R. GARCIA Y ROBERTSON

A PRINCESS OF HELIUM

Rod Garcia's first story collection, The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic

Adventures, came out in hardcover earlier this year to good reviews. The same

can be said of his fourth novel, his fantastic Western, American Woman.

Meanwhile, Rod's short stories are getting reprinted more widely in anthologies

like David Hartwell's Year's Best SF...all of which underscores our delight in

bringing you this new SF adventure. While the title of this one fondly recalls

Edgar Rice Burroughs's books, the milieu is definitely hipper than the Mars of

Dejah Thoris. Let's hope we see more of it in days to come.

Mating Flight

LLENOR FLEW WITH WINGS spread wide, sculling with her wrists to maintain

airspeed. Ahead lay South Pass, a serpent-toothed notch in a chain of volcanic

peaks poking through the white cloud plain. Mt. Lemnos smoked in the near

distance. Programmed memory made details instantly familiar, though Llenor had

never been so far sunward before.

She wore a green bolero jacket over a harlequin flight suit with gold-black

lozenges and flaring cuffs. Scarlet hair streamed behind her, whipped by the

wind like a captain's pennant. Seeing a pair of wild rocs circling the pass, she

wondered what they were doing so near settlement airspace. Hunting the unwary

hippogriff? Or innocently mating on the wing?

Two klicks from the mouth of the pass, she caught the great wave of air where

the prevailing westerlies roll over Dayside Archipelago, soaring on the standing

wave like a fiery-haired angel. Her wings were eight-meter Falcoform Condors,

power-assisted, with foot-pedals, fingertip trim tabs, auto flaps and a flaring

tail. Black photostrips on the upper surfaces allowed for glide refueling of the

energy cells. They had borne her mother and grandmother before her.

Llenor was not aloft for the sheer thrill of flight. Below her the Prinzess

Lisa-Marie approached the cloud-wracked gap. Powered by turbofans and a cold

fusion reactor, the titanic an deco airship had glassedin galleries, chrome

falcon figureheads, and a lifting body hull -- looking like the old Chrysler

building, inflated and flying on its side.

The Helm was sending fragmentary pictures of weather in the pass; Llenor had to

complete them. This was the Prinzess Lisa-Marie's maiden flight through South

Pass, with its infamous crosswinds and fabled wrecks. Her captain felt driven to

see to each detail herself, trusting no one's flying but her own.

Weather radar spotted a convection cell above the neck of the pass. Closing her

eyes, Llenor took a swift look. The Helm beamed her a picture, which her

naymatrix projected onto a file image of the pass.

Nanoseconds tumbled as she studied the image. Hot updrafts' off the windward

face of the Archipelago, hitting the clammy air in the pass, created downdrafts

and condensation. 3V imaging made her feel like she was flying smack into the

storm cell. An unsettling illusion.

Llenor opened her eyes. "Got it, Gramma Lisa."

("Still going in?")

"Tell you when I get there." Climbing over the peaks meant dumping ballast, then

venting helium on the far side. Hazarding the pass saved precious helium, but

risked wracking up the Prinzess Lisa-Marie on a cliff face or a low saddle.

("Your funeral, grandling.") A favorite expression. Great Grandmother Lisa's

funeral was long gone by. As a girl Llenor helped scatter Gramma Lisa's ashes

from the upper deck of the old Beaulieu out over the Great Reach beyond Mount

Aphrodite.

("Take care darling." That was Mom, half a world away.)

(Lilith and Lucifer called out characteristic encouragement, "Break a wing!")

Funeral or not, Llenor aimed to go in ahead of the ship, feeling out the gap,

before trusting it with a quarter-kilometer dirigible. Telling her extended

family to "mute it" -- Llenor leaned forward, spilling air, lifting her tail and

folding her wings back into a stoop.

Ariel's pull was half that of Old Earth. Falls started leisurely in .5 g -- but

were just as fatal. Many klicks below lay the hot dark surface, a pressure oven

smothered in greenhouse gases. Pitiless terraforming had created a high altitude

biosphere based on mountain tops and tall plateaus. But Ariel's lower levels

remained lethal. If the crash did not kill you, the surface would.

South Pass rose to greet her. Airspeed climbed. Buffeted by turbulent air

pouring into the pass, Llenor lowered her tail, turning her stoop into a fast

glide, shooting into whirling cloudtops. She let cybersenses take over. Hearing

with sonar. Seeing with radar. Ship's altitude and true height were beamed

straight to the tiny navmatrix grafted onto her skull. Altitude slowly

increased, while true height plummeted. Ground rose up under the airship,

climbing toward the summit of the pass. Prinzess LisaMarie's margin of safety

sank steadily -- 1300 meters. 19.00 meters. 1100 meters...

(Helm called out, "One klick.")

"900 meters. 700 meters. 500 meters..."

("Only half a klick below the keel.")

"Drop ballast," Llenor commanded. She needed 500 meters of true height in hand

to cross the summit.

("How much?")

"Keep us above a half klick." Gramrea Lisa needed no instruction, having flown

airships ages before Llenor got her wings. (When she learned she was dying,

Great Grandmother Lisa had herself brainscanned. Llenor had downloaded her files

into the Lisa-Marie, where she functioned as First Officer, always on watch,

always at the Helm.) Water gushed from the forward tanks. Altitude shot up. True

height held steady.

("Okay grandling, half a klick. Mind your flying.")

"Mind your own," she shot back. "Dog leg ahead." Past the summit, the pass

opened sharply to starboard, skirting smoking Mount Lemnos. The Prinzess

Lisa-Marie would have to start her turn while still in the gut of the pass. A

fully loaded airship took her sweet time turning, like a beamy dowager at a

dance.

Llenor banked high, raising her angle of attack to keep from caroming off the

canyon wall. Air spilled from her wings. Turning the stall into a sharp dive,

she regained control, sliding into a shallow glide. The summit swept beneath

her. Ground fell away. She called out, "I'm through."

Almost. Mt. Lemnos reared out of white blankness. Range closed rapidly. Llenor

banked again, pedaling briskly to power her wings. She heard Gramma Lisa order

the Helm put hard-a-starboard.

But the Prinzess Lisa-Marie swung perversely to port, caught in a crosswind.

Alarms oscillated wildly. ("Damnation!")

Llenor tensed, forgetting for a moment to fly. Little sister Evie and a brace of

cousins were aboard ship. And Llenor had put them all in harm's way -- just to

save helium. Her first solo command threatened to be a family catastrophe, as

bad as the crash of the Beaulieu. She shouted into the thin wind, "Turn, Gramma,

turn."

("I've got the Helm hard over, dear.") Turbofans whining in reverse, the

quarter-kilometer ship, her help.less crew and extremely valuable cargo slid

downwind, aiming to slam sideways onto the slopes of Mr. Lemnos. She would not

be the first ship to fetch up against the volcano. In Gramma Lisa's day, Lemnos

wreckers made rich livings off South Pass.

With only meters to spare, the rudders dug in. The ship swung to starboard, fins

all but brushing a tremendous cinder cone to port.

("We're through.") Dead hands at the Helm had not lost their cunning. A chorus

of amens came over the comlink -- mixed with pant hoots from the SuperChimps --

half the crew had been holding their breath.

Shaking with relief, Llenor righted her own leeward drift, shooting out of the

clouds -- with the airship's great lifting body hull gleaming behind her.

Prinzess Lisa-Marie had cleared South Pass, and was ready to enter harbor.

Congratulations rang in Llenor's head:

("Great job, grandling.")

("Yeah, Llenor," yelled Evie.)

("Lucky break," chorused Lilith and Lucifer.)

("Good going, daughter. See you in Graceland.") That last was Mother at home in

the Twilight Belt.

A cloud-filled mountain cauldron opened up ahead, with Port Myrine and the

Lemnki settlement clinging to the far slopes. Stacks of hangars and a tall line

of downwind mooring towers marked Myrine harbor. Skimming the cliffs, Llenor let

the Prinzess pass beneath her, doing a flat dive at the upper deck. Spilling

air, she stalled out, dropping her feet from the tail boom to touch down.

Her bosun stood ready to catch her. He was a Thai, with the impossible name of

Wah-tsoph-ki, hugely thick and broad-shouldered, wearing only his rigger's

harness and safety line. Llenor's landing made his assistance a mere civility --

their hands barely touching. But all Thais were wedded to simple ritual. Show

Neanderthals token respect, and Homosapiens got away with murder. Otherwise

there was no ceremony marking Llenor's return. No bells rung. No "captain coming

aboard." Lisa-Marie was a family ship, run like a business, not like a battle

cruiser.

Llenor surveyed the long sweep of duraluminurn deck, broken by streamlined hatch

cowlings. She had brought in the ship. Her ship. But only by a pinfeather. She

had been scared senseless when the airship swung to port. But the Prinzess.was a

lucky ship. Maybe that luck was working for her.

Two hideous eight-limbed Bug Warriors guarded the cowling leading to the main

cargo hold, clutching heavy assault rifles in their clawed forelimbs. Soft

Prospero light glittered off armored carapaces. Llenor hated carrying Bug

Warriors, but this trip the Prinzess Lisa-Marie crawled with them.

Llenor spotted the Port Master's gig coming out to greet them.

("Careful, grandling, we're coming about.")

Snapping her safety line to a recessed stanchion, Llenor grimaced as the airship

pivoted beneath her, turning to port to avoid settlement airspace. She hated

unnecessary maneuvers in lively weather. Before the Settlers came, the idea of

"owning" airspace was ludicrous. Air was air. You breathed it. If you had wings

you flew in it. There were common sense rules, like giving way to starboard, or

not emptying sanitary tanks in port. When Settlers announced that the air above

the settlements "belonged" to them, pilots laughed. Then the Settlers set up

flak towers and shot down intruders, putting an end to laughter. Now everyone

humored them.

The Port Master's gig turned with them, cutting through forbidden airspace to

catch up, showing that someone aboard had settlement permission. The small

semi-rigid flew a captain's pennant above the Port Master's flag. Llienor nodded

to her bosun. "Get ready to receive the gig."

Wah-tsoph-ki sounded his pipes and SuperChimps tumbled out of hatch cowlings to

port and starboard. The gig matched vectors, dropping her mooring grapples.

Chimps seized the dangling lines and marched the gig forward, fixing her nose to

the foremast, then snapping the lines onto stanchions. The gig was moored. The

Prinzess might lack the pomp and polish of a naval vessel, but she had a crack

crew. Docking two moving ships with several klicks of air beneath their keels is

not easy. Wah-tsophki made it seem routine.

