Sister Alice

One

“I found myself daydreaming, remembering my childhood as a wonderful time clothed in simple fun and sweet easy victories…I was reveling in how perfectly carefree my first taste of life had been…and that was the moment when my instincts first warned me, whispering in my countless ears that our work had gone seriously, tragically wrong…”

—Alice’s testimony

XO TOLD THEIRsquad this was a lousy place to build and their fort was sick with flaws, and the Blues were sure to crush them, and, of course, every disaster would be Ravleen’s fault. He said it with his best whiny voice, making it impossible to ignore his grousing. She had no choice but to come over, interrupting their drills to tell Xo to quit. But he wouldn’t quit. He laughed in her face, and said, “You’re no general.” Ord heard him plainly. Everyone heard him. Ravleen had no choice but to knock him off his feet and give him a good sharp kick. Xo was a Gold, and she was their Sanchex, the Gold’s eternal general. She had every right to punish him, aiming for his belly and ribs. But Xo refused to cooperate. He started cursing, bright poisonous words hanging in the air. “You’re not Sanchex,” he grunted. “You’re just a Sanchex face stuffed full of shit, and I’m not scared of you.” Ravleen moved to his face, breaking his nose and cheekbones, the skin splitting and blood spattering on the new snow. Everyone watched. Ord stood nearby, watching their snow melt into the blood, each diluting the other. He saw Xo’s face become a gooey mess, and he heard the boy’s voice finally fall away into a sloppy wet laugh.

Tule stepped up, saying, “If you hurt him too much, he won’t be able to hurt anyone else.”

Ravleen paused, panting from her hard work. Tule was right. Their general dropped her foot and pushed her long black hair out of her eyes, grinning now, making sure everyone could see her confidence. Then she knelt, making a ball out of the bloody snow, asking, “Who wants to help this shit home?”

Tule was closest, but she despised Xo. She didn’t approve of disobedience; it was her endless duty to keep their clan working smoothly, bowing to every one of Ravleen’s demands.

On the other hand, Ord was passingly sympathetic. Xo wasn’t his best friend, but he was a reliable companion. Besides, for the time being they belonged to the same squad. A soldier had a duty to his squad, and that’s why Ord stepped up, saying, “I’ll take him.”

“Then come straight back,” Ravleen added.

He gave a nod, and asked Xo, “Can you stand?”

The bloody face said, “Maybe.” A gloved hand reached for him, and Ord thought of the battered ribs as he lifted. But the tortured groans were too much; Xo had a fondness for theater. “Thanks,” he muttered, then he reached into his mouth, pulling out a slick white incisor and tossing it at the half-built fort. With a softping , the tooth struck one of the robots and vanished.

They walked slowly, crossing the long pasture before climbing into the dark winter woods. Xo stopped at the first tree, leaning against it and carefully spitting out a glob of dark blood. Ord worked to be patient. The tree’s rough bark formed words, and he spent the moment reading about the Chamberlain role in some long-ago treaty. Then he stared back down at the pasture, watching the robots strip it of snow, building their fort according to Ravleen’s exacting designs. A simple titanium pole, topped with a limp golden flag, stood in the future courtyard. Tiny figures wearing clean white snowsuits were drilling again—six squads honing themselves for snowfare. It looked like an easy pasture to defend. On three sides, it fell away, cliffs and nearly vertical woods protecting the fort. The only easy approach was from here, from above. Ravleen was assuming that the Blues would do what was easy, which was why the nearest wall had the thickest foundation. “Keep your strong to their strong,” was an old Sanchex motto. But what if Xo was right? What if their general was leaving the other walls too weak?

“I can’t walk very fast,” Xo warned. His swollen face was inhuman, ruined flesh and bits of bone floating in a masticated stew. But the bleeding had stopped, scabs forming, and the smallest cuts beginning to heal. Speaking with a faint lisp, Xo admitted, “I sound funny now.”

“You should have left your tooth in,” Ord countered. Gums preferred to repair teeth, not replace them. “Or you might have kept your mouth shut in the first place.”

Xo gave a little laugh.

Something moved in the distance. Ord squinted, seeing an airship carrying sightseers. The distant sun glittered against the ship’s body, and he imagined curious eyes watching only him.

“Let’s go,” he urged. “I’m tired of standing.”

They walked on a narrow trail, their pace more leisurely than slow. Snow began to fall, and the woods were already knee deep in old snow. They weren’t far from the lowlands, and sometimes, particularly on clear days, city sounds would rise up from that hot flat country, forcing their way through the acoustic fence. But not today. The snow helped enforce the silence. To step and not hear his own footfall made Ord a little anxious. He was alert, as if ready for an ambush. The war wouldn’t start until the day after tomorrow, but he was anticipating it. He was ready. Unless the fight had made him anxious, which meant that he was distracted and sloppy.

“Know why I did it?” asked Xo.

Ord said nothing.

“Know why I pissed her off?”

“Why?”

The battered face grinned, Xo proud of the gap in his teeth. “I don’t have to play this war now.”

“Ravleen’s not that angry,” Ord countered. “She isn’t even half-enough pissed to ban you.”

“But I’m hurt. Look!”

“So?” Ord refused to act impressed. Glancing over a shoulder, he observed, “You’re walking and talking. Not talking fast and your words are dumb, but still, you’re not that hurt.”

But Xo’s Family—the great Nuyens—were ridiculously cautious. A sister might see his suffering and order him to remain home for a few days. It wouldn’t be the first time, particularly if Xo moaned like he did now, telling Ord, “I don’t want to play snowfare.”

“Why not?”

Wincing, Xo pretended to ache. But by now a cocktail of anesthesias was working, and both of them knew it.

“If you can stand, you can fight,” Ord reminded him. “When you became Gold, you took a pledge to serve—”

“Wait.” The boy waded into the deepest snow, heading for an outcropping of cultured granite. He found a block of bright pink stone and carried it back, dropping it at Ord’s feet. “Do me a favor?”

“No.”

“But not too hard. Just nick me here.” He touched his stubby black hair. “I’ll pay you back sometime. That’s a promise.”

Ord lifted the stone without conviction.

“Make it ugly,” the boy prompted.

Ord shook his head, saying, “First you’ve got to tell me why you don’t want to fight. Is it Ravleen?”

“I don’t care about Ravleen.”

“Tell me the truth, or I won’t help you.”

With his white gloves, the boy touched his scabbed and unnaturally rounded face. “Because it’s stupid.”

“What’s stupid?”

“This game. This whole snowfare silliness.”

Calling it a “game” was taboo. Snowfare was a serious exercise that taught you to give orders and obey orders and think well for yourself when there was nobody there but you.

“We’re too old to play,” his friend persisted. “I know I am.”

This wasn’t about Ravleen, which left Ord with no easy, clear rebuke. He asked, “What will you do instead?” He assumed there was some other diversion waiting for Xo. Perhaps a trip somewhere. Not off the estates, of course. That wasn’t permitted, not at their age. But maybe one of Xo’s siblings wanted to take him on a hunt, or somehow else share time with him.

But the boy said, “Nothing. I’m just going to sit at home and study.” He paused for a moment. “Put the pointed end here, okay? Drop it next to this ear. And I promise, I’ll tell my sisters that Ravleen did it.”

Ord watched the boy lie on the hard white trail, his face cocked a little bit to his right. He was waiting calmly for his skull to be shattered. The stone couldn’t hurt him too badly. Eons ago, humans gave up their soft brains for better ones built of tough, nearly immortal substances. The worst Ord could manage would be to scramble some of the neural connections, making Xo forgetful and clumsy for the next few days. The body might even die, but nothing more. Nothing less than a nuclear fire could kill them. Which was the same for almost every human being today.

“Are you going to help me?” the boy whined.

Ord watched the hopeful face, judging distance and mass, deciding what would make the ugliest, most spectacular wound. But he kept thinking back to Xo’s comment about being too old, knowing he was right. Some trusted spark for the game had slipped away unnoticed, and that bothered the boy.

“Ord?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you hurry up?”

He let the stone slip free of his grip, and the earth pulled it down with a smooth perfection, missing Xo’s head by nothing.

“No, I shouldn’t,” Ord said. “I won’t, forget it.”

“Be that way!” The boy lifted the stone himself, groaning as he took aim, trying to summon the courage to finish the job. He was invulnerable, but so were his ancient instincts. This was not easy. His arms shook, then collapsed. The attempt looked like a half accident—a slick wetthud —and his head was left dented on one side. But not badly enough, they discovered. Xo could stand by himself, a little dizzy, but still on his feet. He touched his wounds one after another, telling himself, “At least I’ll get tomorrow to myself.” He wasn’t looking at Ord, and he was talking to himself. “This is good enough,” he claimed with a soft wet voice that instantly got lost in the muting whisper of falling snow.

Two

“In the universe, there is just the one ultimate law: Life always devises some ultimate means to put an end to life.”

—Alice’s testimony

THERE WERE EXACTLYone thousand Families.

Nothing about their existence had come easily. Not their laws, not their restrictions, and not even their numbers. Ten million years ago, with the Great Wars still raging, an alliance of desperate leaders met on a frigid, barely named world. Everyone who traveled there, enemies and friends alike, agreed about one vital issue: Without substantial, immediate change, the human species would soon be extinct. Populations were collapsing in every district; entire worlds were being reduced to dust and crumbled bones. Moreover, if the wars continued to spread, every other flavor of life in the galaxy would be battered, and many species would cease to be.

It was that atmosphere of terror and unalloyed despair that brought out the unsuspected genius in mere people. Suddenly the unthinkable was obvious, the impossible appeared easy, and the coldest, most bloodless bureaucrat found himself speaking in verse and dreaming in brilliant color. A war-weary prime minister sketched out the roughest imaginable plan for the future. With a quavering voice, she described the Families, giving them that inadequate name because she didn’t have time or inclination to think of any better title. The Families would begin with a few carefully selected individuals, she explained. Each of those few would be given every imaginable power. A kind of godhood would be set on their shoulders, and because they had to be good ethical people, they would have no choice but to fill the role of worthy gods, helping normal citizens and old prime ministers steer a worthy course through the coming eons.

But how many people deserved such an honor? And how would they be chosen? And how many of these Families would be required to serve this pitiful humanity?

The prime ministers and presidents and even the scruffiest little despot had brought powerful quantum computers with them. Each asked his or her machine for its opinion, and after careful deliberation based on nearly infinite factors, plus a hard stare into the imaginable future, the machines blessed the outrageous plan. But they couldn’t agree on any single perfect number of Families. There were too many variables, they confessed. The future was vast and unknowable and imperfect and probably malicious. It was left to the human minds to arrive at a target goal, and after a heartbeat’s pause, some little voice in back cried out, “How about a flat thousand? It’s a simple, memorable number, and it gives us a lot of them, but not so many that they’ll be getting underfoot…you know, so they won’t seem cheap…?”

ORD WAS AChamberlain.

Probably no Family was known by more or wielded more power. Near the center of the sprawling estate, perched on a broad scenic peak, stood a great round building, tall and massive, built from the cultured granite with a shell of tailored white corals living on its exterior. It was the Chamberlains’ ancestral home. The interior, both above ground and below, was a maze of rooms and curling hallways, simple laboratories and assorted social arenas. There were enough apartments for fifteen hundred brothers and sisters, should so many ever wish to come home at once. And there were other fabulous buildings scattered about the property—elegant cottages and ancient hunting lodges and baby mansions built from the rarest or most modern of materials. The entire Chamberlain family could reunite on this one patch of holy ground, if there would ever be the need.

But it was the simple cylindrical house that embodied the Chamberlain legacy and legend. Humans throughout the galaxy would see the image of it, and they would think about Ord’s family—how they helped the Sanchexes win the Great Wars, and afterward, the Chamberlains and Nuyens were instrumental in building the institutions and customs and laws and muscular organizations that had brought about the Ten-Million-Year Peace. Success brought wealth, and wealth gave new opportunities. The Chamberlains turned their vast energies on the stars. They explored the farthest reaches of the Milky Way, and farther, finding the bones of lost species and making first contact with hundreds of important alien species. And afterward, for these last long eons, it had been the Chamberlains who had mastered the rapid terraforming of empty worlds. Age and disease had been conquered, and death rates were vanishingly small, leaving an endless demand for new homes, and novel homes, and lovely places for which aliens and humans both would pay substantial fees, particularly for inspired work done on schedule.

Ord knew enough of his Family history to fill volumes, and he knew nothing. What he had mastered was a speck compared to the true history. He knew the Great Wars were fought with savagery, billions murdered, and the Earth itself left battered. But the Peace had endured for a hundred thousand centuries, and throughout, the Families had given it backbone and the occasional guiding touch. Ord himself was a whisper of a child, not even fifty years old. His powers as a Chamberlain lay in the remote future. Imaging himself in a million years, he saw a semigod who was busily building green worlds at the Core, or perhaps flying off to some far galaxy, exploring its wilderness while making new allies. But the actual changes between today and tomorrow were mysterious to him. His mind and energies would swell, but how would that feel to him? His senses would multiply, and time itself would slow to where seconds became months. But what would such an existence be like? He had asked the brothers and sisters who lived with him. He had worn them down with his inquiries. Yet not one could ever offer a clear, compelling, or even halfway believable answer.

“You’re too young to understand,” they would profess, their voices distant and bored. Even a little shrill. “Just wait and see,” they would recommend. “Patience. Try patience. You’ll learn when you’re ready, and that isn’t now.”

But Ord sensed the truth. Like him, his siblings had no idea what the future held. Like all reasonable questions, his were completely unoriginal. And the Chamberlains that he saw day by day—siblings younger than a single millennium—felt as if they were trapped inside the same proverbial spacecraft, adrift and lost and a little bit scared.

Three

“When I lived here, when I was every kind of child, the mountains were new. The estates were new. Our mansions were modest but comfortable homes meant for modest and deserving gods, and the Families were utterly victorious…while the galaxy at our feet seemed vast and nearly empty, full of endless and intoxicating potentials…”

—Alice’s testimony

THE FORT WASfinished by midafternoon that next day, exactly on schedule, and after it passed the standard inspection for volume and materials, the clan celebrated, walking up to the tube station together, arms linked and everyone singing ancient Gold songs in a well-practiced chorus.

