb damage here. He couldn’t see any people, either, though the vidfeeds had shown a lot on the streets an hour ago. All hiding somewhere now, he supposed, or in flight, out of Hansen’s Harbor. Not that they had anywhere to flee to. The interior was bleak and unappealing and the other towns much smaller. The assault craft had already attacked several of them, to drive home the message that the Holy Warriors controlled the planet. The refugees would probably meet other refugees coming the other way.

He felt sorry for the normal humans, though if they were smart, accepted the Body Purified, and didn’t cause trouble, they’d suffer no further harm. But the Selkies . . .

He wanted—needed—to see the Selkies. With all the strange, near-treasonous thoughts and feelings that had come into his head in the last few weeks, he needed to know he had done the right thing in pointing the Holy Warriors at this planet.

First, though, he had to find out what the Grand Deacon wanted.

Richard and his escort emerged from a narrow alley into a broad courtyard surrounded by what probably passed for impressive architecture on Marseguro. Nothing stood taller than about four stories, but several of the buildings boasted columns, pediments, and the kind of glittering stucco that had been all the rage in public buildings on Earth at the time of Salvation. (Oddly, though Richard had long laughed at the style when he’d come across it in the City of God, he now thought it looked rather attractive. Context, he supposed.) An assault craft dominated the center of the square—the reason they’d had to land in the sports field—and multiple takeoffs and landings had cracked and blackened the once-white cobblestones. A bronze statue lay on its side in a now-dry fountain in the rubble of its broken pedestal. “Just a second,” Richard told his escort. The pedestal still held a bronze plaque, scorched but readable. Richard leaned close. Dr. Victor Hansen, he read. In memory and appreciation of the visionary geneticist who created the Selkie race and preserved it from extermination by the tyrants of Old Earth. Dedicated February 34, Year 34, on the fifth anniversary of Dr. Hansen’s death.

So you lived almost thirty local years after the landing, Richard thought. Long enough to think you’d really pulled it off, that the Body would never find you.

Too bad you didn’t live a little longer so you could have met your grandson. We would have had a lot to talk about.

Although increasingly he felt as if he had met his grandfather. Which was why he kept talking to him directly in his mind. Which was absurd, and possibly slightly deranged.

Several times in the last few weeks he had thought about talking to a Body psychologist, but if he had— especially since his father had flagrantly demonstrated that mental instability ran in Richard’s family—he suspected he would never have been allowed to come on this mission . . . and he couldn’t have borne that.

It’s just stress, he thought. That’s all.

“Sir!” saand Deacon is waiting.” His tone made it clear he did not intend to leave the Grand Deacon in that unaccustomed state merely to satisfy Richard’s sightseeing impulses.

“Coming, coming.” Richard followed the Holy Warrior into the grandest of the semigrand buildings around the Square, the one with the biggest pillars and the glitteriest stucco, and the words GOVERNMENT HOUSE laser-cut into the Neo-Greek Revival pediment.

Probably as a potent symbol of occupation and defeat rather than for any practical purpose, the big wooden doors at the top of the broad flight of stairs leading up from the courtyard had been blasted into charred flinders. Beyond the wreckage, the lobby looked more like a government building than a palace, with a polished floor—a kind of light-green stone flecked with silvery metallic flakes, in this case—and a long counter on the left-hand side full of wickets-for-standing-in-line-at. Sunlight streamed through multiple skylights in the high ceiling of polished red wood beams, providing plenty of natural illumination for the Holy Warriors now running cables and setting up stands of vidscreen-studded equipment that Richard recognized as belonging to a mobile communications and headquarters module. The Holy Warriors moved with purpose but without unnecessary haste, and mostly without talking, so that Richard could clearly hear the one person who was talking, at the top of his lungs, though he couldn’t immediately see whomever it was.

The voice was that of a young man, but it had the kind of near-whining, making-excuses tone that Richard associated with a certain kind of much-younger child. “I don’t understand! Why won’t you let me out? I’m trying to help! I’m on your side! I’m part of the Body. My parents were Believers. I’ve listened to The Wisdom of the Avatar. I can quote—”

“Please don’t,” said another voice, which Richard recognized as that of Grand Deacon Ellers. “The one thing you could do right now that would really help is to shut up.”

“But—”

“That wasn’t a request.”

“But I—”

“Quiet, or I’ll have you gagged!” Richard and his escort rounded one of the vidscreen stands just as the Grand Deacon snapped that, giving Richard his first look at the source of Ellers’ annoyance.

It proved to be a short and skinny young man, maybe twenty Earth years old, with light brown hair, a rather scraggly beard and mustache, and blue, childlike eyes that had widened with shock and hurt at the Grand Deacon’s sharp tone. Nevertheless, the youth did shut up, pressing his lips together in a scowl that made him look about five, an impression heightened by the temporary holding cell that looked like a playpen imprisoning him.

“Grand Deacon, Mr. Hansen is here,” the Holy Warrior escorting Richard said, and snapped a salute.

Ellers sketched a salute in reply. “Dismissed,” he said, and turned his attention to Richard as the Holy Warrior turned smartly and lumbered off. Behind the Grand Deacon, Richard saw th pleasure,” Richard said. His eyes on the prisoner, he went on, “I was hoping I’d have the opportunity to see the Purification of Grandfather Victor’s vile experiment firsthand.”

The prisoner’s eyes went wide again. “You’re—you’re—”

“I thought I told you to be quiet,” Grand Deacon Ellers roared, turning on the young man, who wilted under the glare and sat down heavily on the floor of his cell. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, then glared out at the Grand Deacon and Richard, who stepped up beside Ellers.

“Is this who you wanted me to see?” Richard asked.

The Grand Deacon grunted. “He claims he’s the one who called us here. Says he activated a distress beacon. Even gave us a beacon ID number.” He tapped on his forearm, then held it up, palm toward Richard. “Here it is.” he said. Richard saw a string of digits on Ellers’ nanodisplay, red beneath his skin like a bloody tattoo. “Look familiar?”

Richard recognized them at once. “Yes. That’s definitely the ID of the beacon that led us here.”

“So he’s telling the truth?”

“I don’t know how else he’d know that number.”

“Hmmm.” Ellers went over to the cell. “Stand up,” he said.

The youth got to his feet.

“Tell me your name again.”

“Chris Keating.” The young man’s gaze slid past the Grand Deacon to Richard. “Are you really Victor Hansen’s grandson?”

“You’re talking to me,” Ellers snapped. “Why did you betray your planet?”

“My planet is Earth,” Chris Keating said, so quickly Richard thought he must either really believe it or had overrehearsed saying it. “I don’t belong here. None of us does. We belong inside the Body.”

“Even the Selkies?” Ellers growled.

“They’re abominations,” Keating said, again instantly. “I don’t care what happens to them. They’re not real humans. Not like the landlings.”

“Landlings?”

“Non-Selkies. Nonmods. Us.” Chris waved his hand, indicating himself and them. “Normals.”

“Do all the . . . landlings . . . feel like you do?”

Chris shook his head. “No. Most of them love the Selkies. But not me! And I’m sure there are others who hate them, too.”

“These landlings who love the Selkies. Will they fight us?”

Chris laughed. “With what?” He leaned forward, laughter suddenly swallowed by a look of utter . . . need, Richard thought. “Will you take me back to Earth? I have to go to Earth.”

“We’ll see,” Ellers said. “If you cooperate . . .”

“Of course I will! I called you here!”

“So you said.” Ellers glanced at Richard. “What do you think? Can we let him out?”

Richard blinked, startled at being asked. What’s Ellers playing at? “Um . . . I think so,” he said. “He seems harmless.”

“Very well. Slowinsky!” A nearby Holy Warrior put down a spool of cable and saluted.

“Sir?”

“Release the prisoner.”

“Yes, sir!”

While Slowinsky busied himself with the jail door, Ellers walked a few steps away and motioned Richard to come with him. “I don’t have time to deal with him right now,” Ellers said in a low voice. “I’m going to let you take care of him. Grill him for any information you can get—I’m sure Archdeacon Cheveldeoff will want to know everything you can learn. But most importantly, find out if he’s telling us the truth. Test him. If you think we can trust him, bring him back to me. We’ve got our hands full right now, but in a day or so, we’re going to be in a position to start hunting down any Selkies that have escaped our initial sweep. We could do with a reliable source of information.”

Richard nodded. “I can do that,” he said.

“Good.” Ellers turned. “Mr. Keating,” he said. The youth almost dashed over to him, like a puppy called to play fetch.

“Yes, sir?”

Ellers indicated Richard. “Mr. Hansen, here, is the one who detected the distress call. He is also a direct representative of the Archdeacon of Body Security, and therefore in charge of mission intelligence.” Richard smiled inwardly. Only half of that sentence was true. But if Chris thought Richard was the intelligence chief, maybe he’d be more likely to talk. “I want you to take Mr. Hansen around the city. Show him the sights. Tell him whatever you think is important. Answer any questions he may have. Later—perhaps—we’ll talk again.”

Ellers summoned Slowinsky and another Holy Warrior whose name Richard didn’t catch, assigned them to escort Richard and Chris, then turned to Richard. “Mr. Hansen, if you would care to join me for dinner at 1800 local time—your datapad will have been programmed to display that by now; it’s in about six hours—you can report back then. I’ll leave it to your discretion whether or not Mr. Keating should join us.” He turned away. “Dismissed.”

Neatly done, Richard thought as Ellers turned his attention back to setting up his headquarters. He’s got this Keating kid and me out of his hair. Any useful information he gets out of either of us is just bonus.

“Well,” said Richard to Chris Keating. “Why don’t you give me the grand tour?”

“Why did you do it?” Hansen suddenly asked as they walked down a rubble-strewn street. “Why did you betray your planet?”

The question echoed his own thoughts so closely it made him uneasy—and defensive. “I didn’t betray anyone,” he said, more hotly than he intended to speak to the man who might, after all, be the personal representative of the Avatar.

“The Holy Warriors have laid waste to half your city and must have already killed several hundred Selkies,” Hansen said. “Your fellow Marseguroites—Marseguroians?—might disagree.”

“You can’t betray the Selkies,” Chris said. “They’re not human. Can you betray an animal?” He kicked half a broken brick out of his way. “And we say Marseguroites.”

Hansen shrugged. “If I locked my dog out of my house and refused to feed him, or kicked him every time I saw him, I think most people would think I had betrayed him. Selkies may not be strictly human, but they’re more intelligent than dogs. From where I sit, it looks like you betrayed them—although of course I’m glad you did.”

“If there were any betrayal, they betrayed us first,” Chris snapped. His eyes narrowed as a thought struck him. This is Victor Hansen’s grandson. Why would they trust him? What if the Grand Deacon really is the one in charge, and he’s put me with someone he doesn’t trust to see if I can be trusted?

Wheels within wheels. That kind of thinking made his head hurt.

“How did they betray you?” Hansen pressed.

He’s in charge of gathering intelligence. He’s supposed to ask questions, Chris thought. He’s not trying to annoy me.

But he was.

“Selkies and landlings are supposed to be absolutely equal,” Chris said. “But the Selkies breed like bugglefish and a lot of the landlings are sterile—something to do with radiation levels on the Rivers of Babylon. The Selkies’ water tanks protected them, supposedly, but I’ve always wondered if maybe the Selkies are slipping something into the water supply.

“Anywayelf he was okay with that. He’d known from the moment he reported reception of the distress signal that this would be the result.

Hadn’t he?

Guilt swelled up in him again, guilt he couldn’t understand. The Selkies are abominations! This planet must be Purified! I’m doing the will of God! His mind raised its dikes against the welling tide of guilt, but it threatened to overtop them . . . and he couldn’t figure out where it came from. It almost seemed separate and apart from him, pouring from some hidden portion of his brain, one that housed a different personality entirely than the one he thought of as himself.

The portion of his brain he’d been addressing, and arguing with, as though it were Victor Hansen.

Am I going mad? he thought. Like my father? Maybe it’s a good thing all the buildings are so short . . .

They rounded a corner, only to find the road, which led down to the broken-backed pier that stretched out into the fouled water of the bay like a long brown tongue, completely blocked by smoking, flame-licked wreckage.

Keating looked left, then right. “This way,” he said. “This pile of junk must have been the Amphibian Club. Looks like it toppled across the road, so maybe the alley behind it is clearer.”

He took a narrow path, just wide enough for one person at a time, between two buildings that seemed to have escaped with nothing worse than broken windows. Richard followed, his so-far-silent pair of bodyguards dogging his heels. He trailed one hand along the rough brickwork to his right. It looked a couple of centuries old, which was impossible, of course. Either the local climate played hell with building materials, or the settlers had wanted to create a false feeling of antiquity to help them forget they were on a brand-new—

He emerged into the alley, and something jumped on his back.

The weight smashed him down onto sharp-edged cobblestones. Strong arms wrapped around his neck. He couldn’t breathe. He’s going to break my neck, he had time to think, the gruesome image flashing into his mind—then he smelled burning meat and whatever had him gave a horrible, gurgling scream and rolled away.

Richard lurched up to his hands and knees, gulped some air, then scrambled to his feet. One of the Holy Warriors—Slowinsky, Richard remembered—stood over a body, laser pistol in hand. The other Holy Warrior had Chris Keating shoved up against the wall of one of the buildings they had just passed between, an armored forearm across his neck. Keating’s eyes, wide and frightened, stared at Richard. “What happened?” Richard gasped.

“This thing was lurking on the fire-escape balcony,” Slowinsky said, indicating the body. “Jumped you when you came into the alley.”

“But didn’t jump this guy,” the other Holy Warrior rumbled. “I think he set you up.”

Richard looked m" width="1em">“No!” The denial came as quickly as . . . well, as quickly as the denial would have come on Earth from someone asked if they harbored doubts about the Avatar’s direct connection to God, Richard thought. Fast learner. He should do well in the Body Purified. “Just an acquaintance. I don’t have any Selkie friends.”

“Looks like he didn’t know that,” Slowinsky said.

“Let’s get to the water,” Richard said. “When I said I wanted to see Selkies, getting jumped from behind by one wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Keating nodded eagerly and led the way on down the alley. Richard and the Holy Warriors followed, but this time, he noted, the Holy Warriors followed with weapons drawn. They screwed up, he thought. They forgot that just because there aren’t any weapons, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any threats. Considering they were supposed to be protecting him, he was glad they’d learned a lesson.

There were no more incidents between the ruined laboratory and the dock; in fact, they didn’t see anyone living at all.

They did see several more bodies. Chris Keating, Richard noted, didn’t look very closely. Probably scared he’ll see somebody else he knows, he thought. He’s afraid to face all the consequences of his “heroism.”

The fact he also chose to avoid looking at the dead bodies was just . . . sensitivity.

Yeah, that’s it.

Finally, as they walked out onto the ruined pier, they saw their first living people.

Half a dozen Holy Warriors stood on the pier, which was made of some unfamiliar material that looked a bit like wood and a bit like plastic. Richard wrinkled his nose. Whatever the stuff was, it stank like rotting seaweed.

Unlike his bodyguards, the Holy Warriors on the pier carried automatic rifles. They guarded a floating cage packed with Selkies.

Richard’s knees suddenly felt weak and his heart fluttered as he looked at the massed moddies, males, females and . . .

. . . children, one part of his mind supplied.

Offspring, he insisted instead.

It was one thing to see one dead Selkie, it was another to see two dozen living ones. Beautiful, a part of his brain breathed, with a sense of pride. Horrible, said another. Richard clung to the latter reaction like the . . . offspring . . . in the cage clung to their parents, who petted their heads and hugged them for all the world like humans did. A little female maybe five standard years old looked up as Richard walked to the edge of the pier and looked down into the cage. “Look, Mommy,” he heard her say. “He doesn’t have a gun. Is he going to let us out?”

The mother turned her green, oversized eyes toward Richard. “Maybe, sweetie,” she said, but not as if she really believed it. “Maybe.istling with antennae and weapons launchers and dischargers, the boat had an open stern but a decked-over bow. In the center of that deck rode a gray torpedolike cylinder: the hunterbot, Richard presumed.

The boat rocked alarmingly even in the slight swell that made its way into the oil-fouled waters of New Botany Bay, and Richard climbed gingerly aboard it, wondering if he should mention he’d never been on a boat before . . .

. . . except, oddly, he felt as if he had.

The moment his feet hit the bottom boards, Khan shoved the throttle forward. The boat eased away from the dock, and Richard sat down hard and abruptly as he felt the boat sway beneath his feet.

They burbled along to the spot where John Duval had hit the water, and Khan backed the propeller, bringing them to a bobbing halt. In the lower half of the bridge, Veldron busied himself at a curved console boasting three vidscreens and a surfeit of blinking lights. “Launching,” he called, and pressed a button.

On the bow, something hissed, and a moment later, the hunterbot catapulted into the bay.

“Scanning for blood trace,” Veldron said.

Richard wanted to get closer to the console, but the boat’s motion made it risky. He elected to stay put and hold on. If the boat is this unsteady when we’re sitting still, what will it be like when we’re moving? he wondered uneasily.

“Got it,” Veldron announced. “Hunterbot swimming clear. Homing signal activated . . . have you got it upstairs, Nassar?”

“Got it, J.B.,” said Khan. “And . . . we’re off!” Richard braced himself for a surge of power, but the engine barely changed pitch, and as the bow turned toward the middle of the bay, they left the pier behind at something barely more than a walking pace. Richard unbraced himself. “That’s it?” he said.

Veldron glanced back at him. “Whaddya want?” he said. “The hunterbot’s fast, but the DNA scan takes a second or two every time it’s activated, so that’s the limiting factor. Don’t worry, we’ll still catch the fishy bastard. He might be able to outswim us for a while, but he’ll have to rest eventually . . . and he’s wounded, too. We’ll probably have him in a few minutes.”

Richard dared to ease his way forward, sliding along the bench that ran just under the gunwale until he could look over Veldron’s shoulder. The main screen in the center of his console showed a green line stretching away before the icon representing their boat, spreading and fading the farther it got. “What’s that?”

“Possible courses,” Veldron said. “The tracker measures the currents to adjust for drift of the DNA it’s detecting and extrapolates from that how it should adjust its course. Another reason it’s slow.” He grinned at Richard. “What, you thought we’d go galloping along like a speedboat and you came along for the thrill?”

“Something like that,” Richard said, although actually, considering the way his stomach kept lurching, not-galloping suited him ck up speed if we can get a reading from one of the surveillance satellites and don’t have to rely on DNA tracking. But that will only work if he’s close enough to the surface to produce an infrared trace, or leave a visible wake. I think he’ll stay deep.”

Richard watched the screen in silence for several minutes. “I can’t believe it can pick up such tiny traces of DNA in all that water—and distinguish John Duval’s DNA from all the other DNA.”

“That’s the genius of it,” Veldron said. “Some smart guy in the Archdeaconate of Research and Development figured it out just last year. The scanning beam uses—what’s wrong?”

Richard had grabbed for support as the boat lurched. It lurched again, and again . . . and kept on lurching.

Veldron laughed. “Oh, the motion. Yeah, we’re leaving the bay, moving out into the open ocean. Looks like our boy’s headed for deep water. Can’t imagine where he thinks he’s going. He’s still bleeding, too, based on this.” Veldron tapped the screen. “Really strong DNA traces. We could track him just from shed skin cells, but it would be slower.” He shook his head. “I’m surprised he made it this far. Must not be a very serious wound. But we’ll get him.”

“In deep water? How?” Richard looked around. “Is there a minisub somewhere on the boat?” He couldn’t imagine where.

“We don’t even have to get our feet wet—”

As the boat lurched again, a big dollop of spray hurtled over the side and splashed into the bottom of the boat, where it quickly drained into the bilge. Somewhere, a pump started up. Veldron laughed again. “Well, okay, maybe we do. But we don’t have to go underwater, doesn’t matter how deep our escaped moddie goes. The hunterbot’s armed. It’ll take care of him for us . . . and any other Selkies it finds.”

The boat lurched again, and more spray hurtled in, drenching Richard. “Gah,” he said, and wiping salt water out of his eyes. As he did so, he looked up and saw swift-moving gray clouds scudding across the sky that had been mostly blue just moments before. He turned around to look back the way they had come, and his heart jumped in his chest when he discovered a wall of gray mist had swallowed the shore.

“Weather’s turning,” Khan called down, rather unnecessarily, Richard thought. “We may not be able to stay on station.”

“Do the best you can!” Veldron called up. “The boffins want all the data we can provide before they turn the rest of these things loose.”

“Turn ’em loose?” Richard said, tearing his eyes away from the waves that had begun to march past the boat, each bigger than the last. Spray splattered his face constantly now, coming both from the waves they ploughed into and over and from the rising wind, which blew the ridges of water into whitecaps and flung their peaks into the boat. It all seemed oddly familiar . . . from vids, maybe? . . . to his brain, but not to his stomach, which had begun to object . . . strenuously. He swallowed hard and tried to focus on Veldron, who seemed unconcerned.

“The hunterbots are designed to operate autonomously,” he shouted above the rising wind. “You can use the like this one,” he tapped the screen, “or just let them loose to find any Selkies they can. In that mode, the default one, they just cast around like hound dogs, looking for Selkie DNA—based on that Selkie genome you provided.”

Richard nodded.

“When a hunterbot detects some, it tries to track it. And when it finds a Selkie along the trail,” Veldron grinned and made a slashing motion across his throat.

The wind howled, and Richard, now soaked to the skin, shivered in the cold blast. “Can’t hold on station!” Khan shouted. “We’re going to have to cut it loose!”

“Damn,” said Veldron. “Okay!” he shouted back. He looked at Richard. “You look like you’ll be glad to get back to dry land!”

“N-not at a-all,” Richard lied between chattering teeth.

Veldron bent over and opened a locker under his console. He pulled out an orange package. “Put this on,” he said. “Survival suit. Regulations say we should all have put one on before we left the pier, but Nassar and I both hate the things.”

“W-why now? Are w-we sinking?” Richard said in alarm.

Veldron chuckled. “Takes more than a little squall to sink a boat like this. No, we’re not sinking—but this will keep you warm—and dry.”

Richard opened the package and began pulling on the one-piece garment inside. It seemed flimsy as paper, but the moment he had it on it stiffened to something more like soft rubber, and molded itself to his skin. “Might as well go whole hog,” Veldron said, and handed him a helmet. Anxious to get the spray out of his face, Richard pulled it on. It sealed itself in place automatically. In seconds, he felt warm and dry and . . .

. . . seasick. He just managed to get his faceplate open and his head over the railing before retching up the mostly liquid contents of his stomach, still essentially empty—he hadn’t eaten anything since he’d thrown up in the shuttle.

He hung there with his eyes closed for a moment. He had just opened them and was turning back into the boat when he heard Khan yell, “Shit!”, a wordless shout from Veldron, and then the boat leaped up into the air like a dolphin, flinging him up and out. The world spun crazily around him, waves, mist, gray sky. He had a horrifying momentary glimpse of the boat, airborne and upside down, before he plunged into the ocean in an explosion of bubbles and spray.

Chapter 8

THE JOURNEY TO Dahlia’s family’s vacation habitat passed uneventfully for Emily and Dahlia, as most sub journeys did, since even the largest of Marseguro’s nastiest deep-sea predators wasn’t big enough to threaten a sub—despite the chilling tales of sea monsters the adventure vidders liked to spin—and even the most violent surface storm couldn’t roil the water to the depth to which they were descending. Four hours after they left the bay, the radar profile of the shelter appeared centered, crisp, and clear, in their navigation screens. Half an hournt>

“Shall we take the air tunnel or swim it?” Dahlia asked. The sub had automatically increased its internal air pressure as they descended, so pressurization wasn’t an issue, but when Emily saw the outside water temperature, she shivered.

“No, thanks,” she said. “Not without a heated skinsuit. I’m a shallow-water girl. Let’s take the air tunnel now and we’ll go for a swim later.”

“Okay.” Dahlia flicked a switch on the control panel and the air hatch opened with a slight hiss. Lights came on, revealing a featureless white tube. “After you.”

“So formal,” Emily said with a grin. She hoisted her personal pack and stepped into the tunnel. It vibrated a little under her feet, which startled her until she remembered that somewhere out of sight bots were moving the supplies they’d brought out of the sub’s hold and into the habitat.

The tunnel wasn’t very long—five or six meters, maybe—and ended in another hatch, unlocked, of course: by long-standing Marseguro law, no deep-sea habitat could be locked, because someone might need it at any moment as an emergency shelter. This hatch led into an air lock—Selkies might be able to breathe underwater, but they still preferred not to have high-pressure water blasting into the air-filled part of their living quarters in the event of a seal failure. Since there was air on both sides of the lock at the moment, though, the inner hatch slid open instantly, revealing the interior.

As Emily had seen from outside—and as she knew anyway—the habitat was a sphere, the upper half full of air, the lower half full of water. Much like in her own home, the central feature of the air-filled section was a round pool. A splash ring about a meter wide surrounded it, and the main dryfloor was a short step up from that. About four meters wide, it was divided into four compartments: a kitchen, a living/dining/rec area (into which the tunnel opened) a sleeping area with four beds in it, and a bathroom, the only room that was fully enclosed.

Emily only had a moment to take in their surroundings before Dahlia shouldered her aside. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she said. “Let me show you around.”

“I think I’m seeing most of it,” Emily said wryly. “Not a lot of privacy. Good thing you didn’t bring a boy-friend along.”

“Oh, there are underwater rooms for that,” Dahlia said. “Up here is just for sleeping.”

Emily laughed and followed her friend into the living room. Dahlia showed her the game and vidscreens and the audio system—all state of the art and very expensive; not for the first time, Emily wondered just how rich her friend’s family really was. Despite both her parents having well-paying professional careers, she didn’t believe for a second they could afford a private deep-sea get-away. But then, Dahlia’s parents owned three of the microfactories that made most of this stuff. Maybe her dad got it at cost.