A smartladder wheeled itself up to the gig's main hatch, and a handsome

Homosapien stepped out -- tall and muscular, with high cheekbones, deep luminous

eyes, and black windblown hair. He wore a jaunty electric blue skin-suit, with

BELL'S BANSHEES stenciled above the left breast. An amused grin made it seem

that he sensed the absurdity of meeting so casually in midair. Llenor liked

that.

Two women stepped out behind .him, one dark, one blonde -- but he was clearly in

charge. And likely to do the talking.

Bug Warriors appeared behind the women, slimmer and more scantly armored than

the ones on the Prinzess Lisa-Marie. The Bugs aboard ship by the cargo hatch

bristled, venom spines rising on their backs. Llenor heard the warning snicker

of assault rifle safeties sliding off.

Instantly the man spun about, snapping an order. His xenos disappeared into the

gig. The hatch guards lowered their venom spines. Safeties slid back on.

Everyone breathed again.

Turning to Llenor, he bowed slightly, apologizing in polite Universal, "Sorry to

upset your xenos. Captain Bell, of Bell's Banshees, enthusiastically at your

service."

He did not bother to ask if she was Ship's Mistress, just assuming it --easy,

effective flattery. Bell was smart as well as pretty. Not dithering about,

asking permission or standing on his "rights." He saw, and acted. An immediate,

intelligent response, rendered in take-charge fashion.

Llenor didn't imagine she came off half so smashing, with wings limp, and her

long red hair plastered with cloud dew. She had a flier's body -light, sturdy,

strong at the shoulders-- but nothing to turn a head, except perhaps her hair.

She shot a mental question to onboard memory, "Who is he?

(BELL, Captain Lysander Adam; Knight-Commander in the Noble order of Condottien

born offplanet, in interstellar transit aboard the colony ship Sierra Leone;

served with the White Company in the Far Eridani; in action on Delta Eridani II

and Piscium Ill, awarded Imperial Star, second magnitude. Came to the Kaitos

with a single starship, the AMS Spartan; raised his own company insystem --

"Bell's Banshees" -serving on Mount Zion and the Dayside Archipelago; presently

employed by the Helium Works; no known wives or offspring. Gramma Lisa

highlighted that last parc. "But bound to be fine breeding stock," she added.)

Llenor could see that. Breezy confidence and negligent good looks made Bell the

most mateable male she had ever met. A man to make you give up all thought of

cloning.

Bell touched her wings. "You flew the canyon in these?"

Clouds still boiled out of South Pass -- Bell seemed amazed anyone could

navigate them with an airship in tow.

Llenor admitted she had, no longer so ashamed of her hand-me-down wings.

"You must show me how sometime." He nodded toward the Bugs by the cargo hatch.

"Helium Works wants the Banshees to back up the cargo transfer. Just in case..."

He did not need to list the hazards of her cargo. His visit amounted to an

unannounced face-to-face by hired security for the Helium Works -- but Llenor

welcomed the snap inspection, having nothing to hide, and finding the hired gun

handsome. She was not even smuggling this trip. Not with what she had aboard.

Bell nonchalantly introduced the women. ,,Commander Kia, my Exec, and an aide,

Ensign Amanda." Kia's short dark hair (rained a keen tight-lipped face, with no

trace of Bell's hidden amusement -- just the business-like smirk of an

experienced merc. One who had "seen too much, and killed too often." Ensign

Amanda was a sunny contrast. Small and blonde, with a look of utter blue-eyed

innocence -- despite a big recoilless automatic hanging on her slim waist. Saint

Priscilla of the machine pistol. An odd pair, even for female mercs.

Llenor shed her wings-- handing them off to a Chimp-- offering Bell a quick look

at onboard security. "If you like.

"Bell happily fell in with the suggestion.

Slipping her safety line, she led her guests to the upper main cargo lift. Bug

Warriors -- who bristled at seeing their own species -- let armed humans troop

by without a second look. Lights went on for Llenor, winking out behind her.

Doors dilated. She loved the way the ship obeyed, tracking her movements,

anticipating her needs.

She told the cargo lift to take them down to the keel. The main hold swarmed

with Bug Warriors, jammed muzzle to mandible to make room for a mobile pressure

vault with a blast-proof lock. The usual eight-legged horrors were backed by a

brace of double-ended sixteen-leggers mounting mini-cannon, aimed smack at the

lift. If they ever fired, the barrage would rip right through the hull,

exploding well beyond the ship. But there was no arguing with Bug Warriors. They

had to be humored or killed.

Bell whistled appreciatively. "Seems damn secure."

To Llenor it was a bomb about to blow, but she did not say so. Her family had

been seduced by sky high-cargo rates and bedrock helium prices. Llenor had tried

to veto the cargo, but was out-voted. Making it all the more vital to succeed--

she would not fail just for the sour satisfaction of being right.

Looking askance at the hold from hell, she told Bell she had to be on the

forebridge for docking. Her disembodied First Officer could easily moor the

ship, but Llenor did not mean to miss first-time landfall in a strange port.

"Stay here and keep things covered if you want."

Bell looked politely aghast. "A few guns won't make an angstrom's difference.

We're plainly at their mercy."

Llenor shrugged, telling the lock to cycle, letting the lift take them up. "Bugs

got no big reason to kill us."

Bell cocked an eyebrow. "They wiped out a colony ship in Sculptoris sector."

Llenor corrected him. "They killed all the adult males, and women over breeding

age." Survivors on the Cape Colony had been mostly young women, like Llenor.

"They just wanted to improve our population mix. Bugs don't understand why we

need old folks and two sexes."

The Sculptorian Symbiots, aka "Bugs," had spread themselves throughout the

nearer spiral arm using a unique variation on hive reproduction. They aimed

crude low-g ships full of egg cysts at clutches of G-type stars.

Once they made contact with a space-faring culture the symbiots became

indispensable, each hive producing an endless supply of bio-engineered servants,

eager to perform the most obnoxious tasks-- from fighting wars to scrubbing

toxic tanks -- all for the cost of feeding them.

"Beware of geeks bearing gifts," Bell warned. "Out beyond Sculptoris they've

found whole planets full of Bugs, older hives that contain non-Bug types --

previously unrecorded sentient xenos -- living off what the hives give them.

Which could be a lot, or hideously little."

Llenor laughed, "That's the Bugs, all right." Such previously unknown xenos had

to be remnants of alien races. Xenos who had taken in the Symbiots -- and now

survived as genetic samples, preserved on the chance the Bugs might find them

useful.

Llenor did not really believe the Bugs would take over Ariel. The eager

adaptability that spread them around the spiral arm acted as a fatal flaw. Bugs

did not invent or discover. They just plodded along, building their jury-rigged

starships, serving anyone who stumbled on them. Straight out conquest seemed as

alien to the Bugs as hosting a polka contest. Any natural animosity was reserved

for their own kind. Some grotesque mechanism designed to spread the species made

them maniacally belligerent in the presence of other hives. Spooky but

comforting,

Of course the sad remnants of forgotten races, living on hive handouts, must

have thought they were pretty clever and in control when they first found the

Bugs and put them to work.

"You use them in the Helium Works," Llenor reminded Bell. Her family had struck

a profitable deal with the Bugs -- but that did not make them so different.

"That we do," Bell admitted with a grin. "That we do." Free limitless labor was

tough to turn down.

The lift carried them in silence to the midline slidewalk. Llenor and Bell had

the utterly thankless task of bringing two Bug hives together. The armored box

below contained a Hive Queen -- the egg-cyst laying matriarch. They had to take

this Hive Queen to the Helium Works to exchange genetic material with the local

Queen. A weird, asexual femaleto-female mating between hypertense xenos -- with

Llenor and Bell as matchmakers -- somehow vital to Bug survival. Both hives paid

lavishly for the stud service, but if things went amiss it was pointless blaming

it on the Bugs.

The forebridge was in its customary chaos. Sister Evie hung half out an open

widow, watching Port Myrine swing closer. Stepping off the slidewalk, Llenor

snapped a safety line onto her little sister's harness. "If you are going

outside, wear a line."

Evie laughed. A smaller edition of Llenor, eight years younger, Erie was

otherwise identical, right down to the bright gold-black lozenges on her flight

suit. Too young to stand watches, she acted as an unpaid cabin girl, supposedly

learning from Llenor.

The Twins, Lilith and Lucifer, sat at their station, heads together snickering.

Llenor shot them a look. They switched to Old Speak, which the visitors were

unlikely to understand. Crack comm-techs, the Twins often took it as their

religious duty to offend strangers. Llenor's second cousins, they were nearly

identical, with curly blonde hair and sharp demonic faces. As much alike as male

and female can be.

Pleased to have an audience, Gramma Lisa landed with a flourish, sliding the

Lisa-Marie in between two smaller semi-rigids. Human ground handlers, in white

coverails with swirling red stripes, secured the mooring grapples -- something

Chimps or Bug Workers would have done back home.

Glad to be safely grounded, Llenor saw her guests back to the gig. Bell

complimented the ship. Even Kia, his grim exec, cracked a wary smile. Ensign

Amanda said nothing, just continuing to look sweet -- a lovely, gun-toting work

of art that most likely belonged to Bell. Llenor hadn't the heart to be jealous.

Ensign Amanda was one of those lucky few who radiated beauty and grace, making

her mere presence a pleasure.

A middling strange threesome. But Bell was the one that mattered. His tough,

ready good humor had her feeling better about pimping for a belligerent bunch of

overarmed xenos.

Donning a visored green cap to go with her bolero jacket and harlequin flight

suit, Llenor told Gramma Lisa, "Clear the off-watch for port leave -- I'm going

to Graceland."

(Gramma Lisa chuckled. "Say 'Hi' to Elvis for me.") Death had left her with a

frivolous slant on religion.

Telling Evie to stay aboard -- and out of trouble --Llenor separated a pair of

electronic scarabs, clipping one to her sister's flight suit, tucking the other

into a cuff.

Evie protested, "Please take me."

Llenor refused. "Too dangerous."

"I'll be lonesome."

"I'll play you a game while I'm gone," Llenor offered. "You can be white."

Slipping a loaded stinger into an inside pocket, she left the ship by way of the

folding ladder on the aft hangar deck -- the closest hatch to the harbor

slidewalk.

(Evie opened flier to flagship four. Llenor replied, "Flier to princessgriffin

four," plotting a Sicilian Defense.) The steady exchange of moves would be

better than a stick-tight for keeping track of Evie.