It was a brief ride home for Ord. He was deposited at the base of the long yard, looking up at an expanse of smart snows and shaggy blue-green trees. A dozen giant bears came charging between the trees, their broad faces smiling and their bellowing voices calling out, “Him, it is…him, him…it is…!” Each bear had to be scratched behind the ears. There was no room for debate. Then all of them repaid Ord’s affection, putting his head into their mouths, holding him carefully while a rumbling purr moved through his bones.

Done with that duty, Ord jogged up to the house, entering through one of its smaller doorways. Over the door hung a thick granite slab. “PRIDE AND SACRIFICE,” said the ageless letters engraved into that exceedingly pink stone. He touched the words with his right hand, always. The gesture was a habit, almost a reflex. Then he ran to the first stairwell and rode up to his floor and sprinted to his apartment, finding a pair of mothering robots waiting for him. They were at least as smothering as the bears. They asked about his day and his accomplishments. Was there enough snow? “Plenty,” he allowed; it had fallen all night. Good for forts, was it? “Perfect,” he told them, removing his warm snowsuit. “Good wet stupid snow.” The pasture was close to the lowlands, and that gave it a milder climate. “We built a strong fort,” he boasted. “We broke three presses, squeezing the snow down to glacial ice, nearly. So it could be the best ever…”

The robots paused, saying nothing where they might have said, “We’re so glad to hear it.”

Ord hesitated, alert to the silence.

“Lyman just asked to see you,” said synchronized voices.

Lyman was the oldest brother living in the house.He wants to see me? Ord assumed that something was wrong. And he would have been in trouble, if he had bashed Xo with that rock…but he was innocent, and nothing else remarkable had happened during the last few days. “What does Lyman want?”

“We’re curious, too,” they replied, ruby eyes winking. “You’re supposed to go to his apartment as soon as you are clean and dressed.”

Ord looked outside. His longest wall faced east, and it was set to show what he would see if there was an old-fashioned window in place of the granite. Somewhere below, hidden in the gathering darkness, was his new fort. On clear nights he watched the glow of the cities, wondering about the people living beneath the mountains. Everyone on Earth was rich to some degree; space was too crowded and far too expensive for those without means. But only the Families could afford having winters, putting their trees and lakes to sleep. These weren’t mountains so much as enormous sculptures, and like any artwork, they were not meant to produce meaningful food; nor had they ever housed more than a very few people.

“Lyman sounds impatient,” the robots warned.

Ord nodded and ran through his bath, then dressed and left. His brother lived several stories above him. He had visited enough to know the way, and enough to hesitate at the door. Lyman liked to entertain girlfriends; caution was required. Ord announced his presence, and the door opened instantly, a distant voice telling him, “Wait out there. I’m almost done.”

It was Ord’s voice, only deeper. Older. Lyman had a larger apartment complete with several universal walls and a vast bed, plus a swimming pool as big as a pond. There were flourishes meant to sayLyman but always felt moreChamberlain than anything. Chamberlains liked mementos. Where Ord would have displayed his collection of alien fossils, his brother had set up small light-statues of the girlfriends—women of every variation, uniformly disrobed. The girlish faces smiled at Ord, showing him how pleased they were to stand before him. One of the universal walls was activated. A live feed showed some banded gas giant, each moon encased in a warm atmosphere, the nearest moon blued by an ocean. Had a Chamberlain built that ocean? It was likely. Lyman was training to become an apprentice terraformer. Once he was declared an adult, probably in less than a century, he would embark on his first assignment. Something easy, no doubt. Probably work on some little comet between the stars, most likely for a semiwealthy client who wanted a vacation home—

“How’s your war?” asked Lyman, striding out of the bath, his loose-fitting trousers shrinking to a more fashionable size. “Done with your fort?”

Ord muttered, “Yes.”

“Any more fights?”

Was he referring to Xo and Ravleen? Or maybe Lyman was trying to tease him, making fun of this silly kid’s game. Either way, Ord guessed that his brother knew every answer, that he had already received updates from the robots and the estate’s sentries. “No fights,” Ord reported. “Not until tomorrow morning, at least.”

But Lyman was only pretending to listen. He started to speak, aiming to make another little joke, but then paused, his pale pink mouth hanging open for a long moment.

Ord waited, feet fidgeting.

“Do you know where I was this morning?”

“Where?”

“Antarctica.” Lyman liked to tease his little brother, reminding him that one of them could travel at will across the Earth. No farther, but still, it seemed like an enormous freedom.

“What were you doing there?” asked Ord.

“Having fun, naturally.” Lyman tried to smile, scratching his bare belly. Taller than Ord, he had old-fashioned adult proportions, his body hairy and strong with an appropriate unfancy penis dangling inside his trousers. Red hair grew to his shoulders. Like Ord, he had the telltale Chamberlain face, sharp features and pale, freckled skin and brilliant blue eyes. Their sisters were feminized, with breasts and estrogens and such; physical forms were standardized, and they were eternal, every Family built around its immortal norm, every norm patterned after its founder and ultimate parent.

Lyman stood in front of his brother, sighed, and asked, “Do you know why I came home? Have you heard?”

Ord shook his head, his breath quickening. What happened that would demand that Lyman abandon his fun?

“Listen.”

But then his brother said nothing, his mouth left open and the blue eyes gazing at the blue moon on the wall.

Finally, Ord asked, “What is it?”

“In the next few days…soon, although I don’t know when…we’ll have a guest here. Are you listening? You need to wear your best behavior.”

“Who’s visiting?”

Lyman seemed troubled, or at least deeply puzzled, pursing his lips and shaking his head. “One of our sisters is dropping by.”

Sisters came and went all of the time.

“An old sister,” Lyman added.

Every sister was older than Ord, and so was every brother.

Then Lyman grinned, as if realizing just how mysterious this must sound. “A very old, much-honored adult. She is.”

Ord glanced at the universal wall, and the image changed. A small dull sun was setting over a glassy sea. An ammonia sea, perhaps. He found himself dealing with this news by distancing himself, working on the peaceful dynamics of that other world as if it was one of his tutor’s lessons.

“You’re not listening,” Lyman warned him.

“You’re barely talking,” Ord replied. Then he blinked, asking, “How old is she?”

“Her name is Alice.”

Alice—

“She’s our Twelve.” The words were incredible to both of them. Lyman repeated himself, saying, “Yes. Twelve.”

Ord was stunned, closing his hands into fists and using them to drum on his thighs. “Why would she come here?”

“We received her message this morning…deeply coded…and everyone’s excited, of course…”

Ord nodded. “But why—?”

“A Twelve is coming.” Lyman was astonished, but his smile seemed nearly joyless. “I looked up when the last Fifty or higher came for a visit. Our Forty-Two touched down for less than sixteen seconds, and that was nearly twenty-eight thousand years ago. A handshake visit, she called it.” He paused, rubbing at the stiff red hairs on his chest. “But Alice wants to linger. She’s requested the penthouse and given no departure time. Even though she’ll be bored in a nanosecond, she claims that she wants to live here. Here.” He pointed at the white-coral ceiling. “Here.”

This was landmark news. Ord imagined telling the other Golds. Tonight? No, tomorrow. On the eve of combat. It would give him a sudden importance, a renewed worthiness. Even Ravleen would be impressed, and jealous, and he felt himself beginning to smile, imagining that sweet moment.

“There’s more,” Lyman said, anticipating him. “This news is secret. Alice made it explicitly clear—”

Secret?

“And I’m giving you fair warning. You won’t tell anyone. Not friends, and not even enemies. This is Chamberlain business, and what does that mean?”

“It’s private.”

“It belongs to us. Nobody else, Ord.”

The boy offered a weak, confused nod.

“No other Family can know that she is here.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s what she wants.”

“But why visit us? And why stay—?”

“Why not?” Lyman interrupted. Then his face grew puzzled again. “I honestly don’t know why. Nobody seems to know where she’s been. But I’m sure she’ll explain, if it’s important.”

A Twelve. Among Chamberlains, only five siblings were older than Alice. The rest had died long ago. And of those surviving five, two were currently bound for Andromeda as part of a cultural exchange. By contrast, Ord possessed a five-digit designation, as did Lyman and everyone else living here. Ord could never live long enough or become famous enough for his arrival to stun anyone. “Twenty-Four Four-Eleven is on his way. Behave, children!” Ord nearly laughed at the preposterous image. If he lived a billion years—a possibility, in theory—and if he did many wondrous things, then yes, he might just generate the kind of excitement that he felt now. Maybe.

“We don’t even know where she’s been,” Lyman repeated. “We’ve asked and asked, but the walls won’t tell us.”

The famous Alice: She had been born after the Wars, in those first years of the Peace. She was an explorer and a pioneer at the high art of terraforming, and her techniques in building living worlds were still the standard, and her name didn’t even need “Chamberlain” attached to it. Alice was famous enough in her own right.

“Not a hint to anyone. All right, little brother?”

Ord said, “Yes,” with a soft, disappointed whisper.

Lyman made fists and drummed at his thighs, saying, “I bet it’s nothing. Here and gone in two seconds, she’ll be.”

The universal wall changed again, showing a ringed gas giant. World-sized continents built of hyperfoams floated in its atmosphere, linked together like chains, the winds carrying them with a dancer’s precision. Where was this place? Terraforming on that scale required time and great wealth, and there probably weren’t ten thousand worlds like that in the galaxy. Ten thousand was nothing. Shutting his eyes, he knew that Alice had built it. Lyman had asked the wall to show him her work; and like his brother, Ord could only marvel at her skills.

Why would she come here?

Why bother?

And why would any enormous, wondrous soul want her presence to be kept secret…?

Four

“Consider this. Our Families have never been wealthier, our reach never so great, yet in the same moment, we have never been so weak. Our portion of humanity’s worth has shriveled throughout the Peace, which is exactly as it was planned. We are pledged to reproduce slowly. We patiently clone archaic bodies, then in measured stages fit them with the latest talents. But while we’ve kept a monopoly on many talents, other peoples and the aliens and even the machine intelligences grow in abundance each day, in numbers and wealth and in their capacity for accomplishment…their insectlike tenacity gradually winning the Peace, which, of course, is precisely why they agreed to it in the first place…”

—Alice’s testimony

THEIR FORT WASgenuinely beautiful, tall and with a blue-iced skeleton draped with a heavy white flesh left behind by last night’s snow. Yesterday, after the last drills and before the official inspection, everyone had added some touch of his or her own. Except for Xo, that is. Decorating the parapets were snow fists and starship prows and big-eyed skulls. Ord had fashioned a snarling wail-hail on his portion of the wall—a fierce beast with spiked wings extended forward, its curved white teeth glowing in the early light. He was standing behind his wail-hail, on the broad rampart, his squad flanking him and everyone at attention. Ravleen was speaking, her voice coming through headphones embedded in their golden face masks. “From now on,” she promised, “our enemies, these awful Blues, are going to suffer every flavor of misery. We’ll beat them once and again, and we’ll beat them so badly that a million years from now, they’ll still ache from what we’ve done to their miserable bodies today.”

It was a famous quote, the “every flavor of misery” line. An old Sanchex general had uttered it on the eve of victory, and Ravleen made a point of repeating it every year or two. She and Tule were sitting inside the thick-walled keep set at the back of the courtyard, watching the countryside with hidden watchdogs. Ord knew how much she wanted to win. The war’s losers would make medals for the winners—the standard rule—and nobody would treasure her disk of iridium and diamond more than Ravleen. Some said that the Ten-Million-Year Peace had only tempered her Family. Without question, when the Golds grew too old to play war, nobody would miss the games more than Ravleen. Shutting his eyes, Ord almost felt sorry for her…then he let his mind drift back to the topic that had kept him sleepless all night…

“What are you thinking?” asked Xo. Save for a few golden bruises, his face had healed. He was proud that he healed so easily, and he showed his wounds to Ord before putting his mask back on. “You look like you’re thinking hard,” Xo observed. “So what’s in your head?”

That his sister was coming.Alice. My Twelve. The words surfaced in his consciousness, begging to be spoken. But the news was still secret. Last night and twice this morning, he had promised Lyman to say nothing. And maybe this was a wise restriction, he sensed. Alice had no genuine reason to come here. None at all. And he would look horribly foolish if he ever told his enormous story, and then it turned out to be untrue.

“I wish we’d start,” Xo groused, forgetting his question. “Waiting is boring.”

Last night, following a long tense dinner with a dozen brothers and sisters, Ord returned to his apartment and requested a slender biography of their great sister. Then he read pages and watched holos until well past midnight, trying to absorb some fraction of her enormous life. But it was an impossible undertaking. The history of the Earth seemed simple by comparison, and in so many ways, trivial. Alice had been everywhere, and everything that her great hands touched had been saved, or improved, or, at the very least, appreciated in some new way.

“I’m bored,” Xo repeated.

As if she heard him, Ravleen interrupted their long wait. “Enemies in the woods,” she called out. “On the west. On the move.”

Three squads were stationed on the strong west wall, including Ord’s unit. Saying nothing, they stared up into the leafless black woods, waiting for any motion, a delicious hint of drama riding in the wind.

“Mortars,” Ravleen cried out. “Firing!”

Whump-whump. The Blues had a pair of mortars, cell-powered and air-driven, their size and range dictated by ancient rules. Everyone dropped to their knees, hugging the parapet, and a pair of heavy snowballs fell into the courtyard, bucket-sized and hitting no one. But they were only meant to judge range and the wind. The next rounds did the damage, someone crying out, “Heat,” as a crimson sphere struck behind Xo. A chemical goo broke free of its envelope, activated by the air and melting the ice beneath it. A thick red cancer was spreading. Ord and Xo jumped up, using shovels to fling the worst of the goo below, then they used last night’s snow, making a fast, sloppy patch.

It was fast and fun, and everyone, including Xo, seemed to enjoy themselves.

“Return fire,” Ravleen ordered.

Their own mortars were loaded, aligned by hand and guesswork.Whump, whump. Whump, whump . They fired only snow, harassing their invisible enemy. And then half a dozen Golds shouted, “Look!” just before the Blues broke from the woods above.

“Guns on the shoulders,” said their general.

Ord had an old snowgun—a favorite. Untold numbers of sisters and brothers had carried it before him. The old carbon stock was worn smooth, but the over-and-under barrels were perfectly aligned with the simple laser sight. A potent compressor built up a cylinder of angry gas, and a slug of dense milky ice was made inside each barrel, each round as big as a healthy thumb and spinning for accuracy, able to hit someone in the teeth at forty meters.