“There’s enough food here for a year,” Emily said as Dahlia showed her cupboard after well-sernment shelters. There are supposed to be enough of those to take in most of the population in the event of some kind of catastrophe, but just in case . . .”

“I’ve never known what kind of catastrophe they think the shelters would be any use in,” Emily said. “An earthquake big enough to destroy the shore towns would probably damage the shelters, too. And an asteroid strike would probably just kill us off. You could die right away up top or die slowly down here.”

“There’s always the Body Purified,” Dahlia said in a spectral voice. “They haven’t found us in fifty years, but they could show up any day now and start wiping out all us depraved subhuman monsters.” She wriggled her fingers at Emily. “Oooooooooo . . .”

Emily laughed. “Depraved, I’ll give you. Or at least perverted.”

“My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure,” Dahlia said virtuously. “Even if the rest of me isn’t.” She moved on to the next door. “Now if you’ll step this way, I’ll show you our extra-fine toilet facilities.”

After Dahlia finished showing Emily around, they returned to the kitchr five times in rapid succession and turned his head to look right at her. “Emily?” And then, to her shock, he began to cry, gasping for air between silent sobs, tears streaming from his huge green eyes. He turned his head away from her, obviously fighting to regain emotional control. She stood by helplessly for a moment, then tentatively reached out and touched his red-and-blue tattooed head, petting him as she might have soothed a restive baby. “Shhh,” she said. “Shhh. John, it’s all right, you’re safe now.”

“None of us are safe,” John choked out. “None of us, Emily.”

Dahlia returned at that moment, cinching her dressing gown around her waist. “Buoy’s launched,” she said. “It’ll take a minute or two to reach the surface.” She blinked at John. “You’re awake!” She grinned. “Couldn’t stay away from me, huh? But what did you do to your—”

“I was shot,” John said. “By the Body!”

Emily frowned. “You mean in the body? No, in the shoulder—it’s a nasty hole, but it’s a flesh wound, it—”

“No!” John shouted. The docbot had restrained him at some point, so he could only move his head, but he flung it back and forth so violently Emily feared for his vertebrae. “I was shot by the Body. The Body Purified. It’s here. It’s invaded. And it’s—they’re—they’re killing us like animals!”

Emily snatched back her hand and surged to her feet as though John had turned into a monster in front of her eyes.

“He’s raving,” Dahlia said. “I’ll prove it.” She raised her voice, although of course it really wasn’t necessary. “Computer, status of transmission buoy.”

“Buoy is on surface and active,” the computer said.

“Computer, transmit following to—”

John’s head jerked up. “Computer, cancel previous command!” he shouted.

“Command input canceled,” said the computer.

“Now what?” Dahlia said.

“If you send a transmission, you’ll tell the Body where we are,” John cried, the words tumbling out like fish from a net. “They’ll hunt us down and kill us, just like they killed . . . so many others . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut. Fresh tears tracked his face.

Dahlia glared at him. “This is going on too long,” she said. “It’s not funny.”

“He’s been shot, Dahlia,” Emily snapped. “That’s a rather extreme step to take for the sake of a practical joke.”

“He wants us to stay cut off from civilization so it’ll just be him and two girls trapped in this shelter for a couple of weeks,” Dahlia said. “John has always wanted his own harem. And I’m not saying he wounded himself on purpose. I’m just saying he’s not going to let a little thing like a hole in his arm keep him from fantasizing about threesomes.”

Emily knew Dahlia and John had been lovers off and on for years. Presumablhings about John that Emily didn’t. But Emily had grown up with John, and while she didn’t doubt he had a rich sexual life, both in reality and in fantasy, she didn’t believe he would play a joke this cruel—or try to maintain it after he’d been injured.

And while she didn’t doubt that her reputation for being unattainable would have made her an attractive sexual trophy for someone like John, she also didn’t flatter herself to think that John wanted to thrash up some foam with her so much he’d completely change his personality to accomplish it.

“No,” Emily said. “Dahlia, I believe him—or at least believe that he believes that the Body has invaded.”

“You’re as crazy as he is, then,” Dahlia snapped.

“So you’re locked in a shelter with two crazy people,” Emily said impatiently. “Safest thing to do is humor us, isn’t it? Don’t send a transmission. Just listen. See what’s being said on the communications channels.”

Dahlia rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said. “Computer. Scan communications channels and play strongest signal.”

There was a long silence. “All communications channels scanned,” the computer said. “Only encrypted signals found, at frequencies not normally used by Marseguroite traffic.”

“What?” Dahlia glared at the ceiling, even though the AI was actually located somewhere in the wall on the opposite side of the shelter, if Emily remembered right. “Computer, play signal from Hansen’s Harbor Public Broadcast Station.”

“No signal present at designated frequency,” the computer said.

“But . . . oh, stupid thing!” Dahlia looked at Emily. “It’s probably just a glitch in our equipment,” she said, but she made it sound like a question.

“No glitch,” John said. He sounded calmer. Emily gave him a look, and he actually smiled at her. “Pain medication is a wonderful thing,” he said. “Dahlia, the tower that housed the Public Broadcast Station is currently a pile of steaming rubble spread along a large chunk of what’s left of Pier Two. The antennae cluster crushed two houseboats on its way down and narrowly missed taking out the harbormaster’s building—not that it mattered, because the second sweep of the Body’s assault craft blew the harbormaster and his building to bloody froth and flinders.”

Dahlia stared at him, and suddenly sank down on the floor as though her knees had buckled. “You’re serious.”

“Serious as death,” John said. “Literally.”

Emily felt as if a great howling wind had started blowing in the center of her head, a tornado that could suck in her sanity and control and rip it to shreds. “My parents?” she whispered. “Amy?”

“I don’t know,” John said. “I didn’t see them. They weren’t in the group of prisoners I ended up with.” He took a shuddering breath. “I don’t even know what happened to my own family. I was on my way to board the Magellan when the attack camen I escaped, they were working on launching a couple of subs. Good thing they didn’t have those in the water when I made my run for it. I think they sent a surface boat after me, but a storm blew in. I’m pretty sure it lost me.”

“But I don’t understand,” Dahlia said, sounding young and lost. “How did the Body find us after all these years?”

John looked grim. “You both know Chris Keating.”

Emily remembered her unpleasant encounter with him in the Square, when she had tried to apologize. She made a face. “Yes, unfortunately.”

Dahlia nodded.

“Apparently he hiked over to Landing Valley and activated one of the Rivers of Babylon’s distress beacons.”

“What?” Emily couldn’t believe it. “He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—I mean . . .” Her voice trailed off as she remembered some of the things he had said to her. “Oh, God.”

“I’ll kill him for it, if I get a chance,” John said, and made it sound like a promise, not a threat. “I almost had a chance on the pier. They didn’t know how far I could leap out of the water. I got clear of the cage and even got my hands on a rifle. But the damned thing wouldn’t fire. That’s when I escaped. I jumped into the bay.”

“And that’s when you got shot.”

John nodded. “Somebody was awfully quick on the trigger. Nailed me in midair. But I could still swim, and there was a sputa stand just a few meters down. By the time they were searching the area right by the pier, I was already on my way out of the bay.” He paused. “There’s something else. I don’t know if he was telling the truth, or not . . . I don’t see how he could be . . . but someone else was on the pier. A civilian.” He paused again. “He claimed to be Victor Hansen’s grandson. And he said he was the one who picked up the signal from the distress beacon and told the Holy Warriors we were here.”

“He’s lying!” Dahlia said. “Trying to get under your skin. Victor Hansen’s grandson would never betray us.”

Emily heard the certainty in Dahlia’s voice and really wanted to share it . . . except she remembered how equally certain Dahlia had been, just moments before, that John was lying. “It doesn’t matter who he was. The question is, what do we do now?”

“John needs a hospital,” Dahlia said.

“I doubt we still have one in Hansen’s Harbor,” John said. His voice seemed weaker than it had a moment before. “I think . . . I’m being . . . sedated . . .” he said, and then his eyes fluttered closed.

“Docbot, did you sedate the patient?” Emily demanded.

“Affirmative,” said the machine. “Pulse and respiration showed signs of stress-induced irregularity outside the permissible parameters for proper stabilization of patient for transportation.”

Emily turned to the docbot said.

She closed her eyes. “Docbot, estimated odds of survival without medical attention once power fails?”

“Negligible,” the docbot said. And it didn’t put “best estimate” in front of that stark analysis, she noticed.

It’ll have to do, Emily thought. Oh, John. But at least he had a chance. Unlike . . . Emily looked at the pool. Cleanerbots whirred within it, clearing it of . . . of . . .

Emily shook her head. She couldn’t think about it. Not now.

But she knew damn well she’d wake screaming from dreams about it.

The sputa that had pulled John to the habitat still floated in the pool. “Computer,” Emily said. “Location of small mobile vehicle that initiated pressure wave.”

“Vehicle is again inside habitat,” the computer said.

What? “Computer, close bottom sea doors, emergency speed!”

A vibration, an almost audible clang. “Doors closed.”

“Computer, location of small mobile vehicle?”

“Unchanged.”

Trapped you, you murderous piece of tin, Emily thought. Unless the thing was amphibious and could climb out into the air-filled part of the habitat . . .

If it could, it already would have, she reasoned.

She wanted to destroy it, wanted to destroy it more than anything she’d ever wanted to do before, but she didn’t know how. At least she’d rendered it harmless for the time being . . . she hoped.

But she still had to get to Jumpoff Station, and that meant she needed the sputa.

I don’t think I’ll swim out and get it, Emily thought, as water suddenly surged and swirled for no apparent reason. Fortunately, she didn’t have to; as the water bulged again, it pushed the sputa to one side . . . better yet, it pushed it to the same side as the door leading into the access tube air lock. Emily raced around the edge of the pool, being very careful not to slip and fall into the water, and hauled out the device, which looked like a winged torpedo. Nacelles on the ends of the wings held the propulsion jets; the fat part of the torpedo held the power source, a nearly inexhaustible atomic battery, and the pump that pulled water in and forced it out the jets. Two handles, steering planes, fins, and a rudimentary control and sensor panel made up the rest of the device.

Like every other Selkie, Emily had used sputas since the first time her parents had allowed her out of their hab on her own. She’d never handled one out of the water before, and she’d been worried about the weight, but she found she could lift it easily, and she shoved it into the air lock with little difficulty. She paused to issue final commands. “Computer,” she said. “Turn off all power-using equipment en, but an indicator lit on the circular screen at the center of the control panel. Keep the indicator in the center of the screen, and she’d make it to Jumpoff in . . . six to eight hours, according to the computer.

The habitat rang again, and Emily thought she heard a sound like tearing metal. Saying a prayer for John’s safety to whatever deity might be listening—Emily glanced at the priapic rock that had killed the sub; Poseidon, presumably, although he seemed to be thinking about something else—Emily squeezed the throttle on the right handgrip and accelerated away from the habitat into the unknown.

Chapter 9

YOU WOULD THINK, Chris Keating thought as he lay on his thinly padded bed, the only furnishing of note in his cell in the Hansen’s Harbor Criminal Detention Center, that almost having my head blown off on the pier by an enraged Selkie would be enough to convince the Grand Deacon I’m on his side.

You would think that, but you’d be wrong.

In fact, after Chris had been returned to the Grand Deacon by the dour Holy Warriors who had formerly been Richard Hansen’s bodyguards, the story they’d told of John’s escape and Hansen’s decision to board the boat pursuing him had seemed to increase rather than decrease the Grand Deacon’s suspicion. Or maybe the Grand Deacon just didn’t want to have to deal with whatever Chris represented, and decided to put him somewhere safe until he was ready.

Whichever, Chris wasn’t given a chance to say a word in his defense before being hustled to the small-but-grandly-named Hansen’s Harbor Criminal Detention Center. He wasn’t the only prisoner; he’d glimpsed other landlings, some of whom he knew, as a Holy Warrior had hurried him down the single central corridor to his cell. He’d half-expected to see Dr. Stanless, but didn’t—perhaps he was in the hospital. Or perhaps he was dead, but Chris didn’t want to think that. He didn’t really care about the Selkies, but despite that whole omelet-egg thing he regretted the landling deaths. He hoped the people he almost thought of as friends weren’t among them, even if they were Selkie-lovers.

He’d already passed one night in jail, sleeping well despite everything. After all, he’d had a busy and stressful day, and had been woken early by the arrival of the landing craft.

But now, he found, time dragged, with nothing to read and no one to talk to. He amused himself by imagining what it would be like when Purification was complete and he was formally recognized for his part in its success, but you couldn’t kill a whole day that way.

Well, the Grand Deacon would surely want to talk to him again soon.

Time passed. Meals arrived. He used the toilet, and the booth-sized shower stall in one corner. He stared at the ceiling. He stared at the floor. He stared at the walls. And as it started to grow dark again, Chris assured himself the Grand Deacon would surely want to talk to him the next day.

But em">

Traveling the two kilometers to the boat took him more than a quarter of an hour. The oceanic microfauna glowed green and blue and orange in his headlight and flowed past his faceplate like multicolored snowflakes viewed through the windshield of a moving groundcar. They were mesmerizing, to the point that the computer beeped several warnings before he realized the distance to the boat as indicated in his display had shrunk to almost nothing and he must be on the verge of plowing head-on into it.

An instant later, he saw it in his headlamp, upside down, the red-painted keel disappearing out of the water above him, the gray-green superstructure pointing down into the depths.

“Computer, stop propulsion,” Richard said. He floated, looking at the boat. Now what? He couldn’t exactly swim up to it and flip it over.

Unless . . .

“Computer, can you link with the boat’s computer? Is it still active?”

“Affirmative and affirmative,” the computer said.

“Computer, link with boat’s computer.”

“Link established. Please refer to this unit as Suit Computer and the unit on the vessel as Boat Computer.”

“Uh . . . right.” Richard cleared his throat. “Boat Computer, can you hear me?”

“Affirmative.” It had, of course, exactly the same dispassionate male voice as the suit computer. Every Body computer Richard had ever talked to used the same voice. You weren’t allowed to change it . . . especially to a female voice. That would be enough to get you sentenced to at least a week of penitence.

“Boat Computer, status of boat.”

“No significant damage. However, boat is upside down.”

Well, I can see that, Richard thought. “Boat Computer, why did the boat capsize?”

“Collision with unknown object,” the computer said.

“Lack of damage to the hull and analysis of the impact suggests object was large indigenous life form.”

What? Richard couldn’t help looking around. Nothing swam in the shadowy waters at the very limit of his helmet light . . . but anything at all could be swimming in the black water beyond its reach. You had to ask, didn’t you? “Boat Computer, do you have self-righting routines in the event of a capsizing?”

“Affirmative.”

“Boat Computer, why haven’t the self-righting routines been activated?”

“Boat is currently under manual control,” the computer said. “Sld, but he didn’t know how long he’d be out here and his food and other supplies were down there.

Khan had already had an inadvertent sea burial. Veldron might as well join his shipmate.

Not without difficulty, he dragged the corpse to the railing. “May God Itself, the Great Protector and Purifier, welcome you to the Perfect World Beyond, forever free from the fear of God’s wrath,” he intoned, and dumped the body into the water. Feeling a little giddy, he yelled out in the direction he’d last seen Khan’s corpse, “That goes for you, too!”

And then he hauled his own weary-but-still-living body down into the dripping crew cabin—he could hear pumps and fans working hard to dry it—and flung himself on one of the two waterproof mattresses. Despite the survival suit—not that there was any way he was going to take that off—he fell asleep in seconds.

Emily wasn’t kept guessing long: an hour after the pounding in the habitat ceased, she knew the killerbot had somehow managed to break through the doors and find her trail. The knowledge didn’t come through some sixth sense or even through one of the standard five: instead, the minimal display on the sputa lit up as passive sonar (active sonar would have been the equivalent of standing in an empty field shouting “here I am!”, so she’d made sure it was turned off) picked up the sound of a high-speed propeller in her wake, the sputa’s on-board computer being perfectly capable of compensating for the noise of its own passage through the water.

It took her another thirty minutes of travel to confirm her worst fear: the killerbot swam faster. The closer it got, the better the sputa’s computer could estimate its distance, and once it had a satisfactory solution, it began displaying it. Emily watched the digits slowly fall in ten-meter increments, matched that to the rate at which the distance to Jumpoff Station was decreasing, did some careful mental calculation, and swore silently.

The bot would catch her at least an hour before she reached the station.

She didn’t know what other weapons it had besides the sonic depth charge, but she had no reason to think that it wouldn’t make as quick work of her as it had of poor Dahlia. She needed to find some place to hide that it couldn’t reach.

She needed to get out of the water.

“Computer, display chart. Fifty-kilometer radius.” The screen display changed. She studied it for a moment. Yes, she’d remembered right. “Computer, display new course to chart coordinates A-36-D-12.” The screen lit with an alternate course, one that angled away from her current vector at almost forty-five degrees. But the distance indicated was less than half of that to Jumpoff Station.

Emily hesitated a moment longer. John, if he was still alive, needed help. But he wouldn’t get it if she were killed before she reached Jumpoff Station, and she would be if she kept on her present course. As long as she stayed alive, he still had a chance.

And anyway, nevv>
For another hour she swept through the sea, her arms beginning to ache from holding on to the sputa, feeling a great fatigue working its way into her mind and limbs. She watched the readout of the distance to the following bot continue to decrease slightly faster than the readout of the distance to her destination.

It’s going to be close, she thought—and then had a shock as a brand-new icon and distance readout suddenly blossomed on the screen.

A boat dead ahead had just started its engines.

Chapter 10

RICHARD GRINNED WITH relief as the engines started on the first try. He hadn’t been sure the computer would allow him that much control, but apparently it would. It would also, it had told him when he asked, allow him to set its course. It would not allow him to fire weapons, but that didn’t worry him—he hadn’t even realized the boat had weapons.

He turned his attention to the navigation screens for the first time in a while, absentmindedly rubbing his aching calf. The painkiller provided by the survival suit must be wearing off. But the suit’s biofoam dressing at least kept the gash sterile and sealed. Nothing to worry about, and they’d soon set it right back on shore.

Which is where he wanted to be, as soon as possible. I never should have left it in the first place, he thought. The Grand Deacon was right to send baby-sitters with me.

That thought gave him pause, as well as embarrassment. If I go back without even being able to report where the Selkie fled to, I might as well have myself shuttled up to Sanctification and locked in my quarters—and save Ellers the trouble of ordering it done.

On the other hand, if he managed to return with useful information . . .

He rubbed his calf again. He could put up with the discomfort a little longer. It couldn’t hurt to check . . .

“Boat Computer,” he said. “Run scan for hunterbot you were tracking before boat capsized.” No doubt it was out of range, but . . .

An icon leaped to life on the screen: less than five kilometers away—and closing?

And then two things happened at once. Richard noticed another icon on the display, almost on top of the central blip representing the boat—and the water at the stern erupted, discharging something large and wet into the cockpit.

He yelped and spun, to find a female Selkie with short violet hair, wearing a bright-yellow skinsuit with glowing light-piping along the limbs, hauling into the boat something shaped like a torpedo with wings.

Richard’s heart leaped into his throat. He had no weapons, not even a wrench he could turn into an improvised club. Selkies are enormously strong, he remembke, her words accented but understandable. “Who are you? Are you one of the killers from Earth?”

“I . . . I haven’t killed anyone,” Richard said. “I . . . there was an accident, we hit a . . . a whale, or something . . . and the crew . . . I’m just a passenger.” A passenger who led the killers from Earth right to this planet, Richard thought, but didn’t say.

The Selkie’s huge green eyes flicked around the boat, and Richard felt a strange sense of admiration and pride as he took in her alien face.

Pride?

“There’s no one else on board?”

“No. Not anymore.”

“Then get down from there.”

“I—”

So fast he didn’t even see where it came from, she drew a knife. Its blade looked like glass, almost transparent in the misty morning light. “Now.”

Richard slid down the ladder, and gave the Selkie a wide berth as she scurried up it in his place. She gave the controls a quick scan, and swore. “The damned thing’s practically on top of us!”

The hunterbot, Richard realized. It’s after her. But what happened to John Duval?

Then he had to hang on for dear life as the Selkie seized the manual controls, which Richard, confirmed landlubber, had hardly dared touch, and shoved the throttle to full. As the boat leaped ahead, the torpedo-shaped device she’d hauled into the boat slid across the deck. Before Richard could react, it smashed into his wounded calf. He yelped, but the Selkie ignored him.

“I hope we’re out of—” she began, but never finished. A shock like a giant hammer blow from below struck the boat. The engines stuttered, but kept running, though they now had a vibration that made Richard’s bones rattle and the pain in his leg even worse. At least the shock had moved the damned torpedo-thing off his foot. He bent down to check it. The blow had torn open the biofoam dressing and the survival suit’s self-sealing skin. Blood trickled down his ankle to mingle with the water on the deck.

The Selkie came down the ladder. “We’re lucky,” she said. “It only got in one shot. But it feels like we’ve lost half a propeller, or warped a shaft, and there may be damage to the engine itself. I don’t know how long we can keep running.”

“How long you can keep running,” Richard said. “It’s not after me.”

The Selkie’s mouth tightened. Her face, with its minimal nub of a nose and matching ears, already had a seal-like look. When she compressed her lips and narrowed her eyes like that, she looked totally alien. Richard couldn’t look away, but again his emotions confused him. He should be horrified . . . but he found her strangely beautiful, and again he felt that strange surge of pride, almost kill himself, and I . . .

. . . I chose to kill.

He’d denied that to the Selkie, but he couldn’t deny it to himself, especially not the newly intrusive part of his mind that seemed intent on upending all his cherished rationalizations. He had pointed the Holy Warriors to Marseguro, and the Holy Warriors had already killed many of the planet’s inhabitants, both normals and Selkies. Any Selkies they didn’t kill they would confine, and later sterilize. To placate God Itself, to ensure It did not repent of Its sparing of Earth, the Selkies’ whole inhuman race must end. Marseguro had to be Purified. He believed that.

Didn’t he?

The Selkie are monsters. That alien face . . . those eyes . . .

Beautiful, that strange new voice in his head insisted. Designed to be beautiful. A masterwork of the genesculpting art . . .

Which made Purification a hideous mixture of murder and vandalism.

He shook his head. She’d have killed you in an instant if she’d seen any reason to . . . if she’d known your role in the Purification of her planet.

Maybe. But in his increasingly confused heart, he couldn’t wish her dead.

God forgive me, but I hope she escapes.

He checked the navigation display. It had synchronized with the boat computer while he was on board, and showed him his distance from Sawyer’s Point, now receding, his distance from the burning boat, also receding, his distance from the Selkie, receding as she raced toward Sawyer’s Point, and his distance from the hunterbot, which had reached the boat’s location sometime in the last few minutes. He blinked. Something looked odd. “Computer,” he said. “Display hunterbot’s course for the last fifteen minutes as a solid line.”

The blip representing the bot elongated into a line, straight as an arrow from the edge of the display to the blip of the boat . . . and then, abruptly, curving away from the straight path to Sawyer’s Point . . .

. . . curving to follow him instead.

“That’s impossible!” Richard said out loud. “Computer, extrapolate your current course and bot’s course.”

His blip elongated, became a straight line leading off the edge of the display. After five extrapolated minutes, the bot’s course matched his precisely, the two lines disappearing into one another.

“Computer, how long until the bot catches me?”

“One hour, two minutes,” the computer said.

“Computer, how far to land at current speed, if course is altered as necessary to minimize time?”

“Four hours, thirteen minutes.”

He’d started on the boat as a hunter. Now he was in the water as the hunted.

But he wasn’t the only possible prey.

“Computer,” he snapped. “Display least-time route to Sawyer’s Point.”

A new line formed, and a blip appeared for him to steer toward. He stuck out his left arm and leg and swung sharply around. With the blip centered, he began racing toward Sawyer’s Point, and the blip that was the Selkie girl, almost at the Point already.

“Computer, ETA, Sawyer’s Point.”

“Fifty-nine minutes.”

In his faceplate, the bot’s marker altered course again. Its extrapolated course, still displayed, still matched up with his. “Computer, now how long until bot catches me?”

“One hour, four minutes.”

He’d arrive at that piece of rock with five minutes to spare.

He hoped the Selkie would welcome his company.

Halfway to Sawyer’s Point, Emily realized the killerbot had peeled off to follow the landling. The irony made her bare her teeth in a savage grin. For a moment, she considered abandoning her plan and heading for Jumpoff Station again, but she quickly rejected the idea. If the bot finished off the landling, it would almost certainly come after her again, and if she headed for open water now, she’d be worse off than ever when it caught her.

The wisdom of her decision was brought home shortly thereafter, when she saw that the fleeing landling had reconsidered his actions and was now heading toward her as fast as he had previously been heading away from her.

Moments after that, she surfaced to reconnoiter and saw Sawyer’s Point dead ahead.

It rose precipitously from the sea, its base splashed white by the waves pounding themselves to spray against its black volcanic rocks. There could be no landing or climbing on its steep sides, made of rock as sharp-edged and splintery as glass. Even if you could find someplace to ascend, you’d slice off a hand or foot and bleed to death before you’d climbed ten meters.

Both above and beneath the water, Sawyer’s Point was riddled with tunnels and caves, some volcanic tubes through which magma had once pulsed, some formed by erosion, some dissolved by seawater from below and rain from above, many formed by the action of the strange rock-eating microbes that some researchers thought were one reason Marseguro had so little dry ground.

Beautiful and dangerous, Sawyer’s Point was strictly off-limits to teenaged Selkies and thus much frequented by them. Three young Selkies had died there just a year ago, and ever since then, sensters in Hansen’s Harbor whenever anyone ventured too close. Since Peaceforce headquarters was probably now a pile of rubble, Emily doubted anyone was paying any attention to those sensors now.

