She got to her feet, stretched, did a few breathing exercises that woke her body up but did nothing much to clear the cotton wadding out of her head. Rubbing her eyes, massaging the back of her neck, she walked to the snug fresher and stood for a dreamy while with the shower beating down on her.

  I won’t stay here.

  Amber eyes blinked open. Certainly not here, Harskari said, acerbic amusement in her voice.

  Aleytys shut the water off, stepped from the cubicle, began scrubbing one of the blanket-sized towels over her body. “I meant Vrithian.”

  *Going to run? He’ll be after you.*

  “I know.” She dropped the towel on the floor and went to make faces at herself in the steamy mirror. “Afterward.” She began dragging a comb through her soggy hair.

  *Leave afterward until you’re finished with now.*

  “Oh, profound.”

  *Mock how you want, you’re still running. It’s time to face about and attack.*

  “How? Where? Give me time to get my head organized.”

  No time left.

  “Loguisse bought me some. A day or two. I’ve bought time for Grey. And Ticutt. Kell’s here.”

  *Shadith should be on Avosing by now—the distances from Wolff are roughly the same.*

  “I know.” She pulled the comb a last time through her hair, looked at the snarls of wet red caught in it, threw it at the tiled wall across the room, watched it bounce. “Attack, hah! Attack what? Pin him down? Where? A world’s a big place. And it’s his world. Only advantage I have is that I know sooner or later he’s coming after me.” She edged a hip onto the sink, closed her eyes. “Got to let him do that and hope to catch him hopping. Got to switch his ground to mine. How? I can’t just go out and say here I am, hit me. Either he says no thanks or he squashes me; too likely he puts his thumb on me and turns me to a smear on the stone if It give him an opening like that. Leave me alone. I’m trying to work it out.”

  Touchy.

  “Yes. I am.”

  *If you don’t want me around …*

  “Now who’s touchy?” She smoothed her hair back, looked around for something to tie round the queue she circled with her fingers, shrugged and let it go, walked back into the bedroom. “What about our canceling out the bomb? Think that jarred him any?”

  *The missiles were a weak follow-up … could have been deliberate, make you underestimate him, maybe point you away from where the attack’s really coming. In any case, he’ll be regrouping and planning something worse.*

  “I know.” She walked around the robes, felt the material, then pulled the dark green dress off its invisible hanger, gathered up the skirt into loose folds and tossed it over her head. A wriggle or two and it slid down over her body as if it had been made for her, which it probably had. “Send a prayer to your gods whoever they are that Loguisse can give . me the data I need.” She smoothed the closures shut. “Data we need.”

  Thanks for remembering.

  “Sarcasm is not at all attractive.”

  *Remind yourself of that, Lee. Remember, I’m here until you get around to finding me a body.*

  “How can I forget?” She slid her feet into the heelless slippers that matched the dress. “Keep your eyes open, oh wisest of mentors. Once this war gets moving there should be a wide choice. Pinch me fast when you see one you fancy. As Shadith did. I wonder what she’s doing now.”

  Up to her ears in a mess of her own making, no doubt.

  “I suppose so, but I’d a lot rather be there than here.”

  Really?

  “Aschla’s hells, I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

  Korray took her to a room that was an elegant but chilly concoction of glass and stainless steel with a floor that repeated the design of the walls, white cloisonné filling brushed steel outlines. Vines with heart-shaped leaves the palest of greens wove through open spaces and took some of the visual coldness from all that white and silver, but not much. Through an unglassed arch came the sound of water playing lazily through the lobes of an angular steel sculpture, dropping musically into a cylindrical basin, its bricks glazed a bright blood red, their mirror surfaces a shout and a shock in all that glassy glitter and washed-out green.

