The desk. The link at one end, a tilted screen set into the wood, a sensor panel. She reached out. Stopped her hand above the sensors without touching any. A dozen times before, more than a dozen, she’d talked to Aleytys on this link, scolding her into coming up for a hot meal. What if this was the call that triggered the thing? She started shaking. If she called … and if she didn’t … and the thing activated and killed Aleytys …

  Whatever she did or failed to do could trigger the thing. Anything at all. Action or omission. She nearly screamed with frustration. And even that, noise, that could be the trigger. The sound of her voice. She sighed, cut the sigh short, froze a moment not breathing, then gazed down at the comscreen. If action and inaction were equal risks, then it was easier to act than to refrain, better to do something than just sit waiting. She tapped the code into the link, sweat rolling down her face, sweat oozing from her palms, making her fingers clumsy, slippery. Very slowly, very carefully she tapped the code into the link, waited without breathing, didn’t relax appreciably when her daughter’s face appeared.

  “What is it?” Aleytys looked tired and irritable.

  Shareem licked her lips. For a moment she couldn’t talk around the lump in her throat. She worked her tongue, tried to swallow, gave a short dry cough. “Lee.” It was a squeak that broke in half. “Lee, come up here, it’s important.”

  Aleytys looked at something out of range of the viewer, then she leaned forward and shut down what she was doing. “Be there in a little, Reem.” The screen emptied.

  Hand shaking again, coated with sweat, Shareem tapped the link off, then stood where she was a moment, hugging her arms across her breasts, hands closed tight on her upper arms. Nothing happened. She walked to the door, stepping as lightly as she could, afraid to put a foot down once she’d raised it, but she had to and did, afraid to lift it again, afraid to stir the air with her breath. Anything could be the trigger, anything at all. Yet she could no more stay in that pleasant room than she could stop the neurons discharging in her brain. She stood waiting in the great hall until she heard Aleytys calling her.

  “Here,” she said. It came out a whisper; she had to clear her throat and repeat herself. “Here, Lee. In the hall.” She waited tensely until she saw Aleytys coming toward her, then she moved in that stiff-legged reluctant walk to the front door, reached for the latch, forced herself to grasp it, then shove the door open with a single smooth push. Then she was outside, wiping sweat from her face. They should be marginally safer outside.

  “What is it, Reem? You look terrible.” Shareem looked nervously at the door, then took another step away from it. “Lee, I … I …” Startling herself and Aleytys, she began sobbing, caught Aleytys in her arms and held her daughter tight against her, her face in her daughter’s hair, the daughter who was taller and stronger than she was, stronger and more alive, so wonderfully against all odds alive and back with her.

  But it wasn’t a baby she held, only a woman she didn’t know all that well, and when the first helpless reaction had passed, she stepped back from Aleytys, flushed with embarrassment. “I … I’m …” She looked frantically about, saw the patch of grass where she’d been lying. “… sorry, Lee. It was just …” She started toward the grass, and Aleytys followed without saying anything.

  Shareem dropped to her knees, swung her legs around until she was sitting cross-legged, knee to knee with her daughter. “I was afraid …”

  “I saw that. What is it?” Aleytys leaned forward, took her hand and held it between her own. “You’re still shaking. And sweating rivers.”

  “I’m a fool.”

  “No.”