Port Myrine's human ground crew lounged in the shade of the ship, looking

almighty bored in their red and white candy-striped coveralls. Men among them

applauded as Llenor stepped off the ladder. She flashed an appreciative smile,

and got a swift shock. Between the ground handlers and the slidewalk stood a

guard in green and black, sporting a riot pistol and a bandoleer of gas

grenades..

No wonder the men seemed bored and overfriendly. They were convicts, penal

labor. Port Myrine could afford to be lavish with human labor --like Bugs, they

worked for meals. A woman sat among them, gaunt and gray-haired, dressed in

candy-striped coverails and electronic shackles. Their eyes met. Llenor sensed a

surge of envy-- as if the prisoner resented the easy freedom with which Llenor

boarded the slidewalk. The woman looked away, staring listlessly into space. A

nine-digit ID number was tattooed on her left cheek.

Love Me Tender

HUMANS, HALF-HUMANS, SuperChimps, xenos, and whatnot jammed the single-speed

slidewalk. Finding her way blocked, Llenor stood watching port market stalls

file past. Small Thai children sat leashed like dogs alongside heaps of

nanoelectronics brought down the Archipelago from the Twilight Belt beanstalks.

Hawkers in red flapping robes ran along with the slidewalk, waving bright

offworld toys -- pocket holocams, microprojectors, and the like.

("Flier to princess four," Evie threatened. Llenor replied with an exchange.

Port Myrine was hotter than home. Shadows were shorter. Colors brighter. Ariel's

axial rotation exactly matched her orbital revolution. At this longitude there

was no night or noon. Prospero looped about a point midway between zenith and

horizon, making it always mid-afternoon, or maybe mid-morning. At home in the

Twilight Belt, Llenor knew a slow mode version of day and night, produced by

orbital libration. Humans had lived offplanet for so long that she never

connected daylight and darkness with the 24-hour clock brought from Old Earth.

Landfall had been seven seconds shy of three A.M. -- but all that meant to her

was 09.:59:53, threequarters through the Midwatch.

("Roc to princess-griffin three.") Erie was bringing out her rocs.

Closing her eyes, Llenor summoned up the game. Never having so much as seen a

board --Llenor pictured Evie's array as a line of winged fliers, backed by

armored hippogriffs and gunships. Llenor's own pieces formed two lines abreast,

like a flotilla of Black Pirates from Barsoom. Advancing one of her fliers,

Llenor prepared to send her princess out aboard a sleek black destroyer.

The slidewalk did an abrupt turn toward Lemnki Settlement. Llenor got off. What

she wanted lay upslope, at the end of a simple footpath. As she mounted the

path, the sounds of the slidewalk faded. Birds stilled. A sacred hush settled

over everything. Myrine could be seen but not heard.

At the center of this cone of silence stood the local Graceland Shrine, a relic

brought intact from Tau Ceti by one of the first slowboats --before the

beanstalks and high-g colony ships. Rusted columns supported a weathered dome

and ivy-covered dish antenna. The sole attendant was a bum-scarred old woman.

Sightless eyes stared over her offering bowl.

Llenor dropped a tiny zero-g purge valve into the bowl. Wizened fingers felt the

offering, then signed a benediction, waving her into the Shrine. Llenor thumbed

the lock and entered.

The door dissolved behind her. So did the Shrine, along with Port Myrine and the

rest of Ariel. Llenor stood on a dusty bank, beside a huge sparkling sheet of

muddy water a couple of klicks across, bordered by levees and canebrake. A

sternwheeled riverboat churned past, belching black smoke from tall crowned

stacks, making for a chute between the mainland and a wooded island.

She opened the zips on her flight suit. It was the sort of simmering shadowless

noontime found only on Ariel's Subsolar Plateau. But Llenor was no longer on

Ariel -- which had no great wide rivers. No steamboats. And no yellow sun. She

was on Earth. Old Earth. Just outside Memphis on the Mississippi.

A boy sat fishing on a log, staring at the steamboat. He wore adult's cast-off

pants, cut short and rolled up, and a ragged straw hat stuck full of fishing

lures. Loose suspenders crossed his sunburned back. No shirt. No shoes. No

stress. As the steamboat passed into the chute, he looked up at Llenor with a

gap-toothed Huck Finn grin. "So you licked South Pass."

Llenor smiled back. "Guess I did, Dad." In Graceland the dead can pick their age

and condition. Her step-dad spent eternity as a nine-yearold, matching his yen

for youth.

Dad's grin widened. "Come on. Folks want ta celebrate."

He slid his fishing pole onto a bare shoulder and led Llenor away from the

river. They crossed an old broken-down pasture, stirring up grasshoppers and

tiny yellow skippers. A woodpecker hammered in the woods ahead.

At the far edge of the field stood a water-stained shotgun shack. A woman who

could have been Llenor's twin sat on the porch swing, tuning a banjo. She had

the same face, the same long red hair --- but instead of a harlequin flight

suit, she wore a loose white blouse and Daisy Mae cutoffs. She sang out, "Hi

child."

Llenor said hi to Grandma Marge. Then the three of them set off through the

woods, Llenor flapping along in her unzipped flight suit, Dad with his fishing

pole, Gramma Marge carrying her banjo.

("Princess to princess two." Evie offered up a "poisoned pawn." Llenor swept

down on the bait, knowing only cool play would keep Evie from trapping her

princess.)

Under the shade of the trees stood a plantation house with tall fluted columns

of white pine. Bluegrass poked through gaps in the brick walk. Family members

poured out to greet Llenor. Mother was with them. She was the spit image of

Llenor, Evie, and Grandma Marge--only a deal older and heavier. Not being dead,

Mom would have considered it vain to appear in Graceland younger than she was.

Not all of Llenor's family looked like her. Some were barely human. She had

half-Thai cousins. And there were SuperChimps in the family too, adopted from

the crew of the old Beaulieu. Not everyone could make it to the reunion. Some

did not care to. Gramma Lisa was happy at the Helm of the Lisa-Marie, swearing

she would not be caught dead in Graceland.

Those who came treated Llenor to an old-fashioned picnic of fried chicken, sweet

melon, cornpone and crawfish pie. People passed mason jars and wine jugs.

Guitars and rhythm sticks came out, and folks began to sing, leading off with

"Will the Circle Be Unbroken," followed by a medley of Elyis tunes.

When they got to "Love Me Tender," Llenor cried at the outpouring of affection.

Sometimes too much was expected of her. Educating and entertaining Evie, taking

custody of the Twins, captaining an airship full of gun-toting xenos. But with

such love behind her, how could she go wrong?

Llenor left the Shrine happy and hungry -- virtual feasts never filled you up.

It was eerie to step from Old Earth back into the endless afternoon of Port

Myrine. No time seemed to have passed. Soft Prospero light fell at the same

angle, casting the same shadows. As she left the cone of silence a skycycle

swept by overhead, pedaling toward a floating villa, scattering a flock of

silverwings feeding on windblown spores.

"It's all done with sensurround."

Startled, she looked downslope. It was Bell, resting on his heels beside the

dusty footpath, looking a bit ashamed of his joke. Everyone knew shrines did not

bring back the dead -- but an unbeliever never knew the peace they gave the

living.

Bell stood up. "Bet you're starving." Showing he knew more about the shrines

than most unbelievers. After flying South Pass, followed by a virtual picnic,

Llenor could have wolfed down a meal fit for the King. Mashed potatoes and

pizza, or fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

She dashed off a mental message. "Gramrea Lisa, I'm eating ashore." It was her

business to know Bell better.

("Aye, aye, Capt'n. Ship's quiet as the grave, lust watch yourself.")

("Enjoy child, but be careful.") That was Mom, listening in. This was going to

be one of those outings where everyone watched her steps.

Evie came on, begging another game. ("You can be white.")

("Okay. Flier to princess-griffin four.")

["Roc to princess-griffin three.") Evie declined Llenor's opening gambit. Llenor

shifted to the Tartakower variation, something she could play in her sleep.

Bell escorted her to the slidewalk. Port Myrine eateries were smoke darkened

chop-shops, or plain canopies shading a gas ring set on the ground. The better

sort doubled as brothels.

"Noodles 'n Nudes -- Food and Bodies from out of this World

Four Different Cuisines! Five Different Sexes!"

Bell shook his head. "Wouldn't touch that with a forty-meter mooring mast."

Llenor believed him. His skin-tight uniform showed no hint of overindulgence.

She wished she could reach out and feel him, to make sure he was not a holo. He

seemed that perfect.

The slidewalk swung right up to Lemnki Gate. Flak towers poked over the

settlement's energy fence. Bell started to step off. Taken aback, Llenor seized

his arm. It felt rock solid, not at all like a holo. "They won't let me in."

"Nonsense." Bell's smile turned mischievous, like a boy relishing a chance to do

wrong. "Here the condemned can get a decent meal." His thumb print cleared hers.

("Have courage, child," Morn advised.)

Behind the slate gray fence a shoulder of Mt. Lemnos had been blasted flat,

creating a grassy expanse, as green as Graceland. Geodomes rose among the

hedgerows. After the menagerie in Port Myrine, it was weird to see nothing but

humans. Lots of them. And all so different. A dozen races. Each face unique.

Bell steered her toward a glass and chrome pavilion with soaring cantilevered

wings anchored in ferroconcrete. Letters in tasteful Universal script floated

before the entrance ramp:

THE INTERNATIONAL

FINE DINING FROM AROUND THE GALAXY

THE BEST DISHES OF OLD EARTH, TAU CETI, SIRIUS, AND THE ERIDANI

(HUMAN SERVICE ONLY. THE MANAGEMENT WILL NOT SEAT XENOS,

HOMONEANDERTHALS, OR BIOENGINEERED BEINGS OF ANY SORT.)

The redundancy of the last part was chilling. Since entering the settlement

Llenor had not seen anyone looking the least bit "bioengineered." Much less a

Thal or xeno.

Bell took her firmly by the elbow. "Only a restaurant. It won't eat you."

Striding straight through the message, he found them seats on a hanging veranda.

A young man in a silver cape and skin-suit met them at the table. Expecting an

introduction, Llenor assumed one of Bell's officers had joined them for lunch.

All Bell said was, "We'll start with sliver-leaf salad, carrot and cashew soup,

and a pitcher of apricot lassi."

Mr. Silversuit was a waiter, something Llenor had heard of, but never seen.

Scary, but at least he did not have a number tattooed on his cheek.

Rattled at the thought of human service, Llenor found the menu overwhelming. The

place offered everything from "Baked Lyrian Bluefish" to "Hush Puppies and Hoe

Cakes." Plus a whole list of "Sweet Inspirations." Bell suggested the

Champignons farcis with black bean bulgar. Llenor swiftly agreed, hoping that

would make the waiter go away.

