Niobe let loose a torrent of why.

  Wait! Wait! We can't assimilate all that! We can feel your anger, but you will have to vocalize to clarify the reason.

  "Cedric!" Niobe shouted. "You conspired to kill Cedric, so I would—would—" Her tears started up again, and her emotion was a confusion of love, sorrow, and fury reminiscent of the chaos of the Void she had just departed. Perhaps, she thought in an isolated flash of humor, she had brought the Void with her—in her head.

  Cedric? We explained about him!

  "Well, Satan explained it better! I'll not stay in this job! You had no right to—"

  Satan! Lachesis' thought came.

  That explains it! Atropos agreed.

  "Yes, Satan!" Niobe agreed. "He really understands evil! He was there in the Void, and he—"

  And he told you an intricate lie, Lachesis continued.

  And you believed him, Atropos concluded.

  "Yes, I believe him!" Niobe cried. "And I want to go back to mortality! At least there my body is my own!"

  You believed the Father of Lies, Atropos thought.

  It is your right to return, Lachesis agreed. But first we must hash this out. You must know the truth before you act, lest Satan lead you to tragedy.

  "Why should he do that?"

  He does not want you in the office. He knows that somehow you will cause him great trouble. That is why he tried to kill you before you could become Clotho.

  Niobe suffered doubt. Satan had been persuasive—but he was the Incarnation of Evil, and certainly he would lie to suit his purposes. She should not believe him without establishing the case thoroughly. "How can I verify this?"

  Perhaps Chronos knows.

  "Chronos!" Niobe exclaimed indignantly. "All he wants is—"

  That is a half-truth.

  "You admit to half of it?" Niobe demanded.

  Lachesis made a mental sigh. Satan has poisoned your mind. You must cleanse it yourself. Go to Chronos, challenge him. We will be silent until you address us.

  That, of course, was the answer. Chronos was at the heart of this. She would give him a jagged fragment other mind!

  She returned to the Abode, deposited her new batch of yarn—she would reprocess that into much finer thread later, as she spun out the lives of new mortals—assuming she remained in office that long—and set off along the line that connected to Chronos' mansion. She was awkward in her use of the travel-thread; it would have been faster and smoother if one of the other Aspects had handled it, but she needed to master the techniques herself in order to—

  To what? Be a good Clotho? When she had no intention of retaining the position? Unlikely chance!

  She made it to the mansion. She had learned that time reversed when a person entered Chronos' residence, so that she would actually depart before she arrived. She found that aspect of it intriguing. It existed so that others could converse comfortably with Chronos; otherwise each would be talking backward at the other.

  She knocked on the door, and was admitted immediately. Chronos met her, wearing a pure white robe; he stepped right up, smiling, and took her in his arms and kissed her.

  Niobe was so surprised that she simply froze for a moment. Then she recovered, jerked back her head, brought up her arm, and slapped him smartly across the cheek. "What kind of nerve do you have, trying a thing like that?" she cried.

  He turned her loose, a look of astonishment on his face. "Why, Clotho—what happened?"

  "What happened?" she repeated furiously. "You just grabbed me and kissed me!"

  "But of course! As I have always done, here at home."

  "Always done!" she screamed. "Then it's true!"

  Now a look of realization spread across his countenance. "The time—are you just beginning your cycle?"

  "My what?"

  "Have you just begun your office? As Clotho?"

  "Of course I have, as you well know! And if you think I—"

  "But I don't know!" he protested. "That's in my future, and you have never said exactly when—"

  Because he lived backward. Now she understood. "You—you couldn't have conspired to—because it hasn't happened yet, for you!"

  "I would never conspire against you, Clotho," he said. "I love you."

  She felt as if a demonic hand had squeezed her heart. She reeled, and sank onto a couch. It was true—they were going to have an affair! This man she didn't know, and certainly didn't love!