  Shareem and Loguisse sat in separate silences at a glass-and-steel table with three place settings laid out on it. Loguisse was gazing abstractedly at the fountain, putting some problem through its paces; Shareem was silent also, the lightness gone out of her face. She looked drawn and tired as she folded and refolded a bright red napkin. If that is an example of Vryhh homelife, no wonder she prefers to stay away. As she walked toward them, Aleytys found herself wondering what Shareem’s childhood had been like, the time before Kell, long before the death of her mother. Sudden thought (sparked by the sight of the fragile-seeming silver-metal Korray moving ahead of her): Were all Vryhh children raised by androids? That would explain a lot. The elegant little android pulled the third chair out from the table and waited to help her sit. She settled herself, then looked up through the dome at the sky. Cloudless, pale blue, no sign of the sun. Was that east? It was hard to say; she wasn’t adjusted to this world yet. She tried a tentative smile.

  Shareem winked at her, startling her. For an instant, just an instant, her mother was the lighthearted laughing woman she’d been on Wolff. Loguisse continued to look abstracted.

  “I’m still half asleep.” An apologetic turn of her hand. “What time is it?”

  Loguisse blinked, slid round to face her. “Six hours after noon. A twenty-eight-hour day.”

  “Then it’s supper you’re offering.”

  “More or less, though my staff can provide anything you feel like eating.”

  “I was a time coming. You’ve eaten?”

  “We waited for you. Tell Korray what you’d like.”

  “Oh. Umm, meat of some sort, green vegetable, bread. Local produce. I’m not fussy about how it’s fixed. Cha if you have it.”

  Korray shifted slightly; the new angle, altering the patterns of light on the angular planes of its face, made it seem as if it was smiling. It walked away with a delicate grace, a fluid almost fleshly flow. And it was quietly happy; like Krasis it centered its happiness on Loguisse’s return. Aleytys gazed at her hands. Programmed into them? Or something that had slowly, slowly developed over the millennia androids and maker had lived together. She hoped it happened that way; the other made her rather sick.

  “Korray and Krasis were both designed by Synkatta; he had an elegant touch with androids.” Loguisse was smiling at her, amused.

  “Synkatta. If he could do that, why …”

  Loguisse shrugged. “He ran into the limits of his gift.”

  “Oh. Where can I find Kell?”

  “You don’t waste time.”

  “I’ve wasted too much. I need information, anassa, I can’t fight in the dark or sit around on the defensive too long. Fight him on his terms, well, that’s not a good idea, I’ve got to shift the war onto my own ground.”

  Loguisse nodded. “I’ll set Krasis to making extracts for you, what I know of Kell and his resources. Will that do?”

  “How can I say until I’ve seen what comes up? Is it too late to try reaching Hyaroll?”

  “You’re in a hurry to leave. Should I be insulted?” Cool voice, spark in the greenstone eyes, irritation a fog rolling out of her. A jolting reminder that Aleytys was taking too much for granted the great favor Loguisse was doing her.

  Aleytys opened her mouth to explain that she knew Loguisse was uncomfortable with them there, but swallowed the words after another look at the Vryhh woman. After a moment’s thought, she said, “I’m a danger to you, Loguisse anassa. As long as I’m here. You’ve been very kind taking us in despite that danger, nearly got blown to dust for it. How can I repay you by putting your life more at risk?”

  Loguisse said nothing for a long moment, her face unreadable, her mind and emotions so controlled that Aleytys caught almost nothing from her but a general skepticism. And a touch of relief. “I’ve been trying to reach Hyaroll,” she said finally. “He won’t answer my calls.” She leaned back as a trio of androids came in with a serving cart. “I’ll try him again after we eat.”

  Loguisse had no luck that night; it was midmorning the next day before she got a response. Hyaroll looked as if he’d bitten into something sour and couldn’t get the taste out of his mouth. “What do you want, Loguisse?”

  “You present Aleytys with dome and domain and forget to key her in,” Loguisse said calmly. “Kell could ignore those defenses you boast of and take her while she is scratching about trying to get in.”

  An impatient grunt. A crabbed gesture with one hand. “So keep her there.”

  “I’m willing. She’s not.”