  She pulled her hand free, laced her fingers together. “Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.” She looked at her hands, then past Aleytys at the house. “I told you Kell challenged my mother to a death duel and killed her.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “I run away from things. I ran away from that, never thought about how my mother died. Until now, just now. I was stretched out here. The missile came. Third hour after noon. Like yesterday, day before, day before that. Kephalos took it out. Like yesterday, day before, day before that. Four days, Lee. How long does it take me to get the point? But I finally started thinking.” A small tight movement of her mouth, more a grimace than a smile. “I do think. Now and then. Kell is never obvious. So what is all this for? Every day I’ve been expecting some devious attack that takes everything we’ve got to stop it. If we can. But nothing happens. Just those idiot missiles, and a few frills to keep kephalos honest. But he got into my mother’s dome. Ten hours after the challenge she was dead, the place was molten rock and miscellaneous debris.” Her stomach was churning, and there was bile burning her throat. “I always assumed he got through her defenses somehow.” She drew her hand across her mouth, then scrubbed it along her forehead, scraping away the sweat, pushing her hair off her face. “Ten years, I thought, so Ianna would forget how he hated her, so she’d get interested in other things. A distraction. And I thought, these stupid attacks, it’s the same thing, really. A distraction. And I thought, why? And I thought, it’s obvious, if you look at it the right way. He’s got something planted here waiting for us or him to trigger it. Could be a bomb. Doesn’t have to be. Disease. Poison. Anything. And we’ve been here four days. Anything could trigger it. Anything. Maybe time triggers it. So many days, boom. Or whatever. Maybe the missiles trigger it—kephalos wakes his defense nodes, and boom. Tomorrow? Any day after that? No way of knowing, except it’s probably not today’s, though it could be on a delay circuit. You can’t know how I felt, Lee. Lying there thinking all this, thinking I’ve got to warn you, but anything I did might be the trigger, or anything I didn’t do. I was about falling apart.” She looked down at shaking hands. “I still am. The thought of going back in there …”

  “Ukh.” Aleytys closed her eyes. “Worms eat his festered soul, I think you’re right, Reem. It feels right. It feels like something the man I met would do. Hah! sitting out there somewhere gloating. Ay-Aschla, what a time for Shadith to be on her own. I could use her instincts and training.” She smiled at Shareem’s frown. “She’s not the child she looks, you know.” She closed her eyes, and her lips moved. Talking to the other one, Shareem thought, abruptly and absurdly jealous of that sketchy bundle of nothing. Aleytys opened her eyes. “Reem, your flier. It’s armored, isn’t it?”

  “But we left it sitting for a couple of days at the Mesochthon. I know Loguisse went over it, and she’s the best there is after Hyaroll, but Kell’s … well … Kell.”

  “And I am Aleytys.” She blinked, smiled. “That sounds …” She got to her feet, took Shareem’s hand and pulled her up. “I don’t care how it sounds, I’ve got more resources than he knows.” She frowned. “On second thought, he knows I have the diadem, but he doesn’t know its uses, even I’m still surprised by … Never mind. Come on.”

  Shareem sighed for what she’d lost. Aleytys liked her well enough, that was comforting, but she could remember too vividly the child who had filled her arms. She knew none of the vague dreams that flitted through her head had many ties with reality. Babies grew up and as often as not left wreckage in their wake; she could remember all too well the times when she’d choked even under Ianna’s loose restraints, choked and kicked and said things she nearly always wished unsaid. And there was this diadem thing, a reminder of all the ties Aleytys had with other people, people she knew nothing about. But … Forget that, Reem, she told herself. Futility lies down that street. You did what you did for Aleytys’s health of mind and body. And, she told herself, whipping herself with it, because this so dearly loved baby was a drag on you. You could have kept her. You could have gone back for her anytime. You could have raised her on the ship, kept her away from Vrithian. You didn’t do any of that. It’s over. You can’t go back. Live with it. She looked at the house, shuddered. Out here in the garden, the summer sun beating down on them, she could put her fears aside and almost forget them. She glanced at her daughter. Whatever Aleytys feared, it wasn’t physical danger, physical damage. Her daughter walked with that alert serenity Shareem had seen now and then in the faces of the short-lives she moved among out beyond the cloud, men, most of them, though there was a woman or two that came to mind when she thought hard, a look that said without boasting they could handle just about anything that came up. Not courage, not exactly physical competence, more a state of mind. She didn’t know precisely what it was, but Aleytys had it. Nothing Kell could do to her now would frighten her. Shareem felt a touch of envy, even resentment. She pushed them away hastily—no no don’t think about that, no no too upsetting.