She’d been one of those teens who had ignored the restrictions, and she knew Sawyer’s Point like the back of her hand—or, at least, she had, five years ago. How many of the tunnels and caverns she remembered remained unchanged she couldn’t judge. If the one she was counting on was no longer there, or no longer open, then Sawyer’s Point might well prove fatal to her, too.

Of course, it might anyway.

She plunged beneath the waves again, and directed the sputa down, down . . .

There! Thirty meters below the surface, the sputa’s headlight picked out a gaping hole, about as wide as she was tall. She could only see it in the wall of black rock because unlike the rock, it reflected nothing. In front of it, the ubiquitous Marseguroite plankton twinkled in her light like stars.

Emily killed the sputa’s jets. Then, floating just outside the cave mouth, she pulled her lightband from one of the almost-invisible pockets of her skinsuit and fastened it around her head. The forward half of the circlet lit up automatically. “Computer,” she told the sputa, “surface and hold position until retrieved.” She released it. Its headlight went out and it rose out of sight to wait for her to reclaim it.

If she ever did.

She reached up and pressed the back of the lightband to deactivate it. She’d need it later, but for now, she would wait in the dark for the landling’s approach. With her light out, she’d be able to see his more easily.

Once he arrived, the killerbot wouldn’t be far behind.

Richard watched the number indicating the distance to Sawyer’s Point and the now-stationary blip of the Selkie count down, and the number indicating the distance between him and the hunterbot count down just slightly more slowly.

The Selkie’s blip was almost, but not quite, on top of the blip representing Sawyer’s Point. Since his suit could only track the sputa, not her, for all he knew she had left it outside and already entered the rock.

The thought alarmed him. If she had, how would he find the way in? Sawyer’s Point rose sheer from the bottom, 200 meters down. The entrance she had taken could be anywhere. He couldn’t search a hundredth of that mass of rock in the scant minutes he would have before the bot arrived.

Would the hunterbot’s sonic depth charge blow him apart or squash him against the rock like a bug? he wondered sickly.

And then, too soon, he arrived at Sawyer’s Point . . . and before he could panic, his display suddenly added a new blip: a warm-blooded life-form at a depth of thirty meters.

He hadn’t been that deep before in the survival suit, but he could only assume it was good for it. He angled hipressure.

And suddenly, it wasn’t dark. A light shone down there, barely visible at first but growing brighter as he descended . . . and then his own headlight picked up the shadowy form of the Selkie, who wore the light as a band around her head.

He hadn’t seen a Selkie underwater before. Her nostrils were clamped so tightly closed he couldn’t even see them anymore, making her look almost noseless. Her eyes had a clear membrane across them, and they didn’t blink. And her gills . . . they were open, pink and pulsing, the thin membrane of their edges rippling constantly. They looked like horrific, killing wounds, slashes in the side of her neck, but, of course, they weren’t killing her at all, they were keeping her alive, helmetless, thirty meters underwater.

Monstrous, he thought automatically, but at the same time . . . magnificent. No one but his grandfather had ever succeeded in creating a form of human with so many modifications, one that bred true, one that really worked, that didn’t suffer from crippling health problems—breathing difficulties, fragile bones, horrific cancers, mental retardation. Victor Hansen’s contemporaries had held him in awe, limited as they were to mere cosmetic manipulation—humans with tails, humans with cat’s eyes. Victor Hansen had done what they considered impossible.

Not surprisingly, some had doubted his claims at the time, and in the years since Salvation, some Body theologians had argued that Hansen’s achievements must have been overstated, that the Selkie race he claimed to have created must be little more than crippled, deformed freaks, that God Itself would not allow the Holy Human Genome to be tampered with to so great a degree.

But the Selkie girl in his headlight didn’t look crippled or deformed. She looked . . . at home. Alive. Vibrant. Healthy. Bizarre, yes, monstrous, even, but . . . strangely beautiful.

God forbid, he thought fervently. Attracted to a Selkie? The Avatar would put me in an execution sputnik and have my ashes scattered across three continents.

No doubt the Selkies had some way to communicate underwater, but he didn’t share it. He expected her to lead him into the cave behind her, but she didn’t move, and he couldn’t interpret the look she gave him. Then her gaze slid past him to the void beyond.

Of course, he realized. She’s waiting for the hunterbot. She wants to be sure it follows us.

Or follows me. He still found it hard to believe he had become the bot’s target, but without a doubt, here it came, the numbers showing its distance dropping rapidly now he’d stopped. Five hundred meters . . . four-fifty . . . four hundred . . . what was the range of its weapon, anyway? . . . three-fifty . . . three hundred . . . Why isn’t she moving? . . . two-fifty . . . She doesn’t have a display! She can’t be expecting that thing to show a light! . . . two hundred . . . one-fifty . . .

Finally, she tapped his arm, pointed to the mouth of the cave, and plunged inside. He started to activate his propulsion system, thought about the sharp rock lurking inside the tunnel, thought b="1em">

The blood the hunterbot is following, even though I’m not a Selkie!

Feeling as betrayed by his own body as he had recently begun to feel betrayed by his mind, he entered the tunnel.

Emily swam through the tunnel as fast as she could, hoping she hadn’t misjudged the killerbot’s distance and the range of its weapon . . . and also hoping its AI wasn’t smart enough to realize just how rotten the rock was in Sawyer’s Point, because she knew full well one sonic depth charge would bring the tunnel crashing down.

Of course, that was precisely what she was counting on, but not just yet.

She knew the landling had followed her—what else could he do?—but she couldn’t spare him a thought. If he kept following her and did exactly what she did, he just might get out of this alive . . . if either of them did.

She wasn’t sure why she cared about that, considering what his fellow Earthlings were reportedly doing to her planet, but she’d never killed anyone before, and she didn’t want to start.

The passage narrowed. She arrowed through an opening just big enough to let her pass and emerged into a giant cavern, a bubble blown in the magma long before. The upper third contained air, and so she swam up five meters and burst into the open. As she emerged, rainbows erupted from the bubble’s lining of volcanic glass, made iridescent by the action of the rock-eating bacteria, which left a thin light-refracting slime on every surface. Spectacularly beautiful and much photographed after it had been discovered by one of the first-generation Selkies, Hendrix Cavern had also been the first part of Sawyer’s Point declared off-limits. Geologists had warned that the slightest earth tremor or settling of the rock could shatter its fragile equilibrium and bring tons of rock crashing down into it, destroying its beauty forever: a terrible shame in the present and a crime against posterity—and Emily couldn’t wait to make it happen.

She swam the cavern’s thirty-meter diameter and climbed out onto a ledge. A moment later, the landling emerged. He didn’t swim across the cavern: instead he activated his propulsion system and shot across the pool so fast he had to turn sharply at the last minute to avoid smashing headfirst into the rock, and even so banged into it so hard Emily couldn’t help but wince in sympathy. He clambered out and unsealed his faceplate. “What is this place?” he said, staring around.

“Hendrix Cavern.” She barely glanced at him, keeping her attention on the pool. She pointed behind her, where another tunnel began. “Go through there. It will drop you into water in another five meters. Keep following the tunnel and keep bearing left, and you’ll emerge into the open ocean. Don’t take any openings to the right or you’ll never get out of the rock.”

“What are you—?”

“Go!” Emily snapped, and to his credit, the landling didn’t ask any more questions, but closed his faceplate and plunged into the tunnel.

Just in time. With a grinding noiphy and her quick thinking, they’d both be feeding plankton by now. And she’d let him go, when she didn’t have to, and before that, on the boat, let him live.

An animal wouldn’t have hesitated to kill someone so demonstrably a threat. Neither would a subhuman monster. But she had. She’d acted, in fact, like a civilized human being, one who considered killing a last resort . . .

. . . unlike, say, the Holy Warriors.

That was an uncomfortable line of thought. Richard decided to think about something else.

Like, for example, why the hunterbot had altered course to come after him when it had sensed his blood in the water, and would other hunterbots do the same—because if there was one thing he was reasonably certain of, it was that there would be more hunterbots in the water at Hansen’s Harbor.

All I can do is keep alert, he thought. I’ll be close to land by then. If I head for shore as soon as I detect one . . .

It wasn’t much of a plan. Most of the hunterbots will be in New Botany Bay itself, he reassured—or tried to reassure—himself. I’ll come ashore before I enter the bay proper and walk the rest of the way.

Holding on to that thought, he sped along for another hour through pale-green water stabbed by shafts of ever-shifting sunlight from above. And then, suddenly, all his planning—such as it was—became moot: his display showed him another boat, straight ahead.

And as he watched, a smaller blip separated and raced toward him, the boat following in its wake.

Hunterbot!

He had nowhere to hide, no way to outrun the thing or its follower, no rocks to climb, and no Selkie to lure it to destruction. The best he could do was head for the surface and hope the Holy Warriors on the boat recognized his survival suit and called off the hunterbot before it blew him out of the sea.

He shot up through the water, the suit’s water jet giving him enough momentum that he emerged three quarters of the way into the air before falling back with a huge splash like a broaching whale. The waves were modest by ocean standards, but still high enough that, low in the water as he was, heaving green hills cut off all sight of the boat. He couldn’t see any sign of the hunterbot, either, but his display showed it getting nearer. His heart pounded as its blip met his blip and he gave an involuntary yelp as he felt a surge in the water beneath his feet . . . and froze as the hunterbot surfaced, wet gleaming metal emerging from the water just two meters away. The bot’s tentacles remained tucked tightly to its side, though. It did nothing threatening at all . . . though he still had the feeling he was being watched.

He floated there, staring at it, until the boat suddenly appeared, almost on top of him. It slowed and turned broadside. A moment later, the two men aboard it threw a rope ladder over the side and helped him climb into the cockpit.

< that while remaining on shore.”

“You should have requested permission,” Ellers said.

“I’m not under your command,” Richard snapped back, and instantly regretted it. What’s wrong with you? Are you trying to get yourself confined to the ship?

Maybe he was. Then he wouldn’t have to continue to observe the bloody results of his brilliant interstellar detective work.

Ellers’ eyes had narrowed. “No,” he said. “You’re not. But the men you were with were. I’ve already issued orders to all Holy Warriors that they are not to allow you to accompany them on any operations without my express permission. Have you got a problem with that?”

Richard took a deep breath. “No. And . . .” He found it surprisingly hard to say. “I apologize, Grand Deacon. I had not thought through the possible consequences of my actions.” On Earth, or here.

will get permission before doing anything like this again, do I make myself clear?”

Richard resisted the urge to say “Yes, sir.” He wasn’t in the military and while he might be at Ellers’ mercy, he certainly wasn’t—as he’d pointed out moments before—at his command. “Crystal clear, Grand Deacon.”

“All right, get going. You two,” he said to the Holy Warriors who had stood at attention throughout the exchange, “escort Mr. Hansen to the hospital. Dismissed.”

The hospital was only a couple of blocks from Government House. The central part of the city seemed well-secured; maybe that was why the Holy Warrior on Richard’s right, whose name tag read KAVANAGH, felt relaxed enough to chat. “Are you really Victor Hansen’s grandson?” he said as they walked—or in Richard’s case, limped—down the street, feet crunching on broken glass. Richard could count the number of unbroken windows he’d seen in Hansen’s Harbor on the fingers of one hand.

“I really am,” Richard said.

“So . . . look, I know you’re not him, and you can’t pick your relatives, but . . . well, why’d he do it?”

“Do what?”

Kavanagh gestured in the direction of New Botany Bay. “This. Create those monsters.” He shook his head. “They give me the creeps. I feel kind of Unpurified just looking at them. Like I need a shower and a day’s penitence. How could any normal human being create monsters like that?”

Leave it, Richard warned himself, but the newly rebellious part of his mind seized control, and he heard himself say, “They’re not monsters.”

He became aware of the suddenly more focused attention of the other Holy Warrior, whose name tag read DUNCAN. Careful, he thought, and again, What’s wrong with me?

“How can you say that?” Kavanagh demanded. “Geez, have you seen them? Well, of course you have, I heard you were in the water with one. No nose to speak of, no ears, and those gills . . .” He shook his head. “And they’re shameless. Those skinsuits they wear. They might as well go naked. I hear some of the ones they dragged out of the bay were naked.”

“If they’re not human, why do you care whether they’re naked or not?” Richard said. Shut up! a part of him said frantically.

Kavanagh gave him a puzzled look. “Huh?”

“Never mind.”

“So why’d he do it? Your grandfather? Was he, you know . . .” he made a circling gesture around his right ear. “. . . crazy?” He frowned. “Hey, I’d almost forgotten. Your dad was definitely crazy, wasn’t he? I remember now . . . jumped off a building.”

Duncan still watched him like a hawk. Richard’s fist clenched. He wanted nothing more than to punch Kavanagh in the nose, but he knewldn’t help picturing that other hospital, the one in New Botany Bay. Early morning, nurses doing their rounds, patients sleeping . . . Selkie patients, but still . . .

And then . . . explosions, fire, screaming, smoke, crushing darkness, pain, death. Death. And more death. And those who survived . . .

. . . no rescue. No relief. A slow death instead of a quick death, in a place that should have been a place of shelter, a place of succor and relief from pain.

They were just Selkies, he thought fiercely. They’re not human!

But again, he thought of the Selkie woman who had let him go and saved his life.

Dogs aren’t human, either, he argued with himself. But I wouldn’t bomb a veterinary hospital.

It’s war. Things like that happen in war.

If this is war, why is only one side shooting?

The medic first took a look at Richard’s leg. “Looks like the guys on the boat did a good job,” he said. “It should heal fine. Come back in a couple of days and we’ll check it again.”

Then he stabbed a needle into the crook of Richard’s elbow to draw blood. “It will take a few minutes to run the various tests. I could use this stuff,” the tech gestured at the racks of diagnostic equipment that lined the walls, “but it’s all museum pieces. I’ll just run down to our own portable lab. You can wait here, if you like.”

“Can I look around the hospital instead?” Richard said.

The tech looked startled. “Sure, if you want to. Both floors in this wing are guarded, and anyway, the staff and patients haven’t given us any trouble.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand them, though. Here we’ve liberated them from the rule of mutants and they look at us like we’re the bad guys. Stockholm syndrome gets pretty bad after a few decades, I guess. Well, I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes.” He went out.

For a moment, Richard stayed put. He wasn’t sure why he’d asked to see the rest of the hospital. The strange confusion that seemed to have gripped him was unlikely to be eased by whatever he might see. I’m an observer, damn it, he told himself. It’s my job to look around. I don’t have to make any policy decisions, anyway, thank God. I just have to tell Cheveldeoff what I’ve seen.

He got down off the examining table and headed out the door.

Again, he was struck by how little difference there was between this hospital and those he’d visited on Earth. It even smelled the same, of strong disinfectant, mostly, occasionally mingled with the less pleasant smells associated with the very old and the very sick. He passed doctors and nurses who looked pale and worried and gave him a wide berth—the locals, he guessed. The patients watched him from their beds with eyes variously wide with curiosity, narrowed with anger, or clouded with pain or drugs. No one spoke to him except for the Holy Warriors guarding each .”

“Have you talked to anyone?” Richard asked.

“Most of them won’t talk,” the Warrior said. “Not to us. Except for one.” He pointed down the hall. “Second door on the right. He’s had a few things to say.” He laughed. “Crusty old coot. Haven’t heard language like that since basic training.”

“Thanks.” Richard headed down the hall toward the indicated door.

“He’ll blister your ears!” the Holy Warrior called after him, and laughed again.

The “old coot” certainly looked old. He lay with his eyes closed, so painfully thin that he barely raised a bump in the blue blanket covering him, except for the twin hills formed by his feet. His skin had the white, papery appearance of someone who hadn’t left his bed for a very long time, and was unlikely to leave it ever again. A handful of silver hairs stuck up at apparently random intervals from his brown-mottled pate. An IV fed something into his scrawny left arm, lying exposed on top of the blanket, and a metabolic monitor beeped, clicked, and flashed. Several of the indicators showed yellow warning lights.

Richard hesitated in the doorway, not wanting to wake the old man, but just as he’d made up his mind to leave, the man’s eyes opened. They were a startling bright blue. “What do you want?” he growled. “Bastard.”

Richard stepped closer. “No need to call me names,” he said.

“Can’t pull a gun and shoot you. What have I got but names?” The old man’s face contorted. “I’d spit in your face if I had enough spit,” he growled. “But my throat’s too dry.”

A carafe of water and two glasses stood on a table by the bed. Richard filled one of the glasses and held it to the man’s lips. He hesitated, then accepted the drink. But he took only two swallows before a fit of coughing seized him. Richard pulled back the glass. “Damn it,” the old man wheezed when he’d managed to gain control of his breathing again, “that actor lied.”

“What actor?”

“The one that said dying is easy, comedy is hard. Dying is damn hard, too.” The old man squinted at Richard. “You’re not a doctor. And you’re not one of those motherless Holy Warriors, either, unless you’re out of uniform. So who the hell are you, and why are you bothering an old man on his deathbed? Haven’t you got some nice Selkie babies to kill?”

“My name is Richard Hansen,” Richard said quietly. “No, I’m not a doctor or hermia, but she’d almost managed it. She suspected it had more to do with shock than the temperature of the water.

Her mother had just delivered a different kind of shock, telling her in short, bald sentences what the Body Purified had done to Marseguro and its people—so far.

Casualties had been horrendous, she had said. Nobody knew how horrendous, because they didn’t dare radio for fear of giving away their location. But they had heard the other towns talking before they, too, fell silent. “We think a lot of Selkies have made it to the emergency deep-sea habitats, or are en route to them,” Emily’s mother said.

Dr. Christianson-Wood looked tired, and somehow older than Emily had ever seen her look, even though Selkie faces didn’t wrinkle as landlings’ did when they aged. “We don’t expect to see very many of them here, though, because we’re so far offshore and most Selkies think this is just a tiny research hab.”

“Dad . . . ?” Emily said in a small voice, dreading the answer. Amy squeezed her hand.

Her mother shook her head. “I just don’t know. I . . .” Her voice broke, and she blinked and looked away before continuing. “It’s only luck that I’m here . . . and even luckier that Amy is.”

Emily looked at her sister. “What are you doing here?”

“I felt bad about . . . that argument we had,” Amy said. “I knew Mom was planning to come out here, and I thought, maybe if I went with her, we could talk, I could make her see . . . it was just a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“We left in the middle of the night,” her mother said.

“But you didn’t tell me!” Emily said. “I thought you were still asleep.”

“I didn’t tell you because . . . we weren’t really talking. I didn’t even tell you we were going. I was . . . still upset with you. I left your father sleeping. I didn’t even wake him.” Her voice broke. She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath before adding, in a voice as cold and bleak as the bottom of the Deep, “I didn’t even say good-bye to him.” She fell silent, looking down at her hands. She fingered the ring on her finger. “I’ll hope for the best until hope is gone.”

“I didn’t really make up my mind to go with her until just before I went to bed,” Amy said. “I surprised her by getting up when she did. We found out about the attack when we reached Jumpoff.” She squeezed Emily’s hand again. “I didn’t say good-bye to Dad, either. I haven’t even really talked to him since . . .”

“Me, either,” Emily said. “Oh, Amy.” She hugged her sister close to her, and a moment later, their mother joined them, her arms around them as they had been so many times while they were growing up, but this time, Emily sensed, as much to take comfort from them as to give it.

They clung together for an indeterminate time, until at last Dr. Christianson-Wood pulled away, wiping her eyes. Emily wiped her own. She’d been focused on survival, then on getting help for John. Now, for the first time, she could think about the larger pictuard Amy gasp as the above-water tower of the school where she had planned to study dance and Amy to study opera split like a gutted fish at the impact of a missile, half of it sliding into the water, the other half left shattered, twisted, and burning. And though few people were about at that time of the morning, she caught glimpses of bodies flung through the air to lie crumpled and still . . . and bodies floating in the now black-and-greasy water of New Botany Bay.

But not all were floating. Selkies began appearing on the surface, swimming up to see what was happening, some naked from their beds . . . and as she watched, the image tilted and turned. Lines of white fire traced the paths of bullets as they ripped into the bay and the Selkies swimming there, tearing apart flesh and bone, adding spreading washes of red to the already fouled water. Amy cried out and covered her eyes.

Emily closed her own eyes. “Shut it off,” she begged her mother. “Shut it off.”

“Computer, end vid playback,” Dr. Christianson-Wood said, but Emily kept her eyes closed.

“We must strike back, Emily,” her mother said softly into her personal darkness. “We must strike back, or be utterly destroyed.”

Emily could still see the terrible images. She suspected she always would. She opened her eyes and looked at her mother’s drawn face. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. I understand.” And as she said it, something woke inside her, something hot and wild and angry. I had one in my hands, she thought. I had one of those Earth bastards in my hands, and I let him get away. I helped him get away.

I won’t make that mistake again.

“And I want to help.” She kept her eyes locked on her mother’s. “I want to be one of the ones to help distribute the vaccine.”

“Emily . . .” Amy said beside her, sounding horrified.

Her mother opened her mouth, almost certainly to say, “No,” but something in Emily’s expression must have stopped her. Slowly, she nodded.

“Fair enough.”

“Mom!” Amy said. Her arm tightened around Emily’s shoulders.

Emily shrugged it off and turned on her, though she knew the anger rising in her didn’t really have anything to do with Amy’s protectiveness. “We can’t just sit here, Amy! You saw what they did. We have to help.”

“There are other ways,” Amy said. “They need people here, too. We’re expecting refugees. There may be wounded. I’ve volunteered to—”

“And that’s fine,” Emily said. “For you. But not for me.” Her throat tightened. “My God, Amy, they’ve probably killed Dad. They certainly killed Dahlia. They may have killed John. Who knows how many more of our friends are dead?” She looked at her mom. “Have we heard anything from Uncle Dwight in Firstdip?” Dwight was Dr. Christianson-Wood’s brother. Emily’s mother shook her head. “Or Uncle Phillip?” Phillip was Emily’s father’s brother. “He was out at sea somewhere, wasn’t he?”

“When we send the signal, those bombs will explode. They’re powerful enough to kill anyone nearby and destroy any vehicles that might be above them—but the explosion is only a way to make sure that the real destructive contents, our nasty little bugs, are spread far and wide.

“The thing multiplies unbelievably fast. It’s highly infectious. It can be passed from one human to another with the most casual of contact: a touch, a sneeze, sharing an item of clothing. Not only that, it has a symbiotic rather than destructive relationship with many widespread Marseguro bacteria: that is, it can use their genetic machinery to reproduce itself without necessarily killing the host. That means that on Marseguro—or on the Holy Warrior ship, which I suspect has been thoroughly colonized by those otherwise harmless bacteria, whether the Holy Warriors realize it or not—it doesn’t need to pass from human to human. It can reproduce on its own—not as fast, but fast enough. So simply quarantining those who are sick isn’t enough to stop the spread of infection. It will colonize and contaminate air, water, and soil. And it will kill any nonmodified human it infects within a day.”

“How?” Emily said. Horribly, I hope.

She needn’t have worried. “It’s a fast-acting hemorrhagic fever,” her mother said. “A kind of super-Ebola. The first symptoms—if our computer simulations are correct, since we obviously haven’t tested it in an actual human being—will appear within minutes of infection. A tickle in the throat, maybe a bit of soreness. A nosebleed. Within hours, a debilitating headache, followed by extreme lethargy, internal hemorrhaging . . . death.”

“Is there a treatment?”

“None we’ve been able to devise,” her mother said. “Except for the hypervaccine, and it has to be taken either before exposure or within six hours of exposure to be effective. It should be completely effective if taken before exposure, and about sixty-five to seventy percent effective after exposure, with its effectiveness dropping off as the time from exposure increases . . . as you’d expect.”

“So the volunteers’ task is to get the vaccine to as many of ‘our’ landlings as possible before the bombs are detonated.”

“Yes. Without being killed, preferably.” Emily’s mother tried to smile, but couldn’t quite make it convincing. “Please, without getting killed, Emily. Your father . . . your uncles . . . may be . . . I don’t . . .” Her lower lip trembled and she pressed her mouth tight.

“I don’t intend to get killed,” Emily said. “They’ve already tried once, remember. If their super-duper underwater killerbot couldn’t kill me, I don’t see an ordinary stupid landling managing it.”

As if the one has anything to do with the other, Emily thought, but she’d watched enough adventure vids to know how the dialogue was supposed to go in these situations. You say what you have to in order to keep going. Otherwise, you might as well curl up and die.

Her mother’s left eyebrow raised; she knew all the cliche’s, too. “All right, then. Have you thought about where you want to go?”

Emil
by nodded. “There’s only one place, isn’t there? One place I know better than anywhere else.” She pointed at the screen. “Hansen’s Harbor.”

Grand Deacon Ellers stared at the report from the medtech while Richard, once more back at Government House, stood silently by. “What does this mean?” Ellers growled.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Richard lied. “It’s just some fluke. You know I’m not Selkie.”

Ellers gave him a look that matched his growl. “I can see that. But I don’t understand how this could happen.”

The medtech hadn’t come back to Government House himself; instead, he’d called in an expert. The expedition included a geneticist of the Body-approved variety, a Dr. Jan Aylmer. A tiny woman with steel-gray hair, she had arrived just moments before and now peered nearsightedly at her datapad. Getting no satisfaction from Richard, the Grand Deacon turned to her. “Well?”

“I see two possibilities,” Dr. Aylmer said. Her voice, so deep it could almost be called sultry, belied her tiny size. “One, this is merely coincidence. The number of base pairs involved, however, makes that extremely unlikely.

“Two, and I think this more likely: Victor Hansen used his own genetic material to create the Selkies.”

Richard, who had come to the same conclusion the moment he heard the news, felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air temperature.

Ellers looked skeptical. “If he had, surely that stretch of DNA would not have survived in every Selkie, through—what, three generations now?”

“Not unless he designed it to survive. It’s ‘junk’ DNA—DNA that does not, so far as we know, code for any proteins.” She tapped the screen. “I think it’s Dr. Victor Hansen’s . . . well, call it a signature . . . and I think it originated in his own DNA.”