(Evie castled. Llenor came back with hippogriffin to gunship four.)

Bell waved Mr. Silversuit off, saying, "They make the best souffle rothschild

this side of the Sad Cafe."

Llenor muttered, "Maybe we should go there." She would have felt safer at that

noodle-cum-knocking-shop by the slidewalk.

"It's in Glory System in the Far Eridani." Bell cocked an eyebrow. "You're not

nervous, are you?"

Llenor nodded, staring off at a herd of real hippogriffs grazing at the edge of

the trees --semi-intelligent bird-winged beaked quadrupeds, bloconstructs from

Beta Hydri IV, used as gardeners, beasts of burden, and pieces in aerial chess.

They broke the monotony of seeing only humans.

("Flier to flag-gunship three," Evie threatened again.)

"Is it because you are a clone?" Bell asked.

Llenor gave a startled nod, looking to see if the waiter was hovering about.

"How did you know.?"

"Your little sister looks exactly like you. And those twins are a dead

giveaway."

The waiter popped back up with their pitcher of apricot lassi.

["Flier to flag-griffin three," Evie repeated impatiently.)

Llenor started a furious series of exchanges to keep Erie occupied. Flier takes

flier. Roc takes flier. Griffin takes griffin. Princess takes griffin...

The waiter poured the lassi and left. Under her breath, Llenor confessed that

she and Evie were clones of her mother. All of them being genetic copies of

Gramma Marge.

And Lilith and Lucifer were not just twins. "They are clones of Aunt Freya--

only Lucifer was gene-spliced to produce testosterone at puberty. Until then

everyone thought he was a girl. Then during one Wedding Day skinny-dip -- Wham!"

"You discovered Lilith had a brother?"

"One May First we girls aren't like to forget."

Even coming from three generations of women who had reproduced without men,

Llenor found the Twins eerie. "They do everything together. Standing the same

watches. Sharing the same cabin. They're never out of each other's sight."

"What's that language they speak among themselves?"

"English mostly," Llenor admitted.

"I suppose you speak it too."

"Only at home." Llenor tried not to look ashamed. Elvis sang in English, but she

did not say it -- no sense spoiling things by arguing religion.

Bell rolled his eyes. "Don't use it around here."

Llenor knew better than that. It was bad enough being in a settlement. She kept

fearing some overpolite waiter would pop up and denounce her as a "bioengineered

being" pretending to be human. "Does that bother you ?"

"That you speak a dead language?"

"No, that I'm a clone." She desperately hoped it didn't matter.

Bell laughed. "Hell no. It's who you are that matters, not how you got here. So

far what I see is great."

Llenor blushed. Embarrassed but happy.

"And being your mother's twin is not technically a crime. You must be

genetically altered to run afoul of Settler Law."

Like Lucifer. Llenor had a horrid image of the Twins run amok in Lemnki

Settlement. It would get them all burned at the stake. She took a swig of the

lassi, finding it cool and tingly, feeling instantly better. Almost

light-headed.

The waiter returned, and Bell deftly switched subjects, saying the Helium Works

gig was just to keep the Banshees breathing. "I don't aim to start a xeno stud

service."

"Then you'll be up for hire?"

"To the highest bidder."

Llenor racked her brain for some reason why the family might need a company of

mercenaries. Like to found a trading station beyond Aphrodite. Anything to keep

Bell around.

(Evie threatened Llenor's remaining hippogriff. Llenor replied by grabbing a

flier, setting up a wicked roc cross.)

Bell kept up an encouraging stream of conversation. By the time they got to the

souffle rothschild, Llenor felt absurdly relaxed. Ready to take on all the Bugs

in Myrine. So confident she suspected there was something in the lassi. But Bell

was matching her glass for glass.

He downed the last of the lassi. "Want to teach me to fly? I know where we can

rent wings."

"Why not?" Llenor thought. She seemed to be several meters above the ground

already. Having survived lunch at Lemnki Settlement, anything was possible.

They took the slidewalk back to the harbor. The hangar-top rental stall stocked

everything from hang gliders to nine-meter Albatrosses. Bell became immediately

enamored with a sleek pair of Sparrow Speedsters. Llenor steered him away from

the Speedsters -- "You can't start on racing wings." Instead she selected

Peregrine Hawks, the closest to her own Condors, but better for beginners.

She started Bell off on short glides at the end of a flying tether. The sweeping

updraft off the windward side of the hangars made it hard to fall. He beat back

and forth, easily copying Llenor's movements. Either Bell was an apt pupil, or

she was a natural teacher -- but everything they did together turned out

perfect. Immensely pleased, Llenor asked if he wanted to fly to the sky hook.

"Sure." Bell was clearly having a ball.

"You'll have to lose the ground line."

"Isn't that the object?"

Right. Llenor nodded to port, "Do you see the roost and skyhook?"

"Bearing two-nine-zero and a bit down to you." He had spotted the skyhook,

transposing the bearing in his head.

"Cast off when you are ready." Llenor saw the tether line fall away. Except for

a stiffness in his glide, Bell might have been doing this for decades. She took

station above and behind, soaring out over the globegirdling cloud plain. A pair

of peregrines flew with them.

Ahead hung the hook, a series of trapeze seats suspended from an aerodynamic

spar, looking like the fishing jigs Dad wore in his straw hat. As they

approached, Bell's inexperience showed. He came in too fast, missed his stall,

then missed the hook. Llenor had to dive down, catch him from behind, then let

her momentum carry them onto the hook.

They ended up sitting on the same seat, laughing at her catch. Neither moved to

break contact. "Magnificent," Bell exclaimed. "No wonder you are an airship

captain."

"You'd be astonished." There was a story behind her first command.

"Why? Did you steal that ship?"

"Some folks think so."

Bell grinned. He was the type to appreciate a little ably engineered larceny.

"Mom was my step-dad's fourth wife, a lot younger than the others. We were never

popular -- an unwed mother with cloned daughters and weird Outback relations.

But Dad took me on as a cabin girl, saying I should learn the trade." Until now

Dad had been the only man in her life --unless you counted Lucifer. Her hero,

mentor, and protector. "He took me to the Eastern Isles, even Nightside. By the

time I turned sixteen he had me piloting solarplanes and semi-rigids."

"I'd like to meet him."

"He went down with the Beaulieu." The only place Bell would see Dad was in

Graceland -- and Bell was not a Believer.

He gave a sober glance. "I'm glad you weren't with him."

"He insisted I stay. Everyone knew the trip was Jify. The whole crew was

brainscanned beforehand -- right down to the SuperChimps."

Bell said he had heard of the wreck.

"His wives and grown children swooped down -- kicking me out. Barring More from

the funeral."

"That must have hurt." Bell's arm came out of his wings, taking her

sympathetically about the waist. She leaned into him, letting Bell steady her on

the seat.

"Then they decoded his will, and found a dying codicil -- added as the Beaulieu

went down."

"Making a provision for your mother?"

"Nope," Llenor laughed. "By then he and Mom were split."

It was plain Dad had transferred affection to Mom's look-alike daughter. "His

codicil left the whole shipping line to me. The Prinzess Lisa.Marie, plus six

semi-rigids and a solarplane taxi service."

Bell's blue eyes sparkled, "I'll bet that's a will they worked hard to break."

"They called me a little whore, and dragged us to an offworld court but could

not break the codicil. His wives all had lands and income, and could not claim

to be destitute. To satisfy the court, I deeded the line over to my moro's

family until I'm twenty-one. But I made damn sure I was Head Pilot." In half a

year the line would revert to her.

"Do you mind that my family runs to extremes?" Llenor worried Bell would find

this all too much.

"Like those twins?" Bell shook his head. "Being always together and sharing the

same cabin, do they? Well..."

"I hope not." Llenor hated to speculate on the Twins' sex lives.

"Elviz would not like that." Bell bore down on the "z" to emphasize the

Universal pronunciation. "Kissing cousins are okay, but the King knew where to

draw the line."

"I don't think the Twins care what Elvis thinks. They're Satanists." Lucifer had

been oddly unaffected by his sex change, going from being a weird little girl to

a weirder little boy. But Aunt Freya was Reformed Church of Beelzebub, and acted

pleased with her genetic joke. Giving up human sacrifice had not taken away

their sense of humor.

"Elviz loved all religions." Bell's tone made it clear the King loved Satanism

least.

"Sorry my family is so strange." She felt like a freak.

"No stranger than mine," Bell looked rueful. "You saw Kia and Amanda. My exec

and her blonde young ensign. Their off-watches must make Lilith and Lucifer seem

normal."

"You mean they are lovers?"

"If you call it that," Bell smirked. "Beauty and the Beast." It was an arresting

image. Kia with her armorplate aura, having complete command over sweet young

Amanda -- an on-duty aide and off-watch concubine.

Before Llenor could recover, Bell leaned over and kissed her. A surprisingly

gentle kiss, patient yet commanding.

Mother started to come on the comlink, but Llenor blanked the call, putting her

whole extended family on hold. When their lips parted, Llenor asked, "Then you

don't have a lover?"

"No--but I hope I am about to." He said it with soft reassurance, like someone

not afraid of the finer emotions.

Llenor whispered a short prayer to Elvis. The King never thought sex was

sinning. Even in his mortal life -- before his returns from death millions of

women desired him. Elvis did his best not to deny them, but most went away

disappointed. For of all the women in the world, Elvis loved his mother most --

Gladys Mother of God. Until he met Priscilla. She was only fourteen, but Elvis

knew she was the one. Priscilla's father --a great pilot and the original

Colonel Beaulieu -- trusted Elvis, letting Priscilla live in Graceland. Elvis

could have succumbed to temptation any time, but he waited until Priscilla was

twenty-one, and they were married. Waiting was hard on Elvis. And harder on

Priscilla. But anything special is worth waiting for.

That was how Llenor felt about Bell. He was the one for her. And in a matter of

months she would be twenty-one, owning the shipping line outright. Then if she

wanted to sail off with Bell at her side, who would stop her?

But Bell wanted her now, and Llenor could feel herself yielding. "We could climb

to the roost," he suggested. There was not much you could do, sitting on a

narrow trapeze seat with nothing beneath you but cloud plain.

(Evie came on, demanding Llenor make a move.)

"Sure," Llenor nodded toward the roost. Closing her eyes, she took a quick look

at the game. She had her gunships in line, and her hippogriff backing her

princess. Evie's flagship was cornered, guarded by her roc and princess.

("Game's over girl.")

("What? No way!")

("Gunship to griffin eight, check. Roc takes gunship. Gunship takes roc, check.