  "Ah, Clotho," he said. "I didn't realize. You have not done this before. You don't—remember. Had I realized—I'm sorry. I should have known. Long ago you told me the date of your origin. I had forgotten. I apologize for—"

  "What do you remember?" Niobe asked dully.

  He took a seat opposite her. "When I assumed my office, thirty-five years hence in your view, I was bewildered by everything. I did not know what to do, or how to do it—even the Hourglass was a mystery to me. But you, in your three guises, came to me, and took me in hand, and set me straight. It was as if you had known me all along, though we had never before met. You did so much for me, and I was grateful, and then you—"

  He broke off, putting his face in his hands. "Oh, Clotho! It's over at last, and so abruptly! I owe you so much and I will miss you so much!"

  Suddenly he reminded her of Cedric, as he had been at the outset of their marriage. So forlorn and lost and unable to come to grips with what he knew had to be. She, in her naiveté and insensitivity, had only exacerbated his problem. How much she regretted that now!

  And the magnitude of Satan's lie was manifest: Chronos had never, could never conspire. She had initiated their romance—thirty-five years hence. And now she was blaming him!

  If she had known, at the outset other marriage to Cedric, what was to be, she would have been far more understanding and careful. Now she faced a roughly similar situation. She did not love this man—but neither had she loved Cedric, at first. The lesson was there.

  Did she really want to return to mortality? Cedric still would not be there. If she had to live without him, wouldn't it be better to do it with the power of the Incarnation of Fate, rather than as a simple mortal? Chances were that this job would offer her many distractions. She could keep herself busy—and she could leave whenever she chose to. She didn't have to make a decision yet. Yet—

  Satan had tried to talk her into leaving. He wouldn't have bothered if she were not destined to cause him some grief.

  Chronos remembered three and a half decades' association with her. That showed her decision and her future. What point to rail against it? Better to take herself in hand and do what had to be done. Cedric was dead; he would never live again. She had to face reality, and the sooner the better. This was her moment of commitment. She did not relish the prospect, but she had to put the past firmly behind her.

  She dried her face, arranged her hair, and stood. Chronos sat with his face covered. He was not pretending; he was a decent, vulnerable man, and he was mourning a relationship he knew was past. Indeed it was, for him. It was an emotion she understood.

  She crossed over to him and put one hand on his shoulder. "Chronos, I understand. But this—is the last time."

  He looked up. "The first—for you."

  "For me. I do not—love you, but—" She shrugged. "I misjudged you, Chronos, and I'm sorry. I—I give you this. There is only now, for us. Such as it is."

  "Such as it is," he agreed, lifting his hand to her. She took it. "When next we meet, it will be different. I will not remember—this. Or know of it."

  "I will not speak of it." He drew her down to him. She tried to conceal her aversion to being handled by any man not Cedric. She felt guilty and unclean—but, perversely, she was sure she was doing right. She was no longer married, no longer mortal, and she had a job to do here and a role to fill. It turned out that Chronos' long experience with her future self gave him a special touch, and it became easier to cooperate.

  When it was done, she dressed and departed, using an exit opposite to the entrance she had used so that there was no chance of encountering her arriving self. She did not want to try to explain or justify what she had done to that self!

  Then, because she also did not wish to return to her web Abode before she had left it, she elected to spend an hour elsewhere. That would allow for the half hour she had spent in Chronos' mansion, and carry her another half hour beyond. The net effect would be the same as if her half hour within had been composed of normal, forward time.

  Where would she go in that period? Where else! She went to Earth. She slid down a thread—this was good practice!—to the farm where Junior was. She walked up to the door and knocked.

  They were surprised and pleased to see her, with masked concern. "I am only visiting. My other business is not yet done; I must still leave Junior with you."

  She saw relief in them, and it gratified her. They really wanted to keep Junior, and she knew it wasn't for the support stipend. This was certainly the place for him.

  She picked him up and held him and kissed him, then set him down. In a moment he was back playing with Cousin Pace.