“Then why does he have it?” Ellers indicated Richard. “If Victor Hansen had to carefully design the Selkies to ensure that that piece of DNA remained untouched from generation to generation, how did it end up in him? He may be Hansen’s grandson, but that still means only a quarter of his genes are Hansen’s.”

“Perhaps the answer lies in Hansen’s own genome,” Dr. Aylmer said. “We do have a copy of it on record up on Sanctification, since he lived at the time when everyone’s genome was sequenced and stored, by law, for medical and evidentiary purposes.” She touched the screen of her datapad. “I think they’ve got the airnet up and . . . yes, here we go. Computer, ID me.”

“Dr. Jan Aylmer, chief geneticist, Blessed Avatar Hospital, currently assigned to Extraterrestrial Purification Force, Holy Warriors.”

“Computer, access and upload to this unit the genome on record for Dr. Victor Edmund Hansen.”

A pause. “Done,” said the computer.

“Computer, switch voice control to local access node.”

“Done,” said the computer, but this time the voice came from the display showing Richard’s genome.

“Computer,” Dr. Aylmer said, “compare genomes of Victor Edmund Hansen and Richard Arthur Hansen.”

Another pause.

“Genomes are identical,” the computer said.

“What?” the explosive syllable came from the Grand Deacon. Richard couldn’t speak; the chill he’d felt had become cryogenic, freezing him solid.

“Computer, recheck and confirm,” Dr. Aylmer snapped.

“Genomes are identical,” the computer repeated.

Dr. Aylmer turned and stared at Richard as though he’d turned into a poisonous snake in front of her eyes. “Clone,” she said. “He’s a clone.” She pointed a finger at him. “Anathema!”

Richard still couldn’t speak. He’d guessed, when the medtech told him what he’d discovered, that the Selkies were his kin, almost literally cousins, children of the children of his grandfather. That had been troubling enough, but this?

This couldn’t be happening. A clone? How? Why? It didn’t make any sense.

But genomes don’t lie, he thought. The results were right there for him to see. And they spelled the end of any hope he had of rising in the Body, of shaking off the taint of carrying Victor Hansen’s genes. They spelled the end of everything.

He wasn’t just related to Victor Hansen; in some ways, he was Victor Hansen, the most vilified man in the short history of the Body Purified.

No, it’s worse than that. To the Body, a clone is no better than a moddie. To the Body, I’m not even human . . . I’m no more human than the Selkies. Maybe less.

He didn’t realize he’d been backing up until he bumped into the wall. Grand Deacon Ellers’ shocked stare transformed into a glare of fury. “Arrest this . . . thing,” he said to the two Holy Warriors who stood at attention at the door.

“Grand Deacon—” Richard began to protest.

“Silence, or be silenced,” the Grand Deacon said. The faces of the Holy Warriors headed his way might have been cast in steel; Richard had no doubt they would be glad to do the silencing. “Two good Holy Warriors are dead because of you, clone,” the Grand Deacon snarled. “Trained, seasoned men, and yet they’re dead and you, somehow, are alive. No wonder the Selkie bitch let you go—you’re one of their inhuman kind. Hell, you’re a clone of their God. You bear the mark of the beast in your very DNA.”

But I led you here, Richard wanted to cry out. You’d never have known this planet existed if I hadn’t been searching for any clue.

Exhought.

She still hadn’t heard any news about John Duval.

“Detonation is at 0800 tomorrow,” Dr. Christianson-Wood said. “Dawn, to ensure as much confusion as possible. You should all reach your targets by 2200 tonight. You’ll have about twelve hours to vaccinate as many landlings as possible.”

“What if there’s a problem?” an older woman, probably in her mid-thirties, said from the middle of the front row. “What if we can’t reach very many landlings? Will you delay the detonation?”

Emily’s mother opened her mouth to reply, but Anton Scale stepped forward and held up a hand to forestall her. “This is a doomsday weapon,” he said. “It always has been. ‘Fire and forget.’ Nothing can stop the detonation now. If this station is attacked and destroyed, if they run more bombing runs and level every town on the planet, they will still all be dead two days from now . . . and the Selkies that remain will begin to rebuild. They may intend to kill or enslave us all, but they can’t do it in the time remaining to them.”

There were no more questions. Emily glanced around the room. One or two Selkies met her eyes, than looked away. Many others stared at the floor, absorbing what they’d been told, or possibly praying, though from what Emily had seen, Hansen’s Harbor’s sacred buildings, Selkie and landling alike, had suffered the same fate as the secular ones. They were probably specially targeted, she thought. No religion but the Body Purified can be permitted. They’ve driven Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Animists, Wiccans, and every other flavor of unsanctioned belief to extinction or underground on Earth. They’d hardly spare them here.

She looked up at Scale, who was talking in a low voice to Emily’s mother. He understands, she thought. There can be no negotiating with the Body. They don’t want anything from us but our deaths. We’re not human. We’re a work of evil, and we must be eliminated.

Which means we have to eliminate them first. Whatever the cost.

Finally, Emily looked at Amy. Their eyes met for a long moment; then Amy raised a hand in silent farewell, lowered her gaze, and slipped out of the room.

A moment later, the black-suited Selkies began slipping into the water.

They would travel in pairs, one pair each to the smallest communities of Parawing, Roger’s Harbor, Rock Bottom and Good Beaching, two pairs each to the slightly larger towns of Beachcliff and Outtamyway, three pairs to Firstdip, and the remaining seven pairs to Hansen’s Harbor.

Fred Notting, an engineer who had done occasional work with Emily’s father, commanded the Hansen’s Harbor group. He’d been working on a new habitat at Jumpoff Station at the time of the attack. He’d paired Emily with Domini Asolo, a young man in his late twenties whom she knew vaguely—he had been one of her mother’s graduate students when she was still a little girl. As they waited for their call to set off—the Hansen’s Harbor group would depart second to lastht="1em">

Emily and Domini’s assigned area encompassed some of the oldest buildings in the city, recently turned into apartments, some craft shops and warehouses where they didn’t expect to find anyone, and a few old government buildings, including the Hansen’s Harbor Criminal Detention Center. The prison had been empty at the time of the attack, as it usually was on low-crime Marseguro, but they’d agreed they needed to check it in case the Holy Warriors had decided to use it as a holding pen for recalcitrant landlings.

They reached the first of the apartment buildings, coming up on its dark bulk from the inland side. Domini slipped down the gap between it and the next building, checked out the street, then motioned Emily to follow him.

Locked doors were a rarity on Marseguro for the same reason the prison normally stood empty. They slipped silently through the building’s front door into its pitch-black lobby. “We’ll start at the top and work our way down,” Domini said. Emily nodded and followed him up the stairs.

Despite their luck with the building’s front door, the first apartment they tried was locked. They had tools for that, though, and within seconds Domini had the door open. Inside, a vidscreen on standby glowed faintly green in the corner, providing just enough light to make out a couch and a couple of chairs, pictures on the wall, an opening into the kitchen, and another opening that appeared to lead into a hallway. They slipped through that. A door to their right opened into the bathroom, a door to their left into a bedroom. They crept in, and found two landlings asleep in a double bed.

They carried two kinds of hyposprays: one just the vaccine, the other a vaccine and a hypnotic. “Let sleeping landlings lie,” was the motto, and so they each took out the hypospray charged with both vaccine and hypnotic, placed them against the necks of the man and woman in the bed, and fired.

The sharp hiss and inevitable sting made the landlings stir, but then the hypnotic tucked them back into sleep. Domini and Emily slipped out and moved on to the next apartment.

They found no one awake in that first apartment building. Three of the apartments showed signs of occupation, but were empty. But in the fifth apartment they entered, a wide-awake man waited for them, armed with a baseball bat (Emily didn’t see the appeal, but landlings had recently taken to the old sport in a big way). When he saw they were Selkies, he relaxed. “I thought you were Holy Warriors!” he said. When they’d explained what they were up to, he took the vaccine, accepted a supply of his own, and slipped out to see what he could do to help the cause.

As they worked their way through apartment building after apartment building, Emily saw several names she recognized on annunciator panels, but one in particular stood out, in one of the smallest and most run-down buildings: Chris Keating.

I wish I’d drowned him when I had the chance, Emily thought. The bastard called them here.

Well, if she ran across him, he’d sure as hell receer with, and then we’ll deal with Keating, if he’s still alive.

The night wore on. They saw no Holy Warriors in the streets. At first, Emily wondered why they were so complacent, but then she thought of the ease with which they’d taken the planet and the complete lack of armed resistance. Why shouldn’t they be complacent? They think we’re defenseless.

They’ll know better soon enough.

They began to encounter landlings who had already been vaccinated by other landlings. One, who gave his name as Drew Harper, offered to accompany them. With his help, they moved even faster, and as the sky began to gray toward dawn, they completed their sweep of their part of the city. All they had left was the prison. If it held any prisoners, there would surely be Holy Warriors guarding them, and so they had left it for last.

“I see two,” Domini whispered to Emily as they crouched in an alley from which they could look across the paved courtyard surrounding the prison, a long, thick-walled building with small windows. Guards meant prisoners. Any Selkie locked up on land since the invasion would have died a horrible death from dehydration by now . . . Emily hoped to God that hadn’t happened . . . so whoever was in there needed vaccinating.

Domini lowered the heatscanner through which he’d been observing the prison. Designed for use in the deep ocean and looking like a pair of odd, lensless binoculars, it could easily detect the thermal emissions of people through the prison’s cold walls. “Three prisoners. We have to get in there.”

Emily nodded. They had a plan, of course: a simple plan, because they’d had no time to practice a complex one and also because simple plans were usually the best—at least, so she’d always heard, and she fervently hoped it was true.

“Drew, you stay here,” Domini said. “Keep watch. You see anyone coming, let out a shout and run like hell.”

Drew nodded.

“Let’s go,” Domini said to Emily. They both stood, then stepped out of the shadows and strode toward the prison as though they belonged there. No one stopped them. Apparently, neither of the Holy Warriors in the guardroom had yet glanced out the window.

That might be good or bad. It depended on what happened next.

They walked around to the imposing front door, made of native stonewood (an incredibly dense plant material that came by its name honestly), and positioned themselves side by side. Emily swallowed hard and hoped she’d be able to do what she was supposed to do next. She bent her right arm so that her right hand pointed toward the door. Beside her, Domini did the same.

And then Domini knocked.

At first, everything went perfectly. At least one of the Holy Warriors inside must have felt secure, because he pulled the door wide open. “What—” he began.

Emily heard a sharp “pfft” from her right as Domini fired the dart-gun strapped to his right forearm. A high-speed dart, designed to carry a scale-pough thirty meters of water, caught the helmetless guard in the throat and carried on through his spine and into and through the base of his skull. Blood, bone, and brains exploded from the back of the Holy Warrior’s head, painting the low white ceiling of the guardroom a grisly, glistening red.

The corpse dropped. As it fell, Emily saw the second Holy Warrior, her target, farther inside the room. She fired, but the second Holy Warrior had had one second longer to react than his unfortunate companion—and had been alert enough to grab his weapon at the unexpected sound of a knock. He wasn’t wearing his body armor, though, and Emily’s dart tore through his chest, shattering his breastbone, piercing his heart, and slamming into the wall behind him. But he fired at the same instant, and the slug from his antipersonnel handgun ripped through Domini’s belly and out his back, pulverizing his internal organs and smashing his spine.

Both men were dead before their bodies hit the ground, leaving Emily standing untouched, unharmed—and almost undone.

Her legs gave way and she fell to her knees on the pavement, then leaned over and retched, vomiting up the cold-pressed sea rations they had eaten when they first came ashore. She stayed there, bent over, her weight on the palms of her hands, her eyes closed, heaving until nothing remained in her guts to throw up, and then she stayed there longer, trying to catch her breath. Only the realization that daylight was breaking and more Holy Warriors could arrive at any moment drove her to her feet.

Domini’s backpack, sticky with blood and bits of flesh, contained the remainder of their stock of vaccine. Emily pulled it off his body, taking a moment to close his wide eyes, glazing over now but still bearing a look of surprise, then staggered to her feet. She looked across the courtyard to where Drew still knelt, his eyes wide and white in the twilight, and waved to him. He hesitated—she couldn’t blame him—but then got to his feet and dashed across the cobblestones. He didn’t look at Domini’s body. “We need to move fast,” she told him. “There are cells down both sides of the interior hallway. You take the ones on the right; I’ll take the ones on the left.”

He nodded.

They went into the guardroom. Drew took one look and emptied his stomach as she had earlier. While he retched, she searched for a way to open the inner door, and found the keycard for it in plain sight on the blood-spattered desk the second Holy Warrior had been standing in front of when she shot him. The card, too, had blood on it, but the key slot accepted it, and the inner door, made of stonewood like the outer, swung open.

A second key slot caught her eye. She read the label on it, grinned, and shoved the key in.

Bright lights came on in the hallway and every cell door clanged loudly as it unlocked. Emily started down her side of the hall and found the occupant of the first cell, a fat man she didn’t recognize, standing by his bed. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

Emily swung open the door and entered the cell, digging in Domini’s backpack for a fresh hypospray, fully charged and good for a dozen doses. “Call it a prison break,” Emily said. “You’re free to go, but you have to get this shot first.”

The man in the cell lay down on his bunk and turned his back on her.

“Rot in hell!” she screamed at him, then turned and dashed out of the prison, through pools of blood beginning to turn sticky, weeping with rage and a grief she’d suppressed until then. Glistening red footprints marked her passage across the cobblestoned courtyard, as she ran to join her fellow Selkies and await the purifying plague.

A gunshot, the sound of locks unlocking, and bright lights switching on in the corridor brought Chris Keating out of a sound sleep. Heart pounding, he had just swung his legs over the edge when a landling he didn’t know burst into his cell.

“I’m here to let you out,” the stranger said. “But you have to have this first.” He held up the hypospray.

“What?” Keating stared at it, brain still muzzy with sleep. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s told me. I just know we all need it, all the landlings.”

“You’ve had it?” The stranger nodded. “Who gave it to you?”

Someone raced down the hallway outside; Chris saw only a flash of black. “The Selkies. They’re giving it to everyone.”

Chris hesitated, but the open door beckoned and he finally held out his arm. The hypospray hissed, and the landling leaped up. “Nothing personal,” he said, “but I’m getting out of here before any more Holy Warriors show up.” He ran out without a second glance.

“Good plan,” Chris muttered. He headed to the door, glanced right—

—and saw a Selkie in a black landsuit, a woman by the curves of her body, though the landsuit’s hood hid her face, talking to Richard Hansen through the bars of his cell.

He’s dead meat, Chris thought. And I am, too, if she sees me. He dodged back into his cell, and pressed his spine against the wall until, a moment later, he heard the Selkie run past. Then he looked out again. He hesitated, torn between his desire to run and his desire to know what the hell was going on. The latter finally won and he ran down the hallway to Hansen’s still-locked door.

Hansen lay on his bunk, his back to the corridor. “Richard Hansen?” Chris said. “Are you—” Dead, he intended to say, but Hansen answered that question by rolling over and staring at him.

“Got your shot?” Hansen said.

“Yes,” Chris said. “What’s it for?”

Hansen didn’t answer. “Better run, then,” he said. “Holy Warriors can’t be far off.”

“I’ll let you out . . .” Chris said, but then realized he had no way to do so.

Chris stared at him for a long moment. “You’re crazy,” he said. “Just like your grandfather.” And then he dashed for the guardroom.

What he saw there brought him up short. He edged around the walls, trying to avoid the blood that covered, it seemed, everything, and trying not to look at the ruined bodies of the Holy Warriors who had been guarding him. Outside the prison, he found a Selkie almost cut in two. He ran past the bloody corpse, dashed between two buildings that hid him from the prison, then kept running, zigzagging at random through back streets and alleys until at last he stopped and leaned his back against a cold concrete wall, breathing hard, confident no one was following him.

The Selkies are up to something, he thought. If I warn Ellers . . . maybe he’ll finally trust me. And take me back to Earth.

He rubbed his sore arm. But what are they up to? The shot had to be some kind of preventive medicine . . . or maybe a way to distinguish Marseguroites from Earthlings.

A biological weapon? He shook his head. Not the sort of thing you whip up overnight, complete with vaccination. He knew enough genetics to know that. It must be something else . . . something else you need an antidote for.

It came to him. A chemical attack! It’s the only thing they could have pulled together this quickly. They’re giving an antidote to as many of the Marseguroite landlings as they can—then they’ll try to poison as many Holy Warriors as possible.

Well, we’ll see about that. There had to be some time left before the attack. Once Ellers knew something was planned, he could order his men into pressure suits. And then, Chris thought savagely, the Selkies would discover that what had happened to them so far was nothing compared to the terrible price the Holy Warriors would exact for such defiance.

He turned the corner of the building to head to the Square—and stepped right in front of two Holy Warriors. Their guns swung up. “Halt!” one snapped.

Chris skidded to a stop on the dew-wet pavement. “I’m going to see—”

The second Holy Warrior suddenly swung his rifle to his shoulder. The guide laser flashed red across Chris’ eyes, momentarily dazzling him, and he flung up a hand. “I know him!” the Holy Warrior cried. “I escorted him to prison two days ago. He’s escaped!”

“Shoot him if he moves,” the first Warrior ordered. He strode forward and seized Chris’ arms, pinning them behind him. “How’d you get out?” he shouted, his mouth inches from Chris’ left ear. Chris winced. “Who helped you?”

“Selkies,” Chris gasped out, then grunted with pain as the Holy Warrior twisted his arm upward.

“Liar,” the Warrior snarled. “The prison is two kilometers from the water.”

“Selkies . . . can manage just fine . . . on land,” Chris said. “Ow!”

“Sam,” the Warrior said, “get the prison guardroom on the hor~ Warn.”

Sam shifted his gun to his right hand but didn’t lower it entirely. He lifted his left arm and talked to the wrist. “Computer, comm route,” he said. “Prison guardroom.”

“Signal sent,” a tinny voice answered. A pause. “No acknowledgment.”

“They’re dead,” Chris said. “Both guards, and a Selkie. Send someone—”

“Better check it out,” the first Holy Warrior said. “He’s secure.”

Sam nodded and trotted off.

“You’ve got to take me to the Grand Deacon!” Chris said. “The Selkies have a plan . . . they’re going to attack!”

“Let them try,” the Holy Warrior said. “Don’t worry, kid, the Grand Deacon is exactly who I’m taking you to. If you’re telling the truth, he’ll want to know. And if you aren’t—” the Warrior barked a laugh. “He’ll want to know that, too.”

There’s plenty of time, Chris told himself. Plenty of time before they launch any attack. They only reached the prison twenty or thirty minutes ago. They wouldn’t have cut it that close.

But five minutes later, as the Holy Warrior frog-marched Chris into the Square, the ground beneath the toppled statue of Victor Hansen erupted.

The force of the blast knocked Chris and the Holy Warrior backward. Cobblestones smashed basketball-sized holes in the wall of the building behind them, and pebbles and dirt rained down. Chris found himself lying on top of the Holy Warrior, wriggling helplessly like an overturned turtle. Then the Holy Warrior pushed him hard in the back, hurling him into the air to crash down hard on his left side. For a moment, he couldn’t think of anything but trying to recapture his knocked-out breath, but he could still see, and what he saw chilled him.

The Holy Warrior stood with his back to Chris, staring at a roaring geyser of white vapor shooting out of the crater in the Square left by the explosion. Overhead, a white cloud was already spreading and dispersing. This close to the source, Chris could feel the aerosol on his face as little pinpricks of ice, and when at last he managed to take a full breath, the stuff tickled his throat.

They did it, he thought. The fishy bastards actually did it.

He watched the Holy Warrior, expecting him to double over or collapse or at least start coughing, but instead the Warrior spun and yanked him to his feet so hard he thought his arm would come out of its socket. He yelped.

“I don’t know what the hell that is,” the Holy Warrior snarled in his face, “but I’ll bet you do, and you’re going to tell the Grand Deacon. Now!”

He half-dragged Chris across the Square to Government House, where a dozen more Holy Warriors stood looking at the thinning geyser of mist. As the Grand Deacon himself emerged, still pulling on his uniforing for.”

“Well, better safe than sorry, no?” Velikovsky said. He pulled on a flight helmet. “Ready to lift, Ground Control,” he said.

Chris couldn’t hear Ground Control’s answer, but Velikovsky laughed. “You sound terrible, Ground Control. Plenty of sleep, plenty of vodka. Old Russian remedy. We’re away.”

The engines rumbled to life, and Chris suddenly felt much heavier than usual. Good-bye Marseguro, and good riddance, he exulted.

Whatever happened next, he knew he would never be back.

Richard Hansen had had little to say to the Selkie when she gleefully proclaimed his imminent death. He had little more to say to the Holy Warrior who arrived a half hour after she left and demanded to know what had happened. “You tell me,” Richard said, not bothering to get up from the bed where he lay with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “I was locked in here the whole time.”

“Who did it?” the Holy Warrior snapped.

“The only person I saw was a Selkie woman,” Richard said. “I gathered she objected to the slaughter of her friends and family. I also gathered she’d freed the other prisoners.”

“And why didn’t she free you, clone?”

“It seems,” Richard said in a flat voice, “that I am persona non grata to both sides of this conflict. An inhuman monster to both the religious fanatics I led here and the people whose genocide I facilitated. And so, here I rot.” He said nothing about the woman’s mention of a horrible death coming for all the Earthlings. It could have been hyperbole or an empty threat meant to terrorize him, but even if it were the truth, he wouldn’t lift a finger to save the Holy Warriors whose barbarity he had been prepared to celebrate just two days earlier.

Nor would he lift a finger to save himself.

“We are all in God’s hand, and that hand may close into a fist at any moment,” Richard thought, remembering a quote from the Avatar’s book. “Ain’t it the truth,” he muttered.

“What was that?” said the Holy Warrior.

“Nothing.” Richard rolled over and sat up. “Are you going to let me out or shoot me? Doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Neither,” the Holy Warrior growled. “The Grand Deacon put you here; he can let you out if he wants. There’ll be new guards to relieve me soon enough. In the meantime, you can just sit there and think about whether there’s anything else you should tell us. I’ve got to check in.”

He went down the hall.

A few minutes later, the thundercrack of an explosion rattled the city. Despite his professed disinterest, Richard leaped to his feet. He waited to see what would happen next. When nothing did, he sat back down and waited some more.

Emily climbed to the rendezne against and which were likely, therefore, widespread throughout the vessel.

“If they take anything aboard the ship from the planet, no matter how thoroughly they think they’ve decontaminated it, they’ll be infected,” she’d said. “Unless they blow all the air out of the ship and suit up in pressure suits, it will find them.”

Whatever they think they’re carrying to the ship, Emily thought, they’re really carrying death.

The idea of a ship full of dead Holy Warriors circling Marseguro forever almost made her smile.

Their landsuits kept their skins moist and provided them with water to drink, and the sea rations they’d brought with them, if uninspiring, were nourishing enough. They waited, and watched.

After the initial explosions, there was a flurry of activity for five or six hours. Ground transports rushed here and there, boats crisscrossed the bay, a few armored Holy Warriors dashed through open spaces in the city, and once an attack craft roared overhead, making them duck farther into the shadows of the bumbershoot trees.

As the sun passed the zenith and started easing toward the mountains, though, the amount of movement noticeably lessened, and by late afternoon, all vehicle traffic ceased. Emily studied the pier through binoculars. The Holy Warriors there had vanished. So had those who had been guarding the Square. She spotted a few foot patrols slinking through the shadowed streets, but they soon disappeared as well.

For the last couple of hours of daylight, nothing moved at all. The complete absence of Marseguroite landlings worried Emily. What if the vaccine hadn’t worked?

“The Holy Warriors probably ordered everyone off the street,” Notting said when she mentioned her concern. “They’re just lying low.”

Emily hoped he was right, because as the sun set behind the inland mountains, its final rays turning the sky, most appropriately, the color of blood, Hansen’s Harbor looked like a ghost town.

“What’s that?” a woman whispered, the desolation and silence having obviously affected her, too.

“What?” Notting said in a normal voice. He might as well have shouted, the word sounded so loud in the still evening air, and he repeated, “What?” in something closer to the whisper the woman had used.

“In the Square.”

Emily raised her binoculars.

A single Holy Warrior had come into view. He staggered as he walked, like someone drunk. The setting sun had painted the scene orange, but the front of his armor seemed redder than it should have. Blood, Emily realized. It’s covered with blood.

The Holy Warrior took one step, then another, then stopped. For a long moment he just stood there, wavering, then sutumbled forward to lie, facedown and unmoving, in the spreading scarlet pool.

Someone else who had binoculars stumbled away and threw up in the bushes surrounding the glade. Others closed their eyes; but Emily kept her glasses focused on the Holy Warrior, dead and prostrate in his own vomited blood, long after the others had turned away. Payback, she thought. Payback at last.

“We’ll camp here overnight,” Notting said. “At first light we’ll survey the situation. If it’s all clear . . .” He gave them a wan smile. “Then we have our planet back, ladies and gentlemen.”

They cheered, then, and Emily cheered the loudest.

The flight into orbit was short and surprisingly rough, but Chris had a tough stomach—he’d never been in a boat, but he’d never thought he’d be seasick if he were—and when they arrived at Sanctification, just twenty minutes after launch, his heart pounded with excitement. Once you’re off a planet you’re halfway to anywhere, Chris remembered a teacher saying. Well, that means I’m halfway to Earth.

Dodson unhooked himself from his rack, then floated over to free Chris. He looked pale, and sweat beaded his forehead. “When I find the Selkie who cooked up this stuff, I will personally pull his guts out through his gills,” Dodson said. “I feel like shit.” With Chris half-freed, Dodson suddenly coughed and kept on coughing, so hard he ended up holding on to a metal handle on the bulkhead for support, his rifle clamped between his knees, covering his mouth with his left hand. Tiny crimson globules escaped from between his fingers and floated in the air between him and Chris, and when the spasm passed and he moved his hand to grip his rifle again, blood stained his lips and palm.