Princess takes gunship. Princess takes princess, mate.")

("Stinker!")

("Find something to do. Sis is about to be busy.")

Sis was about to be mated. Leaving their wings behind, they climbed the light

ladder to the roost. Llenor left her bug clipped to her wings -there were

lessons Evie did not need to learn just yet. The roost was a ringed platform

circling the spar, held aloft by a gasbag farther up, tethered to the cliffs.

From the roost Llenor could see the whole circle of the world. Port Myrine,

Lemnki Settlement, and the cloud-wracked Archipelago stretching back toward the

Twilight Belt and Nightside. And in the opposite direction, Mount Aphrodite.

Beyond Aphrodite stretched the Great Reach, an empty sea of air. On the far side

lay the untamed Subsolar Plateau -- a huge tidal bulge thrust through the cloud

layers. A land of eternal noon, nine-tenths burning waste, with human and

non-human enclaves clinging to its flanks, cut off from the rest of Ariel by

danger and distance. They could explore it together. All it took was courage and

imagination. And the willingness to wait a few months -- until Llenor came into

her inheritance.

But Bell wanted her now, deftly undoing the zips on her harlequin flight suit.

His hands slid inside, caressing her bare hip, fingers brushing the rosy hair

between her thighs. Llenor shivered. She just did not have Elvis' self-deniM.

Who did.? The world beyond Mount Love would have to wait.

By the time they got back to the Prinzess Lisa-Marie, a warm rain was falling.

In the shelter of the airship, Bell kissed her goodbye. They both needed sleep

-- or at least rest.

He looked up at the tall block letters on the ship's hull. "You'll have to

change that name."

Llenor mumbled an apology, eyes downcast. "Lisa-Marie is a family name with us."

Settlers had declared Universal the official language, banning all foreign or

alien spellings. Llenor's family tried to compromise, putting "Prinzess" in

Universal -- the ship's registered name. "Lisa-Marie" was an unofficial addition

stenciled semi-legally onto the hull.

"It's sacrilege," Bell reminded her. "As bad as spelling Elviz with an 's.'

Liza-Marie is a saint, whose marriage to a despised black man brought the races

of Old Earth together."

Llenor nodded, ashamed that her folks were such hicks. She had not meant to

slight Lisa-Marie, or the historic racial harmony her marriage to Saint Michael

produced. Happily, Bell did not know that her Satanist cousins denied even the

divinity of Elvis -- hoping he would send them to Hell.

Llenor rode a clanking conveyor down to the local Bugville. She felt incredibly

overdressed in her heat suit, rebreather, crash helmet and half armor, her hands

encased in laser-gloves. Bumping along behind her was the armored box containing

the Hive Queen, with a dozen mean-looking Bug Warriors riding shotgun.

Meter-long insects buzzed about.

All she could think about was seeing Bell again. Dizzy with anticipation, she

kept her visor up, taking in the warm soupy air. A hypertense Hive Queen mating,

with heavily armed xenos for chaperones, is not an ideal second date -- but

Bell's confidence was contagious. This deadly rigmarole was just a last hurdle,

no worse than navigating South Pass.

The conveyor descended. Terraced gardens gave way to kilometer-tall cloud

forests. Giant trees planted to break up the mountain flanks pulled in air and

light, shedding tons of organic matter. Winged bioengineers flitted through the

steamy canopy, inspecting and pollinating. Each tree was unable to reproduce on

its own, part of a transition ecology, intended to give way to self-reproducing

species.

Heat and pressure mounted. Llenor sealed her visor, relying on the rebreather.

Her suit refrigerator hummed louder, laboring to keep things bearable. None of

this bothered the Bugs. Bug Warriors were tough, and the Bug Workers who drilled

for Helium were bred to work in this stifling stew.

The Helium Works sat below the treeline on a barren rock bench. Pressure domes

loomed ghost-like in the murk. The usual guards had been replaced by a squad of

Bell's Banshees in pressure armor. Bug Warriors would not have been able to let

rival hive members enter. The squad commander ordered the lock to cycle in soft

no-nonsense tones. Bell liked female subalterns -- "They work hard. Guys listen

to them. And they are not prone to testosterone attacks."

Bell was inside, flanked by Kia, standing guard over the armored box containing

the Helium Works Hive Queen. Llenor made eye contact through their polarized

visors. Bell's mouth was covered by his rebreather mask, but already she knew

his face well enough to see he was smiling.

Bug Warriors lined up on both sides of them, just like mental chess, with Bell

opposing her instead of Evie. Only this time the warriors and weapons were real.

Spines bristled, and safeties snickered off. Tension felt as thick as the air.

It was plain the Bugs themselves could not have pulled it off. Not in such

cramped quarters. Not with so many weapons. Xenobiologists speculated that such

matings used to be frantic physical contests, where milling warriors were killed

and maimed-- each hive trying to get genetic material without giving any up.

Assault guns and mini-cannon made such melees unthinkable. Humans had to

substitute for brute force.

"Ready?" Bell's voice sounded flat over the comlink.

Llenor acknowledged, charging her laser gloves, breathing softly. Bell cycled

his lock. She did the same. Vault doors swung slowly open, synchronized to give

neither side an advantage.

The Hive Queens emerged, great segmented monsters with sixteen legs to a side.

Normally humans never saw a Queen. Hives had no good reasons to relax their

guard. They looked like two of the double-bugs run together -- but while the

sixteen-leggers had heads at both ends, Hive Queens had a single head, and rears

clearly adapted for cyst-laying.

They reared up, legs beating the thick air, like huge centipedes doing some

drunk ballet. A ripple ran through the lines of Bug Warriors. Llenor's fingers

twitched inside her laser gloves. She had orders to shoot any Bug showing

hostile intent -- it was hoped the xenos would accept suppressing fire so long

as it came from humans.

As if on psychic command the Hive Queens extended pseudo-legs from the underside

of their main segments. Weaving back and forth, the spindly legs closed the gap

between the Queens, each one tipped with a shiny wet sack.

Llenor watched, weirdly fascinated. She should have been scanning the ranks of

Bug Warriors, but she could not. How often do you get to see a Bug mating? The

act underlying seemingly infinite adaptability. The two sacks contained germ

plasm brought across light years, stored for centuries. After hearing that the

Bugs kept their former hosts as house pets, Llenor bet her shipping line that

not all the plasm came from Bugs. Other xenos, even humans, probably

contributed, voluntarily or otherwise. Bell told grisly stories about the fate

of the males aboard the Cape Colony.

The glistening sacks touched. And chaos erupted.

First came a stabbing flash of light. Polarizers on Llenor's visor cut in, but

not before things went black. Diving blindly, she hit the deck, dazed and

panic-stricken.

Then came the blast. A tremendous surge of pressure lifted Llenor up, slamming

her into something hard. Only the rebreather clamped to her chest and the suit

plugs in her ears kept her from being crushed and deafened. Bouncing off

whatever she hit, Llenor saw spots, and heard weapons firing. Shrapnel rattled

down around her.

She lay gripping the deck in darkness. The mad wall of sound sank down to a

confused clatter, rising and falling as explosive shells searched for targets.

Polarizers had saved Llenor's sight, but the Bugs were blinded, making them a

dozen times as dangerous. Normally a Bug could be relied on not to shoot at a

human -- unless another human ordered it to. But these Bugs were wildly

returning fire, shooting at sounds.

Shutting off her polarizers, Llenor strained to see. Dancing lights gave way to

muzzle flashes. Most of the Bug Warriors were down. Hive Queen parts lay

scattered about.

A single Bug, minus half its limbs, spun about on the floor a few meters in

front of her, firing its assault gun, drawing fire from all directions. Just the

sort of thoughtless hostility Llenor was supposed to suppress.

Carefully as she could, Llenor extended her right laser glove, raising the thumb

sight. Four or five thumbs floated in front of her. She brought her left hand

around to steady the glove, cutting the number of floating thumbs to two.

Splitting the difference, she fired silently, her laser splashing over the

downed Bug. The xeno stopped shooting.

Crossfire slackened. Llenor looked about. Kia lay crumpled against the blackened

door of a blast-proof box, missing an arm and leg, her body armor fiddled. Bell

must have been right at the epicenter. His bloody helmet lay a few meters off.

She could not tell if his head was inside.

Hearing a plop, she turned to see a grenade land to her left. It rolled toward

her, stopping just out of reach. So close she could read the CAREFUL

FLAMMABLE[EXPLOSIVE warning label. The safety was off. The trigger pulled.

Horrified, Llenor raised her left laser glove to shield her face.

The blast caught her in mid-motion.

Jailhouse Rock

THE ROOM she awoke in was so white and sterile Llenor immediately tagged it as a

sick bay. Being strapped to an autodoc with tubes snaking out of her lent

substance to the assumption. It had to be a critical care unit since the walls

were shielded, cutting off contact with the outside. Everything else was

mercifully vague. She had been in the Helium Works, the Hive Queens were making

it. Then wham! -- all hell broke loose. What followed was a ghastly blur. She

was fairly sure she had killed a Bug...

And Bell was dead. No doubt there. He had been standing atop the blast. Waves of

grief and nausea gripped her. A wild sense of loss made her want to tear the

tubes and patches off her body, but she hadn't the strength to get out of the

autodoc.

Instead she lay there utterly alone -- a novel experience that soon got

annoying. Four walls were not so amusing. She got no comfort from More. No salty

advice from Gramma Lisa. Even Evie wanting to play would have been something.

Solitude was great for wallowing in grief-- but it cut her off from life.

Her first visitor was a big disappointment. Without warning, a wall dilated and

an offensively perky young woman appeared. She had short sandy hair, an upturned

nose and an aggravating grin. "Are you conscious?" she asked.

"Not really. But come in anyway."

The woman took a couple of seconds to figure that out, then stepped inside,

asking, "How do you feel?"

"Rotten" was the first adjective that came to mind. Llenor could honestly say

she had never felt worse. "When do I get out of this autodoc?"

She thought about it, then decided, "I sure could not say."

Llenor glared at her tormentor. "Aren't you a medic?"

After another delay, she exclaimed, "Goodness no."

"Then who the hell are you?" Llenor saw she was dealing with someone really

slow. The young woman had the look of a settler, wearing a pearl-gray suit

trimmed with taffeta. An audio-optical bug clung to her lace lapel, trying hard

to look like a broach.

She took her usual irritating time answering. "I am Miriam Holiday. Your

lawyer."

"My lawyer?"

Another blank moment, then she nodded enthusiastically. "Court appointed."

Llenor stared at the smiling sandy-haired moron. "I'm talking to a bugheaded

holo. You aren't even onplanet, are you?" The pauses were speed-of-light lag.