“Ready,” Ravleen whispered into Ord’s ears.

He looked over the wail-hail’s right wing, snow-colored figures with deep blue face masks charging across the fresh snow. A practiced scream grew louder as they closed the gap. There were two dozen soldiers, including the eight who were quickly rolling cannons into position…and where were the others…?

“On my command,” Ravleen roared. “Cannons…fire…!”

Thunk-thunk-thunk. Three cannons were set on the west wall, a fourth held in reserve. Big fat rounds followed golden laser beams, snow striking snow. The Blues were zigzagging, a thin line of them charging. Fifty meters, then forty. Then thirty, and Ravleen said, “At will. Fire.”

Just like in the drills, Ord’s squad rose together, aiming and squeezing off double shots. Flecks of laser light danced over their targets. It sounded like the popping of fat beetles, the air filled with white streaks flying both ways. Ord selected his target and hit it in the belly, then the face, then missed when it ducked and danced sideways. But he anticipated the next move, leading and firing and the double shots smacking the face between the eyes, snapping the head back, leaving the Blue sprawled out on the snow.

“Reload,” said his gun. He dropped and opened the stock, shoving in handfuls of fresh wet ammunition. Then the lone squad on the east wall was shouting and firing. Not only were there two attacks, but Ravleen hadn’t seen the other troops marshaling. “Squad Aspire,” she shouted. “Change walls. Support the east. Now.”

The Blues must have disabled the watchdogs on the east. With a fair trick? Every war had its strict rules—so much snow per fort, so much heat allowed the attackers, and a finite number of crude machines to keep the mayhem shackled. Squad Bash—Ord’s squad—had to spread out and cover for Aspire. He would fire and drop, then come up somewhere else along the rampart. Someone’s lucky shot caught him in the face, a warm thread of blood making the eye blink and water. He ducked again and wiped the wound with a sleeve, then moved and rose again. But now the Blues were in retreat, their attack always meant to harass and nothing more. Their cannons fired at the sky, sacks of red heat streaking high and plunging into the east wall, bursting with a sickly thud and gnawing away at the thin barrier of cold blue ice.

Ravleen pulled Squad Carnage next. She had no choice. They had to make repairs while Bash was left alone on the west wall, six soldiers fighting more than a dozen. And, of course, the Blues attacked again, in tight formation, pushing right up under the massive wall. Squad Bash closed ranks and fired down at them. A heat grenade lodged in the wail-hail’s mouth, and the fierce head collapsed into mush. Then the Blues started teasing them, shouting, “You’re next, you’re lost, you’re dead!”

Ord dropped and reloaded, moved and rose again, and the Blues happened to guess right. When he rose, every gun was fastened on him, blue sparkles half-blinding him and the double shots already on their way. He had no time to react. The entire salvo caught his face and throat; and what startled everyone, Golds and Blues alike, was how he managed to stay on his feet, bloodied and stunned but undeniably upright.

The Blues fired again, in unison.

That second salvo lifted Ord off the rampart, snapping his head back, and he fell into the courtyard, landing on his back in a pool of greasy red heat, bruised and sore and suddenly tired enough to sleep, and blind with all the blood burning in his eyes.

Five

“Why did we attempt such a thing? The simple, single-word explanation is ‘greed.’ The two-word clarification adds ‘charity,’ because wasn’t this for your good as well as ours? The third word is ‘arrogance,’ I would propose. And the fourth, without question, is ‘stupidity’…”

—Alice’s testimony

ORD REMEMBERED WHENhis blood tasted salty. Now it was sweet, in taste and in odor reminding him of overly ripe oranges. His biochemistry was changing, new genes awakening, his body progressively tougher and faster, and faster to heal. He had been able to fight again by afternoon, and by dusk he felt almost normal, picking at the hard scabs as he slipped into the house. As always, he touched the PRIDE AND SACRIFICE emblem on his way to the stairs. But after a few more steps, something caused him to pause—something subtle to the brink of imperceptible—Ord standing on the balls of his feet while listening, hearing what wasn’t exactly a sound emerging from an adjacent hallway.

He changed direction, suddenly aware of his heartbeat.

The old house had been built in stages, like in any coral reef, one layer set on top of the last. The oldest rooms were in the deepest interior. The original mansion was long abandoned—a five-story structure not particularly grand even in its day—and Ord knew that he had reached it when the floor changed to natural stone, cold and dirty white. Lights woke for him. House robots had carefully maintained every surface, yet the place felt old, tired and a little frail. Ord touched the simple brick walls, new mortars blending with the old but nothing else changed, and with senses half-born, he felt thousands of centuries focused squarely on him, barely allowing him to breathe.

A central staircase led up to dozens of sealed doorways. Ord had brought his friends here, just once, showing off the Chamberlains’ humble beginnings. Next to the staircase was a heavy door, always sealed and a little mysterious. Not even Lyman had permission or the means to open it. But today, for no apparent reason, the door was ajar. No, Ord realized, it was missing. He stepped closer, blinked, and hesitated. Ancient hinges dangled in the very dark air. It was as if the great door had been stolen, or erased, and he couldn’t guess why.

Ord did nothing. The room beyond was dim and vague, dust floating with a graceful ease. He heard a sound, a faint dry click, but couldn’t guess its direction. “Hello?” His voice was weak, practically useless. The room seemed to swallow his noise, then him, his snowboots falling silent on the old rotted carpet and his face caressed by a sudden deep chill. He was inside the room before he made any conscious decision to take the chance. He told himself,I shouldn’t be here. He thought,I’ll leave. Now. But the promise seemed as good as the deed, and Ord walked on, following a straight, certain line.

It wasn’t a large room, even in its day. A round wall stood on his left, the tighter curve of the staircase on his right, and both walls were buried behind cabinets and framed paintings and various decorations that made no sense to him, their styles and logic long extinct. The place felt like a storage closet, not a room where people would gather. Despite careful treatment, the relics were degrading, wood eaten by patient fungi, paintings faded and flaking. A faint yellow lamp came to life, illuminating an enormous portrait. Ord paused, glancing at the face, then at the plaque beneath, the subject’s name etched into a piece of greenish metal.

“Yes, he’s our father.”

The voice didn’t startle him. It came wrapped in a calmness that soothed and nourished him. Removing one thin glove, Ord touched the name,Ian Chamberlain written in the dead man’s neat, circumspect script. It was nearly identical to Ord’s handwriting…the same smooth curves, the same even spacings…and he felt a sudden deep reverence for the man. Ian was shown posing before the original mansion, the building and the man both blurred by the tired paints. Ord had seen Ian countless times, in holos and interactive fictions; but here, quite suddenly, he felt close to the man, and nervous, his mouth turning small and dry. This was their father, their One. Ord shivered, and he smiled, and the voice said, “Look at me,” with a mild, flat tone that couldn’t startle anyone.

It was his sister’s voice—every sister’s voice—yet it was wrong, reaching deeper than simple sound could manage.

“I’m standing behind you,” he heard, and he turned, discovering a woman in the middle of the room, smiling at him. Her face was the same as any sister’s face, only rounder. She wore a body that was a little fat, wrinkles crowded around the eyes and a softness to the flesh, pudgy hands trying to straighten the shoulders of her simple dark blouse. She took a step toward him, and Ord felt a tingling sensation, smelling ozone. Achieve a certain age, he knew, and you ceased to be merely tough meat and an enduring mind. Succeed at being an adult for tens of thousands of years, and your Family would teach you how to use new energies, plasmas and shadowy flavors of matter. Eventually you were built of things more unseen than seen, the prosaic nonsense of sweet blood and slow neurons left for only the most special occasions.

“Look at you,” she whispered, a dry hand touching Ord on the cheek. “Do you know how perfectly perfect you look?”

“You’re the Twelve,” he sputtered.

She gave an odd little laugh.

Ord managed a clumsy sideways step. Could she be anyone else? It seemed preposterous to think that a Twelve would speak to him. Was she a younger sister, perhaps some assistant to their Twelve? Or an empty facsimile carved from light and dust, set in this room where it could be safely out of the way?

“My name is Alice,” she warned. “Not Twelve. And you? You must be the baby. You have to be Ord.”

He offered a very slight nod.

Curiosity and a mild empathy showed on the smiling face. Alice touched him again, on the other cheek, saying, “There. All gone.”

His scabs had dissolved, bruises absorbed.

She laughed without making noise, tilting her head as if to look at him from a new vantage point. Invisible hands passed through his flesh, studying him from within; then she was saying, “I used to enjoy a good snowball fight. Isn’t that remarkable to think?”

It seemed unlikely, yes.

“Quite the fort you have.” She closed her eyes, a wisp of red hair dangling over her chalky forehead. “Not elaborate, no. But sturdy. A good solid structure, for being made of nothing but water.”

“Can you see the fort?”

“Easily.” She opened her eyes, smiling as she added, “You fought on the west wall, near the middle—”

“Did you watch me?”

“I can tell from the bootprints and the blood. There’s a thousand obvious clues, and I can reenact the entire struggle for my own eyes, yes.” Then she announced, “This is yours,” and held up his snowgun.

Surprise slipped into nervous guilt. They weren’t supposed to remove equipment from the battlefield. Ord watched while Alice went through the motions of a careful examination, placing her right eye to the end of the upper barrel and tugging on the trigger. He grimaced. But nothing happened, and she seemed amused by his response, smiling at him, her soft voice saying, “My, my. I didn’t have such fancy toys when I was a girl.”

The gun wasn’t fancy, but he didn’t correct her.

“I am jealous,” she assured him.

That was a remarkable thing to hear. A Twelve envying him? Because of a toy gun? “How are my Radiant Golds?”

Radiant?

“What kind of war game is it?”

“A forty-hour scenario,” he reported. “Heavy snows and the Golds defend a place of their choice—”

“Against the Electric Blues,” she interjected.

Ord swallowed, then said, “They have to capture our flag.”

She kept smiling, and something about Alice made him feel happy, as if she couldn’t contain her own joy, and it was flowing into him, sweetening his mood. She shut her eyes again, savoring the instant. “Here.” She handed him the weapon. “I don’t mean to leave you defenseless.”

“I can’t have it…not here…”

“Pardon me?”

Ord swallowed, then used a careful, certain voice. “I leave my gun wherever I was standing. Where I was when we quit for the day.”

“Marking your position. How reasonable.”

The gun vanished from his grip, fingertips tingling for an instant.

“I am sorry. I didn’t know.” Yet she sounded more amused than sorry. Turning, she did a slow stately walk around the room, absorbing all of it with her eyes and perhaps other senses. Fine china plates were collapsing into dust. An ornamental sword was speckled with corrosion. Countless twists of dust had gathered on a pair of historic fusion batteries, hiding them under soft gray mounds. A quantum computer’s infinity-drive had fallen to the floor when its mag-coupling failed, leaving it separated from the thinking world, and by now, probably insane. But what captured Alice’s attention was inside the adjacent cabinet. A crystal sphere had broken in two—that seemed to amuse her—and she opened the door and picked up the larger piece, explaining, “In my day, we threw our snowballs. We made them with our hands and threw them, and I wasn’t particularly good at it. The sexes differed too much in ability, and I had a girl’s arm.” The crystal depicted the Earth as it was ten million years ago. Carefully, she set Asia and the Pacific back where they belonged, then turned and stared at the ceiling for a long while. “That pasture you’re defending? I fought for it once. I can recall…well, everything. It was a one-day war, and my shoulder was sore afterward. Because I didn’t have much of an arm, I suppose.” She paused, then looked at him. “Do the Swords still exist?”

“They’re the Silvers,” Ord replied. There were twenty clans, twenty colors, and fifty children in each clan. He had to ask, “Were you a Gold?”

“One of the first, and worst.”

Ord imagined this woman running in the snow, attacking a cowering line of Silvers. In the early Peace, childhoods were quick and simple. A person became a full adult in just a century, and then was she given a new body and mind, endowed with the powers necessary to handle the Family’s responsibilities. Slow growth, like Ord’s, allowed for quality. Patience allowed a more perfect maturity. He had been told that many times, and he believed it, yet part of him envied Alice, thinking how she had to be a child for just a few winters.

“And who’s your general?”

“Ravleen.”

“A Sanchex. Am I right?”

Ord nodded.

“Mere crystal grows tired and shatters,” she said. “But some things are too resilient. If you see my point.” Alice gave a satisfied nod, then added, “I would love to hear everything. Soon. It’s been too long since I last visited…and took in the pleasures of this lovely old house…”

Her voice fell away, as if she was hunting for the best words.

Then she said, “Pleasures,” again.

“Why are you here?” Ord heard himself blurt the question, then too late, he added a respectful, “Alice.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. Stepping past him, she lifted her hands to touch the old portrait. With means powerful and obscure, she rearranged the molecules in the tired paints, re-creating the image of their father’s face and body, then altering the artist’s original work. A rope of glass fibers dangled from the dead man’s chest. Through those fibers he would have controlled a multitude of primitive machines, his body linked to whatever warship or world he was residing on at that moment. Few humans used these systems anymore. No Family member bothered with them. But Ord recalled that exposing the glass rope, whether in public or in a portrait, would have been rude, even vile. After the Wars, and for a very long time, it was one of the Chamberlains’ most important duties—keeping their powers tactfully and gracefully out of sight.

“What do you think, little brother?”

He stepped close and studied the portrait. The cylindrical white house and green lawn were unchanged, as if out of focus. That vagueness made Ian all the more real, set against an exhausted background. Ord stared at the face—ageless and wise; the seminal patriarch—and he noticed a quality in its expression. It was as if the artist had told the great man to smile, and he had done his best, but inside him was some massive, deeply felt sadness that no mere face could hide away.

Ord was uneasy. Restoration was noble work, but what Alice had done was vandalism. The past always should be respected; yet she had plainly twisted that work of art, making it into something else entirely. Self-righteousness left him bold, and he asked again, “Why are you here?”

Alice appeared composed, giving him a watery grin, while asking in turn, “Why can’t I come here?” Then she looked at their father, a thin colorless voice saying, “When she wants, a person should be able to visit her home.”

He had no simple, quick response.

“Desire,” she said, “is reason enough, little brother.”