“You should see a doctor,” Chris said.

“Shut up.” Dodson straightened and finished unstrapping him.

The shuttle had been directed to a small zero-G landing bay, just big enough for one vehicle. Its outside doors remained open, leaving the bay in vacuum. Dodson pulled a pressure suit from a locker and shoved it at Chris. “Get in,” he croaked.

Chris silently complied, though he found it awkward without gravity, and bounced off the walls a couple of times and once off of Dodson, who angrily shoved him away. When he was finally in, Dodson sealed the suit, then climbed into one himself, in half a dozen efficient motions, while Velikovsky held the rifle and watched Chris. Then Dodson took the rifle again and nodded to Velikovsky, who opened the inner hatch of the air lock. Dodson shoved Chris in, then slung his rifle over his shoulder and followed. Velikovsky sealed the two of them into the coffinlike space. The sound of air pumps quickly died away as they emptied the lock of atmosphere. At last, the outside door opened in eerie silence.

Dodson took hold of Chris’ arm, bent his legs, and pushed off against the floor of the air lock. The two of them sailed across three meters of space, then collided with the padded walls, covered with silvery webbing. Dodson pulled them hand-over-hand toward an open hatch, Chris bobbing behind like a child’s balloon.

A moment’s heaviness, then they stopped. Dodson still gripped his arm. Their chamber suddenly flooded with a pearly white mist. “Decon,” Dodson said, his voice crackling with startling volume in Chris’ ear. “If your fishy friends did come up with a nasty little bug of some kind, this’ll do for it.”

“They’re not my friends,” Chris said.

“Shut up.”

The mist cleared away. A brilliant purple light followed; Chris’ pressure suit automatically darkened his visor almost instantly, but he still felt like his eyeballs had been scalded. And then, finally, the side of the chamber swung open, revealing a white, featureless corridor. At the far end, another door stood open. “Go down there, go into that room,” Dodson said.

Chris hesitated. “What about you?”

“We get to go back to the planet so we don’t contaminate anything,” Dodson snarled. “Get going!” He gave Chris a sharp shove.

The last thing Chris heard from him over the suit radio was a long bout of hacking, gurgling coughs; then the elevator and he were gone.

A new voice spoke in his ear. “You can remove your suit helmet, Mr. Keating,” it said. “Then please proceed to the quarantine chamber, where we will commence our tests.”

Having nowhere else to go, Chris complied.

Chapter 14

FOR RICHARD HANSEN, the hours following the explosions in the Square and elsewhere passed not much differently from the rest of the time he had spent in the cell, with one exception: no meals.

He expected new guards to arrive and check in on their prisoner, and probably bring additional prisoners as the Holy Warriors rounded up people who were either involved in setting off the bombs or just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But after the Holy Warrior left, he saw no one. No guards, no Selkie women bent on rescue or revenge, no prisoners, Earthling or Marseguroite. No one at all.

They’ve left me here to rot, he thought. Or starve to death. At least he had water: the sink and shower continued to work.

The missed breakfast didn’t matter much. By lunchtime, though, hunger clawed at his stomach, and by suppertime, those claws were long and sharp indeed. Something more had happened than just a few bombs being set off by Selkie resistance fighters.

He recalled the Selkie’s parting words. “You’re going to dem">“. . . then we need to study him. Find out why he’s immune. If even a few Holy Warriors survived and are hiding somewhere with their weapons . . .”

The girl took a deep breath. “All right.” She lowered her arm. “Come on, you,” she said. “My mother should be here in an hour or so. I’m sure she’ll be happy to dissect you.”

The way she said it, Richard wasn’t at all sure it was a metaphor.

With the bloodthirsty girl leading the way and the older woman keeping his arm pinned behind his back, Richard stumbled down the long hallway and through the guardroom. It looked like an abattoir, spattered with blood and . . . bits. More blood stained the cobblestones outside, and four corpses lay in the shadow of the prison, wrapped in sheets, one set apart from the others. Whether they were Holy Warriors, Selkie, or local nonmods, Richard couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t given an opportunity to look.

They left the prison courtyard behind and made their way through the streets of Hansen’s Harbor. Richard saw no Holy Warriors, living or dead . . . until they reached the Square.

Richard gasped, and tried to stop walking; but the stocky woman wouldn’t let him, forcing him to stumble forward.

In the center of Square, near the toppled statue of his “grandfather” and a huge crater where the fountain used to be, lay row upon row of bodies. Plastic or blankets wrapped them, but here and there an arm protruded, or a leg, almost always spattered with blood, and almost always wearing the telltale blue jumpsuit of the Holy Warriors. “How . . . ?” Richard gasped.

“Shut up.” The woman behind him twisted his arm to emphasize her command.

Several people, Selkies and nonmods, stood around the entrance to Government House. As Richard and his escorts approached, two nonmods came out, dragging two more plastic-wrapped bodies. A third nonmod appeared. “Those are the last ones, Mr. Notting,” he said to a Selkie wearing a black pressure suit garment like those worn by the two women with Richard.

“I wish we still had one of them,” growled a nonmod next to Notting.

“Maybe we do,” said the Selkie girl, and the woman holding Richard’s arm released him and pushed him forward so hard he stumbled.

Notting frowned. “Emily? Who’s this landling?”

Emily. So that’s her name.

“He’s not a landling, Fred. He’s a Holy Warrior.”

Notting’s frown deepened. “He can’t be.”

“The first time I saw him he was on a Holy Warrior boat that had been tracking the killerbot that killed Dahlia Schaefer,” Emily said.

“But he’s alive,” blurted out the man who had just said he wished he still had a Holy Warrior in precisely that condition. “If he’s alive . . . there could be others said. They all stared at him, as if he were a dog that had suddenly stood up on its hind legs and started spouting Shakespeare.

Notting came closer. The stocky woman grabbed Richard’s arm again and held it tight. “Why do you say that?” Notting growled. “Do you deny you’re a Holy Warrior?”

“I’m a civilian,” Richard said. “And the Holy Warriors would be the first to deny I could ever be one of them. They’ve decided I’m subhuman, like you.”

“You’re no Selkie,” said the man behind Notting.

“No,” Richard said. “I’m a clone.” He hesitated. Oh, to hell with it. “A clone of Victor Hansen.”

Astonished, dead silence for a long moment, then Notting barked a laugh. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” Richard said. “I didn’t know it myself until two days ago, but it’s true.”

“You expect us to believe that?” said Emily, behind him. He couldn’t turn to look at her, not with the stocky woman’s grasp having just tightened to something beyond merely viselike.

“Not really,” Richard said. “But it’s the truth. And as you’ve so astutely observed, I’m alive. Maybe that’s why.”

Notting’s eyes narrowed. He looked closely at Richard. “There’s certainly a resemblance,” he said. “But why would a clone of Victor Hansen accompany the Holy Warriors sent to destroy Hansen’s Selkies?”

Richard’s arm and shoulder hurt, and when he glanced from Notting to the face of the man who had expressed a desire to have a live Holy Warrior in his hands and beyond to the glares of the other Selkies and nonmods, who had gathered since he’d arrived, he decided he’d been forthcoming enough. Twice in the past two days, he’d thought he was as good as dead. At one point he’d thought he’d even welcome his impending demise . . . but now he found he didn’t particularly relish the idea of being torn to pieces by an enraged mob. The body satisfies its own needs without regard to the spirit, he thought again. And staying alive is a pretty basic need.

“I think I’d better tell my story to the authorities,” he said. “If they still exist.”

“Oh, they exist,” Notting said.

“The Chief Administrator is in his office,” offered the man behind Notting.

“This isn’t a matter for the Administrator,” Notting said. “I think Mr. Hansen . . . is that your name?”

Richard nodded. “Richard Hansen,” he said.

“I think Mr. Hansen had better talk to the Council. I believe a quorum survives.” He looked over Richard’s shoulder. “Emily, will you and Farley escort him down to the pier?”

“Sure,” Emily said. S

As evening shadows crept across the bay and the sky once more turned the color of blood, the three big subs that had been moored at Jumpoff Station finally appeared, fully surfaced, Selkie crew members standing on their decks. The subs picked their painfully slow way through the flotsam and jetsam floating in the ship channel. Among other things, the blunt bows batted aside several quiescent killerbots, some smart landling having found the master deactivation code for the mechanical monsters and broadcast it from the Holy Warriors’ own communications equipment at Government House.

Somewhere in the wakes of the big subs, Emily knew, another couple of dozen Selkies rode sputas or drove dolphin subs like the one she and Dahlia had taken to the Schaefer family habitat.

Aboard the subs, besides her mother, were three members of the nine-person Council. Two other members had been located, one in Firstdip and one in Outtamyway, and would be in Hansen’s Harbor soon, if they weren’t already. No one had heard from the remaining four Council members, all Selkies. Since all four were in Hansen’s Harbor at the time of the assault, all four were presumed dead.

Like Father, Emily thought. Well, just a few more minutes, and I can hand this murdering landling over to my mother and go look for him.

Going to let the grown-ups take over? an inner voice snarled.

Yes, she answered herself. But I’m going to make damn sure they hear what I think about whatever plans they make from here on out. I think I’ve earned that right.

The subs maneuvered gingerly up to the undamaged portion of the pier, and crew members jumped onto the pier with lines. Several more minutes passed before the sub was snugly moored. Eggshells wouldn’t have broken if they’d been used as fenders, but that kind of care took time, and even though Emily could see the skill of the sub skipper, she would have appreciated more haste and less grace.

Finally, the hatch opened.

Dr. Christianson-Wood appeared first, and to her astonishment and embarrassment, Emily burst into tears and ran for her mother’s embrace.

“There, there,” her mother whispered, stroking her back. “It’s all right, Emily. It’s all right.”

“Daddy,” Emily sobbed. “I haven’t found Daddy.”

Her mother nodded. Her own eyes were wet, Emily saw, and suddenly everything flipped and instead of wanting her mother’s comfort, she wanted to comfort her mother. “But I’m not giving up,” she said. “I’m going to swim down to the hab. It might be intact. He might still be hiding down there. Or somewhere else . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Maybe, Emily,” her mother said. “I hope so.” Something in her voice made Emily step back and take a good look at her. Her eyes glistened, but her face didn’t look like that of someone who was about to emotionally crumble. It looked hard, set in stone—and even older than Emily remembered it from just a few days ago. “But if he was killed, I think you can safely say I’ve had my revenge.” And then she looked past Emily r face became even harder. “Who’s that?” she said in a flat voice. “He’s an Earthling, isn’t he? Why isn’t he dead?”

“That’s why I’ve brought him here—so you can find out.” Emily took a deep breath. “He says his name is Richard Hansen.” At the last name, Dr. Christianson-Wood’s eyes shifted sharply to her daughter. “And he’s not just claiming to be a relative of Dr. Hansen. He says he’s his clone.”

“A clone of Victor Hansen!” Her mother’s eyes widened. She strode over to the Earthling. “Stand up!”

Hansen stood.

“What makes you think you’re a clone?”

“Believe me, it was as much of a shock to me as to you,” Hansen said. “But that’s what the Holy Warriors’ geneticist told me. She also said that I had a genetic sequence in my junk DNA peculiar to the . . . Selkies. You.” He looked at Emily. “That’s why the hunterbot came after me. It detected my blood in the water and thought I was a Selkie.”

“I should have let it have you,” Emily said.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Dr. Christianson-Wood said. Her face had lost some of its new harshness and taken on a little of the light Emily had sometimes seen in the past when her mother was engrossed in a scientific problem. “Let’s get him to my lab and I’ll . . .” her voice fell. She turned and looked out across the ruins of New Botany Bay. “I forgot,” she said. “My lab is gone.” She turned on Hansen so suddenly he flinched. “I’ll have to make do with what’s on the sub.” She looked at Farley. “Take him aboard. Tell the skipper I want him locked up until I can get to him.”

Farley nodded, and propelled Hansen toward the gangway.

Emily’s mother turned back toward her. “You look terrible. When did you last sleep? Or eat?”

Emily shook her head irritably. “I don’t remember. But I can sleep or eat later.” She looked back at the bay. “I have . . . I need to go see the hab.”

Dr. Christianson-Wood pressed her lips together, then nodded. “You’re right. Go. Look. Tell me what you find. But then come back here. You can use my quarters—just ask; someone will point the way. Get out of that landsuit and take a good long swim—in clean water,” she added, glancing at the bay, whose water looked absolutely black now that the sun had vanished behind the mountains. “The sub’s ballast decks are filtered and open for Selkie use. Try those.” She looked over her shoulder at the sub. “A Hansen clone . . .” she said, almost to herself. “If it’s true . . .”

“How could it be?”

Her mother looked at her for a long moment. “I can’t tell you,” she said at last. “Not yet. Not until I’ve confirmed it.” She sighed. “And I can’t do that right now, because the Council is meeting up at Government House in an hour.”

“Couldn’t they do without . . . without you?” Emily said, yawning. My mother suggests I must be exhausted and suddenly I feel exhausted, she thought. We should harness that mysterious Mom-power as a weapon. If we’re ever attacked again, she could just tell the and they would.

Dr. Christianson-Wood looked oddly uncomfortable. “Ah. Well, um . . . the truth is, Emily, I’m an, ah, ex-officio member of the Council. Have been for years.”

Emily’s yawn turned into a gape. “Huh?”

“Big secret, just like the work out at Jumpoff Station,” her mother said. “You know the constitution allows the elected Councillors to appoint additional members to the Council as circumstances require.”

“Uh . . .” Emily cast her mind back through dim remembrances of civics classes. Mostly she remembered the boy who had sat in front of her, whose looks and body had turned all the girls’ heads, but who had also, alas, turned out to be gay. “If you say so.”

“Trust me,” her mother said. “It’s in there. And I have been so appointed. So I really had better get uptown. You . . . do what you have to. If you find Daddy . . .”

“I’ll come tell you,” Emily said quietly. “Council meeting or no Council meeting.”

Dr. Christianson-Wood nodded. “But if you don’t, come back here, get on the sub. Rest. Swim. When you wake up, eat. And by then I’ll be back and ready to tackle that . . . little problem you brought me.”

Emily nodded. She started toward the edge of the pier, then stopped and turned back. “If you’re a Councillor, Mom, then tell me. What happens next? After all this . . .” Emily’s gesture took in the destruction surrounding them, and by extension all of the dead, Selkies and landlings and Holy Warriors alike. “. . . what happens? Where do we go from here?”

Her mother’s face settled back into its new, harsher look. “Emily,” she said, “I have no idea. None of us do.” And with that, she turned her back on her daughter and strode inland.

Emily watched her go, left with that most unsettling of childhood feelings: the grown-ups were in charge . . .

. . . but they didn’t know what to do.

Then she shook herself, mentally and physically. “Why am I still standing here?” she asked out loud. With relish, she stripped out of the landsuit, leaving it in a crumpled pile on the pier. Underneath, she had on a barely-there two-piece skinsuit of the kind Dahlia had always favored, the best choice for wearing under a landsuit. She bent down to the discarded landsuit and from one of its pockets took out the lightband she’d last used when she’d lured the killerbot into Sawyer’s Point, and strapped it around her head. Then she jumped into the bay.

The water closed around her, but she held her breath instead of opening her gills, until she’d sunk far enough into the bay that she hoped she’d left the worst of the oil and other pollution fouling its surface above her. Even so, as the water streamed through her gills, it tasted . . . wrong. Metallic, and oily, and . . . foul.

I hope I’m not poisoning mydiv height="1em" width="1em">Richard complied. The five minutes passed at a glacial pace. At last, the machine beeped again. Dr. Christianson-Wood examined the screen; the readouts on it made no sense to Richard. What if I’m not a clone? he wondered suddenly. What if the Holy Warrior geneticist lied? What if the voices in my head are just my own conscience? Would it change anything?

He shook his head. No, it wouldn’t. He owed these people. Every death on this planet was in some way his responsibility. He had to try, however hopeless it might be, to somehow make amends.

What if the only way I can do that is to let them execute me?

Then that’s what I’ll do. He snorted softly. Not that I’ll exactly have a choice.

Dr. Christianson-Wood turned to look at him, her expression unreadable. She stared for a long moment, then glanced into the corridor. “You can go, Peter.”

“Are you sure?” the giant in the hallway rumbled.

“I’m sure. He’s not going to do anything.”

“If you say so, Dr. Christianson-Wood.” Peter sounded doubtful, but Richard heard his footsteps moving away.

Then he heard the door close. He looked up. “Now what?”

“You’re more than just a clone of Victor Hansen,” Dr. Christianson-Wood said. “As I suspect you know. He also gave you . . . literally . . . a piece of his mind.”

Richard’s blood ran cold. “How do you—”

“I’m the leading geneticist on Marseguro. I’m an appointed member of the Planetary Council. I am also the current caretaker of the Victor Hansen archives, and one of the few people allowed to access any part of them I choose.” She leaned back against the equipment cabinet, and folded her arms. “Dr. Hansen kept thorough notes. Among those he kept secured until his death—and the Council has kept secured since—are ones detailing his scheme to ‘have his cake and eat it, too’, as he put it.

“Before he left Earth, Victor Hansen made five clones of himself. He left the frozen embryos in the care of someone he considered trustworthy . . . his wife, Dianne. His ex-wife, really; she loved him, but nothing could convince her to leave Earth. She did agree to keep the clones, though, and to raise the first of them to adult-hood, if she and they survived. The remaining clones would then be put into the hands of the first clone.” Dr. Christianson-Wood leaned forward. “But these weren’t ordinary clones. Dr. Hansen believed he had discovered a way of passing on, not just his genetic material, but also at least a portion of his memories and possibly even his personality. He believed he knew how to encode that information into a living brain. He built into his clones what he called a gene-bomb: a genetic package activated at a certain stage of development—he estimated it would ‘go off’ when the clone was around thirty—which would begin rewiring a portion of the clone’s brain, encoding some of his memories and beliefs and . . . well, he didn’t reallyhing in particular. “Dr. Hansen,” she said after a moment, “did not lack for ego.” Then she blinked and turned her attention back to Richard.

“Hansen did not believe the Body Purified would remain in power. He believed it would fade away. By which time, he believed, his clone would be grown, and would find, tucked away inside his head, the information he needed to find Marseguro, and the wisdom to decide whether or not it was time for Selkies and Earthlings to join together once more.”

She stepped even closer. “And now here you are,” she said. “The living image of a young Victor Hansen.” And then, without warning, her hand lashed out, cracking across Richard’s cheek like a whip, twisting his head half-around and making his ears ring. “Damn you! Damn you to hell! How could the clone of our creator help destroy us?”

Richard, hand on his burning cheek, turned his eyes back to her. He thought of all the reasons he’d had. He’d been doing God’s will . . . well, God’s will as proclaimed by the Avatar. He’d wanted to clear his family name. He’d wanted to advance his career. He’d . . .

All those reasons depended on thinking of the Selkies, as subhuman, evil, twisted creatures that God wanted destroyed.

But as a clone, the Body considered him just as subhuman, evil, and twisted as the Selkies.

And Emily had saved his life.

And . . .

He shook his head. “I don’t have any reasons you’d understand or accept,” he said. “I don’t accept them myself anymore.” He moved his hand from his stinging cheek to the back of his neck and rubbed hard. “And I don’t even know if that’s because of my own experiences or because Victor Hansen’s ghost keeps whispering in my ear.”

“Is that ‘ghost’ how you found us?” Dr. Christianson-Wood demanded.

Richard nodded. “Not directly. But I had a . . . what I thought was an intuition.”

“Too bad it didn’t take you over completely,” the Selkie said bitterly. “But of course, it couldn’t. Hansen himself figured it out, years later, when things had settled enough here on Marseguro for him to continue his research. His gene-bomb couldn’t work: not the way he intended it. He suspected at best, his clones would have strange dreams, unexplained impulses, flashes of memory—which seems to be what happened to you. At worst, he suspected they would go stark, raving mad.”

Richard nodded. “Father,” he said.

“What?”

“My father—the man I thought was my father—he must have been a clone, too. He worked for the Body, until one day he went crazy. He killed himself.” For the first time, though, Richard wondered if his father had actually intended to kill the Avatar, too, with that mad leaponstant companion boiled up. “Try to stop me,” she snarled, standing on tiptoe to deliver the message wide-eyes-to-wide-eyes, gill slits flaring, tingling as they dried in the morning air. “You’ll have to knock me down and sit on me. And then you’ll have to explain it to my mother. And when you let me up, I’ll make damn sure you never father a child. Now get out of my way!”

Peter blanched, but held his ground. “I can’t, Miss Wood,” he said. “But,” he added hastily as she opened her mouth again, “I’ll escort you in. Then it will be up to the Council.”

Emily closed her mouth and her gills and took a deep breath. “So escort!”

Peter turned to one side, and for the first time she saw the second guard, a landling, previously hidden by Peter’s bulk. His wide grin vanished as Peter rounded on him. “Let anyone else in and I’ll swim you to the bottom of the bay and leave you there!” Peter barked. Then he strode inside, Emily in his wake.

Most but not all of the blood had been cleaned from the walls of the broad hall that led from the entrance to the Council Chamber—really, despite its grand name, little more than a glorified conference room. No Holy Warrioht="1em">

Her mother’s slightly amused expression hardened. “Don’t be so quick to condemn people to death, Emily. Too many have died already.”

Emily said nothing, unwilling to argue with her mother. God knew how she felt about the plague she had shepherded through her laboratory and finally unleashed against the Holy Warriors. It must have gone against everything she’d always professed to believe in. It had to be done, Mom, Emily thought. It had to be.

But then Richard Hansen had the gall to say, “I agree.”

Emily’s rage roared red-hot again. “You agree?” She rounded the table at a run. Anton Scale stood up just in time to grab her, or she would have flung herself at the Earthling. She pulled against his iron grip. “You bastard! After everything you . . . Dahlia and Domini and . . . Daddy . . .” To her horror, she found herself weeping. Scale released her arms and instead pulled her to him, hugging her, comforting her like a little girl. His beard tickles, she thought inanely. Then, I wish I were still a little girl. I want my daddy! She wept harder.

“We’ve all lost friends and family, Emily,” Scale said quietly. “But we can’t bring them back by killing one more man. Especially this man.”

Emily sniffed and swallowed and managed to bring her lower lip under control. She pulled away from Scale and looked up into his shadowed eyes. “It sounds like you believe—”

“He is a clone of Victor Hansen, Emily,” her mother said from the other side of Scale, who glanced over his shoulder at her, then released Emily and stepped to one side. “He carries the DNA sequence that protected us from the plague. That’s why he’s alive. He also carries a small part of Victor Hansen’s memories and personality. And all of that means . . .” She spread her hands. “He’s family.”

Hot tears flooded Emily’s eyes. “He’s not . . .”

“You saved my life once, Emily,” Richard Hansen said. She refused to look at him, but he kept talking. “I can’t bring back the people the Holy Warriors killed, and I wish I’d never . . .” His voice trailed off. “Well, I wish a lot of things. But I can help you now. That’s why I’m here.

“The Holy Warriors on the planet are dead. All of them, we think. But there’s a ship in orbit. We don’t know how many Holy Warriors are still alive up there.” He nodded toward Dr. Christianson-Wood. “Your mother thinks her virus will have infected the ship even if they used standard antibiological decontamination procedures on any shuttle that went up there, and quarantined anyone arriving from the planet’s surface. Maybe she’s right, maybe not. But even if they’re all dead, sooner or later there will be another ship . . . and that ship will carry many more Holy Warriors, and deadlier weapons, and your plague won’t stop it, because they’ll never set foot on the planet or breathe its air until every Selkie above and below the water is dead . . . and likely all the landlings, too.

“One way or another, this planet will be Purified.”

Emily didn’t want to believe him, or lfont>

The doctor, eyes wide but no longer seeing, slid sideways to the floor. The hypodermic remained upright in the mattress, quivering.

Chris looked from the corpse to the open door, then jumped from the bed and ran, leaving bloody footprints behind.

Many hours later, Chris sat in the main recreation room of BPS Sanctification, staring at the blue-white sphere of Marseguro on the wall-sized vidscreen. He liked the room not only for the view (piped in from a camera somewhere aft in the zero-G section because the three-rpm rotation of the crew cylinder would have made a live view both dizzying and annoying) but because no one had died there. Everywhere else in Sanctification, corpses floated or sprawled or sat at their posts in some horrible zombified mockery of life.

The cleanerbots had taken care of most of the spilled bodily fluids, except for the unfortunate few who had sealed themselves in pressure suits in a vain attempt to escape whatever was killing their fellows. The cleanerbots couldn’t get inside the sealed suits, and Chris wasn’t about to open them. The thought made him shudder.

Currently, the cleanerbots were working on taking away the corpses themselves, both suited and unsuited, to be dumped in the nanorecyclers, but they still had a long way to go.

Chris didn’t understand it. The chemical bombs the Selkies had detonated below might have affected Dodson and Velikovsky, but how had they delivered the poison to the ship? The shuttle had been kept quarantined in vacuum.

It looked more like some kind of germ attack. But it couldn’t be. Never mind the Victor Hansen-instilled horror of biological weapons. Never mind the fact the Selkies had had no time to concoct such a weapon. The Holy Warriors on Sanctification had taken all the necessary precautions against such an attack, and had still died.

Maybe it was a punishment from God. Not for attacking the Selkies—that was God’s work if anything was, he had no doubt about it; if such abominations had been eliminated a century ago, God Itself would never have threatened to destroy the world—but for something else. Something they had done that had displeased God.

And then he had it. Like a light going on in his head.

Richard Hansen, he thought. Grandson of Victor Hansen. They brought him aboard Sanctification—and with him, they brought sin.