Counselor Holiday was on one of the beanstalk geosync stations.

"That's right. I am Pair-a-Dice representative for Li Sing & Wainwright. Main

offices in Mount Zion."

"I don't want a lawyer. All I want is to call home." Or better still be

discharged. Sickbay felt claustrophobic.

In a moment Miriam replied. "I'm afraid you very much need a lawyer. Hasn't

anyone told you the charges?."

"This is all a huge shock," Llenor assured her.

Miriam reeled off offenses, sounding like a summary of the penal code.

"Terrorism, murder, malicious mayhem, willful sabotage, misuse of explosives,

wanton defacement..."

"What? For killing a Bug?"

Another annoying pause. "That comes under defacement of property. Xenos

contracted to the Helium Works are legally listed as equipment, to avoid the

animal cruelty statutes. You are accused of killing Adam Lysander Bell, and his

exec..."

Llenor remembered Kia, sprawled against the burnt blast door with an arm and leg

gone.

"Prosecutors have established a prima facie case based on the microdetonator and

superconducting primer, plus traces of nitrates on your clothes and body..."

"Detonator? Primer?"

Another maddening delay. "The primer and microdetonator found in your suit

cuff."

Absolutely impossible. But the brainless holo kept spouting absurdities. Llenor

was accused of preposterous crimes. And under Settler Law from the sound of it.

She realized she was "baby strapped" to the autodoc, unable to reach the clasps.

"What about the Xenophobes?"

"The who?" Miriam acted like she never heard the word.

"You know. Alien haters. This bombing has Xenophobe all over it." Whoever killed

Bell had wiped out two hives as well -- without their Queens, Bugs could not

long survive.

"You must be more explicit."

Llenor was literally talking to someone from another world. "Xenophobes. People

who won't serve Thais in restaurants. And keep Chimps out of the Settlements. At

every election the Humanists harp on how Ariel is reserved for humans. How

they're saving us from the xenos. A lot of folks really believe that." As far as

Llenor cared, Ariel could be reserved for caterpillars just so they got along.

Miriam replied primly. "Having or expressing an opinion about aliens is not a

crime."

"Unless you express it by blowing folks away. Step-cousin Wilbur put a .20mm

third eye in a SuperChimp -- an' got off with a fine. Claimed the Chimp acted

frisky."

"Frisky?" Another word new to Miriam.

"Cousin Wilber's a man of few syllables. And the Chimp could not tell his side.

SuperChimps work hard an' cheap -- and their babies are cute -- but some folks

still hate 'era. Bugs give everyone the heebie jeebies."

"So?" Her lawyer refused to see any connections.

"A lot of folks would like to blow the Bugs up."

"We can't accuse 'a lot of folks.'"

So much for Settler Law. Llenor saw the real bombers were not likely to figure

in the case. "Look, I need to talk to my family."

Miriam considered. "An open channel is impossible. All visitors must come in

person..."

Dad and Gramma Lisa could not come "in person." Mom was a world away in the

Twilight Belt. "How about my sister aboard ship?" Evie could relay a message

home.

Miriam looked embarrassed. "The Prinzess is no longer in harbor. The Port Master

attempted to board and impound material evidence. Someone cut the magnetic

grapple and dumped liquid ballast, flying off with the Port Master and drenching

his bodyguards with waste water."

Hurrah for Gramma Lisa.

"The Port Master survived, but is pressing assault and kidnaping charges against

your cousin Lucifer Freyason..."

Survived? Lucifer must be getting softhearted. Or just slothful.

"...and an unknown Thal."

That would be Wah-tsoph-ki.

Miriam eventually faded out. Llenor realized she was on Jailhouse Rock. Not the

original one, which was a prison asteroid in the Mt. Zion system. Or maybe

orbiting Old Earth. This was the Port Myrine brig, on a pinnacle above the

harbor. Every prison was called Jailhouse Rock.

And it slowly sank in that they never meant to let her out. Once she was out of

the autodoc, and dressed in candy-cane coverails, there were enforced exercise

periods, virtual interrogations, and 3V "social hours." All within her cell.

The trial was also in her cell. So was the appeal. Both before Settler courts.

The main difference was the time lag. The first court was on Paira-Dice, and the

light speed lag just made the judges seem slow-witted. The appeals court was in

Mt. Zion system -- several light hours away making the second round seem like an

episodic 3V play acted out in her cell. Llenor was allowed to proclaim her

innocence at the cost of having to hear all the impossible, damning physical

evidence. The nitrates on her clothes and body, the primer and detonator in her

cuff. Half the judges had to be Humanist appointments, happy to have a culprit

not tied to their party.

In each case the verdict was the same, "Guilty on all counts." The first time

Llenor felt shocked, as if she had not heard right. The second time she expected

it.

Miriam shook her empty holographic head, wishing she could have done better. She

could hardly have done worse.

"What does it mean?"

Miriam thought a moment. "Standard sentences?"

"Unless they have some special on."

"Destruction and defacing, that's a simple caning -- five strokes for each

count. I think I can keep the total under twenty." Good for Miriam. Up till now

having a lawyer had been fairly useless.

"The malicious mayhem, assault, willful sabotage, and misuse of hazardous

materials; that's two to three decades of hard labor. Which I could try to get

reduced. But you might prefer the full sentence..."

Why? For the fresh air and exercise? "What about murder and terrorism?" The

charges that really scared her.

Signals seemed to take forever, leaping back and forth at light speed. "Oh,

that's hopeless. There you're looking at death."

And hardly finding it appealing. "Then who the fuck cares about the other

charges?"

Miriam took her usual time answering. "You might. I can try to get the caning

waived. Or reduced. And the penal servitude put first. You could live for

twenty, thirty years..."

Then be executed. She thought of the aging woman in the ground crew with a

tattoo on her cheek. What was she looking forward to when her time was up?

Llenor now wore nine similar numbers, listing her crimes and identity.

The labor sentence was at least life, and she might see the family. "What about

brainscan?"

"It would defeat the purpose of execution." Miriam left.

Even Graceland would be denied her. But for the moment she still had her

memories. Rummaging through naymatrix files, Llenor replayed her first solos at

home, seeing the peaks of Atoll coming closer in low Prospero light. The huge

Twilight Belt caldera had a dozen peaks, and two habitable sections of ringwall,

surrounding a great eroded volcanic cone. Aerostadts swung between the peaks.

Forests climbed the ringwalls. Mount Aloha was marked by the gleaming thread of

Aloha beanstalk, rising out of sight to connect Atoll to Eden Station. An

aerodynamic capsule was descending the stalk, like a silver egg on a steel

guitar string.

She swung her ship up to the family mooring mast. Dad congratulated her. Mom and

Evie came out to greet the ship.

Miriam cut the memory short.

Llenor left home thinking, "This better be worth it."

It wasn't, Miriam confessed that she could not get the caning cut o under thirty

strokes. "They are determined to set an example,"

Llenor was no longer surprised. Her luck practically demanded it.

"And they have commuted your labor sentence."

"Can they do that?"

"Work gangs are full. They are cutting back on prisoners."

In her case clemency meant beating and execution. They were keeping her in this

box until it was convenient to kill her. Shaking with anger, she told her

lawyer, "Just go away."

Miriam did not move.

"Go away," Llenor shouted. "You're worse than the Bugs."

Miriam left. This time for good.

By now Llenor hated the Settlers, hated them with all her heart. Until this

happened, Llenor had been above politics, seeing no point to it. Some Settler

party always won. If not the Humanists, then the Greens. Since the biosphere

took hold, incoming colonists from Epsilon E and the Home Systems had

outnumbered humans born onplanet. Thais, Chimps, and xenos had it easy -- they

weren't allowed to vote. Under Settler Law you had to be human, with no kinky

chromosomes.

She had not minded Settlers running things. They were pushy but effective --

putting down pirates and wreckers. Big on free trade. Only thing that had galled

her was how they looked down on everyone. Thals and Chimps were automatically

animals. Xenos were vermin. And now they meant to put her down without a speck

of regret. Someone killed Bell and Kia. So the Settlers would kill her, strapped

to the same autodoc she came in on. "Lethal injection," to teach the lesser

beings not to play with bombs. Llenor shuddered.

Her innocence was a side issue. Settler Law was beyond the truth. Only "rights"

and "legality" mattered. They were actually proud of that. Said it was a sign of

civilization.

She hoped Elvis reamed them good. You can't fool the King.

From then on she lived for her virtual trips home, lying in her box, seeing

Atoll and her family, reliving moments she had meant to keep forever. Giving up

on "reality." Food and sleep were for the living. Llenor was as good as dead.

The next time she was pulled out was like a waking dream. Suddenly she was back

in her cell -- but not able to move. Paralyzed. Unable to twitch a toe. She

wondered if her naymatrix had gone haywire from overuse. Her cell door dilated.

Llenor expected to see Miriam, returning with one more inanity. Instead she saw

a mobile bug. A six-legged electronic scorpion, with tiny lens antennas, and a

huge hypo in its tail.

The bug entered, scurrying up the side of her bed, scrambling atop her

immobilized body, headed for her neck. Its hypo tail raised. Llenor screamed,

but nothing came out.

All she could think of was "lethal injection." This was not how it was supposed

to happen. What about the caning?

The hypo took aim at her carotid artery. "This is for your own good," whispered

the scorpion.

It struck. Llenor felt instantly better. Paralysis vanished. The hypo had held

an antidote to whatever was holding her down. Plus some powerful stimulant. The

scorpion leaped off her, headed for the open door, saying, "Follow me."

Llenor was up and out the door, ahead of the bug, into the lighted corridor

beyond. But which way to go?

The electronic bug scurried between her legs. Doors dilated before it. Llenor

bounded after it. If this was a dream, she begged Elvis not to let her wake up.

She passed a pair of guards, sitting frozen at their terminals watching her

escape. Victims of a paralysis field. Or some anesthetic gas.

Llenor saw daylight ahead. She burst out onto a bare, flat loading dock, with

tall slick walls. Prison trustees in candy-striped coveralls lay strewn about

the penned-in tarmac. The nearest had an anesthetic dart in her neck. A pair of

adhesive boots stood waiting on the dock.

"I'm free," she shouted. Not strictly true -- she was surrounded by high smooth

prison walls -- but she gushed thanks for getting this far.

Voices filled her head in reply: ("Thank Elvis, dear." That was Mom.) ("We sure

did not do it," Gramma Lisa assured her.) ("Thank Satan," suggested Lucifer and

Lilith.) "Put on the boots," said the scorpion.