  The flier sat in the landing dish, squat and angular and ugly without fuss or pretension.

  “Wait here,” Aleytys said. Her eyes were fixed on the flier, her hand warm, her touch hasty, rather rough as she stopped Shareem. She approached the flier with taut, wary interest, vanished around the flier’s far side, came back around the tail. Shareem knew she was forgotten, that Aleytys was wholly concentrated on the flier. Aleytys dropped to a squat, went very still, hands on thighs, eyes closed. Shareem sighed and dropped to the grass to wait.

  Time passed slowly, the afternoon filled with the mewls of sea birds, the brush-crash of the surf, the sound of the crazy fountain, wind chimes somewhere behind the house, and a low breathy booming sound from the house itself. Aleytys didn’t move. Shareem was content not to move. Her eyelids drooped, she dropped into a half-doze. And started, nearly falling over, when Aleytys got suddenly to her feet and climbed into the flier. She stayed inside a few breaths, then came back out with a small black ovoid carefully cradled in her hands. Her face intent, she carried the ovoid to the cliff edge close to the shimmer of the dome field. She stopped a moment. Opening a hole, Shareem thought. She gazed at her daughter’s back, chewed on a knuckle as she waited.

  Aleytys flung the black egg through the hole, stood watching. Nothing happened for what felt to Shareem like an age, then there was an explosion that shook the cliffs. Nothing came through the screen, and the earth settled rapidly back to stability. Silence. Then the patter of water hitting the screen and rolling down it, flowing back to the sea.

  Aleytys came slowly back, her face thoughtful. “That wasn’t it,” she said, “if there is an it. That’s another distraction.” She stood with her hands on her hips, frowning at the house. “Hard to know where to start.” She flashed a grin at Shareem. “I can understand your dithers. ‘S going to take some doing walking back in there.”

  Shareem returned the smile. She stayed where she was, sitting on the grass, watching her daughter, contented and at ease now, trusting Aleytys to take care of this threat—as empty a threat now as the bomb that had blown a hole in the ocean. Aleytys was her shield, like the dome that kept out missiles and gas, but more flexible and even more effective.

  Aleytys moved her shoulders, slumped a little. “Can’t find it from out here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Think. Got a feeling looking for the thing is the best way to set it off.”

  “Depends on how you look.”

  “Mmm, tell me something. Vrya aren’t empathic, that’s obvious. Any PK, manipulation at a distance?”

  “No. For sure, no.” Shareem chuckled. “That you get from your father’s side. What a thought, that I should ever be pleased by anything that man had.”

  Aleytys ignored the last part of that. “Good. Limits the places Kell can put things.”

  “He knows what you can do?”

  “He’s had painful personal experience with what I can do. Mmm, it won’t be shielded, just hidden. I wouldn’t have to go looking for shielding, it’d be shouting at me here I am. Hiding’s better—then if his misdirection fails and I go looking, he could use that to trigger the thing. Plenty of psi detectors about, easy enough to tie them into the detonator. Kell, worms eat your liver, why wait so long? Why four days?” She started pacing back and forth. “Reem, what am I missing? If it’d been me, I’d have blown the thing no later than the second day. Why give us this much time to think about what’s happening?”

  “Something you haven’t done, something I haven’t.” She pulled a blade of grass, used the stiff, pointed end to scratch along her nose. “Hyaroll’s really the best, Lee. He’d spot anything too complicated, even a timer, anything that took energy. Has to be something activated from outside, probably mechanical. Like your psi detectors. No psi about, the detectors play dead. Hah! That damn silly missile shower. Activates the same portion of kephalos every day, say it advances a ratchet one notch each day until boom. If we leave, he stops the missiles—logical, isn’t it?—and the trap’s set for next time we’re here. Could be the fifth day, the sixth, the tenth, who knows but that spider? Him sitting out there gloating. Pfahh!”