  “Take a pattern, flip it over to me.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  He scowled at her, chewed on his lip. “You know where it is. Meet me there. Two hours. Local time. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  The screen blanked. Loguisse swung around. “We’ll get you keyed in, then we’ll come back here, Aleytys. You need to learn more than Shareem can tell you about how to manage a kephalos.”

  Shareem laughed, spread her hands. “I’ve spent too much time offworld. Listen to the woman, Lee.”

  Loguisse slid from the chair. “Come,” she said. “You don’t need anything beyond what you’re wearing. Kell will keep his head down while Hyaroll and I are around.” She walked briskly to the door and the bubble within a bubble that protected this room, the heart of her dome, the point where kephalos and Vryhh had closest contact, then turned and stood fidgeting impatiently until they reached her.

  They passed through the double membrane into the smothering darkness of the maze. Aleytys took Shareem’s hand, reached for Loguisse’s and let her lead them through the twists and turns ahead.

  They emerged into the cavern close to the shrouded machinery, the silent sealed workshop, nearly halfway around from the place where they entered the maze. Apparently the maze changed shape and entrance at established intervals following some principle known only to Loguisse; she’d suspected it was changing again even as they passed through it, she had had a feeling of movement, of oppression in that thick stifling blackness as if walls were pushing at her, even though she saw and heard nothing.

  She followed Loguisse toward the bulkiest flier, Shareem trailing silent and unhappy behind her. Shareem wanted to be away, out of this delicate steel paradise made for one. More than anything else, she wanted to take Aleytys away and go back to the universe outside the cloud where things were confused and perilous, but less hurting and certainly less confining; out there she had space to move, she had her ship and her talents, and if things got sticky or boring she could pick up and go somewhere else. Vrithian oppressed her and Kell terrified her. Aleytys knew all that, was thinking about it as she rode the disk up to the lock, and when she looked down she saw Shareem looking down also, her shoulders slumped, her body radiating unhappiness. When Shareem came up, she put her arm about her mother’s shoulders, hugged her hard, then moved quickly to the passenger chairs. Shareem looked startled, then smiled and followed without comment.

  Synkatta’s dome was on the southern coast of Kebelzuild, high on granite cliffs above a narrow beach where surf pounded endlessly, white foam about black rocks, the bright blue sea stretching out to the horizon. This ocean had a wider, wilder feel to it than the one they’d crossed to reach Loguisse’s dome; perhaps because she was closer to it, perhaps because the dome was farther north, the ocean here seemed to have more energy, more anger to it. And I’m using this nonsense to avoid thinking about what could happen to us if he doesn’t come. She glanced at Loguisse. The Tetrarch was silently fuming as she kept the flier circling above the dome. Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty.

  Aleytys squirmed in her seat. Ay-Madar, here I am, helpless again. Hanging on one protector’s arm while I wait for another. Like with Slower and Maissa on Lamarchos. Hauled here, dragged there. Kicked about by the whim of others. Even Arel took me where he wanted to go, dumped me when I wanted something else. The last few years she’d been making her own decisions and running her own life; right now she was seeing more clearly than she had when she was immersed in it how much control she’d had in spite of the Hunts more or less forced on her, Hunts she had to admit, if she was really honest with herself, that she’d enjoyed, dangerous and dubious as they were. She fidgeted as quietly and inconspicuously as she could. Where in Aschla’s stinking hells was Hyaroll?

  Loguisse leaned forward. Hyaroll’s scowling face filled the screen. “Gnats,” he grumbled. “Had to swat ‘em. You ready to follow me down?”

  “Ready. Go.”

  The face vanished; the image was a lumpy armored flier that darted down at the dome,” a dark streak moving so fast it dropped off the screen before Loguisse could move. She dropped her flier after him, followed him through the dome. Then both fliers were sitting on landing saucers not far from an odd whimsical structure it was difficult to call a house and a series of gardens as disconcerting and prankish and lovely as the house.

  Hyaroll walked stiffly the few steps to join Loguisse, Aleytys and Shareem. He pointed at Aleytys. “Come.” Without waiting for a response from her, he started for the house. Over his shoulder he said, “You two wait here. She can do what she wants when the thing’s finished.”