And when he next glanced at the portrait, she vanished. He found himself standing alone, standing in a dark little room where he didn’t belong, the air suddenly frigid and his blood-caked snowsuit warming itself and him in response, his breath visible, rising up into the weak yellow light like thin puffs of tepid steam.

Six

“Alone, I have renovated more than ninety thousand major worlds, satisfying the widest array of clients. Perhaps a trillion sentient souls live in nests assembled by these hands. But my finest work lurks in those secret places that I build for myself, from nothing. On occasion, I’ll invent some unique biology and hide it away inside dust clouds or faraway globular clusters. And yes, these are very questionable acts, legally and ethically. I know that perfectly well. But a terraformer always dabbles in such work, and I don’t mean just the bored Chamberlains. The multitudes do their work in drawers and under their mattresses. And not just the thrill of the forbidden lures us. It’s the hiding that is intoxicating. It is the enticement of having something unique and entirely our own…and we must keep it secret…and really, isn’t that the best way to protect whatever you cherish…?”

—Alice’s testimony

ORD RODE THEstairs up to his apartment, telling no one what had happened. Tonight the house felt exceptionally empty. He assumed that his siblings were with Alice, treating her to some ceremonial party, and there were probably many good reasons not to include their youngest brother. Snow was falling again, he noticed. Eating alone, Ord studied the day’s lessons without actually concentrating. Poetry and mathematics seemed all too ordinary, and he eventually set them aside, ordering his universal wall to show him more of Alice’s worlds. Light-velocity feeds were piped to him; a new vista offered itself every few minutes. He let his pajamas dress him, and he sat on his bed, in the near darkness, nothing to watch but a numbing series of fabulous images streaming from the ends of the galaxy.

Alice’s worlds were always rich with life. More than most terraformed bodies, they were productive and robust, and interesting, and in ways that he could only dimly perceive, inspired. Sometimes Ord asked to see who lived there, and he was shown city scenes and upto-the-second census figures. Like him, the people were built of ordinary matter. Like him, they had limited talents laid on top of an open-ended life span. Barring the spectacular accident, they might live forever. Yet unlike Ord—unlike any member of the Families—they could manipulate their human forms. Instead of enlarging themselves with trickery, they bent themselves with genetic tailoring, adapting to odd niches or simply embellishing those physical traits that most pleased them. It was a basic feature of the Peace; different sects were given different strengths. Wandering past Ord was the multitude of humanity: tall bodies and tiny ones, people with golden fur or elephant noses or dragonfly wings or outrageous sexual organs. On older, more crowded planets, it was best to make everyone physically small and split them into a carefully structured array of species. The Earth itself was home to several hundred thousand distinct forms of humanity, every foodstuff and every waste product metabolized by someone. Brother Lyman had a passion for the strangest local ladies. He brought them to the mansion now and again. Once, mostly by accident, Ord had walked in on him and a girlfriend, at the very worst moment. An embarrassing, instructive lesson, it still made the boy blush twenty years later: Eyes closed, Ord could see that finned beauty in the swimming pool, floating on her back with fins billowing and deep-sea eyes blinded by the soft lights, and his brother naked beside her, struggling for a handhold, absolutely unaware of the gawk-jawed intruder staring from the doorway.

The Peace was built on rules. The Families began with old-fashioned bodies, and no profession was theirs alone. Yet they remained the best terraformers, commanding respect and the highest salaries. Ordinary humans and teams of AIs couldn’t build with the relentless beauty that Alice achieved, even on her smallest project. What’s more, she worked for aliens. Methane seas; nitrogen seas; or water seas scorched by hard radiations—she was equally comfortable in every biology. She worked on vast scales, too. A brown dwarf appeared on Ord’s wall, partly encased in some kind of scaffolding. Densely packed stars implied that this was a globular cluster. Or was it the Milky Way’s core? Whatever the project, the work was only partially completed, and Ord knew just enough about the mechanics and scale of the undertaking to appreciate just how absolutely little he knew. When he saw Alice next, he would compliment her on this work.If I see her, he cautioned himself, lying back in bed, letting the sheets crawl up over him.

But he didn’t sleep. Tired eyes had barely closed when a brother called to him, asking, “Did you tell? Anyone?”

Lyman was standing in the open door, his long hair and broad shoulders set against the light of the hallway.

“Tell them what?” Ord teased.

“About our sister,” Lyman muttered, painfully nervous.

Ord shook his head. “I didn’t, no. No one.”

“I was just making sure.” He drifted into the room, trying to smile while staring at the universal wall.

“Does she like the penthouse?”

Lyman blinked and remarked, “She isn’t here yet. But she won’t like it. I’m sure she won’t.”

The boy felt something. A caress, perhaps. Or his own adrenaline, or whatever stimulant was saturating his growing body. His fatigue had evaporated in a moment, his mouth hanging open but his voice stolen away.

Lyman noticed his odd expression, blinked, and stepped back.

“I saw her,” Ord whispered.

“Where?”

Ord closed his mouth, summoning courage.

“Where did you see her?” Lyman came to the foot of the bed, suggesting, “It might have been another sister.”

“She said she was Alice.” Then he told the story, describing the missing door and the room full of relics, and Alice, and how she had easily managed some odd tricks. Would he get into trouble for entering the room? Or was the worst crime not telling Lyman about it afterward? “I thought you already knew she was here,” Ord claimed. Then he asked, “Why hasn’t she told you that she’s here?”

His brother leaned against the bed, mouth open and his eyes empty. And around both of them lay a ghostly sense of amusement, thick enough to taste, and sweet.

“Where is she, Lyman?”

The older brother merely shook his head, never saying what was obvious.She’s here now…with us now…

Seven

“It isn’t the most original idea, but it always captivates…that notion that our dear Earth was someone’s secret garden, built long ago and soon lost, and all of us are merely its lucky sons and happy little daughters…”

—Alice’s testimony

THE SKIES WEREclear by morning. Dumb snows and smart made the land look soft and new. The Sanchex mansion—a great gray pyramid—covered the tallest peak to the north. Ord was half-dressed, watching the sunrise while eating his breakfast. Lyman returned to his room, announcing, “Someone is living inside the penthouse. We’re mostly sure now.”

Ord didn’t know what to say.

“For some good reason, she doesn’t want to respond to us. Yet.” Lyman shook his head with an easy gravity. “Just the same, keep her presence secret. Understood?”

Of course he did. But Ord went through the ritual of promising silence.

“Do what’s normal,” his brother insisted. “Act as if everything couldn’t be more ordinary.”

Ord imagined his siblings crowding around the penthouse door, asking if Alice was inside. And Lyman, fighting his nervousness, merely nodded to himself, saying, “Isn’t it…a lovely day…?”

THE ENEMY WASentrenched east and west of the fort, their main force clinging to the cliff face, using ropes and narrow wooden platforms. The Golds knew that much because Ravleen cheated, asking the Families’ security net for help. Scans proved that the Blues hadn’t broken any major rules. They had used accepted methods to blind and move, nothing but determined work responsible for their early success. It was frustrating for Ravleen, her foes near enough to touch and completely out of reach. Hugging the cliff, they couldn’t be bombarded. They were free to gather, then rise en masse, flinging heat grenades and enduring a few good shots but always escaping before they were truly hurt.

Ravleen and Tule abandoned the keep. Separately, they strode along the ramparts, giving orders with sharp, worried voices. “You two,” said Ravleen, pointing at Xo and Ord. “Take that cannon and harass theirs.” The Blues continued to fire from the high ground, sending heat into the east wall. “And don’t look at me with those eyes,” she growled.

“What eyes?” Xo countered.

She glared at him, breathing loudly.

“Go away,” Xo whined. “We’ll smack them, don’t worry.”

Except Xo didn’t work with conviction. Ord found himself loading the breech and aiming the long plastic barrel. Xo was content to fire the cannon, and when they missed—normal enough at this range, aiming uphill—Xo would shake his head and say, “Higher.” Or he would state something else obvious. Ord tried to ignore him, knowing how Xo could be full of himself. Anger just made it worse. Then Xo declared, “I’m tired of winter. I hate this snow.”

But winter had just begun, thought Ord. And with a hard jerk, he pulled on the wire cord, a strong dullwhump sending a white streak up to a point just short of its target, a pair of happy Blues waving at them from behind their gun.

“Too bad.” Xo’s mask showed only his eyes and mouth, each of them grinning. “Aim higher, why don’t you?”

Better to cut the snow instead. Ord knelt and counted handfuls, trying to decide what was perfect. Their next shot was closer still, and Xo, who hadn’t been paying attention, remarked, “See? It’s better this time.”

It was a brilliant day, and lovely. In the quiet moments, they could hear the city on the lowlands—horns and bells and a suggestive gray murmur that could be a billion voices whispering—and Ord remembered when he crept down to the estate’s boundary, hiding in the deepest grass, watching ordinary people moving through their lives. His universal wall would give closer, more intimate views; but sitting on the edge of that other world, knowing he could, if he wished, walk straight into it…well, that was a different type of watching, and intoxicating…

Chimes rang in the distance, very softly, and Ord wished he didn’t have to be here.

The sunshine felt hot, and he broke a big rule in a small way. Rolling up his mask, Ord massaged the wet face with wet snow. Xo saw him, and asked, “What happened to your scabs?”

Ord pulled the mask back into place.

“It looks like you weren’t even hit yesterday.”

“I slept a lot.” Ord couldn’t invent a better excuse.

“Sleep did that?”

No, Alice did…and suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He had pushed her aside all day; but now he found himself wondering what she was doing, and did she like the penthouse, and would he see her again? “I wasn’t hit that badly,” he offered, hoping to deflect suspicions.

But Xo didn’t care. His mind had already shifted again, his voice too loud when he announced, “Oh, she’s a good general in the open. Good enough. But not with this stand-and-fight shit, she isn’t.”

Teasing Ravleen was a better game. More dangerous, too.

“If I were her,” Xo claimed, “I’d send out a couple squads. I’d assault the cannons right now—”

“And lose the squads when they counterattacked,” said Ord.

“If we don’t do something,” the boy maintained, “we’re going to be dead here. Dead.”

Ord ignored him, aiming again, forcing himself to concentrate. The icy slug had an imprecise size and density, plus an imperfectly smooth surface. His tutor loved to explain how the universe was a tangle of simple suppositions and principles woven together in chaotic ways. Nonlinear mathematics helped navigate through the chaos, but only to a degree. Ord barely understood them…yet he had a sudden premonition, numbers and intricate symbols converging into a smooth, highly polished answer that made his hands lift, the right hand grasping the wire cord and hesitating…wait, wait…now…

He tugged at the cord with a careful, perfect strength.

The slug was in flight, traveling on a neat arc, when one of the Blues pulled on his wire, firing at the worst possible moment.

Ord’s slug hit the barrel’s mouth, plugging it; hot compressed air caused the breech to shatter, some old flaw exposed, steel-colored plastic shards driven backward into a boy’s arm and face. He collapsed, limp and bloodied. A cheer rose from the rest of Squad Bash. Even Xo was impressed enough to say, “I can’t believe it.” Everyone took a break from the fighting to run over and watch while the unconscious body and the ruined cannon were dragged away. It was a sterling moment, and ugly, one less Blue to fight now. Ord tried to be thrilled, but instead he felt sorry. A few days would heal the boy, and no lasting harm had been done, but all those fine reasons didn’t seem to have much weight behind them.

“You got a lucky shot,” said his morose companion.

But it wasn’t luck. Ord was certain.

And one shot wasn’t the entire war.

The east wall continued to be hammered through the day. When it was time to quit, the hard ice had turned red and rotten. The Golds had fifteen minutes to make repairs, in peace. But they wasted most of that time. Someone approached Ravleen, telling her what Xo had been saying about her. She marched over to him, asking, “How would you like to be banished? Is that what you want?”

“If you were any kind of Sanchex,” Xo countered, “I’d fight and keep quiet.”

Ravleen wasn’t wearing her mask. She had a sharp face that could be pretty, if she wished. Right now her features looked ugly and hard. Ord decided to step between them, trying to defuse things. But the best he could offer was, “We should work together—”

“Quiet,” Ravleen warned him.

Then Xo said, “A real Sanchex would have won the war by now—”

Ravleen swung with her right arm and shoulder.

Ord pushed her back. But then she swung again, aiming at him, and the bony fist caught him on the temple. Yet he stayed on his feet. He shook his head, the world blurring for an instant. Then Ravleen was past him, pinning Xo against the soggy red wall, punching him with a blind rage…and Ord grabbed her forearm, giving it a quick little twist.

The tough bone failed, making a sharpcrack as it split.

Ravleen collapsed to the ground, her arm useless and its shoulder dislocated. With a tight, furious voice, she said, “Wait.” She looked only at Ord, saying, “Banishment’s too easy.”

She said, “You wait. You’ll see…!”

Eight

“My closest childhood friend was a little Vondalush boy. He belonged to my clan, which meant that we often played together, and he genuinely adored me. If I were cynical, I would suggest that his older siblings encouraged his love and devotion for me. His Family was a robustly mediocre bunch—Vondalushes have always been that way—while Chamberlains plainly had nothing but greatness waiting in their immortal futures. Everyone knew it, and the poor boy was part of some painfully obvious scheme, his Family hoping that our little War and Peace games would seal some deep and eternal bond.

“I was barely ten centuries old when I saw him for the final time. Afterward, I missed the boy when I bothered to think of him. We spoke often—the Milky Way practically glows with all the messages relentlessly racing between the likes of him and me—but every attempt at a rendezvous was a failure. I had pressing business; that was my usual excuse. And then, after another half million years, my childhood friend was dead.

“It was an accident. He belonged to a team working with a millisecond pulsar, trying to create an enormous power plant…and by every fragmentary account, his death was heroic and swift and tragic and painless.

“After hearing the news, I sought out the first available Vondalush boy, and for several thousand years, he was my protégé. I gave his Family lucrative work and weighty responsibilities. And then my mood for charity found new directions, and I left the boy, letting all the Vondalushes fall back into their noble, godly obscurity…”

—Alice’s testimony

“YOU FOUND MYmessage, did you?”

“Oh, yes.” It was set on his desk, handwritten on the most ordinary parchment…or at least it had looked handwritten. “I came as fast as I could.”

“Alice.”

“Pardon?”

“Call me by my name, Ord. Please.”