  "That's a very nice water oak," the woman remarked. "The dryad came right down to join him when we retreated."

  They were doing it! At least the dryad was not being deprived. "She is teaching him magic," she said with a wink.

  "If he can learn it, he'll be some magician!" the man said.

  Yes—she had done right here. The loss of her baby hurt her, but she could adapt to this, just as she could adapt to the affair with Chronos. She was a different person, now, with new and different commitments. Even her body wasn't her own, but a construct from the flesh of Fate, as if formed from the substance of the Void.

  But she was no creature of the Void! She had a new kind of life to live. She hoped it would turn out better than the old one.

  Chapter 6 - GENEALOGY

  Niobe's life as Clotho settled in comfortably enough, now that she had made the necessary emotional decisions. Each Aspect slept for six or eight hours, and they generally staggered these, so that at any given moment one Aspect would be dominant—would have the body—and another would be keeping her conscious company, while the third would be tuned out or asleep. For convenience they generally proceeded from sleep, to company, to dominant, so that an Aspect could be fully alert and ready the moment she took over the body. Thus Niobe, as Clotho, would sleep, then keep Atropos company for her shift, then assume the office while Atropos slept and Lachesis kept her company. Sometimes they varied it, and special circumstances caused them all to wake or sleep together, but normally the routine held.

  Niobe liked the other two. They talked with each other a lot, comparing notes on experiences and feelings. The other two had eavesdropped on Niobe's first engagement with Chronos, for this was as novel to them as to her. They had indeed not conspired to put her in that position; they had not been having an affair with Chronos. Evidently he, in the progress of his life toward their past, had not been interested in the to him new Clotho. "But the body is only the body," Lachesis said philosophically, as Niobe spun her Thread of Life from the supply of yarn she had fetched from the Void. "You are young, you like to think that there is only one man for each woman and one woman for each man, but any combination can occur, and couple, and love. In this office we are forced to be less romantic and more pragmatic."

  "Yes," Niobe agreed sadly. "And Chronos is a good person. But I'll always love Cedric."

  "There is no love like the first," Lachesis agreed, taking over the lips again. "I remember mine..." And she recounted her own first romance. It was not as immediate as Niobe's experience, but it had its own poignancy, and it did show that the older woman understood. Men tended to think in terms of the physical, while woman related to the social; men focused on bodies and action, while women focused on character and feeling. They agreed that woman's way was more sensible, but on occasion man's way had merit, and it was possible for the two to relate.

  They learned each other's jobs, to a certain extent. Niobe normally slept while Lachesis measured the threads, but not always, and of course she was alert while Atropos cut them. The cutting was not merely at the terminal end; the threads had to be started, too. So after Lachesis had analyzed, measured, and marked each potential life, on the endless thread Clotho spun, Atropos would cut and place it. The beginning of a cut thread was the conception of a baby; it had to be tied in to the threads of its parents before moving out onto its own course in the Tapestry. The physical, mental, and emotional qualities of a life were determined by heredity, provided by the parental tie-in, and its development was influenced considerably by environment. But its circumstance—the odd coincidences that governed every life—was arranged by Fate. Some excellently endowed lives were doomed to disappointment and failure, while some seemingly weak strands were destined for greatness. Lachesis planned these threads with an eye to the esthetics of the larger picture. Some she regretted, as when a thread had to be measured short, meaning that a child would die. But it had to be done, for stresses in the fabric of the Tapestry could distort the whole, and lead to the damage of many more innocent threads unless the correction was made in the key region. It would not have been easy to explain to the average mortal why he should suffer, as the stresses were cumulative and subtle; indeed, tfiere were generally several ways in which a given stress could be alleviated. But it was Lachesis' job to select a course and implement it, and this she did.