  Loguisse tapped Aleytys on the shoulder. “Go. No use trying to argue with him. We’ll be over there by the fountain.” Shareem nodded agreement and strolled away toward the fountain, a fantasy in twisting looping bronze tubes spitting up spurts of water in a comical lilting strongly rhythmical dance. Loguisse dropped beside Shareem on a bronze bench and sank into the intricacies of some problem. Aleytys ran after Hyaroll, caught up with him and walked along beside him. What she got from him was a feeling of terrible weariness. It smothered almost everything else about him. Somewhere inside that weariness was a hint of irritation, but even that was hollow and without force. She walked beside her grandfather, saying nothing because there was nothing he wanted to hear from her. She had the feeling that the slightest obstacle, even a wrinkle in a rug, might stop him and he’d just stand there and turn slowly slowly into stone. Yet he’d bothered to acknowledge her as his granddaughter and fit up this dome for her. She found it hard to understand why he’d stirred himself, what given when she felt in him. She thought of asking, but that might be the metaphorical wrinkle in the rug.

  He led her through flow-spaces, past doors and open rooms maintained by the house androids, who were nowhere in sight right now; she couldn’t even feel them ticking away around her, they must tuck themselves away in closets somewhere after finishing the eternally repeated cleaning chores about this house of ghosts. They wound deeper into the house through those empty, echoing … well, halls, slipping down and down into the stone of the cliffs. A brief darkness, a sense of waiting around her, a maze of her own once it was activated and deployed. A brief double tingle as he took her through the inner pair of membranes and into a brightly lit all-white room similar to the heart of Loguisse’s dome, though the instrumentation was less complex here. Which was natural enough, given the differences between Loguisse and Synkatta.

  Hyaroll put his big hand on her shoulder and guided her to the command seat, a heavy black swivel chair fixed before the console. Without letting go of her, he used his free hand to drag the dust cover off that chair. “Sit there and don’t fight what happens.” He urged her toward the seat with small pushes that made her feel like a bit of rag caught in the jaws of a large angry dog. Annoyed, she resisted, tilted her head up and around. “Fight what?”

  He dropped his hand. “Probes. Need to read you, get your patterns into kephalos. Sit.”

  “I don’t like things messing with my head.”

  “Sit or forget it. Up to you.”

  “Hunh.” She settled herself in the chair, felt it come to life around her as Hyaroll began moving his fingers stiffly over the sensors. The back moved, flexing and bulging, rising like a cobra hood over her head, coming over and down, shaping itself to her skull. She tried to relax. Not the time to wake the diadem. No danger, she thought at the thing, stay quiet, I need this. The diadem did not manifest. She relaxed some more. The hood closed over her face, shutting off light and air so suddenly she almost panicked, caught herself just in time. She sat still, breathing as deeply, slowly, steadily as she could. Probes came slipping into her head, tickling and stinging, wriggling around. An obscene feeling. As if some repulsive stranger had tied her so she couldn’t move and was feeling her up and she couldn’t do anything to stop him. After those first ugly moments, though, she learned as much from kephalos as it learned from her and she knew with a comfortable certainty that she could destroy chair, console probes, everything, the whole of kephalos—if she wanted to. This certainty gave her sufficient sense of control that she didn’t need to destroy anything. All this was happening because she let it happen. It was enough. She sat still and let kephalos read her. Time passed. Finally the hood retreated, collapsing into the chair. She moved her shoulders, straightened her back, swung around so she could see Hyaroll.

  “Not yet. Stay there.” Hyaroll was frowning at a screen. “Odd readings. Very odd.” He continued to work over the sensors, stopping occasionally to stare blankly at nothing as if his memory had halted on him and he had to dig deep to find what he needed. As he worked, she felt the room and the house coming alive about her. More and more of the console lit up; numbers and symbols began to flow across the screens. She didn’t attempt to read them, though she did wonder if her translator trick would work with numbers and number codes as well as it did with words and language. She didn’t especially want to find out right now; her head ached enough already.