He whispered, “Alice,” to himself.

“Have you ever been here?” She stepped back from the satin-crystal door, beckoning to him. “I mean the penthouse, of course. I redecorated today. What do you think?”

The penthouse was an enormous room with no apparent walls or ceiling. Ord had been here for special dinners, but the comfortable furniture and freestanding universal walls had been replaced, a jungle standing before him. The foliage was gray-green and thin, probably meant for a low-gravity environment. Ord took a step, discovering that he was lighter now. How did she manage it? Only expensive machines could dilute the Earth’s pull, and he was very much impressed with his sister’s skill.

“A quiet lad, isn’t he?”

Ord said, “Sorry.”

“Why? You had a busy day. You’re entitled to your silence.”

He looked at the ceiling, nothing to see but a deep, damp, blue-white sky. “What world is this?”

“A secret world.”

He didn’t understand. But before he could ask questions, Alice asked, “Are the others jealous? That only you received an invitation?”

Ord nodded. He had shown the note to Lyman—that was only right—and Lyman had sputtered, “What did you say to her?”

In plainer words:What makes you so special?

“You know, our brothers and sisters keep wandering up here.” Alice smiled at the leaf litter on the floor. Tonight she looked thinner, wearing a flowing gown, deeply blue and soothing. She showed Ord her smile, saying, “They’ve stopped asking me to open the door. But they come and stare at it all the same. In their lives, I doubt if they’ve ever felt so curious.”

Lyman had only looked tired and frazzled.

“And they’re rather pissed off, I think.”

The words were unexpected, as incredible as this little alien forest and the diluted gravity. That a Twelve would say “pissed off” seemed contrary to some law or principle. Straightening his back, Ord said, “I think they’re scared. I think.”

“Well,” said Alice, “isn’t that their right?”

It was a strange reply, but he managed to shrug and nod.

She touched his face, telling him, “You look well. You must have ducked at the right times.”

He dipped his face. “How much did you watch?”

“Every moment,” she reported happily.

“You…you did things…”

“Twice, and you’re welcome.” Alice played with her own hair. It was longer than last night, fuller and bright as fire. “I helped your aim, once, and I helped with the Sanchex girl.”

“Now she hates me.”

“Yet she will heal, won’t she?”

What could he say?

“Twenty centuries from now, she won’t think about what you did. Tragedy is perishable, little brother. Believe me. Ravleen will reach a point where these memories will elicit a smirk and little else.”

What mattered was tomorrow, not the remote future. Ord almost wished that Alice had never come here, or at least she had ignored him. At this moment, Ravleen was sitting in her mansion, dreaming up a thousand suitable revenges. She was an impossible, brutal tyrant—

“And yet,” his sister interjected, “she might grow into a courageous warrior, a glorious success, vital to the Families and to humanity.”

“Can you read my thoughts?” he asked.

“In limited ways. But then again, anyone can read another soul’s thoughts, within limits.” She offered a long laugh. “I feel sorry for Ravleen. Your house is very different from hers. Enormous pressures are bearing down on that little girl, which help explain why she is as she is.”

“She’s a monster,” Ord offered.

“Yet she will become a special Sanchex. She possesses that essential spark.”

“Does she?”

“Or I’m wrong, which can happen.” Alice shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps she’ll even disappoint me.”

Sanchexes loved dangerous work. Lacking wars, they kept busy by wrestling with stars, delaying novas close to populated worlds, and sometimes demolishing isolated suns, using titanic energies to create rare and expensive materials.

“Isn’t it odd?” Alice continued. “We begin as perfect copies of our parent, and then countless factors, tiny but irresistible, have their way with us. For good and for not.” She paused before adding, “Xo isn’t much of a Nuyen. Which may or may not be an insult, depending.”

Nuyens were talented governors and administrators. The Earth had them in high posts, serving as links between Families and the multitudes.

“I don’t like Xo,” Alice insisted. “I’ve met him a thousand times, and I have never trusted him.”

Ord hesitated, then asked, “What about me?”

“What about you?”

“What kind of Chamberlain will I make?”

“I learned ages ago, never predict what Chamberlains might do.” The smile seemed fragile. “Now come over here and sit. Rest, little brother.” She put a fond arm around him, reminding him, “I invited you to dinner, so let’s eat and enjoy ourselves. What do you think?”

THE MEAL WASexotic—an alien stew made edible by inverting its amino acids—and the sky darkened slowly, easing into a starless night. They sat on the twin stumps of dead trees that didn’t even exist yesterday. For now, the stage was Ord’s. Alice demanded stories of his snow wars and other adventures. He told her about canoeing mountain rivers and breeding bears, preferring them to other pets; and he described the arrow wars fought in the summer, face paints in lieu of masks but the same essential rules. And, of course, he had private games, bloodless fictional contests that he played against AIs. Were any of the Blues his friends? Alice asked. Not yet. He had met them, and of course he knew which face belonged to which Family. And some of the older Blues came to visit Lyman and the others—

“Why?” asked Alice.

Why what?

“Why do we build these careful antagonisms, passionate but essentially harmless? Ancient clans, elaborate rules…what’s the overriding purpose of this contrivance, Ord?”

His tutor claimed it was to teach cooperation.

“Cooperation,” she echoed. “That’s a key reason why the Families have thrived. But wouldn’t bridging one of your little rivers serve the same noble function?”

Lyman had a different explanation. He claimed that war games were like tails on embryos—vestiges of something not needed anymore.

“Sounds a little truer,” Alice replied.

Her face had grown empty. Did the topic bother her? Then why did she bring it up?

“Tell me, little brother. Why did we fight the Great Wars?”

There were thousands of would-be gods. They had embraced the new talents and tried to enslave humanity, and the Wars defeated them. Sanchexes and Chamberlains helped save the innocent multitudes, and in gratitude, they were allowed to keep their vast powers. They were given these lands, and, together, the Wars’ survivors fashioned the Peace.

“Noble images,” Alice conceded.

Ord had stopped eating, but he discovered that he couldn’t muster the will to push the half-empty bowl aside.

“Here’s the crux of it, little brother. Somewhere in its history, every technological species stands on the brink of godhood. Immortal citizens will be capable of building worlds, or obliterating them. How a species responds to that challenge…well, that’s what determines its fate, more often than not.”

The galaxy was littered with ancient civilizations torn apart by warfare. Sometimes Ord dreamed of sifting the rubble on some unmapped world, pulling out chunks of burnt bone and catching a glimpse of those lost souls.

“Our powers aren’t cheap,” said Alice, “and they’re never plentiful. When the Wars began, there were only a few hundred billion people. How many of them could be fitted with those new technologies? Only a few. And many of them were corrupt. Perhaps, as you say, evil. But then our species saved itself with a single wise deed. Ordinary people sought out the best thousand from their own ranks. Not the wisest or strongest, but those odd souls who’d be least corrupted by their new talents.”

The ideas were perfectly familiar, and Ord kept nodding.

“Ian Chamberlain was a thoroughly unimportant man until he was selected. A decidedly unsuccessful man, by most accounts.”

The boy looked at his bowl. A tiny bug with long lacy wings was helping itself to his gravy.

“How is your dinner?”

He said, “Fine.”

Alice nodded, saying, “The Families are pledged never to injure others, by act or by omission.”

It was a fundamental law, a set of memes rooting in Ord’s own mind.

“To you,” she said, “the Peace looks immortal. Everlasting. Isn’t that so, brother?”

He began to shrug.

“Yet ten million years is no span at all. You’d be amazed how brief it feels to me.”

Ord was tired of being amazed.

Alice rose to her feet. Before them lay a shallow pond, bony fishes, alien and primitive, swimming lazily over soft white alien mud. She watched their motions for a long while, or pretended to watch them. Then she told Ord, “Your brother is terrified of me. Of my presence here.”

Lyman?

“Did you know that he’s left the Earth?”

“He’s too young,” said Ord, a boy’s surety making his voice rise. “He isn’t allowed to go anywhere.”

“Yet he has. Many times.” She laughed gently and easily. Her blue gown was becoming muddy, a sticky white fringe building as she strolled around the pond. “He was on the Moon when I announced that I was coming home. Seducing women, no doubt. Being a Chamberlain has its relentless advantages.”

“Where else has he gone?”

“Around the solar system. Nothing too astonishing, don’t worry.” She paused. “Haven’t you slipped out of these old mountains? The sentries aren’t perfect. Nobody needs to know.”

“I haven’t.”

“But please tell me that you’ve been tempted.” She seemed disappointed, even hurt. “Haven’t you been tempted?”

Endless times, yes.

“Yet you obey the rules. How nice.” She knelt, cupping a hand and dipping it into the pond, then drinking it dry. “Lyman doesn’t obey, and that’s why he’s scared. I’m going to punish him or embarrass him. Somehow, this visit of mine will make his little indiscretions into something important.”

Again, Ord remembered the finned girl floating in Lyman’s clumsy grasp.

Standing again, Alice dried her hand with the gown.

After a long moment, Ord asked, “Where’s this world?”

“Inside a dust cloud. Hidden.”

“Is this where you were? Before you came home, I mean.”

She closed her hands into fists, sighed, and said, “Everyone wants to know where I was. What I was doing.”

Ord’s belly was aching, and not because of dinner.

“Tell them, brother. I was at the Core.” She paused, a smile beginning and failing. Her face seemed to wrestle with her mouth, a strange lost expression winning out. Then she said, “I came straight from the Core. Which was a very long journey, even for me.”

The oldest people in the Families didn’t require starships. They could convert themselves to nearly massless particles, then move at the brink of light-speed. Ord tried to imagine such an existence. To say something, to be involved in this conversation, he mentioned, “Lyman wants to work at the Core someday. As a terraformer.”

Tilting her head, Alice tried the same failed smile again. “A good Chamberlain goal, isn’t it?”

The Core was famous for black holes and dust clouds, plus billions of star systems left sterilized by explosions and intense radiation. Over the last millions of years, the Families had made the Core remarkably safe. Humans and aliens had room to expand, no legal claims held by any species.

“The Core,” Alice whispered, smiling at Ord, no light in her face and her words leaden. “It’s a lovely place. Too many stars for me to count, little brother.”

He doubted it.

She strolled over to him. Her bare feet left narrow prints in that strange white mud. With her damp hand, she held him beneath the jaw, blue eyes locked on his eyes, a cold voice telling him, “You could grow a tail. I could activate the old genes, and you’d grow one now. You still have that talent.”

“I don’t understand,” Ord whispered. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” She let go of him and turned away, her gown seeping a watery blue light as night fell. “Whatever I’m talking about, little brother, it isn’t tails. You can be certain of that.”

Nine

“While we’re on the subject, I might wish to plead guilty to the tiny crimes that come to mind. I stole toys in my youth, and many times since. And I have built unregistered, illegal worlds, as stated. Plus on numerous occasions, to help friends and accomplices, I have used improper means to alter elections and overthrow some ugly governments that nobody misses…”

—Alice’s testimony

“AND THEN WHAT?”

Ord took a deep breath. “We talked about tomorrow.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“About snowfare—”

“Nothing else about the Core?” Lyman was pacing, crossing and recrossing his apartment while Ord sat on the enormous bed, watching his agony. “Well, at least we know where she came from. If she’s telling the truth, that is.”

Why wouldn’t she?

“ ‘I’m not talking about tail.’ Is that what she said?”

Ord nodded. “Basically.”

“War.” His brother’s voice was soft. Ominous. “She was at the Core, and some kind of war has erupted.”

“I don’t think so.”

Lyman stopped and stared at him. “Why not?”

“It’s just a feeling.” He could offer nothing more, but hearing the words, his reasons sounded treacherously thin. “It’s not war. I’m pretty sure.”

Lyman’s girlfriends smiled at him from their perches.

“Alice gave me a plan,” Ord continued. “For tomorrow. It involves Ravleen—”

“But what else did she say about the Core?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

Ord shook his head, trying to appear certain.

Lyman picked up one of his tiny statues. The girl giggled and squirmed in his hand, then laughed quietly when he set her back down again. “You don’t know,” he began, softer than a whisper. Then he gasped and looked at the baby Chamberlain, admitting, “None of us understands what Alice can do. Her fantastic powers, her incredible reach. We live like fossils in this place. Old seashells set on a dusty shelf. All the children…we think we understand the universe, but we don’t. Shit, we don’t even hear rumors about her talents, that’s how secretive and fucking strange she is…”

Alice had spoken to Ord about snowfare.

“What you need to do is earn your redemption,” she had claimed. “Redemption with the Golds, and Ravleen, too. And here’s how do it, easily.”

Though to Ord, it seemed like a very complicated scheme.

Lyman moaned abruptly, throwing his arms into the air. “Something awful is happening,” he declared. “That’s obvious. That’s why she came home.” With both hands, he dragged the perspiration off his face. “It’s one of the aliens, or all of them. They’ve decided to fight us for the Core.”

But wouldn’t they have seen trouble on the universal walls? Ord couldn’t believe that anything that enormous would remain invisible, even to dusty old shells set on a back shelf.

“Whatever it is,” Lyman promised, “I’m going to make a general call. Every adult Chamberlain nearby…I’ll tell them…nothing…and beg for them to hurry home immediately…”

It wasn’t war; Ord was certain.

Then he remembered how their sister had said, “Redemption,” again and again. That enormous, invincible creature had stood in front of him, her bare feet and the blue gown soiled with the odd white mud, and she had assured him, “You have to be redeemed. It’s all my fault, but I can make everything better for you.”

Her thoughts shifted, and that moment’s face closed its eyes.

“Redemption,” she had muttered one last time.

It wasn’t a god’s face, or a god’s voice; and Ord had felt so very sorry for her, and for everyone.

Ten

“Our mountains have grown noticeably smaller. In ten million years, the patient gnawing of water and the weight of godly feet have done their erosive work, transforming tough granites into tough pink sands, while the crust beneath has gently slumped beneath their simple weight. It has been a cumulative collapse of several meters, obvious to my endless eyes…

“I was tempted to repair the damage. As we all know, with my proverbial finger, I could. I could lift the mountains back up where they began, if I wished…or yank them from the Earth and fling them into the sun…!”