  Aleytys said nothing, gazed past Shareem at nothing. “Nice problem,” she said finally.

  “Why don’t we just leave? Even if he doesn’t stop the count, we’re safe.”

  “Where do we go?”

  “Hyaroll? Loguisse? Filiannis said to visit her.”

  “Filiannis?” Aleytys chuckled at the expression on Shareem’s face. “Right. And Hyaroll won’t let us in.” She tilted her head back, gazed at the faint shimmer of the dome. “You know, I’ve got a feeling we’d better not try leaving again. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’d shut down the count until we got back. Have to activate kephalos to get out. Want to take the chance? No, me either.” She dropped to the grass beside Shareem. “If I can’t come up with something between tomorrow and noon, I’ll get us both out without opening the dome. Funny, in a way it was Kell who showed me how to do that—well, made it necessary to learn. Thing is, though, that would leave us on foot and more or less unarmed on ground he knows better than the both of us. I like the odds a bit more even. Mmm, let me think ….”

  Harskari, Aleytys subvocalized, *we’ve got a problem.*

  Amber eyes opened. Voice dryly amused, Harskari said, *Interesting. If you could find the bomb, you could disarm it, but to find it, you’ll have to probe for it, and if you probe for it, you’ll set it off. If it’s a bomb, it will come close to being a planet buster. To make sure he gets you.*

  Could you hold something that powerful? Just in case?

  *Don’t know. If I’m close enough, if you can feed me enough power.*

  *Can’t stay. Can’t leave. Can’t do nothing. Can’t do something. So what do we do?*

  Getting to be suppertime. A pleasant warm evening. Have your androids serve a hot meal out here.

  *What? I couldn’t eat.*

  You have to, Lee. High-energy food. Much as you can. Force it down if you must. Nothing is going to happen for a while. I have a glimmering of an idea. I need time, Lee. I need to consider the resources of my craft and the possibilities of the diadem. No reason for you to sit around moaning.

  *I’m glad one of us sees some light.* She stretched, opened her eyes, spoke aloud to Shareem, who was sitting and watching her. “Reem, my head’s going around in circles for now. Anyway, I’m hungry. Get the Ikanom out here and have it arrange an alfresco supper for us. Steaks, I think, a big salad, anything else you’d like. You do that kind of thing better than I do. I’m going to start thinking on my feet for a while—maybe that will be more profitable.”

  Aleytys emptied her cup. “I was hungry.” She set her cup beside her and lay back on the grass. “Walking help?”

  “Not much. Reem?”

  “No.”

  “What no?”

  “You can’t sent me off without you.”

  “Reem, if I have to waste energy protecting you …”

  “No. If I’m here, you’ll be a lot more careful.”

  “I’m not about to get myself killed.”

  “But you’ll be that little bit warier if you’ve got me to worry about.”

  “Reem …”

  “No.”

  Aleytys got to her feet and began pacing about the lawn, saying nothing more, turned inward, brooding as she walked. Shareem dipped a leaf of crisp green thrix into a pool of coldsauce and crunched it down, drowsily content. She’d made her statement, put her foot down, and that was over. She chewed and swallowed, feeling like one of the more placid ruminants.

  Aleytys came back to the remnants of the meal, dropped into a squat and scowled at Shareem. “At least you’ll spend the night in the flier.”

  Shareem fished another bit of thrix from the salad bowl, grimaced at it. “My aching back.”

  “Please.”

  “You’re trying something tonight.”

  “I have to, don’t I?”

  “Oh, all right. I can throw some blankets in the back, and I suppose Ikanom can find some sort of padding so I don’t wake up with bruises on my rear.”

  “Thanks.” Aleytys got to her feet and went back to drifting about this section of the garden, automatically avoiding obstacles, back in her somber brood.