Chris’ eyes narrowed as he remembered Hansen heading out on the boat. What had he done out there? Had he helped the Selkies? And what had he done before he even got to the planet?

He could have poisoned them, Chris thought. Poisoned the food and water on the ship. Something that acts slowly, or something that could be triggered to act by something on the—

Oh . . . my . . . God.

He had it. He had it all figured out.

And then he’d sneaked away to the Selkies on the pretense of chasing John Duval, and told them how to cook up the second half. They’d planted it in aerosol bombs near the Holy Warrior positions on Marseguro. They’d dosed their own landlings—Chris rubbed the spot on his arm where he had been hyposprayed—to ensure they weren’t affected, then set off their bombs.

Sometime during the trip here, Hansen must have also planted the second half of the poison in Sanctification, either timed to be released a certain interval after the ship arrived at Marseguro, or controlled by a signal he’d managed to send up from the surface. Something like a rat poison, Chris thought. They bled to death in their own skins. Poor bastards.

They weren’t punished by God. They were murdered. Murdered by Richard Hansen and the Selkies.

He felt familiar, renewed fury at the monsters that infested his world and had ruined his life . . . and were still ruining it, even after he’d finally managed to get off the planet into space. Now he was stuck here, until . . .

He smiled as the thought completed itself.

Until the next shipload of Holy Warriors arrives.

When they do, they’ll need information, he thought. They’ll need to know everything they can find out about what’s happening on the planet.

They’ll need me.

But that meant he needed fresh information.

If his suspicions were correct—and he didn’t doubt they were—Richard Hansen remained alive and well on the planet’s surface, probably scheming to sabotage the follow-up attack that would surely come, maybe even scheming to make himself appear a hero of some sort who could return to Earth to fame and adulation . . . and poison the Body Purified as he had the Holy Warriors, spreading the toxin of his grandfather’s abominable ideas about modifying God’s Holy Human Genome.

Well, Chris could put a stop to that. And ensure that the next shipload of Holy Warriors did a proper job of Purifying Marseguro.

He headed for the rec room door. After his thorough exploration of Sanctification’s corridors during the last day, he knew exactly where to go.

Two minutes later, after tugging the pressure-suited body of the Holy Warrior who had been manning the post out of the way, Chris Keating activated the ship-to-planet communications system, and said into the microphone, “BPS Sanctification to Marseguro. Is anyone there?”

Chapter 16

THE COUNCIL ADJOURNED (at something approaching a run) to the lobby of Government House, where the Holy Warriors’ communica at the Landing Site, you are directly responsible for the deaths of, at current count, two hundred and seventy-six nonmods and one thousand, four hundred and ninety-five Selkies. We expect those numbers to increase.

“I cannot speak for the Council, but I can speak for myself. I do not deny the possibility of someone changing. But it’s going to take more than your say-so to convince us you deserve anything other than a traitor’s execution.”

“But . . . but Hansen led the Holy Warriors here!” Keating suddenly sounded like a petulant little boy. “You trust him? I’m one of you! He’s from the Body Purified!”

“Who said we trust him?” Jeter said. “He has a long way to go to earn that, Mr. Keating. But that’s neither here nor there. How can you prove you were taken to that ship as a prisoner and not a willing accomplice to genocide?”

Keating licked his lips. “I . . .” His voice trailed off and he bowed his head. For a moment he looked like he was praying, but when he raised his head again, fury twisted his mouth. “I can’t,” he snarled. “I can’t, and I don’t want to.” He leaned into the camera so that his face filled the screen. “I was glad to see the Holy Warriors attack,” he said, his voice fierce and hard. “I was glad to see the towers of Hansen’s Stinking Harbor in flames. Selkies in cages? What a laugh. And when Emily set me free from the prison, you know where I went? Straight to the Grand Deacon. I tried to warn him. I told him something bad was coming. I didn’t know about Hansen’s poison, or they would have all been in pressure suits when you set off the trigger dose and you’d all be fish food.

“But I’ll tell you this. When the next ship arrives from Earth, I’ll be here to warn them. They won’t listen to a word you say, Hansen. They’ll listen to me. And they’ll Purify that worthless pissball you call a planet like nothing has ever been Purified before. They’ll Purify it to hell and gone. And then I’ll go to Earth and my just reward and you, all of you, fishfaces and stinking fish-loving landlings, and especially you, Richard Hansen, can literally rot in hell . . . because hell is what Marseguro is going to become. Chris Keating out.”

The screen went blank.

Hansen looked at Jeter. “So much for me talking the next Holy Warrior ship into leaving us alone,” he said. “We need a Plan B.”

None of the Councillors spoke, but Emily did. “I’ve got one.” Everyone looked at her. “We’ve got the Holy Warriors’ weapons,” she said. “We fight.”

None of the Councillors looked happy, Dr. Christianson-Wood least of all. But one by one, they nodded.

“It won’t work,” Richard said flatly. “Not if they know what to expect. If Chris Keating tells them what happened, they’ll bombard the planet from orbit, not just send down an armed party. Sanctification could have done it. The only reason Ellers didn’t order it was to avoid killing nonmods—the Body prefers to give them the chance to ‘repent’—and because planets with breathable atmospheres are few and far between, and even one mostly covered with water might be “So what do you suggest, clone?” Emily snapped.

“Several things,” Richard snapped back, her unwavering hostility finally getting to him. “We have to stop Chris Keating from talking . . . and then, when the next ship arrives, we have to keep the Holy Warriors guessing.”

“How?” said Jeter.

“Stop surface reconstruction,” Richard said. “Leave the wreckage where it is, and move everybody you possibly can into your emergency deep-water habitats. When the Holy Warriors’ reinforcements arrive, we want them to see a planet all but devoid of human life—not just Holy Warriors, but nonmods and Selkies, too. Leave them wondering what happened. Then, when they land, either the virus will get them . . . or we will.”

“That doesn’t do any good if Chris Keating manages to warn them,” Emily said.

“I have a solution to that, too,” Richard said. “But I’ll need unfettered access to this equipment.” He indicated the Holy Warriors’ communications station.

Jeter studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Done.”

“I’m staying with him,” Emily said instantly.

Jeter smiled. “I was about to ask you to,” he said. “I’m making you Mr. Hansen’s personal guard. I’m sure Mr. Hansen won’t object, if he is indeed on our side now.”

“I have no objection,” Richard said. He eyed Emily. “Um . . . she doesn’t have permission to shoot me, does she?”

“Only in the direst of circumstances,” Jeter said. “Emily?”

Emily’s face looked like a threatening sky about to be ripped apart by lightning and wind, but she pressed her lips together and held back the storm. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. At least it’s something. But if the Holy Warriors come back, I want a weapon.”

“You’ll have one,” Jeter said. “Councillors, I believe we still have things to discuss . . . ?”

The Councillors moved back down the hallway toward their meeting room. Dr. Christianson-Wood trailed the others, and gave a final, troubled look over her shoulder at her daughter and Richard before she disappeared from sight.

Emily folded her arms and glared at Richard. “Well?” she snarled. “Get to work.”

Richard nodded. I hope I know what I’m doing, he thought, and turned his attention to the console.

After disconnecting, Chris sat in shuddering fury for a few seconds, then exploded out of the communications room, took the nearest elevator to the central shaft, and launched himself into zero-G. He needed to work off his rage before he could think straight, and half a dozen flying trips up and down the central shaft did the trick. By the time he had sback into gravity through one of the elevators. Once again in the rec room, he looked at the stabilized image of Marseguro in the giant vidwall, and indulged in a moment’s vivid daydream of what the filthy planet would look like once the Holy Warriors sent reinforcements: dotted with mushroom clouds and glowing red craters where Hansen’s Harbor and Firstdip and Outtamyway and all the other pustules that passed for towns now stood.

Richard Hansen would pay, just like the Selkies, just like the fish-lovers. When reinforcements arrived, it would be Chris Keating who finally got his due—and those who had taunted him, belittled him, stood in his way, killed his father and let his mother die, would get their just desserts.

He only had to wait.

He was sure it wouldn’t be long.

He lay back in the relaxation chair and closed his eyes.

Not long at all.

In his office in the basement of Body Security headquarters on Earth, Archdeacon Samuel Cheveldeoff frowned at a vidscreen. “Still nothing?”

“No, sir.” The face of the communications tech visible on the screen gleamed with sweat, and he blinked a lot. Cheveldeoff liked the fact that his underlings feared him, except when it led them to alter their reports to say what they thought he wanted to hear rather than give him the facts. Cheveldeoff liked facts, even unpleasant ones. What he really hated was falsehoods.

“Could something catastrophic have happened to the ship?”

“Unlikely, sir,” the tech said. “The null-brane carrier wave is intact, which means Sanctification’s communications system and Cornwall drive are also intact and operational. But she is not responding to our attempts to contact her and there has been no message from her now for four days.”

Cheveldeoff grunted. The last message, brief and cryptic as an old-fashioned telegram due to the energy costs of transmitting information through branespace, had said merely, “NO RESISTANCE. PURIFICATION PROCEEDING.” He’d already met with the Right Hand to plan their public announcement, how best to coordinate it with the announcement of the Avatar’s death, and how best to use both to leverage more Council votes for his ascension.

But four days . . . standard operating procedure required a daily check-in. Energy costs or no energy costs, four days was too long. The ship might still be there, but something must have happened to the crew.

Cheveldeoff hadn’t become Archdeacon of Body Security through indecisiveness. “Thank you,” he told the tech, who looked visibly relieved. “Continue monitoring.”

“Yes, si—”

He cut off the channel. “Computer,” he said to his office system, “List Holy Warrior warships currently in orbit.”

“BPS Jid his fingers on the table. It wasn’t much of a list; most ships were still committed to the blockade of New Mars and the pacification of Tuin. Of those just listed, Jihad and Armageddon were both in space dock and out of commission for at least six weeks. Angel of Death was a tiny scout craft, barely even armed. That left Retribution. She was no Sanctification—she lacked both an Orbital Bombardment System and the docking and launching facilities needed to carry Sanctification-style assault craft—but she could actually carry more Holy Warriors, albeit relatively lightly armed, and her four dedicated troop-insertion shuttles could deliver those Warriors in greater force to the ground than Sanctification’s could.

That should do, Cheveldeoff thought. Ellers said there was no resistance, so it’s unlikely they’ve been wiped out in a military attack of any kind. Something else must have happened to them.

The timing couldn’t be worse, though. Cheveldeoff took a deep breath, then put through an encrypted call to the Right Hand.

He appeared at once. “Rasmusson here.”

Cheveldeoff filled him in. The Right Hand scowled. “This is serious, Sam. Nothing has changed on the Council. In fact, you may be another vote down. And I think we have a month, tops, before we have to announce the Avatar’s death and convene the Council. If you can’t deliver Hansen’s Selkies . . .”

“I’ll deliver them,” Cheveldeoff said. “BPS Retribution is in orbit.”

“You’ll go yourself.” It was a statement, not a question.

Cheveldeoff smiled grimly. “I might as well. If the mission fails, there’s not much point in coming back, is there?”

Rasmusson didn’t argue otherwise. “Then you’ve got another problem.”

Cheveldeoff nodded. “Braun.”

“You have to involve him. He’s next in the chain of command.”

“I know.” He was also, like Ellers but even more so, Shridhar’s man.

“Make sure the crew includes a complement of men loyal to yourself,” Rasmusson said. “You have agents among Braun’s staff and top-level commanders.” Again, it wasn’t a question.

Cheveldeoff nodded. “Of course. But you don’t really think Braun would sabotage the mission, do you? Ellers didn’t.”

“I hope not,” Rasmusson said. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t try to sabotage you. If he could complete the mission, but make it appear the success was in spite of your interference, rather than due to your involvement . . .”

Cheveldeoff snorted. “I’m an old hand at those kinds of games,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

Rasmusson smiled, very slhat.”

Not if the secret recordings I’ve kept of our interactions find their way into Shridhar’s hands, which they will if you somehow betray me, Cheveldeoff thought . . . but very carefully did not say. Making that move would not only end the game, it would overturn the board. All he said aloud was, “I understand.”

“Good. Good luck.” Rasmusson reached out, and the screen blanked.

Cheveldeoff turned to a different screen. “Computer, comm link to Grand Deacon Braun.”

A man’s lean, mustached face abruptly appeared in the vidscreen. “Yes, Archdeacon?”

“Prepare BPS Retribution for departure,” Cheveldeoff ordered. “Full complement of Holy Warriors, weapons and ammo. You to command.”

Grand Deacon Braun nodded. “We’re checking up on Sanctification, I take it?”

“Yes. I’ll provide operation details when I join you in orbit.”

Braun’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re coming . . . sir?”

Cheveldeoff let his eyes narrow. “Do you have a problem with that, Grand Deacon?” He had the satisfaction of seeing the normally self-assured Holy Warrior blanch. Shridhar’s not Avatar yet, he thought. He can’t protect you until he is.

“No, sir.”

“I’ll be there within two hours. Cheveldeoff out.”

He cut the connection, sat back in his chair and stared off into space in the general direction of the virtual copy of Rembrandt’s Night Watch, currently hanging on the north wall of his office, which today appeared to be paneled in dark wood. Something’s wrong out there, I can feel it. He smiled. And I’ll deal with it.

Cheveldeoff had a supreme confidence in his ability to deal with anything that came his way. He hadn’t failed yet. Nor will I this time.

He leaned forward and started making additional calls. Rasmusson was right: he needed as many people loyal to him as possible aboard Retribution. Braun might fear him here, but he might lose some of that fear once they were light-years beyond the supposed reach of Body Security.

If necessary, Cheveldeoff wanted to be able to make it clear to Braun that he would never be beyond reach of Body Security—no matter how far they went.

In the lobby of Government House, Emily watched Richard Hansen’s fingers fly over the multiple keyboards of the Holy Warriors’ communications control console. “We’re in luck,” he said after a few minutes. “Ellers never got around to canceling my security codes.”

“Yeah, lucky,” Emily said. “So why didn’t he?”

“Why should he?” Hansen countered. “He had me tucked away in prison, and he had a planet to Purify. It prV h, but hobably never crossed his mind. And then he was dead.” He punched a few final keys. “There.”

“What have you done?”

“Listen.” Hansen sat back. “Computer, confirm that all communications control functions have been transferred to this station and are under my voice command.”

“Confirmed,” the computer said.

“Computer, confirm my identity and security clearance.”

“Richard Hansen, Adviser to Archdeacon Cheveldeoff, security clearance Alpha Three.”

“Computer, lock control functions to my voice command.”

“Controls locked to your voice command,” the computer said. “Note that override is still possible by Alpha Two, Alpha One and Alpha Prime security ranks.”

“Understood,” Hansen said. “Computer, shut down all communications systems until further notice.”

“Are you sure you want to shut down all communications systems?” the computer said.

Hansen grimaced. “I wish these things would just take your word for it,” he said. “Computer, yes, I’m sure. And please provide detailed confirmation as you do so.”

“Commencing shutdown,” the computer said. “Satellite Alpha, switching to standby mode. Satellite Beta, switching to standby mode. Geosynchronous branespace booster, powering down . . .” The computer continued listing systems as it switched them off or put them on standby. When it said, “BPS Sanctification ship-to-ship communications functions disabled,” Hansen gave Emily a thumbs-up and turned down the computer’s audio volume, so that its continuing litany of disabled systems carried on at a whisper. “That’s it,” Hansen said. “Without security clearances Chris Keating doesn’t have and can’t get—since everyone with clearance higher than mine is dead—he won’t be able to say boo to anyone.”

“How did you know how to do that?” Emily said.

“It’s my job . . . or was,” Hansen said. “I analyzed communications, so my training included learning how to operate communications systems of all sorts.”

“A communications analyst. And so you just happened to be the one who heard the Rivers of Babylon emergency beacon Keating activated.”

Hansen shook his head. “I was actively looking for it. Cheveldeoff—the head of Body Security—had made that my primary mission. But I was looking in the wrong place. I wouldn’t even have noticed the beacon if not for . . .” He tapped his head. “The gene-bomb my grandfath . . . grandclone . . . put in my head.”

“I still can’t believe I saved your life,” Emily said bitterly.

“I’m glad you did,” Hansen said. He pushed his chair away from the communications console and turned it to face her. “Not just because I’d rather be alive than dead—there were a few hours there when I’m not suinally saw the Selkies I thought I hated . . . I just saw people. Funny-looking people, by my standards, but people. A terrified little girl clinging to her mother for comfort in a cage . . . a young woman who saved my life after I had done everything I could to destroy her kind . . . Just . . . people. And then the ultimate blow to my professed belief, when I found out I was a clone myself, and hence in the eyes of the Avatar and the Body Purified as much a nonhuman abomination as the Selkies . . . worse, that in a very real sense I am Victor Hansen, the man I thought I hated . . .

“That’s when I found out I didn’t really believe anything I’d claimed I did. That’s when I found out that everything I had done really had been based on nothing but my own selfishness and ambition.” He blinked hard three times in quick succession. “Maybe it’s my conscience. Maybe it’s really Victor Hansen’s conscience. I can’t tell anymore, and it doesn’t really matter. It’s all me, now. However I’ve become what I’ve become, I’m not your enemy anymore. I’m your ally.”

Emily looked into his narrow landling eyes, bright with unshed tears, and something inside her, some tight knot of rage, loosened just a little.

She hadn’t forgiven him. She didn’t know if she could.

But maybe . . . just maybe . . . she could trust him.

A little. For now.

“Okay,” was all she said. “Where to next?”

“That’s up to the Council.” Hansen turned back to the console and boosted the computer’s volume again. At some point it had quit talking. “But there’s one more thing I want to do here.” He cleared his throat. “Computer, repower Emergency Beacon Alpha-Two aboard BPS Sanctification.”

“Beacon repowered,” the computer said.

“Computer, activate Emergency Beacon Alpha-Two, Code Black Three.”

“Activated.”

“What have you done?” Emily said, suspicion rushing back.

Hansen pushed back his chair and stood up. “When the next ship arrives, the only signal it will receive will be coming from that beacon. And that particular code means ‘All dead here. Plague ship. Stay away.’ ” He shrugged. “And that’s all I can do. Originally I thought maybe I could talk to any reinforcements myself, try to convince them to turn back, but I’d have to go through Sanctification’s systems, and there’d be no way to prevent Chris Keating from listening in—and maybe horning in—on the conversation.”

“Will the beacon be enough to scare away another ship?”

“I doubt it. But it ought to keep their eyes off of Sanctification and on Marseguro, where we want it.” He showed his teeth. “And Chris Keating can rot in orbit. He won’t even have a clue what’s going on.” The bloodthirsty grin faded. “That’s it. That’s all the sem">But none of that could happen until he managed to speak to someone on the approaching ship.

Maybe when they’re closer.

And so he continued to repeat, “BPS Sanctification to incoming vessel. Can you hear me? Please respond. BPS Sanctification to incoming vessel . . .”

For three weeks after his meeting with the Council, Richard threw himself into helping the surviving Selkies and landlings prepare for the inevitable follow-up attack. Emily became his almost-constant companion, leaving him each night only after locking him into the quarters he’d been given in one of the apartment buildings facing onto the Square. Sparsely furnished with a table and two chairs in the kitchen/dining area, a bed in the bedroom, and nothing else, the apartment beat a cell, he supposed, but not by much. It didn’t even offer a view, since all its windows had been blown out, either by the explosion of the germbomb or the takeoffs and landings of the Holy Warrior shuttles. Rather than replace them, the work crews had simply boarded them over—acting on his own recommendations, he had to admit, since the only real repair work being done was to things out of sight, like sewers and water lines: everything else, as he had suggested, had been left in ruins to present to orbiting eyes as convincing a picture as possible of a dead or dying world.

He had found one other use for his expertise besides passing on his meager knowledge, mostly picked up during his two weeks on board Sanctification, of the care and operation of Holy Warrior weapons: the repair and upgrading of planetary communications. He had even managed to construct, from equipment left behind by the Holy Warriors, a secure, untappable and undetectable network for the Marseguroites to use when the attack finally came. Other than that, he’d simply made himself available for any and all tasks. He’d donned the uncomfortable and remarkably smelly local equivalent of a rubber suit, made from the sap of the bumbershoot trees that grew on the hills around Hansen’s Harbor, and dragged the rotting remains of Holy Warriors out of the holes they’d died in . . . and he’d helped grieving relatives pull the bodies of loved ones from the rubble of buildings the Holy Warriors had leveled.

He couldn’t work in the water, so he and Emily had been ashore when workers found the body of her father in the ruins of her home. That had been the only time she had left him during the day, turning him over to the scowling oversight of Farley. He’d watched her walk slowly away with her mother, the two of them holding on to each other so closely he couldn’t tell who was supporting whom, and his guilt, never far from the surface, rose up and squeezed his throat so tight it hurt.

When Emily came back the next day, she said nothing beyond the necessary minimum to him all morning, and he knew better than to say anything to her. They spent the morning on the firing range, where Emily had become a crack shot with a standard-issue Holy Warrior automatic rifle, and adequately accurate with both slug-throwing and laser sidearms.

An ammunition microfactory had been delivered to the planet’s surface at some point, and its associated bots had filled an old concrete warehouse to the rafters with ammunition before running out of raw materials. Supplied with new feedstock by the Marseguroites, the factory had no difficulty keeping the warehouse full, so there were no restrictions on ammo use during training—denly realized why he’d felt that tinge of sadness: Emily Wood was the closest thing he had to a friend on Marseguro.

Come to think of it, the Selkie girl who at one point would gladly have let him bleed out in a jail cell was probably the closest thing to a friend he had ever had.

Now that was sad.

“We believe we have completed the most crucial preparations you helped us identify,” Jeter said. “Now, of course, we’re wondering . . . just how long do we have to wait?”

“I wish I knew,” Richard said. “Grand Deacon Ellers didn’t tell me his check-in schedule. I suspect, however, that it was daily. If that’s the case, then they’ve known for three weeks on Earth that something has gone wrong. They will have sent messages of their own, which have gone unanswered. It will take time for them to decide on a course of action, and of course the transit time from Earth to here is about two weeks.” He spread his hands. “I think the earliest they could arrive is next week. More likely the week after that. It all depends on—”

With a feeling of déjà vu, he saw the Council Chamber door thrown open, and the same tech who had burst into the room last time he’d been there burst in again. “We’re receiving a signal!” he almost shouted.

“From Sanctification?” Jeter said.

“From the Holy Warrior sensor satellite Richard linked us to,” the tech said, and hearing his first name, Richard thought, Thank you.

“And?” Jeter prompted.

“A second ship is approaching.”

Richard’s heart skipped a beat. “Or,” he said carefully, “they could arrive today.”

“Sound the alarm,” Jeter told the tech.

Richard glanced at where Emily had stood a moment before, but she’d disappeared. He looked back at Jeter. “What do you want me to do?”

Jeter returned his gaze steadily. “I gave you your freedom, Mr. Hansen,” he said. “That’s up to you.”

Richard stood very still for a moment. His original plan had been to try to talk the Holy Warriors out of attacking, but Chris Keating had fouled that up. He could flee to the underground shelters they’d constructed and wait out the coming events.

Or he could prove once and for all whose side he was on . . . and what he really believed.

He followed Emily.

Aboard Retribution, Cheveldeoff and Braun surveyed a vidwall in the main briefing room just off the bridge, watching the flow of data from the surveillance satellites they’d launched when they’d finally entered orbit. “Evidence of Purification is clear in all of the towns we’ve identified,” Braun said. “The Sanctification contingent appears to have done an admirably thorough job centimeter of Hansen’s Harbor and the other towns has been scanned, photographed, and analyzed a hundred different ways.”

“They want to know if anyone is alive down here,” Emily’s mother said. “But can they tell that from orbit? Can they spot us in here?”

“Not from what I know of the technology,” Hansen said. “And the habitats are deep enough they should be safe from orbital scans. Let them get down here in shuttles, though, and they’ll soon track us down.”

“They wouldn’t live long enough,” Emily said. “The plague . . .”

“Won’t affect men in pressure suits,” Hansen said. “Which they will almost certainly be wearing, if they believed the Black Three code.”

“What do you think they’ll do?” Dr. Christianson-Wood said.

“Probably send down an armed reconnaissance force,” Hansen said. “I’ve worked with Cheveldeoff a long time. He wants firsthand accounts. He never believes intelligence that comes into his office until he’s sent an agent to verify it personally. If he’s true to form, there’ll be a shuttle full of Holy Warriors heading our way very soon.”

“We’ll be ready for them,” Jeter rumbled.

“As ready as we can be,” Hansen said. He frowned. “I wonder . . . Computer, access Sanctification tactical computer.”

Emily stiffened, hands gripping the automatic rifle she’d been practicing with for weeks, the rifle that no longer felt awkward in her hands but more like an extension of her own arms. “What are you doing?”

Hansen shot her a look. “Still don’t trust me?” he said. “I’m not doing anything the new ship can detect. And if we’re lucky . . . Yes!” He pointed. The icon representing the new ship in their own tactical display had suddenly sprouted a string of new numbers—and a name. Emily leaned in closer.

“BPS Retribution,” she read.

Hansen whooped. “Retribution! That’s a piece of luck.”

“Why?” said Jeter, and Emily gladly let someone else play straight man for a while.

“Retribution is an old troop carrier,” Hansen explained. “Lots of Holy Warriors on board—more than Sanctification had—but it’s what it doesn’t have that’s important. It doesn’t have assault craft—and it doesn’t have an Orbital Bombardment System.”

Emily felt a smile spread across her own face. The possibility more assault craft would swoop down on them again or, worse, the new ship would simply lob mass-slugs at them from space had worried all of them. If Hansen were right, then all they had to worry about was—

He stiffened. “Here they come.”

Emily looked into the tactical d

“When will we know where they’re going to land?” Jeter asked.