  Cedric's early death had not really been Lachesis' doing. Satan had stretched the fabric in such a way that only the truncation of a specific thread would alleviate it—and Niobe had been that thread until Cedric abruptly switched places with her. Lachesis had had to mark it for elimination, and Atropos had had to cut it—but that had been in the nature of emergency surgery. They were still adjusting for the distortion in the fabric caused by that unscheduled removal; it tended to buckle, and several more distant threads had had to be cut short, and new ones added elsewhere. Now Niobe, tracing the pattern and grasping the stresses on it, understood how complex the matter of Fate was. Fate was not all-powerful or capricious; she merely had to accomplish a purpose that mortal man was not properly equipped to appreciate. It would make as much sense for an individual soldier in battle to break ranks and demand of the general why he should be subjected to this danger.

  But Niobe was no longer a foot soldier. She had become an Aspect of an Incarnation. She was now in a position to grasp the larger picture—and to understand just what Satan had done to her. She still had a score to settle with him!

  The problem was, she didn't see how. Satan had no Tapestry; she could not mess up his threads. She concluded that whatever it was that made Satan object to her presence as Clotho had not yet manifested and that she was on the way to gaining her satisfaction merely by retaining her office. Eventually her chance would come— and then she would take it with a will. Meanwhile, she just had to be patient.

  In due course the routine became dull. Then the interactions with the other Incarnations, including Satan, became more interesting. Niobe did not love Chronos, but he was so grateful for the particular favors she rendered that it became a kind of pleasure for her. She did have to work with him quite a bit, or rather Lachesis did, for only Chronos could accurately locate the timing of the key events in each life—the kinks in each thread. The Tapestry would not be right if the threads were too loose or tight, or crossed each other in the wrong places. It was especially important that Atropos inform Chronos of the precise end of each thread, for Chronos programmed the watch that Thanatos carried. If Thanatos was not present for particular terminations—the souls in close balance between good and evil—those souls could escape and drift back to the Void, causing the whole effort to be wasted. No one approved of wasted lives.

  But this, too, became dull. Therefore the Aspects of Fate were wont to visit the mortals directly when slacktime was available. They would merge anonymously with the throngs of people, and pretend to be going home from work, or taking a vacation, or performing some business. People tended not to perceive the Incarnations as such, and to forget them, so it was simple enough to do. Each Aspect had her favorite region of the mortal world to visit. It was a kind of holiday.

  Lachesis liked to go to special restaurants and enjoy good meals. The Incarnations did have natural functions, including the need to eat. If they did not eat, they would not starve, because of their immortality, but they would become increasingly uncomfortable. They had everything provided in Purgatory, but there was something special about doing it among the mortals. The male Incarnations, Lachesis confided wickedly, sometimes indulged other appetites with mortal women, though they had to be careful not to change the lie of any particular thread. An Incarnation could not sire a baby, because of the freeze on aging—a baby would never develop beyond the singlecell stage—but that was not the only way to affect a mortal. Once Mars had formed a relationship with a mortal Amazon—he had a weakness for violent women—and her thread had changed its course. This affair superseded one she would otherwise have had with a mortal man that would have generated offspring. Lachesis had had to bail him out; she had measured that thread but found no way to attach it to start the baby. The necessary interaction had not taken place. She had spoken sharply to Mars about that, requiring him to break off the affair so that the natural order could reassert itself; then she had tied in the new thread a little farther down the line. Clotho had had to sweeten the pot for Mars until he found a new mortal to dally with. It was a private scandal.

  Atropos preferred to go to orchestral recitals, operas, and plays. Indeed, she had a reserved box at one prominent playhouse. Niobe got to watch these too, and learned to enjoy them. In this manner she was able to acquire some culture. Once, however, a gentleman had challenged Atropos' credentials; it seemed they had not been able to verify her social credentials and suspected she was a commoner in disguise. At this point Niobe had taken over the body, smiled, and asked the man what he meant. He blinked, for she was young and beautiful instead of old and homely; he had apologized for the confusion and departed. Atropos resumed form and watched the opera in peace.