—Alice’s testimony

RAVLEEN WORE Asimple cast and sling, wielding just one good shoulder and arm; yet somehow she seemed larger today, more dangerous—a brawny, fierce warrior marching in front of her assembled troops, black eyes screaming while her mouth said nothing. A light dry snow was falling. She paused for a moment and let herself smile, glancing at the simple gold flag hanging limp in the middle of the courtyard, and then up at the high gray clouds and the endless snow. “I need to know what’s happening,” she whispered. “I need a patrol. Two people. Volunteers.”

Ord glanced at Xo, then down at his own boots.

“Who wants to?” Ravleen continued. “Anyone?”

With a dramatic flair, Xo stepped forward.

“Good.” Their general’s smile brightened. “Now pick your partner.”

“Ord.”

“Wrong choice,” she responded. Then she pointed at Tule, saying, “My lieutenant is going with you.”

Tule leaked a confused moan.

“Three minutes and we start,” Ravleen warned. “Take radios and rations and drop over the south wall. I want reports. Find out what the Blues are doing. And harass them, always.”

Tule moaned again, then remembered that she was a good soldier. With a nod, she assured, “You can count on me.”

In a whisper, Xo told Ord, “I tried. Too bad you can’t come, it’ll be exciting out there.”

“I bet so.”

Xo watched him. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” Ord lied. “I just wish I was running with you.”

“Except you’re not,” Ravleen growled, storming up to deliver a hard punch in the shoulder. She bruised Ord, in warning, then said, “I want you here with me. I’ll keep you nice and close…!”

THEBLUES FIREDearly—-moments early, and just a single shot—the ice slug hitting a boy between his shoulders. Everyone yelled, “Violation!” But he was only stunned, little harm done. Ravleen said, “Positions,” and waved to her patrol toward the south wall. “Now. Do it.”

Tule and Xo dropped rope ladders, climbed over the wall, and started down. Tule was a Syssalis—a Family always small and slow to mature. Her leg caught when her ladder twisted. Xo hit the pasture first and broke into a sprint; and an instant later the Blues spotted him, voices screaming, their cannons turned and firing as their troops charged in from the east and the west.

“Run,” shouted Ravleen. “Pick up your feet, Tule. Go.”

Blue-faced targets hurried into range. Ord got off some good shots, and he wondered if Alice was helping his aim. But she had promised not to help, not in that way, and he missed often enough to believe it was all him.

Tule was hit and hit again, and she would fall and pick herself up and take a sloppy step before falling again. But Xo never slowed, never looked back. He sprinted into the deepest snow, and Ord saw him leap off the first cliff—a fair drop, but cushioned by the drifts below—with a pair of Blues on his trail, firing from the cliff before jumping after him.

Tule had fallen for good. The Blues surrounded her, giving her a few good kicks even when she cried out, “Give, give.”

Lowering his gun, Ord watched the battle with only the mildest interest. Poor Tule was picked up and carried away. The other Blues fired at the ramparts and retreated, happy to have their first prisoner. All this noise and wild energy meant nothing. Ord felt distant, indifferent. Suddenly he was thinking about Alice, and the Core; and sometimes, in secret, he whispered to his sister, certain that she was listening.

The bombardment resumed. Squad Bash manned the cannons until Ravleen replaced them with Squad Carnage. “From now on,” she announced, “you’ve got a new responsibility.”

Nobody spoke.

“Take the keep apart. Cut the ice into blocks.” With the heel of a boot, she etched her plan into the rampart’s ice. “Stack the blocks here. And here. And get that done this morning.”

One boy admitted, “We’d rather fight.”

Ravleen stared only at Ord. “Not for now. No.”

The squad bristled but said nothing.

With her hard cast, their general popped Ord in the head. “After that, I’ve got another lousy job for you,” she promised. “For the afternoon, and you’ll like it even less.”

XO ELUDED HISpursuers for a few hours, but they were faster, and the tracking was easy in the deep snow. In early afternoon, both prisoners were led to the pasture, gagged and blindfolded, then set in plain view under a tiny white flag. “You’re next,” the Blues called out in a practiced chorus. “We’ll melt that shitty fort and butcher every Gold inside!”

Tule was embarrassed. It showed in the slump of her shoulders and the slow sad shake of her head. But Xo stood tall beside her, undoubtedly inventing artful excuses to explain his capture.

A fresh assault began on the east, but Ord’s squad saw none of it. They were below, doing work meant for robots, hands cold despite their gloves and their backs aching from the hard cutting and dragging. Everyone said, “The big attack is tomorrow. Tomorrow.” There was excitement, and nervousness, but this was always just a game. They had used this reliable prattle for decades, and it was probably the same kind of noise that Alice had made when she was the same as them.

“Tomorrow,” the soldiers told each other.

But nobody spoke to Ord. They conspicuously ignored him, and he discovered that he didn’t particularly care. It was as if there were a traitor lurking inside him, and the traitor was announcing itself with, of all things, indifference.

“WHAT ARE YOUdoing here?”

“Waiting for you,” Ord replied. “How’s prison?”

Xo shrugged and removed his mask. “Tiny. Boring. Cold.”

“I’m sorry.” They were in the trees high above the pasture, walking on the main trail. From here the fort looked strong, tall and secretive, the rotting east wall showing only the faint beginnings of a slump. Ord had been the last to leave, lingering on the battlefield, waiting for Xo to appear. Alice had promised that the boy would come this way, out of habit and out of need. And he would come alone, since Tule would never walk with him. “How did they catch you?” Ord asked. “What went wrong?”

“Well, they cheated,” Xo said. “I was perfectly hidden, but they must have used illegal sensors. I’m sure of it.”

“We should report them,” said Ord. You went to your siblings when rules were broken. “I’ll go with you and help explain—”

“Later. Maybe.”

Ord nodded, saying nothing.

“How’s Ravleen? Still angry at you?”

Ord peeled off his mask, pointing to his bruises.

“I hate her,” Xo promised. “I wish you’d broken both arms, and her legs, too.”

“Maybe I will,” Ord allowed.

They walked on. Noise rose from the city—the musical scream of an important siren—then the light snowfall blotted it out, or the siren quit.

Xo said, “I wish we were done.”

“So do I.”

“They’ve stuck me in this prison box. It’s ridiculous.”

The boxes were cramped and soundproofed, but the heat bled out of them, helping to keep the prisoners miserable.

“I’m bored,” the boy complained.

Ord paused and looked at Xo, then he looked everywhere else. Then as Alice had told him to do, he mentioned, “We could be home by noon tomorrow. If you want.”

A hopeful little smile surfaced.

“Ravleen has a plan,” said Ord.

Xo saw what was happening. “That’s against the rules,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. “I’m a prisoner of war. You can’t tell me anything.”

They were close to the spot where Xo had begged to be struck by the careful stone. “We’re shoring up the east wall,” Ord mentioned. “We’re letting its rampart slump, but everything below is going to be strong again.”

“Where’s the ice from?”

“The keep. Except it doesn’t have enough snow, of course.” He paused before adding, “That’s why we’re robbing ice from the west wall, too. It’s got more than we need.” He drew a dramaticX on the boy’s chest. “Remember my wail-hail? The wall’s thinnest right under it.”

Xo wasn’t speaking, or breathing. This business was against every rule, and the wickedness was delicious. He smiled, then stopped smiling, as if someone might notice; and with a tight voice, he asked, “How thin is thin?”

“Like this.” Ord put up his hands.

“She’ll know I told. Ravleen will.”

“How can you be sure?” Ord countered. “If Ravleen says anything to Tule, then she’s the likely suspect.”

“But will the Blues believe me?”

“Maybe not, but they could find out if you’re right. And if your information’s good, there won’t enough time to cut a hole in the east wall anyway.”

The boy stepped back and looked around, shivering with a dramatic flair.

“Who knows?” he muttered. “Maybe I’ll crack. Maybe first thing in the morning, before they can even put me in that stupid box, I’ll crack.”

Eleven

“Boredom can shoulder some of the blame. What new challenges had we attacked during these last thousand millennia? And there was the genuine urge to accomplish something both spectacular and good. And most important was the idea itself. The goal. The ancient and perfect ideal. We were intoxicated with a golden notion. We were drunk and in love, the object of our affections infinitely beautiful and smiling charmingly at us…”

—Alice’s testimony

ASINGLE SETof stairs rose to the penthouse, traveling in a tight spiral, the stairwell itself decorated with an elaborate mural. Yesterday, Ord was too nervous to pay attention. Today, the mural seemed to force itself on him, showing him endless Chamberlains caught in the midst of historic and heroic acts. He saw worlds rebuilt, aliens embraced, and the far edges of the galaxy explored. His own motions caused the scenes to change, the artwork fluid and theoretically infinite. Riding on a single crystal step, his hand cradling the polished brass rail, Ord watched the most famous death in the Milky Way: His ultimate father, the great Ian, was sacrificing his life and eternity for the sake of a single starship. The tale always made him weak and teary, and proud. But seeing it now made him think how strange this was—all the trouble invested into building and maintaining a mural that was almost never seen.

He was deposited at the penthouse door. Touching the bright black door, he said, “It’s working. Just like you promised.”

The door dissolved, Alice standing before him.

“Your plan’s working,” he repeated, breathing in little gulps. “Did you watch me?”

“I saw enough.” Something was different. Worrisome, alarming. Alice wore a heavy dark robe; the room beyond was black, unbordered, and cold. But she did smile at him, telling him, “Thank you,” then, “I’m glad it’s going well,” with a mixture of pride and pleasure. She was staring at a point beside him, saying, “That Nuyen seems the fool. Don’t you agree?”

Ord felt uneasy, saying nothing.

“I would invite you inside,” she continued, “but this is not the best time. I am sorry.”

Her face seemed simple and worn down. If she’d had red eyes, he would have guessed that she had been crying. And perhaps she was crying, in a fashion. Ord kept reminding himself that very little of Alice was visible, and what he could see was exactly what she showed him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Her eyes tracked toward him, no other response offered.

Ord stepped back and dropped his gaze.

“I’m just distracted,” Alice explained. “And tired. My long journey has caught up with me.”

That sounded unlikely.

“Tomorrow,” she told him. “Once you’re done fighting, I want you to come tell me everything. I promise. There will be a celebration; we’ll enjoy your triumph.” She paused, then said, “Please stop worrying. It doesn’t do any good.”

He said, “I know,” without confidence.

Then, as the door began to re-form, she said, “Good night, little brother.” For an instant, it sounded as if she was crying. But of course someone like Alice might conjure any emotion and put on the appropriate face…sadness just another in an endless parade of Creations…

Pushing the thought aside, Ord turned and stepped back onto the waiting stair.

TWO ROBOTS FLOATEDin Ord’s apartment—security models, armor slathered over an array of muscles—and with gray voices, in unison, they said, “You’re wanted in the main arena. No, don’t change clothes. Go now.”

“Who’s there?” he stammered.

“Lyman, and the others.” The robots paused, probably waiting for a single voice to tell them what to say next. “Several hundred adults have arrived. They wish to speak with you.”

The main arena was underground, deep inside the Chamberlain mountain—a vast room with seating for twenty thousand, waxed granite and perfect wood covering the walls and arched ceiling. The brothers and sisters looked inconsequential with so much space around them. They sat in a block before the stage, and Ord had to wonder: Why here? Why not in a smaller meeting room? But this was as far from the penthouse as any place, which might be important. Were security baffles in use? From the stage, a single brother waved at him.Lyman. Sitting beside him was a sister, a giant figure, three meters tall and built out of light and conjured flesh. “Up here,” said Lyman. “We’re just getting started.”

Every step was work, every breath a labor.

“Ord?” said the giant sister. “My name is Vivian. Eleven Hundred and Twenty.”

Eleven-Twenty was nothing. He felt like telling her that he wasn’t impressed, that he knew their Twelve, and she was nothing beside Alice. And perhaps Vivian read his thoughts, taking his hand and squeezing, her flesh feeling like heated plastic, almost burning, as she said, “I’m glad to meet you.” Her presence was tangible, her energies making the air and wide stage vibrate. “Sit, if you would. Sit here and talk with us.”

A chair appeared between his brother and sister.

Lyman leaned close, and with a tight nervous voice said, “Relax.”

A couple hundred faces stared up at them. The oldest adults were giants wearing meeting robes and Chamberlain faces, both demanded by tradition. Vivian had the highest rank, it seemed. Now she leaned forward, telling Ord, “Our brother did what was right, you know. Perhaps he should have warned us sooner, but we appreciate the dilemma. Alice requested silence, and why shouldn’t he obey her wishes?”

“What do you want?” Ord whispered.

“Your help,” Vivian responded. “I understand that our sister likes you. For some reason, she has taken an interest in you. Not that she dislikes any of us, of course. But you’ve actually spoken to her—”

“Yes.”

“More than once, according to Lyman.”

“Just a few minutes ago.” His voice was soft and loud. He could barely hear himself, but the words were enlarged and flung across the arena. “Is Alice in trouble?”

“Why? Do you think she should be in trouble?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

Vivian made him notice her smile. Her face was incomplete, a patch of strange gray light on one side of her forehead. “She’s come from the Core. Is that what she told you? Ord? Do you hear me?”

He nodded. “Straight from there.”

“But has she told you why she was there? Anything at all?”

He didn’t like Vivian; he didn’t care for her tone. But this was important, and he took pains to say, “She came from there, she told me, and that’s all. That’s what I know.”

Lyman leaned close again, following some careful script. Ord realized he was here only to put their little brother at ease, prompting him when necessary. He might smile, but he was sick with worry and exhaustion. “She was at the Core,” he muttered. “We know that now. No doubts.”

“We are certain,” Vivian echoed.

“She was working on a special project,” Lyman continued. “With other Chamberlains and Sanchexes…representatives from nearly half of the Families, and no one younger than One Hundred and Three…”

“Doing what?” the boy asked.

Lyman shut his eyes, saying nothing.

Vivian told him, “It is a secret.” Her voice betrayed frustrations, yet she made herself laugh, as if that would defuse the tension. As if she could fool anyone. “I can’t know their secrets, little brother. Though we have good sources with solid evidence who claim that our old siblings are working on FTL travel.”

“It’s not possible,” Ord replied. “It’s been tried, but nothing goes faster than light.”

“Perhaps that’s true,” his sister offered. “Perhaps this is just someone’s careful story meant to fool any prying eyes.”

Ord felt himself sinking away.