Llenor pulled on the adhesive boots, hurriedly telling everyone what had

happened. The scorpion called to her, "Follow me." It scurried up the far wall.

Llenor dashed after the bug, planting a foot on the wall. Telling the boots to

grip, she ran right up the wall, expecting a laser beam in the back.

She gained the top alive. And saw nothing on the far side but empty air. The

leeward edge of the Archipelago fell straight away in a series of sheer cliffs.

Wind plucked at her, trying to hurl her into the rocky abyss. Far below lay the

broiling surface. Only the boots kept her atop the wall.

Llenor looked wildly about. The tiny scorpion climbed up her coveralls, perched

on her back, and whispered, "Jump."

("What's happening?")

Llenor told them.

("Don't trust it," Evie squealed.)

("Take care," Mother advised.)

("Jump, jump," chorused the Twins.)

No time to hold a vote. With a Hail Gladys on her lips, Llenor told the boots to

release, launching herself into space.

All Shook Up

"Hail Gladys, full of grace..." Llenor hung for an instant. Then she fell. With

familiar slowness at first, as though she were in a stoop. Only with no wings to

catch her.

"The King is with thee;

Blessed art thou among women..."

Speed built up. The wall slid past. All she could see was cliff face, and the

clouds below. Falling ever faster, she spread her arms and legs as wide as she

could, trying to get maximum drag from her prison coveralls.

"And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Elvis."

Wind whipped at her, tearing tears from her eyes. Clouds rushed up at her.

Whoever was behind this had better act now. Unless this was some unnecessarily

elaborate plot to kill her. Blindly obeying some bug --just because it let her

out of her cell -- no longer seemed the obvious thing to do. But what choice did

she have? Lethal injection or a long fall? Hardly fair.

Llenor hit the first cloud layer. Cliffs disappeared.

Engulfed in silent gray mist, she might have thought she was no longer falling,

except for the nagging reminders from her navmatrix.

She shot out the bottom of the cloud bank, and there they were. A pair of rocs

plunged toward her in a stoop, wings back, matching her speed. Rocs were bred

from condors ages ago on Old Earth -- but their broad twenty-meter wings, big

braincases, and tall aquiline beaks gave them the look of eagles. Clutched in

their claws was a life line, with a rigger's harness clipped to it. The giant

birds swung the line her way.

Llenor caught it.

The rocs pulled out of their stoop, wings beating, taking the tension as evenly

as they could. It still felt like Llenor's arms were jerked from their sockets.

Shoulders aching, hands ripped raw from catching the cable, she struggled into

the rigger's harness, 'letting her full body take the strain.

She was off. Free and away. Her naymatrix was getting no signals that sounded

like pursuit. Did anyone even know she was gone? All she saw was a pair of

wasphawks, and some winged shepherds herding geese.

The rocs turned downwind, leaving the tip of the Archipelago behind. Ahead a sea

of clouds spread out for thousands of klicks -- the Great Reach. Llenor felt an

instinctive surge of panic, setting out on a voyage airships and solarplanes

seldom attempted-- relying on nothing but a pair of strange rocs. ("On my way,

grandling," Gramma Lisa announced. "TWO-TWO-ZERO to you, about 200 klicks out.")

She had taken the Prinzess Lisa-Marie downwind to escape Port Myrine, then

worked her way back up the lee side of the Archipelago. But it would take a

while to run down a pair of rocs with the wind at their backs.

("Llenor should turn the birds around," Lucifer suggested. "Bring 'em back our

way.")

("No! Don't startle them," Evie shouted.)

Llenor ignored the conflicting advice. Someone had taken huge pains to get her

off Jailhouse Rock. The bug. The boots. The birds. Everything appeared as

needed. The rocs had to be headed somewhere. She bet they would arrive long

before anyone caught up.

Straining her eyes, she looked for some sign of a ship out over the clouds,

spotting a black dot directly downsun. Prospero's glare kept her from making a

positive ID.

The rocs beat nearer. It was not an airship. The dot grew into a floating

platform. Not a big aerostadt, but a little sky island -- taut helium tanks

supporting a bamboo pavilion braced by gaily colored lines. Tall cumulus clouds

in the background made it look like a tiny piece of heaven, somehow come adrift,

floating out over the Great Reach.

The rocs set her down on the woven path leading to the pavilion. Llenor looked

about. A baby hippogriff clung to a nearby roost, terrified by the two big

carnivorous birds.

"Don't let them eat the grill," ordered a soft authoritative voice.

Llenor turned toward the pavilion, to find herself staring down the barrel of a

recoilless pistol. Ensign Amanda's angelic face smiled at her from above the

hand cannon. "Shoo off the rocs," she ordered. "I promised the people who lent

me this place they would not eat the grill."

Llenor waved the rocs away. They flapped off, circling overhead, then setting

down on the far side of the pavilion. Rocs readily obey, but tender young

hippogriff is always a temptation.

The 20mm pistol stayed aimed straight at Llenor. "Did you kill her?" Amanda

demanded.

"Kill who?" Llenor was honestly unsure of who she was supposed to have killed

this time.

"Kia."

"No. But I saw her die." Sort of Llenor had been busy being blinded and thrown

by the blast.

Amanda nodded. "Wanted to hear you say it. If I thought you had, you'd be taking

ten steps back." Wind whistled off the edge of the floating island, two meters

behind Llenor-- with the superheated surface far below.

"Can I put this up?" Amanda meant the pistol.

Llenor nodded enthusiastically.

"Great. I hate talking over a gun. Unless I absolutely have to." Holstering the

pistol, she held out her hand. The electronic scorpion hopped off Llenor and

onto her.

Tucking the bug away, she invited Llenor into the pavilion. A porcelain tea set

sat on fresh tatami mats. Amanda poured green tea for both of them, saying,

"Tell me what you did do."

Llenor told her, starting from when Amanda disappeared into the Port Master's

gig -- describing her tour of Port Myrine, and her visits to Graceland, and

Lemnki Settlement. Amanda was amazingly easy to talk to, with her warm smile and

stunning looks. It was like telling your troubles to a 3V star. Even with a

pistol to her head, and a sheer drop at her back, Llenor had not been overly

frightened. Amanda was that beautiful.

When Llenor got to her date with Bell, Amanda laughed. "So that's where he

disappeared to. That sly fucker."

She shook her head. "I can just see him panting with charm. Bet he treated you

to apricot lassi."

"How do you know?"

"Tried it on me. It hides an aphrodisiac. Don't you just love having a CO who

thinks with his pecker?"

Llenor tried to say it was not like that, describing the flying lessons, and the

flight to the skyhook...

"Right. Why do you think we're called Banshees? We're an airborne unit. He had

his wings before you were hatched."

Llenor stared at Amanda over her tea cup, stunned and hurt. Feeling the

emptiness under the pavilion. She loved Bell. Still mourned for him. He could

have had her honestly.

Amanda reached out, stroking her cheek. "Don't blame the bastard. You're a real

peach." Her hand came to rest on Llenor's shoulder, giving a squeeze, and

staying there.

Llenor felt confused but comforted. "Thanks for getting me off that rock."

"All part of the service. Breaking in and out of the local lock-up is a standard

Banshee exercise. Bell firmly believed that he -- or someone important to him --

was bound to wind up behind bars. It just happened to be you."

"I still owe you," Llenor insisted. "And wish I could pay you back."

"You will." Amanda said it without the slightest doubt.

Really? How? Amanda's hand was still on her shoulder, and Llenor was unsure what

to say next. She was not used to sharing small windblown platforms with the

likes of Ensign Amanda. It must have showed.

Amanda laughed, lifting her hand away. "Don't get your clit in an uproar. I

don't do virgins."

Llenor had just explained how she was not a virgin -- but with Amanda men

clearly did not count.

"All I care about is finding who killed Kia. I don't much care why but I want to

know who." Amanda's tone made it clear she had loved Bell's hard bitten exec.

"How can I help?" She very much wanted to do something for Ensign Amanda-- this

gun-wielding lesbian angel who had handed Llenor her life back.

"I need a ship," Amanda admitted cheerfully. "And right now one is burning heavy

hydrogen to get to you." Gramma Lisa was gunning the reactor to get there,

sending Llenor a steady stream of position fixes.

"Ever since the blast, Port Myrine has been zipped tight, with the Banshees

locked down, confined to barracks and brothels but still drawing pay from the

Helium Works. A sign someone thinks guns are going to be useful, despite having

the 'mad bomber' safely behind bars." Amanda was plainly amused by the notion

Llenor could have caused all this havoc.

"And last midwatch the Archipelago Packet came down from Freeport. Now she's

leaving with a sealed cargo. No passengers. No regular freight. Something

special is aboard, headed for the Freeport beanstalk and Paira-Dice geosync

station. The first shipment out of Myrine since the blast."

Llenor admitted this sounded intriguing. "But what can I do?" She could not so

much as show her face anywhere on the Archipelago.

Amanda gave a winsome grin. "I have to know what is being secretly hustled

offplanet. That's why I'm AWOL, and you're uncaged. We're going to hijack the

Archipelago Packet, to see what's aboard."

Of course. Having added unlawful escape and armed flight to her list of crimes,

hijacking had to be next.

Amanda had a pair of saddles stashed in the pavilion. Mounting the rocs, they

flew out to meet the Lisa-Marie. Gramma Lisa aimed the airship into the wind,

with her hangar doors open. Llenor's roc flew straight in, and she dismounted on

the hangar deck. Wishing she had never left.

Amanda landed behind her. Evie was there to greet them. So was Wahtsoph-ki. And

Lucifer and Lilith. They had a mini-reunion in front of the huge rocs, who sat

preening themselves, waiting to have their saddles taken off.

All debate had been taken care of on the ride in. Some disgruntled family

members demanded a vote, but Llenor vetoed it. "The Prinzess is already forfeit

under Settler Law. Lost to the family. And I need her." There was nothing left

to vote on. Amanda got Llenor off Jailhouse Rock. If she wanted them to fly her

to Alpha C, or seize the Archipelago Packet the only question was how?

("Long Gap," Gramma Lisa decided. "That's the place to stop the Packet.") Long

Gap was a 100 klick break in the mountain chain about a third of the way up the

Archipelago.

"Why there?" Llenor was still new to crime.

("The Packet has to beat her way high up to windward to shoot the gap. We'll be

waiting." Spoken like a true pirate.)

"Sounds good." Actually it sounded difficult and dangerous, but Llenor saw no

percentage in saying so.

