The sibyl network continued to function, dispensing its knowledge to the crippled cultures picking themselves up out of the Old Empire’s ruins; but its answers had grown obscure and exasperating through lost potential… And Moon saw at last that it had lost an even more profound aspect of its power. The fumbling manipulations it had used to guide her in doing its will were not a fluke, were never meant to be a rare or erratic phenomenon. Sibyls had been designed as more than simply speakers of secondhand wisdom — they had been designed as agents of social change, to bring stability and humanity back to the cultures they were born a part of. And their function had almost been lost, along with much of the clarity of the original data files.
But she, Moon, had become the Summer Queen — as the sibyl mind had meant her to. And now that she was Queen, she would begin the task of rebuilding all that had been destroyed. She was the last hope of the sibyl mind; it had put all of its faltering resources into guiding her quest. Only if she could reverse its disintegration could it begin to function again fully — and only then could it help her put an end to the cycle of off world exploitation forever. It would continue to guide her while it could; but she would carry the burden of making the ideal real…
“We further analysis!” Moon swayed on her feet as the Transfer set her free. PalaThion supported her, let her down safely onto the couch.
“Are you all right?” PalaThion searched her face for a reassuring sign of comprehension.
She shook her head, sagging forward under the weight of her final revelation. “Oh, Lady…” A moan, as she realized at last to what she made her prayer. “How? How can I change a thousand years of wrong? I’m only one, only Moon—”
“You’re the Summer Queen,” PalaThion said. “And a sibyl. You have all the tools you need. It’s just a question of time… Do you have enough of that, before the Hegemony comes back again?”
Moon lifted her head slowly.
“No,” PalaThion looked away. “I’m not going to stop you. How could I live with so much death, and live with myself? And for what—?” Her hands tightened.
It took Moon another moment before she understood that what PalaThion had heard was only what Ngenet had heard, and not what had been whispered in her own mind there in the secret darkness. What PalaThion saw as the challenge was not the real challenge — not a match of sheer technological strength, but a challenge on a far different level, with far greater repercussions — a change that would ripple across a galaxy. But PalaThion had understood that there was a challenge, and that its outcome could be measured in suffering and death; and that had been enough. Moon nodded. “This means more to more people than I can ever tell you.”
PalaThion smiled tightly. “Well, that’s some consolation.” She moved away, across the room, to the shell sitting on a table by the doorway. She picked it up, held it for a long moment with her back to Moon.
Moon stretched out on the couch, her body leaden, her mind numbed with overload; wondering how she would get past tomorrow dawn to face the long years of the future.
“I have to be getting back to—” PalaThion glanced up as another knock sounded at her door. Moon sat up, her hands twisting on her belt as PalaThion disappeared into the atrium. She heard the sound of the door opening, of people entering the hall…
“You!” A voice sick with betrayal. A voice she knew Moon pushed herself up, started across the room. She saw three figures silhouetted in the light from the open door, red hair limned with gold.
“Hold it. Don’t be in such a hurry, Sparks.” PalaThion caught his arm in a steel grip as he tried to bolt back out into the alley. “If this was a trap you’d be in my jail, not my parlor.”
“I — I don’t understand.” Sparks eased under her hand, confusion showing.
“I’m not sure I do, either.” PalaThion let him go. His father stood beside her, smiling reassurance.
“Sparks—”
His head came up. “Moon!” He started toward her.
She put out her arms. He came into the room where she stood waiting; the rest of the world ceased to exist beyond the meeting point of their hearts.
“Oh, Moon! Moon…” Sparks breathed the words against her ear, stopped her own words with another kiss.
“Sparkie…” She tasted tears.
“Sparks.” They looked up together, at Sirus’s voice.
“I must be leaving you now. Now that you’re in — safe hands.” He smiled his sorrow.
Sparks nodded, separated himself from Moon slowly and went back to his father’s side. Moon watched them embrace for a last time, feeling her own heart torn, before his father went back out into the alley noise. PalaThion closed the door, looked at Sparks expressionlessly.
He forced himself to meet her eyes. “I’ll tell you what I know about the Source. That’s what you want, isn’t it, to let me go… that’s all you want?” as if he didn’t really believe it.
She nodded, but her face was strained.
“Look, Commander—” He shut his eyes. “I don’t know why you’re doing this… except I know it’s not done for me. But I want you to know I’m sorry—” Hastily, “I know it doesn’t do any good,, it doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t even mean anything. But I’m sorry.” He spread his hands.
“It means something, Dawntreader.” PalaThion looked as though she were surprised to realize that it actually did.
“There’s one thing I can do for you, anyway,” abruptly. He strode to the far end of the room, pried the ugly geometric clock-face out of the wall. Moon watched, incredulous, as he threw it to the floor and stepped on it. He smiled, rubbing his hands together. “If you’ve hated this place for no reason — that was the reason: a subsonic transmitter in the clock.” He came back to Moon’s side, hung onto her hand as though he were afraid she would disappear. “There might be others I don’t know about.”
The awareness of years of needless agony, of questioning her own sanity… the awareness that it had finally come to an end, filled PalaThion’s face. “I always meant to make this museum into a real room again. But somehow I just never got around to it…” Dreary disillusionment settled in again, as if it had never really left her. “Well, Moon. You got everything you came here to get; I’m glad, for somebody’s sake. After Sparks gives his testimony, the two of you cease to exist as far as I’m concerned. That’ll be the end of the problems you’ve caused for me… I just hope you can solve your own now.” She went past them and into the back rooms of the apartment.
“What did she mean?” Sparks turned back.
Moon shook her head, not meeting his eyes. “All that happened in the last year, I suppose.” Five years. “And all that’s going to happen, after the Change.” She looked away at the mask of the Summer Queen.
“What’s that?” He followed her glance.
“The mask of the Summer Queen.” She felt him stiffen and pull away.
“Yours? You won it?” His voice thickened. “No! You couldn’t have — you couldn’t have won, unless you cheated.”
Moon saw herself reflected, saw Arienrhod reflected in his eyes. “I won because I was meant to! I had to win — and not for myself!”