“Eleven Chamberlains were at the Core,” Vivian continued. “To the best of our knowledge, ten of them remain. Only Alice has left. She arrived here less than three hours after the live feeds show her leaving. But why? And why are some of the other Families leaving the Core at the same expensive pace?” The giant woman paused, then said, “I don’t know the answers. But I have many questions that I would love to ask.”

Murmurs spread, then collapsed.

“Ten Chamberlains are left there?” But the Core was not a small place. Ord shook his head, asking, “Where is ‘there’?”

Everyone wanted to know. People whispered among themselves until Vivian lifted one of her enormous hands, commanding silence. Then she said, “They were working near the central black hole, inside its envelope of dust and plasmas. They have been there for several thousand years, it seems. Honestly, I don’t know what type of work they’re pursuing.”

Ord shifted his weight, hands wrestling with one another.

“Has she given you any hint of an explanation? Just in what she talks about, Ord…have there been any clues…?”

He whispered, “No.”

Then he asked, “Why can’t you ask her?”

She blinked and made a show of swallowing, then admitted, “Alice has set up barriers. A part of me is wrestling with them now, but she seems adamant in excluding everyone but you.”

Ord looked at the audience, reading the same lost, worried expressions. Even Vivian seemed like a little girl mystified by events, angered by her limitations and perhaps a little glad, too. She could do nothing of substance. No clear responsibilities could be set on her oversize shoulders. It seemed obvious to Ord…and suddenly he wondered if this was his insight, or if perhaps Alice had given to him.

“When will you see Alice again?”

Ord blinked, trying to remember.

Lyman appreciated his confusion, touching an arm while saying, “We need to go on with our ordinary lives. As well as we can, brother. We keep this secret, but if Alice has come here for a reason, and if she wishes to tell us anything, we need to listen.”

“Tomorrow,” he confessed. “I’ll see her then.”

“When you do,” Vivian instructed, “ask if she’ll speak with us. Will you do that for us?”

“That’s all we want,” said Lyman.

“Please,” said the ancient sister.

“Please,” said two hundred mouths, in unison, their whispers rising to the pink stone ceiling and echoing back down on them again.

Twelve

“Ian rarely spoke of the Wars. Except to mention them in passing, just to remind his children about the darkness of the human soul. I remember once marching home after a hard day’s play, and Ian noticed me crossing the grassy yard. He stopped me, and for no obvious reason launched into a long tale about finding our enemies hiding in some far-off solar system. They had built redoubts out of its stony worlds, and he explained how he had stopped on the fringes, grabbing up comets and accelerating them to near-light velocities…and with his eyes not quite looking into mine, he admitted that the largest redoubt gave its immediate and unconditional surrender…and with the softest voice I ever heard from him, he explained how it was too late. Nothing could stop the comets, and they pummeled the world until its crust melted, and millions died, and he wept at the end of his story, and shook, still ashamed of his cruelty while his audience—one enthralled little girl—kept thinking what an enormous, wonderful snowball fight that must have been…!”

—Alice’s testimony

IN EVERYTHING BUTname, the Golds won their war before noon.

The Electric Blues stuck to their old battle plan, troops charging the east wall while artillery fired from the west. But there was no final assault. When it seemed inevitable, there was a pause, a sudden and mysterious lull, then the sound of motion, troops scrambling over slick terrain to the south. There was little pretense of subterfuge. Ravleen and Ord stood together on the south wall, one of them smiling beneath her mask, perfectly satisfied with the world. The other wished he could feel relief, but there wasn’t any. Nor was there any sense of dread or foreboding, which was a constant surprise to him. It was as if Ord were empty, all the worry drained from him; sometimes he couldn’t even remember Alice or the Core, as if they had been carefully, thoroughly extracted from his mind.

Ravleen noticed his mood enough to ask, “What’s wrong?” She poked him with a finger, telling him, “You look sad. What are you thinking?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

But she didn’t press for answers, too happy to care. Today her cast was soft, without a sling; and with her bad arm, she hugged Ord, every Gold watching them and everyone surprised.

Alice had been right.

A Sanchex would do anything for a victory, provided you left her precious pride intact.

“Beg for forgiveness,” his sister had instructed. “Weep. Grovel. And tell her your plan between the weepy moments. Trust me, she’ll see its beauty. And then she’ll claim it as her own.”

For a deed that wasn’t his fault, Ord had apologized…and why didn’t his pride matter, too?

“It is happening,” Ravleen whispered.

She said, “They actually believe the little shit.”

Then she hugged Ord again, saying, “Fair is fair.” A wink and smile showed through the mask, and she purred, “When the time comes, Ord…I want you to stand next to me.”

THEBLUES ENTEREDthe pasture from the southwest, carrying their snowguns and heat grenades and finally showing their own flag, a blue rectangle flapping stiffly in the bright windy air. There was a pause as they gathered themselves, then they let out a roar, charging as cannons and mortars threw heat into the west wall. As promised, the ice beneath the half-melted wail-hail was treacherously thin. A squad of Blues surged through the sudden hole, excited and confident. There was moderate fire from above, plus some raucous cursing. The Golds seemed to be panicking. The first squad beckoned for others, and more than half of the Blues poured into the courtyard, marshaling and charging the flagpole, nothing between them and their goal but a crude little wall of fresh-cut ice.

There was a sound, wet and strong, and massive. Then came the sudden irresistible sense of something falling. A fat wedge of ice broke free of the west wall, slamming over the new hole exactly as Ravleen leaped to her feet, shouting; “Blood!”

It wasn’t a fight. Ord stood behind the new wall, firing without aiming, without heart. Four squads fired double shots at close range, knocking the enemy off their feet. Cannons were hidden behind little walls to the south and north, belching out fat slugs of ice that left their targets unconscious. Limbs were shattered. Face masks and the flesh beneath were split open, the sweet blood brilliant against the white surfaces. And even still the Blues mounted a final charge, desperation carrying them over the wall, one girl able to put her hands on the flagpole’s knotted rope before Ravleen shot her from behind, in the head, her body going limp and Ord watching her fall and lie still.

In a few days, everyone would be well again; every child would be ready to play again. Yet Ord felt sad enough to cry, watching Ravleen lead her troops across the courtyard, driving their enemies against the wall and abusing anyone with a hint of fight left in them. Then the prisoners were disarmed and tied together; and Ravleen launched an assault on the enemy cannons, capturing them and more prisoners and chasing the last few Blues into the snowy woods.

Ord stayed behind, guarding the prisoners. He sat on the trampled snow with his empty gun in his lap, and after a while he couldn’t hear the distant shouting. A flock of crows passed overhead, talking in their harsh little language. Ord watched the masked faces, thinking how the eyes seemed angry and a little afraid. But not much afraid, and even the anger seemed false. And it wasn’t just because this was merely a game. The prisoners were too young to know how to be genuinely angry or honestly scared. They were children. This was what made them children. Sitting there, thinking thoughts that weren’t entirely his own, Ord tried to imagine a world filled with danger; and he couldn’t. The part of him that was Ord looked at the battered fort and the prisoners and the clear bright sky, and for the first time in his life, he couldn’t believe that this quiet would last for all time.

Thirteen

“Something went wrong. In some obscure and critical way, we failed, and we knew it, and to our collective horror, we realized that we could do nothing…and even worse was how much time we had afterward—long black seconds of time—for us to dwell upon our failure…blaming one another, and Nature, the Almighty, and, in particular, those awful people who brought us forth into our miserable lives…!”

—Alice’s testimony

THE STAIRCASE WASfilled with brothers and sisters, half again as many as he had seen yesterday. The stairs were locked in place, no one moving but Ord, and he continued to climb toward the penthouse on tiring legs, no one speaking unless he was close, no voice louder than a whisper. “Be polite,” they advised. “Be observant.” The freckled, red-haired faces were grim and tired in many ways, and the climb seemed to take ages. Ord began to cry, wiping at his eyes with alternating sleeves. “Be strong,” the whispers demanded. Yet the faces seemed anything but strong, in stark contrast to the great and dead Chamberlains parading through the endless mural.

Lyman was the last face. Ord recognized the long hair and the prickly pride in the voice, his brother saying, “We’re proud of you, you know.”

Vivian emerged from the wall beside them, still preposterously tall, stepping out of the mural as if it were syrup, then bending until her giant face was near enough to kiss Ord. “Alice is waiting for you, I think. That much I can see, I think.” She paused, the gray patch on her forehead brightening. “Listen to everything she tells you, ask the best questions, and please remind her that we’d very much like to speak to her. Soon.”

Ord nodded, and breathed. “What’s happening in the Core? Do you know?”

Nobody spoke.

He looked at Vivian. “What can you see now?”

“Nothing new,” she lied. Appearing as winded as Ord felt, she sighed and placed a great hot hand on his back, shepherding him toward the crystal door. “Good luck, brother. I know you’ll do well.”

The doorway was in front of him, then it was behind him. Ord was standing in blackness, and he blinked and the blackness was washed away with starlight. In an instant, with a faint dry crackle, grass erupted from the twisting floor, growing tall and making seed. The air was filled with summer sounds and dampness. The stars were brilliant and colorful, and countless, separated by light-weeks, oftentimes less. At the sky’s zenith was an oval, velvety black and vague at its edges. This was the Core, plainly, and the oval was a giant shroud of armored, obedient gases, thrown like a blanket over the vast black hole about which the entire Milky Way turned.

The sky could be a live feed—

“Better than that,” said a voice, close and soft.

And he was standing on someone’s terraformed world. Ord knelt and broke off a stem of grass, putting it to his mouth, tasting the sour green juice. It was earthly life, and, as if to prove the point, a mosquito landed on his face and instantly bit him in the cheek, drawing blood before Ord smeared the bug and his own blood beneath his fingertips.

“Walk,” Alice instructed. “Straight on.”

The room was the flat crest of a hill presiding over a landscape too vast to be earthly. Traditional worlds were scarce in the Core, Ord recalled. The dense stars disrupted their birth, and those lucky few exceptions were usually stripped away by passing giants. But a sufficiently powerful entity, given time and the inspiration, could erect scaffolding around a sunless brown dwarf, harvesting its metals and its rich, untapped energies. Then she could erect a great dyson sphere far enough removed to give its surface an earthly gravity, and with oceans and air, a trillion people could walk alone on that glorious new world.

Ahead of him were people—his size, his proportions—sitting in the brilliant darkness, watching the sky. It was a peaceful scene, utterly familiar but lashed to an exotic place; and Ord paused, feeling afraid, his heart beating faster with every quick breath.

“Who are they?” he whispered.

Alice was silent.

“Hello?” he tried.

A boy turned, and said, “Hi. Who are you?”

Ord stepped close and offered his first name. The group repeated, “Ord,” as Alice whispered, “Sit. Join them.”

They weren’t people but instead facsimiles conjured up along with the grass and bugs. Below them was a city, a sprinkling of soft lights with darkness between. It was a pioneer community, not large, homes set in the middle of wide rich yards. Beyond the city was an expansive flat sea, and where the sea ended, a chain of hollow mountains rose like a wall out into space.

Faces smiled. The facsimiles weren’t too different from him, their heads narrow and their hair abundant and long, tied into intricate braids that leaked their own soft light. They were children of pioneers—the first generation born to this new world. Like Ord, they had tough brains and rapid powers of healing. Like him, they were just a few decades old, their lives stretching out into the infinite. But they could never leave their flesh, could only travel inside starships, and if they wanted to terraform any world larger than a comet, they would have to work in teams, as a multitude, relying on numbers in place of magnificence and genius.

And yet.

They would have children someday. Not clones, but unique, even radically different babies. They would marry and make families—institutions older than the Peace or any Chamberlain—and each child would be unlike any other creature walking on any of the millions of living worlds.

Ord felt envy, or Alice filled him with envy. He found himself thinking about the nearly thirty thousand light-years between these children and him, and before he could ever reach this world, it would be finished. The dyson would be finished and covered with cities, and the multitudes will have spilled onto a hundred other refitted dwarfs and jupiters…and neither he nor these children would ever be children again…

“Those are silly clothes,” the boy observed. “Why don’t you take them off?”

The snowsuit was damp with nervous sweat. Ord stripped to his underclothes, then sat with them on the warm bristly grass. Without prompting, the others introduced themselves, by name, the last girl saying, “Alice,” and then, “Chamberlain.”

She was dark as coal. “Chamberlain?” Ord echoed. “Is that your name?”

“Certainly,” she replied. “A lot of people are named after the Great Families.”

“You’re not from here,” a second girl observed. “Are you, Ord?”

“But that’s okay,” said the boy, acting like their leader. “We love meeting new people.”

Ord asked, “Why use the Chamberlain name?”

“In thanks,” the girl replied.

The boy said, “It’s the Chamberlains who help the suns behave. They stop crap from falling into the black holes. And we’re living on what they’ve built, which makes a person awfully grateful. Aren’t we grateful?”

His friends nodded in unison, with feeling.

“Who’s building this world?”

“Alice,” said Alice.

Another child said, “The real Alice,” and everyone giggled.

Then the boy added, “We help, of course.” His pride was thick and practiced. “We do all the important little jobs, of course.”

The false Alice looked nothing like Ord’s sister. Her face was as narrow as the blade of an ax, great blue-black eyes reflecting the starlight. Ord asked, “Have you ever seen the real Alice? Does she visit here?”

“Not much,” the girl snorted. “Why would she?”

“What do you think of her?”

“She’s a great person, and wonderful,” the boy reported, no room left for compromise. “Everyone knows that.”

“I pray for her,” this Alice confessed. “Every night, just before I sleep, I wish her nothing but the best.”

Everyone nodded. Conviction hung in the air, thick and warm.

“Where’s Alice now?”

Hands lifted, pointing to the cold black smear overhead.

“What’s she doing there?”

“Working,” said the boy. “With her brothers and sisters, and others. They’re doing important experiments in there.” He was thrilled to report, “They finally found a way to move faster than light.”

Everyone but Alice murmured in agreement.

“Soon,” the boy continued, “we’ll be able to go anywhere. The Families are going to set the entire universe at our feet.”

“No,” said Alice.

Faces turned.

She had a quiet, firm voice. “That’s not what they’re doing.”

The other children acted surprised, but no one had a rebuttal to offer.

“What they’ve been doing is more important. FTL is nothing. What they’ve done is a million times larger.” She suddenly had his sister’s face, round and pale, and surprisingly plain, and very young, too. Looking at Ord, she asked, “Why can’t everyone have Alice’s powers?”

