His thoughts enfolded her like warm hands. (The Golden Mean is only one facet of Survey’s hidden structure, as the Brotherhood is another. … I am taking a chance in assuming you understand that. There are others, they are all like mirrors within a kaleidoscope. There is still hope—there is always hope. I will see what can be done to help save your daughter, and bring Kullervo back to you. But beyond that … a balance was thrown off when Kitaro-fcen was killed. She was a counterweight: with her support BZ might have held his own against his formidable opposition … Reede Kullervo and your daughter might not have been lost. The Golden Mean controls the water of life completely now, and we who see further than they know enough to see that they must be stopped.)
(Yes,) she thought. (Yes. The water of life has everything to do with what is wrong, what went wrong…. The sibyl net is in danger, because the mers are in danger … the mers….) Strident waves of interference beat back against her brain, drowning her thoughts in undertow. (It has to stop! They must stop hunting the mers.)
There was silence, shimmering like a reflection on water through a moment’s eternity. (Very well, then. But what will make them stop?) Aspundh asked finally. (We must find something that will make them stop. Something that they desire even more than the water of life… .)
(I don’t believe anything exists that they want more,) Moon thought bitterly.
(It exists, somewhere…) Aspundh replied, with a faint ripple of pained amusement. (But it is nothing easily discovered, or they would have it already, like the water of life.)
(The stardrive plasma,) she thought. (But they have that, because BZ gave it to them.)
(Perhaps that was his mistake,) Aspundh murmured. (But then, we are all only human—none of us can see the future, and see it clearly. There must be something else they want.)
She thought of the secret of the computer itself; if they knew of its existence they would never touch another mer. But they could never be allowed to possess that knowledge, after having proved so profoundly how little they could be trusted with power. Even if she could give it to them … (I don’t know. I don’t know.)
(Nor do I. But we must not give up hope, or give up searching—)
(But where else can I search?) she thought, despairing. (Where can I go? I have no options.)
(You have all of spacetime,) he answered (You are adrift in it now. You are what you are for a reason; I have never been more certain of it than now. I can send outward, through the network of contacts Survey has provided me. But you have the greater resource—the sibyl mind speaks to you, it opens itself to you in a way it does for no one else I know; this is something I had only heard tales of, before I met you. There are secrets the sibyl net hides even from its most trusted servants… but clearly not from you.)
She made no answer, suffused with the radiance of his words, and the vision they created in her mind.
(We are doing what we can for BZ. But the Golden Mean is powerful in the Hegemony. You may be the only real hope BZ has. He needs a force strong enough to turn back the tide … perhaps it is why you are called Moon,) KR thought gently, as strands of golden light began to unravel all around her. (May the gods of your ancestors help you …) Her mind sang with his final benediction.
But she was alone in the darkness again, without an answer.
ONDINEE: Tuo Ne’el
“There it is,” Kedalion said, pointing ahead over the blasted heath of the Land of Death as the citadel became visible. He called up enhancement, and a segment of the displays leaped into magnification, showing them more detail.
“By’r Lady …” Sparks murmured, beside him. “It’s huge. It must be bigger than Carbuncle.”
“They’re entire self-contained city-states,” Kedalion said, remembering the citadel’s labyrinthine streets and levels with sudden vividness. A part of him was still casually amused by Sparks Dawntreader’s tireless wonder, even while another, ^separate part of his brain felt sick with dread as he watched their final destination fill I the screens.
It had been difficult to believe Dawntreader had never been offworld, when they were back in Carbuncle. He belonged to the same secret organization that Reede belonged to, and his single-minded obsession with getting to Ondinee made his confidence seem utterly unshakable. He even had a fair amount of knowledge about starships and how their systems worked; but it was all textbook knowledge. He had never set foot on an actual ship, and on board the Prajna he had been like a dumbstruck boy. It had reminded Kedalion of Ananke’s first transit; but Dawntreader was at least his own age.
Dawntreader had asked them endless questions about their past lives and home worlds, and how they had come to be here, in these bizarre circumstances. He had not even complained about the cramped quarters—which had been designed to suit Kedalion’s size requirements, and not those of his passengers or crew. Dawntreader had tried everything, learned every task, no matter how tedious or unpleasant, aboard the ship; and for the most part, he had done them well. “I’ve waited my entire life for this,” he said once, when Ananke had asked him why he wanted so badly to scrub down the control room floor. There had been a desperate passion in his eyes when he said it; but the emotion had turned to ashes, as he remembered what had finally driven him to break the chains that had bound him to his home world.
Now Kedalion watched Dawntreader’s amazement slowly change, darkening, as he realized that this was the stronghold of the enemy, the place he had to bring his daughter out of. “Lady and all the gods. …” Dawntreader murmured, and Kedalion read the rest of the thought in his eyes: How—?
“Nobody told you it would be easy,” Kedalion said, expressionless. “You want to go to Razuma starport, instead? The citadel might still let us turn around …” He gestured at the image on the screen.
Dawntreader glanced over at him, and frowned. “No,” he said.
“Just asking.” Kedalion shrugged. He looked over his shoulder at Ananke, sitting in the back, brooding in silence with his arms folded across his chest. He looked naked somehow, without the quoll; seemed to feel naked, from the way he held himself. Every time Kedalion looked at him, the quoll’s absence was like a shout, reminding him of what they were planning to do here, shouting at him that they were insane, and going to die. Or maybe it was only his own common sense that he heard screaming. He sighed, and began the approach codes; listening to the answering signal burst tell him that he was doomed, they were all doomed now… .
The citadel beckoned them into its waiting mouth, on down its throat into the designated docking bay. They climbed out as their craft locked down, and were met by a reception committee of armed men.
“We were only expecting two of you,” the leader, a man named Samir, said, holding his stun rifle at roughly Kedalion’s eye level.
Kedalion felt sweat burn unpleasantly down his back, as he began the speech he had rehearsed in his mind a thousand times over on the way from Tiamat. “TerFauw ordered us to bring this man with us, because he has important data for Kullervo. He’s been cleared. Show him your hand,” he said, nudging Dawntreader.