"We'll need a boarding party." Amanda surveyed the crew on the hangar deck,

looking like she did not believe what she saw. Some Chimps, a Thai, two

unheavenly twins, and a little edition of Llenor. Not exactly a picked squad of

Banshees.

"We've still got the Bugs," Llenor suggested.

"We had the Bugs," Lilith corrected her.

"They're dying," Lucifer explained.

"Mostly dead," Lilith declared. Listening to the Twins could be like taking a

one-two punch. "None of them have eaten since the Hive Queen blew up."

"Or moved much," Lucifer added.

"Gramma Lisa is livelier," Lilith assured them.

"But we still have their weapons." A hold full of small arms clearly excited

Lucifer.

Llenor looked to Amanda. "How many boarders do we need?"

"Six or seven. Five if they are good."

Evie was out. And Llenor did not want Lilith and Lucifer in any uncontrolled

situations. That left only her and Amanda among the humans. "I'll talk to the

Chimps."

First she had a word with Wah-tsoph-ki. Thais usually avoided Cro-Magnon

conflicts -- knowing from grim experience that whichever side won, they were

likely to lose. Under Settler Law, any non-humans involved in violence against

Homosapiens were destroyed with less fuss than Llenor got. But Wah-tsoph-ki had

been with the family all his life. And trusted Llenor. He signed he would do

what she wanted.

Pan troglodytes supreme had even less reason to side with humans. The two dozen

SuperChimps aboard the Prinzess Lisa-Marie were a family group -- five males,

seven females, the rest adolescents, juveniles, and infants. Only the adult

males would be adventurous enough for what Amanda had in mind. Llenor ignored

the oldest, who was past his prime and did not stand watches. She made her pitch

to the beta-male; always more aggressive, more game to prove himself. The Chimp

consented, bringing along a buddy. Llenor had her boarding party.

Amanda grimaced. "They'll have to do."

It took a dozen hours to get to Long Gap, giving them time to rest and get

ready. Gramma Lisa worked her way along the leeward side of the Archipelago,

staying in the radar shadow of the peaks. The Packet's slow schedule let her fix

her moment.

When that moment arrived, Llenor got into her wings and went to the upper deck.

Amanda borrowed Evie's wings, and mounted the two daring Chimps on her rocs.

Wah-tsoph-ki readied a paraglider on the hangar deck.

("Here she comes." Gramma Lisa spotted their prey emerging from the ground

scatter as she approached the gap.)

The Archipelago Packet was a twin-boomed glider, with hugely long solar-paneled

wings. She plied up and down the Dayside Archipelago riding the standing wave.

The big solar-assisted sailplane would have to work her way high upwind to cross

Long Gap. Fixed thermals partway across allowed her to regain altitude and

recharge her solar collectors.

Gramma Lisa waited until the Packet was into the gap and mounting the first

thermal, then dumped ballast. The airship shot upward. Altitude readings soared.

Standing on the upper deck, Llenor opened her mouth and yelled to equalize

pressure in her ears. No solarplane could match the Lisa-Marie in a roaring

climb. They swiftly had the Packet half a klick beneath them, her big

solar-driven propellers flailing at the thinning air. Rocs took off with their

Chimps aboard. Then Llenor followed Amanda over the side, folding her wings into

a stoop, ignoring frantic calls from their target -- letting Gramma Lisa reel

out a line of bullshit.

("The Captain has left the bridge. Please give your name and message. The next

available human will answer all calls in the order...")

Llenor's navmatrix locked on for landing, reading off the dwindling distance.

400 meters. 300 meters. 200 meters..

The Packet's primary control position was on an airfoil section between the two

fuselage booms. Flaring out her wings and lowering her tail, Llenor stalled at

the last instant. Adhesive boots hit the wing section and she told them to hold.

She had boarded the Packet.

Amanda landed beside her, an anaerobic torch in her hand. Together they attacked

the tear-drop canopy protecting the main control position.

Thrown into defensive mode, the Packet did a wingover, spinning on her central

axis. Crouched over the canopy, held in place by her boots, Llenor saw clouds

and sky whirling out the corner of her eye. Ignoring the spin, Amanda cut

through the canopy. Llenor reached in, disabling the autopilot and security

system, plugging a transceiver into the control circuit.

Instantly her navmatrix was flying the Packet. Putting the controls in neutral,

she leveled off. The Packet ceased spinning, climbing back into the thermal.

Amanda hefted her torch. "Let's see what we got."

"Passenger side first." Llenor nodded at the port boom.

Amanda clumped over and started cutting. Llenor compensated, keeping the glider

on an even keel. The rocs with their armed Chimps aboard took up stations on

either wing, ready to give covering fire. Wahtsoph-ki positioned his paraglider

behind the Packet. As soon as she had cut a human-sized hole, Amanda called out,

"Cover me," triggering a gas grenade.

"Take over, bosun," Llenor ordered, letting Wah-tsoph-ki fly both gliders from

his tail position. She shrugged off her wings. Kneeling to steady herself, she

aimed a laser glove at the hole in the port boom.

Slipping a gas mask over her face, Amanda tossed in the grenade. And a second.

White irritating vapor boiled out of the port boom, forming a billowing plume

behind the big glider. Wah-tsoph-ki had to fall off to starboard to keep flying

both ships. Whenever the plume slackened, Amanda stoked it with another grenade.

"They're coming out," Amanda shouted through the mask.

Climbing atop the boom to give Llenor a clear shot, Amanda reached down into the

smoke, grabbing an emerging figure by the jacket. The man was wearing a mask,

but the burning vapor must have gotten under his clothes. No one could hold out

in a confined space full of really nasty gas.

"How many are there?" Amanda demanded. "Don't lie, or you are dead."

"Only me," he gasped.

Amanda tore off his mask, making sure he got a whiff of the gas -- to make him

more tractable. Then she pulled him out. He clung sputtering to the smooth

airfoil, held there by Amanda. If she so much as relaxed her grip, he would go

sailing off between the booms.

It was Bell.

Seeing him through the sights of her laser glove, Llenor hardly believed it at

first. She let the glove fall -- overcome with relief. He was alive.

"Keep him covered," Amanda screamed. "The bastard may have backup in there."

Llenor hesitated, her happiness at seeing Bell crowded out by serious questions.

How had he survived? What was he doing here ? Reluctantly she raised her glove,

but doubted she could fire. Bell was not some deranged Bug. He was the man she

loved. There was bound to be an explanation.

Keeping Bell pulled back and off balance, Amanda let the gas thin, then took a

quick peek into the passenger boom. She jerked her head back out. "No one."

Ripping off her mask, Amanda drew her machine pistol, jamming it against the

back of Bell's head. Amanda's small body shook with rage. White knuckles gripped

the recoilless pistol. "No witnesses. Right? You killed Kia, didn't you -- and

meant to get clean away? You sorry son-ofa-bitch."

Clearly Bell had escaped the bomb, but how? Llenor remembered the blinding flash

before the blast. And Kia crumpled at the lock door. There had been a moment

when Bell could have dived inside the armored box, leaving the bloody helmet as

a dramatic bit of misdirection.

All Llenor could think to say was, "Why?"

Her question was addressed to Amanda, but Bell's lips curved into a familiar

smile. "Someone's got to stop you." He said it slowly and simply. Just as if it

made sense.

Llenor stared at him, "Stop who?"

"Stop you. You're sick. Dealing with Bugs. Living with Chimps. Fucking Thals.

Making half-breed monsters."

Unable to speak, Llenor felt almighty sick. Just like Bell said. Thinking about

"traces of nitrates on your clothes and body." Not to mention the primer and

detonator in her cuff.

Bell drew his legs under him, getting back his balance. "Surprised that I fucked

some test-tube bitch? Don't take it personal. I did what I had to."

Llenor's finger twitched inside her laser glove.

He looked over his shoulder at Amanda. "Someone has to save us. This planet was

made for humans -- like you and me."

"And Kia. You hypocritical asshole." Amanda looked over at Llenor. "I vote we

get it over with. Grease him now."

"No, wait!" Llenor lowered her glove.

"Why?" Amanda looked genuinely puzzled.

"We've got to take him back."

"What for? A fair trial? You saw how the courts work. Do you think he did this

alone? We need to waste him now!"

"No!" Llenor insisted. She wanted to shove Bell into their smug Settler faces.

The man they claimed she killed. The Xenophobe that did not exist. "We need to

take him back."

"That's one thing you'll never do." Bell twisted about, slipping out of his

jacket, spoiling Amanda's aim. Before she could recover, he dived backward

between the booms.

Llenor lunged to grab him. Too late. The slipstream whipped him out of reach.

Bell lay on his back, sprawled in midair, then he curled himself into a ball to

speed his fall.

Headed straight for the fiery surface.

"Damn!" Amanda sat crouched atop the passenger boom, holding Bell's empty jacket

-- watching him dwindle, becoming a dot on the cloud plain. "Say hello to Elvis,

you fucker."

The rocs dived after him. But with heavy Chimps on their backs, they would be

hard put to seize someone who did not want to be grabbed.

Bell disappeared into the clouds below. Slowly the rocs came circling back.

Prospero stands high over Mount Aphrodite -- higher even than over Myrine--

basking the great emerald peak in eternal summer. Flocks of fat doves circled

the summit. Migrating silverwings streamed past, headed sunward.

Llenor was not on Aphrodite proper, but on Cythera, a separate pinnacle that

served as a port for Aphrodite. She and the Prinzess LisaMarie were barred from

the peak. Not because the ship was forfeit, and she was wanted for terrorism,

murder, assault, sabotage, mayhem, escaping detention -- and now hijacking the

Archipelago Packet. But because all armed vessels were barred from the Mountain

of Love.

It was just as well. Aphrodite was absorbed in a ten-day ritual. Revelers

scampered over the green slopes, searching out sacred mushrooms and screwing

under the sun. Llenor was hardly in the mood.

And there was work to do. The Prinzess was refitting, taking on water ballast,

preparing to challenge the Storm Belt, and cross the Great Reach. There was

nowhere for her crew to go now except sunward, to the Subsolar Plateau. Putting

themselves beyond the reach of Settler Law.

Amanda was going with them -- having added aiding and abetting to going AWOL.

She stood watching as Llenor personally put the final touch on the Prinzess's

refit. Using her adhesive boots, Llenor climbed up and painted over the "z" in

Prinzess, replacing it with a "c." So it read Princess Lisa-Marie.

Amanda smiled at the forbidden spelling. "It is bad enough having to turn

outlaw, without telling the whole world."

Llenor climbed down to stand beside Amanda, getting a better look at her

handiwork. Pleased by the illegal English spelling, she told Amanda, "That's

what I want to do. I want to tell the world."