“It’s a rule,” he responded.

“But why?”

He paused, thinking hard. “If everyone were the same as Alice—”

“There wouldn’t be room in the galaxy for all of us. There probably wouldn’t be any galaxy. Every Alice needs energy and space and fancy, difficult work to keep her mind occupied.” The real Alice took Ord by both hands, squeezing as she explained, “The Milky Way is too small a pasture. If we want to be like Alice, we need a lot more grass.”

Some of the children laughed.

Ord swallowed. “But if we could go anywhere in the universe—?”

“Everywhere that can have life, does. Every other place already has its Families and its multitudes, and there’s no room left for just one more Alice.” She shrugged, sadness showing in the gesture and on the childlike face. “One is enough, and a trillion would bankrupt the universe. Do you see?”

Ord nodded, glancing up at the black smear.

“Yet there’s something sweeter than FTL,” she promised. “Put enough energy into a tiny place, structure it in just the proper way, and a fresh new universe will precipitate from nothing. Isn’t that right, little brother?”

He remembered his tutor’s lessons. There was a theory and convoluted mathematics and enough evidence to make a tutor sound as if it was true. Vacuums themselves could create universes that would instantly separate from their mother. An umbilical cord would exist, then dissolve, and the process would happen constantly, without ever being noticed. Existence begat existence. How many times had he read that wondrous truth?

A sudden chill tickled at Ord.

“The trick,” Alice explained, “is to keep your umbilical open. What’s the point in making a new universe that you can never see? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could slip inside your creation and learn what’s possible? Can you imagine the challenges? The potentials? For everyone, of course…”

Alice was weeping, wiping hard at her eyes.

A little boy said, “I don’t understand this.”

“Imagine if everyone, and I mean every Family and all of humanity, could extend themselves into endless new universes. Each of us could be given wondrous talents, and with them, we could dive through the umbilical cord and tie it up behind us. If we dared.” She grabbed Ord’s wrist, her hands cold and wet. “Isn’t that the loveliest, sweetest possibility? What would you do, little one, if you could make such a thing true?”

Something is wrong—

And she said, “Precisely,” with a dead gray voice. “As wrong as wrong has ever been, I should hope.”

Again Ord looked at the black oval, a single golden spark blossoming from its center. But the light faded and vanished, lost…just another illusion in a room full of elaborate facsimiles…nothing else…!

Alice turned to the wide-eyed children. “We succeeded,” she explained. “We created a universe and the umbilical. But what’s difficult, and perhaps impossible, is to leave the way open just far enough. Just enough room to climb through, but no farther. When you do this work, that’s what you pray for. Just enough room to slip through.”

The sky brightened. A great soundless flash of light washed away the stars with its blue-white glare, and the children began to mutter among themselves and nervously giggle.

“Our universe may well be some entity’s creation,” Alice was saying. “I admit that is not an original thought. And in so many ways, it’s not comforting. But perhaps some other Family, jammed inside some unknown realm, produced this universe of ours…and maybe they preside over it now, just as their little universe was created by still others…”

The children had clasped their hands over their eyes. They couldn’t be real, but if Alice was using a real-time feed, they could easily be facsimiles pulled from people just as real as Ord. Whoever they were, they appeared terrified and fragile, and lost. Ord found himself terrified for them, leaping to his feet, shouting, “Run! Hide!” He grabbed one little boy, trying to make him race home. But the first wave of heat and hard radiation washed over them. In an instant, the long grass had burst into flames, and the boy squirmed in agony, and died, his body shriveled and blackened, blowing away as ash. Then Ord screamed as the world beneath him evaporated. He felt it shatter and tumble into the brown dwarf that soon boiled and exploded…an inconsequential bit of gas and grit lost in a vast storm…and he was twisting inside that scalding light, screaming until a familiar voice whispered, “Relax.”

Alice said, “The new universe is flowing into ours, but only for a little while.”

Then with a dead voice, she told him:

“You don’t know how sorry we feel…you can’t know how sorry…tell everyone, please…will you, little brother…?”

ONLYLYMAN WASwaiting for him. The others had watched the live feeds, and now they were standing in the nearest arena, watching the explosion from a series of observation posts. Only the two young brothers stood at the top of the empty stairwell, both trembling, Lyman using both hands to hold himself upright, saying with a wisp of a voice, “At least we know. We know what it is.”

Ord held himself, wearing nothing but his underclothes and soaked with perspiration.

“Vivian thinks it’s temporary…it can’t last long…” Lyman couldn’t stand anymore, dropping to his knees and beating at the steps with his fists, no strength in his arms. Finally, he asked, “Will Alice talk to us now?”

“I don’t know,” Ord confessed. Then with a low, choking voice, he tried to apologize for his ignorance.

But his brother didn’t care. He shrugged, and said, “You don’t know how terrible this is going to be. Nobody can know.”

Ord gave the smallest nod.

“Which is a blessing, I think.” Lyman gave the step another useless blow and looked up at the baby Chamberlain. “If we knew what’s to come, we couldn’t live. The grief would crush us.”

He sobbed, and wept, and his voice sputtered and faded away.

“None of us could survive an instant,” he whispered. “If we knew just how awful things will be…”

Fourteen

“We accepted our duty at long last. A portion of us would remain behind, keeping a choking hold on the umbilical for as long as possible…a tiny heroism after such a catastrophic blunder…while others would rush toward populated worlds far enough removed to be helped…while one of the most culpable among us decided that she should journey home alone, home to the Earth, for the simple purpose of standing trial…admitting her enormous guilt in a public way…hundreds of billions doomed, human as well as alien, and a single soul promising to swallow as much blame as possible…”

—Alice’s testimony

THAT NEXT MORNING,several hours before the local dawn, the Chamberlains sent a carefully worded statement to the Council and its supporting law enforcement agencies. Accepting no blame, the Family admitted that Alice was currently residing inside their mansion, barricaded in the penthouse, and after a broad condemnation of everything she had done, the statement promised that her intentions seemed peaceful, and perhaps she would be willing to surrender.

An emergency session of the Council was held, and as live feeds from the Core displayed the endless carnage, fear and a wild bitterness took hold. The air was pierced with cursing. At least twice, elected officials found themselves engaged in shoving matches. Finally, it was decided that a little delegation would visit the Chamberlain estate. High-ranking Nuyens would accompany the appropriate officers of the court, and the suspected murderess would be arrested, hopefully without incident. That no existing prison could contain, much less control, Alice was a minor problem. As one officer strapped on the traditional sidearm, she mentioned to her colleagues, “If the bitch wants, she could wave her hand and turn the Earth into dust. Or us into whimpering dogs.”

Night in the high mountains had been clear and brutally cold. That oddity of climate made the officers even more uneasy. The white mansion stood vast and brilliant in the early light. A pack of huge brown-and-gold bears sat on the lawn, watching the invaders with a sturdy indifference. The officers kicked at the smart snows, and the snows quickly smoothed themselves, erasing all tracks. They stopped walking for a moment, and the Nuyens in attendance, considerably less impressed by the Chamberlain spell, took the lead. They walked directly to a minor door, passing beneath the PRIDE AND SACRIFICE emblem, and, as if they owned the house, they started straight for the penthouse.

A single Chamberlain—a sister of modest rank—joined the odd procession. She stopped the stairs and looked down at everyone, telling them how sorry she was and how every one of her sisters and brothers felt the same awful sorrow. But none of them were to blame, she argued. They weren’t at the Core, and they never knew about the secret work. Except for a tiny few, her Family was blameless.

“While my Family is perfectly innocent,” snapped the lead Nuyen.

Vivian glared at the speaker, then turned away and put the stairs back into motion.

ORD WATCHED THEMpass. Dressed in a clean snowsuit, he was standing in the hallway, sleepless but alert. Everyone in the procession ignored him. When they were far above he stepped into the stairwell, leaned over the ancient railing, and watched how they curled higher and higher, his eyes losing them with distance and the colorful glare of the tireless mural.

As always, his giant bears begged for attention.

He ignored them, running to the tube and running faster through the sun-washed woods, then slowing as he crossed the long pasture. Only Ravleen was waiting at the fort. She was sitting on the west wall, her cast removed, her eyes red and sleepless. “You’re late,” she warned, then smiled. Then, with a strong certain voice, she told him, “The explosion won’t ever reach us. It’s not large enough.”

Ord had seen the estimates and projections.

“We did some heavy calculations,” she continued. “It’s a lot like a supernova, only bigger. Hotter. Dust clouds and distance are going to choke out the blast, which is going to keep the Earth safe.”

The melted planets would help, too. They and the dead people would absorb some of those terrific energies.

“What are you thinking?”

Ord looked across the pasture. Yesterday’s bootprints gave the snow a ragged, exhausted appearance. Splashes of blood made it more so. “Nobody’s going to attack today,” he ventured.

“If they do,” Ravleen said, “we’ll stop them.”

“I was tired of being home,” he confessed, swallowing with a tight dry throat. “I watched feeds all night—”

“Talk about something else,” Ravleen warned.

“Like what?”

“Nothing.” The red eyes looked out of the clean gold mask. “Let’s just sit and say nothing.”

A light breeze lifted their flag, then let it drop. On a day like this, they should have heard city sounds; but not this morning, and the silence was unnerving. Everyone was scared. It wasn’t just the explosion and destruction that terrified; it was also the Peace. Would it survive? Sacred trusts had been violated, and maybe the Peace couldn’t be repaired. And what about the Families themselves—?

A slow creaking made Ord blink and turn. Someone was climbing one of the rope ladders. Ravleen picked up her gun, watching the familiar figure scramble over the parapet to join them.

“Ah,” she growled. “The traitor.”

Ord was surprised to see Xo. He should be the last Gold willing to come here. But he stood before them, smiling so that they could see his teeth, saying, “I just escaped.” He was nervous and obvious, forcing a laugh before adding, “It was a legal escape. Nobody came to guard me this morning.”

Ravleen kept her hand on the gun.

Xo told her, “Congratulations. For winning, I mean.” Then he turned to Ord, adding, “Our plan sure worked, didn’t it?”

“What plan?” asked Ravleen.

“Didn’t you tell her?” The boy acted surprised. He removed his mask to show everyone his outrage. “We planned it together, Ravleen. I would pretend to be a traitor, and Ord—”

“Shut up.”

“Ord would approach you—”

“You’re lying. Shut up.”

The boy closed his mouth, then grinned. Ord saw the new tooth, whiter than the others, and something about the grin made him bristle.

“I’m not a traitor,” Xo told them.

Nobody spoke.

Then he said, “Your Families were the ringleaders.” His tone was superior and a little shrill. “We didn’t even help you. I heard all about it. An old sister told me. She said they warned you that it was dangerous work, and they didn’t want to have any part of it—”

“Quiet,” Ord snapped.

“But you did it anyway. And you did it wrong.”

Ravleen stared down into the courtyard.

Xo swallowed and straightened his back, then with a grave satisfaction said, “Now you’ll have to pay for the damages and death. All of your wealth is going to be spent, and you’ll be poor. You won’t even be Families anymore. It’s almost as if we set a trap, and you walked right in—!”

Ravleen shot him in the face, without warning. She put twin slugs into Xo’s mouth, knocking him off the wall. Then she stood and looked down at the boy, sprawled out on his back and perfectly still, and she winked at Ord, saying, “Watch.” She jumped, feetfirst, boots landing on the boy’s chest and her momentum shattering ribs and lungs and the heart beneath her.

His chest crushed, Xo flung his arms into the air, hands grasping at nothing and falling limp.

Ravleen began to kick him. His body had died, past all suffering now; but she worked on the face with a slick thoroughness, without pause, kicking and kicking until she was finally exhausted; then she stepped back and looked up on the wall, telling Ord, “You can help me, if you want.”

Except Ord wasn’t standing there. It was a sister, some other baby Chamberlain wearing an old-fashioned snowsuit, and she smiled without smiling, eyes full of misery and joy.

“Help you?” she asked.

Then she said, “Another time, perhaps. But thank you for offering.”

Fifteen

“I watched them wrench open the penthouse door. I watched them not find me. I did rather enjoy their panic, I’ll admit, but the fact is that I wasn’t hiding from anyone. I was just elsewhere. And then one of the Nuyens engaged her treacherous little brain, and she decided to search inside the original mansion…and there most of my human portions were waiting, sitting in my onetime bedroom…peering outdoors at a vivid cold winter from ten million years ago…”

—Alice’s testimony

THE CITY WASa forest of towering green trees, each tree trunk filled with thousands of natural cavities—tiny luxury apartments housing millions of smallish people with prehensile tails and net-linked minds. Most of the people were indoors, watching feeds from the Core. For a long while, Ord walked alone down a narrow avenue, feeling like the last living soul on the planet. He left his snowsuit on and, with alternating sleeves, wiped the sweat from his eyes. Finally, a small park opened before him, and he saw movement, then tiny brown shapes. He approached the children with a certain caution, practicing his smile, and when they saw him, they stopped and stared. Too young to watch the Core and understand, they also were too young to recognize a living Chamberlain. One boy fluffed up the fur on his neck and laughed, saying, “You look funny. What kind of person are you?”

“Are you sick?” asked a tiny girl.

“Funny hair,” said a third child. “Where did the rest of your hair go?”

Ord took a breath and held it. There were nearly a dozen young children gawking at him. To the boy who saidYou look funny , Ord said, “Here,” and handed him the old snowgun. “This is for you.”

“What is it?” the boy sputtered.

Ord didn’t explain. Removing his boots, he asked, “Who wants these?”

A tiny hand shot up.

He gave away his boots, then his mask. Then he removed his snowsuit and wadded it up in his hands, telling his astonished little audience, “I am sorry. I want you to know. I can’t be any more sorry.”

They didn’t understand why he should apologize, but the words were locked in their minds.

“And Alice is sorry, too,” he added, flinging the snowsuit behind them and turning, running off on bare feet as the children began making claims and counterclaims for this strange, unusable prize.

Ord trotted back toward the mountains and the snow. Only then, gazing up out of the forest at the towering white ridge, did he realize that he had never seen his home from this vantage point. From outside. And he ran faster now, crossing a distinct line, the first wet pancakes of snow burning his naked toes, causing him to reach deep and run faster still.