“We won’t,” Hansen said. “They could change their destination right up until the last moment. But I think it’s a safe bet they’ll land in one of the towns. And knowing Cheveldeoff, I’d be willing to bet they’ll land right here in Hansen’s Harbor. In fact—” he pointed toward the door. “I’ll be surprised if they land anywhere else but the Square. In about twenty minutes.”

Emily hefted the rifle and checked the clip and chamber with smooth, practiced motions. Then she held the rifle at arm’s length so she could inspect the dart-guns once again strapped to both wrists. Finally, she propped the rifle butt on her hip. “Well, we’d better prepare the welcome party, hadn’t we?”

Cheveldeoff sat in the main briefing room of Retribution with Grand Deacon Braun, watching the video feeds streaming back from the descending shuttle. The twenty-four Holy Warriors on board BPS Fist of God could be accessed individually, but for now Braun had the feed coming from the shuttle’s exterior cameras. The craft had just broken through a low bank of clouds hanging over Hansen’s Harbor, giving them their first clear view of the town.

“Ellers clobbered it good,” Braun said. “It looks worse up close than it did from orbit.”

It did. Although there were signs some rubble had been cleared away, most of the debris lay untouched. Bricks and twisted steel and overturned, burned-out ground vehicles clogged the streets. Nothing moved except for stray bits of hardcopy skittering through the wreckage, pushed by a strong sea breeze.

Fist of God made one low pass over the town, then settled into the main square, where something had blasted a huge crater in the once-white cobblestones, near a toppled and scorched bronze sculpture. Cheveldeoff leaned forward as the cameras made a slow pan around the courtyard. All the buildings looked damaged: windows broken, roofs holed, facades fallen, pillars snapped off at the base. More paper swirled by as a dust devil howled across the square and disappeared into an alley. Otherwise, they might have been looking at a still photograph.

“Holy Warriors, check suit seals and sound off!” a voice crackled. Braun touched a control, and a new picture popped up in a separate window inside the main image. “Ground Commander Speitzl,” read white letters across the bottom of the window, which showed the length of the troop hold inside the shuttle, full of Holy Warriors in full pressure suits, strapped into the two facing rows of seats, their weapons secured on the rack between them. “Ashcroft, tight!” “Umstattd, tight!” “Hughes, tight!” and so on through twenty-four names.

“Unship weapons,” Speitzl said. Almost in unison, the two-dozen warriors reached out and pulled their rifles free of the rack. At the same instant, the straps holding them in their seats unsnapped and retracted.

“On your feet.”

They stood. The seats disappeared, moving up into the ceilheight="1em" width="1em">Cheveldeoff stopped his pacing, spun and snarled at the Grand Deacon, who paled even if he didn’t—quite—flinch. “Don’t tell me what I already know! I’m fully aware we don’t have any orbit-to-ground weapons on this ship—but this isn’t the only ship we have.”

“What about the plague?” Braun said, and added, “sir,” just in time to not sound insolent. “We’ll have to manually bypass the security protocols to take over command of Sanctification from the computer. You can’t do that work in space gloves. Someone will have to unsuit.”

In those moments when duty required him to choose between two difficult possibilities, Cheveldeoff often felt an icy calm descend on him, a coldness that allowed him to make his choice on a completely rational basis, without regard for the moral niceties and ethical quibbles lesser authorities allowed to cloud their judgment. That’s why I’m Archdeacon, he thought, relishing the feeling that gripped him now, as though he had plunged into a pool of cold, crystal-clear water. That’s why I’m going to be Avatar.

“There may not be a plague, Grand Deacon,” he said. “It may be as illusory as the utter desertion of the town below. But even if it exists, those who must unsuit must unsuit.” His gaze bored into Braun’s pale blue eyes. “But you will not permit anyone who unsuits to return to Retribution until we know for certain if this plague exists. Do I make myself clear?”

Braun’s mouth tightened and his nostrils flared, but all he said—wisely—was, “Yes, sir.”

“Board Sanctification. Activate the Orbital Bombardment System. And give me targeting and fire control. Do it.”

Braun saluted and left the briefing room. Cheveldeoff looked back at the vidwall. Sometime in the past few minutes it had gone blank. Probably someone on the ground had suddenly realized that Fist of God had eyes and ears.

I don’t have to see you to know you’re there, you God-damned travesties of human beings, he thought. Then, out loud, he quoted the words of the first Avatar, “Vengeance belongs to God—and I am God’s instrument.”

He turned his back on the vidwall and strode out of the briefing room. This planet will be Purified, O Wrathful One, he vowed in silent prayer. I swear it.

Chapter 18

RICHARD SHOT A SIDEWAYS glance at Emily as they made their way past the shattered front of Government House, where medical personnel were carefully putting the badly injured-but-still-living sniper on a stretcher. With the front entrance blocked, they’d have to go in through the freight entrance at the back. Their route between Government House and Town Hall took them out of sight of everyone for a few seconds. Richard opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

She smiled, he thought. She called me Richard instead of Hansen. She even joked with me.

He felt like a young teenager. Does she like me or doesn’t she"1em">She’s a Selkie, he thought. She lives most of her life underwater. Selkies even have sex underwater. I could drown!

And besides that, she’s more than 10 years younger. It’ll never work out.

He intended the thought as a private joke—surely he didn’t feel that way about her—but to his surprise, he realized he really did feel that way about her.

She attracted him . . . she attracted him a lot. And had for a long time. He just hadn’t admitted it to himself.

She may like me, he thought. It doesn’t mean she wants to bear my children. She can’t bear my children. Grandclone Victor made sure of that.

Oy. Just drop it, Richard. This isn’t the place, and it certainly isn’t the time. Be happy that at least she’s unlikely to shoot you on the spot, and leave it at that.

But later, maybe, if they survived . . .

They emerged from darkness into light, literally if not, in Richard’s case at least, metaphorically, jumped up onto the concrete loading dock, and made their way in through the storerooms and kitchens to the Council Chamber.

They found something of a celebration in progress, excited talk and laughter echoing down the hall so that they heard it before they saw it. Time to be a wet blanket . . . or maybe, for the Selkies, a dry one, Richard thought, as he and Emily entered to shouts of, “They’re here!”, applause, and claps on the back.

He put up his hands for quiet. Jeter saw him and helped him out by pounding his gavel. The room fell silent. Everyone looked at him.

Emily included.

He liked that.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” he said, “but we haven’t won yet.”

“Let them come back,” one of the Councillors called. “We’ll be ready for them.”

Richard shook his head. “They won’t come back. Not the same way.” Not unless Cheveldeoff has turned into an idiot since I used to play chess with him. “They’re going to want to destroy us, and there’s only one way they can do that.” He pointed up. “From orbit.”

“But you said they don’t have any orbit-to-ground weapons on the . . . um, Retribution,” Jeter said.

“They don’t,” Richard said. “But they know Sanctification does. And now that they know they need them, our plague beacon isn’t going to stop them from boarding her.”

Faces fell around the room. But Jeter kept looking at him steadily. “So you’re going ahead with the seconnt>

Chris gripped the webbing even tighter, and waited.

Abruptly, the hatch slid open. A pressure-suited Holy Warrior popped out and convulsively grabbed the webbing himself as he caught sight of the young Marseguroite.

Chris tentatively raised one hand. “Uh, hi,” he said. “I’m Chris Keating. Welcome to BPS Sanctification.” Then he couldn’t help but break into a huge grin. “Boy, am I glad to see you!”

In Retribution’s briefing room, Cheveldeoff and Braun watched the feed from the Sanctification boarding party. Docking had proceeded without difficulty, although Sanctification’s main computer continued to squawk about it. They’d been worried about the ship’s anti-boarding armament, but apparently the crew of Sanctification had had no concern about being attacked in space by the Selkies and had not armed it. The computer complained, but it didn’t attack.

Watching through the shuttle’s exterior cameras, Cheveldeoff saw the salvage crew emerge. Their first task would be to get out of the docking bay, which required manually severing the computer’s control of the dock’s hatches. As he watched, a Holy Warrior removed a plate from the floor and inserted something into the opening. Sanctification’s computer squawked something different, then fell silent.

“Got it,” Cheveldeoff heard over the suit-to-suit channel. “The hatch is opening. I’ll just go through and . . . Holy Wrath of God!”

“Computer, switch to helmet camera of man just transmitting,” Cheveldeoff snapped.

The image flickered, and changed.

Cheveldeoff found himself looking at a young man—little more than a boy—with shaggy brown hair and a few wisps of chin hair that hardly qualified as a beard. Barefooted and bare-chested, he wore nothing but rumpled blue pajama bottoms, far too big for him, kept on only by a tight knot in the strings. “Uh, hi,” he said, raising a hand. “I’m Chris Keating. Welcome to BPS Sanctification.” He grinned, which made him look even younger. “Boy, am I glad to see you!”

“Who the hell is he?” Cheveldeoff demanded of Braun.

“I have no idea,” Braun said. “He’s obviously not a Holy Warrior. And the only civilian on board Sanctification was Richard Hansen. He must be from the planet. But how he got there . . .”

“He’s not a Selkie,” Cheveldeoff said. “He’s human.” He frowned. “And he’s obviously been unaffected by the plague . . . if there is one.” He turned to Braun. “I want to question him. Get him into the shuttle.”

Braun nodded, and gave the orders.

Chris wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting, but being grabbed like a piece of cargo and hauled across the docking bay and into the waiting shuttle certainly wasn’t it. Nobody had said anything to him, although that might have been because they all insisted on keeping their pressure suits on and their helmets sealedSanctification crew had been poisoned by Richard Hansen, not killed by anything infectious—but he hadn’t had a chance yet.

Two Holy Warriors manhandled him into position in front of a comm terminal. A blank green vidscreen lit, revealing a square-jawed, bullet-headed man with a nose like a squashed grape and brown eyes that glittered like polished stone. “Who are you?” the man demanded without preamble, his voice a basso profundo rumble.

“I’m Chris Keating,” Chris said. “Um . . . who are you?”

“Samuel Cheveldeoff,” the man growled. “Archdeacon of Body Security. And that’s the last question you get to ask until I’m done asking mine. What are you doing aboard Sanctification? What happened to the crew? And what happened on the planet?”

At last, Chris thought, and told Cheveldeoff everything he knew or guessed—how his family had remained faithful to the Body all these decades, how he had set off the emergency beacon in the hope it would finally bring richly deserved Purification to Marseguro, how thrilled he had been when the Warriors from Sanctification attacked, how he had met Richard Hansen . . . and how Richard Hansen had betrayed the Holy Warriors, half-poisoning them on the ship, then finishing them off with the chemical bombs he had told the Selkies how to build. “He planned to present himself as a hero when you showed up,” Chris said. “I’m surprised you haven’t—”

“A chemical weapon killed them? Not a plague?” Cheveldeoff interrupted him.

Chris nodded. “It couldn’t have been a plague. If there were any diseases like that on Marseguro all of us normal humans would have died a long time ago, wouldn’t we?

“The Selkies could have created it. A biological weapon.”

“No!” Again, Chris shook his head. “Victor Hansen hated biological weapons. The Selkies wouldn’t dare go against their Creator. And anyway, they didn’t have time. I should know, I’m . . . I’m a geneticist.” Okay, I’m a laboratory technician, he thought. But they don’t need to know that. “It’s impossible to create such a selective pathogen in two days. Absolutely impossible.”

Cheveldeoff grunted, and looked over to his right, as though someone had said something. “What?” he said, not to Chris. “Damn. All right. I’m done here anyway.” He turned back to Chris. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take any chances. Stay on Sanctification. Help the crew there with anything you can. Once we’re sure there’s no infection, then . . . we’ll see. If you’re telling the truth, I’ll personally make certain the Avatar knows you are a hero of . . . what did you call this planet?”

“Marseguro,” Chris said. He felt himself grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it. “It means ‘safe sea,’ apparently.”

“Marseguro.” Cheveldeoff looked away again. “All right, I’m coming.” The vidscreen blanked.

Still grinning, Chris turned to the Holy Warrior who had escorted him there. “You heard him,” he said. “What can I do to help?”

The Warrior snorted. “Stay out of our wssuing from an external speaker on his helmet. He grabbed Chris and hauled him out of the communications room with no more respect than he’d shown shoving him into it.

“Hey!” Chris protested, but the Warrior ignored him. So did the others, shoving him out of the way like a stray bit of floating debris when he tried to talk to them. Eventually, he settled for sulking in the background, following them as they moved through the ship, disabling and rerouting systems. They seemed in a hurry, and upset about something.

He wondered what it was.

Eventually the crew, now in the habitat ring, stood outside a hatch Chris had never been able to open, labeled ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT MAIN CONTROL. They had pulled up a large section of deck planking and were standing looking down into the cables snaking through the hole. To Chris’ astonishment, one of them reached up and removed his helmet. As he did so, exterior speakers on the other’s suits came to life. “Smell any germs, O’Sullivan?” someone cracked.

“It smells fine,” O’Sullivan said. He sniffed. “Although I think the kid there needs a shower.” He began undoing zippers and snaps on his now-deflated pressure suit and shimmied out of it. Underneath, he wore a blue jumpsuit with his name stitched across the left breast. Rank insignia Chris had no idea how to read marked both sleeves.

Chris ignored the gibe. “All of you could unsuit, you know,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I mean, look at me. I’ve been living here for weeks, and I’m fine.”

O’Sullivan glanced at him. “Gee, thanks, I feel much better now,” he said. “Now shut up.” In his sock-covered feet, he turned and descended into the opening in the floor. “All right,” he said, looking up at his still-suited compatriots, “here goes nothing.”

“Message from Sanctification,” Braun said quietly to Cheveldeoff as they stood side by side on the bridge of BPS Retribution. “They’re working on the final switch-over. You should have control of Sanctification’s Orbital Bombardment System within a couple of hours.”

Cheveldeoff glanced at the Grand Deacon. He’s still waiting, he thought. Waiting for me to screw up. Well, he’ll have a long wait. He turned his attention back to the main tactical display. In the middle of his interrogation of Chris Keating, he’d been informed that Fist of God, whose complement of Holy Warriors they had seen slaughtered, had just launched. Some time ago, it had vanished behind the planet. It should be coming up behind them, rising over the horizon as it ascended and accelerated to rendezvous with Retribution.

But who was on board?

There. “BPS Fist of God reacquired,” said the computer. “Rendezvous in twenty-two minutes.”

“Computer, open communication link to Fist of God.”

“Ready,” said the computer.

“Occupants of BPS Fist of God, this is BPS Retribution. Identify yourselves.” No resEmily only followed for a few seconds before saying, “Stop.”

“We can’t—”

“I said stop, all right?” She made her way in front and stuck her bare foot in his face. She wriggled her webbed toes at him. “Grab hold.”

He didn’t argue, for once, just grabbed hold of her ankle.

“No tickling,” she said. “Especially not the webbing. Or I’m likely to kick your teeth in. Purely by accident, of course.”

Richard managed a wan smile. “No tickling. I promise.”

She tucked the laser into a pocket of the landsuit, took hold of the maneuvering webbing, and began pulling them hand over hand toward the bow, the habitat ring—and the bridge.

Chris hurried toward the docking bays, a sharp pain in his side from the collision with . . . Richard Hansen. He couldn’t believe it. Hansen himself, the Machiavellian mass-murdering monster, returning to the scene of his crime . . . with Emily Wood, the sea-bitch herself.

He needed to warn the Holy Warriors . . . but he couldn’t get back to the habitat ring without going through the central shaft, and Hansen and Wood were there, and armed—he’d seen a laser pistol in Wood’s hand.

And besides, if he went back, he’d lose his only chance to do what he had to do if he wanted to be sure of getting off this hulk.

The Warriors are soldiers, he thought. They can handle one normal and one moddie. There’s no way Hansen and Wood can do anything to stop them before they have the Orbital Bombardment System up and running. And when they do—boom. No more Hansen’s Harbor, or Firstdip, or any other settlements. No more Selkies. No more Marseguro.

No more landlings, but he could live with that. Toadying fishfuckers, the lot of them.

He rubbed his aching right side. A cracked rib, almost certainly. But he must have hurt Hansen, too. Something had snapped when they’d collided.

The Holy Warriors can take care of themselves. It’s about time I took care of me.

He kept heading aft.

“Status,” Cheveldeoff snapped, for the fifth time that hour.

“Nothing has changed.” Braun didn’t quite manage to keep the impatience out of his voice. “Sanctification’s central computer is a higher order AI than Retribution’s. There are difficulties in convincing it to allow us to hand over control to what it sees as a less-capable system, even though we have hardwired a shunt past the—”

“I don’t want the technical details, Grand Deacon,” Cheveldeoff said, with more than a hint of dry ice in his tone. “I want an estimated time of completion.”

“Half an hour, minimum. Sir.”

Cheveldeoff glared at the tactical display. “And how long until the next opportunity for maximum-velocity, maximum-mass bombardment of Hansen’s Harbor?”

“Forty-seven minutes. After that, there are lesser-velocity launch windows, of course, but the maximum-damage launch window won’t open again for one full orbit—a little under two hours.”

Cheveldeoff turned the full power of his coldest stare on Braun. “I can wait if I have to, Grand Deacon. But I don’t want to.”

The Grand Deacon’s lips thinned. “Understood.”

“Good.” Cheveldeoff stared at the tactical display again. He’d been waiting for the other shoe from Fist of God to drop. So far they hadn’t picked up anything . . . but Retribution’s sensor suite wasn’t even close to state of the art. The ship hadn’t been left in Earth orbit during major operations on New Mars just because the Archdeacon of Naval Operations didn’t like its name, after all.

Still, they couldn’t have missed a second shuttle launch. Cheveldeoff had begun to allow himself to believe Braun’s comforting theory that the shuttle had been preprogrammed to return to the ship automatically by an overcautious—and now presumably thoroughly dead—pilot, and its launch had taken the Marseguroites as much by surprise as it had the Holy Warriors.

He’d left Fist of God drifting outside the ship. Nothing from the ground would be allowed aboard Retribution until he was certain they weren’t dealing with either a natural or Selkie-made plague.

He resisted the urge to ask Braun for the status of the salvage party again. He would wait. But if he didn’t have orbital bombardment control within forty-seven . . . make that forty-five . . . minutes . . .

Well, Cheveldeoff’s spies informed him that Braun’s loyalty to Shridhar wasn’t as solid as all that. When the mission succeeded, Cheveldeoff suspected Braun, recognizing Shridhar’s bid for the Avatarship was doomed, would start sucking up to the Archdeacon in earnest. Cheveldeoff also suspected Braun was smart enough to realize that if he did anything to obstruct Cheveldeoff’s efforts, and the mission succeeded anyway, he’d soon find himself running anti-Islamic revival operations in Saudi Arabia.

Cheveldeoff had long worked by the theory that the best way to ensure obedience was to punish someone. Anyone. The Marseguroites’ punishment was sure. The Grand Deacon’s still hung in the balance.

As for Richard Hansen . . . Cheveldeoff only regretted that if Richard Hansen were in Hansen’s Harbor when the mass hurled from orbit arrived, he’d never see it coming.

Chapter 20

RICHARD CRADLED HIS left arm and held on to Emily’s webbed foot. Keeping his arm motionless kept the pain bearable enough that he only gasped once. But any movement caused bone ends to rub against each other and agony to skewer his arm like a red-hot poker. The second time it happened, he squeezed his eyes closed. How in hell am I going to do what I need to do with one good away voice say, “They know.”

It took him a minute to realize the voice had been his own.

“Intruders in BPS Sanctification,” Braun suddenly announced to Cheveldeoff on the bridge of Retribution, just five minutes away from the end of the estimated half hour until handover of the Orbital Bombardment System.

“Intruders? How?”

“They must have used POTs,” Braun said. “Probably launched themselves from Fist of God out of our sensor range, then just coasted to a rendezvous with Sanctification.”

“And why didn’t we see them?”

“Our sensor suite is old and overextended.”

Is it? Cheveldeoff thought. Or are you being very careful to only do what I specifically order you to, and since I didn’t tell you to look for coasting pressure suits, you didn’t instruct your men to look for them, either . . . so that if these “intruders” succeed in screwing up the mission, the fault will be entirely mine?

Deal with the immediate problem first. “How many?”

“We have visual confirmation of two, a normal male and a female Selkie. There could be others we haven’t seen.”

I’ll bet I know who the male is. Cheveldeoff’s mind flashed back to the sight of Hansen and a Selkie girl walking away from the shuttle after the ambush of the reconnaissance party. “Where are they?”

But there was the bottom hatch, still closed. Emily stopped. “It should open automatically,” Richard panted above her. “They’re locked against entry to keep unauthorized people out of the tubes, but there’s no default need to lock them against people inside them.”

Emily nodded. “If they’re waiting on the other side, we won’t have much of a chance, will we?”

“If we don’t try this, Marseguro doesn’t have any chance at all,” Richard said. “A half-ton rod of ceramic-tungsten alloy impacting at eleven kilometers per second makes a hell of a hole.”

Emily felt a flash of her old anger at him. None of this would be happening if not for you!

But that wasn’t really fair . . . not anymore. Chris Keating was the real culprit . . . and above all, the Avatar of the Body Purified, whose bloody-handed predecessor had driven them to Marseguro in the first place and whose so-called “wisdom” had turned Keating against his own people.

Hell, maybe she was even partly to blame for having jumped Chris on the pier that day with John Duval and her Selkie friends.

Lots of blame to go around. Lots of actions by lots of people, leading to lots of consequences, good and bad. Her anger at Richard faded. At least he’s tried to make up for what he did. Whether it’s because of Victor Hansen’s gene-bomb or his own conscience, he’s changed.

She grinned. So have I, she thought, and jumped off the ladder.

The hatch opened underneath her and she dropped heavily into the corridor below, crouched, laser out, ready to cut in half anything that moved.

But nothing did.

“All clear,” she shouted up to Richard.

He dropped down a moment later, hit the deck with a groan and fell to his knees. He remained there for a moment, leaning on his one good arm, then sighed and straightened. She held out her free hand and helped him to his feet.

“Thanks,” he said. He looked around. “We can’t have very long. This way.” He led the way down the corridor to the right.

After a few meters, he stopped in front of a heavy black pressure door with the crossed-sword-and-starship emblem of the Holy Warriors embossed on it in red. “Computer,” Richard said, facing it. “Biometric scan, please.”

“Scan complete,” the computer said. “Greetings, Richard Hansen.”

“Computer, open bridge door.”

The door didnutes to reload. You’ll still get your shot this pass.”

No mutiny yet, then. “I’d better. What about Hansen and that moddie bitch? Dead?”

Braun shook his head. “Not yet. They killed two Holy Warriors and made it onto the bridge. They’re both wounded, though. They may not be able to—”

“They’re on the bridge!” Cheveldeoff roared. “Damn you, Braun—”

“They can’t do anything there,” Braun said. “Hansen is an intelligence analyst, not a spaceship pilot.”

“Sanctification is moving, sir,” a Holy Warrior shouted—not Cheveldeoff’s man.

“They can’t do anything, can they?” Cheveldeoff spun to face the crewman. “Moving where?”

“Unknown, sir.” A pause. “She’s slowing.” Another pause. “I think she’s changing orbits, sir.”

“Restore tactical display!”

The globe vanished, replaced with the display he’d been watching for hours.

“Detailed view!”

Numbers and projected trajectories flashed into view. Cheveldeoff took one look. “She’s not changing orbits, you idiot, she’s de-orbiting. He’s scuttling her.” He looked at the numbers again, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in what might have been mistaken for a grin. “But he can’t scuttle her fast enough. Computer! Confirm control of Sanctification Orbital Bombardment System has passed to this vessel.”

“Confirmed,” said the computer.

“Computer, program Sanctification Orbital Bombardment System as follows: target, Hansen’s Harbor. Mass: largest available. Velocity: maximum possible.” He leaned forward. “Put it in the middle of that precious Square of theirs.”

“System programmed,” the computer said. “Please confirm auto-launch.”

“Computer, confirm auto-launch.”

“Auto-launch in six minutes . . . mark.”

Cheveldeoff straightened and took a deep breath. “Grand Deacon,” he said, without looking around.

“Yes, sir,” said Braun.

“Call your people back.” He paused. “Except for the one that took off his suit. He stays.”

Braun sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re leaving him to die?”

“He could be infected. If he returns to the ship, we may all die.”

“That Keating kid said . . .”

“Grand Deacon,” said Cheveldeoff. With the hammer about to fall on Hansen’s Harbor, he no longer felt any uncertainty at all, and gave Braun the hardest of his extensive repertoire of hard stares. “Don’t argue with me.”

Braun’s mouth worked, but all he said was, “Yes, sir.” He moved away, talking into his transceiver, and left the bridge.

Cheveldeoff watched the tactical display. “Checkmate, Mr. Hansen,” he said softly. “Checkmate.”

Chapter 21

IT TOOK RICHARD ONLY two minutes to discover that his plan to disable the Orbital Bombardment System from the bridge would not work.

He’d suspected as much when he’d told Emily that the Holy Warriors had hardwired a shunt around Sanctification ’s security systems. He’d worried they had cut the ship’s computer out of the control loop entirely . . . and the ship’s computer had just confirmed he’d been right to worry.

Their best hope had been to get to Sanctification before the Holy Warriors even boarded it. Failing that, they’d had to get to the bridge before the Warriors gained control of the OBS. Having failed that, he seemed to be out of options.

He glanced at Emily. She lay unconscious, face pale, on the steel plates of the bridge floor, a pink pool of mingled blood and water beneath her wounded leg. He wanted to go to her, do something for her, but there was no time.

How little time was brought home an instant later. The ship jerked, just a little, and the computer said, “Unauthorized launch from Orbital Bombardment System.”

Richard felt cold. “Computer, show me where it hits.”

Screens lit. He watched the slug slash a claw mark of white fire through the atmosphere. It impacted in a snowball of vaporized water in the deep ocean a long, long way from Hansen’s Harbor, and he relaxed . . . a little. What was that? he wondered. Warning shot?

Nonsense. Cheveldeoff didn’t give warnings. It must have been a glitch. When Cheveldeoff acted, he wouldn’t miss.

“Computer,” Richard said, “how long until ship is in position for a maximum-velocity, maximum-damage mass launch aimed at Hansen’s Harbor?”

“Thirteen minutes, forty-six seconds,” the computer said.

That’s it, Richard thought. That’s how much time I’ve got.

He stood on the bridge, his broken arm cradled against his side, each beat of his pounding heart driving another hot steel spike of pain into it. So it comes down to this. My whole life, leading to this moment.

He had dreamed, once, of rising high in the hierarchy of the Body Purified, of making the name Hansen respected instead of vilified. Less than half a year ago? It seemed an eternity.

He had learned he would never rise in the Body Purified. By the teachings he had accepted all his life, or at least given lip service to, he wasn’t even fully human: he was a clone, an abomination, a subhuman monster with no right and no place in the assembly of God.

Chris Keating thought Richard had engineered everything that had happened to gain prestige and power back on Earth. But even if he had carried out the bizarre scheme Chris had concocted in his Avatar-addled brain, even if he had carried out such a scheme and it had worked, he could never have prestige and power because of who—what—he was.

He glanced at Emily. But he had learned something else. He’d learned that the abominations and subhuman monsters he had come to help destroy were, like himself, neither: they were just people, maybe people who looked different and even thought different, but people. Good people, bad people, indifferent people.

Monsters and abominations acted according to their character, like wild animals. The Avatar had proclaimed that moddies must be destroyed because their very existence offended God Itself: they were imperfect copies of God’s perfect creation, corruptions of God’s Holy Human Genome.

But unlike animals, people—even different-looking people—could choose their course of action. They could choose to do evil . . . or choose to do good. They could kill, or heal. Hinder, or help. Stand by and do nothing . . . or take a chance, and act.

Richard had chosen a course of action on Earth. He had chosen to fight back against what he saw as the unjust treatment of his father and himself, to take a chance and attempt to prove his worth to the Body Purified with a great deed, like a prince in some old fairy tale. He had chosen to set the Holy Warriors on the path to Marseguro.

But discovering the monsters of Marseguro were no more monstrous than himself, that they were simply a different kind of people, had left him with another choice: to help them, or let the Holy Warriors keep hurting them.

Thinking back, he thought he might have made his choice without realizing it when he saw the little Selkie girl in the cage with her mother at the Hansen’s Harbor pier. Or maybe he had made it when Emily had helped him escape the hunterbot. Or perhaps he had made it when he suddenly found himself on the other side of the equation, when Grand Deacon Ellers had ordered him locked up, not because he had done anything against the Holy Warriors, but simply because he was a clone.

Maybe it had taken all of those things together to turn him around.

Or maybe none of them had turned him around; maybe the part of his brain rewired by Victor Hansen had turned him around, in which case, maybe his decision hadn’t been his decision at all, but an echo of the decision his “grandfather” had made half a century ago when he decided to create a new race of humans.

No, he thought. I don’t buy that. So what if he rewired a portion of my brain? We rewire our brains all the time, through what we think and feel and experience. I am what I am. My mind is my mind. However I reach

“Negative.”

Richard closed his eyes. “Computer,” he said. “Is there a weapons locker on the bridge?”

“Affirmative.”

“Computer, open bridge weapons locker.”

A panel slid open in the wall beside the bridge door. Richard darted to the newly opened compartment and peered inside. Laser pistols, laser rifles, slug throwers, automatic rifles, a sniper rifle—an impressive arsenal, but not what Richard . . . there! A rack of grenades.

“Computer, explain operation of grenades found in bridge weapons locker.”

“Press red button to arm. Press green button before throwing. Use LED panel and associated buttons to set delay between pressing of green button and detonation, range zero to six hundred seconds.”

He didn’t have time for that. “Computer, what is the default delay on these grenades?”

“Three seconds.”

Good enough. The grenades hung on an equipment belt, but he couldn’t possibly strap it on with only one good arm. Instead, he slung it over his neck and chest like a bandolier.

Then his eye caught on something else: a pouch with a red circle on it, the Body’s symbol for a first-aid kit. With his good hand, he opened it and found what he’d hoped: a hypospray full of general-purpose analgesic. Without hesitation he pressed it against the side of his neck. It felt like he’d sprayed needles of ice into his skin, but almost instantly the agony in his arm lessened. He unzipped the top of his jumpsuit and stuck his broken arm inside it, Napoleon-like. Best I can do. Now . . .

“Computer, locate Holy Warriors.”

“All surviving Holy Warriors except one are returning to their shuttle.”

“Computer, where is the one Holy Warrior who is not returning to the shuttle?”

“Outside Orbital Bombardment System control room,” the computer said.

Might have guessed. “Computer, open bridge door.”

The door opened. Richard gave Emily one last regretful glance, then darted out into the hallway and ran toward the OBS control room.

Emily’s eyes fluttered open. Her heart had steadied, but she gasped as the pain in her leg registered. She didn’t pass out again, though. She lifted herself on her elbows.

Richard had vanished. The bridge door stood open. Next to it, so did the door of a locker full of weapons. Inside the locker she ont size="3">It must have been programmed to answer nonsensitive requests for information from anyone, because it promptly responded, “Richard Hansen is approaching the Orbital Bombardment System control room.”

“Computer, show me a map.”

The main screen lit with a schematic of the habitat ring. A green line traced a path from the bridge through a half-dozen hatches and corridors to a room labeled “OBS Control.” A red dot labeled “Acting Captain Richard Hansen” (Acting Captain?) was approaching the room.

Another red dot, labeled “Unknown Holy Warrior” waited for him.

Emily struggled to her feet, yelping involuntarily as she put weight on her leg. She limped to the weapons cabinet, grabbed a laser pistol to shoot and an automatic rifle to use for a crutch, then set off at a reasonably rapid hobble after Richard Hansen.

Saving his life has gotten to be a habit. I don’t see any reason to break it now.

As he approached the OBS control room, Richard slowed, even though his internal clock screamed at him to hurry. With one corner to go, he got down awkwardly on his knees, then his belly, and wormed his way to where he could peer around it.

A Holy Warrior crouched in an opening in the deck plates just in front of the OBS control room door, his rifle resting on the deck, his head barely showing—which put him at eye-level with Richard. Their eyes met. For an instant they stared at each other, then Richard realized what was about to happen and scooted backward.

Bullets spattered against the far side of the corridor and ricocheted off the floor right where his head had been a second before.

In the echoing silence after the burst of rifle fire, Richard heard the Holy Warrior cough.

He’s not wearing his pressure suit. The plague’s got him.

Maybe that would make it easier to do what he had to do. Richard reached for one of the grenades he’d brought with him . . .

“Let’s try something else first,” said a voice.

Richard’s heart thumped hard. “Good thing I didn’t already have one in my hand,” he said, turning his head to look at Emily. She leaned against the wall, a rifle in her left hand serving as an impromptu crutch, a laser pistol in her right. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

“Sorry,” Emily said. “You’re just lucky I’m not a Holy Warrior.”

“Unfortunately, he is.” Richard nodded toward the corner. “The last one left on board, or will be soon. And he’s settled in right where we need to get to if we’re going to keep Cheveldeoff from turning Hansen’s Harbor into a glowing crater sometime in the next five or six minutes. If that isn’t a time for grenades, I don’t know what is. One to take care of the Holy Warrior, another one in that hole he’s standing in to break the ut even across several meters, Emily could hear the Holy Warrior’s strained breathing, the struggle to draw air through swollen bronchial tubes into lungs already beginning to fill with fluid. “You’re lying,” he said finally. “There isn’t any vaccine. If you’re immune, it’s because you’re a moddie.”

Emily glanced at Richard, who nodded.

“She’s not lying,” he shouted. “Holy Warrior, this is Richard Hansen speaking. You know who I am.”

“You’re a bloody traitor,” the Holy Warrior snarled. “I know that much.”

“But I’m not a moddie. I’m a normal—” he shot a look at Emily, as though to apologize, “—human being, like you. And I’m not sick, even though I’ve been breathing the infected air of this ship as long as you have. That’s because I’ve had the vaccine.”

Which isn’t strictly true, of course, Emily thought, but . . .

“Doesn’t change the fact you’re a traitor,” the Holy Warrior mumbled.

“Did you plan to stay behind here, O’Sullivan?” Emily shouted. “When they told you to take off your suit, did they tell you you’d be stuck here?”

“Just until quarantine was over,” O’Sullivan said. “Unless I got sick.” He coughed again. “And I got sick.” He frowned. “After the others left. They don’t know. I’ve got to tell—”

“Cheveldeoff gave orders to leave you here to die,” Richard shouted. “You could have been quarantined in the shuttle. You could have been put into isolation and treated. But this way Cheveldeoff could use you, use you to ensure we didn’t manage to disconnect the command shunt you’ve installed. I know Cheveldeoff. I worked with him. He’s good at using people, O’Sullivan.”

“So I die,” O’Sullivan said. “At least I die with honor, serving the Body Purified.”

“You die a mass murderer, O’Sullivan,” Richard said.

His eyes blazed, and he seemed to have forgotten talking to the Holy Warrior was Emily’s idea. Emily gladly let him take over. Richard understood the Holy Warriors and the Body Purified in a way she doubted she ever could. “Cheveldeoff is going to hit Hansen’s Harbor with a maximum-impact OBS strike in the next couple of minutes if we don’t stop it. Thousands will die.”

“Moddies and their sympathizers,” O’Sullivan said.

“Women and children. Young men. Girls. Old men. Grandmothers. Babies. Toddlers. Schoolchildren,” Richard said. “Struck down from heaven, just like Earth would have been if not for the Miracle. But that was God’s judgment. This is man’s. This is Cheveldeoff’s—and yours, because you can put a stop to it.

“It’s God’s right to destroy us like an artist erasing a mistake. But It doesn’t need men for that. It doesn’t need fallible men like you, or evil men like Cheveldeoff, or . . . whatever kind of man I am. The Godont size="3">That proved to be a miracle of understatement. They’d barely strapped themselves in before they found that out. “Rotation ending . . . now,” the computer announced.

Emily’s body pressed painfully into the straps that held her into the crew chair as the rotating section of the hull—moving at about 100 kilometers per hour where they were—braked hard into motionlessness relative to the rest of the hull. Richard groaned as the straps cut into his broken arm, and O’Sullivan started coughing again.

But the rough part had just begun.

The ship shuddered and bucked, throwing them up and sideways, crushing them under multiple Gs, hanging them upside down in their straps as the floor suddenly became the ceiling. The temperature climbed and kept on climbing, overwhelming the cooling mechanisms of Emily’s landsuit, strained by the loss of water when the laser cut her leg, until she felt she might be boiled alive like a crustacean in a pot. She risked a broken neck by shooting a look at her companions. Both had their eyes closed. Fresh blood streaked O’Sullivan’s face—his nosebleed had started up again. Richard’s head rolled loosely from side to side. Sweat glistened on his white face and plastered his hair to his forehead.

The buffeting went on and on, accompanied by a deafening roar, like the wind of the worst storm Emily had ever experienced multiplied a hundredfold.

A particularly hard jolt broke loose an equipment cabinet. It careened across the floor, smashing into other cabinets. A sudden drop hurled it into the air; it crashed down with killing force just centimeters from Richard’s head.

Richard didn’t flinch.

Emily closed her eyes and wished she were unconscious, too.

The roaring changed pitch, lessened . . . then redoubled with a new bass note she hadn’t heard before . . . and then . . .

. . . stopped.

So did the buffeting.

The ship creaked and groaned. The floor began to slant. The wayward cabinet slid another meter and fetched up against the base of the tactical display. Emily waited for the ship to roll, as O’Sullivan had warned it might . . .

. . . but the slanting stopped, the creaking and groaning diminished to just an occasional pop—and then the floor moved again, leveling out.

“Emergency Landing Protocol completed,” said the computer. “Ship condition: good. Relaunch capability: intact. Minor interior damage. Bridge and other gimbaled rooms reoriented to local gravity. Detailed report available upon request. Awaiting further orders.”

Emily felt like an enthusiastic sadist had beaten every square centimeter of her body with a grappling hook, but she forced herself to unbuckle and swing her legs over the side. To her left, O’Sullivan groaned, but she ignored him, instead pulling herself upright and then lurching, alv height="1em" width="1em">His eyes fluttered, opened, closed . . . then opened again, and this time focused. “Emily?” He blinked. “Wait. We’re . . . we made it?”

“Down in one piece,” she said. “I don’t know where . . . but if it’s solid ground, we can’t be too far from Hansen’s Harbor.”

“Help me . . . help me sit up.” Emily unbuckled him and pulled him to a sitting position. He slumped for a moment, eyes closed, then opened them and said, “Computer. How far are we from Hansen’s Harbor?”

“Sixty-nine kilometers,” said the computer.

“Computer, external cameras.”

The tactical display tank flickered, then displayed a view of the surrounding area. Richard blinked. “What’s that cylinder thing . . . ?”

Emily looked and laughed. “I should have guessed,” she said. “Sixty-nine kilometers . . . we’re in Landing Valley.” She pointed. “That’s all that’s left of the Rivers of Babylon. And that low building next to it is the Landing Valley Museum.”

“We’ve set down by the Rivers of Babylon?” Richard laughed. The laugh turned into a wincing cough, then he managed to compose himself. “The best landing site then and now.” He frowned. “But sixty-nine kilometers? Computer! Activate radio communications.” He looked around. “Activate manual controls at bridge communications station.”

“Ready,” said the computer.

Richard, broken arm still slung inside his jumpsuit, hobbled over to one of the bridge stations and began awkwardly typing with his remaining hand. “I’m connecting to the secure comm network I set up for the Council,” he explaineead, they hadn’t been. The violent descent and just the fact half the rooms were sideways and a quarter completely upside down had played havoc with everything not nailed down.

Weapons and ammunition, however, were all properly stored and readily accessible. And the all-important air-attack shuttles had ridden out the descent in fine style, their gimbaled landing pads keeping them upright and ready for launch at a moment’s notice. Richard suspected that just such a launch would be called for the minute they had pilots who could fly them . . . if anyone could. Until someone more qualified got a look at their controls, that was anybody’s guess.

One room they found contained a docbot that made quick work of setting his arm and cleaning and sealing Emily’s leg wound and pumping them both full of fast-heal—although it would also have pumped her full of drugs she didn’t need that might have killed her if they hadn’t been monitoring it closely: apparently her perfectly normal Selkie vital signs indicated to the docbot deathly illness.

Throughout the two hours, Richard wouldn’t have been surprised to see shuttles from Retribution dropping out of the sky. He didn’t relax after the reinforcements from Hansen’s Harbor showed up; they remained vulnerable until the weapons from Sanctification had been dispersed and the assault craft were either under Marseguroite control or disabled.

Eventually, he had to sleep, first giving strict orders (not that he had any particular right to issue orders, but somehow people kept doing what he said) to wake him if the Holy Warriors showed up or if they received any communication.

He slept well and long . . . too long. He checked and double-checked the time, then hurried into his clothes and out of the captain’s cabin he had appropriated for his nap, out the nearest access hatch and down the ladder extruding from it to the ground.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” he demanded of Council Chair Jeter, who had shown up with the first batch of reinforcements and stood watching crates being loaded onto a groundcar in the early morning light.

Jeter raised an eyebrow. “You said to wake you if something happened. Nothing happened.”

That brought him up short. “Nothing?”

“Nothing untoward. It took all night, but we’ve dispersed almost all the weapons and ammunition. The pilots are still puzzling over some of the controls for the assault craft, but they’re confident they can get them in the air if they have to, even if they can’t use the weapons systems. But so far, we haven’t heard or seen anything of the Holy Warriors.” Jeter pointed to the First Landing storage cave in the steep red hillside a hundred meters away, where they’d set up headquarters. “Emily is in there with her mother. Dr. Christianson-Wood said she’d like to talk to you when you woke up.”

“Uh . . . okay.” Bemused, Richard trudged across the blackened near-grass covering the valley floor.

No sign of the Holy Warriors after more than twelve hours? Cheveldeoff couldn’t have bs head. “No.”

“Then all we can do is hide.” She sighed. “I did the best I could, with my nasty little plague. But in the end . . .” Her shoulders slumped. “I killed all those people . . . became a mass murderer . . . for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” Emily snapped. “We’ve been over this. For survival.”

“But we still may not survive,” Dr. Christianson-Wood said. “Certainly many of us won’t.”

“But many will,” Richard said. He understood Dr. Christianson-Wood’s pain because it matched his own, the pain locked down deep where he’d also tried to bury the unassuageable guilt of the agony he had brought to this planet and its people. “Many will survive on Sanctification. The ship recognizes me as Acting Captain, and O’Sullivan has the technical know-how we need. She came down in good shape. We can get her back into space. And she can carry hundreds, even if she can’t carry everyone. The Selkies will survive. I’ll see to it. They’re . . .” His voice trailed off. He’d just realized that he was echoing, almost word for word, what Victor Hansen had said before the Rivers of Babylon headed into space from Luna fifty Earth and forty Marseguro years before, ultimately ending up in the broad, flat valley bottom right outside the window. Well, why not? I am Victor Hansen, or at least part of me is.

“We’ll have to decide who gets to go, and who stays,” Dr. Christianson-Wood said. “It won’t be easy.”

“No, it won’t,” Richard said.

“It may be easier than you think,” Emily said. She stood up. “I won’t go, for example.”

Both Richard and Dr. Christianson-Wood jerked their heads toward her. “Yes, you will,” said Dr. Christianson-Wood.

You tell her! Richard thought.

“No, I won’t.” Emily came over to her mother. “You asked me, back before this all started, what I was going to do with my life. You didn’t want me wasting it on something frivolous when so much work remained building Marseguro, expanding our presence here. Well, in the past few weeks I’ve learned you . . . and Daddy . . . were right. I’ve fought . . . I’ve killed . . . so Marseguro will survive, Mother. I’m not going to run out on her now.”

“But if you’re on Sanctification, we can find a new planet. A new world to build,” Richard said. “For the Selkies . . .” And I don’t want to leave you behind! But he couldn’t say that.

Not yet.

Especially not with her mother standing right there.

“This planet is my home,” Emily said. “I won’t let it be destroyed without a fight. We have the shuttles. We have the know-how to make planet-to-orbit missiles, smart bullets, dumb dust, even missile interceptors.”

“But you may not have time to— But where are the Holy Warriors?”

As if on cue, a young man burst into the room. “Transmission coming in,” he gasped. “For you, Mr. Hansen.”

Richard glanced from Dr. Christianson-Wood to Emily. “I guess we’re about to find out.” He turned to the young man. “I’m right behind you,” he said, and followed him out of the cave.

Chapter 23

LOCKED UP AGAIN, Chris Keating thought gloomily, sitting in the brig of Retribution. On the plus side, at least they’d given him proper clothes—a blue Holy Warrior jumpsuit and shoes. Until they had, he’d begun to think he’d never be warm again. The pressure suit he’d donned in the shuttle locker must have had heaters on it, but he hadn’t known how to raise them from what must have been a minimal default setting, and he’d felt like a walking iceberg by the time the shuttle had docked with Retribution.

He’d almost hidden in the locker without the suit. If he had, he would have been dead the instant they’d left Sanctification, because shortly after launch they’d blown out the atmosphere. He’d expected them to repressurize at some point, but they never did. And when he finally dared to exit the locker and peer out of the shuttle after they reached Retribution, he’d found it locked down in an unpressurized bay, Marseguro swimming in space outside the open hatch.

What had happened to the crew, he had no idea. He’d found an air lock, cycled through, and stripped off his pressure suit without seeing anyone.

Retribution felt much smaller than Sanctification, but had a similar layout. Chris had avoided the open central shaft and made his way toward the bow through secondary passageways. He’d been nabbed, not trying to get into the briefing room as the guard seemed to think, but trying to get to the bridge. It didn’t matter; his real goal was Cheveldeoff, and lo and behold, he’d finally met the Archdeacon face-to-face, shaken his hand, offered his help . . .

. . . and had been cooling his heels in here ever since.

A sound brought him upright, an unmistakable sound with no place on a spaceship:

Gunfire.

More shots, and the distant thump of an explosion. Running footsteps outside the door, passing without slowing. Vibrations. More noises. A hint of shouting voices . . .

What’s going on?

A particularly loud bang rang his cell like a gong. The normal lighting flickered, went out, and gave way to the sickly green glow of emergency lights . . . and his door unlocked itself and slid open.

Chris peered out. The brig cells all opened into a central area with a circular desk at which the guard on duty passed his time. But no onere naked than he had when he’d been running around in nothing but pajama bottoms, Chris crept out into the open and headed for the sound of fighting.

The first burst of gunfire brought Cheveldeoff to his feet behind the desk in his quarters, laser pistol in his hand. He held his breath, and listened.

More shots. A few shouts.

“Computer, status report,” he said.

“You are not authorized to issue commands to this unit,” said the computer.

What?

He slapped at the comm button on his desk. “Bridge, this is Cheveldeoff. What’s going on?”

No answer.

Cheveldeoff coughed. The damn tickle had turned into a scratch and now a raging sore throat. He felt something trickle from one nostril, and brushed at his nose with the back of his free hand.

It came away red.

What the hell . . . ?

The part of his mind nurturing the seed of panic let it bloom. Plague! Keating lied. He’s a carrier!

I have to get to the sick bay . . .

Gripping the pistol, he opened the door to his quarters . . .

. . . to find the Holy Warrior he’d last seen manning the communications console on the bridge—Greist, that was his name—just reaching out to open the door from the other side.

Two other Holy Warriors Cheveldeoff recognized as part of the loyal contingent that he’d managed to get assigned to the mission stood behind Greist. “Braun twigged,” Greist said without preamble. “There are running battles all over the ship for all the key positions we’d lined up. We’re holding engineering and the shuttle bays, but Braun still has the bridge. We’ve been working on the crew since we launched, but Braun still has the edge in manpower.” He coughed. “What’s left of it. People are getting sick, sir, all over the ship.”

“Damn,” Cheveldeoff said. His throat felt like sandpaper, and he wheezed when he drew a breath. “Keating brought it on board. Whatever killed Sanctification’s crew and the Warriors on the ground. We’ve got to get to sick bay. There must be something they can do.”

Greist shook his head. A tiny ruby drop flew from one of his nostrils and landed on Cheveldeoff’s cheek; he wiped it away. “Braun’s men hold sick bay.”

“Then I’ve got to talk to Braun,” Cheveldeoff said. “We need a comm channel to the bridge. He’s killed my computer privileges, but he has to be getting reports from key stations.”

A screen by his currently unoccupied captain’s chair lit with Emily Wood’s face, the central pool of an underwater habitat in the background. “Getting close to launch,” she said.

“Very,” said Richard. “How’s the new deep-water Selkie village coming?”

“On schedule, for a wonder,” Emily said. She glanced behind her. “I guess we learned some things building the first two. If the Holy Warriors show up, we’ve at least got a chance of surviving whatever they can throw at us. And if they don’t show up . . . well, it’s about time we settled more of this planet, anyway.” She grinned. “Funny thing, there don’t seem to be any Consolidationists left anymore.”

Richard just nodded. After half a year—more than half a year, in Earth terms—he didn’t believe the Holy Warriors were still a threat. Even with Cheveldeoff dead—especially with Cheveldeoff dead—vengeance would have been the primary aim of the Avatar once he found out what had happened on Marseguro. The fact that a Holy Warrior fleet had not yet appeared in the system had to mean that things on Earth were bad . . . very bad.

“How’s your mother?” Richard asked. “I haven’t spoken to her for . . .”

“The same.” Emily shook her head. “Half the time she thinks Dad’s still alive and the attack never happened, some of the time she’s almost catatonic, and sometimes . . . sometimes she just sits and rocks and weeps. Amy has been wonderful about looking after Mom. And John has been wonderful about looking after Amy.” Her face hardened. “The Body Purified took my family and my friends and tried to take my world, Richard. Don’t ask me to approve of what you’re trying to do.”

“I won’t,” Richard said. “But the Council agreed with me.”

“I know.” Emily blinked and managed a small smile. “Look, I didn’t call to argue all that out again. Just . . . don’t let the Body get you, too.”

Richard smiled back. “I won’t.”

Something splashed into the water behind Emily, raising a small tsunami. She looked over her shoulder. “What the—no, no, no, that should go into the main—” She glanced back. “Got to go. Be safe. Come back. Love you.”

The screen blanked.

Richard found himself grinning, and couldn’t stop. But then, he didn’t want to.

He raised his head, checked the time. “Computer, status report.”

“All systems operating within normal parameters,” the computer said. “Ready to launch on command.”

Richard looked around at the crew, who looked back with blue eyes and brown eyes and green eyes, s
And so were the people of Earth.

The holds were filled with water for the Selkies—and the microfactories necessary to create the hypervaccine for Dr. Christianson-Wood’s plague. The course was laid in and locked.

They weren’t fleeing Marseguro, and they weren’t heading out to find a new home. They were going back to their old one, to see if they could save its people—some of them, at least—from a threat as deadly as the incoming asteroid that had led to the rise of the Body Purified. That one might have been sent by God, but this one had definitely been sent by man. And even if it had been, in some way, justified, it had never been intended to slaughter the innocent.

The Body believed God had miraculously rescued Earth from Its own threatened vengeance last time. This time, the very people hounded and murdered by the Body to appease God would provide the rescue.

Richard suspected the Avatar, if he still lived, would soon face a serious theological crisis.

He glanced at the statue of the original owner of his personal genome, and wondered what he would have thought of it all. Then he snorted.

Richard Hansen knew exactly what Victor Hansen would have thought of it all . . . and had already thought it.

He turned, surveyed the crew, and nodded to them. “Computer, launch,” he said.

On a mission of mercy, MSS Victor Hansen